Exiles (28 page)

He wasn’t afraid of the guerrillas anymore either. Getting shot sounded like a relatively quick and painless way to end this ordeal. He supposed he should feel sorry for Devi and Ramesh, but he no longer seemed capable of emotion. He only wanted relief, whether by escape or by death, and he didn’t care all that much which it was. He was vaguely aware that his mind wasn’t working well, that he was dazed from cold and the lack of food and water, that he was in danger of making more bad decisions to add to his long legacy of them. Even so, it was hard to convince himself to care, and anyway, how much worse could his decisions get?

Ramesh stumbled on, his eyes hollow and his movements stiff. Whenever they shifted Devi between them she gave a little cry of pain. Each time Peter heard it, it stabbed at him. Still, her cries began to anger him, and once he almost told her to shut up, though he knew this was mainly from guilt. They had to find water and a way to get warm or they wouldn’t survive until nightfall.

They descended to ten or twelve thousand feet by mid-morning, and the air lost some of its chill. Trees and stunted rhododendron bushes covered part of the rocky hillside. Peter’s legs shook so much when he carried Devi that he had to stop every dozen steps and rest. Ramesh could haul her for a few minutes without stopping, but he was fading quickly. If their pursuers found the same trail, Peter knew, they would catch up before day’s end.

Around noon they smelled wood smoke; it was sweet, better than the scent of any flower. They came to a sloping open meadow, and at the high end of it, up against the trees, stood a shack with a crooked stovepipe guyed out at the top. A thin blue curl of smoke emerged and dissipated in the breeze.

When they had covered most of the distance to the shack, they smelled water. Peter had never known how strong the smell could be; dehydration and the dry air brought the scent to him as powerfully as if it had been blood, and it surpassed even the smoke in loveliness. They found the spring twenty or thirty feet from the house. He set Devi down gently by the little pool, and she immediately began cupping the water into her mouth. Ramesh didn’t even bother to use his hands; he just buried his face and started swallowing. Peter did the same. The water was cold and sweet, with a metallic mineral tang. After a few minutes of this—drinking, then stopping for air, then drinking again—Peter felt some of the fatigue and nausea begin to lift. They lay back in the sun, and after fifteen or twenty minutes he finally stopped shivering for the first time since the previous afternoon. His muscles ached so much from all the contractions it was as if he’d spent the time hooked up to electrodes.

A dog barked. The door to the hut swung open, and out shuffled a withered crone, bent over and crippled from arthritis, bracing herself on a crooked stick. She scolded the dog, a huge mastiff. It whined, put its tail between its legs, and sat down at her feet. The woman peered at them, then called out some sort of question.

Ramesh, surprised, said to Peter, “She Tibetan.” Then he pointed to Devi and spoke to the old woman. The woman dropped her stick and scuttled forward. She helped Devi sit, then Ramesh and Peter picked Devi up and carried her inside, with the old woman close behind. The mastiff stayed out, on a long chain beside the cabin.

The woman pointed them to a tiny straw mattress in the corner, where they laid Devi down. The woman was barely five feet tall, her bed not much longer than she was, and Devi’s feet hung over the end. It was blessedly warm inside, though, and the woman brought Peter a rough cotton shirt. He donned it gratefully and started unwrapping Devi’s wounds. The woman put two pots onto her woodstove. She poured water into both of them, then cut up potatoes and put them in one of the pots.

Devi had a fever, and now that she was hydrated she began to sweat. Peter asked Ramesh to find out if the woman had any clean cloth. The woman nodded and brought out a large white T-shirt. It was one of those nonsensical Indian or Chinese knockoffs: It read “GG Comet” and had a picture of a smiling kitten flying through space, with a crescent moon and stars in the background. Peter gestured that he wanted to rip it, and the woman nodded. When the second pot had boiled and cooled a bit, she brought it over and set it down on the floor by the bed. Peter took part of the shirt and dipped it in the hot water.

“This is going to hurt,” he said, and Devi nodded dreamily. He began cleaning the wounds. Devi cried out, and the old woman sat down and held her hand.

As he worked, Peter grew more concerned; the wounds weren’t gangrenous yet, but they were starting to smell, and the leg grew more swollen by the hour. Ramesh held Devi’s other hand, and together the three of them got her through the debridement. When Peter had done the best job he could, he tore the rest of the T-shirt in half, soaked it in the water, and wrapped the wounds. As soon as he was done, Devi fell asleep. They covered her with a blanket.

Peter turned to Ramesh. “Village, how far?” he asked.

Ramesh spoke to the woman. From what Peter understood of Ramesh’s broken English, there was a road about a six-hour walk down the mountain, and a town a few miles down the road.

“We need to eat and rest first, if she doesn’t mind us staying a little while,” Peter said. Ramesh nodded and spoke to the woman. She got some dried meat from her cupboard and added it to the water where the potatoes were boiling, then started heating more water in the second pot. When it was hot, she took roasted barley flour and a tin of butter from the cupboard and made
tsampa
. They started with that, then a half hour later, when the potato-and-meat soup was done, they ate again. Devi awakened briefly, and Peter fed her a little soup, but she soon fell back asleep.

The old woman pulled five earthenware jars out of her cupboard and picked dried roots and leaves out of them, then spread
them out on the wooden counter. She directed Peter to chop up several tough, white roots that looked like human fingers. She broke up a couple of different kinds of leaves into a mortar and began grinding them with a pestle, then added something flat and chalky. Peter chopped some thin roots that resembled ramen noodles. The woman went out to the meadow to gather a couple of flowers she wanted, and when everything was assembled to her satisfaction she put it all into a terra-cotta pot, then ladled in enough water to cover the herbs. She put the pot on the stove, gave it a stir with a wooden spoon, and sat down, cross-legged, on a cushion by the bed.

She pulled out her
mala
and began reciting a mantra that Peter had heard before, when he was treating the monks and nuns. It was for the Medicine Buddha, a deity who appeared dark blue in
thangkas. “Om Bekhaze Bekhaze Maha Bekhaze Ratza Samu Gate Soha
,” she mumbled, over and over. In a few minutes the pot had risen to a gentle boil and a wisp of steam emerged.

Peter, exhausted, lay down on the floor by the mattress. From this viewpoint the hut looked a little bigger but not much. Most of the things in it appeared to have been hand-cut from the woods or made of clay most likely dug from some nearby riverbank. The small woodstove, a kerosene lamp, and a few cooking utensils were from the outside world, but the sink was carved from a hollowed-out section of log, and water drained from it through a bamboo pipe. A rough-hewn table with a chair stood against one wall. There was a small shrine made of wood against the other wall. It held butter lamps, water bowls, a couple of deity statues, and photographs of both the Dalai Lama and Lama Padma as a younger man.

“Ask her, does she know Lama Padma?” Peter asked. He was so exhausted that even lying down it took effort to form the words.

Ramesh spoke to the woman. “They friends, young times,” he said. “Same teacher.”

“What’s her name?”

“Tsering Wangmo,” said Ramesh.

“Tell her I said thank you.”

Ramesh spoke to her, and Tsering Wangmo smiled and nodded. Soon she got up and took the herbal decoction off the stove. When the herbs had cooled she gestured to Peter, and he got up. He unwrapped the cotton cloths from Devi’s wounds, soaked them in the herbal mixture, and rewrapped the leg. Tsering Wangmo inspected the bandages, appeared satisfied, and sat to continue her mantra. Peter lay down again. He wondered how the old woman had ended up here. He had many questions, but they would have to wait.

He awakened to sunlight streaming in, to birdsong and an open door. It was just after dawn; he had slept all afternoon and straight through the night, right there on the floor. Tsering Wangmo was outside, feeding the dog.

Devi was awake, and her fever was down. The leg was still swollen but hadn’t gotten any worse.

Peter raised himself on an elbow. “How are you?”

“A little better, I think,” she said groggily. “She changed the dressing every few hours all night long. This morning I crawled out and peed. My leg hurt, but I could do it, and it isn’t bleeding anymore.”

“She stayed up all night?” Peter asked.

Devi nodded.

Tsering Wangmo made breakfast with
tsampa
, then fried potatoes and wild onions together. They were all ravenous and devoured everything quickly. Peter had lost three belt holes since the guerrillas took them, and now that he’d slept and eaten, he felt stiff and sore but surprisingly light. Devi’s cheeks had lost their baby fat and hollowed out. Ramesh was, well, Ramesh—he was tough and matter-of-fact.

A little while later the old woman sat on her porch in the sun, meditating, while Peter and Ramesh washed the dishes. After a few minutes, though, Tsering Wangmo came back inside looking troubled, and spoke to Devi.

“Peter, you’d better listen to this,” Devi said.

He put down the dishrag and leaned against the sink. Ramesh stopped what he was doing and sat on the floor.

“Tsering Wangmo says something may happen soon, and she wants us all to do exactly as she says,” Devi said.

Peter and Ramesh exchanged a look. The old woman spoke for a little while, then Devi translated again. “She wants us to lie down perfectly still where we are, and to stay there with our eyes open, without moving,” Devi said. “She says that no matter what happens, we are not to respond in any way. She wants you to say out loud that you will do as she says.”

“Okay,” said Peter, a little warily. Ramesh nodded and responded in Tibetan.

Tsering Wangmo gestured at the floor then, and they all lay down. Peter felt a little foolish, but at this point he was glad for any excuse to rest. Tsering Wangmo sat on her meditation cushion and took out her two-sided drum, her bell, and her
kangling
, a small horn made from a human femur. She began to play the drum and ring the bell while chanting a low-pitched song of some kind.

“She is doing
chöd
,” Devi explained quietly. “One offers one’s body to pacify demons.”

Demons, thought Peter. The whole thing was out of his realm, but then
he
was out of his realm.

Tsering Wangmo chanted and sang, and from time to time put down the bell and blew the
kangling
, which pealed into the room, piercing and high-pitched. Lying there, Peter felt a shudder go through him. He had the uncanny sense—the physical sensation, up and down his spine—that Tsering Wangmo was calling someone or some
thing
, and that it had heard her and was on its way.

A dull heaviness descended, and he seemed to fall half asleep, as if drugged. After a minute or so he couldn’t move; it was like sleep paralysis, when the brain immobilizes the body with chemicals during dreaming. It seemed to him, in fact, that he
was
asleep, since he couldn’t even move his eyes. His whole body developed a crawling sensation, as if insects were on him
—in
him—but he
couldn’t scratch or even blink. He wondered why he didn’t feel afraid, but other than the itching, the sensation was like drifting in dreams during an afternoon nap, unable to move but strangely contented.

After a few minutes the mastiff began to bark. There was a rifle shot from outside, and the barking stopped. Peter heard boots on the porch, saw the light change as the door was pushed open, and still Tsering Wangmo sang her
chöd
practice. Three young men came into the room, apparently the last of the guerrillas who had tracked them there, and they began shouting at the old woman. Peter wanted to intercede. He realized that Tsering Wangmo’s admonitions hadn’t been necessary, though; he couldn’t have moved or gotten up if he’d tried.

Tsering Wangmo ignored the men. Finally one of them went over to her and pulled the drum out of her hand, then the bell. He apparently knew some rudimentary Tibetan, and he shouted at her. She responded quietly. Peter’s eyes stayed on the ceiling, and he could just barely see what was going on in his peripheral vision.

The men came over to them, one by one, and looked into their faces. Peter stared straight ahead. One man nudged him with his boot; his body felt slack, lifeless, and he didn’t even flinch. When they looked at him, they seemed repulsed. He had the feeling from the tone of their conversation that they had a similar response to the others.

They shouted at the old woman again, indicating with their hands that they wanted food. She nodded toward the pot on the stove, where the potatoes were simmering. One of the men went to the pot and lifted the lid, then shouted, dropped it, and retreated to the far corner of the room. The lid clanged to the floor, then wobbled down flat and lay still. The other two guerrillas went to look into the pot, then backed warily away.

They were very angry and upset now, and appeared to have decided to leave. But on their way out, one of them turned back and leveled his rifle at Tsering Wangmo. He pulled the trigger, but the
rifle did not fire. She picked up her bell and drum again, and began to play. The guerrilla pulled the trigger again, but the rifle just clicked. To test the gun, he aimed it at the ceiling, just over Peter’s head. This time it fired and blew a hole out of the roof, and an azure patch of sky appeared. The guerrilla aimed the gun at Tsering Wangmo a third time and pulled the trigger. Once again, it did not fire. He screamed in frustration and turned to go, slamming the butt of the gun into the doorframe as he stalked out.