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The newspaper described the reaction of his subjects as “stunned.” They wanted nothing of this, no dilution of power for their monarchy. They weren’t ready for this ruler to step down yet, either. The king was only fifty.

The only person I could talk to about this—the only person I knew who would care—was Sebastian. He wasn’t a slave to a computer all day and probably hadn’t seen the news, so I called him. My hunch that this was big and unexpected was right.

“What?” he exclaimed. “Can you read that to me, please? Every word!” And I did.

“I just can’t believe it,” he said.

“But it’s not that big a surprise, is it?”

“Well, yes, in a way. Everyone loves the king.”

I imagined Sebastian shaking his head, stunned—the same reaction as the people of Bhutan. “But, no, of course we knew this would happen eventually,” he said with a sigh. “Now it’ll be impossible to see him anymore.”

“Him, like the new king?”

“Yeah.”

“You know the crown prince?”

“Yeah, he’s a nice guy. I’ve known him since he was a kid. But he’ll be off-limits now. Wow.”

My curiosity intensified. Sebastian knew the crown prince. The crown prince had founded the station where I was going to work. Now he would rule as king. Was this who had asked Sebastian for an American radio volunteer? Was Phub Dorji connected to the king? Maybe Phub Dorji was a pseudonym for the king! Of course, that was ridiculous. But who knew? There were so many vagaries, so many dangling threads. These speculations made me even more eager to go.

And so, in January 2007, I embarked on my journey to Bhutan. Where I would be working with the eager young staff of newly launched radio station Kuzoo FM. Which I took on faith actually existed. To do what exactly wasn’t clear. All because of an email introduction from a devastatingly attractive man I’d met once, for twenty minutes, at a party I almost didn’t bother attending.

It all seemed completely strange, and yet, completely normal, the way huge, life-altering experiences can feel almost like an invention, or a dream. Except that never in your wildest imagination could you have made them up.

2

“WELCOME, JANE!”

NGAWANG PEM TOOK HER ASSIGNMENT TO FETCH me from the airport in Paro very seriously. If the threat of security guards tackling her hadn’t loomed, she probably would have made her way out onto the runway so she could hold my hand and escort me the second I stepped off the plane. Despite the regulations, she got pretty close. As I walked across the tarmac to the terminal entrance, there she stood, kira crisp, her long, thick black hair piled on top of her head, cell phone in hand, neck craned expectantly.

“Madam Jane!” she said as I walked past her into the customs area. When she got no response, she tried again. “Lady Napoli?”

“You must be from Kuzoo?” I said, reaching out to hug her. I was so happy someone knew who I was, even though we’d never met. I didn’t know how to pronounce her name, which had been sent to me in an email a few days before I left on the three-day journey. And I was too exhausted to correct her about mine; I figured she’d assumed my middle name was my first. I liked the mistake.

“Yes, and I recognize you from your passport photo,” she said, and giggled. She sounded like a teenager, and didn’t look much older than one. “I was in charge of getting your visa. Welcome to Bhutan.”

She said I could call her Ngawang—Na-wang, we practiced saying together. It was much easier to pronounce than I’d feared. Or I could use her second name, Pem—whichever I preferred.

With the pluck of a New Yorker navigating the subway, Ngawang whisked me into the line marked “diplomat,” reserved for those with official visas; tourists used another line. The airport held a handful of Westerners, who emitted that eager and bewildered look vacationers have when they’ve just arrived at their destinations, and several people who were clearly Bhutanese. Like Ngawang, they wore the official national dress—the kilt/bathrobe-like gho for the men, a belted neck-to-floor swath of beautiful fabric