Eight years had passed since the Chinese crossed the Jinsha River to invade Tibet and for seven of those years the monasteries remained untouched. There was no sacking of temples, no offences aimed at the monks, no quarrels with Tibetan religion. But then one afternoon in the spring of 1958, that all changed.
It was the day of the horse festival. Many hundreds of people, including nuns and monks, flocked to the grasslands to enjoy the entertainment. Setting off at dawn, it took Sum Sum and Tormam three hours to reach the venue; as they trekked along the hillside trails a pure crystalline sunshine washed the plateau gold, gilding the nomadic sheep that gnawed at the fresh green felt. When they reached the grasslands they found a hive of activity.
Yellow and blue tents set up days before dotted the plain. Over the snowy passes, caravans of pack-horses and donkeys appeared laden with bricks of tea and great blocks of salt. Pilgrims passed through – devotees from Nepal and Sikkim – offering sutra streamers and aromatic smoke to the Mountain Gods, whilst merchants and nomads and pedlars came from far and wide to do business. Leather traders arrived from Mongolia. Chinese vendors of gold, turquoise, borax and musk set up wooden stalls in the temporary market. A Manchurian silk dealer laid out several colourful bolts of fabric as Bhutan rice suppliers haggled with farmers, behind him a Muslim spice runner exchanged salaams with an Indian indigo broker whose white teeth flashed bright against his burnished skin. Everywhere people wheeled and dealed.
There were archery contests, feats of balance, rope-walking, tumbling and wrestling. Local women, wearing their hair in plaits, mounted their yaks to get a better look. Many had their babies strung to their backs. Sum Sum and Tormam joined them to watch the horsemen show off their skills. One of the disciplines was to fire their arrows at a coloured pole while riding at full gallop. With the springtime sun warming her scalp, Sum Sum oohed and ahhed as the riders thundered past, enjoying their graceful athleticism, applauding as the arrowheads found their mark. Amid this constant activity, pilgrims burned green cypress branches for incense and spun their prayer wheels.
Later, she and Tormam collected alms from the horsemen in fox-skin caps as they fed barley straw to their stallions. Not far from them she saw clusters of red-robed monks, young and old, gathered for ritualized debate. The young monks sat on the hard ground as an older monk faced them. Every few seconds an elder would rush at his fledglings, arms flailing and clapping, to launch obscure questions of Buddhist orthodoxy. The older monks lunged and the younger ones parried, soon a sharp rat-tat-tat of voices filled the dry air as these thrusting debates grew fiercer and more boisterous.
In the background several open fires burned. Warmed by the flames, people ate on small blue Tibetan rugs, offering their neighbours yak dumplings and deep-fried flat bread. Sum Sum sniffed more delicious smells of cooking. She saw the glistening flesh of spit-roasted mutton, the saddles of venison, the hind-quarters of deer and goats and beef turning on long metal rods, dripping meat juices into the flames. The trailing scent-scarves of food reminded Sum Sum of Cambridge, of May Week, when whole oxen sat roasting on the lawns of Trinity and St John’s, ribs showing like the staves of a boat. Try as she might, she couldn’t help salivating.
Crows hopped about cackling as they edged closer to the fire. Their cries crescendoed when a group of boys threw stones at them.
At midday, with the sun as sharp as the edges of a knife, Sum Sum’s mouth, throat and nostrils grew parched. A windblown silk trader offered them butter tea, which they drank from wooden bowls. Sipping her tea, Sum Sum looked up from her bowl to see pinheads on the horizon moving along the Tea Horse Road, a cloud of dust trail on the stony ridges. Shimmering charcoal spots against the pale grasslands, they grew larger with each passing second. They spread like dark stains.
Within minutes, several dozen thick-legged Chinese soldiers arrived on horseback; carnivorous men with leathery, thunderous expressions, casting blue shadows. ‘‘Faces so sharp and ugly, they scratch the wind,’’ observed Sum Sum.
They pulled a woman from her long-haired yak; her scream was as shrill as a false note on a violin.
A skillet-faced officer, full of false bravado, spoke in his guttural northern tongue, jabbing the air with aggression. He slapped a hand against his rifle; his eyes were like a pig slaughterer’s.
When he spat a bullet of phlegm by his feet, leaving a dull green smear, Sum Sum knew the festivities were over.
As soon as they returned to the nunnery Sum Sum and Tormam were confronted by prayer hall manager Jampa. ‘‘Ay-yi! They have stolen our country,’’ the old lady said as soon as she heard their news. ‘‘Do you know how they stole it? Under threats of death. A Tibetan delegation to Peking was forced to sign a 17-point plan handing control to China. When ministers in Lhasa complained to Peking claiming the treaty was not legal because it was signed under duress and because there were no official Lhasa seals to certify it, the Chinese said they don’t care.’’
‘‘But it is wrong,’’ said Sum Sum, as prickly as a Himalayan porcupine. Tormam could not speak: she was stunned. They walked through a narrow corridor into a candle-lit room adorned with frescoes of bodhisattva Tara. Several nuns sat in meditation; in the dim light their heads, brown and pitted and hairless, looked like overgrown potatoes.
Jampa, lowering her voice, continued, ‘‘Then Lhasa says that under some rule called Vienna Convention, treaty is null and void. So what do Chinese do? They send in military.’’ She reached into a leather satchel concealed in her sleeve, pinched off a thumb of snuff. ‘‘All this happened a few years ago. But now there is unrest in Kham and Amdo so Chinese shut the door to the Land of Snow. They clamping down on all festivals and on monks.’’
‘‘What will happen to us?’’ asked Tormam.
The yak butter candles guttered. Juniper and written prayers burned in censers. Jampa took another hit of snuff and rubbed the skin between her eyes. ‘‘Things will get worse for all of us. The abbess says the Communist invaders will suppress and mutilate our culture.’’
‘‘Do you really believe that?’’ questioned Sum Sum. She couldn’t believe this was the same communism that Adrian had advocated in Cambridge.
‘‘When you have lived as long as I have, you believe everything about the Chinese. Their arrogance has no limits.’’
Sum Sum stamped her foot. ‘‘I wish I had a chestnut pan to hit all Communist invaders’ heads!’’
‘‘There is open fighting on streets in eastern parts of the country.’’ Jampa leaned in close, collusively. ‘‘Some people even gossip-talk that the Chinese invaders want to kidnap our young God-king.’’
The girls sucked in their breath, shocked to hear such words spoken aloud. Their fingers stiffened with imaginary cold. ‘‘Ndug’re. Come,’’ said Jampa. ‘‘Let us engage in meditation.’’ Jampa closed her eyes and made her face appear calm and at peace. When Sum Sum shut her eyes too all she saw were the red posters plastered on the walls of the town – posters showing the face of the one they called the devil-man, Mao Tse-tung.