After conquering Mount Everest with Tenzing Norgay in 1954, Hillary returned often to the Khumbu Valley. And he set himself a task that he described as more difficult than summiting the world"s tallest peak-building schools for the impoverished Sherpa communities whose porters had made his climb possible.
In his 1964 book about his humanitarian efforts, Schoolhouse in the Clouds, Schoolhouse in the Clouds, Hillary spoke with remarkable foresight about the need for aid projects in the world"s poorest and most remote places. Places like Khumbu, and Korphe. "Slowly and painfully, we are seeing worldwide acceptance of the fact that the wealthier and more technologically advanced countries have a responsibility to help the undeveloped ones," he wrote. "Not only through a sense of charity, but also because only in this way can we ever hope to see any permanent peace and security for ourselves." Hillary spoke with remarkable foresight about the need for aid projects in the world"s poorest and most remote places. Places like Khumbu, and Korphe. "Slowly and painfully, we are seeing worldwide acceptance of the fact that the wealthier and more technologically advanced countries have a responsibility to help the undeveloped ones," he wrote. "Not only through a sense of charity, but also because only in this way can we ever hope to see any permanent peace and security for ourselves."
But in one sense, Hillary"s path was far easier than Mortenson"s quixotic quest. Having conquered the planet"s tallest peak, Hillary had become one of the world"s most famous men. When he approached corporate donors for help funding his effort to build schools, they fell over themselves competing to support his "Himalayan Schoolhouse Expedition." World Book Encyclopedia World Book Encyclopedia signed on as the chief sponsor, bankrolling Hillary with fifty-two thousand 1963 dollars. And Sears Roebuck, which had recently started selling Sir Edmund Hillary brand tents and sleeping bags, outfitted the expedition and sent a film crew to doc.u.ment Hillary"s work. Further funds piled up as Hillary"s representatives sold European film and press rights and obtained an advance for a book about the expedition before Hillary left for Nepal. signed on as the chief sponsor, bankrolling Hillary with fifty-two thousand 1963 dollars. And Sears Roebuck, which had recently started selling Sir Edmund Hillary brand tents and sleeping bags, outfitted the expedition and sent a film crew to doc.u.ment Hillary"s work. Further funds piled up as Hillary"s representatives sold European film and press rights and obtained an advance for a book about the expedition before Hillary left for Nepal.
Mortenson not only had failed to summit K2, he had returned home broke. And because he was anxious about spoiling things by leaning too heavily on Marina, he still spent the majority of his nights in La Bamba. He had become known to the police. And they roused him in the middle of the night with flashlights and made him trace sleepy orbits of the Berkeley Flats, half awake at the wheel, searching for parking spots where they wouldn"t find him before morning.
Lately, Mortenson had felt a rift developing with Marina about money. Sleeping in La Bamba on their weekend climbing trips had clearly lost its charm for her. He handled it poorly when, one cold afternoon in early spring, on their way to Yosemite, she suggested they splurge and stay at the historic Ahwahnee Hotel, a grand WPA-era jewel of rustic western architecture. A single weekend in the Ahwahnee would cost the rough equivalent of all the money he"d raised for the school so far. And after Mortenson bluntly refused, their weekend in the damp car simmered with unspoken tension.
One typically cold, foggy day of San Francisco summer, Mortenson arrived for a shift of work and Tom Vaughan handed him a page torn from his prescription pad. "This guy read the piece about you in the newsletter and called me," Vaughan said. "He"s a climber and some kind of scientist. He also sounded, frankly, like a piece of work. He asked me if you were a drug fiend who would waste his money. But I think he"s rich. You should give him a call." Mortenson looked at the paper. It said "Dr. Jean h.o.e.rni" next to a Seattle number. He thanked Vaughan and tucked it into his pocket on his way into the ER.
The next day, in the Berkeley Public Library, Mortenson looked up Dr. Jean h.o.e.rni. He was surprised to find hundreds of references, mostly in newspaper clippings about the semiconductor industry.
h.o.e.rni was a Swiss-born physicist with a degree from Cambridge. With a group of California scientists who dubbed themselves the "Traitorous Eight," after defecting from the laboratory of infamously tempestuous n.o.bel laureate William Shockley, he had invented a type of integrated circuit that paved the way for the silicon chip. One day while showering, h.o.e.rni solved the problem of how to pack information onto a circuit. Watching the water run in rivulets over his hands, he theorized that silicon could be layered in a similar fashion onto a circuit, dramatically increasing its surface area and capacity. He called this the "planar process" and patented it.
h.o.e.rni, whose brilliance was equaled only by his orneryness, jumped jobs every few years, repeatedly b.u.t.ting heads with his business partners. But along his remarkable career path, he founded half a dozen companies that would eventually, after his departure, grow into industry behemoths like Fairchild Semiconductors, Teledyne, and Intel. By the time h.o.e.rni called Tom Vaughan trying to track down Mortenson, he was seventy, and his personal fortune had grown into the hundreds of millions.
h.o.e.rni was also a climber. As a younger man, he had attempted Everest and scaled peaks on five continents. As physically tough as he was tough-minded, he once survived a cold night at high alt.i.tude by stuffing his sleeping bag with newspaper. He then wrote a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, Wall Street Journal, praising it as "by far the warmest paper published." praising it as "by far the warmest paper published."
h.o.e.rni had a special fondness for the Karakoram, where he"d gone trekking, and told friends he had come away struck by the discrepancy between the exquisite mountain scenery and the brutal lives of the Balti porters.
Mortenson changed ten dollars into quarters and called h.o.e.rni at his home in Seattle from the library"s pay phone. "Hi," he said, after several expensive minutes pa.s.sed and h.o.e.rni finally came to the phone. "This is Greg Mortenson. Tom Vaughan gave me your number and I"m calling because-"
"I know what you"re after," a sharp voice with a French accent interrupted. "Tell me, if I give you fund for your school, you"re not going to p.i.s.s off to some beach somewhere in Mexico, smoke dope, and screw your girlfriend, are you?"
"I..." Mortenson said.
"What do you say?"
"No sir, of course not. I just want to educate children." He p.r.o.nounced "educate" with the guileless midwestern cadence with which he always flavored his favorite word. "Eh-jew-kate." "In the Karakoram. They really need our help. They have it pretty rough there."
"I know," h.o.e.rni said. "I am there in "74. On my way to the Baltoro."
"Were you there for a trek, or with a-"
"So. What, exactly, will your school cost?" h.o.e.rni barked. Mortenson fed more quarters into the phone.
"I met with an architect and a contractor in Skardu, and priced out all the materials," Mortenson said. "I want it to have five rooms, four for cla.s.ses, and one common room for-"
"A number!" h.o.e.rni snapped.
"Twelve thousand dollars," Mortenson said nervously, "but whatever you"d like to contribute toward-"
"Is that all?" h.o.e.rni asked, incredulous. "You"re not bulls.h.i.tting? You can really build your school for twelve grand?"
"Yes sir," Mortenson said. He could hear his own heartbeat in his ears. "I"m sure of it."
"What is your address?" h.o.e.rni demanded.
"Uh, that"s an interesting question."
Mortenson walked giddily through the crowd of students on Shattuck Avenue toward his car. He figured this was one night he had a rock-solid excuse for not sleeping in La Bamba.
A week later, Mortenson opened his PO box. Inside was an envelope containing a receipt for a twelve-thousand-dollar check h.o.e.rni had sent, in Mortenson"s name, to the AHF and a brief note scrawled on a piece of folded graph paper: "Don"t screw up. Regards, J.H."
The first editions went first. Mortenson had spent years prowling Berkeley"s Black Oak Books, especially the back room, where he"d found hundreds of historical books about mountaineering. He carried six crates of them in from the car. Combined with several of his fa-ther"s rare books from Tanzania, they brought just under six hundred dollars from the buyer.
While he waited for h.o.e.rni"s check to clear, Mortenson converted everything else he owned into enough cash to buy his plane ticket and pay his expenses for however long he"d have to be in Pakistan. He told Marina that he was going to follow this path he"d been on since he met her all the way to the end-until he fulfilled the promise he made to the children of Korphe. When he came back, he promised her, things would be different. He"d work full-time, find a real place to live, and lead a less haphazard life.
He took his climbing gear to the Wilderness Exchange on San Pablo Avenue, a place where much of his disposable income had vanished in the years since he"d become a devoted climber. It was only a four-minute drive to the shop from his storage s.p.a.ce, but Mortenson remembers the pa.s.sage as indelibly as a cross-country road trip. "I felt like I was driving away from a life I"d led ever since I"d come to California," he says. He left with almost fifteen hundred dollars more in his pocket.
The morning before his flight, Mortenson drove Marina to work, then made his most difficult divestment. At a used-car lot in Oakland, he backed La Bamba into a s.p.a.ce and sold it for five hundred dollars. The gas guzzler had carried him faithfully from the Midwest to his new existence as a climber in California. It had housed him for a year while he struggled to find his way through the fundraising wilderness. Now, the proceeds from the car would help send him to the other side of the Earth. He patted the big burgundy hood, pocketed the money, and carried his duffel bag toward the taxi waiting to take him to the next chapter of his life.
CHAPTER 6.
RAWALPINDI"S R ROOFTOPS AT D DUSK
Prayer is better than sleep.
-from the hazzan, hazzan, or call to worship or call to worship
He woke, curled around the money, drenched in sweat. Twelve thousand eight hundred dollars in well-thumbed hundreds were stacked in a worn green nylon stuff sack. Twelve thousand for the school. Eight hundred to see him through the next several months. The room was so spartan there was no place to hide the pouch except under his clothes. He patted the money reflexively as he"d taken to doing ever since he"d left San Francisco and swung his legs off the wobbly charpoy charpoy and onto the sweating cement floor. and onto the sweating cement floor.
Mortenson pushed a curtain aside and was rewarded with a wedge of sky, bisected by the green-tiled minaret from the nearby Government Transport Service Mosque. The sky had a violet cast that could mean dawn or dusk. He tried to rub the sleep out of his face, considering. Dusk, definitely. He had arrived in Islamabad at dawn and must have slept all day.
He had st.i.tched together half of the globe, on a fifty-six-hour itinerary dictated by his cut-rate ticket, from SFO to Atlanta, to Frankfurt to Abu Dhabi to Dubai and, finally, out of this tunnel of time zones and airless departure lounges to the swelter and frenzy of Islamabad airport. And here he was in leafy Islamabad"s teeming twin city, low-rent Rawalpindi, in what the manager of the Khyaban Hotel a.s.sured him was his "cheapliest" room.
Every rupee counted now. Every wasted dollar stole bricks or books from the school. For eighty rupees a night, or about two dollars, Mortenson inhabited this afterthought, an eight-by-eight-foot gla.s.sed-in cubicle on the hotel"s roof that seemed more like a garden shed than a guest room. He pulled on his pants, unglued his a guest room. He pulled on his pants, unglued his shalwar shalwar shirt from his chest, and opened the door. The early evening air was no cooler, but at least it had the mercy to move. shirt from his chest, and opened the door. The early evening air was no cooler, but at least it had the mercy to move.
Squatting on his heels, in a soiled baby-blue shalwar kamiz, shalwar kamiz, the hotel"s the hotel"s chokidar chokidar Abdul Shah regarded Mortenson through his one un Abdul Shah regarded Mortenson through his one unclouded eye. "Salaam Alaaik.u.m, Sahib, Greg Sahib," the watchman said, as if he"d been waiting all afternoon just in case Mortenson stirred, then rose to run for tea. Sahib, Greg Sahib," the watchman said, as if he"d been waiting all afternoon just in case Mortenson stirred, then rose to run for tea.
In a rusted folding chair on the roof, next to a pile of cement blocks hinting at the hotel"s future ambitions, Mortenson accepted a chipped porcelain pot of sticky sweet milk tea and tried to clear his head enough to come up with a plan, When he"d stayed at the Khyaban a year earlier, he"d been a member of a meticulously planned expedition. Every moment of every day had been filled with tasks, from packing and sorting sacks of flour and freeze-dried food, to procuring permits and arranging plane tickets, to hiring porters and mules.
"Mister Greg, Sahib," Abdul said, as if antic.i.p.ating his train of thought, "may I ask why you are coming back?"
"I"ve come to build a school, Inshallah, Inshallah," Mortenson said.
"Here in "Pindi, Greg Sahib?"
As he worked his way through the pot of tea, Mortenson told Abdul the story of his failure on K2, his wanderings on the glacier, and the way the people of Korphe had cared for the stranger who wandered into their village.
Sitting on his heels, Abdul sucked his teeth and scratched his generous belly, considering. "You are the rich man?" he asked, looking doubtfully at Mortenson"s frayed running shoes and worn mud-colored shalwar.
"No," Mortenson said. He couldn"t think of any way to put the past year of fumbling effort into words. "Many people in America gave a little money for the school, even children," Mortenson said, finally. He took out the green nylon pouch from under his shirt and showed the money to Abdul. "This is exactly enough for one school, if I"m very careful."
Abdul rose with a sense of resolve. "By the merciful light of Allah Almighty, tomorrow we make much bargain. We must bargain very well," he said, sweeping the tea things into his arms and taking his leave.
From his folding chair, Mortenson heard the electronic crackle of wires being twisted together in the minaret of the GTS Mosque, before the amplified wail of the hazzan hazzan implored the faithful to evening prayer. Mortenson watched a flock of swallows rise all at once, still in the shape of the tamarind tree where they"d been perched in the hotel garden, before wheeling away across the rooftops. implored the faithful to evening prayer. Mortenson watched a flock of swallows rise all at once, still in the shape of the tamarind tree where they"d been perched in the hotel garden, before wheeling away across the rooftops.
Across Rawalpindi, muezzins" muezzins" cries from half a dozen other mosques flavored the darkening air with exhortations. Mortenson had been on this roof a year earlier, and had heard the texture of dusk in Rawalpindi as part of the exotic soundtrack to his expedition. But now, alone on the roof, the cries from half a dozen other mosques flavored the darkening air with exhortations. Mortenson had been on this roof a year earlier, and had heard the texture of dusk in Rawalpindi as part of the exotic soundtrack to his expedition. But now, alone on the roof, the muezzins muezzins seemed to be speaking directly to him. Their ancient voices, tinged with a centuries-old advocacy of faith and duty, sounded like calls to action. He swept aside the doubts about his ability to build the school that had nagged at him for the last year, as Abdul had briskly cleared the tea tray. Tomorrow it was time to begin. seemed to be speaking directly to him. Their ancient voices, tinged with a centuries-old advocacy of faith and duty, sounded like calls to action. He swept aside the doubts about his ability to build the school that had nagged at him for the last year, as Abdul had briskly cleared the tea tray. Tomorrow it was time to begin.
Abdul"s knock was timed to the morning call of the muezzin muezzin. At four-thirty, as the electronic crackle of a microphone switched on, and in the amplified throat-clearing before slumbering Rawalpindi was called to prayer, Mortenson opened the door to his shed to find Abdul gripping the edges of the tea tray with great purpose.
"There is a taxi waiting, but first tea, Greg Sahib."
"Taxi?" Mortenson said, rubbing his eyes.
"For cement," Abdul said, as if explaining an elementary arithmetic lesson to an unusually slow student. "How can you build even one school without the cement?"
"You can"t, of course," Mortenson said, laughing, and gulped at the tea, willing the caffeine to get to work.
At sunrise they shot west, on what had once been the Grand Trunk Road, ribboning the twenty-six hundred kilometers from Kabul to Calcutta, but which had now been demoted to the status of National Highway One, since the borders with Afghanistan and India were so often closed. Their tiny yellow Suzuki subcompact seemed to have no suspension at all. And as they juddered over potholes at hundred kilometers an hour, Mortenson, wedged into the miniature backseat, struggled to keep his chin from smacking against his huddled knees.
When they reached Taxila at six it was already hot. In 326 b.c., Alexander the Great had billeted his army here on the last, easternmost push of his troops to the edge of his empire. Taxila"s position, at the confluence of the East-West trade routes that would become the Grand Trunk Road, at the spot where it bisected the Silk Road from China, shimmering down switchbacks from the Himalaya, had been one of the strategic hubs of antiquity. Today"s Taxila contained the architectural flotsam of the ancient world. It had once been the site of Buddhism"s third-largest monastery and a base for spreading the Buddha"s teachings north into the mountains. But today, Taxila"s historic mosques were repaired and repainted, while the Buddhist shrines were moldering back into the rock slabs from which they"d been built. The dusty sprawl, hard by the brown foothills of the Himalaya, was a factory town now. Here the Pakistani army produced replicas of aging Soviet tanks. And four smoke plumes marked the four ma.s.sive cement factories that provided the foundation for much of Pakistan"s infrastructure.
Mortenson was inclined to enter the first one and begin bargaining, but again, Abdul scolded him like a naive student. "But Greg, Sahib, first we must take tea and discuss cement."
Balanced unsteadily on a toy stool, Mortenson blew on his fifth thimbleful of green tea and tried to decipher Abdul"s conversation with a trio of aged tea-shop customers, their white beards stained yellow with nicotine. They seemed to be conversing with great pa.s.sion and Mortenson was sure the details about cement were pouring out.
"Well," Mortenson asked after he"d left a few dirty rupee notes on the table. "Which factory? Fetco? Fauji? Askari?"
"Do you know they couldn"t say," Abdul explained. "They recommended another tea shop where the owner"s cousin used to be in the cement business."
Two more tea shops and countless cups of green tea later, it was late morning before they had an answer. Fauji cement was reputed to be reasonable and not too adulterated with additives to crumble in Himalayan weather. Purchasing the hundred bags of cement Mortenson estimated the school would require was anticlimactic. Girding himself for hard bargaining, Mortenson was surprised when Abdul walked into the office of Fauji cement, meekly placed an order, and asked Mortenson for a hundred-dollar deposit.
"What about the bargaining?" Mortenson asked, folding the receipt that promised one hundred bags would be delivered to the Khyaban Hotel within the week.
Patiently regaling his pupil once again, Abdul lit a reeking Tander brand cigarette in the overheated taxi and waved away the smoke along with Mortenson"s worries. "Bargain? With cement can not. Cement business is a..." he searched for a word to make things clear to his slow-witted American "...Mafia. Tomorrow in Rajah Bazaar much bes, bes, much bargain." much bargain."
Mortenson wedged his knees under his chin and the taxi turned back toward "Pindi.
At the Khyaban Hotel, pulling the shirt of his dust-colored shalwar shalwar over his head in the men"s shower room, Mortenson felt the material rip. He lifted the back of the shirt to examine it and saw that the fabric had torn straight down the middle from shoulder to waist. He removed as much road dust as he could with the trickling shower, then put his only set of Pakistani clothes back on. The ready-bought over his head in the men"s shower room, Mortenson felt the material rip. He lifted the back of the shirt to examine it and saw that the fabric had torn straight down the middle from shoulder to waist. He removed as much road dust as he could with the trickling shower, then put his only set of Pakistani clothes back on. The ready-bought shalwar shalwar had served him well all the way to K2 and back but now he"d need another. had served him well all the way to K2 and back but now he"d need another.
Abdul intercepted Mortenson on the way to his room, tsk-tsking at the tear, and suggested they visit a tailor.
They left the oasis of the Khyaban"s greenery and stepped out into "Pindi proper. Across the street, a dozen horse-drawn taxi-carts stood at the ready, horses foaming and stamping in the dusty heat while an elderly man with a hennaed beard haggled energetically over the price.
Mortenson looked up and noticed for the first time the billboard painted in glowing primary colors at the swarming intersection of Kashmir and Adamjee roads. "Please patronize Dr. Azad," it read, in English. Next to a crudely but energetically drawn skeleton with miniature skulls glowing in its lifeless eyes, Dr. Azad"s sign promised "No side effects!"
The tailor didn"t advertise. He was tucked into a concrete hive of shops off Haider Road that either had been decaying for a decade, or was waiting forlornly for construction to be completed. Manzoor Khan may have been squatting in a six-foot-wide storefront, before a fan, a few bolts of cloth and a clothesmaker"s dummy, but he exuded an imperial dignity. The severe black frames of his eyegla.s.ses and his precisely trimmed white beard gave him a scholarly air as he drew a measuring tape around Mortenson"s chest, looked startled at the results, measured again, then jotted numbers on a pad.
"Manzoor, Sahib, wishes to apologize," Abdul explained, "but your shalwar shalwar will need six meters of cloth, while our countrymen take only four. So he must charge you fifty rupees more. I think he says true," Abdul offered. will need six meters of cloth, while our countrymen take only four. So he must charge you fifty rupees more. I think he says true," Abdul offered.
Mortenson agreed and asked for two sets of shalwar kamiz shalwar kamiz. Abdul climbed up onto the tailor"s platform and energetically pulled out bolts of the brightest robin"s egg blue and pistachio green. Mortenson, picturing the dust of Baltistan, insisted on two identical sets of mud brown. "So the dirt won"t show," he told a disappointed Abdul.
"Sahib, Greg Sahib," Abdul pleaded, "much better for you to be the clean gentleman. For many men will respect you."
Mortenson pictured the village of Korphe, where the population survived through the interminable winter months in the bas.e.m.e.nts of their stone and mud homes, huddled with their animals around smoldering yak dung fires, in their one and only set of clothing.
"Brown will be fine," Mortenson said.
As Manzoor accepted Mortenson"s deposit, a muezzin muezzin"s wail pierced the hive of small shops. The tailor quickly put the money aside and unfurled a faded pink prayer mat. He aligned it precisely.
"Will you show me how to pray?" Mortenson asked, impulsively.
"Are you a Muslim?"
"I respect Islam," Mortenson said, as Abdul looked on, approvingly.
"Come up here," Manzoor said, delighted, beckoning Mortenson onto the cluttered platform, next to a headless dummy, pierced with pins. "Every Muslim must wash before prayer," he said. "I"ve already made wudu wudu so this I will show you the next time." He smoothed out the bolt of brown cloth Mortenson had chosen next to his mat and instructed the American to kneel beside him. "First, we must face Mecca, where our holy prophet, peace be upon him, rests," Monzoor said. "Then we must kneel before the All-Merciful Allah, blessed be his name." so this I will show you the next time." He smoothed out the bolt of brown cloth Mortenson had chosen next to his mat and instructed the American to kneel beside him. "First, we must face Mecca, where our holy prophet, peace be upon him, rests," Monzoor said. "Then we must kneel before the All-Merciful Allah, blessed be his name."
Mortenson struggled to kneel in the tailor"s tiny cubbyhole and accidentally kicked the dummy, which waggled over him like a disapproving deity.
"No!" said Manzoor, pincering Mortenson"s wrists in his strong hands and folding Mortenson"s arms together. "We do not appear before Allah like a man waiting for a bus. We submit respectfully to Al-lah"s will."
Mortenson held his arms stiffly crossed and listened as Manzoor began softly chanting the essence of all Islamic prayer, the Shahada, Shahada, or bearing witness. or bearing witness.
"He is saying Allah is very friendly and great," Abdul said, trying to be helpful.
"I understood that."
"Kha-mosh! Quiet!" Manzoor Khan said firmly. He bent stiffly forward from the waist and prostrated his forehead against his prayer mat. Quiet!" Manzoor Khan said firmly. He bent stiffly forward from the waist and prostrated his forehead against his prayer mat.
Mortenson tried to emulate him, but bent only partway forward, stopping when he felt the flaps of his torn shirt gaping inelegantly and the breath of the fan on his bare back. He looked over at his tutor. "Good?" he asked.
The tailor studied Mortenson, his eyes taking his pupil in piercingly through the thick black frames of his gla.s.ses. "Try again when you pick up your shalwar kamiz, shalwar kamiz," he said, rolling his mat back up into a tight cylinder. "Perhaps you will improve."
His gla.s.s box on the roof of the Khyaban gathered the sun"s full force all day and sweltered all night. During daylight, the sound of mutton being disjointed with a cleaver echoed unceasingly from the butcher shop below. When Mortenson strained to sleep, water gurgled mysteriously in pipes below his bed, and high on the ceiling, a fluorescent tube stayed unmercifully on. Mortenson had searched every surface inside and outside the room for a switch and found none. Thrashing against damp, well-illuminated sheets some hours before dawn, he had a sudden insight. He stood on the rope bed, swaying and balancing, then reached carefully toward the fixture and succeeded in uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the tube. In complete darkness, he slept blissfully until Abdul"s first firm knock.
At sunrise, the Rajah Bazaar was a scene of organized chaos that Mortenson found thrilling. Though operating with only his left eye, Abdul took Mortenson"s arm and threaded him neatly through a shifting maze of porters carrying swaying bales of wire on their heads and donkey carts rushing to deliver blocks of burlap-covered ice before the already formidable heat shrank their value.
Around the periphery of a great square were shops selling every implement he could imagine related to the erection and destruction of buildings. Eight shops in a row offered nearly identical displays of sledgehammers. Another dozen seemed to trade only in nails, with different grades gleaming from coffin-sized troughs. It was thrilling, after so much time spent in the abstraction of raising money and gathering support, to see the actual components of his school sitting arrayed all around him. That nail there might be the final one pounded into a completed Korphe school.
But before he let himself get too giddy, he reminded himself to bargain hard. Under his arm, wrapped in newspaper, was the s...o...b..x-sized bundle of rupees he"d received at the money-changer for ten of his hundred-dollar bills.
They began at a lumber yard, indistinguishable from the almost-identical businesses flanking it on both sides, but Abdul was firm in his choice. "This man is the good Muslim," he explained.