“The Tibetan boy,” he said.
“He was pale, frightened. I dreamed of him that night. He came to me smiling. He wore the robes of a buddha. There was light all round him.” He paused.
“Who is he?”
he asked.
Chindamani answered in a low voice, with an authority Christopher had never heard in it before.
“He is the Maidri Buddha,” she said.
The horseman looked at her intently, but said nothing. Half a minute passed like that, then he smiled broadly, wheeled his horse round, and set off at a gallop in the direction of Tsagan-tokko.
They crossed into China quietly on a long afternoon in April, like cattle thieves or scouts sent ahead by an invader, unseen, unsuspected, unchallenged. There was no true border here, no moment when one might say “This is Tibet’ and then, in an instant, “This is China’. Just a gradual shift, a change of tone, a series of dimly perceived modulations in the landscape and the faces. The nomadic world of Amdo began to fade, and in its place a new terrain slowly asserted itself: a world of valleys and high, fortified villages, of narrow gorges and fast waterways, of gilded temples, ornamental gates, and narrow, fluted pagodas that rose above dull walls of beaten clay.
The people of the margins and the salt-lakes of the Tsaidam basin fur-clad and dirty and scarred by constant winds gradually made way for the inhabitants of the settled regions that lay within the confines of the Great Wall. Traders and artisans, peasant farmers and hong-merchants eager to return to Canton or Peking. The chief difference or so it seemed to Christopher lay in their eyes. The nomads and the men who came with the long camel-trains down from the Mongolian steppes or the regions beyond Urumchi had a far-away look:
they saw vast distances and open horizons unencumbered by city walls a world that was never the same from one day to the next. But the Han Chinese of Kansu dwelt in a world of narrower horizons, and in their eyes Christopher could see the walls and doors and mental bars that hemmed them in.
Mandarins with sallow faces and tired eyes, many still wearing their hair in the Manchu style, with long pigtails behind and their foreheads uncovered in front, rode past in the company of Hui Muslim soldiers on their way to Sining-fu and, beyond it, the provincial capital of Lanchow. But none of them challenged Christopher or his companions. To the casual eye, Christopher seemed of no interest merely a nomad who had travelled far with his wife and child for reasons that could be of no possible interest to Chinese officials. His face had grown dirty and his hair unkempt, and all traces of foreignness had been burned out of him by the wind and ice and snow.
Sining-fu received them with indifference. Three travellers more or less meant nothing to the town or its inhabitants. All along the top of the square wall that enclosed the city, soldiers walked on a narrow street, keeping watch over the countryside around and across the mosaic of roofs below, a jumble of red pan tiles and dragon arabesques. But no-one noticed the three newcomers among so many.
They walked down the main street that lay through the centre of the town, passing on right and left they amens of local officialdom, small painted houses guarded by stone lions and dragons, each bearing a sign in Chinese lettering to indicate its function. At every step they were jostled by passers-by: Mongols leading hairy Bactrian camels as they went from shop to shop trading yak-hair or fur for pots and pans and kitchen knives; mules with huge blocks of Shansi coal; carts carrying Chinese girls in bright red coats, their hair well greased and their tiny feet crippled forever by a lifetime’s binding.
In a side-street, near one of the large trading houses, they found a small deng where they could stay for the night. The inn was dirtier and more cramped than most, but it was out of the way and attracted the sort of clientele who knew better than to show too much interest in their fellow guests. They cajoled the nemo, a small, reserved woman in her mid-forties, to provide them with a room to themselves. She was reluctant at first, but Chodron seemed so tired and sad that she gave them the room for her sake.
It was early evening by the time they settled down. The nemo provided food and a tripod brazier on which to cook it all at a price. Chodron fell asleep soon after they had eaten. Chindamani and Christopher stayed awake a little longer, talking. They would have made love, but with Chodron around they felt inhibited. At last they slept, in one another’s arms, not safe, but alone Christopher was wakened in the middle of the night by the sound of knocking on the door. At first he thought he had been mistaken, but the knock came again, a little louder this time.
Chindamani stirred but did not waken.
He got up and walked to the door. The wooden floor was cold against his bare feet. In the distance, someone coughed. And coughed and coughed again and fell silent, breathless. It was utterly dark.
He opened the door and squinted. A man was standing in the doorway holding a lantern.
The stranger’s arm got in the way of the light and cast a shadow over his face.
“Yes?” said Christopher sleepily.
“What do you want?” He spoke in Tibetan, hoping the man would understand.
“Hello, Christopher,” said the stranger. The words were English, the voice icily familiar.
The stranger moved his arm and the light fell on his face. Simon Winterpole had travelled a long way. But he had not changed a bit.
Christopher stepped into the passage and closed the door behind him. Winterpole was dressed in European clothes, dapper as ever, a vision from a world Christopher had thought he had left behind for good.
“Don’t stand there staring at me, Christopher. For God’s sake, I’m not a ghost.”
“I’m sorry,” said Christopher.
“I hadn’t .. . You’re the last person I expected to see. How on earth did you get here? How did you find me?”
“Good Lord, you don’t imagine you’re invisible do you?” The light wobbled as Winterpole moved his arm, shadows scuttled with crab-like dexterity across his face.
“You were seen near Lhasa a few weeks ago. After that, we had tabs kept on you all the way here. You wouldn’t believe the things we can do. I came up from Peking last week in order to be here when you came. I knew you’d have to pass through Sining-fu. You and I have things to talk about; things to do.”
“You’re mistaken. We don’t have anything to talk about. Not any more.
Enough is enough. I’m not working for you any longer.
I’m not working for anyone.”
“Don’t be tiresome, Christopher. We went through all this before. When I came up to Hexham. Surely you haven’t forgotten.”
“No,” said Christoper in a tight voice.
“I haven’t forgotten. I told you then I no longer belonged to you. You helped me get on the track of my son, and I’m grateful. But I came here to find him, that’s all. I don’t want you meddling in things that don’t concern you. Stay out of this, Winterpole. It has nothing to do with you.”
Down the corridor, the coughing recommenced.
“But I’m afraid it does,” Winterpole objected.
“Listen, we can’t talk here. There’s a room we can use downstairs. Come and hear me out. I’ve travelled a long way to speak with you. Do me that favour. Please.”
It was useless to resist, just as it had been useless that night in Hexham. The dark current that had reached out for him then surged beneath Christopher once more, drawing him out further into the depths of a cold and lightless ocean.
The room to which Winterpole took Christopher was low ceilinged and lit by tallow candles. Two groups of four men sat at low tables playing mak-jong for small stakes. The small ivory tiles stood in neatly assembled ranks in front of each player wind tiles and dragon tiles, flower tiles and character tiles. A few other men were smoking opium through long-stemmed pipes tipped with old silver. The soft brown sap melted and bubbled as they applied hot coals held in long iron tongs. They glanced up as the two strangers entered, eyeing them with the air of men who live by suspicion.
It took Winterpole less than a minute to clear the room of them.
He had come equipped with a letter bearing the chop of Ma Ch’i, the Dao T’ai of Sining-fu, a Hui Muslim whose cousin, Ma Hungk’uei, was the warlord currently in control of Kansu province.
Christopher knew that Winterpole was not above using his influence to have a man flogged or tortured or even beheaded if it suited his purpose. And tonight it might just suit.
“I know you found Zamyatin,” Winterpole commenced once the door of the room had closed on them.
