The Hollow Bones

by Leah Kaminsky

  A half-circle of his colleagues stood vigil around his cot, their faces floating above him in a haze. Animals fled, with hunters locked in their jaws. Starfish merged into the sand, spawning stars in their millions that rose to take up their place in the night sky. And the medicine man stood shimmering alongside them, his mastiff jaw hidden behind a moustache as wiry as a cat’s whiskers, the stale smell of human remains on his breath. He examined his patient’s frail knees, the deep hollows under his eyes, prodded his abdomen with a cool hand. Ernst watched the hand morph into a killer’s paw.

  In the cold mists of the following morning, he lay on his stretcher, shivering. The cook entered hesitantly, carrying a mug of steaming tea on a tray. As Ernst looked about his tent, the tarpaulin walls swelled like the sails of some giant ship soon to be swallowed by treacherous waves. When he was a child, he had believed in an afterlife, dreaming he would return to earth as a majestic bird. If he died here, would the ragyapa collect the dregs of his life and offer them up to the vultures?

  After a few torrid nights, he was released from the teeth of the feverish beast. Those murky days lying alone in the darkness of his tent were soon forgotten when he was greeted by a letter delivered by a representative of the far-reaching British postal service. It had taken three months to get to them, but the document – a complete, yet triumphant surprise – was in Ernst’s hands at last, adorned with no less than five official seals.

  To the German Doctor Sahib Sha-par, Master of 100 Sciences,

  A heartfelt thank-you for your letter of the twelfth day of the ninth English month, together with two boxes containing a gramophone, records and two pairs of binoculars.

  Concerning you and the other Germans, Doctor Wienert, Mr Geer, Mr Krause and Mr Beger (altogether no more than five people) requesting to visit Lhasa and the holy Tibetan monasteries, please understand that, in general, entry into Tibet is forbidden to foreigners.

  Although we know if we allow you to enter, others might come the next time, it nevertheless appears from your letter that you intend only friendship and to see the holy land and its religious institutions. Acknowledging this, we grant you permission to enter Lhasa for a stay of two weeks, on condition that you promise not to harm the Tibetan people and consent to not hunt or kill any birds or mammals, which would deeply hurt the religious feelings of the Tibetan people, both clergy and lay. Please take this to heart.

  Sent from the Kashag, the Tibetan council of ministers, on the third day of the tenth month of the Fire-tiger Year

  Ernst, breathless with delight, howled to the others to come quickly – he could finally bring them some good news, after weeks of tempers flaring to breaking point. They gathered around as he read the letter out loud. A huge cheer rose from the group. The men embraced, patting Ernst on the back. Bruno chuckled at the idea that anyone might try to stop Ernst from hunting. The weak sun was trying to peer out from behind the clouds.

  Opening the last bottle of beer, Ernst raised two fingers in a victory sign and said, ‘Einer für alle und alle für einen, my Musketeers! Nach Lhasa!’

  CHAPTER 27

  January 1939

  The gem embedded in the ‘roof of the world’ lay before them. Ernst stood gazing down upon the Forbidden City of his dreams, flanked by his four colleagues and a large caravan of servants and muleteers. They were about to become the first official German expedition in history allowed to enter the holy capital.

  Even though Ernst had visited Tibet twice before with the Dolan expeditions, he had never entered the desert-like plateaus around the foothills of the Himalayas they had just crossed through. Eastern Tibet boasted such a dramatic ally different landscape, with its lush bamboo forests and tempestuous rivers. He wasn’t alone in his dreams to reach Lhasa and beyond; for hundreds of years, explorers, missionaries, esotericists and spies had drawn on legends and fictions of the city as an earthly paradise. While they viewed the country as a caricature of itself, Ernst would now see it clearer than anyone.

  Their entourage made their way towards the ancient city, crossing the vast plane below the Tanggu La Pass. Lhasa embraced the icy Kyi Chu, the ‘River of Happiness’, which meandered through the valley and formed wetlands teeming with the rarest species of migratory fowl. The snow-covered peaks they had traversed several days before now seemed to be floating on the horizon. At the tiny village of Chu-gya, they stopped to watch the entourage of a respected spiritual Buddhist teacher, a grand rimpoche, pass by. His gilt helmet reminded Ernst of a character in the comics he used to read as a child, where medieval knights duelled each other on horseback.

  Nothing could have prepared them for the vision of the Potala, the grand white-walled palace of the Dalai Lama poised graciously on Morburi, the famous red hill. Ernst called it the Vatican of Tibet. Its golden roof shone in the sun. The Potala was awaiting the arrival of the fourteenth Dalai Lama, a boy who had been found a year earlier in the remote village of Kumbum in Eastern Tibet. He was believed to be a reincarnation of the previous spiritual leader, though he was still too young to be brought to Lhasa to take up residence in the palace.

  As the German expedition rode through the Bargo Kaling Gate, their arrival was announced by the tinkling of bells tied to their mules. All of Ernst’s rifles, as well as the team’s geomagnetic equipment, were carefully concealed inside their luggage. Two flags strapped to poles, which were fastened to the saddle of one of their yaks, fluttered in the breeze. One bore the insignia of the double Sieg runes of the SS, and the other proudly boasted a swastika: itself a common sight in Tibet, as an ancient symbol of good fortune.

  Much to Ernst’s indignation, and contrary to the Tibetan tradition of lavish welcomes, there was no grand party or fanfare to greet the caravan. Instead, some lowly officials were sent to present them with khata, ceremonial white scarves. This greeting party soon beat a hasty retreat, leaving the team surrounded by a circle of beggars. Ernst guessed this humiliating reception had been orchestrated by Hugh Richardson, the reedy leader of the British mission, who seemed to have a strong dislike for Ernst, perhaps taken in by the newspapers’ claims that the true purpose of the German expedition was espionage. As they advanced through the group of bedraggled wretches, Richardson rode past them on horseback, straight-backed and stiff, his nose in the air. Ernst’s instincts had been right. The haughty Englishman didn’t give the German Tibet Expedition so much as a nod.

  Their first week in Lhasa passed quietly, with Ernst busily trying to organise meetings with various dignitaries, seeking permission to extend their stay. They would need longer than a fortnight if they were to have the great privilege of watching the Tibetan New Year celebrations. Meanwhile, Bruno set himself up again as the ersatz doctor in town.

  As the day that marked their halfway point in the city dawned, a line of people were already waiting outside Tredilinka. The expedition’s humble and not-altogether-hygienic lodging, provided courtesy of the British mission, soon became a makeshift clinic and dispensary of sorts, as Bruno’s reputation for pulling rotten teeth, curing headaches and bandaging sore fingers spread. He never charged for his services, and the lowliest of peasants, right up to the cream of Tibetan aristocracy, all sought his counsel, bringing him gifts that ranged from fresh eggs to a suit of armour and a horse. Even the wife of the regent, a striking woman with a lithe neck and long, dark hair, called for Bruno often, feigning various ailments.

  ‘Can you make me live for a thousand years?’ she whispered on her first visit, in perfect English she had learnt from her British tutors.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You Germans have invented the greatest war machines, so surely a man of your many talents has already discovered the elixir of life. I will repay you handsomely.’

  ‘All I can do, your Highness, is narrow the gap between life and death.’

  ‘Then at least spend some time with me, easing my itch.’

  Behind drawn curtains, Bruno examined her intimately and found a festering syphilitic chancre sore, court
esy of her British tutors.

  Over the next few days, the regent’s wife summoned the ‘medicine man’ to visit her twice a day, asking him to examine a swollen foot or a painful breast. She would pour him yak tea from a china teapot. He became besotted with her beauty, and what started as a placid scientific interest soon turned to fervour, as he revelled in the lurid ministrations he was allowed to perform.

  At first, Ernst deigned to ignore it, but within days his colleague’s obsession with the woman became ugly and urgent. The ‘home visits’ could potentially become more than just an embarrassment, posing a real threat to their welcome in Lhasa. When he confronted Bruno in their quarters, he started out with the intention of speaking to him calmly. But Ernst’s pent-up frustration over his thwarted diplomatic appeals to extend their stay rose to the surface.

  ‘The role you have taken on as physician has won you widespread adulation among the locals. Your position is to be used for the expedition to gain a stronger foothold in Tibet, not a humiliating excuse to throw us all out.’ Ernst began to shout. ‘It could cost us dearly if you keep seeing this woman. You are making a mockery of us all! If the British get hold of this, we are finished.’

  A venomous smile appeared on Bruno’s face. ‘It’s her choice, my friend. I am only extending the hand of German goodwill.’

  ‘That’s not all you’re extending.’ Ernst stood up, grabbed his copy of Faust from the end of the bed and whacked his friend on the side of his face. ‘I don’t need you catching her disease. As leader of this team, I forbid you to examine any of these women unless they are appropriately attired and chaperoned.’

  Bruno’s eyes turned icy. He tapped a long fingernail on the table, his tongue flicking in and out as he licked his chafed lips. ‘Himmler asked me personally to research the anthropological rumours that Tibetan women hide gemstones in their pinkest recesses. I was simply following orders.’

  ‘That may well be the case, but have you forgotten about Hildegard and your little daughter?’

  Bruno was silent for a moment. ‘No more than you are missing your dear Herta.’

  Ernst began to wring his hands, as if preparing to jump on his friend and choke the life out from him. Instead he turned to leave, firing one last feeble round: ‘You are a foul monster.’

  Ernst couldn’t fall asleep that night. Despite the chilly weather, the air inside Tredilinka was fetid and hot. He lay sprawled across a thin mattress, pushing a pencil across a page of his field diary, the smoke from his pipe curling upwards. He wrote in the dark, not wanting to wake the others, his untidy script like the muddy footsteps of a drunk insect. In Ernst’s half-dreams the night before, sweetened by too much beer, the regent’s wife stood at the foot of his stretcher, hovering like a phantom. She appeared even more beautiful than in real life. He reached over and caught her wrist, lifting her up to throw her onto the bed like a pile of linen. Heaving himself on top of her, he grasped at the stickiness between her thighs, straining against her body until it split straight down the middle. He nuzzled her belly, his feverish tongue licking up the blood that oozed from the trough of her ribcage. She tasted of salt and yerma, the dried peppercorns used by the Tibetan aristocracy in preparing sumptuous banquets. He gazed down at her and, as she stretched out both hands in embrace, her skin began to melt away. She fixed her mouth on his shoulder and he felt her devour his flesh, her appetite insatiable.

  Her image evaporated into a wisp of smoke. Ernst, his hand trembling, folded the pouch of tobacco in two as he drew on the pipe again. The night, black and glossy, brought with it the eerie feeling of someone breathing on his face. Herta appeared before him, her small breasts and nipples pointing at him through her thin cotton dress. Her presence was a thin, shimmering shape, reaching out.

  ‘Come with me,’ she said.

  She was there for only an instant before he exhaled. With the force of his breath, flesh fell from her bones and she disappeared.

  The following morning, Ernst stood on the rickety wooden balcony of Tredilinka, watching the square below thronging with merchants and customers haggling over merchandise. He spent a couple of hours wandering around the marketplace, with its array of pungent teas, nutmeg and chilli peppers, fine silks and colourful trinkets. Wanting to escape from the crowded alleyways, he decided to take a stroll out along the sun-kissed river. He needed to be in the proper frame of mind to face the flurry of meetings he had organised with important Tibetan leaders. As he walked, he noticed a young woman following closely behind. She was looking at him shyly and giggling. Flattery was temptation enough. Should he allow himself to indulge in a little harmless indiscretion? No one would find out. Surely Herta would have taken his measure as a good man and forgiven him his natural urges. She would never judge a little ‘distraction’ for a fellow out here in the heathen wilderness, so far away from all that he loved. He missed Herta and felt homesick for the Fatherland. If the rumours they were hearing were true, and Germany was heading into war, he felt it his duty to be back home soon. But he also needed to spend enough time in Tibet to make sure his return would be a triumphant one. He wanted to shine in his patron’s eyes. He waved the small temptress away and sat down by the riverbank, alone.

  He would have loved to share his innermost thoughts with Herta; what he wouldn’t give to be back in her arms. No one would ever be able to know him as well as she did. The men thought him a trifle unhinged – he could feel their eyes upon him all the time – but it was because his heart ached so much for her. Some days all he dreamt of was to be reunited again with his darling wife. He imagined her, his Liebling, seated beside him on the riverbank. They would talk about the beauty of the birds here, and how they seemed to hold a majestic wisdom. Herta knew that as soon as Ernst began to learn a place, he understood the winged creatures that lived there. He could close his eyes anywhere he went on earth and tell exactly where he was, just from local birdcalls. Their plaintive, wailing cries spoke the language of his heart.

  The call of a Tibetan lark woke him early the next morning. He looked out across the city towards the west. The Jokhang Temple was nestled among ramshackle buildings of the Old Town, its golden roofs reflecting the pink hues of sunrise. He had heard about the strange religious rituals performed inside the Jokhang and wanted to see for himself what mysteries lay within its ancient walls.

  Ernst set off along the winding paths of the city, a pack of mongrels following him through narrow alleyways, down towards what was considered the most sacred place of worship in Tibet. When he crept inside the temple, he was mesmerised by a sea of burning candles. The space reminded him of his childhood, seated beside Herta and her family during Sunday worship, enchanted by the votive candles’ dancing flames.

  The air was thick with the acrid smell of oily yak-butter lamps mixed with incense. He watched pilgrims prostrating themselves, while others turned large wooden prayer wheels. A monk noticed Ernst standing beside the narrow entrance to the temple and offered to take him on a tour. Holy shrines, with their many variations of incarnations of the Buddha, lay hidden behind the cloisters. The strangest one, crouched behind a door made of chains, was the shrine of the goddess Palden Lhamo. Ernst had heard some Tibetans believed she had been reincarnated as Queen Victoria. He wondered what the haughty Hugh Richardson would think of that.

  In the end, despite all of Ernst’s extravagant banquets, obsequious entreaties and the showering of expensive gifts on all manner of dignitaries, it was Bruno who helped get their permit extended. In Ernst’s frantic efforts to please the aristocracy, he had neglected to include an important Tibetan member of the Kashag on any of his invitation lists. The government official had taken deep offence, so Ernst visited him immediately to try to apologise for the oversight. The man’s wife lay on a mattress, coughing and groaning, her clothes drenched in sweat. Ernst decided to take advantage of the opportunity to make amends, and called for Bruno to come straightaway. The self-appointed medicine man arrived and opened his bag of tricks. The woman felt bett
er within fifteen minutes, after having swallowed the magic potion of two aspirins. Two days later, their permit was extended until March.

  The colourful week of celebrations approached. As thousands descended upon Lhasa for New Year festivities and the Great Prayer of Mönlam, incense filled the air, alongside the stench of unwashed pilgrims and shaven-headed monks wrapped in their crimson robes. Ernst and Krause spent days filming vibrant parades, archery competitions and dances, against the backdrop of freshly painted buildings and rooftops adorned with colourful prayer flags. On their donated cameras, they captured these rituals for a newsreel Himmler had encouraged them to film during their trip. They planned to call it Geheimnis Tibet. Secret Tibet.

  At night, after a butter-puppet performance, fireworks lit up the dark streets. The regent invited them to attend the devil dance; they arrived to find the eastern courtyard of the Potala decorated with curtains embroidered with fierce dragons. Ernst and Krause filmed warriors who wore rusty helmets and medieval costumes as they moved to the sound of trumpets blasting and drums beating all around them. The performers, dressed up as demons with animal masks, twirled in time with skeleton dancers.

  The feeding of the poor was an arresting spectacle in which staples of tea, butter, flour and cake were piled up in front of the Dalai Lama’s throne, and the food was surrounded by dried-out yaks for them to feast on. When the doors opened, beggars leapt over one another in the struggle to devour whatever they could, as quickly as possible, a frenzied event that ended with everything gone within twenty minutes.