The Buddha of Brewer Street Read online

  THE BUDDHA

  OF BREWER STREET

  MICHAEL DOBBS

  To Naljorma ’ö-Sel Nyima Chèdröl Khandro.

  May we never forget how to laugh and to love.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  POSTSCRIPT

  About the Author

  Also by the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  Tibet, 1959

  Death arrived in the hour before dawn, but if it counted on an element of surprise it had reckoned without Kunga Tashi. And the geese.

  Kunga Tashi was attending to the first daily duty of many young monks. He was helping prepare a churn of butter tea for his elders. It wasn’t yet sunrise and spring had still to find its way through the thick monastery walls, yet Kunga was happy. The kitchen was welcoming and warm, heated by the constant fires and filled with encouraging aromas. Far better than being told to fetch the water, which was usually hiding beneath a thick layer of ice at the bottom of the well, or being sent directly to the draughty memorizing class where he would have to squat for endless hours reciting scripture and fighting the temptation to fall back to sleep. Anyway, kitchen duties meant he got his tea first.

  He dropped into the steaming churn another scoop of the pungent butter that gave the tea its characteristic kick, enough to spark the enthusiasm of the drowsiest of monks, and threw a pat of yak dung on the fire. These moments were special for Kunga. Barely fourteen and with a sense of mischief as unbalanced as that of any boy of his age, nevertheless he had an anticipation of life that stretched considerably beyond his years and dawn was the most precious moment of his day. As the early light began to burn across the mountain peaks he ran to the unglazed window from where he could look down upon the Lake of Four Winds. The lake was the colour of deepest lapis, its water still and brooding. Mystical spirits were supposed to live in its depths, although Kunga had never seen them. He never lost hope that some day he might catch one by surprise, hiding in the mists or creeping back through the shadows of early morning. But all he could see was a scattered flock of sheep grazing stubbornly on its banks and the reflection of the mighty Himalayas, covered in perpetual snow that steamed and caught fire in the early sun.

  It was because he had his head stuck out of the window that Kunga was the first to hear the approach of Death and its workmen. Sound carries great distances in the emaciated air of Tibet and they were still three miles down the valley, just entering the village. The startled cries of old Wangmo’s geese gave the alarm. At first Kunga could see only dust, a cloud that rose above the low rooftops, but it was drawing closer. Shouts echoed through the bazaar. Followed by a single shot. Then silence, except for dogs and geese. And the tramp of boots. Not Tibetans, these. Not in metal-tipped boots.

  Chinese.

  They had come the previous week. A bomb had gone off in the provincial capital, Nagormo, and they suspected the monks. They always suspected the monks. If the sun didn’t shine, if the barley ran short, if the roads turned to mud, it was always the fault of the monks. Superstitious lot, these Communists. And sickly, too. They couldn’t take the altitude; many of them got sick, frothed pink at the mouth and fell over. Some died. Those that didn’t blamed the monks. For everything, particularly the bombs.

  A week ago they had gathered all the monks in the monastery’s main courtyard and issued a warning. Any more trouble ‘from splittists and insurrectionists’, as they called them, and retribution would be swift. While the officer threatened, the troops had trashed the living quarters and dormitories. But, strangely enough, not the temple or the burial chortens. Yes, superstitious lot, these Communists. Kunga had made up a song about them, about how all Chinese soldiers fell over, defeated by the effects of heavy Tibetan alcohol and thin Tibetan air. The other boy monks had laughed. Now, as he saw the column approaching, he wished it were true.

  More shots. Kunga jumped in alarm and ran through the corridors shouting at the top of his voice. Soon others were joining in and their cries cascaded down the long stone passages, the noise dragging the abbot from his bed. The head of the monastery was elderly, rheumy-eyed and still dishevelled with sleep, his wits dulled by declining years, and he danced in anxiety as he sought to discover the reason for the disturbance. When he was told, he danced some more while he tried to decide what he should do about it. All around him monks were gesticulating and offering him every sort of advice. This served only to confuse him further, and it was several minutes before he was able to come to a decision. He gave one hop, then another, like a crane balancing on one foot, then ordered the gates to be shut.

  The only entrance to the monastery was by way of a narrow bridge across a precipitous ravine. Security, of sorts. Particularly with the gates locked. But although he had given his orders, the abbot continued his inelegant dance, wary of the Chinese and fearful of the consequences of defying them. They could be so short of temper. A fresh hop. A wail of indecision. A line of mantra seeking protection. Then he turned a full circle, his monk’s shawl streaming out behind him, and changed his mind. The gates should be left open after all.

  More confusion. Raised voices. Even the ancient hinges joined in with screeches of complaint. It took the combined efforts of several senior monks to turn the abbot yet again, by which time the Chinese had drawn much closer, but at last he was persuaded. The heavy wooden gates were barred tight.

  While his elders argued, Kunga climbed the outer wall of the monastery. From here he could see the Chinese troops clearly, ragged in dress but tight in formation, their faces and uniforms smeared in the eternal dust blown up from the dry Tibetan plains. The officer rode a mule, the rest were on foot. No vehicles, none of the great grinding tanks Kunga had heard about. And no way through the gates. The monastery was safe, for a while. The monks had food for weeks, and they had the well. A few old rifles, too. Kunga desperately hoped the weapons would be used. To a Buddhist all life is sacrosanct – flies, worms, even Chinese – but there is a bit of cowboy in every fourteen-year-old. It would be like hitting a mad dog. Why, it was almost a public duty, he told himself.

  Boys are creatures of wild imagination, and suddenly Kunga wondered if the troops had come to look for him, to punish him for his ribald song. He felt sure that somehow they had found out. He grew afraid, and the butter tea turned to stone in his stomach. Cautiously he peered over the parapet of the monastery wall as the Chinese assembled on the other side of the bridge. There were more than two hundred, he reckoned, many more than had come last week. He wasn’t to know that another bomb had gone off, inside the town hall at Nagormo, killing the Chinese administrator who had recently taken up residence. After that there weren’t going to be any more warnings.

  The officer sat on his mule on the far side of the bridge and through an interpreter demanded to speak to the abbot. In the name of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, open the gates! Hesitantly, the abbot raised his head above the parapet. Who was this Central Committee of the Communist Party of whatever it was? he responded. He’d never heard of such a thing. The officer shouted back that the abbot was speaking like an agent of imperialism. Even through an interpreter there was no hiding the anger. I owe allegiance to no one other than His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the abbot answered, growing emboldened, his head held higher –
he always enjoyed a good debate. Your Lama, the monk-king, is gone, the Chinese replied. Impossible! His Holiness’s position is guaranteed under the Seventeen Point Agreement between Tibet and China along with many other … You’re wasting your breath, old monk. He’s gone. Deserted you. Crawled away to India. Exile. So open your stinking gates.

  Kunga had never seen a weapon bigger than a rifle, and most of those he’d seen were ancient, single-shot affairs left behind by Younghusband and the British. Nothing like that could break down the great gates to the monastery, and there was no chance the officer’s scraggy mule could kick them down. It seemed simple, the Chinese could sit outside and stew until the next Losar holiday. So the argument continued with the abbot disputing the point, much as he was accustomed to do in the formalized debates that were held within the courtyard. But the officer appeared to be taking little further interest. Perhaps, thought Kunga, he had accepted that he’d lost the argument and was looking for a means of withdrawing from his position. The officer was gesticulating, but not in the proper manner of courtyard debates. The Chinaman didn’t seem to know the rules, Kunga thought contemptuously.

  But in Tibet, the Chinese made up their own rules.

  As the boy watched, a soldier knelt on the far side of the bridge and put something to his shoulder that was considerably larger than any rifle. He raised it, seemed to take aim. Then, with a single grenade, the soldier reduced the abbot’s arguments and the great monastery gates to matchwood.

  With a ferocious cry the troops threw themselves across the narrow bridge, their boots pounding upon the wooden boards like the clatter of machine guns. They swarmed into the central courtyard, forcing the monks back with rifle butts and impatient boots. But there was no resistance.

  High on the monastery wall, Kunga Tashi discovered that his youthful bravado had been left in pieces along with the gates. He found he couldn’t move. His senses had been dragged away in terror while his body was left frozen and far behind. Below him in the courtyard, events were unfolding in what appeared to be a new and altogether different world. It was a world unknown to Kunga, of disharmonies and great dangers, but it was a world through which he would have to pass. He had risen that morning a mere boy, not fully formed, inexperienced. Come the night he would have changed, grown. If he still lived. The great Wheel of Life was turning.

  Once the courtyard had been secured the officer, now dismounted, strode into its middle. Behind him was dragged the abbot – quite literally dragged, his arms tied in traditional Chinese style, diagonally behind his back, which made standing very difficult. It required only the lightest prod of the officer’s riding crop to force him to his knees upon the time-sanded stone. A growl of objection rose from the monks, quickly extinguished by a few well-directed rifle butts. The abbot began to recite a mantra, trying to focus his mind elsewhere, but before he could utter more than a few syllables the leather riding crop was under his chin, forcing his head back and exposing his throat like a whipped dog. The officer said not a word, simply allowing the abbot time to contemplate his own extreme vulnerability. For many painful moments the abbot was held there, neck stretched, shuddering, until the whip was removed and his head fell forward in submission.

  A rough-hewn wooden bowl was produced, one of the bowls from which the monks normally ate their staple diet of ground barley tsampa, and was placed on the flagstones directly in front of the kneeling abbot. Then, with almost comic arrogance considering his short stature and the action he was taking, the officer unbuttoned his trousers and proceeded to piss into it, allowing the stream of water to rise and fall but never to miss its target, until the bowl bubbled and steamed in the ice air and eventually overflowed.

  Two soldiers picked up the bowl and put it to the abbot’s lips.

  Kunga wanted to shout at the top of his lungs, to scream his outrage at the wickedness of the Chinese invaders, and he took a deep breath, so sudden that the back of his throat burned. But no sound came. He noticed he was trembling, and not from the cold.

  The abbot shook his head in disgust, trying to spill the bowl and its contents, but both the bowl and its contents came back. A second time he wriggled, trying to thrust the foulness away from him, but once more it was brought back to his lips and this time the crop was beneath his chin, forcing his head back again, stretching the vulnerable neck, until his eyes stared directly to the heavens with his lips prised apart.

  And they poured until the liquid spilled down his chin and stained his robes.

  Still the officer said nothing. He was bored with debate, with words. He didn’t need words to put a Tibetan in his place, only a mule crop and a bowlful of Chinese piss.

  The abbot slumped forward, retching. The officer strode around behind him. He had not been long in this uncomfortable world of Tibet and he didn’t care for it, this frozen, relentless land, full of strange disease. And a very long way from his family in Chungking. He had no particular dislike for the ordinary Tibetans, even though they were stubborn, with their strange superstitions and miserable food. But their monks were worthless. They contributed nothing, parasites who lived off the labour of others. And now far, far worse. They had started killing Chinese. They had left the administrator in Nagormo in so many pieces that his wife wouldn’t be able to bury anything other than scraps. So it must be brought to an end, all this bloodshed, before it spread like rats through a harvest. Otherwise he and his troops would never get back to Chungking.

  As the sun rose above the monastery walls, the officer’s shadow scythed across the bowed figure of the abbot. The Tibetan was an old man, shaven headed with skin like the husk of a walnut. Harmless, in his own way, the soldier thought, and perhaps even innocent. But what did innocence matter? It was his very existence that posed the threat. No, all this had to stop, right here.

  The officer cleared his throat. It was the only sound he had made since entering the monastery. His mind was made up. For the peace of the community, the good of the many. The Chinaman raised his arm, which he stretched out stiff before him, pointing. Then he put a bullet through the back of the abbot’s head.

  The two worlds between which Kunga had floated, the one inside him and the one that was laid out before him in the courtyard, suddenly collided and broke into a million fragments. All around him there were screams, cries of pain and fear, the sounds of destruction. And shots. The narrow stone alleyways of the monastery filled with the frantic slipping and scraping of the monks’ soft leather sandals as they tried to flee, pursued by the pounding of steel-tipped boots. Wherever there was resistance, and particularly the pernicious resistance of prayer, a single monk was set upon by three, four, sometimes six soldiers, breaking him with boots and blows from their rifles. Then they moved on to the next.

  Nothing was to remain. Brocade-mounted thanka paintings were ripped from walls they had adorned for generations, precious buddha images were broken, every one of the monastery’s effigies of compassion was crushed underfoot. This was not simply punishment, it was to be persecution.

  Behind one door the soldiers discovered a hall filled with endless shelves laden with leather-bound books and parchment scrolls and ancient wooden printing blocks. The library. It contained nearly a thousand years of learning and memories. It was destroyed in as many seconds.

  As the library was put to the torch a spiral of glowing ashes and smoke rose from the flames and spread across the sun. Beneath its wrathful shadow the soldiers began herding the monks who could still walk across the narrow bridge. An ancient librarian-monk, a rifle butt at his back, cried in anguish and fell to his knees, his toothless mouth praying for strength. The guards swore at him. They were about to set upon him when he rose unsteadily to his feet and with stubborn care began brushing the dust from his robes. They shouted at him to move on, but he shook his head. ‘Everything is impermanence,’ he said, uttering the last words of the Great Buddha himself. For one lingering moment he looked back to the monastery that had been his world for a lifetime, perhaps several lifet
imes. His old eyes brimmed with gratitude. Then he walked to the side of the bridge and stepped off into eternity.

  He fell for what seemed like forever, and as he plunged, the buttercup and claret of the monk’s robes opened and fluttered like the wings of a gentle butterfly. Until, in the darkness that clung to the very bottom of the ravine, the wings broke and lay still.

  The soldiers shouted in anger, sensing they had been cheated. Older monks chanted in sorrow, while the younger ones hustled forward with a renewed sense of urgency.

  Kunga watched all this from his vantage point. He was too insignificant to be a prime target for the soldiers, too frozen with fear to move. And high on that wall, surrounded by death and the destruction of so much that he loved, Kunga passed into manhood. He began to hate. He knew it was a passion he should not feel, but there it was, undeniable, embracing, and empowering.

  Hate!

  He’d have to deal with its karmic consequences later, but later could take care of itself. For now it warmed his blood, unfroze him, drove him on, running. Amidst the ruination that was spreading around him, he knew there was one thing he must save, one treasure that must be kept from the hateful Chinese even at the risk of his life.

  His route to the great prayer hall was blocked by many soldiers, but he was small and too deft for them, ducking beneath their outstretched arms and rifles. Up close they looked so much less fearsome, their uniforms ragged and patched, their faces all but obliterated by crustings of dirt that gave them the appearance of lizards. Many seemed only a few years older than Kunga. Some seemed almost as scared. At the head of the broad stone steps that led to the prayer hall a group of monks had gathered to try to block the way of the troops, but they had nothing with which to resist other than their own bodies. Resistance became sacrifice as the Army of Liberation fell greedily upon its prey. Mao was right. The power of the human spirit was no match for the butt end of a gun. In every corner claret robes flapped and fell. More broken butterfly wings.