Next to the monastery, almost hidden behind a screen of fruit trees and rhododendron bushes, he could see the low, single-storey residence where the Dalai Lama lived. Every year since he had been born, Lobsang had been taken by his parents to the courtyard outside the monastery to line up with the thousands of others who crammed into the tiny space in order to receive the Lama’s blessing. As the Lama passed by his parents always cried; Lobsang didn’t understand why. But afterwards there would always be a special meal with honey sweets and puppet dancing and stories about life in old Tibet. Lobsang always looked forward to the sweets.
As the boy climbed he could see the monk sitting outside the mouth of the cave, staring into its depths and mouthing silent mantras. Between the crooked fingers of his hands was stretched a string of beads which he manipulated with difficulty, counting off his prayers one by one. Lobsang crept closer. Flat stones had been placed at the entrance to the cave on which flickered butter candles; beside them was an offering of fruit. A holy place, evidently. The air was still, like fresh crystals of ice, and silent. No birds here, no rustling of breeze and leaves. It was as though Nature itself was waiting. But waiting for what?
Lobsang drew closer still, anxious, intruding. He could see something in the dark recesses, but what type of thing he couldn’t quite make out – some figure, some form, almost like a … As he stretched to see his foot found loose scree and he slipped, sending a cascade of stones quarrelling down the mountainside. The monk turned.
His face was almost completely round, wrinkled and carved with time like a bodhi seed. The skull was scraped to the point of being hairless. Lobsang’s first impression was that the monk was as old as Life itself, yet the ears were large and pointed, giving him the appearance of a mischievous sprite. And the eyes brimmed with curiosity. Perhaps he wasn’t as ancient as Lobsang had first thought; the body, like the hands, seemed bowed by adversity as much as by age. The hands were now clasped uneasily together for support and were beckoning.
‘Come, my little friend. Share some fruit. I’m sure the spirits can spare a few mouthfuls.’
Kunga Tashi held out a pomegranate from the offering bowl and Lobsang, more than a little nervous, stepped forward.
‘So you have found my secret place,’ the old monk offered in congratulation, and Lobsang nodded, biting greedily into the sweet-sour flesh of the fruit. The juice dribbled down his chin which he wiped with the back of his hand. Then he froze. He could see it now, in the shadow at the back of the cave. A man, bare-chested, sitting in the lotus position in the manner of a meditating monk. The eyes were closed. Not the smallest sign of movement, not the flicker of an eyelid, not even the shallowest of breaths. It was as though the figure had become part of the rock itself.
‘It is His Holiness,’ Kunga said. ‘The Dalai Lama.’
‘He’s lost his glasses.’
Kunga smiled sadly. ‘He doesn’t need them any more.’
‘Is he meditating?’ Lobsang whispered.
‘No. He is preparing to die.’
Everything was impermanence, of course. Particularly here, in this place, McLeod Ganj, in the mountains just above Dharamsala. The last time Kunga had been here was more than twenty years ago, when it had been little more than a tiny frontier post, a remnant of the British Raj squeezed into that mountainous part of northern India that lay between Kashmir and Tibet. In those days it had been almost unwanted, a sleepy collection of tin huts and a few crumbling masonry buildings that had somehow survived the great earthquake; now it seemed to him that the old village had disappeared beneath a flood of refugees that had turned every piece of pavement into a private emporium. The narrow, muddy streets bustled and sang. Here it seemed you could buy or sell almost anything.
Its crowded central square was awash with the colours of Pathan, of Tibetan, Hindu, holy men and hippie, Kashmiri and Sikh. And, of course, the claret-robed Buddhist monks. A confusion of cultures – which made it an excellent place for him to hide. For when they had summoned him they had told Kunga that he must hide. There was danger here, great danger, and not just for the monk.
They had brought him from his monastery in Tibet in the greatest secrecy. In normal circumstances such trips out of Tibet were difficult and frequently dangerous, the Chinese authorities suspicious of the activities of all monks and particularly those who held senior positions, as Kunga once had. But there was an advantage in being crippled, an anonymity that blinded officialdom and had eased his way through checkpoints and border crossings. He had only to stretch out his withered hands, like the claws of the Devil, and they would retreat in revulsion and confusion, never meeting his eyes. So he had arrived in McLeod Ganj, as he had been instructed, unseen and unannounced.
And he had waited.
They had set aside for him a small hut on the outskirts of the town normally used by monks on solitary retreat. Some of the monks stayed for three years – and what did three years matter in a whole succession of lifetimes? Kunga had waited only three days when, towards dusk, two guides had appeared and taken him onward, down the mountain a little. They hurried past groups of men haggling outside the taxi rank and tea shops. There were bright cafés full of tourists, and video huts where bootleg films were shown. The films were sent up from Delhi, some copied with hand-held cameras from the back of the cinema. You could see the picture shake, even see the audience leaving over the credits. This was McLeod Ganj as Kunga had never known it. He recognised little until they came to the holy way, where aged women walked at last light, wrapped in faded blankets, spinning their prayer wheels as they chanted mantras whose words hadn’t changed in a hundred lifetimes. But the guides lowered their eyes and scurried by. They were nervous and Kunga found their anxiety infectious. What did they have to fear? From old women at prayer?
It was now dark. A rock-strewn track led through the woods, the silence of night broken only by the cracking of pine twigs underfoot and the cry of a startled owl. A difficult passage by moonlight. He stumbled, fell badly, grazed his shin, but found willing hands to help him to his feet. Then at last they came upon a high stone wall, inset with a heavy wooden gate. Not the front way, with its guards and prying eyes, but a rear entrance that Kunga hadn’t known existed, even though once he had known this place well, almost as well as his own home.
And as the gate creaked and swung open, Kunga couldn’t restrain a soft cry of joy. For he was there. Waiting for him. The Dalai Lama. His Dalai Lama. Whom he hadn’t seen in more than twenty years.
Kunga began to prostrate himself on the rocky ground but the Lama reached out for him, ordered him to rise, and with unrestrained emotion they fell into each other’s arms. The Dalai Lama’s hands brushed over Kunga’s head and they touched foreheads, a greeting which did great honour to the monk. His senses were ablaze, Kunga felt as if he had been touched by the sun.
Only when the Lama’s fingers continued to brush around Kunga’s head, as though inspecting it for damage, did the truth dawn upon Kunga.
‘You … are blind?’
‘And you, my old friend, are bald!’ The Lama chuckled, although the customary humour sounded strangely forced. His hands fell to the monk’s lean frame. ‘Tell me, don’t they feed you in that monastery of yours?’
‘Enough. And more than many.’ A note of sorrow chilled their spirits.
‘How is my homeland, Kunga?’
‘Suffering.’
‘That will not last.’
‘Nothing lasts for ever.’
‘No, not for ever. Which is why I have summoned you. And the others – Gompo, and Yeshe. The three I trust most in this world.’ Gompo was the Dalai Lama’s representative in Geneva, and Yeshe his former private secretary who had only recently completed a lengthy solitary retreat at a monastery in the south.
‘These are times of many lies, Kunga. And many enemies,’ the Dalai Lama continued. ‘I am blind and can no longer see into men’s eyes, or tell what is in their hearts. I must be certain of those around me if we are to su
cceed in the task ahead.’
‘And what task is that?’ Kunga had asked.
‘To help me die …’
Outside the cave, Lobsang grew frightened. ‘Are you sure? That he’s dying?’
‘Oh, yes.’
Lobsang let forth an involuntary sob.
‘Don’t despair, little friend. It was his will. He told me himself. He decided the time had come.’
‘You … knew him?’ Lobsang enquired, embarrassed to use the past tense.
‘Long before you were born. For many years I was his translator and adviser. And also his friend.’
‘But he looks so … alive,’ Lobsang exclaimed. He knew that death was corruption, rotten flesh, decay. Yet the Dalai Lama looked as if he were simply asleep.
‘Great Lamas don’t die like the rest. They pass on. Their spirit leaves their body so gently that the body barely notices. So it doesn’t decay, not for a long time.’
Lobsang was gripping the monk’s hand for comfort, too distressed to notice that it was little more than a formless mass of bone and skin.
‘Remember that in death there is always new life. And new hope. The spirit is reborn in a new body,’ Kunga encouraged – just as the Dalai Lama had encouraged them, the three he had gathered together. He had explained his purpose the following day as they sat in his garden, a garden that he himself had planned and planted, a place where they could be overheard only by the birds and the Lama’s favourite cats.
‘My task is simple, my friends. To die. There is nothing simpler. But your task will be far more hazardous. Your task is to live. If you can. To ensure that my rebirth is safeguarded, to seek out and protect my incarnation.’ His voice tightened in sadness, as though a screw were being turned within. ‘In that search you will encounter many dangers. And great pain. You may come to envy the peace with which I shall pass from this life.’
The Searchers had argued with him, passionately, and with more than a little fear.
‘We want to serve you alive, not dead.’
‘Without you – we’re lost.’
‘And without you Tibet is lost!’
‘More than ever we need you …’
Until at last he had grown exasperated. ‘No more! Enough!’ The Lama raised his voice, a rare event, his passion more than a match for theirs. The cats scattered in alarm.
‘Listen to me. For a thousand years in Tibet we hid behind the great walls of the Himalayas. Untouched – but also untouching.
We guarded our truths selfishly, reluctant to share them. Yet look around. Our world has more wickedness than it has ever known. The people suffer. They need us.’
‘So does Tibet,’ Gompo responded defiantly.
The Lama raised his hand and pointed beyond the mountains, his voice burning with emotion. ‘Our Tibet, that ancient homeland we loved, is no more. It is gone. Perhaps for all time.’
He challenged them to deny it, but no one spoke. What was the point? Hope might spring eternal yet it had no more strength than a summer breeze. And the People’s Liberation Army wasn’t going to be blown away by a puff of wind.
‘We can’t go back, not to the way things were. But Tibet is more than just mountains and monasteries. It is a faith, a way of life.’
‘And of death?’
‘Think of our exile as an opportunity. A chance to send down new roots, to find new strength. And think of my death as a new beginning, not just for me but for all our people.’
‘A new beginning? For that we need an army!’
‘Perhaps there is another way. A way in which Chinese and Tibetan can be brought together, not in confrontation, but in reconciliation.’
‘Reconciliation? How?’ demanded Gompo, as ever sceptical.
‘Reconciliation … through reincarnation!’
The Lama had laughed, a deep booming drum of hope. And cautiously the cats had begun to creep back …
Now, as Kunga stared into the shadows of the cave, where the Dalai Lama had taken himself to meditate and to die, he struggled hard to recapture the Lama’s optimism. Beside him Lobsang began to shiver.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ Kunga encouraged, placing an arm around the boy’s shoulders.
‘It is the end.’ Lobsang’s voice was mournful.
‘It is also a beginning. The body is like a set of clothes. When it gets old, you discard it for a fresh one. That’s all he has done, decided to discard his body. But not the spirit. That lives on. And will find a new body.’
‘When?’
‘Soon.’
‘Where?’
Kunga gave a low sigh. ‘Ah, now that is the mystery.’
The light was fading fast, Kunga trimmed the butter lamps. The last of the gentle breeze had vanished with the light, the flames did not flicker. Everything was still.
‘It is almost over, I sense it. Time for you to go, little friend.’
‘I’d like to stay. Please? To help you.’ A quieter voice. ‘To help him.’
And so they had settled for the night, Kunga sitting before the cave, and Lobsang close before him, wrapped in the monk’s thick robe, waiting for the Dalai Lama to die.
Kunga had been determined to stay awake and vigilant, but he couldn’t help himself. He fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. It was Lobsang who woke first.
‘He’s moved,’ the boy whispered, tugging at the monk’s robe.
Kunga brushed the night from his eyes and stared. The sun was beginning to light the sky, deepening the shade within the cave, and for a moment his tired eyes struggled to adjust.
‘He has moved,’ Lobsang insisted. ‘That must mean he’s still alive, mustn’t it?’
It is given to few in the world of Buddhist mysteries to know when the spirit has finally departed; Kunga was one of the few. He shook his head. ‘No. It is over. He is gone.’
The Dalai Lama was dead.
But the boy was right, the body had moved. In death the face had turned as though looking out across the world below. Towards the west. It was a sign.
And Kunga felt a strange sensation in his hand. When his hands had been pulverized by the rifle butt of the Chinese soldier, a large fragment of the clay statue had buried itself deep into the flesh of his palm, leaving a vivid scar that had never fully healed. On the day the Lama had taken himself to his cave, the scar had begun to burn, the first sensation other than constant pain he had felt in forty years, a sensation that had grown more fierce with every passing day. Now it felt as though it was on fire. He rubbed the palm against his chest, but it burned still more fiercely. The outline of the scar had grown red, like a map drawn on the parchment of his skin. A map of what, he had no idea. But he knew it was another sign.
The book and the black eye arrived in his office together, both being carried by Mickey.
‘What the hell have you been up to?’ Goodfellowe growled, seeing the mark that not even a copious sponging of Clinique concealer had been able to hide. Then, remembering his manners: ‘You all right?’
‘Just a little accident.’
‘Accident? What accident?’
‘The truth?’
‘Of course the bloody truth.’
‘Stage diving.’
His silence betokened utter ignorance.
‘Stage diving,’ she repeated. ‘You know, when you try to get up on stage?’
‘You’ve been auditioning for Pygmalion,’ he announced triumphantly. ‘And you fell off the casting couch?’
She looked at him waspishly, the slight bump above her left eye giving her an uncharacteristic scowl. ‘Bugger off.’
‘Whoops, sorry,’ he said, not meaning it.
‘Stage diving,’ she repeated, trying again. ‘The stage in question was at the LSE. A university bash. Def Leppard were playing.’
‘Deaf who …?’
She rolled her eyes in despair. ‘They’re a band. Heavy metal. The sort of music with megatons of bass that makes your skull vibrate. The sort that needs tight leather pants just to keep you in.’
/>
‘I wonder why I haven’t heard of them,’ he muttered, all sarcasm.
‘So the idea is that you work up a rush of blood, jump up onto the stage and try to grab a piece of them.’
‘What on earth is the point?’
‘Not much. They’re ancient, about your age. Most stage divers wouldn’t have a clue what to do if we actually caught them. But we don’t. The purpose of the exercise is for the roadies – their road crew – to grab hold of you and throw you back into the crowd. Or rather, onto the crowd, since everyone’s packed so tight in front of the stage that all they can do is pass you back over their heads. Which means hundreds and hundreds of deliciously sweaty hands tossing you around and passing all over your body.’
‘But why would people want to do that?’
She groaned. ‘Take a wild guess, Goodfellowe.’
The impression began to form, and he had the grace to look momentarily stunned.
‘But last night they must’ve been down on numbers.’ She shrugged. ‘They dropped me.’
He studied her, studied her body, very closely, imagining the hands. His hands. He gathered his flustered thoughts. ‘Two suggestions. First, don’t spread that around this place. Wouldn’t do you any good. Or me, for that matter. Say you ran into a filing cabinet; that’s the standard parliamentary excuse for a black eye.’
‘And second?’
‘When I say I want the truth …’ He winced. ‘I’m not sure I always mean it.’
She smiled sweetly. ‘I guess you were young once.’
‘Don’t bet on it. Anyway, enough of your off-duty diversions. What work have we got?’
She handed him a book that was floating on top of the usual pile of daily letters. ‘Came this morning. From the Dalai Lama.’
‘You’re not the only one full of surprises,’ he offered as he inspected the book. It was an elderly edition of the writings of Sun Tzu, the Chinese military strategist who had written about the art of warfare more than two thousand years before (although he lived so long ago that scholars debated endlessly about whether he truly wrote the works, or if he even existed). The thick paper was brittle and discoloured with age, the cover of cheap card and scuffed. With great care Goodfellowe opened the book, at random, concerned lest the pages should fall apart in his hands.