Radio Shangri-La_ What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth - Lisa Napoli [39]
“I don’t believe in it,” she said. “These things are just part of who we are. It’s just what we do. My father asks me to pray to the god of the night, so I do. He believes that the soul leaves the body when you sleep, and if you don’t pray, it might not return.” She paused as we made our way around for the third circle. “That’s what happened to my mother.”
I grasped Ngawang’s arm.
“Do you miss your mother, Lady Jane?” Ngawang asked.
The screen saver on my laptop was set to a smiling and gorgeous thirty-year-old image of my mother that my father had dug up and digitized not long ago. Ngawang loved learning that “Jane,” my middle name, was also the name of the lady in the photo, the woman who had given birth to me. The original Jane, I told her. Of her mother, she had just one tiny black-and-white shot, only an inch square—smaller than a passport snapshot. Twenty years ago in Bhutan, photographs had been as unusual, and as dear, as electricity and telephone service. The young woman in the picture looked identical to Ngawang. There wasn’t any money in her wallet, just her national ID card and this memento.
“She is the same age in this picture as I am now,” she said.
I could feel my heart tweak for how much she missed the woman she never got to know.
“I do miss my mother,” I said as we made our third round, surrounded by other worshippers. “But I haven’t seen her in a long while. I can see her only a couple of times a year.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, she lives three thousand miles away from where I do.”
“You don’t live with her?” Ngawang sounded very surprised. Though the Bhutanese knew from the movies that many Westerners didn’t live with their families, it still surprised them to meet someone in person who was a case study in this curious way of life.
“No, I don’t. I haven’t lived with my family since I was sixteen years old.”
I explained that in the United States, kids often couldn’t wait to leave home, and I realized how foolish and sad that must have sounded. Especially to someone who had lost her beloved mother so young.
“You must get very lonely,” Ngawang said. “If you ever get lonely here, you call me and I’ll come stay with you, okay? I’ll keep you company, my sweet Lady Jane.”
I promised I would, even though it would be impossible for me to convey what a triumph it was that I could not only stay alone but actually enjoy it. The god of the night could have captured my soul, but he lost.
Ngawang pointed out a shop I hadn’t noticed before, tucked off the street across from the chorten. It was one of the few shops on the upper road, and one of the only places in Thimphu where you could find fresh baked goods—like the ovens they were baked in, a luxury in Bhutan. We darted across the traffic and made our way into the shop to get a snack. A nice-looking cookie for me. An enormous bear claw for Ngawang.
And so, two new friends chomped on sweets. It felt like the right time to ask the question I’d wanted to ask for days now.
“What did you think of that Rinpoche, Ngawang?”
“He was really handsome, wasn’t he?” Ngawang said, perking up as if she had a crush.
“Handsome? He’s a monk!”
“Some monks can marry, though.” Ngawang smiled, and stuck another piece of pastry into her mouth.
“Well, I hope you don’t marry that monk. Do you think I made a mistake by not letting him do the puja for me?”
“No way,” she said, wiping powdered sugar from her mouth with the back of her hand. “You did the right thing. That didn’t seem right, what he was asking.” She took another bite, and some crumbs fell to the floor. Her phone trilled after being silent for a long while. The James Bond theme song, which meant her father was calling. “You know. You can’t trust all the monks just because they’re monks.”
6
BHUTAN ON THE BORDER, OR, THE START-UP COUNTRY
A CITY IS AT ITS BEST, ITS PUREST, AT DAWN.