- best-of
For hours, we’d been driving past barren landscapes of brown dirt separated from the highway with barbed wire and chain-link.
Soldiers and army vehicles rolled by in the distance.
Signs every few miles warned:
NO STOPPING.
NO PHOTOS.
We kept going.
~
Five of us sat in the Jeep.
We’d met in a parking lot standing around a black Jeep with a yellow Ferrari sticker on its passenger door.
My brother and I found the drivers first, shaking both their hands in turn. There were two of them, though they never switched off.
A few minutes later another man had arrived. He was stocky, with short black hair and wore a leather jacket.
“Serge.”
His accent was thick.
“From Moscow.”
Then we’d all climbed in.
Right away, the assistant inserted a cassette tape and began drumming his fingers against the dash.
I didn’t recognize the tune. Poppy—sitars and synthetic drums—with words in another language.
Hours later, the same tape was still playing.
Eject. Flip. Play.
Eject. Flip. Play.
“Ugh. The same song. Not again.”
Serge nudged me from the back seat.
“Do you have any real music? You know. America rock and roll. But woman singer.”
I scrolled through my collection and handed him the headphones.
He began nodding his head.
“Yeah. This is good.”
More hours passed.
The sky darkened.
The road narrowed and tilted upwards.
Fields became trees.
Trees became snow.
Then we finally stopped.
It was pitch dark outside. Just a small amber light burned in the distance.
The driver got out.
“Come. All of you.”
We followed him through the snow.
The light was a window to a cabin.
Two guards sat inside.
In the corner, a small fire heated a kettle of water.
The two sat, playing cards at a wooden table. Cups of tea steamed next to them.
One stood as we entered.
“Passports.”
He reached out his hand and flexed two fingers toward me.
I handed mine over.
He looked at it. Wrote something down. Then handed it back.
“Now you.”
He pointed at Serge.
“Passport.”
Then my brother.
After making the rounds, he disappeared to a back room.
The driver shrugged.
“Now we wait.”
“Can I see your passport?” Serge asked.
He flipped through my back pages.
“I like the pictures. America. Eagles. Famous place.”
His were nearly empty.
~
We were at last allowed to leave, following the drivers back to their car, and climbing into the back seats.
The engine started. And we continued up.
The trees parted. A few houses appeared.
We stopped again.
“Where are we?”
The driver looked back.
“Dras. Coldest place on Earth.”
He laughed.
“We overnight here. Zoji-la tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
He pointed through the windshield.
“Cross the Himalayas. Only daytime. Next week they close it for winter. We just make it. Yeah?”
Then he pulled a jacket and pillow out from behind the seat and fell asleep.
Behind us, Serge did likewise.
Between them, my brother and I rummaged our bags for anything warm and shivered until sunrise.
~
At first light, the driver woke. He stretched his arms and muttered under his breath.
“Zoji-la.”
Then he nudged his assistant awake and started the car.
The same music started with it.
Out the window, we passed hand-painted signs with colorful letters.
HORN IS TO HONK, PLEASE DO IT ON MY CURVES
BRO, DRIVE ON HORSEPOWER NOT RUM POWER
“Look.”
My brother pointed.
A chapel appeared beside the road. A cross above the alcove.
Another had a many-armed god inside.
Then another, its minarets topped with crescent moons.
A car had stopped beside it. Its passengers knelt in prayer.
We kept driving.
Our tires skittered on the gravel, and then the nose of the Jeep jolted downwards.
Out the left window, I could see for miles. The pass wound and folded back on itself along cliffs and ledges to the valley below me.
The ground was golden, but shrouded in the blue of distance, and far, far below, a sparkle of water ran like a silver snake through the valley.
A truck appeared around the next hairpin turn, filling the road. Hand-painted flowers—reds, greens, and golds—decorated its sides.
Our driver swerved toward the cliff.
I looked down.
Nothing but air separated the road from the valley.
The truck passed close enough that I could see the face of its driver. Then our driver turned the wheel back toward the center.
Before I could settle, a motorcycle shot past my window from behind.
Another turn.
Another blind corner.
We moved toward the edge again.
The same cassette was still playing.
Then I grabbed the armrest, and I closed my eyes.
~
Beyond the pass, the landscape changed.
The stone disappeared first.
Then the snow.
Then the brown earth gave way as the valley opened around us in layers of bright color—green fields, yellow grasses, blue sky.
It looked almost unreal.
Farmers worked beside the road. Some threshed wheat by hand, beating the stalks against the ground. Others walked behind oxen pulling wooden plows through their golden fields.
When we reached a town, and the driver finally pulled over, I climbed out of the Jeep and stretched my back.
The air was cool, but the sun felt nice.
Birds sang in the distance.
A small tea shop sat beside the road. They had only one thing on the menu.
The tea was hot and saffron yellow. It smelled of cardamom and cloves. A paper sack of toasted nuts sat beside it.
We stood around the shop holding the cups between our hands.
For a few minutes, nobody was in a hurry.
Then the bill came.
Everyone stared at it.
The Russian stared at it longer.
My brother just laughed and paid for all of us.
“It’s only rupees.”
Then we climbed back into the Jeep.
Two more hours to Srinagar.