‘Your Mr Links is a man of enthusiasms,’ he said. ‘I like that in a man. He sent me a splendid letter when I first completed the book. I’m sorry he’s not so keen on this version.’
‘Yes. Well. That’s one of the things –’
‘Oh, not that I blame him. I couldn’t get very enthusiastic about it myself. I’m sorry about the science students. I put that material in to try and broaden it… . But the first version wasn’t bad, you know, and he spotted it. I didn’t think anybody would. It wasn’t the normal run of Latin reader. Just as a matter of interest, Mr Davidson, why was he so interested?’
I said, in a bit of a panic, because just at that moment I’d forgotten, ‘Why, because he appreciated the basic idea – the idea of a dead language becoming, what shall I say …’
Mr Oliphant told me gently what I should say. ‘A kind of mental discipline for adults …?’
‘Precisely,’ I said, and elaborated gratefully on this type of discipline.
‘Yes,’ Mr Oliphant said. ‘I ask because naturally after a lifetime of dealing with Latin works of one sort or another I do not recall ever seeing your imprint on one of them. It was entirely because of Doris Marks – how is that dear girl, by the way?’
‘Fine. Fine. She sends her warm regards. That leads us to a point, Mr Oliphant. It’s a fact that we don’t publish Latin works. It isn’t really our preserve at all. What Mr Links now feels – what we all feel,’ I said, with acute embarrassment, and went on to tell him.
The old man sat and breathed heavily.
‘We would like to give you every kind of assistance with it – secretarial, technical, anything you might need. There have been a lot of changes in the educational field in the past few years – changes that you wouldn’t perhaps know about – but I haven’t the slightest doubt –’
‘Yes. Yes. It’s uncommonly good of you. I’m very grateful. I really am,’ he said, smiling at me. ‘I’ll think about it very seriously. But I doubt if I can get any work done this winter. I’m going to have a rest this winter. I’ll look at it again in the spring. All the same,’ he said, laughing, ‘I have a feeling I might be too old a dog to learn new tricks. If I had any of my own teeth, I would say I was getting too long –’
He stopped. His expression changed. He began to cough. It was the most extraordinary cough I had ever heard in my life, and for a moment I couldn’t believe it was coming from him. It sounded like a klaxon, and from the way he bounced up and down in the chair, as if he were setting it on and off.
I got up in alarm and patted him on the back. He began waving his hands towards the bed presently, and I looked around and saw bottles on his bedside table, and brought them all to him with a spoon. He pointed one out with a shaking hand, and I uncorked it and poured him out a spoonful – and one for the carpet in my excitement – and got it in his mouth. He managed to control himself for a moment, and presently began pointing silently under the bed.
With some horror, I got down on my knees and poked about there. There was a plastic bowl covered with a cloth. I got it out and gave him it – I have to admit with the cloth still on – and he uncovered it and spat.
‘I’m very sorry about this,’ he said feebly after a few minutes. ‘I shouldn’t have laughed. No, leave it out. Leave it here. I might need it again.’
‘Is there anything I can do for you?’
‘Nothing. Someone is coming to see me later with some things I need. Please don’t worry. Sit down. It goes off quite soon.’
I sat down, very gingerly.
‘I think on reflection, you know,’ he said presently, as if he’d been thinking about it all the time, ‘that I won’t take advantage of your very kind offer. I’ll let sleeping dogs lie. At my time of life, after all …’ he said, beginning a dangerous smile.
‘I’m sure you’ll decide differently when you’ve thought about it,’ I said, watching him nervously. ‘Perhaps you’ll let me come and talk to you about it again in a few weeks.’
‘Of course, my dear fellow. It’s very good of you. But I don’t think you’ll get me to change my mind. You see, you won’t want to publish the book yourselves – for reasons I quite understand – and that would rather take the gilt off it for me. I’m going to tell you a secret,’ he said, his smile becoming a little sheepish. ‘I started that book out of vanity.’
‘Vanity, Mr Oliphant?’
‘Vanity. I met Doris – Miss Marks – at a school get-together and for some reason I told her I was writing it. I wasn’t, actually. It had occurred to me just at that moment. I suppose I wanted to impress her. Living alone, one’s tongue tends to run away in company… . I meant to tell her, when it was published, how she had inspired it… . Well, it isn’t a very serious loss.’
‘There’s no reason why it should be a loss at all.’
He wasn’t really attending to me. He was still looking at me and smiling, but his smile had become somehow – sly. His tongue moved round his lips.
‘I expect you would very much sooner publish works in a living tongue,’ he said.
‘Well, that’s our business, Mr Oliphant.’
‘I expect you would very much sooner publish a story like Houston’s,’ he said in the same tone.
I didn’t know what he was talking about. He didn’t seem to be talking to me at all.
He got up and began rummaging in the bed. Two shiny red exercise books were buried in the eiderdown, and two more were under the pillow.
‘I’ve just been re-reading it,’ he said. ‘I had the idea some years ago of writing it myself, but I was busy with my Latin reader. I doubt if I ever will now. Would you like to read it?’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s Houston’s account of what happened to him in Tibet.’
He was handing me the exercise books, so I took them, Mr Theodore Links’s words ringing ominously in my ears. ‘Kindness is no help to the author or to the publisher. It can be a very cruel thing.’
I said, ‘You know, I’m not sure if this is our kind of thing at all, Mr Oliphant. We do very little travel.’
‘I wouldn’t call it a traveller’s tale,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what I’d call it. It’s certainly very odd.’
I was racking my brains as I leafed through, trying to think who the mysterious Houston was. Phrases came up at me – in what looked suspiciously like Mr Oliphant’s own neat handwriting – from the ruled lines.
‘… doss house like an enormous catacomb, a great cliff of a place with little stone rooms flickering in the light of butter lamps… .’
… simply took off all his clothes and jewels and gave them away… .’
… kept out of the way all day and biked on to Kanchenjunga …’
… to Darjeeling left luggage office, where so far as I know …’
… so badly beaten-up I knew I was crippled, but I had to …’
I said, ‘Mr Oliphant – if you could just refresh me – who actually was Houston?’
‘He is a very dear friend of mine. We used to teach at the same school.’
‘He went to Tibet on – am I right? – a bicycle?’
‘Yes. Well. Mainly,’ Mr Oliphant said.
‘I wonder why nothing has been published about it.’
Mr Oliphant offered several possible reasons for this omission. He watched the effect of them on me, still smiling rather slyly.
‘I thought you’d like it,’ he said.
‘It certainly sounds a remarkable story.’
‘More stimulating than those of ancient Rome, say.’
‘Well. Different.’
‘Yes,’ he said, enjoying himself. ‘Yes, I thought you’d take that view.’
‘Who wrote it?’
‘I did,’ said Mr Oliphant. ‘He dictated it to me. He hadn’t learned to use his left hand then, of course.’
‘I see.’
‘But there wouldn’t be any difficulty about publication. He gave me it. If you’re interested.’
I said
cautiously, ‘We might be. Whereabouts is Mr Houston now?’
‘He is in Barbados.’
‘You’re in touch with him, are you?’
‘Oh, yes. This is his flat. He still pays the rent. I went out to see him a few years ago – three years ago. He was in Jamaica then. I had just had another go of this bronchitis, and he invited me out, at his expense… . Of course, he is a very wealthy man now.’
‘Is he?’
‘Oh, yes. He left Tibet with about half a million pounds. I expect he could have had very much more if he’d been able to carry it. He knows where the rest is.’
‘I see,’ I said again.
I didn’t, of course. But presently, as Mr Oliphant explained further, a few items did seem to fall into place. It is easier now to remember than to describe the dry gusto of his manner – perhaps if the reader will imagine a beardless version of Bernard Shaw sitting in a grey stuff dressing-gown over an electric fire in a darkening October afternoon he will come somewhere near it – as he recalled these items. But even in reflection his gusto is odd. Mr Oliphant had led, I suppose, up to that time a blameless enough life, chaste, continent, fairly legal; one, at all events, far removed from rapine and murder, abortion and sacred prostitution. Perhaps he had encountered worse in his classical readings; perhaps he was merely amused that I should find this story alive and those in his favourite literature dead. Or perhaps there was quite another reason. I have thought about it often since.
It must have been a little after four when I had arrived, and it was getting on for six when I left. Mr Oliphant had another attack of coughing in between.
I said anxiously, ‘You’re quite sure someone is coming to see you? I could very easily –’
‘Not at all. I assure you… .’ he said weakly.
‘Well. I’ll leave you, then.’
‘Yes. Yes. Just take the first two exercise books, won’t you? I want to read the others. And come again.’
‘Certainly. I’d like to.’
He didn’t really want to talk any more, but just before I left I felt constrained to ask one more question.
I said, ‘Mr Oliphant, I suppose he didn’t, Houston, ever believe any of this business himself, did he – the supernatural business?’
He had closed his eyes but he opened them again, very pale blue and somehow – how does one describe it? – again sly.
‘Oh, no. No, he didn’t believe it. At least, I don’t think he did. He’s a very ordinary sort of chap, you know. Very ordinary… . Odd, though, how it came about, wasn’t it?’
‘Very,’ I said.
I called on Mr Oliphant several times more in succeeding weeks – as will be narrated in the proper place – and on some other people also. But it was not till the following May, after much had passed, that we commissioned from Professor Felix Bourgès-Vallerin of the Department of Oriental Studies of the Sorbonne his account of the significance of the years 1949–51 in Tibetan affairs.
Because this account must also be considered an indispensable part of the backgd, I give it, however, not in its chronological place, but here.
*
BY PROF. F. BOURGÈS-VALLERIN (Abridged.) … The year 1949, corresponding with that of Earth-Bull in its Sixteenth cycle, was for Tibet one of long-predicted ill-omen. The events associated with it had indeed been foretold for more than two and a half centuries; latterly with such elaboration of detail that four of the largest monasteries had seriously advocated changing the calendar in an attempt to avert them.
The Tibetan calendar, derived from the Indian and the Chinese, relies upon a combination of elements and animals to designate individual years. Thus, 1948 was Earth-Mouse,1949 Earth-Bull, 1950 Iron-Tiger, and 1951 Iron-Hare. There are five elements (earth, iron, water, wood, fire) and twelve animals (hare, dragon, serpent, horse, sheep, monkey, bird, dog, pig, mouse, bull, tiger). Each element appears in sequence twice, first to designate a ‘male’ year and then a ‘female’ one. The calendar makes a complete cycle every sixty years.
Because certain combinations (wood-dragon, earth-bull, fire-tiger) have traditionally been considered inauspicious, they have attracted over the centuries a considerable body of prediction. Most of the forecast events have come off, notably the Nepalese invasion of 1791, the British Younghusband expedition of 1904 and the Chinese invasion of 1910. Those that have not come off are said to have been ‘averted’.
No single year had ever produced so ominous a body of prediction, however, as that of Earth-Bull in its present cycle.
The events would be heralded, it was said, by a comet clearly visible from the three principal cities of Lhasa, Shigatse and Gyantse. Four catastrophes would then follow in strict order: a mountain would move; the Tsangpo river would be hurled from its course; the country would be overrun by terror; and the line of the Dalai Lamas would end.
While all these predictions were of some antiquity, that concerning the Dalai Lama was the most venerable. A succession of oracles had foretold that the line would end with the Thirteenth. In fact, the Thirteenth had died in 1935, and his successor, a 4-year-old boy had been recognized in 1939. By 1949, however, the year of Earth-Bull, he would still be under age and legally incapable of assuming full powers as spiritual and temporal head of the country.
Because of the alarming nature of these predictions, corroboration was sought from the oracles attached to the most important provincial monasteries. Their findings were entirely in line with those of the State Oracle; indeed they were able to provide considerable elaboration.
Thus, the female oracle of Yamdring could state with precision that for her monastery the tribulations would begin in the sixth month of Earth-Bull (August 1949); and that between then and the ‘terror’, the monastery would have a visitation, ‘from beyond the sunset’, of a past conqueror of the country who would carry away the abbess together with the monastery treasure.
(The visitor was expected to be an incarnation of the Tartar prince Hu-Tzung, who in 1717 had invaded from the northeast, sacked the province of Hodzo and only withdrawn when the abbess of Yamdring had given herself to him. Because he had accepted the abbess’s favours, this prince was subsequently struck dead by Chen-Rezi, the God-Protector of Tibet. For according to tradition, the abbess was divine – a benevolent she-devil who had been the original inhabitant of the Himalayan plateau, before a wandering monkey from India had lured her from her cave, coupled with her on an island in the Yamdring lake, and thus fathered the Tibetan people.)
Other monasteries produced equally gloomy predictions, one of them (the country’s second largest, at Sera) providing, however, an important variant. This was that the ‘terror’ mentioned in the forecast would not take place actually in Earth-Bull, but in the following year, Iron-Tiger, and would begin in the first week of the eighth month (October 1950).
Faced with these lowering and increasingly refined predictions, the Regent convened a cabinet of five ministers. It met in April 1948, and by midsummer had drawn up a number of provisions.
To placate the devils who lived in the mountains, a national spiritual effort would be made: this would take the form of prayers and offerings throughout the country. In addition, so that the devils might be offered no provocation, nomads would be forbidden their traditional right to winter at the foot of the mountains.
In the event of the devils refusing placation (that is, if a mountain did move or the Tsangpo were hurled from its course) further measures would have to be taken to avert the remaining predictions.
Since by ‘terror’ it was assumed a new Chinese invasion was meant, it would be necessary to examine all circumstances that might give the Chinese a reason to invade. All contacts with the Western world should be reduced, and all foreigners who could be regarded as ‘Western imperialists’ dismissed.
Since at the time only five Europeans were living on a permanent basis in Tibet, all of them in day-to-day contact with the government, the cabinet could see no reason for immediate action in this respect.
Richardson was the head of the newly created Indian Government Mission; although an Englishman he was acting for another Asian power, and one moreover that had just thrown off the imperialist yoke: he thus enjoyed the highest diplomatic status.
Fox and Ford were radio operators on contract; it would be enough merely to let their contracts expire. Harrer and Aufschneiter were ex-prisoners of war who had escaped from a British war-time camp in India; they had no official standing and could be turned out at a moment’s notice.
For the moment, therefore, all was under control. However, if despite everything, the Chinese did invade, one last and rather more awesome step would be necessary. Seven hundred years of tradition would have to be flouted and the Dalai Lama installed while still under age, to ensure the succession.
This was not a step that any of the ministers cared to plan in detail; but since they had done everything that could be expected of them, the weeks-long meeting adjourned. The Regent set himself to watch the course that events would take.
It is a matter of historical record that they took exactly the one predicted.
In October 1948, the comet appeared, causing widespread alarm and disorders in Lhasa, Shigatse and Gyantse. In July and August 1949 the ‘mountain moved’, an enormous seismic disturbance that affected the entire Himalayan region and diverted the Tsangpo eight miles from its course. (It ‘moved’ again even more formidably the following August.) And in October 1950 (in the ‘first week of the eighth month of Iron-Tiger’ as the oracle of Sera had predicted) the Chinese duly invaded.
Faced with this final disaster, the Regent took his ‘last step’. On 12 November the under-age Dalai Lama was formally installed as Head of State – and three weeks later, on 9 December, fled.
Such the predictions and such the record for the year of Earth-Bull.
Whether the many regional predictions were similarly fulfilled must remain a matter for speculation. Among refugees on Indian-controlled border territory, however, there appeared to be a substantial belief, early in 1951, that some at least of the predicted events had taken place; in particular those fore cast for the Yamdring monastery.
The Rose of Tibet Page 2
