by Talbot Mundy
That wouldn’t do! Thought was going wandering along tangential planes of memory. He had to bring himself back with a jerk. The wandering was partly Elsa’s doing. But he hadn’t time to nurse resentment, although he felt it. Elsa sat with the palms of her hands cupped on the knobs of the chair-arms and her head resting on the canvas back. Her eyes weren’t quite closed. Her lips, too, were slightly parted. She was conscious and, he felt sure of it, unafraid. She was inviting the state of consciousness that formerly she loathed. It was there. Like a high voltage current of electricity, it set up a kind of induced awareness in Andrew. Assurance overflowed from her and reached him, so that he knew he owed to her at least some of his own self-confidence. He felt no fear of doing the wrong thing — of saying the wrong word. But he knew, without knowing how he knew, that Bulah Singh, with his back to the wall, was making mental experiments to produce a crisis in which to snatch an opportune advantage for himself. The air was loaded with Bulah Singh’s anarchic effort. All the Tibetans in the room, including Andrew’s own men, were in a state of expectant terror, breathing through their noses. Their bets were on Lung-gom-pa and his magic.
The German von Klaus was less easy to understand. But there were sudden true glimpses of him also. Elsa’s mind became a momentary mirror, in which the man himself betrayed himself — not consciously afraid, but pseudo- philosophically justifying boldness by recalling previous success. Heil Hitler! There were memory glimpses of von Klaus in uniform — snatches of visions of clever von Klaus the diplomat, prevailing by treachery over fools who kept faith and perished on the hooks of an ideal. His drilled brain was crowded with instances preserved like pickled specimens in realistic scorn.
So there was a kind of war going on in the realm of thought, all at cross- purposes, in which the black magician was likely to snatch the upper hand. It was his village. He owned it. He was used to obedience, awe, if not respect. Why shouldn’t he use violence to regain “face” that he had evidently lost to von Klaus? Somehow the German must have tricked him into submission — promising, no doubt, wonderful things. But where were the things? An unkept or a postponed promise is humiliating, and humiliation stings. He was cunning enough to pretend an indignation that he did not feel. All despots use that expedient. He could work himself up into screaming hysteria. And in that mood he could kill. He was half minded to do it. In his eyes was fear of being understood — fear of being found out. Fear, and cruelty.
“Leave him to me!” von Klaus whispered. “I understand him.”
The sensation of time returned then. It was a shock: two simultaneous states of consciousness — of thought and of action — of being and of doing; the one timeless, the other bound and limited by time and space. Thought took no more time than firelight needed leaping from eye to eye. And now Andrew did feel panic. He was afraid of that dual consciousness. One thing or the other! He chose! He struck so swiftly for his self-control that Elsa sat bolt upright, scared, as if something hit her. His spastic plunge back to the concrete realm of things made Bulah Singh breathe sibilantly through his teeth. The magician Lung-gom-pa, whose false name falsely claimed that he could walk without wings on the empty air, stared — stared hard; the magician feared concrete reality more than Andrew dreaded swamps of abstract dreaming. The magician glanced from Andrew — to von Klaus — to Elsa — back to Andrew. Andrew spoke, in English, aiming his words at Elsa. It was an ultimatum to Lung-gom-pa. But to her also, although he didn’t look at her.
“Silence! Don’t risk speech until you know my will!”
Strange words. Elsa translated them, slowly, accurately. The magician thrust out his lower lip in perplexity. It was like an animal’s. He flicked his rosary of skulls. Von Klaus whispered:
“Sind Sie wahnsinnig? Wenn Sie — I mean, if you offend him, you undo all that I did! He will—”
Andrew ignored von Klaus. It was deliberate. He was playing a no-trump hand for every point it held, and one point was to snub and irritate the German. So he kept his eyes on Lung-gom-pa. His own were calm, with the assumed indifference that sometimes angers, always arouses weakness to declare itself. Unhurried, speaking without emphasis, he kept the initiative:
“I intend to leave with you some ponies I no longer need. But where are the yaks you promised? Where are the sheep?”
Elsa repeated the words in Tibetan. The magician stared, astonished. Von Klaus whispered:
“Teufelszeug! Spoiling my influence? See here, you! Why didn’t you warn me you have had communication with him!”
Andrew again ignored von Klaus. Without giving the magician time to answer, subtly he suggested to him how to save face:
“If you should speak to me before all these witnesses, how will you justify your own conduct? How will you explain why you have housed us in a shed with the animals? Why did you send your underlings to seize my baggage? If I had let them take the bag that I sit on, your people would have mocked you when they saw its contents. But I saved you from that.”
He paused to let Elsa translate. She did it low-voiced. Tibetan faces craned forward from the shadows, but none could catch the words. The magician stared at Elsa, then at Bula Singh, then at Andrew.
Von Klaus whispered: “You don’t understand these people! There’s no use lying about the contents of a bag that he can open when he chooses! He knows what’s in it!”
“That’s more than you know,” Andrew retorted.
The magician was speaking to Elsa. Von Klaus suddenly flew into a rage, grabbed Andrew’s arm and ground out words like chopped meat:
“Fool! Ten thousand miles in three months I have come for what that bag contains! Three weeks I have waited in this stinking village! Don’t waste lies on me! Don’t you know what’s in it?”
Andrew shook him off roughly and thrust him aside, timing the insult so that the magician saw. He turned to Elsa:
“What does he say?”
“He invites us to his house. But he says we should bring the bag you’re sitting on. He asks, shall his men carry it.”
“Tell him no. My man shall bring it.”
“Andrew, I think you’re—”
Andrew’s cold smile interrupted her. She almost bit a word in two, reddening, recognizing the end of Andrew’s patience. He wasn’t asking advice. He was giving orders.
“Kindly tell him—” the word “kindly” cut. It was the cold veneer on anger. “Kindly tell him we’ll leave Bulah Singh with my man Bompo Tsering. Say this German may come with us. The magician is to order all his own followers out of the shed. They’re to stay out until daylight.”
Elsa turned to interpret. Again von Klaus seized Andrew’s arm.
“Andrew Gunning, if you think you can treat me like this, I can assure you—”
“Oh, heil Hitler!”
Andrew shoved him away and stood between him and Lung-gom-pa, who was listening to Elsa. The magician was hardly believing his own ears — hardly believing that a white woman could talk such fluent Tibetan. Could she be white? Was she a devil in human form? — He hardly believed that even devils from the unknown world beyond the mountains could dare to order him around as this girl was doing. Was she really translating Andrew’s words? Or —
Andrew beckoned Bompo Tsering. He came in a hurry, all eyes and ears, craving gossip, explanations, confidences. What he got was commands:
“Watch Bulah Singh. Give him blankets. Let him sleep if he pleases. But guard him closely. Answer no questions. All but one of you are to wait here until further orders. Do you understand?”
“My understanding. My obeying.”
“Select one of our men who knows no English. Pick the stupidest man. Tell him to pick up this bag I’ve been sitting on and come with me and the German and Lady Elsa.”
“That bag being heavy, better my doing it.”
“Do as I tell you!”
Von Klaus ceased protesting. It was useless. In an effort to steal a march on Andrew he hurried after Lung-gom-pa, who strode out of the shed without saying a
word. Andrew waited with Elsa until all the magician’s men had disappeared into the night, following their master. Then he repeated his orders to Bompo Tsering, and tossed one crumb of comfort to Bulah Singh:
“I’ve no bargain with you! But if you make no trouble for me behind my back, you’re likely to regret it less than if you act up! Is that clear?”
“Yes,” the Sikh answered. “As one man to another, you may go to hell. If I could ditch you I’d love it. But that German will do you in. If he doesn’t the magician will. You’ll be eaten by dogs by and by. I wish you joy of it.”
Andrew laughed and turned his back, calling over his shoulder to Bompo Tsering to lock the door on the inside. He liked Bulah Singh better in that mood than in any other. It was at least honest. Outside the door, in the dark, he waited until he heard Bompo Tsering shoot the heavy bolt on the inside. Then he glanced upward, once, briefly, at the starlit sky and strode forward through stinking gloom, over frozen filth, to where a lantern glowed in the dim near distance. Elsa kept step with him.
“Andrew.”
“Yes?”
“Von Klaus is trying to persuade Lung-gom-pa that we’re too treacherous to be let live.”
“Yes. I know. Plastering us with his own paint. That’s the mark of the beast. They all do it. We’ll feel his teeth presently.”
Elsa detected his irritation. “Oh well — as long as you know.”
“Our one chance,” he said, “is to be sudden, surprising, unexpected.”
He would have liked to ask Elsa to let him alone. He was more than ever uneasy about her clairvoyance. There was something contagious in it. It seemed likely to transmute his own strength of decision into something feminine that had no edges and that merely let things happen. But he could think of no phrase that wouldn’t hurt. He had a vaguely grim foreboding that she was going to be hurt soon and badly. He laid his hand on her shoulder, guiding her through the dark.
“Andrew. — Did Lung-gom-pa really promise yaks and—”
“No. I said that to puzzle him—”
“I think it did.”
“ — and to rattle von Klaus.”
“It made von Klaus furious. Now he thinks we are here on purpose to—”
“I may have to break von Klaus, or he’ll break us. But it’s true we need yaks and sheep, from here on.”
“From here on? If!” said Elsa.
“You? Talking about if? Can’t you see ahead?”
“Not now. I see nothing now. Only that awful mother of the brat! I see her eyes in the dark — and the boy’s eyes!”
Andrew answered calmly: “I will shoot her if she butts in.”
“Andrew — don’t start things!”
“They’re already started. Watch that lantern and walk forward. I won’t let you fall. Here — take my arm. There, is that better?”
“Thanks — Andrew! We’re in deadly danger — from all around — all sides — everyone.”
“I know.”
“Even Bompo Tsering.”
“Watch your step now. There’s a hole here — a bad one.”
“Haven’t you a flashlight?”
“Yes. But the light might make someone’s aim too easy. Hang on to me. We’re pretty near now.”
“Andrew, I feel certain von Klaus has a trap that he means to spring on us. — Oh! Look! What’s that? Who is it?”
“That’s our own man, carrying my bag, waiting for us in the shadow.”
“Andrew, is the bag really full of opium?”
“They all think it is.”
“But is it?”
“See here.” He had almost lost patience. “What was I doing, that night in the pass, on this side of the summit — that last night, before we knew Bulah Singh was behind us?”
“You said — you redistributed — a load — to save the ponies. Didn’t you?”
“I dumped the opium.”
“You knew it was in the bag? You knew it then?”
“Sure.”
“I didn’t. Andrew, how did you find out? You hadn’t opened that bag! Could you see? Were you—”
“I used my eyes. I had to look like hell the other way while the Sikkim trader pulled the trick. There had to be some good reason why he—”
“Andrew! What’ll these people do when they discover we haven’t got their opium?”
“Leave that to me.”
“But—”
There was nothing else for it. He halted suddenly, almost within the light-zone of the lantern. He turned, faced, met her eyes. They could just see each other.
“Will you do me a favor?”
“Yes, Andrew. What do you wish me to do? What is it?”
“Pipe down. That’s all. Cut that hysterical stuff. Leave this to me.”
“But, Andrew—”
“I wonder whether I could say it plainer! — How’ll this do: are you and I friends? Then for God’s sake act friendly and let me do my own thinking!”
She was silent.
He spoke more gently: “I said we’re friends. I mean it. Each do our own thinking. Now then — through that narrow door as if we owned the place — leave the show-down to me!”
CHAPTER 36
Thought took no time; agony no space. Elsa took four steps forward, toward the lamplit door of the magician’s dwelling. Andrew’s left hand pressed her shoulder blades. His right hand gripped an automatic inside his overcoat. Within the compass of four strides, a whole world changed — a universe! A state of consciousness, in which all universes lived because there is nowhere else for them, became a dismal wilderness. There is no pain like disillusion. Faith had failed. Cut that hysterical stuff! Andrew’s hand on her back was meant to reassure! Whom? Of what? There was nothing left.
Four steps forward — toward a lamplit door, over frozen filth, amid the buttery reek of almost invisible Tibetans who crowded the dark alley. There was a sound of frozen leather rubbing against leather, and of rifle swivels, and of hard breathing. There were glimpses of eyes that craved and expected presently to see victims slowly done to death. Those watchers knew their magician — knew what to expect, what to demand of him. Like life itself, he would amuse himself; but he would presently pass judgment and impose death, for his own importance and their pleasure. Then the watchers would feel for a while like their imagined old deathless gods of Tibet, who await the end of the day of Buddha and the coming of the new cruel night of Bon. Cruel gods. Cruelty — the delicious dreadful stuff that flatters slaves and lends authority to tyrants, who are slaves’ high priests. Cruelty! The passion distinguishing man from beast — since only man loves, invents, applies, enjoys cruelty. Man, the creator and image of all the gods!
First they’d see bleached terror in the victims’ eyes, artfully increased — the hope encouraged for a moment, teased, falsely fed — contemptuously mocked and killed. Then presently, the horror of humiliation — the lewd stripping — the gloating and laughter. Last, the ingenious, traditional, physical torture. All torture is traditional. Elsa had seen some of it. She had seen a Tibetan woman half beaten to death and then pegged out hand and foot, naked to frost and sun, to die of thirst. She knew what those eyes in the dark expected, gloated for — nakedness, ritual, lechery, blood. She and Andrew were to be sacrificed like bulls in a Spanish ring; like Franco’s, Hitler’s, Mussolini’s, Stalin’s prisoners; like martyrs condemned by holy church and given to be burned by creatures of the lower law.
There would be nothing new about it. Sickening. But not new. Bestial, but no worse than the fate of hundreds and thousands of men and women who wage wars for the devils who die in bed. It would be only physical. It couldn’t hurt worse than Andrew’s snub — than the politeness of Andrew’s hand between her shoulder blades. It would be a different pain, that was all.
Four steps forward — alone. Now utterly alone. Andrew had understood her. He had seen her soul, and she his. But Andrew had turned, gone, withdrawn to a polite, cold distance. The stab of a knife in her heart would have felt le
ss cruel. A “great gulf fixed” had revealed itself, wide between her and the only one friend she had ever known. It was like a headlong fall from heaven into hell. Never — never — never — never again would she reach for Andrew’s soul to share her own soul’s overflow! Hers overflowed no longer! It had died, that instant, and all comfort with it, as the buds die in a chill wind. Dead — dead — dead — dead. Disillusioned. Andrew’s hand between her shoulder blades. In the dark. Never, never, never, never! Nancy’s stuff was —
Suddenly she saw Nancy! — Nancy’s fireside, in Darjeeling! And the cat — why the cat? — Then Lobsang Pun’s broken photograph — the Jesuit Mission — Gombaria — the rock-hewn chamber of initiation! Reality! Timeless! Spaceless! Between the fourth step, and the fifth on to the threshold of the black magician’s dwelling, she lived an eternity — saw, felt, experienced again the vision of Old Ugly-face, golden, as old as the world, and as young as new morning not yet risen. Blasphemy died before it reached her lips. She heard other words:
“The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want—”
Nancy’s voice? Her own? Lobsang Pun’s? Andrew’s? It couldn’t be Andrew’s! Hers? Her heart was in her throat. She hadn’t spoken. She couldn’t have. Her senses failed, reeling in their own sensation. Had she fallen? Had she died? No — Andrew’s arm was around her. She was being carried — forward into the dark. She was no longer afraid. But it wasn’t fearlessness, it was something positive. It was a warming overwhelming faith. It flowed upon her, until she felt like drowning now in floods of strength, not weakness. Whose strength? Surely not hers!