by Nancy Young
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After Madame Lowell’s passing, Isabelle and Walk-Tall met every day at the old cedar. As she listened to his gentle words like the soft contours of the summer forest, she could feel his life essence growing more ephemeral and his once-strong body increasingly limpid, almost fluid. And as they lay together in an embrace imagining their future together, she felt the growing child within her pulse and vibrate, as if it were drawing its very life-source away from its father. With sadness and trepidation she listened to his entreaties for her to come to live amongst his family. They would show her the way of his people and teach her the multitudinous uses of the medicinal plants she eagerly pointed out to him from her book.
But Isabelle remained at the cabin, where she kept a sad and watchful eye on the abandoned church, its slow ruin like an unread book fading and yellowing upon a shelf. The old cedar became their sanctuary for the remainder of her term, but the wounds Walk-Tall sustained nearly eight months earlier never healed completely and the pain once again slashed through the muscles of his stomach like a harvesting reaper through brown grass. The lingering infection now held him captive and the shooting pains returned, punctuating the lovers’ tranquility with its cruel reminders.
Struggling to dismount his regal paint horse for the last time, Walk-Tall arrived early at the meeting place dressed in his finest buckskin vest and a pair of dungarees Isabelle had sewn for him. He still made a fine strong silhouette, even though his thick black hair was matted against his sweat-soaked forehead and even with the frosty bite of late autumn, his face and body were flushed with heat. The sound of his horse’s even footsteps together with his heavy slow tread through the shrubbery told her they were near, and she lumbered across the wooded terrain to meet him on the path.
A single glance at his flushed face and she was gripped with fear. Directly to the cedar she led him. There she removed his drenched vest and laid him down on the bed of blankets and pine needles and retreated to fetch water from the creek. On her return, she found him sitting slightly hunched over, his lower back against the old roots and his steed anxiously pawing the ground nearby. He gestured to the horse’s saddle bags — there she found where he stowed the large pieces of white willow bark collected on his journey to the cedar. She administered these natural analgesics to her patient, gripping the pieces with her bare fingers and stripping them finer for easier mastication.
Desperate now to dull the pain, Walk-Tall chewed the bark like a good patient and eventually fell into a deep sleep as Isabelle tenderly drew her damp handkerchief over his brow. With her other hand she fanned him with a small Chinese fan of red silk that Madame Lowell had bought her years before from a passing frontier trinket salesman. While he slept she managed to hoist her own body and its rotund burden beside him. In this way she could keep her eye on him as she herself reclined. Fanning them both with the faded red silk fan, she extended a tired arm over his body and swept it over her own face at alternating waves. Slowly the tune came to her. A soft melody sung with the sweetest voice. Her mother’s favorite piece, a nameless tune she played with such passion and sadness that Isabelle often wondered where the wellspring, the source of that intense emotion, could be. “Sleep now,” Isabelle whispered as the soaring music reached its summit and loosed its final crescendo of falling notes. “Sleep now, my love, and when you awake, you and I will go to your home and I will join your people.”
In her repose, with her mother’s beloved guitar clutched to her body like a child’s blanket, Isabella slipped into a slumber so deep her breath came sporadically … angels and ordinary men wept from the sheer beauty of its sound. Engulfed with the sense of Walk-Tall’s presence in the embrace of the old tree, she saw her own body of flesh and blood recede into nothingness. She knew that when her own time arrived to leave the world for eternity and to pass into the spirit realm she too would return to this old cedar. But that would be a time determined not by her will but the will of the marching seasons upon her soul. For now, however, she must find the resolve to carry on, to raise her child — the very fruit of their union, and protect him from the fierceness of this sparsely charted frontier.
9
Neena (Chitwan), 1974
From the moment they arrived in the Himalayas, Col Tenderfield knew that it was going to be an exhilarating journey. A glance about him toward the undulating peaks and monumental valleys and he felt like Moses at Mount Sinai staring into the rugged landscape, waiting daily for a message from God. It would come, he had no doubt, maybe not in flames, but perhaps on the wing of a Himalayan monal, or on the back of a rambling yak, or more likely from the lips of a young Sherpa lad.
Fifteen years in this part of the world, although a mere page out of the weighty well-worn tome of his life, gave him a new perspective on the relativity of time and the value of human life. His students arrived as children and within a short five years were adults. Meanwhile, Ellen and he were like ghosts to the children. They never aged and every winter they vanished off the mountain to a world beyond which they had never wandered.
On one such vacation, the couple retreated to an elephant safari for a glimpse of the one-horned rhinoceros and Bengal tiger. The newly established animal sanctuary at Chitwan, or Heart of the Jungle, was used by the government at the end of the nineteenth century as the favorite winter hunting ground for Nepal’s ruling class. In an area known as Four Mile Forest, visitors’ camps were set up for the feudal big game hunters and their entourage, where they stayed for months shooting hundreds of tigers, rhinoceroses, leopards, and sloth bears, now nearly extinct from the sport. The Tenderfields held no desire to shoot game, but the possibility of seeing for themselves the majesty of the Bengal in such close proximity that only could be achieved in a loosely regulated animal zoo like Chitwan brought them that late autumn to the park ready to behold the beast in awe.
Chitwan did not fail to deliver. Ellen held her breath as she was allowed to move closer to the caged tiger than she’d imagined. Nearly within her reach, if she dared to do it, was a beautiful male specimen, his massive regal head held high as if he knew his captivity was a mere formality. One large pliable paw extended beyond the palings of the wire cage and Ellen observed that its width across was wider than her own head, and one unfriendly swipe from that clawed hand could certainly have caused serious damage, if not death. Yet she edged closer, and immediately Col reached out to restrain her. He did not like the look of that powerful arm from which the paw extended, its girth about equal to his wife’s slender waist but surely twice as muscular.
A soft voice immediately came upon them from behind. “Don’t worry. Shahim here was raised from birth in the Park. He was found quite helpless as a newborn kitten after his mother was shot by game hunters. He is rather tame for a young adult Bengal of his age.”
Ellen and Col both turned to find an attractive and petite young woman of Asian descent peering at them expectantly. Her long dark brown hair was parted down the middle of her tidy head, and below her arched eyebrows a pair of gold wire-rimmed glasses perched studiously upon a small freckled nose. Below it a full mouth was shaped in a friendly smile.
“You don’t say?” Col replied, immediately charmed by her proper English diction. “Hello. I’m Col Tenderfield,” he continued, extending a hand. “And this is my wife, Ellen.” The young woman took his hand and introduced herself.
“Dr. Neena Tan. I’m Chitwan’s bird expert.” She shook Col’s hand firmly and observed the older man’s look of mild surprise. “Oh,” she continued. “I suppose you are surprised that they have a bird expert here? The burgeoning number of tourists frequenting this oasis of species diversity has warranted the employment of a specialist like me. An Australian government grant. I was hired to interpret the calls and clicks of the various flycatchers, vultures, and cuckoos that reside here.”
“Not surprised at all,” Col replied, “Very pleased to meet you, Miss Tan.”
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bsp; “That’s Dr. Tan, Col.” Ellen extended a hand, which the younger woman took and shook softly. “Pleased to meet you too.”
“We are running a missionary school up at Jiri,” Col added, smiling broadly.
“Oh, really?” she replied, reciprocating the broad smile. “I had heard that someone had come to restart that school. So pleased to meet you!”
“So tell me, Dr. Tan. How did you come to have such a lovely Oxford accent? You don’t come by that accent around here much.”
“Please call me Neena! Well, it is a rather uninteresting story, really,” she began. “I received my education first in Australia, then in England. I originally completed a medical degree at King’s College before enrolling in Oxford’s doctoral program and becoming an ornithologist.”
“You’re a medical doctor?” Ellen asked, amazed at this young woman, who couldn’t possibly have fit in all that education in so few years.
“Yes. That is so. I practiced as a GP briefly in a hospital in Surrey, England. I did enjoy the work, but I found it disconcerting that my patients often asked for a ‘real’ English doctor, even when I was in the room. Very disappointing. I suppose it didn’t help that I look much younger than my years. Of course, I did start at King’s College at fifteen. Anyhow, I enrolled in the doctoral program in ornithology.”
“That’s quite a jump,” the older woman replied.
“Yes, but not really,” she returned. “While I was studying medicine, I also studied several Asian and European languages. I found languages fascinating. I was quite good at intuiting and hearing patterns and quick at mimicking sounds — basically the building blocks of all phrases in human language. Just like music.”
“How many languages do you speak?”
“Nine. I speak French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Sherpa, and Nepali. Well actually, that’s fourteen with English, Mandarin, Malay, Hokkien, and Vietnamese,” she added. “I forgot my familial languages!” She laughed with a light chirp like a bird.
“Fourteen languages!” Col exclaimed. “That must be a record?”
“Hardly. Then again, the Scandinavian languages are all quite similar, particularly in writing, so they might even be considered as one language with three dialects, with German a close relative; same for French, Spanish and Portuguese; and of course Hokkien, Malay and Vietnamese.” She did not mention that her command of languages could have been considered thirty, if the call of birds could also be considered dialects.
Neena was on her third field research trip in Nepal. After Col and Ellen’s two-week stay at Chitwan, they invited her to visit their school, and it was on one of these visits that Col inquired about going with her on one of her visits to witness the arrival of the hawk-eagles in spring near the highest peak in the world.
“There is a wonderful village called Namche Bazaar, which was an amazing crossroads of Tibetan, Nepali, and Chinese trade in the Middle Ages, as it still is today. It is more vibrant and enterprising than one would expect at such altitude — today’s mountain explorers have made enterprise here viable. Sir Edmund Hillary recruited his Sherpa aides for his historic climb of Everest from this village.”
“Will it be OK for us to go, at our age? Is it a long walk?” Ellen asked.
“She means me to go,” Col corrected.
“Both of us, Col. You are as fit as a fiddle. I am the one with the arthritis in my knee.”
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Tenderfield. It is a serious, but not impossible trek for an elder person. And altitude sickness is not an age affliction. I have heard that a ninety-year-old woman from the United States recently completed the trek from Jiri to Namche without incident. She had been doing the trek every seven years since she was fifty!”
“Is that right? Then I am in! I shall be fine, Ellen. Don’t worry!”
“I shall also arrange to hire two mountain guides or sherpas. They will carry your packs and also help with the trail navigation should we require it.”
“Ellen, are you in?” Col felt a new excitement that he had not felt for some time. Ellen remained quiet, but she nodded as Neena reassured her.
“We shall go at a comfortable pace. The mountains have their own rhythms for anyone who goes there. And,” Neena added for reassurance, “in the unlikely event that you — or anyone of us — cannot walk any further, we can always take the plane that transports climbers between Kathmandu and an airstrip in Lukla just before you reach the Bazaar — it cuts the trail time by half to three-quarters.”
“It does sound like a trip-of-a-lifetime,” Ellen agreed.
“This lifetime!” Col exclaimed with finality. Both women nodded and Ellen smiled at the look of delight on her husband’s face.
“When do we leave?”
“Spring is the best time. Late April?”
Neena returned fortnightly to help her friends prepare for the one-and-a-half-month-long trek, arriving early to the schoolhouse to lecture on the flora and fauna of the area to the small clutch of schoolchildren in the single classroom. For her fellow travelers she expounded upon the breathtaking vistas that they could expect to see in the highlands of the Everest Trail and at Sagarmatha herself. Frequently she stopped to ask the children if she was correct. The little ones looked on in wonder, but the older ones readily participated in her dialogues, citing the location of colorful stands of rhododendron, the names of various local birds, or where a large yak herd could be found grazing on Uncle Kili Sherpa’s pasture.
Her research skills were well-honed by her academic achievements, but on a personal level, she also liked to be diligent, in particular with the safety of her companions, and so she mapped out the entire route in advance, researched the possible flora, fauna, and landmarks they would encounter, and made extensive lists of all the provisions they would need. Adding twelve more bird “dialects” to her repertoire was also on her personal and professional list. Each new distinct sound of a bird species was another feather in her cap. She needed no recording devices to help her remember those whistles and clicks, for her facility at distinguishing fine nuances of sounds was so well developed that she could hear a new call and instinctively identify its purpose simply by distinguishing the final two seconds of the call. If it went down it was a mating call by a male, if up it was the answer of the female. If it was sustained, it was a distress call. If simply communication for communication’s sake, she knew that as well. Each species had its distinct tune which helped maintain the integrity of the species, and each theory had its exceptions.
Neena usually trekked alone. In the dark of her camp she would light an old camp-stove and prepare to cook her spare meal of potatoes or rice and tinned salmon simmered in coconut milk. She most often traveled alone as she wished only for the chatter of the birds to break the silence of the mountains or the rainforest. But some nights, as she waited for her pot to boil on the campfire, she would bring out her dan nhi, a simple two-stringed violin that she played with a horsehair bow. It made a stirring melody which she imagined was like the dulcet sounds of a lullaby to the baby owls that listened quietly inside the darkened trees.
Neena arrived at the Tenderfields’ door just before daybreak on the morning of their long-arranged trek. Wearing a wide brown leather drover’s hat atop her dark brown hair, which was braided in a glossy plait over one shoulder, and the Hasselblad around her neck, Neena was the picture of an Aussie sheepherder-turned-photojournalist. Tucked in every pocket of her khaki field-jacket was a film canister or map. Her canvas backpack, with a sleeping mat rolled up tightly and tucked into the top section crosswise beneath a curious-looking black leather instrument case, was nearly as wide as she was tall. Two water bottles strapped on either side hung like soldiers flanking a castle door.
“Are you ready?” she called cheerfully from the veranda just as the dawn broke above the mountain range. Col opened a pink-sky re
flected window and waved his trekking guide inside.
“Good morning, my dear. I’m ready!” he called. “Ellen’s just packing the last of her things. Won’t you come in and have a cup of tea before we head out?”
“Cup of tea sounds lovely. I’ll leave my pack here and help Ellen with hers. Let me inspect yours too, sir,” she joked.
“Be my guest, dear. I trust you completely. You are our leader, of course. I am at your command.”
“You are too kind, Mr. Tenderfield. I am but your humble servant.”
The young woman bowed before the towering older man, who gave her a fatherly bear hug in return. Arm-in-arm, they entered the house before Col released her to busy himself with the tea preparation while Neena made her way into the rear of the large house to find Ellen in the bedroom struggling to close the flap of her pack. On the bed was the guitar, open and gleaming in its case.
“I didn’t know you played the guitar, Mrs. Tenderfield,” the girl stated.
“Oh, haven’t I told you? I’m hoping to introduce it to the class next semester, as an extracurricular activity, for those interested. Do you think there will be interest?”
“Most surely. Who would not want to learn to play music? I play the violin. And a little bit of the guitar. I hope you’re planning to bring it along,”
“Well, I hadn’t thought about it. My sister played the violin as well. We had wonderful family concerts when I was young, back in Boston where I grew up. I haven’t played the guitar much since then.”
“You haven’t? Well here, let me strap it in.” Neena moved closer into the bedroom, and then suddenly stopped in her tracks when she heard a low but clear melody emanate from the guitar. She looked to Ellen, who looked back at her curiously.