The Ninth Buddha (18 page)

I will carry his blood on my hands.
 
Do you understand?
 
Into the next world and beyond.
 
You are holy for me, but others can harm you.
 
I know you do not understand.
 
It is better for you that you do not.
 
But this is my advice: leave all thought of the lama who died here.
 
Leave all thought of your son.
 
Leave all thought of revenge.
 
Go home.
 
All other ways are closed.
 
The gods are only playing now.
 
Leave before they grow tired of games.”

What did he mean, ‘you are holy for me?”
 
Christopher remembered the thin man in Hexham.

“I am ordered not to harm you,” he had said.

“Are you telling me you killed Martin Cormac?”
 
Christopher took a step towards the monk.
 
The man did not move.

“You do not understand,” the monk whispered.
 
Christopher thought he could hear flies buzzing in the room.
 
He could see sunlight spilling on to white, disordered sheets.
 
He felt suffocated.

“I understand,” he shouted above the buzzing.

The monk shook his head.

“You understand nothing,” he whispered.

Christopher stepped nearer, but something held him back from actually attacking the man.

“Please,” said the monk.

“Do not try to harm me.
 
If you do, I will be forced to prevent you.

And I do not want that on my conscience.

I have put blood on my karma today.
 
But you are holy: do not make me touch you.”

Inarticulate anger grew in Christopher, but the very placidity of the monk made it hard for him to strike him.
 
The man stood up, his robes falling elegantly into place around him.

“I have given my warning,” he said.

“Leave Kalimpong.
 
Go back to England.
 
If you seek to go further, I cannot be responsible for what will happen to you.”

He passed Christopher on his way to the door, brushing him with the edge of his outer robe.

Christopher never knew what happened next.
 
He felt the touch of the monk’s robe against his hand.
 
He remembered the touch of Cormac’s mosquito-net against his bare skin and felt a surge of anger rise in him.
 
The monk’s placidity was nothing: he wanted to strike him, to drag him down to some sort of justice.
 
He reached out, intending to haul the man round, at the very least to confront him.
 
Perhaps he had intended to strike him, he could not be sure.

All he felt was the monk’s hand on his neck, a gentle touch without violence or pain.
 
Then the world dissolved and he felt himself falling, falling endlessly into a lightless, colourless abyss out of which nothing ever returned.

He dreamed he was in silence and that the silence clung to him softly, like wax.
 
The wax melted and he was walking through empty corridors.
 
On either side, vast classrooms stood empty and silent; chalk-dust hung like bruised white pollen in long beams of sunlight.
 
He was climbing stairs that stretched above him towards infinity.
 
Then he was on a landing that took him into another corridor.
 
From somewhere, he could hear the sound of buzzing.

He passed through the first door he came to and found himself in a long white dormitory drenched in silence.
 
Two rows of rusted hooks had been screwed into the ceiling over the central aisle.

From each hook a rope was suspended, and at the end of each rope the body of a young girl was hanging.
 
They all wore white shifts and their backs were turned to him, and their hair was long and black and silken.
 
He watched in horror as the ropes twisted and the bodies turned.
 
The sound of buzzing filled the room, but there were no flies.
 
A door slammed suddenly, sending echoes throughout the building.

“Wake up, sahibl Wake up!”

He struggled to open his eyes, but they were glued together.

“You can’t lie here, sahibl Please get up!”

He made a final effort and his eyes opened painlessly.

The monk had gone.
 
The boy Lhaten was bending over him, a look of concern on his face.
 
He was lying on the floor of his room, flat on his back.

“The monk told me I would find you here, sahib.
 
What happened?”

Christopher shook his head to clear it.
 
It felt full of cotton wool.

Cotton wool mixed with iron filings.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“How long have I been here?”

“Not long, sahib.
 
At least, I don’t think so.”

“Lhaten, are there still police outside?”

“One man.
 
They say they are looking for you.
 
Have you done something, sahibT He shook his head again.
 
The cotton wool was feeling a little more like cement.

“No, Lhaten.
 
But it won’t be easy to explain.
 
Can you help me up?”

“Of course.”

The boy put an arm under Christopher’s neck and raised him to a sitting position.

With the boy’s help, Christopher made his way to the chair.
 
He felt more winded than anything, as though all the air had been forced out of him suddenly.
 
Whatever the monk had done, it had rendered him unconscious briefly but left him otherwise unharmed.

He had often heard of such techniques, but until now had never witnessed them used.

“Do the police know I’m here, Lhaten?”

The boy shook his head.
 
He was sixteen, seventeen perhaps.
 
By his accent, Christopher guessed he was Nepalese.

“I need to get out without being seen,” Christopher confided in the boy.

“Can you help me?”

it~”v f} ;

“No problem, sahib.
 
There’s no-one watching the back.
 
But where will you go?
 
They say there are police everywhere, looking for you.
 
You must have done something very wicked.”
 
The boy seemed pleased by that possibility.

Christopher tried to shake his head, but his neck refused to join in.

“I’ve done nothing, Lhaten,” he said.

“But a man has been killed.

I found him.”

“And the police think you killed him?”
 
Lhaten raised his eyebrows and whistled.
 
Christopher remembered that William used precisely the same gestures to express amazement.

“Yes.
 
But I didn’t.
 
Do you believe me?”

Lhaten shrugged.

“Does it matter?
 
No doubt he was a very bad man.”

Christopher frowned.

“No, Lhaten he wasn’t.
 
And it does matter.
 
It was Dr.
 
Cormac.

He was with me last night.
 
Do you remember?”

This seemed to sober Lhaten up.
 
He knew Cormac.
 
The doctor had treated him on several occasions.
 
He had liked him.

“Don’t worry, sahib.
 
I’ll get you out.
 
But you must have somewhere to go.”

Christopher hesitated.
 
He wasn’t sure if he could trust the boy.

But already he was on his own.
 
Nobody in London would vouch for him.
 
Nobody in Delhi would want to interfere.
 
He needed the boy’s help badly.

“Lhaten,” he began, knowing he was taking a risk.

“I want to leave Kalimpong.
 
I have to get out of India.”

“Of course.
 
You should not stay in India.
 
Where do you want to go?”

Christopher hesitated again.
 
If the police questioned the boy .. .

“You can trust me, sahib.”

What did the boy want?
 
Money?

“If it’s money you .. .”

“Please!”
 
A look of genuine pain crossed the boy’s face.

“I don’t want money.
 
I want to help you, that’s all.
 
Where do you want to go?”

Christopher realized he was wasting time.
 
The police could return to his room at any moment to make a further check on his belongings he guessed it was they who had given the room its second going-over.

“I want to cross the Sebu-la,” he said in a low voice.

“Into Tibet.

I want to leave tonight if possible.”

Lhaten looked at him in disbelief.
 
It was as if he had expressed a wish to visit the moon.

“Surely you mean the Nathu-la, sahib.
 
The Sebu-la is closed.
 
It will remain closed all winter.
 
Even the Nathu-la and the passes beyond it may be closed again if the weather changes.”

“No, I mean the Sebu-la.
 
Along the Tista valley past Lachen, then through the passes.
 
I need a guide.
 
Someone who knows that route.”

“Perhaps you’re not feeling well, sahib.
 
That blow last night.
 
And today .. .”

“Damn it, I know what I’m doing!”
 
Christopher snapped.

“Yes.
 
I’m sorry, sahib.”

“That’s all right.
 
I’m sorry I shouted, Lhaten.
 
I must sound a bit doolaly, eh?”

The boy grinned.

“Thought so.
 
Well, do you know anyone who’d be fool enough to take me at least that far?
 
I wouldn’t want him to come across with me.
 
Just to take me to the Sebu-la.
 
I’ll pay well.”

“Yes.
 
I know someone.”

“Excellent.
 
Do you think you can get me to him without being seen?”

Lhaten grinned again.

“Very easy.”

Christopher stood up.
 
His head spun.

“Let’s go, then.”

“No need, sahib, your guide is here already.
 
I can take you to the Sebu-la.
 
Maybe I’m a little doolaly as well.”

Christopher sat down again.
 
He felt irritated by the boy, though he knew he ought not to be.

“Bloody right you are.
 
I’m not going on a picnic.
 
I’m trying to get into Tibet without an alarm going off half-way across the Himalayas.
 
The main purpose of the exercise is to get there in one piece.
 
I need a proper guide, not a rest-house pot-boy.”

Lhaten’s face fell.
 
It was almost as though Christopher had slapped him.

“I’m sorry if .. .”
 
Christopher began, but Lhaten interrupted him.

“I am not a pot-boy.
 
I am eighteen.
 
And I am a proper guide.

My family are Sherpas.
 
We know the mountains the way farmers know their fields.
 
I have crossed the Sebu-la with my father many times.”

“In winter?”

The boy hung his head.

“No,” he said.

“Not in winter.
 
No-one crosses the Sebu-la in winter.
 
No-one.”

“I am going to cross the Sebu-la in winter, Lhaten.”

“Without my help, sahib, you will not even make it to the first pass.”

Lhaten was right.
 
In this weather, Christopher would need more than just luck and his own limited experience to find and cross the Sebu-la.
 
At this point, he wasn’t even thinking about what he would do when he got there.
 
One thing was certain: he could not attempt the journey by way of the Chumbi valley and the more popular route to the east.
 
There were sentries everywhere.
 
All the caravans and isolated travellers were stopped and examined closely.
 
If he was fortunate, he would merely be turned back.
 
More probably, his visitor of half an hour ago and his chums, whoever they might be, would be waiting for him and the monk had made it clear that his friends would have no compunction about harming him.

“Why do you want to risk your skin on a journey like this, Lhaten?”

Christopher asked.

The boy shrugged.

“This is my third winter in this place, sahib.
 
How many winters could you spend here?”

Christopher looked at the room, at the shabby furniture, at the gecko sleeping on the wall.

“Aren’t you frightened to make such a journey in this weather?”

Lhaten grinned, then looked more serious than ever “Very frightened.”

That decided Christopher.
 
He would take the boy.
 
The last thing he needed on this journey was someone who didn’t know the meaning of fear.

They were lost.
 
For two days now, they had been battling against the snow and the wind, but there were no signs of the chorten that Tobchen said would mark the entrance to the valley of Gharoling.

They had lost the pony.
 
It had fallen into a deep crevasse the day before, taking with it most of their remaining provisions.
 
He could not forget the sound of the dying animal, trapped beyond reach, screaming in pain: the sound had carried in the stillness and followed them for miles.