Today, he thinks, he will put aside his remembrances; the reminders Mac and Lhosta have brought up to him, the knowledge of why his daughter waits today; he will celebrate with a happy heart. The sunlight hits the monastery and lifts his heavy mood toward the joy he knows he will feel today. He spins a prayer wheel and listens for its rhythmic chatter, ticking as it twirls, and then another, the feelings of joy rising in him like the sun he has watched since the deep blue darkness of this morning. He will greet this new year, he decides, with the love and joy of all he has fought for, all that he has protected. The sights and sounds of Darjeeling are not his homeland, he thinks, but he has much to be thankful for, here.
Greeted by familiar faces, monks, other resistance fighters who have escaped to Darjeeling, Tenzing is among friends, here, he is reminded. He will not open the dumpling stand today. He will go home and make guthuk for his family and friends. He is very good at making guthuk. He sometimes laughs at how many 'friends' he has at Losar. The dumplings Tenzing has brought, today, to the temple, are not the dumplings that he makes at the stand. They are a special type of dumpling he only makes for Losar. Hidden in each ball of dough is a serendipitous ingredient, a charm. One part karma, one part fortune cookie, the center of the dumplings hold a symbol of luck or chance, a comment from an edible crystal ball. Tenzing puts red chilies in the center for those who are 'talkative'; rice in the center for those who have fortitude; wool in the center for those who'll have a very good year; and three each year - of the many he makes - a lump of coal in the center for those who have a 'black heart' to find themselves.
Lhosta finds wool in the center of his dumpling. He smiles at Tenzing and waves as Tenzing heads home to prepare the guthuk. Lhosta shows his dumpling to the younger monk who stands near him and passes the basket of dumplings to him. The young monk stares at the dumplings. A mind game, which dumpling? He lifts the basket and tilts it to one side. Looking at the dumplings that rest under the top layer. He does not want the dumpling with the lump of coal. Lhotsa remembers being that young, when a symbol of virtue could not rest upon him. He was strong and knew what to do.
1956 Litang.
Lhosta wakes, as usual, at 4:30 a.m. He dresses, slowly, shrugging off the sleepiness and cold. He pulls on boots and a leather, fur-lined cap. His long hair, held up in rings, is smashed against the warm fur of the hat. He adds more layers to his clothing, a warm vest of yak and a fur-lined coat. He heats yak milk in a stainless steel pan and pours it into his favorite cup. The steam curls up around Lhosta's nostrils as he hovers his cold nose over the heat of the cup. He drinks, slowly. There is no hurry. He has risen in plenty of time.
Lhosta watches the herds today. He does this regularly. He is young, not ready to stay in the monastery all day. Out in the open, he thinks about ghod. He has time to remember his lessons. Out in the open with the herds, his mind is clear, filled with the openness from moutains to sky, from bird to beetle, ghod to animal, animal to human. He thinks about reincarnation. He thinks about the Dalai Lama. Lhosta thinks about how the seekers must have found the young Dalai Lama when he was a boy.
"Tukulu," he thinks.
The seeker came to the house of the child, who is now the 14th Dalai Lama, Lhosta remembers this lesson. He brought with him two walking sticks and laid them against the wall of the house. The child grabbed onto one the walking sticks.
He smiled, just a boy he was, and said, "Thank you for bringing back my walking stick." The boy did not pick up the seeker's walking stick. He picked up the walking stick of the 13th Dalai Lama.
That Lama, now deceased, had been a good friend to the seeker who said to the boy, "You are the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama," and he went about the process of tukulu, for the boy did show, in fact he was the reincarnation and the 14th Dalai Lama. This is Lhosta's favorite story. He thinks about this when he is walking with his herders stick out in the wide, open fields while watching the herds. He likes the days he watches the animals; these are good days, usually. Unless the weather is too severe. The weather is not severe today. He will enjoy this day. He will be dedicated today, in his thoughts and in his actions. Lhosta sets his intention. He will, he thinks, live dedicated today.
At 5:15 a.m., Lhosta heads for the first field of the day by latern light. The sun has not yet risen over the jagged peaks of the Himalayas. The yak will be brought in for milking. The horses and sheep will be brought out to the fields. This is Lhosta's chore today. He opens the gate. Most of the horses run out. The sheep form a group as they always do. Lhosta uses his herder's stick to guide the group out of the gate. He must prod several of the livestock, reluctant to leave, out of the gate. Lhosta lifts his stick up and down. He shouts calls in low tones, moving behind the animals, until they are all out into the field, into the wide, open grasslands. Lhosta hurries to keep up. The animals are feeling their freedom. Lhosta smiles watching them. The sun is just now peeking over the moutain crest. It has taken Lhosta nearly an hour to release all the animals toward the first field. They are nearly toward the second field when Lhosta hears it. Lhosta stops mid-stride; he pivots on his standing heel when he hears it. Turning quickly as possible, Lhosta falls to the ground. Lhosta has heard gun fire. He hears shouting. He hears crying. Lhosta lays against the ground frozen stiff with fear. Afraid to question, afraid to hear the answers, Lhosta's thoughts race. Lhosta's thoughts repeat the information, until he is not too afraid to understand it. The gunfire, he realizes, is coming from the monastery. Lhosta cries out. He cries out loud. Lhosta realizes the Litang monastery is under attack. Lhosta is nearly two fields away. Lhosta hears himself, outloud, cry like an animal. His cheek hits the ground. His hands in fists. His knees bend toward his stomach, gripped with the intensity of fear and anguish, as it passes through him, Lhosta's stomach churns in knots - a cramp. Lhosta's fist pounds the earth, the tundra, the fields he loves.
"The monastery!" he finally breathes out. "No!" Lhosta pushes his torso up from the ground. The gunfire is rapid now. There are shouts and calls of panic and command. It is not yet dawn. The attack could not have been anticipated.
"The monks will be fighting now," Lhosta realizes, "with swords." In his anguish Lhosta tries to cry out again. He has lost his voice.
Nothing will come but the stomach pain every time he tries to move his legs toward running to the monastery. Running to help in the fight - the fight he does not want. The fight he did not cause. The fight, unless defending, he does not believe in; but he does believe in defending the monastery. He believes in defending Buddism. He believes in defending his friends, his family, Tibetans, Tibet. But Lhosta's legs do not move. He does not get up.
He kneels to the ground, to the earth; and when he hears a cry in a familiar dialect of Amdo, "Run!", Lhosta pushes up from the ground and runs. Lhosta runs for the second field. From the corner of his eye, Lhosta sees a boy jump onto a black horse.
Lhosta watches that boy hold onto the horse's mane. He watches that boy lay down against the shoulders of the horse as the horse runs, holding on for dear life; escaping for dear life, the horse running wild amid the sounds of gunfire. Lhosta looks around for places to hide. Then Lhosta hears it, the closest gunshot yet mixed with the wild squall of a horse in pain. He watches the black horse fall, toppling over the boy. Lhosta thinks they are both dead. Lhosta runs for a ditch near by. Lhosta lays in the ditch, without a weapon to defend himself, for nearly an hour. The sun of morning fully up, the shooting has gone on for an hour.
Exhausted and shivering from the fear and the dampness, Lhosta waits, silently urging the invaders to leave his home. Silently, through his thoughts, surveying the damage he thinks he will find once he finally returns 'home' from his hiding place; after the fight has ceased, clinging to the idea that the invaders will retreat from the battle once they have won. Within thirty more minutes, Lhosta hears a voice; a cry of mourning. Lhosta climbs up the side of the ditch, on his hands and knees. He peers over the edge. Near the dead horse, he sees a man. The
man is crying. The man rubs his hand along the side of the horse, and before Lhosta can speak to him, the man runs away.
"Wait!" Lhosta cries out. But after the hour and a half of silence, the cry is just too quiet to stop the man from running. Lhosta watches as the man's form disappears behind the crest of a hill.
"No!" Lhosta pounds his fist against the tundra that he loves a second time in the same day.
"Wait," he says quietly.
And then he hugs his knees in anguish, again a knotted stomach pain, and whines outloud, nearly in tears, "No, please, wait," Lhosta begins to cry wet tears from the corners of his eyes, tears without sounds, tears like he has never cried, and during these tears Lhosta allows himself to wonder, for the first time, what he will do if the invaders never leave his home. After several moments, Lhosta pulls himself together and crawls back down into his ditch. And then he hears it. The sound of the invaders: calls and shouts abruptly bellowed, Chinese commands in harsh tones, footsteps and the occasional sound of a rifle being cocked. Lhosta's keen sense of hearing does not allude him on this day nor any other since he was a toddler, and he quickly realizes that the sounds are coming closer.
"They are coming this way, along the trail route to the back of the ditch," he thinks, and he calculates the distance from which the shouts are coming to make ready a plan of escape or hiding; to make ready a plan to live.
"Live dedicated." Lhosta's intention repeats through his mind like a mantra. Lhosta begins to dig a hole, a hole already started. He digs out a burrow - quickly. At the approach of the hoof beats and gravel crunching under boots just reaching the crest of the nearest hillside, Lhosta has dug out the burrow large enough to submerge himself up to his knees, or if he bends them, up to his thighs. He turns and sits. He can only fit his butt in it.
"This is no good!" he panics, his eyes searching for a hiding spot amid the barren tundra and the ditchside - the ditch's bottom full of freezing water which the sun has just begun to warm. Lhosta's hands squeeze the air as he paces, searching for some cover. He lifts his eyes, a moment, thinking; and then he sees it. He sees the herd. The herd has assembled, huddling close for warmth, grazing in the sun spot just above the ditch.
"I only had to look up," he thinks and his heart fills with thankfulness at the appearance of the herd he loves. He runs as quietly as possible to the center of the herd, touching one animal at a time, staying always behind an animal, always out of sight to the approaching invaders, always watching the trail past the ditch, the trail from where the men and sounds are approaching. Lhosta breathes with the herd; his loud exhales with the snorts and coughs and steamy exhales of the animals. He inhales with the herd.
In his mind, he blends with the animals. In his mind, he tells the animals, "Stay together."
In his mind he thinks, "I will not be seen, or, I will be seen as an animal." And he begins to breathe more steadily. He begins to think more calmly and as the men march into sight, Lhosta begins to watch them.
"Like an eagle at it's prey," he thinks, "like a fox at a rabbit," and Lhosta lives through this. The others he watches, are not so lucky.
Lhosta watches, not affording himself the luxury of human emotion at this time, this time of survival, this time where these people back home mean more to him than anything - if there are survivors. Lhosta knows the herd has come for him, to shadow him. He is close with the animals and they have heard the shots all day, still they have come; but, Lhosta does not take this for granted. He stays in his mindset, breathes with the herd, watches the humans, fearless, like an animal. Lhosta must watch like an animal, like the disaffected herd - the grass, the sky, the clouds, the sun, the warmth, the ditch, the death, the humans, the shouts, the gun shots, the temperature, the freezing cold water, the water the herd will later drink from, running now with blood, the blood of the humans crumpling from gun shots, laying in the water, shot by the men standing at the ditchside. Lhosta breathes steady with the herd as the cries go mournful, painful and chilling. The remaining men are commanded to lie down in the freezing water at the bottom of the ditch. They are Tibetan men. Men from the Litang monastery. Lhosta cannot allow himself to think about who and what he sees. The herd does not disperse, and Lhosta knows, if he refrains from fear, they won't.
Lhosta must think with the herd, "Stay. Stay together. Breathe calmly. Stay." Lhosta lives dedicated. Lhosta lives through this.
After the men have shot all of the Tibetans lying in the ditch that day, in full view of the herd, the sun, and Lhosta, they march away; not over the crest of the hill where the man who cried over the horse had run, but back toward Litang, back toward the monastery, back toward Lhosta's home. Nonetheless, they march away. They leave Lhosta breathing, human breaths, his chest rising and falling with the fullness of emotional exhaustion and relief.
"They are gone," he thinks, and then he is enveloped in a kind of stunned silence. A thick, empty silence in which Lhosta stands motionless for a moment. Stunned because he cannot go back home. Stunned because he has witnessed a massacre without the luxury of an emotion, without the human reaction of crying or fear, but with the indifference of an animal. Stunned because Lhosta is not an animal and now that he has 'hidden' the emotion, he does not know where it has gone. His eyes see the blood filled water and the human bodies lying in the ditch, his eyes fill with water, but before Lhosta can cry outloud with human emotion, before Lhosta can check the bodies for human life and drag out the wounded, Lhosta just runs. He runs over the crest of the hill hoping he will disappear from view just like the man who'd cried over the horse. He runs away from his homeland, away from Litang and although the trail is treacherous at the top of the earth, 400 meters above Lhasa - the 'highest' city in the world - Lhosta runs, as best he can, that day, without falling, not a centavo in his pocket, not a crust of bread to eat or spare. Lhosta runs away from his homeland and into the Himalayas. Into the Himalayan nights and into the Himalayan wilderness, Lhosta runs.
1958 Leadville.
The boy stands looking toward the table, rosy cheeked and lightly sweaty from six songs of 'dancing', neither dancer knowing when to stop until Mary Beth finally stomps one tired foot against the dance corner's floor where the red and blue lights meld out a purple spot upon grey linoleum.
Her shoulders bending forward, Mary Beth calls out in a whiny voice over the music, "Do we have to keep doing this?!" to the woman serving Mac another round.
"No, no," she makes a hercking sound from the back of her throat and looks at her customers, "God, you'd think I'd've asked them to scrub the floors or something. C'mon back over here!" she says. Mary Beth immediately stomps behind the counter. She fumbles near the register, among order tablets, menus, and a jar of pens and pencils, grabbing up a white topped, brand new, bottle of 'Pink Shimmer' frosted nail polish from the Cotton Candy Ice Collection by Max Factor, and shakes, hard. The bartendar passes out New Year's hats and horns. She brings a glittered headband with 1959 at the top of it to the counter of thick, dark wood, where Mary Beth leans and slowly 'paints' careful, overlapping strokes of candy colored gloss.
"Thickly coated, freshly laid," Mary Beth giggles as the bartender sets down her 'hat'.
"Don't we wish," Stephanie quips.
"Awh!" Mary Beth complains looking at her choice, her hands held out, fingernails drying in the air, not able to touch the hats or headbands, "I wanted the one that says 'Happy New Year'."
"You get what you get, Mary Bethers," the bartender snaps her gum, "that's the breaks."
"I suppose you get the one that says 'Happy New Year'?"
"Ha! You're right!" She puts it on her head in front of Mary Beth, who still can't move her wet, polished fingers, "Happy New Year, darlin'."
Back at the table the boy smiles at the Tibetan men who tease him in a language Mac does not understand. The boy puts on an electro-blue foil hat. He puts a paper horn in his mouth and blows it, hard. The paper uncurls to a stiff rod of air out into the center of their circle
and sounds a loud, off-tune note. The men get a hearty laugh out of that. When the bartender approaches the table, showing off her tiara of glitter, the boy smiles and asks Tenzing to ask her in English, "What do you want me to do now?"
"O darlin'," she swoons, "don't ask me that. Not in front of these boys." Stephanie thinks she is being funny. Tenzing grows silent. He does not translate this. Mac raises an eyebrow and the bartender, for the first time that night, craves a drink.
"Don't be silly," she pats Tenzing's shoulder. "I was only teasing. Are you his protector or sumthin'? You seem awfully protective."
"I'm his brother," Tenzing says.
"Oh!" Mac slaps his hand on the table. "You've gotta be kidding me, he's your brother?! Great. Great man. Good to know him."
"Well, isn't that nice," the bartender says. She looks at Mac, obviously the most important patron of the night, customer-service speaking, and tells him she'll just be a minute.
"Just want to make sure you're good for a while. Gonna take a little break," she explains and pats her hair.
"You do that," Mac approves. "We're doing just fine, here."
After Stephanie leaves the table, Mac breaks the tension and the silence, asking Tenzing to translate to the boy the information that Mac has just become aware that, infact, the boy is Tenzing's younger brother. Tenzing does, and he is solemn about it. Tenzing thinks he would rather be back at Camp about now. When it comes to his brother, he does not joke or tease. He does not want his brother in any trouble. He does not want his brother too 'attracted' to American life. It was not Tenzing's idea, he tells Mac, to allow the boy to come with him to Colorado. It was their oldest brother, Danthra, who insisted.
Leadville: 300 Days Away Page 2