And here came the second memory, delivered to his feet, small and sad and insignificant. A rabbit returned by a dog. A shot bird, feathers scattering forlornly.
His mother. Jake could remember the chain of events, with new and superb clarity. He had woken in the night, age nine or ten, and seen a face looming above him: his mother, crying, her long hair wet, whispering in the dark and saying goodbye, saying, Jake, I love you, I will always love you, and kissing him. And then she was gone.
A white face, in the night, the white face of his mother, with the dark tang of wine on her breath — hovering and then gone. The next morning they realized she had left them — abandoned them all. Broken and drunk and unable to bear the grief of Rebecca’s death, she had fled.
Eyes locked on the warm blue skies, Jake seized upon this simple truth. That was why he had dreamed those dreams. Women with white faces and disembodied heads: it was no witchcraft, it was just a hidden echo, a concealed trigger.
It had just been a tragedy. It was not his fault. It was just a meaningless tragedy that happened to a piteously small boy — himself.
The guilt was gone, the darkness was dispelled. He was just a man confronted by meaningless suffering, in a pitiless world.
Meaningless.
Jake stared at the meaningless mountains and the ridiculous stupa and the pointless Tibetan villager. The futility was quite extraordinary. That all of this, all that was visible everywhere — forests and sky and high cirrus clouds and villagers and Chemda on the terrace, and Zhongdian and the cement storks, and Bangkok and England and people everywhere, and all the death and suffering — it was all bitterly and blissfully pointless.
Nothing, nothing, nothing. The Zen and withered garden of nothingness. There was no meaning to anything — and in that absence of meaning there was a logical beauty. Of sorts.
Now Jake felt a swaying sensation. And a pain in his head, under the scar, a stinging itch. And he was hungry.
His body needed nutrition, so he marched back to the terrace, where they were still waiting for him. Ty and Sen and Chemda and Fishwick were sitting at the wide tables, now laid with Tibetan food.
Chemda’s expression was shocked and sad. Tyrone’s expression was wry and intrigued.
“So how do you feel, trooper?”
Jake pulled up a chair.
“I feel OK. Better.”
“Better?”
“Better than I have felt… in a long time.”
Tyrone applauded. “There, told ya.”
Sovirom Sen nodded with satisfaction. Even the melancholic Fishwick managed a wistful smile.
Only Chemda was unhappy. She reached out a hand and touched Jake’s hand; her sadness was obvious. He gazed at her fingers, with the bitten fingernails.
“And what do you feel about me?” she asked.
“Yeah, better,” Jake said. “C’mon, of course, better about you and everything! Hey. Can we have some food? I am starving.”
Tyrone laughed again. “Guess you’re truly mended.”
Chemda took her hand away from Jake’s. He didn’t care, his stomach was protesting its emptiness. He filled a plate with apples and barley bread and a fat dollop of red goat stew and tomatoes in oil and mustardseed. And he ate, lustily and hungrily, chasing his food with slugs of barley beer and salted tea from big mugs.
The food was bizarre and it was delicious: he had never had a finer meal. He was free. Jake was a free man.
Jake returned to his celery in sesame, the hard yak cheeses and momo barley dumplings, even as he ignored the shouting. Then he couldn’t ignore it: cars were pulling up; shouts and gunfire echoed across the mighty valley.
Shouting? Gunfire?
Jake gazed down from the terrace.
Men were streaming through the village, into the lab, running past the lab. Men with scars.
They were firing their guns in the air, shouting at everyone, blind fury showing on dark faces.
Lucidly frightened, and calmly alarmed, Jake stayed immobile. More shouts from behind the lab told Jake that they were surrounded and trapped.
Sen was on his feet, yelling. But the men with the scars ignored him, crudely laughing, jeering, even.
Jake stared.
In the middle of the gang, at the foot of the steps leading to the terrace, was Julia. And next to the American woman was… Chemda. Except Chemda was also sitting next to him at the table.
The other Chemda strode up the steps. She had a gun, and she was aiming it at Sen. Her face was calm, determined, and entirely merciless.
46
“I am Soriya. Chemda is my sister. And you—” The gun was pointed at Sen, standing defiantly on the top step. “You, of course, are my grandfather. The man who did this to me.”
The young Khmer woman took off a wig, and Jake saw the scar on her bald scalp.
“When I was six months old.”
The scar was faded, almost white.
Soriya Tek turned to the Chinese men, the other men with scars, with their rifles hoisted or pointing. They were the same mutinous guards from the back gate, the men who had tried to bleed Jake out. She spoke to the men.
“Here. Just as I promised you. Revenge. Now.” A step forward; a blunt gesture. “Kill them all, except for her”—Soriya pointed at Chemda—“and him.” She was pointing at Jake.
“He is one of us. See, the scar. Spare him. Kill the rest.”
An uncertainty prevailed. Some of the men moved toward the terrace, others lingered; Soriya said, more loudly: “Taˉ shì wo˘men me˘i yı¯gè rén. Bèijiàn taˉshaˉ sı˘, qíyú!”
The men moved, properly commanded. In moments the terrace was crowded with the guards. Jake could smell the sweat on them. Beer and yak butter and dirt. Sen was led down the steps, then Fishwick and Tyrone.
Only Tyrone was struggling, shouting. Only Tyrone was fighting.
“Jake, for fuck’s sake, tell them. Tell them, dude! Fucking tell them! I’ve got nothing to do with this—”
The mob of guards was dragging Tyrone to the nearest cliff, just a few meters away; the cliff plunged, gruesomely, right down to the heaven villages. Maybe half a mile or more.
“Jake, please, fucking please, Jake. Tell them!”
Jake observed Tyrone’s struggling. He considered, clearly and logically, the fact that Tyrone had betrayed him: no matter that the surgery was a success, Tyrone had risked Jake’s life for his own purposes. Did he deserve to live? Maybe not. And there was another factor to be considered: if Tyrone was dead then Jake had no rival, he could tell his own story. Make all the money. Jake stepped down the terrace, Chemda following him. He approached his friend. His ex friend. He gazed into Tyrone’s terrified eyes.
“Mate,” said Jake. “I’m sorry.”
He stepped away.
The men dragged Tyrone the last meter to the edge of the cliff. Chemda was gazing at Jake, appalled; Jake didn’t care.
Let Tyrone die.
Now the American was crying. The hard-assed Tyrone McKenna was sobbing like a child, pleading for his life.
“Please, no, Jake, pleeeeeease.”
Soriya gestured.
Tyrone was thrown over the cliff. Jake peered over. His friend actually twirled in the air, the drop was so huge. The spectacle was fascinating. Jake watched his friend smash against an outcrop of rock; an interesting pink blur of blood showed the body exploding with the impact. The corpse bounced and disappeared into the gorge.