butter and human sweat were doubly noxious to Christopher after so long in the fresh and rarefied air of the mountains outside.
The steward showed Christopher to a small room on the first floor and asked if he wanted food.
“No, thank you,” he said.
“I’d like to sleep. I’m very tired.”
The monk nodded and backed out, closing the door behind him.
Against one wall was set a low pallet bed. Without pausing to inspect the rest of the room, Christopher threw himself on to the bed. The last thing he thought of before sleep overpowered him was Lhaten’s reaction when he had asked the boy if he had ever heard of Dorje-la.
“I think it is time for sleep, sahib.”
And it was.
When Christopher awoke, he could not tell how much time had passed. The butter-lamp left by the steward still burned steadily on a little table near the door, but it had been full to begin with.
The comfort of the bed and the profundity of his sleep had only served to accentuate the depth of Christopher’s tiredness and the aching he felt in every joint and muscle. He could have lain there forever, he thought, neither sleeping nor waking, but in a state between.
From somewhere far away came the sound of voices, many voices, rising and falling in a dirge-like chant, whether of celebration or lament he could not tell. The chanting was punctuated by the sounds of a variety of musical instruments. A large drum was being struck in slow, steady beats; a conch-shell wove in and out of the deeper notes raised by a shawm; from time to time, small cymbals clashed with a tinny sound. Christopher recognized the tight, nervous sound of a damaru, a small drum fashioned from a human skull and used in the lower Tantric ceremonies.
Slowly, as he lay in the darkness listening to the sound of the monks at prayer, the reality of his situation was borne in upon Christopher. It still made little sense: though all the separate parts seemed to connect, there was a lack of logic to their connection that made him despair. But of one thing he was absolutely certain now his son William was here, within these walls. Whatever madness lay behind his being here, that was all that mattered.
The music and chanting stopped abruptly, and the monastery was returned to silence. Nothing stirred.
Christopher glanced around the room. A draught from the window teased the flame of his lamp and sent speculative little shadows here and there. Above the bed hung a large thangka depicting the Buddha surrounded by eight Indian saints. Opposite, an old lacquer chest had been transformed into a private altar, adorned with paintings of lotuses and various sacred emblems. On the wall over the altar hung a wooden cabinet with glass doors: inside were painted images of Tsongkhapa and his two disciples. Near the window stood a small table and a chair, and on the wall above them a narrow wooden shelf holding bound copies of scriptural texts.
He stood up and went to the window. Tibetan monasteries did not as a rule have glass in their windows, so the heavy wooden shutters were kept permanently closed throughout the long winter months. He found the latch and pushed one half of the shutter open. Outside, it was night again. A sharp wind had whipped the clouds away, and in the black expanse just visible above three distant peaks, the sky groaned with the weight of innumerable stars. From somewhere outside Christopher’s range of vision, moonlight fell like icing on the crystal landscape of the pass below.
He closed the shutter, shivering, and sat down on the chair. He was feeling hungry now and wondered how he could get hold of someone to bring him food. Perhaps they were waiting for him to give some indication that he was awake. He stepped across to the door and pulled on the handle. It was locked. His monastic cell was to serve as a prison cell as well.
In the morning, he found food waiting for him on a low table: some lukewarm tsampa, a few barley-cakes, and hot tea in a covered cup. It was plain enough fare, but after days of nothing but cold tsampa, its warmth alone was delicious. After he had eaten, he opened the shutters and looked out of the window. Sunlight had grown out of nothing overnight, spreading itself across the valley below. He could just make out the path he and his companions had followed the day before. Patches of grey mist still clung to the rocks at the foot of the monastery, like small pools of colourless water left on the seashore by the departing tide. If he craned his neck upwards, he could just make out the shapes of distant mountains through gaps in the cliffs surrounding the small valley.
There was a light tap on the door. Christopher closed the shutters and called.
“Who’s there?”
There was the sound of a key turning in the lock, then the door opened and the steward of the day before entered. He held a tall staff in one hand, less for support than as a token of his office. In the other, he carried a flickering butter-lamp.
“You’re to come with me,” he said.
“Why am I being kept locked in this room?”
The steward ignored his question.
“You have been summoned. Please follow me.”
“Who is summoning me? Where am I being taken?”
“Please,” the steward said, fixing his abrasive eyes on Christopher.
“Don’t ask questions. There is no time. You have to come with me now.”
Christopher sighed. He was in no position to argue. And anything was better than being cooped up in this tiny room indefinitely.
The steward led the way in silence along a different route to the one along which he had led Christopher the previous morning, along deserted and unpainted corridors. It grew cold. No-one passed them.
After a while, they entered regions that seemed to predate the main monastic foundation. No-one lived here any longer. Christopher could feel the touch of the wind as it forced its way through untended cracks in the fabric of the building. At last they reached a heavy door covered with painted eyes. The paint had long ago faded, but the eyes still seemed to possess the power of sight.
The steward opened the door and motioned Christopher through. For a moment, he thought they had abruptly left the monastery and gone outside. He stood on the threshold, bewildered, trying to make sense of the sight that met his gaze.
Snow fell in patches, bright and translucent, fine white flakes like the forms of tiny angels descending, wing upon white wing, in heavy, dreaming multitudes. Someone had lit thousands of butter lamps and placed them all around the room: they lay thick on the snow-covered ground, a shifting carpet of fireflies catching breath.
The tiny flames trembled and cast pale patterns on walls of naked ice.
Everywhere, a caul of snow and ice lay silent upon the sleeping room, veil upon white veil, glaze upon frosted glaze, year upon frozen year. It was a room of ice and ivory, its broken ceiling open to the sky and its mirrored walls exposed to the endless breath of the mountains. Shafts of sunlight lay everywhere like slanting rods of glass: the snow fell through them, flickering as it dropped earth wards On plinths throughout the room, statues of gods and goddesses stood unrecognizable beneath thick garments of tattered frost. Their hair was white and stiff with icicles; from their frozen hands, long strands of ice trailed to the floor.
At the far end of the long chamber, hidden away among shadows, in an area out of reach of the shafts of sunlight, Christopher made out a grey figure seated cross-legged on a throne of cushions. Slowly, feeling his heart trip repeatedly in his breast, he made his way towards the shadows. The figure did not move, did not call out. He sat immobile, hands resting on his knees, back straight. His eyes were fixed on Christopher.
The figure was dressed in the simple robes of a monk. On his head, he wore a pointed cap with long ear- flaps that hung down to below his shoulders. His face was partly hidden in shadows. It seemed lined and full of sadness. The eyes, above all, ached with sadness. Christopher stood in front of him, not knowing what to do or say. He realized that he had not brought a khata scarf with him, that he could not perform the ritual of greeting. Some time passed, then the stranger raised his right hand gently and motioned to Christopher.
“Please,” he said, ‘be seated. You do not have to stand. I have had a chair brought for you.”
For the first time, Christopher noticed a low chair just on his left. He sat down, feeling self-conscious. He could sense the old man’s eyes on him, scrutinizing him with a fierce intensity mixed with terrible sadness “My name is Dorje Losang Rinpoche. I am the Dorje Lama, the abbot of this monastery. They tell me your name is Christopher, Christopher Wylam.”
“Yes,” said Christopher.
