The Ninth Buddha (9 page)

The room into which Christopher was shown was, in its way, as much a transplant as John Carpenter’s study, even if it had travelled rather fewer miles to get to Kalimpong It was another world entirely, a world within a world, wrapped, enfolded, miraculously set down: its colours were different colours, its shadows different shadows, its fragrances different fragrances.
 
He stood on the threshold gingerly, for all the world like someone about to abandon one element for another, as a swimmer stands naked on the water’s edge or a moth turns about the flame that will in another instant devour it without trace.

He had stumbled somehow upon a hidden and finely constructed paradise of birds’ wings and dragons’ eyes, meshed in a manner at once mysterious and simple with the earth in which it inhered.

Like a bee drowning in honey after a season rich in blossoms, he felt himself grow heavy with sweetness.

Painted columns rose out of a bed of multi-coloured carpets to a ceiling intricate in ornamentation.
 
Around the walls, thick curtains embroidered with red and yellow silk formed a sort of sofa.
 
Low lacquered tables of Chinese manufacture sat among richly carved and gilded cabinets festooned with angry dragons and soft-petalled peonies.
 
On the walls, naked gods made love, encircled by tongues of fire.
 
At one end stood an altar of gold, studded with precious stones, on which were grouped the images of Tibetan gods and saints.
 
Incense burned in little golden stands, filling the room with dark, intoxicating fumes.
 
In front of the altar, silver butter-lamps gave ofFa yellow, ethereal light.

And then, as though he had just that moment materialized in the room, Christopher caught sight of Norbhu Dzasa himself- a man masquerading as a god, a human image fashioned from silk and coral and precious stones.
 
His dyed jet-black hair was set in tightly coiled bunches above his head, and from his left ear dangled a single long ear-ring of turquoise and gold.
 
His upper robe was of finely woven yellow silk, delicately patterned with dragons and held at the waist by a crimson sash.
 
He was standing motionless in a corner of the room near the altar, his hands crossed in front of him, concealed by the long sleeves of his robe.

On his way, Christopher had found a stall in the bazaar that sold kfiatags, the thin white silk scarves used throughout the region as tokens of respect at formal introductions.
 
He held out the scarf, loosely woven from strands of the finest silk, like gossamer, and approached the tsong-chi.
 
Norbhu Dzasa extended his arms and took the scarf with a slight bow, placed it on a low table, and, with his hands free of the sleeves, lifted a second scarf, which he passed to Christopher.
 
He looked bored.
 
The two men exchanged stiff greetings, and the little Tibetan invited Christopher to join him on cushions near the window.

A moment later, the servant who had shown Christopher in opened the door and bowed low.

“Cha kqy-sho,” ordered Norbhu Dzasa.

“Bring us tea.”

The servant bowed, sucked in his breath, and simultaneously muttered ‘la-les’.

Abruptly, Norbhu Dzasa turned to Christopher, speaking in English.

“I’m sorry.
 
Not ask.
 
Take Indian tea or Tibetan tea?”

Christopher asked for Tibetan, and the tsong-chi spoke again to his servant.

To cha kay-sho - ‘bring some Tibetan tea.”

“So,” Norbhu Dzasa said when the servant had gone.

“Drink Tibetan tea.
 
Been in Tibet?”
 
He had learnt what English he knew here in Kalimpong, out of necessity.

Christopher was unsure how to answer.
 
So many of his visits

there had been made illegally.
 
With rare exceptions, Tibet was barred to foreigners and Christopher knew from personal experience that the ban was no mere formality.

“I was in Lhasa in 1904,” he said.

“With Younghusband.”

In 1903, Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India, had been disturbed by reports of growing Russian influence in the Tibetan capital.

Determined to force the reclusive Tibetans to discuss the issue of commercial and diplomatic relations with Britain, he despatched a small force to Kampa Dzong under the command of Colonel Francis Younghusband.
 
Ignored by the Tibetans, Younghusband obtained reinforcements 1,000 soldiers, 1,450 coolies, 70,000 mules, 3,451 yaks, and six unhappy camels and moved up the Chumbi valley in force.

Christopher still remembered the journey: the freezing cold, the misery of the foot-soldiers unaccustomed to the winds and the altitude, skin sticking to gun-metal in the frost, men tearing skin from their lips with frozen spoons, the sudden deaths, men and baggage plunging from narrow ledges into the abyss.
 
Above all, he remembered the insanity of Christmas Day, when the men had been served plum pudding and turkey, and the officers had tried to drink frozen champagne.

But the real madness had begun outside Gyantse.
 
Tibetan troops carrying muzzle-loading guns and broadswords, and wearing charms to turn aside British bullets, had advanced against men armed with modern rifles and machine guns.
 
Christopher would never forget the massacre that followed.
 
In four minutes, seven hundred Tibetans lay dead on the battlefield, dozens more were screaming in pain.
 
The expedition took Gyantse and moved on unopposed to Lhasa, where it arrived in August 1904.
 
The Dalai Lama had fled in the meantime to Urga in Mongolia to take refuge with the Living Buddha there, and the Regent was forced in his absence to sign a peace treaty with Britain on very unfavorable terms.

“Don’t remember you,” Norbhu Dzasa said.

“I was much younger then,” answered Christopher, ‘and of no importance.

We would not have been introduced.”

Norbhu Dzasa sighed.

“Younger then, too,” he said.
 
Their eyes met for a moment, but the tsong-chi gave nothing away.
 
That, as he interpreted it, was his job: to give nothing away.
 
He was very good at it.

Tea arrived quickly.
 
It was served in ornamental cups of jade decorated with silver.
 
Norbhu’s man had brewed it in the kitchen from semi-fermented tea bricks imported from Yunnan, mixing it in a wooden churn with boiling water, salt, wood-ash soda, and dri-butter.
 
It was more a soup than tea, but Tibetans drank it in vast quantities forty Or fifty cups a day was not at all unusual.

Christopher could tell at once from the way he quaffed his first cupful that Norbhu Dzasa was a record-breaker even in Tibetan terms.

Norbhu had been tsong-chi at Kalimpong for seven years now and was doing very nicely out of it.
 
He could afford to drink tea in urnfuls if he wanted to.
 
His greatest fear was to be recalled to Lhasa prematurely, that is, before he had stashed away enough rupees to ensure a comfortable future for himself and, above all, his children.
 
He was over sixty now, though he could not be sure exactly how old he was.
 
His mother thought he had been born in the year of the Fire Serpent in the Fourteenth Cycle, which would have made him sixty-three.
 
But his father had been equally sure he had been born in the Wood Hare year, which would make him all of sixty-five.

“What I do for you, Wylam-la?”
 
asked the little tsong-chi as he poured himself a second cup of the thick, pinkish beverage.

Christopher hesitated.
 
He felt he had got off to a bad start with Norbhu Dzasa by referring to the Younghusband expedition.
 
In the end, the British had gained the respect of the Tibetans they had looted no temples, raped no women, and withdrawn their forces at the earliest possible opportunity but the memory of the more than seven hundred dead and the profound sense of vulnerability that the expedition had created in their minds lingered even now.

The problem about the present business was that Christopher could not mention the real reason for his visit.
 
There was ample evidence that the Mongol Agent, Mishig, had been contacted by Tsewong.
 
But it was always possible that the Tibetan tsong-chi might also be involved.
 
For all they knew, he might have been the person responsible for transmitting Zamyatin’s message to the Mongol.
 
The tsong-chi’s residence lay between the mountains and the spot where Tsewong was supposed to have been found.
 
The monk could very easily have paid a visit to Norbhu Dzasa before continuing his ill-fated journey.

“It’s very little, really,” Christopher said.

“Perhaps you will find it sentimental of me.
 
You’ll have seen from my letter that I am a businessman.
 
I’m here in Kalimpong to do business with Mr.

Frazer.
 
I knew him years ago, back in Patna.
 
He knows about an incident that happened back then something that happened to my son, William.
 
We were in Bodh Gaya, William and I, just passing through, on our way to Aurangabad.
 
We lived in Patna then, when .. . my wife was still alive.”
 
The combination of fact and fiction would, Christopher hoped, serve to convey a feeling of conviction to the tsong-chi.

“William fell ill,” he went on.

“There was no British doctor in

Bodh Gaya, none anywhere near.
 
I was desperate.
 
The child was very sick, I thought he would die.
 
And then one of the pilgrims visiting the sacred tree ... It is a tree they have there, isn’t it, Mr.

Dzasa?”

Norbhu nodded.
 
It was a tree; he had seen it.
 
Lord Buddha had gained enlightenment while sitting under it.

“Right,” said Christopher, warming to his tale.

“Well, one of the pilgrims heard William was ill, you see.
 
He came to visit us and told me there was a Tibetan monk who was a sort of doctor.

Anyway, I found this monk, and he came at once and looked at

William and said he could treat him.
 
He went off- it was late at ‘ night by then.
 
I can remember it, sitting in the dark with William in a terrible fever.”

There had been a fever once, and William had almost died but there had been no monk, no sacred tree, only an old doctor sent round by the DBI.

“I thought he would die, I really did, he was that bad.
 
Anyway, he went off as I said the monk, I mean and then came back in about an hour with some herbs he’d got from God knows where.

He made them up into a drink for the boy and got it into him somehow or other.
 
It saved his life.
 
He came out of the fever that night and was on his feet again two days later.
 
I tried to find the monk afterwards, to thank him, give him something.
 
But he’d gone.”

“Frazer knew about it.
 
When he came here, he asked questions, but he never heard of any monk.
 
Until a couple of weeks ago.”

Norbhu Dzasa glanced up from his steaming cup.
 
His little eyes glistened.

“He said a Tibetan monk died here.
 
A man with the same name as my monk.
 
About the same age.
 
Frazer said he carried herbs.
 
He thought I should know: he wrote to me about it.
 
I was coming anyway, I have business here.
 
So I thought I’d make some enquiries at the same time.
 
About the monk.”

“Why?
 
You could not meet.
 
Not thank.
 
He is dead.”

“Yes, but he might have a family, relatives.
 
His parents, brothers, sisters.
 
Perhaps they need help, now he is dead.”

“What his name, this medical monk?”

“Tsewong,” Christopher answered.

“Is that a common name?”

Norbhu shrugged.

“Not common.
 
Not not common.”

“But it was the name of the man they found here?
 
The man who died?”

The tsong-chi looked at Christopher.

“Yes,” he said.

“Same name.
 
But perhaps not same man.”

“How was he dressed?”
 
asked Christopher.

“Perhaps it would help to identify him.”

Norbhu Dzasa saw that Wylam wanted him to lead with information rather than confirm something he already knew.
 
It reminded him of the theological debates he had seen the monks at Ganden engage in verbal fencing matches in which the slightest slip meant failure.
 
What would failure mean in this case, he wondered.

“He wear dress of monk of Sak-ya-pa sect.
 
Was monk you met Sak-ya-pa?”

“I don’t know,” said Christopher.

“What would one of them look like?”
 
But in his own mind he had already begun the process of narrowing things down.
 
The majority of Tibetan monks belonged to the politically dominant Ge-lug-pa sect.
 
There were far fewer Sak-ya-pas and fewer Sak-ya-pa monasteries.

Norbhu Dzasa described for Christopher the dress of a Sak-yapa lama:

the low, conical hat with ear-flaps, the red robes, the broad-sleeved over-mantle for travelling, the distinctive girdle.

“Yes,” said Christopher, ‘he was dressed very like that.”
 
But he wanted to move on, to narrow the field even more.

“Did you find anything,” he continued, ‘that might have told you where he came from?
 
The name of his monastery, perhaps?”

Norbhu could see what the Englishman was trying to do.
 
Why was he playing such games with him?
 
Did he take him for a fool?

“Where your friend come from?”
 
he asked.

Christopher hesitated.

“He didn’t say.
 
Do you know where the dead man came from?”

The tsong-chi smiled.

“Not every mountain has a god,” he said.

“Not every monastery has a name.”
 
If the Englishman expected him to play the part of the wily and enigmatic Oriental in this masquerade, he would at least put on a virtuoso performance.

Christopher recognized the shift in mood.
 
He would have to change tack.

“Did you see this man Tsewong before he died?
 
This house is on the road he must have taken to reach Kalimpong.
 
Perhaps he called here.
 
Perhaps you saw him.
 
You or one of your staff?”

Norbhu Dzasa shook his head.

“Not see.
 
No-one see.”
 
There was a pause.
 
The tsong-chi looked at Christopher intently.

“What you really look for, Wylam-la?
 
What thing you look for?
 
What person?”

Christopher hesitated again before answering.
 
Did the little Tibetan know?
 
Was he teasing him with this questioning?

“My son,” he said.

“I’m looking for my son.”

The tsong-chi sipped tea from his cup and set it down elegantly.

“Not find him here.
 
Understanding, perhaps.
 
Wisdom, perhaps.

Or things you not wish to find.
 
But no son.
 
Please, Wylam-la, I advise you.
 
Go home.
 
Back to own country.
 
The mountains here very treacherous.
 
Very high.
 
Very cold.”

The two men eyed each other closely, like fencers with raised foils. In the silence, the mantra sounded clearer than before.

“Tell me,” Norbhu Dzasa said abruptly.

“Is Wylam a common name?”

Christopher shook his head.
 
Not common.
 
Not not common, he wanted to say.
 
But he didn’t.

“No.
 
There aren’t many Wylams.
 
Lots of Christophers but not many Wylams.”

Norbhu Dzasa smiled again.
 
There was something about his smile that unsettled Christopher.
 
A lamp on the altar spluttered briefly and went out.

“I knew man called Wylam,” the tsong-chi said.

“Many years ago.

In India.
 
Look very much like you.
 
Father perhaps?”

Had Norbhu Dzasa suspected all along?
 
Christopher wondered.

“Perhaps,” he said.

“My father was a political agent.
 
He died many years ago.”

Norbhu Dzasa looked hard at Christopher.

“Your tea getting cold,” he said.

Christopher lifted his cup and drank quickly.
 
The thick, lukewarm liquid clung to his palate and his throat.

“I’ve taken enough of your time, Mr.
 
Dzasa,” he said.

“I’m sorry to have wasted it on a wild-goose chase.”

“No matter,” answered the little man.

“There are other geese.”

He rose and clapped his hands twice.
 
The sound of the hand-claps rang out dully in the shimmering room.

The door opened and the servant came to show Christopher out.

“Goodbye, Wylam-la,” Norbhu Dzasa said.

“I am sorry not more help.”

“I’m sorry too,” said Christopher.
 
The heavy tea was making him feel slightly nauseous.
 
He wanted to get out of the stuffy room.

Norbhu Dzasa bowed and Christopher left, escorted by the servant.
 
The tsong-chi sighed audibly.
 
He missed his wife and children.
 
They had gone to Lhasa for the New Year celebrations at the end of January and the three-week Monlam Festival that would follow.
 
It might be months before they returned.
 
His new wife was young and pretty, and he felt almost youthful when he was with her.
 
But here, without her, he felt age lie upon him like a covering of hard snow that will not lift.
 
On the walls around him, gods and demons danced and copulated in solemn gradations of ecstasy and pain.
 
So little ecstasy, he thought; and so much pain.

Curtains parted in the wall to his left.
 
A man dressed in the robes of a monk stepped into the room.
 
His thin, sallow face was covered with the scars of smallpox.

“Well?”
 
asked Norbhu Dzasa.

“Did you hear?”

The monk nodded.

“Wylam,” Norbhu Dzasa went on.

“Looking for his son.”

“Yes,” said the monk.

“I heard.”
 
He ran a thin hand over his shaven scalp.
 
Light from the lamps flickered on his mottled skin, making small shadows, like ants crawling.

“The gods are coming out to play,” he said.

“We must be ready when the game begins.”

As Christopher returned to the outskirts of Kalimpong, the sun sank steeply in the west.
 
The light was snatched away with fierce rapidity.
 
Night invaded the world, precipitately and without resistance, save for a few pockets of illumination in the bazaar and one light burning faintly in St.
 
Andrew’s church, just visible from where he stood.

He walked back through the bazaar, filled with flaring lights and the deep, intoxicating scents of herbs and spices.
 
At one stall, an old man sold thick dhal in rough pots; at another, a woman in a tattered said offered a selection of peppers, chillies, and wild pomegranate seeds.
 
On small brass scales, in pinches and handfuls, the whole of India was being parcelled out and weighed.
 
The old kaleidoscope had started to turn again for Christopher.
 
But now, for the first time, he sensed behind its dazzling patterns an air of cold menace.

He found the Mission Hospital at the other side of town from the orphanage.
 
The British cemetery lay symbolically between.

Martin Cormac, the doctor who had tended the dying monk at the Knox Homes, was not available.

The nursing sister who saw Christopher was unhelpful.
 
She said that Cormac had gone to make an urgent call at Peshok, a village between Kalimpong and Darjeeling.
 
More than that, she said she knew nothing.

Christopher left a slip of paper bearing his name and the address of the rest-house where he had put up.
 
The nurse took the paper between finger and thumb as if it bore embedded in its fibres all the diseases of the sub-continent and most of the plagues of Egypt.

She deposited it in a small, neglected pigeon-hole half-way down the hospital’s austere entrance hall and returned to the ward with a look that promised much wiping of fevered brows.

He returned to the rest-house, took a cat-nap, and fortified himself with another chota peg before shaving and donning some thing suitable for dinner with the Carpenters.
 
The rest-house was quiet when he left.
 
No-one saw him go.

He was met at the door of the Knox Homes by Carpenter himself, now dressed more formally than before, but not in evening attire.
 
The missionary conducted him straight away to the orphanage proper, or rather, to what constituted the girls’ division.

There were more girls than boys in the Knox Homes: boys were economically viable offspring who might grow up to look after their aged parents: girls were burdens who would end up being married into someone else’s family.
 
Girl babies were dumped quickly on someone else’s doorstep if they were lucky.

The girls’ orphanage was a scrubbed and spartan place, more a way-station than a home; its walls and floors and furniture were pervaded with the smells of carbolic, coal tar soap, and iodine, and its musty air seemed laden with the ghosts of other, less immediately recognizable smells the thin vomit of children, boiled cabbage, and that faint but unmistakable smell that is common to all institutions where adolescent girls are gathered in one place.
 
A r sour, menstrual smell that lingers on all it touches.

In a dark-panelled hall hung with the portraits of patrons and pious mottoes edged in funereal black, Christopher was introduced to the children.
 
Rows of silent, impassive faces stared up at him as he stood, embarrassed and awkward, on a low platform at the end of the hall.
 
The girls were of all ages, but all wore the same drab uniform and the same dull look of incomprehension and sullen endurance on their faces.
 
Most appeared to be Indian, but there were Nepalese, Tibetans, and Lepchas among them.
 
Christopher noticed a few of mixed parentage, Anglo-Indians, and two girls who seemed to be of European origin. There were rather over one hundred in all.

To Christopher, the most dreadful thing about the place was the temperature: it was neither uncomfortably cold nor was it comfortably warm.
 
Old pipes brought a certain warmth up from an ancient boiler hidden in the bowels of the place, but not so much that one could feel relaxed nor so little that one could wrap up sensibly against the chill.
 
And the children themselves, he noticed, looked neither well fed nor thin.
 
He guessed that they did not go hungry but probably never felt that they had eaten quite enough.