still far from reaching her highest point as Karma leads us off the gravel road onto a narrow, barely visible path down south. I halt my horse for a moment, my eyes skimming ahead into the heightened woodland where the arid pines sway their burnished tips on the gentle wind. Karma gestures without turning, and I spur on my horse to follow him. In a slow but steady canter we climb for a while, past the warm and fragrant woodland, up the cooler, more barren mountains, even further. As we reach the highest point, Karma halts, and I stop at his side, eager to learn what’s ahead.
I shift to the front of my saddle and throw my glance down the steep gorge below. A green-hemmed river runs through, slicing the valley in half. The far end’s covered in early autumn orange and dark green. The side we’re on is patched brown and scant of trees.
Karma points, and I bend to look closer, but I see nothing but sand and dust. Small piles of boulders are stacked in rows and on top of each other, and yes, I do detect a few large squared walls, carved out of what appears to be beige-brown stone. Karma’s dismounted by now, and leads his horse down the winding path.
“Wait until we’re closer,” he says, as he answers what must be the most curious gawk on my face. “Almost there.”
He goes ahead, a confident stride in his step. But as we get closer, I still can’t make out anything of the peculiar, and uneven, collapsed silhouettes. We let our horses loose in the luscious side stream of the river where they reward us with a wild spray of crystal clear water, the iced drops a cool welcome to my perched lips.
“I’m sorry, but it makes little sense to me,” I say, walking together amidst the stone shambles. My hand glides along the wall, dry grit crumbling between my fingers.
“Come here.” Karma pulls me up on one of the heightened rectangles. “Now look around and tell me what you see.”
My eyes run along the outlines of a walled square and another one leading into it through a small opening on the bottom. A narrow lane passes along it, opposite another crumbled, walled square, but on a different elevation, running into the adjacent hill. Then it dawns on me.
“It’s a house, an old house.” My voice pitches. “Or more like a few old houses together.” I turn to Karma. “But it’s nothing like the houses I’ve seen.” My eyes dart over the structure again.
“They are houses.” Karma says, and I crane my neck to catch his glance.
“But who lives, or rather, lived here?” I say as my mind tries to imagine this place alive, with people and no doubt a few animals. His hand slides around my waist, and he draws me closer. The shaft of his long knife presses against my hip.
“Beats me,” he says. “But see that cave?”
I shield my eyes against the sun and stretch to see as he points at a narrow gash in a nearby hill.
“That’s where they left their people behind.”
I recoil. “You mean…” My words linger, for I don’t want to voice it out loud—too gruesome.
“Yep, it’s packed with bones,” he says. “Human bones.”
He turns and squeezes my side.
“But ancient bones, so don’t you worry.” A playful grin on his face, he runs the back of his hand across my cheek. “Whoever was here, they’ve left a long time ago.”
His words should comfort me, but I can’t stop the tiniest of quiver running down my back.
“How long, do you think?” My words are barely audible above the faint whisper of the midday breeze.
“Very long,” Karma says, and he walks me down again, onto the alley between the walled structure. “They’ve even left a few things.”
He squats, and his hands turn the powdered soil. Under his chalky fingers, the outline of a large, round pot appears. And another one.
I kneel beside him and peer at the pots. No, it’s only one pot, but it has two bellies, and it’s buried right here in the ground. Karma spits in his hand and rubs the partially dug-up pot with his palm. My eyes widen as an intricate pattern of twisted, zigzagged lines becomes visible around the sides of the pot.
“Amazing.” I run my fingertips across the rigged, dark lines, careful not to shatter the fragile clay. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Karma looks up. “This place is covered with it,” he says. His hands rumble through the dust. “Here, look, I found this here before.” A small, grainy bead runs across the palm of his stretched hand. “Here’s a few more, with different colors, too.” He puts three drab droplets of stone in my hand—reddish brown, black, and what appears to be a darkened green. My face lights up—my curiosity’s awakened by the sight of these trinkets that once must have adorned some young woman’s neck.
“Just think about it,” I say as I rub the beads with the hem of my dress. “Somebody has worn these, treasured these once.” The colors become brighter now, but the beads lack the lustrous shine of the jewels I know. Still on my knees, I straighten my back.
“Now you u what I see.” A content smile graces Karma’s face.
We wander about the place together, from room to room, envisioning whatever must have played out here.
“I wonder where they came from.” I say. “Or where they went.” I dip the small pot Karma brought in the stream and scrub the dirt from under my ragged fingernails at the same time.
“No idea,” he says as he blows on the dried grass to ignite the fire. “And I guess we’ll never know.” He plunks down next to the fire that’s crackling enough to heat the water for tea. “It’s not much, but it will do for the day.”
He rolls up his sleeves and spreads out the bread, dried cheese, and some fruit from his bag. As he hands me a fresh peach, I can’t help but notice the dark lined miniature deer head on his inner right arm again. Where before a strained unease would come over him whenever he caught me staring at it, his eyes now soften, and he pulls me next to him.
“Go on then,” he says and stretches his arm. “I know you want to.”
And I do. My fingertips trace the lines of the swirling antlers curling on top of the deer’s head. So crisp, so clear, it’s like they were etched into his skin only yesterday.
“I guess I’ll never know where this came from, either.” His face is devoid of any emotion, but his voice wavers.
“So you know nothing about it.” I bite my lip and try to sound resigned, but the inquisitive pitch in my voice gives me away. I’m not buying this, not for a moment. Karma’s too smart, too much a man of the world not to have at least sought more information about the marking on his skin.
“Well.” His voice wavers again, and the fine lines around the corners of his eyes twitch a little. “I’ve been told they could be Mongolian.”
I gasp. “Mongolian?” My fingers are still on his hands, and again I trace the inking, so delicate and fine.
“Yes, it’s what Grandfather suspects.” His voice low now, he takes a deep breath. “You see, when they found me, running around in the wild, I only had on a ragged shirt, nothing else.” He pauses, his eyes dart off in the distance. “And when Grandfather, later on, wanted to throw away the shirt, he found two tiny silver bells, probably tiger bells, sewn into the hem of it.”
Tiger bells. I raise my eyebrows.
“Bells from Mongolia, from a shaman,” he says, and glances away.
“A shaman.” My hand clasps his arm. “You mean a spirit healer?” My mind’s at full speed now. I’ve heard of those foreign lamas engaging with the spirits.
Karma nods. My hand lingers on his arm.
“Somehow those bells got lost,” he says. “I’ll never know.” His voice trails off as he stares at his marking, and I’m overwhelmed by an acute sense of loss and longing—his loss and longing for home.
My hand slides in his, our fingers interlace, and I rest my cheek against our hands.
“But you would like to know,” I say, my voice soft and steady. “For there’s always that subtle longing inside of you, and an elusive distance, always there, even when others seem so near.” I close my eyes for a moment, and let our minds connect—I so understand him. I, too, have felt that profound, yet unknown longing. No matter how dear my grandmother and my sisters at the monastery are to me, it was the stables that called me home in my dreams, again and again, until I gave into it.
“It wouldn’t be fair,” he says. I open my eyes to his gentle voice and his hand caresses the edge of my jaw. “I owe Grandfather my life.”
I release our hands and lean back, waiting for him to go on. The hiss of the water boiling over the pot interrupts the moment, and I jump to make the tea. But when I sit down again, it’s still there, that intimacy, lingering between us in the balmy afternoon air.
“You think Grandfather would mind if you went looking for it?” I say, and I pop a piece of bread in my mouth, followed by a slice of juicy peach. Salty and sweet blend on my palate—oh, how I love that odd combination.
“Looking for what?” Karma dips his bread in the tea and gulps down the mush between his fingers.
“Home, I guess.” I shrug. That’s what I think it is.
“My home’s with Grandfather,” Karma says. “For he gave me my life.” He pours himself a second cup of tea. “I would have died out there, on that road, had he not taken me with him.” He stirs the hot brew with another piece of bread. “And when the others blamed me for bringing misfortune on the family, he protected me with his own life.” His jaw tightens.
“I brought sickness and death with me upon my arrival, causing three of our good family men to die.”
My heart sinks as his voice breaks.
“When the council decided it was me who had to be next, Grandfather threw himself in front of the knife they raised to slit my throat.” A strange gloom crosses his face, a mix of hope and sadness. “So, how can I leave him?” He shakes his head and raises his chin, and a firm determination erases the sadness as soon as it arrived.
“I see.” I slice the rest of the peach as carefully as I’m about to choose my words. “So you’re in debt now with the family, for they—or rather, Grandfather—spared your life.”
It’s true, the family had every right to kill him then, for the deaths they thought his arrival had brought on.
“You know I am.” Karma empties his cup in one go, a trickle of tea stains his shirt. “But I don’t mind, for my life is good with them.” A faint smile breaks on his lips, but it doesn’t reach his eyes and my heart bleeds for the innocent, lost boy he once was.
“But you’re never there.” I lick the dribble of juice running down my hand. “Like a wanderer, always on the road, I hear.” A cagey gaze meets my eyes as I hand him a slice of peach. In an instant my mind pierces his—I see you—and he blinks, knowing I’m on to him. Behind that sure facade, a restless spirit shines through. And as I keep his gaze on me, the icy cool hue in his eyes ebbs to the warmest shade of emerald green.
“I know,” he says, and for a moment he hesitates, gulping the slice of peach down in one go. “But I never had somebody like you to come home to, did I?” He presses a loving kiss on the top of my head.
I laugh, for I get what he’s doing. We both see it and it’s fine. He let me see inside of him today, and that’s enough for me, for now. Still, when I pour us another cup of tea, I can’t help but wonder if he can settle with me—I know what the longing, the desire for home can do.
“Besides.” Karma waves his hand around as he blows the steam off his cup. “You have to admit, the road can be a good place to be if you’re in the company of somebody who knows the way.” I can’t help but agree.
“Oh, I do,” I say, admitting that even for the horrendous journey over the Cho La, our trip has been good for me.
“And now that we’ve got the time…” My hand reaches in the inside of my shirt and I pull out the phrase book I’d been wanting to use at the market today. “How about you help me find my way too?”
And together we sit and read and speak in foreign and familiar tongues, until the sun throws her lengthened shadows across the pages, signaling our time to go.
“Thank you for being so patient with me,” I say as we saddle our horses. The swirling stream soaks the hem of my skirt.
“No bother, you’re doing great.” Karma looks over the back of his horse. “Your words, they’re good, very clear.”
He loves teaching me the language, I can tell—we had so much fun with it today.
“Thank you, but that’s not what I mean,” I say. My voice soft, I bend down to strap the saddle tight. A little twinge of clumsiness shoots through my fingers.
“Then what do you mean?” He moves over to me and pats the neck of my stallion.
I clear my throat as I turn my heated face his way. He knows very well what I mean. Yes, I lay my body to sleep in his arms every night, but I’ve not given myself to him—yet. And he, being nothing but loving, tender, and patient, hasn’t demanded any of it.
“Oh, Nordun.” He laughs and shakes his head. “To take something precious by force, I’ve done that before.” He reaches over and rests his hand on my cheek without a hesitation. “And it is no good.” His lips pressed together, he raises his chin.
“A heart has to come willingly, it cannot be taken by force.” His thumb strokes my cheek. “It is like I told you when you set this horse free at the stables, remember?” His hand slides down, caressing the edge of my jaw. “Deep inside the heart of all living things, there’s a wild spirit sthat can never be tamed or taken by force. The heart of a being is always free, and it knows it.”
I nod. I remember that day.
“The stallion came back to me, because he wanted to,” I say. My fingers dig into the coarse manes of my horse. “And his wild soul decides to stay—from day to day.” I hook my warm fingers in his.
“That’s right, my love.” His gaze casts down and he untangles our hands from the manes. “And so you will come to me, in your own time, precisely because I’ve set you free.” His hand cradles my chin.
I gasp and hold my breath as he pulls me closer over the neck of my horse.
And when his lips graze mine ever so slightly, my heart is seized by a love so full and profound that I dare no breath out—I want to hold on to this feeling, if only for now.
Leading our horses behind us, we walk back up towards the orange brimmed ridge, his arm clasped around my waist. My fingers twirl the stone beads in my pocket, my thoughts drift back to the moments between the two of us today. This day sure turned out to be so much more interesting that I’d planned. Karma pinches my side and raises his eyebrows; he must have noticed the smile on my face.
“It was a good day,” I say and turn to cast a last look down the valley. It was, for it made me realize even more—there’s no going back. From here on it’s Lhasa, and whatever it may bring, I know I’m ready and willing to put my heart on the line.