they had something less sedate in mind. The nomads like to wrestle. The women were the real hell-raisers and left most of the men inside with their beer. I watched as they chased the teenage boys, performing perfect rugby tackles and bringing them down in the dust. Grandmothers grappled grandchildren and nephews attacked aunts. Dombie, who was normally so quiet, had transformed into a raging Amazon and had her cousin Donkerchab in an armlock, as he cried for mercy. I saw Shermo Donker writhing and screeching on the ground, as Dado rubbed her head in the grit of the paddock floor. Dolma had been pinned to the floor by two young tribesmen and screamed and kicked as they tried to tether her to the yak ropes. The ensuing tumult whipped up a dust-storm in the yard and, one by one, the fighters retreated to rest by the porch, panting and covered in filth. They were crazy, and although a part of me wanted to join in, I found it hard to come to terms with the fact that at the end of the frenzy there would be no shower. I watched and laughed, absorbing their boisterous energy, and wished I had their freedom of spirit and blatant disregard of muck all over my body.
As they played, I thought of Christmas in England. Right now, my family would be dozing on the couch with a bellyful of bird, while the TV flickered and the fairy-lights winked on the tree. I couldn't have been further from them. I missed them, but not the familiar trappings of our festive season. These days, the excitement was mostly for children while we adults just sat around achieving various stages of inebriation. Here, the adults were content to behave like children sometimes. They knew how to have a good time.
I had heard other stories of their wildness. Last New Year the men from our tribe had driven a truck to the next valley. The men of that tribe were away and our men had kidnapped all of their women and brought them back to our valley for a joke. In retaliation, the abandoned husbands had then ridden over the ridge to claim back their stolen wives, along with our women. A mock battle had ensued with much wrestling and frivolity as Atung's wife, Annay Tseko, had ended up running around naked. She was certainly one grandmother with a sense of fun. Some day I would stay for New Year in Machu.
That night as the revellers straggled home, Rhanjer invited Tsedup and me to sleep over. With so many relatives staying, there was no room at home or inside his house, so we settled for the railway arches. Shermo Domatso made us a fire and brought enough dung for the night's fuel. She put down fresh straw on the earth floor and gave us sheepskins as bedding. Then she left through the curtain covering the doorway. The freezing air blustered in from outside and we wrapped ourselves in the skins and drew closer to the iron stove. The shadow cast by the flames danced mysteriously around the mud walls and between the clefts and ridges of the concave stone ceiling. It was a weird place, a cave full of memories. We shared a cigarette and Tsedup told me that these buildings had been part of a labour camp when he was a boy. His parents had worked here. All day he had been left in a tent, unsupervised, with the other children. He explained that no fire had been allowed in the tent. There had also been no food; that was supplied in the main mess, where strict rules governed eating times. I wondered how it had felt to be abandoned in such a way. His elder brother Tsedo, aged about nine, had looked after all the younger ones in their family until ten o'clock at night when his mother and father came back. Exhausted, his parents then sat reading from
As I listened, I felt the family's sadness. The gloomy interior of the hovel we now lay in served only to enhance the sense of misery for the strange time that they had suffered. I was glad that things were different now. They were all together and such fear had gone. The riot and elation of our Christmas Day had revealed their resilience. The past was past.
We lay quietly for a while. The straw and skins were warm and the fire crackled as stray sticks popped and split. I looked at Tsedup as he stared at the shadows, drawing pensively on his cigarette. I was full of love. His experience of life was hard to imagine because it was so far away from mine. He shared a sense of drama with all the people of this land, which I could only guess at, but I was grateful to be a part of him. He had enriched my life. I touched his face and turned his eyes to mine. Then I gently asked him the question I had wanted to ask for some time. 'Shall we have a child?' I said.
Even in the dim light of the room I could see the colour drain from his face. He choked on the smoke and laughed nervously. 'A child?' he spluttered. 'But we have no money, darling. How will we survive in England? If we lived here it would be easy. I would be happy to have as many children as you like. Here, you have people to help you look after the baby. In England it is so much harder. We live on our own.'
I knew he was worried about the idea of supporting a family. Although he had been in England for four years, he still didn't feel confident in his capabilities. He was the stranger without the right education and he didn't fit into a box. A regular, fulfilling job seemed impossible to find. The acting work had been too sporadic and he had taken up shop work in the hope of increasing his income. I had often seen him stripped of his dignity by a lacklustre people who did not appreciate him for who he was. Only our closest friends and my family cared about his unique cultural heritage. I had always known that he was an extraordinary person, like no one else. But he knew I could not live here for ever. I had grown to love it and knew I would always pine for it, but the cultural leap was too great for me to stay. The segregation of genders would always pose a problem for me, as I enjoyed the equality of modern society. Also, I would miss my family. And, for all its faults, neither of us could quite relinquish our grip on the western world. We would have to compromise and live between the two worlds. Our base would be England. That was our plan. But I knew it was merely a sensible compromise for a homesick man. I carried the guilt.
'We can do it together. We will help each other,' I said, ever the optimist. Tsedup and I had been through more difficulties than the average couple – in fact, the odds had been probably stacked heavily against a relationship like ours surviving. But over the years we had grown in strength and understanding. Whatever obstacles we encountered, things had always worked out in the end. He was the worrier, and I was the soother.
He smiled at me and said, 'Well, you're not getting any younger, are you?' It was just plain old nomad-speak (with, perhaps, a tinge of irony: I knew that he was well aware of the sensitivity of the subject of age in the West). I would be thirty-one tomorrow; a pretty average age for having a baby in my culture, but ancient in his. I could almost hear the cogs of his mind turning as he pondered the idea of fatherhood. 'Maybe we should have a child,' he resolved, accepting his challenge. He embraced me and we lay still, listening to each other's breathing.
The western Buddha's birthday was over, but the next day it was mine. I had always thought that Boxing Day was a bad time to be born, but this year was different. Tsedup took me to town in the afternoon and suggested we go to a karaoke bar in the evening. I felt like having a hot date with my husband and agreed. Then he left me waiting in a hotel room. I sat watching a wailing Chinese opera on the battered TV and took solace in a packet of biscuits. But after two hours I decided I was getting tired of his disappearing act. There would be some serious confrontation when he returned. I was just warming up for a showdown when he finally appeared and simply said, 'Come with me.'
He drove me to the bar and I rustled my way in through the plastic fringe curtain hanging over the door. There, in the tinsel, neon glare of the karaoke's interior, stood a huge crowd of people in leopardskin costume. I was shocked. This was not the nomads' usual hang-out. I looked around and realised I recognised every single face. Then it clicked. Tsedup had arranged a surprise party for me. Everyone cheered and smiled at me, ushering me towards an enormous iced cake, complete with candles. All of our friends were there, even my girlfriends from town who never went out. For a people who weren't used to birthdays, these days they were sure having a glut of them. I laughed as the town boys among them, who were familiar with such customs, sang 'Happy Birthday to you' in Chinese. Then Tsering Samdup gave me his jewel-encrusted hunting knife to cut my cake. I made a wish.
It was overwhelming. I had never had a surprise party before. The nomads stood around grinning at me and trying to remain as macho as possible. This was not really their scene and the discomfort they felt at these unfamiliar surroundings only touched me deeper. Then our friend Dontuk approached me, carrying a small box in his hand. He held it out to me. 'For you, Shermo,' he said, and kissed my cheek. Inside was a huge gold ring. I took it out and placed it on my finger. It was heavy; an accessory of medallion proportions. On its flat surface, in relief, was the word Tashidelek', which the Tibetans use as a special greeting or a congratulation.
