Kingdom

by Tom Martin

Krishna paused for a moment and then said definitively:

  ‘Its not “about” anything. It’s the Oracle.’

  She could scarcely hide her scepticism:

  ‘The Oracle? So it helps you see into the future? Is it like a horoscope?’

  Krishna was clicking his tongue in disapproval, and Nancy realized it was clearly held in far higher esteem than horoscopes were in the West.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘Forgive my questions.’

  Krishna smiled:

  ‘Well, those who use it swear by it. It is a very powerful force in contemporary Eastern life. The Japanese government often consult it in times of difficulty and all the leading businessmen in Hong Kong and Singapore use it all the time. I think it is even becoming more popular in the West.’

  ‘But that’s extraordinary.’

  It was incongruous to imagine successful, besuited businessmen and politicians using a fortune-teller – but then again there were plenty of politicians in the West who did just that, though they normally didn’t advertise the fact.

  ‘May I have a look?’

  Krishna picked the book up and passed it to her. Trying to suppress her scepticism, Nancy flicked it open at a random page. At the top was a strange diagram made of six straight lines, stacked on top of each other, each about two inches long. Some of the lines were unbroken; some had a small gap in the middle. Beneath the diagram was a name and beneath the name was a passage of cryptic text that reminded her of riddles she had learned as a child. Krishna leaned forward and pointed at the diagram.

  ‘That is called a hexagram. There are sixty-four possible combinations of six broken and unbroken lines, which makes a total of sixty-four possible hexagrams in the universe. Each one has a name. Each hexagram represents one of the sixty-four stages in the endless cycle of change that affects all things in the cosmos. At any point in time, you can determine what point in the cycle of change we are at by creating a hexagram and consulting the oracle for its definition. You see, the text printed underneath the picture of the hexagram explains the meaning of the hexagram. If you want to consult the Oracle, first you ask it a question then you create a hexagram. In the old days, this was always done by tossing forty-nine yarrow stalks onto the floor. Depending on how they fall, they represent one of the sixty-four possible hexagrams. But nowadays people often just toss a coin six times; that’s what Anton would do, every morning: a head is a broken line and a tail is an unbroken line. It’s much easier.’

  ‘But I wonder why he used it. It’s a strange thing to do if it is not part of your own culture. And where did he come across it?’

  ‘I don’t know. But he wouldn’t do anything without first consulting it. People find its guidance very reassuring.’

  ‘But its guidance is based on random patterns, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, that’s not really true. Nothing in nature is truly random. If you think of the flow of water, or of the pattern in the grain in a plank of wood, it appears to be random but in fact it is ordered in a way that is beyond our perception. It is “ordered chaos” – its rules escape us but they do not escape the Oracle. The ancient Chinese called this underlying order within disorder “Li”. Some people say that the Oracle simply translates “Li” into words, so that you can then understand where you are in the constant process of cosmic change and then act accordingly. So in a way, when you listen to the Oracle, you are listening to the voice of the universe. Or at least that’s what the sages say . . .’

  Krishna shut the book and then looked up at her.

  ‘Anton is very knowledgeable about oriental culture, particularly Tibetan and Chinese. He would have known about “Li” and so the Oracle would have made sense to him. I suppose someone must have introduced him to it on his travels.’

  A truly strange man, thought Nancy. Strange, but also quite intriguing; her own self-identity was so clear-cut, she had no doubts about where she came from or what culture she was at home in, but Herzog seemed to be a composite. One might put such a magpie-like tendency down as a sign of insecurity or lack of innate character if it wasn’t for the fact that he was the very opposite of that: he was hugely charismatic; he had a massive, powerful, dominating personality that made an instant impression on everyone he met. But did anyone at the Trib know what he was really like? She studied the hexagram before her. Could it tell her what the future held? Could there be any truth in its utterances?

  Nancy frowned.

  ‘And Anton really used it every day?’

  Krishna nodded. Nancy looked down and studied the worn-out leather cover of the strange book. In silence, she returned the Oracle to its place in the middle of Herzog’s desk as if she was putting down a sleeping animal and she was afraid that it might wake up. When she had replaced the book, Krishna stood up.

  ‘There is something I can show you that might help you understand Anton a bit better. It’s a piece of video footage that he shot some time ago. I have it next door on DVD. Let me get it . . .’

  As soon as Krishna had stepped out of the room, Nancy’s gaze was drawn back to the book. It had somehow captured her imagination – she was sorely in need of help in working out what to do next. The idea that the Oracle would give her access to some inherent voice of the universe was incredible to her, yet compelling. At that moment, she had forgotten about her ordeal with the police and she wasn’t even thinking about the fate of Anton Herzog. All she wanted to know was whether or not the Oracle might really work. What harm could it do? she thought to herself as she sat down in Herzog’s chair and placed the I-Ching in the middle of the desk. She laid her left hand on the front cover of the book as if she was sitting in the witness box of a courtroom and she was taking an oath on the Bible. Very slowly she thought out her question in her head.

  Oracle, do you really work? Do you really have access to the truth of the world?

  Then she proceeded to follow Krishna’s instructions, flipping the coin six times and then marking the results on a piece of paper until she had created her first hexagram. She studied it for a minute. It meant nothing to her, just a little stack of broken and unbroken lines. So she turned to the chart and studied it carefully until she found her hexagram.

  It was Hexagram 50: ‘Ting’ – the cauldron.

  Next, she read through the cryptic judgement that was written beneath.

  50 – Ting – The Cauldron

  There is food in the cauldron still,

  My comrades are envious,

  But they cannot harm me,

  Good fortune.

  But the handle of the cauldron is misused

  Its proper functioning is prevented

  The fat of the pheasant is not eaten

  Once rain falls, remorse is spent

  Good fortune returns.

  Nancy read the verse several times, a frown deepening on her face.

  10

  ‘Here, I’ve found it.’ Krishna said, bustling back into the office and squeezing round the tables, overflowing with magazines and books.

  Nancy was still scrutinizing the cryptic definition and the hexagram. Without looking up she said, ‘Krishna, can you look at this?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Here. Hexagram number fifty.’

  Krishna came over to the desk, his head tilted to see what she was looking at.

  ‘So you asked the Oracle a question?’ He eyed her suspiciously and turned the book round so he could read it: ‘Let me see.’

  First, he flicked through the pages to the back of the book and carefully checked that she had numbered the hexagram correctly.

  ‘Yes – it is hexagram fifty. That is correct. “Ting”. The Cauldron.’

  Then he found the hexagram and read through the definition. As he did so his eyebrows rose in interest and he looked at her accusingly:

  ‘Nancy, what exactly did you ask the Oracle?’

  She could feel herself blushing.

  ‘I asked it if it really worked.’

  Krishna looked
at her with the glint of a smile in his eyes.

  ‘Well then, let me tell you how it answered. The Oracle describes itself as a cauldron.’

  ‘Yes – I worked that part out. But I don’t understand what it means, let alone the rest of it.’

  ‘Wait, be patient and think a little. In ancient China, a cauldron was a communal vessel used for cooking food to nourish the whole village. Nowadays, no one uses cauldrons any more. This means the Oracle is telling you that in the old days everyone used it all the time and benefited from it but now it has fallen into disuse.’

  Nancy listened in fascination. Krishna continued.

  ‘Now listen carefully, this is the important bit.’

  He read the definition aloud:

  ‘There is food in the cauldron still,

  My comrades are envious,

  But they cannot harm me,

  Good fortune.’

  Nancy shrugged her incomprehension, but Krishna continued.

  ‘The Oracle is saying that it still contains food, which means it still contains wisdom and nourishment: it still contains the truth. Then it says that its comrades are envious. By “comrades” it means people who we turn to today as oracles, for example doctors or politicians or priests. It says that these modern-day oracles are envious of the I-Ching’s power but their envy is in vain for the I-Ching alone has access to the truth.’

  ‘Then the next lines:

  ‘The handle of the cauldron is misused

  Its proper functioning is prevented

  The fat of the pheasant is not eaten

  Once rain falls, remorse is spent

  Good fortune returns.’

  Krishna laughed out loud.

  ‘What?’ Nancy said impatiently. ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘The Oracle says that no one knows how to use it properly these days and that its real wisdom, the fat of the pheasant, isn’t touched any more. Finally it finishes by saying that when these dark times pass, and when the rain has gone, then people will recognize that it speaks the truth and good times will return again.’

  ‘That is pretty extraordinary. It seems to make sense. But I wonder how it works.’

  Krishna smiled mysteriously.

  ‘Well, now you know why the Japanese governments consult it in moments of crisis. Be very careful when passing judgement on the so-called superstitions of the East. And be careful in future not to ask the Oracle such cheeky questions. It has been known to play nasty tricks.’

  He shut the book firmly but respectfully and slid it to one side. His expression had become serious again.

  ‘But here – enough of that. Let me show you this. It will help you understand Herzog and Tibet.’

  11

  The television screen flickered for a moment; Krishna was fiddling with the cable that joined the DVD player to the back of the TV. Now a picture sprang into life.

  It was a street scene, a scene of chaos. It looked like it was somewhere in Delhi. The picture quality was poor. She could tell from working with old news footage that it must have been shot more than a decade ago. The cameraman was filming amongst a crowd of people; monks mainly, and some normal Tibetan people as well. They were protesting in the streets somewhere; there was a large government building in the background, a Victorian-looking structure typical of the government areas of Delhi. Armed Indian policemen had formed a protective cordon around the gate, which was shut. Their faces were tense as they stared at the crowds.

  And the protesters in turn were very agitated. They were holding up clenched fists, and waving their placards towards the gate. Some of these were in Tibetan and some were in Hindi but some were written in English. ‘Free Tibet.’ ‘The World Must Help.’ The cameraman must have turned the sound on, for suddenly a wave of noise emanated from the television. People were shouting and screaming and there were police sirens and orders barked in Hindi.

  Then Nancy heard another voice. It was breathless and close; very loud compared with the other noises. The incongruity of the setting made her hesitate for a moment, but then she knew it was Herzog’s voice. His accent was distinctive – American but with undertones of both Spanish and German, so that he always sounded almost like a European aristocrat speaking English.

  ‘. . . I am now going to walk over to the gates . . . and film the crowd from there . . . the police are beating the hunger strikers . . .’

  Nancy watched as the camera wobbled one way and another. Herzog was clearly being knocked into, buffeted by the tidal surge of the crowds. Yet he must have reached the gates, for he stopped and turned around and the picture steadied and she was better able to study the faces of some of the people in the crowd. They were so sad, she thought, so desperate, so full of anguish and pain and frustration. She could scarcely bear to watch. She felt tears welling up in her eyes. Krishna leaned forwards and pointed urgently at the television, touching his right index finger on the screen.

  ‘Watch him,’ he said.

  Nancy leaned closer in. Krishna’s finger had singled out the face of a man. He was clearly Tibetan, he had the characteristic rosy cheeks and round face. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. He must have been about forty-five, she thought. His face was a mask of anguish. She watched him as he walked aimlessly amongst the crowd. He clutched his head in despair and then he set to beating his breast. There were tears in his eyes. Like a silent ghost he weaved around the picture and then suddenly he disappeared out of the shot. Nancy looked in alarm at Krishna and was about to ask where he had gone and who he was, but Krishna stopped her, abruptly raising his hand, his eyes still fixed on the screen. A second later the man reappeared. He was soaking wet. How had he got so wet? Were the police using a water cannon to control the crowd?

  He seemed to be muttering to himself, perhaps he was praying. The crowd began to part around him, and then started to run, looking back over their shoulders at him. The devastated man sat down on the road, adopting the lotus position. The cameraman began to walk towards the man. Even as everyone else ran in the other direction, the cameraman was walking right at him.

  And then it happened. The poor man took a box of matches in his hands. Holding them close to his chest, he struck a match and suddenly, in an explosion of light that turned the television screen completely white for a second, he was engulfed in a ball of flame. The man had set himself on fire. The water had been petrol.

  Like a straw doll, the man burnt, a great cone of flame engulfing him. Herzog must have dropped the camera to the floor.

  He could be heard shouting:

  ‘Oh my God . . . Oh no . . . No . . . Help. Someone help. Stop him . . .’

  And then the screen went black. Krishna had turned off the television. He stood up and wiped tears from the corners of his eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry. It is very upsetting. But you have to see it. If you want to understand Herzog and Tibet, it is the only way. People have to be shocked into realizing the truth.’

  Nancy was still staring at the blank television screen in shock.

  ‘Is he dead?’

  She felt foolish for asking.

  ‘Gyurme Dorge? The man in the film? Yes – he’s dead all right. They poured water on him, but it was too late. He survived in hospital for a few days. The Dalai Lama visited him and urged him to be compassionate towards the Chinese. He was happy. He was in high spirits when he died.’

  They fell into silence for a minute, then Krishna began again slowly.

  ‘He was a herder from western Tibet. He had walked over the passes many years ago into India so that he could finally live as a Tibetan, near his beloved Dalai Lama. He lived at Macleod Ganj, where the Dalai Lama lives. He was, by all accounts, a gentle and light-hearted man.’

  ‘Was he a monk?’

  ‘No. He was a layperson. He began life as a herder and served for a time in the army. He had made it to India. He lived in a tin shack on the hillside just down the road from the Dalai Lama’s bungalow. All he wanted was to be near the Dalai Lama, amongst other
Tibetans, living a religious life. He worked as a waiter and chef at a café when he wasn’t fasting, or walking in the hills.’

  ‘So, how did he end up there – in Delhi?’

  ‘That was in 1989. It was the year of a brutal crackdown in Lhasa. So many people were tortured and murdered. And many of the last remaining monasteries and shrines were destroyed. You cannot imagine the pain for the Tibetans. It was as if the Chinese were destroying their soul. Gyurme went down to Delhi to protest. He was so upset, he wanted to do something. Lots of Tibetans were hunger-striking, others were sitting in the road. The army moved in to remove them – the Indian government had buckled to Chinese complaints. None of the other countries round the world did anything. No one had done anything in 1959, when the Chinese destroyed four thousand monasteries and smashed the lamas and forced the Dalai Lama to flee to India. The Americans and the British and the French all just stood by and watched. It is a shameful period of history . . .’

  Nancy sighed heavily. She had read about it and it was a sad, sad day for the world. But what could any of the world powers have done? China considered Tibet to be her own sovereign territory. The Chinese government made it quite clear: if they were left to do what they wanted in Tibet, they would never use their veto in the United Nations. It was a cynical trade-off. So the great powers of the time just sat by and did nothing about Tibet; they had other priorities around the world for which they needed China’s cooperation. Tibet was a long way down the list.

  Nancy looked up at Krishna and said, ‘Why was Anton filming it?’

  Krishna looked over at Herzog’s chair out of habit.

  ‘Oh, he was always interested in Tibet, but after that day he changed. He had been something of a playboy before then. He was always a great journalist of course, and even then he was a voracious reader, but after seeing that he was a different man.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, he went up to Macleod Ganj for the cremation of Gyurme Dorge. I spoke to him about it only once. The other times he dismissed my questions, simply wouldn’t be drawn. But on that one occasion he said that after the ceremony, which was attended by great crowds of Tibetans in the exile community, he went for a walk. He didn’t know where he was going so he just wandered at random until he found himself standing in front of a small tin-roofed hut down a quiet back alley. An old man who was sitting near by told him that it was Gyurme Dorge’s home. Anton said he already knew that, that he had just walked straight there. He didn’t know how he had managed to do this but he had. The hut was tiny, no bigger than eight feet by six feet, and he had to bow his head when he was inside to avoid scraping the corrugated iron roof. Outside, the garden had been carefully maintained. There were bright red snapdragons and beautiful pansies in the little flower beds and there was even a small hedge that Gyurme Dorge had clearly tried to carve into the shape of a bird – a symbol of freedom.