Free Exiles by Cary Groner Page A

his feet, as if they’d done this a dozen times.
    |   |   |
    On the top floor, Lobsang opened the heavy wooden door and let them into the lama’s quarters. To their right, through a row of windows, the Kathmandu Valley spread out below as cloud shadows drifted over the city and outlying farms. The windows on the other side of the room revealed the jagged ridges of the Himalayas to the north, great plumes of snow blowing off their summits.
    Lama Padma sat opposite them, cross-legged, on a cushioned wooden platform with an ornate backrest. A small table in front of him held a vase with a handle and a spout, topped with peacock feathers, as well as a two-sided wooden hand drum with skin heads, a bell and its companion implement called a
dorje
, and a tall red ceramic tea mug with a lid.
    The lama nodded to his visitors and smiled.
“Tashi delek,”
he said.
    He was about sixty, his face etched with laugh lines. He was sun-baked and bald on top, with a wide band of close-cropped white hair around the outside of his head. He wore the same kind of red
tzen
as Lobsang, over a gold sleeveless shirt. He didn’t look nearly as scary as Peter had feared; in fact, his eyes were kind and humorous, though he clearly wasn’t well.
    Peter looked around. The place was in serious disrepair. Jagged cracks laced the walls like veins, and a couple of small saucepans stood on the worn plank floor to catch leaking rainwater.
Thangkas
, paintings of deities, festooned the walls, and to the left of the door stood an elaborate, terraced shrine on which rested bronze deity statues, a long row of water bowls, a couple of vases of wildflowers, and dozens of butter lamps. The small golden flames shifted in the draft from the open door, as if a flock of tiny finches had suddenly changed direction in the sky. Lobsang shut the door, and theflames returned to rest on their wicks. Incense drifted up from an intricately carved box and formed a layer of whitish smoke just below the ceiling. It smelled of juniper.
    Lobsang poured the lama fresh tea from a pot, then sat down quietly on a small rug to the left of the platform.
    Mina approached Lama Padma and bent low, as apparently was the custom, offering a long white silk scarf, a
katak
. He smiled, took it from her, and draped it around her neck. Devi pulled a
katak
out of her pocket and did the same. As Lama Padma was putting the scarf around her neck, Lobsang said something quietly to him, and the lama’s eyes lit up. He and Devi spoke together in Tibetan for a few moments, then he smiled and put his hand on her head.
    They all sat on a long rug on the floor in front of the lama while Lobsang brought them tea. Peter started with the usual questions as Devi translated. The lama said that for two or three years he had had discomfort in his chest, under the sternum, as well as in the left arm and jaw. The pain was sometimes more intense with exercise and seemed to be getting worse. Lately he’d been short of breath.
    “He ignore, always,” said Lobsang. “To get him to see doctor, we must beat him with stick.” He playfully mimed whacking the lama, and they both chuckled.
    Peter watched their interactions, their easy fondness with each other, and felt himself begin to relax. The smell of the incense, the soft light coming through the windows, and the cool, fresh air all seemed to permeate his body and settle him down in some palpable way.
    “Does he feel weak?” he asked.
    Devi spoke to the lama, who replied softly. “Yes,” she said.
    “Any swelling in his feet or ankles?”
    “Sometimes.”
    “How does he spend his days?”
    When he heard the question, Lama Padma smiled.
    “Sitting,” Devi said. “He says meditating is his job, that is why they pay him the big bucks.”
    Mina laughed. Peter glanced at her; she too seemed more at ease. The stern glare had left her eyes, which looked softer and somehow larger.
    “How many hours a day does he meditate?” Peter asked.
    “He says