“What internal fortitude you must have for that incredible challenge,” Joan says.
“The same as any woman. The same as you,” Camille says. “Some can’t easily hold a paintbrush or identify the colors that make them laugh or shriek, but every once in a while a child connects to their artistic nature, and it’s a sight to behold, that sudden empowerment, a confidence they’ve never felt before, no matter how long it lasts, five minutes, an hour. But Dharamshala is my summer escape from it all, to study Kangra art, to improve my meditation practice, and to paint.”
“Have you been painting a long time?” Joan asks.
“Yes, but long ago I abandoned my serious aspirations. Now I paint just for pleasure, another form of meditation.”
“She is a very fine painter,” Ela says to Joan, and turns to Camille. “Camille, you really should meditate about that, how to stop disparaging your own abilities.”
Camille’s face, always severe, lights up, a smile, a full smile, teeth and all. She is quite lovely when she smiles.
“I know, Ela, but one thing at a time. Can’t become perfect too quickly.”
Ela laughs and says, “Ashby, my friend Camille has just given us both very good advice. So if we’re finished with tea, and you both are willing, would you join me for a walk to Dal Lake?”
When Joan nods, Camille smiles again, at Joan, “Good,” she says. “It’s only a mile and a half walk there.”
*
They pick their way down the steep streets back to the main marketplace, and then walk along a road Joan has not yet taken, until the thick deodars thin and reveal a path that leads to a yellowish-green lake.
In Kartar’s guidebook, Joan read about Dal Lake, that it is sacred, and its source, somewhere very high up in the mountains, is sacred, and she expected the water to be clear, but it’s not. She also expected to find a lot of people here, but she, Ela, and Camille Nagy are the only ones.
They follow Ela to the water’s edge, until she stops and holds out her hands.
“Thank you for joining me. To celebrate my seventy-fifth birthday today on this earth, to celebrate Camille’s return for another summer and our good friendship, and to celebrate your first meditation with us, Ashby. This is what I propose—”
“Seventy-five?” Joan says.
“Yes.”
“My God, that’s hard to believe.”
“A life of reflection, of peace, is good for the skin. So are you game? Yes or no?”
“Game for what?” Camille says.
“Just yes or no,” Ela says.
“Yes,” Joan says.
“All right,” Camille says.
And then Ela is unwinding herself from her green sari, and Camille is unbuttoning her blouse, and Joan is unbuttoning her linen pants, and off their clothes come, and Joan and Camille look to Ela, who unhooks her bra, steps out of her underpants, and Joan and Camille do the same, tossing everything away, and they are so beautiful, Joan thinks, the three of them shaded uniquely, faded gold, ecru, and cinnamon, their fifty-two-, sixty-five-, and seventy-five-year-old breasts still fine and firm, waists indented, hips slightly swelling, legs strong and useful, and they are naked on the shore of Dal Lake, running into the water, yelling at how icy it is, and Joan holds her breath and dives in.
38
In the middle of July, Joan sets out from Hotel Gandhi’s Paradise. In her hand is Kartar’s neatly drawn map, a squiggly line for the hill down to the marketplace, a long line for the marketplace itself, a big rectangle for the Dalai Lama’s compound, and an X near the bottom of the paper where two roads collide.
“Right here, Ashby,” Kartar said, pointing to the X on the paper. “This is where you go right. Then just twenty minutes more walking, and do you see here, this circle, that’s when you will be where you are hoping to be.”
Down the hill, through the marketplace, past the compound with its heavy traffic—two cars zooming by, three thin men pedaling their rickshaws, a young boy on a bicycle—then another twenty minutes.
Finally, here is the required right turn onto narrow Jogiwara Road, edged, as far as Joan can see, with flowers. Weeds have pushed up through the dirt, a straight line down the center, nature creating two lanes for the people who use it.
She passes a parade of yellow-robed monks heading back to their monastery, laughing and patting one another’s backs. Ela’s unlined face has taught Joan that ages here are hard to predict. Those monks, contemplative men looking young as children, might be so much older than they appear.
Families laden with rattan baskets are on the road too, on their way to the marketplace, the bazaars, the temples.
Soon, Joan is alone again on the road, and she walks and walks until at last she reaches Kartar’s circle and the address written on the map.
The house on Jogiwara Road is an oasis, set back behind high lacy trees and low-slung latticed greenery. A cottage made of white bricks. A squared roof. Teak window frames. From where Joan stands, the extensive cottage gardens look like a natural version of the structured gardens and vegetable plots she and Fancy gardened into being, and Joan wonders if Martin is happy caretaking it all alone, his music turned up high, without her sitting nearby, reading a book, asking him to lower the volume.
She stares at the cottage, at the long stone path that leads from the road to the door. In the quiet warmth, Joan gathers herself, tries again to figure out what she might say, how to answer the questions certain to arise. She has been lucky that Eric has not sent any updates to his parents since her arrival here. She isn’t sure she could have ignored his emails, or replied as if writing to him from the house in Rhome. He doesn’t know she has been in Dharamshala for six weeks, but at least she has not had to lie, at least not yet.
A flock of tiny birds flies overhead, pale silver against the blue sky. There is time for her to turn around, to head back down the road, to return to her pine suite. She is considering doing just that, has made a quarter-turn in fact, thinking of walking in the front doors of Hotel Gandhi’s Paradise, when the cottage door creaks open, the sound freezing her in place, knowing she is caught, that the moment is upon her. Eric is in the open doorway, in a halo of light, surprised too to find her standing at the bottom of his stone path, in Jogiwara Road.