Midnight 01 - Luisa's Desire

blue.
     
    ***
    "CLEARLY," said Geshe Rinpoche, "the trader she met was your father. You must admit the coincidence is striking, as if Fate were taking a hand in bringing you together."
     
    Martin grimaced. That John Moore had drawn the woman here was hardly a point in her favor. A curse, more like, if she proved as unworthy of trust as he. Martin touched the pale jade horse that stood on the table by his teacher's window. The carving was a gift from the Mongol khan, a thanks for an herbal healing. Nestled on a scarf beside it, the woman's offering curled like a snake. It was a mala, a Tibetan rosary, a string of one hundred eight shining emerald beads.
     
    Apparently she had not lied about being a prosperous merchant.
     
    "I saw no sign she lied at all," said his teacher, "though there was much she hid."
     
    His comment did not surprise Martin. He and his guide were so attuned Geshe Rinpoche could often read his mind. He, of course, would not presume to read his teacher's.
     
    "Haha," laughed Geshe Rinpoche, "now I am presumptuous!"
     
    Martin turned, face hot, but his embarrassment faded in the waves of warmth he felt from his friend.
     
    "Yes, friend," Geshe agreed, "for, as I have told you, you and I have shared many lives—lives in which I was not always the teacher." He beamed up at Martin from the floor, still seated in the attitude of meditation, his legs crossed, his hands curled easily around his knees. After a moment, his smile softened into a look of deep compassion. "I know you are troubled. I would be surprised if you were not. After all, this woman is a living reminder that half of you belongs in another world."
     
    "None of me belongs anywhere but here," Martin declared. "This is the country of my heart!"
     
    Shamed by the passionate outburst, he hung his head.
     
    "The wise man feels neither attachment nor aversion," reminded his master with the patience for which he was renowned.
     
    "I'm sorry, rinpoche. You know I am trying to follow the Path."
     
    His teacher released a quiet sigh. "Yes, I know you are trying. Too hard maybe. There are things I have seen in your future… But that is a talk for another day. You will choose your own way, as everyone does. For now you need only know that I have decided to help this woman. Tomorrow we will consult the medical lama. If our pilgrim is as earnest as she claims, I think we may accomplish much."
     
    "'We,' rinpoche?"
     
    His teacher's eyes held more than a hint of mirth. "Yes, 'we.' My meditation has told me you must help!"
     
Chapter Three
     
    THE medical lama was a tall storklike man, as gauntly ascetic as Martin and the abbot were robust. He reminded Luisa of scientists she had known, truth seekers who burned for nothing but uncovering hidden things. She did not fear her nature would disgust him, only that at some point he would want to cut her open and look inside.
     
    They had gathered—she, Martin, the medical lama, and the abbot—in Geshe Rinpoche's surprisingly comfortable quarters. They'd come soon after midnight, not for Luisa's sake but because midnight was when the lamasery's day began. Every so often the chant of the morning service drifted up from the floors below. Distant as it was, the sound could not compete with the rapid-fire barrage of the medical lama's questions.
     
    Once he had taken her pulse at various places on her body, he interrogated her about her diet, her sleep habits, her strengths and weaknesses alike. Naturally, Luisa was reluctant to discuss the latter. She understood, though, that she must enter into this process wholly. As Geshe Rinpoche said: a doctor could not diagnose half a patient. All must be known or the treatment would not suit.
     
    After an hour of this, the medical lama was so excited he was pacing back and forth across the colorful woven rug. "And you say you can consume food, but not digest it?"
     
    "Yes."
     
    "But wine you can imbibe, as well as filtered juice and tea."
     
    "I cannot drink Tibetan tea," she clarified with an automatic wrinkling of her nose. "The yak butter and soda disagree with me."
     
    The medical lama stopped to press his hands before his mouth. "Yes. Those additions are too coarse, too material. Blood is food a human has transformed for you and wine is sunlight on which the fruit has done the work. Are you certain you do not remember how you were changed into what you are?"
     
    "Quite certain," she said. "The procedure is wiped from our memory as soon as it