Republic of Infidels – Book I: The Remains – Chapter 2: Wakes and Committees

The road up to the work site was uneven and bumpy, full of hairpin turns and unlevelled ground, so it wasn’t a surprise when the Land Rover lurched to the side. As his father cursed, and mother jolted awake, Vikram felt a rush of relief as the vehicle ground to a halt. The pace combined with the jet lag was nauseating.

Rachel, who had somehow managed to sleep through much of the ride, blinked in annoyance as she woke. She glanced at Vikram, but he shook his head. Not there yet. 

Radhesh got out of the car and went around to the tire, crouching down and giving it a critical look. Rachel, meanwhile, slipped out the back, and when Vikram followed her, she shot him a look of annoyance. Vikram felt a little sting as she turned her back on him and made her way down the slope.

“Let her be,” his mother said, resting a hand on his shoulder. 

He turned his gaze to the train of heavy machinery and construction vehicles, a yellow procession that snaked down the switchback approach. The last of them were far enough down the road that they had not yet halted. They looked like toys from here.

“Why don’t you go for a walk?” Nadia suggested. “Get some air.”

He grimaced. The air was thin here, and he was feeling it, a sense like he couldn’t breathe enough to fill his lungs. When he raised his gaze to the monstrous, jagged peaks, he felt his knees wobble, like he might fall over backwards. The dark blue sky, the crisp, piercing light all combined to make him feel like he was inside of a high-contrast photograph. He felt exposed, and oppressed at the same time. 

“I should help father,” he said, craving a task to distract him from the unforgiving landscape. 

But Radhesh already had help from the broad, smiling security chief. Vikram ran through his biography in his mind: Mikhail Vetrov, Russian born, fifty-three, owner-operator of the Alpine Security Company, specializing in high altitude operations. One son, Sergei, thirteen. Vikram had only seen a glimpse of him. He was currently missing from the entourage. 

Just over the eastern slope, a sudden flutter of dark wings caught Vikram’s eye, and he felt an inexorable need to investigate. With some effort, he gained the edge of the road, and discovered the source of the commotion.

A wake of Griffon vultures surrounded the fresh corpse of an antelope, their snakelike heads bloody from feasting. Every so often, the birds fluttered into the air in agitation. As Vikram moved closer, he saw the source of their annoyance: Sergei Vetrov, slinging stones with lazy precision. He hit another one and Vikram heard the painful little thump as the victim jumped. The bird was likely to turn into his companions’ next feast if he suffered another blow like that one.

He turned his attention on Sergei. The young man was taller by a couple inches, his hair a white blonde that was painful to look at in the midday sun. He had an almost pretty face, with full mouth, graceful cheekbones, and aquamarine eyes that, from Vikram’s angle, seemed almost opaque until they turned on him, glittering.

“What do you want?” the older boy asked, not demanding, merely interested. There was something about him, a boredom in his tone that Vikram found highly suggestive. His Russian accent was faint, but it bent his tone just enough to add sarcastic italics to his words. 

“I don’t want anything,” Vikram said in Russian. “Just stretching my legs.”

If Sergei was surprised at Vikram’s command of his language, he showed nothing of it, and instead turned his attention back to his sport. Vikram moved closer to him, and bent down to pick up a stone. It was smooth, with a band of quartz running through it. Ordinary, but the symmetry pleased him. He had no intention of throwing it, but Sergei didn’t know that, and Vikram guessed he might be more forthcoming with someone he recognized as his peer in cruelty. 

“I heard the men talking about you,” Sergei said after a moment, putting a halt to his bombardment. “They say you can speak a hundred languages. They think you’re some kind of miracle.”

“They’re misinformed,” Vikram said, concealing a smile. “I only speak twenty-two languages, and only about fifteen of them with real fluency.”

“Hm.” Sergei did not seem impressed by this fact. He turned his eyes downwards, searching for more ammunition. The birds took their chance, and dug into the antelope with their sharp beaks. Vikram could hear the shredding sound as they tugged and tore through silver skin, removing it from the bone. 

“No one has anything nice to say about you,” Vikram observed. “Not that they say much.”

Sergei perked up, and his features compressed, an impression of interest. “Why are you asking about me?”

Vikram tossed the stone in the air and caught it. “I ask about everyone. I want to know about everyone. People are my hobby.”

He grinned at Sergei, who did not smile back, but considered him, his tongue running over the ridge of his front teeth.

“You should be careful,” he said. “Minding other people’s business can get you hurt.”

“Is that why you put that boy in a coma back in Sakhalin? Or was there another reason?”

Sergei, about to loose another stone, paused. Now he really looked at Vikram, evaluating him from top to bottom, measuring him for physical strength, for speed, and cataloging his vulnerabilities.

“No,” he said softly, and now the smile that bared his teeth was genuine, if not well intentioned. “I did that because it was fun.”

“It seems like a stupid reason to spend your winter terms in prison.”

Sergei, for a moment, seemed unsure of what had just been said to him. The affront was there, but he was already thinking twice about revenging himself. Instead, he turned his attention back to the vultures. 

***

Rachel slid a few feet down the western slope before she found a place level enough to stand. Everything about Himalaya was so up-and-down. Just trying to walk in a straight line was impossible. Combine that with the airlessness and the seeming increase of gravity, and she found she could hate her surroundings without any effort at all.

Winded, she sat down on a large rock and tried to catch her breath. The valley below was filled with a proliferation of rhododendron trees, creating a carpet of purple that stood out from the slate and dun of the mountain roots. The wind ruffled them, and made them seem alive. From this distance, she couldn’t make out individual flowers, but she amused herself by estimating their numbers. She craved the shade they would offer, but there wasn’t time to make the trek. Instead, she moped, sweat forming on the back of her neck as the sun beat down on her.

She was distracted from her brooding by a sudden, high pitched squeak. She glanced down, and saw a black bird with a bright yellow bill cocking its little head at her. Her mind, as it always did, zipped back to the rapidly growing file of information where she kept her memories stored. In this case, it was a cursory look through an old Audubon birding guide. It took her no time at all to recognize the bird as an Alpine Chough. 

It hopped closer, showing no fear as it squeaked again, a shrill demand for acknowledgement. Rachel gave it a small smile, the most she could manage, and reached into her pocket to find a slightly crushed packet of pretzels from the flight over. She tore it open, and tossed a few crumbs to the bird. It bent its head and packed its beak, guzzling it all down, and then tilted its head expectantly.

Rachel filled her hand with more pretzel crumbs, then held it out to the bird. The chough, without hesitation, bounced closer to her, and snatched another beakful from her palm.

“You’re dumb,” she told it. “You should be more afraid.”

She heard her mother’s voice calling her name from the distance, so she dumped out the rest of the crumbs for the bird, and turned to make the short walk back to the road. By the time she made it there, the work of replacing the Land Rover’s tire had been finished. Nadia squeezed her daughter’s shoulder.

“Go get your brother.” She nodded in the direction of the opposite slope. Rachel trudged off.

As she reached the edge, she discovered her brother standing next to the security chief’s son, Sergei. Something about his freakish blonde colouring had made her feel a twist of instant, unreasonable dislike from the moment she’d seen him during the load in at the base of the mountain. As she watched him sling a stone at a group of vultures, the unreasonable dislike turned to perfectly reasonable hate. And there, her brother, standing by.

She ploughed down the slope, nearly slipping, but gained her feet as the ground levelled. She bypassed her brother and went right up to the older, taller boy.

“Stop that,” she ordered, putting as much force into her child’s voice as she could.

He tilted his head, a gesture that itself was almost birdlike, and the corner of his mouth tugged up in happy contempt. “Why?”

Her fist clenched, and she hated how her voice shook. “They’re not hurting you.”

Slowly, his smile broadening, he moved to fling the stone in his hand. She planted her small hands on his chest and shoved him. He hardly moved, but it was enough to faze him. He showed his teeth in a wolfish grin, dropped the stone, and walked away. 

She turned on Vikram, ready to shove him, too, but stopped when she saw his expression. His concern was palpable. Irritated, Rachel flicked him on the wrist with her fingernail. 

He jumped and looked at her in annoyance. “Stop that.”

“They’re done,” she informed him. 

He blinked, then recovered his equilibrium. “Fine. Come on.”

He stomped up the slope, leaving Rachel to fume. She turned to look at the assembly of scavengers. Some of the birds were limping, clearly in pain, but driven by instinct to continue feeding on the almost skeletonized carcass. Seemingly out of nowhere, a great golden shape swooped down and joined the fray. It was the size of an eagle, but it was not an eagle. It had a mantle of dark, scaly-looking wings, and a breast and face the colour of saffron. Strange black feathers flanked its sharp beak, like dark tears.

It looked at her with golden, red rimmed eyes, then bent its head and started to tug on the antelope’s ribs, causing the animal’s spine to articulate grotesquely, and forcing the black Griffons to cling on. Rachel stared, mesmerized as it tore at the bone. She did not know its name, never having seen it before.

“Rachel,” came Vikram’s voice behind her. 

She turned to him. He offered his hand, and she took it. Together, they walked back towards the caravan. 

Ensconced once again in the back seat of the jerky, bouncy Land Rover, she turned to him and said quietly. “Why were you doing that?”

“Doing what?” he asked, then tipped the stone he’d been holding into her hand.

She thumbed the quartz band, so simple, but so perfectly straight. Millennia ago, it had been a boulder, shaved down year after year by an extinct glacier until it now fit in the palm of her hand. She put it in her pocket, and leaned against her Vikram, letting her head drop on to his shoulder. 

It was another half hour before she woke again, the twilled fabric of her brother’s shirt pressed into her face. Their Land Rover had levelled out, and the oppressive sun had dimmed somewhat, mellowing the shadows. 

They were driving across a broad shelf that had been machine cut out of the side of the mountain. It was huge, the size of several football pitches, and still expanding in preparation of the company town Crown Hydro planned to build in order to maintain and operate the colossal dam. The mountainside, carved and shaped, formed a southerly wall that receded from a 90-degree angle up into its natural formations. Already there were structures in progress — here a dormitory for the workers. There, at the mouth of the approach, a barracks made up of a long structure with a one-sided, extremely angled roof that made the whole building look like a halved triangle. This was the Alpine Security Company’s headquarters, the team that would handle year round security for the site, and the dam. 

“Look,” Vikram said, indicating through the windshield. Rachel ducked her head, and looked at the near-distant silhouette that was growing larger as they approached. 

“They call it Kālō Caṭṭāna,” her father said, sounding far too pleased about it. 

“The Black Monastery,” Vikram translated, who was already nearly fluent in Nepali. 

It was a boxy structure with three ascending levels, towers at each corner, built high into the spur of the mountain, but unlike the grey and dun stone that surrounded them, it was of a dark black stone that seemed alien. 

“A meteor,” Radhesh said. “It hit sometime in the Triassic period. The stone is extremely hard, and it took the monks three hundred years to build it. It’s mostly façade, there are enlarged caves behind it. Working on it was considered a kind of… pilgrimage, almost.”

Rachel tried to imagine building something she would never live to see, and felt a shudder of irritation. The thing was too tall, too dark, too high up in the mountain. She could see from here that they wouldn’t even be able to drive all the way there, because the structure could only be entered from a long narrow causeway carved into the mountainside. 

“We’re going to live there?” she said in disbelief. “It’s ancient.”

“Yes, it is,” Nadia agreed. “We’ve made agreements with the Nepali government that we’ll preserve the site, but once we’ve made some additions, it should be perfectly liveable.”

“Come on, sweetheart,” Radhesh said as he guided the Land Rover to a covered area. “It’s only for the summer. Think of it as an adventure.”

Rachel looked at Vikram to see what he was making of this pitch, but he was already getting out of the car, his eyes raised to the looming structure. 

A couple of local porters managed their possessions, leaving them free to stare up at the monastery as they approached it. Rachel felt a sense of dread as she passed under the little arch with its prayer flags, and followed behind Vikram as they neared the building.

She didn’t like it as much as the library at Oxford, which had an orderliness to it, its squared off shapes deliberate and purpose made. This structure seemed so much more organic, less rational, its façade, at first glance, lumpy. But as they drew closer, Rachel realized what she had taken for ridges and bumps were actually intricate carvings. They were strange, floral, but also animal, containing renderings of bats, and eagles, and vultures like the ones that the Vetrov boy had been abusing. 

She wasn’t sure if she liked these carvings, though they were undoubtedly beautiful and skillfully made. Inside there were more of them on the walls and the colonnade that held up the low ceiling. The area was wide, but oppressive, fitted with fire grates. What was more, it was open to the air at the southern end, nothing between the hall and the sky. It would be bitterly cold in the winter. Rachel hoped she would not have to experience it.

There were building materials laid out on the main floor. Stacks of foam wrapped glass, plywood, and even unassembled furniture parts were piled in one corner. Some construction lights had been set up, and all of it looked wildly out of place in this ancient ascetic house. 

“Let’s go see the rooms,” Nadia said firmly, taking her hand. “Come on.”

Vikram claimed his room before anyone could say anything about it. He thought Rachel might try to fight him for it, this high rectangular space with its bright window, and carved shelves, but she was still at odds with their new summer home, and wasn’t interested in getting acquainted with it. She would, he knew, make the adjustment, but not without having lived through the experience of her world not ending. She could be that way, his little sister. She had challenges with concepts that were not evidence based, and often found that managing her emotional expectations were difficult for that reason.

Vikram had tried to teach her patience, but it was not an education he could share with her, and his mother had interceded, as she was interceding now. For all that he loved her, and he loved her more than anyone, Rachel could be exhausting. He was happy for her that she had such drive and passion, that she had synthesized their shared burden into a fierce curiosity, but he also wished peace for her. He wondered if she would absorb the lessons carved into the bones of this temple, and find her centre. Probably not.

In his mind, he sketched out the alterations he planned to make to the room. When he was content, he turned and made his way down the long set of tower stairs to the main floor. 

By the time he returned, the porters and his father had already laid out the respective areas, marking where the open plan kitchen would go, the table, the sitting area, most of it taking up one L shaped corner of the space that ran from the back wall, along the wall with the fire grate, all the way to the open front of the room. 

It would be difficult to create a warm space, but Radhesh had some interesting plans. Seeing Vikram, he called him over to look at the notebook he’d been scratching in. 

“There’s a presence chamber below, we’ll put the tables and benches down there. I’m going to glass all of that in,” he waved at the wide open space. “And add a railing, so we can use it.” 

“May I add some things, father?” 

Radhesh, clearly happy at least one of his children was keen on this new project, slid the notebook over. “Within reason.”

Because Kālō Caṭṭāna, was not yet equipped for the preparation of food, dinner was served in the ASC barracks mess hall, and was shared by everyone. The construction crew, a mix of Nepali, Indian, Chinese and Tibetan, had put together a serviceable buffet with foodstuffs brought up via helicopter. Vikram knew his father had plans to lay down a self-sustaining farm system capable of growing produce at volume, but it was a project that would require years, and was for now out of reach. 

He also knew that Radhesh had, as part of the contract with the Nepali government, promised to help build a startup town that could be modelled and replicated across the Autonomous Himalayan Region. Nadia, a former Oxford don of education, was a natural choice to design a regional districting system, and to put educational standards in place. It was a good project, an interesting project, and it would keep them busy for years. Vikram didn’t intend to commit too much of himself to small scale civic improvements, but those were considerations for the fall, when he started at Cambridge. 

He looked around at the assembly, ninety-seven men and women all chattering together in a babel of tongues, eating dumplings and curry, sharing jokes. He looked at his sister, who was munching sullenly on a plate of noodles, her eyes lowered, seemingly uninterested in the people around her. This bothered Vikram. Even in one of her moods, she was naturally curious, and couldn’t help but engage in the compulsive memorization that had so far helped her manage her focus. There were so many faces, so many different people, and by the end of the meal Vikram would know them all. Later, he’d have their names, details of their lives, all of it stored away in the ceaseless engine of his mind. He’d deploy those details strategically, use them to charm people into thinking that he’d made an effort to get to know them, when in reality, knowing was the essence of his nature. 

Rachel did not apply herself in this way. She catalogued details, facts, information, but she felt no need to make people believe she liked them if it wasn’t how she truly felt. Even so, they were surrounded by important information and she seemed to be actively avoiding engaging with it. 

Then, Vikram’s eyes moved across the table, several places down where broad Mikhail Vetrov sat working through his plate and chatting happily to one of the Russian concrete workers. To his right, his son Sergei sat with his elbows on the table, using his fingers to idly pick at a piece of steamed fish, nibbling contemplatively from his fingertips, as he focused unblinking pale blue eyes on Rachel. 

Vikram watched him, trying to divine what might be in his head. Sergei seemed to be trying to work out the same question as he stared as his little sister, this child who had shown no fear, had not hesitated to move him with her own hands. Vikram suddenly felt the desire to walk around the table, and slap him across the face for his insolence, but he knew from their single encounter that would be folly. Sergei was dangerous. Vikram was yet unsure of how to manage him. But, he reasoned, he was good at managing people, and a fledgling monster would make an interesting challenge.