by Adam Popescu
The mandala looks like a giant map of the Tibetan plateau—in the east is a mountain like a heap of flowers. In the south, a pile of jewels. In the west, a stack of stupas. In the north, shells.
Next to the giant Buddha shrine is the history of the Khumbu painted on the walls. Every centimeter is covered in rich gold, dark red, emerald green. Hundreds of mandalas, buffered by miniature sculptures of smiling deities with human faces and animal bodies. Buddha in various stages of his ascendance to Nirvana, freedom from malice and lust, a green halo around his head.
On a wall, I find myself staring at the klu-mo: the demon with the body of a serpent and a face in her chest. The lama notices me staring at it.
“She gives rise to the world,” the old man says, watching my eyes trace the painting. “Her head becomes the sky, her right eye the moon, her left eye the sun, her teeth the planets, her voice thunder, her breath clouds, her veins rivers.”
“A woman gave birth to all that?”
He nods. “A violent conception.”
“Do women have the same potential as men—for enlightenment?” I ask.
“The human body is the basis of the accomplishment of wisdom. And the gross bodies of men and women are equally suited. But if a woman has strong aspirations, she has the higher potential. The words of Padmasambhava the guru. True words.”
Lama Tsering gives me a yak wool blanket and a place by the mandala. There’s no stove for warmth, so it’s the closeness and body heat that keep the place from freezing overnight.
Even with the blanket over my head, my knit cap on, and the brothers at an arm’s length, I’m still shivering. Perhaps the absence of a burning stove brings one closer to enlightenment.
Tengboche is the ancient and revered home of Sangwa Dorje, a powerful lama said to be the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. My mother would tell me these stories as a child, every night before bed. A child never forgets adventures when she doesn’t want to go to bed. All Sherpas know this story. Sangwa Dorje was so divinely gifted, he could read hundreds of pages merely by glancing at them. He had other powers, too. Spreading a shawl like wings, he could soar through the air, what the ancients called wind meditation. Once, when the great lama took off at the confluence of two rivers, the Langmoche and the Nampa, he left imprints of his hands and feet that can still be seen. He flew toward the Dudh Kosi, where he left his mark again, then he flew to a hill where he left the marks of his feet and rice bowl. He named that place Tengboche and vowed to build a great monastery there. In Sherpa, Tengbo means the “imprint of heels,” and che is “village.”
When I shut my eyes, I see Norbu flash by, then Val, my father, my sisters, my mother, my brother. Then that poor snow leopard cub. To save a life intended for slaughter, there is no higher act of charity. But I failed. My mind flashes to Norbu, to Val. Why didn’t they come to look for me?
If Val doesn’t want me anymore, I could stay with Norbu’s mikarus. I should have joined them on the trail this morning, they would have surely led me to Norbu.
Stop and start and stop again, always at the same branch of the tree.
The morning comes, the light streaming into the dokhang, a greeting from the gods.
Through a window, the goddess stares down at us. Wind comes into the cavernous room, chanting to us: I’m here. I’m everywhere.
Most of the monks are already gone. Lama Tsering still sleeps—loudly—and so do a few other abbots, but all the other beds are empty. I get up and stretch, fold my blanket, walk over to the mandala. So much work, just to cast it to the heavens. I look down at my hands, flex my fingers and touch my bandaged palm. Their hands must ache at the end of every day from such hard labor. I wonder if monks feel pain the same as the rest of us. Maybe not, sleeping in a meditation box for a year, this room must be a luxury.
Perhaps some of them are enlightened—although I can’t imagine that one who’s enlightened could snore like a moon bear—but how naive they seem, too. It’s a better lot in life to be among people, to be an actor in the world, than apart. If I were a wife in a kitchen, cooking and lying on my back every night, making meals every day and babies once a year, that wouldn’t be much different from living in a shedra. What would Buddha say? Was there even such a person? Suffer for me like I have suffered, face heaven and hell if there is such a thing. If not, that’s the cruelest cosmic joke of all.
The head lama stirs as a coughing fit comes on. Still in the lotus, the way all monks sleep, he slowly uncrosses one leg, then the other. After the coughing passes, he puts his glasses on, a worldly possession in itself, and scans the room.
“Shokba delek,” he says, clearing his throat.
“Shokba delek,” I respond.
I’m not wearing my knit cap, my short-haired womanhood on display. But if he’s bothered, he doesn’t say. He gets up, regards the three sleeping abbots to his right—old men with round bellies that move up and down like waves—pauses by the microphone, seeming to contemplate whether to wake them by speaking into it, then he shakes his head. “I’ll let them sleep until the morning meal. They’ll wake for that.”
Lama Tsering walks towards me. It’s the first time I’ve noticed: one of his legs is a few centimeters shorter than the other. Then we stand over the mandala, just like the night before.
“You don’t think we should scatter it, do you?”
“Why keep something so beautiful hidden away?”
“We won’t. Ten days after Mani Rimdu, when the sand takes to the sky it will be a blessing to the people, a blessing that will bring rain and end the drought, if we are fortunate. Perhaps the gods are listening. It rained two days ago, did it not?”
The door to the monastery creaks opens and I turn, hoping to see Norbu—instead it’s Brother Dolma. He walks up to the old lama, never once making eye contact with me.
“Should I make a bowl for our guest?” he asks, keeping his gaze low.
“Of course, Brother Dolma, of course. The girl must eat if she is to continue up the mountain. That is what you plan to do, yes?” He turns to me. “And where will you travel to?”
“Base Camp. Everest.”
He nods, his whole body rocking. “Very auspicious day for travel. Today will be the new moon. You can see from the direction of the sun, see there?” He points to the window, the light shines directly to where I slept last night. “Very auspicious.”
Soon I’m back on the trail, alone.
The dog bite still hasn’t healed. When I make a fist, my hand cries. When the wind blows, my face and neck sting, but at least the load on my back is gone. Dewa and dungal, happiness and suffering. And all my suffering is the result of something I’ve done in a previous life. But this time, come what may, I’m suffering as a woman, no hiding now.
I pass the shedra that Brother Dolma wanted to send me to last night. Life as a nun. Life in a box.
I go for refuge to the Buddha.
I go for refuge to the Dharma.
I go for refuge to the Sangha.
I go for refuge to the Triple Gem.
So that I and all sentient beings, my mothers,
May be led to complete and Perfect Enlightenment.
I don’t prostrate myself enough before the gods, but I have enough compassion, I’m sure of it. When the lama said those words just as I was leaving, was it a mantra to bless me, or just his regular morning incantation?
The trail changes as I start back uphill, colorless hillsides, a sweeping blanket of dry gray shrubs. I hope the gods do listen when the monks scatter the sands. The land needs it. At the top of a crest, just outside Pangboche, I come across Norbu’s mikarus once more, this time with two Sherpas. I recognize them from Namche, but no Norbu. I decide to follow anyway, and these Sherpas don’t say anything to me when they see me. Maybe they’re too tired, maybe they finally respect me, maybe I’m too far behind. It doesn’t matter.
There’s an upsurge of voices—someone stumbled, that redhaired girl. She tosses her walking sticks and the bearded older m
an picks them up. She’s barely moving, on her knees now, and the whole group is backed up. Her father offers her an energy bar, but she shakes her head.
He shoves it in his mouth and tosses the plastic wrapper on the trail. He’s decked out in goggles with polarized lenses, an ample parka, leather gloves. He, too, has walking sticks, shiny, metal plated, with black rubber grips, wrist straps looped around his paws.
“Freddie,” he calls to the girl. “Freddie!”
Two guides hurry over to her, each grabbing an arm to prop her up. With help from the Sherpas, the girl takes a step forward. Slowly. Her companion, the blond waif, wipes a tear that leaves a streak from the dust. It’s hard to watch. The whole group is stopped now. I decide to keep moving. A few minutes later, from a jagged perch above, they all look like dots. And they’re still trying to help that girl.
Out of water, I stop at a roadside stand, halfway between Pangboche and Pheriche. I buy a bottle of water and a tin of crisps, still plenty of rupees left. There are even a few trekking poles and tokmas for sale.
“How much for a tokma?”
Later, while I rest on an old stone wall next to a row of fallen mani, two little boys make faces at me as I eat crisps. One puffs his cheeks, the other sticks his tongue out. They must be the stand owner’s sons. I hop off the wall, raise my arms and contort my face like the lepcha I’ve been called so many times now, and the two little ones run and hide. I chase after them, cornering one. He picks up a bamboo stick and points it threateningly. I lift my new tokma and we sword fight, swinging and striking, he laughing in delight as I fall back and he slays me. Dead, I give the tiny warriors the last of my crisps, which they grab.
“Another demon slayed!” one yells before fleeing.
I feel a slight tug from my crying ear as I keep walking.
Up ahead, a trio of figures rest on their walking sticks. Men from Namche. Men who deserve just retribution in this life and the next. I expect a confrontation, waiting for them to rise, approach, attack even. The sirdar Lasha and the others don’t even sling an insult. I’m without a mask, but they don’t even look at me, only past me, sitting and chewing their tobacco, like spiders, waiting. It feels like a trap—and then he comes out from behind a bush, zipping up his trousers and jacket. Norbu. Now I understand. It’s because of him that they don’t say anything.
Just like dogs, these men, and what do dogs do when confronted by a bigger breed? They surrender.
Lasha spits brown juice and rises from his tokma, his face still bruised from where Norbu struck him. Without words, the trio hoist their packs and continue on the trail, leaving me alone with Norbu. He doesn’t seem to notice their departure. We stand in front of each other, close enough to touch.
“You’re Nima again,” he says, reaching out his hand to touch my face. But I pull back.
“Why did you leave me yesterday? Where did you go?”
“Nima, I didn’t leave—”
“Where did you go?”
For all his strength, Norbu’s suddenly a little boy, looking down now that he’s chastised.
“One of the mikarus got sick,” he answers, still looking down. “I had to take him to
Syangboche. I carried him part of the way. It was nightfall, and I was too tired to return. I looked for you in Tengboche. Are you all right? Why are you alone? Where’s your group?”
“The sirdar didn’t tell you? They let me go.”
Norbu shakes his head. “None of them will talk to me. Not since Namche.”
“Did you really look for me?”
He nods, opens his mouth to say something—then doesn’t.
A horseman gallops past us. Then a troop of people emerges from the dust stirred by the rider. All the women wear fur hats, their noses glistening with gold rings. The men march behind them, in plain robes, all except one who wears a fedora and tennis shoes. And behind him, a young girl, so effortlessly radiant, so ready for what will come into her life.
They beam with happiness. Norbu turns to me and a bolt of shame flows through my body. It’s a wedding party.
23
TWO HOURS LATER, WE’RE IN THE NEXT VILLAGE, PHERICHE. NEITHER of us speaks much. A light flurry of snow begins to fall. A pair of birds call overhead, hidden in the trees. Yaks graze everywhere, their thick hot tongues digging through the frozen dirt to scoop roots. Not much else on four legs can survive up here, except the Himalayan tahr. Those creatures have huge curved horns and ebony spheres for eyes. They’ve become rare, their meat and horns prized by hunters and serken alike. A small herd grazes in a corral of boulders, their lower jaws moving side to side as they chew. Sacred animas. Where there are tahr, there are snow leopards. I think about that poor cub, never to grow up free, never to be wild. How many serken are left in the Khumbu?
The tahr hop over the corrals effortlessly, not in the least bit worried by our presence. Too many mikarus here, too many Sherpas, no predators left to be worried about. They pick through the frost in search of hidden shoots of grass. But there is not much in Pheriche. No trees, no river, just boulders and yaks and shallow, icy riverbeds. Each village is smaller than the last, smaller the higher we get, this one just a handful of piled stones and tin roofs. A wind funnel between the peaks, there’s not much life, but there’s a stillness, a cold power to the mountains that gives it a stunning beauty.
Norbu and I climb over stone walls, about a meter high, not to keep animals out, but to keep them in. Work animals, farm animals. Hogs, fowl, skinny horses. Enough to sustain perhaps a dozen people year-round. And the people rely on every one of those creatures to keep them going. Farming is slow here, trade equally slow. Over the pass to Kham or down into the lower valley, both take time. The constant battering from the wind and long winters govern the farming schedule, same as in my home village. You can barely grow potatoes and roots, and never out in the open, always in a shed or storehouse, the only place to dig where it’s not iced over. Some build special huts with roofs they can remove on the days the sun cuts through the clouds.
There’s only one lodge here, just across another wall, its stones caked with black ice and snow. I lift a foot and come down slipping on the ice, but Norbu steadies me before I lose my balance. We don’t waste words, both of us focusing on our steps and the uphill journey, but I feel calmer just walking next to him. We each swing our legs over the wall, carefully, hands entwined, all the way to the lodge’s door.
We sit together by the stove. No longer holding hands, but our feet touching just slightly, toes aimed towards the flame. There’s a bucket stacked with pressed and hardened cakes that Norbu feeds to the flame every few minutes.
One by one, Sherpas who called me names bring their plastic chairs closer until we form a circle around the stove. The bad luck woman isn’t so bad, not when it comes to getting warm. And up here everyone just wants to stay warm, even Lasha, he isn’t part of the circle, not quite, but he isn’t apart from it either. He doesn’t have the nerve to open his mouth or look at Norbu. He’s sitting in a plastic chair, just a pace beyond the circle. Up here, it doesn’t matter. The bad feelings I had, they don’t quite disappear, but I know they can’t harm me any longer.
It’s hours before the first of the mikarus trudge in. I’d dozed off briefly, awakened by the rattling of the lodge doors. First, Norbu’s group comes in. Norbu lets go of my hand and rises as they enter—was he holding my hand while I slept?—tending to the needs of food and drink. As the mikarus strip off their packs and gear, the circle breaks until all the seats are filled with Westerners and all the Sherpas are busy scrambling to serve. All but me. I have no clients to serve, not anymore, and I keep as close to the flame as I can. My chair next to the mikarus, right next to the stove, on the same plane as them.
The door swings open again and in come Val, Ethan, and Daniel, their faces red and chapped, lips smeared with dried blood—and when they step in they’re reeking of dung and dirt. Lasha bolts up to take their order: hot tea.
I’m not sure if
Ethan and Daniel see me, but if they do, they don’t let on, slinking down at a table, dragging their legs. I thought I would be furious to see them. Instead, I don’t feel anything. Val doesn’t break stride, peeling off her gloves and heading straight to the fire where she holds her arms out, hands shaking.
“Lasha said you left,” Val tells me, not wasting any time. “He told us you left to get married.”
“Lasha is a liar,” I say quietly, watching the sirdar tending to the men. Maybe it’s the altitude, but I don’t want to pretend.
“Lasha told us that Norbu tried to take you by force back to your village. He was trying to protect you and Norbu beat him. Then you agreed to go. We saw his face, we saw how upset you were after Namche—”
“All lies,” I say, cutting her off.
Val rubs her hands together close to the fire, studying my face. She’s seen so much in her life, but there’s something about the way she looks at me. She’s never dealt with something like this.
“Lasha attacked me. Twice.” I take a breath, then continue. “Norbu saved me the second time.” She’s still quiet, her face a mask. “Ethan gave me the rest of my wages and told me to go. Did you tell him to do that?”
“Nima—” Val’s voice cracks.
“I want to finish the trek, Val.”
“Nima, I’m so sorry.”
“I plan to finish, with or without you.”
Val looks over at Ethan, considering what I’ve told her.
I dig into my bag and pull out the money. “Here. All of it, Val, except for what I spent on the tin of crisps.” Val puts her hands over mine, pushes the money back. I shake my head: “I want you to tell Ethan that I forgive him, too. I understand that he was scared.”
“No, no,” she says in English. “This isn’t what I wanted, Nima,” switching back to Nepali. “I should have talked to you myself, I was wrong. I was scared about getting too involved, Nima. Ethan and I talked and he said he would fix the problem, and I let him—I’m so sorry, you deserved better from me.”