Indigo(25)

On her knees, rain darkening her hair and running down her face, she stares at the bloodied, broken bodies of her mother and father. At their blank, openmouthed faces, their glazed eyes, their fine clothes soiled with blood and grime.

A few minutes earlier they had been laughing. Life had been good. Now, in seconds, it was all gone.

It’s incomprehensible, impossible. Unreal.

Like an animal she raises her face to the sky and begins to scream.

*

Nora came back to herself with a jerk, surprised to find she was no longer standing at the picture window, but at the sink of her little kitchenette. She was shaking. Tears blurred her vision, pouring down her cheeks.

She grabbed a glass from the drainboard with one hand and turned on the tap with the other. Having filled the glass with water, she tilted it to her lips and downed the cold liquid in three huge swallows.

As soon as the glass was empty, she refilled it and gulped down this one, too. She emerged gasping, but she felt better—marginally, at least.

Putting the glass down, she washed her face and thought once again about her parents. The memory of how they had died was vivid and distressing, but for the first time she felt that it was also … strange. She wasn’t sure why, but she couldn’t help but think of her mind like a wall, and of the memory of her parents’ death like a thick layer of wallpaper, concealing cracks in the plaster beneath.

What might seep out of those cracks if she could only get at them she had no idea. But she wasn’t sure that she wanted to get at them. Indeed, she recoiled inwardly at the thought.

When she turned from the sink, something dark flittered at the edge of her vision … something that seemed to scurry out of sight the moment she focused on it. One of the Assholes, or merely a shadow?

“Kelso? Hyde?” she called, but was answered with nothing but silence.

Crossing to the sagging sofa, she plumped into it, raising a cloud of cat hair. Almost immediately she jumped up again.

Photo albums. Where were her photo albums? They would prove her memories were real! She shook her head. How come she hadn’t thought of them before? She was sure she had them stowed somewhere. In her mind’s eye she could see the spines, dark blue and red. But when she tried to focus on exactly where she’d seen them, she couldn’t remember.

For the next few minutes she searched the apartment, feverishly rooting through drawers and cupboards. It didn’t take long; her apartment was small. Finding nothing, she switched on her computer and looked through her files for old photos that she might have forgotten about.

Five minutes later she slumped back from the screen, defeated. That she couldn’t find a single photograph of her parents—or even of a time before her present life—troubled her greatly.

What was going on? And why had these things never bothered her or even occurred to her before? More to the point, what about her time in Nepal? How come she didn’t have any photographs from her trip? It could be that she hadn’t had a camera or a cell phone back then. Or maybe, in her quest for serenity, she had abandoned such worldly goods.

Balling her hand into a fist she knocked on the side of her skull, as if seeking access. Why couldn’t she remember? What was wrong with her?

Physical evidence or not, there was no way Nepal hadn’t happened. Nora could vividly remember her time there. She had traveled from one end of the country to the other, seeking enlightenment. She had utilized all forms of transport: boat, train, ramshackle bus, horse and cart. And on many occasions—through the subtropical jungles of the Terai region, and the hills and valleys of the Pahad region—she had traveled on foot, sometimes in a group or accompanied by a guide. Sometimes alone.

Her mind was a montage of amazing memories: the bustling streets of Kathmandu, the beautiful Hindu temples of Patan, the calm friendliness and generosity of the brightly clothed Nepalese villagers. Time and again these wonderful people, to whom she would forever be indebted, had taken her into their homes, shared their food with her, provided her with a straw mat on which to sleep.

On other occasions, Nora had found shelter among the many traditional teahouses along her route. She retained a vivid memory of sitting on the sunny balcony of one such establishment, eating dal bhat and looking out over a spectacular view of the distant snow-covered mountains. She even remembered the tiny green lizards that had scampered around her feet, and the breathtakingly colorful butterflies busying themselves among the local flora.…

From the grandmother of the owner of a teahouse in the Manaslu Himal region, Nora first hears of the monastery. The grandmother is tiny and ancient, her spindly limbs making her wrinkled hands and feet appear overlarge, her face as creased and brown as a walnut shell with a kindly face carved into it.

Despite her age, the old woman’s eyes are still young, still bright. She speaks no English, and Nora speaks little Nepali, but somehow the two manage to communicate.

Nora conveys her story to the old woman, and the old woman, in turn, tells Nora about the monastery in the mountains. There she will find what she is looking for.

The encounter, although certain details of it stand out starkly in Nora’s mind, now seems like little more than a dream. As does the solitary trek into the mountains, the lush greenery gradually giving way to rockier outcrops, the air becoming thinner and colder the higher she climbs.

Had she carried provisions on her journey? Did she have a tent? The answer must be yes, but she can’t remember.