Read Online The Ninth Buddha by Daniel Easterman - Free Book Online Page B

its top as though for support.   He heard the front door open and close and the sound of Jennie’s footsteps going towards his wife’s sitting room.   The wing of the orphanage in which he and Mrs.   Carpenter lived was soft and silent, filled with carpets and velvet hangings, dark, papered walls and heavy chintz furniture.   Sounds were muffled, light was turned to shadow, the air was thick and unnatural.
    Behind him, on a low shelf, a clock ticked and ticked, forlorn and remorseless.   He closed his eyes, as though to pray, but his lips remained tightly shut.
    Kalimpong fell away from him like a dream.   All the spired and domed and pillared cities of India fell away, leaving nothing but a thin ochre dust hanging in the air.   He was alone, walking along a dirt road that led to the residence of the tsong-chi, the Tibetan Trade Agent.   Above him, to the north, white mountains hung in the sky like castles of snow and ice.   In the air above them, thick clouds like dragons’ breaths swirled in a tattered swarm.
    As he looked at the mountains he felt descend upon him a sense of unease he had first experienced eleven years earlier, not long after his marriage.   He had brought Elizabeth north to Simla for the summer season, and at one point they had gone up to the Himalaya foothills. On the second day, an icy wind had come down from the north, stirring the trees in their garden.   They had stood on the terrace together, drinking cold whiskey in heavy glasses and watching the clouds shift and scatter above the mountains.
    “Can you feel it?”   Elizabeth had asked, and Christopher had known instinctively what she meant.   All the crude power, all the vast material strength of their civilization was massing about the quiet places of the earth.   Christopher could feel it now as he had felt it all those years before, but redoubled in its potency.   Like an octopus, its tentacles were reaching into every corner of the world, stroking at first, then squeezing, and finally draining the very life from all it touched.   Ancient places, sanctuaries, the dark and the untouched realms all were being turned into an endless battlefield where tanks roamed like black beetles and new men in new uniforms danced in a dim ballet.
    He found the tsong-cki’s residence in a small valley about a mile from town.   It was a small house built in Tibetan style, with touches of Chinese ornamentation on the roof.   At the door, a tall prayer wheel stood like a sort of guardian, reminding the visitor that religion, not trade, lay at the heart of every Tibetan.
    The tsong-chi, Norbhu Dzasa, was at home.   Christopher had originally planned on getting an introduction from Frazer, but in its absence he had produced one for himself.   It wasn’t much to look at, but he didn’t want it to be.   Here in Kalimpong, he had to act the part he had imposed on himself.
    He handed the letter of introduction to the tsong-chi’s grave little Nepalese servant and asked him to transmit it to his master.   The little man looked at Christopher as if to suggest that his very existence was an impertinence and his calling without an appointment not far from a capital offence.   He took the letter, harrumphed loudly, and disappeared down a dark passage.
    Christopher thought he could hear a voice murmuring in the distance:
    somewhere in the house, a man was praying.   The sound of his voice was melancholy and remote, a single mantra endlessly repeated.   Suddenly, he heard footsteps and a moment later the little servant reappeared out of the shadows.   Without a word, he ushered Christopher inside and closed the heavy wooden door.
    The room into which Christopher was shown was, in its way, as much a transplant as John Carpenter’s study, even if it had travelled rather fewer miles to get to Kalimpong It was another world entirely, a world within a world, wrapped, enfolded, miraculously set down: its colours were different colours, its shadows