headed down the main street, past the prayer wheel and the long mani wall. Mair turned to catch a last glimpse of the town. Thick bars of low cloud masked the circle of mountains and the trees were iron-grey scribbles against brown rock. It was very cold, and the streets were deserted.
Karen tilted her chin to the front seats. ‘They’re worried about the weather,’ she announced across Lotus.
‘Forecast of snow,’ Bruno said briefly, without turning his head. ‘We won’t be hanging around on the way up.’
Mair settled back in her seat. At first the car ate up the miles of valley road along the bank of the Indus. Karen chatted, and Mair passed Lotus items from the inexhaustible supply of toys and books that surrounded her seat.
Heavy wagons and army trucks moved by in both directions, and as the road began to climb they passed the rough roadside camps of maintenance gangs who worked to keep the route open. Women as well as men carried stones on their backs or shovelled dirt into potholes.
‘What a tough life. Look, that woman’s got a baby on her back,’ Karen breathed. Two more tiny children sat on a rock, watching the steady grind of traffic.
To increase the general bleakness it began to rain, the swollen droplets bouncing steadily off the windscreen. The wipers hummed and the car slewed over deeper and deeper ruts. They came to a police checkpoint and the driver ferried their passports to a hut for scrutiny, while bored soldiers in camouflage swung their guns to marshal loaded trucks. Beyond the checkpoint was a sign that read, ‘Border Roads Organisation. The Enemy is Watching You.’ The highway ran close to the Line of Control between India and Pakistan, and the heavy Indian Army presence wasn’t window-dressing.
They drove on, heading steadily westwards as the road began to climb. It edged past huge precipices, the wheels of the Toyota sometimes seeming to hang over the lip as they bucked round yet another blind bend. Mair averted her eyes from the yawning drops, only to gasp as a truck howled round the corner and headed dead at them. Their driver never seemed to flinch as he steered past the oncoming metal with one inch to spare between solid rock or thin air. The road surface became so rough that the passengers had to hold on to the straps to stop their heads hitting the roof. In the midst of this, seemingly lulled by the relentless jolting, Lotus fell asleep.
‘Don’t they ever use tarmac around here?’ Karen groaned.
Bruno looked over his shoulder. ‘It wouldn’t last six weeks. This mixture of stone and compacted hardcore is the only thing that stands up to the weather and the trucks, and it takes constant maintenance to keep the road even this usable.’ That was the longest remark he had made since leaving Leh.
‘Uh-huh. Ouch.’ They all bounced in their seats. Stones sprayed from under their wheels and pinged out into space. Far below, Mair caught sight of the pewter thread of a river. She offered up a prayer of thanks that she wasn’t crammed into a forty-seater public bus with an exhausted driver at the wheel.
‘The road between Leh and Srinagar only opened to wheeled traffic in the sixties,’ Bruno said. ‘Before that it was a track, and the transport was ponies.’
‘However long did it take?’
‘It’s two hundred and fifty miles. A week would have been really good going.’
Mair added, after a moment, ‘In the eighteenth century it was impassable even on horseback. Porters carried everything on their backs, all the way from Tibet to Kashmir. Going this way the traffic was mostly wool, for the pashmina trade.’
Bruno turned to look at her. For the first time, their eyes met directly. ‘You’re interested in the history of the old trading routes?’
‘Yes.’
‘So am I,’ Karen interjected.
Her husband swivelled towards her and smiled. Mair realised that he was a noticeably attractive man, and the unease she had felt in the Beckers’ joint presence suddenly lifted. Although at first sight she had envied their intimacy she had begun to suspect that they were actually connected by mutual antagonism as much as shared adoration of their child. But now she thought she must have been mistaken. There was affection as well as amusement in Bruno’s smile.
‘I know you are,’ he said warmly.
Mair peered ahead as they swung round yet another corner and saw, through a slash in the clouds, a white wall of snow in the distance.
After an hour, Lotus woke up and began to grizzle. She pulled at her seat straps and turned her face away from the drink Karen offered her. ‘We’ll have to stop for ten minutes,’ she told the driver. ‘How far is it now to Lamayuru?’
The men shook their heads.
‘Still far,’ the driver said.
They pulled in at a roadside tea stall. Rain had turned the road to a wretched ribbon of mud, and sprays of filthy water were flung up by every vehicle that passed. The westbound stream was constant. Mair understood that every driver was under pressure to get up and over the Fotu La before dark or before the snow seriously set in, whichever came first. In the last few minutes the rain had become sleet, hitting the car’s windscreen in dismal splotches.
Their little group huddled under the canvas shelter. Lotus cheered up as soon as she saw people. Bruno put her down and she set about making new friends while Karen investigated the contents of the stallholder’s saucepans. She chose a thick stew and a ladleful of rice, and fed most of it to Lotus. More cautiously, Mair snacked on a bar of chocolate and a handful of nuts. Their driver stood in the doorway, muttering with the other drivers and surveying the weather.
As soon as they had finished, Bruno hurried them back to the car. Karen sighed. ‘What a shame not to be able to see the approach to Lamayuru. In the pictures, it’s set right up on the skyline like a fantasy castle, all spires and turrets.’
‘Karen, we really can’t stop at your monastery,’ Bruno said.
‘What?’
‘We need to get over the pass as soon as possible.’
‘Oh, come on. An hour won’t make any difference.’
The driver was sitting forwards now, his shoulders hunched close to his ears. The oncoming vehicles all had their headlights on and a long line of their little yellow cones was visible, snaking at an improbable angle upwards into the murk.
‘It will, darling.’
Karen was angry. ‘Listen, what is this? I know it doesn’t interest you much but this is the oldest gompa in Ladakh. It dates from before the tenth century. There are frescos, thangkas, like nowhere else. We’ve got to see it.’
‘Not this time.’
Silence fell, and Mair could feel the silent battle of wills. The wipers smeared away a ruff of sleet that was instantly replaced by another. Lotus quietly sang to her doll.
‘It’s just a sprinkling of snow, Bruno. Why are you so cautious all of a sudden?’
The driver broke in: ‘We go straight to Fotu La. Get down to Kargil.’
That seemed to settle it. Karen’s jaw set, but she said no more.
The going got harder
