Truth Lake Read Online Free Page A

would have marked them as different from him if their clothing and the alacrity of their disappearance once the bus halted had not confirmed his suspicion that he was the only 'tourist' in the area. Struggling to suppress a groan, he hefted his rucksack down to the ground and stood staring after the receding locals.
    The driver switched off the engine and alighted beside Karmel, then went off to drink, wash and gossip before turning his vehicle and driving it down to the depot at the base of the foothills.
    Looking around him, Karmel saw dark forested slopes disappearing against the light on three sides. Dilghum was cut into the hillside above him, squat houses interspersed with sharply terraced rice fields and there was no road downwards visible – apart from the one along which he had arrived.  A narrow cobbled path appeared to lead up through the centre of the village.
    The sun was directly overhead when Karmel wandered into Dilghum's only teashop. There were three men inside, though the interior was low-ceilinged and dark.  They were all aged, stooped and crinkled. Their pipes seemed welded to their lips and the tin jug in front of them was scratched and dented.
    'Getting away from the heat?' one of them cackled at him, through a row of stained teeth. Feeling cheered by the directness of this approach, Karmel replied in a friendly manner that he was climbing, but for business not pleasure. The same old man enquired what business and there followed an elaborate tale of soil analysis and deforestation from Karmel that obviously caused his listeners more mirth than concern.
    'You are a university man, ha ha ha. I lived once in Delhi. You folks don't know the meaning of soil! Here, have some tea.' Scrambling to his feet the old man poured tea into a diminutive tin mug and offered it to Karmel, who accepted gratefully and unclenched his teeth for the first time since he'd left Delhi.
    Taking enormous strides so as not to let his feet be sucked into mud, Karmel manoeuvred his way up through Dilghum. Sweet faces peered at him from the shadowy interiors of huts and small brick dwellings, children smiled and ran beside him for a few minutes.
    Old men and boys had clustered around him as he headed up the track, offering advice and food, inviting him to stay in their homes when he returned from his soil harvest, his earth hunt. People admired his mobile phone, even though it would neither send nor receive at this altitude; someone shyly asked if he was married and, when he shook his head, suggested that he should be. Caught off guard by the unasked for familiarity, his pride melted at the ease of conversation.
    A few of the older men and women had heard of Saahitaal but none knew precisely where it was. Eleven days journey some said; others thought only five. None were certain what he would find there but all held it to be a sacred place of some sort, a lake by a clearing high on one of the peaks beyond present sight. The old men with whom he had first conversed had offered to find him a guide but he had declined. To his persistent enquiries about any other climbers also looking for the village so that he might be able to get company on his journey they all replied in the same way: no one had asked the way to Saahitaal in a very long time, no one going that way would seek it from the east, no strangers apart from himself had been to Dilghum in at least nine weeks and the last was an Indian man.
    *
     
    In Goa, where their plane had landed, the heat was more humid than it had been up north. Sara McMeckan noticed the difference whenever she left her room to swim or stroll around. Her armpits and back felt sodden within seconds and the sea appeared through a thick white haze. So she preferred to stay in their suite with the air conditioning turned up high. Unlike some of the other resorts on this tiny stretch of coastline, the Randhor-Sinbari at Aguada beach ran to every conceivable luxury. Its high bamboo walls were discreetly