Finally, he began to talk, in small, clustered fragments of speech interspersed with long and painful silences. The tea grew cold and the jasmines shrivelled and drowned, and the wind sang in the mountains like a lost soul. There was neither order nor system in anything he said: thoughts simply poured out of him at random, to be followed by yet more silence. Now he spoke of his childhood in India, now of Aunt Tabitha and the long summers at Carfax, summers that had once seemed without end. Or he would tell her about men he had killed, men he had betrayed, a woman he had once betrayed long ago on a cold afternoon in the dead of winter.
He told her of Cormac’s death and how it preyed on him, the mindless droning of the flies constant in his thoughts; of the girl in the orphanage, naked and betrayed; of Lhaten slaughtered like a calf on a high field of driven snow.
She listened in silence like a priest hearing his confession, without absolution, without blame. And he sought for neither, finding sufficient blessing in her presence and grace enough in her silence. At the end, he told her about his father, about the mysterious and terrible rebirth that had taken place among the tombs that afternoon. A long silence followed. At one point, he realized that her hand was in his, small and fragile, like a shell or a piece of porcelain: a fragment of something he had known long ago and lost.
“How did the boy come to be here?” Christopher asked.
“The one Zamyatin came here to find.”
“His name is Dorje Samdup Rinpoche,” she said.
“He was born in a village far to the west of here, near the sacred lake Manosarowar. That was over ten years ago. When he was still very small, some monks came to Manosarowar from Mongolia. They found signs that he was the new incarnation of the Maidari Buddha.”
That would have been about 1912, thought Christopher. Now he knew what it was Maisky and Skrypnik had found at Manosarowar, what Zamyatin had set out to rediscover.
“At first the monks wanted to take Samdup back to Mongolia, to the holy city of Urga. But others advised against it. There is still a Khutukhtu on the throne of Urga: if he had learned of the boy’s existence, he would have tried to have him killed rather than let himself be replaced by him.”
“A Khutukhtu?” Christopher had never heard the term before.
“It’s what the Mongols call their incarnations. Samdup is the true Khutukhtu of Urga. The Jebtsun Damba Khutukhtu. The true ruler of Mongolia.”
“I don’t understand. How can there be two Khutukhtus at the same time?
How could one replace another while they are both alive?”
“There are not two Khutukhtus,” she replied.
“They are one and the same. They dwell in different bodies, that is all. But the eighth body has ceased to be a suitable vehicle. The Maidari Buddha has chosen to incarnate himself in another body before the eighth has been destroyed. It’s very simple.”
“Yes, but what I don’t understand is why Zamyatin should want to waste so much time coming here to look for the child. Why doesn’t he just go to Mongolia and try to influence the present Khutukhtu?”
Chindamani shook her head.
“The Khutukhtu in Urga has no power. I do not understand such things, but I have heard the abbot and others talking. They say that, about the time Samdup was born, the Emperor of China was defeated in a great rebellion. Is that true?”
Christopher nodded. In 1911, the Manchu dynasty had been overthrown and a Republic established in China.
“When that happened,” Chindamani continued, ‘the Khutukhtu at Urga rebelled against the Chinese, who had ruled over Mongolia for centuries. He was proclaimed ruler and the Chinese left the country. At first, another country, far to the north, gave him protection. They say it was one of the lands of the pee-lings, but I do not understand that.”
“Russia,” Christopher said.
“Their king wanted to have influence in the East. Go on.”
“The Khutukhtu ruled with their help for several years. And then the king of the pee-lings was overthrown just like the Emperor of China. Is that true?”
“Yes,” he said.
“It is true.”
“When that happened, the Chinese returned to Mongolia. They forced the Khutukhtu to sign papers on which he renounced all power for himself. They imprisoned him in his palace. He is an old man now and blind. And his people no longer believe in him.
Zamyatin wants to take Lord Samdup to Urga and put him on the throne in his place.”
“You said the present Khutukhtu was no longer a suitable vehicle. That his people no longer believe in him. What did you mean?”
She seemed embarrassed to talk of such matters with him.
“I only know what Sonam has told me,” she said.
“The present Khutukhtu was born fifty years ago in a village just next to Lhasa.
From an early age he showed signs of unsuitability: there was a . tension between the man and the spirit he incarnated. It sometimes happens. It’s as though something goes wrong at the moment of incarnation.”
She paused, then plunged on.
“The Khutukhtu began to drink. He married, not once, but twice. His second wife is a slut: she invites men to her tent young men, trap as men who should know better. But he is worse. He sleeps with both men and women.”
“Some lamas complained about him a few years ago. They said he was bringing the faith into disrepute, that he was demeaning the office of Khutukhtu. He had them executed. Now no-one dares speak out against him.”
She looked at Christopher, uncertain what he would make of this.
“Do I shock you?” she asked.
“Do you think such a thing impossible?”
He shook his head.
“I don’t know what’s possible in your world,” he replied.
“I see nothing strange in a man wanting to drink or have a woman. A man is just a man, whatever resides in him.”
She sensed the unvoiced implication of what he said that a woman too was just a woman, whatever men said resided in her.
“Such things happen sometimes,” she said.
“It was the case with the sixth Dalai Lama,” she said.
“The Great Fifth died while they were still building his palace in Lhasa, the Potala. For ten years, his Regent concealed his death from the people, saying he was in seclusion, meditating. When the sixth was finally discovered, he was a boy of about thirteen. He had lived in the world. He had smelt flowers. He had experienced desire.”
“They brought him to Lhasa and shut him up in the Potala. It was dark and gloomy, and he hated it. He wanted to live in the sunshine, among ordinary people and they made him dwell in the dark with only gods and priests for company.”
He could hear the sympathy in her voice. She was expressing her own longings, speaking her own thoughts.
“Later, when he was old enough to have some control over his own affairs, he began to go into the town at night, disguised as an ordinary man. He went to taverns and found women to sleep with.
And when the night was over, he slipped back to the darkness at the top of the Potala. He lived like that for years. And then the Chinese came. They took control of eastern Tibet. They garrisoned the road to Lhasa. And they killed the Dalai Lama.”
She fell silent.
“Didn’t the people have doubts about whether he was truly an incarnation?”
She shook her head.
“No,” she answered.
“They never doubted him. He was gentle.
