Authors: Slavomir Rawicz
The American put up the practical consideration that we might not find ourselves so warmly welcomed by the officialdom of a big city as we had been by the country people. There might be awkward
questions, demands that we should produce papers.
Marchinkovas was not insistent on his idea. He had thrown it in to sound out opinion and was quite content with the outcome. It had not been a suggestion born of any sense of defeatism.
Marchinkovas was as convinced of eventual success as the rest of us. We could not afford to think of failure.
It was about this time that we found a use for the strong wire loops we had brought with us out of the desert. We found our way blocked where the track over a hill had been broken away by a fall
of rock. To get round we had to face the climber’s hazard of an overhang surmounted by a sharp spur. We made a ten-foot length of plaited thongs, tied it firmly to Kolemenos’s loop and
had him from his superior height try to lasso the tip of the rock spur. It took a dozen throws before the wire settled over. Then, gradually, Kolemenos put the strain of his still considerable
weight on the rope. It held firm. Zaro, as one of the lighter members, volunteered to go up first. He climbed with great care, not trusting absolutely to the rope but making use of what slight
hand- and foot-holds there were. With Zaro tending the anchored end, we all made it quite easily, Kolemenos climbing last.
There was a well-spaced-out succession of unremarkable villages and hamlets, alike in their simple architecture and in the full measure of hospitality they accorded us. They presented no feature
by which I can remember them individually. But there was one we found at this time that stands out sharp in the memory because of a most unlikely encounter.
The place was so small and so well tucked away, just six close-grouped houses, that we might easily have passed it by had not our route brought us just within sight of a corner of it. We were
escorted in by a smiling young Tibetan who seemed to be unduly excited at the discovery that we spoke an unintelligible tongue. He led us with an unusual show of urgency to a group of men standing
outside one of the houses. One of them was so much taller than the Tibetans with whom he was speaking that he immediately drew our attention. He turned with the others as we came up and we saw with
surprise he was a European. Our escort performed the introductions and we saluted the villagers with bows, which were returned. The European inclined his head slightly. He scrutinized us so long
that I began to feel a little uncomfortable.
This was a man of about seventy whose grey hair still retained traces of the sandy colouring of his youth. He was fully six feet tall and stooped slightly. He looked, despite his age, powerfully
framed and well muscled. About him was the air of the man who has lived out of doors for many years; his strong hands and long, intelligent face were deeply tanned. His Tibetan-style clothes were
topped by a thick, knee-length sheepskin surcoat, around which was a narrow black leather belt. It was difficult to see the colour of his eyes because the sun glinted off a pair of steel-rimmed
spectacles, in themselves oddities in these surroundings. The Tibetans were standing round, looking expectantly from him to us and then back to him again. I thought it time someone broke the ice. I
addressed him in Russian. I could almost feel the quickening interest of the local audience.
The tall man shook his head, paused and spoke – in German. Now Marchinkovas, Kolemenos and Zaro were as well versed in German as I was in Russian and delighted at the chance to exercise
their skill. Paluchowicz and I knew enough to follow the conversation but I do not know whether the American could understand. I was struck by the stranger’s reserve. He spoke shortly and
crisply, answering questions precisely and volunteering nothing. He told us he was a missionary, a nonconformist, who had come here with a handful of Europeans of the same persuasion. He had been
travelling in China and Tibet for nearly fifty years. I think he was either German or Austrian.
For no apparent reason he switched to French. Zaro spoke the language extremely well and carried on some talk with him before they reverted to German. The Tibetans were listening in open-mouthed
fascination at the flow of strange sounds. I had the strong impression that our new-found acquaintance did not like us. I think probably the cause of it was our appearance – the dirty matted
hair, our torn clothes, our complete poverty. It seemed to me that in this and other villages he enjoyed a prestige as a Westerner built up and consolidated over long years. He might well have
thought that the advent of six battered European tramps might weaken his reputation with the natives.
Zaro, who was doing most of the talking on our side, soon sensed that our arrival here was not entirely a pleasure to the stranger. It brought out the imp in Zaro. He answered the
missionary’s questions with jaunty insouciance. He described us as ‘a group of cosmopolitan tourists’ and airily evaded an answer to the inquiry of where we had come from.
He looked frankly unbelieving when Zaro said we were travelling to Lhasa as pilgrims and in a few minutes there had developed an unmistakable atmosphere of mutual distrust. Only the Tibetans
were enjoying the exchanges – and they did not understand a word.
‘You carry nothing with you. How do you live?’
Zaro replied, ‘Through the hospitality of the country. The people are very kind, as you must have discovered.’
‘But you are not able to eat every day in that manner?’
‘We take less than we need,’ said Zaro. ‘There are many days when we pull in our belts. We are used to it.’
Marchinkovas broke in to ask the missionary where he lived. The man pointed to a mule cropping grass a few yards away. ‘That is my mule. Wherever it stops, that is my home.’
Our entry into the village was about ten o’clock in the morning. The missionary sat with us while we ate – I remember particularly about this place that we were given rice and I
wondered where it had been grown. He talked a little but it was a strained meal. He was puzzled by us and did not know how to tackle us. About three o’clock in the afternoon he announced that
he would be moving on. We walked outside with him and he went off on a round of calls at the houses. He saddled his mule and looked round at us as he prepared to depart.
In German he said, ‘I wish you luck wherever you are going.’ We thanked him. He did not offer to shake hands. He said his farewells to the Tibetans and walked away, leading the
mule.
The Tibetan who had made himself our host watched him go and then made signs to us, drawing himself up, thumping his thrust-out chest and flexing his muscles. He was trying to tell us, I think,
that the parting guest was, or had been, a man of great physical prowess. I felt a spasm of regret that the meeting could not have been more friendly. With the barriers down between us, he could
have told us so much we wanted to know.
The inevitable bunch of sharp-eyed, inquisitive children surrounded us as we made to follow our host back to the little house. One little fellow of about eight plucked at Zaro’s trousers.
Zaro made monkey faces at him. The children, about a dozen of them, crowded laughing about him. Zaro did some more clowning and the children loved it.
‘Give them your Cossack dance, Eugene,’ I called out.
And down he went on his haunches, kicking up the dust as we stamped out the rhythm. The children screeched with joy and the grown-ups came out to laugh and wonder at his cavorting.
Zaro’s uninhibited performance was like a derisive gesture towards the aloofness and dignity of the man who had just gone. And I think Zaro was not unaware of it.
In the fullness of time we came to a fork in the rough trail which we confidently accepted as that mentioned to us by the Circassian – the eastward branch leading to Lhasa and the other
south-west to India. A few hours later we saw far off a big caravan of possibly fifty men and animals creeping slowly away from us in the direction we imagined to be Lhasa. It was the only large
travelling group we ever saw in the country.
We found this to be a country not only of rugged ranges but also of great lakes. Near the end of November our way led us to a vast sheet of water like an inland sea. From the high ground as we
came down to it we tried to guess its size. We thought we must be looking across the breadth of it and because we could not be sure that the thin line on the horizon really was the far shore,
estimates of the distance varied from sixteen to forty kilometres. There was no way of even roughly calculating the length – we could not see either limit. We bathed in the fresh cold water
and camped the night around a fire which did not throw out quite enough heat to keep out the damp night air from the lake.
Then followed a period of comparatively easy progress. The lake margin was our guide for many miles. A couple of days later we were in broken country again. There was a cluster of a few houses
where we stayed for only one meal and on our refusal to stay overnight were given food to carry with us. We were moving well and morale was excellent. My leg wound had closed cleanly and I had
discarded the bandage.
Three or four days after leaving the great lake we camped in a valley strewn with gaunt rocks where the thin vegetation struggled to exist. It had been raining and the ground was wet. Even with
the tinder we carried it took a long time to get a fire going. In a shallow cave we settled down to eat what remained of our flat cakes of coarse-milled flour. The night breeze eddied the smoke
from the fire about us and we sat close together for warmth. There was little to distinguish this night from dozens of others that now lay behind us. Certainly there was nothing to warn us that
this was to be the setting for tragedy.
We slept, as always with the exception of Kolemenos, fitfully. One and another would awake mumbling from half-dreams to get up and tend the fire. Zaro it was who rose and went out as another day
began palely to light the still desolation of the valley. I lay propped on one elbow as he came back.
‘There’s some mist about and it’s cold,’ he said to me. ‘Let’s get moving.’ He stepped over the others, rousing them one by one. Paluchowicz lay next to
me, Marchinkovas was huddled between Smith and Kolemenos. I stood up and stretched, rubbed my stiff legs, flapped my arms about. There was a general stirring. Kolemenos pushed me with elephantine
playfulness as I limbered up.
Zaro’s voice cut in on us. ‘Come on, Zacharius. Get up!’ He was bending over Marchinkovas, gently shaking his shoulder. I heard the note of panic as he shouted again,
‘Wake up, wake up!’
Zaro looked up at us, his face tight with alarm. ‘I think he’s ill. I can’t wake him.’
I dropped on my knees beside Marchinkovas. He lay in an attitude of complete relaxation, one arm thrown up above his head. I took the outstretched arm and shook it. He lay unmoving, eyes closed.
I felt for the pulse, I laid my ear to his chest, lifted the eyelids. I went through all the tests again, fearful of believing their shocking message. The body was still warm.
I straightened up. I was surprised at how small and calm my voice was. ‘Marchinkovas is dead,’ I said. The statement sounded odd and flat to me, so I said it again.
‘Marchinkovas is dead.’
Somebody burst out, ‘But he can’t be. There was nothing wrong with him. I talked to him only a few hours ago. He was well. He made no complaint . . .’
‘He is dead,’ I said.
Mister Smith got down beside the body. He was there only a minute or two. Then he crossed the hands of Marchinkovas on his chest, stood up and said, ‘Yes, gentlemen, Slav is right.’
Paluchowicz took off his old fur cap and crossed himself.
Zacharius Marchinkovas, aged 28 or 29, who might have been a successful architect in his native Lithuania if the Russians had not come and taken him away, had given up the struggle. We were
stunned, we could not understand it, we did not know how death had come to him. Perhaps he was more exhausted than we knew and his willing heart could take the strain no more. I don’t know.
None of us knew. Marchinkovas the silent one with the occasional shaft of cynical wit, Marchinkovas who lived much with his own thoughts, the man with a load of bitterness whom Kristina had
befriended and made to laugh – Marchinkovas had gone.
In the rocky ground we could find no place to dig a grave for him. His resting place was a deep cleft between rocks and we filled up the space above him with pebbles and small stones. Kolemenos
carried out his last duty of making a small cross which he wedged into the rubble. We said our farewells, each in his own fashion. Silently, I commended his soul to God. The five of us went
heavy-footed on our way. With us went Marchinkovas’s
fufaika
and sable waistcoat. We thought they would be useful to us.
The country changed again, challenging our spirit and endurance with the uncompromising steepness of craggy hills. We learned to use our wire loops as climbing aids on difficult patches. We
tried always to find a village to spend the night under cover but all too often the end of the day overtook us in the open with no human settlement in sight.
Once from the heights we saw, many miles off, the flashing reflection of the sun from the shining roofs of a distant, high-sited city, and it pleased us to believe that at least we had seen the
holy city of Lhasa. What we saw may have been one of the greater monasteries of Tibet, but the direction was right for Lhasa and the idea of having seen it after using its name like a talisman all
the way from the borders of Siberia appealed to us.
Towards the end of December we came across the biggest village of our Tibetan journey, almost a small township of some forty houses arranged with an unusual regularity on each side of the road.
It had, too, the unusual refinement of a larger building which in Europe would certainly have been the village hall. We were taken along to this building by a villager who was well padded and
clothed against the cold and we remarked on the way on the absence of children. The reason emerged when our escort fetched out from the building a slim, lean-faced, sharp-eyed Asiatic who may have
been between thirty and forty. He looked us over, bowed, smiled and went back inside. A minute later a couple of dozen children exploded out and scampered down the street, throwing us glances as
they went. The place was a school and the thin man apparently their teacher.