The Match On The Mountain

The villages had a border. Not a wall. Not a fence. Just a line everyone knew about and nobody had drawn but everyone respected the way you respect something old enough to have forgotten how it started.

On one side: Dorje's village. Tsampa and butter tea. Prayer flags snapping in the wind. The monastery bell at four in the morning that Dorje had slept through his entire life and would miss the moment he left.

On the other side: Priya's village. Dal and rotis. The smell of incense from the temple that mixed with woodsmoke every evening into something that was entirely theirs.

The two villages had coexisted for centuries. Politely. Carefully. With the specific courtesy of people who share a mountain and have learned that mountains are easier when nobody makes things difficult.

They had never played football together.

This was Dorje's idea. Dorje had ideas the way the mountain had weather — frequently and without warning and sometimes magnificent and sometimes a problem.

"A match," said Dorje. To his father. "Our village against theirs." His father looked at him. "Why?" Dorje thought about it. "Because we have a ball," he said. "And they probably do too."

His father considered this for a long time. Then went to talk to the village elder. The village elder went to talk to the monastery. The monastery consulted various things.

Three days later: A match. The flat ground between the two villages. Sunday afternoon. Both villages invited.

Priya heard about it from her mother who heard about it from the temple priest who had heard about it from the monastery which was an unusual chain of communication for a football match but this was an unusual mountain.

Sunday came.

Both villages arrived at the flat ground between them. They stood on their respective sides. Looking at each other with the polite careful look of centuries of coexistence that had never quite become friendship.

Dorje's team: Six boys. One very determined girl called Pema who had not been invited but had come anyway and was clearly the best player on either side which everyone could see and nobody said.

Priya's team: Six children. A boy called Arjun who was fast. A girl called Meena who was faster. And Priya who was the captain because she had organised the kit which was the closest thing to authority available.

The referee was an old man from neither village who had been walking through the mountain pass and had been recruited on the spot. He had opinions about this. He refereed anyway.

The match began.

Dorje's village played the way mountain people play — with patience and endurance and the specific stamina of children who had grown up at altitude and found flatland players somewhat bewildering.

Priya's village played the way their village played — fast and loud and with a great deal of commentary from the players about each other's decisions which was distracting but also somehow worked.

First half: Arjun scored. Pema scored. The old referee lost track of the score and consulted nobody before announcing it was one each which satisfied no one and was accepted by all.

Second half: The ball went over the line. Both sides claimed it. The old referee was looking at the mountains. The mountains offered no opinion.

This went on for some time.

Then the ball rolled to a stop exactly on the border. The line everyone knew about and nobody had drawn.

Dorje looked at Priya. Priya looked at Dorje. Both of them looking at the ball sitting on the line between their worlds.

Dorje said something in Tibetan. Priya didn't understand it. "What?" said Priya. "I said —" Dorje thought about how to say it in Hindi. "The ball doesn't know about the line."

Priya looked at the ball. Then at Dorje.

She laughed.

Not the polite careful laugh of centuries of coexistence. The actual laugh. The sudden one. The one that happens when something is true and funny and you didn't expect to find it in the middle of a football match on a mountain.

Dorje laughed too.

Then Pema picked up the ball walked to the middle of the flat ground and said something in Tibetan that Meena didn't understand but understood anyway — just play.

They played.

No sides. Not exactly. Just — children on a flat piece of ground between two villages on a mountain kicking a ball in the afternoon light that came low and gold across the Himalayas the way it only comes at this altitude at this time of year as if the mountains had arranged it specifically for this moment.

The old referee sat down. Watched. Stopped officiating. Started smiling.

The parents from both villages watched from their sides. Then one mother crossed the line to stand next to another mother to see better. Then another. Then someone brought tea. Butter tea from one side. Masala chai from the other. Both offered. Both accepted. Both slightly suspicious of each other's tea and too polite to say so.

The sun went down behind the mountains. The game hadn't been won by anyone. Or had been won by everyone. The old referee declared it a draw and left before anyone could argue.

Dorje and Priya sat on the flat ground after everyone else had started going home. The ball between them.

"Same time next week?" said Dorje. Priya looked at the mountains. The prayer flags on one side. The temple smoke on the other. The flat ground between them that had always been there waiting for something to happen on it.

"Bring the butter tea," said Priya. "You bring the chai," said Dorje.

They went home. On their respective sides of the line everyone knew about and nobody had drawn.

Which felt slightly less like a line than it had that morning.

Just slightly. Which on a mountain that had been there for ten million years — was everything.