Skillful Death (37 page)

Dom paused until Tashi thought it through and began to nod.

“What I needed was three things: an association of manufacturers to ensure quality, and a network of distributors, to guarantee supply.”

“When manufacturers collude, prices escalate,” Tashi said.

“And the third thing is a conference to bring together the installers, distributors, and manufacturers, so they have a marketplace like we have down the street. In a marketplace, the prices are kept in check because you have your options side by side. They’ll compete for business, and the best will succeed.”

The waiter brought Dom’s food. Tashi reached for the bread and Dom watched him take a bite.

“How will you profit?”

“The venue will be ours. We’ll rent the floor to the distributors and manufacturers. We’ll rent rooms for special meetings. We’ll hold seminars on the latest techniques, and invite expert speakers. We’ll charge for attendance for everything, except for the installers—they get in for free. We will make money while we’re
decreasing
suffering, instead of
generating
it.”

“And Pemba?”

“Pemba excels in bridging the gap between buyers and sellers. He will run the event.”

“And you only need me to provide the capital? I’m afraid you haven’t convinced me enough to put my money on the table,” Tashi said.

“No,” Dom said. “I will provide the capital and take the risk. I want you for your connections. We only have a few months to pull this event together, and we need to arrange for the venue, workers, and services.”

“Eat your breakfast,” Tashi said to Dom. “We have a lot to discuss.”

F
OR
THE
EVENT
TO
succeed, nobody could connect Dom to the venture. Pemba and Tashi handled all the public details, and consulted Dom in secret. They held quiet meetings in Denpa’s house in the early morning, or late evening.

They started with plumbers. Pemba developed a quick rapport with the installers, and collected a long list of names of people who wanted to attend. He took this list up and down the river, traveling for days to meet suppliers and show them the lists of customers who would attend the event. Once he amassed a critical mass of distributors, manufacturers lined up to rent space at the event to display their capabilities. The event moved like an avalanche, until Pemba had to turn down prospective exhibitors.
 

Tashi worked the details of the venue. He found an easy to reach village, right on the river, which had a market that had burned to the ground the previous year. They had cleaned the space, but none of the vendors wanted to move back into the market. They considered it cursed. The village donated the market space for no fee. The village elders wanted only to prove that the space wasn’t cursed, and welcomed the increased commerce from visiting merchants.

Speakers for the conferences were the hardest to locate. None of the manufacturers wanted to share their techniques, none of the distributors would disclose their numbers, and nobody cared what the installers had to say. Each plumber considered his methods superior to those of his rivals, regardless of his success.
 

Dom sent a secret letter to one of the metallurgists he had hired to work for his factory years before, but the manufacturers had already forced all their workers into signing contracts under which they couldn’t publicly disclose any of their knowledge. As the date of the event neared, Dom decided to reduce the scope of the conference program. He asked Tashi to speak at a few sessions, and had Pemba lease the rest of the conference space for special meetings.

Dom waited at home, playing with Diki, as he waited for news of the event.

Pemba returned first, coming to Denpa’s house in the middle of the day. He burst through the door with his arms full of contracts. Virtually everyone in attendance had re-signed to be a part of the event for the next year. For everyone in attendance, the event was an unqualified success.

Tashi returned the next evening. He had a new ledger under his arm. In its first year, Dom’s plumbing event had produced a handsome profit. Tashi also brought news from the manufacturers: they wanted to form an association to negotiate with their suppliers of raw materials. They were so impressed with the management of the event, that the manufacturers wanted Pemba and Tashi to run their association.
 

Diki looked up from Dom’s lap and smiled into her father’s eyes.

Her first word made Dom smile and Tashi bellow laughter.

“Profit,” Diki said.

As he looked at his precious little daughter, Dom vowed to not repeat the same mistakes. He wouldn’t try to grow this business and purchase another lavish house with servants and balconies. He would satisfy himself with only what he needed to provide a humble life for his beautiful little girl.
 

“I think we can hold two events next year,” Tashi said. “These men will not want to miss the opportunity. They can’t afford to.”

“Whatever you think is right,” Dom said. “You and Pemba decide together.”

“I’ve already talked with Pemba,” Tashi said. “He agrees. I’ll start looking for venues and he’ll start spreading the word.”

Dom held Diki up and kissed her tiny nose. She giggled and pawed at his face.

“K
EEP
YOUR
HEAD
DOWN
and kick, Diki, kick,” Dom said. “Your power should come from your legs. You’re only using your arms.”

Diki swam to Dom and pulled up into his arms, trusting that he’d catch her and set her on his knee. Dom stood in the chest-deep water and circled his arms around his daughter.

“You did very well,” Dom said.

“Did you see when I swam near that big rock? I got so close to it that I could see the white parts.”

“Yes, I saw that,” Dom said.

“I was swimming and then I looked down into the water,” she said, holding her hands up to her face. “It was almost like I could see all the way across the lake. I saw all the fish, and rocks, and everything. Then it felt like I couldn’t remember anything. I was all ‘whoosh,’ and the water could have carried me away. It was like someone had thrown me right out into the middle and I had to swim back. Father? Father?”

Diki put her hand on Dom’s still face. His eyes were far away.

“I
T
WASN
’
T
A
DREAM
. It was a memory,” Dom said.

“How can one tell the difference?” Pemba asked.

The two men sat on the floor of Dom’s old room, tacked on the back of Denpa’s house. Inside the tiny house, Diki slept.
 

“I’ve had dreams so realistic that I couldn’t tell them apart from my memories. Maybe you just had one of those while you were awake. What was the dream again?”

“I was on the shore of a foul-smelling river. The water stank of sulfur and waste. Two men stood on the shore, holding me up under the arms. They swung me back and forth a couple of times and then they hurled me out into the rushing waters. I tried to thrash back to the shore, but the river held me in and I didn’t know how to swim. I could barely keep my head above water to get a breath, and even when I could breathe, it was the tainted air. My lungs burned. I was swept downstream and, on either bank, thick groves of bamboo lined the shore.”

“What happened to the men?”

“I don’t know. They stayed where they were and I was swept away from them.”

“Did they say anything?”

“No.”

“Did you see this from your eyes, or did you see yourself in this vision as if from over your own shoulder?”

“The latter. It was as if I was hovering above the scene,” Dom said.

“That settles it, it was a dream,” Pemba said. “If it’s a memory, you see it from the perspective of your own eyes.”

“But why would I dream such a thing when I was right in the middle of teaching my daughter to swim?”

“It’s not so hard to decipher. Your daughter is swimming and your wife drowned in a river. She was forced into that river by two men: you and her lover.”

Dom squirmed at the assertion.

“You metaphorically forced her. Perhaps Lha-mo physically forced her. Dreams are symbolic.”

“I can picture it so clearly,” Dom said.

“I had a sex dream two nights ago that I can still picture clearly. Would you like me to recount that to you so you can convince me that it didn’t happen?”

“No, thank you,” Dom said. “Well, if you’re right, and it was really a dream about Tara, then that explains what I was thinking as I was washed downstream.”

“What was that?”

“I thought, the Midwife has betrayed me for the last time.”

D
ESPITE
P
EMBA
’
S
OBJECTIONS
, D
OM
decided to pack up Diki and head into the mountains. He’d never gone there, but he’d heard that on the north side of the big range, monks lived in caves and possessed special wisdom about life and memory. Diki was old enough to walk on her own part of the time, and Dom had a bag to strap her to his back for when she got tired. The journey should take two days, so Dom carried enough provisions for four.

Diki loved the journey. She loved seeing new things. As they walked, Diki shouted the names of things she knew and asked about the names of the mountain goats, and hawks, and flowers she’d never seen before. Dom tried to enjoy himself, but he only received moments of happiness, which were soon erased by his troubling memories.
 

The memories came in little clear bursts. He saw a little chicory plant and suddenly remembered a lush, green forest with a huge canopy of dancing leaves overhead. He caught the aroma of damp wool and his nose remembered moist, fertile earth, so soft he could plunge his fingers into it and bring its smell to his face. Dom felt haunted by a life so foreign that the memories couldn’t take root in his brain. To help him, he sought the monks in the mountains.