The Ninth Buddha (56 page)

In the centre, brooding, dressed in scarlet, his eyes heavy from sleepless nights, Roman von Ungern Sternberg sat among the warm tents of his troops, planning the stages of a small apocalypse.

He drank small cups of Chinese tea and smoked dark-scented cigarettes, but all the time his mind was on other things.

He stood up and went to the door of hisjwrt.
 
It was situated in the courtyard of an abandoned hong that had once belonged to the great Shansi house of Ta Sheng K’uei.
 
The Buriat regiment under Sukharev was stationed here by Ungern’s choice; nearby were the Chahar and Tatar regiments commanded by Bair Gur and Rezukhin.
 
But Rezukhin had gone south with a Russian detachment two weeks ago and still had not returned.

The city filled his nostrils with its peculiar smell, a rich, sour smell that was a blend of holiness and corruption, sanctity mixed with greed and simple, raw humanity.
 
He had not chosen Urga a malign Fate had chosen him for it and sent him there to serve its purposes.

Stubbing out a half-finished cigarette on the door-post, he lit another.
 
His nicotine-stained fingers trembled slightly.
 
It was late afternoon, time to receive the reports that had come in at lunchtime.
 
The combined sounds of men and horses conveyed to him a sense of ease and normality.
 
They did not know what burdens he carried on their behalf, what worries and anxieties he bore for their sake.
 
But when the time came, they would ride out of Urga in his train, like a host of riders out of hell, destroying all that lay in their path.
 
He could already see the dust rising above their horses’ fetlocks and hear the sound of their galloping.
 
He had come to long for that moment as a lover for his wedding-night.
 
Mongolia was to be his bride: he would tear her to pieces in order to possess her.

He turned and went back into the vurf.
 
Colonel Sepailov had just

finished his third glass of han chi

“Have some more, Colonel.”

Ungern poured another measure into the colonel’s empty glass and watched him throw back the powerful drink as if it were milk.

If the colonel drank much more of this stuff, he would cease to be of much use, and that would be a pity.
 
Ungern could only really trust two of his staff now Sepailov was one and the other was Burdokovskii, whom the men had nicknamed the Teapot.
 
They were his eyes and ears and when there was dirty work to do, his hands as well.
 
There was often dirty work to be done.
 
Sepailov would have to cut down.

“Start at the beginning again,” Ungern said, ‘and tell me the story just as you had it from Jahantsi.”
 
He lit another cigarette, blowing smoke carelessly in Sepailov’s eyes.

The Khutukhtu Jahantsi was Chairman of the Mongolian Council of Ministers.
 
A sinecure really, but Jahantsi was astute enough to make his position count for something even in these times.
 
He had spoken to Sepailov that morning and asked him to pass on information to the Baron.
 
It gave an impression of intermediacy, even though all concerned knew such things were mere formalities: the Baron was in control for the moment.

“Jahantsi says something is going on at Uliassutai.
 
Two riders came yesterday using tiaras with your name.
 
They were given horses at every staging-post.”

“Who gave authority for the tiaras to be written?”

“Kazantsev, or so they said.”

“Very well, Kazantsev.
 
And?”

“There was a riot.”

“A riot?
 
You’re sure?
 
Not justv..
 
. a disturbance?”

Sepailov shook his head.
 
His skull was curiously shaped, flattened on top, a little like a saddle: in a deformed world, he was a prince.

“People were killed, General.
 
A group of about ninety Mongols attacked a detachment from the Uliassutai garrison.
 
They had to be beaten back.”

“Were they carrying weapons?”

“No.
 
No, that’s the curious thing.
 
They were all unarmed.
 
One of the riders .. .”

He hesitated.

Ungern sucked on his cigarette.
 
Smoke hung around him like a noxious halo.

“Yes?”
 
he prompted.

“Go on.”

“He ... he told Jahantsi they chose to be unarmed.
 
They had access to arms but chose not to carry them.
 
They believed they were immune to bullets.
 
So they rushed a group of armed soldiers, waving talismans and chanting slogans of some sort.”

“Slogans?
 
Bolshevik slogans?”

Sepailov shook his head.

“No, religious slogans.
 
That sort of thing’s more in your line of country than mine, sir.
 
But I expect they were the sort of chants I hear them mumbling when I go past the temples here.
 
Mumbojumbo, sir.”

Ungern nodded, a little impatiently.
 
He believed in the chanting.

It wasn’t mumbo-jumbo.
 
Nervously, he drew on his cigarette.
 
He was up to eighty a day now.
 
What would happen when his supplies dried up?

“No doubt,” he said.

“You say some people were killed.
 
Were any shots fired?”

“Yes, sir, a few.
 
It seems young Schwitters was the officer in charge.

Do you remember him?
 
He .. .”

“Yes, I remember.
 
Get on with it!”

“Sorry, sir.
 
As I was saying, Lieutenant Schwitters was commanding officer.
 
It seems he panicked and ordered a volley over their heads.
 
When that didn’t work, he had his men shoot into the crowd.
 
They killed about twenty of them, no-one’s really sure how many.
 
Then they charged in, using their rifle butts.
 
That did the trick.
 
They cleared off double quick.
 
But .. .”

“Yes?
 
Yes?”

“Jahantsi thinks .. . He thinks it’s just a start, sir.”

“A start?
 
What makes him think that?
 
Has he any reason to think that?”

“The rioters were shouting about some child, sir.
 
Some sort of Buddha, Jahantsi said.
 
I didn’t really understand what he was talking about it’s all gobbledegook to me, begging your pardon, sir.
 
But it seems they expected this child to be some sort of leader.

So Jahantsi says, and he should know, I suppose.

“The child, well, he’s supposed to be some sort of Saviour they’ve been expecting.
 
You know how it is.
 
Jahantsi says there have been rumours about this child from other parts of the country.
 
I asked him if...”

Sepailov’s voice trailed away into silence.
 
Von Ungern Sternberg had grown rigid in his seat, his hands feverishly tight against the arms of his leather-upholstered chair.
 
He wore a red Mongolian coat of silk above black Russian breeches and leather boots: a general learning to be a god.
 
His face made Sepailov think of icons he had worshipped as a child.
 
It was a thin, ascetic face, arid and Byzantine, waiting for ochre and crimson and gold leaf to transubstantiate it.
 
All the fine, exhausted tensions of saintliness, yet without so much as a trace of anything holy.
 
He had always been untidy, but recently Sepailov had noticed a greater disorder in him, less physical than mental.
 
Ungern was breaking down.
 
He was full of prophecies and dreams and undercurrents of a mad divinity.
 
But basically, he was breaking down.

“Where does this child come from?”
 
He snapped out the question angrily.

“Jahantsi thinks .. .”

“Yes?”
 
Ungern stubbed out his cigarette, half-finished, and lit another.

“He thinks he may have come from Tibet.
 
In fact, he’s almost certain.
 
I think he knows more than he’s saying.
 
Someone told him there’s a man with him, with the boy.”

“A man?
 
A Tibetan?”

Sepailov shook his head.

“Jahantsi thinks he may be Mongolian or ...”

He hesitated.

“Yes?”

“Or Russian.
 
A Buriat.
 
So Jahantsi says.

“And there may be a second boy.
 
A European child, so the rumours go.

There’s talk that he’s some sort of incarnation as well.”

“The first boy, the Tibetan did Jahantsi say who he thought he was? Who he claims to be?”

“Only some sort of Saviour, sir.
 
A Buddha.
 
You’d have to ask Jahantsi himself.”

Ungern Sternberg’s features were set hard.
 
A long vein in his forehead throbbed, pulse by pulse.
 
Sepailov could not look him in the eyes.

“What sort of Buddha?
 
Didn’t Jahantsi say?
 
Come on, man!

What did he say?”

“I ... I ...”
 
Sepailov stammered.
 
How many men he had killed with his bare hands, but Ungern could make him stammer like a schoolboy still.

“Well?”

“I can’t remember, sir.
 
Something .. . something beginning with “M”, I think.”

“Maidari?
 
Was that it?
 
The Maidari Buddha?
 
Come on!”

“Yes.
 
Yes, I think that’s it, sir.
 
I’m sure it is.
 
But you’ll have to ask Jahantsi.
 
He knows.”

“Very well.
 
Tell Jahantsi I want to see him.
 
Right away.
 
Make sure he understands.
 
I don’t care if he’s in Council or what he’s doing, just get him here.
 
And tell him I want to see the Bogdo Khan tonight.”

“The Khutukhtu?”

“Yes, the Khutukhtu.
 
In private.
 
In his palace.
 
Tonight.”

“Very well.”
 
Sepailov rose to go.

“Sit down,” snapped Ungern.

“I haven’t finished yet.”

Sepailov sat hurriedly.

“I’m sorry, I .. .”

“Send a message to Kazantsev.
 
Go to the radio station yourself and send the message in person.
 
Make sure they bring Kazantsev to the other end.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell him to initiate a search for these boys and the man with them.

He’s to put every man on it he can spare.
 
Make sure he understands.

Good men.
 
Mongols, Tibetans, Burials.
 
No Russians.

Understand?”

“Yes, sir.
 
Is that the whole message, sir?”

“No.
 
Tell him I want the boys killed.
 
Keep the man alive if possible.
 
But kill the boys.
 
I don’t care if he has to kill every youngster between here and Uliassutai, just as long as he makes sure the boys are dead.
 
The Tibetan child above all.
 
Make your instructions clear.
 
You can go.”

Sepailov rose again, saluted, and turned.

“And Sepailov ...”

“Yes, sir?”

“Tell Kazantsev I want the head.
 
He’s to send the boy’s head to me. Be sure about that.
 
He can stuff it with straw or anything he likes. But I want the head.”

“Yes, sir.
 
The head.
 
Very good, sir.
 
I’ll tell him.”
 
This was more like it.
 
Heads he could understand.
 
Heads he could relate to.
 
All this other mumbo-jumbo just made him bilious.
 
He would tell Kazantsev about the head.

Sepailov lifted the flap of the yurt and went outside.
 
His hands were shaking.
 
He hadn’t seen Ungern as angry in months.
 
He took a deep breath and walked away.
 
The thought of heads had made him restless. He hoped there would be an execution before bed-time.

“Will he come?”

“Yes,” said Chindamani.

“He will come.”

“Why?”

“Because I have asked him to.
 
He cannot refuse me.”

Christopher got up from his seat and went to the window.
 
He and Chindamani were sitting in a faded downstairs room belonging to Urga’s old Russian consulate building, roughly midway between Ta Khure and Mai-mai-ch’eng.
 
The consulate consisted of a large, two-storey building built from wood and plaster, topped by an iron roof.
 
Immediately beside it stood the house chapel, with a small cupola.

The consul and his staff had fled months ago, leaving behind a priest, two dogs, a caretaker, and the old Russian cemetery a wasteland of rubble, unmarked graves, and inconstant weeds.

They had met the priest, Father Anton, on their way to the city.

Winterpole had engaged him in conversation, regaling him with stories of his meetings with Father John Sergiev of Kronstadt, the famed spiritual healer at the naval base guarding St.
 
Petersburg.

They found that they had friends and books in common, although Christopher suspected that much of Winterpole’s familiarity with Russian Orthodoxy was little more than bluff.
 
Bluff or not, it was enough to secure them the friendship of the old priest.

He brought them to share his rather primitive quarters at the consulate.
 
He himself lived in an icon-lined room in the west wing of the ground floor, but he gave them rooms on the first floor, more luxurious apartments that had belonged to the departed diplomats.

The building had been looted shortly after the consul and his people left, and the rooms were all but devoid of furniture or trappings.
 
But Father Anton had access to meagre stores in a little cellar.
 
He brought them a battered samovar and plates, musty bedding, and lamps with oil.
 
For all its roughness, their situation seemed a special comfort to them, luxury after so much hardship.

There was black tea for the samovar and charcoal to burn in an iron stove at night when it grew cold, and in the mornings sunlight would lie like warm oil on their sheets.

Winterpole was upstairs writing some sort of report, though God knows how he intended to transmit it to anyone.
 
Christopher and Chindamani were waiting for a man to arrive from the city, a monk to whom Chindamani had sent a message via the caretaker on the previous day.
 
Tsering had originally been a trapa at Dorjela, but a few years earlier he had travelled to Urga to study at the mampa tat sang the medical college of Urga.

“Can he be trusted?”
 
Christopher asked.

“Yes, Ka-ris To-feh, he can be trusted.
 
More than Wan Ta-po upstairs.”

She still found the name “Winterpole’ unpronounceable.

“What is his name?”

“Tsering.
 
Tsering Gyaltsen.
 
There were two brothers at Dorjela, Tsering and Tsewong.
 
Tsewong was at Dorje-la until a little time before you came.”

Christopher looked round at her.
 
In the yard outside, yellow dust was blowing in all directions.

“I’ve heard of Tsewong before,” he said.

“At Kalimpong, in India.”

Gently, he explained to her what he knew of the circumstances of Tsewong’s death.
 
But he did not mention the silver cross that Martin Cormac had found hidden on him.

Just as he finished, there was a knock on the door.
 
Christopher opened it to find the caretaker waiting for him.

“The man you ask for here,” he said in stilted Tibetan.

“He ask you come outside.
 
Not come in.”

Chindamani joined Christopher and together they stepped out of the room.
 
In the passage, crows flew in and out through broken windows.
 
One of the two dogs, a great fawn creature with a spotted back, ran backwards and forwards, growling aimlessly.
 
In his palace of icons, Father Anton sang in a cracked voice, antiphonal refrains to a Palestinian virgin.

A young lama was standing awkwardly by the outer door.
 
Dust blew in through a window and swirled around his feet.
 
He moved from one leg to the other restlessly, unable to keep still.
 
Tsering was narrow-faced and intellectual looking, thin and ascetic like all monks, yet honed to it by more than prayer or fasting.

Chindamani greeted him formally.
 
He flushed and bowed deeply, then advanced and presented her with a khata scarf, which she accepted with a smile.

“I have no scarf to give you in return,” she said.

“It is enough for me to be in your presence again,” he said, keeping his head bowed.

“And I am very pleased to see you,” she replied.

“Do you have a scarf to give my friend Ka-ris To-feh?
 
He is the son of the Dorje Lama.
 
You must treat him with respect.”

The young man lifted his head and produced a second scarf, which he proceeded to place in Christopher’s outstretched arms.

Chindamani passed the scarf she had just been given to Christopher, and he laid it in his turn on Tsering’s wrists.
 
The monk bowed even more deeply and remained standing, waiting for permission to move.

“Please come inside and talk with us,” said Chindamani.

“I would prefer to stay here,” Tsering said.

“Very well.
 
Let us stay here.
 
Have you done what I asked you to do?”

The lama nodded.
 
His head moved on a stalk of a neck like a bird snapping for seeds.
 
He was dressed in the usual drab weeds of a lama, but lacked the downtrodden, resigned look so many of them presented to the world.
 
Whatever the source of his asceticism, it had little to do with disgust for life.

A yellow robe is no guarantee against humanity.
 
The words came unbidden into Christopher’s head.
 
Hadn’t that been what Martin Cormac said, referring to this man’s brother?

“What have you discovered?”
 
she asked.

“First, I have something to show you, with your permission,” the monk said.

He indicated something lying on the ground a few yards from his feet.
 
It was a small leather bag stitched roughly with cord.
 
He picked it up and handed it to Christopher without saying a word.

He felt it in his hand, slightly spherical, somewhat uneven, and quite heavy.

“Open it,” he said.
 
Christopher did as asked, unfastening the clumsy knots tying the neck.
 
The leather fell away, revealing the small head of a child, the face twisted and smeared with blood.

Mercifully, the eyes were closed, but Christopher almost dropped the gruesome object in shock.

Chindamani came to Christopher’s side and looked.

“Is it Samdup?”
 
Christopher asked, uncertain whether or not he recognized the dead face.

Chindamani shook her head.

“No,” she whispered.

“It is not Samdup.”

She turned to Tsering.

“Where did you get this?”

“The Russian general Ungern Sternberg has filled a room with heads like this.
 
All boys of Dorje Samdup Rinpoche’s age.
 
He knows he is here.
 
He is looking for him.”

Christopher replaced the head in the bag and retied the cords that held it.
 
He wondered where to put it.
 
For a moment, he felt more absurd than horrified.

“Can you help us find him before he does?”
 
she asked.

“I think so.
 
One of my friends at the mampa tat sang belongs to a revolutionary club started a few years ago by a man called Sukebator.
 
This friend confides in me because I am a Tibetan and because he thinks I hold more liberal views than most.
 
For several days now, he has been excited about something, although he won’t say exactly what it is.

“However, he did tell me something that seemed important.

“Ungern is collecting heads,” he said.

“He’s looking for a boy, a khubilgan, but he won’t find him.
 
The boy is safe, but Ungern won’t know until it’s too late.”
 
He told me where the heads had been thrown, and I managed to take the one I showed you.
 
There was no guard, they had just been thrown into the room to rot.
 
I brought it to you as proof that my friend’s story is true.”

“What is a khubilgan?”
 
asked Christopher.

“It’s the Mongol term for a trulka,” Tsering said.
 
His voice had a fresh quality to it, its rhythms less stilted than those Christopher had observed in other Tibetan monks.

“There’s no difference really.

But my friend said “khubilgan gegen”, meaning an enlightened incarnation, so I knew he was referring to someone of very high rank.
 
Someone like the Maidari Buddha.”

“And did your friend tell you where this boy is being kept?”

Tsering shook his head.

“No.
 
But I believe I know where this revolutionary club meets.

There is a large yurt just off one of the smaller alleyways in Ta Khure.
 
I’ve seen my friend near there several times.
 
If that is their centre, they may be holding the Lord Samdup there.”

Christopher pondered.
 
It sounded as if Tsering was right and that the boy was here in Urga, waiting for Zamyatin to make his move.