End of the Road (29 page)

“
Kaji and Gulu pushed me
down in the mud,” he said through a loud sob. Stains on his pants
corroborated this element of his story. “They say I have no family,
and I’m good for nothing.”

“
Is that when you hit
them?” she asked, as she dabbed at his face with a damp cloth. “Now
let’s have those trousers.”

“
They hit me first,” he
protested, a little embarrassed by all the female attention. In the
end, there was no way to avoid taking off his pants. “And they tore
my sweater.”

Emily smoothed out the little boy’s hair and
patted his cheek. Her hand seemed to have magical calming powers.
He stopped sobbing. She brushed dirt off his pants.

“
There. That will hold it
for now,” Mrs. Kansakar said, returning with the mended sweater.
“Bring it back this afternoon and we can do something more
permanent.”

“
You better get back,
Nawang. I’ll walk him to school,” Emily said. “C’mon, Sonam, put
these back on. Let’s get moving.”

“
Do I have to go?” Sonam
whimpered. “I’m not supposed to be late. I’ll be in
trouble.”

“
Oh, so you think the
reward for fighting is a day off from school? Well, think again.
Let’s go, soldier.”

After a smart tug on his shirt and belt,
Emily pulled the sweater over his head wrangling each arm through a
sleeve. With a hand on Sonam’s shoulder, she guided him out the
kitchen door. He went quietly.

Out on the street, the city now almost fully
awake bustled with activity. Shops and businesses had begun to open
their doors, carts loaded with produce rattled along the pavement,
stands and barrows piled high with colored fabrics, flowers, fruit
greeted them around every corner.

“
You have to learn to
control that temper, young man,” she said.

“
You won’t tell Rinpoche,
will you?”

“
I won’t have to, because
you will.”

Sonam’s face fell at this news. In front of
a shop window, Emily pulled the little boy aside and knelt down to
look him directly in the eyes. Sorrow and pain made their home
there, as well as fear, probably of Rinpoche’s inevitable
disappointment. But there was more, a deep resignation, as if the
boy had convinced himself that happiness was not possible in this
life. His father died when he was an infant, a gangster killed by
rivals. Three years later, his mother, dying of consumption,
persuaded the Rinpoche at one of the monasteries on the fringe of
Swayambhunath, the Monkey Temple, to take him in. Now the monks
were his only family. His eyes were dark, almost as dark as
hers.

“
Making a mistake isn’t the
worst thing in the world. But you can’t learn from it if you
conceal it from your friends.”

“
What did you do about
bullies, Michi-
didi
? Didn’t you fight back?”

Another fair question, she thought. She did
fight back, eventually, and with terrible effect. She’d gazed into
the eyes of too many dying men, hoping to ease their passage. But
what consolation could she offer them, distracted as they were by
the sudden finitude of their lives? “Can he sense that about me?”
she wondered.

“
I fought back when I had
to, but never because someone called me a name. And nothing good
ever came of it. Not fighting is always better. If only I had
known.”

“
I want to be strong like
you,
didi
. You’re
not scared of anything.”

He was still small enough for her to carry,
if only for a few steps. When she scooped him up and pressed her
nose to his, something like joy flashed in his eyes. After a brief
moment, he set his head on her shoulder.

“
Okay, big guy, now you’re
too heavy for me,” she said, putting him down. “Let’s get
walking.”

Hand in hand, each filled with new
resolution, they wended their way to a little Catholic school near
the temple, stopping to collect his book bag from behind a trash
bin where someone had thrown it. She had a word with the Sister in
charge, then peeked into the classroom to let Sonam have one last
glimpse of her.

2: Rinpoche Tashi meets
a
Deva

High atop a hill in the
middle of a large wooded park just west of the city, the
stupa
of Swayambhunath
projects skywards from the dome of the world. Central to the origin
story of the Newari Buddhists, the main temple and grounds are
replete with the colorful statuary and iconography of the Newars.
Tourists climb the three hundred sixty five steps in a steady
stream for the weary privilege of walking the circular path around
the temple and spinning the prayer wheels.

Out of sight of the main
temple, a Tibetan monastery, or
gompa
, a relative newcomer in the
Kathmandu valley, rests among the trees on the eastern end of the
park. Here, Buddhists of a different stripe meditate peacefully
under the guidance of a reincarnated spirit, or
tulku
, an ancient
lama
named Rinpoche Tashi. The day to
day running of the monastery he leaves to the senior monks, as he
spends his days in the company of a dwindling number of younger
ones. But lately, one particular seeker who enjoyed the benefit of
his attention had become the source of some consternation to some
of the elders.

“
Rinpoche-la, she is a
dangerous distraction for the young men,” Brother Pasang pleaded.
“She dresses inappropriately. They can’t help but
notice.”

“
We have no place
for
bikkhuni
here,”
Brother Norbu added, using the Sanskrit word for a female monk.
“Can’t we just send her to the Newars? They are able to accommodate
her, and she can meditate with them in peace.”

“
And is she even a seeker
at all?” Pasang asked, almost as an after thought. “Has she even
tried to purge herself of her body through yoga?”

“
Have you not noticed the
boy?” Rinpoche asked softly.

Pasang and Norbu looked puzzled, unable to
fathom his meaning. What could a little orphan boy have to do with
anything?

“
Sonam feels it whenever he
is around her.” Rinpoche Tashi continued. “When she is away, he is
ill at ease. When she is near, he is at peace.”

“
But she cannot guide him,
can she?” brother Pasang asked. “Or the other young
monks?”

“
Can’t we just help her
find a
yidam
to
focus her meditations?” asked Norbu. “Isn’t that what she came for?
If she chooses a tutelary god, and we guide her initiation into
the
mandala
, she
will be free to meditate anywhere.”

“
There is no
deva
for her,” Rinpoche
said, using the Sanskrit term for god or demon.

The monks looked stunned by
this pronouncement. If there is no
istadeva
for her…

“
Rinpoche-la, are you
saying…,” Pasang began.

“
Yes, she is herself
a
deva
.”

It took a moment for this
thought to fully sink in. Norbu and Pasang knew the holy books
spoke of such things, that
devas
walk the earth, like
bodhisattvas
only much more powerful,
and perhaps even dangerous. But those stories always seemed like
allegories, or infinitely distant possibilities. Neither of them
ever thought to encounter one in person. Can Rinpoche be serious?
Can this girl really be a
deva
?

“
Then what can we possibly
do for her, Rinpoche?” Brother Norbu finally recovered enough
self-possession to ask.

“That may become clear in time, as well as
what she may be able to do for Sonam.”

~~~~~~~

The tall trees cast long shadows across the
monastery courtyard by the time Emily arrived in the cool of the
late afternoon. Rinpoche waited for her by himself, sitting in the
grass under a banyan tree.

“
Welcome,
Michi-
chhori
. Sit
with me.”

“
Thank you, Rinpoche
Tashi.”

He spoke just enough English that, with the
smattering of Nepali she had learned from Mrs. Kansakar, they could
communicate.

“
Sonam told me about this
morning. That was a kindness you did for him.”

“
I’m afraid it’s my fault,
his fighting.”

Weeks earlier, in her very first
conversations with Rinpoche, Emily had recounted her meditative
visions to him. She described the forest and the meadow she walks
through, the stream she follows back to the waterfall, and how the
cave she finds there carries her down to the bottom of the world.
She also told him about the voice of the goddess of the sun and the
god of sea and storm, and the sword of fire they once sent to her.
He reflected on those conversations now.

“
You are a fierce warrior,
Michi-
chhori
,” he
said. “You have seen men die.”

She nodded.

“
And you have taken the
lives of men, too?”

“
Yes, Rinpoche.”

“
You suspect Sonam is
influenced by the spirit within you.”

She couldn’t hold back a tear trembling in
her eye. It rolled down her cheek and she wiped it away.

“
Yes. When he asks, I tell
him that fighting never solves anything. Today, he asked me if I
ever fought a bully, and I didn’t know how to answer. My father
taught me it is right to fight only to protect someone else. Now I
no longer care when fighting is right, but only when it is good. It
is never good.”

“
You are wise,
Michi-
san
,” he
replied, looking for a familiar Japanese phrase to express his
respect for her.

“
If he feels the spirit in
me and is guided by that, then I should leave.”

“
He is not the only one.
Many of the young monks worship you inadvertently, thinking they
follow an
istadeva
.”

“
Is that what they’re
doing? I have noticed something peculiar, a feeling, I suppose,
when I’m around them.”

“
I imagine it feels very
familiar,” Rinpoche said.

“
My sensei taught me a
saying of a Japanese monk, Takuan Soho, that the true master cannot
know friendship. I’m afraid it might be true for me.”

Rinpoche saw how she trembled as she
mentioned her fear, and smiled to comfort her.

“
I know this saying. It is
from a little book called
Taia-ki
. What do you think Takuan
meant?” he asked.

“
I used to think he meant
it would be too dangerous for anyone to be my friend. Now I worry
that the people who think they are my friends are like the monks
here. They are influenced by my
chi
without realizing it,” she said, using the Chinese
term out of habit. “That is not real friendship.”

“
Again, you are wise,
Michi-
san
. Takuan
was writing for warriors, and explaining how the mastery they
sought was dangerous. But a second meaning, referring to a second
kind of mastery is implicit, just as you thought.”

“
Then is there no hope of
friendship for me, Rinpoche?”

“
There is a third meaning
hidden in Takuan’s saying, and a third form of mastery.”

Emily sat quietly for a few moments
pondering Rinpoche’s suggestion. He watched her carefully and felt
the warm glow of her spirit. “How strange,” he thought, “for an old
ascetic to find her so intoxicating. Norbu and Pasang are not wrong
to be worried.”

“
Friendship is a form of
suffering and bondage to the cycle of cares about life and death.
That’s it, isn’t it?” she asked.

“
Friendship is only an
affectation of the individual self,” he said. “The truest master
leaves that self and its bonds of friendship behind.”

“
I don’t think I have the
strength to do that. I long for companionship, and when I open
myself to others I find its consolation wherever I go.”

“
You are strong enough,
Michi-
chhori
. But
you have other tasks to complete before you take that path. Sonam
still needs you.”

“
How can he find peace as
long as I’m here? And what about the other monks?”

“
They are old enough to
overcome a distraction on their own. But the boy will never know
peace if you leave now. There is one last lesson he must learn from
you.”

“
Can you tell me what it
is?” she asked. He shook his head slowly. “Isn’t there any lesson
you have for me, Rinpoche?”

“
I cannot be your guru,
Michi-
sama
. You do
not need my help finding a tutelary divinity.”

This time Emily shook her head.

“
I don’t understand,
Rinpoche.”

“
The voice who speaks in
your dreams is not just any nature demon. It is your voice. You are
the god of your dreams.”

“
That’s just what Sensei
tells me,” she said with a laugh. “But I don’t think you mean it
the way he does.”