Exiles (38 page)
Authors: Cary Groner
After dinner Cody cleared the table and piled the dishes in the sink while Peter, Connie, and Mina adjourned to the deck and watched the kids play Frisbee in the field. Usha was new to the game but got the hang of it quickly. Ben was getting tall, leggy, and fast, but he still couldn’t catch Alex.
“My niece is looking good,” said Connie. “How’d you manage that?”
“Tough stock,” Peter replied. “You should know.”
The clouds were turning purple overhead. Cody came out with another bottle of wine and opened it. “How can they eat so much and run around like that?” he asked.
“It’s called metabolism,” Connie said. “Remember metabolism?”
He smiled. “Vaguely.”
“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” said Mina. “Look at them go.”
“Ben could turn out to be a sprinter,” said Cody.
“He’s too wiry,” Connie said. “I’m thinking cross-country.”
To sit with a full belly on a cool fall evening, talking about the children, felt to Peter like brilliant, extravagant luxury. But they
were
beautiful. They moved like young cats, fluid and graceful and capable of startling acceleration, and then they’d get their legs tangled up and fall over one another, laughing.
One of Usha’s throws got away from her and headed toward
the house. Peter got up and caught it, then went down the stairs and threw it back to her. She grabbed it, trotted a few steps, and threw it to Ben, who leaped in the air and turned, trying to catch it behind his back. He missed, and it hit him in the head. He staggered around, pretending to be hurt, and Usha laughed.
Peter looked over his shoulder at Mina, who was looking at him. He knew that look, of yearning and of love and of lust, and it sent jangles of energy right down through him and into the ground, as if a slender finger of lightning had slipped from the sky and found him waiting for its charge.
Connie noticed and fanned herself with her hand. “Getting warm out here,” she said. Mina dipped her fingers in her drink and flicked the water at her, and Connie ducked, grinning.
The sun dipped behind a low scrim of pink cloud, and a soft, warm radiance fell upon everything so evenly that the world seemed to glow. It was like the light at Lama Padma’s, a light that held secrets, and Peter felt his heart fill with love for these children.
Ben threw a long one about halfway between Alex and Peter, and they both ran for it. The Frisbee caught a little gust and sailed far out over the grass, and Alex outran him. At the last second, just as it was about to get past her, she leaped up high and caught it in midair, then fell and rolled and came to her feet with it in her hand. They applauded, and she took a little bow.
She nudged Peter with her shoulder as she trotted by. “Better get in shape, old man, I’m leaving you in the dust.” She skipped away from him toward the others, laughing, her hair flying.
And he thought, Okay, kid. Leave me in the dust.
Run
.
I’m greatly indebted to my agent, Barbara Braun, for seeing the potential in this book and urging Cindy Spiegel at Spiegel & Grau to give it a read. Cindy has been a wonderful editor, and her suggestions have vastly improved the novel.
Many friends helped bring the manuscript along from my original, vague ideas about it. Jane Dwyer and Marilyn Montgomery, both nurses who took their children to Kathmandu when they went there to work in health clinics, provided many excellent stories about their sojourns. Sandy Shum, Paloma Lopez, Peter Moulton, and Marilyn Cohen generously consented to lengthy interviews about their time in Nepal and gave me extremely helpful information. I was also inspired by sources that included Barbara Scot’s
Violet Shyness of Their Eyes
, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche’s
Blazing Splendor
, and the
Traveler’s Tales Guide to Nepal
, including Broughton Coburn’s hilarious first-person account of having a leech ensconced in his nose.
My brother Cam and his daughter Christine talked to me at length about the pleasures and pains of fathers and daughters traveling together in foreign countries. My brother Chris provided
sound information and juicy stories about life in the trenches of medical practice.
At the University of Arizona, my instructors Jason Brown and Bob Houston gave me important insights into the manuscript that helped lift it from its early abyss. My kind and tireless mentor, Elizabeth Evans, guided me further with excellent suggestions as I sought to address a variety of difficult issues.
My parents always encouraged me to follow whatever path I considered important, no matter how nuts it seemed to them, and for this I will always be grateful. My wife, Patti, has been amazingly supportive and patient; she’s a great soul and, as added benefits, smart as hell and totally beautiful.
The descriptions here of atrocities committed by Chinese soldiers are based on documented accounts and include stories related to me personally by Tibetans I have known. I have a profound debt to all those courageous enough to speak about their ordeals.
Finally, what modest knowledge I have of Buddhism I credit entirely to my extraordinary teachers of many years, the late Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche and his Dzogchen lineage holder, Lama Drimed Norbu. I owe them far more than I can put into words.
C
ARY
G
RONER
worked for more than two decades as a journalist, then earned his MFA in fiction writing from the University of Arizona in 2009. His short stories have won numerous awards and have appeared in publications that include
Glimmer Train, American Fiction, Mississippi Review, Southern California Review
, and
Tampa Review
. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Exiles
is his first novel.