and rested a warm hand on Grant’s shoulder. He answered in precise English with an unexpectedly clear British accent. “I am sad to report that our brothers found his body downriver from the dzong. He was upside down, still in his kayak.”
Grant swallowed back the acidic taste of bile that rose to the back of his throat. If he hadn’t requested to go on the most challenging section of the river, Dasho would still be alive. Maybe if I’d tried harder in the hydraulic? The friendly guide had been supporting his family.
As if reading Grant’s thoughts, the monk added, “You couldn’t have saved him. His neck was broken.”
Grant broke eye contact. He didn’t find comfort in the information. To distract his thoughts, he glanced around at his spartan surroundings.
“Is this some kind of hospital?”
“My apprentice and I found you lying on the riverbank about a mile from here,” the elder monk replied. “We carried you to the closest building where we could provide help—to the Punakha Dzong.”
The leftover haze vanished from Grant’s mind. The Punakha Dzong was his next stop. He remembered driving past the imposing five-hundred-year-old fortress rising from the peninsula where the Mo Chhu and the Pho Chhu joined. Constructed in traditional Bhutanese style, its massive inward-sloping walls of whitewashed stone starkly contrasted with the intricately carved and painted wood molding around the windows and doors—in the same style as the painted door to his room, he realized. A colorful cornice anchored the pagoda-style roof.
He recalled Dasho’s explanation that although the dzongs were originally forts built to protect the country from invaders who crossed the imposing Himalayan range and attacked from neighboring Tibet or India, today they served a dual purpose: to house both the local government offices and the country’s Buddhist monasteries. Evaluating the furnishings in his room, Grant guessed that he must be in the living quarters of the monastery.
The monk who spoke English so well held out his hand. “I am Kinley Goenpo, the senior monk here during the summer season, and this is my student, Jigme.” Jigme bowed from the waist but remained silent.
“Grant Matthews. Thanks so much for rescuing me, but ...” Grant struggled for the right way to express his concern. “Shouldn’t I go to a hospital—have a surgeon x-ray my leg?” He again drummed his fingers on the gray plaster.
The doctor shook his head. “Kinley and I debated the idea of moving you, but the nearest hospital is in our capital city, Thimpu, a three-hour drive over the mountains. My little office in town wouldn’t provide you any more help than I can offer you in this room. Fortunately, your leg sustained a clean break, though a severe one. If you stay off it for the next six weeks, it should heal nicely. You’ll go home with just a scar as a souvenir of your adventure.”
“Six weeks?” Grant felt the blood drain from his already pallid face. He still had many monasteries to investigate, and then he had to be back at school in ten days. His palms began to sweat.
Karma shook his head. “Any movement before your leg stabilizes risks permanent disability.”
“I shouldn’t have even gone kayaking,” Grant mumbled, feeling sorry for himself and guilty for his role in Dasho’s death. Grant glared at his cast as if the sheer force of his gaze would fuse his bones together. His original plan had been to spend just an hour or so in this monastery, to let his guide ask the monks some questions, and then move on if the legend about a boy named Issa didn’t ring any bells.
Kinley lowered himself to the edge of Grant’s bed. “I understand your frustration. We will work with you to make your stay as comfortable as possible.”
Grant craned his neck to search the room. “Did you find my stuff? I had a dry bag in my kayak—my credit cards and cell phone.”
“My brothers who found your guide’s body also found your kayak,” Kinley replied. “It was empty.”
Even though the room was cool from the September breeze flowing through the open window, Grant felt flushed with heat. He pushed the quilted blanket covering his torso to his waist so that he could breathe more easily. He looked down to find that he was wearing an off-white cotton shirt; the monks must have dressed him. The material was coarse, and Grant felt it start to scratch his skin.
“Can you lend me a phone? I need to call my professor and let him know what’s happened.” He owed his mentor so much. Grant refused to worry, much less disappoint him. Billingsly had gone to bat for him with the Emory admissions committee. He still recalled his professor’s words verbatim from seven years ago: “Grant has one of the best analytical minds I’ve seen. Harvard was foolish to reject him because of that incident.”
The elder monk shook his head. “Oh, there are no cell phones in the goemba , the monastery, but if you give the number to Karma, he can call anyone you wish when he returns to town.”
Grant flopped his head on the thin pillow. “I suppose email is out of the question too?”
Kinley shook his head. Grant thought he detected something in the monk’s eyes. Is this amusing to him? Grant stared at the fine lines crisscrossing the beige ceiling. Bedridden in a jail cell of a room in a remote monastery with some monks who were enjoying his predicament. For the first time since he’d woken, Grant became aware of the throbbing pain in his leg. He also realized that his left shoulder was bruised, and he had a pounding headache behind his temples.
“What about the bathroom?” he asked, not sure he wanted to know the answer.
The doctor chuckled and bent over to retrieve a battered metal bedpan from the floor beside the bed. “I brought this from town.”
Grant wiped his palms off on the sheets. Accepting this situation for six weeks was out of the question. He needed to devise a plan.
“Pen and paper?” he asked the men.
“That we can do,” Kinley said, nodding to the doctor. Karma reached into his black bag—the kind of doctor’s bag that Grant had seen in old TV shows but didn’t think were used anymore—and produced a ballpoint pen and a blank prescription pad.
Grant wrote Harold Billingsly’s office number at Emory and the name of his hotel in town, the Zangdho Pelri, and handed it to the doctor. “Room oneoh-eight. If you don’t mind, I have a backpack with my clothes, and my laptop is on the desk.”
Before Karma could respond, the door to the room opened. A third monk, a boy no older than ten or eleven with a perfectly round bald head, dressed like Kinley’s apprentice Jigme in a crimson robe, entered carrying a steaming cup centered on a tray.
Kinley took the cup from the boy and patted his shoulder in a fatherly way. “Thank you, Ummon.”
After the boy bowed to the older monk and left the room, the doctor emptied the contents of a small envelope into the cup. “Drink this,” he said. “It will ease your discomfort.”
Grant sniffed the cup, wondering what sort of herbal concoction he was about to consume. He took a sip. Just a little bitter. He hoped the effects would kick in quickly. After Grant finished the tea, the doctor left, but the two monks remained, watching him silently.
“I appreciate your help, but really you don’t need to stay.” Grant focused on the notepad on his lap. He drew a line down the center of the page and wrote at the top of the left column “Options.”
