Jack Higgins - Year Of The Tiger

“You don’t have to, and neither does the doctor for the moment. Just leave the details to me.” He leaned forward and grinned. “And relax. Everything’s going to be fine, I promise you.”

She shook her head in exasperation. “You make everything sound so easy – just like my father used to. If he said something, then it had to be.”

“It’s not a bad way to live.”

“You think so?” She sighed. “He said we would go to Lhasa by caravan. That it would be simple, the journey of a lifetime. His plans didn’t include dying of typhoid on the way.”

“How could they?” Chavasse said gently. “Death has a perverse habit of making his own appointments.”

In the short silence which followed, he took out his cigarettes and offered her one. She accepted without a murmur and he gave her a light.

After a moment, she said, “The real Kurbsky – he’s dead, isn’t he?”

He nodded soberly. “I’m afraid so.”

“Did you kill him?”

He shook his head. “He and his escort really were ambushed by partisans. They obviously cared as little for Russians as they do for Chinese.”

“I see,” she said. “And you simply assume his identity? These partisans – were they friends of yours?”

He shrugged. “In a manner of speaking. If you mean could I have saved Kurbsky’s life, I’m afraid not. I didn’t have that kind of influence with them.”

“What about this Tibetan who came here with you? Joro, I think you said his name was. Couldn’t he have done something?”

“You obviously haven’t been mixing in the right circles,” Chavasse told her. “As far as these people are concerned, this is war. They’re fighting against a brutal invader who’s attempting to change this entire way of life by force.”

“Please,” she said. “I’m not a child. I know that the Chinese have done some terrible things here, but all this bloodshed and killing.” She shuddered. “It seems such an appalling waste of human life.”

“Perhaps it is,” he said, “but remember what Lenin once said: The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize. It’s the only way left for a small people to fight back against an empire.”

“My father used to say that no man was God,” she said, “least of all Lenin. I’m afraid he didn’t care for him very much.”

“He sounds like a man after my own heart,” Chavasse said. “Tell me about him.”

She shrugged. “There seems so little to tell now. He was a scholar, you see, with no interest in government or politics. I think that, of all activities, archaeology is the one in which the State can interfere least. We tended to live very much our own lives.”

“What about your mother?”

“She died when I was born. I spent my early years at school in Moscow with an aunt of my father’s. When I was a little older, he was able to take me with him on his field trips. We lived in Peking for the last three years of his life.”

“Why was he so keen to visit Lhasa?”

She shook her head. “I don’t really know. A dream he’d had for a very long time, I think. It seemed like a good opportunity before returning to Russia.”

“Don’t you ever feel like going back yourself?”

“Not really,” she said. “Oh, I miss the theatres, the books, all that sort of thing, but nothing else. My aunt died three years ago, and I’ve nobody else.”

“Except for Hoffner,” Chavasse said gently.

She turned, a warm smile illuminating her face. “That’s right. Except for Hoffner. He took me in when I was sick and nursed me back to health. He’s come to mean a great deal to me.”

“He seems to feel exactly the same way about you,” Chavasse told her. “Did he tell you he wants you to leave with us?”

She nodded. “I would go with him gladly, I want you to accept that. It’s just that the whole affair seems so impossible.”

He shook his head. “Believe me, it isn’t. I might almost say it’s going to be astonishingly simple. But you needn’t worry about that for the time being. We’ve got several days to kill before we can make a move. We’re better off here, considering the state of Hoffner’s health and his age, than roughing it in the hills.”

“I see.” She got to her feet. “We’ll just have to wait as patiently as we can, I suppose, until you’re ready to take us into your confidence?”

She sounded slightly angry, and he stood up and smiled. “Don’t take it like that. I’m only thinking of you and the doctor. What you don’t know can’t harm you.”

He placed his hands on her shoulders. “The only real problem’s going to be how to pass the time. What do you do for amusement round here?”

She shrugged. “Not very much. I usually go horseback riding outside the walls if the weather’s reasonable.”

“Now that sounds just my style.”

She relaxed suddenly and smiled. “Perhaps you’d like to come with me? I usually go after lunch. How good a horseman are you?”

He grinned. “Pretty fair. Another of my accomplishments.”

She nodded. “And you have many, don’t you, Mr. Chavasse? It occurs to me that no ordinary man would be able to speak Chinese so excellently and Russian like a native.”

“What about you?” he countered. “Your English is pretty good.”

She shrugged. “I started to learn it when I was six years of age at my first school in Moscow. It’s the standard second language in Russia today.” She shook her head. “No, there’s still something about you. Something special. Of one thing I’m certain: You’re not just an adventurer.”

“But I assure you I am,” he told her.

She shook her head. “No, there’s more to it than that.”

And then the thought came to her and her eyes widened. She took a step towards him, one hand catching hold of the lapel of his bathrobe. “There is something more, isn’t there? Something to do with the doctor?”

He did the only possible thing. His arms slid around her waist and he kissed her.

Her entire body seemed to come alive and she started to tremble. For a little while, he held her, and then she gently pushed him away.

When she looked up, her eyes were dark and troubled and her face was flushed. “I think I’d better go.”

He couldn’t think of anything to say as he opened the shutters and she brushed past him. Outside, it was still raining. She turned and looked at him for a moment and suddenly reached up and touched his face with one hand, and then she was gone.

For a little while longer he remained there, his skin crawling with excitement, a small restless wind touching his naked flesh, and then he closed the shutters and went to bed.

The day was exhilarating, like new wine, and the blue sky dipped away to the horizon as they rode out through the main gates of Changu shortly after noon the following day.

They were mounted on small and wiry Tibetan horses and Katya urged her mount into a gallop and took the lead. She wore riding breeches and soft Russian boots and her hat and collar were of black astrakhan.

Chavasse, wearing the Tibetan boots and shuba he had arrived in, went after her, scattering a grazing flock of yaks as he and Katya skirted the herdsmen’s encampment and rode up out of the valley.

The steppes were saffron yellow, golden in the sunlight, and he reined in beside a dark pool of water at the foot of some tall rocks where wind whispered through the dry grass. A bird cried as it lifted across the slope and a strange, inexplicable sadness fell upon him.

He shivered for no accountable reason and then Katya called to him, her voice carried by the wind from the top of a hill in the distance, and he urged his mount forward and went after her.