“The co-op let us bring the new tractor,” explained Tashi’s mother proudly as his smiling father loaded their bags onto its trailer. Ping politely declined his father’s offer to ride up front with him on the tractor itself and his mother helped them both climb aboard the trailer.
The trailer shook as the new diesel engine spluttered to life, sending a cloud of black acrid smoke up into the otherwise pristine, cloudless blue sky.
Ping’s Tibetan was very limited. She’d been studying it for less than two years and had never before had an opportunity to speak to any actual Tibetans besides Tashi, who preferred to speak Mandarin. She attempted to engage Tashi’s mother in conversation, pausing occasionally to blast him with a bright smile until Tashi’s aching guts felt like they were going to explode.
Falsehood!
Where was it? Something was horribly false. It wasn’t his parents. They weren’t sophisticated enough to be false. It wasn’t Ping. She seemed to be genuinely interested in trying to engage his mother and was working diligently to understand his mother’s attempts to tell her about his childhood and youth.
That only left him, Tashi. He was the false link in the puzzle. He was the pretentious fraud. Suddenly it hit him. He didn’t have to feel personally responsible for spanning the mammoth void he’d imagined would loom between Ping and his family. Besides the obvious language barrier, they were all getting along wonderfully.
The road wasn’t much more than a rough track as they bumped and rattled through the semi-deserted countryside.
The pain in his stomach began to subside once again. The sound of his mother’s and Ping’s laughter mixed together, every time they bounced over a particularly deep pothole, soothingly infused itself into the tortured knot in his mid-rift.
From a distance, the village of Womadige was barely a speck on the flanks of Mt Luguna.
The pain returned instantly as he spotted his childhood home. The memory of Ping’s father’s mansion almost caused him to vomit.
“What’s the matter?” asked Ping innocently as Tashi’s smiling father pushed forward the throttle lever and brought the tractor to a halt.
Tashi felt like a fish on a hook. All he could do was struggle and the more he struggled the worse things got.
“Nothing,” he muttered feebly, helping his father lift his old bag and Ping’s designer label luggage from the trailer.
As he approached the shameful shack of his youth, a familiar sight cut through his inner pain, awakening memories.
“Free Chow!” he exclaimed as an overweight black and white cat came running out onto the track to meet them.
Tashi dropped the bag he’d refused to allow his father to carry and fell onto one knee as the purring feline approached.
“It’s my cat!” he explained redundantly, picking up the old tom.
The rest of the conversation was lost in the sound of rapturous purring.
Inside his parents’ house, little had changed. The old familiar sights and some of his discarded feelings flooded back. There was the smell of yak butter tea and yak dung smoke.
Where Ping had grown up on marble floors and antique rugs, as a child he’d played on these same hard packed earth floors. He looked into her eyes, trying to detect an element of distaste or condescension. He saw none.
He showed Ping the bedroom she would be sleeping in for the duration of their visit.
“Sorry we don’t have a marble staircase.”
“I’ve always hated marble.”
“Me too.”
Ping produced an exquisitely wrapped package from her suitcase.
“This is for your parents,” she explained.
“What is it?”
“A surprise,” she answered.
Tashi’s parents were preparing food. Yak butter tea was boiling on the stove as Tashi followed Ping into the kitchen.
“This is for you,” said Ping handing the exquisite gift to Tashi’s mother.
Tashi’s mother flashed her husband a look of utter confusion before wiping her hands on her apron and accepting the gift.
“Thank you,” she said managing a weak smile. “I’ll put it near the spirit house.”
“You have to unwrap it,” Ping said in Tibetan, mispronouncing most of the words.
Tashi’s mother fired another even more confused look at her husband.
Tashi translated Ping’s instruction into something his mother could grasp.
“Here, let me help you,” offered Tashi.
“No, let your mother unwrap it,” insisted Ping.
Tashi’s father came to his wife’s assistance but was unable to offer any practical help.
Ping retrieved the gift and demonstrated how to remove the outer layer of paper before handing it back to Tashi’s mother. She took it and hesitantly continued the process to reveal a box containing four small replicas of terra cotta warriors from Xi’an. Tashi’s mother handed the gift to her husband, who smiled and nodded in polite confusion.
“They’re terra cotta warriors from Xi’an,” Ping tried to explain.
“They are for decoration,” added Tashi, attempting to drag two parallel universes into the same dimension.
“Ah,” said his father unhelpfully.
FOUR - UNIFICATION
The next morning Tashi woke up early. The pain he experienced when he awoke was less than excruciating for the first time in 48 hours and continued to diminish as he got out of bed and dressed himself.
Out in the kitchen his mother had the fire roaring and was ready with hot yak butter tea.
Ping emerged from her bedroom a few minutes later and bid everyone a happy afternoon. She looked slightly confused as they all laughed. Tashi pointed out her mistake and she re-issued her greeting, swapping morning for afternoon. Both Tashi’s parents smiled in appreciation of her attempts to communicate in a language which up until their arrival had been little more than a collection of academic noises. The pain in Tashi’s stomach continued to become more bearable over breakfast but lingered threateningly for the rest of the morning.
Lunch had it on the run. The fresh organic food he hadn’t experienced since leaving home marched triumphantly through his grateful gut, restoring his sense of health and wellbeing. Ping appeared to have been accepted by his parents and the terra cotta warriors were occupying a place of honor on the large wooden cabinet which dominated the living area. By late afternoon the pain had been thoroughly vanquished and that evening he ate as if he had a vacuum cleaner for a stomach.
The trunk in the attic remained undisturbed for another day while Tashi took Ping on a tour of some of the magical places which had enchanted his childhood. The other villagers maintained a respectful distance, returning Tashi’s greetings and some even returning Ping’s smile.
The next morning, at Ping’s insistence, the trunk was manhandled down from the attic, landing roughly on the hard dirt floor.
“I think it’s in here,” said Tashi.
A selection of his childhood chattels were ripped unceremoniously from their sanctuary, exposing the tip of an object wrapped in green cloth.
“I was sure I wrapped it in blue cloth,” said Tashi affecting a non-dental extraction.
“It’s