Radio Shangri-La_ What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth - Lisa Napoli [92]
And I was part of the problem. Breezing into Thimphu, twice over the course of a year. It was not that much different from wearing enormous diamonds and chartering a helicopter into a famine-stricken area. I might think I lived simply, with my one-bedroom apartment and six-year-old car, but the very idea that I had taken the planes to get there, that I possessed what I did and had paid for it by myself, was utterly amazing and lavish—even if it was also a little bizarre. What Bhutanese saw as evidence of the outside world was not representative of the day-to-day life of the average American citizen. Much less a stowaway.
A plane flew overhead, and appeared to skim the fifty-five-story Bank of America office building two blocks away. When I’d first moved to Los Angeles, I’d sat in this very spot and worried about the flight pattern before I realized it was an optical illusion. I wondered where this jet was going, and wished I could pack Ngawang and me on the next flight out, so I could march her safely back to Bhutan, where she belonged. Where she could flourish, if she put her mind to it. Where she could be surrounded by her loving family, always.
“So have I made it clear how it’s not going to be possible to get a job here, or at least the kind of job you think you’d want? How living here is not what you think? And how if you take one of those other jobs, and work illegally, how much trouble you can get into?”
Ngawang looked right at me, steely, and didn’t say a word as I continued. This is what I’d been spared in not having children, I thought: denying a person you loved something they wanted dearly but that you knew wasn’t in their best interest.
“Let’s discuss what we’re going to do. I’m not sure I understand why your sister hasn’t written back to you. Why don’t we try calling her?”
Upstairs on the eighteenth floor, Ngawang’s virtual entourage came calling—her girlfriend in New York on the cell phone, Mr. Japan on the house phone. When both conversations ended, Ngawang tried reaching Nebraska again, with no luck. We agreed that who she really needed to talk to now was her family back in Bhutan. With the fifteen-hour time difference and the absence of voice mail, it took us two days to reach them. Though the conversation was conducted entirely in Dzongkha, I didn’t have to understand the language to grok that the discussion was contentious. She revealed no details except that her family was angry with her.
But she said, conceding defeat, “Okay. I will go home.”
THE TICKET ON Air India was confirmed. Since I had to be at work, Ngawang’s friend Milloni agreed to transport my charge to the airport the next day. I had met her and felt I could trust her. She appeared at the appointed time in my driveway in a late-model Audi, a far fancier car than mine. We loaded Ngawang’s luggage into the back; with all the presents she’d been given on her visits to my friends’ various newsrooms, her luggage had doubled to two bags. We said our good-byes quickly, because we were blocking traffic. I felt relieved as much as I did sad to send her on her way.
The next morning, Ngawang called me from Milloni’s cell phone to wish me well. By that night, I assumed she was in the friendly skies, well on her way home. By Monday night, I figured, she’d at least be back in Delhi.
It was only about three weeks later, when I hadn’t heard from her online, and no one at Kuzoo had reported seeing her, that I started to worry.
12
BABY WATCH
A MONTH AFTER NGAWANG WENT MISSING, THE Druk Phuensum Tshogpa (DPT) swept the National Assembly election with a landslide victory. Even the founding members of the DPT party were surprised. Just days before ballots were cast, polls showed it to be running neck and neck with the People’s Democratic Party, the coalition led by the king’s uncle. Because of that royal association, it was assumed the PDP would easily emerge