The Rose of Tibet (33 page)

He saw little of it, for the surgeon at the Maharaja’s hospital after one look at the arm gave him a shot of morphia, put him back in the Rolls-Royce, and pausing only to telephone a Mr Pant, the Indian diplomatic representative, sent him immediately off to Kalimpong.

There he was seen by an Indian medical officer of health who happened to be visiting the town, given another shot, and transferred to the Scottish mission hospital. He was booked in at 5 p.m. on 30 April 1951 – the first independently checkable date since he had booked out of the town rather more than a year before.

A few days later, at the urgent summons of the hospital authorities, Sheila Wolferston came up from Calcutta and officially took delivery of him and his baggage from the duke’s bodyguard. They had refused, apparently on the duke’s orders, to deliver him up to anybody else. They had been sleeping in his room, and eating, according to the mission’s
Miscellany
, ‘heartily’.    

Houston knew nothing of this transaction, for in addition to his more spectacular ills he had contracted pneumonia. He was aware, without surprise, that Sheila Wolferston was with him, and also Michaelson. He didn’t know which one of them told him what had happened to Hugh and the others. He did not seem able to grieve; he lay in a heavy stupor.

He lay there for three weeks (which might have been three hours or three years for all the sense of time he had) and was only vaguely aware one day that he was no longer there. He was in another place, a low-roofed, roaring sort of place.

‘Are you awake, sport?’

He realized someone had been shaking him for some time.

‘Where am I?’

‘You’re right. You’re right, sport. We’re flying to Calcutta.
Look, seeing you’re awake, there’s things we ought to discuss –’

‘Where’s Sheila?’

‘She’s right. She’s having a bit of shut-eye. Look, sport, she’ll be awake soon, we haven’t got long. I wanted to tell you what Da Costa is doing. He can definitely guarantee –’

‘What Da Costa? I don’t know who. … Sheila!’ Houston said.

‘For Christ’s sake, she’s right! She’s sleeping, I told you. Sure you know Da Costa. You like Da Costa. Strewth, I brought him to see you twice. All you need to do –’

‘Sheila,’ Houston said. ‘Sheila!’

‘Yes, Charles, yes, I’m here. Mr Michaelson, I particularly asked you – you promised me you wouldn’t worry him with this business.’

‘He’s got to worry about it some time.’

‘What business? What is it?’

‘Nothing. Nothing at all. Go to sleep again.’

‘Da Costa?’

‘Don’t worry about it. Sleep now.’

He slept again, worried. Something worrying about Da Costa. A pale man, pale melon cheeks, dark eyes. A diamond flashing on Da Costa’s finger as he talked. Who Da Costa? How did he know Da Costa? Da Costa had been met somewhere, worryingly.       

He thought the doctor was Da Costa, but it was only an examination mirror flashing, and the cheeks were not plumply pale. Thin cheeks, Indian cheeks.

‘Nor for some days, weeks perhaps. He is not strong enough. And in any case we would need authority. Who is the next of kin?’

‘There isn’t anyone. I’ve told you, doctor, I’m probably the nearest thing. But if you’re certain it’s got to be done, I would be ready to …’

‘Mr Michaelson and Mr Da Costa – they are not related to him in any way?’

‘Not at all. I’d be glad if you could keep them out, doctor. They worry him. It’s a business matter he doesn’t want to discuss just now.’

‘Very well. … In any case, he must be kept quiet. He needs a good deal of building up. Why was he moved?’

‘A Chinese mission arrived in Kalimpong. His presence was considered a provocation. …’        

Days of building up, of beautiful quiet, then. Sometimes he saw her there, reading, sometimes not. There was a row once near by, and he heard Michaelson’s voice.

He said, ‘Michaelson.’

‘Hello. Did he wake you up? He’s gone now.’

‘What did he want?’

‘Just to see how you are. How are you?’

He didn’t know how he was, so he didn’t tell her. He went away again. There was a fountain near by, and he often went into the fountain.

But it began to worry him over a period. At first he would forget it when he woke up, but then he began not to forget.

‘Sheila.’

‘Right here. Do you want to sit up?’

‘There were some bags. There were two bags.’

‘Yes. They’re all right. I put them in your bank. I put them in Barclay’s. I signed for them, and they’ll only give them up on my signature. There were some drawings, too, on a piece of cloth, and a letter. They’re all nice and safe, Charles. No need to worry.’

‘A letter.’

‘Just a letter. Nothing to worry about.’

‘Can I see it?’

‘It’s in Tibetan. Can you read Tibetan?’

‘Can we get it translated?’

‘I got it translated – I’m sorry, Charles. I had to. There were one or two complications. All over now, though.’

‘What did it say?’

‘Do you really want to talk about it now?’

‘From the abbess?’

‘Yes. Just that she – she loves you and was making you a gift. You know. There was her official seal on it. That was why we had to get it translated and examined. The Chinese Embassy here claimed it was false, but of course it wasn’t. Everything’s all right now.’

‘Can I have the letter?’

‘Oh, I think better not, Charles. It’s all locked up. Best to leave it where it is.’

‘I want it.’

‘Well. We’ll see.’

‘I want it.’

‘All right. Rest now.’           

But no rest after this, for he remembered it all, and had to have the letter, had to have it in his hand. Restless, sleepless nights.

‘Hey – hey, sport, can I come in?’

‘Have you got it?’

‘What? Look, look, sport – keep it quiet, eh? It cost me a fortune to get in. I’ve got to talk to you.’

‘I want the letter.’

‘Yeah. Sure. Look, sport, if you don’t like Da Costa, I can get another bloke. But we’ve got to be quick now. There’s not a lot of time. They won’t let you stay here, and you can’t take the stones with you – that’s for certain. Sheila doesn’t understand. She doesn’t get the situation at all. I
know
this bunch of bastards! They panic. They’ll have you out of here in two twos if the Chinese get tough.’

‘She’s got to get the letter.’

‘She doesn’t need any flaming letter! All she’s got to do is sign the form, and all you’ve got to do is instruct her. But for Christ’s sake, you’ve got to be quick now. You’ve got to pull yourself together, sport.’

‘What do you want of me? What is it?’

‘Just two and a half per cent. Christ, it’s bloody ridiculous! It’s nothing at all. You’ll still have half a million quid. Now, look – look, sport. I’m not getting any younger. You remember I helped you. I helped you a lot in Kalimpong. I’ve been there and back to Goa twice already. You don’t like Da Costa, I can get you somebody else. But I tell you straight, you won’t get better terms. He’s offered forty million escudo. It’s only half what the stuff is worth, but they have big risks. They’ve got to get it into Goa. And we can screw them up a bit. A bloke already offered me half in escudo and half guilders – he was hedging it in Amsterdam. We can do better with Da
Costa. He’s got contacts in Belgium, Switzerland, America. Christ, sport – you can have it in the hardest currency you want. But you’ve got to be quick. You’ve got to shake yourself up. I tell you, the Chinese just signed a treaty with Tibet. They’ll be signing one with the Indians next. And then you’re cooked, mate. They’ll have your guts for garters. You’ve got to get rid of that stuff now.’

‘What stuff? What?’

‘Christ, the emeralds. What else?’

‘No!’

‘Look, look, sport – quiet, eh?’

‘No!’ No! Get out! Sheila! Sheila!’

Running and nurses and nightmares, then. He tried to hold on to the bags, face down on the sled, but they were talking him out of them. He wouldn’t give them up. They were a half of her. He wouldn’t.

‘Charles, I’m desperately sorry – we’ve got to talk about it.’

‘No. No.’

‘Just let me talk, and you listen. Then say what you think. Charles, I’ve spoken to lots of people – dozens of them. It’s quite right what Michaelson says. You won’t be able to leave the country with the emeralds. There’s a government regulation. They’ll have to stay here. And it’s almost certain then that they won’t be able to resist the Chinese demand. The Chinese say that all monastery treasure belongs to the country, not to individuals, and that it couldn’t belong to you in any case. Charles, dear, try and listen.’

‘I don’t want to hear. I don’t care.’

‘You want the emeralds, don’t you?’

‘They’re a half of her.’

‘The Chinese say they aren’t. They want them back.’

‘No. No.’

‘Look dear, will you let me do what is best? I don’t know what’s happening at the moment. I don’t know if they’ll let you stay. You’re not well enough to travel now, but they might make you. I’m trying to get the operation speeded up – they’d never dare to send you off then till you’d recovered. Please trust me.’

He didn’t want to trust anybody. They kept coming at him. She was with them now, Michaelson, the dreaded Da Costa,
guilders, francs, escudos. He cut himself off. He tried to remember the mantras, repeating them again and again for hours at a time.

‘Charles, dear. They’re going to operate on you tomorrow. Please, please trust me. It’s for the best. There wasn’t anything else to do.’

‘Operate?’

‘Tomorrow. I’ll be with you. I’ll stay with you.’

Operate. His arm, then. He must have expiated the sin by now. It was a hell of a long time, a lifetime since he had met the bear. He didn’t want to think of the bear. He said a few mantras over and over to obliterate the bear. He said them for hours, but he didn’t obliterate the bear.

‘Just lie back, lie normally. You’ll only feel a prick.’

He felt the prick, and then heard the bear. The bear began to shake him and roar. All shook and roared; a breathy in- and-out roaring, rhythmic, mantra-like. And then the rhythm broken. Confusion and argument, and his own voice muttering.

‘Oh, God, he’s coming to, doctor. Can’t you please give him something?’

‘It’s very dangerous.’

‘But this is monstrous – absolutely scandalous. I never heard of such a thing. How dare you –’

‘Please Miss Wolferston, it is absolutely out of my hands. I can’t interfere with a government order. A doctor and a trained nurse will sit beside him every minute until the aircraft –’

‘Is it over?’

‘All over now, Charles. Don’t speak.’

‘Is my arm –’

‘You didn’t have it. They’ll operate later.’

Not have it? Why not have it? Not expiated? Sickness, then. Dreadful retching. Sitting up, her arms round him, leaning over bowl.

‘Doctor, for pity’s sake – you can see how he is.’

‘Miss Wolferston, what can I say? I am very unhappy. I warned you –’

‘At least let him stay till the plane is ready. What’s the sense of lying in an ambulance?’

‘Very well. I will allow that. I will answer for it. I will see the official myself now. …’

‘Do you want a drink of water?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Lie back, then. Lie still.’

Still. Nausea. Everything rolling, nothing to hold on to. People coming in and out.

‘All right. But don’t make a noise. He’s sleeping now.’

‘I give it in your charge then, Miss.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And it is with his approval I pay two and a half per cent to Mr Michaelson.’

‘Yes. Yes.’

‘You understand it is Mr Houston as vendor who pays this commission and not I? It is usual.’

‘All right. I trust you.’

‘You may trust me absolutely, Miss.’

‘We’re all trusting you, Da Costa.’

‘Surely you have known me long enough.’

‘Too right, mate.’

‘You could have had cash, a bank pass book, anything you wanted, weeks ago. It is not my fault you must now at the last moment accept a promissory note.’

‘It ain’t my fault, either, sport.’

‘Will you both go now? Thank you very much.’

‘A pity he ain’t awake. Tell him good-bye from me, eh?’

‘Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you both very much. Good- bye.’

Queasy, shifting silence, then, which presently he could slow down to sleep in. To sleep in and roll in. Rolling, rumbling silence, in which he was being lifted; which was not silence at all.

‘Four seats have been taken out. It is the best I can do.’

‘You’ve not heard the last of this, I assure you.’

‘Miss Wolferston, I have done everything I can. I am very busy.’

‘It’s the most callous, barbarous thing I ever heard of in my life.’

‘I am sorry. Just one thing more. One of the passengers is
a doctor. I have had a word with him and he will help you. He will give an injection, if necessary.’

‘Thank you for that at least.’

‘I am very sorry. Good-bye.’

Roaring. Deafening, lurching roaring, then. Roaring all the time. The bear roaring. The bear with his arm in its mouth. His arm! His arm!

‘There we are, there now. You’re all right old fellow. Drift off now. Go to sleep. Only landing.’

Landing and taking off and landing again. Fresh air and not fresh air and fresh air again. But all morphia sleep now; good familiar sleep, black solvent of all worry, events riding with him but no longer bothering him.

And so out again at last, with people streaming and engines revving, himself suspended in cool darkness on the stretcher. Large lit-up buildings and lights flashing, and one flashing very near, in his eyes.

‘Oh, please. Please don’t bother him. He’s very ill.’

‘Who is he? What name, please?’

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘Kemsley Newspapers.
Empire News
and
Sunday Graphic
.’

‘His name is Houston,’ she said.

Houston; and he was home; Saturday, 16 June 1961.

‘
What I feel
,’ confided T.L. in a memo dated February 1960’ ‘
is that having committed ourselves so hugely
,
we shd leave no stone
unt’d to (a) see that H. at least looks over our versn, (b) get a cast-iron
decision on the copyrt position – further opins if nec, (c) get trust
worthy indpt confmn of the facts. With regard to B-V, I never
thought he wd. But take up his suggestns if you think fit
.’

This memo came to me attached to a letter from Professor Bourgès-Vallerin that I had sent through to him the previous day. I had invited the professor to edit and expand the Tibetan sections of the notebooks, reserving the right to delete to meet legal objections in London. He had declined this invitation on the grounds that his acceptable position with the communist authorities was dependent on his maintaining a strict neutrality in all his writings. He had offered, however, to supply a factual appendix – ‘in no way implying that I express any opinion on the work or its author’ – and had gone on to suggest that for the ‘expansion’ mentioned, one could not do better than apply to Dr Shankar Lal Roy, a useful source of Tibetan information and the chairman of the Calcutta branch of the India-Tibet Society. ‘For the more singular parts of M. Houston’s memoirs, I would myself have had recourse to Dr Roy. If anyone is able to confirm or deny them, it is he.’

There was a certain edge to this advice which I pondered, together with T.L.’s memo, somewhat gloomily.

I said, ‘Miss Marks, when are you likely to be ready with Underwood’s stuff? I’ll need time to study it before seeing Mr Oliphant.’

‘Just finishing. You can have his comments now if you like.’

There were twenty-five pages of Underwood’s comments. He had laboured for ten weeks at his task, and had kept back no crumb of evidence. He had been to see a divorced ‘Glynis’ at Swansea; ‘Lister-Lawrence’ at Wimbledon; ‘Wister’ in
Yorkshire; and a Mr Blake-Winter at Abingdon. He had also written to, among others, ‘Lesley’, married, in Seattle; a widowed ‘Mrs Michaelson’ in West Australia; the niece of a deceased Mrs Meiklejohn in Arbroath; and the Duke of Ganzing in Delhi. Correspondence with them, and with a number of institutions in Kalimpong, Zürich, Auckland and Lisbon, were in another file, which Miss Marks was in process of sorting out.

Because I was seeing Mr Oliphant at four o’clock, his brightest time, and had to have lunch myself first with an agent, there was little opportunity to do more than skim through the material.

There had been very little luck with ‘Sheila Wolferston’. The girl had married, it seemed a New Zealand journalist, in 1953, and had gone with him to Auckland the following year. In March 1955, the mother had sold her house in Godalming, and had flown out to join them. She had broken her journey on the way to see her husband’s war grave in the Middle East, and had been run over by a bus and fatally injured in Cairo (just one of the maddening incidents that seemed to bedevil anyone connected with Houston’s story). The girl had divorced her husband in 1958 on the grounds of drunkenness and infidelity, but had apparently stayed on in New Zealand; exactly where, and doing what, we had not been able to discover. Advertisements under box numbers in the Auckland
Star
, Wellington
Dominion
and Christ- church
Press
(booked, according to Underwood’s notes, to run once a week until 31 March) had not so far brought any result.

Even more maddening was the fate of the only other living English person to have been involved in Houston’s peculiar adventure. Underwood had seen ‘Wister’ in a mental home near Hull (where his wife worked as a secretary); he had gone for a walk in the grounds with the pair of them. Wister had worn a big trilby hat and a muffler, and had enjoyed himself for much of the time by sliding about on the icy paths. He was quite harmless, had been released by the Chinese at the same time as Sheila Wolferston (January 1951) and flown home immediately. He had nothing whatever to say. His wife said he would often have very talkative days, but had never
to her knowledge, or that of his doctor, even so much as mentioned Tibet.

Sheila Wolferston had been to see him twice in his first year at the home, and another old colleague had visited him also. He hadn’t recognized either of them. His wife was getting a small pension for him from the firm, and Underwood gathered that her principal interest in seeing him was a discreet curiosity to learn if any more money would be forthcoming. Miss Wolferston had, it seemed, mentioned that steps were being taken to coax the insurance company into making an
ex-gratia
payment. (It didn’t, relying on the ‘war’ clause in the policy.)

She knew that Meiklejohn and Houston’s brother had been killed ‘while escaping’, and that Houston himself had been badly injured. (Her impression was that he had been released at the same time as her husband.) Miss Wolferston had spoken very little of their dreadful experiences in Tibet, and she had not pressed her.

Nobody seemed to have pressed Miss Wolferston. Underwood had tracked down a married cousin in Beckenham, some tennis friends in Richmond, some work friends, even a couple of old school friends. Few of them had heard of Houston, and none of his curious role in the monastery or of the treasure.

All this had begun to acquire a somewhat sinister aspect. I  went glumly off to lunch.

Mr Oliphant’s main preoccupation of recent weeks had been the composition of a Founder’s Statement for his bequest. He was still at it when I arrived, polishing away with all the lapidary zeal that had formerly gone into his primer. A good deal of buttering-up had been necessary lately to support his precarious spirits, and as soon as I opened the door and could see that he was actually conscious, I said vigorously, ‘Well, Mr Oliphant! You’re looking in splendid form today.’

‘Am I, dear boy? It must be,’ he said, writing busily, ‘because I have arrived – one can only hope – at a definitive version. Listen to this.’

He read out his definitive version, in Latin and then English.

‘The translation is a bit free, but it seems to me – I don’t know – rather more succinct?’

‘Very much more. Pithy.’

‘And yet not without a touch of humour.’

‘A strong touch. Mordant, I would say.’

‘Mordant,’ Mr Oliphant said, pleased. ‘Yes. I’m glad it comes through. Sit down, my dear fellow. What is your special news?’

I sat down.

‘I’m afraid it isn’t very good. Bourgès-Vallerin won’t take it on.’

‘Oh,’ Mr Oliphant said, heavily.

‘His reasons seem fairly convincing.’

‘What are they?’

I told him the professor’s reasons.

‘I’ve brought you a copy of the sum of our researches to date. You’ll see there are still rather a lot of gaps in it.’

‘There is still nothing from Miss Wolferston?’

‘Nothing at all.’

‘This is what I find the hardest to understand,’ said Mr Oliphant. ‘She is a most punctilious,
devoted
sort of girl. She was in and out of the flat constantly. She used to rub my chest!’

‘Perhaps she hasn’t seen the adverts. Not everyone reads them. She might have changed her name, too.’

‘I think if you had phrased it differently. If you had suggested that Houston needed help.’

‘Well. We can try it,’ I said, and made a note. ‘I had a letter from Scarborough, incidentally, last week – from the agent who sold him the house.’

‘Scarborough?’

‘Scarborough, Tobago. You’ll remember Houston went there in 1958. Apparently he paid off his house staff several months ago and the place has been unoccupied ever since. It’s in a spot called Rum Bay – a fine beach and nothing much else, one of the speculators’ paradises out there. The agent has had no instructions to sell it.’

‘What is his view?’

‘He didn’t offer one.’

It had taken me long enough to find him. I had written first to the Governor of Trinidad, who had passed my letter on to his Colonial Secretary, who had sent it to the UnderSecretary for Tobago. He had in turn put me on to a Mr Joshua Gundala,
O.B.E
., who apparently lived on the island and combined the function of publisher of the weekly
Tobago
Times
with that of estate agent. It was Mr Gundala who had sold Houston the house. His letter-heading announced that he had several other choice lots to sell in Rum Bay.

‘He has no theory at all?’

‘Except that Houston must have left the island, no.’

‘Then mine is almost certainly right,’ said Mr Oliphant.

Mr Oliphant’s theory was that Houston had bought a boat and gone off in it. He had done this once before without telling anybody, and had not returned for nine months. It seemed hard for him to settle. He had lived in Switzerland, Bermuda, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad, and now Tobago. Or was it now Tobago? It was because of this doubt that I was still advertising in the Trinidad
Guardian
, which circulated widely in the Caribbean.

Under the terms of his contract, Mr Oliphant had the right to approve our choice of writer, and he came up presently with a suggestion.

‘The great thing is that we must not have either vulgarity or sensationalism. If you asked this Dr Roy something that called for a lengthy statement, you might be able to judge from his method and style how he would work out.’

‘Yes. We might.’ It was after five by this time, and we had not yet got to The List – a catalogue of queries that I had been systematically working through with him. He seemed alert enough, however. I decided to try a couple.

‘I thought we might tackle this one about the monk – the chief medical monk. I’ve got here “Did Houston ever evince any theory why the man turned traitor?”’

‘Traitor,’ Mr Oliphant said. ‘I suppose it depends which way you look at it. He was a doctor, quite a good one by all accounts, and I think the Chinese represented progress to him. He wasn’t alone, you know, in that. The greater part of the intelligentsia wanted reforms of one sort or another,
and they thought, mistakenly, that the Chinese would bring them. … Perhaps it annoyed him to know that so much money was lying about in the form of useless emeralds when the country needed real hospitals and real equipment.’

‘Yes. How could he have known how much money? You’ll remember the governor told Houston that nobody knew this except the monastery council.’

‘Ah. Well. I think the answer to that goes back to the time of the Seventeenth Body. You’ll recall she was a lady of immoderate passions, and that the abbot had an unfortunate time with her one year. He had to be carried away and was delirious for a week. The monk looked after him for that week. I expect he let something slip. … It doesn’t seem to you convincing?’ he said anxiously.

‘Oh, yes. Yes, it does,’ I said, scribbling. I suppose I must up to that time have read through the notebooks a couple of dozen times, but never, apparently with the talmudic skill that Mr Oliphant had brought to bear. A supplementary had occurred to me while he was speaking.

‘You’ll remember Houston got half a million pounds for his two bags, and was told they were worth double. That would seem to give the eight bags a total value of four million pounds.’

‘So why did the Tibetans value them at three, you mean? I’m sure I don’t know. Perhaps Houston was given wrong information. Perhaps the cost of living had gone up. I’ve never understood how they could have got them valued, anyway. Perhaps it was done simply by weight and they merely adjusted the value from time to time. No. Sorry. …’     

The agent had been fairly lavish with his wine and brandy at lunch and my head began to ache on the way back. Through Croydon there was the most enormous traffic jam, and hemmed in by Mac Fisheries vans and British Road Services lorries I had a sudden moment of panic. She-devils? Incarnations? Monastery treasure? What in God’s name had I let the firm in for? There was no Houston, no Sheila Wolferston. The nurse Michaelson had married knew nothing, the bank in Zürich would say nothing. Portugal seemed to be full of men called Da Costa, none of whom seemed anxious to reply
to our adverts. They were booked to run for weeks and weeks. … It suddenly occurred to me with what ease, with what creative ease, Mr Oliphant had answered the question about the monk.

With sudden awful conviction I knew that from beginning to end the story was a phoney; that we were never going to hear anything more of Houston. …

I had left a book at the office on which an opinion had been promised for the following day, so I had to go back to get it. Everyone had gone but I let myself in and went up. There was a letter on my desk with a note from Miss Marks. The postmark was Trinidad, and because the inquiries clerk had thought it another bill from the
Guardian
it had been sent in error to the accounts department. It wasn’t a bill. The single sheet inside bore no name and no address. It said simply:  

February and March are busy months in publishing offices and mercifully, in the press of work, there was little time to reflect on Houston and his problems. Beyond writing to Dr Shankar Lal Roy, and to Joshua Gundala, O.B.E. (quoting my correspondent and his baffling lunkies – about which neither the
O.E.D., Dictionary of Slang
, nor Colonial Office Press Section was very informative) I did nothing further about them. Paradoxically, things then began to happen.

The first was a reply from Dr Shankar Lal Roy, saying that he had himself started a dossier on the Yamdring treasure, on the basis of refugee reports obtained in 1951, and that he would be happy to help.

The second was from Joshua Gundala, O.B.E. He wrote: