Namma

bored with playing patience for the twenty-fifth time, Dolma appeared again. She was alone and told me, giggling, that we should all go to bed, as Shermo Donker had gone to hornig with Sirmo. I was shocked and thought how strange it was that a woman could go off into the night on her horse looking for men, without even putting the children to bed. I laughed, but felt uncomfortable. As I was not really sure of the etiquette of the situation, I asked Gorbo if it would be a problem for Tsedo that she had gone to hornig and he replied that it would be. It was obvious that this was not a normal thing for women to do. But before I could grill him further, Gorbo decided to go off girl-hunting himself and disappeared on one of the yaks, leaving Ziggy, Sanjay and me to go to bed.

I tucked up both children next to the clay fire in their sheepskin and shut the door to the dark house, leaving them alone. But although they had assured me they were all right, when I came back in to clean my teeth they were afraid. Not knowing what time their mother would be coming home, I told them we could all sleep in my bed in the room outside. They jumped at the chance, although Ziggy was worried that her mother would tell them off.

'Where is Mother?' she asked me.

'Kambo,' I lied, meaning Annay Urgin's.

I assured them that Shermo Donker was not going to tell them off – she wouldn't get a chance, if I could help it. I was angry with her for leaving them. The three of us snuggled up together in the straw bed as the cold wind breathed through the glassless window and the doorless door. They soon fell asleep after some initial excited chatter and I lay quietly looking out at the stars. What a strange place this was. Their father had gone to the next valley and was supposed to be coming back later, although he had joked that he had a wife nearby and might visit her tonight, and their mother was herself off to hornig I didn't know what to think.

Eventually I heard footsteps outside and someone opening the door to the house. Shermo Donker called to the children, but of course there was no one inside and she came straight to my room. 'Shermo,' she called nervously. She came and sat on the edge of the straw bed in the blackness and laughing, told me that she had been to hornig. To humour her, I asked if she had found a man. She said that she hadn't, then suddenly became serious and said that it had been a cover-up. She hadn't been at all. 'Sirmo has eloped!' she exclaimed.

So that was it. I was so shocked that I didn't know how to reply. Sirmo's lover had come on horseback for her and the two had made off in the moonlight to his tribe. Tomorrow she would be his bride. Immediately a string of thoughts filled my mind. That day she had led me to the Kambo house and had asked me for her chadmay, silver and coral belt, which she had always let me wear. I gave it to her. Earlier that day she had also complained that her feet hurt and had shown us her blistered heels in her dirty old shoes. Tsedup had told her to put on the new shoes she had bought for Losar, Tibetan new year. She had. This girl was clever. It had all been a plan to escape without suspicion. Annay and Amnye were in Lhasa, and her older brothers were away that night. Sirmo had planned it all. I was shocked and sad. I hoped she would be happy, but I knew I would miss her. Shermo Donker and I exchanged exclamations along these lines, then she went to bed and I lay thinking for a long time.

Sirmo had gone. I recalled all the things we had done together. I remembered talking to her by the stream when I had told her not to rush into marriage. Now I knew that she hadn't listened to a word. She loved this man, I supposed, and had made a brave decision to go with him. She had sensed her family's doubts for her future and had rebelled. Elopement was not common here: usually there was a marriage ceremony uniting both sides of the family. I knew that her mother and father would be sad when they returned from Lhasa, and that Tsedup would be angry and disappointed with her for not listening to him. But I felt an empathy with her. In a sense we were similar. I had run away to India to marry my husband and, like a hot-headed teenager, had not told my parents we were married. I was all too familiar with what love could make you do and I knew why Sirmo had gone.

The next morning when I came out of my room Tsedo was outside stretching and yawning. I asked him if he was angry that Sirmo had run away and, in his usual relaxed fashion, he said not at all. I knew that Tsedup would not share his indifference. They might have been brothers, but when it came down to it they were quite different. Tsedo could easily watch the world go by, while Tsedup would set it spinning on its axis. Sure enough, Tsedup pulled up on the motorbike in the morning sunshine, with a pot of paint I had asked him to buy for the window. He was looking pleased with himself for remembering it. Then I broke the news: his sister had gone. At first he didn't believe it and started laughing, but when I insisted it was true, he swore in a rage. Skidding the bike a full 180 degrees, he disappeared in a cloud of dust and shortly after returned with Rhanjer. It was time for a family conference.

The three brothers argued while Shermo Donker and I stitched the curtains. Once, Tsedup turned from his tirade to address my sister-in-law. He blamed her for being one of the women who had pressured Sirmo into marriage by always saying she needed a husband. Shermo Donker kept her head down, uttering stifled protestations through the pins in her mouth.

Tsedup was in full flood. He ignored family protocol and began condemning his older brothers. A younger sibling usually deferred. 'Why didn't you make Sirmo stay at school?' he demanded. 'This would never have happened if you had.' He was referring to the knife attack. As far as Tsedup was concerned, nobody had made enough effort to encourage her to go back after she had been assaulted, especially not his father. With Amnye away, Tsedup targeted his fury at his brothers. He felt responsible for Sirmo's education: nobody else in his family seemed to believe in the value of schooling. He had taken himself off to school in the town when he was twelve. It was not compulsory, and his father had told him that if he didn't like it he could come home at any time. But he had loved it, and when he was older he had taken both his brother Samba and sister Sirmo to school because he had recognised their academic potential. He told me later that subconsciously he had wanted them to be closer to him; none of his other brothers and sisters were in the town. But I suspect it wasn't just a question of geography: he wanted them to be like him. I thought it charismatic and resourceful for such a young boy to try to influence his family like that. There was something heroic and rebellious about it. But Tsedup had always been bossy. He was still full of the strength of his own conviction. He had had high hopes for them. Except that, in the end, he had left them both behind when he ran away to India. Samba had become a monk and Sirmo had left town to come back to the tribe. He felt guilty for having left them. Perhaps he couldn't have kept Samba from his religious devotion – it was good for every family to have one son who was a monk and his parents had desired it. But if he had stayed he would certainly have ensured that Sirmo went back to school.

Now he was back and he had implored Sirmo not to get married so young, believing that she could have an easier life in town. But she had rejected town life already, when she failed to return to school. It wasn't that the nomads were averse to education, but it was a complex debate. Both Rhanjer and Tsedo saw the value in Tsedup's beliefs – Rhanjer's son, Samlo, was at school – but compromises had to be made in order for the brothers to understand each other. Tsedup felt strongly that, with an education, a nomad could have a strong hold in both his own community and in the town. He felt that it was becoming increasingly important, now that the nomads were more a part of town life. Even a true nomad, such as his father, was a figure in town now, attending his regular meetings.

But the nomads valued their lifestyle, which they saw was under threat. Not only were restrictions being imposed on their land and herds, but they were having fewer children. According to the authorities, it was permissible for rural people to have two, but that was considerably less than they were accustomed to – Tsedup's generation came mostly from large families. With so few children the nomads also felt that in sending them to school, they would be initiating a departure from the tribe for future generations, weakening their infrastructure. Although there was a Tibetan School in Machu, which taught the Tibetan language as well as Chinese and the standard subjects such as maths, history, geography and the sciences, the tribes knew that their strength was in their unity and the preservation of traditions held for centuries. It was a timeless existence that was clearly being threatened by the inevitable pressure of development and encroaching 'civilisation'. School would take their children away from them, both physically and mentally, and they also believed that there would be a Chinese influence on their characters. A man like Tsedo thought that if he sent his son, Sanjay, to school, then Sanjay would surely not return to a nomadic life after graduation. What would be the future of his family with no one to inherit? In our tribe alone there were thirty-two children who were not at