Neon Lotus (19 page)

“I had to,”
she said. “And I got what we needed, so it’s all for the best.”

He held her
by the shoulders so that he could look her in the face. He shook his head.
“Never do that again. Will you promise?”

She laughed.
“No, Jetsun. If the need arises, I will go without warning. But you mustn’t
fear for me.”

He looked
both stricken and chastened. “Don’t you know how I love you?”

She
remembered Mr. Fang’s declaration of love and the offerings of scarves with
which the nomads had met her when she first landed in Tibet. Love was such a
strange word; she mustn’t take it too personally.

“You and the
rest of Tibet,” she said, trying to summon back the laughter in his eyes. She
had missed his jokes in the Mines of Joy. “You love me because I am the Gyayum
Chenmo.”

“No,” he
said. “That’s not why. Even before I knew
—
”

 
“Sonam!” shouted Dhondub, from the entrance to his tent. He
beckoned to her. “Come greet your grandfather.”

The plane
was lifting again, and with it would go the restrictions that had been placed
on the nomads.

She squeezed
Jetsun’s hand, then let it fall. “Come with me,” she said.

Brushing
past Dhondub on her way into the tent, she said, “I have it, Dhondub. The way
to the lotus.”

He put his
hand on her shoulder, joining her as she went in. “I’m glad your journey wasn’t
wasted. That will please Dr. Norbu.”

At the far
end of the tent, on a low bed, Reting Norbu lay wrapped in blankets. As she
approached, her blood grew cold. His face was white and thin; he looked like
one on the edge of death.

“Oh,
Reting,” she said, sinking down beside him. Placing her hand on his forehead,
she found that he was feverish. “Did I do this to you?”

His eyes
opened but at first he did not seem to see her. He reached up with one bony
hand and took hold of her wrist; then he drew her hand down to his mouth and
kissed it lightly.

“Marianne . . . you’re
safe?”

“I’m fine,”
she said. “But how are you?”

“He needs
rest,” said Pema, moving close to Marianne. “The fever is coming down. I think
he took ill even before you left, but he’d hidden it from us.”

She kissed
Reting on the brow. “I’ll let you rest,” she said.

“It was very
brave, what you did,” Pema said.

“And she was
successful, too,” Dhondub said proudly. “I hope you had less trouble than we
did. The morning after you left, inspectors came to count heads. I told them
you’d gone to the Mines of Joy in search of supplies, and for some reason that
made them suspicious. We were ordered to stay in this spot, although we would
not have moved anyway with Dr. Norbu so sick. I expected we’d be brought to the
Mines and put to work.”

“I wouldn’t
worry about that now,” Marianne said. “The Mines are in trouble. They won’t be
out looking for laborers anytime soon.”

“Trouble?”
Dhondub said. “What kind of trouble?”

She walked
over to the huge pot of tea warming in the center of the tent. Beside it was a
bowl of tsampa, roasted barley flour, that made her mouth water.

“Let’s sit
down,” she said, moistening her fingers in a teacup and rolling them in the
flour to make a moist dumpling. “I’ll tell you what I learned.”

As she told
her story, she felt a stirring in her mind. Tara rose to the surface along with
the madwoman, the Voice of the Lotus. It grew more difficult to speak because
of the nearness of these internal personalities. Were they part of herself, or
were they separate entities—invaders? She stammered and heard Tara say,
“Marianne, may we speak for a moment?”

Silently,
she gave her permission.

“This is
Tara speaking,” she said. Her voice had changed to approximate that of a
preadolescent girl. “The lotus revealed itself to me. It. showed me the place
where it blooms, high in the mountains to the northwest—the Kunlun. Marianne
possesses the memories of the woman who found the lotus, although she can touch
them only through me. We must make haste to reach the flower, for its bloom
will not last much longer. Now quickly, bring me a map.”

Pema
produced a topographic map of Tibet. Marianne spread it across the floor and
watched her finger move over the contours of the land—tiny lakes, vast arid
expanses, the contorted shapes of mountains and valleys. Leaning closer, she
read aloud the names of some of the settlements. Each time she said a name,
Tara echoed it, and she sensed that the Voice of the Lotus either shook her
head or affirmed that she knew the place from her travels.

Gradually,
in this manner, they retraced the route taken by the Voice of the Lotus.

“Bushengcaka . . . 
Zapug . . .  Domar . . . Chang Changmar . . . Quanshuigou.”
Marianne stabbed at the map with a finger. “Here,” she said. “It was near
here.”

“That’s in
the Uygur region,” Jetsun Dorje said.

Tara asked, “How
quickly can we get there?”

Dhondub
shook his head. “It would take us months. Six hundred kilometers, with winter
coming on and a provincial border to cross . . . we could
never make it in time.”

“Not on foot,”
Rainbow Tara said. “But you still have the jet, do you not?”

Dhondub sat
back, taking the map from her and scowling. He looked at her with narrowed
eyes.

“Marianne?”
he said.

“I’m here,”
said Marianne. “But that was Tara’s suggestion.”

“We’re under
too much scrutiny.”

“We must
break out of it,” Tara said. “We must take a chance.”

“I will fly
the plane,” Jetsun said eagerly, as if he had spent far too long plodding along
on horseback.

“And what if
the Chinese come counting heads again?” Dhondub demanded.

Pema put a
hand on his wrist, quieting him. “I have an idea,” she said.

9
.
Ice Harmonics

The plane
came down in darkness, several miles from the
nomad camp. A man and
a woman
climbed down from the cabin and met Marianne and Jetsun halfway between the
jeep and the jet. In the dark, the woman offered Marianne a scarf. Marianne
gave the woman her identification card.

“You’re
Sonam Gampo now,” she said.

“But not the
Gyayum Chenmo,” the woman answered in a hushed tone.

“Hurry up!”
cried Dhondub Ling from the jeep, where he sat impatiently waiting at the
wheel.

Jetsun gave
his card to the man who was to take his place, then he scrambled up the ladder
into the plane. Marianne came close behind. She locked the hatch and dropped
into the copilot’s seat. A look of delicious anticipation appeared on Jetsun’s
face as he surveyed the control panel.

“Better than
horseback?” she asked.

He grinned.
“I was born to this. And machines, unlike horses, never question my mastery.”

As the plane
whirred to life and they began their rapid ascent, Marianne thought of the
machinery she had seen recently—the ornate and lifelike Chenrezi, the altars in
the nomad camp. These were machines with dignity, machines that graced
humanity. Perhaps to Jetsun this plane was such a thing: an extension of his
mind and body that he used to dart invisibly through the night on heroic
errands.

But then
there were the Mines of Joy. Factories, weaponry, miles of corroded drilling
equipment. Could anyone say he had mastered these things?

“Marianne?”

The land
crawled past beneath them.

“Hm?”

“I wonder
what you think of me. . . .”

She
remembered the pressure of his arms around her when she’d stepped off the plane
yesterday; she remembered the touch of his lips and the rush of his breath in
her ears. They had hardly spoken since then. She had known that he would not
bring up his feelings again until they were alone together, with a great deal of
privacy. Well, they had it now. Most of a long night stretched ahead of them.

She
realized, after nearly a minute, that her considered silence must be driving
him mad. She blurted, “I’ve always been alone, Jetsun.”

His eyes did
not waver from the controls. “I, too.”

“Alone, I
guess, because I’ve had so little privacy. I grew up the center of everyone’s
attention, in Switzerland and then in Dharamsala. At times I hated all the
concern, whether it came from my parents or Reting Norbu or even from the
Kashag. I had to be a solitary person just to save my sanity. I don’t suppose
it’s easy to get close to me.”

He sighed,
almost imperceptibly. After their reunion yesterday, he had not tried to touch
her even casually.

“Are you
afraid of me?” she asked.

He
stiffened, mouth tightening. “Afraid?”

“You know
what I mean. Are you afraid of the Great Mother, whoever she is? Afraid that
I’m some kind of icon you’re supposed to protect but never touch?”

He relaxed
slightly, and a smile brushed his lips. “No,” he said. “I wasn’t at first,
anyway. When I saw you, I thought you were beautiful—certainly nothing to fear!
But then, with Chenrezi and Tara and this talk of the Gyayum Chenmo . . . well,
I guess I did start to feel unsure.”

He looked
away from the controls and met her eyes briefly

“What is it
like, having goddesses inside you? What was it like, learning that you were
chosen?”

She felt
herself smirk. “I know what you mean. At eighteen years old, to be told that I
was the Great Mother of all Tibet, that I would give birth to a new age.” She
laughed. “As if it weren’t enough to grow up knowing that I was the
reincarnation of an old genius. Oh, Jetsun, everyone has always had such high
expectations of me.”

“You haven’t
disappointed anyone,” he said.

Thinking of
her mother she laughed again, but this time it was dry, humorless, like an
attempt to dear her nostrils of dust. “That’s not entirely true,” she said.

He was
silent for a long time.

“What about
you?” she asked. “Where did you grow up?”

“New Lhasa,
Colorado. I trained in the Rockies, but I was always dreaming of Tibet. Chushi
Gangdruk, the old resistance, came enlisting youths for the new underground,
joining up was the only way I could think of to get here. I felt—this may sound
ridiculous to you—but I felt as if I had some destiny, some important work to
do with my life.”

“Why should
I, of all people, find that ridiculous?”

He laughed
self-deprecatingly. “Because you know that you have a destiny. Everyone tells
you so. There’s proof. The State Oracle, the Kashag, the people of Tibet,
everyone knows that you have a purpose here.”

“But none of
that would mean a thing if I didn’t feel it myself,” she said.

He
considered this and finally nodded. “I guess that’s so.”

“You don’t
need anyone to tell you what you already know, Jetsun. When you saw Tibet, did
you know that it held your destiny?”

He chewed
his lip, hesitating. Then he shook his head. “The station was just rocks and
snow, howling winds, as I’d expected. I didn’t feel I’d found my destiny until
much later.”

“And when
was that?”

He took a
deep breath.

“When I met
you,” he said.

***

They landed
before dawn in a small mountain valley—more like a deep ledge—where snow was
falling. Jetsun taxied the jet close to a sheer granite wall, watching the
wingtips carefully. Marianne echoed his prayer that the plane would avoid
notice. There was no reason for scouts
to be passing over this area,
and they did not intend to stay long, but they took advantage of every
opportunity to keep the craft hidden. The snow proved to be their greatest ally
in disguising the jet; as they disembarked, it had already begun to gather on
the wings.

By sunrise
they stood on the rim of the ledge, looking down over ridges and escarpments,
out of the mountains. The peaks of the Kunlun rose to towering heights behind
them. Ahead and below they saw a glimmer of sunlight on metal roofs. A small
town, it looked like, nestled in the folds of the foothills, isolated.

Seeing the
place, Marianne had a peculiar sensation of recognition. It was as if she had
dreamed of it. The same cold wind had been blowing, the snow had been thick
upon the rocks, and she had looked down on that little cluster of houses and
thought of it as her home.

Tara pressed
into her thoughts.

“She knows
the town very well, Marianne. I could draw you a map of the streets."

Will we need one?
she
wondered.

“No. We will
avoid the town. But we must descend first and skirt these peaks before climbing
to another place.”

The downward
path was treacherous; they made their way along the spines of ridges, over
teetering boulders, high-stepping through snow and ice. An occasional cairn of
piled stones told them that this route had been traveled before, which was both
reassuring and worrying. If it were a common path, the plane might be
discovered.

It took them
two hours to reach the town. Marianne feared that they would stand out against
the snow, and in fact they had hardly started west when she noticed two figures
approaching from the village. As they drew near, she saw that they were men and
they carried rifles. They cried out to Jetsun and Marianne, bidding them to
stop.

Marianne
waited anxiously, feeling a strange sense of elation. The first man was tall,
his face scarred, and suspicion was plain in his demeanor. Surprising herself
and Jetsun, she threw out her arms and ran toward him, calling out, “Jigme! Jigme!”

The man
stopped short, lowered the gun, and peered at Marianne as if he should have
recognized her.

“It’s me,”
she cried. “It’s . . .”

She stumbled
to a halt, ten feet short of embracing him, His rifle came up again,

“I don’t
know you,” he said. “How do you know my name?”

“Cousin,”
she whispered. And to herself, “How can I explain?”

“Who are
you?” he demanded.

“My name is
Sonam Gampo. I—I was a friend of your cousin, Dolma Gyalpo.”

“Dolma!” He
rushed forward and grabbed her by the shoulder. “Where is she? Have you seen
her?”

Marianne
bowed her head. “She is dead.”

“Dead?”

I he other
man caught up with them. He was of slight build, scarcely more than a boy.

“Dead?” he
repeated. “My sister?”

Looking at
him, his first mustache upon his lip, Marianne felt herself break into tears.
It was not herself weeping but the Voice of the Lotus, the woman within, the
madwoman named Dolma Gyalpo.

“Tsering,”
she said. “Oh, Tsering. She sent me for the lotus.”

The two men
looked at each other, then back at Marianne.

“What did
she tell you?” Jigme asked.

“She told me
where to find it. I was looking for it when I met her.”

“Why would
you be looking for a lotus out here in the snow? And who is he?”

Jetsun
introduced himself. “There are many of us looking for the lotus,” he said.
“This woman, Sonam Gampo, is the Gyayum Chenmo.”

Jigme
frowned down on her, shaking his head. “Whose mother are you?”

“No one’s,”
she said, forced to turn away by sadness.

Tara, she
thought. Tara, please calm poor Dolma Gyalpo. I can’t have her coming through
me like this; it’s tearing me apart.

She felt her
grief subside gradually. Meanwhile, Jetsun had kept up a conversation with the
others.

“We’ve been
cautious of strangers,” Jigme said. “Careful to conceal the . . . well,
if you truly were sent by my cousin Dolma, you should be able to find the way
yourself, eh?”

Marianne
nodded. “I can find it well enough. But will you come with me? Dolma would have
wanted me to know you better, both of you.”

“I’m
coming,” Tsering said. “You couldn’t keep me away.”

“I’ll tag
along, too,” Jigme said. “But I won’t lead the way and I’ll give you no clues.
As we go, I want you to tell me what you know of Dolma Gyalpo. How did she die?
And where?”

Marianne
told the story haltingly as they made their way over icy fields past
snow-covered points of rock. Tsering asked her endless questions about the
Mines of Joy, the rebellion, and his sister’s transmigration.

“Then she is
still alive,” he said. “She’s inside of you—”

“No,”
Marianne said. “The part of her that is most alive is in the lotus now, where
it has been since she left you. If she had made it here alive, she would have
reunited with herself when she visited the lotus. As it is, I must be the one
to carry her home.”

She
hesitated, glancing up at the mountains, finding something familiar in the
relative positions of the peaks against the sky.

“It’s here,
isn’t it?” she said. She expected no answer from Jigme, and he gave her
none—only glared at Tsering so that the boy would keep silent.

She felt
confident in her decision as they turned and moved up the slope. The path was
covered in snow but again stone markers showed the way. She marveled at how
quickly she had reached this point so far from the nomads, so far from
Chenrezi’s cavern, so far from Dharamsala or the demands of her mother. She
felt as if all the events of her life had been leading her to this place. Yet only
a few days ago she’d had no idea that she could reach it so soon.

They climbed
for hours. She was forced to walk without speaking, conserving her breath. Jigme
and Tsering followed, keeping equally silent. Finally she turned to Jigme.
“This is the right track, isn’t it? You wouldn’t follow me this far if I were
wrong, would you?”