The Rose of Tibet (20 page)

The governor did not have to think hard or long over this new figure. It came to him in a shellburst of illumination so blinding that he lowered himself heavily into a chair, gasping at the enormity of the crime of which he had been accused. He was more shocked than he had ever been in his life at the naked malice behind the accusation, at the ravening spite the anonymous writer in Peking must feel for him.

And yet, he reflected, watching his hands begin to tremble
again, the writer in Peking had not invented the information; he had not produced it out of his own head. Houtson was indeed in Hodzo province, and so were the assets to the value of four crores of rupees. How could the writer have so accurate an assessment of the value? How could anyone in China make such an assessment? It was known to barely a handful of people – to no one, indeed, apart from the governor himself, outside the monastery.

Alas, the answer was all too plain. If nobody outside the monastery had told the writer, someone inside had.

This was a conclusion so utterly unthinkable that the governor could not bring himself to consider it. He closed his eyes. He hissed. He tried to think of other things instead.

Why, for instance, he thought instead, had Lhasa not informed him of this attack upon him? And why had his brother-in-law bound him not to reveal the source of his information?

Alas, the answers to these questions sprang just as readily to mind. Why else except that a scapegoat was still needed in the province of Hodzo? Why else except that Lhasa had no wish to frighten him into running away? And that his brother- in-law, at the centre of events and apprehending them perfectly, had precisely this wish – and was seeking to protect them both?

The governor swayed a little in his chair; and yet he knew he was by no means frightened now. He had quite lost the urge to run away. He felt merely old and immensely fatigued. He thought it was time he took himself back to bed.

As he shuffled slowly up the stairs, one hand supporting the lamp and the other his truss, he hissed steadily to himself. There was still work ahead of him … affairs to be set straight, an inquiry to be instituted. Impossible as it seemed, there was a traitor at Yamdring. One of the easterners, perhaps – a monk or a priestess from the border country, neither fully Tibetan nor fully Chinese, a person of divided loyalties.

He tried to think which of the dignitaries of the monastery came from the east. The abbot didn’t. Nor did the deputy abbot, or Little Daughter, or the Mistress of Ceremonies. Perhaps there were one or two others. He couldn’t think of any others just now. He could remember them in the morning.

But just as he laid himself back in bed, the governor did think of one other. The discovery shot him bolt upright again. Impossible! Out of the question! Blasphemy even to think of such a thing! And yet – and yet – She came from the east. She came from Yunnan. He could remember the day the Recognition Committee had first brought her – a child of penetrating gaze, eyes classically aslant, ears classically pointed, her hair in a black straight fringe. Her family doubtless still lived in Yunnan. Could she possibly be writing. …

The governor lay back and tried hard to pray for forgiveness. But he could not, as he prayed, invoke the traditional masked image. He saw only a fringe of black hair, and under it, a pair of almond eyes, gazing steadily into his.

At the moment that the governor was making his staggering discovery, Houston was making a similar one for himself. He had half expected, as he emerged on the seventh floor of the monastery, to find the devil’s head waiting for him on the plinth in the row of Former Bodies. It was not waiting for him on the plinth. It was not waiting for him in bed, either. A Chinese girl was. She was waiting with a lamp, and waiting very patiently.

A good deal of patience was needed for Houston seemed to have taken root in the middle of the room. His mouth had fallen wide open.

‘Hu-Tzung,’ she said presently.

He said in the ghost of a voice, ‘Who are you?’

‘Come closer and you will see.’

Houston went closer. He saw that the girl’s breasts were painted with spirals of green and gold. He saw that her fingernails were similarly painted. He saw that the body which had seemed so tough and sinewy beneath the top-heavy mask was slim and elongated without it. He saw all this without being able to accept it.

He said, ‘Can it be – is it you, Good Mother?’

‘Who else could it be, Hu-Tzung?’

‘But you are so young!’

‘I can never be young, Hu-Tzung.’

She was certainly not old. She was not more than 18. And she was beautiful. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life. A fringe of black hair sat above an oval face, delicate almond eyes above a trim nose, a rosebud mouth above a slender throat. And he could recognize her voice now – slightly throaty, no longer muffled. He was utterly amazed.

The abbess was gazing at him with some anxiety.

She said, ‘Am I not as you expect me, Hu-Tzung?’

‘No,’ Houston said truthfully.

‘Am I not as beautiful as my thirteenth body?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Ah, Hu-Tzung, you do. You must say.’

There was something here so un-devilish, so entirely young womanish that Houston found his wits unscrambling rapidly. He found himself sitting on the bed, gaping at her.

‘Am I not beautiful at all, Hu-Tzung?’

He said sincerely, ‘Good Mother, are. You are very beautiful indeed.’

‘Am I so, Hu-Tzung?’

‘You are the most beautiful woman in the world,’ Houston said, simply.

The Good Mother smiled, and the corners of her mouth turned up like a cat’s.

‘This is what you told me before,’ she said.

‘Then you haven’t changed.’

‘And have you not changed, either?’

‘How can I say?’

Long arms snaked round his neck.

‘That,’ said the Good Mother, ‘will be for me to say.’

It was the next night, or perhaps the one after – for he could not be sure of anything in this bemused period – before he learned her name.

He said to her nose, ‘Where are you from?’

‘From heaven, Hu-Tzung.’

‘From heaven, of course,’ he agreed gravely. ‘From where on earth?’

‘From Yunnan on earth.’

‘Is Yunnan a town?’

‘A province.’

‘A province of Tibet?’

‘Of China. On the border.’

‘And how long did you live there?’

‘Until I was 6 and recognized.’

‘How did they recognize you?’

‘Feel,’ she said, and guided his hands.

‘They’re beautiful,’ Houston said.

‘They’re pointed.’

‘Beautifully pointed,’ Houston said, kissing the ears. ‘What else?’

‘My eyes, my hands … some other things.’

‘What other things,’ Houston asked, kissing the ones mentioned.

‘Oh, the date of my birth, my name.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Eighteen years in this body.’

‘And your name?’

‘Mei-Hua. It means in China a rose.’

Mei-Hua, the china rose; and Mei-Hua the name on the thirty sketches in the Kastnerbank of Zurich; Mei-Hua the melting, molten creature he thought he would never forget. Delicious and delectable and always unknowable: these were the words that years later he could still apply to her, despite everything.

‘Mei-Hua, you must not call me Hu-Tzung.’

‘What shall I call you?’

‘Try Charles.’

‘Cha-wells.’

‘Charles.’

‘Cha-orles.’

‘Try Charlie then.’

‘Chao-li.’

‘Charlie.’

‘Chao-li.’

‘All right,’ Houston said. ‘Chao-li.’

Mei-Hua and Chao-li; names he was to hear so often.

‘Mei-Hua, do you understand why I have come?’

‘Don’t talk about it, Chao-li.’

‘The reasons are not those you said.’

‘I don’t want to know them.’

‘There are Europeans here in the monastery.’

‘Then we won’t talk about them, either,’ she said, and lay upon his mouth so that he couldn’t. He let her for a while.

‘Mei-Hua.’

‘No.’

‘I must go soon.’

She sighed and sat up and hung over him.

‘You don’t love me.’

‘I love you more than any woman in the world.’

‘I am not a woman of the world.’

‘Then I worship you.’

‘But you don’t love me.’

‘Love you
and
worship you,’ he said. ‘Mei-Hua –’

‘Well, then?’ she said, sombrely.

‘Why are they being kept here?’

She shook her fringe. ‘Because one of them saw me during the Second Festival.’

‘Without your mask?’

‘Oh, no. No, no,’ she said, shocked. ‘How could that be? Only you and Little Daughter see me without my mask.’

‘How then?’

‘In my tears.’

‘Your tears,’ Houston said, mystified.

‘The tears I wept for the monkey. The green-stone tears,’ she said impatiently.

A glimmering of an idea began to dawn on Houston. He said slowly, ‘The tears that are like the eyes of your mask?’

‘Of course. These tears,’ she said, patting the bed. ‘And only the monastery council may see them, and then only once a year during the Second Festival.’

Houston sat up in the bed. He said, ‘You mean they’re here. They’re under the bed?’

‘Not under it. See,’ she said.

They were below the mattress, eight leather bags of them, sealed with green wax; heavy bags of a weight he was to know only too well.

He said incredulously, ‘They must be worth a fortune!’

‘Four crores of rupees,’ said Mei-Hua.

‘H
OW
 much is a crore?’ Miss Marks said.

‘Seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds.’ I had jotted it down from the Statesman’s Year Book in my notes. ‘Which makes that little lot worth three million. How would you like to sleep in a bed with three million pounds in it, Miss Marks?’

‘I wouldn’t mind doing anything in that kind of bed,’ Miss Marks said.

‘Yes. Is anything much happening on that telephone?’

‘The operator’s ringing it now. I hope she isn’t dragging the poor old man out of bed. He sounded quite ill yesterday.’

‘He wasn’t looking so hot. Hasn’t he got anyone who could look after him?’

‘Hello,’ Miss Marks said.

I got on with my jotting. What had me particularly at sea was the timing. There were hardly any dates in the exercise books. Houston had gone to India in January, and it seemed to be spring when he had arrived in Yamdring. How long had it taken him getting over the mountains, and how long after for all the mad things to begin? There was also the mystifying business with the maps. … I wrote:
Get time
straight
, and under it,
Get maps. Does he know numbers?

‘Mr Davidson,’ Miss Marks said. I had been aware of a subdued background of anxiety. ‘There’s a nursing sister with him. He’s been taken ill. She says he can’t talk just now.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’m very sorry to hear that. What’s the matter with him?’

‘He had some kind of bronchial spasm.’

‘I see. … I really wanted to pop down to see him today. I wonder if she’s got any idea when I’ll be able to.’

I watched her as she spoke into the telephone. I hadn’t intended seeing Mr Oliphant again so soon. The story had happened, after all, nine years ago; it would certainly keep a bit longer. But it had suddenly occurred to me that the old man might be dying. A certain ghoulishness is endemic to this
business. I had so far only half a book, and no right or title to the other half. Also, I couldn’t understand the half I’d got.

Miss Marks hung up. ‘She couldn’t say. She might have some idea if we ring in a day or two.’

‘Yes. All right. We’ll do that. … I wonder who called the nurse in.’

Miss Marks shook her head. ‘She said her name was Jellicoe,’ she said. ‘She sounds a bit of an admiral. Poor Mr Oliphant.’    

Oliver Gooch of Rosenthal Brown came in in the afternoon, so I stopped brooding over emeralds and monkeys ‘phalluses and came down to earth. The tricky near-libel he had popped in to discuss didn’t detain us long, and then, because I couldn’t quite get it off my mind, I said,’ Oliver, know it’s a bit early to bother you with this, but just have a look at it, will you?’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s a book about Tibet. Notes for a book, actually – half the notes.’

He leafed through, nodding as I explained to him, and skipping freely, and presently put the exercise books back on the desk.

‘Yes, well,’ he said. ‘What about it?’

I said a little sadly, ‘Oliver, don’t you like any of our books?’

‘Try me on some decent ones.’

‘You’ve read half the spring list already. What do you think of this one?’

‘It looks a bit tripy to me. Is it supposed to be true?’

‘Yes, it’s true.’

‘Where’s the rest of it?’

‘The chap I told you about – Oliphant – has the other two exercise books. He’s reading them.’

‘You’re sure he’s not writing them?’

‘The ink looks a bit old for that.’

‘Maybe he’s got a bottle of old ink,’ Oliver said. ‘What is it you want me to say about it exactly?’

‘How much do you think we could get away with?’

‘Why not all of it? The truth isn’t a bad answer to libel, if that’s worrying you.’

‘That’s one of the things. This chap Houston, he’s a very rich man now. I understand he got away with a fortune. I don’t know whether he was strictly entitled to it.’

‘If he’s not bothered, why should you be? He’ll be signing this himself, will he?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. He’s rather lost interest in it.’

‘I’m not sure I quite understand. These notebooks belong to him, do they?’

‘No. They belong to Oliphant.’

‘Oliphant wrote them?’

‘Oliphant wrote them, Houston dictated them.’

‘Then they don’t belong to Oliphant. They belong to Houston. Oliphant was purely an amanuensis.’

‘I know all that. I’ve just told you,’ I said irritably. ‘Houston
gave
him the stuff. He’s not interested in it any more. They’re very good friends. He told him he could do what he liked with it.’

‘He signed a statement to that effect, did he?’

‘No. I don’t know. Maybe he did. But I’m quite clear in my own mind,’ I said, ‘that it’s Oliphant’s property.’

‘Are you?’ Oliver said. ‘Well, I know I wouldn’t be.’

Nor, just at that moment, was I. I recalled uneasily that between feeding the old man his medicine and patting him on the back, the question had not somehow arisen.

I said, ‘Anyhow, that’s just one issue –’

‘Yes. Not a bad one for a start, is it? You say this fellow has got a fortune. That should enable him to bring actions against you till Kingdom Come.’

‘Let’s leave that one for the moment.’

‘All right. What have you got, then? You’ve got a book
about
Houston, not one by him. In that case,’ he said, picking up the exercise books again, ‘we go through it with garden shears. I mean – these young women in London. They’re out for a start.’

‘Have they got to be?’

‘What else can you do?’

‘You can disguise them.’

‘How?’

I told him how.

‘H’m. And the company his brother worked for? There can’t be very many in that line of business.’

‘No.’

‘And what other line of business could they be engaged in that would take them to Tibet?’

‘I don’t know. What about a film company?’

‘A film company?’

‘Why not?’

‘Well. You know your own business, of course,’ Oliver said, in the tone of a man who strongly doubts it. ‘To my simple mind it gives it the last dotty touch. How would a film company get into Tibet?’

‘How did this one get in? By accident – that’s the whole point.’

‘But wasn’t it reported in the Press when they came back. … I thought he said here something about a reception,’ he said, leafing through.

‘That’s right. There was a reception, for the first party. And it was reported. Only it so happened that a famous plant collector called Kingdon-Ward was caught up in the same earthquake, and most of the news stories were about him. Anyway, we just change the dates. That’s easy.’

‘You know,’ Oliver said, ‘you don’t really need me. The only tiny snag – has it occurred to you? – is that once you’ve finished changing this and disguising that, you’re left with something that’s neither a true story nor a proper novel. What is it?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said uneasily.

I didn’t see Mr Oliphant again that week, but early the next managed to secure somewhat grudging permission from his nurse, and drove out there. I parked the car in Fitzmaurice Crescent and went up, looking about me with a rather more curious eye this time. Here was the hall Houston had strode through nine years before to summon his cab to the air terminal, this is the tottering lift he had taken late at night after encounters with his willing females. All very strange, all in a way quite haunting.

There was nothing, however, in any way haunting about the woman who opened the door to me. Miss Marks’s Nurse Jellicoe turned out to be an enormous Irish nun, very brisk.

‘You’re the young man from the printer’s, are you?’

‘From the publisher’s.’

‘That’s it. You mustn’t stay very long. And don’t let him talk too much. He’s still a bit dozy from his sleeping draught.’

This did not sound very promising. I had a number of complicated things to discuss with Mr Oliphant.

I said, ‘What’s the matter with him?’

‘Ach, it’s just a nasty turn of bronchitis. He’s not as young as he was. Mind what I say, now. … Here’s a young man from the printer’s for you,’ she said cheerfully, showing me in.

Something had happened to Mr Oliphant’s room. The air was sweet, surfaces gleamed, no trace of a garment or a meal was visible; the admiral had evidently gone through it like a gale. Mr Oliphant himself lay stiffly in bed as though strapped in it. His teeth were in a glass on the bedside table, and the nun gave them to him, and went. He looked a bit dazed.

He said, ‘Well. Well. This is nice.’

‘I was very sorry to hear of your attack.’

‘Sit down. I’ve had them before. It’s damp, this place. She’s turned on all the electric fires. I hate to think what the bill’s going to be.’

I sat down, balancing the envelope with the exercise books on my knee.

‘You must have taken ill soon after I left.’

‘Yes, I think I did. I couldn’t go to the door to let Father Harris in. He had to get the porter.’

‘He got the nurse for you, did he?’

‘Sister Angelica, yes. She’s a nice woman. Her Latin’s a bit better than her English, you know,’ he said, laughing and then stopping nervously as though expecting something to come on again. He saw the packet on my knee.

‘Well, you’ll have read it, eh? What do you think of it?’

‘Very interesting. There were one or two points I wanted to raise. I don’t know if you’re quite up to it today. …’

‘If I can answer you.’

There was a certain saintly calm about him as he lay on
the pillow. I thought I’d better leave the business of the copyright for the moment.

I said, ‘One of the things was the timing. I couldn’t quite follow when everything happened.’

‘Well, he went away in January 1950 and came back in June ’51. He was away seventeen months. Isn’t that made clear at the end?’

‘I haven’t read the end. You’ll remember I only took the first two notebooks. You were reading the others.’

‘Oh, was I? Yes. Yes. They’re giving me drugs to make me sleep, you know. It mixes you up a bit. Well, I think you’d better take them away with you. I doubt if I’ll want to read them again. … I’m not quite sure where she’s put them,’ he said, trying to sit up.

‘Don’t bother about it now. I’ll ask her.’

‘Yes. Do that. She’s a nice woman. Her Latin’s a bit better than her English, you know,’ he said.

I perceived, with a slight sinking of spirits, that I had not picked quite the right day.

I said, ‘Mr Oliphant, I don’t want to tire you out. I think I’d better come back again.’

‘Not a bit. You wanted to ask some questions.’

‘They’ll keep. It was about the timing of events actually in India and Tibet. It’s probably all covered in the other notebooks.’

‘Ah, well, no it isn’t,’ he said, struggling up again with a rather more focused look on his face. ‘I see what you mean. That gave me a bit of trouble, actually. I just wrote down what he told me, but when I read through I saw how very confusing it was. … He couldn’t account for ten days, you know – gave us an awful problem. But we were able to work most things out roughly in relation to other dates. Also I got on to a man at the Sorbonne – I think his name is Bourgès- Vallerin. You ought to get in touch with him if you’re interested.’

‘I wrote down
Bourgès-Vallerin, Sorbonne
on the envelope. ’What is he – a Tibetan specialist?’

‘Yes, Tibet, China. He reads all the papers and so on, a most invaluable man. He put me right on the trouble with the Chinese. Some scholars have a theory about the Chinese
invasion. They went in, you know, with eight armies – an enormous force for the kind of opposition they could expect. The feeling is that they merely wanted to get the soldiers out of China for a bit.’

‘Houston was there, was he, during the invasion?’

‘Oh, my word, yes. They had posters up for him. The Duke of Ganzing had quite an interesting story about the posters. I don’t think I ever heard that from Houston,’ he said reminiscently.

‘How did you hear?’

‘He told me.’

‘Who did?’

‘The duke did.’

‘I see,’ I said. An old chap in our warehouse had suddenly gone off his head when I was there one day. I experienced the same creepy feeling.

I got up. ‘Well, you must tell me about it when I come again. I think I’ve stayed long enough now.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about that. She’ll tell you when you’ve got to go,’ he said, chuckling. ‘Stay and have a cup of tea with me.’

‘Oh, really, I don’t think …’

‘Nonsense. Just tap on the door. … I think you’d better have the duke’s address, incidentally. He could tell you a great deal. He lives in Delhi now. He gave me it when he was here.’

‘The Duke of Ganzing was here?’

‘Yes, a couple of years ago. He stayed in Abingdon with a friend of his called Blake-Winter. They used to go to school together in India.’

I tapped on the door.

‘He was very disappointed to find Houston away,’ the old man said. ‘He brought one of the posters with him, the ones the Chinese had put up after the murders. That was why the poor fellow had to fly home so quickly. He was in no condition to travel, of course, but the Chinese were putting pressure on the Indians to send him back for trial. Naturally, they didn’t want to do that, but he was a bit of an embarrassment to them all the same, so they simply got rid of him.’

My head had begun to spin a bit.

I said, ‘This is Houston, is it?’

‘Houston, certainly. Of course, you won’t have come to that yet.’

‘I’m not sure I’ve quite got it. The Chinese thought he had murdered somebody?’

‘Yes. Well, he did.’

I had a swift mental image of Oliver Gooch gravely shaking his head.

I said, ‘Was it an accident?’

‘An accident?’ the old man said. ‘No, it wasn’t an accident. He had quite a long time to plan it. He did it with a knife. He was quite petrified, of course. Ah, Sister – what about a nice cup of tea? Mr Davidson’s tongue is hanging out.’

I thought it probably was.

A few more weird items came my way over tea, none of them conducive to the book’s early publication, and when I saw an opening, I said,