by Tom Martin
Of course, Nancy thought to herself, he thinks he can make money out of this. It’s not just academic glory. For a fleeting second she was disappointed, disappointed that his response was not the same as hers, that the quest for Anton and the truth about what he had been doing all these years in Tibet had no greater significance for Jack than as a possible money-making venture. But if greed got him hooked, then greed would have to do. She had come this far and she discovered that all she wanted to do was go further. And if she was being brutal with herself, she knew that there was a kernel of self-interest in her quest: she wanted that story, the great story Anton had gone in search of.
‘So you’ll still come to Pemako then?’ she asked cautiously. Jack Adams smiled.
‘Sure, let’s do it.’
‘Do you think something terrible has happened to Anton?’
‘Who knows? One thing’s certain, Anton’s one of those wiry indestructible types. The luck of the devil, that sort of thing. Could be, he’s just pottering around old monasteries having a wonderful time . . .’
‘Or maybe he’s finally just gone totally insane . . .’ Nancy added in a subdued voice.
Jack threw his head back and drained the last drops from the beer bottle, placed it heavily on the table and then looked over at the door.
‘Or both. But, there’s only one way to find out. Where’s Gunn Lobsang when you need him?’
36
High on the mountainside, nearly at the edge of the treeline, the party of monks had stopped again. Under a ragged cluster of acacia trees they sought shelter from the rain. Below, the valley was filled with lingering bulky cloud.
For all his fear, his sense that something was pursuing them, Anton Herzog was relieved that they had stopped. When the monks moved him, the straps that held his emaciated body in place on the stretcher rubbed his skin, so it was raw and bleeding, and he was tired of trying to keep his head still as it was jerked around. He was pleased to have a respite from this; he tried to breathe more slowly, to relax his limbs. Perhaps they were almost there. Perhaps Agarthi was only one more march away. He hoped so; he knew he would not last much longer.
The Abbot’s deputy came over and, squatting down, offered Herzog a fresh pipe. As he drew down the sweet smoke, Herzog could hear the old lama stand up and begin a conversation with another of the monks. With effort, Herzog forced his eyes to open. They were studying a map. After a minute the Abbot’s deputy squatted down again and held the map before Herzog’s eyes and pointed with a dirty fingernail to the top left corner of the bedraggled page.
‘Here – is this where you were discovered by the Chinese man? Is this where you had given up?’
Herzog felt the thick honey-tar of the opium filling his throat. Under the effects of the drug, his urge to speak had returned. His neck no longer ached, the tearing sensation in his lungs had diminished, and a sense of peace and contentment had come over him again. But the Chinese man? What did the lama mean? What did the lama know of the strange Chinese man? Had he already progressed so far in his account of his journey that he had told the lama of the strange Chinese man? He couldn’t remember. The opium was stealing away the last vestiges of his powers of deliberate concentration. It took away none of the vividness of his thoughts, but his mind now wandered where it wanted, he had been robbed of the power to direct it on its course.
‘Yes,’ he said, softly, visions of the elegant Chinese man appearing in his mind’s eye. ‘The Chinese man. That is right.’
With a renewed urgency the deputy interrupted him:
‘Please, I ask you to concentrate and look at where I’m pointing on the map. Is this where he found you?’
Herzog tried to focus on the map:
‘I don’t know. He saved us. He took us away. But it was a longer journey than I had realized – I was not in a good state. We had to go over a high pass – a high pass that was well hidden. I fell in and out of sleep throughout the ascent, jolted awake at regular intervals. But on the way down, the route was so steep that I was asked to get down from the chair and we were all roped together in a long line; myself and the Chinese man in the middle with sherpas on either side.’
The Abbot’s deputy was almost despairing:
‘But tell me: do you recognize anything on this map? Does the landscape depicted here make any sense to you at all? Does it remind you of where you were?’
Herzog had drifted away. He was muttering, half to himself, half to the doctor, gazing past the Abbot’s deputy.
‘I don’t know, you see. The path petered out altogether after some hours. We were forced onto a slender rocky ledge. For hundreds of yards, we inched our way along this ledge, winding slowly around a vast cliff-face. Below, thousands of feet further down, was a green, snakelike river, forging a course through a rocky canyon.’
The Abbot’s deputy looked at the map. There was no river in that corner, no ravine, no ledge. He sighed and let his hand fall. His sad eyes studied the dying man. Herzog sensed that he had disappointed the old lama.
‘You have to understand, I was exhausted. When we finally made it back on to a path, I actually collapsed from exhaustion. I was helped back into the chair that somehow the sherpas had carried with us on the terrifying journey, and as soon as I was sitting down I fell asleep. I only woke again when I heard the excited shouts from the sherpas as their home finally came into view. That is why I cannot recognize anything on your map. You must understand, I was in no better state than I am now . . .’
Herzog fell silent. The Abbot’s deputy handed the map back to the monk. Then he pressed his palms together. He wanted to learn more, he wanted to hear what this place was like, even though it was forbidden knowledge and it made him feel guilty even to ask.
‘So what did their home look like? Please describe it to me.’
Dreamily Herzog repeated the question, his eyes staring in awe at the heavens.
‘What did it look like? It was the lushest, greenest valley that I have ever seen. It was sublime. It was surrounded by massive cliffs that towered over it but because at its widest point it was at least a mile and a half wide, it still received a great deal of sunlight, and on the valley floor below I could clearly see a lamasery, surrounded by dwellings and farmhouses, and in the fields I could make out the forms of many people hard at work.’
For a moment, he was back there again, the jungle fell away from him, the pains that had held him fast in the physical world had gone, and he journeyed into the past, back to the beautiful valley. He was speaking. Could the Abbot’s deputy hear him? He was describing his visions, his memories. He could see the Chinese man grinning with pride. He turned to him, completely awe-struck and said, ‘It’s so beautiful.’
‘Thank you,’ the Chinese man replied. ‘It has always been this way.’
Suddenly Herzog’s eyes refocused on the Abbot’s deputy. He was sure now that he was talking and not just dreaming. He summoned all his strength and fixed his gaze determinedly on the deputy.
‘I tried to learn more from the Chinese man. I said, ‘ “It seems an incredibly peaceful place. Do you suffer the normal problems of society?”
‘The Chinese man smiled proudly at me and replied, ‘“There is no crime and disease is unknown. People live a full and healthy span of years and then pass away in their sleep. We have no need for mechanics, scientists, lawyers, barely even any need for doctors, and certainly no need for any proselytizing religions. We stay close to the Tao and life continues happily. With a simple diet of rice, fresh fruit and vegetables, no sugar and precious little salt, combined with vigorous daily outdoor work, the human body does not get ill, it does not develop cancers or other such diseases. The old here eventually die in their sleep, taking a peaceful leave of this life, as primitive people have done for millions of years, the world over.
‘“Every ten years, we receive reports from the outside world. Yet we find there is nothing in its affairs that cannot be predicted a decade in advance with even a modest amount of co
ntemplation. Though the Tao never remains still, it also never changes . . .’
‘“So that is not a lamasery then?” I pointed towards the main building that stood amidst the dwellings of the village.
‘“No. Not after the fashion of the rest of Tibet. That is a just a simple house. We hope that we can encourage Wisdom to make it her home, but we are not so presumptuous as to make it our home too. We visit it occasionally and try to listen to what Wisdom has to tell us.’
‘ “So you are not a Master, or a brother or even a templar of this kingdom?’
‘“This is not a kingdom and I am none of those things. We are a community that seeks merely to exist without unusual suffering. We all share the same burdens and do the same work, though thanks to my particular cast of mind, I find myself naturally disposed towards study and thought and so I spend more time in those activities than most of my fellow valley-dwellers. But I too work in the fields, I too bring in the harvest and milk the yaks.” ’
The Abbot’s deputy interrupted.
‘But this sounds like a communist society – surely you must have wandered into Red China by accident . . .’
Herzog smiled.
‘That is what I thought for a moment as well. But then I remembered that the Chinese man had mentioned the Tao, and I looked down into the valley and could sense from its perfectly terraced rice paddies and its splendid atmosphere of calm that this place had certainly never been touched by the poison of the Cultural Revolution. That it was far older and wiser than any ideologies of Marx or Chairman Mao.
‘And yet, it was not what I was looking for. Unless of course, this man’s modesty hid the fact that from within the walls of “the house for Wisdom” as he had put it, they secretly tried to influence events in the world using telepathy and the ancient practices of Tantric yoga.
‘Without intending to offend him in any way, I asked the Chinese man what it was that they hoped to achieve in the wider world. Did his community seek to spread its knowledge to other peoples? Did he leave the valley in his thoughts to commune with peoples elsewhere? His answer was simple and direct.
‘“I think you misunderstand us. We seek to teach no one anything. Visitors are welcome to come here and learn how we live, but we would not for a second want to persuade someone that our lifestyle is the only way. But I think I understand what it is that you are talking about. Here in the valley, we have knowledge of many things, and we know full well that there are ancient arts that allow humans to access the non-material planes of this world, to reach down and make suggestions to other minds. These suggestions, if they are to reach all men, must be made in symbols and not language, otherwise only the speakers of one particular language would understand, and besides, symbols are far more powerful.
‘ “But it is against the oaths of our order to indulge in such activities, for such behaviour is far from the Tao. For how can someone live happily if they are acting only on our unconscious suggestions and they have not decided on a course of action for themselves? Instead, we put our energies in this direction to the task of discovering and nurturing the Tao. And since the Tao retreats from you if you seek it out and comes towards you only if you retreat from it, we find it is best not to try to find it. We try simply to work alongside it.
‘ “We focus our energies on ensuring that we live by the Tao, and if we succeed, then knowledge of our happiness will trickle down from our high valley into the valleys below and from there it will gather strength and become a great river and finally, it will descend to the lands below and become the Brahmaputra itself, and its flood plain will nourish the whole of India and the whole world. The Tao teaches us that even if you merely sit in silence in a quiet room, if you think the right thoughts, you will be heard a thousand miles away.” ’
Herzog had fallen silent. He was smiling again – a dreamy look in his eyes. Perhaps he has forgotten the awfulness of his predicament, the Abbot’s deputy thought. He found the stranger’s mood swings inexplicable, even with the opium. But he wanted to learn more.
‘Did you believe him when he told you these things? Do you agree – can good be achieved through such inaction?’
A feeble laugh escaped from Herzog’s cracked lips.
‘No. His aims were laudable, but to this day I do not believe they can be achieved through such methods. If you, in Litang gompa, scarcely a few hundred miles away, have not heard of this place and its teachings, then it seems highly unlikely that India, let alone New York or London, will ever hear about this idyllic community, and even if they do, it would take eternity to convert the world to the way of life of the valley. People are busy with their own schemes.’
Herzog paused to cough and then he looked up, his smile completely gone:
‘I knew, and Felix Koenig knew before me, that only active intervention and the skilful use of the lost Aryan arts that were in the possession of the kingdom of Shangri-La could change mankind for the better and elevate it to a higher evolutionary field. I had stumbled into a valley of ascetic monks, given over to quietism and the contemplation of the Tao. Splendid as this community was, it was not the place that I was looking for and so I put it to the Chinese man straight.
‘“I am very grateful for the opportunity to learn about your wonderful valley, but it is my intention to reach the kingdom of Shangri-La. Can you help me? Can you direct me or lead me on my way?”
‘For the first time since I had met him, the Chinese man looked sad.
‘ “Yes. If you insist upon it we can show you the way. But we would urge you to stay with us. Lend us your strength here in the valley; you will be happy and from your example, others will follow. Shangri-La is not a good place. They take a different path from us. They do not seek to educate mankind through simple example but through the exercise of power and magic. They are prepared to use all sorts of methods, even methods that involve powers that we believe are beyond their control. Stay here. This is a happy, peaceful place.”
‘He was a good man and it was upsetting to have to press my point, but I had no intention of retiring from life and becoming a priest–farmer, marvellous as this valley was. And as for his evaluation of Shangri-La, it was just what you would expect to hear from a retiring monk who was afraid of engaging with the wider world.
‘“I would be most grateful for your assistance.”
‘ “Then so be it. But let me warn you, if you leave, you will never be able to return, for it is not possible to draw you a map, or explain how to get back into here. The route by which we came would be impossible for a stranger to follow, and it is only every ten years that our caravan goes out into the outside world, and unless you were in dire need of help, we would not encumber you with our assistance or even let ourselves be seen by you . . .”
‘For some reason, I felt a tightening in my stomach.
‘“But I could come back from Shangri-La? Surely I could just retrace my steps from there.”
‘The Chinese man smiled.
‘“Alas, that is not possible.”
‘“Why not?”
‘“Because the route can only be travelled in one direction.”
‘“But how can that be?”
‘“Come, if you are ready. I will show you.”
‘We rose to go and, almost immediately, the strange feeling of regret began to leave me. I was going to Shangri-La after all. I was going to reach the place that I had strived so hard to reach.
‘“Where exactly are we going?” I asked, as we mounted a little trap, drawn by a young yak mare.
‘“There.” He pointed up towards the dark cliffs at the end of the valley. “Up there.”
‘I stared upwards; the tops of the mountains were veiled in mist. He must be pointing to the hidden entrance to a cave, I thought; a cave that would turn into a dark passage that would eventually disgorge me into the kingdom of Shangri-La. But what kind of route could only be traversable in one direction? It occurred to me that it might be an underground river. That would certainly not
be navigable in both directions.’
The Abbot’s deputy had picked up the map again. He scoured it for a valley of the correct proportion that was abutted at the end by giant cliffs. Meanwhile, Herzog continued with his description of his journey.
‘We rattled along in the trap and in no time at all had passed through the green meadows and lush paddies of the top end of the valley. Wherever we went, people paused from their work and waved at us or hailed the Chinese man. Several times we stopped to be given pieces of fresh fruit and for the Chinese man to indulge in pleasant conversation with his fellow valley dwellers.
‘Finally the road petered out at the base of the vast cliffs that seem to rise up into the sky for ever. I was an experienced mountaineer in my younger days, yet no matter how I scrutinized that cliff-face, I could see that there were absolutely no routes up it at all. It might as well have been a sheet of black ice. I turned to the Chinese man.
‘ “So where is the entrance?”
‘“One moment please. I have not been here in sixty years.”
‘The Chinese began very slowly to pace about. He appeared to be concentrating very hard. I realized he must be engaging in some form of meditation, for his eyes were focused on a spot about a yard from his face and his expression was locked. He was in a deep trance, and then suddenly he stopped and reached out in front of him as if he was grasping hold of an imaginary butterfly.
‘“Here.”
‘I stepped over to him, completely baffled as to what he meant. And then, to my amazement, I saw that in his hand he was holding a single thread of silk. It was so fine that it was barely visible to the naked eye but now I could just see that it rose up into the sky, though I lost track of it after about six feet. Nevertheless, I felt it must derive from the top of that dark cliff, thousands of feet above, that somehow it was anchored up there.
