ONE
Toward the end of the tenth month of the Tibetan calendar it snowed, making it feel even colder than the middle of winter. It got colder still at dusk, when thick black clouds gathered in the sky. Watching the sky over his home as he took a piss, Gendün Gyatso shivered involuntarily. He fastened his maroon-colored satin and lambskin jacket, thrust his hands inside the sleeves, and carried himself back to the camp with ponderous steps. A couple of seven-, maybe eight-year-old kids, each chewing on some roasted barley, ran over to greet him. “Akhu is here! I’ll take your bag.” Grabbing his yellow satchel, they wrestled and shoved their way inside.
With the exception of his sister-in-law, who was busy making tsampa by herself, there was no one at home. “Where’s Mom gone?” asked Gendün Gyatso.
“She went to your sister’s. She said she won’t be back for a few days.” His sister-in-law jumped up in a sudden fright. “Akhu, you look awful. Are you ill?”
When he heard these words, Gendün Gyatso’s pounding heart settled somewhat. “No, no,” he said. As he was about to sit, he heard from outside the simultaneous sounds of a neighing horse and the thud of a descending rider. “Dad’s here!” cried the children in unison, wrestling and shoving their way out the door of the adobe house. His heart started pounding again.
“Ah tsi, you look terrible. Are you sick or something?” As soon as his brother, Gobha, saw him, he virtually yelled these words at Gendün Gyatso.
“No. I’m not … sick. I … you …”
“Me? I’m back from the front line to get provisions.”
“Oh, the front … Was there an ambush?”
“Last night those bandits hit our second unit’s camp again. By the grace of the Three Jewels, there were no casualties.” Gobha moved to sit. “You really do look terrible. If you’re not sick, then what’s wrong?”
“There’s … there’s something I need to tell you …”
“Is that Gobha? Oh! And Akhu Gendün’s here too!” An elderly neighbor entered Gobha’s house, leaning on his walking stick. Both brothers rose.
“Please sit, Akhu Gendün, both of you please sit,” urged the old man, himself taking a seat. From the way he tossed his walking stick to the floor with a clatter, you’d think he would never need it again. He seemed, however, to decide that this action was excessive, so he retrieved the stick and placed it in front of him. The walking stick made him seem very old, but he was in fact just over fifty, and his hair was still mostly black. Two years ago, during a pasture feud, he’d been shot in the calf, and because he couldn’t get the wound treated right away, he’d been forced to rely on the walking stick ever since.
“Have the bandits hit again?”
“They hit our second unit’s camp again last night. By the grace of the Three Jewels, there were no casualties. A cadre and a detachment of armed police are coming from the county today. Seems like the fighting will have to stop.”
“Those bandits …” The old man impulsively pounded a fist onto his knee. A sharp pain shot up his leg, forcing an “Ow ow!” from his mouth. “Isn’t there anything you can do to hit them back?” he asked, after a moment had passed.
“If they’re not attacking, then that’s a good thing. How can we attack them? We move about in the trenches all hunched over; if you peek your head over the top even a little bit, a thousand guns go off at once, like peas popping in a pan! You know all too well how good the bandits’ weapons are.” This last comment stirred in the old man feelings of terror, anguish, and hatred all at the same time. He bit his lip and fell silent. Gobha continued, “We’re on the high ground, but apart from the slight advantage of terrain we’ve got nothing. Winter’s coming, and the wind on the mountaintop is unbearable. Forget about fighting back—the men won’t even be able to stand on their own two feet when that cold comes. We’re in a real tight spot.”
“Ah—it’s not your fault. But those bandits have killed so many of our men. Even if we can’t take revenge, we can’t give them an inch of ground! If my leg wasn’t like this, I’d throw these old bones into battle again! But without a penny, this is what happens …”
“How much are the yaks and sheep worth now?”
“Barely anything.”
“Eh—well anyhow, if we don’t sell some, we won’t even be able to afford bullets.”
“Oh, yeah—I’ve still got a few here. Take them. Kill a few of their men and horses. Even if you can’t get revenge for your dad, you can put the fear into those bandits. I heard a Muslim came to Spearhead Gönpo’s place selling guns and ammo for cheap. Where is Alak Drong now?” The old man suddenly turned to Gendün Gyatso. “It’s your good karma that you monks don’t have to lay eyes on the battlefield. It’s no different from hell. If you hadn’t taken your vows, you’d be out there now, feeling the terror and the pain—who knows, you might not even be alive. Ah tsi, our handsome monk is looking the worse for wear, is he unwell?”
Gendün Gyatso was a man with perfectly proportioned features. He had sleek black hair and a fair complexion. Just like in the Tibetan ode to Yangchen Lhamo, if you looked for a single fault on him, you’d simply be wasting your time. People called him “the handsome monk.” His fellow monks had even said that, as he possessed the thirty-two auspicious marks and the eighty excellent signs of the Buddha, he must be the reincarnation of a great lama, and they entreated him to give them his blessing. These latter remarks might have been poking fun, but no one could deny the truth of the former. The women of Tsezhung joked about this topic in private: “If I could get Akhu Gendün to break his vows with me, spending the next life burning on the copper horse would be a small price to pay!” After everyone had had a good laugh, a penance would be added: “Ah la, only kidding, om Vajrasattva.” When Gendün Gyatso was just six or seven years old, a lama visited his family. As soon as he saw Gendün Gyatso, he exclaimed in surprise. “Ah tsi ah tsi, what a remarkable boy! You must keep this child clean and healthy.… Mmm … it would be best if you have him enter the monkhood,” he said, patting the boy’s head. His father was overjoyed and before long sent him off to take his vows, but at no point had Gendün Gyatso displayed any remarkable characteristics. In any case, his handsome appearance and gentle character made up for the fact that he wasn’t all that bright or hard-working, and he remained the object of people’s desire and esteem.
Compared with those days, Gendün Gyatso really wasn’t looking so good now. The most obvious change was in his face, which had completely lost its former luster. It had become ashen and gloomy, like that of a man in very poor health. And the conversation his brother had had with that damn neighbor had heaped fresh suffering on his suffering, and fresh terror on his terror. He tried to get his emotions under control and calm himself down, but as soon as he stopped concentrating on it he began hyperventilating. That night he couldn’t get to sleep at all, and the next day he looked even worse. “You really do look terrible,” his brother said. “Go and see Alak Drong, or a doctor. There’s definitely something wrong.” He stuffed some money into his hand and left.
Gendün Gyatso put a hand to his face, then set out after his brother, who was already astride his horse.
“Oh, right,” said his brother, suddenly reining in his mount. “Wasn’t there something you wanted to tell me?”
Gendün Gyatso’s heart almost leaped into his throat, and he felt like he could barely breathe. “I … I mean … you … you should … be careful, be on your guard,” he said, swallowing repeatedly.
“That’s it?”
“No, I mean, yes, ah … that’s it.”
“Don’t worry yourself.”
As he watched his brother ride away, Gendün Gyatso thought, It’s best to just get it over with, like pulling a tooth—do it in one go. Worse comes to worst, I’d get a crack of his whip. And maybe I’d be feeling a bit better right now if I’d done it. He sighed, regretting that he hadn’t dared tell his brother what was really on his mind.
TWO
At dusk, Gendün Gyatso returned to the county seat. Wrapping his robe around his head, he wandered the streets aimlessly. That morning he’d eaten a simple breakfast, and though he hadn’t had a bite to eat for lunch or dinner, he didn’t feel hungry at all. When darkness fell, he found himself wandering unconsciously back into the Red Lantern Bar. Alcohol can relieve your troubles, they say, so maybe a drink would help.
A young woman came over and sat beside him. “You’re still wearing your monk’s robes,” she whispered.
“Go away. Bring me a beer.”
The woman stood up, shocked. A moment later she sat again. “If you want to drink, you can come to my place.”
Gendün Gyatso had no desire whatsoever to return to the woman’s place, so he rose and walked out the door. When he came back to the bar some two or three hours later, he was more or less drunk. Not only had the alcohol failed to ease his pain, it had aroused in him a strong desire to be with the woman again. In fact, even in the midst of the intense anguish and fear of the last few days, he hadn’t been able to put her out of his mind. Sometimes he hated the woman, sometimes he loved her. In the end, he himself couldn’t say for sure; all he knew was that he had an irrepressible desire to be with her. The woman really seemed to like him too. At the start she’d told him, quite candidly, “As a woman doing a job like this, I go with whoever pays me, but I’ve never met a man as handsome as you before. To tell you the truth, I really like you. But I’ve never made a monk break his vows, and there’s no way I’m starting now. It looks to me like you’re no ordinary monk. I think it’d be best if you just forgot all about this kind of thing.”
At that moment Gendün Gyatso had been overcome by a wave of desire, his sole wish being to bed the woman on the spot. Even if he’d had to die and go to hell as soon as he’d had her, it would have been worth it. “I already gave up my vows,” he’d lied.
“Then what are you doing still wearing monk’s robes?”
“I only gave them up yesterday. I don’t have any other clothes right now. I’m planning to go home and get my lay clothes tomorrow.”
“Why don’t you get some Chinese clothes? Aren’t a lot of former monks wearing Chinese clothes these days?”
“I’ve never worn Chinese clothes in my life, and I don’t intend to wear them now. Stop delaying.”
The woman had point-blank refused the money he’d offered, and Gendün Gyatso had felt moved. “A pretty, nice girl like you shouldn’t be working in a place like this. I hope you find yourself a husband and get on the right track,” he’d said then, and meant it.
“A girl who’s done this job can never find a husband, especially a good one,” she’d said with a sigh.
“A monk and a prostitute. Aren’t we the perfect match?” He’d then told her a true story about a monk from his monastery who went back to lay life. After giving up his vows, he married a prostitute, and they even had children.
“You’re making fun of me.”
Even he hadn’t known if he was kidding or being serious. Either way, he would have to return home the next day and get back into his fur jacket—there was no avoiding that. But he had gradually begun to feel a profound sense of regret, mostly because he hadn’t considered that shedding his monk’s robes meant he would have to go to the front line, where the most he had to look forward to was seeking revenge for his father. Ever since he was a child he’d been used to the warmth of the monks’ quarters. Even when he returned to the family tent he lay in bed miserably, unable to stand the cold. If there was one thing more unbearable to him than fighting, it was sitting on a mountaintop thirteen thousand feet above sea level, getting blasted by freezing winds. What’s more, even when the fighting was over, he’d still have to be out in the wind and the rain tending the cattle. He’d have to stalk about like a wolf just for the sake of keeping his belly full—this, like the breaking of his vows, was already a fact. When you think of it like that, how you can say all those clever people who leave their homes and renounce worldly affairs to pursue a life of solitude are doing it just for the welfare of sentient beings? And those soldiers who flee the battlefield and face disdain and ridicule, and then the next damn life …
“Ah kha, what an idiot I am!” Gendün Gyatso had been tormented with regret. “Demon, you wicked demon, look what you’ve done to me …” He’d wept bitterly, striking himself in the chest over and over.
“Didn’t you say you already gave up your vows?”
“I was lying to you. I was lying to myself.”
“Ah ho, you’ve ruined me! What will I do in the next life!?”
“Prostitutes don’t have anything to look forward to in the next life anyway. You’ll be spending the next life knee-deep in shit, piss, pus, and blood.”
The woman didn’t get mad, she’d simply cried and leaned her head against Gendün Gyatso. “I have no regrets. I have no regrets.”
“Me neither.” Gendün Gyatso had put his arm around her neck. These weren’t just words, either. It was too late now anyway, he’d thought, there was no use in having regrets. He was by no means the only one to forsake his vows, and what’s more, this woman was a real beauty—the most beautiful thing in the world is a woman, after all. Haven’t plenty of people given up their lives for the sake of a woman? Despite this, it wasn’t long before he felt regret again, and it came most notably whenever he sobered up—What have I done? he would chastise himself. Soon after that, the unstoppable regret and fear came back, so he kept drinking, trying his best to forget it all.
THREE
There’s a new saying: “Most men are called Tashi, and most Tashis are businessmen; most women are called Lhamo, and most Lhamos are prostitutes.” But the name of the woman Gendün Gyatso was in love with wasn’t Lhamo, it was Lhatso. Lhatso rented a small room behind the Red Lantern Bar. Half of the room was taken up by a large bed, at the head of which was a cupboard. In addition to some makeup, the cupboard contained a yellow book called The Lineage of Nyizer Monastery. The book was distinctly out of place in that room, and it piqued Gendün Gyatso’s curiosity. He asked Lhatso where it came from.
“A client left it here by accident a few days ago. Said he was a tourist. I was going to throw it out, but it’s full of pictures of lamas and the monastery, so I kept it.”
Though the room looked very clean, it had a foul odor. Gendün Gyatso suspected that it might be the smell of semen. He lit incense again and again, but the smell proved hard to get rid of. For that reason, he spent less and less time in the little room and began to roam between other bars, clubs, and especially video stores. Though those places too had their share of pretty “Lhamos,” in his eyes none of them was as pretty or as kindhearted as Lhatso. Every evening, when he finished his drifting, he ended up back at Lhatso’s, and he was usually drunk. At first he cursed her, calling her a “black-hearted woman” and an “evil woman,” then he cried and struck himself in the chest with his fist. I can’t go on like this … what’s the point of living … he thought sometimes, and even considered suicide.
“If you want to die, do it somewhere else,” said Lhatso, at the end of her tether. Then she held him. “Please, don’t torture yourself like this. You’re not the only one to break his vows. Even lamas break their vows, never mind ordinary monks. They don’t have any regrets, so why should you? Get rid of your robes and give up the drink. We can open up a little store or a guesthouse together.” She tried to console him with these and other heartfelt words.
“No, no, you know nothing! If I give up my robes I’ll be forced to get a gun and go to the front line, and the man who killed my father is there, so I’ll have to be out in front, and those bandits have the better weapons … oh—you know nothing …”
“So … it’s like that.”
“It’s like that. I’m not just a fallen monk, I’m a coward too. Now you know.”
“Then … why don’t we go to my hometown?”
“Didn’t you say you’re from Chukar County?”
“Yes.”
“Haha—that’s exactly where the man who killed my father is. They’re still fighting with our camp now.”
“Oh … I see. Then why don’t we go somewhere else?”
Gendün Gyatso shook his head, not wanting to talk anymore, and went to sleep.
Every morning, Gendün Gyatso read The Lineage of Nyizer Monastery in bed, both to forget his troubles and to pass the day. The book documented a lineage of abbots from a Nyingma monastery in Kham. The photos of Nyizer Tsang, the great lama in charge of the monastery, looked just like him. Nyizer Tsang had died at the age of twenty-five, which, counting back from now, was twenty-five years ago—the year before Gendün Gyatso was born. The book said that the huge boulder into which he drove a ritual dagger was now the monastery’s most precious religious artifact.
Though the features of the handsome monk Gendün Gyatso had lost their former luster, his sleek, black hair had grown long, and anyone who saw him still felt that he was something special. When he was playing pool or watching a dirty movie at the video place, or whenever he was drunk, he always attracted a lot of attention. For that reason he didn’t want to go out anymore, and he kept swearing to himself that he wouldn’t. Nevertheless, spending day and night in Lhatso’s tiny, semen-stinking room was, to him, no different from being in prison. “They say samsara is the prison of demons—how true,” he finally said to himself, and walked out the door. First he went to a pool courtyard—one of his old haunts from before he broke his vows. Hardly anyone in the little county seat was a match for him now, so he didn’t even have to waste any money. He didn’t give his opponent the slightest chance, and his mood lifted with the ringing clack of each potted ball. But soon a crowd of people gathered around him, staring in wonder. Feeling deeply uncomfortable, he quit his game, and wrapping his robe up over his head left the courtyard. When he was drunk, however, he was never so cautious. He staggered about like the flame of a butter lamp in the wind, sometimes treading on his trailing robe and sending himself head over heels, after which he lay there, crawling about and rambling incomprehensibly. Sometimes he stuffed his fingers into his mouth, trying to make himself throw up. If not that, he moaned pitifully, or just lay flat on his back and passed out. If people gathered around to stare at him, he rolled about on the ground, shouting, “What are you looking at? We’re all people! Am I the only monk who drinks? Am I the only monk who’s broken his vows? Ya, hic … Alak Drong smokes, and drinks, and he’s got a wife, and a kid, hic … and he’s still wearing the crown of the five Buddhas, and giving empowerments and transmissions and instructions! Ah, hic … you want to see a show, go see that! Ah … go on, go!” With that he flailed his arms, shooing them off.
“What a disgrace, what a fraud!” “Outrageous, absolutely outrageous,” “I swear on the Kangyur, if he wasn’t wearing monk’s robes, I’d sort him out”—the crowd cursed him with indignant oaths.
Luckily, Lhatso came running over at just that moment. She heaved Gendün Gyatso into her rented motor trike, got him home, and laid him on the bed. Not only did she clean the vomit off his clothes, she shook the dirt out of them too. His ice-cold heart was thawed by the warm tenderness of a woman, and he burst into tears. “Let’s get married, we have to get married!” he blurted out.
Lhatso was used to hearing such things. “Go to sleep. We’ll talk about marriage when you sober up,” she said.
In the morning, when Gendün Gyatso had sobered up, the foul odor of semen again drifted into his nostrils, and all talk of marriage was dropped. Feeling ashamed of his embarrassing behavior the night before, he leafed through the pages of The Lineage of Nyizer Monastery. He more or less knew the slim volume by heart now and had no desire to read it in detail. He breathed a long sigh and finally got out of bed.
FOUR
The weather grew colder by the day, and now it was freezing even at noon. Sometimes a wind blew in from who knows where and tossed the white plastic trash discarded on the streets to and fro.
A young nomad who was revving the engine of his motorbike and charging aimlessly up and down the street suddenly collided with a pig, sending the bike skidding off a good ten paces. The rider, after flying five or six paces into the air, landed on the back of another pig that at that moment just happened to emerge from underneath the toilets. Happily, the man was unhurt and the bike undamaged, but the young man now smelled as unbearably awful as the pig he’d just hit. The onlookers, covering their noses with their hands, backed off as they burst into laughter.
Gendün Gyatso too chuckled to himself as he watched this spectacle. That was the first time he’d broken into a smile since forsaking his vows. Unfortunately, it only lasted for a moment, as a group of young monks—their robes wrapped over their heads, revealing only their eyes—was scrutinizing him suspiciously.
Since it was the cold season and the weather was so bad, Gendün Gyatso decided not to go to the pool courtyard and went straight into a bar instead. The monks who were tailing him didn’t come into the bar but went to a restaurant across the road, where they looked in his direction through the window.
When Gendün Gyatso staggered out the door it was almost five in the morning. There was a fierce wind blowing and hardly anyone was around. The monks who had been watching him wrapped their robes over their heads, exited the restaurant, and blocked his path. “Akhu, your robe has fallen on the floor,” said one of the monks as he picked up a corner of the robe and wrapped it over Gendün Gyatso’s head, covering his face.
The bewildered Gendün Gyatso wanted to remove the robe from his eyes, but someone had his hands in a tight grip and he was unable to move. He hadn’t a clue what was going on, and before he had the chance to react he was being dragged in an unknown direction. He shouted and screamed, but his voice was so inaudible in the harsh wind that he could barely hear it himself. He struggled as hard as he could, but the men holding him from either side were as firm as mountains, and he wasn’t able to move them an inch.
The night before he had had a dream. Several monks took him by force to a large assembly hall, or maybe the residence of Alak Drong. They savagely stripped off his clothes, leaving him naked. Using a wooden spoon, Alak Drong inspected his genitals at great length, and finally, letting out a laugh, proclaimed, “He hasn’t broken his vows!”
The monks released him at once, and with exceptional reverence, begged his pardon as they re-dressed him.
He was overcome with joy and was so moved that he wept. Realizing that he really hadn’t broken his vows, he became even more overjoyed. But he didn’t want to leave Lhatso, so he hugged her tightly. This had woken her up, and she’d shouted in order to wake him. He’d been feverish and dripping with sweat, and had once more fallen into the abyss of suffering.
He’d been having so many dreams like this lately. Was this a dream too? Or had the Lord of Death’s messengers already brought him to the next life? No, no, he thought once more, even if I can’t see it, I’m still in the human world, for sure. Maybe someone’s playing a joke on me? At that moment they stopped, and someone said to him, “Hey—people break their vows, but who keeps on wearing monk’s robes after they do? Why are you still dressed like a monk?”
The wind must have calmed down all of a sudden, as he could hear everything distinctly.
A man whose voice sounded just like that of a woman seized him by the scruff of the neck. “What is the meaning of defiling the robes of the Buddhist order like this? Have you got some kind of problem with Buddhist robes?”
Gendün Gyatso, now even more convinced that this was neither a dream nor the afterlife, wanted to say something, but his assailant now grabbed him by the throat. “You bastard, badmouthing Alak Drong! Let’s see you get out of this!” With that the man punched him in the face. White, red, and yellow filled his vision all at once, and he tasted blood in his mouth.
“You still dare to slander Alak Drong now, huh?” said someone else as he punched him fiercely in the solar plexus. His whole body turned to jelly and he collapsed helplessly on the ground, feeling like his guts had been shredded.
“Take this, you fraud!” With a crack, a hard object connected with the back of Gendün Gyatso’s head, and he passed out.
Although it was completely dark by the time Gendün Gyatso regained consciousness, he could tell by the faint moonlight that he was in a narrow alleyway. He felt cold, his head ached, he was thirsty, and his mouth tasted of blood. After a moment, he touched his hand to his head, and it came back covered in something wet and sticky—blood, of course—and he panicked. Mustering all his strength, he tried to get up, but his head felt even heavier than his body. In the end, his limbs unable to support him, he slumped back on the ground. He touched his hand to his head again. Blood was still trickling down the back of his neck from a wound the size of two fingers put together, causing him even greater alarm.
Going to the front line can’t be any worse than this. I ought to just get rid of these robes now, thought Gendün Gyatso as he pressed his forehead to the ground and lay there moaning in pain. Hearing the sound of footsteps, he raised his head slightly with the aid of his hands. As the footsteps approached the beam of a flashlight fell on him, and a man cried out, “Ah tsi! Someone’s collapsed here!”
“Ah tsi ah tsi, it’s a monk!” yelled the voice of a woman.
Gendün Gyatso told them that he’d been robbed and asked them to call a motor trike for him. Not only did they call one, they wanted to accompany him to the hospital as well, but he declined.
After they set off, Gendün Gyatso said to the trike driver, “Take me to the Red Lantern Bar.”
“What? That’s no place for a monk. I think you should go to the hospital.”
“Just do what I said.”
FIVE
Gendün Gyatso put on the Chinese clothes that Lhatso had bought for him and combed his hair, and he looked just as handsome as when he was a monk. But the pain in his head refused to go away, and sometimes he felt so dizzy he almost collapsed. Lhatso, helping to support him, took him to the hospital.
When they got to the hospital yard there were a lot more people than usual. Some were crying, some were standing in a daze, and some were pursuing the doctors who were rushing back and forth. Gendün Gyatso paid no attention to these people. Keeping his head lowered like a thief, he crept into the outpatient department. There were people lying left and right on the floor of the corridor, moaning horribly. An old man had been shot in the right side of his chest, and as he breathed red bubbles were sucked in and blown out of the hole. Near him was a man of about twenty with a wound bursting out of his left shoulder, like a blooming flower. The frozen hell where human beings split open like lotuses must be precisely like this, Gendün Gyatso thought. “Blessed Three Jewels,” he murmured. This was the first prayer he had uttered since breaking his vows. A man with a belt bound around his head shivered fearfully and took a few gulps of air, as though he’d suddenly plunged into a freezing pool of water in the middle of winter, then fell still. The man who’d been holding his head in his lap shook him, calling out, “Sangbha, Sangbha,” then, raising his voice, began to shout, “Doctor! Ah ho! Doctor! Where’s the doctor? Doc—tor—,” but no one answered him. He leaned the man—or rather, corpse—against a wall, and after rushing from room to room finally managed to track down a doctor, whom he dragged over forcibly. The doctor, without removing his left hand from the pocket of his lab coat, used the thumb and index finger of his right hand to open the eyes of the man—whose head had by now slumped onto his shoulder—and gave him a quick glance. He put his fingers briefly to the man’s neck and said, “He’s gone.”
The man seized the doctor. “What do you mean?” he cried, wide-eyed.
“He’s gone. Stopped breathing.”
The man slowly released the doctor and, as though he had suddenly thought of something, began to shout, “Friends! Friends! Where is Alak Drong? Where is Alak Drong?,” but no one answered him. Then a man whose voice sounded just like that of a woman ran over, crying, “Doctor! Doctor! Come quick!” as he pulled and tugged at the doctor’s sleeve. The man’s unusual voice stirred something in Gendün Gyatso’s memory. When he looked closely he discovered, as if awaking from a dream, that those people were in fact all from his camp. The man who had just died with his head slumped on his shoulder was Sanggyé Kyab, the boy who used to tend cattle with him when they were children.
Gendün Gyatso suddenly remembered his brother and began rushing madly about. The doctor from before was now in the middle of giving oxygen to a wounded man. The man was lying face up on a stretcher. As he was covered by a woolen coat, his wound couldn’t be seen, but the whites of his rolled-back eyeballs were visible, and a coarse, drawn-out grunt was coming from his throat, just like that made by a cow when a Muslim butcher slits its throat.
Gendün Gyatso said another prayer, then continued to search each and every corridor and room. Much to his relief, not only was there no sign of his brother Gobha, he didn’t find any of his other relatives either. He thought about checking whether anyone else had been wounded, but recalling his own circumstances, he decided this wasn’t a place he should linger in and beat a hasty exit through the hospital doors. Outside, he let out a deep breath and finally slowed his pace.
“What’s going on?” demanded a terrified Lhatso, planting herself in front of Gendün Gyatso.
“This is the work of your Chukar County.”
“Blessed Jetsün Drölma!”
“If they find out you’re from Chukar County, they’ll skin you alive.”
“And who could blame them? I’m scared.”
“I’m scared too. Really scared.”
“These pasture feuds are so horrible.”
“I guess this is what they call the cycle of samsara.”
After he’d received that beating, Gendün Gyatso had vowed that he would shed his monk’s robes and give up the drink. I may have broken my vows, he’d thought, but it’s not right to defile the Buddhist garments, and I’d have fewer regrets going to the front line than living like this—neither monk nor layman, neither man nor demon. So he’d removed his robes. But after he witnessed the terrifying scenes at the hospital, his courage again vanished. As soon as he got to Lhatso’s place, he put his robes back on. Anxious about his brother and his family and disgusted by his own behavior, his mind was beset as though by a storm and he couldn’t calm down. Eventually, he called to Lhatso and asked her to go get him some beer.
“Shouldn’t you not be drinking? And we don’t have much money left, either.”
Gendün Gyatso knew that since Lhatso had met him she had of her own accord cut off all contact with other men, and she paid for the rent, the food, and moreover his booze and his clothes. With this in mind, he heaved a sigh. “You’re right. That damn money …”
Lhatso seemingly wanted to give him some comfort. “Oh, well, there’s still enough to buy a bit of beer. I’ll go get some,” she said, rising to leave.
“No, no, I don’t want any now. And I won’t drink in the future either. Promise.”
SIX
Without his realizing it, the smell of semen completely disappeared, and he developed a sense of familiarity with and attachment to the room as if it were his own home.
As it happened, the cadre with a face whiter than paper, who came almost every week to the Red Lantern Bar and stayed there for free, was a policeman. At midday he came to the Red Lantern Bar in full policeman’s uniform and whispered a few words into the ear of the woman who owned the place. After he left, the owner gathered all of the “Lhamos” and announced, “The police are going to raid us tonight. Be careful, and only standard services—no entertaining clients.” This forced Gendün Gyatso to go spend the night in a hotel.
When we Tibetans go to the city, the hotels put us all in the same room, and in the same way, the hotels in this county seat put monks in the same room. The room that Gendün Gyatso was put into contained two old monks. They said they were from Kham.
“Have you ever been to Nyizer Monastery?” asked Gendün Gyatso idly.
“We are from Nyizer Monastery, as it happens.”
Gendün Gyatso became immediately enthused. “Oh! Tell me, is the boulder that Nyizer Tsang drove a ritual dagger into still there?”
One of the old monks leaped up all of a sudden, and whispered to his colleague, “Hey, look closely. He …” Turning back to Gendün Gyatso, he asked, “Have you ever been to Nyizer Monastery, sir?”
“No.”
“May we inquire as to your age, sir?”
“I’m twenty-five.”
The two old monks sat there agape, now glancing at each other, now staring at Gendün Gyatso. “You …” said Gendün Gyatso, feeling somewhat uncomfortable. The two monks returned to their senses. One of them began to frantically search through his backpack, and after some time retrieved a photograph. He brought it over to Gendün Gyatso with extreme care.
Gendün Gyatso took a look at the photo and said, “Yes, that’s Nyizer Tsang.”
The two old monks gawked at each other and fell completely silent. After a moment the elder of the two began to babble incoherently, and upon failing to express anything resembling a point, awkwardly wiped the sweat dripping down his brow and the tip of his nose, after which he continued to babble even more incoherently than before. The other, slightly younger monk cut him off and got straight to the point. “Would it be acceptable if we looked at the back of your head, sir?” he asked.
Gendün Gyatso wondered if he had fallen into one of those unpleasant illusions or dreams again. He unconsciously felt the scar on the back of his head and stared in amazement at the two monks sitting before him, one after the other.
“Um … speaking plainly, the Nyizer incarnations all have a dragon pattern on the back of their heads.”
Gendün Gyatso felt the back of his head again, understanding everything clearly now. But strangely, he suddenly became even more flustered than the two old monks. “No, no, it’s not a dragon pattern!” he cried, jumping to his feet.
The two old monks nodded to each other and pounced on Gendün Gyatso like madmen. He wailed in anguish and struggled as hard as he could, but he fell into their grasp as if bound by the noose of the Dharma protectors. After they had taken a look at the back of his head, they suddenly let him go. “Well, there’s no doubt now,” said one to the other.
“Lamas, yidams, dakinis, and Dharma protectors! Our task is finally complete.” The slightly younger of the two monks prostrated to Gendün Gyatso three times, and as his head touched Gendün Gyatso’s feet, he wept tears of joy.
The elder monk too prostrated three times, then placed a stack of money on top of a khata and brought it before Gendün Gyatso, who became even more flustered and terrified. “No, no, you’ve made a mistake! I’m not a trülku, it’s not possible!” he yelped. He went so far as to tell them, quite plainly, that he wasn’t even a genuine monk. The two old monks didn’t hear a word he said; instead they began to tell him about how before his death the previous Nyizer incarnation had composed a final testament, which clearly stated that there was no need to look for his reincarnation for twenty-five years, that his reincarnation would then be twenty-five years old, where they should search, and so on. “Please, don’t talk like that anymore,” they said. “Please come back to your monastery at once.”
Gendün Gyatso had no idea how to explain the situation to them, and it looked like the two monks were so insistent that they wouldn’t give him the chance to do so anyway. “Why don’t you get up? We’ll talk about this later,” he said with resignation, making them sit back on the bed. “I’ve got a wife,” he added with a sigh.
The two monks took one look at each other and, almost in unison, replied, “The Nyizer incarnations have always had consorts.”
“But my wife is a … and I’m a drunk too.”
“The Nyizer incarnations have always partaken of the elixirs.”
Gendün Gyatso’s mind was in turmoil. What’s going on? he thought. Is this all just a coincidence? All of a sudden he thought of Lhatso and felt an irrepressible urge to see her. Hitching up his cassock, he bolted out the door and tore off. The two old monks went after him like cops chasing a criminal.
A crowd had gathered at the doorway of the Red Lantern Bar. Two policemen roughly shoved Lhatso into their car, then sped off to the piercing blare of the siren.
Gendün Gyatso stared after the police car, stupefied.
That day was the coldest of the year in the county seat. On the mountain peaks thirteen thousand feet above sea level, it was probably even colder.