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 succeed 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
