‘Get me some more of these skulls,’ he said, pressing a few rupees into Akeh’s palm.
Ernst tore a strip off the bottom of his shirt and wrapped it tightly around his arm. The rewards of finding this specimen would be worth suffering the injury. Berlin University had one of the most impressive anatomical collections in the world, and he knew how much faculty professors wanted to make their mark in the scientific world. Bruno would tend to the wound when they returned to camp. They had both decided it was best to set aside their ugly disagreement. Things had got out of hand, tempers fuelled by the frustration of waiting. Tibet and Lhasa lay before them.
Before they left the cemetery, Ernst surveyed the scene. In his nearly three decades on this earth he had seen more dead creatures than living ones. The cold anatomy of death was so harshly distant from life’s flappings, crawlings and wanderings. The joyful miracle of life ended here, with these bones. Bodies provided only temporary shelter from the inevitable pall of death. The ancients dissected corpses to search for the secrets of life. Medical students in Berlin hid behind fumes of formaldehyde, draping sheets over cadavers they stripped to the bone to learn how to preserve the body’s tenure. Artists, comatose with turpentine, addicted to their own creative juices, studied the geometry of cadavers with their eyes. And all the while, the Tibetans simply gave up their dead to the birds.
CHAPTER 26
December 1938
Twenty-five kilometres from the border of Tibet, they stumbled into thick rhododendron forests. Tantalisingly close to their hallowed destination, yet prohibited from entering, they snaked their way along narrow paths, crossing treacherous bridges woven out of vines. They would take advantage of their prolonged stay in Sikkim to pursue their research, as best they could. As they moved upwards, into the thinning air, the mules slipping in the mud, they were forced to cut new trails into the suffocating bush. The clouds were shreds of white across the blue sky.
Ernst decided to pitch their base camp on a plateau beside a small monastery near Thangu, not far from the Zemu Glacier of Kangchenjunga. That evening, the group of young Germans sat around a huge bonfire celebrating the winter solstice, all their conflicts suspended for now as the prospect of adventure in Tibet loomed. In unison they sang an SS marching song, celebrating the message they received from Himmler, in which he had written that he was promoting the entire team:
SS marches in enemy’s land
And sings a devil’s song
We care about nothing around us
The whole world can praise or curse us
Wherever we are, we move forwards
And the Devil will merely laugh.
They took turns reading from their field diaries, their conversation fuelled by local beer. Ernst flicked through his, looking for something that would fascinate his men. He started reading his entry for that day:
We are at the frontier! It is the realm of our most powerful yearning. Up there, not far away at all, is the border pass. The entire sight reminds one of the enchanted forests of our children’s stories, where underneath wickerwork and roots only cunning goblins and malicious gnomes pursue their furtive, secret agendas.
He squinted as he struggled to read his own handwriting, but eventually gave up. Instead, he launched into recounting the story of when he found himself stranded in the wild for the very first time. In the telling, he felt transported back to boarding school in Heidelberg. In Ernst’s first week away from home, he had been summoned by the headmaster early one morning. He remembered staring at the back of an older boy’s blond shaven head as he led him down the corridor.
‘Bathe in dragon’s blood. It makes you invincible,’ he said to Ernst.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Just kidding.’ Turning to look at Ernst, he smiled, his eyes sharp and blue. ‘How long are you in for?’
‘Two years.’
‘Well, this is just the beginning for you then, my friend. The old boy likes to give all his new students a private induction ceremony.’ He smirked and turned to keep walking.
‘So, what’s with the dragon’s blood?’
‘You’ll see. He’s planning to take you on a little excursion into the Odenwald. That’s all I can say.’
When they arrived outside a green door, his guide knocked twice.
A voice boomed from the other side. ‘Enter!’
The older boy looked at Ernst, who was gnawing at his cuticles. ‘Just keep calm. We all went through this and got out alive.’ The door squeaked loudly as it opened. Ernst was escorted inside, standing to attention before the headmaster’s desk.
‘That will be all, Ludwig.’ The man rose from his leather chair and walked over to the window, turning his back on the boys. His hair was thinning on top, wisps of grey licking at his large ears.
‘Yes, Herr Direktor.’
This seemed to be the only name by which people addressed the surly headmaster. Ludwig turned, closing the door slowly behind him as he left.
Ernst waited for the man to speak, panic slowly building as he puzzled over Ludwig’s cryptic suggestion about dragon’s blood. After what felt like an eternity, the headmaster finally spoke again.
‘Are you familiar with Wagner’s music, Schäfer?’
‘Yes, Herr Direktor,’ he croaked quietly, his throat feeling dry.
‘Good. Go get your things. We are going on an outing.’
‘An outing?’
He turned to face Ernst, his eyes ablaze with sardonic joy. ‘You will speak only when spoken to. We do not tolerate troublemakers here. You must learn to show respect.’
Ernst stood silently, his stomach roiling. He couldn’t help staring at the man’s hairy ears.
‘Did you hear me?’
‘Yes, Herr Direktor.’
‘Good. Now go and change into casual clothes and meet me at the front gate at eight o’clock sharp.’
Running back down the corridor towards his dormitory, Ernst fought back tears, biting his lip till it bled. He was determined to prove himself, to not surrender totally by showing this man any weakness. He could not allow this sense of dread to swamp him.
He was waiting for Herr Direktor at the designated spot on time, his rucksack packed neatly with clean clothes, a canister filled with fresh water and the brand-new notebook his mother had given him just before he left, inscribed with the words fur Meine tauere Schnecke. He saw the man stride across the lawn from the main building, carrying nothing but a bunch of keys and a paper bag. He pointed to the car park, and made his way over towards a black Mercedes. Ernst followed him.
‘Get in.’
He started the car and reversed, winding the window down. A warm breeze caressed them as they followed the road out past the township, continuing in silence for several miles through the countryside. They soon reached the entrance to a dense forest. A small wooden sign announced they were in the Odenwald. They continued along a dirt track that led deep into the woods, before the headmaster brought the car to a halt in the middle of nowhere. It was late morning by this point, and Ernst had hardly eaten any breakfast.
Herr Direktor opened the boot of the car and grabbed a duffel bag, from which he produced a rifle.
‘You stay here and don’t touch anything,’ he said. Leaving the car door wide open, he disappeared into the green canopy.
The day wore on and Ernst, surrounded by tall pine trees, listened to the call of a cuckoo and a woodpecker’s persistent hammering. How he wished he could speak to them. He had taught himself to mimic crows and blackbirds perfectly, and sometimes they even answered him, but to understand what birds were saying would have been so wonderful.
Although he was no stranger to being alone in a forest and wasn’t scared, he grew hungry, used to stuffing his pockets full of Frau Klein’s freshly baked cookies before venturing out into the woods back home. He looked around for some wild mushrooms, but it was far too early in the year to find any. Herr Direktor still wasn’t back by the time evening fell. Ernst grabbed some h
andfuls of clover to fill his belly. He crawled into the back seat of the car and fell asleep, to be greeted the next morning with the smell of bacon and Apfelwein.
Herr Direktor was seated on a log.
‘Come join me, Schäfer.’
‘Were you frightened last night?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Good. Good.’ He pulled a piece of rye bread from the paper bag and handed it to Ernst, who smelled rifle shot on the man’s hands.
‘Your father tells me you are crazy about animals.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, we have something in common then.’
‘Yes, sir.’ He ate eagerly.
‘He is quite worried about you. I believe you are handy with a slingshot, and that’s what got you in trouble.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, a young man’s passions need to be tamed, his skills honed. From now on, you will join me every week to learn the magic of surviving in the bush. I will teach you the honourable sport of hunting, using a gun.’ He took a swig from a hipflask that smelled more pungent than the Apfelwein he offered Ernst. ‘But you mustn’t breathe a word to your father. It will be our special secret. Okay?’
Ernst nodded. His heart beat rapidly, but he risked no questions.
‘This is the very spot where Wagner’s Siegfried killed the evil dragon Fafner, who began his life as a giant, stealing the magic ring of power. After Siegfried slayed him, he drank the dragon’s blood, which gave him the power to understand the language of birds.’ The man handed him the flask.
That’s what the older boy had been referring to yesterday. Did Herr Direktor bring all the boys out here, or only those he felt were special in some way? Ernst took a swig and felt his throat catch fire. He stared at his new headmaster. The sun broke through the branches and lit up his face with a golden glow. He didn’t seem so formidable after all.
Ernst finished relating the whole story to his colleagues at base camp, expecting them to be riveted by the bravery he had shown, even as a youth. Instead he looked up from the campfire and saw that Geer and Krause had nodded off. Bruno cupped a hand over his mouth, trying to stifle his laughter, while Wienert spluttered and coughed, pretending to sip his tea. Ernst’s knuckles turned white as he clutched his field diary tightly.
‘Poor little Ernsti Wernsti,’ Bruno sneered. ‘Herr Direktor drank one too many beers and couldn’t hide what a pathetic sycophant he thought his pupil really was. Such a terrible trauma for a young man. He must have thought you were so extraordinary. I guess that’s why he performed the same ritual with all the other boys as well.’ He kicked his sleeping colleagues in the ribs. ‘Wake up! Our brave leader needs everybody’s sympathy.’
The men slowly stretched their arms out, opening their eyes to see Ernst and Bruno standing jowl to jowl.
‘You can laugh at me all you want, Bruno, but you live in a box. Some of us have our sights set further afield. A narrow life will not suit me!’ Ernst fired a quote from his beloved Faust as though it were a round of ammunition.
It only made Bruno laugh even harder. ‘Don’t worry, little man. Goethe will come to your rescue with his terrifying book. Our enemies will take one look at the cover and surrender on the spot. Such an easy kill!’
The men couldn’t contain themselves; the hilarity at their fiery leader’s expense was contagious. Ernst stormed off in a foul mood, retreating to his tent, where he spent the rest of the evening alone. He longed to be in Herta’s arms again. She was the only one who had ever understood him. Ernst lay on a stretcher, reading from his well-worn copy: Live as a beast with the beasts. He was wilderness made flesh.
Heavy rain fell that night, but dawn greeted them with a vista of mountains blanketed in white, rising out of the earth like a huge backbone. It was the first snowfall of the season. Ernst heard the frenzied shouting of the natives from inside his tent, which reached a crescendo by the time he emerged. The porters were already up, talking among themselves, huddled around some fresh tracks that led up to the edge of what they called the Green Lake. In this desolate, frozen world, with their trembling silhouettes framed against the cerulean sky, they looked like a band of tiny insects. Unlike their sahibs, they weren’t scared of rumbling avalanches or the thundering collapse of a glacial surge; these calamities they simply attributed to punishment from the gods for aberrant or evil thoughts. It was things they could not explain that terrified them most: those dark shadows that penetrated a man’s soul.
Fear of ghosts was so widespread in Tibet that over generations it had become the preoccupation of many a Tibetan priest. Lamas classified phantoms into almost 400 varieties, representing millions of evil spirits that haunted the masses of simple folk. This cataloguing of ghostly nomenclature, together with intricate outlining of each one’s unique characteristics, was a matter of the most serious study. It reminded Ernst of Linnaeus’s Animalia Paradoxa, a bestiary populated by mythical creatures such as the manticore and the hydra. Yet the lamas used their so-called knowledge of all things phantasmagorical to concoct ways of combatting the creatures’ unnatural influence, as Tibetans saw ghosts everywhere. Ernst found this belief in spectres preposterous, but that didn’t prevent him from leveraging this fear of shadows on occasion, to keep his own men in line.
Bells tied around the yaks’ necks were tinkling in the crisp air, and the sound of gongs carried across the plain from a distant monastery, as Akeh came running over. ‘Bara-sahib, come quickly! The men have found something very concerning.’
Ernst yawned, stretching his arms out like a bird preparing for flight.
‘This better be important. You know not to disturb me before my morning coffee.’
Akeh bowed. ‘Yes, bara-sahib. But you will see for yourself.’ He led his master over to the circle of men who stood shivering several hundred metres away from the camp. They were staring down at giant tracks in the snow.
‘Migyud has been here,’ Akeh whispered. ‘They all want to leave.’
One of the greatest legends about the mountainous regions in which they were camped was of the Migyud, a prowling, furry giant that thundered through the shadows of the Green Lake. Some called it the yeti. Whatever its name, the natives were petrified of the creature. They wove the most fantastic hair-raising tales that reminded Ernst of accounts of far-flung early travellers he had read as a young boy; even the pelican was once a mystery, believed to draw blood from its legs to feed its chicks. These mythical creatures were all nonsense of course, the warped joke of some crazy taxidermist conjuring implausible fakeries and fables. He heard some of his own porters were even spreading rumours that Ernst, like Siegfried, was prone to drinking the blood of animals he hunted.
The group turned to Ernst, waiting for his response.
‘It’s just a bear,’ he said, unpacking his rifle. He knew this wouldn’t reassure them at all. They dreaded these creatures, believing them to be an incarnation of evil spirits.
‘With deepest respect, bara-sahib, about something unseen it is wise not to judge, rather than boldly pronounce what it is,’ Akeh said.
Ernst raised his voice. The louder you spoke in these regions, the richer and more powerful you were seen to be. ‘With all respect to you, Akeh,’ he mimicked his servant, ‘even if it is the Migyud doing his rounds, or just a haunted bear, you have me to protect you.’ He lifted his rifle, took aim and fired into the mist.
A murmur passed through the men. Heated debate started between Akeh and one of the porters, who pointed repeatedly at the footprints and then up towards the mountains. Finally, the men started walking slowly back towards camp, and began their business of tending to the animals, unpacking equipment and preparing for breakfast. Ernst stayed behind as if to examine the tracks, stifling his laughter behind a woollen scarf. After the humiliating row with Bruno last night he had been unable to fall asleep. He needed a distraction, and his restless exploits in the snow during the early hours had definitely paid off. He had instilled terror in his servants and h
oped they would now respect him more as their protector. The yeti was a myth perpetuated not only by the natives, but also by British explorers to the region who kept its true identity secret in order to hold the upper hand with the locals. The mythical creature was simply a Tibetan bear.
The next day, Ernst was woken early again, this time by distant birdsong. The morning was almost windless, and the sun a wash of pallor, glowing weakly in the misty horizon. Ribbed clouds formed a flimsy veil across the sky. He had dreamt that the creatures from every hunt he’d ever been on came crawling back to life – hooved, feathered, clawed and tusked – migrating from the shores of death to encircle him. Vines climbed up, entwining his body, trussing his limbs with thick stalks. Insects leapt up from soggy soil, gnawing at his skin. He saw himself ooze out from himself, the birds and beasts he had taken from the world feeding hungrily on him. They feasted on the heaviness of his flesh until he merged with grass and dirt. A guttural cry came from his throat as vultures soared above him, crouching on the clifftops as they dropped his solid bones, which plummeted to earth, smashing on the rocks below. A chorus of birds circled, in an exhilaration of wings – curlews, nightingales, Arctic terns, plovers, snipes, swifts – as flies feasted on his innards. He saw the fragile membrane that separated him from the animal kingdom. Man was a mirage, a small shadow of a figure walking across a vast desert. Screaming in terror, Ernst was answered by a crested lark that imitated his cries, accompanied by songs of disgust from a wood warbler. One of the vultures stretched its wings, gliding above the scene before swooping down. Ernst felt its talons sink into him as he closed what was left of his eyes, his heart, his brain. He forced himself to grow a beak, defied the smoothness of his skin to sprout feathers. Raising himself skywards, he escaped towards the south, in a migration from man to bird.
The day melted into evening as Ernst’s world became shrouded by a wild fever. He shivered and sweated by turns, imagining he was close to paradise, or hell; it didn’t matter which. His aching body betrayed him, his heart pounding, mind half-crazed with thirst. He felt pale maggots feeding on his flesh. Maybe he was already dead; perhaps he had died without noticing? What a curse a body was, a bundle of bones simply waiting for time to undress the fleshy coat.
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