from a circus family? Go on, your dad was the lion tamer, wasn’t he, and your mom was the lady in spangles who did pirouettes on the elephant’s back? You were born in a showman’s caravan, and as soon as you could walk you were dressed up in a tiny costume for the parade. Don’t tell any of this to Lotus, please – it’ll only give her ideas.’
Karen had plenty of imagination herself, evidently. Mair was fascinated by her spectacular looks and her vivacity, but she wasn’t quite sure what to make of her. ‘Nothing so glamorous, I’m afraid. My father was a farm-supplies salesman and my mother was a primary-school teacher in North Wales.’
‘So, how come?’
Mair might have deflected these questions, but she was the one who had been guilty of exhibitionism and she thought the least she could do was give a straight answer. ‘I was a rebellious child, and I’d been threatening for so many years to run away and join a circus that when the time actually came it would have been a loss of face not to do it. Ours was quite a right-on show. No lions. In fact, no animals at all, because that would have been cruel. My friend and I had a trapeze act, and in the kids’ show we were the clowns as well. We did that for about four years, and then it was time to grow up.’
‘I see.’ Karen’s eyes narrowed. ‘Do I believe all this? Or is it one of those versions of oneself that one does for passing encounters with strangers? If it is, I’ll find out, I’m warning you. We’re going to be friends. I’m always right about these things.’
A young girl arrived balancing a tin tray of tea glasses. Mair took one and sipped. The tea was milky and thick with sugar, but it was welcome. Her attendant lifted one of her feet out of the bath and dried it in her lap. Then she set to work slathering on handfuls of some gritty potion.
Karen chatted on: ‘How could I pass up the chance of making friends with someone who turns somersaults in the air before she’s even spoken?’
Across the room, Lotus had a dozen ribbon bows in her hair. Her tiny fingernails were being dabbed with glitter polish.
Mair decided it was time to seize the conversational initiative. ‘What are you doing in Leh?’ she asked.
Karen’s eyes widened. Her face in the mirror became a pale, intent oval. ‘We arrived here from Tibet. I’m a Buddhist, you see. It’s been a pilgrimage for me.’ She began to talk about the monasteries she had visited, and the devotions she had made. She had been blessed by the senior lama after the annual unveiling of a spectacular thangka painting, which had been one of the most spiritual experiences of her life. Did Mair practise? Really not? Had she never felt the call to do so? Did she know that one of His Holiness’s summer residences was actually here in Leh? Had she seen the huge golden Maitreya out at Thikse Gompa?
‘Yes,’ Mair managed to say to the latter. Brisk massaging of her foot and ankle was showering the floor with dead skin and caked foot cream.
Karen’s leg was undergoing the same treatment. She paused in her monologue and turned her glancing attention to the young girl, who had come back with a small selection of polishes on the tea tray. ‘Pink or red, do you think?’
‘Red,’ Mair replied automatically.
‘Hmm. Yeah, but I’m going to go for the pink. Don’t want to frighten the ponies, do I? Lotus, what colour are your toes?’ she called.
‘Pink, shiny,’ Lotus chirped.
‘How pretty. Daddy will love them.’
‘And now you’re going trekking.’
Karen waved a languid hand. ‘That’s my husband’s partiality. It’s a reasonable trade-off, I guess. My monasteries for his mountains. Although we met in New York, we’re based in Geneva right now because Bruno is Swiss. These days, he gets to go skiing and mountain climbing pretty regularly from home, but we agreed that this holiday shouldn’t be all Buddhist. Lotus would protest about that too, although she’s generally pretty easy-going. Not that she looked that way when you saw her this afternoon, I admit, but she doesn’t often freak out like that.’
‘You’ll take her on the trek with you?’
Karen looked surprised, then shrugged. ‘Sure. Why not? Bruno carries her in a backpack most of the way. Everywhere we go, Lotus comes along. That way you get a balanced, open-minded kid.’
The child wriggled away from her admirers and came to show off her manicure, spreading her small hands on Mair’s knees and beaming up at her. The ribbons fluttered in her ringlets. There was logic in Karen’s theory, Mair thought. She remembered her first glimpse of the little family in the bazaar and the intimacy that had impressed her then. Lotus was certainly the most confident two-year-old she had ever met.
‘You look lovely,’ Mair told her. ‘Just like a picture.’
‘Oui – comme Maman,’ Lotus agreed, admiring herself in the mirrors.
The door of the salon opened, setting the lace curtains fluttering. A dark head and shoulders were framed in the doorway. ‘Karen?’
Karen glanced up from her scrutiny of her toenails. ‘Hi. Did you get everything fixed up already?’
‘Pappy.’ Lotus dashed across and leapt into her father’s arms. He swung her off her feet. ‘Jumping lady,’ she clamoured, pointing at Mair. ‘Jumping high.’
‘Bruno, this is Maya,’ Karen called. ‘My new friend.’
‘Hello,’ the man said, nodding at her. There was a smile buried in him, Mair thought, but it wasn’t close enough to the surface to break through. She started to explain her name, which Karen hadn’t quite caught.
Mair was Welsh for Mary. When she was young she had tried to persuade her friends to adopt this more sophisticated version, but it had never caught on. ‘Mair, Mair, pants on fire,’ the local kids used to chant. She didn’t actually utter any of this, though. Something about Bruno Becker’s level, interrogative stare silenced her.
‘Mair,’ she said quietly. ‘Hello.’
The introductions were cut short because the beauty-parlour staff were shooing Bruno out of the door. Ladies Only Beauty clearly meant what it said.
He carried Lotus with him. He indicated to his wife that they would see her back at the hotel when she was ready. ‘Nice to meet you,’ he said, over his shoulder, to Mair, and was gone. The introduction of a new friend of Karen’s was clearly nothing unusual.
Karen stretched out her toes and smiled. ‘Peace. That means you and I can go and eat cakes once we’re through here. We can have a proper talk.’
Mair felt like a pebble being tumbled along by a tsunami, but Karen Becker was too insistent – and too interesting – for her to make any real attempt at resistance. In any case, what else would she be doing?
Once their toenail polish had dried to Karen’s satisfaction they strolled down a nearby alley to the German bakery. Over apple cake and coffee Karen confided that she had wanted to come to this part of the world for years, really ever since she had gotten interested in the Buddhist way in her early twenties. So far it had totally lived up to her expectations. These places were holy – they touched your soul directly. You hardly ever encountered that depth of spirituality in Europe, did you? And never in the US of A. Not that she had ever recognised, anyway, Karen concluded.
