Guanyin's Gift-the Kindness of Strangers
Patan, Nepal 1927
The spring sun was fading over the mountains behind the Raven bar, painting the remaining snow pack with blue shadows in the gathering dark.
Inside, Marion Ravenwood put her hands on hips and gave her father a defiant stare.
"You're disgusting, Abner. I'm not doing that."
Abner lunged forward and grasped hold of her wrist.
"Oh, but I think you are. How long were you whoring yourself out for Jones?
It's a bit late in the day for you to be giving yourself virginal airs, you little slut."
"Didn't you hear me, old man? I won't, and you can't fucking make me."
"Oh yes you will. And yes, I can."
The back of Abner's heavy hand cracked across her face. Despite all the horrors of the past few months, Abner (she refused to say 'Dad') had never struck her before.
Marion stood in silent shock as the coppery tang of blood filled her mouth.
She was thunderstruck just long enough for two pairs of strong hands to grasp her arms. Abner and a big Sherpa hustled her up the back stairs of the Raven bar. She was brought up short in front of an open door, and then the hands shoved her in and locked the door behind her.
The room was musty and dark, with a small high window that let some of the blue twilight. It was furnished with a bed, some coarse woven blankets and a chair.
There was also a chamber pot and a carafe of water. Marion thought glumly that she could be stuck here for a while.
Marion had actually visited a tavern that boasted 'private rooms' before. She'd been with her fiercely protective young lover, then , and he'd put one hand to his coiled whip every time another patron so much as looked at her. She'd been so enthralled with his company that she'd paid little attention to the bar girls and their trips upstairs. But Indy, with the tips of his ears turning suspiciously pink, had explained it to her later. Now she had a pretty fair idea of what she was in for.
For forms sake, Marion climbed up on the chair to try the window. She tried rattling the door, and looked around the room for something she could use to jimmy the lock.
No luck. So she sat down on the bed and wracked her brain for a means of escape.
She could see the mountain's shadow in the rising moon, now. She remembered a fragment she'd heard when she'd gone to church with her parents, before Mama died. 'I lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help.' Yeah, sure.
The stern God of her childhood had ignored her pleading and tears these last few months, so Marion had largely given Him up as a bad job. As for the saints her mother had prayed to, well. If they had given a damn, Mama would still be alive, now wouldn't she? And if she had lived, none of this would have ever happened to her little girl. Mama, she thought wistfully. Mama. Take care of Indy's baby for me, Mama…
Well, so. Things being how they were, the Blessed Virgin wasn't likely to give Marion the time of day. But there was another Power here in Nepal who might understand. "Lady Guanyin," Marion whispered, "thou bodhisattva of mercy and compassion, protector of women-protect me, please. If I can't get away, then don't let him hurt me. Let him be kind, Guanyin, please. I'm only seventeen, Lady Guanyin; my man is gone, my baby's dead and I can never go home again. Please."
She must have dozed for awhile in the stuffy darkness, and for a moment she didn't realize what had woken her. Then a heavy footfall sounded on the stairs, and paused outside the door. A key slithered and rattled in the rusty lock. The door cracked open and a tall man in field khakis stood silhouetted in the faint light of the lantern he carried.
Marion's breath hitched in her throat and her heart gave a sickening thud, then went into freefall. Oh, it couldn't be? Could it?
"Indy!"
She leapt off the bed and crossed the tiny room in a single bound to throw her arms around the man and bury her face in his chest. Oh, thank you, Guanyin! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Maybe all this would fade like a bad dream, now. Her Indy was here, her Indy had found her, and her hero was going to get her out of this mess. First, he was going to kick Abner's sorry ass-but good, and then he'd take her home with him and finally, finally everything would be all right.
But the man's arms didn't go around her and there was something subtly wrong in the feel of his chest and shoulders. Belatedly, she noticed that he didn't carry a whip and he didn't smell of the sandalwood soap Indy always used. Instead of picking her up and kissing her-the man held her at arm's length while an unfamiliar voice said
"That's quite a welcome, little lady."
She turned away. "Well, I'm so sorry. I thought you were someone else."
"Not a very professional answer, honey."
Marion put up her chin. "Well, golly gee whiz, mister, that might be because I'm not a professional," she spat. "Think of the locked room as your first clue."
Her visitor put up his hand. "Whoa, Nelly. You just hold your horses, Sweet Thing.
I'm not sure what I've gotten into, here. But I am sure" he looked over his shoulder "that I don't want to be shouting through this door and bringing God knows what down on my head. Um, may I come in?"
Marion had already figured out that one, she had nowhere to go, two, he was bigger than she was, and three, he was blocking the door. Lacking an escape route, she put up her chin, squared her shoulders, and beckoned graciously, as though she were showing him into the parlor of the big house in Chicago.
"By all means do."
The man closed the door behind him and propped the rickety chair under the knob to keep it from turning. Then he set the lantern down, and looked at her. "What's your name, sweetheart?"
Marion's throat closed up. My name? I'm Indiana Jones' Sweet Baby. He said so, every night. Right after 'I love you'. My name is Freckle Face, my name is Shoulder High, my name is Bright Eyes, my name is Darling. And, oh, I'll never hear him call me that ever, ever again.
"Marion" she finally said. "My name's Marion"
"That your real name?"
"If you think my name's really Jade Princess or Lotus Blossom, mister, it's darker in here than I thought."
"Christ. You're American. Aren't you?"
She nodded. "Yeah."
"Where you from?"
"Chicago. And a lot of other places."
"And how old are you, Marion?"
"Seventeen." she whispered and started to cry. Automatically she put a fist to her mouth to hold back the sobs. God knew what would happen to her if she cried, but between this random man and Abner she didn't think it was going to be anything good.
Her visitor held out a handkerchief-and said
"Here honey, wipe your eyes. I'm no better than any other man who comes up this mountain -and we're sure as hell not Boy Scouts- but I'm damned if I'm gonna screw some little girl who oughta be going to her Spring Formal back home."
Fine state of affairs, the man thought, when a guy puts down American cash for a little mattress action and gets blindsided by a kid. Not only that, an American kid who speaks English. Jesus.
*God, she's beautiful, though. Look at those eyes. And those breasts and that hair…*
"Look, kid, I've got five guys in my climbing party downstairs who probably think I'm having a real good time about now-and they'll never let me hear the end of it if I come down too soon. And since the only decent piece of furniture in here is a bed, why don't you scooch over so we can both sit down."
Marion scooched and sat with her back to the headboard, and her head on her drawn-up knees.
"Got anything to drink in here?'
Wordlessly, she pointed to the water, and he took a long swig.
"My name's George, Marion. George Moore, from Boston. And that is my real name.
I'm well enough known in these parts that you'd find it out anyway, so I figure I've got nothing to hide." George shook his head to clear it of the combined fumes of liquor, shock and thwarted lust.
"So what brings you to Patan, George-from-Boston?"
"Me? The mountains, of course. My one true love. Back stateside, I'm just another Yalie who works in his family's law firm. But I inherited a packet from my grandfather -he was a bit of a ne'er-do-well but he made a lot of money fortune-hunting, and I use it to go climbing in the summers. The last few years I've been leading parties to Nepal. Who knows, I may get to Everest, someday."
"So you're sort of a Scarlet Pimpernel, or Doctor Syn. You know-
By day he's a boring Yalie, by night-he's an intrepid adventurer!"
He chuckled. "More or less. Though there's not a lot of swashbuckling potential in an ice ax and a set of crampons."
"Except when you fall."
"There is that, honey, there is that."
Marion had learned, by this time that men loved to talk about themselves. And talking probably beat whatever else this guy came up here to do...
"So how long have you been climbing here? Have you ever tried Everest? Or Nanda Devi?"
That was enough to start George talking. He leaned back on the bed and expounded on routes, equipment, and the difficulty of managing foolhardy Americans and the local guides who knew more than any of them. He spoke of the danger, hunger and cold and the joy of matching his mettle against the mountain. "Mostly, I win"
Marion studied him while he spoke and compared him to the only other man she'd known who'd led an adventurous life. George was older than Indy-later 30s to early 40s, she guessed. His hair had started to thin and there was a slight thickening at his midsection. But he had big calloused hands like Indy's and his eyes were kind.
After while George paused for breath, and looked as his watch. "Still too soon to go down."
Marion giggled. "So how long do you take?"
He grinned. "Long enough, honey. Long enough. Or at least I don't get many complaints."
He gave her searching look. "I take it from that you're not a virgin?"
"No". Marion looked down at her knees.
George reached out a finger and tipped up her chin. "But there's only been one man, hasn't there?"
She nodded.
"So, Marion-from-Chicago, we've got nothin' but time. I know it's a cliché, but why don't you tell me what a nice girl like you is doing in a place like this."
"Well, mister,-George- believe me, I didn't set out to end up in Patan." Marion looked past him to the wall, gazing at some lost country that only she could see. She had nothing but time, and nothing better to do, and George had the first kind face she'd seen -since it all happened, really. So much to her surprise, she started talking. She talked about Chicago and the college, walks through the leafy camps and shopping at Marshall Field's; about dinner parties at the big house, and the famous archeologists who came to them. She talked about her father the professor, and the trips and digs, and the artifacts from all over the world.
This pretty little thing is no bar girl and no whore, George thought. Hell, Julie and I could have had her and her father at any one of our dinner parties back home.
"So what happened to get you from there to here?" he asked her.
Then, softly, Marion told the story of the prize student and the professor's daughter. Even after everything that happened, just saying Indy's name was sweet in her mouth. Her Indy was the most wonderful man in the world. Why, he was smart and brave and strong and handsome, and-and anyone could see that the sun came up in the morning just for to shine on him. She'd loved him so much, and after she found out she was pregnant she'd loved his baby, too. She knew he loved her, and she didn't care what anybody said, she knew he wanted to marry her. Because he said so, of course. Well, she hadn't exactly told him about the baby, but she was going to. And then…
The lantern had started to flicker and the water was nearly gone when she finished.
"So honey, let me get this straight. When he found out, your dad didn't get out his gun and make this guy do right by you, like any other father would. He took you to Amsterdam and one of those 'doctors' …"
"I was very sick for a while, after. And my father said that Indy would start thinking about his career. He said," her voice began to thicken and her chin trembled, a little,
"that I've thrown away our lives, and now I'm nothing but an uneducated whore who might not even be able to have more children. An up and coming young D. Phil would just be ashamed of me. He thought the best thing we could do was to go somewhere far, far away, forget the whole business and start over..."
"Well, Patan's pretty far, from most places, I'll give you that. But what I don't understand is how you ended up with Abner. What happened to your dad?"
"Didn't you get it, George? Abner's my father."
George gaped at her. "You are fucking kidding me. A college professor, in this dive? And he's willing to let his own daughter…"
"You don't have to rub it in. I mean you're a lawyer, back home and you're here in this dive, too. And besides, Abner doesn't think of me as his daughter-I'm just something else he can sell. He's probably pissed that he can't sell me as a virgin."
George swore under his breath for a few moments, and then came to a decision.
He patted the spot beside him. "Marion, come sit here. Please."
She hesitated "Hey, I'm not gonna have my wicked way with you. At least not right now. I just want to talk to you. C'mere."
Marion's body responded automatically when a big man in khakis reached for her, and she found herself cuddled against him before she thought much about it. He was warm, and surprisingly comfortable. She rested there, under his arm, and despite herself she started to relax.
So, Marion-from-Chicago, you're a little heartbreaker, in more ways than one," he said.
"And perhaps you've been out in the back-beyond long enough to understand that the rules are different here. You can't go home and I can't take you-I've got a wife stateside.
That bother you?"
Marion sat up and gave him an indignant look.
"Oh-no Julie and I have an understanding. She doesn't care about what I do when I'm away, and I don't embarrass her back home. And I know it's what every man says, but she'd just as soon not be bothered by my, aaah…. baser nature".
"So", he continued, "I think we can help each other. I wish I could give you a choice between me and going home, but I can't. Your choice is between me and whichever bloke comes through this door next- and that's a total crapshoot."
"Yeah, it is" Marion said soberly. She'd seen some of the other men who frequented the taproom.
"But maybe, it doesn't have to be. Honey, I meant it when I said I'm no better than any other guy in these parts. I'm used to having a woman in my bed for the climbing season, and frankly, I'm not gonna do without. But I don't wanna get the clap, or crabs, and I hate using rubbers. If you're willing, I'll base my climbing parties here for the duration of the season and you can be my 'camp wife'."
"Which means that I cook your meals and mend your shirts and, um, take care of you in other ways?"
"Just like you did for this 'Indy' fella. Sounds like you were pretty good at it. Now, you don't have to love me or pretend that you do. But no making eyes at other men-no matter how young or good looking they are. And if you go to another man's bed while I'm gone, either up on the mountain or after the season, the deal's off. And I'll find out. I'm pretty well known in these parts, honey, and climbers stick together. Sound OK to you?"
Marion sniffled. "Well, it's not the wedding of my dreams, but it's a better deal than I thought I was gonna get. It's OK with me," she said. Then she took a deep breath and kissed him. Here goes nothing……
One of the perks of being a professor's daughter was that Marion had read the Kama Sutra cover to cover by the time she was 16. Then, she'd been introduced to the delights of sex by a man who had lost his virginity with Mata Hari at the age of 17. Indy hadn't been celibate since then, and he'd taught her (nearly) everything he knew. But only 17 herself, Marion was still too naïve to realize how unusual this was. Or to understand the effect that her loveliness and that combination of knowledge and innocence would have on a man. A soon to be thoroughly smitten man.
Sometime later, George was stretched out beside her in satiated bliss.
"Christ, Marion, you're something. In the morning I'll have a little talk with Abner. We'll settle on a price, and I'll tell him how it's gonna be. Which includes that you and I are moving into the best bedroom, and I'm sending up some decent furniture from Katmandu."
Marion kept her thoughts to herself, and smiled.
When September came, even in Nepal, the harvest moon shone. Marion watched it from the window in The Raven's best bedroom, where she lay beside a sleeping man. She propped herself up on her elbow and touched his face.
It's not the way it was with Indy, but then George isn't the light of my eyes or the treasure of my heart. He cares for me in his own way, and he's kind. Guess that will have to do for now. Thank you, Lady Guanyin.
Marion slipped out of bed and wrapped herself a blanket. She sat in the window, where soon they'd be closing the shutters to keep out the winter's chill.
The clouds parted to show the huge golden moon floating in the sky, tethered here to the roof of the world.
I wonder if Indy sees the moon tonight, wherever he is. Oh, Indy.
I wonder if he's got someone else, too. Probably. I've learned a lot of things this summer. One of them is that some men sure talk a good game about their roaming ways, but they don't really do well by themselves. George and my Indy are two of those men.
Except he's not my Indy anymore, and I have to say goodbye. Goodbye to the girl who was Indy's Sweet Baby. Goodbye, Freckle Face, goodbye Short Stuff, goodbye Bright Eyes. Goodbye, little Henry Walton or Anna Rose-I loved you for every single second I had you. Goodbye darling Indy-I loved you for every single second I had you, too.
Oh, Lady Guanyin, I'm not even eighteen, yet- awfully young to feel this old.
Author's note: George will come back to Marion every spring, until he dies on the mountain in 1933. When a biography of the famous climber is written, there will be persistent whispers of a blue eyed, dark haired girl in Nepal. Other men will say she was the woman he couldn't leave or forget, a woman that he loved far more than she loved him. George's widow and her wealthy, well-connected family will ensure this story doesn't make it into the book.
As for Marion-somewhere in every single home she lives in, there will be a statue of the Bodhisattva of Mercy. When she marries her first husband, her proper British mother-in-law will protest, only to be silenced by the look in those icy blue eyes.
When she marries her second husband, he will give her an exquisite Blanc de Chine statuette of Guanyin as a wedding gift. "Because" Indy will say "I know something about the Lady of Compassion. And I think she smiled -when you came back to me."