‘To be sure, it is no small matter, especially given the significance of what they were memorising. But the human mind is capable of so much more than we give it credit for. Even in Western societies you see abundant evidence of all it can do. Take those afflicted by certain types of autism, for instance. They are able to retain and process vast amounts of information.’ Dorje paused, thinking back to the early days when he had first arrived at Geltang, disguised as a wandering beggar. ‘It was only after many years and countless trials of controlled meditation that some of us were able to access this exact same part of the brain.’
As Dorje fell silent, a beam of sunlight cut through one of the open windows, shining down on to the low table in front of them. The Abbot craned his neck slightly, his eyes crinkling in a soft smile as his gaze moved out to the view of the mountains. After a moment, he gestured for Luca to go to the window for himself. Luca set down his bowl and slowly got to his feet.
Beyond the interlocking valleys the entire pyramid mountain was exposed, its summit free from cloud in a rare moment. Luca’s eyes followed the clean lines of its sides until they converged in a sharp, glinting point, as if threatening to pierce a hole in the sky. Despite it all, he was staggered by the mountain’s beauty. He could feel the cool air circulating through the open window and inhaled deeply, the emotions he had struggled with during the past week resurfacing with overwhelming force.
There was a soft tinkling sound and Lucaz turned to see the Abbot holding a small, golden bell. The Abbot gestured for Luca to sit before him and, with his right hand outstretched, rested his palm against Luca’s forehead. Luca kept his head bent low as the Abbot recited a long blessing before finally removing his hand.
‘Time for you to go,’ he said in a thick accent.
A sudden fear swept over Luca at the idea of leaving. He had been so engrossed in his own endless remorse that he had blocked out any thought of what would happen when he finally made it home.
Now a chill settled in the pit of his stomach. It wasn’t so much having to resume his life and deal with the banality of everything he had left behind – his job, his home, his father’s hopes – it was having to face Cathy and explain the terrible tragedy of it all. It was as if he had been living in suspended judgement since Bill had died. But with each day that passed, the images he had first seen in the Chinese soldier’s tent had lengthened, hardening into bitter emotions that replayed endlessly in his mind. He would often wake from them feeling physically sick.
How could he possibly go back now? How would they ever understand what had truly happened?
Luca felt the same sickness wash over him and reached out a hand to steady himself. He was suddenly overtaken by a desire to stay here in Geltang, amongst the placid monks and silent mountains. Why should he not stay – fall back into a new life here and leave behind everything he had once known?
‘I don’t want to go,’ he said, his eyes meeting the Abbot’s. ‘I need some time to work it all out. Begin again.’
The Abbot’s expression remained set.
‘You must face own life,’ he said, pointing a finger at Luca’s chest. ‘Only once you see own life, can you see others.’
There was the sound of approaching footsteps and Shara arrived at the top of the stairs. She bowed deeply towards the Abbot before her eyes settled on Luca. A flash of concern passed over her face, before she reached out a hand towards him.
‘Come,’ she said, attempting a smile. ‘Everything is ready.’
Luca stood under the blossom trees in the courtyard, watching the petals slowly drift to the ground. Just to the right, the stone steps reached down into the base of the mountain far below. It felt as if a lifetime had passed since they had first staggered across these same flagstones with Bill held in their arms.
Shara had already prepared Luca’s rucksack and it was resting on its side by the first of the steps, crammed with provisions and kit. On an enclave in the nearby wall, she was pouring two fist-sized cups of tea.
‘So how long will it take you to transcribe the whole book?’ Luca asked, still staring at the blossom.
‘Two to three years at least,’ Shara answered, carefully setting the cups down on the edge of the first step and looking out at the view. Luca moved closer, so that they were side by side. ‘Of course, it took me many more years to memorise it in the first place.’
Luca glanced down at the delicate china cups.
‘I think I’ve had enough of that stuff,’ he said.
‘This one is for me,’ Shara said, picking up one of the cups and taking a small sip. ‘The other will wait here for you, as is our custom, in case you ever decide to return.’
Luca looked up into her pale green eyes. They shone with a sadness he’d not seen before, and from the way her lips were pressed together, he could tell she was trying to hold back her emotions.
‘But the Abbot told me to leave. He doesn’t want me back.’
‘He told you to face up to your life. When you’ve done that, you’re free to go wherever you choose.’ She reached out and took one of his hands between both of hers. ‘But whatever happens, Luca, just remember that it was not your fault that Bill died.’
At the mention of his name, Luca turned his eyes away from hers. The enormity of it all crashed over him again, almost driving the air from his chest.
‘Goodbye, Shara,’ he whispered, leaning forward to kiss her cheek. His face remained pressed against hers for a moment longer, breathing in her delicate scent. Then he suddenly turned away, squaring his shoulders. He scooped his rucksack off the ground and started down the steps, tilting his face away from her and hiding his eyes.
Shara remained at the head of the stairway, the breeze playing with the long strands of her hair. For a long while she watched his retreating figure, waiting for him to turn his head back towards the monastery. But he kept on walking, until his outline had gradually sunk back into the far mountains and the tea sitting beside her had long since gone cold.
Chapter 58
REGA STAGGERED ALONG the broken pathway, clutching on to Drang’s arm. The toes of his sandals caught on the loose stones, tripping him forward, while his spare arm reached out into thin air, fingers splayed wide.
Everything was so unfamiliar. There was no corridor to guide him, no indentations in the stone wall to show him the way. His whole world had been based on familiarity and memory, and now all that had been ripped from him.
The wind streamed across his face and Rega inhaled the cold air deep into his lungs. It smelled bitter and fresh, and he didn’t recognise a single part of it. In the monastery he had been able to tell every storeroom from the smell of its countless jars and vials. He could navigate the twists of the library just from the aroma of the dry parchments. Yet here, in the open vastness of the mountains, all that knowledge suddenly counted for nothing.
The wind grew in strength, tugging at his cowl and billowing out his robes.
The moment he was banished from Geltang, and the gates had been bolted shut behind him, Rega had felt a terrible sense of helplessness overcome him.
‘We must reach the shelter of the lower valleys,’ he said, trying to keep the fear from his voice.
He could feel Drang tugging at his sleeve. They were moving tortuously slowly down the path and he guessed his aide’s patience was fast running out. In the mountains, an old blind man could only slow him down.
‘You have always been a loyal aide,’ Rega said, briefly resting his other hand on Drang’s forearm. ‘And you shall be rewarded for such service, I give you my word.’
Drang only grunted, his good eye staring down the slope in front of him. Gauze bandages were wrapped tight across his face, and where the skin was visible it shone with a greasy extract used in the treatment of burns. Under the bandages, weeping patches of raw skin clung to the gauze.
‘Most loyal,’ Rega repeated, fear thick in his voice.
Drang grunted again, pressing him forward. Across the far line of mount
ain peaks he could see clouds rolling over the sky, blotting out the sun. The wind had already changed direction, bringing in an icy cold front from the higher slopes. A storm was brewing.
Rega stumbled on a rock lying in the centre of the pathway, his hands digging into Drang’s arm for support. He pulled himself upright, his breathing laboured, and quickly tried to gather himself to continue. Drang simply watched, his expression unchanged, as Rega staggered forward once more.
For another hour they continued before Drang pulled him to a halt.
‘The ground is more dangerous ahead, Father,’ he said. ‘The path has run out. I need to go ahead and check the way down.’
Rega nodded and very slowly uncurled his hands from Drang’s arm. He stood on his own, shifting his weight and reaching out his arms to balance himself. He heard Drang leave a bag at his feet, then the scuffing of his boots across the uneven ground just ahead and some loose pebbles tumbling away down the slope. After that, there was only the noise of the mounting wind.
For over two hours Rega stood where he was, in the vain hope of Drang returning. Even when he understood that his aide was never coming back, he remained in the same place for want of anywhere else to go. The wind whipped around him, sending ripples across the folds of his robes, but he did not reach down into the bag at his feet and put on one of the heavy jackets they’d been given.
Turning back in the direction they had come, Rega tilted his head up towards the distant walls of Geltang, his expression shadowed with remorse.
‘I’m so tired of it all,’ he whispered. Then, sitting down on the hard ground, he lowered his head, letting the cold slowly claim him.
Chapter 59
3 November 2005
JACK MILTON WAS discussing Phd potential with an undergraduate in his study when there was a knock at his door. It opened a fraction to reveal the left side of Luca’s face.
‘Jesus, Luca!’ he said, jumping up from behind his desk. ‘We’ll continue this later,’ he muttered to the student, waving him up from the armchair and out of the room.
As Luca stepped hesitantly into the office, Jack took him by the shoulders. As soon as he touched him, he could feel just how much weight Luca had lost. His grey eyes looked paler than normal and were ringed with fatigue. Despite his clean clothes, Luca’s sunburned face and matted hair made him look weathered and somehow uncivilised, a far cry from the pale academics who normally inhabited Jack’s study.
‘Why didn’t you call?’ he demanded. ‘We hadn’t heard from you in so long, we thought the worst had happened.’
He pulled his nephew forward, hugging him tight in his arms. Eventually, with a couple of awkward pats on his back, Jack stepped away and turned to the window. Behind his reading glasses, Luca could see his eyes were clouded with tears.
‘Next time you go on a trip, I’m giving you a bloody satellite phone,’ he said, busying himself by making some coffee. Pouring the dregs from the glass pot into the top of the coffee machine again, he packed in some new grounds from a well-thumbed packet and pressed the switch. Soon they were settled into the two armchairs, facing each other.
For over an hour Luca talked. In all that time Jack did not interrupt or ask questions, but sipped his coffee long after it had turned cold. A mixture of disbelief and horror spread across his face as his nephew related every step of the journey. When Luca explained what had happened to Bill, Jack reached up his hands to his face and covered his eyes. His shoulders shook from sobs and for a long time after that they both sat in silence. Eventually Luca got up from his chair and poured his uncle another coffee, resting his hand briefly on his shoulder as he passed him the cup.
When Luca had finished what remained of his story, he reached into his satchel to pull out two battered books, setting them down on the wide armrests of his chair.
‘So the Chinese captain was dead when you saw him on the cliff-face?’ Jack asked.
Luca nodded. ‘He was on a ledge, about ten minutes down from the top, pressed up against the back wall. He must have died of exposure sometime during the night.’
Luca paused for a moment, slowly shaking his head. ‘I could see him, Jack. His eyes were frozen open. I could see right into those black eyes.’
‘Bastard deserved nothing less,’ Jack said vehemently. After another pause, he exhaled deeply and, leaning back in his chair, ran his fingers through his hair. ‘So how did you get back to Lhasa?’
Luca almost smiled as an image of René came to mind. He had been there when Luca finally got down off the mountain. Approaching the charred remains of Menkom village, Luca had spotted him in a makeshift chair that was tilted towards the cliff-face, fast asleep in the heat of the midday sun. A towel shaded his face as he slept, while his right leg lay trussed up in bandages, resting on a gnarled wooden tree stump.
He had woken as Luca drew closer across the field, pulling the towel from his face and letting out a shout of laughter. Despite being in obvious pain, he had been tireless in organising yaks with the locals he had befriended, arranging to take them back along the trail to Tingkye, where they had then rejoined a proper road.
‘René waited for me that whole time,’ Luca said, shaking his head. ‘He got me out of Tibet, risking everything once again to smuggle me over the Friendship Bridge into Nepal. All that, and I barely even knew the guy.’
‘The kindness of strangers,’ Jack said. ‘It never ceases to amaze me what human beings are capable of.’
Then he shifted forward in his chair, eyes resting on the two books lying in front of his nephew. Luca followed his gaze, picking up the first and holding it out in front of him.
‘I found this in my rucksack when I got back to Lhasa,’ he said, unclipping the delicate gilded clasp. ‘Shara must have put it there without my knowing.’
As it fell open on Luca’s lap, Jack’s eyes passed over the white writing set on thick black parchment. The book looked old and well travelled, with angular Tibetan characters stamped across the densely packed pages. Jack’s hand reached out, hovering just above it.
‘Is that what I think it is?’
‘The Kalak Tantra,’ Luca said, watching the expression on Jack’s face change.
‘So Sally was wrong. It does exist,’ he murmured. Jack looked up into Luca’s eyes. Aside from everything else, the book corroborated so much of what his nephew had said.
‘Shara obviously trusts you,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘It was a big risk for her to give a foreigner this book. Maybe she is trying to tell you something.’
Luca nodded thoughtfully, but didn’t speak. He then shut the book and got up from his chair, returning the Kalak Tantra to his satchel. He picked up the other book. It was much smaller: a slim, leather-bound journal, laced together with twine.
‘I need you to do something for me, Jack,’ he said, handing it over to him. ‘Give this to my father. It’s my diary and a complete account of what happened. Maybe then he’ll understand.’
Jack tried to push it away. ‘You give it to him yourself,’ he said, a frown appearing on his forehead. ‘I know what your father is like, but it would be so much better coming from you.’
Luca shook his head, swinging the satchel over his shoulder.
‘I can’t. I’ve got to go and see someone first.’
As he tried to leave, Jack sprang up from his seat.
‘OK, I’ll take the book to him,’ he said, his hand reaching out to grip Luca’s arm. ‘But you will be all right, won’t you, Luca?’
For the first time in their whole meeting, a smile crept across Luca’s face. He gently pulled his uncle’s hand from his arm.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I think I will. You take care of yourself, Jack.’
With that, he walked out of the dusty study, leaving his uncle staring at the book in his hands.
For a while after that, Jack jumped whenever the phone rang, but it was never Luca. Against his better instincts, he left a few messages on Luca’s phone but never received any response. It struck
him that, as ever, Luca would let him know when he needed him, but as the weeks passed with still no word, he decided that he should try and track him down.
He discovered that soon after leaving his uncle, Luca had sold his flat, drawing the entire sum of money in a cashier’s cheque. He had then gone to Bill’s house, spending several hours with Cathy and the kids, before handing over the cheque and leaving once again.
After that, he seemed to vanish.
Some days, Jack sits in his study looking at a satellite map of the Himalayas and thinks he knows where his nephew is. On others, he’s not so sure.
But then again, it was always like that with Luca.
Author’s Note
The real eleventh Panchen Lama
After the death of the tenth Panchen Lama in 1989, the search for his reincarnation soon became mired in political controversy.
Despite the current Dalai Lama recognising a small boy of only six years old called Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the rightful successor in 1995, the Chinese authorities immediately arrested the head of the search committee under charges of treason and had the boy and his family removed from Tibet.
A new search committee was then promptly installed who ‘chose’ Gyancain Norbu as the next Panchen Lama. He still holds this position to this day.
No one has seen or knows the whereabouts of the six-year-old boy, while the Chinese authorities claim to have taken him for ‘reasons of his own security’. Even now, no humanitarian groups have been allowed to verify whether he is alive or not.
Although the inauguration of the eleventh Panchen Lama was in 1995, I have decided to set the book in 2005 to make it more current with events as I personally saw them when visiting the country on expedition in 2004.
Acknowledgements
As the book evolved and changed, my thanks must go to so many different people. From the very beginning, sitting around the camp fires in Tibet with Mike Brown and dreaming up the idea of a lost monastery hidden somewhere behind the clouds closing in around us. And to the old woman in the village who took us in and fed us your only chicken. I am always amazed by the kindness of strangers.
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