The Avatari (19 page)

Aaron fell silent. He swirled the whisky in his glass and tossed it down, then poured himself another hefty slug. Jason shifted in his chair; he needed to get back, but the story was becoming interesting.

‘By then, we were sure it was something important,’ Aaron went on, ‘and we were happy we had found something at least to show for our troubles of the past months. We began retracing our steps as best we could, travelling for days till we came to a familiar range of hills we had crossed before. We knew that habitation lay beyond it.

‘Our Tibetan guides must have already sent word about our find to the people living there, because one day, we were visited by the lamas of the local monastery who asked to see the gold piece Mr Ralph had discovered. When we did show it to them, however, there was a real uproar and the entire village turned up and surrounded us, insisting that we put the piece back where we had found it. Had we not promised to do so, it is unlikely that we would have been allowed to keep it.

‘But your grandad was a stubborn man. Under his instructions, we broke camp without anyone getting to know and moved on, leaving our guides behind and crossing another pass on our own. We were confident that we would find others, who didn’t know of our find, to guide us. Anyway, we still had the Sherpas to carry our loads. It was then that your grandad was taken ill. We thought he had a bad case of climbers’ sickness. We tried to nurse him as best we could, but he knew better than we did that he was a goner.

‘That night, I sat with him in his tent as he lay in his sleeping bag. He kept twisting and turning and muttering to himself. At times, he would be wide awake and appear fully conscious, before relapsing into delirium. Then the nightmares began. He screamed that he was seeing demons and so vivid were his descriptions, it was as if those demons were right there, sitting in that very tent. There, in the valley, at 17,000 feet, his screams sounded terrifying. Even the Sherpas wouldn’t come near him.

‘In one of his quieter spells, Mr Ralph mentioned the leather pouch he had found. It was with another member of the team who had taken it for safekeeping. Your grandad asked me to bring it to him without anybody getting to know. I tried to put him off, but he was insistent. I crept to the other man’s tent that night and stole the pouch, bringing it back to your grandad. He urged me to return it to its original place, where it had been buried before he found it. Made me swear by his Book that I would. After that, his eyes reflected a great peace. Soon, he went into a trance and began muttering incoherently.’ Aaron paused to take a long swig from the whisky, his eyes staring at the reflection of the moon in the river, his thoughts far away in space and time, before continuing, ‘When we tried to wake him up in the morning, he was dead. We buried him there in a shallow grave in the hard, rocky riverbed and covered him with stones.’

There was a silence.

Then Jason asked gently, ‘And then?’

‘There was a big ruckus when the rest of the team discovered that the pouch was missing. They suspected the Sherpas, but couldn’t find it among their belongings. But once we returned to civilization, the Tibetans interned us. They searched us thoroughly, but couldn’t find what they were looking for. They wouldn’t release us, however. It took two more weeks and someone from the State Office putting in a word before they agreed to let us go.

‘When we got back home, everyone forgot about it. They hadn’t been cut out to be explorers, anyway, those ones.’

Aaron pulled another drag from his cigarette, which had gone out by now. He sighed and tossed it into the river, before pulling out his tobacco bag to roll another one.

‘But I couldn’t keep my promise to your grandad. There were too many people around me at the time and I would have been found out. Besides, it would have meant going back over the pass. I think your grandad, too, realized I wouldn’t be able to return it to the mound of stones where he had found it. So he told me that if I couldn’t return the pouch to its original site, I should give it to a monastery; they would apparently know what to do with it. But with all the shindig around, I couldn’t get around to it at that time.’

‘And now you want me to do what you couldn’t,’ Jason said quietly.

‘That’s right, Major. When you go to Indo-China, give this to a monastery where it will be safe.’

He pulled out an old oilskin from under his chair, unrolled it and handed the leather pouch inside it to Jason who took out its contents.

‘What exactly is it?’ Josh asked, leaning over for a look at the strip of golden metal with some black symbols etched on it. ‘Is it valuable?’ He sounded breathless as he tried to take the pouch from his brother for a closer look.

‘Your grandad wasn’t very clear about it, but I do remember him saying it was a “treasure” which had been disturbed before its time. And that if it fell into the wrong hands, there would be disaster. He also kept talking about a strange, secret place, whose name has slipped my mind
.
’

‘Grandad was probably just confused because of the fever,’ Jason remarked to Josh, pushing him back impatiently. Then turning, he said, ‘Okay, Aaron, I’ll do it.’

‘Thank you kindly, Jason,’ Aaron said. It was the first time he had addressed him by his name. ‘I’m sure you will find a Buddhist monastery in Indo-China. They should know how to keep it safe,’ he said, then added sardonically, ‘the Lord knows there aren’t many around here.’ Aaron was silent for some time, then spoke again. ‘Your grandad will finally be able to rest, Jason.’

‘Take care, Aaron,’ Jason said, getting up and shaking the old man by the hand.

He sounded disturbed.
The story was eerie.
He put the pouch inside his cotton jacket.

‘And you, Major.’

Jason walked back to the party, his brother by his side.

‘What do you think of that?’ Josh asked him excitedly.

‘Oh, nothing. I’m sure when I hand it over to people who know about it, it’s not going to amount to much. Aaron has a vivid imagination.’

Jason’s mind was on the party; they could hear the music from the live band. Ernest Tubb was playing his country songs.

Allie May was already in, standing next to her father, the Governor. Jason left his brother and went up to them. A waiter passed by and he picked up a glass from the tray.

‘Your job will be with our Embassy in Laos, Jason,’ the Governor told him. Then his voice dropped. ‘We’ll try to keep you out of the action – as far as we can. Good thing you’re going now, son; it will look good on your record when you move on to bigger things.’

The Governor had already sounded him out on the idea of joining politics.

‘Thank you, sir,’ Jason murmured.

‘And don’t worry, we’ll get you out soon enough,’ the Governor assured him, giving his daughter an affectionate squeeze, while winking at Jason. ‘You have many more important things to take care of when you get back.’

CHAPTER 12

Ladakh

A
UGUST 1986

Susan Hamilton was not enjoying her flight. She usually never did, but this time, her uneasiness was aggravated by a bout of nervous anxiety.
We’re probably chasing pixie gold
, she thought. She had her notes and books on the vacant seat beside her in business class and delved, yet again, into the book on Ladakh they had picked up in Delhi.

They were headed for Leh, the largest and most well-known town in the Ladakh plateau. It lay in a valley formed by the confluence of the Indus and Zanskar rivers and was ringed by the Karakoram ranges. Leh itself was situated at over 11,000 feet above sea level, but was dwarfed by the greater heights of the mountains around it. There were six major mountain systems in this region, forming part of what was described as the ‘navel’ of Asia: the Hindukush, the Pamirs, the Kunlun, the Karakoram, the Himalayas and the Pir Panjal. Their aircraft had already crossed the Pir Panjal range and as she looked out of her window, Susan could see the jagged peaks of the great Himalayas, dark and bare, for the most part, and speckled with layers of ice only on the leeward face. She turned back to the book. As she read on, a Ladakhi saying which headed a chapter and was printed in italics caught her eye. ‘
The land is so
harsh and the weather so unforgiving
,’ it said, ‘
that it is none but our
greatest friends and our bitterest enemies who would visit us
.’ This, in a travel book! The author had a dark sense of humour indeed, Susan thought grimly. She looked across the aisle and noticed Peter looking quizzically at her.

‘Broken the code yet?’ he asked, sipping from a plastic cup into which he had poured the contents of a well-worn hip flask.

Out of the corner of her eye, Susan had watched the flight attendant get up from her seat to remind Peter that Indian aviation rules did not permit alcohol on domestic flights. But at a glance from him, the woman had returned to her seat, smiling wryly and shaking her head. Peter Radigan wore the look of a man who had just affirmed his appeal to women of yet one more nationality.

‘I’m at it,’ she said in reply to his query, giving him a brief, impersonal smile.

They could feel the plane beginning to descend and Peter looked out of his window. As they broke through a patch in the thickly clouded sky, he could see the Indus River flowing below them. Along its banks were signs of habitation and patches of green that stood out against the desolation of the rocky brown expanse surrounding them and the tall, dark peaks boxing in the valley from all sides.

‘Looks like our stop, folks,’ he said cheerfully, sucking the last bit of Scotch from the ice at the bottom of the plastic glass.

‘Are you sure you needed to do that?’ Susan asked, indicating his drink. ‘At this altitude, it risks bringing on vertigo.’

‘Just trying to get over the fact that the prettiest girl on the flight wouldn’t sit next to me,’ he said with a mournful sigh, followed by a wink. ‘Been there, done that,’ he added in a sardonic whisper.

Susan contemplated him thoughtfully before looking away. She busied herself with putting her papers away in a bag she had on the empty seat beside her. She shot another glance in Peter’s direction to see him grinning at her.

Oh my god!
she thought,
this one hasn’t grown up!

Their introduction at the airport lounge in New Delhi had been brief. Susan and Duggy had reached the Indian capital a couple of days earlier and were waiting for Ashton and Peter to arrive. Once they had got in from Nairobi, Ashton thought it best to catch the first available flight to Leh.

The stewardess now began her usual pre-landing announcement on the intercom, informing the passengers that the outside temperature was seven degrees Celsius. Ashton looked out of the window and saw two members of the ground staff wheeling the ramp stairs towards the aircraft. They had their jackets zipped up and appeared to be screwing up their eyes against a steady crosswind.

Ashton turned to Susan.

‘Shall we?’ he asked.

‘Shouldn’t we wait?’ she suggested, pointing to her fastened seat belt.

Peter, however, was already up and out of his seat, though the seat belt sign was still on, and was pulling out a weathered duffel bag from the overhead rack.

‘You don’t wait here,’ he said, evidently having overheard the conversation.

As if on cue, the light on the sign went off and the others began getting up. Susan shook her head.

They were the first to disembark. As they emerged from the aircraft, the wind hit them hard, blowing sand into their faces and making their eyes sting. Ashton was glad he had worn his jacket. He felt slightly giddy. His head was heavy, the effect of the altitude, and he found himself slackening his pace as he made his way to the airport building. It was quite small, little more than a shed, really. They passed through its glass doors and gathered around the motionless U-shaped conveyor belt, waiting for their luggage to arrive. Duggy, who looked very local with his parka hood now pulled up over his head, came up wheeling a trolley.

‘What next?’ Peter asked.

‘Arrangements have been made for someone to pick us up.’

‘Well, lets hope so,’ Peter remarked, blowing into his cupped hands. ‘This place looks friendless, as it is.’

The room was icy cold, though a kerosene-fed heater burned in one corner. A few people stood around it, warming their hands.

The conveyor belt started suddenly with a jerk. They retrieved their bags and piled them up on the trolley, wheeling it out of the lounge and on to the driveway. Neither the customs nor the ticketing authorities showed much interest in them. Their passports were duly stamped and no one asked to go through their bags. The morning was much too cold and sullen for the effort it would have involved. Emerging from the building, they noticed a man standing behind a railing. He was bundled up in woollens and a muffler was wrapped around his head to ward off the chill. The sign he held up said: ‘Welcome Aston & Party.’ Ashton chose not to quibble over the incorrect spelling of his name; he was happy just to see the man there. He extended his hand and the man with the sign greeted them effusively with much bowing and nodding.

‘Welcome, sir, I am Dinesh,’ he said. ‘Is this all the luggage you have?’

‘Yes, thank you,’ Ashton replied, introducing his companions.

Dinesh said something to Duggy in Hindi. Duggy answered him slowly. Dinesh nodded in response.

‘Oh, you speak Hindi, do you?’ Susan asked.

‘Most people from Nepal do,’ Duggy replied. Then, by way of explanation, he informed them, ‘Dinesh here was asking me if I was your guide.’

Dinesh waved to the driver of a small van which zoomed up to where they were waiting. The driver got out and Dinesh fired off instructions to him. The driver stacked their luggage away in the boot and they all got in and settled themselves at the back, occupying the two rows of passenger seats that faced each other. Dinesh slid into the front passenger seat, motioned to the driver and they were off with a lurch. There was no heating in the car and the wind, as it hit them through a gap in the windows, was bitterly cold.

It was the fag end of summer and they were in for a spell of bad weather. The sky was a thick, dirty grey, reminding Ashton of the dales in winter. Their ears throbbed endlessly with the sound of the wind which rose and subsided, only to rise again without respite, howling as it reached a crescendo. The rocks and mountains surrounding the valley were a dull, relentless black, which only added to the gloom. The poplar trees planted along the roads quivered in the wind, yet seemed as lifeless as the rough prefabricated structures of heavy steel girders and ugly corrugated sheets which lined the route from the airport to the city in drunkenly crooked rows.