A boy's second most prized possession was his torch. He was lost without it. Once inside the tent, he would seek out his loved one among the mass of her sleeping brothers and sisters, then silently lie down beside her. He would wake her and, if she liked the look of him, he would be permitted to stay. If not, he would be told to get lost and his quest would be over before it had even started. This was the young Romeo's first hurdle. It was easy to see how hornig might be a soul-destroying experience for less attractive wooers. But if a boy was considered desirable he would stay and talk with the girl, perhaps sing her an Amdo love song. Thus it was also imperative that he could sing. A girl would often judge him on the quality of his voice and those with a bad ear were at a major disadvantage. Despite the pitfalls, there were no hard and fast rules to hornig. A boy could roam freely until dawn from tent to tent, night after night, in the most promiscuous fashion, or he might find love and return again and again to the same girl. This was how the nomads eventually found a marriage partner.
For me, hornig seemed so mysterious and romantic. Here were all the ingredients of a first-rate drama: secrecy, danger, love and courage. I had visions of battling dogs, swaying torchlight and love songs whispered on young lips. Even these young boys, so unpractised in the art of seduction, were gallant in a way that had become old-fashioned in the West; this kind of custom did not translate into my culture. There, the most the average teenage girl could hope for was the promise of a slow dance and a grope in the dry ice at the local disco. As the boys swaggered out of the tent that night, I wished them luck and wondered what it was like for them to brave the night.
Perhaps I would never have found out if Tsedup hadn't stayed in town one night the next week, for then I shared my tent with Sirmo. As we lay down together, I noticed that she had on all of her jewellery, which I found curious. She usually placed the enormous coral beads and silver earrings by her pillow at night when she slept in the main tent. Still, I was green in these matters and didn't question her. We gossiped under the covers until I slipped into a deep slumber. Later, I woke in the darkness and heard her whispering to herself. Then I heard a young man's voice whispering back. At first I thought it must be her brother, Tsedo, but the voice was not sonorous or deep. It was the voice of a young man, not more than twenty perhaps, and they were talking to each other at great length. There was a man in our tent! Could it be Chuchong Tashi, the beautiful one with the earring? He was behind us, very close. I could feel the pressure of his head or his arm on the sheepskin pillow between us. I thought him most brave to have dared to enter the tent in the dark with me there and most stealthy to have reached his position of intimacy close to her by the tent wall. I lay motionless and listened curiously, trying to regulate my breathing so they would think that I was asleep.
'Hja serro! Yellow hair!' he exclaimed at one point, and I could feel the warmth of a torch bulb on my cheek as he amusedly examined the foreigner next to his love. I struggled to stop my eyelids flickering, listening to his horse outside, the chinking of the stirrups and bridle as it stood patiently in the moonlight. They talked for what seemed like hours, but I didn't understand a word. When I heard the zip opening on her sleeping-bag, I prayed they wouldn't be getting any more intimate – I was not that flagrant a voyeur. I must have drifted back to sleep for when I woke she was there in the candlelight and he had gone. She climbed into bed and leant over me to extinguish the flame but found no breath for a while and, unable to contain myself any longer, I laughed as she puffed, at last acknowledging that I was awake. She told me nervously that she had just been outside to the loo. I didn't say a thing.
I settled back into the folds of blanket, smiling silently. I had experienced a hornig, and even though it was not my own, I had still felt the thrill of it. Now, whenever I heard the baying of dogs and the dim thud of horses' hoofs around the tribe at night, I would know.
The next day I stayed silent. I had resolved not to divulge my secret to anyone, not even Tsedup. I felt I had trespassed on Sirmo's private moment and in the stark light of morning I felt cheap. But it soon transpired that Sirmo's business was to become a matter for the whole family.
One morning I walked into the main tent and Tsedup and his mother were arguing. Annay was crying as Tsedup berated her. He was frowning and worrying at a piece of bone with his knife as he addressed her sharply. I felt uncomfortable and sat down and ate my tsampa quietly as the two harangued each other.
'Namma, Tsedup is not good,' Annay said to me, through her tears. 'He's always telling me off.'
I had no idea what they had been talking about, but decided it was probably best to remain impartial. I was upset to see him treating his mother like that. She was an emotional woman at the best of times, but to have her son speaking to her so harshly was too much.
'Tsedup, have some respect,' I implored. He had sounded authoritarian, like a father talking to his child. But I realised that, despite the atmosphere of hostility, the family were getting closer. Now that they had returned to normal family squabbles Tsedup had truly settled in. The strange time of reunion and self-assessment was over. Tsedup had the confidence to act in this way. He was no longer racked with guilt for having run away and he had left behind the peculiar limbo state of his early days at home, when he had been struggling to find a foothold among the people he had left behind. I had watched him tentatively reasserting himself, reacquainting himself with his nomad ways and reconciling his modern mind with his past values. Today he seemed strong and very much at home, if a little petulant.
I asked him what they had been arguing about. It was Sirmo. Her lover had proposed to her. With a thrill of recognition I realised that I had probably witnessed it that night in the dark of the tent. This morning Tsedup had walked in on his mother worrying and fussing at Sirmo. 'If you can't make your mind up, make sure you don't get pregnant,' she had said, never one to mince her words.
Sirmo sat embarrassed, churning milk in the corner of the tent and blushing. As a private sort of girl she was visibly cringing. It reminded me of myself and my own mother. But Sirmo's family were concerned for her: she was the youngest girl in the family, maybe even a little spoilt, especially by her father, and they wanted the best for her. Was it the right thing to marry this boy?
Tsedup knew that his mother had been applying the pressure. He accused her of pushing Sirmo into marriage. The older nomad women were always telling Sirmo she was getting old and should find a husband, and Tsedup was sick of it. He urged Annay to leave Sirmo alone. She was only twenty-one and, as far as he was concerned, she was too young to get married. It was a grievance that, as a nomad man, he would not have expressed and I could see how much the West had influenced him. He turned to Sirmo: 'You're too young,' he pleaded. 'Why don't you wait and do some different things with your life? You'll find someone later on.' Then he continued to rail against his mother, who wept into the sleeve of her tsarer. Sirmo sat subdued in the corner, quietly churning the milk and staring at the hem of her skirt, listening as they discussed her future. She didn't say a word, and whatever she held inside, she did not share it.
For some light relief, when Sirmo had finished churning I suggested we go out and wash the clothes together. We carried the load in a tin basin down to the stream, crouched in a hollow of the bank and scrubbed as the hot sun shimmered on the wet pebbles. She didn't sing.