The Ninth Buddha

by Daniel Easterman

liquid in the tin and thought of the priest raising the chalice at

  mass. Hie est enim Calix Sanguinis mei. Wine and whiskey,

  blood and fire, faith and despair. He raised the mug again and drank.

  This time he did not cough.

  “I was born near here,” he replied to Cormac’s question. He thought he could afford to be honest with him.

  “My father worked for the Political Service. He brought me up to love the country. I don’t think he loved anything or anyone himself but India. Not my mother, not really. She died when I was twelve, and I was sent to school in England. Then, when I was fifteen, my father disappeared.”

  The doctor looked at him curiously.

  “What? Vanished into thin air, d’you mean? Like a fakir” He pronounced the word as if it was ‘faker’.

  Christopher gave a wry smile.

  “Just like a fakir,” he agreed.

  “Only without a rope. No rope, no music just himself. He was making a visit to Major Todd, our Trade Agent in Yatung back in those days. There was nobody in Gyantse then. My father left Kalimpong one day in October with a party of guides and bearers. The weather was turning bad, but they had no difficulty in making it over the Nathu-la They were already well into Tibet when he disappeared.

  “The party woke up one morning to find him gone. No note, no sign, no trail they could follow. He’d left all his belongings in the camp. They searched for him, of course all that day and the next, but he was nowhere to be found. Then the snow got really heavy and they had to call off the search and push on to Yatung.

  “He never reappeared. But nobody found a body. They sent a letter to my school; I was handed it one day in the middle of Latin class. It was very formal no compassion in it, just the formalities.

  They sent me his things eventually decorations, citations, letters , patent, all the trumpery. I still keep them in a trunk at home in England. I never look at them, but they’re there.”

  “So you stayed in England?” Cormac interjected.

  Christopher shook his head.

  “Not until recently. I left as soon as I finished school and came straight out to India to join the ICS. That was in 1898. I’m not quite sure why I came back. Sometimes I think it was to look for my father, but I know that can’t be right. Perhaps I just felt f something had been left unfinished here, and I wanted to finish it.”

  “And did you?”

  Christopher stared at the wall, at a patch of damp high up, near the ceiling. There was a gecko beside it, pale and ghostly, clinging tightly to the wall.

  “No,” he said, but quietly, as though speaking to himself.

  “Bloody awful, isn’t it?” said Cormac.

  Christopher looked at him, uncomprehending.

  “Life,” the doctor said.

  “Bloody awful business. That,” he went on, ‘is the only advantage of growing old. There’s not much more of it to face.”

  Christopher nodded and sipped from his mug. He felt a shiver go through him, as if it were a premonition of something. It was getting late.

  “We have to talk,” he said.

  “Fire away,” said Cormac, leaning back in his chair.

  “Something’s going on here,” Christopher said.

  “Tonight I was attacked. Perhaps it was a thief, as you say; perhaps it was a dacoit who’d grown tired of ambushing people on the highways and byways; and perhaps it was someone who didn’t want me in Kalimpong asking questions. I’m beginning to think that last possibility is the one with most going for it.”

  “What sort of questions have you been asking, Mr. Wylam?”

  Christopher told him. Cormac was silent for a while, collecting his thoughts. The light of the penny candle hurt his eyes; he turned his face away from it gently.

  “I don’t suppose I’m allowed to ask you exactly why you’ve been enquiring after this monk. Or why someone would want to snatch your son in the first place, much less bring him here to Kalimpong or up to Tibet.”

  “All I can say is that I used to work for the Government and that someone in a position to know thinks my son’s kidnapping is related to the work I did. We know the monk brought a message out of Tibet and that the message was conveyed to a man called Mishig, the Mongol Trade Agent here.”

  “Aye, I know Mishig well enough. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn he was involved in something shifty. Go on.”

  “The problem is finding out just how a man who was dying, who seems to have had no visitors, and who is said to have been delirious, managed to get a message to anyone. I’m beginning to think I’m wasting my time here.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” said Cormac in a quiet voice.

  Christopher said nothing, but he sensed that the atmosphere in the room had changed. Whether it was as a result of the poteen or the lateness of the hour or the relating of reminiscences, Cormac’s mood had altered from jesting cynicism to measured seriousness.

  He was a man on the verge of divulging closely guarded matters.

  “I think,” said the doctor, choosing his words carefully, ‘the man you want is the Reverend Doctor Carpenter. He knows Mishig well enough. And, if I’m not mistaken, he knew the monk even better. But, to tell you the truth, it’s just as likely that Tsewong took the message to Mishig himself. It was one or the other of them, believe me.”

  A deep and seamless silence followed Cormac’s words. Christopher felt himself hold his breath then release it slowly.

  “Carpenter? But why’ What possible motive could a man like that have to take messages round town on behalf of a man he must have considered the next best thing to a devil-worshipper?”

  “A motive? With wee Johnny Carpenter? Good God man, we’d be up all night if we started talking about motives.”

  “Such as?”

  Cormac did not reply at once. Maybe it was his turn to feel suspicious. Christopher guessed he had set in motion a process he was beginning to regret.

  “Let’s begin with something else,” he said.

  “Officially, this man Tsewong died of exposure. I wrote the death

  certificate me self

  You’ll find a copy with the Registrar for Births and Deaths, Kalimpong District. Man called Hughes’ a Welshman from Neath.

  We’re all Celts round here. Anyway, that isn’t what Tsewong died of at all. Do you understand me?”

  “How did he die?” asked Christopher. He noticed that Cormac had begun to take more of the poteen.

  “He took his own life.”

  The way the doctor pronounced the word, it sounded like ‘tuck’:

  ‘he tuck his own life’. Christopher imagined the monk in bed, dying.

  “Tuck yourself up now,” came the voice of Christopher’s mother from his childhood. Tsewong had come through the cold passes into India and tucked himself up for good.

  “But that’s impossible.”

  “Is it?” Cormac’s voice was gentle, almost pathetic. He had seen the dead man, touched his face, his skin.

  “You think a Buddhist monk can’t kill himself? For some of them, their whole life is a slow death. There are men in Tibet who shut themselves into a wee hole in the rock and have themselves bricked up with nothing but a gap to let food in and shit out. Did you know that? That’s a living death. They last for years and years sometimes. They go in young men and end up old corpses.

  “Apart from that, it’s a hard life anyway. There are frustrations, temptations, dark moments. A yellow robe is no guarantee against humanity.”

  Neither man spoke. Wax dripped from the candle in silence.

  The flame flickered and straightened itself.

  “How did he do it?” Christopher asked.

  “Hanged himself. Carpenter says he found him in his room, just hanging there. He used the girdle, the rope from around his waist.

  There was a hook in the ceiling. It was an attic room, a wee room they use for storing old boxes. He hanged himself from the hook.”

  Christopher shiv
ered.

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “I can’t understand how someone is able to do it. To take his own life. I can understand murder, but not suicide.”

  Cormac looked at Christopher. There was a sadness in his eyes that not even the whiskey could conceal.

  “Lucky man,” he said. Just that, then he fell silent. In the street, the dogs were busy. Or was it a single beast padding in the stillness?

  Christopher broke the silence with another question.

  “Why did he kill himself? Do you know?”

  Cormac shook his head.

  “I couldn’t tell you. I think John Carpenter knows, but you can be sure he won’t tell you. I have one or two notions, though.”

  “Notions?”

  “I think Tsewong had problems. Maybe they were serious, maybe they just seemed that way to Tsewong: I can’t tell you. But problems he undoubtedly had.” The doctor paused briefly, then proceeded.

  “For one thing, I don’t think he was a Buddhist. Not any longer, that is. I’d lay money on it that he was a Christian convert.”

  Christopher looked at the Irishman in astonishment.

  “I don’t understand. He was a Tibetan. There are no Tibetan Christians. He was wearing the robes of a Buddhist monk. And he was dead. How could you tell he was a Christian?”

  Cormac fortified himself with the rough whiskey before continuing.

  “A couple of things. I had the body taken up to the hospital for examination. When I undressed him, I wanted to be sure I had all the wee bits and pieces, because I knew they’d have to be handed over to old Norbhu, along with the body. That was when I found the letter and the note, in his pouch with the prayer-book, the amulet and all the rest. But guess what he was wearing round his neck, well tucked away inside his clothes. A cross, Mr. Wylam. A wee, silver cross. I’ve still got it hidden away in my desk at home.

  I’ll show it to you if you like.”

  “Weren’t there questions about the suicide?”

  “Who would ask? You don’t think I’d let on to Norbhu Dzasa that one of his lamas did himself in, do you? I told you I wrote the death certificate me self Plenty of people die of exposure at this time of year. Quite a few of them are Tibetan monks. There were no questions.”

  “What about Carpenter? You said you thought he might know why the man killed himself.”

  Cormac did not answer right away. When he did, a note of caution had entered his voice.

  “Did I now? Yes, I think he must know something, though I can’t prove it. The thing is, the dead man was staying with Carpenter before all this happened. There was some story about a farmer finding Tsewong on the road and bringing him to the Homes the day before he died. That’s probably what you heard yourself. It’s what Carpenter told me, and it’s what I told Frazer.

  But it’s a load of baloney. I happen to know that Tsewong was living with Carpenter for at least a week before he killed himself.

  Tsewong wasn’t some unfortunate wretch passing through Kalimpong who’d been taken in by the charitable Doctor Carpenter and who just happened to take his own life while on the premises. No, whatever else he came here to do, Tsewong came to Kalimpong to see Carpenter. I’d swear to it.”

  “Why should he want to see Carpenter?”

  “That’s a good question. I wish I knew the answer to it. I’ve an idea Carpenter had a hand in Tsewong’s conversion. For all we know, the man wasn’t called Tsewong at all, but Gordon or Angus.”

  Christopher smiled bleakly.

  “Are you sure the man was a convert? Isn’t it possible Carpenter just gave him the cross while he was with him? Perhaps Tsewong didn’t realize the significance of it.”

  Cormac looked at Christopher.

  “I can see you weren’t brought up in Belfast. I don’t know whether or not Tsewong understood its significance exactly, but I’d be very surprised if John Carpenter gave it to him. Presbyterians aren’t given to wearing crosses, let alone crosses with wee figures of Jesus Christ on them.”

  “A crucifix, you mean?”

  “The very thing. I fancy Tsewong got hold of the crucifix from another source. But I still think he and Carpenter were involved in some fashion.”

  “I don’t see what connection there could be.”

  ‘ Cormac stood abruptly and stepped across to the window.

  Outside, moonlight and clouds had turned the sky to broken lace.

  He stood there for a while, watching the patterns of the sky break and

  re-form. Sometimes, he thought it would go on forever, and he felt

  diminished and afraid.

  “What do you think you saw tonight?” he asked, his voice low yet carrying.

  “A man of God, maybe? A man at any rate. But John

  Carpenter isn’t a man. He’s a mask a series of masks, one inside the other, deeper and deeper until you think you’ll go crazy trying to get to the face underneath. And if you ever did get to the face, you’d be sorry you’d done so. Take my word for it I know.

  “For one thing, he’s ambitious. Not like an ordinary man he’s sick with it. He’s turned fifty, and what’s he got to show for himself? Here in Kalimpong, he’s a big man, but that’s like saying he’s made a name for himself collecting stamps or that he’s the Lord Mayor of Limavady. One thing’s for sure he doesn’t want to live out his days in this hole with all these wee heathen shites.

  No more does Mrs. Carpenter who is, by the way, made of cast iron and twice as frigid.

  “Carpenter knows there’s more, and he knows where he can get it. It’s eating him up inside. It’s been eating him up for twenty, five years and more. If he wants to become the Indian Livingstone, he’ll have to pull off something big, something that’ll get him [ noticed. And round here that means just one thing.”

  I He paused and lifted the flask to his lips. The whiskey was { working, dreaming in his veins.

  i 91

  “What’s that?” asked Christopher.

  “Tibet,” answered Cormac.

  “Open up Tibet. A mission there would crown anyone’s career. It would even help the Pope make a name for himself. It’s never been done, at least not since some Jesuits tried in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A Presbyterian church in the Forbidden City, overlooking the Potala maybe. Convert the Dalai Lama, tear down the idols, proclaim the land for Christ. Jesus, he could go home in triumph. There’d be a statue to him on the Mound in front of New College. They’d tear down the Scott Monument and put the Carpenter Memorial in its place. Ladies in tweed skirts and sensible underwear would queue up to write the story of his life. A few of them would doubtless lift their skirts and let him tell his own story ‘ “Could it be done?”

  “I don’t see why not, if you could find your way through the underwear.”

  “I didn’t mean that. Could Carpenter actually open a mission?”

  Cormac grunted.

  “Are you mad? But that won’t stop the wee bastard trying. He has his contacts, or so he lets on. Before long, there’ll be a British Ambassador in Lhasa. Don’t look so surprised I know a bit about what goes on round here. And the Ambassador will need a chaplain. That would be a start. He’s got it all worked out, believe me.”

  “And you think Tsewong was part of this plan?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

  Christopher nodded. It sounded plausible. Plausible but harmless. And he was convinced that whatever was going on here was far from harmless.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” he said.

  “But it sounds innocuous enough to me. Where do I come into this? And my son. He wasn’t kidnapped because of some ecclesiastical plot to open a mission in Lhasa.”

  Cormac shrugged.

  “I wouldn’t know. I’m not in that business me self Something tells me that would be more in your line. But you can be sure of one thing: if Carpenter’s laying the foundations for a Tibetan mission, it’s costing him plenty. There’s people to buy, influence to att
ract, men in high places to win over. That sort of thing doesn’t come cheap. And there are other prices too. Concessions.

  Quid pro quos. Favours. As you know, Bibles and trade often go hand in hand. And not too far behind trade come the guns. Johnny Carpenter’s in deep, whatever he’s mixed up in.”

  The penny I pay is not a copper one. Nor silver nor gold, for that matter.. .

  “Where does he find the money? If you’re right, he must need a lot of money. I’ve been at the Homes there’s no wealth there.”

  Cormac gave Christopher a look so intense it made him flinch.

  It was like hatred.

  “Isn’t there?” he snapped. Then, abruptly as he had spoken, he took hold of himself.

  “I’ve had too much to drink,” he said.

  “You’ll have to excuse me.

  We’re on dangerous ground, mister. We’d better not go any further until I’m sober and you’ve had a rest. Perhaps we’d best go no further at all.” He took a deep breath before continuing.

  “But maybe you’ve a right to know more. Come and see me in the morning. I’m not on duty until tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be in my bungalow they’ll tell you how to find it at the hospital. I’ve some things in my desk I’d like you to see.”

  The doctor fell silent and glanced out through the window again.

  Someone had lit a fire on the hills. He could just make it out, a tiny, lonely speck in the darkness.

  “Jesus,” he said, his voice low, as though he were speaking to himself.

  “Sometimes I wonder why we ever came here, why we stay. It’s no place for the likes of you and me: it swallows us up alive and spits us out again. Have you never felt that? As though you were being eaten. As though a tiger had your flesh between his teeth and was chewing you. A carnivore that had developed a taste for human meat.”

  He shuddered at his own imagery. He had treated men attacked by tigers. What was left of them.

  “What about the letter?” Christopher asked.

  “The English letter that was found on Tsewong. Could Carpenter have written it?”

  The doctor shook his head.

  “He could have, but he didn’t. It wasn’t in his handwriting. It wasn’t in any handwriting I recognized. But I know one thing: