On the second picnic, we made a trip deeper into the Valley of the Rocks to see Tsedup's uncle. His home was at the foot of a mountain. He had erected a tent for us on a grassy knoll and we sat inside and ate as the yaks grazed in the drizzle outside. Then we climbed to a cave high up on the side of one of the valley slopes. Outside it were the rubbled remnants of an abandoned chorten. It had been the site of worship for an old monk, a lama who lived in the cave three hundred years ago in complete isolation. He spent his entire life in contemplation of the holy mountain peak visible through the crack of light at the opening to the cave. When he died a rainbow took his soul, so the story goes. We looked down through the valley from our rocky outcrop. He had not been the only one to die here: on one particular day during Mao's Great Leap Forward, fifty women from the tribe had been widowed. When the fighting was over, they came down from the mountain to perform the traditional sky burial. It was usually the task of men. They had to scalp each father, son, husband, brother. Then they chopped up their bodies and left them as carrion for the vultures on a mountain peak.
As we said goodbye, Tsedup's uncle gave my father a book wrapped in soot-stained, burgundy cloth. It was a long, rectangular Tibetan manuscript, which had been in the family for generations and had survived burial during the purges by the Chinese. It was dedicated to the second reincarnation of the founder of Labrang Monastery, Genchen Jigme Rhongwo. It was three hundred years old.
The night my parents left Machu we all stayed in the town-house near the monastery. Tsedup's parents had invited them for a last supper. Annay walked the six-mile journey, since she couldn't face riding in the jeep my parents had hired – it made her sick. Amnye arrived from the town on his brakeless bicycle. The house stood in a field of tall grass surrounded by a stone wall. It was ramshackle with odd windows and two steps up to the wooden door. Inside were two cobbled rooms, a clay stove in the first. On the wall there was a collage of faded posters: a wooded lake glistening in the morning light; two fat cherubs holding a hundred-yuan note; galloping horses, snorting dragons, fierce tigers. There was a picture of Tsedup at school with cropped hair and flares, a skinny boy, smiling. Behind a woven cloth sacks of barley husks, stored for twenty years, nudged boxes of butter covered in skin. By the door was a collection of musty canvas bags, the brush made from a yak's tail, the dung tray, some old boots. In the second room there was a sleeping platform of straw and wood, a metal stove and an old Victorian sewing-machine, with 'Flying Angel' painted in scrolled gold lettering on its side. Next to it, the altar cupboard stood in the corner. A rotating light illuminated the lamas' images and brass cups, like a small, silent siren. On the wall were photographs of Tsedup and me and my parents, in a frame. It was strange to see them here. We had sent them so long ago. It was like a shrine to their missing boy.
That night we talked, a sensitive task for Tsedup, since he did all the translating and most of it was about him. Annay and Amnye told my parents how grateful they were to them for having taken care of him in England and bringing him home. My parents said that they had been happy to help their son and to have him for a son-in-law. By knowing him their lives had changed. The tears flowed freely down Annay's cheeks. She left the room to fetch a stained cloth, then sat dabbing at her eyes, thanking them over and over. My parents said it was a wonderful thing for them to be there with his family.
Until that point, Ama-lo-lun, Tsedup's tiny octogenarian grandmother, had sat silently reciting her mantra and turning her korlo, prayer wheel. Suddenly she looked up at my parents. 'Please look after him. He is my heart,' she said, clasping her bony hands to her breast. Amnye got up from his seat and pretended to fuss with the butter lamps on the altar. Then he walked out of the door. It was not the thing to do, to stay and cry.
I had just one thing to say. I said it to Amnye when he came back in. He readjusted his wooden cosh in his tsarer and sat on the platform cross-legged, then removed the white Tilley hat that Dad had brought him.
I said, 'How do you feel that your son has married a western girl?' I knew that I wasn't quite what he had expected for his son.
He lit a cigarette, drew in a lungful of smoke. 'All my sons are free to do what they wish with their lives,' he stated simply. That was it. He smiled at the very corner of his mouth, giving nothing away. Did he like me? Was I a social embarrassment? He was an important man in the tribe and in the town. I guessed that Tibetan fathers-in-law were not used to such impertinence in the average namma.
Maybe I should have kept quiet, but I said, ‘I know how much Tsedup loves Tibet. I love it too. I don't want to take him away from his home. I want to be part of it.'
Annay wept again. I had meant it. I wanted to be a part. Surely it couldn't be that hard.
Three. Palace of the Lamas
As day dawned, the mist hung in delicate trails over the town in the valley below the house. We clattered out of the yard in the jeep, loaned by the mayor, as Annay waved at the gate and Ama-Io-lun called after us, in a tiny voice, 'I will look for your return.' Tsedup and I were taking my parents to Labrang, the site of the biggest monastery in Amdo, where we would say goodbye to them. Amnye had set off before dawn on the local bus. He was a local councillor who represented the nomad tribes. There was a meeting in Gannan or Hezou, as the Chinese called it, the county's seat, which was only two hours away, so he said he would join us in Labrang later that day. That was the plan, anyway.
My father had never been a good back-seat passenger; he had also never been in the metal box of a Beijing jeep. As we bounced on the rusty springs, trying not to hit the roof, negotiating precipitous, blind bends high up on the passes, he muttered expletives under his breath. I had to laugh. But it was no laughing matter when we stopped at one of the small towns on the way.
It was just another dusty Chinese settlement, low-rise concrete, ugly, cattle and people wandering vaguely in the midday heat. We parked on a street corner and sat in the jeep as Tsedup bought some water from a stall on the other side of the road. Predictably, a crowd began to form around the vehicle, pressing their noses up to the glass and pointing. The prospect of opening the windows and relieving ourselves of heat-stroke was not an option. We endured, until Tsedup returned with the water and we drove off, leaving the bemused voyeurs in a cloud of black exhaust fumes. We had not gone fifty yards down the street, when a Chinese police officer stepped out into our path and ordered our driver into the police compound. News had travelled fast.
We drove through the gate into the gravel yard and parked in the shade of a tree. At a table in the sunlit courtyard sat a group of about eight uniformed policemen, playing cards and eating noodles. They had their feet on the table and their jackets hung from the back of their chairs, exposing the holstered pistols slung from their hips. Their Ray-Bans glinted fake golden as they drew languidly on their cigarettes. They didn't look up and I found their nonchalance the most threatening thing about them. We sat in the jeep, awaiting our fate, as a fat officer, obviously the superior of the pack, finished his last mouthful and rose wearily. His deputy, who stood at his side with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, motioned to our driver to get out of the jeep. He gingerly stepped down to join them.