I sighed in disapproval and turned to Sirmo. 'Goodbye,' I said. 'When I see you again, you'll have a child.' She was a newly-wed; what could have been more likely in this fertile land? She tried to smile, but couldn't look up. I wiped her eyes and kissed her head. For once I didn't care about nomad etiquette. She squeezed my hand as I mounted the bike. Then I left her, speeding down the hill to the track. I waved for a long time, clinging to Tsedup with one hand, staring until she was nothing more than a dot.
Sixteen. The Parting
On Christmas Eve, in the late afternoon, the streets of the town were bathed in a pale violet light. The mountains to the north had lost their brilliance. Black crows flocked across the sun as it added crimson and tangerine ripples to the feathered cloud. We had come to collect the children from school. Dawa and Yeshe, Dombie's children, had left their lessons early so that we could arrive at the winter house by dusk. Gondo's son, Dorlo, had been truanting again. Tsedup had found him in a video hall watching Kung Fu films and had threatened to leave him behind if he didn't behave. Dorlo swore he would.
Before hitting the road, we took the children to a restaurant. They were delirious with excitement, having been told they were getting presents, and nearly choked on the noodles in their haste to depart. Dorlo was having particular problems controlling himself. Unable to avoid the question threatening to implode his brain, he was forced to blurt out through spluttering lips, 'Is mine a gun? Is mine a gun?'
Tsedup laughed at him. 'No, it's a doll,' he teased.
'I know it's a big gun,' beamed Dorlo.
'You'll find out tomorrow,' I said. Thank God we had bought him a gun.
Yeshe, his junior, remained polite and restrained, kicking his legs under the table and blowing bubbles from his nose. For such a small boy he had a peculiar sense of propriety. He drove the food leisurely round his plate with one chopstick, as he surveyed us all curiously. His sister, Dawa, chattered and giggled and sniffed; snapping open and shut the pink, plastic purse that hung round her neck. The children were all dressed in their tsarers for the journey to the grassland. We would all have to go by tolla, as their parents weren't coming on the bikes until tomorrow.
Tsedup hailed one of the three-wheeled tractors on the street, as I waited with the children in Annay Latuck's momo shop. We warmed our hands on her stove. Dusk was falling and it was freezing outside. Annay Latuck ran the shop like an eccentric brigadier, shouting orders to the girls behind the curtain in the back kitchen. She was a no-nonsense woman, but her beady eyes twinkled and her wry smile betrayed a kindly nature. She was the mother of our friend Tamding Gyalpo, who now lived in Switzerland. She hadn't seen him for eight years and missed him terribly. We would often sit and talk as she held my hand and I assured her he would come home soon. He was waiting for his Swiss passport to enable him to travel. The scenario was all too familiar and I felt for her as I had for Tsedup's mother. Now, she placed a pile of shabala, meat fritters, in front of us and commanded me to eat. 'Sou, Namma Kate! Sou!' I wasn't hungry, but I knew that there would be no escape if I didn't attempt her offer of sustenance. She always looked after me. Yet, half-way through our greasy snack, we were summoned to the road.
The tolla ride was predictably uncomfortable. The track resembled an ice-rink in places and we skidded precariously for most of the way, juddering in the back as the engine thundered in our ears. At one point we stalled after crossing a frozen stream and Dorlo decided to jump off. He ran away from us wielding a gun-shaped stick and mock-firing at us, crying, 'Dddddrrrr, dddddrrrrr!' like a machine-gun. Then the Chinese driver pumped the gas and the engine burst into its own rapid fire. Without waiting, he continued driving up the hill, as Dorlo, shocked at being abandoned, shouted obscenities in his high-pitched voice and chased behind until he got a grip on the tailgate and we pulled him in. That boy was a liability.
In the evening we congregated at our house. Annay held the fort as the children shrieked and fought together in the limited space. It was rare for all the cousins to be united and tonight it was mayhem. Two of Rhanjer's children, Samlo and Rinchenchet, had also turned up to stay the night. Although their own house was only a hundred yards away, there was no way they were going to miss out.
At bedtime the boys went to our hut outside. Gorbo was in charge. He supervised as Rinchen, Samlo, Dorlo and Sanjay squabbled together under the quilts. Yeshe did not want to join them. He had specifically asked Tsedup if he could sleep with him on top of the dung mountain outside. Tsedup was delighted. We wrapped them up in sheepskins as they lay together in sub-zero temperatures on the small summit, with only their noses poking out. Tsedup told me later that they spent a long time watching the shooting stars and then, thinking his uncle well travelled, Yeshe had asked him if he had ever been to the moon. It hadn't been such an unreasonable suggestion, since England seemed just as far away to Yeshe.
'When you went up in a plane, you must have been really close to the stars,' he had said. 'Did you see people and houses on them?' Tsedup had told him yes, and Yeshe had decided to go there when he grew up.
I put the girls to bed next to the clay stove. Dickir Che, Ziggy, Dawa and Rinchenchet were all inside one huge sheepskin that had been sewn together like an enormous sleeping-bag. I threatened to tickle them all and they retreated to the bottom of the bag, screeching and writhing to escape me. I left them breathless and giggling together. Then their mumblings became silence as they fell asleep. But just as Tsedo, Shermo Donker, Annay and I were about to bed down for the night, Dorlo burst into the room, tears pouring down his cheeks. He flung his arms round his grandmother.
'What's wrong?' Annay asked.
'There's a ghost out there,' he sobbed. 'Cousin Gorbo told me.'
We laughed as she hushed and rocked him, then let him settle in her bed on the floor. His gunslinging bravado had disappeared, and Dorlo was not the big man he professed to be, just a child. In fact now, a more lovable one.
I woke on Christmas morning to Dorlo climbing inside my tsarer. 'It is a big gun, isn't it?' he said. I had to give him top marks for persistence, but I wasn't going to give in. It reminded me of my own Christmases as a child. The anguish I had suffered, waiting for my parents to wake up and make the tea, then drink it, before my brother and I were allowed to open our presents. Now Dorlo would have to learn the same patience. I went outside to check on Tsedup and Yeshe. They were still sound asleep on top of the dung heap. The early-morning frost sparkled on the mound of sheepskins. Not even a nose was visible. I hoped they had been warm enough in the night. We prodded them awake and Annay and I laughed at them as they emerged, blinking, from the pile. It was the most bizarre location for a bed.
When we were all assembled we went down to Rhanjer's home for the party. He lived with his wife and three girls in a smart brick house at the side of the railway-arch dwellings. Although he had five children, his two boys stayed in town. The eldest, Tinlee, was a monk and lived in the monastery, and the younger, Samlo, was at school in the week and lived with his uncle, a teacher. As we arrived at the house, Gurra, Rhanjer's eldest daughter, ran out to escort us past the dogs. Her father stood on the porch, grinning festively. He was proud of his home. It was much larger than ours, with steps up to the front door and brick floors throughout. He guided us in to where his wife, Shermo Domatso, was busy preparing for the festivities. She was a diminutive woman with a wide smile of perfectly white teeth and laughter lines fanning out from soft eyes. She spoke gently and melodiously. 'Losar zung!' she said in greeting, as I walked in. It was the closest thing to 'Happy Christmas' in the nomad vocabulary, but really meant 'Happy New Year'. Losar was their biggest annual festival, and Tsedup had told them that Christmas in England was like Losar in Tibet. In terms of seasonal status, this was true, but I was to discover that the nomads' idea of celebrating was quite different from our own.