René snorted. ‘Don’t they teach you anything these days? The guys here don’t look at death the same way Westerners do. Think about it. What are the Tibetans supposed to do with dead bodies? Bury them? Hah! You try digging six feet down with the kind of perma-frost they get up here on the plateau. You’d be all fucking day!’
He gulped down another shot of brandy, signalling with his glass for Luca to do the same. Luca hammered it back, shutting his eyes as the taste of the alcohol hit him, and then grinning broadly.
‘And for that matter, you can’t cremate bodies either,’ René continued, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘There are bugger all trees up at this altitude and any decent wood is used for making stuff they need, not stuff they want to get rid of.’ He lowered his voice dramatically. ‘You know what they do instead?’
Both of them shook their heads.
‘They take long knives and slice the bodies into small pieces… bones, cartilage, muscle… everything gets hacked off the corpse. Then they let the vultures pick clean the skeleton and feed the pieces of flesh to the dogs.’
Bill choked on a sip of brandy and then shook his head, turning a little green. ‘That’s disgusting.’
‘Makes perfect sense to me,’ countered René cheerfully. ‘It’s called a sky burial, which sounds very peaceful and spiritual when, as with everything in Tibet, the reality is a little more bloody. The only bit of refinement about the whole thing is the flowers. It’s one of the few places where you get any decent varieties of Cousinia — gorgeous colours and actually rather rare. Pressed quite a few of them in my time.’ He paused for a second indulgently. ‘Anyway, the upshot is that lots of the leftover body parts get used for tools, musical instruments, all sorts of stuff. The head you saw was probably part of a drum, or possibly a drinking bowl.’
He remained silent for a moment, allowing this gruesome image to sink in.
‘Why not? If it can hold slopping brains in there, it should be able to cope with brandy!’
Nearby, some of the diners put down their knives and forks abruptly. Luca and Bill noticed their squeamish stares and started smiling.
René’s own red face creased into laughter, and before his belly had stopped shaking he was reaching for the brandy again. He held the bottle poised in his hand for a moment, face suddenly serious.
‘Whatever you’re up to this time, boys, good luck to you. If it means taking some risks, I’m willing to back you. Tibet’s a country that needs more people with courage.’ He began to refill their glasses, glancing sideways towards the two officers over by the window. A sudden melancholy tinged his smile. ‘And this is where I find mine!’
Raising their glasses together, they all downed the shot. Luca and Bill winced. René burped dramatically.
‘Just one more thing,’ Luca said, as the heat of the brandy spread through them. ‘What’s a po?’
For a moment René frowned in concentration. Then he scratched the back of his head with his sausage fingers.
‘I’m pretty sure it means monkey,’ he said. ‘Why?’
Chapter 19
‘Wake up, Babu.’
The man looked down at the boy sleeping in his arms. The child’s head was nestled into his chest, so that all that was visible was a mop of tousled hair that swung back and forth in time with his step.
‘Wake up now, Babu. It’s time.’
He gently shook his arms and the boy gave a soft murmur. A moment later he tilted his neck back and yawned, his mouth stretching wide like a bear cub waking from a deep sleep. His eyes fluttered open; once, twice, then remained wide for a moment longer, trying to focus on the weather-beaten face of the man who was carrying him. He was staring straight ahead, eyes fixed on a faint glimmer of light in the distance. With each laboured breath frosted air appeared from his lips, slowly dissipating into the night sky as they moved forward.
The moon shone over the mountain peaks, bleaching out all colour from the path they had been following for hours. The guide was tired now, his steps slow and deliberate. Beads of sweat collected on his forehead, running freely down his dark skin before disappearing into his glistening black beard. He was hardened to the long climbs and endless trails of his native Nepal, but the weight of the rucksack on his back and the boy in his arms had taken its toll. The light in the distance was all that was keeping him going now.
As they continued forward, step by step, the boy swivelled his head within the man’s arms, watching the lights in the distance grow stronger. They climbed the mountain in two blurred vertical channels of fire. The boy’s hand instinctively went into the pocket of his sheepskin jacket, clutching the string of ornate prayer beads within. He worked them through his fingers one by one, the worn jade comforting to the touch.
Eventually the path grew wider, the scree on the ground becoming more compacted and worn from use. Large rocks had been moved out of the way and lay stacked along its edges in neat piles. The man stopped, letting Babu slip to the ground so that he was standing on his own feet and clasped his small hand in his. Before them, wide stone steps opened out, signifying the beginning of a vast stairway that led up into the blackness of the mountain.
The guide exhaled deeply, an exhausted smile appearing on his lips.
‘Well done, Babu. We’ve made it.’
The child tilted his head back so that their eyes met. He smiled.
‘I won’t forget you what you did for me,’ he said, his voice sounding older than his years.
The man simply nodded and swung his rucksack off his back. Reaching into one of the side pockets, he pulled out a small object wrapped in cloth. He unwound the fabric to reveal a delicate brass bell, the metal a dull gold in the moonlight.
‘Let them know we are home.’
Babu took the bell and swung it before him, so that a high-pitched chime cut through the still air. There was silence, man and boy waiting expectantly. Then suddenly, the sound of a vast horn answered from somewhere far above — a deep hollow note that seemed to resonate through every rock and stone on the mountainside. Babu squeezed the man’s hand fearfully. Returning the pressure gently, the man led them forward on to the first of the mighty stone steps.
As the two figures walked up, streaks of light began to separate into individual flames. Drawing level with the first of the burning torches, Babu noticed the silhouette of a figure seated behind it on the ground. Light from the flame played across the contours of his face, revealing a young man of possibly twenty years old, his hair shaved off and his head tilted backwards. His eyes were shut tight and he seemed oblivious to their passing.
Babu gazed around him, craning his neck to take in every detail. Behind each torch sat a figure in an identical pose, hundreds of them, all dressed in striking cornflower blue robes that were wound around their bodies so that only their right arms were exposed. The staircase stretched on and on and behind each torch was another blue-clad figure. As they climbed, flames crackled in the soft breeze, shooting off sparks which spiralled up into the night sky.
Then came the sound of singing. At first it was soft, barely audible, the pitch meandering between bass and tenor. Then more voices joined in, one building upon another, until the sound was flooding the mountainside in a beautiful, rolling chant.
Slowly Babu became aware of shapes looming out of the darkness. There were buildings, vast, sheer-walled buildings, ashen from the moonlight and stretching back into the mountain. As he pieced each impression together, trying to see where they began and finished, he felt a sudden jolt on his arm. His guide had come to an abrupt halt. They were standing at the top of the stairway which had opened out into a courtyard. A long line of trees cut through its centre while open braziers of burning logs were standing under archways in the surrounding walls.