The Ninth Buddha

by Daniel Easterman

  What did he mean, ‘you are holy for me?” Christopher remembered the thin man in Hexham.

  “I am ordered not to harm you,” he had said.

  “Are you telling me you killed Martin Cormac?” Christopher took a step towards the monk. The man did not move.

  “You do not understand,” the monk whispered. Christopher thought he could hear flies buzzing in the room. He could see sunlight spilling on to white, disordered sheets. He felt suffocated.

  “I understand,” he shouted above the buzzing.

  The monk shook his head.

  “You understand nothing,” he whispered.

  Christopher stepped nearer, but something held him back from actually attacking the man.

  “Please,” said the monk.

  “Do not try to harm me. If you do, I will be forced to prevent you.

  And I do not want that on my conscience.

  I have put blood on my karma today. But you are holy: do not make me touch you.”

  Inarticulate anger grew in Christopher, but the very placidity of the monk made it hard for him to strike him. The man stood up, his robes falling elegantly into place around him.

  “I have given my warning,” he said.

  “Leave Kalimpong. Go back to England. If you seek to go further, I cannot be responsible for what will happen to you.”

  He passed Christopher on his way to the door, brushing him with the edge of his outer robe.

  Christopher never knew what happened next. He felt the touch of the monk’s robe against his hand. He remembered the touch of Cormac’s mosquito-net against his bare skin and felt a surge of anger rise in him. The monk’s placidity was nothing: he wanted to strike him, to drag him down to some sort of justice. He reached out, intending to haul the man round, at the very least to confront him. Perhaps he had intended to strike him, he could not be sure.

  All he felt was the monk’s hand on his neck, a gentle touch without violence or pain. Then the world dissolved and he felt himself falling, falling endlessly into a lightless, colourless abyss out of which nothing ever returned.

  He dreamed he was in silence and that the silence clung to him softly, like wax. The wax melted and he was walking through empty corridors. On either side, vast classrooms stood empty and silent; chalk-dust hung like bruised white pollen in long beams of sunlight. He was climbing stairs that stretched above him towards infinity. Then he was on a landing that took him into another corridor. From somewhere, he could hear the sound of buzzing.

  He passed through the first door he came to and found himself in a long white dormitory drenched in silence. Two rows of rusted hooks had been screwed into the ceiling over the central aisle.

  From each hook a rope was suspended, and at the end of each rope the body of a young girl was hanging. They all wore white shifts and their backs were turned to him, and their hair was long and black and silken. He watched in horror as the ropes twisted and the bodies turned. The sound of buzzing filled the room, but there were no flies. A door slammed suddenly, sending echoes throughout the building.

  “Wake up, sahibl Wake up!”

  He struggled to open his eyes, but they were glued together.

  “You can’t lie here, sahibl Please get up!”

  He made a final effort and his eyes opened painlessly.

  The monk had gone. The boy Lhaten was bending over him, a look of concern on his face. He was lying on the floor of his room, flat on his back.

  “The monk told me I would find you here, sahib. What happened?”

  Christopher shook his head to clear it. It felt full of cotton wool.

  Cotton wool mixed with iron filings.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “How long have I been here?”

  “Not long, sahib. At least, I don’t think so.”

  “Lhaten, are there still police outside?”

  “One man. They say they are looking for you. Have you done something, sahibT He shook his head again. The cotton wool was feeling a little more like cement.

  “No, Lhaten. But it won’t be easy to explain. Can you help me up?”

  “Of course.”

  The boy put an arm under Christopher’s neck and raised him to a sitting position.

  With the boy’s help, Christopher made his way to the chair. He felt more winded than anything, as though all the air had been forced out of him suddenly. Whatever the monk had done, it had rendered him unconscious briefly but left him otherwise unharmed.

  He had often heard of such techniques, but until now had never witnessed them used.

  “Do the police know I’m here, Lhaten?”

  The boy shook his head. He was sixteen, seventeen perhaps. By his accent, Christopher guessed he was Nepalese.

  “I need to get out without being seen,” Christopher confided in the boy.

  “Can you help me?”

  it~”v f} ;

  “No problem, sahib. There’s no-one watching the back. But where will you go? They say there are police everywhere, looking for you. You must have done something very wicked.” The boy seemed pleased by that possibility.

  Christopher tried to shake his head, but his neck refused to join in.

  “I’ve done nothing, Lhaten,” he said.

  “But a man has been killed.

  I found him.”

  “And the police think you killed him?” Lhaten raised his eyebrows and whistled. Christopher remembered that William used precisely the same gestures to express amazement.

  “Yes. But I didn’t. Do you believe me?”

  Lhaten shrugged.

  “Does it matter? No doubt he was a very bad man.”

  Christopher frowned.

  “No, Lhaten he wasn’t. And it does matter. It was Dr. Cormac.

  He was with me last night. Do you remember?”

  This seemed to sober Lhaten up. He knew Cormac. The doctor had treated him on several occasions. He had liked him.

  “Don’t worry, sahib. I’ll get you out. But you must have somewhere to go.”

  Christopher hesitated. He wasn’t sure if he could trust the boy.

  But already he was on his own. Nobody in London would vouch for him. Nobody in Delhi would want to interfere. He needed the boy’s help badly.

  “Lhaten,” he began, knowing he was taking a risk.

  “I want to leave Kalimpong. I have to get out of India.”

  “Of course. You should not stay in India. Where do you want to go?”

  Christopher hesitated again. If the police questioned the boy .. .

  “You can trust me, sahib.”

  What did the boy want? Money?

  “If it’s money you .. .”

  “Please!” A look of genuine pain crossed the boy’s face.

  “I don’t want money. I want to help you, that’s all. Where do you want to go?”

  Christopher realized he was wasting time. The police could return to his room at any moment to make a further check on his belongings he guessed it was they who had given the room its second going-over.

  “I want to cross the Sebu-la,” he said in a low voice.

  “Into Tibet.

  I want to leave tonight if possible.”

  Lhaten looked at him in disbelief. It was as if he had expressed a wish to visit the moon.

  “Surely you mean the Nathu-la, sahib. The Sebu-la is closed. It will remain closed all winter. Even the Nathu-la and the passes beyond it may be closed again if the weather changes.”

  “No, I mean the Sebu-la. Along the Tista valley past Lachen, then through the passes. I need a guide. Someone who knows that route.”

  “Perhaps you’re not feeling well, sahib. That blow last night. And today .. .”

  “Damn it, I know what I’m doing!” Christopher snapped.

  “Yes. I’m sorry, sahib.”

  “That’s all right. I’m sorry I shouted, Lhaten. I must sound a bit doolaly, eh?”

  The boy grinned.

  “Thought so. Well, do you know anyone w
ho’d be fool enough to take me at least that far? I wouldn’t want him to come across with me. Just to take me to the Sebu-la. I’ll pay well.”

  “Yes. I know someone.”

  “Excellent. Do you think you can get me to him without being seen?”

  Lhaten grinned again.

  “Very easy.”

  Christopher stood up. His head spun.

  “Let’s go, then.”

  “No need, sahib, your guide is here already. I can take you to the Sebu-la. Maybe I’m a little doolaly as well.”

  Christopher sat down again. He felt irritated by the boy, though he knew he ought not to be.

  “Bloody right you are. I’m not going on a picnic. I’m trying to get into Tibet without an alarm going off half-way across the Himalayas. The main purpose of the exercise is to get there in one piece. I need a proper guide, not a rest-house pot-boy.”

  Lhaten’s face fell. It was almost as though Christopher had slapped him.

  “I’m sorry if .. .” Christopher began, but Lhaten interrupted him.

  “I am not a pot-boy. I am eighteen. And I am a proper guide.

  My family are Sherpas. We know the mountains the way farmers know their fields. I have crossed the Sebu-la with my father many times.”

  “In winter?”

  The boy hung his head.

  “No,” he said.

  “Not in winter. No-one crosses the Sebu-la in winter. No-one.”

  “I am going to cross the Sebu-la in winter, Lhaten.”

  “Without my help, sahib, you will not even make it to the first pass.”

  Lhaten was right. In this weather, Christopher would need more than just luck and his own limited experience to find and cross the Sebu-la. At this point, he wasn’t even thinking about what he would do when he got there. One thing was certain: he could not attempt the journey by way of the Chumbi valley and the more popular route to the east. There were sentries everywhere. All the caravans and isolated travellers were stopped and examined closely. If he was fortunate, he would merely be turned back. More probably, his visitor of half an hour ago and his chums, whoever they might be, would be waiting for him and the monk had made it clear that his friends would have no compunction about harming him.

  “Why do you want to risk your skin on a journey like this, Lhaten?”

  Christopher asked.

  The boy shrugged.

  “This is my third winter in this place, sahib. How many winters could you spend here?”

  Christopher looked at the room, at the shabby furniture, at the gecko sleeping on the wall.

  “Aren’t you frightened to make such a journey in this weather?”

  Lhaten grinned, then looked more serious than ever “Very frightened.”

  That decided Christopher. He would take the boy. The last thing he needed on this journey was someone who didn’t know the meaning of fear.

  They were lost. For two days now, they had been battling against the snow and the wind, but there were no signs of the chorten that Tobchen said would mark the entrance to the valley of Gharoling.

  They had lost the pony. It had fallen into a deep crevasse the day before, taking with it most of their remaining provisions. He could not forget the sound of the dying animal, trapped beyond reach, screaming in pain: the sound had carried in the stillness and followed them for miles.

  The old man was growing visibly weaker. Not only physically, but in his mind. His will-power was slackening, and the boy knew he was near the point of surrender. Several times he had had to rouse Tobchen from a reverie or a sleep out of which he did not want to be wakened. Sometimes they climbed up into banks of freezing cloud, where everything was blotted out in the all consuming whiteness. He felt that the old man wanted to walk on into the cloud and disappear, so he held his hand tightly and willed him to go on. Without him, he would be lost forever.

  “Will the Lady Chindamani come to Gharoling, Tobchen?” he asked.

  The old man sighed.

  “I do not think so, my lord. Pema Chindamani must remain at Dorje-la.

  That is her peflace.”

  “But she said we would meet again.”

  “If she said it, it will happen.”

  “But not at Gharoling?”

  “I do not know, lord.”

  And the old man continued to plod on into the blizzard, muttering the words of the mantra, om mam pad me hum, like an old woman ploughing in her field. Yes, that was it. He was just like an old woman ploughing.

  He lost the old man on the seventh day, early, between waking and first halt. There was no warning. Tobchen had gone in front as usual, into a bank of cloud, telling the boy to follow slowly. At first all had seemed normal, then the cloud had lifted and the way ahead was empty. On his left, a sheer precipice plunged away from the path, its lower depths hidden in cloud. He called the old man’s name loudly, pleadingly, for over an hour, but only dull echoes answered him. A ray of sunlight bounced off the peak of the tall mountain opposite. Suddenly Samdup felt terribly alone.

  He was ten years old. Tobchen said he was many centuries old, but here, trapped in snow and mist, he felt no more than a child.

  Without the old man, he knew he was finished. He had no idea which way to turn: ahead or back, it was all the same to him. The mountains seemed to mock him. Even if he was centuries old, what was that to them? Only the gods were older than they.

  He carried enough food in his bag to last him for about two days, if he was frugal. If only he could see the chorten or a prayer flag or hear the sound of a temple-horn in the distance. But all he saw were pinnacles of ice and all he heard was the wind rising.

  He spent the night in the dark crying, because he was cold and alone and frightened. He wished he had never left Dorje-la Gompa, that he was there now with Pema Chindamani and his other friends. No-one had asked him if he wanted to be a trulku. They had just come to his parents’ house seven years ago and put him through some tests and told him who he was. He had liked living with his parents. True, it was nothing near so grand as life in his lab rang at Dorje-la, but nobody had made him study or expected him to sit through long ceremonials, dressed in silk and fidgeting.

  When the night ended, the world was shrouded in mist. He stayed where he was, feeling the damp seep into his bones, afraid to move in case there was another precipice. He knew he was going to die, and in his childish way he resented it. Death was no stranger to him, of course. He had seen the old bodies of the abbots in their golden chortens on the top floor of the gompa, where no-one could stand above them. One of his first acts at Dorje-la had been to preside over the funeral of one of the old monks, a Lob-pon named Lobsang Geshe. And everywhere, on the walls and ceilings of the monastery, the dead danced like children. From the age of three, they had been his playmates. But he was still afraid.

  Time had no meaning in the mist, and he had no idea what part of the day it was when he first heard the footsteps. He listened, petrified. There were demons in the passes. Demons and ro-lang, the standing corpses of men struck by lightning, who walked the mountains with eyes closed, unable to die and be reborn. In the long nights of the lab rang Pema Chindamani had entranced him with spooky tales, and he had listened pop-eyed in the candlelight.

  But here, in the mist, her stories returned to freeze his blood.

  A figure appeared, tall, shadowy, swathed in black. The boy pressed himself back against the rock, praying that Lord Chenrezi or the Lady Tara would come to his protection. He muttered the mantras Tobchen had taught him. Om Ara Pa Tsa Na Dhi, he recited, using the mantra of Manjushri he had recently learned.

  “Rinpoche, is that you?” came a muffled voice. The boy closed his eyes tightly and recited the mantra faster than ever.

  “Dorje Samdup Rinpoche? This is Thondrup Chophel. I have come from Dorje-la in search of you.”

  He felt a hand on his arm and almest bit his tongue in fear.

  “Please, Rinpoche, don’t be afraid. Open your eyes. It’s me, Thondrup Chophel. I’ve co
me to take you back.”

  At last the boy conquered his fear and allowed himself to look.

  It was not Thondrup Chophel. It was not anyone he knew. It was a demon in black, with a fearsome, painted face that scowled at him. He leapt up, thinking to run. A hand gripped him by the arm and held him fast. He looked round at the demon, panicking.

  The creature lifted a hand to its face and removed a mask. It was a leather mask, like one of those the travellers had worn three days earlier. Underneath was the familiar face of Thondrup Chophel.

  “I’m sorry I frightened you, lord,” the man said. He paused.

  “Where is Geshe Tobchen?”

  The little Rinpoche explained.

  “Then let us be grateful to Lord Chenrezi that he guided me to you. Look, even the mist is lifting. When we have eaten, it will be time to leave.”

  They ate in silence at first, plain tea and tsampa as always.

  Thondrup Chophel had never been a talkative man. The boy had never liked him: he was the Geku of his college in the monastery, the official responsible for disciplining the monks. Samdup remembered him in his heavy robe with padded shoulders, striding between the rows of shaven heads at services in the great temple hall of Dorje-la. He never disciplined Samdup personally that had been the task of Geshe Tobchen, the boy’sjegtengegen, his chief guardian and teacher. But Thondrup Chophel had often given him fierce looks and was never backward about reporting him to Tobchen.

  “Have you come to take me to Gharoling?” the boy asked.

  “Gharoling? Why should we go to Gharoling, lord? I have come to take you back to Dorje-la Gompa.”

  “But Geshe Tobchen was taking me to Gharoling, to study with Geshe Tsering Rinpoche. He said I was not to return to Dorje-la.

  Not under any circumstances.”

  The monk shook his head.

  “Please do not argue, lord. I have been instructed to bring you back. The abbot is concerned for you. Geshe Tobchen did not have his permission to take you away, let alone bring you to Gharoling of all places. You are too young to understand. But you must return with me. You have no choice.”

  “But Geshe Tobchen warned me .. .”

  “Yes? What did he warn you of?”

  “Of... danger.”