The Avatari (26 page)

Lunch consisted of rice and an accompanying dish of gourds and beans, served to him in bowls. He ate sparingly and with caution and found he could hold it down. He rolled out the mat and lay down on it. When he woke up, it was twilight. He had a quick wash and waited for someone to call him. From the courtyard below, the rhythmic chant of prayers floated up, not unlike the kind he had heard while waiting for Xuan outside the temple in Saigon. He tried not to think about her.

There was a knock on the door. It was Ru San Ko.

‘Are you ready to meet the Teacher?’ the monk asked him.

Ashton nodded.

They walked down a corridor ending in yet another flight of stairs that would take them up to the third level, the monastery’s topmost floor. They entered a room, an almost exact replica of the one assigned to Ashton, but for the statue of the Buddha, which was larger, and a shelf built into the wall, where a pile of books – some in English and French – were arranged. A small steel cupboard, secured by a padlock, stood in one corner, striking a strangely incongruous note.
Why the lock?
Ashton wondered. A wrinkled old man, whose twinkling black eyes belied his age, nodded to him, indicating he should sit down beside him, facing the statue. Ru San Ko remained standing, his palms pressed together, as if in prayer.

‘Colonel Ashton?’ the old man said in a gentle voice.

‘Yes, Teacher.’

‘I trust you are comfortable?’

‘Extremely, thank you.’

Ashton meant it; the hard stone floor seemed a luxury after the boat.

‘You must have many questions?’ the Teacher asked, a happy smile playing on his face as he cocked his head from one side to the other.

‘Yes, indeed, I do.’

‘And perhaps we shall be able to provide some answers. But first, some tea?’

Ru San Ko poured out two bowls of green tea from a kettle placed in a corner. At a gesture from the Teacher, they began sipping from their bowls.

‘Perhaps you will tell us now what you have come to say?’ the Teacher asked Ashton.

So he told him the entire story, omitting nothing. He explained what the Americans wanted, what President Diem had asked for in return and how he himself had come to be a part of their machinations. Even as he spoke, he realized as much as the Teacher did, his eyes closed, his head nodding in understanding as he listened, that he, Ashton, had brought nothing to the table. When he had finished, the Teacher opened his eyes. Without a word, he poured out more tea for them, which they drank in silence.

Finally, the Teacher spoke, addressing both men, ‘So your people and the Americans still want to support Diem.’

‘Yes.’

There was nothing else Ashton could think of to say.

The Teacher bowed and nodded to Ru San Ko, who nudged Ashton, indicating that he should get up. The interview was over. From his years in the East, Ashton had learnt that to force an answer from an elder was a breach of etiquette worthy only of a barbarian. But at this moment, he had no choice. Xuan had to be released from captivity.

‘I await your answer, Venerable Teacher,’ Ashton said, his hands folded in supplication.

The Teacher looked mildly surprised, but not unduly annoyed. Ashton was grateful for that.

‘These are momentous decisions,’ he said, ‘which will have a bearing on the destiny of many people. Much deliberation is called for. The rice is being sown in the fields; let it be harvested.’

‘Then please allow the messenger to stay till the rice is harvested, Venerable Teacher,’ Ashton implored. ‘For without an answer, the messenger is worthless.’

This time, the Teacher smiled and nodded.

Back in his room, Ashton decided to be British about the situation. He knew there were three things about the British which never failed to astonish the people of the East: their refusal to acknowledge when the odds were against them, their sense of humour and their legendary eccentricity.

The next morning, when the boy came to fill the vessel with water, Ashton indicated in sign language that he wished to have his head tonsured. And so it was that he ate the morning meal in the courtyard, dressed in robes, his head shorn. He was now one of them, a
bhikshu,
a mendicant, whose daily intake of food could not exceed the amount that fit into the small wooden bowl placed before him. The others looked startled at first, but then smiled and made a place for him to sit beside them on the stone floor. Unbeknownst to Ashton, two levels above, the Teacher stood looking down at him with a smile.

Within a few days, Ashton got used to the routine. Ru San Ko would be with him, serving as guide, translator and mentor. After morning prayers, there was much to be done. Ashton observed the monks busy at work, weaving baskets, making furniture and even fashioning machine tools at a rudimentary smithy shop.

‘According to the teachings of the Buddha, we must never allow ourselves to be idle. We must continuously offer ourselves in the service of the people,’ Ru San Ko told him. ‘That which is not of use in the monastery is given away. What, may I ask, is your trade?’

Ashton thought the one thing he had learnt and was quite good at would not have met with the Buddha’s approval.

‘I have none,’ he said in reply to the monk’s question.

‘No matter. They that have no trade grow rice,’ the monk declared with a smile. ‘Come, let me show you.’

They came down off the hill and walked towards the village nearby. Ashton observed that all around them, wherever a flat piece of land was available, sowing was in progress, with men, women, children and monks busy at work.

‘Come, you can join that lot over there,’ Ru San Ko suggested, calling out to the nearest group.

‘No,’ Ashton said, holding the monk’s hand.

‘No? But I thought you wanted to grow rice.’

‘I do, but on my own.’

‘Have you grown rice before?’ the monk asked him with the kind of patience one exercises when dealing with an obstinate child.

‘No, but I will learn,’ Ashton told him.

Ashton sensed he was trying the monastic patience of the man beside him, for Ru San Ko took a deep breath and said calmly, ‘But there is no land left for you to cultivate on your own.’

That certainly seemed to be the case. All around them, every flat, open piece of land was being cultivated. Then something caught Ashton’s eye.

‘What about that?’ he asked, pointing out the spot to Ru San Ko.

It was a flat ledge, some twenty yards wide and across, which jutted out from the hillside and fell away almost vertically to the ground twenty feet below, where they now stood.

‘That? That is an impossible place to cultivate,’ Ru San Ko protested. ‘It’s too barren and rocky, to begin with. And when the rain comes down the hillside, it will wash the seedlings away.’

‘Then I can use that land? To grow rice?’ Ashton asked eagerly.

Ru San Ko said nothing. He bowed and began walking in the direction of the monastery.

Ashton followed him, the hint of a smile on his rugged face.

The days passed. He would silently repeat the chants that constituted the morning and evening prayers, trying to memorize them. Later, with Ru San Ko’s help, he wrote them down, using the Roman alphabet, and acquainted himself with the meaning of the words.

Ashton also prepared to start cultivating rice. He received the hoe, shovel and pick he needed from the storehouse almost immediately. His improvised wheelbarrow took a little more time, since it involved explaining the idea to the smithy shop first and sitting down subsequently with the workers to guide them when they set about executing it.

As for the problems relating to the land he had chosen for cultivation, it was not the hillside, Ashton discovered, that posed the real obstacle. In fact, terraces cut into the hillside for cultivation were quite common in a country that was predominantly mountainous. What did turn out to be a major hindrance was the virtual absence of any topsoil to work with. The ledge Ashton had claimed for cultivation was basically a huge rock embedded in the ground at the point where a rivulet came down from the hills, its water flowing over the rock and splashing down to the ground below like a miniature waterfall. Despite the few stony gullies, Ashton thought it was a stroke of luck that he had found something to work on – the thick layer of alluvium deposited on the ledge by the watercourse on its way down.

Ashton decided there were two things to be done almost simultaneously: the first involved working on the soil, filling it, tilling it, adding manure and then sowing the rice seeds; the second entailed diverting the water channel coming down the hillside. He took his chance and went to work on sowing first, for the end of the sowing season was fast approaching. He was fortunate that there were only a few light showers and the rivulet, a natural flood channel, almost ran dry. But it was back-breaking work lugging the fresh soil from below, followed by hoeing and furrowing. As he went about his work, Ashton found he had a bunch of children for company, who would squat some distance away, watching his progress. After the first two days of labouring on his patch, his back protested and his body was wracked with cramps.

Possessed by his work and the discipline involved in monastic routine, Ashton realized that his thoughts hardly lingered on Xuan these days. At times, he was consumed by guilt.

On what Ashton’s calendar said was a Tuesday during the third week of his stay, Ru San Ko approached him after the morning prayers, just as he was leaving for his rice patch.

‘Henry?’ the monk said, diffidently taking his name, though Ashton had assured him that this was how he would like to be addressed.

‘Yes, Ru San Ko?’

‘The Teacher has asked if you play chess.’

‘Chess?’ Ashton rubbed his palm over his bare head.

‘Yes.’

‘I do, but it has been a long time.’

‘He has asked if you would play with him after the evening prayers.’

‘The Teacher, he plays chess?’

‘He plays the Chinese version. But he also learnt the game as you play it in the West when, as a young man, he was sent abroad by the monastery for further studies. He read at the Sorbonne, from where he has a degree in Political Science.’

Ashton nodded. The revelation did not surprise him.

That evening, he was led to the Teacher’s room. The ivory pieces had already been set out on the shiny mahogany chessboard. The Teacher waved Ru San Ko away.

‘I have tried to teach them, but they are no good,’ the Teacher said shortly, after the young monk had left. His eyes on the pieces before him, he asked Ashton, ‘Do we toss?’

‘May I request the Teacher to select the white pieces? It would be unseemly for the acolyte to lead the master,’ Ashton said formally, seated cross-legged in front of the board.

‘Very well,’ the Teacher said, sounding pleased.

That was the day Ashton would discover an altogether different aspect to the man seated opposite him. The Teacher would clap his hands in delight when he captured a piece; when he lost one, he would mutter angrily to himself. Brow furrowed in concentration, he would exclaim over every move with feverish excitement, drinking copious amounts of tea all the while. From his robes, he would pull out a small golden snuff box. Taking a pinch of its contents between thumb and forefinger, he would bring it to his nostrils with great ceremony before inhaling it. It was the only form of affectation Ashton would ever see the Teacher indulge in during his time at the monastery, but somehow he couldn’t help revering him all the more for it.

Even as they played their first game of chess together, it did not take Ashton long to discover that he was pitted against a novice whose focus lay on pieces, rather than on positions. As a result, what looked to the Teacher like an advantageous position through the opening and the middle game quickly vanished in the end game.

When it was over, the Teacher disconsolately knocked down his king, accepting defeat, and said, ‘I think I will get better as we go along. We shall play again next Tuesday.’

‘I will consider it a privilege,’ Ashton responded formally. ‘Perhaps after we finish our game, the Teacher will be so kind as to initiate me into the teachings of the Buddha?’

The Teacher nodded absently. His baleful gaze was fixed on the remaining pieces on the board. As Ashton watched, the white pawn moved a step forward on its own. He looked up, startled, at the Teacher and noticed the beads of sweat on his brow. Ashton felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. He rose to his feet, bowed to the Teacher and hurriedly left the room.

The next day, there was quite a commotion at the morning prayers. The Teacher had come down with a stick in his hand which he was using quite liberally on the young monks around him. He found fault with the way the morning prayers were being chanted and rebuked everyone soundly. After that, he carried out an inspection of the kitchen and the shops where, once again, the stick was put to good use.

After the Teacher had gone back upstairs, still shouting at his flock, Ru San Ko came up to Ashton, looking perturbed.

‘Perhaps the Teacher will not lose at chess next Tuesday?’ he suggested, a note of entreaty in his voice.

‘Perhaps,’ Ashton said with a smile.

Ru San Ko stared at him and his face broke out in a shy grin, the first Ashton had ever seen on that serious young man’s face.

Ashton’s studies and discussions with the Teacher continued. While discipline and self-denial were considered a means to subjugate desire, the monastery refrained from imposing on its inmates the rigid austerity he had expected. In fact, the younger monks were encouraged to play games, during which they would often be quite rambunctious, while the elders looked on with fond indulgence. During one of their many discussions, the Teacher would take pains to explain to Ashton that at the outset, the Buddha had practised the most severe austerities, giving them up as a futile endeavour when he found the golden mean between indulgence and self-abnegation and determined that this would be his path to enlightenment. Liberation was attained through meditation and leading the right life, as described in the Noble Eightfold Path. Release from the endless karmic cycle of rebirth could be achieved through the banishment of ignorance. Their own monastery followed the Theravada school of Buddhism, wherein joining a
sangha
or order was an intermediary step towards the individual attainment of enlightenment. Monks who wished to leave the monastery were not dissuaded from doing so; it was understood that they had yet to reach that stage of their karma where they would be ready to join the
sangha
. There were a few among the inmates that Ashton suspected to be homosexual, but their presence neither disrupted discipline nor became an issue. On one occasion, a pretty young lad, who had been giving Ashton fleeting smiles for some time, approached him in the community bathing room and began rubbing himself against him. Ashton gently pushed the boy away and he left without a word. Other monks continued to bathe without comment, as if nothing had happened. Ashton was never propositioned again.