A Trumpet Player in Kathmandu (Hide and Seek, Part 2 of 4)

(In the previous episode the main character had passed out drunk in a jazz club in Nepal and then had been sent home by the mysterious trumpet player.)

I woke with my head pounding, the vague memory of the trumpet player and someone dumping me at the front door of the Friendly Home Hostel. It was hard to move, but I had to get down to breakfast and force something down. Then I had to find Joe Townsend.

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Musical Musings with Paul Bourgeois

“Hey, Paul!” Wallace called from the lobby. He was a hiker, constantly coming back and forth from Everest. He was shouting because he was listening to music on a walkman. I had traded tapes with him about a month ago and now he had returned from a trek in the mountains. “Do you have any new tapes?”

“Going to breakfast.”

“Great. I’ll join you.”

I nodded and continued on. He followed.

“I’ve found this great little shop that sells great copies of old rock albums: Santana, Nazareth, Black Sabbath … “

Devil music, I figured. Wallace professed to be a Buddhist. We went across the street and ordered little meatballs wrapped in dough, fried or boiled, called momos. The young fellow made them in front of us.

“I’m looking for a trumpet player I heard at the High Bar uptown last night,” I said.

He nodded, stuffing a momo in his mouth and rocking to Black Magic Woman from Abraxas.

*

“Joe?” the bartender asked from the High Bar as he cleaned a glass. “Who?”

“The trumpet player who was here last night. How can I find him?”

He shrugged. “He only plays here once a month. He’s not from Kathmandu. I’ve heard he has a Sherpa girlfriend.”

*

I had the bartender write down an address on a paper napkin and in the afternoon headed outside Kathmandu into a Sherpa village. The road was very narrow. The mountain rose sharply and the houses were built perpendicularly along its side. The landscape seemed very dangerous. One wrong step might send me hurtling into the valley below. And suddenly nobody spoke any English. I finally found the address and a young girl who was listening to some English radio.

“Joe Townsend,” I said in desperation. “You can’t miss him. Tall, white hair. Plays trumpet. Trumpet!” I mimed a trumpet and blew a few notes through my lips. She looked away embarrassed. “Who can I talk to? Who?” A stocky young fellow who had been watching me from across the road approached.

“Hello?” he asked politely.

“Yes?!”

“The person you are looking for is not here. He is a foreigner. Our women do not have relationships with foreigners.”

“But I have an address. Look.” I held the paper out to him.

He didn’t look at my paper. He took me by the hand and led me down the road. I was frustrated and having trouble breathing. My head was still cloudy from the hangover. We stopped at a bus stop. “There is no such person or place here. I’m very sorry you have wasted your time.” The bus rolled up and he put me on. He watched as it took me back turned the corner and was gone. I imagined I saw the glint of brass.

*

Wallace met me for momos in the cafe outside that evening.

“Look, maybe you’re going about this all wrong,” Wallace said. “How much call is there for jazz in a place like this? The trumpet’s an R&B instrument. There’s a great blues club just down the road.”

Suddenly I heard Charlie Parker riffs. I stood up too fast and knocked the momos over.

“Jees, man!” Wallace said wiping off momo sauce.

“Do you hear that?”

Wallace took out an ear-piece and listened. He shrugged then put it back, turning up the volume on the walk-man. The music was coming from the Friendly Home.

I ran across the street through the entry and down the hall, following the intertwining maze of notes through the passages nearing my own little room. As I rounded the corner to my own little room the music suddenly stopped. Joe was leaning against my door, eyes hard on me. He lowered his trumpet.

“You’ve been looking for me,” the old man glared. “I’m thinking I might have to find a more permanent place in town so people like you will stop bothering my friends. And I need your help.”

To be continued…