“There was the prophecy. During the years after my predecessor died, before I came here, there was a vice-regency.
A man called Tensing Rinpoche ruled in the abbot’s place. When they brought me here at first, he opposed my selection as the new abbot. He died two years later, but a section of the monks has always thought of him as the true incarnation.”
“When he was a young man, he belonged to another sect, one that does not require its monks to be celibate. He had a son. That son is now an important man in his own right here. His name is Tsarong Rinpoche. If I leave Dorje-la without an abbot most of the monks can accept, Tsarong Rinpoche will have his opportunity.
There are enough who will follow him. And I need not tell you what it will mean if he proclaims himself abbot.”
“Why don’t you get rid of him?”
“I cannot. He is the son of Tensing Rinpoche. Believe me, I cannot send him away.”
“Why did Zamyatin offer to help you? What was in it for him?”
The abbot hesitated. Behind him, a candle stirred in the chill air.
“He came to Tibet in search of something. What he sought was here, in Dorje-la. He made a deal with me: my grandson in exchange for what he wanted. At first I refused, but in the end I saw I had no choice. I accepted his offer.”
“What was it he came here to find?”
“Please, Christopher, I can’t explain. Not yet. Later, when you have been here a little longer.”
“And William will I be allowed to see him?”
“Please be patient, Christopher. Eventually, when it is time. But you must understand that you cannot be allowed to take him away. You must reconcile yourself to that. I know it will be hard, but I can teach you how. You may stay in Dorje-la indefinitely. I would like it if you stayed. But you can never leave with your son.
He belongs to us now.”
Christopher said nothing. He went to the curtains and pulled them aside. Outside, the sun had set and darkness had taken hold of the chortens. He could feel the knife in his boot, the hard metal against his skin. It would be so easy to hold the blade against his father’s throat, force him to give William up to him. No-one would dare to stop him while he held their abbot hostage. He wondered why he was unable to act.
“I want to be taken back to my room,” he said.
His father stood and came to the doorway.
“You can’t go back there. Zamyatin has tried to have you killed once:
he won’t make a mistake the next time. I’ll give instructions for you to be housed on this floor, near me.” He looked out at the darkened chamber beyond.
“It’s already dark. I have my devotions to attend to. Wait here: I’ll send someone to show you to your new room.”
The abbot turned and went back into the little room. Christopher watched him go, his hair white, his body bent. His father had come back from the dead. It was like a miracle. But if it meant he could take William out of this place, he would gladly wipe out the miracle and send his father back to the grave.
The room to which Christopher was shown was larger than the cell in which he had first been confined. It was square and finely furnished, with high walls that were finished with brightly glazed tiles that had come all the way from Persia. Peacocks strutted and sloe-eyed maidens cast alluring glances over brimming bowls of wine. On a blue sky, the silhouettes of nightingales and hoopoes formed patterns elaborate as birdsong. It was a place of riches, hardly a monastic room at all; but for all that, it was as much a prison as the tiny chamber below had been.
He lay awake afterwards in a tight darkness that smelled to him of childhood. His butter-lamp had extinguished itself, leaving him to relive his past in the sudden knowledge that his father had been alive all along. While Christopher had mourned, his father had been here in Dorje-la, perhaps in this very room, assuming the contours of a new identity. Did it make any difference at all? he wondered. Nothing could change what had been. He fell asleep uneasily, just as he had gone to sleep that first night long ago, on the day news of his father’s death had reached him during a passage of the Aeneid.
He was awakened by a small sound, and at once saw a light flickering in
the room. Someone was standing near his bed, watching him silently. At
first he thought it was his father, come to watch over him while he
slept; but then he saw that the figure with the light was smaller and
un stooped
“Who’s there?” he called out; but he knew. “ “Shshsh,” the intruder hissed. In the same moment, the small light was lifted higher and he saw her, captured for him in its glow.
How long had she been standing in the half-darkness, watching him?
She came over to his bedside, without a sound.
“I’m sorry if I startled you,” she whispered. Close by, he could at last make out her features perfectly. He had not imagined it: she was extraordinarily beautiful. Her face bent out of the darkness towards him with a look of concern.
“I came to see if you were awake,” she continued, still in a whisper.
He sat up. Even though he was fully dressed, the room felt cold.
“It’s all right,” he said.
“I don’t think I’ve been asleep long. To tell the truth, I’d rather stay awake.”
She put her lamp down on a low table and moved back into the shadows.
He sensed that she was frightened of him.
“Why did they move you to this room?” she asked.
He explained. She was very subdued when he finished.
“How did you know I was here?” he asked.
She hesitated.
“My old nurse Sonam knows everything that goes on in Dorjela,” she said.
“She told me you had been moved here.”
“I see. How did you get here? The monk who showed me to this room said the door would be watched all night.”
He thought she smiled to herself.
“Dorje-la was built to hold secrets,” she whispered.
“And you?” he asked.
“I don’t understand.”
“Are you one of its secrets?”
She looked down at her feet. When she looked up again, her eyes seemed darker, but full of stars.
“Perhaps,” she answered in a small voice.
Christopher looked at her. Her eyes were like pools, deep pools in which a man could drown if he were careless enough.
“How do you come to be here?” he asked.
“I have always been here,” she said simply.
He looked at her again. It seemed impossible that such grace could belong in a place like this.
“There has always been a Lady at Dorje-la,” she went on.
“A Lady?” he said, not understanding.
“Someone to represent the Lady Tara,” she answered.
“The goddess Drolma, Avalokita’s consort. She has always dwelt here in Dorje-la, in the body of a woman.”
He gazed at her in horror.
“You mean you’re a goddess? That they worship you?”
She smiled and shook her head.
“No,” she said.
“Tara is the goddess. Or Drolma, if you prefer she has many names. I am a woman. She incarnates herself in me, but I am not she; I am not the goddess. Do you understand?”
