Read Online Black Flame by Gerelchimeg Blackcrane - Free Book Online Page A

steps and ran out into the alleyway.
    Even though he had successfully prevented her from coming in, Kelsang waited with some trepidation for the painter to appear. He barked, his eyes fixed on the door of the two-story red house. Had he done the right thing? He wasn’t sure, and he didn’t know what to do next. If he had been on the grasslands, his master, Tenzin, would have come out of the yurt and tied him up to the wooden post.
    The sound of a door opening. The old man stood in the doorway holding a paintbrush. It had taken great effort to tear his attention away from the colorful painting he had been working on. He seemed confused. Perhaps he was trying to remember if Kelsang was in fact his dog.
    â€œGranddad, get rid of it!” The girl in the alley had also caught sight of the old man.
    The painter’s lips twitched. “It’s okay.”
    Having expected this moment, the hair on the back of Kelsang’s neck settled down, and he stalked back to his corner. Even though the old man’s face was as expressionless as stone, Kelsang sensed that he had done the right thing. Feeling happy with himself, he lay down, but his fiery red eyes were still fixed on the young girl leaning through the courtyard door.
    â€œGranddad, where did you find it?” The girl came in. She was carrying a small knapsack, and she cowered behind the old man, looking at Kelsang.
    â€œHe found me.”
    The painter’s granddaughter, Drolma, came once a week to see him. Kelsang could detect the smells of food and pigments coming from her bag.
    The next time she came to visit, Kelsang put up only a symbolic show of resistance, standing by the door and growling sluggishly, more as a way of letting the old man know that she had arrived than anything else. After leading Drolma into the courtyard, he went back to his corner.
    Kelsang seemed to interest Drolma more than he did her grandfather. She tried feeding him a piece of dried meat directly from her hand, but it turned out to be a tiring process for both of them. Kelsang may have come to see her as part of the old man’s property, but he still couldn’t let down his guard completely. Drolma was equally cautious as she approached the huge dog, but she was determined nevertheless.
    Not knowing what to do, Kelsang watched her edge toward him, crossing over the imaginary boundary he usually kept against strangers. The meat brushed up against his nose, but still he didn’t move. Drolma was so nervous, her nose was dotted with beads of sweat. She bent down and placed the meat in Kelsang’s metal bowl.
    Then she went up to the second-floor balcony, which was so crammed with flowers it was like standing in a small flowerpot. She could see that the meat had disappeared, but Kelsang was lying in just the same position, as if he had never moved.
    â€œGranddad, does the dog just lie there all day? Doesn’t he ever go out?”
    â€œI’ve never seen him move,” the old painter answered, his eyes fixed on his latest tanka .
    Of course Kelsang went out, but the old man just didn’t know it. Every day when he went to water the flowers on his balcony, before he let his gaze wander up to the golden roof of the Potala Palace, he would look down on the dog below, lying motionless in the corner. Occasionally, the old man would muster a rare moment of energy and call out to Kelsang, rousing him from what appeared to be a deep sleep. Kelsang would jump up, run to the house and stare up at him, his amber eyes glinting in the sunlight. Not knowing what to do next, the old man would respond, “It’s okay,” and Kelsang would trot back to his corner, thudding back to the ground.
    The next time the old painter went to feed Kelsang, he left him a kha gdan , a handmade Tibetan mat.
    When night fell, and the roar of traffic and commotion on the street subsided, Kelsang would rouse from his deep sleep and look up, his eyes burning furiously in the