Love Children Page 3

  "I overheard them in the hallway. It could be they mistook you for someone else."

  "Who could they mistake me for? I'm nobody."

  "I don't know."

  They sat in silence for a few minutes. Her breathing calmed.

  She rested her head on the pillow.

  "Paul who?"

  "What?"

  "What's your last name?"

  "Paul Traven, from San Francisco." He put out his hand and she solemnly shook it.

  "I'm Sunny. From Athens."

  "You're Greek? You speak English really well."

  "I studied a long time. It was part of my plan."

  "What plan?"

  "To get away. To travel you have to know English. Greek won't get you anywhere."

  "Sunny, I don't want to scare you, but those men... They said they'd be back."

  "What?"

  "They still weren't sure whether or not you were the person they were looking for. They were after others too. They said they'd follow you."

  "This is crazy. What could they want with me? I'm just bumming around, minding my own business, getting high. This is like a fucking nightmare." Another silence, then... "What can I do?"

  "I don't know. But you shouldn't stay here." Paul's apprehension was approaching anxiety level. They weren't looking for her; they were looking for him. No. For him, yes, but not exactly for him. They were looking for... "Jason and Jasmine."

  "What?"

  "Friends of mine. They might be able to help. They're staying in Pokhara right now."

  "Well... If I were to go there, how would I find them?"

  "It might be better if... I don't have anything going right now. If you think you can trust me, I'll take you there."

  "I don't know what to think. I just want to forget this whole thing ever happened. Maybe I should tell the police."

  "Are you kidding?"

  "I guess so."

  "We should leave as soon as we can. I have a feeling they'll be back soon."

  "You brought my stuff here, huh?"

  "Yeah, I cleaned out your room. Don't worry, I didn't disturb any of your things."

  "It's okay." She carefully crawled off the end of the bed to avoid the foul-smelling puddle. "Ugh. I better clean this up." She got some towels from the bathroom and mopped the mess the best she could. "I'm pretty stinky too. Mind if I take a quick shower before we go?"

  "We don't have much time."

  "Listen, I don't mind discomfort, inconvenience, whatever. But if there's one thing I can't stand, it's feeling dirty. Just give me a couple of minutes."

  "Okay, okay. Make it quick."

  While Sunny washed herself off, Paul threw his things into his duffle bag: torn gray shaving kit, spare jeans, shirt, underwear, books, notebooks and pens, sleeping bag. He compared his own worn, frayed, and stained clothes and bag with Sunny's: her backpack and belongings were clean and tidy, suggesting meticulous care and concern. He rubbed his hand over the stubble on his face, then decided that he didn't have time to shave. What the hell, he thought. Who cares?

  Sunny came out of the bathroom dressed in the same sweater but a clean pair of jeans, rubbing her hair with a towel. She shook her head so that the large curls fell loosely down around her shoulders. She had bangs cut straight across her forehead; with her tangled hair framing her small, demure facial features, and the clear innocent look of her large brown eyes, she looked like a little girl.

  "How old are you?" he asked.

  "Twenty-five - well, actually twenty-seven. How about you?"

  "A lot older. Anyway, let's go." He paused. "They're here, nearby. Maybe just outside the hotel."

  "How do you know?"

  "I just know. I feel it. I'll explain later. Just grab your things."

  She closed and tied the top of her backpack, and Paul helped her swing it onto her back. He grabbed the handles of his duffle bag, then looked around the room to see if he'd forgotten anything.

  In the hallway he closed and locked the hotel room door. "Come on," he said. If they're not in the lobby yet we can get out the back."

  Chapter 3

  Asha

  The night seemed immense and the stars uncountable as Asha walked along the paths through the rice fields. Her bare feet made less noise than the rats scurrying among the bushes and the dry grass and the occasional mournful calls of night birds. Her little brother Prem, who followed behind her, was not so quiet; but she could not leave him behind. He followed her everywhere, as if he was a part of her.

  The night's chill caused Asha to shiver. When they got back home she'd have to find something to put on top of their torn, thin blanket: gunny sacks perhaps, or a pile of straw; anything to keep out the cold and conserve the heat. But she could not think of warmth now; she felt compelled to continue.

  When she could see headlights moving along like luminescent insects on the road from Kathmandu she began to hurry. She stopped in the darkness just beyond the visibility of the drivers and stood still. As each vehicle passed she studied it intently. But as she lingered long at her vigil the cold intensified, the buses and trucks became less and less frequent, her shivering increased, and Prem lay quietly down on the ground and curled up, trying to keep warm.

  We need to go, she thought. It's late.

  Far in the distance she saw a sparkle. Just one more. A few minutes. Then we'll leave.

  The lights came closer. She could hear the uneven throb of the old diesel engine. Then she saw the rectangular outline of the truck. In sunlight she'd have seen colorful patterns or pictures painted on the sides, but now it was a growling black monster with the yellow columns of its glowing eyes stabbing onto the road as if searching for prey.

  Asha sighed, and looked at Prem. She had to take care of him. If she was alone she would have stayed longer, but she had to get him home.

  But wait. She felt a thrill, almost like a tickle, infinitesimal but unmistakable. She turned again, and focused her attention on the truck. Yes. He'd arrived; he was inside the truck. Communication was not clear: maybe he was asleep.

  She was not very used to smiling; life was often too serious a struggle for survival for her to be able to indulge in frivolity. But now, as she watched the diminishing red specks of the taillights of the truck, as the roar of the engine gradually disappeared into the night's silence, the corners of her mouth turned involuntarily upward, and embers of warmth from within caused her shivering to temporarily cease.

  Prem was asleep at her feet. She reached down to pick him up out of the dirt. "Come," she said. "Let's go."

  * * *

  "They're here," Paul said. "They're still looking for us."

  "How do you know?" Sunny asked.

  They were hastily getting dressed, as smoky clouds of their breath formed and then dissipated in the cold morning air.

  Considering the possibility that the bus station might have been watched, they had walked outside Kathmandu about a mile on the Pokhara road, stopped a truck, and hitched a ride. They'd arrived in Pokhara late in the evening, after traveling for hours surrounded by sacks of rice and boxes of canned food destined for the open market labeled: "Relief only. Not to be sold." Paul had had a headache from the bouncing and jolting, so they'd checked into the first hotel they'd found.

  "I don't know how I know," Paul said. "It's a feeling, a sensation, an awareness. I just know."

  "Well I'm cold and this is crazy. What if it's all bullshit? What if you're having flashbacks and hallucinating everything?"

  "Those men who tried to attack you weren't hallucinations."

  "They're probably not the first horny guys who tried to rape someone like me who's traveling alone. You come and tell me this story and I don't even know you. You could be lying to me."

  "Flashbacks are different," Paul said. "I'm afraid now, yes; afraid of them, but it's not the same kind of fear. This fear is from the outside. On acid it comes from inside." Paul stopped trying to pack up his sleeping bag and turned towards Sunny. "Look at me."<
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  "I don't want to. I don't know what to think. I want to get out of here and go someplace else."

  "Look at me. I just want you to see that I'm telling the truth."

  Reluctantly Sunny raised her head, and looked into Paul's eyes. "What is it?"

  "Do you know what Jasmine told me? She said there were two strengths. You want to know what they are?"

  "No. Yes. What?"

  "Unity. And honesty."

  "That's it?"

  "That's it."

  They continued to look at each other for several minutes. Finally Sunny turned away, smiled slightly, and said, "Sorry."

  * * *

  They left their bags at the hotel. Avoiding the main roads, they chose the smaller dirt paths that wound around and behind the hotels, houses, restaurants, and tea shops. Still, they passed many people: peasants from the hills with huge loads of wood on their backs; locals leading water buffaloes from their yards out into open pasture; children in dirty, patched clothing chasing each other; foreign tourists draped with camera equipment and dressed in flamboyant ski parkas; gaunt, unshaven hippies in faded jeans, cheap sweaters, woolen socks, and leather sandals. When they passed tea shops with open-air tables, it seemed that everyone, Nepali or foreigner, paused in their sipping of the steaming brown brew, and watched them suspiciously until they were out of sight.

  "I'm nervous as hell," Sunny said.

  "You don't need to worry. If they were too close, I'd sense it."

  "Still, it's hard to shake this scary feeling like they're all watching us."

  Restaurants and shops lined the path on one side of the lake. On the other side, wild grass grew on a gentle slope down to the water. Beyond were rice fields, then the foothills, then the majestic, snow-covered peaks of the Himalayas. The calm blue surface of the lake mirrored the mountains.

  "They're not here," Paul said.

  "Who?"

  "Jason and Jasmine."

  "Maybe they're at the hotel, the one you told me about."

  "No. I don't think so. They're gone, I'm almost sure of it."

  "So, now what?"

  "We should still go to the hotel. Maybe they left a message. Maybe there's a clue where we can find them."

  "What if the others have been there, and they're waiting for us?"

  "I'll probably know it if they are, but we'll be careful."

  * * *

  In the center of a clearing of packed earth they came across a multi-storied wooden pagoda. It was made of intricately carved latticework, and each level was festooned with snakes, dragons, and demons' heads with sharp teeth, bulging eyes, and protruding tongues. On the stone base sat a skinny little Nepali girl who looked like she was about six or seven years old, and a smaller Nepali boy. The girl, with a resigned, stoic expression, held an aluminum begging bowl in front of her.

  "You have any coins?" Paul asked.

  "Uh, no. I don't think so."

  "Never mind." He pulled a few worn, slightly torn one-rupee notes from his pocket, put them in the bowl, and smiled. The girl did not return his smile, but raised her head, looked at him with her large brown eyes, and nodded. Then her eyes widened.

  Paul, thinking that she might be frightened, backed away a few steps. "Don't worry, I won't hurt you."

  "Are you Paul?"

  He looked around. "Who said that?"

  "Who said what?" Sunny asked.

  "I said it. Are you Paul?"

  The little girl had continued to stare at him with an intense expression. She nodded again. Though her mouth did not open, Paul heard her clearly. "My name is Asha. This is my brother Prem."

  This time Paul spoke back to her with his mind. "How did you know my name?"

  "I have been waiting for you. I was told you might be coming."

  "Who told you?"

  "A girl named Jasmine. She has curly brown hair. She is very nice."

  "Jasmine! Are they here? Are Jason and Jasmine still in Pokhara?"

  "Come on, Paul, let's go," Sunny said.

  "Wait a minute."

  "Why? We can't do much more for these kids. There are thousands like them all over the East."

  "Sorry, Sunny. This girl's name is Asha. She's been talking to me."

  "What do you mean? She hasn't said a word."

  "The same way Jason and Jasmine talked to me. She saw Jasmine."

  "When?"

  "I don't know. Wait." He switched back to mental communication. It was as if he were speaking two different languages and also giving a running translation. "Are they still here in Pokhara, Asha?"

  "No. They have gone. Jasmine found me here as you did. She spoke to me as you are now. She said to watch for a man named Paul, to call to him with my inside voice. It would be dangerous for you to try to go to their hotel. I was hoping to find you before you tried."

  "We were on our way there now."

  "Then I am happy I found you first." For the first time Asha smiled.

  "Did she say anything else?"

  "She said that they had to leave. She said she hopes you will follow them."

  "Is that all? They didn't say anything else?"

  "That is all she told me."

  "Well, thank you, Asha."

  "Mister Paul, may I speak again?"

  "Of course, Asha."

  "I am a small one and I do not know many things. But I have known of the dark ones for some time. I know that recently their activity has increased here, but I don't know why. They have no interest in a small one such as myself; they do not know that I have the inside voice. But for you it is different. For you there may be danger. I fear for you." Asha turned away, and looked at the ground. "I don't know how Jasmine found me, but now she is special to me. As you are. I don't know why, but it is true."

  Paul crouched and took Asha's hands. Slowly she raised her head, and looked into Paul's eyes again. "The dark ones cannot hear us when we speak like this," she said, "but they have many eyes. They may find you at your hotel. If you wish, you may come with us, and stay with Prem and I. It is poor, but you will be safe."

  "What of your parents?"

  "We are alone. We have only each other. Our parents died two winters ago."

  "How old are you, Asha?"

  "Ten. Maybe eleven."

  "And Prem?"

  "He is four."

  "Let me speak with my friend Sunny. With her I must use my mouth, and my tongue."

  "And I with Prem. Although I try to talk to him with the inside voice, he seldom can hear it."

  "Can he hear it sometimes?"

  "Sometimes."

  * * *

  It was a small abandoned two-storied house outside town. The ground floor was empty, shadowy, and musty; a wooden ladder led to a trap door that opened into the loft. Asha had cleared and cleaned it the best she could, had arranged fresh straw for a mattress, had gathered sticks for the blackened fireplace.

  Paul struggled up the ladder with Sunny's backpack and shoved it ahead of him through the open trap door, then climbed back down for his bag.

  "Are you sure you weren't followed?" Sunny asked.

  "I don't think I was. We should be safe here."

  He heard Asha's voice in his mind. "I have made some chapattis. Will you eat?"