As long as the drivers of these suzukis, small taxi-vans, are not too enthusiastic about gear changes and the second gear in particular, close, as it is, to the lady's upper-leg, I enjoy these Saturday rolls down the hill to town, ladies in the front.
The town boasts several good bus stops. A family in dire straits could shelter under one, with their sturdy steel roofs, cheerful colours and seats not half bad. I've never seen anyone wait in one though, except some foreigners once, lost. There aren't any buses, you see, except one to China and one to the capital. They don't stop at these.
So I am driven out of town to board the bus to the capital. Last time I made this journey I was in the front seated at the hand of the King of the Road, the Pathan driver, who told tales of where he's told various traffic policemen to get off. Like obsequious courtiers, his passengers laughed. His gear stick was his sceptre, his seat his throne.
This time I'm with an animated school girl with the look of the musical Oliver Twist. She calls me ma'am and asks many questions: 'Ma'am, what is the tradition of Christmas? Ma'am what is the Christmas tree and ma'am why is there a barbie on top?' We become what we are called. By midnight I am a Victorian school ma'am who believes children should, indeed, be seen and not heard.
I begin the mountain journey with a reading for fortification:
Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Psalm 90:1-2
The bus prowls along the river, a blue seam of gem-stone, guarding its treasure from the jealousy of a colourless landscape, stretching as wide and high as the eye can see. Eventually we ascend as the road winds higher over a pass. All is cloud now. We pass a sign pointing to Heaven. 'Nanga Parbat', it says, 'The Naked Peak'. Today, it's well wrapped up in a duffle coat of fog and a duvet of downy cloud. I don't blame her, I wouldn't want to be 'nanga' on a day this cold.
There are women on a hillside, swaying their hips, pouting and strutting who are half naked. Their hair flies free in the wind, like their diaphanous scarves no longer keeping them modest, but these are only on the laptop that a soldier in front of me is watching.
As the wheels crack over the rock of the road, we churn up the silence. The mountains behind us pass into the night. But round every corner, behold, a light shines in the darkness. Headlights bring one epiphany after another, hosts of angels all along the road.
I wake at two to find everyone asleep, including the driver and bus. A whisper goes round, 'There's a block.' The rain pounding on our roof has also pounded on the rock by the road. The rock is now on the road. I am glad we were not on the same bit of road.
And so we wait.
I sleep some, I wake some and wait.
Dawn, and we breakfast on peanuts. The women of the bus walk through mud to a village where we are shown great hospitality not with tea and cake but by the freely given use of their toilet. The horn of the bus sounds so we hurry back, but it is not signalling departure just making a joyful noise at the sight of a mighty machine approaching from round the mountain like something from the Book of Revelation. It comes to push away boulders big as buses. (It too sports a gay arrangement of foliage garlanding the space where once was a windscreen.)
Oliver Twist in a jaunty cap, her little sister and I wade through mud and pick our way through a military convoy whose wheels alone dwarf us, to join the spectators. The machine sets to work but it is not a streamlined service, quite unwieldy rather, and the task is not easy. And so we wait.
Boulders at last gone, the road too gives way. No block, but no road either now. We unload our bags and baggages, me lost in a fug of foreign language. A man who I hope is kind takes one of my bags. We walk to the place where earth joins with sky and rains rocks.
As if waiting for the clouds to part and the rain to stop, we wait for a lull in the rock-fall. Sometimes people move too soon and the cry goes out, 'Sabr karo! Be patient!' And they dash back, only impatient now to save their lives. The man with my bag makes it. Last time I made this journey Psalm 46 imprinted itself on my memory, and I think of it now before I dash across, telling myself
...we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.
I run, and God is indeed 'a very present help in trouble'.
The man with my bag loads it onto a minibus so I consider it expedient to board it myself, along with Oliver and family and two dozen men. We drive through the day, stopping once to change vehicles. I buy a kilo of hot chips to share. The warmth of chip fat and human kindness helps to ease the chill. The whole bus smells of wet wool but buzzes with camaraderie.
'This, Oliver, is the tradition of Christmas', I think.
The Lord of hosts is with us.
Immanuel.
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