One More Time Page 15

  Akio’s eyes filled up with sorrow. He turned away. Why was he so upset, I wondered, he hardly even knew the guy.

  ‘Did you,’ he asked quietly, ‘pray for him?’

  What? Praying and religion were the last things I thought would be of any concern to Akio.

  He turned to face me and repeated the question.

  ‘Did you pray for him?’

  ‘Yes,’ I answered, slightly shaken. ‘Yes, of course I did.’ I calmed myself again. ‘Why do you ask? Are you a religious person, Akio?’

  Akio’s demeanour was disturbing; his eyes were cold and empty, blank and expressionless. They gave away something dark, unsettling, and abruptly I felt frightened to be with him.

  ‘I not-o religious, but I think that you are. Maybe you the reason why Mani die!’

  My mouth fell open. What the hell?

  Akio stood over me again, like an interrogator this time.

  ‘Maybe if I stay with you—’ he pointed a finger down at me—‘I die too. You not so good-o in the head.’

  ‘Wait a minute! Who are you to talk to me like that? There’s nothing wrong with my head. You’re the one who’s got a screw loose.’

  ‘Not me,’ Akio sneered. ‘I not the one who is praying all the time. You say same prayer all the time. You not good-o in your head. You crazy.’

  He had witnessed something when we were in Ulleri, but I didn’t think I was bad enough back then for him to have thought I was crackers. I tried to rise to my feet to confront him, but the pain in my head dragged me back, forced me to remain where I was.

  ‘If I could get up I’d knock you out, Akio. You’re nothing but a prick. You’ve been that way since I met you.’

  Akio wasn’t bothered. He just stared back at me with cold intensity.

  ‘I hear you when you asleep after you fall down here—you talk all the time. Saying prayers. I hear you say that you not-o kill Mani. And—’ Akio shook his head as though he were utterly repelled by me—‘you say evil things just like you the devil.’

  I was dumbstruck; I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  ‘Me, the devil!’

  ‘You! Why you think so horrible about people? You want to harm everyone? Your family too?’

  I was appalled.

  ‘Horrible things, my family? What are you talking about? I would never wish any harm to my family!’

  As the last words left my mouth I suddenly realised what I must have been saying when I was unconscious. Both of us were silent. Tears began to well in my eyes. I saw times spent with my family, happy times. I wiped my eyes but the tears continued to fall. Akio just looked at me, waiting.

  ‘I’ve never hurt anyone and I never wanted to harm my family. I was always frightened for them!’ The words left my mouth in a sob. ‘I’ve always prayed, always worried that something was going to happen to people, anyone, especially my family. If I didn’t wash my hands properly, something bad would happen; if I didn’t pray properly, something bad would happen; if I didn’t rub my hands properly, something bad would happen. If I didn’t do so many different things, something awful would happen. Do you know what that’s like, Akio? Do you know what it’s fucking like to have to do things over and over and over again to make sure that nothing bad ever happens to anybody?’

  Akio looked at me sceptically. He was listening but I didn’t think he was hearing exactly what I was saying.

  ‘It’s hell!’ I cried at the top of my voice. ‘How do you think you’d feel if you spent every hour of every day reciting things in your head, things that just drove you nuts. You wouldn’t be able to handle it, Akio, not you and not anybody else.’

  I broke off, the tears streaming down my face. Akio said nothing. He turned away from me again.

  ‘Akio, it’s why I left Ireland, why I’m here. I couldn’t deal with it any more. All the fucking rituals and prayers were bad enough—but the other stuff, the new stuff, that was just too much.’

  The images and the memories were sitting at the front of my mind and they were as terrifying as before. ‘Visions, awful visions of my family dying suddenly, my friends being murdered. It was terrifying. I couldn’t even sleep at home any more. I was scared beyond belief that during the night something would happen to them all.’

  It was a relief to be speaking about everything aloud.

  ‘Things got worse and worse and worse.’ I spoke slowly. ‘I couldn’t sleep any more, thoughts would circle in my head and I would have to perform ritual after ritual to make sure that everybody would be okay. But still the images were terrifying. And I started to ask myself, why was I thinking such things about my family? Was I worried for them or was I willing terrible things to happen to them?

  ‘My family are my life, I would do anything for them. I had no choice but to leave.’ I took a deep breath. ‘I figured that the further away I was from everyone, the less danger I would be to them. One morning I just packed my bags and took the first flight out of Ireland—didn’t tell anyone where I was going or why. Who would understand anyway?’

  This was the first time I’d actually confessed all this. Now, hearing it, I heard the stupidity of it all too. How stupid must Akio have thought I was.

  ‘But nothing change!’ Akio’s words were harsh but true. ‘You still sick-o in the head. You dangerous man! You need to be stopped before you hurt more.’ Quickly he bent down and grabbed something from the ground. As he rose again, the object in his right hand came clearly into view.

  ‘No! Akio, please don’t.’ The words left my mouth in desperation.

  ‘Please, Akio, please don’t, please don’t—’

  Akio lunged towards me, his right arm swinging. A gasp left my lips as I tried to protect myself. But it was hopeless. The rock in his hand smashed hard against the side of my head and threw me backwards. I grappled blindly with him, trying to release the weapon from his hand—but he freed his arm. A second blow made contact and then I couldn’t move.

  I lay flat on my back staring into the sky. Suddenly Akio came into view again, a vicious look on his face. He raised his arm again and delivered a final blow to my face, and everything went blank.

  15. Time to go

  Was I dead? The sounds of birds and wind and trees all around me were familiar but at first I was unable to move. The pain in my head was intense. Then, slowly, I opened one eye and, surprised by what I saw, the other. I wasn’t dead, I was exactly where I’d been before, lying out in the middle of the cold forest. I was still alive. He hadn’t killed me. Akio hadn’t killed me.

  Akio—where was he?

  Fear shot through me and I jumped to my feet. Dread of Akio eclipsed the pain and I leapt punching the air in every direction. If Akio was near, I would kill him. I swore to myself that I would kill him. But he was nowhere in sight.

  ‘Akio, you bastard. Come out you fucking wanker!’ I screamed at the top of my lungs.

  I stood still and listened carefully.

  ‘Where are you?’ I shouted, then listened again. Still nothing! There was no sign of him, and something told me that he was no longer near.

  I gave up the fight and fell to my knees then curled to my side on the forest floor. For what seemed like hours I cradled myself. I was numb and defenceless.

  Where did everything go wrong?

  Why am I the way that I am?

  How could Akio do that to me?

  I could hear birds overhead and now the sunlight created an array of lengthening shadows in front of me. Leeches had attached themselves to my leg, and were sucking hard at my blood. But I remained in a daze.

  When I became aware that night would soon fall, I rose slowly to my feet. The weight of the backpack sat heavily on my weary, damaged frame. I wiped my wet eyes and took a final look at this place, at what I’d just escaped from.

  ‘Holy God—’ I gazed upwards, slightly nervous. ‘Holy God, this is hard for me to say and I know that you know it is!’ I paused. Who was I talking to?

  I continued because I kne
w that I had to. Whether there was somebody up there listening or whether it was just to myself, the words had to be spoken. ‘Holy God, I don’t even know if you exist. I don’t know if anything I ever say to you makes a bit of difference to anybody. You know I’m not religious and, to be honest, I don’t believe that you’d listen to half of the crap I say, even if you do exist.’

  I took another deep breath. ‘Look, the fact is that, well, I’m walking out of this forest and—and you’re staying, you’re not coming with me.’ It felt as though a load was being lifted from my shoulders. ‘This is it, this is my last prayer. If you’re really up there, if you’re really listening to me, then I know you don’t need to hear from me a million times a day. I wouldn’t like to hear from somebody a million times a day talking about wrecking their head. I trust you, I know you’ll look after us all, you always have and…’ This was the hardest thing I had to say. ‘And then again, if you don’t exist at all, then we’ll all have to look after ourselves!’

  I looked in every direction. I took in the forest, the patches of sky, the fading light, the place where I’d fallen, and finally I looked up again.

  ‘Okay, I’ve got to go. I’ll be seeing you.’

  Turning around I took my first step back up the hill I’d fallen down. It was hard, like walking into the unknown. I didn’t hesitate though. My head ached and my stomach growled with hunger but I quickened my pace. Not looking back, I climbed, each step more confident than the last. Thoughts circled around my head—guilt, worries, Akio, niggling pressures to perform rituals. I just let them circle and continued upwards. I didn’t fight the thoughts and I didn’t appease them either. I let them come and go. And I wasn’t frightened by them. I knew that what I was doing was the right thing.

  My family would want me to do this. They don’t want me suffering the way I do. It’s time I started living my life.

  At last I surfaced from beneath a dense patch of greenery and was greeted by the path. My heart lifted. This was living. I shouted it to the world. ‘This is what life is all about!’

  Turning to the left, I hurried. There was about an hour of daylight remaining. And there was something I had to do. Stripes of red crossed the sky as the blue started to fade with the setting sun. The green of my surroundings gradually became a fuzzy grey and my eyes struggled in the pending blackness.

  Through the aches and the throbbing and the thin light of my torch, thoughts continued to play at me but I refused to give in. I wouldn’t pray, I wouldn’t respond. Somewhere deep within I knew that forever more it was probably going to be this way. That this was something that would never leave me, something that I would spend the rest of my life fighting.

  I passed through a small village where candlelit houses greeted my eyes kindly, but still I continued on. There was no more hard climbing, just up and down as usual—until my destination came into view.

  I turned a bend and there it was, a collection of dimly lit households, scattered at the top of the distant hill. It felt good to see Chomrung again, even if it was still about an hour away.

  The final leg of walking was uphill the entire way and my body was weakening under the weight of the backpack. I paused and started off again. But at last it was too hard and I did what I should have done at the bottom: I unbuckled the backpack and let it fall to the ground. I heard it tumbling down the stone steps I’d just climbed, but I didn’t look back to see where it landed. Instead I began to run. Tripping occasionally, I forced myself up the steep staircase, the teahouse directly in view. Everything seemed vivid. At last I reached the teahouse, where I fell to my knees, exhausted. Yet I felt more alive than ever before.

  ‘Thank you,’ I cried at the top of my lungs. ‘Thank you!’

  The owner of the teahouse helped me into the dining room. I was laughing, and strangely enough he seemed to understand.

  ‘What happened to you?’ he asked, seeing the blood on my head. ‘You need somebody to fix your head, it look very bad!’

  ‘No, I’ll be okay. I want to see Mani, where is Mani?’

  The owner stared at me, confused for a second, and then gave a gentle smile.

  ‘We have prepared him in one of the rooms. Tomorrow he leave for Pokhara!’

  ‘Tonight I want to stay with Mani. Can you show me where he is?’

  Outside one of the upstairs rooms, we stopped for a second.

  ‘You sure, you okay?’

  ‘Yes. I’m meant to be here.’

  I wasn’t nervous about entering the room, but just in case I reminded myself of who it was I was going to see: Mani, a soft and gentle man who wouldn’t harm a fly.

  And indeed, there was nothing to be nervous about. There were two single beds in the room; Mani was laid out on one of them. A candle flickered warmly on a side table. They had draped his entire body in a white cotton cloth, leaving only his face exposed. He looked totally at peace with himself and, strange as it sounded, I felt happy for him; he seemed to be in the right place.

  ‘You were a good man, Mani, a very good man.’ Bending down, I kissed his forehead. It was as if he might suddenly wake and speak, he looked so like a man in a deep sleep.

  ‘You’re not going to have that wife after all, Mani.’ I nodded my head in sorrow. ‘I suppose it just wasn’t meant to be. Maybe you weren’t so lucky after all.’

  Now tiredness caught up with me. I lay down on the other bed.

  ‘Things have a way of working themselves out, Mani. I only knew you for a short while but the memory of you will stay with me forever.’ I was silent for a moment.

  ‘Goodnight, Mani,’ I whispered drowsily and smiled. Then I fell asleep, not a thought in my head, my mind at rest.

  16. Leaving

  Morning arrived and I awoke early. I was lying on my side, facing Mani.

  ‘Good morning, Mani,’ I whispered. ‘Today we both leave for home!’

  Four of us carried Mani’s body from Chomrung back to Birethanti. No one spoke for the entire trip, the three other men concerning themselves with the job at hand, and at all times mourning. This was a spiritual journey and Mani, I felt, would have been happy to be thought of with such love.

  Images and words continued to press me, but I held strong to my decision. My demons were not going to just vanish overnight. Giving anything up is like turning your back on everything you think you know and understand. You can train yourself to live without it, but you can never forget it, and for as long as you live it still remains a part of you.

  Going downhill in the final stage of our journey was more arduous than going up. Along the way people stepped aside to let us pass, but nobody asked what had happened to Mani.

  By five hours into the second day, we were close to the end. We had dropped considerably in altitude and the countryside was becoming busier with houses and people. Soon Birethanti came into view. I think all of us became excited and we walked a little faster.

  Om, Mani’s trekking boss and cousin, was there to greet us. He was in floods of tears as we arrived, and embraced me for a few moments. ‘You good man,’ he whispered gently, ‘you very good man.’

  Mani was back with his own people and our journey together had run its distance. Om and the three men would continue with his body to Pokhara. I placed a farewell hand on Mani’s forehead and then, with a heavy heart, finally turned aside. I didn’t look back to see the men carrying Mani away. It was hard to believe this was the end. I hadn’t reached base camp, but it felt like I had reached a great deal further. After one last look back along the track, I headed towards Nayapul and the main road.

  As I sat in the first taxi I could find, I felt a mixture of joy, sorrow and disbelief. In silence, I recalled the various events of the trek. It seemed like I’d been away for such a long time. Serena came back into my mind; I really hoped I’d see her again.

  The driver looked up and into his mirror at me.

  ‘Did you meet the Maoist?’

  The Maoists! ‘Yes!’ I answered.

  ‘Oh
, you very lucky.’

  Lucky? If anything they were the start of all the problems.

  ‘You very lucky to still be alive,’ the driver continued. ‘One boy, Japanese, Maoist kill, nearly five days ago.’

  I felt my face go pale with fright.

  ‘What?’

  The driver passed a newspaper over to me. It was in English, but still I couldn’t believe what I saw. In the centre of the page was a picture of Akio, and below it, one of his family arriving in Nepal to take his body back to Japan.

  ‘Very sad,’ the driver sighed. ‘And very sad for Nepal. I think not many tourist come now for trekking, not good for business.’

  I was hardly listening.

  Five days ago? That would have been when I saw Akio being chased. How could that be?

  After a few minutes of pure confusion, I smiled to myself. ‘Unbelievable,’ I said. ‘Unbelievable.’

  I looked up at the driver. ‘Have you got a radio in this car?’

  ‘Yes, you want to hear some music?’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘And turn it up as loud as you can!’

  About the Author

  Damien Leith was born in Ireland and became an Australian citizen in January 2007. He is the winner of television’s Australian Idol 2006. Damien lives in Sydney with his wife and two sons. One More Time is his first novel, and a second is already in the works.

  Visit Damien Leith’s website:

  www.damienleith.com.au

  www.myspace.com/damienleith

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Copyright

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  First published in Australia in 2007