As the Tibetan grasslands turned green, the festival of the mountain gods drew a crowd of villagers, all bestowing offerings of food to the deities. They gathered by the ndekheng, the village shrine, women on the left, men to the right, to burn conifer branches in the sangkong furnace. Dancers beat rectangular goatskin drums and swayed in circles, entreating the heavens to grant a bountiful harvest. And in the centre of it all the lhawa, the trance medium, spoke in garbled tongues, exorcising the soil of evil, as his male disciples pierced their cheeks with long metal needles.
Not far away, assembled under the shade of a tree, Sum Sum and her fellow novices sat at Jampa’s feet. Wild flowers grew everywhere, pale green shoots pushing up through the dry earth. They were in the middle of a lesson on the sacred Ayurvedic texts.
‘‘Caterpillar Fungus,’’ Jampa expatiated. ‘‘We use its flesh to strengthen the body’s immunity and to regulate blood pressure.’’ She removed something from the lining of her robes and made a click-clack noise with her tongue. ‘‘Ndug’re, here we have a piece of Indian Snakeroot. You identify it by its lush green leafage and black berries but the part we use is the root. The story goes that a man from Burma watched a mahout feeding this root to his uptight elephants to pacify them. Now it is used as a hypertension drug in the West.’’
Sum Sum had heard much of this all before. Her mother had been a ‘tip-top medicine woman’. Listening to prayer hall manager Jampa drone on about indigenous herbs and their role in medical science was like listening to the ticking of an old clock with the pendulum oscillating lazily from side to side. It was lulling her to sleep. She felt her eyelids droop and her jaw muscles tweak.
Her boredom must have registered on her face because Jampa called out her name, ‘‘Sengemo!’’ she commanded with a smile that could eat through steel wool. ‘‘Will you kindly summarise what I just said.’’
Taken aback, Sum Sum blinked. She hadn’t been expecting a question. Unnerved and a little embarrassed, she recovered by mumbling something about an elephant.
Without giving her a chance to expand, Jampa thrust her right hand under Sum Sum’s nose. ‘‘Smell that?’’
Drawing everyone’s attention to the bit of dried tuber in her hand she began to bay. ‘‘Snakeroot,’’ Jampa bellowed in the manner of a lunatic reciting her mathematics tables. ‘‘Known in Sanskrit as chandrika. Treats hypertension. High-blood pressure. Lowers fevers. Harmful to women during pregnancy. Also used as antidote to the bites of venomous snakes.’’ She glared at Sum Sum. ‘‘Sadly, it does not help to concentrate the mind. And don’t sulk, Sengemo, it ruins your face.’’
It was turning out to be a bad day. Only that morning Sum Sum had been scolded by the caretaker of the temple for startling the reclusive abbess. The abbess had been seated at a bench that overlooked the valley, enjoying a sense of calm. She was singing a quiet, rambling mantra to herself, a hundred-syllable hymn. Nobody was to disturb her. The dawn air was fresh and cooling; there were birds twittering in the trees. She was halfway through the Vajrasattva yik gya when Sum Sum, without waiting for permission, promptly sat down by her side.
‘‘Ai-yoo, beautiful sunrise, no? They call me Sengemo. What’s your name?’’
Sum Sum had barely perched herself on the bench when the tsampa really hit the fan. The caretaker of the temple rushed out from the shadows with her finger wagging and her robes flapping. ‘‘What in the name of Moggul and Trazil do you think you are doing?’’ she hissed like a wounded adder. ‘‘Leave Her Reverence alone! This is her quiet time! Away! Away!’’
The abbess glared at Sum Sum, eyes fixed like twin cannonballs. ‘‘Give her fifty lines of the Tengyur to copy out.’’
How was I to know she was the abbess? Sum Sum complained to herself over breakfast. It’s not as if she wears a brass nameplate on her chest. She peered at the shaven-headed septuagenarians slouching over their bowls at high table. Everyone here over the age of fifty looks alike, lah!
‘‘Country Mallow, Giloy, Bitter Oleander, Night Jasmine, Khas-khas,’’ Jampa’s voice broke into her thoughts. Sum Sum was back under the shade of the tree once more. ‘‘Indian Pennywort, Senna, Wild Indigo.’’ Jampa rattled the names off with a crash, thud, bang, like a frenzied woodchopper. ‘‘Even the petals of the Hibiscus flower are used in our medicines. Can anyone tell me how we use the Hibiscus?’’
A fat little novice raised her hand. She had a round face and the traces of a moustache. Sum Sum thought she could have easily played Oliver Hardy onstage.
‘‘I know all about Hibiscus,’’ she said in a shrill voice. ‘‘My grandmother used them for treating her carbuncles.’’
‘‘Ndug’re! Very good. Yes, beat the flowers into a paste and use as a poultice over the swelling.’’
‘‘What about you, Tormam, what do you know of Hibiscus?’’
Everyone looked over at the shy person sitting near the back. Sum Sum immediately recognized her as the young woman who slept beside her in the dormitory. On hearing her name, Tormam blushed and stuttered. ‘‘I … it … it can be used to heal … the leaves can be crushed and mixed with water … to help problems with the passage of urine.’’
‘‘Ndug’re!’’ beamed Jampa.
Just then they all heard the sound of an aircraft overhead.
‘‘Iron bird!’’ someone shouted. A small black speck moved slowly across the bright, white clouds.
‘‘Come,’’ said Jampa. ‘‘Let us go now in search of Yarchagumba.’’
Yarchagumba was a fungus that grew on the heads of caterpillars. The ancient Tibetans knew it as the ‘herb of life’ and believed it had the power to cure headaches, respiratory ailments and impotency. Once a week, during the summer months, the novices were instructed to enter the Sera Valley and fill five baskets with it.
The women traipsed off into the meadows in search of the larvae. Flies followed them and buzzed about their faces. They descended the steep valley and came to a pasture with moist ground. Here they crouched and began sifting through the dirt with their hands. All around them were the mountains. The wind blew sheets of white powder from the top of the peaks.
‘‘Found one!’’ cried Sum Sum. She held aloft a dead caterpillar. The fungus visibly sprouted from the top of the creature’s head like a set of horns. Tormam came over with a basket. Together they raked the ground for over an hour, pushing their fingers into the soil, occasionally pulling out a scaly-skinned insect.
At noon the sound of another passing aircraft distracted them. Sum Sum squinted and looked up. She saw the iron bird falling from the sky, half-rolling and then diving.
Moments later they all heard a crash. There was a clatter of steel against steel and the thud shook the ground. Jampa paled visibly; Sum Sum jumped. It felt as if someone had thrown a large sack of rice at her feet. Before anyone else could react, Sum Sum and Tormam were racing across the valley floor towards the downed plane.
It was a C-87 and it had crash-landed in an area of countryside devoid of trees and people. Sum Sum saw a long black trail gouged in the fresh grass and the metal fuselage shining in the sun two hundred metres away. The starboard wing was missing and there was damage to the tail; the closer she got the more she feared the plane would catch fire.
Sum Sum felt Tormam’s hand on her arm. ‘‘The men in the plane. Will they be dead?’’ asked Tormam. ‘‘I’m scared to see the blood.’’
‘‘We must try to help them. If you see blood just imagine it’s strawberry jam.’’
Tormam looked nonplussed. ‘‘What is this strawberry jam?’’
Parts of the engine were hissing. It sounded like gas escaping from a radiator. Sum Sum climbed up onto the main body of the aircraft. She tried to slide back the cockpit hood but it was jammed. She rubbed frost off the surface of the window and peered through the glass.
The crew sat upright in their seats. Their faces were hidden by their goggles and breathing masks. Not one of them moved. They looked asleep.
By now, the others had arrived. Most of the initiates, together with prayer hall manager Jampa, simply stood there, clutching the skirts of their robes, unsure how to proceed.
‘‘Fetch me a large stone,’’ ordered Sum Sum.
Someone reached over and handed her a tapered rock the size of a bitter melon. Shielding her eyes, Sum Sum smashed the glass of the cockpit and removed the splintered debris. The three-man crew remained in their seats, strapped in tight. The pilot was in his flying suit. His gloved hands still grasped fast upon the stick.
Sum Sum crawled into the cockpit. One by one, she placed her fingertips on each man’s neck. She took a deep breath. It confirmed what she’d already suspected – the crewmen were all dead.
There was no blood. No arms or legs were twisted into knotted shapes. They’d either died from the impact or from oxygen deprivation.
One of the other novices climbed into the compartment before Sum Sum could stop her. Entranced, she began to fiddle with the pilot’s buckles, trying to undo the straps. When that failed she placed a hand on the throttle, then started to twiddle with a reflector light. She played with a trigger and flicked a red button from safe to fire.
‘‘Stop that!’’ Sum Sum commanded.
Other novices peered through the cockpit entrance now. Rather than look at the dead crewmen, they reached in and fingered the displays by the instrument panel. Hands tapped against the oil pressure gauge. Thumbs pressed the rev counter, the altimeter, the oxygen and petrol dials.
‘‘Stop it!’’ cried Sum Sum.
‘‘Who made you the abbess?’’ protested the Oliver Hardy lookalike in a shrill voice.
‘‘There may be bombs aboard. What you want to do, blow us all up?’’
When all the novices scurried away, Jampa’s face appeared at the cockpit roof. ‘‘Are they Americans?’’ she asked, panting.
Sum Sum nodded. ‘‘Yes, look, here are the eagle wings on his chest. And see, lah? It says USAAF on the flight suits.’’
‘‘But the war with Japan is over. The Dalai Lama announced it Himself. The Japanese surrendered. Why are these planes still flying? Why do they keep airlifting weapons over the Himalayas?’’
Sum Sum spotted a paper dossier by the pilot’s hip with the words Top Secret stamped on its face. She undid the fastener. Inside there were charts and hand-drawn maps. The words were written in English.
Sum Sum finished reading and looked at Jampa who had been studying her every expression. ‘‘According to this, the Americans are preparing for a new war in China. A war between the Chinese Nationalists and the Chinese Communists. This time, I think the battle is going to be waged closer to home.’’
Jampa and Sum Sum stared at one another. They heard the door of the hold being forced open. It was the villagers. They’d arrived on their horses. Already they were stripping the plane clean.
Seconds later they made out a groan. One of the airmen was still alive.
They lifted the injured airman into a yak-hide blanket and carried him back to the nunnery.
They laid him flat on the courtyard floor, under the shadows of an overhanging eave. One of the novices knelt by his side and placed a cooling jasmine cloth to his forehead. Sum Sum lifted a bowl to his mouth. The taste of the warm butter tea appeared to soothe him. Carefully, they removed his flying jacket and undid the front of his shirt to ease his breathing.
Everyone gathered round to get a look.
The whispering ceased as soon as the abbess emerged from her rooms. Like sparrows stilled by the shadow of a hawk, everyone grew quiet.
Looking harassed, Jampa bowed her head and spoke first. ‘‘He came through the clouds on an iron bird, over the great mountains.’’
The abbess stood back and examined the airman critically from a distance as she would a yak whose milk had grown sour. ‘‘We have very strict rules. Men are not allowed.’’
‘‘We understand that, your reverence,’’ said Jampa between tightened lips. ‘‘However, the stranger’s wounds seem grave.’’
‘‘You must take him to the monastery. The High Abbott will decide how to treat him. Only he has the ripeness and wisdom for such things.’’
‘‘But if we move him he will die,’’ Sum Sum challenged. ‘‘We can save him if he stays here. The monastery is several miles away.’’
Jampa click-clacked her tongue, anxious to diffuse the tension in the air.
Radiating disapproval, the abbess locked eyes with Sum Sum. ‘‘We know nothing of his kind. Look at him; he has ink pictures on his chest. These white men are men of war, they are as hard as their far-flung accents. We must leave this to the High Abbott. And you, Sengemo, must learn to hold your tongue. You are in a nunnery now. You cannot say something simply because you want to. Continue showing dissent and you will find yourself struggling to remain here.’’
Sum Sum nodded gravely back at her but did not lower her eyes submissively. She felt no regret about speaking out. Affronted, the abbess shook out her robes and retreated to her rooms, vanishing through a little doorway.
Sum Sum fixed her thoughts on the abbess’s words. The phrase ‘struggling to remain here’ took on new meaning. She gave a puff of exhaustion and felt a flutter of emotions – defiance, pride, anger and dread. It was the dread of being alone once more. But right now she didn’t care what the abbess thought. She’d done a good thing. She’d helped save a man’s life. And if they didn’t appreciate her then she would leave.
Sum Sum marched off towards her dormitory. The whispering began again as soon as she was out of sight.