Neon Lotus by Marc Laidlaw Read Free Book Online Page B

was only after
staring for a full minute that she saw her daughter again, the face she knew so
well.
    “Marianne, what
did you say to Lama Nyinje?”
    Marianne
giggled, blushed, and hid her face against her mother’s shoulder.
    “Marianne,
please tell Mommy. This is very important.”
    Her daughter
leaned back, gazed into her face, and spoke a few words of nonsense.
    Kate laughed
in relief. They were the same nonsense syllables that Marianne always sang to
herself. There had been times when it sounded more like a language than a
child’s babble, but wasn’t it true that nonsense was a language in its own
right?
    “She speaks
like a native,” Chokyi said.
    “A native?”
said Kate. “What are you . . . oh, no. Are you serious? But it’s nonsense!”
    Chokyi said
a few words to Marianne, who reached out and touched his nose with her finger
before answering in kind. It all sounded like nonsense to Kate—Chokyi’s words
as well as Marianne’s.
    “I asked her
where she learned to speak. She says she’s always known.”
    Lama Nyinje
held up a finger before Kate could protest. Something in his eyes calmed her.
He made her believe that although this was impossible and could never be
explained, there was nothing to fear—that in fact it might be a great thing.
    “He wants to
ask her one question,” Chokyi said. “With your permission.”
    Kate nodded,
numb.
    Lama Nyinje
asked his question and Marianne grew sad. Tears welled from her eyes as she
spoke. Now she was the Marianne that Kate knew. She drew the child against her
breast, patting her hair and speaking softly to calm her.
    “What did he
ask?” she whispered.
    “He asked if
she remembered where she was born.”
    “And?”
    Chokyi bowed
apologetically and hesitated before replying. “She says she does not remember
that, although she does remember where she died.”
    “Died?”
    Chokyi
looked at Lama Nyinje. The old man lightly touched Marianne’s crown.
    “Dharamsala,”
he said.
    ***
    “No one,”
Peter said. “There’s no one we know, aside from you, Chokyi, who could have
taught her. We’ve never spoken of Dharamsala in front of her, as far as I can
remember. It strikes me as a hoax. But what would anyone have to gain from it?
Especially Marianne?”
    The
dedication ceremonies had ended; the church was quiet now. Lama Nyinje and
Chokyi sat in the Strausses’ small room. Marianne slept at her mother’s side.
    Kate watched
Peter carefully. He didn’t seem confused or frightened. Instead he looked curious,
excited.
    “I know what
you’re thinking,” he said to Chokyi. “She’s the reincarnation of some Tibetan.”
    Chokyi
narrowed his eyes. “I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion. There are many
possibilities. Perhaps, in some way you’re unaware of, she was exposed to
Tibetan speech.”
    “But how
could she have understood it well enough to converse with a native speaker?”
    “A young
savant? A linguistic genius?”
    Kate managed
a smile. “Naturally, I’d like to think that’s the case.”
    “Kate,”
Peter said, suddenly solemn. “What about that funeral in Dharamsala? Remember?
The man who was killed in our hotel?”
    “I
remember,” she said, wishing that she had not.
    “Do you
remember how the body jerked about? It even pointed at us—a coincidence, of
course, but perhaps a meaningful one. I read that after the death of the Thirteenth
Dalai Lama, his body kept twisting toward the east. Attendants would move it
back into the proper position, but it would always turn east again. It was in
the east that they found his reincarnation, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.”
    “Who was
this man in your hotel?” said Chokyi. “A Tibetan?”
    “I don’t
know,” Peter said. “He was murdered—by a man with three eyes.”
    Chokyi
started. “Three eyes?”
    Peter
nodded. “It was the strangest thing. Some sort of freak—”
    Chokyi looked
pale, his eyes remote. Kate drew her sleeping daughter closer to her.
    “The police
never said