Beyond the Sky and the Earth_ A Journey Into Bhutan - Jamie Zeppa [27]
I stop, panting, at a stream. How much farther up is it? Shouldn’t I be there by now? Is this the right way? Why is my backpack so heavy?
You shouldn’t have brought Where There Is No Doctor.
What if something happens out here? I’ll need it.
The only thing that’s going to happen is you’re going to collapse under the weight of it.
You can’t be too careful.
Yes, you can. You can be careful unto craziness.
Caution is not crazy. Singing a song about tapeworm cysts in the cerebellum is crazy. Carrying a medical book into the jungle is not crazy. Coming here in the first place was crazy. Look at this narrow little path. This path is crazy. What if I get lost?
You won’t get lost, you have a map.
No, I don’t, I left it on the table with Sasha’s kidney beans.
You don’t need a map. This is the path, you just have to follow it. Keep going.
I keep going. The sun has disappeared and there is no sign of Tsebar. There is no sign of anything. I am already exhausted, and my water is finished. I practice my Sharchhop in my head. Where are you going? I am going to Tsebar. Are you a nun? No, I am a teacher. Shadowy thoughts of wild animals begin to solidify, taking the shape of bears. There are bears in Bhutan, I read it in a library book. The Himalayan black bear: fierce black bear with characteristic white V on its chest.
Are you a teacher? No, I am a coward.
The way up grows even steeper, and my legs ache and burn and shake. I stop, gasping, and rub my stinging eyes. The path bifurcates around an enormous mango tree, one route continuing sharply up, another leveling off into a dense forest. It levels off because it leads to a village, I reason, and take it. Forty-five minutes later, it plunges into a pool of stagnant water and does not come out on the other side. I sit on an exposed tree root and stare into the shadows, trying to determine the most reasonable thing to do. Everything seems reasonable. I should go back to the mango tree. I should go back to Pema Gatshel. I should spend the night here. I should go on and look for the other end of the path. I should scream for help.
Everything seems possible: I will find the path, I will find a village, I will find Tsebar, someone will find me, no one will find me, I will be lost in the bush and die of starvation. My stomach feels like a huge, hollow, echoing drum, and I have run out of thoughts. I have reached the end of something, but I do not know what it is.
Twigs snap behind me and there is a cow. A reddish-brown bulk with a bell. Another cow, black with a bent horn. A calf. A boy with a stick. He seems surprised to see me. A man bent under a load of wood and a woman with a basket come up behind him. The cows drink from the green pool, and the man and woman stare at me.
“Where you is going, miss?” the boy asks me.
“I’m going to Tsebar.”
The boy looks troubled. “But, miss,” he says. “Tsebar is not this way. ”
“Which way is Tsebar?”
He gestures. Back and up.
“Thank you,” I say. “I’m a teacher at Pema Gatshel. Across the valley. Do you know Pema Gatshel?”
“Miss,” he says with great patience. “I am in your class.”
Karma Dorji is also going to Tsebar with his aunt and uncle. I follow them back to where the path splits, and we sit under the mango tree. It is almost dark now, but I feel strangely light. I came to the end of something and passed through it. I do not know what it was. “Tsebar is not far,” Karma Dorji says. “We is always taking rest here.” He pours clear water from a cloudy jerry can into my empty water bottle. The aunt and uncle unwrap three multicolored round baskets. They pass one to me, and Karma Dorji helps me pull it open. Inside large chunks of meat, red chilies and onions are embedded in a mound of rice.
Karma Dorji and his uncle are going to share a basket. They are waiting for me. His aunt is saying something.
“She is telling our food is not that very