“No,” he said, but quietly, as though speaking to himself.
“Bloody awful, isn’t it?” said Cormac.
Christopher looked at him, uncomprehending.
“Life,” the doctor said.
“Bloody awful business. That,” he went on, ‘is the only advantage of growing old. There’s not much more of it to face.”
Christopher nodded and sipped from his mug. He felt a shiver go through him, as if it were a premonition of something. It was getting late.
“We have to talk,” he said.
“Fire away,” said Cormac, leaning back in his chair.
“Something’s going on here,” Christopher said.
“Tonight I was attacked. Perhaps it was a thief, as you say; perhaps it was a dacoit who’d grown tired of ambushing people on the highways and byways; and perhaps it was someone who didn’t want me in Kalimpong asking questions. I’m beginning to think that last possibility is the one with most going for it.”
“What sort of questions have you been asking, Mr. Wylam?”
Christopher told him. Cormac was silent for a while, collecting his thoughts. The light of the penny candle hurt his eyes; he turned his face away from it gently.
“I don’t suppose I’m allowed to ask you exactly why you’ve been enquiring after this monk. Or why someone would want to snatch your son in the first place, much less bring him here to Kalimpong or up to Tibet.”
“All I can say is that I used to work for the Government and that someone in a position to know thinks my son’s kidnapping is related to the work I did. We know the monk brought a message out of Tibet and that the message was conveyed to a man called Mishig, the Mongol Trade Agent here.”
“Aye, I know Mishig well enough. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn he was involved in something shifty. Go on.”
“The problem is finding out just how a man who was dying, who seems to have had no visitors, and who is said to have been delirious, managed to get a message to anyone. I’m beginning to think I’m wasting my time here.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” said Cormac in a quiet voice.
Christopher said nothing, but he sensed that the atmosphere in the room had changed. Whether it was as a result of the poteen or the lateness of the hour or the relating of reminiscences, Cormac’s mood had altered from jesting cynicism to measured seriousness.
He was a man on the verge of divulging closely guarded matters.
“I think,” said the doctor, choosing his words carefully, ‘the man you want is the Reverend Doctor Carpenter. He knows Mishig well enough. And, if I’m not mistaken, he knew the monk even better. But, to tell you the truth, it’s just as likely that Tsewong took the message to Mishig himself. It was one or the other of them, believe me.”
A deep and seamless silence followed Cormac’s words. Christopher felt himself hold his breath then release it slowly.
“Carpenter? But why’ What possible motive could a man like that have to take messages round town on behalf of a man he must have considered the next best thing to a devil-worshipper?”
“A motive? With wee Johnny Carpenter? Good God man, we’d be up all night if we started talking about motives.”
“Such as?”
Cormac did not reply at once. Maybe it was his turn to feel suspicious. Christopher guessed he had set in motion a process he was beginning to regret.
“Let’s begin with something else,” he said.
“Officially, this man Tsewong died of exposure. I wrote the death
certificate me self
You’ll find a copy with the Registrar for Births and Deaths, Kalimpong District. Man called Hughes’ a Welshman from Neath.
We’re all Celts round here. Anyway, that isn’t what Tsewong died of at all. Do you understand me?”
“How did he die?” asked Christopher. He noticed that Cormac had begun to take more of the poteen.
“He took his own life.”
The way the doctor pronounced the word, it sounded like ‘tuck’:
‘he tuck his own life’. Christopher imagined the monk in bed, dying.
“Tuck yourself up now,” came the voice of Christopher’s mother from his childhood. Tsewong had come through the cold passes into India and tucked himself up for good.
“But that’s impossible.”
“Is it?” Cormac’s voice was gentle, almost pathetic. He had seen the dead man, touched his face, his skin.
“You think a Buddhist monk can’t kill himself? For some of them, their whole life is a slow death. There are men in Tibet who shut themselves into a wee hole in the rock and have themselves bricked up with nothing but a gap to let food in and shit out. Did you know that? That’s a living death. They last for years and years sometimes. They go in young men and end up old corpses.
“Apart from that, it’s a hard life anyway. There are frustrations, temptations, dark moments. A yellow robe is no guarantee against humanity.”
Neither man spoke. Wax dripped from the candle in silence.
The flame flickered and straightened itself.
“How did he do it?” Christopher asked.
“Hanged himself. Carpenter says he found him in his room, just hanging there. He used the girdle, the rope from around his waist.
There was a hook in the ceiling. It was an attic room, a wee room they use for storing old boxes. He hanged himself from the hook.”
Christopher shivered.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“I can’t understand how someone is able to do it. To take his own life. I can understand murder, but not suicide.”
Cormac looked at Christopher. There was a sadness in his eyes that not even the whiskey could conceal.
“Lucky man,” he said. Just that, then he fell silent. In the street, the dogs were busy. Or was it a single beast padding in the stillness?
Christopher broke the silence with another question.
“Why did he kill himself? Do you know?”
Cormac shook his head.
“I couldn’t tell you. I think John Carpenter knows, but you can be sure he won’t tell you. I have one or two notions, though.”
“Notions?”
“I think Tsewong had problems. Maybe they were serious, maybe they just seemed that way to Tsewong: I can’t tell you. But problems he undoubtedly had.” The doctor paused briefly, then proceeded.
“For one thing, I don’t think he was a Buddhist. Not any longer, that is. I’d lay money on it that he was a Christian convert.”
Christopher looked at the Irishman in astonishment.
“I don’t understand. He was a Tibetan. There are no Tibetan Christians. He was wearing the robes of a Buddhist monk. And he was dead. How could you tell he was a Christian?”
Cormac fortified himself with the rough whiskey before continuing.
“A couple of things. I had the body taken up to the hospital for examination. When I undressed him, I wanted to be sure I had all the wee bits and pieces, because I knew they’d have to be handed over to old Norbhu, along with the body. That was when I found the letter and the note, in his pouch with the prayer-book, the amulet and all the rest. But guess what he was wearing round his neck, well tucked away inside his clothes. A cross, Mr. Wylam. A wee, silver cross. I’ve still got it hidden away in my desk at home.
I’ll show it to you if you like.”
“Weren’t there questions about the suicide?”
“Who would ask? You don’t think I’d let on to Norbhu Dzasa that one of his lamas did himself in, do you? I told you I wrote the death certificate me self Plenty of people die of exposure at this time of year. Quite a few of them are Tibetan monks. There were no questions.”
“What about Carpenter? You said you thought he might know why the man killed himself.”