“Because he’s your grandson. That’s the reason, isn’t it?
You want him to be some sort of incarnation as well, don’t you?”
His father bent his head.
“Yes.” he said.
Christopher stood up angrily.
“Well, you’re wrong. William is my son. My wife’s son. You have no part in him. It was your choice to die. Very well, stay dead: the dead have no claims on the living. William is my son and he belongs with me. I’m taking him home with me.”
The old man looked up.
“Sit down,” he whispered.
Christopher remained standing.
“I am old now,” his father said.
“I don’t have much longer to live. But when I die, Dorje-la will be without an abbot. Please try to understand what that means. These monks are like children, they need someone to be a father to them. Now especially, when the world outside is changing so rapidly. They may not be able to remain secluded here much longer. When the world comes knocking on the gates of Dorje-la, there must be someone in charge who can meet it on its own terms. An outsider, a pee-ling like ourselves.”
“But why William, why my son?”
The old man sighed.
“There is a prophecy,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter whether you believe in prophecies or not. The monks here believe in them, and in this prophecy in particular.”
“And what does it say, this prophecy?”
“The first part refers to myself. So they believe.
“When Dorje-la is ruled by a pee-ling, the world shall be ruled from Dorje-la.” The second part refers to “the son of a pee-ling’s son”. He will be the last abbot of Dorje-la. And then the Buddha of the last age will appear: the Maidari.”
“And you think William is this “son of a pee-ling’s son”?”
“They believe all Europeans marry and that the child must be the grandson of the pee-ling abbot. I did not believe that at first.
Even if you had a son, I could see no way of ever bringing him here. I had no means.”
“What made you change your mind?”
The abbot paused. Whatever was troubling him had returned with renewed force. Christopher thought he was frightened by something.
“Zamyatin changed my mind,” he said finally.
“When he came here, he already knew of the prophecy. He knew of me:
who I was, where I had come from. He told me that, if I had a grandson, he could arrange to have him brought here. At first I argued, but in the end he persuaded me. I needed the boy, you see. I needed someone to carry on the line.”
“Couldn’t you have tried to find a new incarnation in the normal way? Here, in Tibet. A Buddhist child, one whose parents would have been happy for him to be chosen.”
The old man shook his head.
“No,” he said.
“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.