Elisabeth Waters & Raul S. Reyes
It had been a difficult death. The illness contracted in the humid lowlands had been bad enough. But the young man’s dissolute life had left its mark on his character as well, and as he died the Lama found it hard to keep the parts of his being together. Each one threatened to leave separately as the corresponding sense died in the body. It took all of the lama’s patient counsel to keep the young man’s consciousness together.
Finally the consciousness was free of the body, but the Lama remained, coaching the young man’s spirit as it traversed through that dark realm on the other side of death. It was too much to hope that he might be reborn as a healthy son of a wealthy family, or even as a younger son dedicated by his family to a wealthy lamasery, with sufficient endowment to pursue a life of contemplation. But at least he might be kept from the life of a poor beggar, a criminal, or, worse yet, an animal.
There were demons on the path. The Lama explained these were illusions. So also were the clear streams and soft, grassy resting places by the path. The young man’s spirit must pass all of these on his path to rebirth.
More serious were the distractions of the flesh. The young man had been all too prone to them in life, and the plump young maidens beckoning to him from cushioned grottos, pots of beer and wine by their sides, were almost too much for his shade. The Lama explained that they were traps for the unwary soul and the grottos were undesirable wombs. So far the disembodied spirit had listened to his teaching and passed those illusions.
The path to rebirth was difficult and the spirit was tiring rapidly. The Lama intoned a chant to give him strength. It flowed to the young man’s spirit and revived his energy. The Lama allowed himself a moment of rest; the chant had taken some of his strength. Too late he realized his mistake.
The young man’s soul, revitalized by the chant, became aware of a bower under some rhododendrons. A saucy young girl with sleek dark hair and sly cat eyes beckoned to him from a pile of cushioned rugs. A jar of sweet wine waited next to her. The Lama shouted a warning, but it was too late. The young man sank to her side and was lost.
~o0o~
Christina sat in her car at the New Canaan train station, waiting for the train from New York and her mother’s dinner guest. In the passenger seat Tashi, her Burmese tomcat, protested vociferously the delay in their return home and his release from his carrier. Christina was just as disgusted with the situation, but not quite as vocal.
“It isn’t my fault, Tashi,” she protested. “I made the appointment with the vet three months ago, and I certainly had no way of knowing that mother would pick tonight to invite some Tibetan Lama she met in New York out here for dinner—or that his arrival would be timed so that we’d have to come here straight from the vet.”
Tashi was definitely unimpressed by this argument. His suggestion, however, was not helpful.
“I can’t tell my mother where to go; after all, my parents do live next door to us.” She twisted to meet the cat’s eyes. He stared back. “And while I’m sure that respect for one’s parents is a totally foreign concept to you, it does mean something to me—even if my respect doesn’t extend to marrying and providing them with grandchildren right now.” She sighed. “I wish I weren’t an only child; if I had brothers or sisters, they could provide grandchildren. I’m perfectly happy living with you, and I don’t need some man cluttering up my house and my life!”
Both of them suddenly cocked their heads to listen to the sound of the warning bells at the railroad crossing two blocks before the station. “Oh, good,” Christina said. “At least the train’s on time. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes—at this time of day there won’t be many people.” The next train, she knew, would be a multi-car express straight from Grand Central Station, instead of the two-car “turkey killer” that connected with the main line at Stamford during non-commute hours. If she were meeting that train, she’d be lucky to get her car into the parking lot.
Finding her mother’s guest was easy, even though he was dressed in a conventional suit rather than whatever type of robe a Lama traditionally wore. Only five people got off the train, three of them were women, and the other man was black. Besides, he was the only one with a shaved head.
Christina was opening her mouth to greet the man when he forestalled her.
“You must be Miss Lang,” he said, smiling and extending his hand. “Your mother said you’d be meeting me.”
“Yes, I am,” Christina replied, shaking hands with him. His handshake was warm and firm, and felt oddly as if some sort of electrical current ran through his body. “I hope you don’t mind cats,” she said nervously. “Tashi and I are on the way home from the vet. He’s in a carrier, so he won’t shed on your clothes, but he’s not a happy cat at the moment.”
“Tashi?” the Lama raised his eyebrows. “That’s an unusual name for a cat. Why was he named that?”
Christina shrugged, “I don’t know. The breeder called him something different, but when I bought him—well, it just seemed like that should be his name. Why? Does it mean something in Tibetan?”
“There is a holy man called the Tashi Lama.”
“Like the Dalai Lama?”
“More or less. The Tashi Lama outranks the Dalai Lama spiritually, but the Dalai Lama outranks him politically.”
“Oh.” Christina opened the passenger door of the car and reached for the carrier. “I’ll put him in the back seat, so he’ll be out of your way.” She knew her mother would have a fit if she made a guest ride with the cat in his lap.
“That is not necessary,” he replied. Before Christina realized his intent he had opened the carrier and cradled Tashi in one arm while he tossed the empty carrier in the back seat and slipped into the car. Christina closed the door quickly before Tashi decided to get out and explore downtown New Canaan, and went to get into the driver’s seat.
She half-expected Tashi to have made a good start on the job of clawing the Lama to ribbons, but to her amazement the two of them sat there staring into each others’ eyes as if they were communicating.
She fastened her seat belt, looked to be sure that her passenger had fastened his, started the engine, and pulled out of the parking lot. She drove in silence for several minutes before saying, “We’ll stop at my house to drop off Tashi, if that’s all right with you. My parents’ house is next door, but if we go to my house first, we can get the cat hair off your suit.”
“You share your life with a cat, and you worry about a little cat hair?” the Lama asked in amusement.
“Not usually,” Christina replied. “Most of my sweaters match Tashi’s fur, so I usually pass a casual inspection.” She sighed. “Unfortunately, at least as far as my appearance is concerned, my mother’s inspections are far from casual.” She smiled reassuringly at him. “But you’re probably safe enough; you’re a guest.”
He chuckled briefly, continuing to stroke Tashi, who sat quietly in his arms. “How old is Tashi?” he inquired.
“Three years old next month,” Christina replied.
The Lama nodded slowly, apparently pleased with her answer for some unknown reason of his own. Christina gave a mental shrug and concentrated her attention on the sharp curves of the road.
~o0o~
To Christina’s horror, her spinster status became a topic of discussion at the dinner table. In addition to Christina, her parents and the Lama, there were two other couples who were friends of the Langs. Since they came to Mrs. Lang’s parties frequently, Christina thought they must surely be tired of hearing her mother bemoan her daughter’s unwed state. But no one Mrs. Lang invited to her house would ever be rude enough to say so. Either that, or after a few of the drinks her father served before dinner and the wine with dinner, they didn’t notice that they had heard this conversation many times before.
Mrs. Lang began with semi-polite inquiries into the family of her guest, who turned out to be the type of Lama forbidden to marry and thus had family consisting of his parents (father deceased), his brother (another celibate Lama), and his sister (married, four children).
“At least your mother has the consolation of grandchildren,” she murmured. “Her father and I do so hope that Christina will find a nice young man and settle down soon.” She looked at her daughter and sighed. “She could be such a pretty girl if she’d just make a bit of an effort.”
“You mean spend an hour each morning on make-up, an afternoon a week at the hairdresser’s, and one day each month buying new clothes,” Christina said lightly. “I know that I could look prettier than I do, but I have no reason to put in that kind of time and energy. My clothes are decent and appropriate, and since I spend most of my time in a library with my nose in a book, make-up would be a complete waste of time. Besides, it makes my skin break out.”
“But you’ll never get a husband that way!” her mother protested. She turned to the Lama. “Do you have this problem in your country?”
He shook his head. “Not in the manner that you do. My sister married the man my parents chose for her; there a girl is expected to obey her parents.”
Christina decided to change the subject before he could suggest that her parents choose a husband for her. “What do you think of my mother’s garden?” she asked, indicating the variety of plants surrounding the terrace where they were eating. “Do you have any of the same plants in Tibet?”
“We have rhododendrons,” he replied. “I was admiring them earlier, Mrs. Lang; they are truly beautiful.”
Mrs. Lang smiled complacently. “Yes, they do quite nicely here—although I did have a bit of trouble when Christina first got that cat of hers.”
“Really?” the Lama sounded fascinated.
“It was dreadful,” Mrs. Lang assured him. “Every time he got out—which fortunately wasn’t too often; Christina is a conscientious girl and is generally meticulous about keeping him indoors—he would come over here and burrow in under the rhododendrons. It wasn’t good for them at all.”
“It’s Tashi’s favorite flower,” Christina explained. “Finally we got a bush for my yard and Father extended the fence around my patio to enclose it, so now Tashi has his very own rhododendron and doesn’t bother Mother’s.”
“A sensible solution,” the Lama remarked, and the subject of conversation changed to landscaping.
~o0o~
Alone in his hotel room later that night, the Lama prepared for bed, turned out the lights, sat comfortably on the floor in lotus position, and cast his mind towards his brother’s monastery in Tibet. The contact came quickly.
“Have you found him yet, brother?” the Tashi Lama inquired.
“Yes, elder brother, I have found our erring nephew. It was as you said: once I arrived in New York I was led to him.”
“I sensed that he was there. Is he one of their ‘street people’? Surely he would be rather young for that, unless he was born to—tell me he was not reborn in the womb of a drug addict.”
“No, it is not that bad. He is in excellent physical condition. But still, this may prove more difficult than we had anticipated.”
“Brother, all I asked was that you find him and instruct him, so that he may improve his way of life, and, if possible, that you bring him home. What is the difficulty?”
“Perhaps I should tell you how I found him. As we arranged, I gave a talk at the Open Center, which was reasonably well attended. One of the ladies in the audience, a Mrs. Lang, came up to me afterwards and invited me to her home in Connecticut for dinner the following night. I felt that I should accept her invitation, and so I did, taking the train to New Canaan the next afternoon. Mrs. Lang’s daughter Christina picked me up at the station. She was on her way home from the vet with her cat: a Burmese male called Tashi.”
Several seconds of silence preceded the Tashi Lama’s reply. “You are quite sure that it is not merely a coincidence of names?”
“I held him, and I looked into his eyes. He will be three years old next month, and he has such a passion for rhododendrons that they have planted him his very own plant, so that he will leave Mrs. Lang’s alone. I have no doubt that he is our nephew.”
“A cat.” The Tashi Lama sighed. “Well, that does make the job harder, but it can still be done. Will the girl give him to you? Then you could bring him home, and we could do the transformation here.”
“I have not asked her to give me her cat, nor do I feel it would be right so to do. I believe that he owes a debt, either to her or to her parents.”
“What sort of debt?”
“A debt of family. Christina is twenty-five, an only child, unmarried, and so bound to Tashi that she refuses to look elsewhere for companionship or love.”
“And, like our sister, I suppose her parents want grandchildren.”
“They do; they devoted half of the dinner hour to the subject. As for our sister, I imagine she has quite a few grandchildren by now. I gather that Tashi does quite well in stud fees.”
“Stud fees?” The Tashi Lama considered the implications of that statement and made his decision. “I refuse to tell our sister that she has grandchildren who are cats.”
“I do not think the knowledge would gladden her heart.”
“Would this Christina marry him and bear children if he were to be transformed? And would she make him a proper wife?”
“I believe that she would—and I fear she would be a better wife than he a husband. I intend to see her tomorrow, and I shall sound her out on the subject.”
“Keep me informed of your progress. Advise me when you are ready to do the transformation. Rest well, younger brother.”
“May your path be bright this day, elder brother.”
The Lama opened his eyes, rose smoothly from the floor, and went to bed.
~o0o~
He awoke around nine the next morning, ate breakfast, and then made his way to the New York Public Library. It was not difficult to find Christina. She was in the genealogy section, going through the index of death records for the various boroughs of New York City. He sat down opposite her at the long table, his talent for stillness rendering him invisible to her, the other patrons, and the library staff. He spent several hours observing her while she did her research.
He had been correct to suspect that she had passion and determination; here, in the work she did, it was visible. To his eyes she glowed slightly every time she found something she had been searching for, another link in the chain she was tracing. She worked continuously for hours, apparently oblivious to such bodily concerns as lunch. When she finally gathered her notes together and returned the books she had been using, it was late afternoon.
He followed her as she left the library, coming up to her just as she walked out the front door. “Good afternoon, Miss Lang.”
Christina started. “Oh, good afternoon, Gomchen.” She had been told yesterday that ‘Gomchen’ was the proper form of address, although it was a title, not a name. Apparently Tibetans did not uses names socially. “I didn’t see you; were you in the library?”
“Yes. I saw you there. Did you have a profitable day?”
“Very much so. I’ve found five new people on this branch of the family.” She laughed. “Some days I can’t seem to find anything and I’d swear that some of my ancestors were the products of spontaneous generation.”
He chuckled at the joke, then said, “It seems strange to me that you spend so much effort tracing a lineage that ends with you. Do you not wish to marry and have children to extend the line forward?”
Christina looked sad. “Yes, actually I do. I like children, and I wish I had some of my own. But for that, you need a husband—and, as the saying goes, ‘the more I see of men, the more I like my cat.’ It’s too bad I can’t marry him.”
“Actually, that can be arranged.”
Christina stared at him. “I was joking.”
“Your marriage would make your parents very happy,” he said persuasively.
“They certainly talked about it enough at dinner last night, didn’t they? But I don’t think they’re so desperate that they would welcome a cat as a son-in-law.”
“But if Tashi were human...”
“Tashi is not human.”
“He can be.”
She looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. “You’re not used to the heat here—or maybe the pollution is getting to you.”
“The heat does not bother me,” he said calmly, “but a drink would be pleasant. My hotel puts on an excellent tea this time of day. Please do me the honor of joining me.”
Christina considered running for Grand Central, but it was much too hot. Besides what could happen to her in a hotel dining room?
~o0o~
She was never sure afterwards how he had managed it, but by the time Namtso Gomchen escorted her to the station, several hours later, she had agreed to marry her cat, as soon as he could be transformed to human. “After all,” she pointed out, “we will need blood tests for the marriage license, and the clerk at the Town Hall is bound to notice if one of them comes from a vet.”
~o0o~
Namtso Gomchen took the train to New Canaan Saturday morning to perform the transformation. As before, Christina drove him home from the station. He exited from the car in one fluid movement, his eyes scanning the woods behind her house with delight. It was so lush and verdant, so unlike his homeland. His briefcase, containing his monk’s robe, and a few other items he had not described to Christina, was in his right fist. He closed the car door behind him and waited for her to lead him in.
Tashi came out to meet them, or rather her. For some reason he affected to ignore Gomchen Namtso. The learned Lama returned the compliment.
“Is there somewhere I can change?” he asked. He had learned that Westerners had unusual ideas about clothing. It was considered appropriate for a young lady to appear in public in less cloth than it took to make a scarf if she was bathing at the beach, but if he disrobed within her home it was a serious breach of etiquette unless he did so in a room set aside for that purpose. She tilted her head toward a door.
“The bathroom is over there,” she replied. He nodded his thanks and entered it. In a few moments he reappeared, clad in a brilliant saffron robe, barefoot, with a rosary-necklace around his neck. The “beads” were made of bone disks. Christina recalled what little she had heard of Tibet and decided against asking what the bone had come from.
“Will you brew me some tea?” he asked, handing her a small package of the black Chinese tea he preferred. “I will need it for the ceremony.” She nodded and went into the kitchen. Strictly speaking, it was not part of the ritual, but he needed some fortification prior to the ceremony. While she was busy he scooped Tashi up in one motion that caught the feline by surprise and cradled it in the crook of his arm.
“Well, my unrepentant nephew,” he whispered in Tibetan. “I hope you have enjoyed your life of cream and ‘Meow Mix’.” The brand name came out oddly in the stream of Tibetan. “But now you must return to your proper life, and your proper duties. It should not be too onerous. She is attractive, has a good home, and her family is wealthy. Your main duties will be on the pillows, to provide her family with heirs. ‘Right up your alley’.” It sounded odd in Tibetan.
The cheerful whistle of the teapot called him to the kitchen and he took Tashi in with him, his briefcase in his other hand. Christina smiled at him in greeting. He smiled back, making sure the door had swung shut before releasing Tashi. “Thank you,” he said. “Tea is good in the morning. Would you like some of this?” he asked.
She smiled and shook her head. “I’ll stick to Earl Gray,” she replied.
He shrugged and added salt to his cup, then took a small jar out of his briefcase. Salt was readily available, but yaks, and yak butter, were scarce in New York and Connecticut. Christina kept her eyes on her own cup, and pretended not to notice that he was stirring butter into his tea.
“What do you need me to do for the ritual?” she asked.
“Just leave the room and wait outside. I must concentrate so that my brother may come here.”
“The Tashi Lama will come here?” she asked.
He nodded.
Christina tried to think of an intelligent reply to this. Unable to come up with one, she took another sip of her tea, then stared down into the cup. When she looked up. Namtso Gomchen was setting up a pair of beaten brass lamps, filled with yak butter, on the counter top.
“We must move the table and chairs out of the room,” he said. She set about to help him, glad of something to do. In moments the kitchen was stripped of all movable furniture, leaving a fair expanse of ceramic tile floor. He set the lamps on the tiles and settled down before them, placing a strangely docile Tashi between them. “Thank you,” he said. “That will be all.” It was a dismissal.
Outside she sat in a chair and twisted her cup between her hands, staring down into it, as if she could divine the future in the swirling liquid. The scent of the butter lamps, mixed with incense, wafted under the door, along with the sound of clapping and low, sonorous chanting. Twice there were sharp explosive words that made her hair stand on end. Suddenly she remembered something.
“The smoke detector!” she gasped. She set the tea aside and raced into the kitchen. It had not yet gotten high enough to set off the alarm, but the lamps cast a lurid glow over a smoky, scented cloud.
Christina reached for the switch which would disable the smoke detector, but the sight of Namtso Gomchen stopped her in mid-motion. He was stiff in the lotus position, pale, and hardly breathing. Tashi sat immobile before him, staring up at his face. Slowly, a sigh escaped the Lama’s lips, longer than any sigh had a right to be, and suddenly the Lama began to straighten up.
With a shock Christina realized he was growing. In moments he sat a full two inches taller, his shoulders were wider, and his hands were no longer the soft hands of a monk, but long and strong. Namtso Gomchen was no longer in her kitchen. In his place was a tall, lean, strongly built man, his skin tight over his skull, his face long and hard-featured, with eyes as black and hard as obsidian.
So this is what he meant when he said that the Tashi Lama would come here, Christina thought. Stunned, she sank slowly to the floor, her breath coming back in painful gulps.
The Lama did not seem to notice her presence. He continued to chant, only this time his voice was wild and haunted, and the language no longer sounded Tibetan. She recalled stories Namtso Gomchen had told at the dinner party. Stories of the Bon, the original people of Tibet, whose blood ran in the Khampa, the warrior/brigands of later Tibet, and of their religion, also called Bon. Tales of black magic and sorcery, not eradicated by Buddhism, but incorporated into the Tibetan version. She sat very still, not daring to move or speak.
Suddenly the Lama clapped his hands, the sound a thunderbolt in her head, and kept his hands together for a long time. Slowly he spread them apart, and fire grew between them, elongated, and reached out to Tashi, bathing him in flames.
Christina gasped and pressed a fist to her mouth. Tashi writhed in agony, and began to grow, change in outline, and shed hair. A distant part of her mind noted that he shed hair constantly anyway. A long moan of pain escaped from between his lips as he became more man-like, and he fell on his side, his face, a human face, contorted with the pain of his transformation.
Another handclap to split her head with the sound of it, and the fire vanished. The Lama sagged forward in exhaustion, shrinking back into the form and appearance of Namtso Gomchen. Christina found herself breathing again, propped against the wall, and became aware of two distinct sounds: the smoke alarm, and the telephone.
She dragged herself to her feet, hit the switch to silence the smoke alarm, then picked up the phone. “Hello?” she said. “Yes, Daddy, that was my smoke alarm... No, everything’s okay, you don’t have to come over... No, I’m fine, really. I was just cleaning the oven and it had a bit more grease than I realized. It’s under control... No, I haven’t forgotten about dinner; I’ll be over at six-thirty tonight. Goodbye, Daddy.”
She turned to the Lama. “You won’t need the oven for anything for the next few hours, will you?”
He looked surprised at the odd question. “No. Why?”
“Good.” Christina set the oven dials to self-clean, engaged the locking mechanism, and started the cycle. “Daddy isn’t dashing over here right now, but I bet he’ll drop in some time this afternoon, and I’d better have a just-cleaned oven.” She sighed. “I try not to lie to my parents; it makes life much easier when all I have to remember is the truth.”
She looked at Tashi and added, “And when the truth won’t serve, we’d better have a very convincing story.” She went to sit next to him. He was still lying on his side, motionless and silent. She pillowed his head in her lap, put out a hand and gently stroked his hair, which was dark, short and curly. “Tashi, are you all right?”
Tashi gave her a pained glance and closed his eyes.
She turned to Namtso Gomchen in alarm. “What’s wrong? Can’t he talk?”
“He can talk,” the Lama replied calmly. “The transformation is a bit of a shock, however, and it may take him a while to adjust.”
Christina looked stricken. “What if he doesn’t want to go through with this?”
“He has gone through this,” Namtso Gomchen pointed out. “He is human again now.”
Christina swallowed. “But what if he doesn’t want to marry me?” Tashi’s head twisted to butt up against her hand, as he always had when he wanted her to pet him. Automatically her hand stroked his hair.
“I do,” he said. His voice was a soft purr. “I want to marry you and have children with you.”
Christina blushed, and then suddenly realized what her mother would consider an appropriate wedding ceremony. Staging the opera “Aida,” triumphal procession and all, would be simpler, quicker, and require fewer people. “I think we had better elope,” she said firmly. “First we get married, then we tell my parents. They’ll throw a gigantic party; but if we’re already married, they can’t insist on a big fancy wedding.”
Tashi looked curious. “What are your wedding customs like?”
Christina shuddered, imagining her mother’s version of same. “You don’t want to know.”
“But surely you do not intend to marry without your parents present!” It was the first time Christina had seen the Lama look shocked.
“If we get married in my church,” she pointed out, “they read out the banns—it’s a sort of announcement—for at least three weeks beforehand. And the church requires that the bride and groom have pre-marital counseling with a priest, who will, at the very least, ask us how we met, why we want to get married, and all sorts of questions about our future plans—to say nothing of our current religious beliefs and what we intend to teach our children. He’s also bound to ask where Tashi lives, what he does for a living, and what his home parish is.”
“I see your point,” the Lama said.
“And we need another name for him,” Christina went on. “I can’t very well say that my husband is named after my cat—particularly when I can’t produce the cat.”
“He can take your surname when you marry,” Namtso Gomchen said, “as a compliment to your family.” He smiled suddenly. “As for a first name, it seems to me that ‘Tom’ would be appropriate.”
“Thomas Lang.” Christina nodded. “Sounds all right to me—is it okay with you, Tashi?”
He smiled up at her. “Just call me Tom.”
The Lama stood up briskly and picked up his briefcase. “Very well, Tom. I brought clothing for you. You will accompany me back to the city.”
Christina and Tashi started to protest together, but the Lama overruled them. “You do not want Mr. Lang to find you here before the wedding. Christina, come to my hotel Monday morning. I shall arrange to have the blood tests done and find someone to marry the two of you as soon as possible.” He pulled his nephew to his feet and headed for the bathroom. “Do not worry, Christina; you will not have to be alone for long.”
~o0o~
It was less than a week, but Christina had never realized how lonely she could feel. By the next Friday, she was so glad to have Tashi home again that introducing him to her parents and telling them that she had eloped seemed a small price to pay.
Of course, the first question her mother asked was “Are you pregnant?”
“Not yet,” Christina replied serenely, “but we plan to have children very soon.” She realized that she had a death-grip on Tashi’s hand and tried to loosen it a bit, but he simply squeezed her hand and smiled at her.
“And what do you do, Tom?” Mr. Lang asked.
This was one of the first questions covered in Tashi’s coaching (‘fifty all-purpose questions for cocktail parties’ was how Christina had described it). “I am a student of philosophy, sir. And I believe that you are acquainted with my uncle, Namtso Gomchen.”
By the end of the evening the Langs were enthusiastic about their new son-in-law, and Mrs. Lang was happily planning parties to introduce him to everyone she knew. Christina suspected that she was starting to plan a baby shower as well.
~o0o~
Two months, one gigantic wedding reception, and twenty-three dinner parties later, Christina woke up one morning feeling truly dreadful. Tashi was draped all over her as usual. In some ways, Christina thought, I don’t think he’s ever going to get over being a cat. And now he takes up even more of the bed. She started to sit up, but lay back down quickly—moving made her feel sick to her stomach.
Tashi had half-wakened when she moved, and now he absent-mindedly began to nuzzle her breast. Christina yelped and pushed him violently away. “Don’t do that! It hurts!”
Tashi, who had not been expecting the shove, fell out of bed and landed hard on the floor. He sat up, groaning. “When I was a cat, I would have landed on my feet if you had done that,” he complained. He looked at her. “What’s wrong with you? You look as sick as I feel. What does your father put in those drinks he serves anyway?”
“About three ounces of alcohol per drink,” Christina replied matter-of-factly. “How many did you have last night?”
“I can’t count that high. Remember, I am only a simple cat.”
“Tashi, that’s not funny. Besides, if you drank like that in cat form, you’d die of alcohol poisoning.”
“If I were a cat, I wouldn’t be putting that garbage in my body. If I were a cat, I wouldn’t have to go to your parents’ stupid parties.”
“My mother’s stupid parties,” Christina corrected him. “My father hates them as much as you do—why do you think he makes the drinks so strong?”
She tried to move and felt sick again. “Hand me the phone, will you?”
She dialed, still lying flat on her back. “Mother, do you know any good cures for morning sickness? I think I’ll throw up if I try to get out of bed.”
“That’s wonderful, dear!” Her mother was obviously thrilled. “How far along are you? When is the baby due?”
“Mother, I’m not even sure I’m pregnant yet. I just feel very sick. Is there anything that can be done about it?”
“Saltines,” her mother said promptly. “Keep a pack of them next to your bed and eat a few before you try to move in the morning. Have Tom get you some now.” Christina relayed the instruction and he nodded and headed for the kitchen. Her mother was still babbling on. “Be sure to go see Dr. Shaw today, and let me know your due date as soon as you figure it out. Oh, this is going to be such fun!”
Maybe for you it is, Christina thought as she hung up the phone. It doesn’t feel too great to me right now.
~o0o~
To her mother’s delight, Christina was indeed pregnant. Namtso Gomchen, who stopped by every couple of months to check on his nephew’s spiritual progress (or lack of same) was delighted as well. It was he who told Christina that she carried twins.
“They will be human, won’t they?” Christina asked uncertainly.
“Yes, of course,” the Lama replied. “Why shouldn’t they be?”
Christina led the way to the den. Tashi was sprawled along the couch, staring intently at the television. The Lama watched fish swimming about on the screen for several minutes. “What program is this?” he inquired.
“It’s a video made for cats,” Christina replied a bit grimly. “The breeder I got Tashi from gave it to him last Christmas. He liked it then, and now—well, he spends hours watching it every day. Most of his waking hours, in fact.” She took a deep breath and finished in a rush. “Uncle, I think the transformation is failing.”
“What?”
“I think he’s turning back into a cat. Maybe his humanity went to the babies—I don’t know. But ever since I’ve been pregnant, he’s been more and more cat-like. He refuses to go anywhere, even next door to my parent’s parties. He lies around all day, napping and watching this video, but sometimes I wake up at night and hear him pacing about the house.” She looked uneasily at the Lama. “I’ve tried to be a good wife to him, truly I have. I don’t think I’m doing anything to cause this,” she gestured at Tashi, who was still staring raptly at the screen and ignoring them, “but I just don’t know! Uncle, what shall I do?”
Namtso Gomchen sighed. “It’s not your fault. I told my brother at the start that I feared you would make a better wife than our nephew would a husband.”
“He’s still very nice, for a cat,” Christina said earnestly. “But when he looks like a human, people expect more of him. My parents are having fits; mother is mortally offended that we’re not coming to her parties—but he won’t and I feel sick so much of the time...”
“I could take him back to Tibet with me,” the Lama said, frowning at his nephew. “Perhaps in a monastery his concentration on higher thoughts would improve.”
“How do we know he’s not concentrating on higher thoughts now? He can do that as well as a cat in Connecticut as he can as a man in a monastery in Tibet,” Christina pointed out. “And I don’t want him to go back to Tibet. I love him; he’s all I have left of Tashi!”
“You will have your children soon,” Namtso Gomchen reminded her. “You won’t be alone.”
Tashi’s head swung with preternatural suddenness to face them. He even gave the impression of twitching his ears. He jumped over the back of the couch and stalked gracefully across the room to stand beside Christina. “Don’t badger her, uncle,” he said firmly. “I am not going back to Tibet. I am staying with Christina.”
“And the children?” his uncle challenged. “What kind of a father are you going to be?”
Tashi smiled sardonically. “As good as any other cat.” He looked thoughtful for a moment, then continued, “I’ve been a cat, and I’ve been a human. It’s better to be a cat; it’s a much more contemplative existence. Humans alternate between rushing around making themselves too busy to think, and drinking themselves into a stupor so that they won’t have to think.
He glared at the Lama in open challenge. “Keep me in a human body as long as you can, uncle, but you can’t make me into that kind of human. No matter what form I wear, I am a cat.”
“Do you expect Christina to raise your children alone?” the Lama protested.
“I’ll be here,” Tashi replied. “Unlike her father, who spent her entire childhood working in New York, and came home each night in such a bad mood that she used to hide from him.”
“Is this true, Christina?” the Lama asked.
“Well, he didn’t mean to be so cross all the time,” Christina said hastily. “But you’ve done the commute, even if it’s only been a few times and not during rush hour. Daddy would get up every morning, spend an hour on a crowded train, half-an-hour on an even more crowded subway, work a full day, then spend half-an-hour on the subway and another hour on the train. Then he’d get home and Mother would tell him everything that had gone wrong with her day, and...”
“And they’d have a couple of drinks apiece to calm down, and if Christina was lucky, they’d simply ignore her,” Tashi finished the explanation. “If she wasn’t lucky, they’d hit her. Cats make much better parents than that!”
Christina was still trying to defend her parents. “They didn’t beat me or anything like that,” she told the Lama, who was looking grave. “They never spanked me when I didn’t know why they were doing it.”
“Because you were there.” Tashi did not sound as forgiving. “I’ve seen too damn much of your parents since we got married—and I hope you never plan to ask them to baby-sit.”
Christina dropped into the nearest chair and burst into tears. “He’s right,” she sobbed to Namtso Gomchen, who was staring at his nephew in shock. “He has seen too much of my parents—he’s picking up Daddy’s vocabulary.”
“Merciful Buddha!” The Lama looked from his weeping niece to his nephew, who had curled up on the arm of her chair and was patting her cheek with his fingertips.
“And my mother complains all the time that he’s lazy—and I want my cat back!” Christina wailed.
Tashi faced his uncle squarely. “Perhaps it was not an accident that I was reborn as a cat, uncle. Change me back. Please.”
“Christina?” the Lama asked.
Christina mopped her face with her sleeve. “Change him back. He’s right. Cathood is a more contemplative existence. And he’s a very good cat.”
“And your parents?”
“We’ll tell them he went back to Tibet with you for a visit, and in a month or two you can write and tell us of his untimely accidental death.” Christina shrugged. “As long as no one questions her grandchildren’s legitimacy, my mother will be happy. And as long as Mother’s happy, Daddy’s happy.”
“How will you explain Tashi’s reappearance as a cat?”
“Nobody knows he’s been gone. In a few months I’ll get a card from the vet, reminding me to bring him in for shots and then I’d have to explain his absence, but right now, as far as anyone knows, Tashi’s been here all along.” She faced the Lama. “He has been here all along. Please, change him back.” She rested a hand on her abdomen. “I have my children; my parents will have their grandchildren. He’s done what he agreed to do.”
Namtso Gomchen sighed. “Very well.” He picked up his briefcase. “Go set up the kitchen—and this time, please turn off the smoke detector before we start.”
“Absolutely.” Christina smiled radiantly.
~o0o~
The twins were born at St. Joseph’s Hospital a few months (one baby shower, six dinner parties) later. Christina named them Christopher and Katherine, and called them Kit and Cat. Tashi seemed to approve.