“Aren’t we going to take him with us?”
Christopher shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Your grandfather is dead. Really dead this time.”
“How do you know?”
“Tsarong Rinpoche told us. Just before we were brought into the room where you and Samdup were sitting with Zamyatin. He said he had killed him himself.”
William stopped, forcing his father to do the same.
“But that can’t be true,” the boy said.
“Why not?”
“Because I was with grandfather just before you came.”
“How long before?” Christopher felt his heart grow cold with apprehension.
“Not long. A few minutes. Some men came and said I had to leave. Grandfather told me they were going to lock him in his rooms. The Rinpoche man was never there.”
“Are you sure, William? Maybe they killed him after you left?”
“No, because we went past his rooms on our way to the lady’s room. I knocked on his door and called. He answered me. He wished me goodnight.”
Christopher called to Chindamani to halt. He ran up to her with William and explained what his son had just told him.
“Zamyatin said nothing about the abbot being killed,” he said, ‘only that he had been replaced. Tsarong Rinpoche was lying. He wanted to make us believe my father was dead, because the old man could still be a threat to him. But even he must have drawn the line at actually putting an incarnation to death.”
Christopher remembered the Rinpoche’s words to him: “You are holy to me, I cannot touch you.” He had been holy because he was the son of an incarnation. Brutal as he was, it was clear that the Rinpoche had still been deeply superstitious. Some crimes were beyond the pale.
But Zamyatin would not feel constrained by superstitious awe.
He was more than capable of having Tsarong Rinpoche’s boast translated into stark reality.
“I have to go back,” said Christopher.
“Even if it’s only a hope, I can’t leave without trying to save him. He is my father. Whatever he’s done, I can’t just abandon him.”
Chindamani reached out a hand. She wanted so much to hold him to her until all this had passed away.
“Take me with you,” she said.
Christopher shook his head.
“I can’t,” he said.
“You know I can’t. We’ve been through so much to escape, we can’t just throw it all away by going back up there. You must stay here with William and Samdup. If I don’t return by noon tomorrow, you’ll know I’m not coming back. Take the boys and leave. Try to find your way to Lhasa: you’re an incarnation; Samdup’s an incarnation they’ll find a place for you there. Take William to a man called Bell he’s the British representative in Tibet. He’ll see to it that the boy is taken home safely.”
“I’m frightened for you, Ka-ris To-feh!”
f “I know. And I for you. But I have no choice. I intend to return with my father. Wait for me here.”
He turned to William and explained to him as well as he could } that he had to go back for his father.
“Chindamani will look after you until I return,” he said.
“Do I what she tells you, even if you don’t understand a word she says.
Will you be all right?
William nodded. He hated to see his father go again, but he understood.
“How’s your neck? Does it hurt?”
William shook his head.
“It itches a little, that’s all.”
Christopher smiled, kissed the boy on the cheek, and began the ascent to the monastery. Chindamani watched him go. As he disappeared into the darkness, she saw shadows creep across the stars. She could feel the world going out of her, far, far away, like a cloud dissolving in a storm.
It took him an hour to reach the foot of the main building. The ladder was in place. He looked up, but from where he stood he could not see Zamyatin’s window. He put a foot on the first rung and began to climb.
Two men had been put on the door. They opened it to Christopher’s pounding, their faces surly, unfriendly and, Christopher thought, more than a little frightened. They guessed that he might be the dangerous pee-ling they had been given orders to capture. But they had expected to find him inside the monastery, not coming from the outside.
Christopher had taken Tsarong Rinpoche’s gun before leaving
Chindamani’s room. Now he fingered it in his pocket, a dull weight reminding him of another existence.
“I’ve come to speak with Zamyatin,” he said.
The monks eyed him cautiously, unable to understand where he had sprung from. His clothes were soiled and matted with cobwebs and his eyes were troubled by something beyond their guessing.
They were armed with Chinese halberds, heavy, long-bladed tools of war that could inflict serious injury even when blunt. But neither man felt comfort in the feel of the heavy weapon in his hands. They had heard in a much embellished form of Tsarong Rinpoche’s fate. Zamyatin had ordered them to watch the door, but superstition travelled more easily in their veins than the stranger’s commands.
“No-one is allowed to disturb Zam-ya-ting,” said one of the men, braver or more stupid than his companion.
“I intend to disturb him,” Christopher replied in a matter-of-fact tone. It rattled the monk even more to find the pee-ling implacable rather than angry or blustering. They were in any case already feeling the first pangs of conscience about what had happened.
From an orgy of death, they and most of their colleagues had passed to a hangover of uncertainty. Without the Rinpoche to hector them, they were like children whom a party game has led into unintended naughtiness.
Christopher sensed their hesitation and walked past. One of the men called out to him to stop, but he went on regardless and the shouting subsided.
The monastery was silent. Although dawn was near, no-one had ventured out to sound the summons to morning prayers. Dorje-la would sleep late to-day if it slept at all.
He climbed to the top storey, tired, sad, defeated. He passed quickly through the rooms of the five elements and reached the hall of the chortens. No-one stopped him. He heard no voices, saw no sign that anyone had been there.
The long hall was empty. Only the bodies of the dead watched him enter. The first pale light of dawn crept through the unshuttered window, near which a lamp still burned. Christopher’s weariness changed slowly to a profound sense of unease. Where was the Russian?
“Zamyatin!” he called. His voice sounded unnaturally loud in the echoing room. There was no answer.
“Zamyatin! Are you there?” he called again, but no-one replied.
He walked down the room, past the window that overlooked the pass, past memories all the more poignant for their freshness, past his father coming to life again among the shadows, past himself staring astonished at the old man. Too many ghosts. Too many shadows.
He headed for the abbot’s bedroom. The door was locked, but without someone to guard it, it was a flimsy enough affair. The lock was more ornamental than practical, and Christopher was able to kick it open without difficulty.
The old man was seated cross-legged in front of a small altar, his back to Christopher, his bent figure haloed by the light of a dozen butter lamps. He showed no sign that he had heard Christopher knock down the door. He did not turn his head or speak, other than to continue with his devotions.
Christopher stood by the door, feeling suddenly embarrassed and awkward, an intruder on his father’s privacy. The old man murmured inaudibly, oblivious of his surroundings. Christopher might have been Tsarong Rinpoche returned to kill him after all, but the abbot paid no attention.
Christopher stepped a few paces into the room. He stopped, listening to his father’s prayer, hesitant to
