Patrick Woodhead - The Cloud Maker (2010)

‘He doesn’t look very Tibetan to me,’ Bill said, frowning slightly.

‘Well, whoever he is, with the Dalai Lama gone, he’s going to be the man in charge.’ Luca glanced up from the poster. Twenty yards along he spotted the turning he’d been looking for.

‘Hey, that’s the one,’ he said, slapping Bill’s shoulder.

Leaving the poster, they cut down the street and within a few paces the shining stores and paved roads gave way to mud tracks and ramshackle houses. Following the trail a bit farther, they threaded through a maze of twisting back streets and, after a few dead ends, came across the familiar open porch of a wood-built restaurant. Bill looked at Luca, anxiety creeping back into his face.

‘Let’s just get in and out as fast as we can.’

Luca turned to reassure him before going through the doorway.

‘Relax, Bill. It’s just René. Trust me on this.’

Bill grimaced, shaking his head as he followed his friend inside into the din of the restaurant. Trusting Luca was exactly what his wife had warned him not to do.

Chapter 18

The restaurant was brightly lit and packed with tourists. Waiters in traditional Tibetan dress wound their way around tables serving mo-mos and yak burgers. Misplaced as it was down a dusty side street in Lhasa, it also felt surreally suspended between cultures.

As soon as Luca and Bill stepped into the room, they could hear René. He had a deep, booming voice that was usually accompanied, as it was now, to a string of expletives. A tour operator who had been working in Lhasa for nearly eight years, René, with his stubbled, red face, swollen midriff and crumpled clothes, made it clear how oblivious – or blind – he was to the subtleties of Eastern culture.

Right now he appeared to be delivering a monologue to a meek-looking tourist sitting at one of the tables on the far side of the room. As René’s vast belly quivered only inches away from the man’s face, it looked extremely likely he was regretting having asked a question in the first place. Fragments of the restaurant owner’s impassioned diatribe floated across the room, culminating in René pointing a thick digit directly at the man’s nose and bemoaning ‘every one of the dull-witted layabouts who passes through Lhasa these days’.

Luca started to laugh. Catching sight of him across the room, René did a double-take and then bellowed across the rows of tables: ‘What do you think you’re laughing at, you skinny Englishman?’

The patrons curled their toes and sank lower in their seats, anticipating yet another outburst.

‘At you, you old bastard!’ Luca shouted back as René began to scythe his way through the seated diners, jolting some into their plates and scaring others into hurriedly scraping forward their chairs.

Beaming at them with bloodshot eyes, René pulled them both into a bearlike hug before slapping them on the back several times and herding them over to a table near the rear of the restaurant. Once they were settled with a shot of cheap brandy in front of them, Luca spoke.

‘So how are things going, René? Still battling bureaucracy?’

René rolled his eyes and slugged back the contents of the shot glass.

‘Nothing changes. Nothing ever fucking changes,’ he replied gruffly. ‘The Chinese build and build, but it’s still the same old shit. The agencies refuse to talk to one another, and God forbid they should actually make a decision. If they pass the buck, they take no responsibility. So they always pass the buck.’

He refilled his own small glass, adding a little more to Bill’s and Luca’s, despite the fact that they hadn’t touched their drinks yet.

‘It’s all about keeping you off balance,’ René continued, obviously warming to one of his favourite subjects. ‘They keep you bouncing between agencies, make sure you’re disorientated all the time, so you don’t even know who to ask any more. That’s how they like it.’

‘How do you cope with doing business like that?’ asked Bill.

‘Hah! Business . . . I don’t know – I really don’t. Sometimes I wish we would all just get kicked out of the country so we could create another Tibet somewhere else.’

Distracted by something, René fell silent for a moment and Luca saw him gaze towards a table in the far corner of the restaurant, raised on a small platform by the window. Two soldiers were seated there in silence, waiting for their food. One of them was strikingly large for a Chinese, his black shirt stretched across a powerful chest; the other was slim-built and almost effeminate, with pale, fine features and oiled black hair. Even across the smoky restaurant, they could see that the smaller of the two men seemed to be eyeing the crowds of people around him disdainfully.

René reached out, catching the arm of one of the waiters scurrying from table to table.

‘Make those two by the window wait for their food, and see to it that they get the wrong order,’ he said.

The waiter blinked in confusion but, knowing enough not to argue with his employer, promptly retreated to the kitchens to relay the order.

Luca shook his head slowly in a mixture of disbelief and admiration. Few people would deliberately tangle with Chinese officers. He put his hand on René’s wrist, speaking quietly.

‘We’re leaving in the next few days for the area east of Makalu and we’ve only got the standard permits. Can you help us out?’

‘Going back to finish off Makalu, eh? I tell you, you boys have got real balls to be climbing those kinds of mountains. Not like most of the tourists round here who bugger off round Kailash for a few days, then go home and write a book about it.’

Grabbing the glass in front of him, René downed the contents and returned it to the table, smacking his lips loudly. He sniffed, switching his gaze to a table of three noisy diners who had evidently just arrived in Tibet. They all had neatly pressed clothes and sharp haircuts, and were laughing to themselves about something the waiter had mispronounced.

‘Hear that, you lot?’ René bellowed across at them. ‘Which one of you fucking idiots is writing a book then?’

As the restaurant fell silent all three of the people at the table looked round, confused by the question. René glowered at them a moment longer, then shaking his jowly, unshaven face he turned back to Bill and Luca again. The dull murmur of the restaurant slowly continued.

‘That should stop them pestering the waiters for a while,’ René said with satisfaction.

Bill looked across at him, wondering how on earth he managed to keep any customers.

‘René,’ Luca reminded him, ‘the permits?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he replied. ‘You know, I’m not even sure which agency to ask any more . . . the TMA, Foreign Office . . . who knows? As I said, they try to keep you off-kilter. I did hear something recently, though. One Westerner managed to get permission to go down to the border and do some climbing, and where do you think he got his papers? The Forestry Commission! Can you imagine that? The bloody Forestry Commission.’

He tilted his head back and let out a low groan.

‘I came to Tibet nearly a decade ago as a botanist,’ he continued. ‘In those days the scientists on the other side of the fence would help you out. You know, apply for permits for you and lend a hand. But now . . . Christ, it’s always such a mess . . .’

Bill and Luca both remained silent as he trailed off, waiting for René to return to the subject. Eventually, he seemed to remember they were waiting for his advice.

‘Look, if you two are serious about it, you’re just going to have to peel off the standard route to Nepal and head east without anyone knowing. The Tibetans won’t care where you’re going, as long as you keep feeding them enough dollars, and I should be able to cover you from this end.’