Rataban , livre ebook

Stephen Alter

THE RATABAN BETRAYAL
Contents
About the Author
Dedication
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Author s Note
References
Follow Penguin
Copyright Page
PENGUIN METRO READS
THE RATABAN BETRAYAL
STEPHEN ALTER has published fifteen books of fiction and non-fiction. He was born in Mussoorie, India, where he currently lives and writes. For ten years he taught creative writing at MIT and, before that, he was director of the writing program at the American University in Cairo. He has received numerous honours for his writing, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the East-West Centre in Hawaii, and the Fulbright Program.
Dedicated to friends and neighbours in Mussoorie
The mind of another is a foreign land.
Himalayan proverb
1
1969. Tibet. Behind them stood the high Himalayas, impenetrable barriers of rock and snow, buttressed with ice falls and glaciers. An avalanche broke loose on one of the snow peaks above the pass, a rumbling white cloud that poured down the vertical face of the mountain. To the north, in front of them, spread the Tibetan Plateau-arid, undulating steppes as far as the eye could see. Once the floor of a primordial ocean, the plateau now lay 14,000 feet above sea level. The wind felt brittle and raw, as if scarce molecules of oxygen had crystallized in the air, invisible particles that cut your lips and tongue, before dissolving painfully in your lungs.
Jigme watched the quarrelling cluster of men, huddled on a flat rock at the far edge of the pass. His face was stern and unemotional, though his eyes betrayed the fear and remorse that lingered in his mind. Six yaks were tethered nearby, standing so close to each other they looked like a single, large animal-a shaggy black beast with a dozen horns and restless hooves. On a slope below were the horses, heads lowered, searching for grass in the frozen soil. They would find no forage, nothing to graze on, until they descended two thousand feet below the pass.
The men were arguing and their voices rose in anger. One of them lifted his hand in a threatening gesture as he was shoved aside. Another got to his feet, holding up a pair of leather climbing boots by the laces. Dressed in sheepskin coats, draped across one shoulder, and heavy woollen robes of several layers, all the men were nomadic hunters from western Tibet. As the rest of the party stood up, Jigme could just make out a corpse lying on the boulder. Stripped naked, the dead man s skin was as white as the patches of snow amidst the rocks. Each of the hunters had claimed his loot-a pocket knife, a compass, a pair of trousers torn at the knee. One carried a nylon parka stained with blood. Another had removed a watch from the dead man s wrist.
The pass was marked with several cairns of mani stones-inscriptions etched on granite, basalt and schist. Om Mane Padme Hum and other invocations honouring the divine elements and highland spirits who guarded this desolate region. Some of the stones were embedded with fossils, prehistoric molluscs and fish that once swam in the Tethys Sea, eons ago, before the Himalayas were formed. Piled on the cairns were bleached skulls of yak and bharal, wild sheep, as well as ibex. Tattered prayer flags trembled in the breeze but most had been snapped by savage gales that blew across the pass. Strings of pennants lay on the ground, printed verses and images of wind horses and snow lions fading off the gauzy fabric.
Two of the hunters carried antique muskets with long barrels. The rest of the men were armed with modern weapons. Jigme was a Khampa, from eastern Tibet. He stood apart from the group. These were not his people and he barely understood their dialect. They had descended from warring clans of Shangshung, human predators as wild as their prey. For generations, their ancestors had been poachers and bandits, feared by travellers from Marco Polo to Sven Hedin. Even the Mongols had not subdued them, allowing these wandering brigands to pillage and plunder along the lower margins of the Silk Route. The hunters stuffed whatever clothes and other belongings they had stripped from the corpse into bundles loaded on their yaks.
The dead man was an American. He had fallen into a crevasse that morning while they were crossing a glacier. Jigme had been able to plunge his ice axe into the snow and anchor the rope, but when they d pulled the American out of the crevasse he knew the man would not survive. One leg was broken and there was a gash across his forehead where his skull had cracked. He was unconscious, but breathing in shallow gasps. They had carried him this far, strapped to one of the yaks, knowing it was pointless. He had died an hour ago, as they were climbing up to the pass. Digging a grave in the frozen earth was impossible and there was no fuel at this altitude, not even a juniper twig, with which to burn the body. Their only option was to consign the American s corpse to a sky burial, according to the practical and spiritual traditions of Tibet.
Glancing behind him, Jigme could see the second American standing fifty yards away, a solitary figure with a rifle slung across his shoulder. Like Jigme, he was dressed in a thick down parka, its fur-lined hood pulled over his head. He was facing away from the pass, scanning the distant horizon through a pair of binoculars. The American seemed untroubled by the loss of his companion and the scavenging of the hunters, who had joined them yesterday, after they crossed over the main bulwark of the Himalayas, leaving India behind. Jigme watched the lone figure with distrust. They had spent the last two months together but the American had remained a stranger, as aloof and secretive as a ghost.
The nomads began to whistle through their teeth, calling the horses as they untied their yaks. Four hours of daylight still remained and they were eager to get down off the pass. As the American turned to join the others, hoisting a rucksack on to his back, Jigme saw two shapes circling in the sky. A pair of Himalayan griffons passed overhead, spiralling down on outstretched wings. They seemed to come from nowhere, out of the void of heaven. As the vultures soared past Jigme, he could hear the murmur of their feathers. Within a minute the huge raptors had landed on the corpse. By this time, the hunters were already a hundred yards down the trail, still whistling at their animals. The American stopped and glanced back for a second as the griffons began to feed. Jigme winced and mumbled a prayer for the dead, incoherent words catching in his throat and making him cough. The wind echoed his chanting with a solemn dirge as it scoured the lifeless terrain.
Another vulture swooped in low and settled on a nearby cairn before opening its wings and strutting across to the pale figure on the granite slab. Soon, many more of these giant birds would join in the carrion feast. The grim ceremonies of nature commenced and before darkness fell the sky burial had been consummated. As the sun disappeared behind the mountains and the wind grew still, the American s bones were picked clean of flesh and scattered on the barren slopes below the pass. Then, like winged phantoms, the vultures returned to the sky, carrying with them the dead man s spirit and dispersing it in the clouds.
2
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also; The body they may kill: God s truth abideth still, His kingdom is forever.
The closing verse of the final hymn, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God , rose in a disparate chorus of voices scattered around the church. The pastor in his white cassock and scarlet stole led the singing with both arms raised as the congregation joined together in the closing lines. The organist, an elderly woman in a green chiffon sari, pumped the treadles with both feet as her diligent fingers picked at the keys. Behind the altar was a triptych of stained glass windows depicting the Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension. Tall brass candelabra stood on either side, amber flames flickering in their grasp.
Dexter Fallows bowed his head as the pastor began the benediction. His folded hands fidgeted and his shoe tapped lightly on the marble floor. He was in his late sixties, a gaunt, agitated man with a youthful face, despite his age. He was clean-shaven, though he had missed a patch of bristle under his chin this morning, as he d hurried to get ready for church. His hair was white and thin, parted to the left. Fallows closed his eyes when the prayer began, but they blinked open almost immediately, a watery blue colour that startled people when they met him first. He sat alone in one of the pews towards the back. Most of the congregation was Indian, members of the Protestant community in Landour, though there were a number of foreigners in their midst.
Surreptitiously, Fallows rotated his wrist so that he could see the face of his watch protruding from beneath his sleeve. 11:38.
The service had dragged on for more than an hour. Distracted by his own convoluted thoughts and worries, Fallows had not been able to pay attention to the sermon as the pastor admonished his parishioners about forgiving their enemies. Leaning forward, he hunched his shoulders under the grey gaberdine fabric of his suit. His whole body seemed to twitch as the pastor brought the service to a close with words of blessing and deliverance.
An old cantonment church, St. Paul s had been consecrated in 1840, when Landour was first established as a convalescent retreat for colonial troops in north India. Landour was now part of the larger hill station of Mussoorie, though it remained a discreet area of the town, with scattered homes on a forested ridge, isolated from the main bazaar. Rows of notches