Problems With People: Stories Read online

  The boy replied that he was going home to his mother, two sisters, and two younger brothers, but not to his father, because his father was in their village in India while the boy and his mother and siblings were in Kathmandu. His father, he explained, couldn’t come with them, because he had a job making bricks in Bihar. Then the boy pointed down a hill to their left. In a field of rubble and garbage, beyond which stood buildings that looked bombed out, was a camp where people lived under tarps, plastic, and cardboard. “I am there,” he said. “My family.”

  So this was the boy’s turnoff. That’s what he was saying. He was saying that it was time for them to part. And this was fine, since, in his opinion, now was the time to do so. “Goodbye,” he said, but the boy replied, “You are meet my family, please. Sit down, drink a tea. Please, you come.”

  “No.”

  “Tea,” said the boy.

  “I don’t want tea.”

  “Please,” said the boy. “You greet my mother.”

  “Sorry. No.”

  “Please,” said the boy. “You buy me the shoe box.”

  “How much is a shoe box?”

  “Please, you have give me seven thousand rupee. For—”

  “Jesus,” he said, because, in the end, this was about something like eighty-five dollars and not about anything else. Which was too bad, because, until now, the episode had been affecting. He’d even imagined, in its midst, how he might speak of it in glowing terms when he returned home, how he would describe it as a positive experience to his kids and associates, how he would refer to it with his nurse and receptionist. But not now, because what had seemed so positive had swiftly collapsed. It had gotten entangling, irritating, difficult. “Look,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed our meeting. You did a great job with the shoes and the route finding. But, sorry, I have to move on now. So okay. So long. Thanks.”

  Yet the boy stayed at his side as he walked—at a faster, all-business, I’m-done-with-you pace—saying, repeatedly, “You buy me shoe box.”

  “Go home,” he shouted finally. “I mean it, now. Shoo!” He waved a hand menacingly. “Go on, get out of here. Vamoose!”

  For a half-second he gleaned, in the boy’s face, disappointment. But then, this kid was going to get over it quickly. He was obviously indefatigable, irrepressible, and intrepid; he was young, optimistic, and a budding entrepreneur who’d recover his confidence and equilibrium. A wonderfully handsome kid, in his way, with skin as perfect as his hair; he had the whole package, he was going places, at least by Nepal’s standards. But right now, transparently, he was covering a wound, trying to conceal it from an American who could, for his part, tell what the kid was thinking. He was thinking he didn’t deserve this dismissal. He was thinking this American was angry with him. But the American in question wasn’t angry at all; it was more that he no longer had patience for the shoe-box insistence. He had things to do; he had to get moving. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m not buying you a shoe box.” Then he dug out his wallet and showed the boy a thousand rupees. “But here’s a start,” he added.

  Without waiting for a response, he put the money in the boy’s hand, then wheeled away quickly and, without looking back, went on toward the hospital.

  His ex-wife was watching the strike on television—on the television he’d rented for her, the day he’d arrived, without asking her or saying a word about it: a television as his unspoken gift—and sweating beneath a large ceiling fan. She looked better than she had the afternoon before—less peaked, yellow, black-and-blue, but not less glazed by pain meds. Despite everything—the green hospital gown, the swollen cheeks, the greasy hair, and the gauze taped over one ear—she still looked good to him, and he was still attracted to her style and manner: to her attitude, he supposed was how to put it, or to her ambience, maybe. To the feeling she communicated. To whatever it was that had brought him to her in the first place, when they were both just twenty-three. Here she was in her ravaged condition, trashed and battered, bruised, stitched, and trussed, and he still felt the same tone and tenor of attraction. Soon after they’d met, they’d become caretakers on a tree farm; mornings, there was frost on the inside of their cabin windows, and as a result, they’d alternated—one morning, he would get the fire going in the woodstove before jumping back in bed to wait with her for the temperature to rise, and the next morning, it was her turn to light the fire. It hadn’t mattered, to him, whose morning it was, and he still felt the same at Patan Hospital.

  His ex-wife had been thrown from a car—had passed through its windshield as the engine was crushed—but fortunately she’d been hurtling upward when she’d hit the bus; otherwise, she’d told him, she’d be dead. Not that she remembered her fortuitous angle—it was, rather, that a doctor had explained all this to her, as a conjecture based on the nature of her injuries. The same doctor who’d put twenty screws through her pelvis after she’d been airlifted to Patan from the east, where she’d gone to cover the Maoist insurgency out of journalistic curiosity. Did people in the east support the Maoists, or were they just intimidated enough to go along with the comprehensive strikes, called by Maoists, that so regularly brought this country to a halt? How did they feel there? What was their take on things? A strike had been called for—the one that was on now—and she’d been trying to get ahead of it with reporting from remote locations. Then—bam.

  What did the Maoists want? he asked her. Why were they striking? And, while they were on this subject, wasn’t the term “Maoist” anachronistic? His ex-wife said that the Maoists would operate under a different name if the response of the West was important to them, but the response of the West was not important. What their leaders wanted was for the prime minister to step down, because he’d failed to call a vote on a constitution. They wanted Maoists equitably distributed among the ranks of the military, where right now they had “tons of foot soldiers,” as she put it, “but zero officers.” One more thing: they wanted not to share power, as they sometimes claimed, but to have it all, to get rich and live high while stepping on the throats of other people. This last point, she emphasized, was her take on things, arrived at from her perspective as a journalist who’d covered the Maoists for seven months. In other words, since they’d separated.

  Then it was time for him to broach the subject he’d come there to broach. What about transferring to Delhi for proper treatment? “Proper treatment meaning what?” she asked.

  “Treatment on a par with treatment in the West. The treatment you’d get at home—good treatment.”

  “No,” she answered. “I don’t want that.”

  She was compromised by meds, he told himself again, irrational because of pain pills and a sedative. And, given this fact, it was his job to think straight, act on her behalf, advocate for her, and make the right things happen. “You need to go to Delhi,” he insisted. “And then you need to come home for a while. Rest, rehab, physical therapy. Take stock, retrench, reload, all of that. That’s just how things turned out.”

  “No, they didn’t.”

  “Yes, they did.”

  “I’m not insured to go to Delhi,” she said. “I can’t afford to go to Delhi.”

  He shrugged at this, looking at her skeptically. “You know as well as I do—right?—that I’ve totally and completely got you covered,” he said. “Money shouldn’t be a deal breaker.”

  “I don’t want your money,” she replied.

  He went on trying, but she wouldn’t take his largesse. No matter what he tried, no matter how he argued it. She wasn’t going to convalesce in Delhi, or rehab at home, where he lived, in Bellevue. Finally, a nurse came and gave her another sedative, and gradually his ex-wife receded from conversation. For a while he watched the strike on television. The Maoists were demonstrating in Durbar Square and outside the Narayanhiti Royal Palace. They were burning tires and setting up barricades. Banging their staves against the palace gates. Chanting and throwing rocks at the police. He mulled these images of chaos for a while, and when he turned to look a
t his ex-wife again, her eyes were closed and her tongue was lolling. Maybe it was time for him to leave.

  It was a long return walk to the Hyatt Regency, but he made it without confrontation or difficulty. The trouble had moved to the north and west, leaving him a clear path to Boudhanath, which was good, because he really couldn’t deal with one more exasperating, frustrating hassle of the sort that was inevitable in Nepal. He made it to his room and turned on the air conditioning. Then he showered, ordered a hamburger and fries, and dined in privacy, where no one could bother him. The fries, he thought, were seasoned with something interesting. That, he supposed, was the Third World trade-off. You put up with shit for a taste of the exotic. But the truth was that the fries didn’t taste good, because nothing did when you ate by yourself. Solitude having undercut his appetite, he opened his door and set his tray down in the hallway. His pile of fries and half a burger were discovered by a bellboy, who ate them in a service elevator, pondering, not for the first time since he’d gained this coup of a job, why guests didn’t finish meals. What sort of people were these hotel guests? the bellboy wondered. What was in their hearts and minds? He was fascinated by Westerners, especially Western women, who made him feel self-conscious and embarrassed. In his fantasy life he made love to them, and they showered him with—what else?—money. At ten thousand rupees per kiss.

  Feedback

  Her older daughter was doing clinical training in music therapy at the University of Minnesota, and her younger daughter worked in a Bolivian medical clinic. Her husband was at a three-day symposium on team building in Los Altos. In other words, she had time, which was good, since she was behind on letters of recommendation, on personal reading, on professional reading, on two sets of American civil rights movement quizzes that needed grades and a set of Jim Crow era essays that needed comments, on the adult-literacy curriculum she was putting together for a nonprofit, on thank-you notes, and on research for a book she’d long wanted to write on wage discrimination against women. And—as always—behind on exercise. What came first? She had perfectly good reasons to procrastinate on the exercise, to stay home, feet up, with her couch as her workstation, and phone, text, e-mail, draft, scribble, record, and put entries in her plan book, all the while a little gloomily aware that she hadn’t walked since Wednesday, that it was now Sunday, that today it was essential, even mandatory, to walk—this sort of troubled thinking about exercise lay under her other thoughts until, late in the afternoon, at the last practical hour really—in January it was dark by five—she finally got up from the couch.

  She went out wearing the hat she’d just finished knitting and the new winter boots she felt dubious about. Were they going to break in or should she return them? They were warm enough but their toe boxes felt tight. In these uncomfortable boots, then, she walked to the park, where the trees were all leafless and, because of the cold, no people were present. What was the temperature? Fifteen? Twenty? She took the gravel path toward the frozen pond, crossed, gingerly, the icy footbridge, and power-walked beside the synthetic-turf soccer field, where no nets were up, and where the lines regulating the game were blurred and frosted over. All still, all silent, but then, as she passed the concession stand—closed for the winter—a car turned into the rec-area parking lot. Whoever it was, he or she didn’t get out right away. The motor went on running—rising, white exhaust. Finally a guy emerged and, standing beside his door, waved in the manner of someone who knew her, of someone friendly and familiar. Who was it, waving like that—waving with so much odd enthusiasm? She couldn’t tell from her distance. She could see that he wore a lime-green parka and—she thought—a stocking cap. He was well bundled up, that much was obvious. She was terrible with cars; all she could say about his was that it was small, one of those blunt and truncated-looking gas savers, beside which the guy looked, maybe, taller than he was as he hailed her with such strange animation, his right hand waggling at the end of his wrist and raised to about eye level. Was this somebody she knew? An acquaintance of some kind? She pulled one hand from her pocket and, as he’d done, raised it to eye level, like someone taking an oath, or like a student uncertain of the answer she’s about to make, and waved back in her way, no waggling, measured, all her probity intact—not that she had more probity than the next person—and her enthusiasm checked, just in case. Because, after all, she didn’t want to issue an invitation—come here, stand beside me, let’s chat, we’re friends—that wasn’t her intention. But what was her intention? Her intention was unclear, she didn’t know what she meant to say with her stiff and reserved wave—I’m receptive but I’m not receptive, thank you but no thank you. Certainly, she felt, she should at the very least do nothing offensive; to leave him unacknowledged was maybe a mistake, or even a danger. What’s wrong? he might think, don’t you say hi to people? On the other hand, maybe it would have been safer to pretend she hadn’t seen him, whoever he was, stranger or friend, familiar or unfamiliar, threatening opportunist or amiable acquaintance. Who was it, greeting her so aggressively? Maybe only someone on an even keel today and in a good winter mood, someone not subject to seasonal affective disorder, someone with a generous and outgoing outlook or equipped with outsized social graces, maybe this was just park etiquette, lonely park etiquette, It’s me, a stranger, but no one to worry about, Happy New Year, have a nice day. Enough worry! she thought, as he reached into his car for something. She saw only his upper back as he dug around for it. The exhaust stopped rising; he’d killed his motor. Then he emerged with a phone in hand, which he held to his ear while opening a rear door. A lapdog on a leash jumped out, and the two of them began walking toward her with the guy pressing his phone to his ear and the dog taking fast, tiny steps.

  What was this about? What did it mean, the wave, then a call? You’re important, I’m glad to see you; you’ve dazzled me, you’re nothing, you’re wonderful … but … wait … okay … I have thirty seconds between greeting you with a wave and saying hi at close quarters, why not use it productively, check off a phone call, the message I’m sending you is—but, what was his message? It was definitely bizarre, his inordinate good cheer, his theatrical animation, his mincing dog, this guy now closing distance with his phone in one hand and his leash in the other, talking away even while the dog gave a tug and stopped so it could squat over the stiff grass, the guy turning to look in the direction of the pond and then in the opposite direction, surveying the park and, she thought, wondering if anyone besides her had noticed that he wasn’t getting down on his knees with a plastic mitt or a pooper scooper, after that evaluating the clouds as if his guilt-laden reconnaissance were part of a general love of nature—doing that for her sake—or maybe he was doing what people do in winter as the day gets on, because they’re worried—she was worried—about worsening weather and early darkness, not wanting to get caught out past a certain point, say four-thirty, that was about the right time to start home in January if you were out for a walk, maybe she could check her phone to see what time it was—but wouldn’t that be rude, to pull out her phone? No. People were always pulling out their phones, it didn’t have to mean anything. And he was on his phone. And yes, he was wearing a stocking cap, which was weird, too, although didn’t he have a right, in this weather, to a stocking cap? Or maybe, she thought, it was actually called a watch cap, the kind sailors wore on watch in cold weather, that was probably why it was called a watch cap though it was also the cap that thieves wore in movies, or rather burglars, cat burglars—black stretch pants, black turtleneck, black watch cap—while slipping noiselessly through a bedroom window one leg after the other. Was there a creepier hat than the hat this guy wore? The one with the eyeholes was definitely creepier; she couldn’t remember what it was called right now, how tempting it was to pull out her phone and—anyway, he wasn’t wearing that. He was wearing a watch or stocking cap, black, he put away his phone, his dog finished up, the two of them once more advanced. A guy in a lime-green parka, leading his little dog toward her and raising his han
d again in that more than just slightly enthusiastic wave.

  She could see who he was now. It was Hamish McAdam, Hamish McAdam whose name used to make her privately laugh because “hamish,” to her, a Jewish girl, sort of—in adulthood she’d divested herself of Jewishness—meant, in Yiddish—spelled “haimish”—warm and cozy. How could there be a Hamish McAdam? A Yiddish-invoking first name and a Scottish last name, those didn’t go together and made you think, merged—or made her think, anyway—of a clansman in a kilt and a yarmulke. She thought of Hamish McAdam every semester when she put the word “macadam” up on PowerPoint among other Industrial Revolution terms—spinning jenny, flying shuttle, steam engine, seed drill, macadam, a new type of road construction. Hamish McAdam? Hamish McAdam had taught photography and science, and had once been celebrated because, as a hobby, and involving kids, he’d installed a weather station on the school’s roof that not only collected data but got mentioned, many evenings, on a television news show by a meteorologist rolling through suburbs and towns, rain, wind, and temperatures. People’d thought well of Hamish because of that, Hamish who’d built this weather station on his own dime, Hamish who gave extra time to his students, Hamish who, in the faculty room, happily ate his lunch among women while the other guy teachers held down guy tables. Hamish who kept a fishbowl in his classroom, balanced his checkbook with an overkill graphing calculator, ate a warm cafeteria cookie with a carton of milk or worked a crossword puzzle during morning break. Hamish who wore, in his hair, or what was left of it, shiny gel, so that it stood up like gleaming bristles. Hamish who fought the weight battle openly, noting aloud the fat and carb content of items and assisting others with conspicuously fast conversions of nutritional-content information—grams to ounces, milligrams, milliliters. His signature wardrobe—argyle sweater vest, cuffed cords, plaid socks, and saddle shoes—had always seemed, to her, too studied, but really, if she was fair, who wasn’t studied when it came to self-furnishings? Hamish was crisp, well cropped, gelled, clean-shaven, cheery, and a pleasant enough faculty presence, until, one day—maybe five years ago, she thought—he’d left the building “on probation” while an investigation into allegations of wrongdoing went forward, the wrongdoing along the lines of inappropriate involvement with a student, which no one knew anything about but which everyone, meaning all the teachers in their building, discussed anyway, vigorously and speculatively, based on what little the principal had revealed to this or that faculty or staff member; those small bits of “fact” made the rounds and gathered together until a full-blown rumor factory was up and running, all of this before blogs and social media had become so powerful that surmises and allegations could go viral and that way become, at high speed, vehement and ridiculous. Rumors about Hamish became vehement and ridiculous with less digital help; it had been mostly old-school at school; exponential word of mouth. Was it 2005? She thought it might have been 2005, the Hamish-McAdam-might-be-a-perv-gossip-fest, because, she remembered, that was the year the district went on strike and there were plenty of meetings and a lot of downtime and talk, some of that talk about the issues behind striking—pay, mainly, higher pay—and some of it about Hamish McAdam. Hamish McAdam, one of their union reps but not present at meetings, not present, apparently, because something had happened, but what was that something, the details? It was said, it was thought—the story went, anyway—that the weather station on the roof called for regular monitoring, that Hamish had established a rotation of students to go up there, carefully, with a key and safety measures, for the purpose of checking and maintaining equipment, of taking notes—of learning things—that these were his hand-picked, favorite students, girls and boys but mostly girls, because Hamish’s favorite students were girls—he had a girl, each semester, as a “teacher’s aide,” always a girl, to enter grades in his book and do other small but necessary things—and that some of these stints involved evening visits for purposes related to relative humidity or some such twilit or dark-of-night phenomenon, no one really knew, but anyway, summer evenings on the roof, beneath the moon, under stars, with Hamish sometimes unexpectedly on hand offering snacks, soft drinks, and a telescope on a tripod, which he invited his student monitors to look through and … and … it was in this meteorological and star-gazing context that something had either happened or not happened, no one knew, because the district office, the principal, the vice-principals, anyone with information was only willing to say, officially, that the matter was under investigation, while adding, privately, a tidbit here and there—those informal asides and “you didn’t hear it from me”s that formed the basis of rampant speculation during, indeed it was, the strike of 2005.