Unforgettable journey to other planets

“A golden record?!” he said to the accompaniment of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Part 1 – Chapter 9

Debby was very tired, waiting for her flight from New York to Paris. She arrived early, afraid she would be late. She was worried about leaving in the middle of the school year, about flying halfway around the world, about money and gifts, about her pupils. All at once about a lot of things. To fly spontaneously to Sango in Tokyo like that was not like Deborah Glandfield. Of course, it was fine for Sango to arrange a wedding so unexpectedly, but Debby didn’t like surprises.

Debby wasn’t a nerd, but she certainly wasn’t the kind of person who could decide to fly to the other side of the world in a week. She was a teacher, after all. Honestly, Debby was very fond of Sango and wanted to see her. She didn’t think about the fact that she’d spent half her savings on this trip. And that right now she just wanted to go to a normal bed and rest. She has the one closest friend she has, and she only lives on the other side of the world.

A flight to Paris was announced. Debby wandered tiredly toward the gate. In Paris, she would catch a connecting flight to Tokyo. She was only glad that there she could spend the day in the beautiful city she knew so much about, but had never been to. She loved French movies, music, and culture, though she had never met a native French person in her entire life.

“Plaid?” the stewardess offered, looking into Debby’s tired eyes with her tired eyes.

“Yes, thank you.”

She covered her head and fell asleep as the plane rolled in for takeoff.

It hadn’t been an easy flight. But Debby woke up rested and happy. She ate a bar of white chocolate she bought at the airport and asked her seatmate when the plane would be landing.

“Oh, yeah. About fifteen minutes ago they said we’d be arriving,” her companion said with obvious inspiration.

“Great,” Debby said at the same time as she flashed the signal to buckle her seat belts.

“Hmm. I’ve got a whole day ahead of me…the Louvre and a real French cafе. I think I’ve had enough of that. Let’s save the Eiffel Tower for the next visit,” anticipating the adventure, Debby thought.

Stepping off the plane at Charles de Gaulle airport, she dropped off her luggage in the luggage room and went straight to the RER-train going to the city center. Debby listened to French trills all around her the entire ride from the airport to the Ch?telet le Alle station. There she found Cafе Grizzly and ate a variety of sweets until she felt dizzy. Afterwards, she walked to the Louvre. She looked at the tourists walking in the same direction and felt joy and unity with them. There were many people around: couples and families, companies and singles, all striving for the goal. Some of them were going there, driven by the irresistible fascination of the Mona Lisa, some wanted to feel the spirit of antiquity or walk through time, from the era of Ramses II to the modern glass and metal pyramids. Debby, on the other hand, didn’t want to look at anything in specific, but rather wanted to get a grip on the principle. It always amazed her that history, which is so uninteresting to most people as a science, is simultaneously so attractive in the world’s museums. People stand in lines and walk for hours at a time in various Louvre halls to immerse themselves in the past. Debby wanted all the kids she teaches history to be as interested in it as visitors of the Louvre. For her, history and art merged. Art drowned in history, and history manifested itself in art.

Debby walked through the first floor of the Louvre completely astounded by the number of people and the fact that everyone had multiple emotions and thoughts on their faces: some thoughtfully gazing into the paintings, some expressing excitement about an ancient vase.

As she walked up the stairs to the second floor, she was suddenly stunned. A marvelous sculpture appeared before her eyes – a woman’s headless body with wings behind her back. The marble tunic seemed to let the light shine through.

“Excuse me, could you…” came a man’s voice from behind.

The man tried to squeeze his way to the front, but was prevented by Debby, who had stopped in the middle of the staircase. She half turned toward him, awestruck by the magnificence. At that moment, the young man saw what had stopped Debby a moment before.

“Oh, my gosh,” he exclaimed, in typical American manner, and froze. “Who is she?”

“It’s the goddess of fortune, Nika,” Miss Glandfield answered with pleasure.

The young man shifted his gaze to his new teacher and smiled at her. He understood why this woman was standing in the middle of the stairs and not moving. Things got a little freer around him and the man spoke to Debby.

“You are American! That’s great. I’m Hank. I’m from Louisville.”

“Hi, there. I’m Debby. I’m from Stamford,” she held out her little hand to Hank.

He shook it and turned to the statue again.

“Nika of Sa-mo-thrace,” Hank read from a distance. “How beautiful she is. Do you know anything about her?”

“All I know is that Nika is the goddess of luck and victory in Ancient Greece.”

Hank nodded and said:

“So we’re in luck. Don’t you want to start anything, hmm?” thoughtfully asked Hank.

“Yes,” Debby answered, also thoughtfully, looking at the bare wall behind the statue.

“Debby,” Hank called out to her,” lucky to have met you,” he laughed, walking away up the stairs.

Debby smiled at him goodbye and moved closer to the statue. Her head involuntarily craned upward. She suddenly felt that she knew very little about who the goddess Nika was, and also how to live on this strange planet among all these people. An organized group was passing nearby. Debby heard the tour guide’s voice, who spoke in English:

“…You can see that it is in motion. It’s not an illusion. That’s what the sculptor wanted to show. Look at her leg, it’s like she’s striving forward…” the guide’s voice faded.

Part 1 – Chapter 10

David stepped over rocks and rhododendron bushes. He looked around and breathed in the clean, cool air of the Tibetan foothills. He thought of the adventures that had happened to him in the last few days.

He remembered sitting in the car with the group of alpinists who had dropped him off at the Mountain. David had met them in Kalimpong at Zengdogpalri Phodong Monastery. He wanted to see the ancient manuscripts brought here by the Dalai Lama. This ancient text is called the Ganjur and is considered an important Tibetan canon for Buddhists. David was curious to see the ancient manuscript, which was salvaged when Tibet was attacked by China. He really wanted to touch such a relic and feel the depth of these places.

A group of climbers were already at the monastery when David walked in. They told David that they would not be able to see Ganjur and suggested we go together for lunch. David happily agreed, because he had no idea what to do next to get closer to Kanchenjunga. Young boys from Germany and Poland told him they were also going to Kanchenjunga and wanted to conquer it. After talking for a while, they offered to help David.

“I don’t want to climb that mountain,” David finished his tea, “I just want to see it up close.”

“What a funny Englishman you are. You won’t even be able to see it on the horizon with your gear.”

“You’ll come with us,” decided the young German senior, named Tobias, “otherwise it will take you another six months to make the journey.”

“Yes,” his friends confirmed, “we have room in the cars.”

“Thank you, but I’d like to do it myself.”

“Look, David,” Tobi put his hand on his shoulder, “we’ll take you to the park, tell that you’re a member of our team, and then you can walk around the mountains all you want.”

“I think that’s good,” David agreed under Tobias’ pressure.

They took him with them and drove first to Yuxom, and then together they passed the cordon at the entrance to Kanchenjunga Park. Together they passed through several villages on their way to the Mountain. But David ended up saying goodbye to Tobi’s group when, after several cloudy days, he suddenly saw a huge thing in the distance, Mount Kanchenjunga itself.

“Tobi, guys, thank you very much,” David said goodbye to them.

“Hey, Englishman,” Jakob, Tobias’ friend, said in a chorus, “don’t turn into a bear or a monk here. And whatever you do, mark your position on the map, keep track of where you are and where the nearest villages are. Be careful!”

They gave him a map of the park and some hiking trivia.

“David, please be very careful,” said Tobi, raising his hand high in farewell.

So David said goodbye to civilization and went on his way. He looked at the mountain in the distance, which seemed to reach the very sky, and walked slowly among the amazingly beautiful bushes. The birds were singing at will in a variety of styles. David walked, circling the mountain, and tried to listen to himself. His mind flashed back to thoughts of his father and Joan, to anxiety about his future, to despair and doom at the thought that everything, absolutely everything that was or would be in his life, would one day be gone. He remembered the villagers of this harsh and beautiful land. They lived here as if centuries behind the rest of the world, but they were peaceful and relaxed. They were just as smiling here as they were in London, and probably unhappy about the same thing. David wondered if it was even possible to live happily in this time and on this Earth. What was it all for?

He set out on a journey full of danger, but ended up chatting with two Germans and three Poles almost as old as he was, and with more or less the same desires and doubts as he did.

“I never got to feel the spiritual power of India that everyone talks about. And now I’m walking alone in the middle of nowhere.”