by Tom Martin
She sighed heavily and closed her eyes. The day was boiling, and she felt sweat trickling down the back of her neck. She had half a mind to do a story on Herzog herself, but what was the point? It would only get spiked by Dan. With all his cunning and political acumen, Dan realized that Herzog had become bad news. He had a plan, but it wasn’t international exposure, that was for sure. As Nancy rested her head on the greasy leather seat, she felt tired and afraid, but most of all she was simply glad she wasn’t Herzog right now; he seemed an increasingly lonely and abandoned figure; a man in dire need of friends. And whatever Dan Fischer said about not putting the authorities’ backs up, her conscience was not going to allow her simply to ignore Anton Herzog’s fate.
8
A young Tibetan woman hurried through the twilight across a jungle clearing, bowing her head from the relentless rain and clutching her shawl across her chest. She was a teacher from the village school who had trained as a nurse in Lhasa. Behind her on the jungle floor, on a makeshift stretcher, lay the body of the stranger. From the neck down he had been covered with a piece of blue plastic sheeting. His forehead was wrapped in a wet towel that shielded his eyes and the bridge of his nose. His white arms were folded across his chest, as if he were a fallen Viking warrior, awaiting the last rites of the funeral pyre. All around the clearing, little groups of monks were huddling beside makeshift fires, boiling up water for yak-butter tea.
The young woman ducked under a tarpaulin that had been strung between the branches of the trees to offer some protection from the endless rain. She bowed to the Abbot’s deputy and then knelt on the yak-wool rug. The old lama motioned to the two monks who sat near him to leave. Hastily they picked themselves up and darted across the clearing to join the tea-drinkers. The lama leant towards her, his voice urgent, almost desperate:
‘So, has he said anything?’
The girl had an anxious expression on her face.
‘He is feverish. The doctor is very concerned.’
‘But has he said anything?’
The girl hesitated. She was afraid she might get something wrong.
‘Yes – but I’m not sure. I can’t understand exactly. He is delirious. He sees things. Things that aren’t there . . .’
‘Well, tell me anything. What words has he said? His name?’
The girl looked confused.
‘No, lama. Sometimes he says things in Tibetan. Words like the monks use at public prayers. Then he speaks sometimes in other languages, languages I have never heard before, and then sometimes in English. He is delirious. He is calling for people I think. He is in so much pain. But once, when we stopped by the waterfall, he smiled and looked at me as if he could see me. He was happy. He held my arm and then he kept saying one thing only, over and over again: Shangri-La. Shangri-La. Shangri-La . . .’
The monk felt his heart stop and then resume suddenly, with a massive thump and a terrible pain, as if someone had just pushed a blunt needle into it. Trying to regain his composure, he nodded and then, with a sickly look on his face, he said, ‘Listen to him. Nurse him. Try to encourage him to speak.’
‘Yes, lama. I will remain by his side at all times.’
She stood up to go and then stopped.
‘Lama . . . what does it mean, Shangri-La?’
‘Don’t worry yourself girl,’ said the old lama. ‘Just stay by his side and tell me everything he says.’
She curtsied and left. The rain drummed on the tarpaulin. Shangri-La. The lama knew all too well what the word meant. It was the name that the Westerners gave to Shambala, the secret kingdom of the Himalayas that was hidden in the valleys to the west. Only a handful of lamas preserved the ancient secret knowledge of the precipitous route; even the Abbot himself was forbidden to approach.
He stared down at the stranger, as he lay like a corpse on the stretcher on the other side of the clearing, and then the lama shut his eyes and prepared to meditate.
Phantoms appeared in his mind’s eye. Images of long-dead lamas came to him – great lamas who had taught him as a boy. He could hear conversations in his head, as if he was back there, all those years ago, sitting at their feet. Once, at Kailash monastery, a venerable old lama had told him that a terrible war had once been fought in the lands of the West, far beyond the Himalayas. It had seemed at the time that the whole world was on the point of going over to the dark side; that the sun was going to set for ever on the world. Some white men had come, seeking the kingdom of Shambala. They intended to go there and ask the King for help. The lamas had tried to aid them on their quest. It had been a terrible mistake. The lamas did not realize that the white men came from a different world, a world steeped in blood. They should not have trafficked with them. They should never have helped them. Such men brought only destruction.
The deputy thought of these things and tried to regulate his breathing, but every time he attempted to begin his meditation the word on the stranger’s lips came back to haunt him: Shangri-La.
A desperate urge came over him to get up and run across the clearing and carry the dreaded stranger down to the river. There he could wade out into the middle of the stream, floating the stretcher and its cargo behind him, and then the ice-cold Himalayan waters would carry the nightmare away, off down to the great waterfall and on into India and beyond.
But the Abbot had specifically instructed them to care for this man. Against everything he had learned, he was to protect this white man, to save him if he could. And the lama shivered, and thought how much he wished the Abbot was with them now. If only the Abbot had heard the words himself . . .
9
The sun was long past its zenith by the time that Nancy Kelly arrived at the offices of the International Herald Tribune on Akhbar Street. The taxi had taken almost an hour to crawl around the rickshaws, cows, beggars and assorted broken-down vehicles that littered even Delhi’s most important roads. The first thing she had done when she got off the phone with Dan was call ahead to the office.
Waiting for the phone to connect, Nancy had stared out of the window, frustrated at the slowness of the journey and wondering what she should do now. Beyond, the ragged inhabitants of Delhi, struggling to survive. An old man carrying thousands of crushed plastic bottles on his back shuffled past, his careworn face a map of his wretched life; a cow was standing at the entrance to the next street forcing the traffic to swerve, so some vehicles almost collided with an angry vegetable stallholder’s stand. Nancy observed these incidents, but hardly registered them. All she could do was replay the interview again and again in her head and nervously finger the package on her lap. What could Herzog have done, she asked herself, that could so threaten the security of two powerful nations? Had he been interviewing the wrong people? Carrying political papers for Tibetan radicals? She couldn’t imagine it; you had to be pretty green these days to get yourself caught doing things like that, and he of all people would have been alert to the pitfalls.
Another thought dogged her, a truth that Inspector Lall had planted in her mind: Herzog would be far better off explaining himself in India than in China. She dreaded to think what might happen to him if he was caught over the border, no matter whether he was innocent or not. She recalled an article that a colleague of hers had once written on the interrogation techniques used during the Cultural Revolution – it was enough to make you lose all faith in humanity.
Finally, Nancy had a connection. The phone was answered briskly by Krishna Murthi, a thirty-year-old Indian, famous throughout the Trib’s Asian correspondents for being better informed and better read than anyone else on staff. Back in New York, before she left for Delhi, Nancy had lunched with colleagues who had recently been through the Delhi office. When she asked who she needed to keep sweet, they all said that Krishna Murthi was the key to a successful stay. He was a miracle worker of the highest order, they told her. A fixer, in the old-fashioned sense. Now, holding the phone in a sweaty hand, the other still holding on to the bizarre package, Nancy told Krishna Murthi wh
o she was and apologized for not having been in touch sooner. ‘I’ll explain everything when I get to the office,’ she said, and rang off before the line cut out. Surely, she thought, Krishna Murthi would be able to shed some light on the mysterious activities of Anton Herzog.
Krishna Murthi was waiting for her when she pushed open the smoked-glass door of the office. Smartly dressed, slight of build, he put out a hand and said, ‘Ms Kelly I am delighted to meet you. I was phoned shortly after your call by Dan Fischer.’
No doubt, thought Nancy, to instruct you to make sure I stay put in Delhi and don’t do anything to rock the boat.
Krishna continued, ‘He explained matters further. I am so sorry this has been your welcome to India.’
Krishna ushered her into the room. He had intelligent eyes and a kind face, and he was a calming element in an office which looked as if it had recently been ransacked. As well as hundreds more of the figurines and stone statues Nancy had admired in the living room of the company flat, there were two desks, covered in paperwork, several telephones and computers. In front of the desks was a large, well-worn leather sofa, covered in piles of magazines. Krishna rushed over and cleared a space for her. Nancy collapsed into the well-worn leather seat, briefly overwhelmed with tiredness and nerves. As she collected herself, Krishna weaved his way through the clutter and between the two desks and went over to an open doorway. Beyond was a second room. Speaking to someone in this room, he gave a quick order in Hindi and then turned back to Nancy.
‘I’ve asked for some tea. Now, I called the head of the Foreign Press Corps to ask them to lodge a complaint with the government, and I have also made a further official complaint, on behalf of the newspaper, with the Minister of the Interior’s office.’
‘Thanks,’ said Nancy. ‘I’m just glad to be out of there.’
‘Can we get you something to eat? You must be hungry. I doubt they gave you any sustenance in the police station after all . . .’
‘I would love something, thanks . . . Just anything . . .’
Moments later, a woman appeared from the adjacent room carrying a tray with a large glass of water, a cup of chai and two fresh samozas. Nancy tucked in hungrily. Krishna had pulled up a chair and was watching her eat with an anxious look on his face, occasionally sipping his cup of tea. He waited for her to speak. She wiped her mouth with a napkin and tried to marshal her thoughts.
‘Krishna, thanks so much. Sorry if I seem a little weird . . .’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Do you want anything else?’
‘No, no, that was perfect. What I would like to do is find out more about Anton Herzog.’
Krishna nodded cautiously. She continued.
‘Can you help?’
He looked uncomfortable, as if he would much rather she had asked for a tour of Delhi, some advice on where to buy her groceries or where to eat out, or some other such triviality.
‘Well, what exactly do you want to know?’
‘You worked with him closely. Of everyone, you must know his habits, his predilections, what he was up to.’
‘Not as well as you might think. Yes, it’s true I’ve worked with him for years.’ He paused, hoping that she would change the subject, she thought. But she didn’t, instead she waited patiently for him to give her something more.
He shifted in his chair and muttered, ‘Listen, Anton is a funny character.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, he loves India, there’s no question of that. He believes in India, he desperately wants to tell the world about India and make sure that we get a fair hearing . . . But he’s not an easy man to get to know. He can be a little cold . . .’
‘Cold?’
‘No. Not cold. That’s not the right word. I’m sorry – I’m not explaining myself very well. I don’t mean he wasn’t friendly – he was – I’ve lost count of the times I’ve enjoyed his hospitality, and it was he who trained me. I have nothing but praise for the man; he was an excellent boss. But there was something – well, you might say unknowable about him. That is the only way I can think of to express it.’
‘Why do you think he’s disappeared?’
‘I don’t know. That is what I’m trying to tell you. I don’t really know him that well, despite all his kindness and despite having sat only a few yards away from him for all these years.’
‘Didn’t he ever talk about his private life?’
‘No. Not his feelings, not his past, not his family. I can tell you his hobbies, where he drank, which section of the Trib he read first each morning, how he would abandon coffee for three months and then drink it constantly for another three. All his foibles and rituals. But his inner self was closed to me. Right at the beginning of his time here, just after I arrived at the office, was the only time that he ever mentioned his family to me at all. He said his father had died before he was born – that he had been killed at the battle of Stalingrad towards the end of the Second World War and that his mother had emigrated from their hometown of Munich to Argentina. After that, he never mentioned anything further, and certainly I never felt I could press him.’
Krishna rearranged some of the piled-up papers on the desk, revealing a tarnished silver frame containing a pale black and white portrait photo of a woman.
‘That’s his mother there: Anna Herzog.’
Nancy leaned forward and studied the photo in fascination. The woman’s blonde hair was in a bun. She had a white shirt done up to her neck. She was middle-aged in the photo: beautiful with dark eyes and high cheekbones, and very pale, translucent skin. Nancy took the photo from Krishna.
Bad luck to lose your husband before your child is even born, she thought. What must it have been like to be looking after a tiny baby, with your husband gone and the whole of Europe on fire? She must have been tough, that was for sure. She looked it, under her delicate beauty and pearly skin. But then so many people were in the same position; people’s expectations of life must have just become much more modest: survival and retreat from the horrors of war. One day at a time. The greatest victory was to live. Nancy put the photo back down on the table.
Krishna continued. ‘The funny thing was that even though he had no memories of Germany at all and had only spent the first few weeks of his life there, he was still German really . . .’
Krishna got up and walked over to Herzog’s desk, which was farcically strewn with papers, as if he had tipped his files everywhere shortly before his most recent departure.
‘Here: Goethe, The Complete Poems. Schiller: The Complete Poems. Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra.’
Nancy stood up and took a closer look. It was true: well-worn copies of the German classics littered the desk. It looked like the desk of someone who was homesick – she could imagine him listening to Bach’s cello suites and reading Goethe’s Faust, sitting at this desk late into the night, imagining himself far away from the heat and dust of India.
Krishna continued, warming to his task, as if he had momentarily forgotten whatever it was that Dan Fischer had told him. ‘And it wasn’t just the books – I suspect he had a German soul and a German temperament. In fact I think that Anton had all the good qualities associated with Germans: passion, rigour and such enthusiasm – he was like a force of nature when he was discussing something he believed in. And when he spoke about the universe and mankind’s place in the world, he sounded like a Hindu guru.’ Krishna looked up and smiled at her: ‘Only a German can do that! And he was musical, very musical. He was a concert-standard pianist.’
Nancy was nodding to herself. Life could be so hard on people, she thought, constantly displacing them and their families and forcing them to leave their roots far behind. Herzog was so many people’s hero, not just her own, but looking at his cluttered desk, with the sad photo of his mother and the collection of German books, she saw the human side of the myth, and she had the growing feeling that he might have been a deeply troubled man.
‘Did he have a partner?’ It was strange asking
these questions about someone she had always revered.
‘No. I don’t know. No one serious.’
She waited for a moment, but Krishna didn’t seem to want to go further than that.
‘Never?’
‘He wasn’t gay if that’s what you mean. He had girlfriends, sometimes – no one special. I wouldn’t say they were intellectual companions. And there were other women too.’
She sighed heavily. It was all perplexing enough. Anyway, what had Anton’s Germanness or otherwise got to do with the fact that she had been dragged off to a cell and accused of being in league with him, accused of spying? A sad old man, a loner with a passion for Tibet; what more was there to learn? Perhaps nothing. Then suddenly her eyes fell on a particularly well-worn book that took pride of place in the centre of the desk. It looked as if it had been thumbed with almost religious regularity.
‘What’s that one?’
Krishna looked at her:
‘That is the I-Ching – The Book of Changes as it is called in English. He used it every day without fail.’
‘I’ve heard of it, it’s a book of riddles isn’t it?’
‘No. It’s certainly not just a book of riddles. It’s more like the bible of Asia.’
Now Nancy was embarrassed. She was painfully aware of her relative ignorance of Indian and Asian culture.
‘Really?’
‘Yes. It’s a seminal book.’
‘How? What’s it about?’
