Эллен Гилкрист - Black Winter

“Stay with us,” we said, almost in a breath. “There is food here. Did you bring food?”

“We have flour and oil. We will make bread for you in our skillet.” One of the young monks pulled a copper skillet out from the folds of his robe. It was about six inches across, with a steel handle. I imagined the sweet flat bread being lifted from it. My heart went crazy at the thought of bread.

We sat in a circle and talked for many hours. Mort told them we were going to the equator. They listened very intently to all we told them.

“We're going to Mayan country,” I put in. “The Mayans might be cousins of yours.” I thought suddenly of my cousins. Of my family. It is not always possible to keep from thinking about them. Jimmy, Teddy, Malcolm, Little Rhoda, the names rang in my head.

“I will tell you a story,” Gangkar Tulku said, as if he were reading my mind. He looked directly at me and stood up and began to play little cymbals on his fingers. “Once, long ago, mankind lived on another planet. On that planet he did not need to eat meat or vegetables. When he needed nourishment he looked up into the stars and the starlight fed him. At that time we were rainbows and could travel any distance in a few seconds. Some of us came to earth and saw the other creatures here eating and drinking meat and vegetables and we ate and drank with them to be polite. Because of this we became earthbound. Now only our minds are rainbows. Now our bodies cannot travel in the ether. Still, at Drepung Loseling Monastery we remember rainbow travel and put on our rainbow costumes and dance for one another and are not sad. How happy we are that our minds are still free to travel and tell each other stories.”

It dried my tears to hear Gangkar's story. Perhaps my children and grandchildren are rainbows now. Perhaps the end was swift, unexpected, clean. Perhaps they live. No, they do not live. I must not think like that.

The monks have put a beautiful cloth painting of their monastery on our wall. It is painted on the lightest silk imaginable, but it is very strong. Gangkar showed me the paths that led from one part of the monastery to another. There had been seven to ten thousand monks there before the Chinese came.

They kneel in prayer for many hours each day. They are very careful of everything they eat, thanking and praising whatever gave up its life to feed them. I don't know what they think about peanut butter Nabs. That's a lot of different ingredients.

Tannin and I kneel with them as long as our knees can stand it. Mort likes them. He thinks it is good karma that they have shown up but he won't kneel with them. He has been busy with his instruments measuring the slant and amount of sunlight and monitoring the direction of the winds. He has several notebooks full of scientific data. We gave him one of the ones we found in the canoe shop.

Mort wants to take a trip to Fayetteville before we start for the equator but Tannin and I are afraid to. It was our home. I can't stand to see it mined. I asked Gangkar and Bhagang about the children of Fayetteville. They said most of them have been gathered into the basements of the thickest buildings and are not allowed to go outside for anything.

“What do they do?”

“They play and study. They have an orchestra and put on plays and concerts. They are heavily guarded at all times.”

I thought of the children I knew there who were especially dear to me. I thought of three children who were caught up in a terrible divorce on the day the nuclear devices ruined the world. Now the divorce would not matter to anyone. It would never come to court. They would never have to choose between their mother and their father.

Last night Mort spread out all his charts and talked to Gangkar and Bhagang about his theories. About atmospheric science and the destruction of ozone and how he thought the only place it would be warm enough to grow food would be near the equator.

I told them about the Mayan rains in Mexico and Belize and how much they resembled the painting they showed us of their monastery.

“In short,” Mort said. “Tannin and Rhoda and I would like you to go with us if you want to go. We will take the vehicles as long as the gasoline lasts. I think I can convert some of the motor oil but that will be a last resort. We can pull a trailer with supplies and any of you who won't fit into the vehicle. We will have to walk sooner or later but perhaps we will be in south Texas or Mexico by then.”

“There's no point in staying here,” Tannin added. “These woods are going to die.”

“It will be an adventure,” I put in. “We all have good walking shoes. I'm not worried about gasoline. As long as we are moving in the right direction. We are going to the sun. That's how I look at it. Nine baboons searching for the sun. We want you with us if you will go.”

That night the monks chanted for many hours. Then they had a long debate that lasted almost until dawn. They were in the front of the cave. I could have found a quiet place to sleep but I stayed awake listening to them.

At last they slept. In the morning, after they had gone outside and relieved themselves and boiled water for tea and drank tea and chanted for another two hours and then argued again, Gangkar came to us and said they had decided to accompany us to the equator.

“We have chanted away our hindrances,” he began. “We see the joy in this new beginning. We embrace your journey and humbly offer ourselves as your companions. Only Bhagang is worried about your horse. What will you do with your horse? He cannot ride in the vehicles and if we leave him here he will perish without company. Have you thought of this?”

“We will drive slowly enough so that he can walk or run beside us,” Tannin said.

“It will use too much gasoline,” Mort answered.

“You can go ahead with the vehicle and we will follow at the pace of the horse,” I suggested. We talked about this and Mort calculated the amount of gasoline it would take to drive forty miles an hour as opposed to fifty or thirty or sixty and we agreed that would be our plan.

“He is eating the grass,” I added. “As long as he is alive we are not in a radiation zone. He will be our canary.” The monks looked from one to another and smiled. I guess it amused them that I had to have an excuse to love a horse.

We have made our plans to leave. We will follow whatever roads we can down into Texas and Mexico. Then to Central America. Every two hundred miles we will have a meeting and rethink our plans.

“We will take the guns,” Tannin told Gangkar. “We have rifles and pistols that we found in the canoe shop. I know this is against your religion so I wanted to warn you about it.”

“Take what you need.” Gangkar answered him. “If they become too heavy you may wish to stop carrying them.”

We leave tomorrow. Tonight the monks performed their dances for us. The same dances they have performed in cities all over the world. They put on their costumes and danced:

THE INVOCATION OF THE FORCES OF GOODNESS

then,

THE DANCE OF THE RAINBOW BEINGS

then,

THE INQUIRING AND PROVOKING MIND IS THE BASIS OF ALL ENLIGHTENMENT

then,

THE WORLD OF CONFLICT AND SUFFERING BECOMES THE CIRCLE OF ECSTASY

then,

THE ECHO OF WISDOM

then,

AN AUSPICIOUS CONCLUDING SONG FOR WORLD PEACE

It was very beautiful although I fell asleep several times during the chanting. Afterward I lay down on my soft bed that Tannin made for me from rushes and moss and canoe rugs and slept on it for the last time. I dreamed all night of rainbow people. I named them all the names of the people east of the Mississippi River whom I had loved. Mother, father, sister, brother, child, friend. Then I got up to finish this and wrap it in plastic and leave it here for you. Whoever you will be. It doesn't matter to me anymore who you will be. Undifferentiated consciousness. That's what I'm striving for. We must finish packing now. We must be moving on.