The Coffee Cantata

Yet Andrew seemed more like his father now; he seemed possessed by an innate stoicism, an acceptance of the way things were that Bud simply could not accept -- yet -- perhaps because Andrew had walked beside Mai Ling more often during this journey. Or perhaps not. Bud lingered now, drifted away from his brother and settled closer to Lindsey as Mai Ling began walking up the trail into the woods...

And Lindsey looked into the shadows once again, felt something, or someone, watching her as she followed Mai Ling up into the pines. A light drizzle began falling, then fine snow, and she heard a limb snap in the woods behind, well away from the trail, and she turned -- saw a tiger in the shadows, motionless, looking at her. When she started to move, the tiger began to move again, and when she stopped again, the cat stopped.

"Mai Ling!" she whispered, and when the old woman turned Lindsey pointed at the tiger in the shadows. "Look!"

Mai Ling looked at the tiger and sighed, shook her head and walked through the woods to it's side, and the boys stood by Lindsey's side, openly aghast at the sight, waiting for the inevitable.

Then Mai Ling walked back to them, saw their fear and gently laughed.

"When Tschering was a little boy, he was walking in these woods," she began, "and he found a little cat in a cave, just there," she said, pointing at a dark opening near the base of the cliff. "The little cat was alone, and starving to death. Tschering carried food and milk down to her, then the cat started following him home, up into the monastery. They were inseparable, and now she is inconsolable."

"Inconsolable?" Bud asked. "What do you mean?"

"There is a rock below, by the river, a large rock that overlooks the clearing -- where Tschering left. She sits there most days when the sun is out, and she searches the sky. For her love, I think, but she is very old now, and tired of waiting. I think she will leave us soon."

Lindsey looked at the cat, at her white muzzle and cloudy eyes, and she nodded, felt the animals sorrow more clearly now, then they turned to the trail, picked their way between snow covered rocks -- and when she turned the cat had begun following them again.

She turned and walked back towards the cat -- heard Bud say "No!" once -- but she kept on, walked through snow covered trees to the tiger, and she stopped a few feet short of it -- and sat on a rock. The cat sniffed the air now, it's pink and black nose larger than her clinched fist, and then the animal stepped close and rubbed it's cool, dry nose along Lindsey's jeans, then the skin on her arms. They looked at one another for several minutes, then the cat turned away and walked up through the rocks to the base of the cliff.

Lindsey's hands shook now, and she looked at the boys on the trail as a surge of insight ripped through the air. How would she feel if Doug's boys left her now? How would she reconcile their going without their father by her side. And how had she survived all these years without Tschering? Without their son?

Accept.

Endure.

Keep going -- push on through the shadows -- and she ran up against the limits of the moment, realized that when you ask memory to talk to you about distant days and forgotten nights, sometimes memory turns away, has nothing more to say to you.

She caught up with them and Mai Ling resumed picking her way through snow covered rocks, then they came to the switchback, and a really hard climb up a thirty foot face. She remembered the old monk struggling to get her up this part of the climb, how her ankle had screamed in sudden pain, and she watched Bud as fear gripped him now.

"I can't do this," he whispered, his upturned eyes now cataracts of doubt.

She came to his side, put her arms around his shoulders, and she felt an echo, her father's words calling out across time, passing through her soul again. She spoke to the boy now, as he had spoken to her once, yet she couldn't tell her voice from her father's...

"Do you know what the two most overused words in the world are?" a father asked his daughter one morning.

"No."

"I can't."

"What?"

"I can't...those are the two most overused words in the world."

"But..."

"But, you can," Ben Asher said. "That's the simple truth. The only limits on where you can go in life are the limits you place on yourself. And fear places the biggest limits on you of all. But Lindsey, here's the honest truth. You can. You can do anything...all you have to do is turn away from your fear. Now, put your left hand here, your right foot there."

"Are you sure?" she heard Bud ask.

"Your left hand, put it here," she said, putting her hand on the rock first. She took Bud's hand, felt her hands trembling in her father's, then she helped him pull, guided his right foot to the first foothold. "Now, put your weight on the right foot, and bring your left up. Good, now look up, always look up, look where you want to go. Good. Now reach up, never stop reaching, never stop looking ahead..."

She remembered a day when he took her flying, turning like a bird in the sky -- out over the ocean. How he told her to put her hands on the wheel, how he let her bank the wings, how afraid she'd been, how tentative her motions were. She remembered his hands on hers, turning the wheel, and she felt her body lean against the side of the airplane as the turn got steeper and steeper, how she'd wanted to just let go and fall, and she felt Bud against her now, leaning into her.

"You can't let go now, Bud. Look up. Focus on where your hands go next, where you'll need to put your feet. That's right. Look up. I'm here. I right here, with you."

And he was, she knew. He was right there, with her.

Coda

She went into her room, the room she knew so well, and Mai Ling sat with her, waiting. Bao came after evening prayers and smiled when he saw her, and he came to her and they hugged.

"You look well," he said.

"I am happy to see you," she replied.

"I have finished," he said. "Would you like to see your son?"

"Yes. What about the snow?"

"It is no matter for concern. Come."

They walked outside and Bao found a crack in the rocks behind the monastery, began pulling himself up the first ledge, then higher, to a second, narrower ledge. He helped Lindsey stand, then they edged along the rock until they reached an shallow alcove, and the urn rested on a man-made ledge, hollowed out of living rock.

"The sun hits this part of the rock first thing, every morning," Bao said, looking at his grandson's urn. Holding it to his heart.

She turned, looked down at the monastery a hundred feet below, and she saw the boys standing there, looking up at her -- Mai Ling by their side -- then she turned to Bao.

"You chose well. I'm sure he would have loved this place."

"Perhaps," the old man said. "It grows dark. We should go down now."

She followed him and they had a simple meal of soup and rice then went to sleep.

She woke in the morning after a dreamless sleep, and after Bao left for prayers she woke the boys, showed them where the bathroom, such as it was, could be found, and then she took them to the kitchen. Mai Ling was cooking and the boys ate, and Mai Ling forced Lindsey to have something too, then Bao came and ate.

"You slept well?" he asked the boys.

"Yessir," they said, and Bao laughed.

"They sound like soldiers," he said, then he smiled at them. "You must call me Bao, or most honorable, wise one," he added, laughing. "The sun is coming out now, so I will take you up to the farm when the snow loosens it's grip." He rubbed Andrew's unruly hair on the way out, and Andrew turned to Lindsey.

"Who is he?"

"Colonel Bao," Mai Ling said. He was in the North Vietnamese air force, and he wanted to kill Lindsey's father very very much."

"What?" Andrew said, his eyes wide now. "Why?"

"Because Bao did not know truth. His heart was barren, unable to accept truth."

"Truth?" Bud asked. "You say that like truth is a person?"

"Yes, very much like a person," Mai Ling said. "Bao knows truth like a person now. Yes. I like that. You will be very wise, Bud."

They left the monastery along the ledge, walked along until rock gave way to earth again, and then they walked on a trail that led up the mountain -- through patches of snow and worn trails among rocky outcroppings, and after two hours the sun came out and warmed the ground. Bao rested once, looked at the boys breathing hard and smiled, then he looked at Lindsey. She radiated something like contentment, and he wondered why.

"You smile with a brave heart," he said to her, "but I wonder. Is it braveness you feel?"

"No, not at all. I feel my father here. Everywhere I look."

"And do you wonder why?"

"Yes."

"I would too," Bao said, but he laughed and began climbing between another set of rocks. The way was harder here, steeper, and she kept by Bud's side, worked with him as he gained confidence, and then, suddenly, they stood on a vast plateau.

"There," Bao said, pointing to a ridge-line a few miles distant. "There is the farm."

She looked, saw three towering wind generators, and a solar array covering perhaps five acres, and two beige brick buildings nestled in the trees behind the array.

"What on earth...?" she sighed.

She saw dozens of houses now, modern houses, almost American, and more buildings further out along the ridge line. Antennae towers and satellite dishes, then an airplane sitting in a hanger, and she turned to Bao. "What is this?"

"A dream."

They walked across the plateau, through wild grass and blooming wildflowers, then through pasture and around cultivated fields, fenced off from grazing livestock. Bao led them to the largest building, and she shuddered to a stop, read the name off aloud as it came into focus.

"Asher and Martin Clinic" she said, and then she saw her mother walk out the door, then Clive Martin -- in a wheelchair -- rolled out onto the deck, and before she realized what she was doing she was running. Her mother walked over to Clive's wheelchair and pushed him into the sun...

...then her father walked out the door...

...and she fell to the ground, crying, because just then she knew she was dreaming, that this wasn't real, couldn't be real. She was still in the monastery, waiting for the early morning bell to chime, calling the monks to prayer...

But then she saw him running. Down the steps, onto the grass, running to her.

And then she was in his arms, surrounded by him, a million questions crowding, pushing inward, waiting to be asked.

+++++

"Clive called," he said over lunch, "needed me to go to Zürich, so I called dispatch, had them replace me on the flight, but it turned out we had a couple dead-heading back and Guy Saunders took my place. No idea, of course, all that stuff was going to happen, but Clive saw it as an opportunity."

"An opportunity?"

"Yes, well," Clive interjected hastily, "let's not get into all that, Ben, shall we? I just thought it time for your father to disappear, and given the circumstances he agreed."

"So, what is all this?" Lindsey said, sweeping her hands around the plateau. "This didn't just happen overnight?"

"No, we decided to build a clinic up here, and a couple of years ago, when things started to look unsettled, we expanded the concept a little."

"A little? It looks like you've spent tens of millions of dollars up here!"

"Swiss francs," her father mumbled, "for the most part."

"But..."

"Now, now," Clive said hastily -- again. "Let's just say we liberated some excess funds from a few over-indulgent Italian boys who were involved in the pharmaceuticals trade, shall we? Let's just leave it at that, wot?"

Lindsey looked at Martin, shook her head. "You're too much..." she sighed.

"We have about five hundred scientists and teachers up here now," Ben said, quickly changing the subject, "and a state of the art medical facility. Kind of a Noah's arc, I guess you might call it."

She and the boys moved into a small house near the teaching building, and soon Andrew was involved with getting ready for the school's first class of medical students. Most were local Bhutanese children, but there were a few kids from Europe and America there as well. Bud busied himself herding animals, and Lindsey tried to get over her father essentially abandoning her, but soon she saw the logic of their plan.

And in time she moved down to the monastery, spending her time listening to monks at prayer, reading what she could on Bhutanese Buddhism, listening, really listening to Bao when he talked about life. Visitors came to the monastery from time to time, outsiders still, people from Australia at first, then a few from Europe, and she was put in charge of showing these visitors around.

One morning she was sitting in the sunrise, her legs dangling over the edge of the cliff and she saw men far below, coming up the trail, and she sighed. Bao came out a while later and sat beside her.

"You are resting in shadows this morning," he asked. "Why?"

"I was wondering how the boys are doing."

"When were you last at the farm?"

"It's been a few weeks."

"Ah. Well. Perhaps it is time for a visit. But I think we have visitors coming this morning."

"Yes, I saw them on the trail."

"Well," he said, smiling, "I think they are here."

She turned, saw Doug on the ledge, then she looked at Bao. "You knew, didn't you? You knew he was coming...?"

"So did you, Lindsey."

She stood, looked at Doug -- and then saw Becky Asher behind him -- and she wanted to laugh. "Here comes trouble," she sighed, then she saw Tschering bringing up the rear and her heart leapt. Bao stood and looked at his son, his smile brighter than the brightest sun, then Tschering stopped and looked at his father, and the love of his life, then he walked onto the rock patio and went to his father, then his mother, before he turned to Lindsey.

They fell into an infinite moment, then he sat on the ledge and let his feet dangle, waiting for Lindsey to do the same -- and when she didn't he turned and looked at her -- then saw his oldest friend in the world walking along the ledge.

She came to him and sniffed his head once, then lay down by his side. With her face on his lap, she watched the sun come to the treetops -- and sighed --

*

*

The Coffee Cantata © 2017 Adrian Leverkühn | abw | The Coffee Cantata, composed by J S Bach in the 1730s is referenced, but no other persons or places developed herein are "real." 'The Coffee Cantata' was also a restaurant located in San Francisco, scenes of the interior show up in the 1968 movie Bullit (Steve McQueen, car chase, etc.), and The Coffee Cantata is also a coffee shop in San Francisco, not to be missed if you're in The City by the Bay -- but this story has no relationship to either of those entities, and should not be confused with them.

Many thanks to Rightbank for reading through early drafts the past few days, helping with my atrocious grammar and non-existent spell-checking. Hopefully we caught the worst offenders.

Happy trails, and thanks for reading.