THE NEXT morning, crowds of people began to assemble on the hillside. Since the performance would take place on the plain, the slopes gave them a clear view of the action. Wen had seen nothing like this since the Dharmaraja ceremony at Wendugongba. She felt both fear and elation at the sight of so many people. She, Zhuoma, and Tiananmen arrived early, while the lamas were still painting their faces and preparing their costumes. Through the flaps in the actors’ tents they could make out many of the beautifully colored props. A few young men hung around the tents, trying on hats, helmets, and garlands. Other young people were dancing, singing, and waving colored flags. There was an atmosphere of high excitement.
With the sounding of a few notes on a simple stringed instrument, the performance began. Wen had been worried that she wouldn’t understand what was happening, but the stylized movements of the horseback actors made everything clear. The opera told the part of the legend where Gesar was sent down to earth by the bodhisattva Chenresig, who watched over the human world to rid mankind of evil spirits and demons, subdue all violence, and help the weak. The guardian spirit of the faith and the spirit of war accompanied Gesar into the world of men. Gesar won the horse race by which the ruler of the kingdom of Ling was chosen, and was given the title King Gesar and King of the Martial Spirits. Leading all the spirits, Gesar embarked on a military quest throughout the land, bringing peace and stability to the nation. This great task accomplished, the spirits flew back to the courts of heaven.
Wen thought the lamas looked like characters from the Peking Opera she had watched as a child in the teahouses of Nanjing, except they were mounted on horseback. Waving flags and banners, they rode out in various poses, producing strange shouts and roars. It all reminded Wen of the episode in The Journey to the West where Monkey King created havoc in heaven. Zhuoma stood at her side, quietly explaining the few parts that Wen couldn’t understand.
“This is the fight with the demon king.”
“That’s the king’s beautiful concubine praying for him.”
“That villain is his uncle Trothung, gloating from the sidelines.”
As she watched, Wen was full of admiration for the way in which the gestures of the actors were based on those of daily life. She was surprised that the actor-lamas, who lived enclosed in monasteries, could know these gestures so well. But perhaps there was not so much difference between the inside and the outside of a monastery. Increasingly, she was coming to understand that the whole of Tibet was one great monastery. Everyone was infused with the same religious spirit, whether they wore religious robes or not.
When evening came and the lamas had tethered their horses and packed up their costumes, the audience settled down around campfires, drinking barley wine and butter tea. Sheep were roasted whole over the bonfires and the smell wafted through the air as the fat spat and sizzled in the fire like fireworks.
Suddenly, there was a loud commotion and everyone rushed over to see what was going on. Someone called out for hot water and a menba.
Zhuoma squeezed into the crowd to listen to what was being said.
“A woman has gone into labor,” she told Wen. “It sounds as if she’s in trouble and her family is begging for help. Can you do anything?”
Wen hesitated. In all the years she had been in Tibet, she had hardly used her medical knowledge. The language barrier, the use of different herbs, the fact that Tibetans often relied on prayer when someone was seriously ill had rendered her hard-won knowledge useless. Would it be responsible for her now to claim she could help a difficult labor? Zhuoma saw her indecision.
“Come,” she said. “They are desperate. At least go and see.”
In a sparsely furnished tent lay a woman with an ashen face. Her whole body was shaking and streaked with blood. The baby’s head was showing, but the rest couldn’t emerge because the umbilical cord was wrapped around the neck. More dangerous still, the woman’s family was urging her to bear down and the baby was turning purple, strangled by the tightening umbilical cord.
Wen cried out to the woman that she should stop pushing. As she washed her hands, she yelled instructions at Zhuoma on how to assist her. Silenced and impressed by her decisiveness, the family just stood by and watched.
Wen carefully pushed the baby’s head back inside the mother’s body. She heard several sharp intakes of breath close by and she tried her hardest to remember the midwifery she had learned at medical school. For difficulties such as this, she needed gently to massage the womb. Zhuoma told everyone that she was a Chinese menba, that she was using Chinese methods of delivery to help them. Wen then gestured at the mother to push, and after a little while the baby emerged, slowly but surely. It was a healthy boy.
Surrounded by cries of excitement, Wen expertly cut the umbilical cord, drew out the afterbirth, and cleaned the woman’s lower body with a special medicinal wine that the family brought to her. Then she watched as, like the children of Om and Pad, the baby was given a special herbal broth to protect it from insect bites.
When Wen passed the father the swaddled child, he was afraid to hold him. Instead, he opened his robe and asked Wen to put the child inside for him. He was overcome with emotion. He told Wen and Zhuoma that they had longed for a child for many years, but their hopes had been dashed every time because of miscarriages or problems in labor.
“Now I know of a second Chinese menba who has done a good thing,” the man said.
Wen froze. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Have you met another Chinese doctor?”
“My father told me about one,” the man replied. “He said that, many years ago, a Chinese doctor was given a sky burial and, because of this, the fighting between Tibetans and Chinese in this area came to an end.”
Wen looked at Zhuoma. Her heart was pounding and she could hardly breathe.
Could this doctor have been Kejun?
Seeing her emotion, Zhuoma helped her to sit down.
“I don’t know the details,” the man continued, “but my father used to say that Old Hermit Qiangba knew the story.”
At that moment, a man dashed into the tent and presented Wen with a snow-white khata scarf, a token of gratitude. Then he led her outside to the waiting crowd, who greeted her with whistles and cheers. Two old women, who were cooking mutton on a bonfire, came over and served her two fat legs of meat in honor of what she had done. The feasting went on well into the night. It was not until several hours later that Wen was able to return to her tent. She and Zhuoma had decided that first thing in the morning they would set out in search of Qiangba. She lay down, her head spinning sl ightly from the barley wine she had drunk. As the wind blew outside and the butter lamps flickered, she strained to hear the sound of singing from the lake.
THE DAY following the opera was to be given over to horse racing, but Wen and Zhuoma were oblivious to the excitement and commotion of the preparations as they made their way toward the lake. As they approached the place where they had seen the hermit, Wen was filled with anticipation. But to her dismay the stone where the hermit had sat was empty and none of the people drawing water at the lakeside knew where he had gone. The two women rushed back to ask the crowds watching the horse races, but no one there knew anything either. They waited the whole day at the lakeside but the hermit didn’t return. The mysterious singer had vanished, taking his story with him.
Everyone they spoke to was sure he would be back: he was the guardian spirit of the lake. But for Wen, yet another hope had evaporated and the disappointment was almost too much to bear. Feeling as if she were on the verge of madness, she broke away from the others and galloped wildly around the lake, shouting the names of Kejun and Qiangba into the wind.