Kim Robinson - Fifty Degrees Below

“Well… in a manner of speaking, yes. I suppose.”

“So will you talk to Rudra about doing it? Maybe just without much fanfare, so Anna doesn’t know about it?”

Drepung was frowning. “If she doesn’t know, then …”

“Then it would be for me. Yes. For me and Joe. And then it would get to Anna, by way of us. Why, does it have to be public?”

“No no. It’s not that.”

“What—you don’t want to talk to Rudra about it?”

“Well … Rudra would not actually be the one to decide about such a matter.”

“No?” Charlie was surprised. “Who then? Someone back in Khembalung, or Tibet?”

Drepung shook his head.

“Well, who then?”

Drepung lifted his hand as if to inspect it again. He pointed the bloodied thumb at himself. Looked at Charlie.

Charlie shifted on the ground to get a better look back at him. “What, you?”

Drepung nodded with his body again.

Charlie laughed shortly. All of a sudden many things were becoming clear. “Why you rascal you!” He gave the young man a light shove. “You guys have been running a scam on us the whole time.”

“No no. Not a scam.”

“So what is Rudra then, some kind of servant, some old retainer you’re doing a prince-and-pauper switch with?”

“No, not at all. He is a tulku too. But not so, that is to say, in the Khembali order there are also relationships between tulkus, like the ones between the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama.”

“So you’re the boss, you’re saying.”

Drepung winced. “Well. I am the one the others regard as their, you know. Leader.”

“Spiritual leader? Political leader?”

Drepung wiggled a hand.

“What about Padma and Sucandra?”

“They are in effect like regents, or they were. Like brothers now, advisors. They tell me so much, they are like my teachers. Brothers really.”

“I see. And so you stay behind the scenes here.”

“Or, in front of the scenes really. The greeter.”

“Both in front and behind.”

“Yes.”

“Very clever. It’s just what I thought all along.”

“Really?”

“No. I thought Rudra spoke English.”

Drepung nodded. “His English is not so bad. He has been studying. Though he does not like to admit it.”

“But listen, Drepung—you do these kinds of switches and cover stories and all, because you know it’s a little dangerous out there, right? Because of the Chinese and all?”

Drepung pursed his lips. “Well, not so much for that—”

“And think about it like this— you know what it means to suddenly be called someone else! You must.”

At this Drepung blinked. “Yes. It’s true. I remember my parents… My father was really happy for me. For all of us, really proud. But my mother was never really reconciled. She would put my hand on her and say, ‘You came from here. You came from here.’ ”

“What do they think now?”

“They are no longer in those bodies.”

“Ah.” He seemed young to have lost both parents. But who knew what they had lived through. Charlie said, “Anyway, you know what I’m talking about.”

“Yes.”

For a long time they sat in the misty rumble of the great falls, looking down at Frank, who had now unclipped from his rope, and was walking over the jumbled rocks by the water, attempting, it appeared, to keep the kayaker in sight as she approached the foot of the falls proper.

Charlie pressed on. “Will you do something about this then?”

Drepung rocked again. Charlie was beginning to wonder if it signaled assent or not. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Now don’t you be giving me that!”

“What? Oh! Oh, no, no, I meant it for real!”

They both laughed, thinking about Phil Chase and his I’ll see what I can dos. “ They all say it,” Charlie complained.

“Now, now. They are seeing what they can do. You must give them that.”

“I don’t give them that. They’re seeing what they can’t do.”

Drepung waggled a hand, smiling. He too had had to put people off, Charlie saw.

They leaned out to try and spot Frank.

As they peered down, Charlie found that he felt better. Talking with someone else about this matter had eased the sense of isolation that had been oppressing him. He wasn’t used to having something he couldn’t talk to Anna about, and without her, he had been at a loss.

And the news that Drepung was the true power in Khembali affairs, once he got over it, was actually quite reassuring. Rudra Cakrin, when all was said and done, was a strange old man. It was far better to have someone he knew and trusted in charge of this business.

“I’ll talk to Rudra Cakrin about it,” Drepung said.

“I thought you said he was a front man.”

“No no. A … a colleague. I need to consult with him, for sure. For one thing he would probably conduct the ceremony. He is the oracle. But that also means he will know what ceremonies I refer to. There are some precedents. Certain accidents, mistakes rectified … there are some things I can look into.”

Charlie nodded. “Good. You remember what I said about Anna welcoming you to NSF.”

“Yes.” Drepung grimaced. “Actually, it was the oracle who told us to take that office.”

“Come on, what, he said ‘Move to 4201 Wilson Boulevard?’ ”

“Not exactly.”

“No I guess not! Well, whatever. Just remember how Anna feels about it. It’s probably very much like your mom felt.”

Charlie was surprised to hear himself going for the jugular like that. Then he thought of Joe clutching at him, frightened and pitiful, and his mouth clenched. He wanted all this business cleared away. The fever would follow.

They watched the river roil by. White patches on black water.

“Look—it looks like Frank is trying to catch that kayaker’s attention.”

“It sure does.”

The woman was now resting, paddle flat across the kayak in front of her, gliding downstream. Frank was hurrying downstream to stay abreast of her, stumbling once or twice on the rocky bank, hands to his mouth to cup shouts out to her. He started waving his arms up and down. He came to a flatter patch and ran to get ahead of her. He semaphored with his arms, megaphoned with his hands, jumped up and down.

“He must know that person?”

“Or something. But she must be hearing him, don’t you think?”

“It seems like it. Seeing him too, for that matter. She must not want to be interrupted.”

“I guess.”

It was hard to see how she couldn’t be noticing him; which meant she must be ignoring him on purpose. She floated on, and he continued to chase her, scrambling over boulders now, shouting still.

She never turned her head. A big boulder blocked Frank’s way and he slipped, went to his knees, held out his arms; but now she was past him, and did not look back.

Finally his arms fell. Head bowed, shoulders slumped—the very figure of a man whose hopes have been dashed.

Charlie and Drepung looked at each other.

“Do you think that Frank is seeming kind of…”

“Yes.”

Frank dropped by the Quiblers’ on a Saturday morning to pick up Nick and go to the zoo. He got there early and stood in the living room while they finished their breakfast. Charlie, Anna, and Nick were all reading as they ate, and so Joe stared at the back of his cereal box with a look of fierce determination, as if to crack the code of this staring business by sheer force of will. Seeing this Frank’s heart went out to him, and he circled the table and crouched by him to chat.

Soon Nick went to get ready, but before they left he wanted to show Frank a new computer game. Frank stood behind him, doing his best to comprehend the action on the screen. “How come he exploded like that?”