Beyond the Sky and the Earth (14 page)

I wear a kira purchased from a woman who came to my door last week, a series of brilliantly colored stripes worked in wool on a cotton background. Jane reminds me to bring my
raichu,
the narrow, red ceremonial scarf that women wear over their left shoulders when meeting a high-ranking official. Men wear a
kabney,
a broad scarf of cream-colored raw silk, draped diagonally across the body. At the school, the students are gathered on the playing field, ghos and kiras neat, hair sleeked back with water, faces shining. The class VIII girls come to adjust our kiras and help us fold our raichus properly. They show us how to bow when the King passes. The higher the rank, they explain, the lower the bow. For a Dzongda, you would touch your knee with the fringed end of your raichu or kabney “For our His Majesty, you must touch the ground,” they say. This is very important. This is called
driglam namzha.
They bow gracefully. Jane and I need more practice. I hope I do not fall on my face in front of the King.

An hour later, we are still standing around outside. Preparations are still not complete, and the headmaster looks grim as he checks the school compound. Then the Dzongda shows up and the activity intensifies. He asks the headmaster why there is no gate. The headmaster says he was told not to make a gate. The Dzongda says of course they have to make a gate! Now! Class VIII boys! Hurry! Bamboo poles are brought from somewhere and tied together, and slowly the skeleton of a gate materializes at the entrance of the school. The students bring armloads of pine branches to drape over the frame. The rest of the school is lined up, practicing driglam namzha. I ask Jane what this term means exactly, and she says she doesn’t think it can be directly translated. “Some people say etiquette, some people say rules and regulations, or discipline, or law. From what I understand, it’s a collection of rules governing behavior and social interaction. How to serve tea to your superiors, how to sit or stand in the presence of royalty, the proper way to wear national dress, that kind of thing.” I sit on the school steps, exhausted already, listening to my insides rumbling and heaving; I put my head down on my knees and fall into a thin, unhappy sleep.

When I open my eyes again, teachers are shouting contradictory orders at the students who are rushing to and fro, colliding into each other in a farcical attempt to obey each new command. All students line up on the playing field! All students return to your hostels! All students assemble in the dining hall! You, class VIII girls, bring water and clean these stairs! Class VIII girls, stay where you are! Class VIII girls, why you are just standing there? Go to the road! Where are you going? Who told you to go to the road? Go to the road, we are walking down to Gypsum!

This last order is reinforced by the Dzongda. Yes, we will go to Gypsum. We will all walk down, everyone, now! I go inside to use the staff toilet, and on my way out, stop to look at the wall magazine. I particularly like a poem by a class VIII student describing the temporary beauty of life:

One board, set apart, contains Mr. Iyya’s epic poem. It begins with the sun rising to the zenith of its glory and continues through vales and dales of peace and happiness, with many a rushing river and gamboling lamb, until it reaches this, our humble valley, where “the King’s golden face shone like the purple sun yonder over these eastern hills! O! Bridal Bower of Bliss.” I am still laughing weakly when Jane comes to find me, and we set off down the road to Gypsum, arguing over the reference to the bridal bower of bliss. Jane says that Mr. Iyya is making an allusion to the King’s marriage last year to four sisters. I say Mr. Iyya is insane and therefore it is best to make no connections between the poem and the external world.

At Gypsum, we are given Gold Spot pop. “No Natural Ingredients!” the bottle proudly proclaims. The fizz settles my stomach. Then a truck pulls up and we are told to get in. We have been called back up to Pema Gatshel. “What on earth,” I mutter to Jane.

She laughs. “I don’t know! But let’s not miss the ride up.”

At the school, the gate is being dismantled. I don’t even bother to ask why. Someone shouts, and everyone rushes to line up. There is a glint of silver on the road above town—a vehicle! No, it is nothing. After thirty minutes, the lines begin to dissolve, and everyone goes back to milling around in the school yard. At 4:30, we are called again. A vehicle, the pilot jeep, is coming down the road. I stand nervously with Jane, fretting with my raichu, squirming in my kira. The pilot vehicle approaches. We can see several other cars behind it, mostly dark blue landcruisers. Horns and drums sound from the dzong, and I am excited. The pilot car drives by, and suddenly I am looking down and bowing deeply like everyone else. When I straighten up, I see the last of the cars disappearing down the road to Gypsum. And then, after a full day of preparing, putting up and taking down gates and practicing to meet the King, we are sent home.

The next day, we sit in a large tent made out of heavy white canvas with blue lotus flowers painted on the roof. Jane and I are in the second row. The air is hot, heavy, and motionless but I am glad to be sitting down after another full morning of lining up, falling out, milling around, standing about. A man in military dress enters the tent, signaling everyone to rise. The King walks to the front of the tent, followed by an entourage of government officials and bodyguards. He is taller than the average Bhutanese, and as handsome as his pictures, with sculpted cheekbones and a Cupid’s-bow mouth; he is wearing a simple checked gho and traditional felt boots. I glance around furtively: everyone’s head is bowed. The King takes his seat in front of a low carved table. We sit, and he begins to speak in Dzongkha in a stem, sober voice.

My stomach is still in motion, and I press my hands over it. Please God do not let me have to get up in the middle of his speech. I look sideways at Jane, who is looking up, so I look up, too. We are caught, staring outright, and lower our eyes again. A great wave of sleepiness settles over me. When I wake up, I am looking at the roof. My head is thrown back and my mouth is open. How long have I been asleep? I am mortified.

Students stand to ask carefully rehearsed questions, which the King answers, and then the meeting is over. “Jane,” I whisper, “I fell asleep ! ”

“I know,” she says.

“Did I snore?” I ask.

“Well, not exactly,” she says. What the hell does that mean? Either I was snoring in front of the King of Bhutan or I was not! There is no time to discuss it. We are served suja and
desi,
sweet, saffron-colored rice with raisins and bits of cashews, and then the teachers are called outside.

The King thanks the staff in English for our work, assuring us that it is of utmost importance because Bhutan’s future depends on the education of her children. The Bhutanese teachers look awed, almost rigid with veneration. For the last two days, I have wanted to laugh at the frantic preparations, but now I see this is no laughing matter for the Bhutanese. This is their
King.
I don’t even know what that means. Although the monarchy is less than a century old, the culture of obedience, hierarchy and loyalty is much older (take the Shabdrung’s name, for example—“at whose feet one submits”). Centuries of history have gone into forming the reverence on the faces of my Bhutanese colleagues. Having been raised in a culture in which authority is always suspect, I am a stranger here where it is still considered sacred.

On his way out, the King stops in front of Jane and me and shakes our hands. He asks in a kindly voice if everything is all right and if we are enjoying our time in Bhutan. We tell him we are. Then he is gone. We see the convoy of cars winding its way up and out of the Pema Gatshel valley. The King’s license plate says BHUTAN.

Back at the school, I find the headmaster and the Dzongkha lopens shaking their heads in dismay. The headmaster explains: “His Majesty asked me if Mr. Iyya understood Dzongkha, and I said no. I didn’t know why he was asking. Now Lopen here is telling that Iyya was looking at His Majesty all through the speech! Smiling and nodding through the whole speech as if he understood! ”

I do not mention my own serious breach of protocol. “Did His Majesty have time to read Mr. Iyya’s poem?” I ask.

The headmaster smacks his hand to his forehead. “I hope not,” he says, and we both break into laughter.

J
ust off the headmaster’s office is a closet which contains the school’s ancient, manual ditto machine. Using it is almost as much trouble as copying everything by hand: the copy fluid leaks, the machine chews the paper and swallows it, the handle jams after every third copy. I tried to operate it myself this morning, and now Dorji Wangdi is pulling out shreds of wet, inky paper from the machine’s jaws. I stand around uselessly in the headmaster’s office which contains a desk, a heavy, old, oily typewriter, grey metal filing cabinets, and a globe. I put one finger on Bhutan and another on Lake Superior, amazed at how far away I am from home, half the world away. I have come as far as I can. In fact, if I go any farther, I will be on my way back.

Dorji emerges from the ditto room, hands smudged black. “Sorry, sir,” he tells me. “Today no.”

“Oh well,” I shrug. “What to do?”

I shouldn’t have tried to do it myself, but I was feeling particularly able after fixing my leaking roof. Yesterday, I had climbed into the rafters and placed an empty coffee can over every waterstain on the wooden beams. Early this morning, when it began to rain, I sat up in bed, listening with great satisfaction to the sound of water dripping into tin. The day before that, I had taken a few planks and bricks from a pile of building materials behind the school and built a low platform in the bathroom. I wasn’t able to fix the drain, but at least I no longer have to stand in dirty water to bathe.

After school, I go up to the market to get my daily half-bottle of milk and a ball of cheese from Tshering, the woman who owns the last shop at the end of the road. The cow, a silent black and white bulk, is tethered to a pole just outside the shop. Today I give it a tentative pat. My kids find my fear of cows extremely funny. “Miss, you is not having cows at your village?” they ask when they see me making feeble shooing motions at cows on the road. “No, I am not having cows at my village,” I say crossly. “Shoo! Shoo, cow, shoo! ” They come to my rescue, swatting the cow’s flank with a stick and hissing “Shhhht!”

The shop smells warmly of grass and manure and fresh milk. Tshering removes the bamboo covering from the metal bucket and fills my bottle with a hand-carved wooden ladle. Today I have to tell her that I cannot pay her. Once again, my salary has not come. The other teachers line up outside the headmaster’s office on the last day of the month to receive their salaries in cash, but now, for the second time the headmaster says that my name is not on the payment list. The Education Department has not received my posting order yet, and the headmaster has no money to pay me. He has sent a message to Thimphu, he says, but it will take some time. I have finished the last of my ngultrum and yesterday went to the Bank of Bhutan (Pema Gatshel Branch) to cash a traveler’s check. The sole bank employee in the bare room took the check and studied it, back and front, for a long moment, before shaking his head gravely and handing it back to me. I owe money for milk and cheese, and I need rice, coffee, chilies, soap, kerosene, everything.

“Ama
Tshering,” I say.
“Tiru mala.”
No money.

The woman shrugs.
“Dikpé, dikpé,”
she says.
“Omé bilé.”
You can give it later. I go down to Sangay Chhoden’s shop, where I tell her mother my story and she nods sympathetically and gives me tea and the same answer. She doesn’t even bother to write down the amount I owe her. I walk back home, partly relieved, partly still worried. Even though no one seems particularly alarmed or surprised that I have no money, I feel terrible buying things on credit here. I know that my students think I am immeasurably wealthy. Miss, how many cars your mother is having ? How much money your father is making?
Zai! Yallama!
Miss, you is very very rich. I try to explain: in Canada, that is not rich. In Canada, my family is an average family, like your family. But this is an obscene lie. I am appallingly rich in comparison.

I am also appallingly wasteful. Last weekend, they came to visit while I was cleaning up, and watched anxiously as I piled garbage into a box until Karma Dorji finally burst out, “Miss! You is throwing? ” Yes, I said, looking down at the empty beer bottles and scrap paper. “Miss, we are taking, okay?” he asked. I said of course they could take it, and remembered the roomful of stuff left behind by the last Canadians. I had not yet figured out how to dispose of the bottles, plastic containers, and tin cans in there. It took me several weeks just to figure out how to take care of my own garbage, after realizing with a shock one morning that no one was going to come along with a truck to clear it away. I had to go through my overflowing bucket and separate what could be burned, what could be composted, what could not be thrown out after all. The more complex and developed a society becomes, I think, the less responsibility individuals have to take for their actions. As long as I could lug my garbage out to the curb two mornings a week in Toronto, what did I care what happened to it. But here, we are made to see the consequences of our consumption.

“Most of it’s rubbish,” I told the kids, leading them into the room off the kitchen. Except I could see right away it wasn’t. The bottles could be stopped with cloth plugs, the empty tins could be measuring cups and plant holders, the lengths of string and wire, the paper, the cardboard boxes, the torn plastic sheeting—all of it was useful, valuable. I felt ashamed, watching them pulling open the boxes excitedly, jubilantly waving a plastic jug with a broken handle, a squashed soccer ball, an empty shampoo bottle. They quarreled over a French-English board game with all its cards and pieces missing. “Miss, you is throwing?” they asked in disbelief. I nodded. What would they do with it? With the squashed soccer ball? They looked so pleased when they left, telling me over and over, “Miss, I am very happy to you,” that I wanted to cry.