The Ninth Buddha (10 page)

It was a world of limbo, where these orphans, neither wholly abandoned nor yet wholly loved, lived an in-between existence that would forever determine the tenor and the inner structure of their lives.

“Mr.
 
Wylam has come to us recently from the distant shores of England,” Carpenter began to intone in a pulpit voice.

“He came among us to seek tidings of his son, a child of tender years taken from him by dreadful circumstance.
 
Which of us here has not prayed in the dark watches of the night for a loving father who might come searching after us, to carry us home?
 
Which of us has not yearned for such a love as this man’s, that he comes willingly and alone across the globe for the sake of his only child, to return him to the loving bosom of his family?

“How well this brings to mind the words of our Lord, in that sweet parable of the father and his sons: “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.”
 
Perhaps in Mr.
 
Wylam’s journey there may be a parable for us here.
 
For there is a father searching for us, longing for us to return to him, contrite and full of repentance.
 
And he will travel the lengths of the earth to reach us.”

Carpenter paused for breath.
 
It sounded as though he was just getting into his stride.
 
The girls looked resigned.
 
They did not cough or fidget or shuffle their feet as English children would have done.
 
Clearly, they had long ago decided that being preached to was as normal a part of life as eating or sleeping.
 
Christopher had to struggle to stop himself yawning.

“Mr.
 
Wylam, our hearts go out to you in this, your hour of need, as yours, I doubt not, has in the past gone out to the widows and orphans of this godless and wasted land.
 
These are the children of idolatry, Mr.
 
Wylam, the children of sin.
 
Their mothers and fathers were but heathen cannibals, but through the grace of our Lord, they have been brought out of the darkness and into the light.
 
I ask you, then, to join with us in prayer, that our spirits may be united in the presence of our all-merciful and loving Saviour.
 
Let us pray.”

Like mechanical dolls, the uncomplaining rows closed their eyes and bowed their heads.
 
Their necks and eyelids seemed fashioned to the task.

“Merciful Father, Who know est our sins and our transgressions,

miserable sinners that we are, look down this night, we beseech

Thee, upon Thy servant Christopher .

And so the evening began.

The meal was a cabbagy affair with some sort of gristle-laden meat I .
 
that had long ago given up its struggle to maintain any sense either of identity or taste.
 
Moira Carpenter was less a hostess presiding , over her table than an undertaker directing the obsequies for whatever poor beast lay sliced and gravied on their plates.
 
She kept up her end of a stilted conversation with miserable politeness.
 
“My husband told me of your grief, Mr.
 
Wylam,” she said, ladling boiled cabbage on to his plate.

“I have spent most of today in prayer, asking for your son to be restored to you.
 
And his poor mother at home: she must be stricken.”

“My wife is dead, Mrs.
 
Carpenter.
 
She died a little over a year ago.”

“I am so sorry.
 
So very sorry.”
 
She dropped a slab of something off-white beside the cabbage.

“Was she carried away by illness?”

“Consumption, Mrs.
 
Carpenter.
 
She died of consumption.
 
She was thirty-one.”

For the first time, Moira Carpenter’s eyes seemed to light up.

Sickness enlivened her much as idolatry enlivened her spouse.

“It is a scourge, Mr.
 
Wylam, a dreadful scourge.
 
We are blessed to live here where the mountain air drives it away.
 
But, of course, we have our own afflictions to bear.
 
You can have no conception how these poor people are ravaged.
 
They pay the price of a depraved system.
 
Syphilis, Mr.
 
Wylam, is endemic .. . please, do eat your dinner .. .
 
and gonorrhoea takes a terrible toll.”

It was not long before Christopher realized that his hostess was the worst possible dinner companion anyone could have: a hypochondriac who finds interest in nothing else but illness.
 
As she picked at her food, she regaled Christopher with tales of her own illnesses, her husband’s illnesses, the illnesses that daily afflicted the unfortunate orphans of Kalimpong, the illnesses of the entire sub-continent.

It was all Christopher could do to force down his sweet a vile yellow custard with indecipherable pieces embedded loosely in it while she expatiated on a recent case of cancer of the nose she had visited in the hospital.

“This is all very well, my dear,” her husband interrupted at last.

“But we should not allow our guest to think that our care is chiefly for the physical ailments of these unfortunates.
 
We leave that to those whose inclinations lie in that direction.
 
But I assure you, Christopher I may call you Christopher, may I not?
 
that, however terrible the ills that ravage the flesh of India, they are nothing to the spiritual sicknesses that torment its spirit.
 
The Dark One is at work in this land, dragging this wretched people down to hell, generation after generation.
 
We do what little we can, but it is an uphill struggle.”

And so he went on, detailing what were for him the principal horrors of India and its idolatrous faith.
 
The Hindus were condemned for worshipping a multiplicity of gods, the Muslims for praying to the wrong one.
 
Yogis were charlatans and Sufis fakes, for by definition no sort of spirituality could be found without the presence of God and God to John Carpenter was white-skinned and Presbyterian.
 
Christopher decided there was no point in arguing.
 
He was little enough of a believer himself to go defending other men’s faiths.

It was only towards the end of the evening that Christopher began to see that the man was playing an elaborate game with him.
 
He was not a fool with antiquated and bizarre beliefs about religious practices on his doorstep, nor yet a simple-minded bigot rabbi ting on about his personal obsessions, but a clever man playing a role.

Christopher remembered the moment earlier that day when Carpenter had removed his glasses and shown himself to him briefly.
 
Now, as the missionary or his wife rambled on about disease or moral corruption, he caught from time to time a sneaking look on Carpenter’s face whether ironic, derisory, or merely mischievous he could not tell.

“Tell me, Christopher,” he said while they drank weak tea after the meal, ‘how often have you been in Kalimpong before?”

“I came here frequently as a child.
 
My father worked near here.”

“He was a businessman like you, was he?”

“Yes, he ... was a tea trader.”

The missionary looked across his teacup at Christopher.

“And you?
 
What do you trade in?”

“Most things.
 
I’ve dealt in most things in my time.”

“But you seem to me like an educated man.
 
More like the sort of man who might make a career in the Civil Service or the Political Service.
 
Not a small trader, really.
 
Please don’t take any offence.”

“That’s all right.
 
I chose to go into business.
 
But perhaps another career would have suited me better.
 
Things haven’t gone too well lately.”

“And you live in England now, is that correct?”

Carpenter was interrogating him, discreetly but carefully.

“Yes.
 
My wife and son went there when war broke out.
 
I returned last year to rejoin them, but Elizabeth died soon afterwards.
 
I decided to stay on with William.”

“I see.
 
What did you do during the war?
 
You stayed in India, take it.”

“I was a supplier to the army.
 
Grain, fodder, rice: all the staples.

I made a little money for once.
 
But not enough.”

“And who hates you enough to steal your child?
 
Whom do you suspect?

Why did you come to India to look for him?
 
To

Kalimpong?”

Christopher sensed more than mere curiosity in Carpenter’s questioning.

The missionary was worried about something.
 
He did not believe

Christopher’s cover-story.
 
But there was more than that: he knew

something and he wanted to know just what

Christopher knew.

“I’ve been advised not to talk about that,” Christopher said.

“Who advised you?
 
The police?”

“Yes.
 
The police.”

“Did they fly you here?
 
Forgive me for seeming inquisitive.
 
But it puzzles me that a man like yourself should have enough influence to be flown to India.
 
Just to look for a child, however precious he may be to you.
 
The authorities are not normally so obliging.”

Christopher decided it was time to go.

“Dr.
 
Carpenter, I’m grateful to you and your wife for such a delightful evening.
 
I’ve enjoyed your food and conversation immensely.”
 
He turned to Carpenter’s wife.

“Mrs.
 
Carpenter, please accept my thanks.
 
You have been a most considerate hostess.
 
But now, I fear, I must take my leave.
 
I am still tired after my journey, and I fear I may become boring company if I stay any longer.
 
And you must have your duties to go to.”

“Of course, of course.
 
How thoughtless of us to keep you talking.”

Moira Carpenter got to her feet.
 
Her husband followed suit.

“If it would not tire you too much, Mr.
 
Wylam,” said the missionary, “I would very much like to show you our boys’ wing.

The children are asleep now, but it would please me very much if you would step in to see them before you leave.”

The boys’ section was not far away.
 
A green baize door led to a short corridor, off which lay a long dormitory bathed in moonlight.

In orderly rows, like patients in a hospital ward, the children slept in a silence that was broken only by the sound of their heavy breathing.
 
Carpenter walked between the beds with a dark lantern, showing the sleeping boys to Christopher like a curator in a waxwork museum taking a visitor on a tour of his exhibits.
 
On narrow beds, the boys huddled beneath thin blankets, dreaming desperately.

Christopher wondered why Carpenter had brought him here, why he had asked him to dinner at all.
 
Had it been to reassure him, to counter that afternoon’s impression of nervousness?
 
As he watched the sleeping boys, he began to ask himself whether William had been here.
 
Was that it?
 
Was that what lay behind Carpenter’s nervousness, behind his probing?
 
But no sooner had the idea intruded itself than he dismissed it as ridiculous.

The Carpenters showed him to the door, still heaping sympathy on him like confetti.
 
The rest of the orphanage was silent.

Christopher imagined the girls in sleep, their dreams haunted by visions of dark gods and goddesses, black Kali dancing on the bodies of her bloody victims, Shiva with gory hands, destroying the universe.
 
Or did they dream of cannibals in the mountains, eating the flesh of English children?
 
And if so, what was that to them?

It was after ten when he got back to the rest-house.
 
The common room was in semi-darkness, filled with small restless mounds:

people were sleeping, planning an early start at one or two a.m.

Word had come that the weather to the north was improving, and there was every likelihood the passes into the Chumbi valley would be open in a day or two.

He climbed the rickety wooden stairs to the first floor, carrying the

reeking oil-lamp he had left downstairs for that purpose.
 
The thin

wooden panelling of the house kept out nothing of the freezing cold. It

was stained with damp from the rains and cracked with frost.
 
In a room

along the corridor, someone was moaning in pain, but no-one came.
 
Outside, dogs were prowling in the streets, old dogs, thin and diseased, afraid to show their faces in daylight.
 
He could hear them howling, lonely and desperate in the night.

He did not see the man who hit him as he opened the door, nor did he feel the blow that dropped him, unconscious, to the grimy floor of his room.
 
For a moment, he saw a bright light and faces moving in it, or a single face, blurred and shifting.
 
Then the ground lurched and fell out from under him, and the world shimmered and reddened and was swallowed up, leaving him spinning and howling and alone in the darkness.