Though the features of the handsome monk Gendün Gyatso had lost their former luster, his sleek, black hair had grown long, and anyone who saw him still felt that he was something special. When he was playing pool or watching a dirty movie at the video place, or whenever he was drunk, he always attracted a lot of attention. For that reason he didn’t want to go out anymore, and he kept swearing to himself that he wouldn’t. Nevertheless, spending day and night in Lhatso’s tiny, semen-stinking room was, to him, no different from being in prison. “They say samsara is the prison of demons—how true,” he finally said to himself, and walked out the door. First he went to a pool courtyard—one of his old haunts from before he broke his vows. Hardly anyone in the little county seat was a match for him now, so he didn’t even have to waste any money. He didn’t give his opponent the slightest chance, and his mood lifted with the ringing clack of each potted ball. But soon a crowd of people gathered around him, staring in wonder. Feeling deeply uncomfortable, he quit his game, and wrapping his robe up over his head left the courtyard. When he was drunk, however, he was never so cautious. He staggered about like the flame of a butter lamp in the wind, sometimes treading on his trailing robe and sending himself head over heels, after which he lay there, crawling about and rambling incomprehensibly. Sometimes he stuffed his fingers into his mouth, trying to make himself throw up. If not that, he moaned pitifully, or just lay flat on his back and passed out. If people gathered around to stare at him, he rolled about on the ground, shouting, “What are you looking at? We’re all people! Am I the only monk who drinks? Am I the only monk who’s broken his vows? Ya, hic … Alak Drong smokes, and drinks, and he’s got a wife, and a kid, hic … and he’s still wearing the crown of the five Buddhas, and giving empowerments and transmissions and instructions! Ah, hic … you want to see a show, go see that! Ah … go on, go!” With that he flailed his arms, shooing them off.
“What a disgrace, what a fraud!” “Outrageous, absolutely outrageous,” “I swear on the Kangyur, if he wasn’t wearing monk’s robes, I’d sort him out”—the crowd cursed him with indignant oaths.
Luckily, Lhatso came running over at just that moment. She heaved Gendün Gyatso into her rented motor trike, got him home, and laid him on the bed. Not only did she clean the vomit off his clothes, she shook the dirt out of them too. His ice-cold heart was thawed by the warm tenderness of a woman, and he burst into tears. “Let’s get married, we have to get married!” he blurted out.
Lhatso was used to hearing such things. “Go to sleep. We’ll talk about marriage when you sober up,” she said.
In the morning, when Gendün Gyatso had sobered up, the foul odor of semen again drifted into his nostrils, and all talk of marriage was dropped. Feeling ashamed of his embarrassing behavior the night before, he leafed through the pages of The Lineage of Nyizer Monastery. He more or less knew the slim volume by heart now and had no desire to read it in detail. He breathed a long sigh and finally got out of bed.
FOUR
The weather grew colder by the day, and now it was freezing even at noon. Sometimes a wind blew in from who knows where and tossed the white plastic trash discarded on the streets to and fro.
A young nomad who was revving the engine of his motorbike and charging aimlessly up and down the street suddenly collided with a pig, sending the bike skidding off a good ten paces. The rider, after flying five or six paces into the air, landed on the back of another pig that at that moment just happened to emerge from underneath the toilets. Happily, the man was unhurt and the bike undamaged, but the young man now smelled as unbearably awful as the pig he’d just hit. The onlookers, covering their noses with their hands, backed off as they burst into laughter.
Gendün Gyatso too chuckled to himself as he watched this spectacle. That was the first time he’d broken into a smile since forsaking his vows. Unfortunately, it only lasted for a moment, as a group of young monks—their robes wrapped over their heads, revealing only their eyes—was scrutinizing him suspiciously.
Since it was the cold season and the weather was so bad, Gendün Gyatso decided not to go to the pool courtyard and went straight into a bar instead. The monks who were tailing him didn’t come into the bar but went to a restaurant across the road, where they looked in his direction through the window.
When Gendün Gyatso staggered out the door it was almost five in the morning. There was a fierce wind blowing and hardly anyone was around. The monks who had been watching him wrapped their robes over their heads, exited the restaurant, and blocked his path. “Akhu, your robe has fallen on the floor,” said one of the monks as he picked up a corner of the robe and wrapped it over Gendün Gyatso’s head, covering his face.
The bewildered Gendün Gyatso wanted to remove the robe from his eyes, but someone had his hands in a tight grip and he was unable to move. He hadn’t a clue what was going on, and before he had the chance to react he was being dragged in an unknown direction. He shouted and screamed, but his voice was so inaudible in the harsh wind that he could barely hear it himself. He struggled as hard as he could, but the men holding him from either side were as firm as mountains, and he wasn’t able to move them an inch.
The night before he had had a dream. Several monks took him by force to a large assembly hall, or maybe the residence of Alak Drong. They savagely stripped off his clothes, leaving him naked. Using a wooden spoon, Alak Drong inspected his genitals at great length, and finally, letting out a laugh, proclaimed, “He hasn’t broken his vows!”
The monks released him at once, and with exceptional reverence, begged his pardon as they re-dressed him.
He was overcome with joy and was so moved that he wept. Realizing that he really hadn’t broken his vows, he became even more overjoyed. But he didn’t want to leave Lhatso, so he hugged her tightly. This had woken her up, and she’d shouted in order to wake him. He’d been feverish and dripping with sweat, and had once more fallen into the abyss of suffering.
He’d been having so many dreams like this lately. Was this a dream too? Or had the Lord of Death’s messengers already brought him to the next life? No, no, he thought once more, even if I can’t see it, I’m still in the human world, for sure. Maybe someone’s playing a joke on me? At that moment they stopped, and someone said to him, “Hey—people break their vows, but who keeps on wearing monk’s robes after they do? Why are you still dressed like a monk?”
The wind must have calmed down all of a sudden, as he could hear everything distinctly.
A man whose voice sounded just like that of a woman seized him by the scruff of the neck. “What is the meaning of defiling the robes of the Buddhist order like this? Have you got some kind of problem with Buddhist robes?”
Gendün Gyatso, now even more convinced that this was neither a dream nor the afterlife, wanted to say something, but his assailant now grabbed him by the throat. “You bastard, badmouthing Alak Drong! Let’s see you get out of this!” With that the man punched him in the face. White, red, and yellow filled his vision all at once, and he tasted blood in his mouth.
“You still dare to slander Alak Drong now, huh?” said someone else as he punched him fiercely in the solar plexus. His whole body turned to jelly and he collapsed helplessly on the ground, feeling like his guts had been shredded.
“Take this, you fraud!” With a crack, a hard object connected with the back of Gendün Gyatso’s head, and he passed out.
Although it was completely dark by the time Gendün Gyatso regained consciousness, he could tell by the faint moonlight that he was in a narrow alleyway. He felt cold, his head ached, he was thirsty, and his mouth tasted of blood. After a moment, he touched his hand to his head, and it came back covered in something wet and sticky—blood, of course—and he panicked. Mustering all his strength, he tried to get up, but his head felt even heavier than his body. In the end, his limbs unable to support him, he slumped back on the ground. He touched his hand to his head again. Blood was still trickling down the back of his neck from a wound the size of tw
o fingers put together, causing him even greater alarm.
Going to the front line can’t be any worse than this. I ought to just get rid of these robes now, thought Gendün Gyatso as he pressed his forehead to the ground and lay there moaning in pain. Hearing the sound of footsteps, he raised his head slightly with the aid of his hands. As the footsteps approached the beam of a flashlight fell on him, and a man cried out, “Ah tsi! Someone’s collapsed here!”
“Ah tsi ah tsi, it’s a monk!” yelled the voice of a woman.
Gendün Gyatso told them that he’d been robbed and asked them to call a motor trike for him. Not only did they call one, they wanted to accompany him to the hospital as well, but he declined.
After they set off, Gendün Gyatso said to the trike driver, “Take me to the Red Lantern Bar.”
“What? That’s no place for a monk. I think you should go to the hospital.”
“Just do what I said.”
FIVE
Gendün Gyatso put on the Chinese clothes that Lhatso had bought for him and combed his hair, and he looked just as handsome as when he was a monk. But the pain in his head refused to go away, and sometimes he felt so dizzy he almost collapsed. Lhatso, helping to support him, took him to the hospital.
When they got to the hospital yard there were a lot more people than usual. Some were crying, some were standing in a daze, and some were pursuing the doctors who were rushing back and forth. Gendün Gyatso paid no attention to these people. Keeping his head lowered like a thief, he crept into the outpatient department. There were people lying left and right on the floor of the corridor, moaning horribly. An old man had been shot in the right side of his chest, and as he breathed red bubbles were sucked in and blown out of the hole. Near him was a man of about twenty with a wound bursting out of his left shoulder, like a blooming flower. The frozen hell where human beings split open like lotuses must be precisely like this, Gendün Gyatso thought. “Blessed Three Jewels,” he murmured. This was the first prayer he had uttered since breaking his vows. A man with a belt bound around his head shivered fearfully and took a few gulps of air, as though he’d suddenly plunged into a freezing pool of water in the middle of winter, then fell still. The man who’d been holding his head in his lap shook him, calling out, “Sangbha, Sangbha,” then, raising his voice, began to shout, “Doctor! Ah ho! Doctor! Where’s the doctor? Doc—tor—,” but no one answered him. He leaned the man—or rather, corpse—against a wall, and after rushing from room to room finally managed to track down a doctor, whom he dragged over forcibly. The doctor, without removing his left hand from the pocket of his lab coat, used the thumb and index finger of his right hand to open the eyes of the man—whose head had by now slumped onto his shoulder—and gave him a quick glance. He put his fingers briefly to the man’s neck and said, “He’s gone.”
The man seized the doctor. “What do you mean?” he cried, wide-eyed.
“He’s gone. Stopped breathing.”
The man slowly released the doctor and, as though he had suddenly thought of something, began to shout, “Friends! Friends! Where is Alak Drong? Where is Alak Drong?,” but no one answered him. Then a man whose voice sounded just like that of a woman ran over, crying, “Doctor! Doctor! Come quick!” as he pulled and tugged at the doctor’s sleeve. The man’s unusual voice stirred something in Gendün Gyatso’s memory. When he looked closely he discovered, as if awaking from a dream, that those people were in fact all from his camp. The man who had just died with his head slumped on his shoulder was Sanggyé Kyab, the boy who used to tend cattle with him when they were children.
Gendün Gyatso suddenly remembered his brother and began rushing madly about. The doctor from before was now in the middle of giving oxygen to a wounded man. The man was lying face up on a stretcher. As he was covered by a woolen coat, his wound couldn’t be seen, but the whites of his rolled-back eyeballs were visible, and a coarse, drawn-out grunt was coming from his throat, just like that made by a cow when a Muslim butcher slits its throat.
Gendün Gyatso said another prayer, then continued to search each and every corridor and room. Much to his relief, not only was there no sign of his brother Gobha, he didn’t find any of his other relatives either. He thought about checking whether anyone else had been wounded, but recalling his own circumstances, he decided this wasn’t a place he should linger in and beat a hasty exit through the hospital doors. Outside, he let out a deep breath and finally slowed his pace.
“What’s going on?” demanded a terrified Lhatso, planting herself in front of Gendün Gyatso.
“This is the work of your Chukar County.”
“Blessed Jetsün Drölma!”
“If they find out you’re from Chukar County, they’ll skin you alive.”
“And who could blame them? I’m scared.”
“I’m scared too. Really scared.”
“These pasture feuds are so horrible.”
“I guess this is what they call the cycle of samsara.”
After he’d received that beating, Gendün Gyatso had vowed that he would shed his monk’s robes and give up the drink. I may have broken my vows, he’d thought, but it’s not right to defile the Buddhist garments, and I’d have fewer regrets going to the front line than living like this—neither monk nor layman, neither man nor demon. So he’d removed his robes. But after he witnessed the terrifying scenes at the hospital, his courage again vanished. As soon as he got to Lhatso’s place, he put his robes back on. Anxious about his brother and his family and disgusted by his own behavior, his mind was beset as though by a storm and he couldn’t calm down. Eventually, he called to Lhatso and asked her to go get him some beer.
“Shouldn’t you not be drinking? And we don’t have much money left, either.”
Gendün Gyatso knew that since Lhatso had met him she had of her own accord cut off all contact with other men, and she paid for the rent, the food, and moreover his booze and his clothes. With this in mind, he heaved a sigh. “You’re right. That damn money …”
Lhatso seemingly wanted to give him some comfort. “Oh, well, there’s still enough to buy a bit of beer. I’ll go get some,” she said, rising to leave.
“No, no, I don’t want any now. And I won’t drink in the future either. Promise.”
SIX
Without his realizing it, the smell of semen completely disappeared, and he developed a sense of familiarity with and attachment to the room as if it were his own home.
As it happened, the cadre with a face whiter than paper, who came almost every week to the Red Lantern Bar and stayed there for free, was a policeman. At midday he came to the Red Lantern Bar in full policeman’s uniform and whispered a few words into the ear of the woman who owned the place. After he left, the owner gathered all of the “Lhamos” and announced, “The police are going to raid us tonight. Be careful, and only standard services—no entertaining clients.” This forced Gendün Gyatso to go spend the night in a hotel.
When we Tibetans go to the city, the hotels put us all in the same room, and in the same way, the hotels in this county seat put monks in the same room. The room that Gendün Gyatso was put into contained two old monks. They said they were from Kham.
“Have you ever been to Nyizer Monastery?” asked Gendün Gyatso idly.
“We are from Nyizer Monastery, as it happens.”
Gendün Gyatso became immediately enthused. “Oh! Tell me, is the boulder that Nyizer Tsang drove a ritual dagger into still there?”
One of the old monks leaped up all of a sudden, and whispered to his colleague, “Hey, look closely. He …” Turning back to Gendün Gyatso, he asked, “Have you ever been to Nyizer Monastery, sir?”
“No.”
“May we inquire as to your age, sir?”
“I’m twenty-five.”
The two old monks sat there agape, now glancing at each other, now staring at Gendün Gyatso. “You …” said Gendün Gyatso, feeling somewhat uncomfortable. The two monks returned to their senses. One of them began to franti
cally search through his backpack, and after some time retrieved a photograph. He brought it over to Gendün Gyatso with extreme care.
Gendün Gyatso took a look at the photo and said, “Yes, that’s Nyizer Tsang.”
The two old monks gawked at each other and fell completely silent. After a moment the elder of the two began to babble incoherently, and upon failing to express anything resembling a point, awkwardly wiped the sweat dripping down his brow and the tip of his nose, after which he continued to babble even more incoherently than before. The other, slightly younger monk cut him off and got straight to the point. “Would it be acceptable if we looked at the back of your head, sir?” he asked.
Gendün Gyatso wondered if he had fallen into one of those unpleasant illusions or dreams again. He unconsciously felt the scar on the back of his head and stared in amazement at the two monks sitting before him, one after the other.
“Um … speaking plainly, the Nyizer incarnations all have a dragon pattern on the back of their heads.”
Gendün Gyatso felt the back of his head again, understanding everything clearly now. But strangely, he suddenly became even more flustered than the two old monks. “No, no, it’s not a dragon pattern!” he cried, jumping to his feet.
The two old monks nodded to each other and pounced on Gendün Gyatso like madmen. He wailed in anguish and struggled as hard as he could, but he fell into their grasp as if bound by the noose of the Dharma protectors. After they had taken a look at the back of his head, they suddenly let him go. “Well, there’s no doubt now,” said one to the other.
“Lamas, yidams, dakinis, and Dharma protectors! Our task is finally complete.” The slightly younger of the two monks prostrated to Gendün Gyatso three times, and as his head touched Gendün Gyatso’s feet, he wept tears of joy.
The elder monk too prostrated three times, then placed a stack of money on top of a khata and brought it before Gendün Gyatso, who became even more flustered and terrified. “No, no, you’ve made a mistake! I’m not a trülku, it’s not possible!” he yelped. He went so far as to tell them, quite plainly, that he wasn’t even a genuine monk. The two old monks didn’t hear a word he said; instead they began to tell him about how before his death the previous Nyizer incarnation had composed a final testament, which clearly stated that there was no need to look for his reincarnation for twenty-five years, that his reincarnation would then be twenty-five years old, where they should search, and so on. “Please, don’t talk like that anymore,” they said. “Please come back to your monastery at once.”
The Handsome Monk and Other Stories Page 14