Neither Tsedup nor I were exceptionally religious in terms of either Buddhism or Christianity. I had been confirmed when I was eleven with my best friend, yet I was suspicious of my motivation. In retrospect I had probably just wanted to copy her. My mother had been my main source of encouragement in matters of faith. When I was a child our house had been littered with religious paraphernalia. There were palm crosses tacked to the walls and postcards of Jesus on the dresser. On the wall in the toilet was a rhyme I had pondered throughout my youth. It began, 'Go placidly amid the noise and the haste and remember what peace there may be in silence…'
Today I felt peaceful and silent. I prayed to God for all the sentient beings and was satisfied with that compromise. Whatever else I felt about my religion, I knew that God was love and Buddha was compassion. When you stripped the religions down to their bare essentials, that was it for me.
I went outside to see the world covered in dust. The washing on the line had frozen solid and was creaking in the wind. Then Tsedo pulled up on his motorbike. He had been to the other side of Machu to feed the fish. Apparently there were masses of them at a convergence of two rivers and it was customary for people to go there and feed them on this day.
That evening Tsedo and Shermo Donker lit a candle in a bucket and placed it before the altar cupboard. It glowed from within the red plastic. Then he took a small book wrapped in a cotton wallet from behind the glass door and began to read. It was a prayer and his voice wove a familiar, hypnotic chant as he read, deeply and resonantly, like the monks in the monastery, passing his prayer beads through his fingers. Around him the children shrieked with the squealing puppies, the Chinese carpenters played cards and chatted, the kettle hummed, steam whistled from the spout and Shermo Donker bustled around making rice broth for the workers. I appeared to be the only one listening. Then the children began to join in and there was a resonant chorus in the room. I took the prayer wheel and softly chanted, ' Ommani padme hum.' It was soothing, along with the voices rising and falling in cadence.
That night we fell asleep early to escape the pain in our empty stomachs. I woke before daybreak, feeling weak and dizzy, my mouth parched. Shermo Donker felt the same. She pointed to her throat and rasped. We dressed in our tsarers and went to Annay Urgin's house. It was still dark, but the sky was ablaze with stars and a crescent moon shone like a smile in the deep, purple sky. Inside, we prostrated three times in front of her altar and then drank samker, a broth of tsampa, water and salt. It was hearty but not very tasty. I was past caring by that stage and would probably have eaten grass if they had given it to me. We then spat the soup three times into a bowl of earth to end the ritual. Nyon Nyi was over. Now we could talk freely. The candle in the oil lamp flickered in the dim clay room. Gorbo giggled, Dickir Che reclined in my lap, Annay Urgin and Shermo Donker chattered animatedly and loudly, relieved to have the freedom of speech, while Dolma ladled out the thick, brown soup. I lay down and felt the warm, dark atmosphere of the room, as the butter lamps burned softly in front of the altar and the effigies of lamas. The tears welled in my eyes. Once again I realised how difficult it would be to leave them all.
A couple of weeks later it was Christmas. I had decided to show them what it was like. I knew there was no church here, no carol singers, no turkey or mince-pies. Momos and some games would have to do. Mostly, I wanted the children to feel as excited as the children in the West did at this time of year. That meant presents; lots of them. They had never had presents on such a scale before; probably because their parents were not such shameless consumers as their western counterparts. Still, it would be fun for once. Tsedup and I announced our intentions and asked Rhanjer if we could hold the celebrations at his house. We wanted the whole family to be united there on Christmas Eve, including Gondo and Dombie and their families from the other side of Machu. The invitations despatched, we set off for town, Rhanjer following the bike in his truck. We had some serious shopping to do.
We bought enough food and drink for a real feast and loaded up the lorry. Then Tsedup and I went browsing round the bazaars and sifting through the jumble of plastic in the shops. We bought toy guns, cars, a football, a model dinosaur, dolls, colouring pens, books, hats, a fluffy dog that barked when you touched it; we even found glass paperweights with snow-scenes. I was delighted to find wrapping paper, ribbon and spangly decorations in one particular shop. At the end of the day we had a sackful. It sat between Tsedup and me on the back of the bike as we trundled to his parents' house at the foot of the monastery. Annay had asked me to stay with her that night and Tsedup was my taxi ride.
That evening we talked. I relished my conversations with Annay. This was the only time that we had been alone since the men had gone to worship the holy mountain. By now my language skills had improved to the stage where I could understand most of what she said; she knew my limitations and was patient and kind. It was a freezing night outside and the stove burned furiously in the sweltering room. She made me some broth and we wrapped ourselves in blankets and sat on the sleeping platform. I asked her what Tsedup had been like as a boy and she told me he had been naughty. His idea of fun was not hers, she said. She told me about the time when he had kicked down the sacred clay fire in the tent. In desperation she had tied him up by his ankles and suspended him from the beam above the fire. I laughed. I asked her what it had been like to give birth to her children and she recounted the details of each one. Dombie's birth was the worst. Annay had nearly died and had to be taken to hospital, where she received sixteen injections (of what drug, I had no idea, but I assumed it was painkillers). Also, Sirmo was born when Annay was alone in the tent. Tsedup and Gondo, who were about seven and six then, had been sleeping in the corner as she struggled, unaided and crying. As I listened, I had trouble understanding why no one had come to help her. Men were always banished at such times, as it was deemed inappropriate for them to witness childbirth; it was the women's domain. There was usually a woman present who acted as midwife. I guessed that it had been a spontaneous delivery and no one had heard her cries. I tried to imagine the awful spectre of childbirth without drugs or anyone for company, in a tent in the middle of the grassland. For me, nothing could be more horrific. Annay was an amazingly strong woman.
She had been forty years old when she had carried her last child, Gorbo; an old woman, she said. Tsedup had told me that he remembered his father scolding her for getting pregnant. 'At your age, Labko,' he'd scoffed. 'Do you have no shame?' He had spoken as if the event had had nothing to do with him. Annay had laughed. But as she became heavier, she had found it increasingly difficult. Seven previous births had taken their toll on her body and she grew weaker. Tsedup had been afraid she would die. He nursed her and helped her with her daily tasks. A teenage boy milking yaks was a sight to be seen among the nomads, but he hadn't cared. The tribe had teased him and called him Namma. I found it moving that he had behaved so instinctively and with such compassion at an age when boys are usually self-conscious. He was a good son.
As she stirred the embers with a stick, Annay told me how happy she and Amnye would be if Tsedup and I had a child. She smiled at me. She wasn't interfering, she was simply stating a fact. I told her I wanted a child. I meant it too. I just had to tell Tsedup about it, that was all. The feeling had been growing in me. The hardships we had suffered in England had faded to a distant memory, and here I had been nourished and imbued with the sense of well-being, of kinship. The fecundity of nature that surrounded me had, no doubt, also played its part. I felt bound to Tsedup as never before. A child would make us a family. A child who belonged to two worlds.