“They’re uncut, Claire,” Blacky said from across the room.
“And they’re only semiprecious,” Reiner added.
Suddenly I wanted those stones very much. I didn’t care what the two of them said. I thought the little family sitting there offering them were so pure and lovely. I wanted something of theirs, not because I wanted to help them, but because I wanted a part of them. “How much do they want?” I asked the proprietor. He answered in rupees. Something ridiculously low, I thought. I was well into the habit of bargaining, had become a regular little rug merchant. I knew it was expected. But I kept looking back to the innocent faces of those little people. It was like they knew God would take care of them and they weren’t going to worry. I opened my velvet film pouch and counted out the rupees. The woman pressed the stones into my care. The red one had a vein of green down one side. It was the size of a walnut. I don’t know what it is about those Tibetans. They break your heart. My eyes filled up with tears at my generous gesture. The family stood and filed out the door, who knew to where?
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Blacky reprimanded me.
“Why not?” I sniffled.
“Ach! And tears on top!”
“Oh, shut up.” I sat down.
Reiner came down from his cloud just long enough to point out, “They’re only garnet and turquoise. Not worth much like that.”
“But I’ll keep them forever,” I swore, meaning the family, folding the stones away into my sack.
Wolfgang stood in the doorway. He screeched and charged across the restaurant. You’d have thought I was back from the dead for the fuss he made. He began touching me as if to make sure I was real.
Then they all came in. “Darling!” Isolde threw herself across the room and actually picked me up and twirled me around while Wolfgang filmed our reunion from every angle.
They all stared at me as though I were make-believe. Blacky stood beside me proudly, exhibiting my good health.
“Give me a squeeze!” Daisy clucked.
“Blacky saved my life,” I told them.
Isolde observed, “Wenn es dir dreckig geht, der Blacky ist ja immer da.”
I perked up, alert, always looking for the clue to who Blacky was.
Reiner translated, “That means when things are down and dirty, Blacky’s the one who’s always there for you.”
“She knows what it means.” Daisy nudged him playfully, lovingly, and I was captivated by their affection for each other. Even Isolde and Vladimir seemed changed, second honeymooners at the ashram.
“It’s true,” I said, “he is.” I stood there letting them gape at me, feeling suddenly like the little corpse who could.
Blacky, by now bored with their astonishment, said, “Didn’t you get my cables?”
“We did,” Harry assured him. “We got one. But you know it was all so iffy when we left, remember? Anything could have happened.”
“But I sent two.”
“That’s India,” Chartreuse explained.
“And all you said was she was on the mend.” Harry petted my shoulder with one hand. “But then you didn’t arrive and we thought Claire might have had a setback—and we haven’t been back to Dehli because there’s no benzene. None.”
“There is,” Chartreuse put in, “but you’ve got to wait for hours on lines.” Harry threw his chubby arms around me. “There, now. There, now,” he crooned. “You’re alive then, aren’t you.” The whole world loses weight in India. Harry, on the other hand, thriving on endless bananas and peanut butter sandwiches, looked like he’d gained seventeen pounds.
“I think we should have a party!” Isolde said to the whole room, “like we used to have at home!”
“Don’t be stupid,” Vladimir fell into his old habit of eradicating her joy, “there’s no booze.”
Chartreuse whispered, “No hash. Nothing.” His eyes were feverish with the very idea of such scandal. “I haven’t had a joint for over two weeks! None of us have.”
“You all look like part of a religious order,” I said, trying not be judgmental but knowing that Blacky, too, must find them sort of ridiculous gussied up the way they were, looking like part of a sect. I don’t know how it happened but an uncalled-for, childish rivalry seemed to have developed between everyone over who would wind up more holy. This was true except for Harry, and of course the now slender Daisy, who’d gone along with it but whose miniskirt peeked through from a slit in the flowing guru garb. She made a show of her worry beads, dangling them before me like a lure in a magic show. “What’s different?” She kept looking me up and down. “You’re awfully short,” she observed.
“I’ve given up my facade,” I announced proudly.
“What, you’ve taken off your brilliant shoes?”
I held up my short legs and wiggled my happy toes. “Yup.”
“Do you still have them? Might I have them, then, do you think?”
“Of course you may have them. They’re in the bus. You’re welcome to every pair. But wait till you hear what else,” I said, now enjoying my newsworthy saga for the first of many times, “I was attacked by rabid monkeys and had to have rabies shots.”
This achieved the hoped-for response.
“Well, that’s why we took so long!” we explained.
“Ach!” Wolfgang smacked his head. “If only I’d been there! What a visual that would have been!”
“There’s a nice thing to say!” Daisy reprimanded him.
“Of course you’re right. Forgive me.”
I waited for Blacky to inform them of my sorry news from Herr Binnemann. He didn’t say anything, though, and then neither did I because, I guess, I enjoyed my status as a lady of means, whether it were true or not.
Harry said, “Here’s something you didn’t know.”
“What’s that?” Blacky asked.
“We’ve got a telegram from Wolfgang’s agents. Listen to this! The Americans are interested in buying the film.”
“No!”
“Yes. Can you bear it? We’re practically a hit already!” Reiner threw back his head and bellowed a laugh.
Isolde threw her arms wide. “Now what do you say to a party?”
“A party,” Harry repeated. “With what, noodles?”
“I knew it. Didn’t I tell you we would be successful?” Reiner rubbed his hands together. “Didn’t I say so?”
“Don’t forget to lock up your valuables, Claire!” Harry warned me, eyeing my turquoise and garnet. “It’s not the Tibetans you have to watch out for. Golly, they’re honest to a fault. But I’ve noticed a band of unlikely travelers around the edge of town.”
“Where’s Tupelo?” Blacky and I said at almost the same time. And then there she was, timing perfect as ever, standing in the doorway with the light behind her, not emaciated at all but slender and compelling. She looked like an angel because she was wearing that pale blue dress I’d bought in Afghanistan and could never find and now I knew why.
“Tupelo!” Blacky rushed over to her and sheltered her in his arms.
Next patient! I remember thinking.
That night when I returned to our van—now I thought of it as our van—I was a little cranky. I’d been getting used to being the number-one girl, chauffeured through the Orient by my stunning private doctor. It was unnerving to watch Blacky switch concern from the now healthy me to the authentically, seriously in need of attention Tupelo—not that she looked it. Blacky was still locked in a huddle alone with her near the waterfall. An unnecessarily long huddle, I thought. Was it possible, I interrogated myself, that I was jealous of a dying girl? The thing was, she looked so darn well. I even wondered if all this was a hoax. But of course I was just stuck in another unworthy, malicious thought. Everyone else had been behaving so magnificently, I knew my sour tone was going to reveal me for who I realized now I really was, a green-eyed monster. I even was loathsome enough to worry that before she died, Tupelo might confess to all and sundry that we’d slept together. I punch
ed my worn-out pillow. I wasn’t used to being the worst in the bunch. Even Vladimir had pulled in his horns and given Isolde a heartfelt massage in the tea shop. How out of character was that?
The prayer wheel’s music seeped across the square and into the van. Someone was out there praying for the world even now. I remembered reading something about Hermann Hesse. There was an order of silent nuns in the inner-most part of Switzerland. All they did, day and night, presumably besides eat and drink and sleep, was pray. He believed, did Hesse, that the very world remained on its axis because of the vibration these holy nuns’ prayers maintained. I lay there quietly, listening to the steady tinkle and gong of the prayer wheel. Then I thought, Suppose I’m wrong and everything will work out after all? Good things did happen. Look at the way these poor Tibetans, chased from their homeland, had humbly settled in. This place did seem to be working its magic. I took a deep breath and pretended to be happy. As so often when you pretend something, it occurs, and I slipped into a long and delicious sleep.
The morning arrived with the bright incessant droning of the prayer wheel. These were the last warm days of October. A red dawn waited on the horizon and we brushed our teeth in the stream. Yesterday’s moon hung still, lanternlike and see-through, in the china sky. I reloaded my film, waiting for the light. Wherever I pointed my camera was new and unusual. Although my starlit Shangri-la looked somewhat ramshackle in the almost daylight, it was in no way less captivating. You could see just past the stupa and outside the little village to the palace of the Dalai Lama. It was painted in beautiful bright colors but it remained remote, standing behind iron gates and an impenetrable growth of forest. We walked past the stupa to Hula’s Tea Shop. The shop glittered white from the shackled-down tin on the roof. I was so excited. It was like going up into a tree house.
They were all there, our motley crew, dressed as prophets, behaving virtuously as novitiates, actually praying over their bowls of honey and oatmeal! I could hardly believe it. My appetite had returned in full force and I dug in with gusto.
Chartreuse came in with eyes shining. Isolde scrunched over, making room for him on the bench. “What is it, Chartreuse, you look like you’re about to bust?”
He cocked his head, leaned forward, and whispered, “We have benzene.”
We regarded him skeptically.
Reiner said, “Do you mean our tanks are full?”
“Exactement.”
“Just how did you manage that?” Wolfgang asked.
“You might not want to know. Okay?”
We all looked at one another.
“What do you say we drive over to that leper colony?” Blacky suggested. “Claire?” he looked at me beseechingly. How could I deny him this pleasure, I thought—if going to explore a leper colony could be considered pleasurable—for nothing else pleased him since learning there was to be no Dalai Lama. I was glad to see him happy about something. I’d been happy to see him at all, especially when he’d come quietly into the van late at night, smelling of nothing but himself.
“I’m staying here,” Isolde announced. She was playing Pickup Stix with Harry.
I didn’t really want to go to any leper colony, either. I said so.
But, “You must come, Claire,” Wolfgang insisted. “Think of the pictures!”
“That’s just it. I am thinking of the pictures.”
Wolfgang seemed to hesitate. He picked up the incense holder on the table and rolled it around in his little hands; then he said, “We’ve had to be very patient with you, Claire, because you were ill. But now I think you ought really to pull yourself together and do the job we’re paying you for.”
“As of yet nobody’s paid me a nickel,” I had the wherewithal to say. But even as I said it, I knew I’d made a mistake.
He seemed to look into the newly vast beyond. He cleared his throat. With elaborate patience he said, “We’ve all of us laid out time and money, Claire. Your job is an apprenticeship, and there are hundreds of established photographer’s assistants in Munich who would have paid us to let them come along.”
“Yes, of course.” I scratched my head, embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”
“And I might add,” he gave a laugh, “that if your pictures are not up to snuff, you never will be paid.”
“Well, that’s not fair,” Daisy whispered, but she didn’t say it out loud. Nobody did.
I felt like I was standing before the principal, in trouble again. But I couldn’t just leave it alone. I said, “So, what? Like, I’m just along for the ride?”
“You are an independent. Yes. If your pictures turn out, we’ll probably buy them.”
“Why would you want to go to a leper colony anyway?” Isolde grumbled, just to change the subject.
“Because Blacky needs to feel like a savior,” Daisy chided.
I defended him with, “I suppose I could think of a lot of things worse than that to want to be.”
I got no grateful side glance. Instead, Blacky spoke to Isolde. “I think we should all stick together. Except Tupelo. I’ve given her a sleeping pill so she won’t be joining us.”
“Why?” Isolde said, instantly alert. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Nothing’s wrong with her,” Blacky busied himself rolling up the map and putting away his book, “she just has that persistent cough and she hasn’t been able to sleep, what with the prayer wheel going day and night. She’s in my van.”
Reiner rubbed his large palms together and strode about. “I think it’s a good idea to attend meditations first, though. For one thing, Claire has never been and I think it’s an important experience.”
“Why, Reiner!” Isolde chided him. “I didn’t know you were so thoughtful.”
“He rightly is providing me with the opportunity to get more footage,” Wolfgang said. “They wouldn’t let the camera in before so now he knows enough to sneak it in.”
There was sense to his reasoning, so we went, all of us tromping piously over to the meditation center. I wasn’t very talkative along the way. I was still stinging from Wolfgang’s reprimand. I knew he was right but I also knew he’d never have crossed me had he not noticed Blacky and I were now an item. Men were, it occurred to me, just as silly as women.
Anyway, the sky was bright blue and colorful prayer flags snapped in the wind. Although the temples here weren’t what you’d call impressive—there was no loud gold or towering spire—the buildings and flavor and people were so transcendental you couldn’t help being inspired. But for all they thought they were turning me on to a brand-new experience, I couldn’t help feeling it was exactly like when my brother would altar-boy the six thirty Mass when we were kids and I, always the tagalong, prayed in the pews. It was the same wonderful fervor, the same rays of honeyed light through stained glass, the same connection to the true source. A strange pain came over me then, because although I despised all the hypocrisy in my own church, there was a beauty there, back there in my past, in my home, that I was still proud and glad to be a part of. I prayed for my brother’s soul that beautiful morning, prayed without guilt, prayed at last with a joyous heart that I had known such a good and gentle spirit in my lifetime. It wasn’t that I began again to believe in God. It was more like picking up a thread that had always been there, but just let down.
When it was over and we walked along Sangee Road toward the vans, I hesitated. I said, “Why can’t we just stay right here, in McLeod Ganj? It’s so charming and special!”
“Come on, Claire.” Harry prodded me with his cane. He didn’t need a cane but he very much liked the look. “This will be fun!”
Fun! I was afraid of lepers. I was afraid of catching it. But we fit ourselves into the one van and off we went.
“So why didn’t Tupelo come?” Chartreuse asked no one in particular.
I overheard Isolde say to Vladimir, “I have to tell you, Tupelo isn’t half what she used to be. She was always so filled with mischief. She never wants to do anything anymore.”
“Yes,�
� he agreed, “she’s turned into a lemon.”
“Dehli Belly,” Reiner scoffed and they all laughed.
I held my tongue. We were all squashed together and there was hardly any room but I managed to sleep the whole way there. “Where are we?” I rubbed my eyes and turned over hours later.
“Claire!” Blacky almost exploded with joy. “We’re almost there! The leper colony!” He smiled at me from the wheel with boyish anticipation. Chartreuse laid down his guitar and pushed the curtain open a crack. The weather had changed and the light was pure aluminum.
“Get up, you lazy thing!” Daisy sang from the front. She was brushing her hair. “It’s half the morning gone already. We’ve been on the road for hours. You missed the gorgeous landscape, Claire.” Isolde poured steely tea from the thermos and passed it back. I sipped the ghastly liquid, grateful for it. My alternative Kuchi dress hung crumpled on a hook.
“That’s it!” Chartreuse hollered. “There’s the tea planter’s cottage. That must be it! Go on! Turn left!”
We pulled into a dusty, ugly drive that led past a clump of tinroofed huts and ramshackle, whitewashed buildings. A garbage pile was festooned by eagles. Magnificent, enormous eagles swooped and dove and gathered about the rotting mess of litter. Just then, the main house door opened and out stepped a formidable-looking woman. She was of uncertain age but she moved with vivacious energy and her fine long hair, still red, hung down her ramrod back in a loosely held tail. There was the lilt of an elf about her dignified person. A rawboned, brawny Hepburn.
“Now who is this?” she called testily and peered into the van at the lot of us.
I supposed we looked ridiculous, more like a religious sect than who we really were.
“Good day!” Blacky stepped out and yelled to her.
“Good day, my foot!” she shouted back at him. “Have you come about the water or not?”
“Oh, dear,” said Daisy.
Pack Up the Moon Page 23
