How To Suffer

            Dukkha is a persistent hurt. An all-encompassing sore wound that seems to get number with time, but ever festering. It’s bearable because we aren’t under the delusion it’ll get better; we’ve accepted the pain as a part of us now.

            This lesson is beat into us blow after blow like the ground under a swing. I’ve outgrown the swing, but I still balance on this too-small seat to relish the way that childhood favorites return you to a time when you were small enough to fit inside joy itself. I let my feet drag on the dirt, creating two rows of upturned soil that were soft and moist next to the harder dirt that bore the brunt of pressure. Now the softer soil would know what it was like to be stepped on, to be warmed by the sun. Is the softer dirt considered newer or older?

            Two people make their way up the hill, their footsteps avoiding the ones I made. He isn’t a stranger, the way that people in small towns aren’t strangers even though you aren’t exactly familiar with each other. He is past being a boy but still has to cuffs his pants (twice) and struggles to grow a beard. He doesn’t know where to put his hands and looks to his mother in between breaths. She stands behind him with her hands folded together, proud, behind her son who in her delusion, is a perfect man.

“You should… um, I mean- come with us.” He clears his throat at every word as if that would make it easier to speak to me.

            The walk down the hill was quiet, and I could tell they were judging me for leaving the funeral early. I know it’s not okay, but I wasn’t even the first one to leave. My father’s mind was somewhere far away even though his body was alive and there. I was plainly too scared to sit next to this stranger. The smoke from the funeral pyre stung my throat.

            The boy-man cleared his throat one last time and showed me the way to my father. The ashes had been collected and a man that looked like my father was in a corner holding a clay urn. He wasn’t really there anymore; he’s been reduced to someone that is only what he can hold: his first wife’s ashes. The urn is blank and simple, his left hand rests on top of it and his new wedding band winks at me. I wish I could escape too, but I’m stuck with a piercing alertness and I can feel the fabric itching, scratching the very pores of my skin.

            I can’t bear to look at him, so I don’t, I stand with my limbs stiff, and jaw clenched. It’s better to be angry than to be sad, I know that for a fact. Sadness is vulnerable, lets people think that they can approach you and offer some crumbs of pity. Anger creates distance and forcefully pushes away everything that was too close.

            When we get back to the house, the familiarity calls my father back into the moment. It’s then that he finally turns to me as if seeing me for the first time in days. He opens his mouth for a moment and leaves it there, as if he hasn’t decided whether to apologize or not acknowledge anything at all.

            “I sent a letter to your aunt in Niyampal, she’s agreed to take you in.”

            Another silence. This house has been getting comfortable with heavy silences recently, mine propelled by resentment and my father’s silence born from missed opportunities. I can tell that his loss is different from mine. He lost a marker of his cowardice, and I lost the ability to call myself anyone’s daughter.

--

            Her eyes were slow and languid, cradling you into a state of wanting to stay a while. The fox at her feet was in a permanent state of movement, muscles tensed to spring off at any moment. If you stare for too long, you can see its ears twitching and eyes flickering. The painting at the end of the hall was the first thing that captivated me about this house.

            The second thing was the familiarity the family has with each other. They step through the house’s dark corners and know each other’s footsteps. It’s easy to accept and they easily accept me, slipping into my heart with frightening ease.

            My aunt lives with her husband, her children, and her in laws. I have to remind myself that this is hers. Her life, her family, her house. Even though my mother’s face sometimes peeks through her features and even though now I know how each of them walk down the hallway, this life is not mine to keep.

            There’s a door towards the back of the house that I was never introduced to. I’m not sure I want it to know me though. There is no sound or light coming from it, but once a day every day, uncle’s brother slips in with a tray of food he picked up from the kitchen. I was there this morning when he took the tray from my aunt, who pitied and admired him for having a wife that was out of her mind and for having the heart to stay with her.

--

            Coming back from the market, I see a figure bundled up in a sad mix of fabric. Huddling in front of an unassuming house that still overshadows her frame. Her structure is lonely like a scaffolding ghost. I let my aunt past me and into the yard of the house, I stay with the grandmother. Together we stand behind a cloud of steam from the cup in my hands.

            While we are standing, I think of my father again. The way he looked when he thought no one was paying attention. A change of face too simple to describe, left his face looking like a cat in the sun. Like the stray running around, with stripes all down her chin resembling an overzealous drunk. I smile at that and think of telling him, how he might smile with the corners of his mouth turned down. And even though I think, and I speak and I speak and I speak, he’s not there and my ears throb and ring with a missing feeling. From the inside out, I miss the feeling of hearing and being heard.

            The morning I left my father’s house, the winds were blowing icy mountain air across the terraces. The people were dotted across the fields already and made unintelligible by the thick layers they wore to keep warm. When my mother was here with us, she would always stop us before we left to layer on a hat or scarf on top of the thick wools we were already wearing. Both me and my father would huff at the delay but think back on that moment when our ears or throats were warm in the biting winds. I think back to both of them now, when I have nothing but some simple layers and a cup to keep me warm because no one, including me, thought to chase me on my way out the door. The way I drink tea is from my father. I only do it his way, by stirring ripples onto the surface with my breath then taking the tiniest sip of what has cooled.

            As I lift the cup to my face and my lips form the shape of a kiss, my eyes catch on the grandmother’s face. She’s not looking at me, but at the steam that rises from my cup. I can tell by the way her eyes trace their escape.

            “Hajurama[1], why are you standing outside? Isn’t it too cold?”

            “No.” Her voice is a long creak, like someone hesitant to push open a door that’s been closed for too long. Then, after a few breaths, “It’s nice being outside sometimes.”

I realize that means her daughter is awake. That person who lies still and cries silently but her body and breath shakes enough to let me, in another room, know that there’s still so much I don’t know. I’ve seen her once, but her face that was empty but cut with shiny rivulets of tears reminded me of the last glimpse I had of my father, so I’ve constantly found excuses to avoid walking into that room again.

            The grandmother and I stand there, both unsure of what we’ve done to find ourselves with our hands tied and far away from help.

            My mother died, and my father let go. He pushed me away to the city where I could be around more life and not bear witness to his fragility. That way of loving me makes me hate him and the paradox of those emotions makes me apathetic.

--

            Niyampal is a city of layers, built on top of histories in stone and speech. The things we know are from the people who tell stories and from the buildings and art that still stands. The city sky is filled with spires and sloping, many tiered roofs. These ancient buildings stand among flat topped houses that nudge in to find a place for themselves. This blend of structures tells a story of a mix of people, those who are old and those who are new to the area.

            Niyampal knows kings now. Almost a hundred years ago, there was a man who ruled with a strong hand that gripped five states into one country. One defined country that wouldn’t let land be snatched away by outsiders, that would lend protection to its citizens. That’s the dream anyway. They didn’t mention how one ethnic group would rule and dominate the bureaucracy or how people would pour into the fertile valley, packing into alleys and barely living. The Yama people have been living in the fertile valley since the origin of our people, even in our earliest stories we sing about the beauty of the limi flower that has only ever grown in the Niyampal deep valley.

            The legendary limi flower has five petals and is tiny, staying close to the ground. It grows in bunches and is surrounded by a crowd of round, dark green, slick leaves. It resembles a star in the sky and glows as white as the moon. It’s said to have the power to bring peace to your heart and soothe your suffering.

            Our people know the secrets of the valley. I was raised with the stories of our people, even when I was born and raised in the tall hills surrounding the valley. My parents left the valley after the unity of the five territories, to explore the lands that they hadn’t known before. The first air I knew was sharp and harsh. The ground was hard and hooved over day after day by herds of yaks. They moved in scattered synchronicity, like how the clouds turn. Yaks are clouds of the earth, bearing milk and furs that rain over the small village and sustain us to breathe more sharp air.

            These streets whisper something different these days. Something insidious and slimy that trails along the alleys. The people that wake the earliest and shorten their lives through work are hit the hardest. An illness characterized by pustules all over the body and fever eating up lifelines.

            Loneliness was constantly slithering through the streets, so when fever was moving in between the amalgamation of buildings people didn’t pay it any mind until it was too late. By people, I mean the ruling class. While the working people were moving throughout the city and supporting the very life that sustains it, the illness was following them and breaking the foundation that the royals stand on.

            The new king is shut in the castle and lives with his women and children, the sweetness of their lives is apparent even though they are untouchable. On this day though, their sweet lives tumble out of the towers and split onto the common streets. The people living among dust and sand have been itching and blistering with fever, covered in pustules that rise like debt. Eventually, it was going to get into the palace and today the king’s favorite wife fell into the same death that took thousands of people already.

            The king is young and indulgent in joy, but indulgent in his anger as well. He rages and strikes out against the people suffering most from the plague, banishing the Yama from the valley. His voice is authoritative, but it is really the gossip networks that push us out. The streets whisper that people who are of the valley harbor disease and are the cause of divine rage, that the ones who are spared should kick us out, that our time on this land is over.

--

            Ever since I arrived, the three babies were my responsibility. Yeju, Aanga, and one with no name. The first two are old enough to walk and talk, they belong to my aunt and her husband. The third is only a few weeks old. Her mother is the one that lives in the dark room on the third floor, but I don’t know anything about her besides the rhythm she cries in. The baby with no name is lying on a patchwork blanket in front of me, still trying to lift herself up and look at her mother. On her back, her unbearably small arms and legs move in the air.

            She looks to me once, that’s all it takes. My hand immediately goes to her and I begin checking for what could be wrong. After making sure there was nothing wrong with her physical state, the only option left was to just cradle her. My teeth join together and lip stretch into a grimace. I think of handing her off to someone else, but they’ve all made it clear that this is what I’m here for.

            I breathe deeply and bring myself to hold the baby with no name. I bring her to my chest, and she gurgles her approval. Her breath on my neck is hot and damp, creating a striking difference between the way the rest of my body is chilled lizard skin and the part that’s touching her is alive.

-

            A royal mandate is sent out. Our time on this land is over. The grandmother of this household takes her son and son-in-law aside into a quiet room. When they go in, their faces are serious and stern, but their eyes meet mine and they nod with reassurance. When the door creaks open and they step out, their very steps tell me that something was wrong. They step heavily, as if they are going to live in that footprint for eternity. Their eyes do not see me at all; I am a ghost already.

            My aunt’s husband takes Yeju and Aanga from my arms and goes to find my aunt. The son-in-law starts up the stairs to his empty wife and leaves me with the unnamed baby. She squirms again, reaching for her parents but I pick her up and turn her to face me. I hate seeing her beg for affection.

            The daughter and son-in-law stay in the house when we leave. The daughter does not seem like she chooses anything, but simply drifts to wherever she’s supposed to be. She doesn’t seem to recognize her child either. The son-in-law is the only cognizant figure in the empty house but shuddering over his wife like an umbrella in harsh wind, open only for the sake of his ward.

            We join the moving crowd, and the two women wail as they walk, joining the chorus of tight throats bordered by two neat rows of soldiers with guns sparsely distributed among them. Throughout the displacement, the adults and I have launched ourselves into the journey ahead, never giving a thought towards the radical idea of staying to suffer the consequences of the bitter young king. We hold the future in our arms, so there is too much to lose. The children are scared enough to be quiet, learning from us that there is no room for disobedience.

--

            That’s how we came to trek along the great river, up the path it carves and away from the cradle of the valley we knew. For me though, this was finally familiar land. Even though I bore someone else’s baby on my back and even though I was surrounded by familiar strangers,  this land I stepped on claimed me unquestionably.

            When we were out of the valley and walking like toddlers taking their first steps, Yeju and Aanga started to whine about home. My aunt’s face grew exhausted at the tugging and crying, then sharply switched to blankness. She stopped suddenly, causing the children to bump into the backs of her legs. She turned around and bent to their eye level, a painful-looking wide smile on her face, then put her hands on top of both their heads, making them unable to look away.

            “You’ve seen the people getting sick, right? You remember how we walked past people lying on the ground with knots all over them?”

            They both nodded, held in rapture by this scary new mama.

            “The King sent us away because he didn’t want us to get sick, he cares about us. Don’t fight. Remember that when you think of home and going back.”

            She held eye contact with both of them, making sure they absorbed this lie and did not get themselves killed with revolutionary fever.

--

            We move in large crowds and holding the remains of our loved ones and each other, pushed along by soldiers, and stopping only at night. The faces that look like mine are tired. The faces eaten away by illness are swollen by rash and pus; it culls a mortal fear within the unafflicted. The illness starts with a spot that rises and fills with water. It ends with rising pustules that mark over the limp body, leaving people as perverse clouds.

            Yeju and Aanga nimbly make their way through the crowd of people when their mother is busy commiserating with another sad woman. I catch them before they get too far .

            “What’s got into you two?”

            “We have a way to fix everything!” They looked excited and bounced in unison. The people nearest to us looked around with a ghost of a smile and kept moving. I frowned.

            “There is no way to fix everything.”

            “Yes, there is! Remember the limi flower? The little flower that can cure anything? If we can find it, won’t everyone get better? Won’t we get to go home?”

            They can feel my hesitation through my hands on their shoulders. If I said that it was just a legend, it might take away the only smile they’ve worn in days. If I don’t, they might go into the forest and see for themselves. Taking my silence for assent, they reassure me again that they can fix everything.

            They make their way to the edge of the crowd to the forest lining. I don’t stop them.

            The baby I hold is my strongest tether to this world now. She has pulled my mind to her and now my waking hours revolve around the way she breathes.

            In the morning, I wrap the unnamed baby with a long strip of fabric to tie her to my back. In the evening, I unwrap her to dress her in some warmer layers. The cotton layers unravel one by one, but she doesn’t free herself like usual. Her movements are small and my stomach sinks when I uncover the final layer and I find little spots all over her feverish body.

            They say everything is divine, even illness. To restore some balance and equanimity to the world. I don’t understand this plan, probably because I can only see the world as one human. They say that some people can go beyond human suffering to uncover the universal being they’ve been all along, to reach nirvana. I don’t understand how I could feel anything besides the terror I feel in this moment. It feels like betrayal to appreciate any beauty, like I’m taking something that I don’t deserve.

            I resent this unnamed baby for needing me and making me need her. I resent love for the scratches it burns and for the way it yanks my mind into another existence. I remind myself of my mother, the way she gave endless care only to be met with cold hands. No one can survive off of love alone.

--

            The unnamed baby is still and hasn’t made sounds since this morning. I started wrapping her on my front instead of on my back. Twelve times the feeling of dread got overwhelming, and I reached over to see if she was still breathing, and she was, every time.

            Everyone knew she was sick, but she was just another sick baby. They all had a sick baby. Her father’s brother approaches me late in the day and I realize I had drifted away from the group. He walks next to me in silence, before breaking it.

            “My brother didn’t want to name her. He was scared. Probably that he wasn’t going to be good enough and more scared after his wife got… well, you know.”

            A muscle in my forehead twitches of its own accord.

            “I think she’s waiting for a name so she can go. A name is a way of knowing that you were here and part of something.”

            I can’t help but feel angry at their cowardice but then I remember. I didn’t name her either. I tried to run away from loving her too. I was lost in my pain and fear to the point where I made her bear the burden of being alone and neglected. Still though, she found her way to the part of my heart that had room for her.

            I put my cheek next to hers and whisper in her hear, Palisa[2].

            I keep my hand on her back as we walk. I approach the river and feel nothing from her, the only great beat is my own heart.

            The river mist showers me as I come closer, as I put my feet on the rocks that are dark and gleam the contours of my shadow back to me. Finally, I get close enough to where my feet could join the current and rush of life. I unwrap Palisa from my chest and look at her face one last time. It’s not really her face anymore. She’s not in this swollen and inflamed body, she’s somewhere else and not hurting.

            I put her body on the surface of the river, watch the river break for her, another piece of life that they carry.

            Death is not the harsh end, but the closing of one chapter to leave room for another. Our lives reflect the Goddesses’ will, in rapture of the pain and fury that is beyond us. The sun is on my shoulder, but it feels like a friend’s hand rather than another burden. I feel hot tears in my eyes. I don’t regret loving her. It feels like a cycle, finally breaking.

[1] Grandmother.

[2] Origin, a new beginning.