Zamyatin was dressed in the plainest of costumes: a cotton Chinese jacket and trousers. His hair was cropped short, not shaven like that of the monks. He sat cross-legged on a throne of cushions, for all the world like an incarnation of a deity from the underworld. Christopher remembered something Winterpole had said to him before he left, about how the Bolsheviks all but worshipped History, how they had made it into a divinity that ordered all things in their universe. Looking down the long hall at Zamyatin, he thought he saw History enthroned at last, the word made flesh again in a man.
Beside Zamyatin sat the two children, William and Samdup.
They were both clearly frightened, but were making a sustained effort to master their fear. William was wearing Tibetan clothes in which he was manifestly uncomfortable. Samdup wore an expensive brocade robe, and on his head he sported a blue pointed cap.
Both boys were staring sullenly at their feet.
Christopher could feel his heart pounding. With every step, he expected William to look up and recognize him. He raised a finger to his lips to tell his son not to make a sound, but he had to make an effort not to dash forward himself and embrace him.
Now they were within feet of the throne. Zamyatin did not take his eyes off them once. He watched them like a bird of prey that has seen its next victims and is waiting for the moment to swoop.
Christopher noticed that he had long, thin hands like claws. They lay on his lap without moving, like the hands of a waxwork figure in a museum.
Suddenly, Samdup glanced up and saw Chindamani. He cried out to her and rose to run in her direction, but Zamyatin reached out a long arm and pinned the boy by the wrist.
“Time enough, lambkin,” he said, ‘time enough.”
At that moment, William too looked up. He looked straight at Christopher without recognizing him immediately. Then Christopher smiled and the boy’s face altered in an instant.
“Father!” he cried.
Christopher stopped in his tracks, frightened to say or do anything. He knew he should run forward, but now the moment had come, something inward held him back. Was it an instinct that he should show no emotion in front of this man?
William cried out again and tried to rise. Zamyatin took his wrist too and held him tight by his side. He looked straight at Christopher. As he did so, a shadow passed over his eyes and was gone. It had only been there for a moment, but Christopher had felt the animosity like a physical blow.
They were only feet away now. Christopher stopped and fixed his eyes on Zamyatin. The Russian’s skin was pale, but his eyes were dark and quite alien to the rest of his face: they were restless, Oriental eyes, torrid, yet without real warmth. But it was the mouth rather than the eyes that betrayed the man. The lips were by nature soft, almost sensual; but he had trained them to a hardness that thinned and mutilated them. Whatever in him was given to softness, whatever inclined him to luxury, had been starved and beaten until it cringed like a whipped dog in the darkest corners of his personality.
“What is my son doing here?” demanded Christopher.
“I insist you free him at once.”
“You may speak only when I speak to you, Mr. Wylam,” said Zamyatin in a weary voice.
“If you do not understand, I will help you understand.”
“For God’s sake, the boy has been through enough! Willjou try to understand? You’ve got what you came here for. Let him go!”
Zamyatin said nothing. He simply raised one finger of his right hand and gestured with it to someone standing behind Christopher. Tsarong Rinpoche stepped forward, lifted a hand to Christopher’s neck, and pressed gently. The pain was excruciating.
Christopher cried out and clasped his neck: the skin was unbroken, but the nerves still throbbed with agony.
“I assure you, Mr. Wylam,” Zamyatin said, ‘that the new abbot of Dorje-la is not in the least like his predecessor. But you may have guessed that already.”
“What are you doing with Lord Samdup?” burst out Chindamani.
“Why have you taken him from his lab rang
Zamyatin reached out a thin hand and caressed the boy, running sharp fingers along his cheeks, as if he were a pet. The expression on his face mocked her.
“Samdup and I are learning to be friends. Aren’t we?” he replied.
But Samdup shifted uneasily, pulling away from his hand.
“The boy is tired and frightened,” Chindamani said.
“He should not be here. You have no right to be here, and no right to be with the boy.”
Zamyatin gave her a look that was like a slap across the face.
She reddened visibly as he snapped his answer.
“Don’t talk to me of rights, miss. All the privileges are gone. The people have taken this monastery. I am their representative.
Tsarong Rinpoche is Dorje Lama now. He will decide what rights and duties you have.”
Suddenly, Samdup leaned away from Zamyatin and appealed to Chindamani.
“Please, Chindamani,” he said.
“I don’t want to stay here. I don’t understand what’s happening. Where is the Dorje Lama? Who is this man?”
“I’m your friend,” Zamyatin said, raising his hand to stroke the boy again.
“You’re not my friend,” Samdup retorted.
“Chindamani is my friend. Please, Chindamani, take me with you. I don’t want to stay here.”
“He doesn’t want to be with you,” Chindamani snapped. She was not going to let herself be cowed by Zamyatin and his bullying.
“Let me take him with me. And the other child too. They both need to sleep. There are rooms on this floor we can go to. You needn’t worry we won’t escape. There’s nowhere to go.”
Zamyatin seemed to think it over.
“Very well, take them out of my sight for a while. Read them bedtime stories I hear you’re very good at it.”
He paused and turned to Tsarong Rinpoche.
“Take her and the boys. See they’re given comfortable quarters for tonight. And make sure they’re well watched. I’ll hold you responsible if you let them give you the slip. Now, all of you get out. I want to speak with Mr. Wylam alone.”
As William passed, Christopher smiled at him and reached out a hand to touch his cheek. The boy was crying, all elation at his father’s appearance dashed to nothing by the realization that Christopher was as helpless here as himself.
“Don’t worry, William,” Christopher called to him.
“We’re not done for yet. Keep your spirits up.” But his words sounded trite and hollow. Things could scarcely be worse.
The Rinpoche and his men went out silently, taking Chindamani and the boys with them. At the door, she turned to look at Christopher. Their eyes met for a moment, then someone pulled her by the arm and she was gone.
“I see you like the girl,””Zamyatin said.
He spoke in English now, relaxed, urbane, mocking. The disinherited nobleman had picked up a veneer of sophistication somewhere along the way. Or had his urbanity come with the blood and the Slavic lips?
“She’s very nice, I don’t blame you. I toyed with the idea myself at one point. But women are a distraction you should know that.”
“A distraction from what? From murder?”
“From real life, of course. From the things that matter. Here, come and sit near me. It’s time we talked.”
Christopher took a cushion and sat facing Zamyatin, but he kept his distance: he wanted no intimacy with this man.
The Russian looked directly into his eyes.
“Your loyalty has impressed me, Major Wylam,” he said.
“I am not given to sentiment, but I will admit that this has taken me by surprise. Clearly, it does not pay to discount the baser emotions.
You have my congratulations. And my sympathy. Though perhaps you rather think yourself in need of neither.”
Christopher said nothing.
“Believe me,” Zamyatin continued, ‘your son was not taken from you g
ratuitously. It may have seemed that way to you, of course.
But I assure you, higher issues were at stake than you can possibly comprehend. I would not expect you to support the ends for which your boy was kidnapped. But I do expect you to acknowledge that what was done was done for the highest reasons. Not for profit or sensual gratification, but for the very highest of motives. You may condemn the action, but you must understand the justification.”
Christopher was growing angrier every moment.
“I’m the boy’s father!” he exploded.
“How the hell do you expect me to tolerate what you’ve done? Nothing gives you the right to kidnap a child and drag him off half-way across the world.
Nothing.”
“I’m sorry to hear you say that, Major. I had expected at least some acknowledgement of sympathy for my position. We are both professional men, you and I. You work for a country, I work for a cause. If I were an enemy soldier, surely I would be entitled to your respect. But I am fighting for a cause that stands above all petty particularities of race or nation the very prejudices that led to the world war. And yet you refuse to accord me the honour you would accord an enemy soldier.”
“Soldiers risk their lives in battle. You plot the snatching of a child from a safe distance. You send other men to do your dirty work for you.”
The Russian’s cheeks flushed. He stared hard at Christopher.
“And you Major Wylam when did you last go into battle? How many men have you killed or had killed in the course of your intelligence operations? How many agents have you instructed to kill on your behalf? For the common good. For the sake of the Empire. Don’t talk to me about morality. If your superiors told you to kidnap a Russian child tomorrow in the belief that it would help overthrow our revolutionary government, I don’t believe you would hesitate for a moment.”
Christopher said nothing. The horror was that Zamyatin was right. Higher necessity had dogged Christopher’s footsteps for every inch of his career in intelligence. In their gilded tombs, the sleeping dead listened. Light played on gold and bronze. Christopher felt the blade of the knife against his leg, pressing into his skin.
“Come to the point,” said Christopher.
“You haven’t asked me to stay for a cosy chat. What do you want from me?” He eased himself into a position from which he could more easily reach the handle of the knife.
Zamyatin moved his hands for the first time, lifting them from his lap and placing them together, palm to palm in front of him in an almost religious gesture. Oddly enough, it did not seem out of place for him to do so, even if he himself was a living contradiction of his surroundings.
“All I ask from you is a little help, a little information,” he said.
“You were an important man. Not so very long ago, you occupied a leading position with British intelligence in India. You have been deeply involved with your country’s plans for the region north of the Himalayas. You are a mine of information.
“Frankly, Major Wylam, I regard your presence here as an enormous bonus. When I first had investigations made into you and your son, I had no idea who you might be. Imagine my surprise and delight when I found such a central figure in an area of intelligence so close to my own heart Perhaps there are gods after all. Perhaps they are smiling on me.”
“I no longer work for British intelligence.” He scratched his knee, letting the fingers of his right hand move down towards the knife handle.
“I disagree. How did you get to India so quickly? Who told you where to go, what to look for?”
Christopher was nervous. A year was not very long. He still possessed information that could prove invaluable to Zamyatin and to the communist cells in India.
“Why should I tell you anything?” he said.
Zamyatin smiled.
“Please don’t insult my intelligence, Major. The cards are stacked against you: I beg you to bear that in mind. Your son has served his function. Admittedly, there are other uses to which I may be able to put him. But I have been weighing those up against the information I know you must possess. Your son may be more valuable to me dead than alive. Think about that, please.”
“If he dies, you can expect nothing from me.” Hidden by a thin shadow, Christopher’s fingers had found the top of the knife and were easing it upwards gently.
“Of course. I’m not a fool. But remember that death can be very slow And remember that there is an alternative. Your father made a deal with me. I am willing to make one with you. At the price of a little information hard information you may buy your son’s life.”
“He’s only a child, for God’s sake!”
“We are all children. You, me, your son. Men are still infants, silly and immature. The world grows up very slowly, very slowly indeed. We will only reach adulthood when a new society is created on earth. That is why I must be so hard now.
“Spare the rod and spoil the child” isn’t that what you say?
“I must be cruel to be kind.”
“You can bend a sapling, but not a tree.” You English have so many ways of expressing the idea.”
“And what happened tonight,” Christopher retorted warmly, ‘was that bending saplings?”
“Listen to me,” Zamyatin said.
“Your world is gone. The old order is being rolled up. A new one is being spread out in its place.
When a building has been declared unsafe, you don’t waste time papering over the cracks and putting nails in the plasterboard.
You knock it down. And you use the rubbish as a foundation for a new building. Don’t you see? it doesn’t matter if blood is spilt or sons lose their fathers or mothers lose their daughters. They will all become rubble for the foundations.”
He looked at Christopher with a look almost of entreaty.
“You can choose which you want to be,” he said, ‘part of the rubble or part of the new edifice.”
“What if I want to be neither?” Christopher asked. The handle of the knife was out of his boot. He began to ease the blade out, a fraction at a time.
“You do not have that choice. You must be one or the other.
That has been decided for you by the dialectic of history. None of us has any say in the matter. We can only choose which side to throw in our fortunes with.”
“Did any of the monks you killed tonight have a choice? Were they asked whether they wanted to join your revolution?”
Zamyatin shook his head slowly. He was like a man who carried a heavy weight on his shoulders. He saw himself as a man of sorrows.
“This is not the revolution, Major Wylam. This is not even the first stirrings of the revolution. There is no urban proletariat here, no capitalist system to be overthrown. Only gods and demons and priests.”
He sighed, as though he had spent his life bowing and scraping at dark altars, lighting candles at the feet of old gods.
“They need new leaders,” he went on, ‘men who will lead them away from their superstitions. You want to give them schools and law courts and cricket pitches. But they already have books and laws and games. What they need is freedom. Freedom from oppression. Freedom from injustice. Freedom from want.”
“And you will give them that?”
“We will make it possible. They will grant freedom to themselves.”
“What about the freedom to choose?”
Zamyatin’s eyes flashed.
“They will have that along with the rest. But first they have to be weaned from their feudalism. That will be a painful process.
Many will die before it is finished. But every death will bring the masses a step closer to liberation. It is inevitable. The forces of history are on our side.”
Like a true believer with his rosary or prayer-wheel, Zamyatin muttered the formulae of his own liturgy, invoking History in his days of gracelessness. Christopher remembered now what Winterpole had said to him: The Bolsheviks speak of historical inevitability in the way your Jesuits talk of perfect obedience. History has no
feelings: no pity, no love, no hate, no elation, no bitterness. It moves on an appointed course. And God help those who get in its way.
Christopher felt trapped, morally and emotionally. He had come so far to save his son, but to do so he would have to betray innocent men and women elsewhere. Zamyatin would not be content to be fobbed off with a few crumbs of insignificant information. He would find ways of checking whatever Christopher told him, he would have questions to which he would expect reasonable answers. And when Christopher had completed his betrayals, what guarantee did he have that the Russian would honour his word?
People were pawns to him, and Christopher did not imagine for a moment that Zamyatin would want to waste time ensuring his safety or that of his son.
“I need time to think,” he said. He had the knife now. He held it by the tips of his fingers, ready to leap on the Russian.
Zamyatin pursed his lips. The candles were burning low. Beyond the windows, night was in control.
“I can’t give you time,” he said.
“I have none to give. You will have to make your mind up tonight. Tomorrow I leave for Mongolia. The Tibetan boy is about to be made a god. Your son comes with me, though whether he survives the journey or not depends on you. I hope you understand me, Major Wylam.”
“I understand.” Christopher stood up.
“I will see you are taken to your room. If there is anything you need, the steward will see it is brought to you.”
“Tell me,” Christopher said, ‘why did you kill so many people?
You had made an arrangement. You had what you wanted. Was it necessary to massacre them?”
Zamyatin stood up and took a step towards Christopher.
“Your father went back on his agreement,” he said.
“He told me to leave, ordered his monks to throw me out. I rather feared something of the sort might happen when I heard Tsarong Rinpoche had brought you here. Your father allowed emotions to creep in. Half a lifetime subduing his passions and then a moment’s inadvertence. He was as much a child as any of us. I had no time to argue. Do not make the same mistake he did.”
The Ninth Buddha Page 24
