Tsering and Stanzin (F)

Nineteen-year-old Tsering sat back against the wall of his sleeping room at the rear of his family’s simple home. In the darkness, he whispered her name. “Stanzin.” The tears in tandem as if released by some cue came from the middle of each eye and slowly ran down the middle of each cheek. He was not so much sad. Tsering was in love.

Tsering kept his eyes closed as he whispered. “Stanzin. Stanzin, are you awake?” He knew that she was with the livestock and a few ponies on the high plateau for the summer grazing. “Stanzin, I love you. I am with you.”

He, of course, was home from his first year at the university, and while his Aunt Angmo still was curt with him since he decided to leave his training at Shey monastery, most of the family welcomed his return with much joy.

Eyes closed, Tsering slowed his breathing and felt a lightness come from within. “If I only could, Stanzin, I would be holding your hand, one hand beneath to support and the other, gently, rubbing your skin.”

Tsering’s father had arranged for a teaching slot at the government girls school not a kilometer from their home, and there Tsering would teach biology two hours a day in the morning. In the afternoons he was free to read and to visit friends and to spend time at Shey with his favorite teacher. 

“Let me take each foot. Let me rub them for you, my love.” Tsering held both hands out in front of his chest and with his thumbs made small circles. He could in his mind feel the flesh of her foot. “Stanzin.”  He could feel her knee bend at times from the pressure of his touch. “Relax. Let me have your foot. Let me soothe your tired feet.”

Stanzin, of course, would have been in her tent for several hours, and after two cups of gur-gur, she would be stretched out in a darkness that can be felt in the bones. Tsering stopped rubbing her feet and thought of being with her as she topped off his tea after each sip. They would hardly speak to one another, the two of them, but in their silence they would share their same feelings for one another under the tent. And in that tent under a sky full of stars that stretched to the end of time, they would be together.

“Oh, my little Stanzin.” Never once did Tsering open his eyes. She was there with him. He felt her skin. If he cocked his head and stilled himself completely, he could hear her breathing. “I am with you.”

And then, Tsering could sleep.

“Wake up, lazy boy!  Say your prayers!” His father laughed. “You have a visitor this morning!” 

Tsering’s youngest sister shouted and ran and jumped on her brother, giggling and punching at him. He pushed her back. “Don’t hurt me, child!”

“Oh, you are so old.”

“Get up, you are not at college now,” his father said sharply, but then he laughed again.

His sister squealed. “What, Sister, makes you so wild this morning?”

Daughter and father looked at one another and laughed out loud. 

“What?”

“Stanzin’s father is here to see you!” She fell back on the floor. “Stanzin, Stanzin, Stanzin!”

Tsering looked at his father. “He is? He is here?”

“Yes. Come on.”

Tsering rose and quickly pulled on his jeans and grabbed a t-shirt and headed to the front of the house. In the morning sun Stanzin’s father did indeed stand just outside the front door.

“Jullay, Jullay!”

“Jullay, Tsering! I need you to help me.”

“Yes? How can I help you?”

“I want you to take one yak and one pony up to the plateau. Stanzin’s uncle is sending them. Can you do that?

“Yes! Yes, and I will get them safely there.”

“Good. Meet me at the Spitok bridge tomorrow afternoon.”

Tsering looked over at his father who was smiling and looking off at the snow still capping the high range.

“What, Father?”

“Oh, just looking over the mountains.” Then the two men burst into laughter, and Stanzin’s father turned and walked off from the house without another word and Tsering’s father went back inside.

But Tsering did not laugh. Eyes closed, he too looked over and into the mountains. “Stanzin.” Ladson 2013