Kingdom (25 page)

Nancy’s face was screwed into an anxious frown. She was struggling to decide if Jack was being entirely serious. His urgent expression, his furtive air, suggested he was genuine, but it was hard to tell.

‘OK,’ she said, taking a deep breath. ‘Even if there is a grain of truth in what you’re saying and the Great White Brotherhood does actually exist somewhere, surely it must be a force for good. It’s the Great
White
Brotherhood, right? Not the Great
Black
Brotherhood. In which case, why would they have anything to do with the Nazis? Surely in their great white wisdom they would have perceived that the Nazis were an evil force, that no good could come of the union . . .’

Jack shrugged.

‘Well, it would be nice if that were true, but life isn’t that simple. The Brotherhood is
supposed
to be white and they are meant to be furthering the cause of good in the world. But who knows. Maybe they have lost their way? Legend has it that Masters of the Brotherhood are themselves in telepathic contact with other Masters who exist on higher planes of existence. These higher Masters are meant to be like good angels, but maybe they’re not who they say they are. Maybe they aren’t telling the truth. Maybe the Brotherhood itself is being misled?’

Jack took a swig on his beer bottle and scanned the room to check again that no one was listening, then continued.

‘You contact non-terrestrial forces at your peril. Whenever I hear stories of people who claim to have been contacted by divine forces, or UFOs, or Masters in Tibet, I can’t help thinking to myself, “OK maybe it’s true, maybe they have been in touch, but also maybe the forces that have contacted you are only pretending to be good, only pretending to help the world, and in reality they are actually trying to do evil – they are using you” . . .’

What the hell? thought Nancy. What on earth had she got herself into? Even Jack Adams, who she had assumed was – despite the eccentricities of his lifestyle – fundamentally rational, invested with degrees from prestigious universities, an ordinary sceptic like herself, seemed to be quite happy to contemplate the most outlandish conspiracy theories that she’d ever heard of. In fact, that was precisely why she was so freaked out: Jack Adams
was
a man of learning, and yet still he was willing to entertain ideas of telepathic Masters and Nazis in search of the secret of the superman. His brand of scepticism was the most peculiar non-belief she’d ever met. He was so sceptical that he wouldn’t say for certain that anything was true; but neither would he say that it was untrue.

But then again, Nancy was thinking, who was she to blame him? Were telepathic Masters that much stranger, if you thought about it, than the world she knew already? The world of global wars and religious conflicts – and nuclear arms races inspired by differing visions of world government? Was contemporary Western life more or less insane than the world of the high Himalayas? She found she was echoing Jack’s words: who was she to say what was probable and what was impossible? She was rapidly losing all sense of perspective; in danger of losing her ability to distinguish between truth and fiction. Or perhaps the terms were no longer meaningful to her. She had lost her faith in such convenient distinctions.

‘Jack,’ she said, in a desperate attempt to cling on to some sort of order, ‘just tell me plainly what you think. Was Anton trying to follow up his father’s Nazi research and find the Brotherhood? Was he after the Book of Dzyan and the secret of the superman, whatever that’s supposed to be?’

The questions sounded absurdly simplistic even as she spoke them, and Jack wouldn’t give her the reassurance she craved. He shrugged across at her. ‘Maybe, maybe not. Given everything you’ve just told me about his father – and given what Gunn just said about the Book of Dzyan being a terma – it’s quite possible – particularly, as he was last seen travelling with a terton.’

He paused for a second as if marshalling his thoughts.

‘You know what, Nancy? Sometimes, even if you are a disillusioned guy like me, it pays to believe in the craziest theories.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Well, if the entire population of Tibet, plus the Nazis, plus Anton, all believe in the Book of Dzyan or the Great White Brotherhood or reincarnation or flying pigs for that matter, and I am the only one who doesn’t, then I guess I should just shut up. If we want to find Anton, we have to think like Anton – which probably does mean believing in all of the above. Besides, there’s another thing: if the Book of Dzyan does exist, then it will be worth a million times more than the Koh-i-noor diamond. It will be the greatest antique find of all time.’ And he nearly licked his lips; she saw the adventurer in him rising to the challenge, suddenly enticed by the prospect of treasure.

Of course, Nancy thought to herself, he thinks he can make money out of this. It’s not just academic glory. For a fleeting second she was disappointed, disappointed that his response was not the same as hers, that the quest for Anton and the truth about what he had been doing all these years in Tibet had no greater significance for Jack than as a possible money-making venture. But if greed got him hooked, then greed would have to do. She had come this far and she discovered that all she wanted to do was go further. And if she was being brutal with herself, she knew that there was a kernel of self-interest in her quest: she wanted that story, the great story Anton had gone in search of.

‘So you’ll still come to Pemako then?’ she asked cautiously. Jack Adams smiled.

‘Sure, let’s do it.’

‘Do you think something terrible has happened to Anton?’

‘Who knows? One thing’s certain, Anton’s one of those wiry indestructible types. The luck of the devil, that sort of thing. Could be, he’s just pottering around old monasteries having a wonderful time . . .’

‘Or maybe he’s finally just gone totally insane . . .’ Nancy added in a subdued voice.

Jack threw his head back and drained the last drops from the beer bottle, placed it heavily on the table and then looked over at the door.

‘Or both. But, there’s only one way to find out. Where’s Gunn Lobsang when you need him?’

High on the mountainside, nearly at the edge of the treeline, the party of monks had stopped again. Under a ragged cluster of acacia trees they sought shelter from the rain. Below, the valley was filled with lingering bulky cloud.

For all his fear, his sense that something was pursuing them, Anton Herzog was relieved that they had stopped. When the monks moved him, the straps that held his emaciated body in place on the stretcher rubbed his skin, so it was raw and bleeding, and he was tired of trying to keep his head still as it was jerked around. He was pleased to have a respite from this; he tried to breathe more slowly, to relax his limbs. Perhaps they were almost there. Perhaps Agarthi was only one more march away. He hoped so; he knew he would not last much longer.

The Abbot’s deputy came over and, squatting down, offered Herzog a fresh pipe. As he drew down the sweet smoke, Herzog could hear the old lama stand up and begin a conversation with another of the monks. With effort, Herzog forced his eyes to open. They were studying a map. After a minute the Abbot’s deputy squatted down again and held the map before Herzog’s eyes and pointed with a dirty fingernail to the top left corner of the bedraggled page.

‘Here – is this where you were discovered by the Chinese man? Is this where you had given up?’

Herzog felt the thick honey-tar of the opium filling his throat. Under the effects of the drug, his urge to speak had returned. His neck no longer ached, the tearing sensation in his lungs had diminished, and a sense of peace and contentment had come over him again. But the Chinese man? What did the lama mean? What did the lama know of the strange Chinese man? Had he already progressed so far in his account of his journey that he had told the lama of the strange Chinese man? He couldn’t remember. The opium was stealing away the last vestiges of his powers of deliberate concentration. It took away none of the vividness of his thoughts, but his mind now wandered where it wanted, he had been robbed of the power to direct it on its course.

‘Yes,’ he said, softly, visions of the elegant Chinese man appearing in his mind’s eye. ‘The Chinese man. That is right.’

With a renewed urgency the deputy interrupted him:

‘Please, I ask you to concentrate and look at where I’m pointing on the map. Is this where he found you?’

Herzog tried to focus on the map:

‘I don’t know. He saved us. He took us away. But it was a longer journey than I had realized – I was not in a good state. We had to go over a high pass – a high pass that was well hidden. I fell in and out of sleep throughout the ascent, jolted awake at regular intervals. But on the way down, the route was so steep that I was asked to get down from the chair and we were all roped together in a long line; myself and the Chinese man in the middle with sherpas on either side.’

The Abbot’s deputy was almost despairing:

‘But tell me: do you recognize anything on this map? Does the landscape depicted here make any sense to you at all? Does it remind you of where you were?’

Herzog had drifted away. He was muttering, half to himself, half to the doctor, gazing past the Abbot’s deputy.

‘I don’t know, you see. The path petered out altogether after some hours. We were forced onto a slender rocky ledge. For hundreds of yards, we inched our way along this ledge, winding slowly around a vast cliff-face. Below, thousands of feet further down, was a green, snakelike river, forging a course through a rocky canyon.’

The Abbot’s deputy looked at the map. There was no river in that corner, no ravine, no ledge. He sighed and let his hand fall. His sad eyes studied the dying man. Herzog sensed that he had disappointed the old lama.

‘You have to understand, I was exhausted. When we finally made it back on to a path, I actually collapsed from exhaustion. I was helped back into the chair that somehow the sherpas had carried with us on the terrifying journey, and as soon as I was sitting down I fell asleep. I only woke again when I heard the excited shouts from the sherpas as their home finally came into view. That is why I cannot recognize anything on your map. You must understand, I was in no better state than I am now . . .’

Herzog fell silent. The Abbot’s deputy handed the map back to the monk. Then he pressed his palms together. He wanted to learn more, he wanted to hear what this place was like, even though it was forbidden knowledge and it made him feel guilty even to ask.

‘So what did their home look like? Please describe it to me.’

Dreamily Herzog repeated the question, his eyes staring in awe at the heavens.

‘What did it look like? It was the lushest, greenest valley that I have ever seen. It was sublime. It was surrounded by massive cliffs that towered over it but because at its widest point it was at least a mile and a half wide, it still received a great deal of sunlight, and on the valley floor below I could clearly see a lamasery, surrounded by dwellings and farmhouses, and in the fields I could make out the forms of many people hard at work.’

For a moment, he was back there again, the jungle fell away from him, the pains that had held him fast in the physical world had gone, and he journeyed into the past, back to the beautiful valley. He was speaking. Could the Abbot’s deputy hear him? He was describing his visions, his memories. He could see the Chinese man grinning with pride. He turned to him, completely awe-struck and said, ‘It’s so beautiful.’

‘Thank you,’ the Chinese man replied. ‘It has always been this way.’

Suddenly Herzog’s eyes refocused on the Abbot’s deputy. He was sure now that he was talking and not just dreaming. He summoned all his strength and fixed his gaze determinedly on the deputy.

‘I tried to learn more from the Chinese man. I said, ‘ “It seems an incredibly peaceful place. Do you suffer the normal problems of society?”

‘The Chinese man smiled proudly at me and replied, ‘“There is no crime and disease is unknown. People live a full and healthy span of years and then pass away in their sleep. We have no need for mechanics, scientists, lawyers, barely even any need for doctors, and certainly no need for any proselytizing religions. We stay close to the Tao and life continues happily. With a simple diet of rice, fresh fruit and vegetables, no sugar and precious little salt, combined with vigorous daily outdoor work, the human body does not get ill, it does not develop cancers or other such diseases. The old here eventually die in their sleep, taking a peaceful leave of this life, as primitive people have done for millions of years, the world over.

‘“Every ten years, we receive reports from the outside world. Yet we find there is nothing in its affairs that cannot be predicted a decade in advance with even a modest amount of contemplation. Though the Tao never remains still, it also never changes . . .’

‘“So that is not a lamasery then?” I pointed towards the main building that stood amidst the dwellings of the village.

‘“No. Not after the fashion of the rest of Tibet. That is a just a simple house. We hope that we can encourage Wisdom to make it her home, but we are not so presumptuous as to make it our home too. We visit it occasionally and try to listen to what Wisdom has to tell us.’

‘ “So you are not a Master, or a brother or even a templar of this kingdom?’

‘“This is not a kingdom and I am none of those things. We are a community that seeks merely to exist without unusual suffering. We all share the same burdens and do the same work, though thanks to my particular cast of mind, I find myself naturally disposed towards study and thought and so I spend more time in those activities than most of my fellow valley-dwellers. But I too work in the fields, I too bring in the harvest and milk the yaks.” ’

The Abbot’s deputy interrupted.

‘But this sounds like a communist society – surely you must have wandered into Red China by accident . . .’

Herzog smiled.

‘That is what I thought for a moment as well. But then I remembered that the Chinese man had mentioned the Tao, and I looked down into the valley and could sense from its perfectly terraced rice paddies and its splendid atmosphere of calm that this place had certainly never been touched by the poison of the Cultural Revolution. That it was far older and wiser than any ideologies of Marx or Chairman Mao.