taught me only two new words: mokasha, which means relic or bones associated with a saint, a word whose pronunciation, according to my father, bears similarities with certain central Indian languages, particularly Prakrit and Pali, both languages in which Buddha preached and which are as soft and transparent as pearls and corals beneath the limpid waters of the Indian Ocean. The second word, alaghaci, means massacre and has a brutal, warlike ring to it, clearly indicating Persian or Parthian origins. My father, who’s a connoisseur of the subject, couldn’t help telling me its roots (ala—killing, and alaca or alaja—assassin), as well as its nominal and passive forms; and it is thanks to these two forms, he claims, that a Tumchooq sentence maintains all the versatility and variety of Sanskrit constructions, despite the absence of inflexions and declensions. To finish, as he usually did, he gave me a syntax exercise using the two new words, putting together a sentence which he uttered so unbelievably slowly I was completely bemused: ‘I wouldn’t be in the least surprised were you to end up like me with a massacred relic’ (that’s a rough translation, given that the Tumchooq language only has present, future and conditional tenses, and has no subjunctive form).
“At his request, I repeated the sentence until I knew it by heart, although I didn’t understand its exact meaning or logic. His voice grew deeper and deeper, petering into a silence in which he might have been picturing the future he had just drawn for me, until the guards shouting to say visiting time was over brought him back to reality. He left with them and the door closed once more on his unimaginable suffering.
“The true significance of his comment in the form of a grammatical exercise had escaped me. I didn’t understand what either of us had to do with a ‘massacred relic.’ The following day I set off for Chengdu in a lorry laden with stones, from there I took the train to Peking and my fathers enigmatic remark faded as my mind was steadily exhausted by that ordeal of three days and two nights on a hard, cramped seat, an ordeal that always ends up erasing every kind of suffering and unhappiness, and even the most memorable words …
“But two weeks later, back in Peking, in an underground train at the stop for the Temple of the Source of Law, the doors of my carriage opened and I heard a boy singing in the language of I have no idea which minority, with a refrain in Mandarin. His voice was heavenly, resonating as if in a church, with a tremulous celestial grace. When the train set off I saw the boy sitting on a bench next to a monk; they were at the far end of the platform and the passengers were slowing down to admire him as they passed. The monk was wearing bright yellow Burmese robes and the young singer, who was ten or eleven, wore a very fine length of linen wound around his waist, like a long white skirt falling to his feet, attached with a black silk belt, Thai style; and his top, which buttoned up to the neck and had wide sleeves, was so white it shone under the lights. He was a novice of extraordinary beauty, head shaven, round eyes, straight nose and shining teeth. When my carriage passed him, in spite of the deafening noise the wheels made on the rails, I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard him sing: ‘I love the Lotus Sutra, which taught me that the sutras are Buddha’s relics, his supreme relics.’
“In a fraction of a second the mystery surrounding my father’s words disappeared and I understood for the first time that I would end up like him, searching for the missing part of a manuscript, a mutilated sutra, in other words a massacred relic.”
26TH JANUARY
The first day of spring is nearly here and with it the holidays, the university deserted, the student residence almost empty I don’t know whether my exam results or my friends’ invitations make me happy or unhappy I don’t know who I really am. Either way, a feeling of emptiness put a lump in my throat earlier when I went along Little India Street, past the greengrocer’s where the coral pinks of carrots, the matt ivory of parsnips and the tiny green marbles of peas made bright splashes of colour under the red lanterns set up for the celebrations, celebrations without