The Ninth Buddha

by Daniel Easterman

  “You said you were going to show me something else. You said there was someone in danger from Zamyatm.”

  “Yes. We are going to see him now.”

  “Zamyatin came here in search of something. When I was with” Christopher hesitated ‘my father, he said he had done a deal with Zamyatin: my son in exchange for what Zamyatin wanted. Has this other person something to do with all this?”

  Chindamani nodded.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Zamyatin came here to find him. I want you to help me get him away from him.”

  She led the way to one of the other doors. Another dimly lit chamber,

  another bed covered in gorgeous fabrics. A child was sleeping in the

  bed, hair tousled, eyes shut against the darkness,

  one hand loosely curled on the pillow as though about to clutch or relinquish a dream.

  “Here,” she whispered.

  “This is what Zamyatin was looking for.

  This is what brought you here.”

  A boy? A child wrapped in shadows? Was this really all?

  “Who is he?” Christopher asked.

  “Who would you like him to be?” asked Chindamani in reply.

  “A

  king? The next Emperor of China, perhaps? The surviving son of the murdered Tzar? You see, I’m not entirely uninformed about your world.”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “He could be anyone. I didn’t expect something like this.” But what had he expected? Had he expected anything?

  “He’s just a little boy,” said Chindamani quietly, but with feeling.

  “That’s all he is. That’s all he wants to be.” She paused.

  “But he has no say in the matter. He cannot be whatever he wants to be because other people want him to be someone else. Do you understand?”

  “Who do they say he is?”

  Chindamani looked at the sleeping child, then back at Christopher.

  “The Maidari Buddha,” she said.

  “The ninth Buddha of Urga.

  And the last.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She shook her head softly, sadly.

  “No,” she said, ‘you do not understand.” She paused and glanced at the boy again.

  “He is the rightful ruler of Mongolia,” she whispered.

  “He is the key to a continent. Do you understand me now?”

  Christopher looked down at the boy. So that was it. Zamyatin had been looking for a key to unlock the treasure house of Asia. A living god to make him the most powerful man in the East.

  “Yes,” he said slowly.

  “Yes, I think I am beginning to understand.”

  She looked back at him.

  “No,” she said.

  “You understand nothing. Nothing whatever.”

  They left the children sleeping and went out into the night again, returning to the main buildings by way of the bridge. The monastery was still fast asleep, but Chindamani insisted they move quietly until they reached Christopher’s room.

  She stayed with him that night until just before dawn. He was withdrawn at first in spite of her presence, for seeing William had flattened his spirits greatly. She made tea on a small stove in the corner of Christopher’s room. It was Chinese tea, pale wu lung in which white jasmine flowers floated tranquilly, like lilies on a perfumed lake. When it was ready, she poured it carefully into two small porcelain cups set side by side on a low table. The cups were paper thin and soft blue in colour, like eggshells. Through the fine glaze, Christopher could see the tea, gleaming golden in the soft light.

  “The Chinese call them to tai,” Chindamani said, touching the edge of one cup with her finger-tip.

  “They are very special, very rare. These two were part of a present to one of the abbots of Dorje-la from the K’ang-hsi Emperor. They are over two hundred years old.”

  She held the cup towards the light, watching the flames struggle in the amber liquid. For the first time, Christopher had an opportunity to see her properly. Her skin resembled the porcelain of the cup in her hand, in its smoothness and delicacy. She was tiny, less than five feet tall, and each part of her echoed that diminutive ness in a subtly modulated harmony of form. When she moved to pour tea or lift the fragile cup to her lips or just to brush a strand of stray hair from her eyes it was done with an infinitely exquisite grace that he had never seen in a woman before.

  It was not a studied or a mannered gracefulness, but a natural ease of movement that had its origin in a total harmony that existed between her body and the world she inhabited. He felt that she might walk on water or cross a meadow without bruising a single blade of spring grass. And he felt sad, because such perfection seemed so far beyond his clumsy reach.

  They drank the tea, saying nothing at first, watching the shadows melt and re-form on the walls. He was lost in thought, miles away, like a man drifting on a raft across an open sea, unable to tell where the shore might be or if there was a shore at all. She did not face him, did not try to break into his silence or tempt him from his pain. But when he looked up from time to time, she was there, her face half-hidden among shadows.

  Finally, he began to talk, in small, clustered fragments of speech interspersed with long and painful silences. The tea grew cold and the jasmines shrivelled and drowned, and the wind sang in the mountains like a lost soul. There was neither order nor system in anything he said: thoughts simply poured out of him at random, to be followed by yet more silence. Now he spoke of his childhood in India, now of Aunt Tabitha and the long summers at Carfax, summers that had once seemed without end. Or he would tell her about men he had killed, men he had betrayed, a woman he had once betrayed long ago on a cold afternoon in the dead of winter.

  He told her of Cormac’s death and how it preyed on him, the mindless droning of the flies constant in his thoughts; of the girl in the orphanage, naked and betrayed; of Lhaten slaughtered like a calf on a high field of driven snow.

  She listened in silence like a priest hearing his confession, without absolution, without blame. And he sought for neither, finding sufficient blessing in her presence and grace enough in her silence. At the end, he told her about his father, about the mysterious and terrible rebirth that had taken place among the tombs that afternoon. A long silence followed. At one point, he realized that her hand was in his, small and fragile, like a shell or a piece of porcelain: a fragment of something he had known long ago and lost.

  “How did the boy come to be here?” Christopher asked.

  “The one Zamyatin came here to find.”

  “His name is Dorje Samdup Rinpoche,” she said.

  “He was born in a village far to the west of here, near the sacred lake Manosarowar. That was over ten years ago. When he was still very small, some monks came to Manosarowar from Mongolia. They found signs that he was the new incarnation of the Maidari Buddha.”

  That would have been about 1912, thought Christopher. Now he knew what it was Maisky and Skrypnik had found at Manosarowar, what Zamyatin had set out to rediscover.

  “At first the monks wanted to take Samdup back to Mongolia, to the holy city of Urga. But others advised against it. There is still a Khutukhtu on the throne of Urga: if he had learned of the boy’s existence, he would have tried to have him killed rather than let himself be replaced by him.”

  “A Khutukhtu?” Christopher had never heard the term before.

  “It’s what the Mongols call their incarnations. Samdup is the true Khutukhtu of Urga. The Jebtsun Damba Khutukhtu. The true ruler of Mongolia.”

  “I don’t understand. How can there be two Khutukhtus at the same time?

  How could one replace another while they are both alive?”

  “There are not two Khutukhtus,” she replied.

  “They are one and the same. They dwell in different bodies, that is all. But the eighth body has ceased to be a suitable vehicle. The Maidari Buddha has chosen to incarnate himself in another body before the eight
h has been destroyed. It’s very simple.”

  “Yes, but what I don’t understand is why Zamyatin should want to waste so much time coming here to look for the child. Why doesn’t he just go to Mongolia and try to influence the present Khutukhtu?”

  Chindamani shook her head.

  “The Khutukhtu in Urga has no power. I do not understand such things, but I have heard the abbot and others talking. They say that, about the time Samdup was born, the Emperor of China was defeated in a great rebellion. Is that true?”

  Christopher nodded. In 1911, the Manchu dynasty had been overthrown and a Republic established in China.

  “When that happened,” Chindamani continued, ‘the Khutukhtu at Urga rebelled against the Chinese, who had ruled over Mongolia for centuries. He was proclaimed ruler and the Chinese left the country. At first, another country, far to the north, gave him protection. They say it was one of the lands of the pee-lings, but I do not understand that.”

  “Russia,” Christopher said.

  “Their king wanted to have influence in the East. Go on.”

  “The Khutukhtu ruled with their help for several years. And then the king of the pee-lings was overthrown just like the Emperor of China. Is that true?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “It is true.”

  “When that happened, the Chinese returned to Mongolia. They forced the Khutukhtu to sign papers on which he renounced all power for himself. They imprisoned him in his palace. He is an old man now and blind. And his people no longer believe in him.

  Zamyatin wants to take Lord Samdup to Urga and put him on the throne in his place.”

  “You said the present Khutukhtu was no longer a suitable vehicle. That his people no longer believe in him. What did you mean?”

  She seemed embarrassed to talk of such matters with him.

  “I only know what Sonam has told me,” she said.

  “The present Khutukhtu was born fifty years ago in a village just next to Lhasa.

  From an early age he showed signs of unsuitability: there was a . tension between the man and the spirit he incarnated. It sometimes happens. It’s as though something goes wrong at the moment of incarnation.”

  She paused, then plunged on.

  “The Khutukhtu began to drink. He married, not once, but twice. His second wife is a slut: she invites men to her tent young men, trap as men who should know better. But he is worse. He sleeps with both men and women.”

  “Some lamas complained about him a few years ago. They said he was bringing the faith into disrepute, that he was demeaning the office of Khutukhtu. He had them executed. Now no-one dares speak out against him.”

  She looked at Christopher, uncertain what he would make of this.

  “Do I shock you?” she asked.

  “Do you think such a thing impossible?”

  He shook his head.

  “I don’t know what’s possible in your world,” he replied.

  “I see nothing strange in a man wanting to drink or have a woman. A man is just a man, whatever resides in him.”

  She sensed the unvoiced implication of what he said that a woman too was just a woman, whatever men said resided in her.

  “Such things happen sometimes,” she said.

  “It was the case with the sixth Dalai Lama,” she said.

  “The Great Fifth died while they were still building his palace in Lhasa, the Potala. For ten years, his Regent concealed his death from the people, saying he was in seclusion, meditating. When the sixth was finally discovered, he was a boy of about thirteen. He had lived in the world. He had smelt flowers. He had experienced desire.”

  “They brought him to Lhasa and shut him up in the Potala. It was dark and gloomy, and he hated it. He wanted to live in the sunshine, among ordinary people and they made him dwell in the dark with only gods and priests for company.”

  He could hear the sympathy in her voice. She was expressing her own longings, speaking her own thoughts.

  “Later, when he was old enough to have some control over his own affairs, he began to go into the town at night, disguised as an ordinary man. He went to taverns and found women to sleep with.

  And when the night was over, he slipped back to the darkness at the top of the Potala. He lived like that for years. And then the Chinese came. They took control of eastern Tibet. They garrisoned the road to Lhasa. And they killed the Dalai Lama.”

  She fell silent.

  “Didn’t the people have doubts about whether he was truly an incarnation?”

  She shook her head.

  “No,” she answered.

  “They never doubted him. He was gentle.

  Not like the Khutukhtu in Urga. Men said that he had two bodies - a real body and a phantom body. They said the real body stayed in the Potala while the phantom went round the taverns, testing their faith. He wrote poetry. Love songs. But his poetry was sad.

  Like perfume on a dying man.”

  She began to recite lines from one of his poems:

  High in the Potala, I dwell alone within dark chambers, I am a god walking, I am an unearthly thing;

  But when the narrow streets enfold me and I walk in shadows among other men, I am a thing of earth, a king of dancers, I am the world itself learning to sing.

  In the silence that followed, she understood for the first time just how alone she had been. Not even the Lady Tara could substitute for the presence of flesh and blood. She tried to remember her mother’s face bending over her when she was tiny, but she could see nothing but shadows.

  “I’m sorry for him,” said Christopher.

  “He must have been very sad.”

  She was looking down; not at him, not at anything.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “But perhaps no more sad than other Dalai Lamas, other incarnations. We all live lives like his. We’re all disfigured in the same way. Our bodies are pale, Christopher. Our flesh is like ice. Our lives are endless rituals.”

  She looked up quickly, as though afraid he might have disappeared.

  “In my whole life,” she said, “I have never smelt a flower. Only incense. Only butter-lamps. There are no flowers here.”

  No flowers anywhere in this world, thought Christopher. Only snow.

  Only ice. Only frost.

  Chindamani got up and went across to the window. Like other windows on the top floor, it was glazed. She looked out into the darkness beyond, past her own reflection, past the reflection of the lamp, gazing out of a world of shadows into a world of shadows. It was not yet dawn, but the sky held the first signs of light. She stared into the darkness, at the still edge of the night.

  “We come from darkness,” she said, ‘and we go back into darkness.”

  The pee-ling confused her. He had turned everything upside down All her life she had known no other place than Dorje-la. For twenty years, she had watched the sun rise on the same mountains, prayed to the same gods, wandered the same corridors.

  Silently, she returned to her seat.

  “Ka-ris To-feh,” she said in a quiet voice, ‘do you love your son very much?”

  “Of course.”

  “What if you found a destiny?” she asked.

  “Here, in these mountains. In Dorje-la perhaps. Would you turn aside from it in order to go home with your son?”

  “Are you offering me a destiny?” he asked in return.

  “Is that what this is about?”

  “I don’t know,” she said simply, and he saw that her eyes were still troubled.

  “What is it you want me to do?”

  She fell silent and gazed into the little cup she held between her hands. If the cup broke, it could not be reborn. It would be gone forever. Not all things were permanent. Transience lay at the heart of everything.

  “Take us away from Dorje-la,” she said.

  “Samdup and myself.

  Take us northwards. There is a monastery far to the north where Samdup will be safe. Your son will be safe there too until
it is time for you to take him home. Will you help us?”

  He hesitated. It would mean lengthening his journey and William’s considerably. And such a diversion would not be free from danger. Common sense said he should answer ‘no’. But he knew already he could not do that.

  “How will we find the way?” he asked.

  “I have a map. Sonam found it for me in the abbot’s library.”

  He looked at her face, at her eyes. He could not look away.

  “Very well,” he said.

  “I’ll come with you. We’ll find your sanctuary.”

  She smiled and stood.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. Her heart felt as though a great weight had been lifted from it. Why, then, did she still feel so frightened?

  There was a sound of a trumpet blaring outside.

  “It’s time for me to go,” she said.

  “I’ll come back later today. You need to sleep now. We don’t have much time. I think Zamyatin plans to leave here very soon.”

  He stepped up close to her.

  “Take care,” he said.

  She smiled.

  “Sleep well.”

  He bent and kissed her gently on the forehead. She shivered and turned her face away.

  “Goodbye, Ka-ris To-feh,” she said, then turned and went out by the secret entrance through which she had come in.

  Christopher went to the window and gazed out. If he looked hard, he could just make out the shape of mountains emerging from the darkness.

  He was dreaming of Carfax, and in the dream William came out to the gate to meet him. He saw him in the distance, waving, his tiny white hand making patterns against the sky. It had been so long, he thought, and Tibet had been so cold. How William must have grown, and how warm the fire in the library must have become. With every step he took, the boy grew bigger, and now here he was directly in front of him, not a boy at all but a man.

  William’s hair had grown white at the temples, just like his own, and his face bore heavy lines, whether of grief or simple age he could not be sure. From nowhere in particular, a child’s voice recited in Christopher’s ear:

  “You are old, little William,” his father said, “Andyour hair has become very white.

  “And yet you incessantly wear it to bed “Do you sleep at your age every night?”