Dichroa. Diaries of Tibetan Wanderings

“Tsybikov?” Darina raised an eyebrow in surprise — a woman of about sixty, with snow-white hair and a face in which Asian and Caucasian features were curiously interwoven. “It’s been a long time since I heard that name spoken here… Usually everyone talks about Kozlov and Schmidt, and then — Tsybikov… Well, I never…”

I shrugged and took a sip of tea from my mug.

We were in the library of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts in Petersburg, at a symposium on Tibetan studies, and this was my third visit to the repository of ancient books on the banks of the Neva. The first, though, had proved more bewildering than informative: I remember staring in disbelief at the taxi driver, who kept insisting we had arrived at the right place. Something in my head simply refused to accept that the library I needed could be inside a building so beautiful and so old — a building far better suited to an embassy or the reception hall of some state corporation.

And yet the plaque by the entrance confirmed the driver’s words. Google, with its merciless certainty, insisted that the Oriental manuscripts were kept not just anywhere, but in the western wing of the Novo-Mikhailovsky Palace — an eminent architectural landmark on Palace Embankment.

“So this is the place.”

I paid the fare, climbed the steps, took hold of the carved handle, and pulled the door toward me. Entering the spacious foyer — a little battered by time, perhaps, but still impressive in its proportions — I stood for a moment, looking at the marble staircase sweeping up to the second floor.

“Where are you going?” a voice asked from somewhere to the side.

I turned toward it and saw a stern old woman seated behind the reception desk.

“I’d like to look at Tsybikov’s manuscripts.”

My answer seemed to plunge the vigilant old lady into a brief stupor, but she managed to gather herself for a follow-up question:

“Which organization are you from?”

The Russian Geographical Society credential I produced made her raise the white flag.

“Down the corridor and to the right. Someone will meet you there.”

The old woman had not lied: another line of reception defense awaited me, but the “guardian” stationed here was younger and friendlier than the first — clearly, she knew they would not send just anyone her way. I briefly explained what had brought me to the library. The woman allowed that it sounded interesting, but the deputy director, Olga Lundysheva, was not in that day, so the best option would be to give her a call…

“And do you, by the way, like tea?” Darina broke into the stream of my thoughts, pulling me out of memory and back into the Tibetan studies conference.

Not that anything especially interesting had been running through my mind. Strictly speaking, nothing much else had happened on that first visit: over the phone, the deputy director and I agreed that I would come on the sixth of September to examine Tsybikov’s manuscripts, and that was that.

“Actually, I’m more of a coffee person,” I admitted, looking up at Darina. “And I can’t say I have much feeling for the ceremonial mythology of tea.”

“Ah, young man, take it from me — from a woman of a certain age — coffee and tea are simply beyond comparison,” Darina said, with a hint of regret. “It’s like comparing cigars and cigarettes. A quick hit of nicotine versus meditation.”

She sighed.

“Though you won’t find good tea in Petersburg, so your fondness for that black, bitter sludge is, in a way, perfectly understandable…”

I watched her, trying to work out why she had struck up a conversation with me in the first place. We hadn’t been introduced; we had simply both come to the Tibetan studies lectures, and during the tea break Darina had decided to ask what sort of knowledge I was looking for here. My answer had evidently surprised her—but not greatly, judging by how easily she had jumped to another subject.

“Returning to Tsybikov,” Darina said, as if reading my thoughts. “You surely know about the Great Game between Britain and Russia at the turn of the last century?”

The phrase *you surely know* seemed to be the pet cliché of every speaker that day. Everyone—from local experts to visiting Tibetologists dressed in strict accordance with the Buddhist monastic canon—began practically every sentence the same way, proceeding in the most matter-of-fact tone to dispense information I could barely spell correctly, much less pronounce. And the entire audience nodded dutifully at every *you surely know*, lest the lecturers begin to doubt their fitness to share in the subjects under discussion.

Fortunately, where the Great Game was concerned, I was spared the need to feign expertise: I really had read a great deal about the struggle between Russia and Britain for influence over Tibet, Manchuria, and Northern China.

Having waited for my nod, Darina went on:

“Then you surely know that Badmayev, Dzhordzhiev, and Tsybikov lobbied the government—Sergei Witte and Nicholas II personally—on the need to annex those territories to Russia. At the same time, however, the St. Petersburg Freemasons—Tereshchenko and Kerensky in particular—insisted that any attempt at annexation would bring about the empire’s collapse, citing the lack of resources both to integrate those lands and to hold them. As we can see, the Freemasons won.”

A strange smile touched Darina’s lips—as if she had personally campaigned for Tereshchenko and Kerensky.

“Well, if you ask me, it was more a case of common sense prevailing,” I ventured cautiously.

“Common sense, young man,” my interlocutor said with a smirk, “is a perfectly abstract notion. There is no such thing as unhealthy sense, is there?”

I nodded slowly.

“Though I do understand your doubts. Let us agree that one of the possible scenarios prevailed, and for what reason—who can say for certain?.. But what interests me far more is something else: there is a body of opinion that holds that Tsybikov, in truth, shared the Freemasons’ position and wanted to leave everything exactly as it was.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Honestly, I’ve never heard anything of the kind…”

“And that is hardly surprising. From whom, if not eyewitnesses to those events, could you possibly have heard it?” Darina gave a small snort.

Her gaze slid across the screen hanging on the hall’s snow-white wall. It looked rather out of place there, among the gilded figurines and other trappings of luxury.

“Tea, in truth, is the very vessel of generational memory,” my interlocutor announced, changing the subject again without the slightest compunction. “Its leaves seem to absorb the wisdom of the ages… Coffee beans, in that respect, are far more frivolous.”

Before I could think of a reply, Darina had already returned to the previous thread:

“I think, Maxim, you ought to concentrate on Tsybikov’s book about his journey to Tibet, and on the photographs he brought back—there are plenty of them online. Believe me, finding the original diaries won’t be easy, and it will take far too long… But I beg you: do read what he wrote about medicinal herbs. Believe me, they’ll be of far more use to you than the official diaries.”

It was hard to disagree with her. The second time I came to the library, the guide, Olga, spent a long while telling me, with great enthusiasm, about the Novo-Mikhailovsky Palace itself and about the institute. But when the conversation turned to Tsybikov, I learned a disheartening fact: neither the diaries nor the original photographs are kept in the archives here, unfortunately—only (only!...) the 330 volumes of books Tsybikov had brought back from Tibet. Drawing on her considerable experience, Olga advised me to acquaint myself with the works of Isaak Jakob Schmidt on the history of Tibet and the Tibetan language, and I followed her advice, spending the entire day in the library… But since photography was forbidden, I took away with me only what I had managed to jot down in my notebook as I read and talked with the guide—which is to say, not much. And how much still remained unread!.. According to Olga, if ten members of the library staff digitized the documents kept here every day, it would take them at least thirty-five years.

Now, having come to the Tibetologists’ readings, I understood just how valuable Darina’s advice had been. I thanked her and was about to return to my seat when my companion suddenly came right up to me and pressed into my hand an olive-colored business card, a telephone number printed on it in gold.

“114 Moika,” Darina said quietly. “A good… acquaintance of mine lives there. Call this number, give the name of the architect who built the house, and arrange a meeting. I dare say it will stay with you far longer than today’s lectures by our esteemed Tibetologists.”

After this strange little speech, my whimsical companion calmly returned to her seat. For the rest of the evening she did not once so much as glance in my direction, and she left the library before the readings were over, without saying goodbye to anyone. I, meanwhile, made an honest effort to concentrate on the lecture, but unfortunately the presentations by the trio of Tibetologists visiting the library that day proved to be of little interest to me after all. Everything they said fell into two categories: things I already knew, and things I did not understand. On top of that, my mind kept returning to the olive-colored business card and Darina’s mysterious remarks, and I was constantly being led astray by thoughts that had nothing to do with the matter at hand.

“What acquaintance is she talking about? Why should a meeting with him stay with me? Did he study Tsybikov too? And what does any of this have to do with treatises on medicinal herbs?”

When the lectures were finally over, I left the library and headed for the nearest café, where I turned the olive-colored card over and over in my hands for so long that the double espresso I had ordered had time to go cold. I don’t know what made me hesitate. Perhaps Darina’s behavior was simply too strange? I don’t know… In any case, I did eventually dial the number on the card, though not before googling the name of the architect of that mysterious house.

“Hello,” a smoky baritone said into the receiver after a long series of rings.

In my mind’s eye, there appeared at once the portrait of an elderly bald man in monk’s robes, his faded gray eyes filled with infinite calm.

I gave the surname of the architect who had built house number 114 on the Moika. There was a pause.

“You’re calling from Darina?” the voice asked at last.

“Yes.”

“Shall we meet today at three, at Ronnie?” the voice suggested immediately. “It’s a café on New Holland Island.”

“All right,” I said after a moment.

“Until then,” my interlocutor said, and hung up.

I set the phone aside and, still boring into him with my gaze, took a sip from my cup. The situation was growing stranger by the second. Who on earth, I wondered, had fate thrown me in with? Urban cranks obsessed with conspiracy theories? Common sense stubbornly insisted this was the most likely answer, but intuition—that same ephemeral thing that defies all logic—urged me to go to the meeting…

“With whom, though? I don’t even know his name…”

And yet I decided to go to New Holland Island. Ironically, the bridge leading onto the island stood directly opposite the brick house at 114 Moika River Embankment—the Schröter Mansion. Its façade bore a compass and a set square, a sort of maker’s mark left by the owner. Having given due admiration to the pointed gables, the mansard roofs, and the corner turret whose tiles resembled the scales of some mythical dragon, I made my way to Ronnie Café. By some miracle, the taxi driver managed to slip through Petersburg’s legendary traffic, and I arrived fifteen minutes early. At that moment there was exactly one person in the café, and until he smiled and waved me over, I genuinely doubted that this was the Tibetologist I had arranged to meet.

If only because the man sitting at the table looked like the most ordinary hipster: dark hair to his shoulders, a shaggy beard, a plaid shirt, and cuffed jeans—none of which bore much resemblance to the portrait I had painted in my head.

Half-expecting a trick, I approached his table.

“Good afternoon,” he said, dispelling the last of my doubts.

The voice was the same—a smoky baritone.

“It’s him. No doubt about it.”

Meanwhile, the young man rose from his seat and held out his hand.

“Andrei. Tibetologist.”

For the first time our eyes met, and I noticed, with surprise, that his were an old man’s eyes—gray and faded.

“Maxim,” I said, shaking Andrei’s hand.

We sat down at the table.

“I imagine you’re surprised?” the Tibetologist said with a smile.

“I am,” I said, not bothering to hide it. “You have a very… mature voice. So I assumed you’d be… older.”

“Older, younger…” Andrei winced. “Age is a myth, like any other attempt to pin content down. All these systems of counting were invented merely to impose some semblance of unity between what the eye sees and what the mind comprehends.”

He reached out and picked up a thermos from the table. I blinked in bewilderment. For some reason, I could have sworn that when I came in there had been no thermos on the table—only two empty cups on saucers.

“Try it and tell me what you think,” Andrei said.

He filled a cup for me, then turned to his own. I took a couple of sips and, to my own surprise, thought:

“This is… exquisite.”

I doubt I could have found the words to describe that extraordinary taste. It would be better to speak of sensations: after a small sip, warmth spread through my body, as if from a fine whisky, and all at once I felt completely calm, completely at ease. My head cleared in an instant, and the stream of thoughts that had been tangled before now arranged itself in perfect order.

“You don’t have to answer,” Andrei said, still with the same smile. “Your face and your eyes have already answered for you. I feel the very same thing every time, though I’ve been drinking it every day for more than a hundred years now…”

“More than a hundred?”

The magical tea had made me remarkably serene, but even so, the number he had just named stirred something in me.

“A twenty-five-year-old hipster claims he’s lived more than a hundred years… What is this, some kind of strange game? Or are there special herbs in this tea that affect the mind?”

Deciding for the moment to let my companion’s strange words pass without comment, I said:

“Forgive the rather mercantile question, but… where do you get this tea? I think I might buy some for myself…”

“Alas, this tea is not so easy to come by.” Andrei shook his head. “And it is not cheap, either. Forgive me—I don’t really know you yet, but many people I’ve known have run through their fortunes rather quickly simply because they wanted to drink it all the time…”

“And what sort of tea is it, exactly? Where does it come from? Tibet?”

“Yes—a special blend of Tibetan herbs…”

Andrei reached into the rucksack standing on the chair beside him, took out a small silk pouch, and tossed it onto the table.

“Have a look, if you like.”

I loosened the drawstring and peered inside: broad leaves were mixed with tiny flower petals. Even dry, the blend gave off an exquisite fragrance.

“You won’t find anything like this in a shop. Friends supply me personally, many of whom I first met before the First World War…”

I started. Once again I had the feeling that everything taking place was nothing but a dream, bearing little resemblance to reality. Deciding not to force rigid logic into our strange conversation, I asked:

“So you might have known Gombojab Tsybikov?”

“Why might?” Andrei shrugged. “I knew him.”

I froze, staring up at the Tibetologist from under my brows, astonished.

The broth warmed his lips, his throat, then spread through him in a wave of saving heat.

“Gombojab!” a familiar voice called.

Tsybikov started and turned toward it. It was Yeshi, one of the pilgrims whose caravan Gombojab had joined on the road. Among the others, Yeshi was regarded as the most seasoned traveler: he had been to Lhasa no fewer than nine times and knew the route by heart.

*How fortunate I am to have fallen in with such people… Without them, the journey would have been far harder.*

“What are you drinking, Gombojab?” Yeshi asked. “That tea of yours again?”

“Yes,” Tsybikov said, though for some reason he did not much like hearing his drink called that.

*Tea… Three letters can hardly contain all the elements of this miraculous decoction…*

“Will you share? It’s bitterly cold out here…”

“Help yourself.” Tsybikov shrugged and handed Yeshi his ugly clay mug.

Watching Yeshi take a sip, squeeze his eyes shut, and smack his lips in bliss, Tsybikov remembered how he had once stood in much the same way beside Fyodor Pavlovich Savelyev, professor at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, in a bright study with a high ceiling and a window that occupied nearly an entire wall. Heavy curtains bunched in the corners; judging by the dust, they were very seldom drawn.

“Thank you for coming, Gombojab Tsebekovich,” Fyodor Pavlovich said.

He looked exactly as Tsybikov imagined a professor of the Academy of Sciences ought to look: a gray beard, hair not especially abundant, severe spectacles perched on the tip of a long nose, and shrewd gray eyes that regarded the world with a certain weariness—the years had made themselves felt, and Savelyev was a little past sixty.

*In his youth he must have burned with urgency, rushed everywhere, tried to manage everything at once… I’ve heard the stories, yes, I’ve heard them…* Tsybikov thought, then said aloud:

“How could I disregard your invitation, Fyodor Pavlovich? It is a great honor for me to be here, at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences… though I confess I still find it difficult to imagine why you might have summoned me.”

“They did not lie to me about you,” Fyodor Pavlovich observed, with a faint, slightly crooked smile. “You are exceedingly tactful… perhaps even more so than necessary.”

He chewed his lip—furtively—then seemed to catch himself and stopped. After a moment, he said:

“I suppose you also made inquiries about me before coming here? That would be quite in character.”

“Perhaps *inquiries* is too strong a word.” Tsybikov shrugged. “I know a great deal about you in any case. Even when I was just entering the university, people were already telling me about you. You are, after all, a renowned orientalist. I have read your work…”

“I am flattered, but let us not waste time on courtesies,” Fyodor Pavlovich said, wincing slightly as he raised a hand. “Especially since I do not suffer from vanity, unlike certain colleagues of mine.”

He chuckled, and the tension that had been hanging between host and guest dissolved at once. Savelyev, it seemed, knew perfectly well how to guide a conversation.

“What matters is that we are both orientalists, you and I,” the professor continued. “And my business concerns the East—Tibet, in particular.”

Gombojab frowned at the name. In scholarly circles Tibet had long been stubbornly referred to as *terra incognita*: getting there was all but impossible. How many petitions had the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences submitted, even bringing in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs… All in vain. The Tibetans had no desire for outsiders to intrude upon their lives — none whatsoever.

“I see you’re skeptical,” Fyodor Pavlovich said. “And of course you have reason to be. I won’t pretend otherwise: we have not obtained permission to conduct research in Tibet. In that respect, nothing has changed. And yet…”

Saveliev paused. Evidently, even for him — a professor tempered by long experience — the right words did not come easily. Tsybikov stiffened: he sensed that whatever followed would be of unutterable importance.

“And yet we would still like to send you there… send you there,” Fyodor Pavlovich said at last.

Tsybikov stood rooted to the spot. As he understood it, “no authorization for research” meant that researchers did not go.

*Or am I missing something…?*

“Are we speaking of an… unofficial journey?” Gombojab asked cautiously.

“One might put it that way, perhaps…” Saveliev muttered.

All his former bravado had vanished in an instant. A moment earlier he had seemed utterly sure of himself; now Fyodor Pavlovich was weighing every word, as if he stood not before a man but before some wild creature that might be frightened off by an unfortunate intonation, or even by the slightest raising of the voice.

“As far as I know, at school you refused to accept Christianity, and so lost your scholarship?” Saveliev said — less asking than stating a fact.

Tsybikov looked at the professor steadily from under his brows and said, quietly but firmly:

“Yes. That is so.”

Gombojab’s memories of those years, and of Pyotr Badmayev, who embodied them, were deeply conflicted. On the one hand, Pyotr — an eminent countryman with access to the palace — had radically altered the life of a young Buryat who had never even dreamed of studying the languages and traditions of the East. For that, Tsybikov was unspeakably grateful. On the other hand, there had been incidents like the one Saveliev had just mentioned.

*How can anyone ask you to change your faith? It is not like changing a suit… or a hairstyle… It lives in the soul — what you believe. You cannot stop believing at will. You cannot begin believing at will.*

As if reading his thoughts, Saveliev said:

“And it is precisely your defiance we are counting on now, Gombojab. Because what we need is not Tsybikov the Christian, but Tsybikov the Buddhist.”

The chill of excitement that had already been creeping over Gombojab’s soul now seemed to freeze everything inside the young orientalist…

“What are you thinking about?” Eshei-tomba asked, drawing his companion out of his reverie.

“About how hard our journey already is,” Tsybikov replied after a pause, “and how many hardships still lie ahead. This is only the very beginning, really…”

“Yes, Lhasa is still a long way off. The road is no short one — you’re right about that,” Eshei agreed.

“And next for us is Kumbum Monastery?”

“Yes. Probably…” Eshei said, after thinking for a moment. “We should be there by evening, most likely. If nothing happens…”

He broke off, unable to find the word, but Tsybikov understood what his companion meant: every one of them flinched whenever the cold steppe wind carried in scraps of distant voices, the echo of hooves from horses they could not see, and other sounds that had nothing calming about them. And those same wandering currents brought the smell of strangers’ campfires to their nostrils. The wonderful decoction could steady the nerves, but it could not drive away the unease entirely.

*And perhaps it should not. Stop fearing everything, and you may pay for such carelessness with your head… and I cannot afford to lose mine. My mission matters too much. Falter for a moment, rouse suspicion—and you are dead already; your own people will take off your head, so the Tibetans do not execute everyone on account of one mangy sheep that trailed after the pilgrim caravan…*

“Are you afraid, Gombojab?” Eshei asked bluntly, with a note of condescension in his voice—or rather, contempt.

“Afraid of what, exactly?” Tsybikov asked carefully.

“Well… everything. Bandits. The steppe… Tibet.”

The searching gaze moved over Gombojab’s face, waiting… for what? Some passing grimace that would betray dishonest intentions? Tsybikov rejected the thought at once. Yes, ever since he had joined the party preparing to leave for Tibet—after long conversations with Saveliev and the other scholars at the academy—Gombojab had lived in constant fear of exposure. Every hour, every minute, he rehearsed the questions his companions might ask him and devised answers to each. In every word the Buryat pilgrims addressed to him, he looked for a trap… just as he was doing now.

*Most likely he merely wants to see my eyes dart while I swear I feel no fear at all… well then, let him have his amusement and set his mind at ease…*

“Afraid is perhaps too strong a word, Yeshei,” Tsybikov said, allowing a faint tremor into his voice. “Wary, rather… I should not care to lose my head before I have even set eyes on Tibet…”

Judging by the satisfied smile on his companion’s face, Gombojab had produced the required emotion.

*So this is what I shall have to do from now on—lie, dissemble, perform…*

“Yes, I have been there more than once. Every true Buddhist must see Tibet,” Yeshei declared with quiet conviction. “Without that pilgrimage, his faith is no faith at all—only a name, nothing more!”

“Drinking your decoction again, Gombojab?” asked a short, wiry Buryat with a shock of dishevelled black hair as he came up to them.

His name was Dashiy, a Buryat lama. He led a laden camel by the bridle; a pair of tied saddlebags, stuffed with the Buryat’s modest belongings, thumped against the animal’s flanks.

“We are,” Gombojab said after a pause, nodding. “Will you have some?”

“Aye, I will,” Dashiy grunted cheerfully.

He reached out with his free hand, took the cup from Tsybikov, and swallowed a long draught.

“Ah, that’s good…” Dashiy whispered, smacking his lips with pleasure.

“Are we preparing to move on?” Yeshei asked.

“Chesoy says it’s time,” Dashiy replied, handing the cup back to Tsybikov. “Otherwise we risk not reaching the place before dark.”

Tsybikov did not miss the disdainful curl of Yeshei’s lips: for all his companion’s experience, it was Chesoy who had been chosen to lead them, simply because he was treasurer to the reincarnate lama awaiting him in Lhasa.

"Well then, we had best get ready," the orientalist said, hoping to ease the tension, if only a little.

The travellers said nothing. Tsybikov went to stamp out the fire and gather his things; he had no wish to delay the caravan. At Chesoy's insistence, Dashiy rode a full circuit around the camp and soon returned with welcome news: the horizon was clear, and nothing stood between them and the road to Kumbum Monastery.

*Oh, here you are again, my stubborn camel!* Gombojab thought as he loaded the beast. *Do try not to buck…*

Fortunately, all went well. The camel behaved with perfect propriety, and all the way to Kumbum, Tsybikov was free to turn over his plans and sift through the past, trying to remember what had driven him to agree to such an adventure — a journey to Tibet disguised as a Buryat pilgrim.

*Now you look back and wonder — why, what for? Why couldn't you have stayed in Petersburg?*

Following the Gui River upstream, the pilgrim caravan turned right and climbed a low hill. From its summit, the monastery of Kumbum spread out below, and Gombojab reined in his camel to take in the wondrous sight.

Tsybikov had read a great deal about this place. They say it all began with Tsongkhapa, the great reformer of Lamaism, and his mother. According to legend, he once shed his blood here, and three years later, on the very spot where the crimson drops had fallen into the soil, a tsandan sandalwood tree grew, its leaves bearing images in which one could make out deities. When Tsongkhapa came of age, he left his father's house for the great deeds that awaited him. His aged mother remained behind; before long she grew lonely for her son and began writing to him, begging for a reunion. Tsongkhapa could not come, but he instructed his mother to build, beneath the shade of the tsandan tree, a suburgan containing one hundred thousand images of the Lion-Faced One. The reformer declared that this would bring great benefit to all living beings, and for his mother it could serve in place of their meeting. His mother fulfilled her son's will, and before long the stupa stood complete. In time, people from all across Tibet began to gather at the suburgan. First, the lama Rinchen-Tsondui-Gyatso erected a cell nearby for his thirty disciples; then, in 1577, a temple was built here to house a statue of the twelve-year-old Savior Maitreya, fashioned from medicinal clay. Finally, six years later, at the insistence of the Third Dalai Lama, Sonam Gyatso, a monastery was raised, and it was given the name Kumbum — for those very same one hundred thousand portraits of the Lion-Faced One.

*How difficult it is to grow used to the thought that all of Tibet is an intricate weaving of reality and fiction,* Tsybikov thought, gazing with interest at the multitude of buildings set within a deep ravine facing north.

The monastery's principal structure — the one that housed the suburgan — stood on a foundation of grey granite. Its walls were clad in green brick, and its roof was covered in a double layer of gilding. The other buildings paled somewhat beside it, though they still carried a distinctly noble air.

"Ha!" barked a voice behind them.

It belonged to their leader, Chesoy, and Gombojab, recognizing him at once, did not even turn around.

"Where shall we stop for the night?" he asked when the commander's camel drew level with his own.

"At the house of the venerable Longbo-Choijong," the leader replied after a pause. "He is an old acquaintance of mine, and a diviner."

At the mention of Longbo-Choijong’s trade, Gombojab visibly tensed. He had little faith in sorcery or anything connected with it, but given his present position as a scout, Tsybikov feared any situation that might lead to his unmasking.

*But surely I cannot ask Cheshoi to choose another place for the night? He will certainly want to know what displeases me about this one, and what shall I answer then?*

Deciding that the best he could do just now was nothing, Tsybikov said only:

“I hope we shall not trouble the most respected Longbo-Choijong.”

“Oh no, he is most hospitable, and since he lives as a recluse, he is always glad to hear tales of what goes on beyond the walls of his humble dwelling.”

Tsybikov soon had occasion to judge Longbo-Choijong’s hospitality for himself: when they arrived at his house, their host was seated on a bench to the left of the entrance, watching the clouds drift across the sky. The diviner was plainly but neatly dressed, as befitted any modest townsman. A long white beard adorned his face, and white hair fell over his shoulders like willow branches rimed with frost.

“Good health to you, venerable Longbo-Choijong!” the caravan leader greeted his old acquaintance cheerfully.

“And may you be well, venerable Cheshoi,” the diviner replied.

He did not look surprised—only glad.

*Could he truly have known in advance that we were coming?* Tsybikov wondered, only to remember at once that Chesoi came from these very parts—and so Longbo-Choijong had every reason not to be surprised by yet another arrival.

Chesoi introduced each of his companions to the host, and for some reason the man lingered longest over Tsybikov—a full minute at least, looking into his eyes with the faintest smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, before moving on to the next traveller.

“You’ve clearly struck some chord in him,” hissed Dashiy, the busybody standing at Gombojab’s side. “I wonder what it was.”

Tsybikov said nothing. He did not know what to expect of Longbo-Choijong, but one look into those eyes told him the seer truly saw more than most.

*I wonder—how much more?*

Longbo-Choijong answered that question soon enough. On one of the last evenings in January, the seer knocked on Gombojab’s door, much to the latter’s astonishment.

“May I come in?”

“Yes, of course…” Tsybikov replied.

The seer stepped inside and sat down on the bench by the wall. Along the opposite wall stood Gombojab’s cot, onto which the Orientalist slowly lowered himself, following his host’s example. All the while he kept his eyes fixed on Longbo-Choijong, and Longbo-Choijong on him—the seer’s eyes were laughing.

“To what do I owe the visit?” the Orientalist asked cautiously.

“I wanted to speak with you from the very beginning, Gombojab Tsybikov,” the host said. “I was simply waiting for the right moment.”

“And it has come?”

“Who can say.” The seer gave a slight shrug. “Perhaps it has, perhaps it hasn’t… The future will make it clear. In any event, the universe wished me to speak with you, Gombojab, and here I am.”

*The universe?*

A vague unease crept over Tsybikov. He still did not quite believe in their host’s prophetic gift, or in magic of any kind, yet Longbo-Choijong’s certainty stirred a quiet disquiet in the Orientalist.

*What if he looks at me and sees right through me—who I am, where I come from, what awaits me? What if he has already told Chesoi my secret, and right now he is—*

“I must say, I am impressed,” Long-bo-choijong said, cutting across the thread of his thoughts.

“By what?”

“By what awaits you, Gombojab Tsybikov… A glorious fate, a truly glorious one… and an end to match: a kapala will be fashioned from your skull!”

Tsybikov flinched. He knew such an honour was not bestowed on just anyone, but he had no wish to dwell on death or the honours that came after it.

“What is wrong?” Long-bo-choijong asked, genuinely puzzled. “Surely the news does not displease you?”

“No, it’s just…”

“You simply do not quite believe in my gift, do you?” The host broke into a broad grin.

Tsybikov could find no answer.

“Don’t trouble yourself over it,” Long-bo-choijong said, waving a hand. “Even here, in Kumbum, there is no shortage of charlatans and frauds of every kind.”

“Oh no, please… I would never presume to—”

“Let it be,” the host said with a wince. “To believe or not to believe is every man’s most sacred affair. In any case, you will see for yourself!”

With an enigmatic smile on his lips, Long-bo-choijong rose from the bench and made for the door. His guest watched him go with a faintly absent gaze.

“Good night, Gombojab Tsybikov,” the seer said, pausing on the threshold.

“Good night… but surely… surely you will say nothing more?” the Orientalist asked, unable to restrain himself.

“You see, Gombojab Tsybikov…” Long-bo-choijong said with a faint, apologetic smile. “The universe permits me to glimpse the future on only one condition: that I reveal little of what I see, unless the need is dire. Otherwise, what is to come will cease to show itself to me.”

The Orientalist nodded, his head bowed low. Seeing his disappointment, the host sighed wearily and said:

“One word only: dikhroya. Find it, and you will know what to do next. That is all.”

Long-bo-choijong stepped out of the room, but Gombojab remained where he was, staring glassily into the void.

The mysterious word the seer had spoken rang through his mind.

“Dikhroya.”

Gombojab slowly lifted the tea bowl and took a sip of his brew, then lay down, stretched himself out to his full length, and closed his eyes.

Within minutes, calm had spread through his body, and Tsybikov slept like a child.

I lay in my hotel room in Lhasa, 3,600 metres above sea level, wincing at the sour stink of dog meat and staring at the ceiling. The moonlight — extraordinarily bright in these parts — slipped through a gap in the curtains and laid down a pale stripe, cutting the dim square above me into two triangles.

How had Tsybikov put it? “At high altitude, the sense of smell grows sharper”?

I lay there studying those triangles while my head quite literally threatened to split in two.

It’s nothing, I kept telling myself. Just altitude sickness… the necessary adjustment… a couple of days and it’ll pass… two, three days at most…

Alas, no amount of self-persuasion helped. With every passing minute the pain grew more savage, and sleep — the sleep that might have covered me with its merciful blanket of oblivion, so essential if I was to make it through to morning — that damned sleep refused to come. Unable to bear it any longer, at one in the morning I knocked on the door of Borya Kats — Borya, otherwise known as the Lama. As the organizer of our route, he had been to Tibet twenty times, if not more, and so had prudently dragged along a medicine kit of impressive proportions. It seemed to contain a cure for every ailment under the sun.

One look at me and Borya had his diagnosis.

“Mountain sickness acting up,” the Lama muttered sleepily, rummaging through his box of pills. “It always hits at night — breathing slows down, the oxygen level in the blood drops… But it’s fixable. Good thing you didn’t try to hold out till morning. It could have got a lot worse, and then a simple injection wouldn’t have done it — you might have ended up going home via a hospital ward.”

But surely that wasn’t how it was supposed to be — to arrive in Lhasa only to leave it at once? I thought.

“Thanks, Borya,” I said when the injection was done.

“Ronang²,” the Lama replied with a faint smile.

And with that we parted until morning — Borya collapsed back into bed, and I made my way to my room, hoping that I too might finally get some rest.

The painkiller did not take effect at once. For several minutes I lay there waiting for the blessed release from the migraine, only to be disappointed again and again. At last the mountain sickness began, little by little, to retreat. I smiled with relief.

Well, finally…

The happiness, however, was brief. The moment the headache lifted, I realized I could not fall asleep. Exhausted as I was, I simply could not close my eyes.

On the whole, the world is profoundly irrational: everything a person needs exists only so that, once obtained, it becomes worth not a damn.

I flinched. The thought was too sharp, too strange, as if it belonged to someone else — as if it had burst into my skull from somewhere outside.

Maybe it was the lack of sleep? All kinds of rubbish creeping in… Or perhaps my brain, starved of oxygen, had decided it was dying and was now hysterically producing these bizarre constructions? Hard to say…

I needed to sleep, but that cursed sleep still would not come.

How strange — I hadn’t slept last night either, though at least then it had been in a chair, sitting upright…

All things considered, the flight to China had left me with nothing but pleasant impressions. Boarding for Chengdu had begun exactly on time, which rather surprised me.

And yet this Sichuan outfit is only one of hundreds of Chinese airlines, and not even among the best known. If the Lama hadn’t recommended it, I would never have risked booking this flight — the last thing you want is for your journey to end in a complete fiasco, with someone scraping your ashes and bits of flesh off pieces of fuselage scattered across terrain you never intended to set foot on…

I showed my boarding pass to the smiling girl at the counter and, passing through the grey tunnel sleeve of the *Alexander Pushkin* — Sheremetyevo’s latest rebrand — stepped onto the plane. It was packed to the gills with Chinese traders who made their fortunes hawking every imaginable kind of knockoff merchandise. My seat was by the window; I settled in, made myself comfortable, and, watching the baggage handlers dart between wheels and boarding stairs, braced myself for the long haul.

*Though what are eight hours compared with the ordeals of travelling to Tibet in the old days — months-long treks on camelback, nights in tents sewn from hides, the constant fear of falling prey to bandits?*

I smiled to myself. How much had changed in barely a century! At the turn of the twentieth century, travelling to Tibet from Russia was the stuff of heroism; now it amounted to no more than a single night in a soft, upholstered seat, with just one layover. True, getting proper sleep in such conditions was no easy feat, and sitting in the same position for so long did become rather tiresome. But beside what Buddhist pilgrims endured on their annual pilgrimage to Lhasa, these were trifles — the sort of thing one would be ashamed even to mention.

Before long, boarding was complete. The plane stirred from its stand and trundled toward the runway, ready to fling itself into the dark Moscow sky. I cast a farewell glance at the terminal, ablaze with multicoloured lights like a New Year’s installation, and opened Alexander Pyatigorsky’s *Thought and Observation*. It would be my literary companion for the journey ahead — my flesh-and-blood fellow pilgrims I was not to meet until Lhasa.

Somewhere around midnight, my seatmate from the Celestial Empire decided to have dinner — a cup of Doshirak — and the sight of it made me search my memory for the last time I had eaten that synthetic stuff. It had been during the 2015 Rally Rodina, when a group of us bikers rode from Sakhalin to St. Petersburg on Ural motorcycles. As it happened, two men from that crew — Borya Lama and Sasha Rebe — had come to Tibet with me as well. More than that, it was Lama who had dreamed up the whole idea (and, given his nickname, it was not hard to guess he had a weakness for all things Buddhist), while Rebe had done everything he could to help Borya make it happen.

That night on the plane, sleep finally took me somewhere around two, though I kept waking, and by morning I felt decidedly out of sorts. Still, the moment I stepped off the plane I revived myself with an espresso, made it — without much drama — through a thorough inspection of my luggage by the Chinese police and the hour-and-a-half hop from Chengdu to Lhasa, and emerged from the airport in considerably better spirits. The sun was shining, and as I looked out the window at the garish shop signs covered in enormous characters, I reflected that the altitude seemed to agree with me rather well…

*If you won’t let today become yesterday, then tomorrow sure as hell won’t come either* — the thought slammed through my skull again, wrenching me out of the past and back into the hotel room.

I froze. There it was again — as if the voice belonged to someone else. Not to me.

*No, this has to be fatigue and altitude sickness. There simply can’t be any other explanation,* I decided, and let my mind drift back once more to the events of the day before.

Unfortunately, I had been the first to arrive from the airport, which left me cooling my heels in the hotel lobby with Oleg and Jimmy: Oleg was our guide from the tour operator; Jimmy represented the Chinese authorities, and his job was to make sure we did nothing illegal.

*That we kept strictly to the approved itinerary and didn’t see anything we weren’t supposed to.*

Before long, the other “pilgrims” began to arrive. Every last one of them asked about altitude sickness, one way or another.

“Well, how’s the head?” the Lama asked the moment he saw me.

“How are you feeling?” That was the Rebe.

Boris Grinberg came next: “I see the altitude hasn’t finished you off?”

The rest of the “pilgrims” — Artyom, Pasha, Dmitry, Vitaly, Roman, and Larisa — were no more original. Then again, what else do you ask when you first meet someone in Tibet? Of everyone there, I knew only the Lama and the Rebe; they were the ones who had assembled the group from among their friends, with whom I’d managed to exchange no more than a few messages on social media before the trip. Once we had checked into our rooms — the hotel booked by the tour operator turned out to be lousy, though Oleg assured us there was nothing better available that season — we set out for a walk through Lhasa.

“How did you say the name translates?” the Rebe asked, squinting in the blazing sun.

“The Place of the Gods,” the Lama replied.

“Is it me, or is it due for a rename?” the Rebe chuckled. “Feels like the gods have already packed up and left…”

I was inclined to agree. On the street we’d turned onto, the ground floors of beautiful old buildings were occupied by little shops and souvenir stalls with garish signs, making Lhasa look less like a city than a vast bazaar that had sprawled out past all reason. And yet the filth and neglect Tsybikov had written about in his diaries had not, of course, gone anywhere — though the amount of excrement on the cobblestones had certainly declined since the beginning of the twentieth century. The locals didn’t seem especially concerned with disguising the squalor of certain streets, either. On top of that, here and there you came across cheap tents where the poorest residents lived.

What struck me most was the sheer number of red flags, banners, and police officers we kept encountering.

“China is celebrating the seventieth anniversary of the People’s Republic these days,” Oleg explained. “So get used to the brightness… and the security.”

“Well, the relentless march of Chinese progress, which has reached even these parts,” the Lama observed sagely, as we shared our first impressions of the ancient city. “The Potala should feel a bit more authentic.”

After lunch, we headed to the BMW dealership to pick up the motorcycles, whose rental and insurance we’d arranged through the travel agency.

“Why do some have Tibetan plates and others Chinese?” Boris Grinberg asked.

“Whatever they had in stock is what we got,” Oleg said with a shrug.

After giving the motorcycles a proper once-over—brand-new BMW GS 800s and GS 1200s—we drew lots to divide them among the members of our caravan, then rolled the bikes over to the parking lot by the hotel. A little later, Oleg pulled up in the support jeep, where he and Jimmy would be riding.

“We’ll put the luggage in the trunk,” our guide added.

I should mention in advance that everyone’s idea of luggage turned out to be wildly different—from two small bags that slipped easily into the motorcycle panniers to imposing steamer trunks that looked as if they belonged in a portrait of first-class passengers on the Titanic.

Once the bikes were dealt with, we went off to our first dinner together, where we talked through the remaining details.

“The motorcycles are ready, the support vehicle too…” Oleg went down the list. “Tomorrow, if I remember correctly, we’re taking a walking tour of the Potala?”

Everyone nodded. I noted to myself that in Tsybikov’s day the palace had stood on the outskirts of the city, while now it was right in the center.

“So, what are your impressions of Lhasa so far?” our guide asked, making a note on his phone.

“Nothing especially inspiring yet,” Dmitry announced, getting in ahead of everyone.

I frowned and looked at the Lama in surprise. He only shrugged.

“Well, we haven’t really been anywhere yet,” the Rabbi said uncertainly. “It’s only the first day, after all.”

“Well, I thought it would be somehow… extraordinary right away. So far it’s just a different language—nothing remarkable.”

Dmitry’s voice was thick with disappointment.

“Don’t worry—closer to bedtime it’ll get ‘extraordinary’ enough,” the Lama said with a smile. “Once the altitude sickness kicks in.”

At the time, it seemed mostly like a joke. But by nightfall we had all learned that the Lama had not been exaggerating in the slightest.

Unfortunately.

I didn’t fall asleep until almost dawn and never really got any proper rest, but at least my head wasn’t hurting in the morning—which, after the terrible migraine of the night before, felt like a genuine miracle. What’s more, the strange voice that had seemed to sound inside my head yesterday gave no further sign of itself, so I put the whole thing down to fatigue and “mountain sickness.”

The day promised to be a full one: the Potala and Barkhor, Lhasa’s central market, were waiting for us; in these places, as the Lama assured us, the spirit of the primordial Place of the Gods still lingered.

“Not too heavy, is it, Gombojab?” Chesoy asked one morning as Tsybikov, prayer wheel in hand, stepped out of the house for his walk around the outskirts of Kumbum.

Something inside the Orientalist turned to ice, but he gave not the slightest sign of alarm. He merely said:

“No. I’m used to it. It has been with me for as long as I can remember.”

Chesoy smiled with the very corners of his mouth and nodded slowly, approvingly. The weight lifted from Gombojab’s chest; he took his leave of the leader and strode away.

His prayer wheel attracted more than its share of curious glances, though that was hardly surprising, given its size: it was remarkably large, far larger than any Gombojab had seen before or would see again. But no other would have served the purpose Savelyev and the other instigators of the journey had devised.

Tsybikov could not keep from giving a quiet snort of amusement as he remembered the professor’s face when he had first set out their audacious plan: flushed crimson with excitement, eyes blazing, the wings of his nostrils quivering ever so slightly.

“You truly believe no one will suspect anything?” Tsybikov had said when Savelyev finished.

His voice was soaked in skepticism, like a traveler’s cloak on a rainy day.

“For heaven’s sake, Gombojab…” The professor winced and waved a hand as if shooing away a persistent fly. “It is such an intimate, intensely personal object that no one would dream of laying hands on it! No, of course, if you were caught taking a photograph with the camera hidden inside the wheel…”

He broke off, and Tsybikov, with a grim smile, finished for him:

“Then I shall lose my head. And please, I beg you, do not tell me everything will be all right. We both know perfectly well how the Tibetans feel about cameras: any one of them, seeing me with such a device, would decide I was trying to steal a man’s soul, and then my execution would only be a matter of time — and precious little time at that!”

“You are right, Gombojab…” Savelyev admitted reluctantly, a sadness coming over him. “But believe me, we chose the finest camera available: a hand-held Pipon Self-Worker, made not just anywhere, but in Paris itself!…”

“Well, if it is from Paris itself, then dying is certainly not quite so terrible,” Tsybikov said, unable to resist the barb.

Savelyev sighed wearily and went on:

“I understand, I understand completely… But please, Gombojab, try to look at it from another side. Had I, or any other member of the institute, tried to pass himself off as a pilgrim bound for the sacred lands of Buddhism, the local authorities would never have let so daring a soul breathe freely. I suspect he — or I — would have been turned back at the border itself, to prevent any outsider from meddling in Tibet’s affairs…”

The professor sighed again and looked intently at his companion from beneath his heavy brows.

“I will not pretend otherwise, Gombojab: your origins and your faith played no small part in the choice of candidate. But both would have meant nothing at all had you not been a true connoisseur of the East, a man who understands its very foundations. You are the only Buryat I know who grasps how vital this journey is to the study of Tibet. That is precisely why I ask you not to act in haste. It is a heavy burden, yes — undeniably. But it may make your name immortal.”

*And the half-mad prophet of Kumbum has already confirmed that this is exactly how it will be,* Tsybikov thought, striding past the modest dwellings of the local monks.

His stay at Kumbum gave the orientalist the chance to take several important photographs, but each one cost him a few grey hairs: every time, Gombojab would spend ages choosing a vantage point, then wait until not a soul remained anywhere within the frame. As a rule, through some cruel turn of fate, by then evening had already fallen or the weather had changed, and Tsybikov, afraid the shot would be ruined, would postpone it until later. On top of that, the camera hidden inside the drum sometimes misfired, and Gombojab had to reload the photographic plates. Given the complexity of the mechanism, this was not a quick process, and in such moments the orientalist felt especially vulnerable.

"If they see me, they'll kill me," Tsybikov thought each time.

So far, he had been spared.

Apart from his mission, Gombojab thought a great deal about Longbo Choijon's words. What fate awaited him? Why would his skull be made into a kapala? And what was this mysterious "dikhroya"? The orientalist had found no answer to any of these questions — he did not dare ask his companions, and the seer, after that memorable conversation, seemed deliberately to avoid speaking further.

"And yet I still have to find a way to Labrang…" Gombojab mused one morning as he woke and, as usual, stared up at the ceiling of Longbo Choijon's dwelling.

It was one of the key waypoints on the road to Lhasa, but Tsybikov was wary of going there alone. He needed an experienced guide who could help hire men for protection and knew the monastery well. That was why, when Dashi one evening spoke of his plans to travel to Labrang to receive an audience with the lama, the orientalist immediately volunteered to accompany his fellow Buryat.

"Are you sure, Gombojab?" Dashi asked, narrowing his eyes. "It's no short journey…"

"I'm sure. I've always wanted to visit Labrang."

"Well, if you say so."

Everything was falling into place rather nicely, right up until the moment Tsybikov went to see Laidab — the servant he had hired back in Buryatia. Laidab listened attentively to his master, then said:

"I have news for you too, Gombojab. I'm going back. To Kyakhta."

The news caught Tsybikov off guard: he had thought himself fair to the servant and had never burdened him with more work than was reasonable. Evidently the surprise showed plainly on Gombojab's face, because Laidab hurried to add:

"Don't think it's because of you, Gombojab. It's just that… here at Kumbum they say all sorts of things about the road to Tibet — about the roads themselves, and the bandits, and the crossings through the valleys and highlands… We've already come a long way, but it's still only the very beginning, and there's so much more ahead…"

"But I warned you about all of this, Laidab," Tsybikov said grimly.

"You did," the servant admitted reluctantly. "But somehow… I didn't fully understand what it would be like. And while we were riding here to Kumbum, I understood. And then the locals here, too… Forgive me, Gombojab, but you'll go on without me."

The orientalist regarded him for a long moment, then sighed wearily and shrugged.

"Well, I can hardly force you. Return part of your wages, and — safe travels."

"Return part of my wages?" Laidab repeated slowly.

“Well, you haven’t finished the work, have you? Which means you haven’t earned all the money I paid you.”

The servant’s eyes flicked from side to side, and Tsybikov realized something was wrong.

“You see, Gombojab…” Laidab drawled. “I left some of the money with my mother and told her to spend it as she thought best. And it was winter, you understand…”

“And the rest?”

“The rest is my fare home,” the servant said, timidly meeting his master’s eyes. “Without it I’ll never get back to Kyakhta. Forgive me.”

Tsybikov drew a sharp breath through his nostrils, then said:

“Go on, then. What am I to do with you…”

“Thank you, Gombojab,” the servant beamed, and shot out the door like a bullet, while Tsybikov remained where he was, staring at the wall in front of him.

*And what am I supposed to tell Savelyev about the missing money? That my guide swindled me? Or that it was stolen?*

Still, that was the least of his troubles. For the journey to Labrang, Gombojab needed to hire not one servant but several—a task he and Dashi took up the very next day. Truth be told, few were eager to travel by the route the Buryats had chosen: matters were complicated by the fact that Labrang lay south of the Yellow River, which brought difficulties of its own. Even so, after two days of searching, Tsybikov and his companion managed to hire two Buryat lamas willing to make the journey to the monastery.

All that remained now was not to miss the Chinese Salar Tatars—the only people who carried travelers between Kumbum and Labrang and back. The Salars lived in the small village of Lamurchang, on the right bank of the Yellow River, and passed through on strictly appointed days.

Fortunately, Tsybikov and his companions were lucky enough to secure a place with a Salar caravan. After loading the travelers’ belongings onto the mules, the Tatars set off along the chosen road toward Labrang.

Gombojab would long remember the roadside inns where they stopped along the way: at each one they spent the night alongside the animals in enormous barns, with rough wooden bunks for people along one wall and stalls for the mules along the other. The smells, as one might imagine, suited such places perfectly—though what troubled Tsybikov rather more than the stench was the cold. The wind whistled through every crack in those miserable sheds.

Fortunately, frost was the worst of it, and the travelers reached the Tatar village without much difficulty, crossing from the opposite bank on a large flat-bottomed ferry. The mules brayed in protest, but the drivers paid no attention to the animals’ complaints. After the crossing, the caravan stopped for two days in Lamurchang, at the home of one of the drivers—a place that struck Tsybikov as a veritable palace, though in truth it looked little different from the barns they had just left. There was a reason for such poverty: some seven years earlier, Chinese troops had burned the village to the ground, and now the remnants of its inhabitants—who had bought their lives from the aggressors at a steep price—were trying to rebuild Lamurchang from scratch.

After a rest, the caravan moved on. The drivers warned them at once that the road ahead to Labrang passed through Tangut country, where ambushes on travelers were common, and that weapons should be kept ready. The Salars armed themselves with matchlock muskets, while Tsybikov and his companions kept their revolvers and sabers close to hand. Fortunately, there were no skirmishes, and before long the caravan emerged into a broad valley called Ganchjatan.³ There stood a great multitude of Tangut tents, with flocks of sheep and yaks grazing nearby.

“Shepherds,” one of the guides said, answering Tsybikov’s questioning look. “No danger from them.”

The people in the tents watched the caravan pass with stern, though not hostile, faces; they were simply displeased to see strangers straying onto their pastureland. The guide had not lied: the shepherds had no designs on the travelers’ lives. The safety of their livestock mattered far more to them.

*Simple people, simple principles, simple aims…* Tsybikov thought, watching the bleating sheep and the stately, solemn yaks.

By the end of the day, after crossing the broad pass, the Salar caravan at last reached its destination: the valley of the Sanchu River, home to Labrang Monastery, or, as the name means, “the Lamaist Palace of the Wheel of Blessings.” It had been founded in the distant year 1709 by the first reincarnation of Zhamyang Shepa, the philosopher Ngawang Tsondu, who had been close to the Fifth Dalai Lama, known also as the Great. In time, nearly every theological faculty in Mongolia, in Russian Transbaikalia, and, of course, in Amdo — Ngawang Tsondu’s homeland — would come to follow his interpretations. It was here, in Amdo, at the very beginning of the eighteenth century, that he had founded Labrang; and it was here that he died in 1721.

On reaching the monastery street, Tsybikov and his companions, following the Salars’ example, dismounted and led their mules by the bridle. The Orientalist noticed that, compared with Kumbum, an almost pristine cleanliness reigned here, and no mangy, aggrieved curs howled in the gateways. A faint scent of incense — and nothing more.

“Bliss…”

“Where shall we spend the night?” Tsybikov asked, looking over the houses on either side of the street.

As in Kumbum, the dwellings of ordinary monks were little better than beggars’ hovels — low, mud-brick structures that simply faded beside the temples and the palaces of the reincarnate lamas.

“Just follow me,” Dashiy declared with confidence, and the Orientalist saw no reason to argue.

The travelers stopped at the home of Norbu-Namgan, a monk who lived in the humblest of houses, with only two rooms: one served as a bedroom, the other as a kitchen. Seeing how poorly their host lived, Tsybikov was about to look for other lodgings, but Dashiy dissuaded him.

“Don’t offend our host, Gombojab,” he said quietly. “Guests are always a joy to him.”

“As they are to any worthy Lamaist,” Tsybikov was about to say, but he held his tongue and agreed with his companion; he had no wish to slight a hospitable host.

The travelers began carrying their belongings inside so the Salars could set off back to their poor little village. The servants helped as best they could, but when one of them reached for Tsybikov’s prayer wheel, the Orientalist snatched it back at once.

“This is personal,” the Orientalist said gently, and disappeared into the house.

As he walked toward the door, Tsybikov felt the Buryat lama’s puzzled gaze on his back and silently cursed himself for fussing over the prayer wheel. It might well draw curiosity—or suspicion.

“I must be more careful,” the Orientalist reminded himself yet again.

Early the next morning, the travellers set out first for the eighty-foot statue of Maitreya, housed in a large stone building under a gilded roof. As they approached the door, Tsybikov noticed a wooden plaque above it with inscriptions in four languages.

“The Temple of Blessed Joy,” Dashiy breathed, almost reverently.

They went inside and stopped before the copper statue of Maitreya. Strictly speaking, it was not eighty feet tall, although according to Lamaist belief Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future, would be exactly that height. Tsybikov had heard that the monks explained away the discrepancy by saying the statue showed Maitreya as a child, eight years old or thereabouts.

“One can only envy their ingenuity,” the Orientalist thought, looking into Maitreya’s blue eyes beneath their half-lowered lids.

“I must step away for a while, Gombojab,” Dashiy said, drawing Tsybikov’s attention. “Let us meet again at Norbu-Namgan’s.”

“As you say,” the Orientalist agreed readily.

It took no small effort to conceal his relief.

“I absolutely must get a photograph of the Maitreya statue. And somewhere nearby there should be copper statues of Tsongkhapa and Dolma…”

Dashiy left, and Tsybikov was at last alone, just as he had longed to be. He looked around to make sure no one was watching, then set the prayer wheel on one of the pedestals flanking the entrance to the hall where the statue of Maitreya stood. With a barely perceptible flick of his fingers, he opened a small concealed hatch, behind which the camera lens was hidden. Judging the distance, he clicked through a couple of settings to select the proper lenses, paused for a breath, and pressed the shutter.

*Shot taken.*

Footsteps behind him made Tsybikov snap every stray hatch on the wheel shut and turn around. Two monks had come in. They greeted Gombojab, went over to the statue of Maitreya, and bowed their heads, while the Orientalist seized the prayer wheel and slipped out of the building so as not to disturb their devotions.

*I must be more careful… or the next photograph may well be my last.*

Whether by bad luck or good, Tsybikov found no further chance to use the camera. On the way home, he was torn between two feelings: on the one hand, a fear of being exposed that verged on panic; on the other, the gnawing worry that he would never manage to take enough photographs.

To make some sort of peace with himself, Gombojab decided to stop by the tson-ra and photograph it. The market was thronged; many monks came there after the assemblies in the tsokchen dugan to buy provisions. Watching the Lamaists in their brightly coloured robes, Tsybikov remembered his conversation with Norbu-Namgan the day before.

“And what is the purpose of these assemblies?” Gombojab had asked.

“They review transgressions and punish the guilty with birch rods,” his genial host had replied readily.

“Good heavens. And is attendance compulsory?”

“Not at all. But during the tea break, everyone present is given a piece of butter, and that alone draws plenty of poor monks — myself among them.” Norbu-Namgan smiled. “Besides, the rods are hardly the worst punishment for the guilty. Those expelled from the monastery for grave offences are flogged with rods here at the tson-ra, in full view of everyone; then they are dragged away by the legs, and their noses, ears, and hands are cut off.”

That morning, mercifully, no one was being expelled from the temple, and the market hummed with ordinary trade. But Gombojab had barely managed to open the hidden hatch in the prayer wheel when the monastery guards descended on the tson-ra and began driving the crowd apart.

“What’s happened?” the bewildered orientalist asked a monk hurrying past.

“Trading hours are over,” the man replied without slowing. “Time for studies.”

Gombojab watched him go, thoughtful, then set off for Norbu-Namgan’s dwelling. By the time he reached the monk’s hut, Dashiy was already there.

“Ah, Gombojab!” his companion called cheerfully. “Sit down — lunch is ready.”

Only at the word lunch did Tsybikov realise how ravenous his wanderings through the monastery had made him, and he gladly took a seat beside his friend.

“Well, then — did you do what you set out to do?” Gombojab asked when lunch was over.

“I did,” Dashiy replied, unable to keep a smile from spreading across his face.

He did not explain what exactly he had done, and Tsybikov did not ask.

*If he had wanted to tell me, he would have.*

For the next two weeks, Gombojab studied life at Labrang with a fervour bordering on obsession. By the time the Salars returned to town, the orientalist knew the monks’ daily routine almost by heart. Unfortunately, few photographs had been taken: apart from the statue of Maitreya, Tsybikov had managed to capture only the view of the monastery from the summit of the pass. Yet the impressions that stayed with him most vividly were tied to things he had no means of capturing at all: the monastery cemetery in the gorge to the north, where the dead were offered up to ravenous vultures, and the ceremony of the Nechung Oracle’s descent, held on the nineteenth of February. Tsybikov had heard much about this ritual from the locals — and long before that — but he was seeing it for the first time.

On the appointed day, from early morning on, the monks bought sprigs of juniper at the market and burned them in two peculiar censers, like little stoves, inside the tsanghan’s palace. At about half past eight, to the blare of horns, the oracle appeared at the palace: a lama summoned from Chuwang Monastery. Behind him came the reincarnation of Jamyang Zhepa, carried in a tiny palanquin by four lamas. To the prayers of the monks crowding the courtyard, the reincarnation stepped down from the palanquin onto the ground and stood perfectly still, waiting.

Some time later the oracle emerged from the palace, wearing a helmet bristling with pennants and robes of brocade. A sabre in his right hand, a bow in his left, he advanced on the reincarnation, who at once placed a ceremonial scarf around his neck. The oracle bowed in thanks and turned slowly toward the seat prepared for him alone. Halfway there, the lama’s face contorted, and foam gathered at his lips; the monks in the courtyard rushed forward to wipe it away with their own scarves. Once enthroned, the oracle first foretold the fate of all Labrang, then allowed the novices, curious about their own futures, to approach. Each who wished to know what lay ahead brought him an offering.

When the last of the monks had gone, after wiping the foam from the lama’s lips, the oracle—still deep in trance—lunged toward the monastery’s outer gates and shot an arrow from his bow through them. Then he turned back toward the temple. Passing Tsybikov, however, he stopped and, fixing the Orientalist with pale, milky eyes, whispered:

“Find the dichroa…”

Gombojab’s eyes widened in shock, but the oracle, as though nothing had happened, disappeared into the temple and did not emerge again until after the reincarnation had departed—now an ordinary lama, clear-eyed, a serene smile on his lips.

“I wonder—how true are his prophecies?” Tsybikov asked, unable to restrain himself, as they walked home from the ceremony.

“As true as the Buddha has seen fit to let the future be revealed to us,” his companion replied.

The answer struck Gombojab as far too evasive, but he decided not to pursue it. Labrang had left an indelible mark on Tsybikov’s soul. What impressed him most was its iron discipline—the very thing that allowed nearly two and a half thousand monks to exist as a single body. This was felt most keenly at dusk, when monks below the eighth theological grade climbed onto the roofs of their dwellings and recited aloud the texts they had learned by heart. The drone of their voices sent gooseflesh down Gombojab’s spine as he sat in the hut of the ever-hospitable Norbu Namgan, so immense was the feeling this evening ritual stirred in him.

“And what if someone refuses to climb up?” Tsybikov asked as they were preparing to leave. “Surely he’d be flogged with birch rods?”

“Indeed he would,” Norbu Namgan confirmed.

“So what prevails in the novices, then—true faith, or fear of punishment?”

“All who dwell within the monastery are believers,” Norbu Namgan said, a condescending, almost paternal smile softening his face. “And so it is not disbelief the rod punishes, but sloth. He who conquers it shall come to know the truth; he who cannot shall live in darkness forever.”

And with that, the conversation between Norbu Namgan and Tsybikov was over—yet Gombojab would return to it in memory many times afterward.

In late February, the orientalist and Dashy, with the Salars, returned to the outskirts of Kumbum, where they stayed among the other Lamaists until the twenty-fourth of April, before pressing on toward Lhasa.