Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Chapter Eleven: First Family

On a street full of motorcycle garages, Alice stopped and pulled me towards a tiny lane. I shook her chain to pull her back, but she was adamant. When I tried to pick her up, she nipped at my face, which she had never done before, squirming until I had to put her down. Whatever she wanted to show me was more important than smelling motorcycle tires and so deserved to be taken seriously. I gave up and followed her to a stretch of shops made of wood and corrugated tin, into a place that sold three disparate things--cellphone credit, bootleg DVDs from China, and homemade food, which sat on the wood counter in translucent buckets colored bright red and dull yellow by the curries inside. It was a humble place manned by one young Tibetan guy.