Bridge

Jyamphel Gyatso

Two lawyers and an extortionist, a middle man who worked for me but was really working for them, traveled through two time zones to make me an offer they thought I could not refuse. Seven years earlier, 2012, they had made one flight through one-time zone with the metaphorical equivalent of cash-filled suitcases to buy a right to claim another right that I shepherded.

The derivative was for real estate in the nation's capital the price of which was elevated by suitcases delivered to the political elite in exchange for undervaluing state assets for private acquisition. The political elite and the suitcases required a secure destination other than native national banks that could be pilfered at the hormonal whim of those born right with proceeds deposited in balmy jurisdictions beyond reach.

The destination for the suitcases was a certain neighborhood in the nation's capital. I had nothing to do either with the nation's capital, was born there, the son of a military officer who drove Soviet tanks, or the neighborhood for it was my fathers, father who stood knee-deep in leech-infested rivers building a bridge for the future home of Jyampal Gyatso to make the money that paid for the 1952 lease of land in a suburban jungle.

My father flung the lease titles through the native banking system elevating sibling rivalry with his sister to an art form after the passing of their parents, my grandfather to a heart attack in the office of his tax lawyer. My father, his father, my grandmother, and my mother passed through duties that were now in my charge as an accidental custodian of others' efforts for the benefit of future generations.

One of the lawyers at lunch, let's call him Junior, was the son of the lawyer who made it possible for an Italian widow to lead the political party that dominated the country since independence gifted by bankrupted colonizers after the second world war. In the seven years of our association he, the son, defaulted on every commitment while stealing from his financial partner, the money man to the deal.

Junior's consistency was a legend in the circle of the deal. Centuries earlier his head would have been displayed on the city gates. Those more civilized times have passed, replaced with a judicial system for redress of the badly intended with judgments delivered every few generations.

There were two other players in the drama. One, my father's sister and her family, four cousins, clung to the real estate and 283 months of rental income that native courts had found every maneuver to avoid deposit in court during the legal challenge. My father's sister was a litigant for whom park benches were endowed. She was the offspring of the born right fighting with the memory of a dead brother and willing to pay the bar, the bench, and the court clerks for impunity at every step.

Judicial interdiction of that air supply was bad for the business of law graduates who became law graduates because of academic careers that did not rise to medicine, engineering, or writing computer code. The legal system was populated by the lowest common intellect of a country that produced great intellects redistributing the national treasure in a manner that Lenin would have plagiarized.

The other was a family that had agreed to buy a property from my grandmother in 1984 through the redemption of a mortgage in 1988 by a court order that was never challenged. Their sin was to have taken possession of the property not from my grandmother but a sweet shop owner who had squatted, literally, on a roadside parcel of the land while converting oil-fried sugar into cash flow.

The sweet shop operator forty years into the independence of the country stumbled onto a business that in one family sitting, a five-year roadside encampment replete with running water, would return capital that generations of that clan could never aspire to.

The titles had been pledged thrice with lenders and in 1991 after my father died in the worst staged car accident in history the buyers began a pilgrimage of purification to courthouse steps throughout the country. Thankfully the buyer's monopoly to manufacture transistor radios and television sets provided enough disposable cash for retainers to attend hearings, induce judgments, collect court orders, and ensure that the files were complete.

When I arrived in 2001 the next generation of three brothers was occupied separating each other from their share of previous generations' effort. I selected the most relatively sensible brother who bore the greatest risk, he lived in the house and groomed him for a task that a thoughtful mannequin could have performed. His mission was to fire all the lawyers, reduce counsel to one, and defend every petition with the alacrity of an armadillo copulating with a cactus.He had been gifted with title and possession of a property that judicial inertia of the lowest common intellect would ensure withstood centuries of legal challenges.

In 2018, six years into the tryst of continuing defaults with Junior and one year after my father's sister had passed, I chose to settle the triangle of the judicial contest with my late father's late sister's family, my cousins, who in turn chose to settle with the transistor offspring.

There were, however, tunnel rats that had to be removed first.