Girl Spins a Blade Read online

  Girl Spins a Blade

  A Novella

  by

  Jacques Antoine

  Girl Spins a Blade (originally published as The High Road to the Mountain Gods, copyright 2013, Jacques Antoine

  Cover design by Suzie O’Connell

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

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  To Yesha and Sabina,

  for bringing Kathmandu to life.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: Sonam and the Bullies

  Chapter 2: Rinpoche Tashi meets a Deva

  Chapter 3: Asan Chowk

  Chapter 4: Meditating with the Monks

  Chapter 5: Yesh and the Mongol Girl

  Chapter 6: Amaterasu is not so easily evaded

  Chapter 1: Sonam and the Bullies

  When she first arrived in Kathmandu, the summer after graduating high school, Emily stayed in a little guesthouse off Gangalal Road, near the river. In those days, her interest lay further east, in the Pashupati temple by the airport. At three miles or so, the run directly there was not enough exercise. A zigzag route through the streets made it much more satisfying.

  The morning air always felt big with expectation of the day to come—the sights and sounds of a living city, brightly colored buildings and people, deliveries by bicycle and motor scooter weaving this way and that, children shrieking in the streets, tourists everywhere. “Surely Amaterasu will not find me here,” she told herself when she first arrived. But under the guise of Pashupati, the lord of all living things, Vishnu spoke in her dreams with the shrill voice of the sun, the queen of heaven.

  Raised in Hawaii and Virginia, Emily did not pray to the Shinto gods of her mother’s native Japan, and did not know how to find the comfort of the Buddha. To be caught in the tension between two spiritual yearnings with no rituals to reconcile them was disorienting, to say the least. The dreams that disturbed her sleep proclaimed her the great-granddaughter of the goddess of the sun—she didn’t bother about the precise number of generations standing between herself and Amaterasu. She simply thought of her as “Granny.”

  Her own reading, driven by spiritual turmoil, had reinforced what she felt deep inside. The great nature demons commanded the worship of our ancestors for millennia, until a more spiritually abstracted faith supplanted them, no longer focused on appeasing the personalities who controlled the bounty of the harvest and the turning of the seasons, weighing instead the contents of our hearts. The process was strikingly similar in Europe, Africa and Asia, in each case working through one or another paradoxically historical figure to mediate for us with an increasingly distant divinity. The Buddha was one of these.

  But the Buddhism of Japan felt to Emily like too stark a contrast to the demands Granny made on her. She craved mediation, and sought it in the foothills of the Himalayas, in the homeland of Siddhartha Gautam, in Nepal. Perhaps here, living among a people with a unique genius for assimilating opposites into an already crowded pantheon, she could finally find some relief, or at least understanding. Now her attention had shifted to a temple at the western end of the Kathmandu valley.

  Her landlady, Sunita Kansakar, plump and self-satisfied, gray hair dyed black, watched as she went out early to run through the still dark streets of the city all the way to the outskirts. And she watched for her return an hour or so later, just as the sun peeked over the rooftop of the building next door.

  “I’ll never understand you, Michi-chhori,” she said, using Emily’s Japanese name, but appending a couple of affectionate syllables. “Why do you run so far? It looks exhausting. What is the point?”

  “I find it restful. It helps me think.”

  “And what is so difficult to think about that you need to exhaust yourself over it?”

  A fair question, Emily had to admit. And why come all this way to think? Mrs. Kansakar must expect to hear that a young man occupied her thoughts, someone like fourth year midshipman and soon-to-be Ensign Perry Hankinson back in Annapolis. But would she so gladly hear the rest of it, the violence that seemed always to stalk her, the deaths she felt somehow responsible for?

  “You know, the usual things,” she said.

  And it would have been more or less true, or at least not utterly false, if the usual things included wondering if she could risk releasing her chromosomes into the human gene pool.

  “Young people,” Mrs. Kansakar said, with a snort. “Everything is always so dramatic.”

  Emily laughed. “Thank goodness I haven’t disappointed you.”

  “Come, child, at least you can eat.”

  A couple of bowls of potato vegetable curry and a plate of poori bread filled the little space between them on the kitchen table. Emily was the only guest she ate with, the only one up early enough to share a meal with… and the only one whose company she enjoyed enough. The breakfast for the rest of the guests sat steaming in a large pot on the stove next to a huge iron skillet ready to fry the rest of the pooris. It wouldn’t be needed for at least another hour.

  The orderliness of Mrs. Kansakar’s kitchen soothed Emily on a deep and visceral level. Everything found its place here under her direction, legumes and root vegetables in cool bins below the counter, spices allotted temporary quarters in jars and boxes on the upper shelves, greens delivered in the morning twilight heaped up next to the sink. Everything expressed equally Mrs. Kansakar’s providential authority. She was the tutelary demon of this place.

  “Can you teach me how to make curry?”

  “Yes, certainly, child. But you’ll have to give over your running to find the time in the morning,” she said with evident satisfaction, and a sneaky little smile.

  “Can I come with you to the market?”

  Mrs. Kansakar nodded, eyeing her companion with fresh curiosity. How quickly Emily had found a place in the affections of an irascible old lady, one whose stern moral judgment and sharp tongue all her neighbors feared at least as much as they respected. Like the kindly old dragon-lady from a Russian novel, everyone tiptoed around her, apprehensive of the sarcasm that stung wherever it landed. A visit with her could loom over one’s day like an ancient fortress on a hill. What must they think of her newfound protegé?

  “Michi-didi, Michi-didi,” cried a young man in the burgundy and saffron colored robes of a monk, standing at the kitchen door. Clearly upset, practically trembling, he addressed her as “big sister.”

  “Michi-didi, it’s Sonam… he… he…”

  “Nawang,” Emily replied, glancing at the clock over the sink. “What’s wrong with Sonam?”

  Just then, a little boy peeked around the doorframe, dressed in a light gray uniform shirt and tie, wearing a torn blue sweater. A scrape on his chin and a purpling bruise under his eye told her all she needed to know.

  “Here, chhora, take that off,” Mrs. Kansakar growled in the voice of maternal authority. “Let me see to it.”

  She gave his sweater a disapproving shake and took it into the next room.

  “It wasn’t my fault, Michi-didi,” he pleaded.

  “Another fight?” Emily said. “What was it this time, more name-calling?”

  “They ganged up on him, Michi-didi,” Nawang offered in Sonam’s defense. “I know he didn’t start it this time.”

  “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 th
em?” 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.

  Back to top

  Chapter 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 a source of 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?”r />
  “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, maybe just the hint of an intuition, 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.”