They were giving their names out to be read in the monastery for what was evidently a part of the benediction, and some of the names seemed traditionally comic ones. One old man announced himself as ‘The Lord of the Fleas’, and another as ‘The Mule’s Brother’. The younger ones gave only their family names, and Ringling did this; and when it was Houston’s turn gave that too.
‘Again?’ the monk said, looking up and still smiling.
‘Houtson. Hoo-tsung,’ the boy said helpfully, with a Tibetan inflection.
Houston heard the gasp first, and then the clatter of the falling book, and the sound of his name going through the crowd like wind in a chimney.
That was the last thing he heard, for the club caught him deafeningly on the ear, and then on the side of the head, and he was falling into the crowd, and still being struck, jaw, mouth, nose, ears, all exploding in shellbursts of light and pain, and all so fast he could not cover up or cry out or do anything but flounder on his knees in the forest of legs. A palette of colours spun before his eyes, and he spun with it, from yellow into orange and orange into red and red into blue, that was black, that was blacker than black; that was blackest of all.
2
He was in a stone cell, and it was dark. There was a little light from a butter lamp high up near the ceiling, and more coming in through a grille in the door; but on the floor it was dark. He could see all this in a blinkered sort of way without moving, and he wondered why, and suddenly realized why. He was lying on the floor. He was lying on his back. His head was tacky with blood and flared with pain as he tugged it loose of the floor. He couldn’t sit up. He hurt all over, a savage, bone-grinding hurt that made him gasp and moan in a way that was familiar; he thought he must have heard himself making it in a dream.
There was something wrong with his mouth; an old acrid taste of blood, and he moved his tongue round and found several teeth had gone. In the same moment he realized why he felt blinkered: one eye was entirely closed up. His whole head was like a pumpkin, swollen and racketing with pain.
Something awful had gone wrong. He wondered what it was. He wondered if it had happened to Ringling, and where Ringling was. He didn’t think he was very glad to find himself alive. He knew he was crippled, and he didn’t want to be alive and crippled.
There was a sound at the door, and he saw the grille swinging away, and a face looking down at him. There was something familiar about the violent eyes and the wasted cheeks, but he couldn’t recall what it was. The man spoke his name interrogatively, with a Tibetan inflection, and he tried to nod.
The man spoke further, quite courteously, and he tried to tell him that he could not understand, but remembered suddenly that he was dumb and mad, and gurgled instead.
It came back to him, then, all of it.
A number of other things sprang to mind, too. If the man had spoken to him in Tibetan it could only mean that he did not know the truth yet. Either he had not seen the boy, or Singling had not told him.
He felt a wave of affection for the boy, and winked with his one eye at the two glittering ones above him, and saw that the effort had been too much, for already the two shining eyes had begun to dance away. They danced to the stone wall, and began to revolve there, and he joined them, watching with relief as the colours began to spin again: red into brown, into blue, into black, into blacker than black, into blackest of all.
The man was still looking at him when he came back, but the perspective had changed, and it bothered him. He tried to work out why the perspective had changed, but the light hurt his eye and he gave it up and went away again.
‘Wake up,’ the man said.
Houston stayed in the dark. Something worried him.
‘Wake up. You are well now,’ the man said.
It worried him more. What was it? Why was it?
Hands were wiping and smoothing him, and presently, out of curiosity, he opened his eye to investigate. Two women were cleaning him up. They were doing it on a bed. It was day. The man sat on the bed watching him.
‘You are feeling better now,’ the man said. ‘You are quite able to talk.’
Houston shut his eye again at once. Important issues had been raised here; he could not say precisely what they were. He knew it was less what the man had said than the way he had said it.
He saw what the issues were after a moment, and lay quietly, depressed.
‘You must wake up and look at me, Houtson,’ the man said. ‘You have had an accident. Look at me now.’
Houston looked at him. He was an elderly man, very thin, with a head like a copper billiard ball. He wore an orange robe. His eyes were large and unusually protrusive, the cheekbones stark in the spare face. He spoke English well though pedantically, like an Indian.
‘I am the Lama Rine, the abbot of this monastery. You can say my name. Try it.’
Houston looked at him.
‘Your own, then. Say your own name. Say Houtson.’
Houston decided he had better gurgle.
‘No, no. You must stop this. You do not have to do that any more. We know everything about you, Houtson. You must say your name.’
Houston shook his head.
‘Yes. It is important. Very, very important for you. Say it now. Say Houtson.’
‘Ringling,’ Houston said.
The man looked at him with his glowing eyes and snapped his fingers with irritation.
‘Houtson. Houtson,’ he said.
‘Ringling,’ Houston said.
‘The boy is quite well. There is nothing the matter with him. You may be able to see him later if you try to speak now. Let me hear you say your name.’
‘Ringling,’ Houston said.
The man went after a while.
A woman brought him food later, and he saw a man watching through the grille. He refused the food. The man came in the room. It was not Rine but a younger, stout monk – the deputy abbot, he learned later – with not such good English.
‘No eat,’ he said, worried.
‘Ringling,’ Houston said.
The man went away. Rine came back.
‘It is time to stop this now,’ he said. ‘You are perfectly well. There is nothing the matter with you. You can eat and talk. If you will not, it is your error. I can do nothing.’
Houston closed his eye.
‘You must eat now. If you cannot eat the tsampa I will send you something else. Do you wish milk or fruit or cheese? Tell me what you want.’
‘Ringling,’ Houston said.
Rine went away. He came back with two monks and a stretcher. Ringling was on the stretcher. Houston tried to sit up in the bed when he saw him, but found he couldn’t. He was strapped up in a jacket and his ribs hurt. The boy seemed to be in a bit of a mess. His hands were bandaged, and his face swollen and plastered. He was weeping.
‘Sahib, sahib.’
‘Ringling,’ Houston said, smiling painfully.
‘They made me tell, sahib. I couldn’t help it. They made me tell them.’
Rine said something to him, quietly, in Tibetan, and the monks carried the stretcher closer to the bed.
‘You should tell them everything now, sahib. It is for the best.’
‘Aren’t you able to walk?’
‘My feet are a little burnt. It’s nothing, sahib. I’m very sorry,’ the boy said, weeping.
‘It’s all right. Cheer up,’ Houston said, his bowels turning to water, as he suddenly saw the feet. They were thickly plastered with ointment.
‘Now, Mr Houtson, you must speak to us,’ Rine said.
Houston spoke to him. He was not by nature a swearing man, but he swore then, surprising obscenities that he had not heard, let alone used, since his Navy days. Rine did not seem to have heard them at all. He said, ‘We can go into this later. I am very angry with you. You see what fearful things have had to be done to the boy because you would not talk to us. He is a very good boy, a most loyal boy. It was very painful to make him suffer in this way for you.’
‘Hello,’ Houston said.
She stepped quickly back.
‘The lord will eat now?’ she said in Tibetan.
‘All right,’ Houston said, and felt his lips crack as he smiled.
She was staring at him in fascination, and she backed to the door and scuttled quickly out. Houston eased himself in the bed. He wondered how many ribs were broken. He could move his arms and legs. He had an idea someone had told him he was crippled. He didn’t seem to be crippled. It had been a fair going-over, all the same. The walls of the cell were waving in and out; he thought he was still concussed. His mouth was raw. He wondered if the lord would be able to eat.
He was waiting for his food with a fair appetite however, when the girl returned, and had tucked into it before she was out of the room even. There was a bowl of tea and tsampa on the tray, with a little dish of soft cheese, a glass of warm milk and a few lichees.
He could see the girl watching him through the grille as he ate. He saw her there until he was on to the lichees, and then she went. Rine’s face appeared a few minutes later. He came into the cell.
‘Ah, you are finished. We will talk now.’
‘With Ringling here,’ Houston said.
‘He cannot come now. Later he can come.’
‘We can talk later then.’
‘No. We cannot. The boy is sleeping. The doctor has given him a drug. But I will bring him if you wish it.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Houston said as he got to the door.
The abbot came back.
‘What is the urgency?’
‘The urgency is that you have been here three days and the people are very alarmed. They have hurt you once already, and I apologize for it. They had no right at all to do so. Quite the contrary. But they have a right to know who you are, and they are waiting to hear. They are still waiting outside the monastery. They will not go away.’
Houston looked at him. The only sense he could make of it was that he had been here three days. He said, ‘I don’t understand. You know who I am.’
The lama sat on a stool.
‘Let us see if we are right. Your name is Houtson, and you have come to find a brother you suppose to be staying here.’
‘That’s right.’
‘What is your brother’s name?’
‘You know his name. Whittington. Hugh Whittington.’
‘How can that be if your family name is Houtson?’
‘We are half-brothers. We have the same mother.’
‘Yes,’ the lama said, looking at him. He looked all over his face. ‘What was your mother’s before-marriage name?’
‘Coulter.’
‘Was she English also?’
‘Scottish.’
‘And her mother – also Scottish?’
‘No. She was French,’ Houston said. ‘What the hell has this got to do with anything?’
He felt suddenly ill. He thought he shouldn’t have taken the tea. The yak butter was turning over and over inside him.
‘From a part of the French empire, perhaps?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘From Cambodia, Indo-China – some such region?’
‘I don’t know. Look, could you go away now?’
‘Shortly. Whose idea was it that you should come here?’
‘My idea.’
‘Nobody suggested it to you? The boy, for instance?’
‘Nobody. Nobody. I don’t feel well.’
‘One moment more. What had you heard about this monastery?’
‘I need the toilet,’ Houston said weakly.
The lama rose reluctantly. ‘I will send someone in.’
He sent the young girl in, with a pan. She got it under him, and Houston signalled her to leave. She didn’t leave. She stayed, watching him with fascination. Houston tried to be discreet, but he was not in a condition to be discreet.
The abbot returned presently. He had a box with him. ‘I would like you to identify some objects.’
Houston looked at him with a strange sinking feeling. ‘What do you mean, identify? My brother is here. I know he is here.’
The abbot said nothing further. He tipped the contents of the box out on to the bed. Houston gazed at them in perplexity. They were not Hugh’s. He couldn’t see how they could possibly be Hugh’s. There were three silk jackets. There were three pairs of high boots. There were three daggers with chased hilts, and three rings.
‘What are they?’
‘You don’t remember seeing any of them?’
‘No.’
‘Many years ago, perhaps, in childhood?’
‘I’ve never seen them before in my life.’
The lama sorted out the silk jackets. ‘Which one would you pick for yourself?’
‘I have no reason to pick any of them.’
‘If you were to have a reason. If I were to make you a gift.’
Houston looked at the jackets. They were of similar cut but different design. One was in a traditional Tibetan block pattern he had seen before, one was Indian, the last, the best, Chinese.
‘That one,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘It’s the best design.’
‘They are all good designs.’
‘All right, whichever you want. What has this got to do with my brother?’
‘I would like you to select also from the other groups,’ the abbot said. ‘One object from each.’
It struck Houston suddenly, while he was doing it, what it was all about. He gazed at the lama blankly. He said, ‘You’re not by any chance – this isn’t a test to see if I’m a reincarnation?’
The lama stared at him for several silent seconds. He said, ‘You have felt yourself to be an incarnation?’
‘No. Certainly not. Not at all,’ Houston said.
‘Why do you ask this question?’
‘I suddenly tumbled what you were doing.’
‘Has it happened to you before?’
‘Of course it hasn’t. I’ve read about it.’
‘Where have you read?’
‘I can’t remember. Everybody’s read about it. It’s common knowledge,’ Houston said, losing patience. But he did remember, just at that moment: the rapt, jammy sessions with the works of Arthur Mee before the nursery fire at Highgate; all a long time ago, a long way away from the monastery of Yamdring.
The lama was examining him silently.
‘Proceed, then,’ he said after a moment.
Houston was not thinking very well, but he could see even with his one eye that the objects fell into three groups, Chinese, Indian, and Tibetan; he thought his best bet would be to spread the load. He chose an Indian dagger, a Chinese ring, and Tibetan boots.
He thought the lama was a bit put out by this selection. The bony fingers drummed on the box.
‘I hope I’ve been of assistance,’ Houston said.
‘I think you have been playing with me, Houtson.’
‘I’ve only tried to help,’ Houston said, smiling innocently. ‘I’m sorry if I chose wrong.’
The lama stood up. His eyes glittered in the light of the butter lamp.
‘This is the problem,’ he said. ‘You did not choose wrong, Houtson. Your choice is infallibly right.’
3
He slept very badly that night, and his head ached in the morning. The abbot visited him after breakfast. He was not alone, and Houston observed his companion with some surprise. It was the magnificent young man who had given away his clothes and jewels in the courtyard a few days before. He was dressed now in a different shade of blue, and his jewellery was more modest; but his glossy black hair was still braided over his head in the way that Houston remembered, and the long turquoise ear-ring still dangled from his ear. He was followed into the cell by an attendant who carried a decora
ted pouffe for him to sit on. The young man did not sit on the pouffe. He stood and examined Houston for several seconds.
‘I will leave you now,’ the lama said, and went, with the attendant.
The young man continued to examine Houston.
‘Well,’ he said at length, ‘you seem to be on the mend now. Quite a change from when I saw you last, old chep. Ganzing – George Ganzing,’ he said, coming over and holding out his hand.
Houston took the hand in some consternation.
‘I expect you’re a bit surprised. I went to school in India. The abbot thought it would be an idea if I asked you a few questions.’
‘I see,’ Houston said. Once the shock was over, it was possible to detect undertones in the preposterous accent. ‘I’ve got a few to ask myself.’
‘I dare say,’ the young man said. He sat down on the pouffe. ‘Where are you from Houtson? What’s your first name?’
‘Charles. I’m from London.’
‘You came in from Kalimpong, I understand?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Tell me the names of a few people in Kalimpong.’
‘I don’t know anybody there. Only a trader called Michaelson …’
‘Michaelson, yerss. What sort of chep is Michaelson?’
‘I don’t know – an ordinary sort of chap.’
‘Thin chep, fet chep, old chep?’
‘Oh. Fet chep. Fat chap,’ Houston said in some confusion. ‘Elderly. What’s all this about?’
‘Who do you know in London?’
‘Nobody you would know. I was a teacher. I taught art at …’
‘Know a Colonel Brigginshaw? Ronnie Blake-Winter? Duff Walker?’
‘No. I’m telling you. I was just a teacher. I taught at a school in Fulham. I lived at a place called Baron’s Court.’
‘A place called what?’
‘Baron’s Court.’
‘Baron’s Court,’ the young man said, pulling at his ear-ring and smiling with polite disbelief.
‘It’s a part of London. It’s a big place. Thousands of people live there… .’
‘Yerss. How about Scotland? Your mother comes from there, I believe.’
The Rose of Tibet Page 14