Christopher ran towards the spot where he had left Chindamani and the boys. The thin air scarred his lungs. His chest heaved, filling with pain. Altitude and tiredness were taking their combined toll.
There was a low ridge. He staggered up it and fell at the top, landing in a soft bed of snow. Picking himself up, he looked down into the pass. It was empty.
PART THREE
Parousia.
“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards
Bethlehem to be born3’
The Road to Sining-Fu.
W B Yeats “The Second Coming’
Christopher’s greatest fear was that he would fall asleep in the snow and succumb to the cold. He had already been tired after his journey to Dorje-la, and the previous night’s exertions had taken their toll. The weather was bitterly cold, and his only protection was the clothing he wore. Several times when he rested he caught himself dozing off. He knew Zamyatin and the others would be tired too, but not as badly as himself. And they had two tents, a little firewood, and some food. His only hope lay in the tracks that told him which way they had gone. He would keep following them until his strength gave out.
On the first night, he found a small hollow in a cliff-face: not really of a size to be designated a cave, but big enough to give him a little shelter from the biting winds. He had not eaten since the early evening of the day before.
All the next day, he trudged on, moving deeper and deeper into the mountains. There was no point in turning back: whichever way he headed, he knew he would find nothing but snow and ice.
The tracks at his feet became the whole world to him, blotting out everything else.
He was troubled by dreams. In its exhaustion, his mind began to paint the blank snow with strange images. Once he saw a line of ruined pyramids stretch away from him towards a dark horizon.
And flanking them all the way a parallel line of sphinxes, robed in black silk and crowned with leaves of juniper. The need for sleep was overwhelming. All he wanted was to lie down and let the dreams take him. Every step became a struggle, every moment he remained awake a victory.
He kept awake on the second night by aiming the pistol at himself and holding his thumb on the trigger so that, if he pitched forward too far, it would fire. He sang to the darkness and carried out exercises in mental arithmetic.
On the third morning, he found another shelter in the rock, a deep one this time. He crawled inside it and collapsed at once into a deep sleep. It was daylight when he woke, still groggy, but he guessed he must have slept through all that day and night, so stiff were his limbs and so hungry did he feel on waking.
When he scrambled out of the little cave, he found himself in a changed world. There had been a blizzard. Try as he might, he could not find any trace of the tracks he had been following. He almost gave up then. It would have taken only a single bullet to make it quick. Instead, he decided to keep on, following the easiest path in the general direction Zamyatin had taken, due north.
He found Chindamani about five hours later, on a low saddle of rock at the edge of a glacier. She had been there since the previous day When Christopher found her, she was seated outside a small tent chanting a mantra gently to herself, over and over again. He was reminded of his father reciting the Canticle of Simeon.
He sat down beside her quietly, not wanting to startle her. At first she continued chanting, immersed in the mantra to the exclusion of all distractions. Then she became aware of his presence and became silent.
“Go on,” he said, “I didn’t meant to disturb you.”
She turned and looked at him without speaking. He had only seen her before in the yellow light of butter lamps or in stark moonlight, silhouetted. In the watery light of day she seemed drawn and pallid, bereft of warmth.
“How long have you been here?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“A long time.” She paused.
“Have you come to take me home?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“I don’t know the way. There was a blizzard: all the tracks are blotted out. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t take you back there.”
She looked hard at him, with sad eyes.
“You’re tired, Ka-ris To-feh. Why are you so tired?”
“I haven’t eaten for three or four days. I’ve scarcely slept. What happened? How did Zamyatin find you?”
She told him. Someone had told the Russian about the stairs of Yama, and he had gone out to the pass by a side entrance. About half an hour after Christopher left to find his father, Zamyatin had found Chindamani and the boys. He had tied them together with a long rope and forced them to start walking.
“Where is he headed?”
“North. To Mongolia. He left me behind here because he said I was holding them up. He let me keep one of the tents and enough food for a week.”
“Are the boys all right?”
She nodded.
“They’re a little tired and frightened, but he has not harmed them.”
“What about.. .?”
She reached out a gloved hand and stroked his cheek.
“No more questions,” she said.
“I have food inside the tent. It’s time for you to eat.”
They moved on that afternoon through a light snowfall, two blurs of white in a white landscape, heading north. That night they pitched the tent in the lee of a tall rock face out of reach of the constant winds. For the first time since leaving Dorje-la, Christopher felt warmth creep back into his body.
The next day was like the one before, and the next. To make even a few miles in a day called for superhuman effort. Christopher could not begin to contemplate the sheer scale of a journey all the way to Mongolia. They were prisoners of the mountains: for all they knew, they were heading the wrong way. Though they eked it out, there was only enough food for a few days more. If they did not find a pass out of the mountains soon, they would be trapped in them forever. Christopher kept the gun a secret from her: if he had to use it, he would do so while she was asleep.
They slept together for the first time on the third night. Until then, she had kept separate from him, sleeping at her own end of their small tent, dreaming her own dreams, waking to her own loneliness. But that night she came, not simply to his bed, but to his world. It was not that she left her own existence entirely behind;
but from that moment it became paler than it had been, less substantial.
She came to him while he was sleeping, as though she were a part of a
dream, silent and unnoticed. He did not wake at first. A lonely wind
rattled through the gully in which they were camped, but inside the
little yak-hair tent it was warm. She lifted the heavy blanket that
covered him, her body on the hard ground, shivering,
fully awake, more awake than she had ever been. Carefully, like a child who has crept into bed beside her father for comfort, but is afraid to wake him, she lay against his back, awkward and tense.
He woke to her out of a dream of carnage. His sleep was still troubled and filled with dim shapes he could not remember when he woke. Hooded figures slipped away from him down narrow, deserted streets. Vultures descended on angels’ wings, their sharp beaks poised to tear his flesh.
He sensed her in the darkness close to him. As sleep left him and consciousness returned, he heard her breathing, felt her breath warm against his neck. He slept in all but his heavy outer clothes and boots. Through his thick garments, he could hardly feel her press against him.