Exiles

by Cary Groner

  Tsering Wangmo chanted and sang, and from time to time put down the bell and blew the kangling, which pealed into the room, piercing and high-pitched. Lying there, Peter felt a shudder go through him. He had the uncanny sense—the physical sensation, up and down his spine—that Tsering Wangmo was calling someone or something, and that it had heard her and was on its way.

  A dull heaviness descended, and he seemed to fall half asleep, as if drugged. After a minute or so he couldn’t move; it was like sleep paralysis, when the brain immobilizes the body with chemicals during dreaming. It seemed to him, in fact, that he was asleep, since he couldn’t even move his eyes. His whole body developed a crawling sensation, as if insects were on him—in him—but he couldn’t scratch or even blink. He wondered why he didn’t feel afraid, but other than the itching, the sensation was like drifting in dreams during an afternoon nap, unable to move but strangely contented.

  After a few minutes the mastiff began to bark. There was a rifle shot from outside, and the barking stopped. Peter heard boots on the porch, saw the light change as the door was pushed open, and still Tsering Wangmo sang her chöd practice. Three young men came into the room, apparently the last of the guerrillas who had tracked them there, and they began shouting at the old woman. Peter wanted to intercede. He realized that Tsering Wangmo’s admonitions hadn’t been necessary, though; he couldn’t have moved or gotten up if he’d tried.

  Tsering Wangmo ignored the men. Finally one of them went over to her and pulled the drum out of her hand, then the bell. He apparently knew some rudimentary Tibetan, and he shouted at her. She responded quietly. Peter’s eyes stayed on the ceiling, and he could just barely see what was going on in his peripheral vision.

  The men came over to them, one by one, and looked into their faces. Peter stared straight ahead. One man nudged him with his boot; his body felt slack, lifeless, and he didn’t even flinch. When they looked at him, they seemed repulsed. He had the feeling from the tone of their conversation that they had a similar response to the others.

  They shouted at the old woman again, indicating with their hands that they wanted food. She nodded toward the pot on the stove, where the potatoes were simmering. One of the men went to the pot and lifted the lid, then shouted, dropped it, and retreated to the far corner of the room. The lid clanged to the floor, then wobbled down flat and lay still. The other two guerrillas went to look into the pot, then backed warily away.

  They were very angry and upset now, and appeared to have decided to leave. But on their way out, one of them turned back and leveled his rifle at Tsering Wangmo. He pulled the trigger, but the rifle did not fire. She picked up her bell and drum again, and began to play. The guerrilla pulled the trigger again, but the rifle just clicked. To test the gun, he aimed it at the ceiling, just over Peter’s head. This time it fired and blew a hole out of the roof, and an azure patch of sky appeared. The guerrilla aimed the gun at Tsering Wangmo a third time and pulled the trigger. Once again, it did not fire. He screamed in frustration and turned to go, slamming the butt of the gun into the doorframe as he stalked out.

  They all lay still for a few minutes more, until Tsering Wangmo finished singing and spoke to Devi.

  “She says you are safe now,” Devi said. “You may sit up.”

  The heavy paralysis dissipated, and soon Peter was able to move his fingers and toes. They all arose, sluggishly, and looked at one another, a little shell-shocked. He asked Devi what had happened.

  The old woman chuckled as she spoke to Devi, as if three lunatics had just barged in shouting nonsense and there’d been nothing she could do about it. Devi said the men had apparently seen them as corpses. They were disgusted that she was keeping dead bodies in her house, all bloated with maggots and covered by flies. They found the stench unbearable, but at least they felt their job was done and they could finally go home. When they went to take the food from the stove, they found that the pot contained a live cobra, which reared up and puffed out its hood, and that’s why they ran away.

  “The business with the rifle you saw for yourself,” Devi added drily. Tsering Wangmo clicked her tongue. “She says now, thanks to that stupid boy, she’ll have to fix the roof.”

  Something suddenly occurred to the old woman, and she got to her feet and shuffled outside. Ramesh and Peter followed her, and Devi got up and limped to the door. The mastiff lay on its side on the ground, its tongue lolled out. It had been shot through the chest and lay in the dust, in a pool of sticky, drying blood.

  Tsering Wangmo emitted a little cry of dismay and knelt by the dog, then put her hands on it. She probed the wound with her fingers but didn’t find a bullet; apparently it had gone straight through. She bent down and sucked at the hole, turning to spit clotted blood into the dust until it came out rich and red. She spoke to Devi, who went back into the house and brought her needle and thread. Tsering Wangmo stitched up the wound, then she and Devi rolled the dog over and she sewed up the other side. Peter still felt woozy and sat down on the porch step. The old woman knelt there in the dirt for a long time, pressing on the wound with her hand and reciting her prayers. Devi stayed right by her, watching attentively. Peter didn’t know why she’d bothered to stitch up the dog, since it was clearly too late for that.

  But then, after about ten minutes, the mastiff’s tail rose, just once, feebly, and thumped back down into the dust. Tsering Wangmo spoke gently to the dog. It opened its eyes about halfway, and the tail rose and thumped down again.

  Peter, Ramesh, and Devi looked at one another. Devi began to weep; she helped the old woman up, bowed to her, and led her back inside. Tsering Wangmo said something to Peter as she passed; Devi smiled and said, “She says don’t be too surprised; he’s a tough old dog. She wonders if you’d get him some water so she can rest.”

  Peter nodded and took the dog’s wooden bowl to the spring. The mastiff tried to lift its head, but it was still too weak, so Peter poured water into its mouth until it was strong enough to roll onto its stomach, raise its head, and lap some up on its own. Peter found it strange but vaguely pleasing to tend to the dog while Tsering Wangmo tended to Devi. The mastiff drained a couple of bowls, then lay down on its side in the sun, sighed, and went to sleep.

  | | |

  The next day they rested. Peter and Tsering Wangmo took turns changing Devi’s dressing, and by late afternoon she was able to do it herself. The leg was still swollen, but the smell of putrefaction was gone. The skin around the wounds looked pink and good, and the holes had closed and begun to seal over.

  “I’ve never seen a gunshot wound heal this fast,” Peter said. In response, Devi just nodded toward Tsering Wangmo, who stood at the counter, humming to herself and chopping herbs.

  | | |

  The following morning, Peter and Ramesh patched the roof, then Peter cut a sapling and made Devi a primitive crutch. She still limped badly, though, and he wasn’t sure she’d be able to make it down the mountain even with help. He knew that he and Ramesh wouldn’t be able to carry her such a distance, in any case.

  As he was mulling over what to do, the old woman told him to keep the shirt and offered them some tsampa, which they accepted gratefully. Peter told her he would find a way to send some money. Tsering Wangmo waved her hand dismissively and said she couldn’t care less.

  Devi sat on the front porch, drinking tea and watching. Peter went over and squatted down beside her.

  “Are you strong enough for this?” he asked.

  She surprised him by laughing. “We’re thinking the same thing but for different reasons,” she said. “My leg’s no good yet, but that’s not why I want to stay.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Devi sipped her tea. “You’ve seen what this woman can do,” she said. “I may never have a chance like this again.”

  “A chance for what?”

  “Peter, think about it. You should know me by now. As long as she’s willing to have me, I’ll study with her.”

  “What about Alex?”r />
  She looked briefly troubled. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But it will be a couple of weeks before my leg is strong enough to walk down the mountain, and you can’t wait. You’ve got to get back and figure out how to get her out of there.”

  Peter didn’t know what to say, but he knew her well enough to doubt she’d change her mind. Ramesh spoke to her in Nepali and finally acceded to her wishes as well.

  Peter hugged her and said goodbye. She and Tsering Wangmo sat on the porch as Peter and Ramesh headed down through the meadow. It was full of spring wildflowers just beginning to bloom.

  “She always this way,” Ramesh said. “Stubborn like goat.” He looked back and waved at his sister one last time.

  “That’s why she and Alex got along so well,” Peter said.

  Late in the afternoon they came to the road and flagged down a truck. In Pokhara, Peter found a tour group of Americans at a small café. He used one of their cellphones to call the clinic and had them get Mina.

  She came to the phone, and he said her name. There was a pause, then she began to cry.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  She was waiting at 2:00 A.M. when the bus pulled in. Peter went straight into her arms, and they just stood together for a few moments. Sangita and Sonam had caught a ride to the station with Mina; Sangita rushed to her son and wrapped him in a hug so tight he cried out for her to take it easy. Everyone was in tears.

  On the way home, Peter explained to Mina what had happened, while Ramesh, sitting in back with his parents, spoke rapidly in Tibetan, apparently bringing them up to date about his life and what had become of Devi. Sangita kept her arms around him and dabbed at her eyes the whole way.

  Mina dropped them off and took Peter to his house. “What are you going to do about Alex?”

  “I’ll be at the embassy when it opens in a few hours, and we’ll go from there.” He was so tired he could barely stand.

  “Have you eaten?”

  “Just a little the past couple of days.”

  She parked and went inside with him.

  “Your old man’s not going to like this,” he said.

  “Too bad. Have a shower, and I’ll get something ready.”

  When he came downstairs in his sweats twenty minutes later, he smiled, surprised that he was actually glad to see dal-bhat.

  He ate until he thought he’d burst, then they left the dishes in the sink and she came upstairs with him. She put her arms around him and they kissed, but he gently pulled away.

  “Look,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I’m exhausted and I can’t really think about anything but Alex right now. Could we just sleep awhile?”

  They lay down together, and she put her arms around him. “I thought I’d lost you,” she said quietly.

  “Usha’s all right?” he asked.

  “She’s fine. She’s been worried, though.”

  | | |

  He had something else he wanted to say, but his mind was blurring, he couldn’t find the words, and then he was asleep.

  He awakened three hours later, at 6:00, his heart pounding. Mina was still curled around him. He said her name.

  She opened her eyes slowly, then started up. “Oh, shit,” she said. “He’ll be awake already. He is not going to be happy.”

  She kissed Peter, put on her shoes, and bolted.

  He was at the gates of the American embassy at 8:00 when it opened. They steered him to an attaché who dealt with missing children and related emergencies. Alice Finley was a plump, imposing redhead in her forties who leveled a gaze at Peter that was at once sympathetic and skeptical. He got the feeling she had heard way too many tales of woe in her career.

  There was a huge contour map of the country on her wall. “Show me where this village was,” she said.

  He went over and squinted at it. He marked the route with his finger, as well as he could figure, northwest from Pokhara to the Annapurna foothills. He didn’t know the first village’s name—or if it even had a name—but it didn’t matter, because only a handful of the larger towns were marked. The stream they’d walked up could have been any of a dozen that branched out all through the mountains. He stared, then slowly traced a circle.

  “Somewhere in here,” he said.

  She stood beside him, peering at the map. “That’s roughly the size of Maine.”

  She called the RNA chopper squadron, but no one knew anything, because Colonel Pradhan, Mina’s father, had made a private requisition and the pilot was, of course, dead. Pradhan himself had no idea where Krishna had been headed.

  Finley hung up the phone, looking sour. “They were pretty unpleasant,” she said. “They seem to feel that if you hadn’t requested this favor, their friend Krishna would still be alive.”

  Peter called Franz.

  “Siruyama, I think,” Franz said. “I think that was the town’s name, something like that.”

  Finley called the CIA station chief, who was downstairs and had satellite images. He emailed one that showed the location of a village with a similar name that appeared to be in about the right place. Peter traced their route upstream a few miles, but he had no idea where they’d left the river and crossed the ridge, or in which of several valleys they’d come to the town used by the guerrillas. What had seemed simple and straightforward on the ground looked convoluted and confusing from outer space.

  The photo showed small villages all through the region. He made another circle with his finger.

  “Now we’ve got it down to the size of Rhode Island,” said Finley. “Rhode Island with twenty-five-thousand-foot mountains. I guess that’s progress, sort of.”

  Peter called Sangita to see if he could reach Ramesh, but he’d gone out with his father and wouldn’t return for a while.

  Peter turned back to Finley. “There’s got to be some way to get up there and get her out,” he said. “Do you have someone who can fly me?”

  Finley pressed the intercom button on her phone. “Karla, two coffees, if you please.” She turned to Peter. “Maybe you should sit.”

  He had thought it would be straightforward: American citizen gets kidnapped, American embassy arranges for ransom, American commandos get the girl and bring her home. What the hell could be the problem?

  Karla brought the coffee and left. Peter took a sip. He was trying to be nice but not too nice, the kind of person Finley would go out of her way to help because she liked him on the one hand but didn’t want any trouble from him on the other.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s hear it.”

  “First,” Finley said, then stopped, choosing her words. “First, we can’t fly you or anybody else in there.”

  “I just flew in. What are you talking about?”

  She shifted her weight. “You flew in under the auspices of a relief organization outside of U.S. authority or control, on a helicopter provided by the RNA.”

  “So?”

  “The compound was fortified with SAMs and various other ordnance, yes?”

  “Yeah …”

  “Look,” said Finley. “The U.S. keeps no military aircraft in this country, and if we did we wouldn’t use them for this.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if they too were shot down, we’d suddenly be on one side of a civil war.”

  He had a feeling of sickening descent, not unlike he’d felt in the helicopter itself. “You’re not already?”

  She shook her head. “We’re doing our best to stay out of it, because Prachanda and his armies are strong enough now that soon they’ll be able to force elections. We want them to force elections, in fact, because it will probably end the monarchy, and you know how we feel about monarchies.”

  “Monarchies that aren’t Saudi Arabian and sitting on a ton of oil, you mean.”

  She eyed him a little disapprovingly. “Nevertheless,” she said, “we want to bring them into the legislative process and end this disaster of a war.”

  “Why can’t you contact Prachanda directly and get him involved?”


  “Because first, he won’t talk to us. Second, because despite everything I’ve told you, the State Department still considers him a terrorist. It would torpedo our leverage with the legitimate government.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Alice.”

  She sighed. “Also, your daughter will probably turn into a PR bonanza for these guys, and releasing her would be admitting that she’d been captured instead of converted. So they’d lose both the human shield and the propaganda bonus.”

  Peter stared at her. “You can’t be telling me there’s nothing to be done.”

  She sighed. “I’m telling you there’s nothing we can do. I already know what you’re thinking, and we can’t send in any sort of military personnel, for the same reason we can’t send in aircraft.”

  He tried to keep his voice down, but he was frustrated and angrier by the second. “Alice, this is unbelievable.”

  “Look, I can call my best contacts in the RNA, and with any luck they’ll meet with you this morning. It’s their duchy; they’ve got to handle it.”

  “You have kids?” he asked.

  “Don’t start the ‘You have kids?’ thing with me, Peter, please. In fact I have a son and a daughter. They go to the international school here, and I know exactly how murderously crazed I’d be if a bunch of thugs with AKs overran the place and I found myself in your shoes. I think you’re being a model of civility, frankly. But the situation would be exactly the same.”

  “For Christ’s sake, we’re the most powerful nation on earth—”

  “We can’t nuke them, Peter. We need a flyswatter, not an H-bomb, and the RNA has all the flyswatters.”

  He stood up. “Call them,” he said. “While I’m standing here, I want to hear you do it.”

  “Of course.”

  She arranged for him to go later that morning.

  “One thing,” she said. “Bear in mind that she’s probably safe.”

  He turned to face her. “She has dysentery, and they have no medicines or water filters there, so she’s not going to be getting over it anytime soon. Every guy in the place was giving her the eye when we walked in, that lovely feral teenage-guy look that says, ‘I might just decide to fuck you sometime and you won’t be able to do shit about it.’ So don’t tell me she’s safe, because she isn’t safe. I brought her here to make her safe. Great how that worked out, huh?”