If Tears Were Wishes And Other Short Stories (3 page)

Kwan Yin, (Chinese; Quan Yin, Guan Yin, Kuan Yin) "she who hears the cries of the world." Also known as Quan'Am (Vietnam), Kwan Um (Korea), Kwannon (Japan), and Kanin (Bali). A guardian and patron of women, sailors, and those facing punishment, Kwan Yin is frequently invoked as the Goddess of Compassion. She traditionally appears as a beautiful oriental woman, holding pearls of illumination in one hand or a small vial or vase, representing growth. She is also associated with the dragon, the cosmic white horse, and the feathers of the peacock.

Lindsay sat back, stroking the peacock feather.

It wasn't everyone who got attacked by peacocks. And it wasn't everyone who had a goddess on her side. Why not? She didn't believe it, of course, not really, but if it made things easier for her, then why not imagine a Bodhisattva was helping her out?

She stood up, laid the feather on her desk, and headed for Frank Shen's office.

Frank greeted her with a smile, getting up from his desk and motioning her into one of the comfortable chairs next to the coffee table.

He sat down across from her. "What can I do for you, Lindsay?"

"After the presentation I gave last week, Angela told me that Cybera is probably our main selling point in a more extensive partnership with NGTS."

Frank nodded, looking at her thoughtfully.

"It occurred to me, however, that your company might also be gambling on Cleio going bankrupt, in which case they would be able to buy the copyright to the game outright if they move fast enough. Just in case there are any considerations along these lines, I wanted to let you know that Cleio does not have the copyright to Cybera. I do."

"Ah." He continued to look at her, waiting.

"Now, under certain conditions, I might be persuaded to transfer the copyright to Cleio — and of course any partners it might have."

Frank leaned forward. "What might those conditions be?"

****

Lindsay climbed the steps to the altar of Kwan Yin, the peacock feather sticking out of the bag draped over her shoulder, the soft hairs brushing the back of her upper arm as she moved. The goddess gazed down at her, her expression gentle.

"No need to look so innocent," Lindsay said when she reached the front of the altar. "I know better."

Kwan Yin disdained to answer.

"So tell me," she continued, not even feeling silly that she was talking to a statue, "was Joel just another incarnation of you too? I read on the Internet that you were originally worshiped as male."

The goddess held her vase of water and remained silent. From the trees on the hill behind her, birdsong filled the air.

"It doesn't matter, you know. It's not like I expected an answer." Lindsay shrugged and opened her bag, taking out the thin wedding band.

"Mostly I just wanted to thank you," she said and laid the ring on the altar at the feet of the statue. "If I were the type to believe in gods, you'd be my first choice."

****

The weather in Austin was pleasant by the time she got back two weeks later, the humidity of summer slowly being replaced by the drier heat of fall. Most of the kinks had been ironed out of the English version of White Magic, and the partnership contract with NGTS was all but signed. Lindsay spent the first week in Austin working out the details of her resignation from Cleio, including the payment she would receive for the rights to Cybera. Trevor and the others weren't happy, but the fact that NGTS had agreed to buy into the company kept them from being too vocal about it.

She was cleaning out her office desk, neatly packing her belongings in moving boxes, when the phone rang.

"Cleio Software, Lindsay Gurdin speaking. May I help you?" She wouldn't be saying that much longer, but any pain she felt at the thought had the sweetness of new challenges in it.

There was a short pause at the end of the line. "Lindsay?"

At first she couldn't answer. "Joel? But I thought ... " No, she couldn't tell him she thought he'd been a goddess in disguise. Or if not thought, at least suspected. "I thought you were in Japan."

"I ran out of money."

"That's too bad."

"I'm glad I got a hold of you. I might have something of yours."

"What do you mean?"

"The oddest thing happened before I left Taiwan. I was visiting this old Buddhist temple in Tamshui dedicated to Ma-tsu, goddess of the sea. You ever heard of her?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Anyway, while I was there, this Asian woman who I had never met before came up to me and asked me if I knew you. How could she have known that?"

"Beats me. Maybe she saw us together at Yangmingshan."

"Yeah, yeah, that might be it." He sounded relieved. "So at the temple she gave me this ring she said she thought was yours. Did you lose a ring in Taipei?"

Lindsay stared at the bright blue feather lying on her desk. "Yes, I lost a ring."

Joel heaved a sigh of relief. "Man, am I ever glad. I really didn't want to take it, but she insisted on it."

"Well, thank you for bringing it along."

"Should we meet somewhere so I can give it to you?"

"How about the Dog and Duck?"

"That sounds good. I'm looking forward to it."

"Me too."

Lindsay hung up the phone, still staring at the peacock feather. What was it he'd said in the park?
Thrown together by a peacock
. No, they were much too different — and besides, it was only a beer at a downtown pub.

But she could feel a silly grin tugging up the corners of her mouth anyway.
Hot damn
. She picked up the feather and inspected it. Tiny flecks of silver and green and purple flashed in the deep blue. She thought of Ma-tsu's sparkling dark eyes and shook her head.

Maybe there was a goddess after all.

END

Woman in Abaya with Onion

She thinks she understands, thinks she loves this land. How can you love what you don't know?

She would bring us "better ways," but we know things our own way. While I do not understand her language, I know she pities us; I see it in her smile, a smile that tells me how little women who wear the veil mean to her. But I see things she does not.

I must show her how little she understands before it is too late.

****

Haley focused her camera on the relief of the expedition to Punt carved into the wall of the temple of Hatshepsut. It wasn't hieroglyphs, but it was a female pharaoh, and as such certainly within the bounds of her dissertation topic.

"Do you have a photography permit?" a deep voice with an Arabic accent asked.

Irritated, she rose and turned, only to see a mischievous smile beneath dark eyes surrounded by thick lashes.

"I don't need one here, only in the tombs."

The smile grew wider. "True! But if you would move aside, I could explain the reliefs to these ladies and gentlemen."

Haley glanced behind him and saw a horde of sweating tourists, sun-glassed and sun-hatted, gazing wide-eyed at the interchange between her and their tour guide.

She nodded. She could return to the expedition to Punt when he was done. Setting her own sun-glasses back on her nose, Haley moved out of the shade of the terrace portico and into the glaring light of the late February sun. Sweat was gathering at the back of her neck, and she lifted her dark hair up, wishing she had pins to knot it as she had yesterday while exploring the Valley of Kings. The walls of the desert rose above the walls of the mausoleum, blending in shades of sand and brown and gold, integrated by the will of a queen and her lover over three thousand years ago. Haley could hardly believe she was here, finally, after years of studying the monuments from afar and saving to visit the land of her dreams — a whole month at the Institute.

Here — in Egypt, with its donkey carts and palm trees, its men in their
galabia
of white or blue, its women in
abaya
of black. In the bus from the airport last week, Haley had felt tears start at the back of her eyes and in her throat, it was so different and exotic, so obvious she was somewhere totally outside her own experience.

One of the small, ubiquitous sandy dogs sniffed her feet. Haley was bending over to pet it when she began to feel faint. Dizzy, she leaned her hand on a column for support.

Blood. Blood everywhere, blood and screams. Cries for help,
Hilfe, tasoketeh, au secours
. A little boy, crying, begging for his life in German, gunned down by men in Egyptian police uniforms. At her feet, a blonde woman, dead eyes staring into the bright morning sky, a round, red hole in her forehead ...

"Madam! Madam, you are not supposed to touch!"

Slowly, the vision of blood faded. Haley looked up to see the tour guide who had teased her earlier. She gagged and covered her mouth as he put his arm around her shoulders, calling out to the group of curious tourists, "
Ist hier ein Arzt
?"

"I think you have been in the sun too much," the young Egyptian said to her as he led her back to the protection of the temple portico.

Haley nodded. She didn't feel like confessing to a horrendously vivid daydream of the terrorist massacre here years before. Heatstroke was a much saner excuse.

"Here, drink," a plump, graying woman said with a German accent.

"Thank you." Haley took the bottle of water and drank, trying to push aside the images of blood and death that still clung at the edges of her vision. She handed the bottle back and wiped away the sweat beading her forehead. "I'm fine now."

The tour guide shook his head. "No, you come with us, we bring you back to your hotel when we are done with the first emancipated woman in the world."

Haley heaved a sigh of relief. After a vision like that, she would feel better with someone taking care of her, someone to catch her if she fell again, someone to keep the shadows of blood at bay. "Okay, as long as you let me take pictures."

The tour guide turned to his troop with a look of triumph, and they clapped and smiled, happy to take her under their wing.

Haley pulled away from the arm enclosing her but didn't protest when he took her elbow. He was being a gentleman, and she still felt weak. She hoped she wasn't committing a cultural sin by allowing him to touch her arm; she always dressed as the guidebooks told her, wearing long pants and long-sleeved blouses, even in the heat.

"I am Ahmed," he said. "And you are?"

"Haley."

The sandy mutt joined them, trailing along behind as they wandered from the expedition to Punt to the temple of Anubis, to the temple of Hathor carved in part right out of the rock. Ahmed explained the sights in German, but Haley didn't mind; she had studied this monument in depth. When he allowed her to pull away, she took series after series of pictures of the hieroglyphs.

"You are interested in them?" Ahmed asked as they made their way to the long ramp leading back down from the second terrace.

"I'm working on a dissertation on details of the lives of women recorded in the hieroglyphs."

"Yes? I am working on a dissertation about this great queen!" The statement was accompanied by a sweeping gesture taking in the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut. His dark eyes shone with enthusiasm, and Haley smiled, the ghosts of terrorism nearly banished.

In the air-conditioned bus back to Luxor, they sat together and compared notes on universities and professors and courses. By the time they arrived at Haley's hotel, it had been decided that she would visit the bar of the cruise ship where he was working that night.

****

When I peel off the skin of the onion, it does not bring me truth. Her kind thinks that revealing the layers beneath what is on the outside is truer, better.

But the skin of the onion is as much a part of its truth as the layers within.