Lanying is a treat the next morning. I dreaded the new sun to rise, but this day might turn out to be good after all. With her candid humor, Lanying has all nuns—including Palmo—rolling with laughter, even before prayer has been done. She always knows what to say, what’s on the edge, and what to leave behind. How I wish I had that gift.
I raise my eyebrows as she points at the big bag in the corner of the kitchen.
“There’s no way a sister of mine will be seen in that.” She rolls her eyes at my plain dress.
Quickly, I glance around. Good, beside Jomo, all nuns have gone to morning prayer. My hands go through the bag to find the finest wool and velvet, stiffened silk and satin, fur trims, soft leather boots, and an intricate embroidered belt. In heavenly hues of blue, of course—Lanying’s decided that’s my color. I don’t know how she did it, but she brought a brand-new outfit for me.
“I told you.” A smug smile curls around her eyes. “We never compromise on comfort or style—ever.” She runs her hands through my hair and wrinkles her nose. “Let me take care of this, too.” And while I sip my tea, she does my hair, with beads of turquoise and a few corals.
She tips her head and clacks her tongue. “You gorgeous thing.”
I wave my hand.
“Oh, stop it,” I say, and get up to pour more tea.
“He won’t know what hit him.” Lanying winks at Jomo, whose beady black eyes shine with the amusement of watching us all along. I turn on my heels and stare.
“What do you mean?” I say, and my pulse races. My face flushes even more.
“He’d better come around today.” Lanying smirks her famous sneer. “To stay away like that, the idiot.” She pinches her lips, and I take a deep breath.
What if he does?
“You think he’s gone after Khandro?” I say. It’s not easy admitting my frightened suspicion, but I’ve seen that cold, hard look in his eyes.
“Nah.” Lanying shrugs as she gets ready to take off. She sneaks a little something to Jomo, she’s good like that.
“Any idea what happened to her?” I empty my cup and gather the rest of the dishes.
“Nope.” She straightens her back and leaps to the door. “And I don’t care. For all I know, she could have perished in the fire.” She twirls around, her hand a wave. “See you soon, sisters.” She’s off before I get the chance to thank her—again. For the clothes, the hair, but most of all, for her company last night. I needed it more than I ever thought I would.
“Please, let me.” I take the bowl and bandages from Jomo’s hands. It’s time to dress Tennah’s wounds again. “You nuns have been taking turns all night.” I bow to her as she melts my heart with that precious face and endearing smile. “I will do the day.”
The zesty essence of crushed herbs stings my eyes. I can only imagine what it must feel like for Uncle on his raw and open wounds. I swallow the sadness that rises from my chest and let it pass before I enter the room.
There in the darkness, he lies. So still, only a faint rattle resounds from his chest. My hands work fast to lessen the agony they bring. My eyes blur to shield my heart from the face of suffering, from the horrible truth. Once done, I open the window and let the light pour in. With it comes the joyous call of a twite finch, its sweet voice serenading the day in fast trills and rolling twitters. The morning breeze adds her sweet, heavy scent of the last days of summer, and for a moment, all is well.
I settle next to Uncle, my face to the sun. The beads roll through my stiff fingers. The red scratches have thinned, bluish bruises have broken through, my hands are healing. Om Tare.
My fingers halt half-way through the prayer. I never heard him come, but I know he’s here. The smell of warm earth and fresh green drifts from behind in the room. It’s him. I turn on my seat.
“You’ve come.” I say, and my heart leaps. How his quiet presence takes me by surprise. His face seems somehow thinner, his eyes sunken, but it is there—that beautiful emerald glow in his eyes. It’s a dark glare this morning.
“I needed some time,” he says, and moves towards me. I get up and wrap my beads around my wrist, hiding my trembling hands.
“Palmo told me he’ll live.” He points his chin at Tennah, deep asleep, but his eyes keep me in his gaze. I nod.
“Will you let him?” I try hard not to avert my eyes, afraid of what I might see, but his stare stays unmoving.
“Will you leave me a choice, then?” His tone deepens, and there’s a tension in it I’m not familiar with.
“Not here,” I say and move past him to the door, my knees weak.
He follows me through the hallway outside. Jomo comes rushing after us and presses a tray with tea in my hand.
“It’s always good time for tea, sister,” she says and throws me an encouraging smile. For a moment, I feel my face lift.
We sit furthest from the gate, with the silvery shadows of the morning between us. The twite finch has ceased her cheery tune, and the morning breeze has hushed. The air has turned dense with the promise of rain to come—not now, but sometime soon.
I raise my cup to rinse the sticky dryness that has latched at the back of my throat. Karma turns, and I hold my breath as his strong hand steadies mine.
“You are one hell of a woman, Nordun.” His voice is quiet, yet restless. “The way you threw yourself in front of your uncle.” His mouth twists and his eyes lighten ever so slightly. “I could have killed you, you know?” His thumb traces the thin lines on my hand, and his fingers slip between mine.
“But you didn’t,” I say, and let my words rest between us as I release my breath and our hands slip away.
“No, I didn’t…” He hesitates. “I was wrong.” He casts his eyes down. “I was wrong to lock you in.” He looks up, his eyes a feverish gleam. My pulse speeds up.
“I heard your silent prayer, but I tried to smother it. I’ve felt your deep devotion in the loving touch of your hands.” He pauses, and his firm fingers fold into mine again. “But I tried to bind them and take your freedom from you.” He leans back, still cradling my hand in his. “I stifled the very thing that brings me joy and I did everything love is not supposed to.”
My mind has gone silent, and my heart holds my breath. This man. These words. I search for his eyes to meet mine, to tell him it doesn’t matter, because he’s here, with me, right now.
“Still, here you are,” I say, and put my cheek against our hands, still searching for his eyes.
“I am.” His voice e, and he looks up to answer my gaze. Relief washes over me as the dark glow lightens into a lush summer green. “Though I should have come sooner.” He presses a gentle kiss on the palm of my bruised hand.
“You should have.” I close my eyes and let his breath caress my face.
“But you scared the hell out of me, my love.” His voice is an urgent whisper. “With your naïve, yet stubborn ways.” He presses another kiss on my hand before he lets go. “I so underestimated you.”
I open my mouth, but he puts his fingertips to my lips, and I draw back, my face flushed.
“Please hear me out, my love.” He leans forward. “Because I don’t think I’ll ever be admitting it again.” He drapes his hands on his knees.
“You listened to the call of your heart.” His eyes narrow to crescents of the lightest viridian green. “I was there with you when you took up that courage, leaving everything behind, not knowing where to go or if you would ever come back.” He sighs.
“I should have known how strong you are, but I’ve felt your doubts, flowing like the tide, so closely under your skin, and I thought we would be fine, that you’d let go.” He pauses and pulls in a deep breath while I sit and listen.
“I was a fool to look away from what is so clear.” His eyes settle on the front of my neck, on the delicate silver conch shell he gave me at the start of our journey. “You are the courageous one of us, Nordun. You are willing to risk everything for what you believe in—even your life—and I failed to admit what I knew all along.”
I blink as his words float between us, and the momentary shadows of the morning surrender to the highest of midday suns. Dryness has shriveled my throat with a coarse grit. My hand raises the cup, and the cold tea jabs a quick punch at my stilted thoughts. My heart so full and my head so light, how my whole being longs for him—his mind so beautiful, and his insight so clear, seeing me for who I am, even though I haven’t really grasped it myself.
“I underestimated you.” He leans closer. “But then again, I don’t have your strength of faith, and I doubt I ever will.” A wistful smile curls around his lips. “My compassion doesn’t stretch beyond the narrow borders I’ve set around my heart, and as for forgiveness, well…”
We both smile at his silent admission and he takes my hands again, this time drawing me close, into that sweet lingering smell of the mountains at the height of summer.
“But you still scare the hell out of me, Nordun.” His voice carries a raw tinge, the smallest of a reluctance coming through. “Exposing my weakness, calling me out in such a blatant way.”
I raise my eyebrows, not knowing what to make of his last sentence.
“I’m sorry…” My words stumble and he laughs.
“No, you’re not.” His eyes—the viridian green so vibrant now—pierce through me. He leans back a bit, still holding my gaze and my hands.
“Remember at Nam Tso, when you told me I had a choice, and I told you I had made mine?” I take my mind back to that day at the lake, when I asked him to let Uncle go.
“I do,” I say, although the bitter disappointment I felt that day of him walking out on me is nothing but a vague remembrance in my mind; it has no hold on my heart.
“I wasn’t truthful to you, nor to myself.” His jaw sets and his gaze drifts away. A sudden slack breeze blows the loose strands of his long manes back, sweeping them lightly against my cheeks.
“I make my choices out of the fear of losing a family that is never really mine, anyway.” He turns back and releases my hands, sliding them back to my lap. “I don’t choose with the courage of a free will.” His hands brush the entangled strands from my face, his and mine. “And you, my love, made that so clear.” His fingertips stroke the edge of my jaw, his breath, warm and balmy, meets mine.
“I’m sorry,” I say again, and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s for the hurt I feel in him, the pain of longing, that strangeness of being out of place.
“Ever since we me, that first night,” he says, “I knew we were bound, as your dreams call out like mine.” His hands slide down along my arms, his thumbs rub the insides of my wrist.
“And as our lives collided, and I held your body close, my dreams…” His voice trails off, and in his eyes moves a sadness in gray-green, like the color of sage and moss at the onset of winter.
“Your dreams have awakened,” I say, an urgent whisper. “I know, for I hear them calling out at night, in strange tongues and the brightest colors, when the moon is the nearest and stars all aligned.”
So many nights, when I was nestled in the tender hollow of his body, his heart drummed the strangest rhythms in my ears, and his mind surrounded us with the most elusive visions of wide open spaces and clear blue skies and vast planes. At first, I thought they were mine, and I feared new nightmares had come. But then the deer hoofs clapped, and the eagle spanned its wings, and I knew they were his.
“They have,” he says. “More alive than ever before.” He rests his hands on my knees.
“And they will keep coming,” I say. “And along with them that distant longing inside, as it did with my dreams too.” I clear my throat as the memory of them still haunts me.
“And then it grows, that small yearning, into a louder noise,” I say, and my words roll out like a thunder from my breath. “And you can’t make it stop, even though you try so hard, running from it as fast as you can.” I catch my breath as my mind tries to grasp what just came out of my mouth. I hear myself talk, but I’m not sure it is me.
“Yes,” he says. He looks up. “That’s exactly how it is.”
The midday sun lights the sadness in his eyes, ebbing from winter gray to a warm summer green, and a cold grips my heart. He’s turned a corner; he’s said it out loud. He gave a voice to his inner longing, and now it’s out here, and he can never put it back again. He just doesn’t realize it yet.
“The louder it gets, the faster I run.” He leans back a bit. “But you, my love, have stopped me in my tracks. I’m done racing around in circles.” His hand goes up to the beads I tied around his neck, three for the road and two for coming home.
“You see me with all my fears and flaws and are not afraid to be brutally honest with me.” His strong, warm hand reaches out, and I grasp it with mine, all clammy and cold. “How could I ever run away from that?” He pulls me close and rests his cheek on the top of my head while the ground sinks beneath me.
I’m lost, drowning in the frightening knowledge of what the longing will do. For one day, it will come down screaming at him, suffocate him with restlessness, and beseech him with an inner rage. A bitter anger will turn towards himself and the word. He’ll never be free until he willingly follows what’s calling him—and he doesn’t realize it himself.
“But your dreams,” I say, and I close my eyes to his tender touch. “They won’t leave you alone.” I bury my face in the collar of his chuba, and let the comforting trace of the earth, and the sun, and the mountain grass cover me. I don’t want to tell him, because I will lose him, even though he has never been mine. But I have no choice but to love him, and genuine love does not cling. It only wants to set free. I look up, my hands against his chest, my heart shrinking with an ache.
“Your dreams, they’ll stay to haunt you.” I steady my voice. “And the longing will drain you from the inside, flooding the void in your heart with rage and regret. It will turn you with a bitter contempt to the world, and most of all to yourself if you let it be.” A sob escapes my throat, even though I try so hard to stay calm. “It won’t let you settle, not with yourself, and certainly not with me.”
His hands cradle my face and lift it up to meet his. “What are you saying, my love?” His eyes widen into mine, and I flinch, casting mine down on his hands.
“You’ll have to go and follow your heart,” I say, “Like I followed mine.” I heave. “I’ve seen what’s calling you; it’s that land faraway.” My voice is so faint now, it’s only a murmur. “And it’s calling you home.” My last words leave me breathless. I didn’t see their real meaning, but now it’s so clear.
“Don’t say that.” His muscles tighten around me, and his voice is a plea. “Don’t tell me to go and seek those who left me behind to die.”
I close my eyes. A faint thunder claps in the air, and a voice cries out in my mind. No, we didn’t. I’ve heard it before, the desperate call, but never so clear as now. It’s the voice from his dreams, urging him to come home. It’s the one only I seem to hear.
“Let me make my own choice.” His lips search my mouth, and his hungry breath meets mine. “Let me make my home with you.”
As our mouths and minds fuse, all my reason falls away. Oh, how I want this man.
“But please don’t choose out of fear.” I withdraw with a gasp and the voice of his dreams fades away. How can I ever let him go?
“So, you think I choose you out of fear?” His fingers spread on my cheeks, and his thumbs stroke my lips. “Oh love, you tell me.” A playful grin curls in the corners of his mouth.
“What man desires a woman who lies to his face, sneaks out behind his back, and then throws herself in front of his knife?” He pauses, and his smile draws all the way up to his eyes. “Surely you can’t deny me some courage for wanting a woman like you?” He tries hard to suppress an outburst of laughter, and I cringe. This man!
“I can’t deny you that,” I say, and look up. “But I don’t want to change myself either.” The most intense blush covers my face. Did I just say that? Was my mind speaking out like that?
“I know.” His face twists in a semi-frown. “I guess I’ll learn to deal with that.” His fingers brush the loose strands of hair behind my ears, his fingertips a cool caress in the back of my neck. “Now tell me you’ll ride home with me when all is settled here, with Dendup and me.”
Dendup. I clear my throat.
“I hope he’s not too angry.” I slide my fingers over his and draw them to my lap. “And that he shares your opinion about letting Tennah be.” My eyes glance over the courtyard, the coo of a lone dove sounds in the distance.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Karma says as he straightens his back. “I’ll deal with that.” He jumps on his feet, his boots a scuffle in the arid sand. “But for now, it’s best if you stay here.”
I nod.
“I’ll come back tomorrow and take you to the holy places around.” He stretches his hand for mine and pulls me up, his eyes flashing that emerald twinkle again. “For you are on a pilgrimage, after all.”
I smile. What can I say?
The guard swings the gate, and quickly averts his eyes as Karma thanks him and passes through.
“Karma, wait.” I hurry after him, my feet on the iron threshold. “Do you know what happened?” My voice pitches. “To Khandro?”
Karma turns around and shakes his head, but he doesn’t speak.
“Did you…?” I hesitate and bite my lip. I don’t want to speak the words out loud.
“No, I didn’t,” he says. “I’ll give you my word.” His eyes dart from me to the guard and back. “For all I know, she perished in the fire.” His hand on my shoulder gives a tight squeeze to strengthen his words. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He strides away, his heels crunching in the sand.
There’s no looking back.
Swirls of milky gray and darkened light drift over the courtyard. The high sun struggles to poke through. I shiver as I run to the door. A gush of warm wind churns up some gravel and I fasten the latch tight as the first drops of rain splash from above.
He came, Uncle is safe, so all is well.
So then why won’t this sense of disquiet leave me alone?