Girl Spins a Blade Read online

  “You’ve been baking, Manisha,” Mrs. Kansakar called out.

  “Welcome, welcome,” a sweet voice chirped from the kitchen. “Please make yourselves comfortable.”

  “Sabina-bahini,” Mrs. Kansakar replied. “You’re back. How is your mother-in-law?”

  “Not well, I’m afraid. I’ll be returning to her tomorrow. And who have we here?” she asked politely.

  “Oh, yes,” Mrs. Kansakar said, remembering her manners. “This is my houseguest, Michiko…”

  “Please call me Emily. All my friends do.”

  “And this is Sabina Malla, Mrs. Ranjeet’s daughter.”

  “Please, sit, while I bring the tea,” Sabina said with a shake of her head.

  When Mrs. Ranjeet finally came up the stairs, her daughter had some hushed words for her in the kitchen. Emily caught only a few bits and pieces that chanced to be in English.

  “Maa, this is who you want to introduce him to?” When her mother made no audible reply, Sabina continued. “I thought you wanted a Newar for him. She’s not even Aryan. Do you really want your grandson to marry a Mongol?”

  “So you don’t like Mongols now?” Mrs. Ranjeet asked.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re the one who rejects all the girls he likes, and you know he’s attracted to them. And she’s so tall.”

  Mrs. Kansakar smiled nervously at Emily and tried to look like she heard nothing. Emily growled out a quiet “hmm” to let her know she wasn’t fooled. Meanwhile, Mrs. Ranjeet tried to shush her daughter with a sharp whisper to no avail.

  “Yes, she’s pretty enough,” Sabina hissed. “But aren’t you the one who said she had to be Newar? And the blue jeans? You hate those. Don’t deny it.”

  “We’ll see to that in a little while.”

  A moment later, Sabina and her mother came out of the kitchen wearing unconvincingly broad smiles and carrying a large tea set and a tray full of little cakes.

  “How delightful,” Mrs. Kansakar gushed, trying to turn around an uncomfortable situation. “Here, chhori. Have a piece of spice cake.”

  Emily sipped tea and ate whatever was put in front of her. Gradually, afternoon turned into evening, and tea cakes gave way to more substantial fare. Before she even had time to register what was happening in the kitchen, Sabina brought a tray full of little bowls, some steaming, others cold. Plates of rice were handed around and bowls of a lentil stew called dal, as well as what Emily assumed to be steamed kale. Best of all, she thought, were the spicy pickles Mrs. Kansakar called aachar.

  “Do you eat meat?” Sabina asked.

  When Emily nodded, she passed around a plate of dumplings. Momos, she called them.

  “I thought you didn’t eat beef,” Emily asked after a bite.

  “Don’t worry, chhori,” Mrs. Ranjeet said. “It’s buff.”

  “She means it’s buffalo meat,” Sabina whispered.

  Emily was worried, of course, though not about what was in the momos. Mrs. Kansakar gave her one word of caution when she first arrived: don’t touch food with your left hand. She supposed some important truth hid somewhere in the distinction between hands, though it seemed like an arbitrary abstraction at that precise moment. Still, it took a little bit of attention to avoid any manual inadvertence.

  Dusk crept across the windows before Mrs. Ranjeet remembered the fitting that provided the ostensible reason for this little get-together. It turned out to be nothing more than letting down the hems and taking in seams on a few pairs of pants. Emily was lankier and taller than the women these outfits were originally imagined for. A few chalk marks and some hand sewing later—Sabina turned out to be a speedy seamstress—and Emily had three very form-fitting outfits.

  “You’re so slender, chhori,” Sabina clucked over her. “Don’t you eat?”

  “I eat,” Emily protested. “You saw.”

  “She eats,” Mrs. Kansakar chimed in. “It’s all the running…”

  Some rustling at the kitchen door announced the arrival everyone else had been waiting for. Emily heard Mrs. Ranjeet making a fuss in the next room.

  “Hajurama…” she heard a man’s voice call out.

  “Oh, my dear boy,” Mrs. Ranjeet said loudly. “Use English. We have a guest,” she said not quietly enough.

  “Again,” he moaned. “Who is it this time? Not another market girl, I hope.”

  “Hush up, silly boy. Come meet her.”

  Overhearing this exchange didn’t enhance anyone’s comfort level, and certainly not Emily’s. Once he saw her, however, Yesh looked more embarrassed than everyone else put together. After the introductions, and while he still had her hand, he leaned over and whispered: “I’m sorry about this.”

  Not particularly athletic, but tall and well-built—Emily sized him up. Brown aryan features, dark eyes and a sharp nose, his salient feature was a huge mane of wavy black hair hanging down below his shoulders. He wore it tied loosely behind his neck.

  “Yesh,” Sabina snarled. “What about that haircut you promised?”

  “I’m sorry, Ama,” he said to his mother. “There were just so many things to do this week.”

  “It’s always something,” Mrs. Ranjeet scolded.

  “I like it,” Emily said, though as soon as the words left her mouth it felt like she had intruded where she didn’t belong. All three women turned to look at her, as if they’d just realized she was there. “It looks good,” she added, sheepishly.

  “Oh, I like this one,” Yesh said. “Where’d you find her, Grandma?”

  An hour of stiff conversation followed, in which Emily learned that he was only a year older than her, not yet twenty, taught maths at a nearby high school and awaited an unspecified, life-changing event. She could sympathize.

  Yesh insisted on walking them home, once the dark of the evening had overtaken them. It was impossible to get a private moment with Emily in his grandmother’s apartment. The dark streets of Bangemudha weren’t much better with Mrs. Kansakar in tow, but the old lady was crafty enough to lag a few steps behind the young people, just enough space for them to make a plan.

  “I’ve been visiting Ganesh temples,” Emily said.

  Have you been to Chobar?” Yesh asked. “It’s beautiful, one of the largest temples anywhere, right on the river, just a few miles out of town. We can take a bus in the morning.” By this point, he was simply gushing.

  “We?”

  He blushed, having been caught in his own enthusiasm. She’d go with him, of course, but not without putting him just a little off balance.

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  Chapter 6: Amaterasu is not so easily evaded

  Light and shadow flickered across her face and the cool air of the forest ruffled her hair as she walked along the familiar path. One foot in front of the other, heel aligned with toe, the dirt crinkled as she walked. Water burbled somewhere in the distance, tropical foliage brushed against her as she walked past, pushing forward to the light of a clearing that gleamed through the last few branches up ahead.

  She knew this place, her place. Her father’s spirit lived here. The meadow beckoned, bright with no light of its own. One step, two, three, and she felt the warmth of the sun shining all around her. But something was different this time. The light was hot, and growing hotter. The voice of the sun shrilled at her.

  “The sword of the true master takes life when it is necessary, and gives life when it is good.”

  Emily recognized the words. They were from another saying of the Japanese monk, Takuan Soho. Her sensei taught it to her a few years earlier, but Rinpoche helped her understand it. She knew what came next: “The true master knows no friendship.” Just as she heard herself shrieking out the last few words, the warmth of the sun became unbearably hot. Tears ran down her face.

  “Please, Granny. You’re hurting me!”

  She felt herself being consumed by the fire, her skin boiling, about to be turned to ash. She would scream out in pain if she could, but the stench of burning flesh choked the sound o
ff in her throat. And then it was dark.

  She opened her eyes onto a pitch-black room on a moonless night. It was her room and her bed, she realized after a moment.

  “What’s the matter, child?” Mrs. Kansakar cooed from the door. And then the old woman was at her side, one hand caressing her face. “You must have had a nightmare.”

  “Yes,” she replied in a groggy voice. “It was a bad dream.” She turned her face away, uncertain whether Mrs. Kansakar would be able to see in her eyes the turmoil she felt in her heart.

  “You gave me quite a fright, crying out like that. It’s a good thing we have no other guests just now, or they’d have been in here, too.”

  Eventually, fatigue overtook her and she slept soundly until well after dawn. Normally, she hated letting the sun get the drop on her, but today she just couldn’t face her right away.

  Breakfast put away, and all questions politely deflected, Emily left to meet Yesh at the bus. The ride to Jal Vinayak in Chobar took the proverbial twenty minutes. It turned out to be an impressive temple complex stretched out along the Bagmati river. At seven thirty, they had the place pretty much to themselves, but by ten the tourists began crowding in, along with the many young singles and newlyweds who came to dream of love or children.

  The god of obstacles listens to all prayers and is the first god honored in any puja ceremony. Emily was surprised to find that the main image of Ganesh was little more than a natural rock outcropping, framed in a brick shrine off to one side of the complex. The suggestion of two lobes of an elephant’s forehead was all it took for the ancient worshippers to discover the presence of the god at this holy site.

  By eleven, with the crowds beginning to feel oppressive, Yesh was ready to go back to town. A bus left in ten minutes and there wouldn’t be another for an hour. Emily brushed off his impatience and wandered down to the river. A few hundred yards north along the river bed, past a bridge and off to the right in the shade afforded by the woods clinging to one of the few remaining undeveloped hillsides, she found a secluded corner to sit quietly.

  “We should get back soon,” Yesh called up to her inopportunely. “There’s nothing left to see here.”

  Emily glowered at him, then thought better of it. “Come up here and sit with me,” she said.

  Of course, he complied. There was no way to resist such an invitation from a pretty girl in a place like this. She had found one of the very few spots where one couldn’t see the road or plowed fields, or the nearby cement factory. He picked his way up through some dense underbrush, getting a little scratched up along the way. At one point, his hair caught on a branch and she had to help disentangle him.

  “Listen to the water,” she said after a moment.

  “That’s the rapids of the Chobar Gorge,” he said. “Legend has it the entire Kathmandu valley was once a vast lake, until the people cut the gorge into the mountain as a channel to let the water drain away. The god of the river that lay beneath it all must have inspired them.”

  “That’s a nice story. Is it true?”

  “Who knows? But people like to imagine that rivers are divine things. I’m sure later today families will cremate their dead at the water’s edge just below the temple hoping the river will smooth their passage.”

  “I like that story better,” she said. “And I like this place. Ganesh is such a pure, generous spirit. It’s like I can feel him here more than in the city shrines.”

  “Maybe you’re just glad to be away from the noise of the city.”

  “Close your eyes for a moment and listen to the sound of your own breathing.”

  “Are you some sort of bikchuni, then?”

  “I’m no nun. Just do it, for me.”

  Yesh tried to sit quietly, even closed his eyes for about half a minute. Another minute and he was fidgeting and squirming like a little boy in church. She turned an irritated glance his way. He drew back when he saw her eyes, as if he were looking into the eyes of a wild animal, or some untamed spirit. Emily caught herself and tried to direct something softer his way.

  “Please. This is what I came here to do.”

  “What, meditate at Jal Vinayak?”

  “No. Well, sort of. I came here, you know, to Nepal, to find some respite from my Granny,” she said cryptically. “And Ganesh is the only one left who may be able to give it to me.”

  She gazed directly into his puzzled face, tried to fix his eyes with hers, without freaking him out. She could see he wanted to be patient. But this wasn’t his errand, and maybe it was unfair to force it on him. She saw something else as she looked in his eyes. He was beautiful, with his sharp features and his eyes almost as dark as hers. And, of course, that Byronic mane of hair flaring about his head. She felt it just then, a poetic spark in him, something that might one day articulate the divinity of the world, reshaping it in the words he would use to name it. She leaned over and kissed his lips.

  “Let’s just try to breathe for a few minutes, okay, for me.”

  Yesh wanted to be all compliance now—that much was written across his face. He nodded vigorously, apparently having lost the power of speech. And he did manage to sit quietly, at least to all outward appearances. But the sound of his heart pounding against his ribs echoed in her ears. Emily tried to breathe past it, to hear the rapids in the gorge, to let herself float away down the river and join the rest of the dead on their way to whatever peace awaited them. After a few more minutes, she saw the futility of her effort. Not now, not here. “Not after I kissed him,” she thought. “Brilliant.”

  “Let’s go back,” she said, standing over him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll try harder. Let’s not go yet.”

  She leaned over him and smiled.

  “It’s okay. I’m hungry anyway.”

  It was surprisingly easy to find food outside the temple. Vendors stood ready on both sides of the access road. Emily found a bowl of potato and lentil curry at one stand, while Yesh hunted down a plate of momos and some mangos blended in beaten rice at another, as well as a bag of candied lapsi fruit. He seemed to have quite a sweet tooth. They ran to catch the bus and ate in the back.

  “Is this how you usually spend your days,” she asked.

  “Sadly, no. I work during the week, and then weekends are always filled with family errands. I think it’s time to go see the world.”

  “I may have seen enough of the world,” she sighed.

  The bus rumbled back along Dakchhinkali Road, winding its way back into the city. As they broached more urban neighborhoods, traffic thickened and the exhaust fumes of other buses began to infiltrate the cabin. Emily scanned a route map as they approached Ring Road.

  “I have to go to Swayambhunath. I’m gonna change buses up ahead.”

  “What do you want there?” he asked.

  “I’m supposed to meet Rinpoche Tashi this afternoon.”

  “How on earth did you manage that?” he asked. “I didn’t think the Tibetan gompas accepted bikchunis.”

  “They don’t, but I told you, I’m not a bikchuni.”

  “Then why would the Rinpoche meet with you? They don’t usually make time for tourists, you know.”

  “You don’t have to come,” she said when he got off the bus with her.

  “I’d like to, if you don’t mind. I haven’t been to that part of town in some time. Don’t worry, I’ll watch the monkeys while you have your meeting.”

  Two buses later, they found themselves entering the western end of the Swayambhu temple complex.

  Emily spotted him before Yesh did, monk’s robes bedraggled from running. He was out of breath by the time he reached them.

  “Michi-didi,” he spluttered out.

  “Nawang, what is it?” she asked, now beginning to feel the panic inside him.

  “It’s Sonam, the Sherpas…”

  “What’s happened?”

  “He didn’t come back from school. The Sherpas, they took him… Michi-didi, they might…”

 
“Calm down, Nawang,” she said. “Do you know where they took him?”

  The young monk bent over to catch his breath.

  “What’s this all about?” Yesh asked.

  “It’s a little boy I look after sometimes.”

  “Sherpas took him? Why?” he asked. “And where?”

  Nawang stood upright, breathing a little easier and gave directions to an address just north of Thamel, the tourist district.

  “Let’s go, Michi-didi. We have to hurry,” he said.

  “You’re not going there, are you?” Yesh asked. “What are you supposed to do, negotiate with gangsters?”

  Emily ignored him and looked at Nawang. “You stay here. Go, tell Rinpoche where I’ve gone.”

  “This is crazy,” Yesh exclaimed as she turned to go. “You can’t do this.”

  “Don’t worry about me. Wait here.”

  “Wait. You don’t even know the way… Fine. I’ll come with you.”

  “No,” she called over her shoulder, already starting to run. “Stay here.”

  ~~~~~~~

  The address Nawang gave her turned out to be just another unprepossessing building, like so many others in this part of Kathmandu. A blank front face, one imposing door, but no first floor windows—an alley way on the left seemed to beckon to her. A few seconds later, Yesh caught her up, chest still heaving from the run.

  “Mrs. Kansakar wasn’t kidding,” he said between breaths. “You do run way too much.”

  As Emily looked at him, it occurred to her that whatever might happen, it was likely to be much more dangerous than he had bargained for. This was definitely not his errand. “I shouldn’t have kissed him,” she thought. “Now I’ll never be rid of him.”

  She guided him over to a stoop across the street where he could sit down.

  “Wait here.”

  A slight curve in the alley made it impossible to see the far end from the street. Emily remembered what Rinpoche said about one last lesson Sonam could learn from her. After all her talk about the evils of fighting back against bullies, what could she teach him now, just when unleashing all manner of destruction on his tormentors might turn out to be necessary?