by John Masters
He was looking down into the forecourt of the monastery. Some monks were unloading yaks after a journey. Two hundred feet from him to the yaks’ backs? Three hundred? A long way. He couldn’t tell whether the manlings down there were men or women. They’d mostly be men, even though it was the serai that he was looking into. No woman ever came into the monastery.
Never. Tendong had not raised his eyes to a woman along the road--not even to the half-naked ones bathing in the irrigation ditch. Tendong was old and wise; he, Jason, was young and wise. He’d looked. He remembered the shapes of them very clearly. And Coromandel! The women carried polished golden pomegranates in Coromandel, and the tips stood up like soldiers when it was cold in the morning.
He thought sensuously of women. Now there was not a woman he knew within a thousand miles of him--ten thousand miles. He took a drink.
Women. The devil take them for so many bags of flesh! They didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. He would get over it, and he had a history of the world to write.
Women were nothing in the balance against this--knowledge, two thousand monks, music, books. He breathed deeply, standing with legs braced and the brandy jar swinging in his hand. This was perfection! The air ran cold as ice and pure as water into his lungs. He felt like a hundred men, because he would never think of a woman again. The mountains glittered in the fire of evening. The trumpets boomed, throbbing soft in the distance. In his room were gold and silk, and gods about whose necks hung necklaces of great red stones. Perfection! The end of the road! The Great Twentieth!
His shoulders sagged. No room for him in the place of prayer. He took another drink.
The pigeons fluted without ceasing. He couldn’t think properly with that noise going on. But he must treat them well. The Nineteenth had liked pigeons. The Great Twentieth loved pigeons. He had always treated pigeons properly. He had never done a pigeon harm in all his life. Never thought of it. But they were making too much noise.
He took a silver bowl from before one of the statues, threw out the tsampa and butter in it, and filled it with grain. He poured brandy into his jade cup and emptied it over the grain. He stirred the grain with his finger. Useless. That had hardly wet one piece. They would be disappointed. They would think he was miserly. He had never been miserly with pigeons. He emptied the second brandy jar into the bowl of grain. That was excellent too, because it would prevent him from drinking too much, in case he should be tempted to do so through his joy and happiness in the perfection of this place. He mixed the grain and the brandy into a mash and took it out to the terrace.
He called, ‘Ohé, pigeons! Come along, pigeons. Nice food for you, pigeons!’
They descended on him in thousands, fluting in his ears and hair and flapping their wings about his head. As many as could dived into the bowl and pecked greedily. Others strutted around waiting their chance to get at it.
‘Good pigeons,’ he murmured. ‘Good pigeons. That ought to keep you quiet, you poxy, puffed-up sparrows.’
The pigeons pecked and fluttered furiously, and walked up and down, cooing. Why couldn’t a pigeon walk without nodding its head? Nod-walk-nod-walk-nod-walk. It was enough to drive you mad. If he ever found himself in that state he would go to see a surgeon at once, or at least an apothecary. Some pigeons were staggering about the terrace now, and the sun was setting. Time they went home to bed.
He shouted, ‘Shoo! Shoo! Go home!’
A few pigeons lurched off the balustrade into space and flew erratically away. The rest clambered over one another to get at the bowl. One sat down on the floor and looked at Jason with its beady little eyes slowly disappearing under its eyelids. Another lay on its back and stretched up its legs.
He wanted to sleep or read or write, or something. How could he, with a flock of drunken pigeons fluttering over his bed and swaying on the head of every Buddha in the room? They weren’t allowed inside the apartment, and they knew it. Damned mutinous pigeons they were, staring and nodding and slyly winking as if they had secret information about him. They knew where the brandy had gone.
But he would treat them well. That was necessary, and in his nature. He shooed and shooed.
Some lay down, some nodded sleepily, some became full of energy as though a new dawn had come, and flew rocketing past the terrace about thirty feet out, right to left and left to right. Or they soared to a great height, turned over, and dived towards the courtyard with the wind shrieking in their flutes.
’Drunken devils!’ he shouted. ‘You wait.’
He ran inside, fell down, got up, tore a heavy necklace off the nearest Buddha, snapped it. He held the stones loosely in his left hand. He got his slingshot from his sack and ran back to the terrace.
Now--must be just, give the pigeons a fair chance in spite of their mutinous drunkenness. He picked out two that were soaring on rapidly beating wings against the twilit sky, and kept his eyes on them. A hundred feet above the highest roof of the monastery they turned and dived. He swung the slingshot easily in his hand, round and round and round. No pigeon could expect more than this--and the light so bad! Faster, faster! The left-hand pigeon.
They raced past the terrace, and he let fly. The red carbuncle struck true. The left-hand pigeon wobbled in flight; the rushing air folded back its wings, and it raved on down, its flute screaming. Jason ran to the balustrade and leaned over. Down, down, smaller and smaller, the note wailing downward in pitch.
Thud!
He hurried back to the far side of the terrace. Must be fair. He chose a pigeon flying from right to left among a bevy of its drunken friends. Missed, and the stone flew God knew where.
He began to shoot fast. The Great Twentieth did everything better than other people--dancing, drinking, making love, writing books, dealing with mutinous pigeons. He began to hit more often. The flutes shrieked down, a succession of thuds rode up faintly from the courtyard.
Getting too dark now. He leaned over and dimly saw a crowd of monks down there in the forecourt--shaved heads, upturned faces, much scurrying and alarm. He cupped his hands and bawled, ‘I don’t want them back. You may eat them. The Great Twentieth says so.’
Now he had used up the necklace, and it was nearly dark. Carefully he swept up the drunken pigeons from his floor and off the heads of the Buddhas and laid them in a row under the balustrade. There they would be in no danger of falling over the edge. Nid-nod--one or two of them still walked up and down in spite of his frowns. Well, he had done his best for them. Let them fend for themselves now.
Back in the apartment he upended each brandy jar in turn and sucked. Empty as two drums. Damned pigeons.
He went out to the terrace and heard the murmuring of many monkish voices from the well of darkness. Let them go to one of their own painted hells and eat tsampa if they didn’t like pigeon.
Suddenly he knew exactly what he wanted. There was someone in the monastery whom he must see, though he couldn’t for the moment remember her name.
He stepped over the balustrade and walked along the west wall of the monastery on a ledge a few inches wide. The wind tugged at his robe, and his shaved head felt like a cold turnip. A couple of times he paused to look down. It would be a long way to fall, but not enough to worry about--only a mile or so. He raised one leg and shook his foot over the abyss to show himself he didn’t care. He spat out into the darkness and listened. Couldn’t hear anything but the wind and the gongs.
After a time he came to a window and climbed in. The cell was empty and the door open. He walked through into the passage and strode slowly on, his head bent in meditation. The gongs thundered louder here, and heavy feet were running in the distance. Most of them would be down in the forecourt, blowing trumpets to avert the rain of pigeons. Fools. They’d do better to smell the pigeons’ breath.
He climbed down seven ladders. Many monks hurried past him, but he held to a studious silence. At the top of the eighth ladder he stopped. The great chamber below was full of monks, buzzing like a swarm in June, and in the mi
ddle the junior abbot was holding up a pigeon. Jason turned back and climbed out of the first window he came to.
Walking on air--how wonderful! But he would be killed, his skirts flying up round him and the air shrieking by!
A jarring shock rattled his teeth. He waited for the flat destruction which must follow such a fall. Nothing more came. He got up, took, a pace forward, and fell down. He could not walk because he was waist deep in glue. He felt round with his hands. Manure. Yak manure, horse manure, ass manure, all sorts of manure. How wonderful the smell was, good and rich and like Shrewford Pennel on a spring morning--lots of straw and all steaming warm. He would like to lie here, rest a bit, and think. But he did not know what to think about.
He scrambled down the immense midden and at the bottom turned to look up at the monastery. He could not be sure which window it was that had deceived him. He might have fallen twenty feet or a hundred. What difference did it make, among the terrible dangers of drunken pigeons and buzzing monks surrounding him?
He had to be careful now, keep cool, hug the wall, look narrowly from side to side. They were after him, and the Golden Fleece was wrapped round his waist under the terracotta robe.
He crept to the corner of the building and peered round. Now he knew where he was--in the forecourt. It was empty--no monks, no pigeons. The serai was just through that gate. He went, crouching low, across the forecourt and stood against the side of the arch. Ten doors against each wall of the serai, but which was the one he wanted? The trumpets boomed inside the monastery, and the golden cylinders on the roof stood up like sentries amongst the crackling stars.
One of the doors opened, and a woman came out. She put a small lamp beside the jamb and went in again. She had not thought he would come so quickly. She did not know that he could fly as well as any damned pigeon.
The little lamp burned quietly there. He smiled lovingly at it. Time to go now.
He crossed the courtyard, pushed the door open, went in, closed it behind him. It was dark, but he knew she was there in the darkness. She walked past him without a word, brought in the lamp, bolted and barred the door. He stretched and yawned and looked with blurred interest around the little room. She came to him and put her arms about his neck. She began to laugh and whispered, ‘Jason, you smell like a farmyard.’
Someone else had said that to him--a girl, with her arms round his neck too--and he had resented it. But this was Catherine, and it was very funny that he smelled like a farmyard.
He began to kiss her slowly, the kisses haphazard and mixed with gurgling laughter and nothing like any kissing he had known before. Even when he lay down with her the joke stayed with them and got mixed up with the lovemaking as it had with the kisses. Jason felt the joke, and the ecstasy, and love, and the future years, and all the discoveries that lay hidden for him in those years.
They slept an hour or two at last, tight-locked and trustful.
Jason awoke with the sourness of last night’s brandy in his mouth, and a strong sense of guilt in his mind. A thin sliver of light was creeping under the door, but there was no sound except the whine of the wind high above the monastery.
Catherine opened her eyes and kissed him. He jumped up and began to dress in his own clothes. Looking away from her, he said, ‘I only escaped because I wanted to lie with you. It wasn’t love, then. I was thinking of some women I’d seen bathing, nearly naked, in the water-channel up the valley. Then I thought I couldn’t live without you.’ No, God’s blood, he must be honest! He said shamefacedly, ‘Without a woman, I meant.’
She said, ‘I should hope not. Ishmael thought that if it wasn’t one thing it would be another. I’m glad it was that--and me.’
He ran over and hugged her breathlessly. He asked, ‘Is Ishmael down here?’
She said, ‘Yes. In the next quarter. He came down as soon as the monks came for you. It was he who brought your clothes. He told me all about that. He was worried, but we cheered each other up and decided in the end that--you were Jason Savage, and that you knew it better than anyone.’ She stretched and slowly began to dress herself.
Pulling on her high felt boots, she said, ‘What now?’
He said absently, ‘Follow the map.’
She said, ‘Yes. Of course. I didn’t mean that. Afterwards, when we have found Meru and the treasure and the scholar’s tomb, and come down from the mountain, what then?’
He said, ‘I don’t know.’ He was no longer unhappy about it, but he did not know. He said, ‘I’ve learned here what I am not. I still do not know what I am, where my work lies.’
She finished her dressing and came over to him, her eyes widely unfocused in the half light, her face a pale shadow tinged with the night’s colour, and her lips dusky red. She said, ‘We won’t think about it for a bit. Perhaps the answer is hidden on Meru!’ She laughed and added, ‘I don’t think anything else is. Do you?’
He said, ‘I don’t know.’
She said, ‘I know the map is false. That’s not the word--I know the map is not an exact fact. I’m sure it will not lead to any money. I said once I’d tell you what the Latin means--the line on the map--when you needed to know.’
‘Yes.’
‘Quae visa, vera; quae non, veriora--“What you see is true; what you do not see is more true.” ‘
Jason considered the statement carefully. It was a good statement, true to what he felt and what he had experienced. Written on the map like that, it might mean many things. It might be a warning not to take the map seriously. It might imply that it was better to look at the map and think of the treasure than to go and find it. Then the map would be true after a fashion, but not as true as the treasure shining and glittering in an imagined cave on a non-existent mountain. Or suppose there really was a treasure--and you saw it. Then the other, what was not seen, would be the imagined things beyond the treasure--the farther mountains, your wonderings about the man who amassed that treasure and carried it up the mountain. Or . . .
He gave up. With Ishmael to teach him and Catherine to guide him, he was content. He said, ‘First we must follow the map to the end. I knew there was something I had to tell you. From my room up there, the Lama’s room . . .’ He described the twin-peaked mountain he had seen on the north-western horizon.
‘There are many mountains with two peaks,’ she said cheerfully. ‘This may be ours, or Ishmael’s, or neither.’
‘Or both!’ he said, and then the door rattled, feet shuffled outside, and voices murmured.
Jason started up. ‘The monks! God’s blood! We should have escaped while we could. They’ll kill me for what I did last night. Those damned pigeons!’
She said, ‘I don’t think so. They believe it is wicked to take life.’
‘Except people’s, probably,’ Jason said gloomily. He unbolted the door and stepped out, blinking in the strong light, Catherine’s hand in his.
Ishmael was there, his face twisted into a ferocious frown and his eyes sparkling, and the three abbots, and about a hundred monks. Eleven dead pigeons lay in a row, feet up, in front of the Abbot Tendong.
Jason said, ‘Hello, Ishmael. Are they angry?’
Ishmael said, ‘The abbot wants to know if you killed these pigeons, and whether you lay with the lady last night.’
Jason said, ‘I did.’
Ishmael said, ‘They will believe you if you say you didn’t. Tendong loves you as much as I do. They need a Lama.’
Jason said, ‘Thank you, Father.’ Ishmael was giving him another chance, now that he was sober and that Catherine might be presumed to have taken the edge off his earthly appetites. Old Tendong looked very tired. The long search would have to begin again. Tsaparang Gompa towered above him, and up there was the Lama’s terrace. The pigeons cooed and fluted.
He said, ‘Tell him I’m sorry, Father. I am not the Twentieth.’ Ishmael spoke. The old abbot’s shoulders shrank. He held up his hand, and Jason saw that he was crying. Ishmael said, ‘You must give back the Lama’s robe.’
The huge monk who had been his proctor stepped forward, laid down the rest of Jason’s belongings, and went into the quarter. He returned with the robe folded carefully over his arm. Another monk gathered up the dead pigeons. Tendong turned away. The abbots and monks formed a procession behind him, the robe and the pigeons in front. The trumpets sounded, the inner door of Tsaparang opened, and the procession wound through and out of sight. The door closed.
Jason cried, ‘Load up, saddle up, as quickly as we can. Father, buy food from the women outside the gate!’
Ishmael cried, ‘Almost ready now, my son. See what Tendong gave me as a present.’ He held up a beautifully-painted Wheel of Life.
Jason said, ‘They gave me something better still--two presents. Catherine--and myself, for her to find a use for!’
Catherine laughed, and they set off.
They breasted the last pass and stood a moment to let the panting horses gain strength for the descent. Heavy tendrils of vapour blew round them; a few snowflakes drifted gently down. A slate-coloured lake lay in the plain below, and, beyond it, the twin-peaked mountain. Clouds hung like curtains round the lower part of the mountain, and it did not seem high. A wand of icy light passed over it and made it, in that wilderness, a magic mountain.
Ishmael said, ‘Meru! Let us hurry on.’
The clouds boiled up, and they began to scramble on down towards the lake. The snow fell steadily now, blown into their faces by a north wind. When they reached the lake they and their horses were draped in snow, and all the ground was white. Jason dismounted and tested the water of the lake. It was bitter. He remounted, and they trotted on. Catherine said, ‘We must find shelter soon. It is evening.’