by Adam Popescu
Val, what does the ocean look like?
It’s been so long since I’ve seen it.
But you must remember. Tell me.
Look at my eyes, Nima. In places the ocean is as light as my irises. In other places, deep, deep in the middle, it’s as dark as the center of my pupil.
Staring into the river, it’s all just one color. Change is an illusion, I told her.
The deeper the water, the darker it becomes. The water just looks transparent, but anything below two hundred meters is pitch black, no matter where it is.
Does it really change, though? Isn’t water the same in all places?
Well, it changes for you and me, Nima. It’s the look of it that changes, but the water doesn’t really change. Like a person’s perspective. The deeper the water, the deeper the person, the more different they become. Or at least appear to be.
Change in water, change in people, we see what we want to see. What a fool I am to think Val and I were two of a kind. Foolish to think like one of them.
I pass by Khunde, just over the hill. I could have stopped. I could have run home, flashing my earnings. But what life would I have returned to? I would have liked to see my sisters, to explain to them what happened and what I’ve decided to do. My father surely would have punished me, but he wouldn’t have sent me to the sky. No. He would have beaten me harshly, to remember, despite the pride that would have come from me, the runaway, and my money. And then…no. I stop thinking about it. Even if my plan is foolish, I keep on. I need to finish what I’ve started.
In Tengboche, I stop for the night. Half a dozen scattered lodges shaded by pines, all dwarfed by a hilltop monastery—all this I know from memory, I can barely see in front of my face. The fog is thick, just like yesterday, and the only thing I can see in the distance is the gompa, the top of the monastery, shining from the dying rays of the sun. The all-seeing eyes of Buddha painted at the top of the white-and-gold kani tower. My cold and calloused toes keep marching, grass crunching under my boots, the squeak of rubber on slick earth. I reach into the fog, tripping on an empty gas drum, and open a door. Yet another tea house, full. “Get out, girl!” I try another. I search for any familiar face. “No room.”
The last one in the village, I knock on the door. It creaks open, revealing an innkeeper with a wide face and a wider middle. “Many, many mikarus tonight,” he tells me, spitting as he speaks. “No room.”
“I don’t require much space. Just a blanket, if you can spare it.”
He looks me over before speaking again. “Food?”
I nod.
“Three hundred rupees.”
I dig out the money, hand it to him. “Come.”
Dark inside with a low ceiling. Smoky and cold. Full of people, their faces shrouded, their breath visible in puffs. The cold feels the same in here as outside. Music plays softly out of a small radio. Radio Kantipur. The song ends and the box squawks the day’s headlines, something about congress and Prachanda.
What place does the government have here on the mountain? With its squawking box that not even all Sherpas understand. So many native tongues and ethnic groups crammed together: Sherpas and Tamangs and Brahmins and Chhetris and even a few Tharus and Newars, all sitting together at a dozen wooden tables, at random, no attention to status or rank or caste. They’re all bundled in their climbing gear, the terai and the hill people look so cold, so out of their element. But there they are, my countrymen, and not a woman among them (except me, of course), all of them sipping steaming tea, holding their hands out as if in prayer to a divine dented stove in the center of the room. A young Sherpa boy, less than a meter tall, feeds the flames with flattened dung cakes.
“Namaste.”
“Tashi delek.”
Searching, I spot Norbu’s mikarus, then some of the Sherpas who attacked me the day before. I’m careful to keep my head low and not make eye contact. They’re here, but no Norbu. No Val. It’s so dark I don’t think they’ve noticed me. And I’m close to the fire, and I feel sweat beading on my temple, so I gamble and take off my knit cap, my gloves.
The spitting Sherpa who let me in takes me to the last seat available at a table crammed with empty bottles. He has that drunk glint in his eyes, like he’s looking at something far off. “How pretty you are under that cap. Thirsty, girl? Hungry?”
The fat man smothers my hand with his, and I pull it away. He whistles at the boy feeding the flames: “Cha tang! Dray!” The boy drops the cakes, wipes his hands on his shirt, and nods.
The innkeeper turns back to me. “Why all alone, girl?”
The boy places a pot of tea and a bowl of rice in front of me. The innkeeper takes the pot, pours two cups, pushes one towards me. “Drink, drink,” he says, white spittle sticking to the corner of his mouth.
I feel a hand on my leg, under the table. I spill the tea trying to pull away. He looks at me with such lustful eyes and as he squeezes my upper thigh I pull my kikuri from its sheath and stick it into his happy hand—he pulls it away and lets out a yelp just as the door to the lodge swings open and two cloaked figures step in. The strangers are holding something between them—it’s hard to make out what it is. The innkeeper rises from the table, looks at me with scorn, and puts his paw to his mouth and sucks the blood. The strangers come closer, each holding a length of old rope tied around a box. They heave and drop their load onto the table right in front of the innkeeper—and a high-pitched squeal comes from inside the box. Like an infant’s cry.
“Sit, sit,” the innkeeper commands the strangers. They keep standing. The stove crackles, that earthy smell wafting into the air. The innkeeper wipes the sides of his mouth, scraping crust and flicking it to the floor. I sip tea and scoop clumps of rice with my fingers, grateful to finally be eating, but still holding the naked blade under the table with my other hand. One of the men takes off his cloak, a shiny watch on his wrist reflecting the light, a rifle slung across his chest.
That watch…My eyes widen. The other has blemishes on both cheeks and a rifle slung around his chest as well. The stove crackles again, and another squeal leaks out of the box.
“What do you have?” the innkeeper snarls.
The two men are dressed in faded green fatigues. Army green. The one with the blemishes looks in my direction and I look away, stroking my hand where his mutt bit me, still sore under my bandage. I pull my knit cap low over my eyebrows. Glancing down, so as not to meet their eyes, I notice that each wears shoes without laces.
“Something special in here,” one of them says. “Very special. The mikarus will pay to see this.”
“Show me.”
“Patience, sahep, patience. We must set a price first. Then you will see.”
“Let me see now or I’ll throw you out.”
The one with the blemishes scans the room like a hawk. He lifts the black cloth covering the box, and the innkeeper bends his head to look. I glimpse a wire cage and inside it, two little, shiny orbs. The creature utters a squeaky chirp and the soldier drops the cloth back over the box.
The boy soldier leans over the box. “Well?”
The glint in the innkeeper’s eyes brightens and the soldiers smile at each other. “Where did you get it?”
“Poachers. They found their lair—then we found theirs. It’s too bad we couldn’t bring you the other one, but it was too hard to transport. Too large.”
“What happened to the skin?” The innkeeper keeps looking at the box as he negotiates.
“Gone. Sold.”
“And the bones?”
“Over the mountain,” he answers. “The Han are willing to pay.”
“If you do business here, Deenabandhu,” the innkeeper rasps, “I get half.”
One of the soldiers jumps from the table. “Half? Come on, we’ll take this to the monastery. The lamas would pay good money to raise one of the gods’ pets.”
“Yes, good idea, Alok.”
“Wait—let me touch it, let me see it closer—”
�
��This is a serken, dear sahep, not some common jackal or wolf. Serken. And if you don’t want to be fair in business, we could take it to the monastery or down the mountain, to Lukla.
Much more money in it for us.”
In Nepali, Alok means “brightness,” Deenabandhu means “friend to the poor.” So now Brightness and Friend to the Poor pretend to lift the box and head out with it. The innkeeper jumps to stop them.
“Thirty percent,” he says. The soldiers keep quiet. “Maybe you would get more elsewhere,” the innkeeper continues, “but it’s not easy carrying this thing all the way down to Lukla. I see how heavy it is. And the cub may not survive the trip—it needs milk. I have milk from my goats. Do you? Without me, what will you do, milk each other to feed it? Thirty percent!”
The boys lean in and whisper. Then the one called Alok, the one wearing Val’s gold watch, he faces the innkeeper and nods.
“Good. Do it now,” the innkeeper commands. “They’ve eaten and their purses are loose.”
The boys throw the cloth off, and now I see him, behind the bars of a wire cage, a trembling snow leopard cub.
Alok grabs the cub by his scruff, hoists him out of the cage, and the cub erupts into a birdlike shriek, paws flailing, claws out. “It’s a male,” Alok says, flicking the tiny penis. “A male snow leopard. Truly one of the gods’ pets.”
Alok ties a collar made from dirty shoelaces around the cub’s neck and plops him down onto the table for everyone to see. Mikarus and Nepalis crowd around the cub. The little snow leopard shakes like a leaf. “Come, it’s safe. Come.” Alok tugs at the shoelaces, but the cub won’t move. Tiny claws dig into the wood table. His ears turn and his tail curls between his legs. The cub hisses and snarls—the other boy, Deenabandhu, plucks one of his whiskers and the snarl becomes a sharp cry.
“Grind and mix the whisker with tea. Good for curing rheumatism.”
The innkeeper considers the whisker, his stubby fingers measuring its length. Alok and Deenabandhu go from table to table, displaying the little serken. Rupees start dripping into their hands. A mikaru with a bushy mustache scratches the cub’s muzzle with a curled finger, another poses for a photo with the little thing, holding its mouth open to display the tiny jaws. Snap. Snap. And another and another and another. So many hands, petting and grabbing and touching. Yesterday’s attackers flash before my eyes. But where is this one’s savior?
One of the outstretched fingers comes too close, and the little cub bites down with those needlelike teeth that remind me of Nurse Lanja’s tools. The mikaru screams, jerking his hand away. The innkeeper laughs as the foreigner scrambles to stop the bleeding. Alok picks up the cub by its scruff. “This is a wild creature. A very valuable and rare wild creature.” He holds the cub above his head, and the little leopard pees all over him. More laughs.
Alok throws the cub back into the cage, his small body crashing into the wire. “No milk for you tonight, baby serken. We’ll teach you respect.” Alok, whose shirt is now soaked a darker shade of green, begins wiping himself off.
My eyes meet with Alok’s and hatred builds in my beating heart. I touch the hilt of my kikuri—and just as quickly let my hand drop. He doesn’t recognize me. And that poor cub, I can’t save him. Even if I somehow did, I wouldn’t be able to feed him or me.
We’d both die.
I bolt from my seat so fast that the chair falls behind me. No one notices, all still enraptured by the cub. I slink to the door, twist the knob, then slip out of the lodge, back into the cold void. I’m sorry, little serken.
It’s dark and the fog is thick. I can’t even see my fingers in front of my face. I’m walking blindly. Then I hear a ding in the distance, and I instantly recognize it. The call to eat, from the top of the hill. I walk faster, by memory, up and through the fog, heading for the only light source I can see, just a flicker on the ridge: Tengboche Monastery.
22
“BUT YOU’RE A WOMAN,” THE LAMA REPEATS. “A WOMAN!”
The wind is so strong on my back and exposed neck, it shoves me against the oak door.
“You must go to Deboche, to the nuns, it is not allowed for you to be here!” He tries to push me back into that merciless wind. But I push back.
“Please, the nunnery is too far and I am too tired. I would never make it in the fog. Let me in. Just to sleep. Please. Let me in!”
“What is going on out here?” A rumbling from behind. “Brother Dolma, explain yourself.”
Dolma bows to the older monk—I recognize the lama I met with Val and Daniel and Ethan only yesterday.
“Tashi delek,” I say, pressing my hands together.
“Tashi delek.”
“Sir, sahep, I was here a day ago. We spoke, don’t you remember?”
“I do.”
“You spoke of the dharma, how the bodies of men and women are equally suited for enlightenment. I lost my way from my group. I implore you for a place to stay for the night. Only for the night, I will leave by morning. Would gracious monks turn away a fellow Buddhist, a low-born woman in need?”
The old lama looks at the younger one, furrows his brow, deciding what to do.
“I apologize,” Dolma says, half prostrating in the doorway. The wind bites at my neck. “I told her no, Lama Tsering, I told her she must go to Deboche, and now she will not leave—”
“Please,” I beg.
The old crow adjusts his glasses, purses his lips, and I feel his gaze on me, tracing my shape. “She is a woman, most definitely. And she is right. It is too far, and too late in the night, for such travels. Let her in, brother.”
“But, Lama Tsering, what will the others say?”
“What will the others say?” With an open palm he whacks the younger man on the crown of his head, firmly but not without tenderness, something a father—not my father—might do if their child spoke out of turn.
“Gong dhaa.”
“Don’t say it to me, say it to the girl.”
The younger lama bows to me, knees bending.
“Refusing a wayward soul in the dead of night, is that what the dharma teaches? You’re not in China any longer, Brother Dolma. This is the land that birthed the Buddha, helping a traveler in need is always the way. What will the others say? The others will look beyond the dogma. Secular ethics, as his holiness preaches, secular ethics. Come, girl.”
Full of monks in saffron gold and crimson robes, the monastery is transformed. Shangri- La, maybe not, but something so welcome in my current state. Lamas, old and young: some my father’s age, some twice that, some as young as my brother would have been. All very thin. Thin arms and thin legs, thin bodies with large, hairless heads. They sit on burgundy pillows, blankets pulled over their feet, hunched forward as they empty shiny silver rice bowls into their open mouths. A roomful of heads as shiny as the bowls they eat from. The herd turns as I walk in—a woman in their midst.
“The temptation of food, the temptation of physical consort,” the head lama whispers, noticing the monks’ surprise. “Perhaps it is better if men have had intercourse before taking a vow of celibacy. Just as someone who has eaten or drunk too much will retch at the sight of food or drink, so too will people who have had much sex find it easier to renounce it.”
He leads me to an open seat, motions to an underling, who hands me a bowl and a cup of tea. I bow my head in thanks, and the old man takes his seat beside the statue. It is the raised seat of the head lama. He adjusts his glasses, leans into the small microphone attached to the seat. “We have a visitor this evening.” There’s a murmur all around me. Lama Tsering holds his hands up, quiets the dissenters. “Please, brothers, please. We’ve all seen women before. We all came into the world by a woman’s strength, raised by a woman’s grace. Treat this one with the same respect you would treat all the mothers or sisters on the earth.”
Another grumble. The lamas’ shadows are dancing over the monastery’s wall paintings. I feel eyes on me and turn to the brother to my right. He quickly looks down and ri
ce falls from his mouth. He can’t make eye contact with a woman. The flickering of the candles makes Buddha with his green halo, the deities with human faces and animal bodies, twist and writhe. And above the paintings, the window to the goddess, ever staring down, illuminated by the moonlight.
The monks return to their places in the center of the dokhang after the meal, bending and crouching, resuming their work. Even at this hour, they work. Red and blue and black and yellow, they carefully move and place grain after grain of sand, using long metal rods called chak-purs. Others crush stones with mortar and pestle, collecting the stone particles in golden bowls. They use the chak-purs to arrange the sand, their hands moving so feverishly that their vibrating tools make the grains appear to be flowing like liquid. Even at this hour, they work.
“Have you ever seen a mandala before, girl? Have you ever seen one being made?”
I shake my head. Old Lama Tsering smiles like a young boy. “Come.” He gets up, leads me to the edge of the diagram. “What do you see?”
Lines and boxes, boxes within boxes.
“This is the entire universe,” he explains. “Balance, life, death. Everything, contained here. Everything. We offer the universe to the Buddha, as an aid for meditation.”
I watch how carefully the monks work, how finely they build, slowly lifting and placing each grain of sand.
“It will take one hundred thousand of these offerings before a lama can begin the tantric practice. And then, once the ritual is complete…” Lama Tsering stamps a sandaled foot on the ground, a centimeter from the mandalas. As if snuffing the life from some unseen demon. “Impermanence in all things. Even things of beauty.”
“Why destroy something that took so long to create?”
“Everything is eventually destroyed, even pure creations like this. The protection that we need from destruction and decay is in here.” He taps his forehead. “In the mind. Separation, protection, that is what you see before you. The four outer circles, all protection from samsara: the purifying fire of wisdom, the vajra circle, the lotus circle, the circle with eight tombs. We build it all, sometimes for weeks or months. And then the sand is brushed together and spilled into the Dudh Kosi to spread the blessing.”