“Where exactly was your son when he was .. . ah, abducted?”
“At home, in England.”
“And you say this happened two weeks ago.”
“On the Sunday before Christmas. We had just left Mass.”
A look of sectarian distaste flickered over the missionary’s
face.
“You expect me to believe this?” he said. Christopher noticed that he had started playing nervously with a small ivory paperknife on the desk.
“It is not humanly possible for anyone to have been in England two weeks ago and to be in this room talking to me today. You know that as well as I do, unless you are completely insane. Goodbye, Mr. Wylam. You have wasted enough of my time.”
“Sit down. Please sit down and listen. I was in England until nine days ago, if you want me to be precise. There’s no mystery about how I got here. Certain friends in England arranged for me to be flown here in a biplane. The world is changing, Mr. Carpenter. Before long, everyone will fly to India.”
“And your son. The one you say was kidnapped. Where is he? Is he in India as well?”
Christopher shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he answered.
“But, yes, I think he may be in
India. Or, more possibly, already on his way to Tibet.”
“Mr. Wylam, you may be telling the truth about how you got here. Modern science is truly miraculous: the good Lord has given us the means to spread His Gospel in the remotest regions of the globe. But the rest of your story makes no sense to me. I am truly sorry to hear about the kidnapping of your son. My wife and I shall pray for his return to you. But I do not see how I can be of any further help to you. The man who died here brought no messages. He said nothing coherent. He had no visitors. And now, forgive me, but there are urgent matters awaiting my attention.”
Carpenter stood up again and reached a hand across the desk.
Christopher followed suit. The missionary’s fingers felt dry and brittle.
“I’ll ask Jennie to show you out.” He reached for a small brass bell and rang it vigorously. An uneasy silence followed. Christopher could see that Carpenter was eager to be rid of him. What was he hiding? And who was he frightened of? Abruptly, the missionary broke into his thoughts.
“Mr. Wylam,” he said.
“You must excuse me. I have been very short with you. I am under a great deal of pressure at the moment.
The Lord’s work makes demands on us. And no doubt you yourself are feeling great anxiety on behalf of your son. You must be very concerned for him.
“Would it help to make amends if I were to invite you to dine with us this evening? Just my wife and myself. A simple meal, I fear: this is a house of charity, not the palace of Dives. But we have ample for a guest. And perhaps a little sympathetic company will help to ease your troubled heart.”
Ordinarily, Christopher would have declined. The thought of sitting through a meal of charitable frugality with the black gowned Mrs. Carpenter and her desiccated spouse did not fill him with eager thoughts. But the very fact of the invitation both unnecessary and, thought Christopher, out of character- added to his conviction that Carpenter was uneasy about something.
“I’d be pleased to accept. Thank you.”
“Good. I’m glad. We dine at seven. There are no formalities.
Come a little earlier and I will show you something of our work before you eat.”
There was a knock, then the Indian girl who had opened the front door to Christopher entered.
“Jennie,” Carpenter said.
“Mr. Wylam is leaving now. He will be dining with us this evening. When you have shown him to the door, will you please ask Mrs. Carpenter to join me in my study?”
The girl curtsied but said nothing. Christopher shook hands with Carpenter again, then followed the girl out of the study.
John Carpenter remained standing at his desk, his hands resting on its top as though for support. He heard the front door open and close and the sound of Jennie’s footsteps going towards his wife’s sitting room. The wing of the orphanage in which he and Mrs. Carpenter lived was soft and silent, filled with carpets and velvet hangings, dark, papered walls and heavy chintz furniture. Sounds were muffled, light was turned to shadow, the air was thick and unnatural.
Behind him, on a low shelf, a clock ticked and ticked, forlorn and remorseless. He closed his eyes, as though to pray, but his lips remained tightly shut.
Kalimpong fell away from him like a dream. All the spired and domed and pillared cities of India fell away, leaving nothing but a thin ochre dust hanging in the air. He was alone, walking along a dirt road that led to the residence of the tsong-chi, the Tibetan Trade Agent. Above him, to the north, white mountains hung in the sky like castles of snow and ice. In the air above them, thick clouds like dragons’ breaths swirled in a tattered swarm.
As he looked at the mountains he felt descend upon him a sense of unease he had first experienced eleven years earlier, not long after his marriage. He had brought Elizabeth north to Simla for the summer season, and at one point they had gone up to the Himalaya foothills. On the second day, an icy wind had come down from the north, stirring the trees in their garden. They had stood on the terrace together, drinking cold whiskey in heavy glasses and watching the clouds shift and scatter above the mountains.
“Can you feel it?” Elizabeth had asked, and Christopher had known instinctively what she meant. All the crude power, all the vast material strength of their civilization was massing about the quiet places of the earth. Christopher could feel it now as he had felt it all those years before, but redoubled in its potency. Like an octopus, its tentacles were reaching into every corner of the world, stroking at first, then squeezing, and finally draining the very life from all it touched. Ancient places, sanctuaries, the dark and the untouched realms all were being turned into an endless battlefield where tanks roamed like black beetles and new men in new uniforms danced in a dim ballet.
He found the tsong-cki’s residence in a small valley about a mile from town. It was a small house built in Tibetan style, with touches of Chinese ornamentation on the roof. At the door, a tall prayer wheel stood like a sort of guardian, reminding the visitor that religion, not trade, lay at the heart of every Tibetan.
The tsong-chi, Norbhu Dzasa, was at home. Christopher had originally planned on getting an introduction from Frazer, but in its absence he had produced one for himself. It wasn’t much to look at, but he didn’t want it to be. Here in Kalimpong, he had to act the part he had imposed on himself.
He handed the letter of introduction to the tsong-chi’s grave little Nepalese servant and asked him to transmit it to his master. The little man looked at Christopher as if to suggest that his very existence was an impertinence and his calling without an appointment not far from a capital offence. He took the letter, harrumphed loudly, and disappeared down a dark passage.
Christopher thought he could hear a voice murmuring in the distance:
somewhere in the house, a man was praying. The sound of his voice was melancholy and remote, a single mantra endlessly repeated. Suddenly, he heard footsteps and a moment later the little servant reappeared out of the shadows. Without a word, he ushered Christopher inside and closed the heavy wooden door.
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
