“Then,” said Zhuoma, “I want to help you find what you have lost. Please tell me what I should do.”

Zhuoma’s words felt to Wen like a gift from the heavens. Ever since she had met the Chinese people at Wendugongba, she had been reflecting on what she had learned about the Chinese presence in Tibet.

“I would like to go to Lhasa,” she said. “I think that there I will find members of the Chinese army. It is possible that they might have some record of what happened to my husband’s regiment.”

Zhuoma glanced inquiringly at Tiananmen.

“I will take you both to Lhasa,” he said, “but after that, I will be obliged to return to the monastery.”

Wen could barely look at Zhuoma. She was overwhelmed by the painful realization that her friend would have to face once more the loss of the man she loved.

7 OLD HERMIT QIANGBA

Wen, Zhuoma, and Tiananmen trekked south. It was summer when they reached the area known as the Hundred Lakes and saw the vast Zhaling lake stretching out like a sea beneath Mount Anyemaqen. The wind was gentle and the sun infused them with a sense of warmth and well-being. As they approached the water, they were surprised to see a great many tents down by the shoreline. Wen knew that gatherings were rare among the nomads. Some major celebration must have called these people here. It was in the summer months, when the yaks and sheep were fat, that Tibetans were able to be more sociable.

They pitched their own tent and tethered the horses. That evening, Tiananmen wandered around the other tents to barter for food with one of the ornaments that Zhuoma had clung to all these years. When he returned he said he had heard that a performance of a horseback opera would take place in two days’ time. Wen was intrigued by the notion of an opera on horseback. Zhuoma remembered such performances from her childhood. They were acted by specially trained lamas, she explained, who rode in costume on horses. There was no talking or singing: it was the patterns that the men made as they rode to the music that told the story.

That night, although bone weary from the journey, Wen couldn’t get to sleep. She was troubled by the faint sound of someone singing in the distance. It was a song unlike any she had heard before. She wondered if perhaps she was imagining it: Zhuoma and Tiananmen slept on undisturbed.

The next morning, when Wen told Zhuoma about the night singing, Zhuoma said the old people claimed that ghostly voices came from mountains. A little shiver ran down Wen’s spine.

The two women had decided to spend the day exploring the lake on horseback and they set off early, taking a leather waterskin with them. As they rode eastward along the water’s edge, they watched birds foraging and playing. A few thin clouds were scudding in the pure blue sky and swooping birds united the heavens and the earth. The scene reminded Wen of the Yangtze delta: of the river that flowed through her hometown, and of lakes Dong-ting and Tai, with their bobbing boats and little bridges made of stone and wood. Half lost in her thoughts, she told Zhuoma about a day when she and Kejun had raced paper boats on Lake Tai. Wen’s boat, it turned out, had sailed smoothly off into the center of the lake, while Kejun’s had just kept turning on the spot. How strange that, in Tibet, the tiny square of paper necessary to make a paper boat would cost more than a meal.

Zhuoma pulled on her reins. “Can you hear someone singing?”

Once the clop of their horses’ hooves had stopped, the sound floated over very clearly: there really was a voice, a man’s voice singing a sad melody. Zhuoma spotted two girls nearby carrying water and guided her horse over toward them.

“Can you hear that singing?” she asked.

The girls nodded.

“Do you know who it is?”

The older of the two girls pointed to a tiny dot on the other side of the lake.

“It’s Old Hermit Qiangba,” she said. “He sings there every day. I hear him whenever I go to fetch water. My mother says he is the guardian spirit of the lake.”

The two women turned their horses to ride closer to the singer, but although they rode for two hours, the lake was so large that the hermit still seemed very far away. They could see nothing of his face, only his tattered garments fluttering in the wind. From a distance the large rock upon which he sat appeared to be floating in the middle of the water. When they drew nearer, they saw that it was at the end of a small spit of land that protruded into the lake.

“What is he singing?” Wen asked Zhuoma.

“It sounds as if it is part of the great legend of King Gesar,” said Zhuoma. “The same story that will be performed at the horseback opera tomorrow. The legend has been passed down through the ages from storyteller to storyteller. It is the longest story in the world. Although people know it throughout Tibet, it is particularly dear to the people of this region because it is here, at the source of the Yellow River, that King Gesar made his kingdom.”

Zhuoma thought that it might be easier to reach the hermit from the other side of the lake and suggested that they try again another day. As they retraced their steps, she told Wen a little about King Gesar.

Gesar was born into the ruling family of the ancient kingdom of Ling. He was a child of unusual bravery and resourcefulness. But when he became old enough to be king, his uncle Trothung, who wanted the throne for himself, sent Gesar and his mother into exile in a valley at the source of the Yellow River. The valley was a dark, freezing wilderness where neither sun nor moon shone, and it was plagued by demons. Gesar and his mother tamed the evil spirits and subdued the demons, brought order to the waters and grasses, and turned the valley into a fertile paradise for herders, where lush meadows teemed with yaks, horses, and sheep. The heavens later sent down blizzards and frosts to punish Trothung, making the kingdom of Ling uninhabitable. The people of Ling petitioned Gesar to let them come to him, and he gladly helped the six tribes of Ling settle at the source of the Yellow River. For this reason, all Tibetans who lived in this valley regarded themselves as the descendants of the kingdom of Ling-and the children of Gesar.

By the time the two women returned to their tent, Tiananmen had built a stove out of large stones, on top of which was sitting a pot giving off a delicious smell of meat. He told Zhuoma that he had got hold of half a sheep and had cooked it in the Chinese style.

“How did you learn to cook Chinese food?” asked Zhuoma in surprise.

“From you,” Tiananmen replied. “You told me how, when you came back from Beijing.”

“That’s impossible,” said Zhuoma. “I didn’t even know how to make tsampa then, let alone Chinese food.”

Tiananmen smiled. “But you talked to me about the Chinese dishes you ate in Beijing, and the taste of their stewed lamb. My father used to say, if you smell a horse’s dung, you can tell where it’s been grazing. If you taste barley wine, you can tell what the barley harvest was like. Didn’t you tell me that the Chinese cook mutton with sweet herbs, that it is tender and comes in a salty broth? So that is how I have made it.”

Both Zhuoma and Wen burst out laughing.

“You told me that he never asked questions,” Wen said to Zhuoma. “But he was certainly listening.”

Tiananmen’s mutton was delicious. Wen couldn’t recall having eaten anything flavored with those particular herbs, but she didn’t say so. She never found out exactly what he had used.

During the meal, Tiananmen said he had heard that more than a thousand people would come to watch the horseback opera the next day. They could use the opportunity to make inquiries about Wen’s husband. The three friends spent the evening in high spirits, as if sure that all their hopes would soon be realized. Wen went to sleep thinking of Kejun. Perhaps she would not need to travel to Lhasa. Perhaps the holy mountains would, after all, return to her what she had lost. In the night, the sound of the hermit singing drifted into her dreams. She and Kejun were following a great master, who was choosing mani stones for them on one of the holy mountains…