Fieldwork: A Novel

by Mischa Berlinski

  On the road to the sacred Kawa Gabo Mountains they saw pilgrims prostrating themselves hand and foot, mile after mile, to their demon gods, and the Walkers were reminded of what Dr. Chester had told them of the exceptional spiritual desires of the Tibetan people. If only they knew to Whom to turn their prayers! Scores of antelope protected from the poacher's arrow by order of the Dalai Lama himself flashed down the slopes of piney mountains in advance of the tiny caravan. Sullen, massive China with its heathen multitudes was behind them, and ahead a kingdom commensurate in grandeur, in beauty, and in suffering with His ambitions. These were the days when the great missionary rallying cry "Onward to Lhassa!" was heard from every evangelical pulpit in America, and for the first time the Walkers understood the charismatic attraction of Tibet to all those who earnestly wished to see the world in Light. They passed caves in which were entombed living hermits, men determined to sit in darkened silence until enlightenment or death arrived, and the Walkers would have stopped at each and every cave and explained the simple, sublime Good News which would have liberated these spiritual isolates from their self-imposed prisons, had not their rendezvous with the Tigi awaited. The Tibetans, too, for their part, were fascinated by the handsome white man, his smiling woman, and their charming child. The Walkers spent a night in a forest lamasery where the monks had taken a vow of poverty so extreme that the abbot's drinking bowl was made from a desiccated human skull: when the Walkers explained their faith, the lamas insisted on reading Dr. Chester's Bible immediately. The fertile valleys teemed with yak and sheep, and the gentle breezes made the barley fields quiver like velvet brushed back by His hand. Here the headwaters of the terrible Salween, the raging Mekong, and the endless Yangtze were just gentle rivulets. What cruel irony that He Who made this magnificent land entombed its occupants in spiritual darkness! Raymond and Laura had never felt so alive.

  Swift messengers on horseback had alerted the Grand Tigi to the missionaries' arrival, and showing them the hospitality for which he was renowned, he sent out his army to greet them. The Walkers had stopped for the night in a simple peasant home, where with typical Tibetan generosity they had been offered a mud floor and barley bread. Awakening in the morning, they found a grand army clad in silver and gold saluting them with the music of trumpets. Burned pines flashed in copper pans to perfume the dry mountain air. This was the welcome the Tigi offered his friends. Two days' further journey brought the party to the palace at Gartok, where the Tigi himself greeted the Walkers of Oklahoma as the emissaries of a great nation and a greater faith.

  A month in the palace passed in the timeless manner of dreams: the Walkers slept at night in a room whose floors were covered in sumptuous rugs, and awoke in the morning with the pale light of the mountain sun breaking through the colored-glass windows. The Tigi had once summoned the greatest artisans of Gartok to decorate his palace, and the great masters had covered the walls of the Walkers' quarters in elaborate depictions of the animals, flowers, and myths of Tibet, which first frightened, then enchanted, young Thomas. The Walkers feasted, danced, hunted with falcons, and explained their faith to a fascinated and receptive audience.

  One afternoon, for his amusement, the Tigi clothed Raymond in the finest silken robes from his wardrobe, while his wife and her servants dressed Laura. Raymond had brought his camera with him on the expedition and insisted on taking photographs. All of these photographs were lost in the flood of 1934 but one, which survived because Raymond sent it to his mother, who kept it on her Tulsa mantelpiece to show to the ladies of the Church Society. They never failed to stare in wonder. The photograph shows the Grand Tigi and his son, mustachioed and fierce, standing side by side, each fingering Tibetan prayer beads. They are wearing Raymond Walker's clothes, dark woolen suits and pressed white shirts with high collars, and on the Tigi's large head, Raymond's cowboy hat. Handsome Raymond Walker is beside them, wearing an ankle-length silk gown. A vague smile, almost a smirk, breaks over his clean-shaven face. Laura Walker is the only seated member of the party. Her hair has been plaited by the Tigi's handmaidens into long tresses, as is the Tibetan style, and held in place with gold and turquoise combs: the dark sleeves of her robe descend into flared white cuffs, and her hands are settled in her lap. Swathed thus in embroidered silk and rare jewels, she looks up at her husband with an expression on her pretty face that even the most jaded observer would admit was love.

  On the last evening of their visit, the Walkers presented their gifts to the Tigi. They gave him canned Del Monte fruit, which the Tigi had never before tasted—pineapples, pears, and peaches, all in heavy syrup. The Tigi had been fascinated by Raymond's field glasses, through which one could see things that were not yet visible, and those, too, were offered as a gift. From China, the Walkers had brought a red silk veil for the Tigi's wife, which she accepted with lavish compliments and, imitating Laura's occidental style, polite kisses.

  The next morning, accompanied again by the Tigi's army, the Walkers set off in a fine rain to return to Bantang. The journey lasted almost a week, over the same mountain passes. The rain grew heavier, and the color washed out from the land and sky. As they approached Bantang, the roads became muddy and rutted, and a sense of dark gloom came over the couple. Raymond thought of the high stack of correspondence which awaited him, and Laura of the endless mild instruction which Mrs. Chester was sure to offer. Every evening when they stopped for the night, the Walkers renewed their prayers to be of greater service to His Kingdom and to be used by Him for His Glory.

  They arrived at the Mission Station just after dark. A cold sleet had made the last of the journey difficult, and they thought of the mugs of hot tea which the Chesters would offer them after they had settled into their robes and slippers. They would put Thomas to bed and rock him gently until he fell asleep, then they would tell the Chesters every detail of their adventure.

  But the Mission Station was deserted when they arrived. The house was cold and the servants missing. The Walkers prowled the house suspiciously. Raymond was in Dr. Chester's study, which was almost exactly as it was when he had left, when he heard Laura cry out from the garden. He dashed outside and found Laura in the garden, trying to usher Mrs. Chester back into the house. The older woman was dressed only in a soaking nightgown, and her long gray hair was down around her shoulders. The Walkers had never seen her before without her hair neatly in a bun, and her damp nightgown clung to her massive breasts, from which Raymond instinctively averted his eyes. How long had she been sitting in the garden, in the pouring rain? Raymond started a fire, and Laura rummaged through the old woman's cupboards to find her clean, dry clothes. Mrs. Chester sat by the fire, unmoving. Laura changed her clothes, and Raymond made tea. After an hour passed in the most unnerving, terrible silence, Mrs. Chester coughed slightly. "Dr. Chester has left me," she said.

  For a second Raymond misunderstood. He could have imagined no more unlikely happening in all the universe than the voluntary uncoupling of this strong yoked pair. But Laura comprehended Mrs. Chester immediately. "Oh no, Mrs. Chester," she said. "Oh, no."

  "He's left all of us," Mrs. Chester added.

  They were able to get no more out of Mrs. Chester that night. Despite the Walkers' entreaties, she sat in silence for perhaps five minutes more, then laid herself down on the stone floor in front of the fire. Raymond covered her with a blanket, and she stared into the flames until, exhausted, she slept. Laura and Raymond stayed in their chairs all night long, dozing, praying, and tending the fire.

  In the morning, Mrs. Chester was able to relate to the young Walkers the terrible events which had passed while the Walkers were off enjoying the hospitality of the Grand Tigi of Gartok.

  Dr. Chester had left immediately to visit Père Antoine, traveling only with one Chinese helper. The journey had taken two days, and by the time they arrived, the Catholic evangelist was already starting to feel better. It was his servant who had sent off the urgent message which had summoned the doctor, and Père Antoine, a tough old soul, was vag
uely embarrassed by all the commotion his illness had stirred. Dr. Chester spent a day in Père Antoine's mountain hut, then set off for Bantang.

  He never arrived.

  For almost a week Mrs. Chester had waited. Usually if he was to be away more than a few days, he would send a runner with a message. But poor communications were the norm here on the frontier: runners were often distracted by opium pipes, rice whiskey, or a mudslide washing out the solitary track which the Chinese called a road, and Mrs. Chester could do nothing but pray and wait. Then the message arrived—a letter, written in Chinese, from the leader of a notorious band of local brigands. Her husband had been taken prisoner and would be released only in exchange for gold.

  Immediately Mrs. Chester set about amassing the ransom. From the local Christians, she borrowed on the credit of the Missionary Society in Kunming. By hook and by crook, she put together the extraordinary sum demanded, and was prepared to offer it to the thugs in exchange for her husband. Then, late that night, her husband's Chinese helper, who had accompanied him into the mountains, slipped into the Mission compound. The servant had escaped with an urgent message from the doctor. She was absolutely not to pay the ransom. He would not tolerate it! It would place every missionary in China in danger should word go out that missionaries could be kidnapped in exchange for easy cash. He would die or he would live—that, as always, was in his Master's hands—but he would not be ransomed. There would be victory in Jesus.

  The next day, every Christian in Bantang beseeched God to spare the old scholar and evangelist's life. The kidnappers had proposed a complicated system to exchange messages, and by this system she sent back word: by her husband's own request, she would not pay the ransom. It was an excruciating decision, but she knew Dr. Chester. When Morris made up his mind on principle, he stood firm like a mighty rock. He would not waver, and neither would she. She would prove herself a wife worthy of his faith. Every hour now was spent on her aching knees in prayer. She would never have admitted it to anyone, but after a lifetime in His service, she felt that the Lord owed her and her husband this favor. But after three weeks, Dr. Chester's body was found by a shepherd in a cave less than five miles from Bantang. The old man had been dead no more than a day or two, and the kidnappers had evidently fled the cave immediately upon his death.

  On receiving the news of her husband's death, Mrs. Chester built a small fire in the compound yard. There she placed her husband's nearly complete manuscript edition of the remaining unpublished books of the Tibetan Bible. These people, she decided, did not deserve Morris's gifts. They did not deserve the Lord's gifts. Then she lit the fire and watched the Bible burn. She had sat now in the garden under a raining sky for almost three days, bewailing the death of her husband.

  Mrs. Chester told her story in a monotone, and then said hardly another word to the Walkers. Her red eyes accused the missionaries from Oklahoma: Raymond should have been the one visiting Père Antoine in the mountains, not Dr. Chester. What kind of people were these Walkers, who allowed a man of sixty-three to set out alone into the mountains, who had come to help the Chesters and instead destroyed them? Her sweet and tender Morris, the father of her children and the comfort of her old age! The Walkers offered an equally unspoken reply: it was the will of God.

  Mrs. Chester remained in Bantang another week, until she joined a caravan of dealers in copper goods marching in the direction of Kunming. The Walkers begged her to stay a little longer and regain her health, but the woman was forceful as ever. She was returning to America, she said, to the leafy village in upstate New York where both her daughters lived, to inform them of their father's death. She would leave this hateful land forever. All the long week before Mrs. Chester quit the Mission, Thomas, aware of the tumult and sadness of the household, cried in his crib, and no matter how Laura bounced him on her knee the boy would not be comforted.

  In this terrible way, God answered the prayers of the Walkers: they now were in charge of the Bantang Mission. Raymond swore never to submit his soul to the responsibility of another man but also never to forget the example of Dr. Chester's bravery, and he adopted as his own the other man's motto: "Jesus Wins All." The Walkers spent a year alone, preaching in their fashion and wandering the mountain valleys, then proposed to the United Missionary Society in Kunming that they quit the Bantang Station, in order to spread the Gospel to the tribal peoples along the Salween River, whom they had found were most receptive to the Word. When the Society refused their request, saying that the risks were too great in the tribal valleys, the Walkers resigned their commission entirely. Now the Walkers affiliated themselves with no one but God; Raymond and Laura now were truly alone in the Orient. Raymond's mother went from church to church in Tulsa, reading her son's letters from the tribal country, and the churches of Tulsa sent donations to support the work. These churches would continue to support the Walkers' work for the next eighty years, as the Walkers pursued with monomaniacal zeal their extraordinary goal of bringing an entire people, the Dyalo, into the Light.

  Like so many occidentals in the Orient, the Walkers had swung to the pendulum-edges of their souls.

  TWO

  EDEN VALLEY

  TOM RILEY WAS SWEET on Judith Walker. Tom did not have a boy's face: when he didn't shave, he looked like something out of those old Marlboro ads, the ones showing a cowboy roping a steer and lighting a cigarette off the edge of a red-hot brand. It was wonderful to see this large, handsome man's shy face as he admitted that he had "feelings" for Judith, and wondered whether I thought she might reciprocate them. It occurred to me that Tom Riley, who must have been in his late twenties, might well have still been a virgin, given how seriously in all other respects Tom took his faith. I told him that I honestly didn't know what Judith was thinking, and Tom asked me—begged me, really—to find out. He seemed to think that because I was living in sin with Rachel I had some secret insight into the hearts of women.

  Whenever I saw Judith in those weeks, I tried to steer the conversation toward Tom. I watched very carefully to see if she became embarrassed or shy when the subject of Tom came up—if she went red, or shifted in place, or rearranged her hair. The problem was, I kept getting false positives. Judith did all those things when I mentioned Tom, yes, but also when I mentioned John the Baptist.

  "Tom Riley is such a nice man," I said to Judith one afternoon.

  "Yes, he really is," she replied.

  I reported this back to Tom faithfully, and for a minute he glowed. Then he said, "That's all she said?" It was hard to get anything else out of him that day. I wanted to tell Tom that he should go and talk to Judith himself. But I was afraid that if I did that, he wouldn't tell me anything more about the Walkers. Also, I thought to myself, maybe this is normal for them. Maybe this is how evangelical Christians mate.

  We went back and forth like this for a good ten days. I was paying so much attention to Judith that if she'd had half a mind, she'd have figured I was sweet on her. Then one day Judith gave me a clear sign. "How long do you think Tom Riley's going to stay here?" she asked.

  Thinking quickly, I said, "I'm not sure, but he said he might be going back soon."

  "Oh," she said with a sad, dreamy, faraway air. "That's too bad. I hope he stays for a long time." Then she blushed, and to cover her tracks, she added: "Need somebody to carry those boxes!"

  The next day I told Tom, "She's crazy about you, big guy. The ball is totally in your court."

  Then we got back to talking about the Walkers: I think Tom felt he owed me at this point, and he coughed up the intimate materials which make up the bulk of this chapter. But Tom started spending more time with Judith. I'd come by the big pink house and see Tom and Judith huddled in fervent conversation at the kitchen table, leaning into each other's eyes, or sitting on the stoop, eating a juicy mango and laughing. When I'd walk by, they'd hush up quick. Seeing them together made me think I had done a good thing.

  In 1935, the British adventurer John Hanbury-Tracy crossed very northern Burma
on foot on a mission to find the origins of the Salween River. The man needed more than three weeks just to cover a hundred miles, on the way surviving a snowstorm, a sunburn, two poisonous snake attacks, countless leeches, a falling boulder and a falling tree, a tiger bite, a bear scratch, malarial fever, and diarrhea—a travelogue which leads one naturally to conclude that either John Hanbury-Tracy was a man who should not have walked under that bamboo ladder back in Mandalay or that the very north of Burma is no place for a pleasure jaunt. Yet just fifteen years after John Hanbury-Tracy staggered out from the wild, it is precisely in the middle of this thick and miserable jungle that the Walker family resettled when they were expelled at gunpoint from China after the Communist revolution. It was in this jungle that Thomas Walker's first son, David, was born.

  When the revolution took China, the Walkers, like a flock of disturbed pigeons, disbanded and then regrouped, this time in northern Burma, so close to the Chinese border it was hard to tell the difference between where they had been and where they were now, but for the color of the missionary visas in their passports. The Walkers called the long green valley "Eden," and sent word to their Dyalo brothers and sisters in China and in Burma that Eden Valley would be a Christian paradise, a place where God ruled. When Samuel Walker, Thomas's younger brother, first arrived in Eden Valley, the place had been infested, just lousy, with spirits, which explained why the tribal peoples, poor things, had all left this beautiful fertile valley untouched, with its central plateau perfect for rice, and hills which could be terraced, and a freshwater stream. So Samuel and Raymond (Thomas was still in a Communist jail) came to Eden Valley to exorcise those demons. Sleeping only under Samuel's canvas army tent, they prayed night and day. They wandered from the big rock at the head of the valley to the little rook at the foot, praying until their throats were hoarse and their arms trembled. In this way, they spent six whole days and nights, and when they were done, the valley was theirs.