Nima Page 5

  The crackle of the flames brings me back. Mother piles dung to prepare the midday meal. My silent sister glances at me as if asking: “Are you all right?”

  The thick smoke from the stove fills the room and I imagine Father’s chang-blurred vision. It won’t be long before he’ll wake and find fault with me again. There’s nowhere safe in our small home. The hungry goat rubs against me, chews on my sleeve. I shove her harder now, she staggers back—and steps on the pig. She squeals. Then all the animals shriek, and the beast on two legs—well, almost two—awakens and roars

  “Soon, very soon,” Mother mumbles, glaring at my sisters, who jump into action. Crouching, leaning, bending, necks craning, limbs stretched. Second lights incense to purify the room and bless the food, Third lights the butter lamps, Fourth and Fifth take the steaming pot of rice off the stove. “Why aren’t you helping, Eldest?” Mother snaps. “You aren’t married yet.”

  I leap and get the rice bowls and cups.

  “Your father first, Eldest!”

  I pile the rice high into Father’s bowl, then pour lentils and curry on top. I give it to him, but he almost throws it back at me. “Where’s the roti?”

  I turn, it’s still frying, I burn my fingers as I grab it. “Here it is.”

  He takes it from me, crunches down on the thin doughy bread, sending crumbs onto the floor, the pig scurrying over right away. Father hits the pig on its snout, but it keeps eating the crumbs. “Eldest, hand me the birch.”

  I grab the crutch and give it to him and he beats the pig away. Father clumps food in the fingers of his right hand and eats. Mother unwraps her sash, opens her bakhu robe and suckles our hungry Sixth sister.

  Birth, life, death, sky.

  I daydream about a space of my own, truly my own, a place where I will be able to read, to learn more about life beyond the mountain—to be, in a way that I’ve never had the chance at home. And since Norbu’s family home is full, we’ll build a new one for ourselves. My instincts tell me Norbu is gentler than Father, but his expectations for women are probably the same. He is a man, after all.

  A woman’s role is simple, to tend house and make children.

  It will help to have my sister there, and I reassure myself that Norbu is different than Father. We have at least one very important thing in common—he goes to the cyber cafe in our new village of Khunde, more than an hour’s walk from here, and watches Bollywood films on the computer. Second and I have seen him there many times. Norbu would never admit that he goes there hoping to see us, but the cyber cafe is the only place for the unmarried to be together without causing gossip. When you cannot be alone with a man, there are no other ways for flirtation. And when a man cannot speak to you alone, when the business of love becomes just that, a transaction conducted by parents instead of the future man and wife, we have no choice but to resort to whatever inane ways we can find to see each other. How many young men go and sit there behind a machine, pretending to be enthralled by the artistry of Indian choreography and complicated love affairs, when they are really just waiting for their own real-life affairs to start?

  When we saw Norbu at the cafe last time, he nodded, then quickly turned back to the screen. But his eyes kept glancing at us, then just as quickly looking away. Impossible to tell what he was thinking. Impossible to know what to do next. I couldn’t talk to Mother about this sort of thing. She and Father forbade us to visit the cyber cafe. “Don’t you have any useful work to do?” Mother questioned. We would finish our chores as fast as we could, rushing to watch those films when the generator worked, sometimes all of my sisters huddling around a single small screen.

  “Do any women really live like that?” Third would ask, pointing to a brown-skinned goddess reclining on a throne while two men fed her peeled grapes.

  “Some women have two men as servants?” Fourth wondered.

  “Maybe some women have two husbands?” Third asked. “I saw it in another film. Didn’t you see that one with me, Eldest? The Two Husbands From Bangalore, remember?”

  I could never handle two husbands. Even if I wore henna tattoos on my hands, a ring in my nose, and I liked to chant and dance at any given moment to the sounds of sitars and drum beats, one is enough.

  Once, on a rare occasion that I was alone, I discovered Norbu at the cafe. He sat up in his seat and looked at me so intently, I felt like a deer trapped by a wolf. When we’re married, he won’t leave me alone until he’s put a baby in my belly. I’m certain of this no matter how kind he is. He’ll make me and my sister pregnant at the same time. And if neither of us can give him a child right away, he could take another bride. Norbu’s family has enough yaks to buy many brides.

  Two days from now, I’ll be a bride. Soon enough, I’ll learn if I can make him happy. But the way my mother sounds on the nights my father isn’t passed out, when he has his way with her—the sounds she makes. Sometimes she cries. More times than I can remember I’ve kept my eyes shut, pretending to be sleeping but wide awake, my hands balled into fists, a cold sweat all over me—is that what it is to be a good wife—to have a man on top of you every night?

  If Norbu would let me study, maybe that would—

  “Eldest!” My father pushes the goat out of the way, hops towards me on his good leg. His eyes are rolling. “Have you gone deaf, Eldest? What are you thinking about?”

  “Maybe Norbu will let me go back to school,” I say before I can stop myself. The blow is so swift, it knocks me down.

  My sisters, crouching an arm’s length away, barely look up. My mother holds the little one close, and by the way the baby cries, I know how hard she’s pressing her breast into Sixth’s face. It’s a scene that’s played in our home so many times, no one shows surprise—better to be done with it quickly. Mother breathes deep, stirs the pot. He hits me again. I’m so used to it, I don’t even flinch. I go deep inside. Far away, to a place where I don’t feel anything. Where I can’t be touched. Father is puffing, sucking air through jagged teeth. He’ll go on like this until his end. Not the first or last man to make chang his life until it’s gone. He hops on his one good leg, one, two, three steps until he collapses back down to his bed and his bottle. The noble Sherpa.

  The goat is back in my face, licking the salty tears from my swollen face. I don’t even push her away. My sisters keep their heads down, best to stay low. Then Fifth, sweet Fifth, she puts her rice bowl down and comes and nuzzles her head against mine.

  “Third, fill a cup with snow for your sister,” Mother directs. “She’s getting married the day after tomorrow. We can’t have her face bruised. Eldest has to look her best.”

  6

  I HAVE TROUBLE SLEEPING TONIGHT, AND IT’S NOT BECAUSE I’M SORE and bruised. Nor is it because I share my bed with my sisters. I’m used to that. I’m used to the stink of the animals and my parents’ nightly sport. All normal.

  What keeps me awake are my thoughts. I try remembering the last time my father was my father. The last time he was sweet to me. The nearest I can recall is when he bought a mobile phone, a Sony Ericsson J1332—I was so impressed, I memorized the model. Father bought it used, for seven hundred and fifty rupees. He never had a mobile when he worked on the mountain, but he told me he planned to make it a gift to me on my wedding day. This kindness was so unexpected, it was hard to believe. “For me?” I confirmed, astonished.

  He nodded. He hadn’t given me or my sisters a present since he’d broken his leg. The small, shiny thing felt so smooth.

  “How does it work, Father?” I asked.

  The lines on his forehead creased and rippled, and he started punching numbers on the mobile, impatient and wild, the way he did everything. The device uttered a string of sharp beeps, then fell silent.

  “I’ll show you on your wedding day,” he growled, throwing the mobile into a chest at the foot of his bed. The chest where he kept his climbing flashlight, his special sunglasses, and other trekking supplies he no longer used. He hits the top of the chest with his walking stick
—that’s it—and limped off. I pinched my eyes shut and exhaled.

  A week later, telling myself this would be my wedding present—it was my right—I opened the chest while he was asleep. Everyone was working in the field, all except for our patriarch, deep in the land, the empty bottle at the foot of the bed. I watched Father’s chest rise and fall, a whooshing snore escaping his lips. And as I looked down at him, I thought of all the times he had stood like that over me.

  Tracing his body, from the hard lines of his face down to those terrible hands. How easy it would be to end him, I thought, and then, as if cheering me on, the goats and pig began wailing. He didn’t stir, though his chest kept rising and falling, rising and falling. Shame washed over me. Then fear and guilt. I shoved the mobile into my coat and rushed out, Father still snoring.

  I ran to the fields to oversee what few yaks we had left. I felt as if I was being watched—I’m a thief. No, I’m not—making me work double-quick, filling the jugs with milk, piling the dung to collect, all the while, the little mobile in my pocket waited to be touched. I felt it throbbing like the heart of a newborn calf.

  The elders—the real elders—they say yaks birthed our world. In the old days, we would use their hair to make tents and clothes. Now most prefer buying down jackets over sewing coats by hand. The Norgays have dozens of yaks, enough to make life easy. Or easier, as long as I’m not the one chasing them up and down the steppe. I imagine having to tend them all by myself, but no, that’s not the way for a new bride. We don’t have enough yaks, so we never have enough cheese and butter to sell, never enough to buy rice or flour, so I often drink water to fill the emptiness.

  Too tired to worry any longer I sat under a tree, a silver birch, and finally pulled it out. My shiny little friend.

  The weather had been pleasant enough that week, long days with the sun high enough to melt the morning frost. With the wide sky warming me, I felt safe, safe to sit without fear of the cold creeping up my backside. Or of anyone watching. Sitting under the silver birch, I read the letters and numbers on the back of the mobile, trying to sound out English words. Made in China.

  I flipped it over, and my finger touched something that made a startling beep—startling enough that I dropped the thing. I let out a laugh, my first in so long, and the laugh turned to a slight cry, and I laughed and cried at the same time, free to let my heart sing under that birch. My head down, my shiny little friend filling my whole world, I felt the sun’s touch moving across my face. My neck ached a bit, but I didn’t move, I couldn’t get enough of this toy. When the headmaster showed us his mobile years ago, I didn’t know what I would do with it or who I would call, but I decided I would have my own one day. Now I did, even if for only a few moments. Recalling Bollywood films in which people tapped them with their fingers, I did the same: the screen growing bigger, then everything smaller. I couldn’t imagine Norbu beating me for this. He had his own mobile, which I’d seen him use at the cyber cafe.

  I raised the phone and pointed. Yaks chewing their cud blissfully at pasture. Salty gray and white peaks. I pressed down with my thumb. Snap. Looking at the screen, the mountains were now trapped in the machine. I turned the mobile around, then, looking at my reflection in it, I tapped down again. Snap. I barely recognized what I saw, prettier than I remembered, despite being covered in dust. I wiped with my hand, splashed water from my bottle, smeared and washed as best I could, then snapped again. Better. I kept looking at the photo: no child anymore.

  One of the yaks grunted, but I didn’t even look up.

  Another time in the cyber cafe, a boy showed me his phone. His name was Tinga, the owner’s son. Half my age and already connected beyond the mountains, to another planet, Tinga looked and spoke to me as if I was a child—and of matters like this, I was—addressing me with the confidence of an annoyed adult. When he crouched close, his finger brushed against mine, and our eyes met, mine scared, his suddenly filled with excitement. The hairs on my neck pricked and I felt my whole face redden. I left right away, knowing well what would have happened if I would have let Tinga show me more, how quickly my virtue as a woman would have been considered lost just from being alone with a man—even a boy like Tinga. Gossip is trafficked more than anything else in these mountains.

  The yaks grunted again. A light snow flurry began falling, but I was too busy to care, nestled against the silver birch, its drooping shoots swaying in the mid-afternoon wind. Then I heard a twig snapping under the weight of something heavy, and I knew it wasn’t the yaks. It felt like the rumbling of the peaks before an ice fall, and for a moment I thought it was a ru’. Then they grunted a third time. Yaks have many types of grunts—pleasure, pain, fear, as many as we do—this one was sharp and high, a warning call. Fear.

  When I looked up from the mobile, I barely noticed it move, barely believed what I was seeing. It blended so well into the land, but there was no mistaking it. All muscle and spotted fur, silent in the falling snow, the fresh khaa perfectly masked the sound of its steps. But there it was, fifty yards away, a serken: the pet of the gods. A snow leopard.

  The bardo of life, the bardo of death.

  I froze. Its body wasn’t crouched, it wasn’t stalking. It moved carefully, almost frightened. Then I saw why. A tiny bundle of white fur and spots trotting at her heels. It was a mother with cub.

  “Namaste, serken,” I whispered, loud enough to let her know where I was, but not too loud, I didn’t want to startle her. There couldn’t have been a more dangerous place on the mountain—in the world—to be so close to a mother with cub. But the way she nudged the little one along, coaxing it through the field, it made me strangely calm. Without fear.

  She looked at me and the snow stopped falling. Above us, the sun pushed through the clouds again, a good omen. The yaks didn’t take any chances, though. Huddled together, they stood their ground and faced her, all three of them, even the oldest, the one who’s been with us since before I was born, her legs shook in fear, but she held firm, head high. The mother leopard didn’t even give them a passing glance. The way she moved, I didn’t worry for the yaks, certain she wasn’t here to hunt.

  Perhaps she was moving dens or returning to a kill. No male in sight, of course. As it is in any other world, the mother takes care of the young while the father sires them, then does who knows what, likely never to return.

  I felt a warmth radiating inside of me. Compassion. Perhaps she felt it, too?

  Remembering the mobile, I held it up, waiting for her to get close enough to fill the small screen. She didn’t even notice me—not until the beep returned, and the sound stopped her in midstride.

  Still crouching under the birch, I realized how defenseless my position was. How exposed. And I started to worry. That mobile I was so hypnotized by, it’s disrupted all of my senses. And now the mother leopard was staring right at me, three leaps away. Her eyes were so green. A pine tree in spring. No, carved jade, freshly polished.

  Muscles tensed and rippled underneath her thick fur. She shifted her head, tongue tasting my scent, big green eyes shining even bigger as she focused on me. My heart banged like a monastery drum during the morning meal, hard and loud enough that I was sure she heard. But I didn’t reach for my kikuri. I stayed still and kept staring back. She looked at me without fear or anger, and I felt my heart slow. Hers reminded me of a look my mother had given me when I was younger—and it calmed me—from one mother to one who will soon be one.

  The cub, a few paces back, growled squeakily, tired. The mother flicked her tail, waited for the youngster to catch up, holding my gaze the whole time. Eyes so green, and something else I noticed: a fleck of black in one of them. Then she prodded the little one with a padded paw, and they kept on.

  Tashi delek. Good fortune.

  Just as she passed by me, two steps away now, I picked up the mobile again. But the screen was black. And when I looked back up, the pair was gone.

  Serken. Truly a ghost.

  That night, I told my father wh
at happened. (Well, I was careful to leave out the part about the mobile, and I was quick to replace it right when I got home.) First, Father didn’t believe me. No animal is rarer, none holds more power. Father was furious that I didn’t protect the yaks. Throwing rocks or sticks would have antagonized the animal, I said. I was so filled with joy from the encounter, I didn’t imagine Father would grow angry. His hands didn’t quiver, his breath didn’t go short, like the beginning of one of his rages. I thought I saw it in his eyes, a tug at the sides of his lips, the beginnings of a smile that never materialized, a moment that still transported me back. I felt like a little girl in that moment. Even him not saying anything, I was sure there was some greater meaning. There must have been. Or perhaps it was all a little girl’s wish and my father was simply too drunk and tired to raise his fist. What a foolish girl.

  Now I can’t sleep, so very far away from that wishful girl. My father’s actions have spoken clearly this time. My swollen face throbbing, I want nothing else than to see that image of the wild, an animal no one has seen in these mountains since before I was born. Those deep jade eyes, the fleck of black in one of them, that massive tail almost like another limb. And the little cub, only months old…

  I wonder if I would have been able to snap the leopard, and tried to explain to Father that inside the mobile device rests the gods’ pet, what would he say?

  “Blasphemy,” he would cry. Blasphemy!

  I know better now, I wouldn’t share that image, I’d keep it for myself.

  I close my eyes, thinking of her, a life filled with hardship and solitude, that we have in common. It doesn’t matter what species you are, a low birth means suffering. I can hear Father now, snoring, deep in dream.

  I imagine her: at rest in her den, lying on her side, cub suckling, or on a hunt, after tahr or musk deer. Is she thinking of our meeting? No. She’s thinking of survival. Warmth, food, safety. Animal thoughts.

  An animal lives in the moment, in the now, a high form of consciousness, even if they cannot speak. Being ever present is a major tenet of Buddhism. Forced to act, forced by circumstance, there are no luxuries in nature. And that’s why the snow leopard, the tiger, the monkey, all can attain Nirvana.