Sacred Mountain

by Robert Ferguson

  At the centre stood a huge Stupa, a Buddhist shrine that to Philips’ eye resembled a giant bell. Its base was a large plinth of stone on which sat a huge white dome. From this a tall, stepped tower climbed into the sky, crowned with what looked like a huge, golden umbrella. Long lines of prayer flags ran from this down to the outer walls of the square, themselves embedded with hundreds of copper prayer wheels. The tower had large eyes painted on each side, gazing down over the square which was crowded with Tibetans. There was hardly any space remaining without a flimsy hut or makeshift tent on it. Smoke filtered through the roofs, goats bleated from their tight tethers by doorways, while a crowd of women waited with wooden buckets beside a stone water trough.

  Philip found himself surrounded by smiling children, all with hands held out and shouting for his attention. He smiled, shaking his head but to no affect, until a young Tibetan man, his thick woollen coat hanging free from his upper body but still tied around his waist, came over waving a short leather yak whip at them. They scattered, screaming with excitement. He looked at Philip suspiciously, before turning and gesturing Philip to follow. They walked through the hovels, in places the path not wide enough for two people to pass. Finally he ducked under a makeshift door made from a hanging blanket and held it up for Philip to follow.

  His first impression was of how tidy it was. Despite being little more than fabric and skins on a wooden frame tied together with flax, it felt homely and warm. Wooden stools sat around a small hearth made of nothing more than three flat stones. Philip coughed as smoke caught in his throat and eyes, but when the man pointed to one of the stools and they sat, the air got cleaner and less of an irritant.

  “Thank you for rescuing me from the children,” Philip said slowly, not sure whether the man would understand. “They’re very friendly but rather persistent!”

  The man nodded, waiting until a girl no older than nine or ten had served them each a glass of thick, greasy looking tea. “They are excited,” he replied at last. “They are always hopeful of a sweet or pencil.”

  Philip smiled back, and cautiously sipped his drink. He tried not to gag. The taste of strong, stewed tea, rancid butter and salt filled his mouth and he quickly lowered his glass.

  The young man laughed. “I’ve heard that it’s a taste you have to get used to. To those of us brought up with it, it is what we like. In a Tibetan winter it keeps us strong so we drink up to fifty glasses a day.”

  Philip blew out his cheeks. “Well,” he replied. “I think I’ll stick to just the one if that’s acceptable to you.” He looked down, gently blowing on the drink before continuing. “You’re from Tibet?”

  The man nodded. “We all are here. When we get to Kathmandu there are few places to go so we stay here in the protection of the great Bodnath shrine. Here we are safe, as the land around it is viewed as Tibetan land where even the King of Nepal has no authority. ”

  Philip looked at the man. “How long have you been here?”

  “Myself, only a few months, but some have been here for over a year, ever since the Chinese invaded.” He scratched at a flea bite in the side of his neck. “It is hard in winter.”

  Philip nodded. “How do you survive?”

  “Many walk to the foothills every morning and collect firewood to sell in the bazaars. Other work as porters or any other job they can find.”

  “And you?”

  The man sat still, looking hard at Philip, before reaching down and pulling over a stout wooden chest from the edge of the shelter. He opened it and took out one of several pieces of rolled cloth. Holding it up, he released one edge and it unrolled to reveal a beautiful painting. It was made of silk. In the centre, beautifully embroidered, sat the Buddha, picked out in golden thread on a rich blue background. Around him were a series of concentric circles, each with tiny scenes of places and portraits of people sown in.

  “It’s a Thanka,” the man explained. “It is very old, maybe two or three hundred years. I buy them from the people when they arrive, before they are sold to the foreigners and lost. The best ones we store in the Great Shrine. The others,” he shrugged, “we sell to get money to be able to afford the best. It is sad but necessary.”

  Philip nodded. “And you thought that I might be a buyer?”

  The man looked back and smiled. “You didn’t look like a buyer but westerners always pay more than the Indians so I thought it was worth a try.”

  Philip laughed. “Well, it’s bad manners in England to argue over a price, so I’d have made you very happy.”

  The man smiled. “The perfect person to do business with. To be honest I don’t know why I asked. I knew you were not here for antiquities and treasures. Something just led me to fetch you.”

  The Tibetan finished his drink and stood. Back outside Philip turned and faced the young man. “Thank you for the hospitality.” He glanced up and down the alley, looking for a landmark. “If I wanted to find you again, do I just come back here?”

  The man looked at him thoughtfully. “You can ask at the shrine for Zigsa. They will know where to find me.” He bowed politely and walked off, vanishing into the maze of alleyways.

  Chapter 4

  Philip sat on a low stone wall, drinking deeply from the metal water bottle that hung on a leather strap around his neck. It was still only mid-morning but now the sun had risen over the surrounding hills sweat ran down his face, his shirt sticking to his back. He looked back down over the valley, the roar of the fast flowing river below now no more than a distant rumble.

  He felt more relaxed now. The first few days had taken them through a dark jungle, tangled forests vying with thick bamboo thickets that seemed to hem the trail in. Monkeys had called in the shadows and leeches had reached out from the foliage, blindly searching for an ankle or leg to attach onto. The porters had been nervous, walking together in case of meeting a hungry leopard.

  He found himself starting at the rustle of the undergrowth, convinced there was somebody following and often instinctively sniffing the air. Once he stopped short, heart pounding as his nostrils flared at the smell of tobacco. Edging forward he turned a corner to find his porters resting on a Mani wall, rough, hand-rolled cigarettes hanging from their mouths. He’d walked on in silence, head down, intuitively avoiding soft ground so as not to leave footprints as he tried to hurry along as quickly as possible. Mingma had initially been impressed with his pace, complimenting him on his fitness but it seemed he’d somehow sensed there was another reason behind it and Philips quiet, edgy state of mind.

  His mood wasn’t helped by his fatigue from all the travelling, the physical exertion and a lack of sleep. His nightmares had returned, triggered by the sounds and smells of the damp, fetid forest.

  They’d slowly improved since the war. At first, back home, he’d often woken at night, screaming and trembling, calling out to the long dead. By the time he got his job as a junior correspondent with The Times and moved to a shared house just off Covent Garden he’d learnt to control them better, and they only re-emerged when he was in unfamiliar places or something triggered them. It could be anything. He’d taken his last girlfriend to the cinema to see the latest film Peter Pan one evening just before he’d left and had woken later that night screaming in Japanese. She’d ended their relationship, calling him damaged if he reacted like that to a ticking, cartoon crocodile. He’d sat on the bed long after she’d left with his head in his hands, despairing and embarrassed by his inability to control them. The Everest assignment had come up the following week and he’d been so desperate to get away there’d been no time to dwell on it. But an unease had been growing ever since the wheels of the plane had left London Airport and now he’d no choice now but to confront his fears. Like it or not, he knew that if he wanted to be able to live a normal life, it was something that had to be faced.

  Slowly they’d climbed out of the tropical zone, entering the foothills where sharp ridges from the high Himalaya reached down towards the plains. They’d emerged from the jungl
es gloom into valleys of vibrant colour, azure blue rivers and brilliant green fields that dazzled in the clear mountain light. To Philip, after the hell of the previous few days, it felt like an awakening. After the sooty drabness of war-scarred London, the crisp colours were almost too much for his senses.

  Despite its remoteness the countryside was full of small, neat villages and pretty farmhouses that dotted the hill sides. The valleys weren’t wide, their sides plunging down to rivers before climbing away again on the far bank. Yet every piece of land that could be used was covered in crops of barley, maize and potatoes. Terraces climbed the hillsides, some no wider than a couple of yards, others the size of tennis courts. The houses were brightly painted in white and orange, thickly thatched, with wood piles against the walls and ricks of hay and maize beside them. The bleating of sheep and goats carried across to him, as did the shouting and laughter of children, larking around as they helped their parents in the fields.

  He carefully screwed the top back on his bottle and walked back to where his heavy rucksack stood balanced on a large rock. He turned and pushed his arms through the shoulder straps, shuddering as he stood and the pack pushed his cold, damp shirt against his skin. His shoulders were sore, not used to carrying so much weight over a rough terrain that constantly shifted the straps. He sighed, blowing out his cheeks. Five days they’d been walking, probably another ten or so until they caught up with James and the expedition.

  They were making good progress. Mingma was everywhere. Taking the tents down and loading the porters in the morning, cajoling them along the trail and ensuring that the camp was ready when Philip arrived in the evening. Already Philip had fallen into the daily routine as if he’d never been away from it. Up at dawn with a cup of tea, he walked for a few hours until the sun had risen and the warmth grown. He then stopped for a large breakfast at a place Old Gompu had gone ahead to select, usually beside a river or stream so that he could do some washing of either himself or his clothes. They then trekked on until the middle of the afternoon when camp was reached and Philip could relax by reading or writing until supper was prepared.

  They normally stopped near villages so that his porters had somewhere to shelter, staying in basic guest houses that offered a simple meal and place on the floor to sleep. There were no roads outside Kathmandu, the only way anything got in or out of the mountains was on the back of the sturdy porters who were paid per load. Philip watched as several walked towards him, veins standing out in their necks from the weight of the loads they carried on a strap that ran across their foreheads. Their legs were bowed, calves like balloons and muscles bulging as they slowly edged their way down the path.

  Philip continued up the trail, its worn surface smooth from centuries of use. It switched-back several times as it climbed towards the top of the ridge, each hairpin marked with a small shrine either carved into the rock or made from roughly piled stones, all adorned with prayer flags. Finally the path flattened out and passed through a small notch in the rocks. As he stepped through it was like entering a different world as a new valley lay stretched out before him.

  He stopped, forgetting his fatigue. Before him rose a towering range of mountains, their steep lower slopes covered in a thick forest that tumbled to a twisting white river far below. Occasional waterfalls cascaded through the trees, great plumes of spray drifting down the valley where they smashed onto the rocks below. The summits were jagged, black, naked rock silhouetted against what he initially took to be cloud. He caught his breath as his eyes continued upwards and he realised the whiteness was snow, the icy slopes of a continuous chain of mountains that lay beyond, so high they appeared like a row of towering storm clouds.

  Just as they framed the foothills, so their white outlines were pin clear before a deep blue sky, plumes of snow blasting from their summits. He stood, spellbound, wondering what the mountaineers had thought when they’d looked up a few weeks before. Excitement? Apprehension? His thoughts were interrupted by a voice.

  “It sure is quite a sight.”

  Philip recognised the American accent immediately. “Unbelievable,” he replied, his eyes still on the mountains. “I thought they were clouds.”

  Tashi threw the butt of a beedi cigarette away and hauled himself to his feet. “I remember the first time I saw them, near Darjeeling.” He smiled at the memory. “I was a child with my father. I thought he was jerking me around when he told me they were mountains, that he was making it up. That’s why when I was older I walked in to see them close up. Just to be sure.”

  Philip looked at him. “Where did you go?” he asked.

  “First I walked to Kanchenjunga, a mountain on the eastern end of the Himalaya. I remember looking up at it from its base, glaciers tumbling down its side, sheer rock faces swept by avalanches and wondering if anything could be more beautiful.” He took a long drink of water and wiped his mouth dry on his sleeve. “Eventually I reached Lhasa, the capital of Tibet,” the Indian continued. “It was easier then, it was before the Chinese had invaded. In those days you could come and go with the trading caravans.” He stopped and looked at Philip. “Well, I could anyway. I grew up in India but my family was from Tibet so I had the look of a Tibetan and after a few weeks of not washing on the trail no one came too close to investigate.” He guffawed and slapped Philip on the back. “It’ll be like us in a few more days.”

  They continued together along the path, now descending into the new, steeper valley. There was less cultivation; Philip could see a few fields far below but much of the valley was covered in thin forest.

  “So what brings you into the mountains this time?” he asked. “Still not convinced they’re real?”

  There was a short pause. “No, I know they’re real now.” Tashi replied with a smile. “I trade in precious stones that are found by the nomads on the plateaux and brought over by traders. Corals, turquoise and red jade mainly, which I exchange for money. They use this to buy food which they bring back to Tibet with them. I sell the rocks in Calcutta to jewellers and make a good profit. It works well for us all.” He shrugged. “And all this walking keeps me fit!”

  Philip laughed. “Well, before you get too thin, join me for some breakfast, I can see Old Gompu down there and as usual he’ll have cooked far too much.”

  Tashi gave a small bow. “I accept, thank you, but I mustn’t stay too long. I need to make the next village by nightfall or I’ll be sleeping in the forest.”

  *

  They arrived at the breakfast spot, and Philip dropped his bag to the ground and sank gratefully into a canvas chair that had been set up for him in the shade of a rhododendron tree. He took a cup of chai offered to him by a young porter who seemed to have become Old Gompu’s assistant. He carefully sipped the scalding drink, the sweetness of the condensed milk kicking energy back into him. Tashi had settled himself on a large stone that protruded from the soft green turf and was lighting another beedi, holding out the pack towards Philip.

  “Not for me thanks,” Philip replied with a small shake of the head. “I lost the taste for them during the war when we ran out of tobacco and resorted to smoking anything we could find.” He wagged a finger jovially towards Tashi. “Mind you, I read an article in the Reader’s Digest a couple of months ago suggesting there was a link between smoking and cancer. My friends all thought it ridiculous but who knows.”

  There was a short pause as both men relaxed in the warmth of the day, enjoying the tranquillity that seemed to envelop them.

  “Were you visiting Darjeeling when you saw the Himalaya for the first time?” Philip asked, gazing out at the view.

  “No,” Tashi replied, shaking his head. “It was where we lived. I remember arriving there after fleeing from Tibet. It seemed so sophisticated with electricity and cars.”

  “And why did you have to flee Tibet?”

  “We were driven from our lands. We lived in the East of Tibet, my father had a small farm that had been in our family for generations.” He smiled, staring vacan
tly down the valley as he remembered his old home. “It was in a small side valley, leading off the main open steppe. A small stream ran through it in which there were trout, and the head of the valley was covered in thin forest where we hunted small deer and hares. It was a good place to live.” He laughed. “I had three sisters and two brothers, and as the youngest I always managed to escape the work. I spent most of my time riding the young ponies, pretending I was training them but really I just loved to ride.

  “But we lived near the border, in an area that China had claimed for centuries and there was often fighting nearby, in the larger villages and towns.” He stopped, looking down to study the glowing tip of his beedi, gently wafting the smoke away from his eyes. “This time soldiers came to our lands, burning the buildings and taking our animals. My brothers were killed defending our home. We had nothing.

  “For months we lived in a rough yurt, living by hunting and scavenging for food.” He paused again, his face sad. “Everything was destroyed. All you could smell was ash and rotting flesh. The winter that year was so cold people were freezing in their tents so we went to the Chinese authorities in the town and begged to be allowed to settle again. They drove us down the streets, whipping us with leather lashes, keeping my two oldest sisters as slaves.” His voice cracked. “I never saw them again. My father decided our only chance to live was to flee to India, to get away from the turmoil in Tibet completely.”

  Philip nodded, for a moment too shocked to respond. “That must be where you learnt your English? It’s very good,” he replied at last.

  Tashi looked up and smiled. “It was my father who made me learn. He worked hard and sent me to a missionary school, travelling into Tibet to trade in gems. It was very dangerous. Sometimes he was away for months and returned not far from starvation. But he became renowned as the best source of Tibetan stones and when I was old enough sent me to work for one of the best jewellers in Calcutta, with whom he did business.”