by Cary Groner
“She’s about fifteen,” Peter said.
Franz sighed. “Even that’s complicated here because girls are often considered grown up at puberty.” He pulled a pencil from his pocket and drummed the eraser against his desk. “This is probably some country girl he bought from her parents. The police don’t care much for this kind of thing, especially if Bahadur pays them off, which I assume he does.”
“Agencies?”
“Long backlog.”
“Any ideas?”
“Let me think about it.”
Peter went back to the exam room and told Mina.
“This is the eighth?” she said. “I should have noticed. Damn it.”
“You see thirty patients a day, all week, all year,” Peter said. “He brought them in one at a time, not in a herd, and a couple of times his wife brought them. It was mostly mundane stuff, anyway, like eye infections and strep.”
“I still should have caught it. There’s no excuse.”
“Mina, you didn’t even see half of them. There were other initials on some of the charts.”
She turned to him. “You noticed whose initials were on the charts?” she asked, looking at him a little strangely.
He nodded.
Mina’s voice became uncharacteristically soft. “What do you want to do?” she asked. She sounded surprisingly conciliatory. The girl leaned forward on her arms and watched them intently.
“We probably ought to start with an exam and see if we can figure out what’s going on,” Peter said.
Mina nodded. “She’s complaining of pain and itching,” she said. “There’s some bleeding too, but apparently it isn’t menstrual.”
“Explain to her that I’ll need to have a look but that you’ll be right here and no one’s going to hurt her.”
Mina spoke to the girl, who shrugged as if she couldn’t care less what happened. That little casual lift of her shoulders chilled Peter more than anything he’d heard about her so far.
The girl’s vulva was red and swollen. She had active herpes lesions and a thick, foul-smelling discharge that suggested chlamydia, gonorrhea, or possibly some combination of both.
“No wonder Bahadur was nervous,” Peter said. “We’re not talking about a little sore throat here.”
“He thought you’d catch on but I wouldn’t?” Mina asked.
“Jesus.”
“Has she had a fever?”
Mina spoke to the girl and said yes.
“She must be miserable,” Peter said.
“What’s a little more agony to a girl like this?” Mina said, then sat down by the exam table. “God, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”
“It’s okay,” Peter said. He’d never heard her apologize. He rolled his stool away from the foot of the table and stood up.
“Let’s get her antibiotics, something wide-spectrum,” he said. “Famvir for her herpes—do we have any Famvir?”
“Yes.”
“And she should probably have an HIV test.”
“Did you see if she had warts on her cervix?” Mina asked. “There’s a lot of that too.”
“I didn’t see anything, but you should check if you want to.”
“No,” said Mina. “I’ll take your word for it.”
Peter realized the girl had been lying there without a flinch or a question the whole time he’d had the speculum inside her and while they’d been talking. She didn’t react in any way; in fact, she was absently biting her thumbnail, as if completely disconnected from anything that happened to her below the waist.
Part of what followed was predictable. They had her get dressed and called the police. The cops took Bahadur away with them, amid much of what Franz called sturm und drang. Bahadur shouted threats both subtle and explicit: He would be back; he would cause great bodily harm to everyone involved; he would put the clinic out of business. Franz, Peter, and Mina watched him go from the front doorway. Just as the cops put him into their car, Mina suddenly waved goodbye—festively, with a big, cartoony smile—which turned Bahadur crimson with indignation and made Peter laugh. They went back inside and explained to the girl what would happen next.
This led to the part Peter had not foreseen. When they told her that Bahadur would never bother her again, that they would send her to a place where she would be cared for, the girl began to cry. Her tears were not of relief or joy but of fury. She screeched and struck out with her fingernails and tried to bite Mina. Peter grabbed her from behind and pinned her arms while she kicked at them. After a few minutes, she wore herself out and quit struggling, and he was able to let her go.
The girl sat in the chair, looking at the floor, wiping away the last of her tears and speaking in Nepali.
“She says Bahadur was the only man who was ever kind to her, who gave her enough to eat and kept her clean,” Mina said. “She knows two girls who were sent to orphanages, and they both hanged themselves there. She said orphanages are where girls like her go to die.”
“Tell her we’re sending her to some people who’ll try to get her into school,” Peter said. He had only the vaguest sense of what such places were like, but it was crucial to get her away from Bahadur. “Tell her she can also go back to her family if she wants.”
When the girl heard the translation of this she looked at Peter, spat, and launched into another angry soliloquy.
“She says why should she go home to the people who sold her in the first place?” Mina said. “They worked her half to death, and she never wants to see them again. As for school, she knows about these organizations. They promise, but most of the time they don’t deliver, and you end up living in bunk beds in a freezing dormitory with fifty other girls. She wants to go back to Bahadur, where she has her own room and an electric heater.”
“Tell her if she doesn’t have HIV already, she’ll have it soon, and that she won’t be able to afford the drugs. It’s a death sentence. I’m sorry.”
The girl spoke again, but Mina just turned away.
“What did she say?” Peter asked.
“Nothing.”
“You can tell me.”
Mina looked at him with tired eyes. “She says, ‘Fuck you, American doctor.’ ” The girl spoke again, and Mina smiled, just slightly. “She says she hopes your cock rots.”
Peter turned to the window. “Is it true, what she says about these places?” he asked. “Are they that bad?”
“Some are better than others, but none of them are great.”
To the east, a dozen ravens spiraled in a thermal as he watched. “You know that karma purification Lama Padma mentioned?”
“What about it?”
“I’m wondering if maybe it’s finished now.”
Mina sighed. “I hate to tell you, but I have a feeling you’ve just made a very worthy adversary,” she said. “This may be just the beginning.”
TWELVE
Devi led them on an expedition, the nature of which she would not disclose. It was the festival of Dasain, when thousands of animals—mainly chickens and goats—were herded into the temples of the Hindu goddess Durga and sacrificed, slaughtered with the ubiquitous Nepali khukuri knives.
A half hour after leaving the house, Peter and Alex found themselves ankle-deep in gore outside one of the temples. Lungs and livers and shiny serpentine intestines, all laced with crimson veins, littered the blood-soaked ground, and an assortment of amputated goat legs lay intertwined. Over by the temple, compact, muscular men skinned and butchered the carcasses with businesslike efficiency. The air reeked of thick, drying blood, a smell so viscous Peter could taste it deep in the back of his throat. Swirling, iridescent clouds of flies filled the air.
“As surprises go, I’m not liking this one very much,” said Alex, who was slightly green.
“Just wait,” Devi replied.
“I thought you were a Buddhist. You want to sacrifice something?”
Devi had spotted a young, pretty goat. She went over to the owner and started bargaining. Peter and Alex
hung back, not wanting to spoil the haggle, because if the seller knew American money was available, the price would quintuple.
Alex leaned into her father, but he was a little woozy himself.
“You and your goddamn wall map,” she said.
“You threw the fucking dart.”
In one way, he reflected, it made sense to placate death by offering life, feeding the beast so it wouldn’t come after you. Sacrifice was as old as humanity, or at least as old as religion, and these people were models of gentility compared to, say, the Aztecs. But that didn’t make it any less brutal. Just when he was starting to feel a bit more at ease in Nepal, to sense how to navigate and function, the situation jolted him into outsider status again. He looked around, wondering how long this would take.
Soon Devi handed the man a wad of rupees, then tied a rope around the goat’s neck and pulled it over to them. The goat was panicked; its eyes darted back and forth, and its legs shook.
“Come on,” Devi said. “Let’s get out of here.”
She led the goat away from the killing ground, and Peter and Alex followed. People were collecting rich, dark blood and splattering it on cars and buses, even bicycles, for good luck. The goat shivered with fear until they put some distance between themselves and the temple.
“My father is still sick,” Devi said at last. “It’s good to save the life of an animal to remove such obstacles.”
“You have a place for it at home?” Alex asked. Devi just looked at her.
“Oh, no,” said Peter. “No, no, no. Our yard is too small, and I don’t want goat shit everywhere.”
Alex looped her arm through his and put her head on his shoulder. “What a generous man you are,” she said. “So kind and accommodating.”
“Also too smart for this crap,” he said. “Don’t forget that part.”
“Of course,” said Alex. “Of course you are.”
| | |
“Look at how she smiles,” said Alex, as she brushed the goat in the backyard.
“Goats always smile,” said Peter, unenthusiastically watching the hair pile up. “It’s an anatomical accident, not an expression of mirth.”
“What will we call it?” asked Devi.
“We’ll call it Dad,” said Alex.
“There’s only room for one goat named Dad in the house,” said Peter.
“How about George Bush?” offered Devi. “There’s a name I want to hear fifty times a day. Third try’s the charm, ladies.”
Alex thought about it, then looked at her father and grinned. “It’s obvious, it’s perfect,” she said. “Wayne Lee.”
Oh, yeah, Peter thought—this is going to fly. “Are you forgetting she’s a girl?”
“It’s not like she’ll know.”
Peter did his best to think of the possible advantages of naming a little nanny goat after the giant meth-head biker who’d run off with his wife, but he couldn’t come up with any. While he was pondering, the decision was made for him.
“Come on, Wayne Lee,” said Alex, rubbing the goat’s neck. “Let’s feed you some nice rotten cabbage from the compost bin.” Wayne Lee smiled up at her with what seemed marvelous ungulate gratitude.
Well, Peter realized, they would be feeding her a ton of garbage that would ordinarily have gone to compost and helped stink up the yard. And of course from a psychological point of view, it offered Alex the chance to literally domesticate one of the great demon-fears of her childhood.
The whole idea was actually pretty twisted, which was what finally won him over.
| | |
The next day Peter came into the yard and found Alex and Wayne Lee facing each other.
“You trying to prove you’re more stubborn than a goat?” Peter asked. “I could have told you that.”
Alex had planted her feet and was leaning in, pushing on Wayne Lee’s forehead; Wayne Lee was pushing back. It was goat versus goat, and no one was budging. Devi was lounging in the sun in a T-shirt and shorts, reading a Bollywood fan magazine. Peter asked her how long this had been going on; she checked her watch.
“Thirty-five minutes,” she said.
“You seriously think you’ll outlast her, Alex?”
“I guess we’ll see.”
“Butting is what goats do for a living, honey. She’s a professional; she’s an athlete. She has a contract with Nike, and they’re going to brand a little swoosh on her flank.”
“Nobody is gonna brand my little baby Wayne Lee, are they, baby darling?” Alex said, making goo-goo noises. Wayne Lee stood unmoved, pushing back and smiling her little goat smile.
“Drill her on some vocab, at least, Devi. She needs it for the clinic. I want to hear body parts.”
“Head,” said Devi.
“Tauuko,” replied Alex.
“Nose, lips, hair.”
“Nak, othaa, kapaal.”
Peter was on his way inside.
“Legs, feet, fingers, hand, stomach.”
“Khuttaa, paitala, aula, haath, peta.”
When he was safely out of sight and almost out of earshot he was pretty sure he heard, “Clit, pussy, tits, cunt,” then Alex collapsing in laughter.
| | |
He was confused about too many things. There was the situation with Alex and Devi. There was the situation with Mina. There was the question of whether he could really do any good in Nepal, for his patients or his daughter or anyone else. He wanted another grown-up to talk to about it all, and he didn’t know who that person might be.
Lama Padma had expressed an interest in Western science and had asked Peter to write him about it. It occurred to him that the lama might be able to shed a little light on his own problems, and that the correspondence could be a way to open that door.
But although he was glad for the old man’s informality and good humor, he didn’t know how honest he could be about his own views without offending him. Nor, for that matter, was he sure how candid he could be about the personal issues; for one thing, Devi would be translating the letters.
Even so, it was an intriguing opportunity. If the lama was annoyed, he figured, they didn’t have to continue.
Dear Lama Padma,
I’m glad you wanted to correspond, though I have to preface this by saying that I’m often too frank for people’s liking. I guess I’ll just apologize in advance, because I don’t often have a very good feel for when I’m stepping over the line.
Regarding your desire to examine science in the context of Buddhist thought, I might as well tell you I don’t have a lot of faith in anything that could be called a benevolent God. On a weekly basis, here in Nepal, I see babies scalded by tipped cooking pots; whole families burned when an errant spark from the fire drifts into the tinderbox; children who are sex slaves, who have AIDS by age twelve, who will be dead by fifteen. Anyone who believes in an all-powerful God must also believe he is a murderous, sociopathic monster, because what other conclusion can you draw? The only dodge is to say he’s not all-powerful, in which case he’s no longer God. You didn’t ask my opinion, but you may as well know who you’re dealing with.
In any case, as I said, when it comes to science I mainly know about biology, and you can’t understand biology without understanding evolution, which is about mutation and natural selection. Mutation is the engine and happens all the time, from viruses to elephants; it’s why people need a different flu shot every year (and why people who deny evolution, but get flu shots anyway, are hypocrites).
As for natural selection, I’ll give you an example. A few years ago a fishing boat sank a couple of miles off Iceland. The water was frigid, the crew didn’t have a raft, and only one guy made it to shore. Some scientists in Reykjavík were curious why he survived when the others didn’t, and they found that he had a freak mutation—an extra layer of fat, kind of like blubber, under his skin. It wasn’t that thick, but it was enough.
This is evolution in action; you have five guys who won’t be having any more children, and one who can still h
ave as many as his wife agrees to, once he warms up a little. So through the generations there are more and more people with this extra fat on their bodies. It doesn’t make them stronger or more intelligent or better people—it just makes them more fit for that environment.
The situation is complicated in humans, though, because a lot of our evolution has consisted of adapting to one another, and certain traits may be more successful simply because they are attractive to the opposite sex. In the extreme view, we’re little more than host vehicles for our DNA, and our emotions exist largely to manipulate us into behaviors that ensure our survival and that of our offspring.
As such, it’s hard to conclude that there is any moral or spiritual basis for existence. I’m troubled by this, I’ll admit. It’s not that you become cold and unemotional, it’s just that you start to see emotions for what they really are, and it’s depressing. I’d be interested in knowing what you think about this.
—Peter
THIRTEEN
“I don’t think I love her because she’s a woman, exactly,” Alex said. “I love her because she’s Devi. I think I’d love her just as much if she were a guy.”
“I understand that, I think,” Peter said.
Devi had gone home with Sangita after dinner, so Peter and Alex had leashed up Wayne Lee and taken her for a walk through a nearby neighborhood.
“What do you love about her?”
“All the obvious stuff,” she said. “She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s incredibly tough. I thought I was an athlete, but we’ve been taking hikes in the foothills after she gets off school, and she puts me to shame.”
“Well, honey, she’s Tibetan.”
“Even so, it’s humbling, and I don’t like humbling,” she said. “What’s so special about Tibetans, anyway?”
“They’ve got hemoglobin levels and a whole oxygen-delivery system that’s miles beyond ours. Vertical miles, literally.”
“She once said she has a mountain heart,” Alex reflected. “I don’t think she was talking about physiology, though.”