The Rock Child Read Online Free Page B

lies.
    “‘To repay that debt I indenture myself to Tarim to work …’” Now she had to control her voice carefully. Just as I feared. In a legal paper. “… ‘as a hundred-men’s-wife for five years.’”
    Her grandmother had taught her first. Male-female, good-evil, sacred-profane, Sun-Moon, all are one .
    Nevertheless . She drew herself up. She was tall and slender for a woman of her people, taller than Tarim. She was a Khampa, and had been raised with the pride and haughtiness of those independent nomads and traders. She looked him witheringly in the eye. “No,” she said. “Ah Wan told me I would work serving whisky. I will never work as a whore.”
    “Read,” Tarim commanded.
    She read the rest silently. Tarim had paid $1,000 for her services for the next five years. Oh, precious American dollars . As an indentured servant she would earn no wages. Tarim would provide her room, board, and clothing. For every ten days she was sick, she would serve anothermonth. If she was sick a month, or conceived a child, she would serve another year.
    At the bottom was a character that pretended to be her signature. It wasn’t—she would never sign her name in Chinese characters but in Tibetan ones. What American would know that, though? What Chinese would know it?
    She stared at Tarim and said in a low, even tone, “ Kyakpa sö! ” These were the rudest words she could think of, the same as the phrase she heard the Americans use, “Eat shit!”
    Tarim cocked his hand. He is going to strike me . Even as a child she had never been struck, yet it was half what she wanted. Fight me. Now. I will rise as Mahakala and drink your blood . He was old, sixty at least. I am more than your match .
    She quailed. Whatever the Tantras teach, I cannot bear to foul my spirit with murder .
    His hands trembled. Go ahead, hit me .
    With a visible effort Tarim lowered his hand. Yet his spirit roiled and seethed in the ugly afflictive emotions. She felt contempt for him.
    Her mind jangled. She reminded herself numbly, I have compassion for all sentient beings in the suffering that is earthly life . That was the teaching of her entire existence. Yet Mahakala destroys and creates, dancing always, laughing madly. And they are the same, to destroy and create, to love and to kill. Rise in me, Mahakala .
    She felt dizzy. She held on to the bar for support. Who am I becoming?
    Calmly, with a false courtliness, Tarim gestured to the bar, the lines of bottles, the furnishings. Though it was only a tent with a false wooden front, he’d made the tavern look well outfitted.
    “When the barbarians drink too much, they set aside their manners, their lusts become inflamed …”
    She interrupted him. “I need no explanation of that.” She forbade pictures of her drunken abductors to enter her mind. “Whether they’re made mad by whisky or opium.” The Chinese were fond of opium, but her people had nothing to do with it.
    She saw Tarim’s nostrils flare a little, and his lip curled. Fine to be able to read a man’s mind by the signs of his body, and to command it by a small insult .
    He turned his back to her, led the way to the back of the building, and opened a narrow door. “A private room,” he murmured in a tone implyinggreat good fortune. Beyond his outstretched arm she could see a cubicle with a narrow cot. “Here you will sleep, and here you will serve the barbarians.”
    She took a deep breath. First came the fear, then the anger. The warlike spirit of Mahakala is in me . That spirit intoned, “I have been abducted. A Chinese court would behead my captors. I am not indentured to you or anyone. I demand to go home.”
    Tarim continued as though he hadn’t heard her. “The other drinking establishments have hundred-men’s-wives, white and red and black women, and their business exceeds my own. You will be something special.” He paused. “You will wear the robes. Always.”
    He held her eyes, and she saw something even more