by Iain Banks
Blue pine and chir pine, prickly leaved oak, Himalayan hemlocks and silver firs, juniper and scrub juniper filled the crannied spaces where any soil had gathered, the last — stunted, blasted by the wind, burned by frost but still just growing — only finally petering out at five kilometres above sea level.
'This is a pluralist society. We respect the beliefs of our Hindu brothers and sisters. Buddhists tend not to see themselves as being in competition with others. The Hindu faith is like Judaism, providing an ancient set of rules by which one may live one's life and order one's thoughts. Ours is a younger religion, a different generation of thought, if you like, grafted upon a set of much older traditions, but having drawn lessons from them, and respectful of them. Westerners often see it as more like a philosophy. Or so they tell us.'
'Yes, I know a few Buddhists in California.'
'You do? So do I! Do you know—?'
I smiled. We swapped a few names but, predictably, came up with no matches.
Sahair Beies was Rinpoche, or head lama of Bhaiwair monastery, the biggest in the country. I had already seen it, albeit from a distance, strung across the rock faces above the old palace a few kilometres out of Thuhn. He was slight, indeterminately old, shaved bald and wore very deeply saffron robes and little wireframe glasses behind which intelligent-looking eyes twinkled.
'You are a Christian, Ms Telman?'
'Nope.'
'Jewish, then? I have noticed that many people whose names end in "-man" are Jewish.'
I shook my head. 'Evangelical atheist.'
He nodded thoughtfully. 'A demanding path, I suspect. I asked one of your compatriots what he was, once, and he replied, "Devout Capitalist."' The Rinpoche laughed.
'We have a lot of those. Most are less open about it. Life as acquisition. Whoever dies with the most toys wins. It's a boy thing.'
'He gave me a lecture on the dynamic nature of the West and the United States of America in particular. It was most illuminating.'
'But it didn't persuade you to move to New York City and become a venture capitalist or a stockbroker?'
'No!' He laughed.
'What about other faiths?' I asked. 'Do you, for instance, get Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses turning up here?' I had a sudden comical image of two guys in sober suits and shiny shoes (covered in snow) shivering outside the giant doors of a remote monastery.
'Very rarely.' The Rinpoche looked thoughtful. 'Usually by the time we see them they are…changed,' he said. His eyes bulged. 'Oh, I find physicists much more interesting. There have been some famous American professors and Indian Nobel Prize winners I have talked to, and it struck me that we were — as one says — on the same wavelength in many ways.'
'Physics. That's our Brahmin faith.'
'You think so?'
'I think a lot of people live as though that's true, even if they don't think about it. To us, science is the religion that works. Other faiths claim miracles, but science delivers them, through technology: replacing diseased hearts, talking to people on the other side of the world, travelling to other planets, determining when the universe began. We display our faith every time we turn on a light switch or step aboard a jet.'
'You see? All very interesting, but I prefer the idea of Nirvana.'
'As you said, sir, it's a hard path, but only if you think of it.'
'One of your American professors said that to study religion was merely to know the mind of man, but if one truly wanted to know the mind of God, you must study physics.'
'That sounds familiar. I think I've read his book.'
The Rinpoche pinched his lower lip. 'I think I see what he meant now, but I could not explain to him that the thoughts of people and the phenomena we seek to explain through physics might all be revealed as…subsidiary to the attainment of true enlightenment, which would be like the result of one of those experiments which use high energies to show that apparently quite different forces are in fact the same. Do you see what I mean? That having achieved Nirvana, one might recognise all human behaviour and the most profound physical laws as being ultimately indistinguishable in their essence.'
I had to pause while I let this sink in. Then I stood back a pace from the Rinpoche and said, 'Wow, you guys don't just wander into this job, do you?'
The Rinpoche's eyes sparkled and he held one hand over his mouth while he giggled modestly.
Amongst and above them snow pigeons, sunbirds, jungle crows, barbets, choughs, warblers, babblers, grandalas, accentors, Himalayan griffon vultures and Thulahnese tragopans hopped, flitted, scurried, dived, wheeled or stooped.
I was on my way back from the toilet; I nodded and smiled at the little lady-in-waiting as she headed where I'd just been, then spotted Josh Levitsen letting himself out of a door and on to a terrace overlooking the dark town. I followed him. He stood by the stone parapet, swaying, hands cupped in front of his mouth as he fumbled with the Zippo, his face suddenly yellow in the flame as the lighter flared. He looked up as I approached.
'Hey, Ms Telman, you're going to catch your death of cold out here, you know that? Nice dress. Did I say that earlier? You're a babe, you know that? If you don't mind me saying so, that is. Here, you wanna toke? Sun's over the yard-arm and shit, right?'
'Thanks.'
We leant on the stonework. It really was quite cold, though at least there was no wind. I felt the hairs on my arms prickle, goose-bumps rising. The grass was strong. I held it in for a while, but ended up coughing on the exhale.
I handed the skinny joint back to Levitsen. 'Good shit. Local?'
'Thulahn's finest. Every pack comes with a sanity warning from the Lord High Surgeon General.'
'Do they export much? I've never heard of Thulahnese.'
'Na, me neither. For consumption on the premises only.' He studied the joint before handing it back to me. 'Maybe just as well. Prices might go up.'
We smoked in silence for a while.
'It true they have opium poppies in some of the lower valleys?' I asked.
'Yeah, some. That leaves the country, but it's minimal.' He sucked smoke and handed the J back. 'Compared to other places. Tried that stuff once,' he said, pronouncing the words as he sucked more air in. Then he grinned and shook his head until he blew out a cloud of fragrant smoke. 'Just the once, though. Toooo nice. Faaar too nice.'
I shivered. 'Absolutely. Moderation in all things. Here.'
'Couldn't agree more. Thanks.' Silence. 'What you looking at?'
'Can you see the old palace from here?'
'Na. Further round the valley there, higher, too.'
'Right.' Silence. 'Breeze.'
'Yup.'
'Wind getting up.'
'She'll be fine until the east wind blows.'
'What?'
'Nuthin'.'
Silence. 'Jeez, the stars.'
'Cool, huh? Hey, you look cold.'
'I am absolutely fucking freezing.'
'Better get back in. People will talk.'
'Indeed. Good grief, my teeth are chattering. I didn't think that really happened.'
A stiff vodka martini gave the impression that it was counteracting the effects of the joint. Probably doing nothing of the sort, but I felt like I needed it anyway. I didn't entirely trust myself not to slur my words, or babble, so I circulated in Minimum Speech Mode for a while, standing on the outskirts of groups and listening, or just nodding knowledgeably/sympathetically as somebody else sounded off. I narrowly escaped being collared a second time by the boring Austrian with the factory, but in the course of this manoeuvre bumped into the Prince.
'Kathryn, you are enjoying yourself?'
'Having a total hoot of a time, Suvinder. What a swell party this is. How about you, Princey baby?' Ah, well, Kathryn. Still in Potential Babble Mode, then. Just shut up, you idiot.
'Ha ha! You are a scream, Kathryn. Oh, yes, it is good to be back. And I am enjoying this party very much. Now, listen, as I was saying, I would love to show you more of the country. Langtuhn Hem
blu is keen to take a four-wheel-drive and take us all over the place. We might need a week. It is such a beautiful country, Kathryn. Can you spare us that long?' He put his hands together in a beseeching sort of way. 'Oh, Kathryn, please say you can!'
'Ah, what the hell, why not?' I heard myself say. My, that grass was strong.
'Ah, you wonderful girl! You have made me so happy!' Suvinder went as though to take my face in his hands, but then changed his mind and just grasped my hands — they'd more or less warmed up by now, with no visible signs of frostbite — and shook them together until I thought my teeth would start chattering again.
That night I slept very, very well indeed. I had half thought that I might not be spending it alone. There had been a few attractive possibles in the crowd at the reception, which had had a pretty good social, conducive buzz about it, plus I was feeling pleasantly, mellowly receptive and sort of generally well disposed to men, which always helped…but in the end, well, I was just too tired, I guess. It had been a good party, I'd met lots of people, encountered an only slightly smaller number of interesting people, gathered a lot of information and over-all just had a fine old time.
I didn't even feel I'd made a mistake accepting Suvinder's offer to show me round the country. I was aware I might, come the chill light of morning, but not then, not right at that moment, not yet.
Here, too, was a mostly unseen rainbow of animals: grey langurs, red pandas, blue sheep, black bears and yellow-throated martens, their presence — like the leopards, tahrs, gorals, musk deer, muntjacs, pikas and serows that shared the mountains with them — usually witnessed only by their droppings, prints or bones.
The Prince and I visited the towns of Joitem, Khruhset, Sangamanu and Kamalu and Gerrosakain. Langtuhn Hemblu trundled the old Land Cruiser slowly through dozens of huddled villages where people stopped and grinned and nodded formally, children ran away laughing, goats limped hobbled, sheep wandered indifferently and chickens pecked at dirt. In the ruins of the great monastery of Trisuhl we took tea.
The rhododendron bushes flourished everywhere in the lower valleys, their leaves glossy, thick and so deeply green they were nearly black. The valleys had once been much more heavily forested, and here and there mixed woods still lay across the folded hills and lined the steeper slopes. Where the forests had been, now farms were strewn across the undulating countryside, their terraces looping along the pitched gradients of the land like contour lines made solid.
Relatives, noble families, lamas and government officials greeted the Prince with a variety of reactions that ranged through polite affection, restrained respect, simple friendliness and what certainly looked like unalloyed joy. There were no great crowds of people brandishing the national flag and shouting hip-hurrah, but no cloaked anarchists lobbing bombs either. People waved a lot and smiled.
We visited one hospital. It was clean but sparse, just a building with many beds in many rooms, with little of the equipment the average Westerner associates with institutional medicine. Suvinder took little presents for the patients. I felt rudely healthy, as though my own constitution — which felt pretty sturdy and glowing — was an insult to these sick people.
We went round a couple of schools, too, which were much more fun. We visited the yak market in Kamalu, saw a Hindu marriage near Gerrosakain and a Buddhist funeral in Khruhset.
We took short hikes into the hills to visit half-frozen waterfalls, abandoned forts, picturesquely ancient monasteries and picturesquely ancient monks. In the lower valleys, we crossed the milky rush of rivers by open wicker-work tube bridges. The Prince puffed and panted up the trails, using a couple of tall walking sticks, perspiring freely and apologising profusely for it, but he always made it and we never had to stop and wait for him. Langtuhn carried whatever picnic or other stuff he thought we might need and wouldn't let me carry anything other than the pair of binoculars and the Canon Sureshot I'd bought in Joitem.
I was pleased to be able to keep up with Langtuhn, even though he was loaded down with all the gear, had ten years on me at least and — I suspected — was throttling his pace way back to make life easier for us.
It was on one of these walks I lost the little artificial flower Dulsung had given me.
Kkatjats were snacks. We nibbled on a lot of Kkatjats. Pancakes featured strongly. Jherdu was roast millet flour, pi'kho roasted wheat flour. I'd been studying my guidebook and knew words like pha for village, thakle for innkeeper, kug for crow, muhr for death, that sort of thing. Some words were easy to remember because they bore a similarity to their English, Indian or Nepalese equivalents, like thay for tea, rupe which was the local currency, and namst, which was the everyday form of hello.
We stayed in two Thulahnese stately homes (one warm and unfriendly, the other the opposite), a government rest-house (minimalist; big rooms but a padded hammock, for goodness' sake. Still, very good night's sleep), the Gerrosakain Grand Hotel, Guest, Tea and Bunk House (long on sign, short on grandness) and a monastery, where I had to sleep in a special annex hung out over the walls because I was female.
Somewhat to my surprise, and much to my relief, Suvinder was a perfect gentleman: no flirting, no hands on knees, no tappings on my door at midnight. All in all it was a very restful and relaxing holiday in a pleasantly tiring sort of way. I'd deliberately left my lap-top and both phones back in Thuhn (the ordinary mobile was totally useless here anyway). It was like a sabbatical within a holiday within a sabbatical. Or something. Anyway, I felt very good. I thought of Stephen a few times, and took out the two discs I had, the CD-ROM with the Business's plans for Thulahn and the DVD with the evidence of my beloved's spouse cheating on him, and held them up to whatever light was available and watched their rainbow surfaces shimmer for a while, before putting them both back in my pocket.
Maybe, I thought, everything will have changed when I get back to Thuhn and make a few calls and send a few e-mails. Stephen will have found out about Emma's infidelity, she'll have taken the children and he'll be winging his way to Thulahn, To Forget. The Business would have suddenly discovered somewhere even better to buy, but donate billions to Thulahn, just to say thanks.
Somehow being away from all electronic contact, even if only for a few days, made this seem much more likely, as though there was a capacitance for change and difference in my life which was constantly being shorted away to ground by all the calls I made and e-mails I exchanged, but which, left alone for a while and allowed to charge up fully, would, when finally released, blast through all problems and light up all and any darkness.
Well, hoping is always easier than thinking.
I stayed up talking to the Prince a couple of nights over a whisky or two. He talked about the long-mooted change to becoming a constitutional monarch, about better roads, schools and hospitals, about his love for Paris and London, about his affection for Uncle Freddy, and about all the changes that would inevitably ensue if — and when, because he talked about it as though it was unavoidable — the Business came in and took over his country.
'It is a Mephistophelean thing, what?' he said sadly, staring into the flames of the rest-house's sitting-room fire. Everybody else had turned in for the night; there were just the two of us and a decanter of something peaty from Islay.
'Well,' I said, 'if you were thinking about this constitutional monarchy thing anyway, you aren't losing so much. Maybe, in some ways, you gain. The Business will probably prefer to deal with a single ruler than a chamber full of politicians, so remaining…' (I tried to think of a polite alternative to the word that had first occurred to me, but it had been a long day and I was tired, so I couldn't) '… undemocratic for as long as possible will suit them fine. And any pressure for reform, well, they'll just buy that off with improvements if not outright bribes. You should look on it as securing your position, Suvinder.'
'I did not mean for me, Kathryn,' he said, swirling his whisky round in his glass. 'I meant for the country, the people.'
'Oh. I see.' Boy, did I feel sha
llow. 'You mean they don't get a say in whether all this happens.'
'Yes. And I can't really tell them what it is that might happen.'
'Who does know?'
'The cabinet. Rinpoche Beies has a sort of idea, and my mother managed to get wind of it too, somehow.'
'What do they all think?'
'My ministers are enthusiastic. The Rinpoche is…hmm, indifferent is not the correct word. Happy either way. Yes. My mother has only the vaguest notion, but despises the whole idea utterly.' He sighed heavily. 'I thought she would.'
'Well, she's a mother. She just wants what's best for her boy.'
'Huh!' The Prince drained his glass. He inspected it as though surprised to find it empty. 'I am going to have some more whisky,' he announced. 'Would you like to have some more whisky, Kathryn?'
'Just a little. Very little…That's too much. Never mind.'
'I think she blames me,' he said morosely.
'Your mother? What for?'
'Everything.'
'Everything?'
'Everything.'
'What, like the Second World War, toxic shock syndrome, TV evangelists, the single "Achey Breakey Heart"?'
'Ha, but no. Just for not having remarried.'
'Ah.' We hadn't — ever — touched on the subject of the Prince's short-lived marriage to the Nepali princess who'd died in the helicopter crash in the mountains, twenty years earlier. 'Well, one has to mourn,' I said. 'And then these things take time.' Platitudes, I thought. But this was the sort of thing you felt. you had to say. I read once that Ludwig Wittgenstein had no small-talk, no casual conversation at all. How hellish.
Suvinder gazed at the flames. 'I was waiting to meet the right person,' the Prince told them.
'Well, hell, Prince. Your mother can't blame you for that.'
'I think mothers have their own idea of original sin, to use the Christian term, Kathryn,' Suvinder said with a sigh. 'One is always guilty.' He glanced round towards the door. 'Always I wait for her to come through the door. Any door, whenever I am in Thulahn, and sometimes when I am further afield, scolding me.'