Sleeping Tigers

by Robinson, Holly

  Jon had drifted over in the pool and was now close enough to touch. I ignored him. He didn’t own the river. Besides, if he had felt any attraction towards me, he had done a good job of disguising it, other than that temporary erection.

  “This is a beautiful country,” I admitted. “It’s the sort of landscape most people see only in dreams.”

  I felt Jon’s leg brush against mine again. Again, I stalwartly ignored it, the way I’d overlook the accidental touch of a man on the subway.

  Eventually Jon sat up. I stayed on my back, floating. Let him look. So what if he saw my scar, the evidence of flesh diseased, removed, discarded.

  I focused on feeling cradled, caressed in the water. I didn’t mind my scar, not here. Instead, I concentrated on imagining how my body would look from the air, as a whole, the way the crows saw it: strong brown limbs, the V of dark hair between my legs, the pale torso with heavy pale breasts, the fan of hair floating around my face.

  I carried a sleeping tiger within this body. Best to see the beast, acknowledge it, and let it roam where it might, since only then did you know what you were truly capable of doing.

  “Are you staying in Nepal?” I repeated.

  “I’m thinking about it,” Jon admitted. I could feel his eyes on my breasts, my belly, my sex.

  “But won’t you miss your house? Your home?” I was genuinely curious. “You must be attached to Berkeley, if you grew up there.” Attachment. That was the name of Jon’s sleeping tiger, I decided.

  “Attached?” Jon mulled over the word. “I suppose I am, and that’s why I forced myself to leave again. Whenever I see someone, or something, as beautiful, I try to analyze the object of my desire and break down its elements.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “For instance, my house provides comfort, and I’ve got a pretty good collection of paintings,” he said. “There are the orchids, too, and the memories of my parents. Then I tell myself that the house is only a collection of boards and glass, the artwork is only bits of color on paper, the memories are flawed. You see? If we examine the objects that we desire, we inevitably find out there’s nothing to become attached to.” His gaze was still fixed on me.

  “But what about the people we love?”

  “Same thing. Think about a man you love, and consider his elements: His teeth, his hair, his arms and legs,” Jon said. “Those features might attract you. But, when you get right down to particulars like the foul taste of his mouth in the morning or the stink of his gas, you can see that every person is imperfect and every blissful moment is temporary. That’s the Buddha’s first Noble Truth: all realms are permeated by suffering. His second Noble Truth is that the dissatisfaction inherent in our existence is caused by our own spiritual blindness, which prevents us from recognizing that the things we crave are temporal. You can only reach Nirvana, the end of this cycle of wanting and being disappointed, through the cessation of such craving.”

  I laughed and sat up, deciding to ignore my impulse to cover my breasts. “That’s it in a nutshell? Your philosophy of life is to quit wanting? Sounds more Puritan Wasp than Buddhist to me. In any case, it’s utter bullshit. You’re just bailing out of trying to achieve anything difficult.”

  “I never claimed to want to achieve anything beyond feeling the rhythms around me.”

  “Heavy. Incomprehensible, but heavy.”

  Jon smiled and pointed to one side of the plant. “See that plant?”

  “Which one?” I searched the shore. “There are plants all around us.”

  “Exactly. Only by focusing on an individual plant can you understand the struggle of a single life.”

  Jon scooted over so that we were facing each other, sitting so close together that our knees touched, the water bubbling around us at chest height. He reached out and turned my head until I was looking slightly left. “There? You see? That single plant that has taken root between those two smooth stones? The plant with three black leaves among the green?”

  “I see it.”

  Jon released my face, but I kept it averted, staring at the plant. I was acutely conscious of our legs touching, of my breasts buoyant in the water. I couldn’t look at him.

  “Now focus on a leaf.” His voice was soft, suggestive. “One single leaf of that one single plant.”

  “Which one?”

  “The choice is yours, don’t you see? Select a leaf, and become it. Become that leaf shuddering in the breeze, clinging to the stem of that plant.”

  “I once had the esteemed role of a tree in my elementary school play.”

  Jon wouldn’t be derailed. “Look at the leaf,” he coaxed. “Feel how the nature of that leaf’s existence is as tenuous as yours. It’s an obvious metaphor, but one that would escape most anyone struggling to survive life in the U.S.A. We live mindlessly, putting ourselves on automatic pilot to get through our days. Think about it. You probably got up at the same time every day before work, had your coffee and cereal, did your job, and came home blind tired. Maybe you rented a movie on the weekend or went out to dinner. Meanwhile, the climate is changing every minute, terrorists are planning their next strike, entire nations are dying of AIDS, and people are going hungry in some countries while, in others, people shovel dirt over plastic bags of uneaten food.”

  I dared to look at him. Jon’s face was close to mine. Almost close enough to kiss. I knew he was thinking the same thing. “You’re right,” I agreed evenly. “That was how my life went, once upon a time. One oblivious step after another. Then I thought I was going to die, and learned life’s biggest lesson: nothing is forever, so if you’re going to do anything, do it now. Instead of slowing down, I wanted to speed up and leave no desire unexplored.”

  His brown eyes didn’t leave my face. “What do you mean? This?” He lowered his eyes and reached out to stroke the scar on my breast. “Was that your life lesson?”

  “Yes.” I tried to smile, but couldn’t. “Having cancer taught me that my days are numbered. It was a good lesson, but a hard one. I want to stay this awake to the beauty of every moment and not be lulled back into complacency ever again.”

  “Ah,” he said softly. “So you’ve started over, trying to get your life right this time. No more hamster wheel.”

  “Or cage,” I agreed, and tipped my head to stare at the sky again.

  “Maybe you and I aren’t so different after all,” he said.

  I thought about this as I continued watching the clouds gather. It was going to open up and pour buckets on us any minute. The black foothills humped their backs beneath slate clouds that were settling on them like pigeons. I willed myself to stand up and get dressed, to make my way back to the lodge before the rain began and made walking the rocky trails difficult. But common sense wasn’t enough to pull me to my feet.

  It seemed that every moment of my life was worth examining. Was that good or bad? Too much navel gazing, and I’d turn into one of those aimless backpackers trading stories about India and Bali. On the other hand, they were engaged in the world, the whole world, in ways I never had been.

  Was it possible to do both, to contribute to the world while merely observing it? To be content in the moment, but plan for the future? Could you follow your heart without losing all common sense?

  The only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to be fully conscious of my life, to measure time by growing with the people I loved, in a place I could call home, while reaching out to others who had less. I would raise Paris and I would teach other people’s children. I would continue to help my brother find his way.

  I thought about Cam’s shame and fear and fury driving him into drugs, and the courage it had taken him to kick the habit. I remembered the joy in my mother’s voice as she told me that Paris had taken steps on her own, and her goofy fruit hats for babies. I closed my eyes briefly and saw David raising himself up on one elbow in bed to kiss me. There was a whole world to explore just in David’s eyes. I wanted them all in my life.

  “I don�
�t know,” I said slowly. “Sounds to me like you exhaust yourself looking for ways to deny all the joy that life has to offer. I don’t want to drop out of my existence in order to become more aware of it.”

  Jon’s eyes had darkened to nearly black, reflecting the clouds. “Okay, so you’re not my soul mate. But you come awfully close.” He glanced down at my breasts again.

  I felt myself flush, my face even hotter, if possible, than it had been from the steaming water. “How can you say that? I stand for everything you’ve left behind: attachment, desire, connection. I’ve stalled out a hundred million miles away from Nirvana.”

  “Miles are the poorest measure of a journey,” Jon said, cupping my scarred breast in one hand. Then he released it and did the same with the other. I didn’t move. I longed to ask him if both of my breasts still weighed the same. But of course not. They never had.

  The long soak in the hot water and the conversation had left me feeling as languid as a plant swirling in the current. I watched Jon fondle my body, at first from this mental distance, and then with a growing heat as he played with my nipples, stroked my belly, and got up on his knees to nestle his cock between my breasts. He stayed there for a few minutes, absolutely still, his buttocks just beneath the water, his stiff cock braced against me.

  My body drifted with the swirling current against his. When I made no move to separate from him, Jon slid one hand between my legs and began rubbing his cock slowly, ever so slowly, between my breasts. I enjoyed the sensation until I looked up at his face.

  Jon’s eyes were closed, and I remembered Karin’s description of making love on those fishing nets with the waiter in Mexico, of how afterward she had felt as if she’d made love not with any one man in particular, but with all of Mexico. Was Jon thinking about me? Or was I his Nepal, another step towards his Nirvana? His face was a mask of concentration, his mouth a tight line.

  I pushed Jon away from me, not quite hard enough to knock him over. I thought about David, about his warm dark eyes, gentle hands, and kind smile. I didn’t want to be with Jon. He was a man who made me separate body and mind. I wanted to be whole, and to be loved as such. I didn’t want to make love to an idea, but to a friend who also happened to be my lover.

  I stood up, steam rising from my skin as the water spilled from my breasts, belly, and thighs back into the churning pool. I was the tiger, uncurling, flexing.

  “Just because a man has an erection doesn’t mean I’m obligated to do something about it,” I reminded Jon, and leaped onto the river bank, stranding him on his knees.

  Chapter sixteen

  I forced my leaden limbs into my clothing and ambled up the path from the hot springs, carefully retracing my steps to the lodge. I had reached the outhouse and was about to pass it when I was startled by something in my peripheral vision.

  I paused to study the object more closely. At first I thought it must be a scarecrow tossed inside the tilted shack, a bundle of rags on sticks with the limbs at odd angles. Then I realized it wasn’t a scarecrow at all, but my brother: I recognized the t-shirt and skinny arms. I broke into a run, shouting his name, but Cam didn’t move.

  My brother was curled on his side on the outhouse floor, shivering so violently that his eyes had rolled back in his head. His shorts were pulled up to the waist but he’d soiled them. He must have been on his way to the outhouse, but lost control of his bowels. Now his bare legs were covered in feces. Worse, some of it looked bloody.

  I wanted to run to the lodge for help, but didn’t dare leave him. The rain was starting to fall in sheets, now, curtains of water across the field. I flipped my brother over onto his back, grabbed his wrists and began hauling him towards the lodge, shouting as I struggled, retching every few steps from the smell and look of him, terrified that my brother might die as I slid him across the ground.

  Nobody came. Cam grew heavier with each step, until at last I was barely inching him along. His white arms and legs picked up the mud and his shirt pulled up around his armpits; he looked like a giant grub worm making its slow way across the earth. A maggot, I thought hysterically, my brother’s a maggot, and at that I was finally able to scream.

  I’d reached a path leading between the village houses. An elderly Nepalese woman and her young daughter ran out of their hut. The three of us draped Cam over our shoulders and carried him. I was in the lead, Cam’s face next to mine. He made no sound, but his eyelashes fluttered against my cheek. At least he was still alive.

  When we got him into the lodge, the two women trilled in excited Nepali to Didi. The girl helped me strip off Cam’s clothes and dampen cloths in her bucket of dish water to wipe the worst of the mud and feces off his skin. Then she laid another wet cloth across his forehead, gesturing wildly and speaking so rapidly that I could understand nothing. The words were a wall of sound and I leaned against it, my own body so fatigued now that I could scarcely stand.

  Domingo and Melody appeared, rubbing their eyes. Fernando came downstairs smoking a cigarette. I took one look at the Spaniard’s powerful torso and shrieked at him to help me carry Cam into the living room and lay him on Domingo and Melody’s bed.

  “Cam stinks like a goat,” Domingo whined. “Why can’t you put him…”

  I halted his protest with a look, and Fernando carried Cam into the living room. We all began piling blankets and sleeping bags on him from every corner of the house to stop the shivering. Then Didi and I began trying to make my brother more comfortable. She rubbed an herbal paste on his chest, filled a bucket with cold water and gave me a rag. I dipped the rag in the water again and again, applying the cool cloth to Cam’s forehead and chest while I rubbed his wrists.

  “It’s like I’ve got ice in my veins,” Cam moaned through clenched teeth, “and a knife through my temple.”

  At least he was semi-coherent. But I couldn’t get Cam to swallow any water or tea; whatever I gave him just came back up in a rush, soaking the sheet and mattress. At one point he vomited blood. I gave up trying to replenish his liquids for the moment and ran upstairs for my first aid kit. David had provided me with everything, even sulfa drugs and antibiotics. But what good was medicine without knowing the diagnosis?

  I listed Cam’s symptoms in my head: high fever, vomiting, bloody stools, shortness of breath. Those would be included in virtually every Asian traveler’s lament from Delhi belly to typhoid fever, from hepatitis to simple gastroenteritis. I crushed four aspirins into half a cup of tea. If nothing else, I could at least alleviate the fever, I thought. But Cam spat out the mixture.

  I had no choice but to get to a clinic. Preferably a clinic with a well-stocked pharmacy and a doctor trained to treat foreigners. I asked Melody if there was anything nearer than Pokhara, but she shook her head. “You’ve got to go down the mountain,” she said. “Four hours’ walking. But at least it’s all downhill.”

  Four hours of walking downhill meant at least five coming back up. Could I walk that far in a day? It was already mid-afternoon. That meant I’d have to walk back in the dark. This was a terrifying thought. The footpaths all looked the same to me.

  What’s more, how could I leave Cam for that long? Didi couldn’t watch him alone. She didn’t speak any English. Domingo and Melody were witless. Who else could I trust?

  Jon! I had to find Jon and get him to stay with Cam. He could draw me a map to get to Pokhara, too, or maybe even help me find a guide. But where was he?

  “Jon?” Didi asked.

  I must have said his name aloud. When I nodded, Didi tugged at my sleeve, bidding me to follow. Her silver tooth flashed and she hastily knotted her hair into a bun at the nape of her neck, looking suddenly regal as she took long strides through the kitchen and out the back door. I trotted to keep up.

  “You know where Jon is?” I asked.

  She said something in Nepali and nodded. I kept pace with her as we went back through the village, this time veering away from the river and entering a grove of deciduous trees planted in neat rows. Some of the t
rees were taller than I was, while others were mere seedlings, no more than knee-high. This must be the nursery Jon was overseeing.

  We plunged through the rows of trees, our footsteps silent on the mossy path beneath our feet. Even in the lashing monsoon rains, this would be a peaceful, fragrant place, I thought, catching sight of amaryllis growing at the bases of several trees, the brilliant red tube flowers like flames licking the dark wood.

  We finally reached a small clearing. There were raised garden beds here—vegetables, flowers, and more tree seedlings—and a greenhouse. To one side of the clearing was a lean-to shelter made of yak hides. Wood smoke streamed from its center hole.

  “Jon?” I looked at Didi, who nodded and turned heel. I hoped she was returning to the lodge, to keep an eye on Cam for a few minutes. I ran toward the teepee, hesitated for a split second at the curtained doorway, then ducked inside.

  It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. There was a fire, small flames surrounded by stones. An iron grill lay across it. A tea kettle, also black iron, sat on the grill like a fat, contented hen. Herbs hung from a drying line, as well as a few articles of clothing. And, opposite the fire, Jon lay on his side, his face peaceful in sleep, the lines erased in this soft light. His shoulders were bare, but he’d covered the rest of himself with an animal hide. For someone who’d sworn off attachment to possessions, this man knew how to cozy up a house.

  “Jon!” I shouted, crossing the dirt floor to shake him. “Jon, wake up! I need you!”

  He sat up with a start. “What the hell?” He squinted at me, his gaze quickly becoming more focused as I described my brother’s condition in detail, wringing my hands.