Fire On the Mountain by Anita Desai Page A

autumn, he took us all with him as far as the Zoji-La Pass. It was a time when the orchards were all in their autumn colours – scarlet, crimson and rust. Leaving them below, and the little villages with their carved wooden houses, we went up into the forests of walnuts and maples, sycamores and chestnuts. Then through the pine and birch belt to the bare rocks and ice above. It seemed we were travelling in paradise with him. But one morning, when we had camped beside a river of green ice water in a meadow that seemed untouched by a single footprint, and the sky seemed the purest, cleanest sky there’s ever been, he got onto his horse, Suleiman, dressed in fur and leather, and rode away over the pass, leaving us behind.’ Her voice dropped to a murmur that Raka had to strain to overhear. It seemed to have died away altogether for the only sound was of rain, dashing against the windowpane and drumming on the roof.
    Then her voice joined in the rain, in the rush. ‘He wore leather boots up to his knees as he rode away, and the two flaps of his fur caps showed like ears, for a long way. His dog, a black Bhotiya we called Demon, followed him. They all splashed through the icy river and disappeared on the rocks. We returned to Srinager.
    â€˜He was away in Tibet – oh, for years, years. He went every step of the way on horseback, or on foot. The Mustagh Pass, the Baltoro glacier, the Aghil Pass . . . a terribly hard, dangerous route.’
    As the rain softened, her voice rose, unnaturally. ‘He travelled all over Tibet, had the strangest experiences. He spent nights in tiger-infested bamboo forests where thepeople used to burn green bamboos that would burst at the joints with such loud explosions as to frighten off wild animals for miles. He joined in their famous archery competitions – you know, there are legendary archers in Tibet who can shoot arrows for longer distances than anyone believes possible. He went hunting with them, sometimes with falcons and sometimes with packs of dogs that were as large as asses, for musk deer whose musk is sold to traders for silver. Can you believe it, agents come all the way from Paris in search of musk for their perfumeries, and have bought as much as a million ounces of silver worth at a time.
    â€˜He saw them dredge gold from their rivers and salt from their salt springs. This is dried and shaped into cakes that are almost as precious as gold. In fact, forty or sixty cakes of salt could buy a saggio of gold. Then they love jewellery there – turquoise and coral, silver and gold. The women are loaded with them as the men with furs – ermine and sable.
    â€˜In certain areas there were clove trees – rather like laurel, he said – and ginger and cassia. On river banks, he saw them hunt for crocodiles by planting spikes in the ground on which they walked so that they were cut up alive: their bile was used in medicine for mad dogs’ bite, carbuncles and pustules, and their flesh was eaten. Oh, he ate it too, and drank hot rice wine with them.
    â€˜He bought Tibetan horses with clipped tails and rode them as they did – with stirrups long enough to stand up in so he could shoot his arrows from horseback. Horsemanship was most highly regarded all over Tibet, and then sports of the chase. Fortunately, he was good at both.
    â€˜He went to Lhasa, saw the Potala. There he collected scrolls, bronzes, carpets –’ she touched the silent Buddha with a long finger –’ ‘and there he ran into the strangest people of all, lamas and sorcerers . . .’
    Raka, her chin cupped in her hand, devoured her words in silence, oblivious now of the rain.
    â€˜Sorcerers with the strangest powers. They could do magic: they could make idols speak, turn day into night . . .’
    â€˜How!’ burst out Raka, in exclamation rather than questioning.
    â€˜How? Oh, how could I tell you that? Even he