Ma-gios, shivering, put on the woollen pullover Agnese had given him and took in the sight of the sunrise with tired eyes.
They were flying at a height of several thousand metres. He was thinking of the glossy lips of the nurse, and the soft thighs where he had rested his palm. Oh, how I wish she were here now! I’d marry her and keep kissing and pampering her till the end of my life. Even his teeth chattered with his repressed desires; he looked in torment at Vitali, who was slumbering beside him on a tilted seat. The detective had locked his fingers on his chest, the frequency of his snore precisely mirrored by the puffing up of his cheeks and the tone fine-tuned by his nose. He had insisted on accompanying the boy, even though his superior had rejected his request to let him do so.
‘Sort out the investigation from here. Only Ma-gios is flying. We can’t pay for your airfare at present.’
‘But boss, this is of vital importance, please understand. That child is completely defenceless without me.’
You can’t just run off to Tibet,’ his boss rebuked him on the phone. Vitali, however, had decided to accompany the boy, lest any trouble befell him, even if he had to pay himself. Then, a few days later, his superior asked for him. He handed over two tickets with a mischievous smile, remarking that Vitali’s flight would be covered from his year-end bonus. Ta, boss!
The sun wheeled along the aircraft among the clouds prettified with pink all over. Ma-gios was overcome by deep emotion when the Himalayan range appeared before his eyes. His stomach turned. His childhood sobs still reverberated among the million-year-old summits, although his mother had long been dead. She lived on in his memory, just as the rush of avalanches interrupted the frozen silence where they belched from the mountainsides, and with them the roar of loneliness, cold, hopelessness and poverty. The eternal winds found the smallest of cracks in house walls and ruthlessly burst through the slightest tears in clothes. Only edelweiss found solace in the piercingly cold cracks of cliffs.
He suddenly recalled the snow leopard and felt the taste of blood in his mouth. He heard the disheartening whisper: ‘You’re a murderer.’ Kunga’s eyes and terrified face appeared vaguely before him looking as they had on the day he had found him in that room drenched in Rabten’s blood. Murderer! Demon!
‘No!’ he shouted out loud.
Vitali snorted and woke up with a start.
‘What’s up, Ma-gios? What’s the matter?’
The boy’s face was white as a sheet and he could not open his mouth. He clawed the armrest in alarm.
‘Did you have a bad dream?’
Ma-gios shook his head and Vitali leaned on his elbows.
‘Have you remembered something?’
‘My home. I’m scared. I don’t know how they’ll receive me.’
‘How they’ll receive you? Shall I tell you how? They’ll celebrate. Everybody’ll be happy.’
‘Really?’
‘Everybody.’
Vitali stroked the boy’s shoulder, upon which Ma-gios turned towards the window. In the distance, rocky summits the shape of cockerel crests sliced the haze, but they reminded Ma-gios of Tashi’s mutilated hand. It was because of me that he chopped off his finger. He won’t ever forgive me. He used to love his son as much as his own life. A baby cried out from a seat behind him, perhaps suffering with gripe. It might have been his sibling, Ma-gios thought, but he could no longer have brothers or sisters.
They had landed at night and were now jolting towards Yilhung in a rickety off-road vehicle. Vitali, tired, kept yawning.
‘We’ve spent half our lives at airports,’ he grumbled, moaning about their late arrival.
They could have taken bites out of the darkness, it was as solid as a loaf of black bread. Vitali was finally about to nod off when their rickety Toyota Land Cruiser got a puncture. The inspector’s patience ran out and he started to shout at the driver. It was futile, of course – he soon realized it was useless to shout at a Chinese person in English.
Their driver, whose face was burnt to a golden brown, jumped out of the car cursing and kicked aside a broken plough iron.
‘What now?’ asked Ma-gios, worried.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Vitali with a grimace. ‘He’ll need to change the tyre. Let’s hope he has a spare.’
Complaints about the world and everyone in it, especially Westerners, were pouring out of the driver; he even dashed his cap to the ground, making Ma-gios smile.
‘Could we help?’ Ma-gios asked him in Tibetan. The driver looked at him in alarm.
‘You understood what I said?’
The boy nodded. ‘Rest assured, I won’t tell him.’ He signalled towards Vitali.
The little man turned red in the face.
‘Of course! I should’ve realised you’re Tibetan. It shows in your face. You must’ve been sent by the bad spirits. Look what’s happened to me. Do you know how much a new tyre costs? I’ll be broke.’
‘We’ll help change the tyre,’ the inspector shouted to them from a few paces further on. He did not even have enough strength left to stay angry. He stared at the night sky. The stars were spread over their heads like billions of diamonds from a breath-taking treasury; there was hardly a dark spot left in the sky. How wonderful it would be to stay here where there are no offices, no telephones, no deadlines, and, what’s more, often not even electricity.
‘Could you ask the ladder-man to help loosen the nuts? They’re too tight: I can’t unscrew them,’ the driver, who could not even shift the wrench with his little hands, asked Ma-gios. His.
Vitali took the L-shaped wrench from the driver, whose face was already as red as hot lava. The inspector unscrewed the nuts with practised movements, lifted the chassis with the jack and rolled the unlucky tyre back to the boot. He mounted the spare, giving an indulgent smile when their Tibetan companion stared at the punctured tyre with a pained look.
‘You’re quite good,’ Ma-gios remarked when Vitali had finished.
‘I wanted to be a mechanic when I was a child; I was attracted to the endless tinkering and fixing of problems. Nonetheless, I ended up a detective, so now I have to find the problems in almost-perfect crimes.’
He washed his hands with half a bottle of mineral water and patted the driver, who seemed unable to get over the shock, on the shoulder. He was sobbing by the ditch.
‘Ma-gios, come here.’ The inspector waved to the boy and rummaged in his jacket pocket.
He fished out eighty dollars and pushed them into his hands.
‘Give this to him. Tell him it’s for the tyre.’
Ma-gios was deeply touched; he was now completely convinced of Vitali’s benevolence.
From then on, they followed the river along untrodden paths, across gullies and fords, until they reached Yilhung, ‘Yulongxiang’ in Chinese, at dawn. A little, rusting, handwritten sign, set up at the order of the Chinese authorities, signalled the entrance to the village. The gentle slopes were overrun by mountain pines and puddles of cloud floated in the sky, peacefully shepherding the herds of sheep grazing below. Vitali watched Ma-gios the whole time, but the boy did not seem happy to be back home; his head hung as if he were scared or wanted to hide.
‘Do you live here?’ asked their driver, who also found the boy’s strange behaviour surprising. The boy did not react. Instead, his eyes moved from house to house. Was he searching for somebody? A furry dog barked and darted at the vehicle with teeth bared. Coughing, snarling and barking, he did his best to keep up with it, periodically appearing out of the cloud of dust swirling behind them. Upon reaching the middle of the village, the inspector beckoned to the driver to slow down and placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder.
‘Ma-gios, do you remember where you lived?’
‘Yes, towards the end of the village. But it all seems unfamiliar now. Have there been new houses built?’
Realizing he was unsure, the driver put on the brakes. Around them, lights appeared in more and more of the adobe cubes. An ancient man in a rainbow-coloured overcoat was walking towards them, shooing the snarling dog away from the car by swinging his arms violently. When they stepped out, the wrinkled old man burst out into cheers, flung away the walking stick, which had helped him shuffle that far, and lifted his arms to the sky.
‘Uncle Dema!’ the boy shouted, and ran up to the old man, who seemed to be about to lose his balance.
Dema grasped the boy with steely hands and hugged and kissed him. His voice shook with sudden waves of weeping and he kept squeezing Ma-gios’s arm tightly – all the more so since he would have completely lost his balance otherwise.
‘Ma-gios, Ma-gios! You’ve come back! At last!’
They continued to embrace one another, weeping. Deeply touched, Vitali leaned against the jeep while keeping an eye on the dog, which had crept back in the meantime and was sniffing at the vehicle.
‘Uncle Dema, where’s Daddy?’ The boy looked into the old man’s eyes, which mirrored the struggles and beauty of long years.
The old man bent his head.
‘I don’t know. After he left with you, we never saw him again.’
‘Where did we go? Do you remember?’
Old Dema burst into bitter laughter and, losing his balance, grabbed Ma-gios’s coat again.
‘But you’d know that, son. I believe you went to Lhasa. Somebody invited you there but you were not allowed to say who.’
The boy turned to Vitali and translated the old man’s words.
‘Do you remember anything else?’ he asked the old man.
‘You didn’t say more, just packed up and melted into thin air. You disappeared like leopards on the mountainside.’
Vitali stepped closer, drew out his tiny squared notepad and began to jot down the information assiduously.
‘Uncle Dema, this gentleman here is an inspector. He’s come along with me to help me find out the truth.’
‘What kind of truth?’
‘About who kept me locked up for more than ten years.’
‘Did they keep you locked up?’ the old man asked, and his eyes narrowed.
Someone called out the boy’s name. Granny appeared with her ungainly steps, wearing her embroidered kerchief tied like a turban. Her wrinkles became almost smooth with happiness, although it was apparent how difficult it was for her to walk. The very same resolve and willpower Ma-gios remembered from the last time he’d seen her lurked on her face. A few children, awoken by their noise, straggled behind her; apparently, they had been left in her care for the night. A gust of wind running down the mountainside drew dirty patterns like snail shells in the air and then smashed the dust at their faces. They all started to cough and rub their eyes, squinting.
At last, Granny reached them, shooed uncle Dema, who almost fell on his back, away and took over the role of bodily handcuffs. In the meantime, she caressed the boy’s body like a small child would his mother. It tickled and made Ma-gios laugh.
‘No, Granny, don’t!’
‘Just laugh, just laugh at me,’ the woman chided him. ‘I’ve been expecting both of you back, but only you’ve returned.’
As she uttered the last words, tears flooded her eyes. Vitali understood none of their conversation but the eyes of the old woman told him everything. Hers must have been a very difficult life, surviving in the mountains without a man. The inspector paid the driver and, with Ma-gios’s help, told him when to come back. The driver bowed and took his leave. Vitali stayed near Granny all the while, realizing that the pony-sized dogs shrank back when the old woman did no more than glance at them. She must have known these dogs for a long time, the inspector thought. Ma-gios extricated himself from Granny’s embrace and smiled at Vitali.
‘Granny says she’ll always be grateful to you for bringing me back.’
‘Tell her it was only my duty.’
‘I’ve also told her how generous you were towards our driver, and she says she’ll pray for you.’
‘Tell her I’m very grateful,’ Vitali replied and nodded towards the old woman.
In the meantime, half the village had come up to them: curious, tousled men with their silent, sunburnt wives. They had just woken up from their dreams, yet smiles were lurking in their eyes. Everybody wanted to see the miracle.
‘Life’s a bit simple here but I think you’ll cope,’ Ma-gios whispered to Vitali while they were dawdling after Granny.
Vitali looked at the houses that reminded him of mud huts and seemed to just grow out of the earth and sighed deeply.
‘I hope so.’
He thought he would have congratulated the director for getting the period right if this were the set for the shooting of a film about the Middle Ages. He was somewhat reassured by the sight of utility poles but he knew that charging the battery of his mobile phone would be a waste of time because the signal was non-existent. All the same, it would be excellent as a watch.
He walked quietly and slowly by Ma-gios, repeatedly eyeing the giant dogs sniffing about. In the crisp dawn air, the wind brought along the musty fumes from the pens where the yak shepherds were preparing their animals for the pastures.
Not long after they entered Granny’s hut, impatient knocking broke the silence. A shepherd wearing a leather hat and with a woven beard appeared in the doorway and everybody turned towards him. In the dusk, only his cat-like green eyes flashed.
‘Do you still remember me, Ma-gios?’
The boy wrinkled his forehead, shook his head doubtfully and asked, ‘Should I?’
Upon which the shepherd pulled his left hand from his coat and lifted it to his right shoulder. Ma-gios’s pupils widened, seeing that the forefinger of the veined, calloused hand was missing.
‘Uncle Tashi!’
‘Yes, it’s me.’
Ma-gios’s muscles tensed, becoming those of someone who was ready to jump any second, and his breathing accelerated as well. The man stepped closer; the boy could see his round belly and thickset chest under his fur coat. Uncle Tashi has grown stout over the years, he thought and looked into his eyes. Granny cleared her throat and rinsed it with a gulp of tea. The boy cast a desperate glance at Vitali, who straightened up in his chair.
‘Don’t be afraid of me,’ the shepherd said in his rasping voice. ‘I’ve just come to …’
His voice faltered; they could see he was struggling mightily with himself, then he managed to say, ‘I’ve just come to apologize to you.’
‘Apologize?’ Granny repeated in amazement.
The shepherd lowered his head and placed his mutilated hand on the boy’s head.
‘Yes. I’m sorry for being so blind about you. Your father was a very good man. I hope he’s still alive … somewhere out there.’
He caressed the boy’s head as tenderly as if he were his father, then drew a penknife with a horn handle out of his pocket.
‘Here, son. It was Rabten’s. I’ve kept it for you.’
He whisked away a tear from the corner of his eyes and left. A perplexed silence was left behind.
The next day, Ma-gios visited the neighbours with Vitali and Granny. He noticed how difficult it was for his granny to walk.
‘Only the hope of seeing you again kept me alive all these years,’ she told him repeatedly in her shaky voice.
Leaning on her gnarled stick, Granny led them from house to house while Vitali fought his waves of nausea. The tangle of flavours in Tibetan cuisine thoroughly tested his stomach. All the while, his inspector’s self never rested. With Ma-gios’s help, he tried to extract details of Rabten’s death from the villagers because his inner logic told him that this strange case and the disappearance of Ma-gios and his father were somehow connected. He looked for the key to the mystery all day long and, back in his gaudy room at night, he kept staring at the ceiling, still puzzled. He was glad to be able to produce better and better theories about the crime. He listened to the crackle of the fire ablaze in the rusty stove, trying to put together the pieces of the remote puzzle until sleep got the better of him.
Ma-gios slept in his granny’s room, and she, deeply affected, listened to his peaceful breathing and watched him roll about all night until he woke up early in the morning. Granny herself had fallen asleep for an hour occasionally, but the joy of seeing her grandson again kept waking her up.
‘Granny,’ said Ma-gios in a hoarse
voice, after he had sat up and wrapped himself in the blanket again, ‘I dreamt that
Dad and Mum were together again.’
Recent Comments