Kathmandu

The boy baby lay still on the sidewalk, eyes closed. His mother patted his cheek with force, almost slapping him. On every other day, she sat with the baby at her breast, one hand held out to those who passed, begging for support. Hal Hitchcock passed her each day, as he hurried from the office to his hotel, holding one side of his suit jacket over his nose and mouth, shielding himself from the Kathmandu dust and pollution. The woman looked forlorn, but impatient, and though his pocket was full of Nepalese rupees, he passed her by, ignored the slapping.

At Jampa Hotel, a fifty room establishment, Hal nodded to the employee who opened the door for him. He walked through the red wall-papered lobby, turned left into the bar, and ordered a large bottle of beer. He pulled a folder containing schematics and cost summaries from his backpack, ordered dinner, and continued to work. This had been his pattern for two weeks, since arriving in Kathmandu to serve his second stint as engineering consultant for the drinking water project. When he finished dinner, he climbed the stairs to his room, unlocking it with a key attached to a fob, a fob carved with an image of a Hindu god. He had no idea which god, and had been told there were thirty three million Hindu gods. He chose not to know, one God being enough for him. He placed his backpack on the desk and flopped on the bed, extracted his phone, and called his wife, Lily.

“Hi, it’s me. I’m tired. Long day. How about you?”

“Well, I haven’t been up that long. It’s still morning here.” Lily replied.

“Oh, yeah. Well, I should be back in the good old USA in a couple of days. Back to the land of two car garages, away from the land of sidewalk sitting.”

“What?” asked Lily.

“Nothing.”

“Okay. Glad you’ll be home soon. Do you want to go to the fundraiser for Somali Immigrant Lifeline this Saturday? We have Somali clients at my firm—very resilient people with a tough road ahead.”

“No, I’d like to skip that.” said Tom.

“Okay. I’ll send a donation instead of buying tickets. Get some sleep. I’ve got to get to a meeting. Love you.”

“Love you, too. Bye now.”

Hal rarely dreamt, but that night he dreamt about the woman and the still baby—the woman, the baby, and himself. In the dream, he stopped immediately when he came upon the woman, picked up the child, helped the woman to her feet, and said, “Come with me. I’m taking you to the hospital. Don’t worry. I’ll help you.” In the dream, he spoke Nepali and understood it. He flagged a taxi and ordered the driver to speed to the hospital. He put his arm around the woman’s shoulder, helped her cover the baby in her shawl, and whisked her into the emergency entrance of a dilapidated hospital.

There were no vacant chairs. Several people sat on the floor or stood, but Hal pushed through the crowd, speaking loudly to attract the nurse’s attention. Calmly, and in fluent Nepali, he explained the woman’s situation. Soon, they were rushed into a curtained room and a doctor stepped in. Hal held the woman by the shoulders as the doctor examined her baby, ignoring the fact that physical contact in public was frowned upon. The doctor explained that the child’s lungs had been overcome by the dust.

“There is more dust these days because of the construction of the drinking water system. He will be fine, but his nose and mouth must be covered if he is outside for more than fifteen minutes. And so should yours.”

Hal thanked the doctor and asked where he could pay the woman’s bill. As he left the room, the woman held her hands in prayer position and bowed in thanks over and over again. She was still bobbing when Hal opened his eyes and entered the dark and actual morning.

Hal’s work day proceeded as usual. He met with Department of Health workers to discuss his firm’s progress and schedule for completing the upgrade of the water system. Occasionally, he thought about the woman in the dream, about her bobbing in thanks.

That day, there were meetings with private water purveyors and with crew managers responsible for digging down deep, where leak-free pipes would be laid. The pipes would stop water from escaping a city where demand for it outstripped supply, despite the nearby snowcapped Himalayas.

Hal’s local colleagues respected him.

“Of course, sir. It will be done,” they would say. “Would you like some tea?”

A vegetarian lunch was brought in for Hal. He had learned to like it, but always requested the hot spices not be added. At the end of the day, he walked through Durbar Square and back to his hotel. He passed many temples and palaces, each with roofs resembling square wedding cakes with slanted layers. Near the hotel, he searched for the woman and the baby, but they were not in their usual place. Instead, a small, dark man in loose fitting clothes sat on a blanket selling various forms of incense—sticks, powders, ropes. Smoke emanated from a few sticks that stood upright on a small brass plate. The scent was unpleasant to Hal.

At the hotel bar, Hal noticed a shrine on the far wall featuring a sculpted icon. The subject of worship was part man, part elephant, with four arms and a saint-like halo. There was so much he didn’t understand about Kathmandu. Hal drank several beers with his dinner, and though he’d stacked progress reports from the crews on the bar, he didn’t touch them.

“I had the strangest dream.” he told the bartender.

“Were there any elephants in you dream? That is a sign of good luck.”

Hal didn’t care about elephants.

“No, about a real woman. The woman with the baby. You must have seen her—she’s out there every day.” He pointed in the direction where she always sat.

“She or another.” said the bartender. “There are many.”

Hal finished his beer. Exhausted, he climbed the stairs to his room, showered, and slid between the bedsheets, still envisioning the woman and her baby. He reached for his phone and dialed his wife. Halfway around the world, she answered.

“Hello. Would this be my handsome husband who brings water to the needy?”

“Nope, just another professional getting paid for working, but this poor woman I saw on the sidewalk is haunting me.”

“What are you talking about? What woman?”

Hal told Lily about the woman and about the dream. Lily was quiet for a bit before responding.

“Maybe it’s more confusing for you because you’re not a parent yet?”

“No. Lily. That’s not it. If you were here, you’d wonder how so many people can possibly survive. It’s unbelievable.”

“I bet it’s for the same reasons people succeed here.” offered Lily. “Commitment, hard work, love, maybe a sense of humor…”

“Hmm. I’ll have to think about that. The good news is I’m finished here until next month. I’ll catch the afternoon flight tomorrow and be back to you the next morning. I think it will be Wednesday when I arrive. Yeah, Wednesday.”

“Okay, I’ve got to go. My pro bono client is showing up in thirty minutes and I don’t even know what he allegedly did. See you soon.”

Hal put his phone back on the table and turned off the lamp. He rolled on his side, pulled the covers up above his nose, and drifted off to sleep almost instantly.

It was the same dream, but different. In this dream, he stopped when he saw the woman trying to revive the child, pulled a bottle of mineral water from his backpack, and gently poured water on top of the baby’s head, as if baptizing. The woman stopped slapping the baby’s cheek and Hal gently lifted the tiny head from the sidewalk and slowly poured small amounts into the child’s mouth. The child’s lips moved. He showed his little tongue when Hal gave him more, opened his eyes and cried, no longer too dehydrated for tears. Hal handed the bottle to the woman. She steepled her hands around the plastic vessel and bowed over and over again until Hal realized he was awake. It was the middle of the night and the noises of Kathmandu had gone silent.

The next afternoon, Hal, worn out, caught his flight, grateful his company, Watersmith, paid for business-class seating. He slugged a glass of bourbon, nursed another, and ate a steak dinner before adjusting his seat to reclining position and falling asleep to the rhythm of the engines. Again, he dreamt.

The woman and the baby occupied the same spot on the sidewalk, the woman attempting to revive the baby, same as ever. She stood up, carried the baby down the dusty street, and entered an old brick building. Shortly after, a procession emerged, and everyone on the crowded, noisy street became still and silent.

Two men bore a small stretcher on their shoulders, a stretcher carrying a bundle wrapped in a pinkish-orange shroud, the woman walking behind the stretcher. The procession made its way to the Hindu temple, to the section where poorer people were cremated, after their heads and feet were washed on a stone slab next to the river. The small head and the small feet were washed. Then the tiny body was placed on a pyre, covered with straw and sticks, and converted to dust. The woman watched with her hands folded, bowing repeatedly. Hal’s heart was beating in his ears when he awoke.

In Minneapolis, Hal was shocked to see his wife when he exited customs with his rolling suitcase and backpack.

“Hi, sweetie.” she said. “I thought I’d surprise you.”

She wore a black business pant suit with a turquoise blouse. Her dark brown hair was pulled up in a french twist, revealing the silver teardrop earrings Hal had given her on her birthday. She gave him a hug and he squeezed back lightly with the arm that wasn’t holding the backpack. She kissed him on the lips and stood back, smiling broadly.

“What are you grinning at?” asked Hal. He didn’t miss her terribly when he was gone, but at the moment felt especially glad to see her.

“You can’t guess?”

A buzzer went off and a luggage carousel went into motion.

“No, I can’t guess. I’ve left all my guessing in Nepal.”

“We’re going to have a baby!”

Hal put down his backpack and embraced his wife. He held her tight and closed his eyes, wondering why he wasn’t deliriously happy, why he was not dreaming of playing and caring for his offspring. Wondering, why, instead, he was terrified he wouldn’t care enough.

Acknowledgement: This story was first published in Parentheses Journal.