Justin Go - The Steady Running of the Hour

The Sherpas circle with the third course. Tibetan mutton cutlets and tinned green peas warmed over a Primus burner. The colonel begins to prod Noel for anecdotes of his famous travels.

— That business about you in Tibet before the war, the colonel says. Let’s have the whole story.

Noel sips his champagne with practiced relish.

— It was back in ’13. I was in disguise.

He grins, putting a cube of cutlet into his mouth. He speaks in clipped sentences, directing his fork for emphasis.

— As a Mohammedan Indian, he continues. No Europeans being allowed in at the time, of course. Got within forty miles of Everest. Tibetan patrol caught up with us. Some chap fired a matchlock at me. Imagine, a matchlock. Frightful noise. Don’t know where the shot went, but it sounded like bloody armageddon. Must have been plenty of powder in there.

— You were the first foreigner to get near Everest? Mills asks.

Noel shakes his head. — The pundits got here first.

Noel smiles and leans back into his camp chair. He explains that fifty years ago the government of British India wished to survey the Tibetan territory to the north, but the country was hostile and Europeans were strictly forbidden from entering the kingdom. So the government trained Indians to survey Tibet disguised as pilgrims. The surveyors were called pundit s, a Hindi word for a learned man, and they were schooled in special surveying techniques so that no observer would recognize their labors. They entered Tibet at great peril, crossing remote and snow-blown passes at high altitude. The pundits counted distances in paces and recorded them by turning prayer wheels or spinning rosary beads; they learned to walk a mile in precisely two thousand paces, and on some journeys they walked two thousand miles.

— How many steps would that be? Noel wonders.

Price does not look up from his food. — Four million.

— With every step counted, Noel says. They hid compasses in amulets. Put boiling-point thermometers in walking sticks. Surveyed by evening stars, by sextant. At night they wrote all the figures down and rolled the paper inside those prayer wheels. Some were captured and tortured or killed, poor devils. Who’s pinched the sauce bottle?

The bottle is passed down the table and Noel douses his cutlet in brown sauce.

— There was one chap called Kinthup, he continues. Very game fellow. Sent to find out if the Tsanpo in Tibet was in fact the same river as the Brahmaputra. Damned big river, but no one knew where it started in the Himalaya. Kinthup was meant to get deep into the forest and cut blocks of wood in certain shapes, then send them sailing down the Tsanpo. Fifty logs a day. Survey captain in India had another chap watching downriver for the blocks for years.

— Exciting work, Ashley remarks, if one can get it.

Noel grins. — But the blocks never appeared. This fellow Kinthup had been taken prisoner in Tibet and sold a slave. Took him four years to get free. As soon as he escaped he went straight into the forest, cut the blocks and sent them downriver.

— Bravo, the colonel says. That’s the Indian soldier for you. Faithful to the core.

Noel swallows a bite. — Trouble was that no one was watching by then. Survey captain had gone back to England.

At the far end of the table, someone delivers the punch line to a bawdy joke and there is gleeful laughter. Ashley bends over his plate toward Noel.

— Was it the same river?

— Of course. Of course it was.

Noel takes a sip of champagne and shakes his head.

— It’s a strange country. Have you heard of Everest’s white lion? The Tibetans believe that a white lion lives on the summit of the mountain. The lion’s milk is supposed to be a panacea. Cures all problems physical and spiritual. No one’s ever gotten the milk. Except the Dalai Lama, of course. With his supernatural powers.

Price looks up from his plate. — The lion. When we first came in ’21, they thought we were climbing the mountain for her milk—

— Not far off, Somervell says.

— If it’s a question of divine right, Ashley remarks, perhaps our king should have a go.

The colonel frowns. — That’s different. We don’t ascribe magical powers to the king.

— Well, Price says, he’s the head lama of the Church of England. That’s something magical.

Noel shakes his head, squinting theatrically at Ashley.

— Now Walsingham, are you a brainy fellow like Price? Or are you the decent sort? I’ve seen you trading books with him. That’s the road to sin.

— I’m probably indecent.

— He’s thoroughly decent, Price counters. Did you ever bump into him under the blue lamp at Amiens? I’ll wager you didn’t. Though I say, Walsingham’s French is topping. Plows through Rabelais faster than you read News of the World . He may have learnt it from those mademoiselles.

— The blue lamp at Amiens, Noel repeats. Rum place, may have seen him there. Saw the Prince of Wales there once, smoking a cigar. Looked like him, anyway. They ought to have opened a Berlitz school in those brothels. Come to think of it, Price, all those damned French books in the camp library are yours. But we know you’re pure as the driven snow.

Ashley waves his hand in dismissal.

— Irrelevant. The poules all spoke English enough.

The table erupts. — Hear, hear! Noel bellows.

— I only chatted with them, Ashley says. Some were actually rather fascinating—

— But the white lion, Price insists. It isn’t rot. These folk beliefs are based on real things. It could be the snow leopard, for instance.

— Possibly, the colonel admits. Some are seen very high. They go after the bharal, and we’ve seen those up here. Have you heard of the snow leopard, Walsingham? Very rare. Only one white man’s ever laid eyes on them.

— Did he get the milk? Ashley asks.

There is riotous laughter, Noel roaring and wiping the tears from his eyes. Ashley’s laughter breaks into a wheezing cough.

— I suppose up there, Ashley adds, it would be ice cream.

Noel stands officiously and raises his mug.

— To the white lion of the snows, Noel toasts. May we find her and bring forth her dairy.

The British raise their mugs and drink. Only Price does not join in, staring blankly at the table. Ashley whispers in Price’s ear.

— You’re not after the lion?

Price smiles. His face is a patchwork of shadows under the swinging oil lamps.

— Not even in jest. May she remain a mystery.

Price raises his mug and drinks.

— Then you’re in favor of mysteries, Ashley says.

— It’s the summit we want, Price shrugs. We ought not ask for too much.

One morning as I pass the hostel’s front desk, the clerk summons me with a wave.

— Your package finally came.

He puts a FedEx envelope on the counter. I sit on a couch in the lobby and pull the envelope’s zipper, shaking out the contents. The brooch drops onto my lap along with a folded sheet of notebook paper.

Dear Tris,

Now you’re the best-dressed man in Europe. Hope you’ll still come back anyway.

Adam

I turn the brooch in my hands, running my fingers along the tarnished silver strands of the dragon’s body. The metal is worn and scratched, but otherwise the brooch resembles the one I saw in the nightclub. There is a small inscription in the silver on the reverse: CVG, the letters followed by a strange circular symbol.

I’d first seen the brooch when I searched the garage before traveling to London. Or had I seen it before? I think back to the seaside with my grandmother and I try to picture the brooch there, the twisted dragons glinting in the afternoon sun. But I can’t be sure.