mean,” said Ping ignoring his disappointment and lovingly taking hold of the object. “It feels warm.”
“So would you if you’d been stuck up in that attic with all that other junk.”
“We need to find the other half,” declared Ping.
“That’s not going to be easy. I haven’t seen Wen for years.”
“Somebody must know where he is.”
“He may not have it any more.”
“Something like this couldn’t just disappear. Anybody can see that it’s beautifully made and totally unique.”
“We’re farmers. It’s not useful.”
“If this really is half of the Oracle of Singh Ma, it’s incredibly valuable. And even if it isn’t the genuine article, it must be very old.”
“What do you want with that old thing?” asked Tashi’s mother from the kitchen.
“Do you or dad know what happened to Wen?” asked Tashi, ignoring her question.
“Wen’s family moved to a village south of here. I heard he died in a fire about two years ago.”
“He died?” It had been a long time but special childhood friends never entirely leave your heart. Tashi sat down as a wave of grief crashed over him.
“What’s the matter?” asked Ping, whose knowledge of Tibetan hadn’t covered the subject of death.
“My friend Wen is dead,” Tashi translated.
“That doesn’t mean we can’t still find the other half,” insisted Ping, ignoring Tashi’s sudden sadness. “Where did he die? Somebody must know where it is.”
“Do you know which village?” asked Tashi attempting to recover from his sudden sullen slump.
“I think they went to Daru,” said Tashi’s mother.
“How far away is it?” asked Ping, recognising Daru as a location.
“Not far. It’s on the other side of Mt Luguna,” said Tashi.
“When can we go?”
“What? My mother just said he’s dead.”
“That doesn’t mean the Oracle is gone. It must still be somewhere. Don’t you realize, you may have found something ancient, rare and extremely valuable?”
* * *
Two days later they were on the road. Tashi borrowed his father’s cart and attempted to reacquaint himself with its workings. He’d never liked horses and this particular one had thrown him when he tried to ride it a few years earlier. Fortunately it didn’t remember him.
Ping had never ridden on a cart before. Her first experience of family transportation that didn’t involve a chauffeur and plush leather seats had been riding on the tractor trailer when they arrived. The horse amazed her as it navigated the treachery of the mountain track.
The air tasted intangibly sweet and she could feel the snow in her bones. The chill in the air energised her imagination as they passed a sparse assortment of small dwellings, stimulating her wonder at the ancient methods Tibetans still employed to survive in such a harsh environment.
Then she began to wonder at the birds and insects. They lacked the rudimentary shelter the people had built and yet somehow seemed to be thriving. It was summer and the snows had ascended to the peaks of distant mountains but the thought of what existence must be like during the freezing winter months made her shiver.
Beyond was a valley and the imposing bulk of Mt Luguna.
The journey lasted almost the whole morning. As the sun reached its zenith they arrived at the village where Wen’s family had reportedly moved.
Tashi asked a farmer they passed, if he knew anything about Wen or his family. The man had lived in the village all his life and directed them to the site where Jim’s house had once stood. As they approached the place where his closest childhood friend had died, sadness filled his heart once again.
He pulled on the reigns and attempted to guide the obstinate horse to pull over. The horse did it’s best to ignore him. Eventually human intelligence prevailed over whatever happens inside a horse’s head and the cart belatedly drew to a halt, further down the track than intended.
The charred remnants of the house stood in stark contrast with the rest of the well-maintained village.
Situated on a small mound of barren brown earth, away from the inhabited dwellings, the mud brick walls were slowly being reclaimed. Despite the interceding two years, the aroma of burnt wood hung over the ruins like a badly written invitation to stay away.
Inside the crumbling walls, a few scorched, empty whiskey bottles were the only reminder that the place had once been a human dwelling. Tashi began poking randomly beneath the dirt with a charred stick. Ping was more purposeful and managed to find some old rusting springs that had once been part of a mattress.
“This looks like it was probably the bedroom,” she said. Tashi followed her and forlornly applied his stick to the morbid task of excavation. It didn’t take long to dig out a large section from where the bed had once stood. Ping found an old syringe and pieces of a broken vase. Tashi dug up a door handle as Ping produced some other handles that had probably been part of a dressing table.
They continued in silence for another twenty minutes, unearthing more sorry relics.
"Here it is!" announced Tashi, pulling what looked like a vaguely triangular lump of rock out of the dirt.
Ping took it from him and began to rub the charred earth from around it. The black crystal shone in the afternoon light.
“That’s it!” she confirmed, flashing him a smile.
Although it had been two long winters since the house had burnt down, Tashi imagined he could still smell burning flesh. Obsessed by what she was holding, Ping didn’t seem to even recognise the emotions he was suffering, or care about the sad fate of his childhood companion.
“It doesn’t appear to have been damaged,” she exclaimed as they exited the charred wreckage and walked triumphantly towards the horse which was attempting to make a meal out of some lonely shrubs beside the track.
* * *
By the time they arrived back in Womadige, the dirty triangular lump had been polished and restored to the closest state to its former glory it had exhibited for several sooty years. The sun was casting its last superfluous rays between the mountains as cold shadows devoured his childhood home.
“We found the other half of the Oracle,” announced Ping proudly as they entered the warm kitchen.
“What?” asked Tashi’s mother.
“Ungh?” inquired Tashi’s father.
“We found the other half of that ornament, the one Wen and I found on Mt Luguna,” explained Tashi.
This failed to elicit any further curiosity and no more questions were asked about the black object Ping was proudly displaying.
“Did you see Wen’s mother?” asked Tashi’s mother.
“No,” replied Tashi. “But we found the house where he died. It was very sad.”
“Where did you put your half?” asked Ping.
* * *
The pain in Tashi’s stomach only returned briefly the next afternoon when a small group of villagers assembled outside his parent’s house, hoping to catch a glimpse of the beautiful, Chinese girl they’d heard he’d brought home. They loitered for an hour but dispersed when Tashi’s mother opened the front door and invited them inside for a cup of tea.
The next day it was time to catch the train back to Xi’an.
The