End of the Road (33 page)

“
I thought you didn’t eat
beef,” Emily asked after a bite.

“
Don’t worry,
chhori
,” Mrs. Ranjeet
said. “It’s buff.”

“
She means it’s buffalo
meat,” Sabina whispered.

Emily
was
worried, of course, though not
about what was in the
momos
. Mrs. Kansakar gave her one word
of caution when she first arrived: don’t touch food with your left
hand. She supposed some important truth hid somewhere in the
distinction between hands, though it seemed like an arbitrary
abstraction at that precise moment. Still, it took a little bit of
attention to avoid any manual inadvertence.

It was dusk before Mrs. Ranjeet remembered
the fitting that provided the ostensible reason for this little
get-together. It turned out to be nothing more than letting down
the hems and taking in seams on a few pairs of pants. Emily was
lankier and taller than the women these outfits were originally
imagined for. A few chalk marks and some hand sewing later—Sabina
turned out to be a speedy seamstress—and Emily had three very
form-fitting outfits.

“
You’re so slender,
chhori
,” Sabina clucked
over her. “Don’t you eat?”

“
I eat,” Emily protested.
“You saw.”

“
She eats,” Mrs. Kansakar
chimed in. “It’s all the running…”

Some rustling at the kitchen door announced
the arrival everyone else had been waiting for. Emily heard Mrs.
Ranjeet making a fuss in the next room.

“
Hajurama
…” she heard a man’s voice
call out.

“
Oh, my dear boy,” Mrs.
Ranjeet said loudly. “Use English. We have a guest,” she said not
quietly enough.

“
Again,” he moaned. “Who is
it this time? Not another market girl, I hope.”

“
Hush up, silly boy. Come
meet her.”

Overhearing this exchange didn’t enhance
anyone’s comfort level, and certainly not Emily’s. Once he saw her,
however, Yesh looked more embarrassed than everyone else put
together. After the introductions, and while he still had her hand,
he leaned over and whispered: “I’m sorry about this.”

Not particularly athletic, but tall and
well-built—Emily sized him up. Brown aryan features, dark eyes and
a sharp nose, his salient feature was a huge mane of wavy black
hair hanging down below his shoulders. He wore it tied loosely
behind his neck.

“
Yesh,” Sabina snarled.
“What about that haircut you promised?”

“
I’m sorry, Ama,” he said
to his mother. “There were just so many things to do this
week.”

“
It’s always something,”
Mrs. Ranjeet scolded.

“
I like it,” Emily said,
though as soon as the words left her mouth it felt like she had
intruded where she didn’t belong. All three women turned to look at
her, as if they’d just realized she was there. “It looks good,” she
added, sheepishly.

“
Oh, I like this one,” Yesh
said. “Where’d you find her, Grandma?”

An hour of stiff conversation followed, in
which Emily learned that he was only a year older than her, not yet
twenty, taught maths at a nearby high school and awaited an
unspecified, life-changing event. She could sympathize.

Yesh insisted on walking them home, once the
dark of the evening had overtaken them. It was impossible to get a
private moment with Emily in his grandmother’s apartment. The dark
streets of Bangemudha weren’t much better with Mrs. Kansakar in
tow, but the old lady was crafty enough to lag a few steps behind
the young people, just enough space for them to make a plan.

“
I’ve been visiting Ganesh
temples,” Emily said.

Have you been to Chobar?” Yesh asked. “It’s
beautiful, one of the largest temples anywhere, right on the river,
just a few miles out of town. We can take a bus in the morning.” By
this point, he was simply gushing.

“
We?”

He blushed, having been caught in his own
enthusiasm. She’d go with him, of course, but not without putting
him just a little off balance.

6: Amaterasu is not so easily evaded

Light and shadow flickered across her face
and the cool air of the forest ruffled her hair as she walked along
the familiar path. One foot in front of the other, heel aligned
with toe, the dirt crinkled as she walked. Water burbled somewhere
in the distance, tropical foliage brushed against her as she walked
past, pushing forward to the light of a clearing that gleamed
through the last few branches up ahead.

She knew this place, her place. Her father’s
spirit lived here. The meadow beckoned, bright with no light of its
own. One step, two, three, and she felt the warmth of the sun
shining all around her. But something was different this time. The
light was hot, and growing hotter. The voice of the sun shrilled at
her.

“
The sword of the true
master takes life when it is necessary, and gives life when it is
good.”

Emily recognized the words. They were from
another saying of the Japanese monk, Takuan Soho. Her sensei taught
it to her a few years earlier, but Rinpoche helped her understand
it. She knew what came next: “The true master knows no friendship.”
Just as she heard herself shrieking out the last few words, the
warmth of the sun became unbearably hot. Tears ran down her
face.

“
Please, Granny. You’re
hurting me!”

She felt herself being consumed by the fire,
her skin boiling, about to be turned to ash. She would scream out
in pain if she could, but the stench of burning flesh choked the
sound off in her throat. And then it was dark.

She opened her eyes onto a pitch-black room
on a moonless night. It was her room and her bed, she realized
after a moment.

“
What’s the matter, child?”
Mrs. Kansakar cooed from the door. And then the old woman was at
her side, one hand caressing her face. “You must have had a
nightmare.”

“
Yes,” she replied in a
groggy voice. “It was a bad dream.” She turned her face away,
uncertain whether Mrs. Kansakar would be able to see in her eyes
the turmoil she felt in her heart.

“
You gave me quite a
fright, crying out like that. It’s a good thing there are no other
guests, or they’d have been in here, too.”

Eventually, fatigue overtook her and she
slept soundly until well after dawn. Normally, she hated letting
the sun get the drop on her, but today she just couldn’t face her
right away.

Breakfast put away, and all questions
politely deflected, Emily left to meet Yesh at the bus. The ride to
Jal Vinayak in Chobar took the proverbial twenty minutes. It turned
out to be an impressive temple complex stretched out along the
Bagmati river. At seven thirty, they had the place pretty much to
themselves, but by ten the tourists began crowding in, along with
the many young singles and newlyweds who came to dream of love or
children.

The god of obstacles
listens to all prayers and is the first god honored in any
puja
ceremony. Emily was
surprised to find that the main image of Ganesh was little more
than a natural rock outcropping, framed in a brick shrine off to
one side of the complex. The suggestion of two lobes of an
elephant’s forehead was all it took for the ancient worshippers to
discover the presence of the god at this holy site.

By eleven, with the crowds beginning to feel
oppressive, Yesh was ready to go back to town. A bus left in ten
minutes and there wouldn’t be another for an hour. Emily brushed
off his impatience and wandered down to the river. A few hundred
yards north along the river bed, past a bridge and off to the right
in the shade afforded by the woods clinging to one of the few
remaining undeveloped hillsides, she found a secluded corner to sit
quietly.

“
We should get back soon,”
Yesh called up to her inopportunely. “There’s nothing left to see
here.”

Emily glowered at him, then thought better
of it. “Come up here and sit with me,” she said.

Of course, he complied. There was no way to
resist such an invitation from a pretty girl in a place like this.
She had found one of the very few spots where one couldn’t see the
road or plowed fields, or the nearby cement factory. He picked his
way up through some dense underbrush, getting a little scratched up
along the way. At one point, his hair caught on a branch and she
had to help disentangle him.

“
Listen to the water,” she
said after a moment.

“
That’s the rapids of the
Chobar Gorge,” he said. “Legend has it the entire Kathmandu valley
was once a vast lake, until the people cut the gorge into the
mountain as a channel to let the water drain away.”

“
That’s a nice story. Is it
true?”

“
Who knows? But people like
to imagine that rivers are divine things. I’m sure later today
families will cremate their dead at the water’s edge just below the
temple hoping the river will smooth their passage.”

“
I like that story better,”
she said. “And I like this place. Ganesh is such a pure, generous
spirit. It’s like I can feel him here more than in the city
shrines.”

“
Maybe you’re just glad to
be away from the noise of the city.”

“
Close your eyes for a
moment and listen to the sound of your own breathing.”

“
Are you some sort
of
bikchuni
,
then?”

“
I’m no nun. Just do it,
for me.”

Yesh tried to sit quietly, even closed his
eyes for about half a minute. Another minute and he was fidgeting
and squirming like a little boy in church. She turned an irritated
glance his way. He drew back when he saw her eyes, as if he were
looking into the eyes of a wild animal, or some untamed spirit.
Emily caught herself and tried to direct something softer his
way.

“
Please. This is what I
came here to do.”

“
What, meditate at Jal
Vinayak?”

“
No. Well, sort of. I came
here, you know, to Nepal, to find some respite from my Granny,” she
said cryptically. “And Ganesh is the only one left who may be able
to give it to me.”

She gazed directly into his puzzled face,
tried to fix his eyes with hers, without freaking him out. She
could see he wanted to be patient. But this wasn’t his errand, and
maybe it was unfair to force it on him. She saw something else as
she looked in his eyes. He was beautiful, with his sharp features
and his eyes almost as dark as hers. And, of course, that Byronic
mane of hair flaring about his head. She felt it just then, a
poetic spark in him, something that might one day articulate the
divinity of the world, reshaping it in the words he would use to
name it. She leaned over and kissed his lips.

“
Let’s just try to breathe
for a few minutes, okay, for me.”

Yesh wanted to be all compliance now—that
much was written across his face. He nodded vigorously, apparently
having lost the power of speech. And he did manage to sit quietly,
at least to all outward appearances. But the sound of his heart
pounding against his ribs echoed in her ears. Emily tried to
breathe past it, to hear the rapids in the gorge, to let herself
float away down the river and join the rest of the dead on their
way to whatever peace awaited them. After a few more minutes, she
saw the futility of her effort. Not now, not here. “Not after I
kissed him,” she thought. “Brilliant.”

“
Let’s go back,” she said,
standing over him.

“
I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll
try harder. Let’s not go yet.”

She leaned over him and smiled.

“
It’s okay. I’m hungry
anyway.”

It was surprisingly easy to
find food outside the temple. Vendors stood ready on both sides of
the access road. Emily found a bowl of potato and lentil curry at
one stand, while Yesh hunted down a plate of
momos
and some mangos blended in
beaten rice at another, as well as a bag of candied
lapsi
fruit. He seemed to
have quite a sweet tooth. They ran to catch the bus and ate in the
back.

“
Is this how you usually
spend your days,” she asked.

“
Sadly, no. I work during
the week, and then weekends are always filled with family errands.
I think it’s time to go see the world.”

“
I may have seen enough of
the world,” she sighed.

The bus rumbled back around Dakchhinkali
Road as it wound its way back into the city. As they broached more
urban neighborhoods, traffic thickened and the exhaust fumes of
other buses began to infiltrate the cabin. Emily scanned a route
map as they approached Ring Road.

“
I have to go to
Swayambhunath. I’m gonna change buses up ahead.”

“
What do you want there?”
he asked.

“
I’m supposed to meet
Rinpoche Tashi this afternoon.”

“
How on earth did you
manage that?” he asked. “I didn’t think the Tibetan
gompas
accepted
bikchunis
.”

“
They don’t, but I told
you, I’m not a
bikchuni
.”

“
Then why would the
Rinpoche meet with you? They don’t usually make time for tourists,
you know.”

“
You don’t have to come,”
she said when he got off the bus with her.