17 Chapter 17. The End of the Trail

Although I did not recognize the signs at the time, my own departure was imminent. On January 22, I wrote:

Five hours after Moira got on the bus, all I had left of her was a hazy passport photo. I moved out of our tattered hut; caterpillars were busily ravaging its walls and black rot was spreading over the sand floor.

My guts were aflame with dysentery that had begun again the day before, a mix of blood, phlegm, and shit. I hurried to the familiar underbrush behind our now deserted hut.

I would need a new place to sleep. I found one down the road and into the trees, thirty yards from Ganesh’s chai shop.

“The bread is hard today,” says Ganesh.

“How much is it?”

“Twenty paise.”

Down the road, three children were walking hand in hand and singing something about Mahatma Gandhi to the tune of “John Brown’s Body.” I joined in. They smiled.

In the evening, I sat at a pinewood table in a café listening to the crickets and the shuffling of a sleeping bag on the porch. There were two lit candles on the table, one stuck in a bottle of Real Soda, the other in a bottle of Crunet. A red-tipped incense candle was stuck in a crack in the table, surrounded by litter: orange peels, coconut shells, three partially used bottles of honey, hair conditioner, soap, matches, palm leaves, a purse, a spoon, a pair of scissors, a copy of Time magazine, and books ranging from Plato and the Quran to the poetry of Hafiz and Whitman. Above the table was a calendar of the past year presented by Shah Brothers Battery Works in Margao. On the walls were several portraits of Jesus, all of them suffering.

I remained in Goa until January 25, when I took a train north to Bombay. There, I booked into the Rex Hotel. It was early, so I went for breakfast at the Cornucopia Bar Restaurant—two boiled eggs, bread, and tea—before walking up Patil Marg and Maharshi Karve Road to Churchgate Station, past a group of avid cricketers.

The next day, India’s Republic Day, I took a train to New Delhi. I had in my possession a flight ticket to Zambia, but the dysentery had returned with vengeance, not that it had ever left. Beginning in November, my notes tell of recurring illness, punctuated with brief improvements, following which I would only become sick again. When I arrived in New Delhi, I was desperately ill. I weighed perhaps 125 pounds—had lost roughly 30 pounds since the fall.

Dealing with a severe illness in India meant going to a large, bureaucratic hospital or, alternatively, a small clinic; making an appointment (not always on the same day) with an unknown doctor; and finding a reputable pharmacist if medicines were required—all of this taking place in circumstances where communication was difficult and I was struggling to navigate systems of organization that seemed to an outsider arcane, while also feeling both physically unwell and emotionally distraught.

To make things worse, New Delhi was experiencing a rare cold spell. The city’s streets and rooftops were blanketed with snow and sleet. My cryptic notes tell of my last days in that city:

1st day. I watched a parade for a half hour, then returned to a hotel where I shared a room with three other people: a girl, a practicing Buddhist, who has been fourteen months in India, stares at the wall and mumbles for hours at night; another girl, pretty, is one the Children of God; the third is a guy translating Tibetan Buddhist books. My first night is spent listening to a dissertation on Tibetan language. Discover wall is no wall, but pillars draped with a thatched blanket. Still, pretty warm.

2nd day, stay at same place. Go to doc. “Hello, I’ve come that you can make me well again.” Pills.

3rd day, I move to Mrs. Colaco’s Guesthouse on Janpath Lane. The hotel’s windows had only shutters, through which the winter winds blow at night. I later write a short description of her (“fat, talkative”) and one of her staff.

A Tibetan worker in a long dark cord overcoat and earmuffs rushes in and out of rooms at all hours counting heads and asking if we’ve paid. One day a blanket is missing, and he comes in and lifts mine. “One?” he asks. “Whatdya doin’? Get outta’ here, you jerk,” I call out. He reminds me of Ingmar Bergman’s dark, menacing figure of Death in The Seventh Seal.

4th day, Saturday. Buy cord jacket, 60 rupees. Breakfast at Old Bazaar, porridge 1 rupee—the Kashmir Emporium on Janpath Lane; two ragged beggar kids, dirty faces. Every time you buy something, they’re there to collect the change. Potato sellers work under the boardwalk of the Regal Building. In my room at Mrs. Colaco’s is B, from New Zealand, with near bronchitis, and an Aussie with a bad cough. The pills are giving me serious gas pains. First X-ray. “How is it?” I ask. “Normal,” the nurse lies.

5th day. Walk around Emporium. Boring, read, eat lots, hours in dirty restaurants, but good coffee. Buy good Western leather boots, 90 rupees, perfect for walking in Africa.

6th day. The father of an Israeli roommate dies; the Israeli arranges a flight home. No one in the room knows what to say, so we avoid him. To our relief, he leaves. I am growing more ill. We all joke that we have a sick room, decide to ask newcomers what they have as part of their entry. Doctor says he wants to see my X-ray.

7th day. The doctor seems concerned. I’m always first in, bad sign. The doctor says the X-ray is cloudy in a very bad spot. He says, it’s ether pneumonia or TB, but he thinks TB. I am numb.

8th day. Aussie moves to Ringo’s Guest House. Doctor wants me to take second X-ray. He is 95% sure already. I try to give a sputum sample but my throat hasn’t any left, only a dry rash.

10th day, Friday.¹ X-ray. Area has enlarged. “Confirmed,” says the doctor. “Thank you, you’re a good doctor,” I tell him. If money arrives, I can fly out early next week. If not, he can admit me to a hospital.

11th day, I briefly check into the hospital, but after arriving there, check myself out again as the costs would have soon left me penniless.

12th day, I meet a grey bearded palm reader. He tells me I will not die of illness, that I will live long, but not be wealthy, and that women like me.

In between these visits to the doctors and clinics, I contacted my parents, who arranged to fly me home to Edmonton, to recuperate. I would not be heading to Zambia, as I had planned.

My final night in New Delhi, hoping to distract myself from how sick I was but also aware that I might never have the opportunity again, I attended a performance of Indian dance in a theatre near Connaught Square, then returned to my cold hotel room. My chest hurt with every breath. I could not stop from shivering violently. I did not trust my body to breathe automatically, so instead lay awake throughout the night, consciously taking in each shallow breath, even as doing so caused severe pain in my right lung. My chest felt as though it would split in two. The next day, Tuesday, February 8, 1977, I flew home with my X-rays—kindly given me by the Indian hospital—in hand.

1. Apparently, nothing of note happened on the 9th day.