Now he was back and he had implored Sirmo not to get married so young, believing that she could have an easier life in town. But she had rejected town life already, when she failed to return to school. It wasn't that the nomads were averse to education, but it was a complex debate. Both Rhanjer and Tsedo saw the value in Tsedup's beliefs – Rhanjer's son, Samlo, was at school – but compromises had to be made in order for the brothers to understand each other. Tsedup felt strongly that, with an education, a nomad could have a strong hold in both his own community and in the town. He felt that it was becoming increasingly important, now that the nomads were more a part of town life. Even a true nomad, such as his father, was a figure in town now, attending his regular meetings.
But the nomads valued their lifestyle, which they saw was under threat. Not only were restrictions being imposed on their land and herds, but they were having fewer children. According to the authorities, it was permissible for rural people to have two, but that was considerably less than they were accustomed to – Tsedup's generation came mostly from large families. With so few children the nomads also felt that in sending them to school, they would be initiating a departure from the tribe for future generations, weakening their infrastructure. Although there was a Tibetan School in Machu, which taught the Tibetan language as well as Chinese and the standard subjects such as maths, history, geography and the sciences, the tribes knew that their strength was in their unity and the preservation of traditions held for centuries. It was a timeless existence that was clearly being threatened by the inevitable pressure of development and encroaching 'civilisation'. School would take their children away from them, both physically and mentally, and they also believed that there would be a Chinese influence on their characters. A man like Tsedo thought that if he sent his son, Sanjay, to school, then Sanjay would surely not return to a nomadic life after graduation. What would be the future of his family with no one to inherit? In our tribe alone there were thirty-two children who were not at school. I considered this sufficient evidence of their parents' anxiety. But who could say what was right? It was true that these children had a right to education and were being deprived of it, but it was also true that without the children, the tribe could not survive. It seemed that Tsedup hoped these two points could be reconciled.
But there was to be no reconciliation between the brothers now.
'Go and bring her back!' Tsedup ordered Tsedo.
'No way, big-head!' said Tsedo indignantly. 'You can go if you want to.'
Tsedo had had enough of his younger brother's hysteria. Tsedup was way out of line. But Tsedup didn't go to fetch Sirmo. Instead, rather childishly, he said he wasn't coming back to the house until his mother and father returned from Lhasa. Then, I imagined, he planned a real showdown. Outside the house, he asked me if I would come away with him for a few days. I quickly prepared a small bag and we left on the bike.
We went to stay with his sister Dombie for his cooling-off period. She lived with her husband, Tsering Samdup, and their vast herd on the other side of Machu. They were safely ensconced in their winter house, which stood in a collection of three dwellings in a deep, remote valley. Their two young children, a girl, Dawa, and a boy, Yeshe, were at school in the town. Dombie was younger than Tsedup and the eldest of the two sisters in the family. She was beautiful, like Sirmo, but shy. She spoke softly and laughed huskily as she served us tea. We were most welcome. I hadn't spent any time with her since my arrival and she was keen to befriend me. We sat inside the clay house, on green vinyl flooring and rugs, while Tsedup related Sirmo's saga. Dombie made cooing, soothing noises as Tsedup repeated the tale. Tsering Samdup sat polishing his knife, his short bursts of laughter interspersed with the swear-words: 'Hartsay viron!' and 'Garo geywa!' Most men's speech was liberally punctuated with a dose of swearing on the good deeds of their ancestors, for this was what it meant. He looked like a Roman centurion with his close-cropped wavy hair and aquiline nose and he wore the most enormous coral necklace I had ever seen. It was a sign of his status, as his family were quite wealthy. Dombie had married well, but she had an enormous workload. The family's seventy female yaks, dro, needed milking each day, twice a day in the summer, and it was Dombie's responsibility to do it.
The next day I attempted to help her with some of her tasks, as Tsedup had accompanied Tsering Samdup on his daily trip to town. I sensed that she was probably lonely sometimes. The other two houses in the valley were occupied by Tsering Samdup's sisters and their spouses, but she missed her children whom she saw only at weekends. As it was Friday Tsering Samdup was to bring them back tonight, she told me animatedly. She was one nomad who certainly knew what day of the week it was. We spent the afternoon collecting fresh dung pats from the floor of her corral and slinging them into a pit from our wicker baskets. She had the biggest mountain of excrement I had ever seen outside the fence to her house. She was a good namma. That evening the men did not return and she tried to hide her disappointment at not seeing her children. 'Tomorrow,' I assured her, feeling silently cheated that we had been abandoned.
In the morning we walked down the valley of dried grass, the swishing stems higher than our knees. She lassoed two yaks, and we rode back up towards the mountains to collect water from a fresh stream. Her niece, Norgentso, accompanied us, a bold young girl with bluntly chopped hair, who had an amazing voice and entertained us all the way with folk songs. Later, we sat against a mud wall in the sun-trap of Dombie's yard for a rare work-break and she told me about herself, as she brushed her hair, thick as a yak's tail. She had eloped, just like Sirmo. She was seventeen and her father had thought her too young to marry, but she had run away with Tsering Samdup anyway. Dombie was not worried about her sister. She had seen it all before.
That night it snowed. The men arrived without the children, but Dombie didn't complain. She was an obedient wife and I felt her restraint. If it had been me, it would have been a different matter. Tsering Samdup, ignorant of his failure to deliver, sat in his leopardskin tsokwa and tipped out his winnings on the floor. He had spent a hard day and night gambling and was pleased with himself. He was a seasoned professional. Tsedup looked at me and, smiling nervously, told me he had tried his hand, but with only a few yuan. I was not amused. We had little money to last us to the end of our six-month stay and I hoped the peer pressure wouldn't get to him. A lot of men were gamblers here, and Tsedup's brother Gondo even made offerings to the mountain spirit to ensure that the cards worked in his favour. Of course, Rhanjer and Tsedo, the sensible brothers, didn't indulge, and there would be trouble from them if Tsedup got involved in it. There would be trouble from me too.