The Ninth Buddha

by Daniel Easterman

  “If it would not tire you too much, Mr. Wylam,” said the missionary, “I would very much like to show you our boys’ wing.

  The children are asleep now, but it would please me very much if you would step in to see them before you leave.”

  The boys’ section was not far away. A green baize door led to a short corridor, off which lay a long dormitory bathed in moonlight.

  In orderly rows, like patients in a hospital ward, the children slept in a silence that was broken only by the sound of their heavy breathing. Carpenter walked between the beds with a dark lantern, showing the sleeping boys to Christopher like a curator in a waxwork museum taking a visitor on a tour of his exhibits. On narrow beds, the boys huddled beneath thin blankets, dreaming desperately.

  Christopher wondered why Carpenter had brought him here, why he had asked him to dinner at all. Had it been to reassure him, to counter that afternoon’s impression of nervousness? As he watched the sleeping boys, he began to ask himself whether William had been here. Was that it? Was that what lay behind Carpenter’s nervousness, behind his probing? But no sooner had the idea intruded itself than he dismissed it as ridiculous.

  The Carpenters showed him to the door, still heaping sympathy on him like confetti. The rest of the orphanage was silent.

  Christopher imagined the girls in sleep, their dreams haunted by visions of dark gods and goddesses, black Kali dancing on the bodies of her bloody victims, Shiva with gory hands, destroying the universe. Or did they dream of cannibals in the mountains, eating the flesh of English children? And if so, what was that to them?

  It was after ten when he got back to the rest-house. The common room was in semi-darkness, filled with small restless mounds:

  people were sleeping, planning an early start at one or two a.m.

  Word had come that the weather to the north was improving, and there was every likelihood the passes into the Chumbi valley would be open in a day or two.

  He climbed the rickety wooden stairs to the first floor, carrying the

  reeking oil-lamp he had left downstairs for that purpose. The thin

  wooden panelling of the house kept out nothing of the freezing cold. It

  was stained with damp from the rains and cracked with frost. In a room

  along the corridor, someone was moaning in pain, but no-one came. Outside, dogs were prowling in the streets, old dogs, thin and diseased, afraid to show their faces in daylight. He could hear them howling, lonely and desperate in the night.

  He did not see the man who hit him as he opened the door, nor did he feel the blow that dropped him, unconscious, to the grimy floor of his room. For a moment, he saw a bright light and faces moving in it, or a single face, blurred and shifting. Then the ground lurched and fell out from under him, and the world shimmered and reddened and was swallowed up, leaving him spinning and howling and alone in the darkness.

  He was at sea in an open boat, tossing deliriously on blue salt waves. Then the boat vanished and the water opened up beneath him and he was sinking into the blackness again. Somehow the blackness passed and he was rising once more towards the light.

  There must be a storm on the surface: he was tossed again and again, a piece of flotsam on the back of giant waves. Then, as if by a miracle, the waves were stilled and he was drifting on gentle, inland waters, rocking in a soft, rhythmical motion.

  There was a face, then a pair of hands pulling at him roughly, then he was no longer afloat on still waters but lying on a hard bed. The face was European and unshaven, and it kept slipping in and out of focus.

  “Can you hear me, Mr. Wylam? Can you hear my voice?”

  The face was speaking to him in English, but with a heavy accent. His first thought was that this must be the Russian, Zamyatin; but something else told him that was ridiculous.

  “Can you sit up?” the voice insisted. Christopher felt hands pushing against his armpits, raising him to a sitting position.

  Reluctantly, he allowed himself to be moved. Upright, his head began to spin again, and for a moment he feared the blackness would return. He felt nauseous: the mysterious meat and its lugubrious accompaniments had chosen their moment to break free: they had swollen out of all proportion in his stomach. Rapidly, they were acquiring a life of their own.

  “Do you want to be sick?” the voice asked.

  He managed to nod, sending flashes of green light in every direction through his reeling brain.

  “There’s a basin beside you. Here on your right. Just let it out.

  I’ll hold you.”

  He felt a hand guiding his head, then something exploded in his guts and travelled upwards with the violence of an express train on its home journey. Hot liquid rushed into a metal bowl.

  Spitting sour vomit, he fell back exhausted against the back of the

  bed. Someone had taken his head off and replaced it with a spinning

  top. And a mad child stood over him, cracking a whip and sending the

  top round and round without stopping,

  “Better?” the voice sounded stronger this time. He’d heard the accent before, but still could not place it. Scottish? Irish?

  “If you want to be sick again, there’s another wee basin here. And if you fill that, I can get another. Can you open your eyes?”

  His mouth felt foul. Someone had gone for a walk in it, wearing large, muddy boots.

  “Taste .. . horrible,” he managed to croak.

  “Here, rinse your mouth with this. It’s safe I boiled it myself.”

  The stranger held a cup to his lips. It contained water. He sipped some, rolled it in his mouth, and spat it out into the basin by his side. With an effort, he opened his eyes again.

  (, He was in his room at the rest-house. He recognized the table and broken chair by the window. Someone had brought up a charcoal stove that was giving off a reddish-yellow glow in the middle of the room. A stinking oil-lamp was burning on the table.

  The man who had helped him was sitting on a second chair by the side of the bed.

  “You’re all right,” said the man, catching Christopher’s eyes on ‘ him.

  “A wee bit bruised, but you’ll be none the worse for wear in a day or two. There’s nothing broken. You’ll have a headache for a while, and a very tender lump on your head for a few weeks, but I don’t think you’ll die.”

  “Thanks,” said Christopher, wincing as he realized that his head did ache.

  “You’re probably wondering who I am,” the stranger suggested.

  Christopher closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again.

  “The thought had crossed my mind,” he said. His voice sounded like a cross between a camel and a hyena. It made peculiar echoes in his eardrums. His stomach had settled a little, but it gave occasional twinges as if to remind him it had not forgotten him; he guessed that some of the meat if it had been meat was still lying there, thinking what to do next.

  “My name’s Cormac, Martin Cormac. You left a wee note for me up in the Black Hole of Kalimpong. The hospital, or so they say.”

  Christopher squinted to see the man properly. He didn’t look like a doctor, he thought. At a guess, he would be in his mid-forties and ageing fast grey-haired, grey-eyed, and grey-skinned. On his face was that look certain men of his age wear, of someone who has shut his eyes for a moment twenty years ago and opened them again to find himself in his present predicament. Somewhere along the way, he had lost a pound and found sixpence. At the moment, he looked dusty, as though he had been travelling. On reflection, Christopher realized he must just have arrived back from Peshok.

  “You’re probably wondering what the hell I’m doing here,” the doctor continued.

  “That had crossed my mind as well,” answered Christopher.

  “I’m sure. Well, to answer your first question I’m not the one who hit you over the head. Not guilty. I don’t know who that was, to tell you the truth. He ran off as soon as I came on the scene I’d been waiting outside for you to come back from
Cold Comfort Hall. I saw you go in here and I came behind, maybe a minute later. He was rifling your pockets, but I don’t think he took anything. Your room had been given a good going over before you arrived. You can take a look later, see if any thing’s missing.”

  Cormac paused and looked solicitously at Christopher.

  “How’s the head?”

  Christopher stoically tried to smile, but the effort was more than his skull could bear. The smile turned into a grimace.

  “Bad, eh? Well, I’ll give you a wee something for it. I never come out without some of these.”

  From his pocket, Cormac drew out a small brown bottle of pills.

  He knocked two out on to his palm, gave them to Christopher and handed him a glass of water. Christopher swallowed the pills one at a time: it felt like swallowing splinters of glass.

  “A pity you’ve had those,” said Cormac as soon as they had been downed.

  “From the way Sister Campbell talked about you, I guessed you might be in need of some refreshment after your visit to the wee darlings up the hill. So I brought along a bottle of the real stuff for us to drown our sorrows in. Assuming you had any, that was. Only, now your sorrows are such that I’ll have to share the bottle with me self Do you want me to leave, or shall I hang on.”

  Christopher, who was beginning to feel nauseous again, shook his head.

  “It’s all right. I’d like you to stay. What’s the “real stuff”?”

  “Ah!” said Cormac, drawing a half-pint flask from his other pocket.

  “Poteen. Irish whiskey, made from spuds. I’ve a friend in Newry sends

  me a wee bottle every now and again. I don’t suppose there’s another

  drop of this stuff anywhere between here and the

  Belfast ferry.”

  Northern Irish that was the accent. Probably Belfast, but

  Christopher couldn’t be sure. He’d never heard of Newry. There were a lot of them in India: the ruled ruling the ruled. Perhaps that was what the Empire was all about, after a fashion.

  “It’s a funny thing,” Cormac continued, ‘but, to tell you the truth, Kalimpong’s not normally a place you’d expect to be set upon. There’s plenty of thievery, of course, but they’ll not knock a man out as a rule. In all my years here, I’ve never come across a case of it. A knockout in an argument, sure. But never in a robbery.

  When I saw him bending over you, I felt sure I’d come across a

  Thug about to make a sacrifice of you. Cheers! Sldintef

  Cormac raised the flask and put its mouth to his lips. He swallowed hard, closed his eyes, and shivered.

  “God, I needed that,” he gasped.

  “Just what the doctor ordered.

  Mind you,” he went on, replacing the stopper, ‘it’s a bit rough. It’d ; burn your gob off, as my dear departed Da used to say. Can’t be doing me any good.”

  “There are no Thugs in India any longer,” muttered Christopher.

  “There haven’t been any for nearly a century. That’s almost a hundred years.”

  “Ay, I know well enough. But don’t go telling that to your wee friend up on the hill. He’s a firm believer in them.

  “The heathen in his blindness Bows down to wood and stone” that’s his ‘ favourite song, and he sings it morning, noon, and night. As, no doubt, you know by now.”

  “How did you know I was at the orphanage tonight?”

  “Ah,” replied Cormac, unscrewing his stopper again.

  “There’s ‘ not much that passes unobserved in Kalimpong. Sister Campbell made it her business to find out who you were and what you were I up to. I think she was put out to discover you’d been with the t Carpenters. It’s not often she gets invited there herself. Mind you, it’s even less often I get invited. Unless one of the wee’uns is taken poorly. And what qualifies as “poorly” up there would be next to fatal anywhere else.”

  “And just what made you come here tonight to see me?”

  Christopher asked. As his faculties were returning, so were his instincts for suspicion.

  “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure,” said Cormac.

  “Maybe if you’d lived up in the Black Hole as long as I have you’d understand. I got back from Peshok earlier this evening. The first thing that confronted me here was Sister Campbell with a face like cold whey telling me about this disreputable-looking character who’d been asking after me. Then I heard a wee rumour that Lady Carpenter hadn’t been all that impressed by your appearance either, but that you’d been extended the supreme honour by her good man. So, to tell you the truth, I was curious. I thought I’d come and have a look at you. Good thing I did. Sldinte.r “You don’t suppose I could have a drop of your “real stuff”, do you?” Christopher asked.

  Cormac tried to look medical and severe, but he had lost the knack.

  “Ah, well, you’re not supposed to have any strong drink along with those wee pills you’ve taken. But, then, I don’t imagine a wee smidgeon will do you much harm. To tell you the truth, it’ll probably do you more good than the pills. Have you a glass or anything?”

  Christopher pointed mutely to one of his bags on the floor. He could see it had been disturbed and subsequently rearranged.

  Cormac rummaged in the bag for a bit and finally surfaced brandishing a battered tin mug.

  “This it?” he asked triumphantly.

  Christopher nodded.

  “Not exactly Waterford Crystal, I’m afraid,” he said.

  “No,” replied Cormac as he began to pour a small libation into the cup.

  “More like Rathgormuck Brass. But then you wouldn’t know Rathgormuck, would you?”

  Christopher smiled.

  “Is there such a place?”

  Cormac nodded sagely.

  “Ay, of course there is. It’s a wee village a few miles from

  Waterford. Nothing much goes on there: they’re born, they get married, they have lots of kids, they die, and the kids bury them.

  That’s all there is to it. Much like anywhere else, I suppose.” He paused.

  “I was in London once. It wasn’t any different.”

  He paused again and sipped a measure of poteen before continuing.

  “So, what brings you to this wee excuse for a boil on the backside of the Himalayas?”

  “Business, Dr. Cormac, just business.”

  The doctor raised one grey-flecked eyebrow.

  “Oh aye? Is that with a capital “B” or a small “B”? I’m just asking. Look, mister, I’ve lived in this place long enough to fart in Bengali, and I knew what you were the minute I wiped your fevered brow and smelt your vomit. You’re no more a box-wallah than I’m a yogi.”

  Christopher sighed. First Carpenter and now this man.

  “What do you think I am, then?” he asked.

  Cormac shrugged.

  “Couldn’t say exactly. ICS, IPS .. . Heaven-born, anyway.

  You’ve got the look. You’ve got the manner. And you’ve got the voice, even if it is a wee bit on the shaky side at the moment. Do I get a prize?”

  Christopher shook his head. It hurt.

  “No prizes. Anyway,” he went on, trying to change the subject, “you’re no more a missionary doctor than I’m the Kaiser’s mother.”

  The doctor unplugged his fire-water and raised it to his lips. He made a face.

  “Inpoteeno veritas, my son. You might be right.. . and then again, you might be wrong. To tell you the truth, sometimes I’m not too sure me self I am a doctor, mind you the real McKay. The Queen’s University, Belfast, then a wee stint in Edinburgh with Daniel Cunningham, the Anatomy Professor. After that I got a post as a Junior House Surgeon in the Royal Infirmary. That’s where I went wrong.” He paused and took more poteen.

  “You see, there was a group of Christians in the Infirmary. You know the type: spotty faces, glandular trouble, masturbation, and daily prayer. Medics for Jesus, they called themselves. I won’t tell }’ you what other people called them.


  “I’m still not sure if it was Jesus that formed the main attraction or a pretty wee nurse called May Lorimer. He had the power to raise the dead, but she wasn’t short of a few miracles of the same kind herself. Anyway, I put my name down, stopped drinking, started masturbating, and prayed nightly for the love of Jesus Christ and May Lorimer both.

  “I was doing all right for a man with religious mania until there was a big convention out at Inverkeithing. Three days of sermons, prayers, and how’s-your-father. On the last day, there was a call for medical missionaries. If we couldn’t save the black man’s soul, we’d save his body for resurrection and eternal torment.

  “Anyway, the sublime Miss Lorimer was on the platform calling us to the Lord. I was on the floor and the flesh was calling me to Miss Lorimer. The next thing I knew, I was on the platform. And before I had time to think about what I was doing, I was on a big ship with a copy of the Bible in one hand and a bag of secondhand surgical instruments in the other. Next stop Kalimpong.” He paused.

  “That was twenty years ago.”

  He unscrewed the top of his flask more slowly than before and swallowed more deliberately.

  “What about the divine Miss Lorimer?” asked Christopher, uncertain whether or not to make light of Cormac’s morose tale.

  “May Lorimer? I asked her to go with me. I offered her the possibility of serving Jesus together as man and wife. I asked her to marry me. She was very kind about it. She said she thought of me as a brother in the Lord, but not as a husband. I had Jesus, she said, what did I want with her as well? I had no answer for that then though if the chance came my way again, I know exactly what I’d tell her now.

  “A year later, I heard she’d run off with a big guardsman from Edinburgh Castle. Black Watch, I believe. Known for their sexual prowess. So I stayed on in Kalimpong without May Lorimer, without Jesus, and without much reason to go back. I took up drinking again, gave up masturbation, and became a sort of scandal. What’s your story?”

  For the first time, Christopher put the mug of poteen to his lips and

  drank. It took his breath away and made him splutter, but the fire

  that filled him afterwards made him feel better. He looked at the pale