Peter Dickinson - Tulku

He found Mrs Jones sitting on a wide, low stool with her back to the window; she was still wearing her hat and veil and had managed to rearrange her hair and dress after the wild ride through the courtyard below. The Lama Amchi sat facing her on a great throne-like chair of black wood with sides as tall as its back and a rainbow-coloured canopy above. The back of the chair was deeply carved with the sacred wheel, whose spokes and rim framed the Lama’s head like a dark halo. He sat cross-legged on the plain wood seat, a pose which made him look like a toy neatly folded into its box. Later Theodore learnt that whenever he was not occupied with some other duty he spent all his time in this position on this chair, and slept in it too.

The Lama greeted Theodore with a face that seemed to smile, though his lips did not move, and pointed to a smaller stool beside Mrs Jones’s. Unlike the great wheel-throne, this was comfortably padded, a point which Theodore hardly noticed at the time but became increasingly grateful for as the weeks went by. They sat in silence for some time, the Lama gazing into distance beyond the mountain-tops, and Mrs Jones staring at him as though she were about to paint his portrait. Theodore glanced uneasily from one to the other wishing that Mrs Jones would say something in English so that he could begin to tell her of his determination not to be tricked any further into the maze of heathen fantasies.

‘How weak is the intellect of man,’ said the Lama suddenly. ‘When I met you in the pass I was given sure signs that my search had ended, but I was blind to a full half of them, or saw them in a mistaken light. Because I thought at first that you, child, might be the Tulku, I believed that your companion, the Chinese, must be the guide of whom the oracle spoke. And though I soon discovered that the Tulku is yet to be born, I was too blinded by my first perceptions to see that it is you who are the guide. It is you who are to guide the Mother of the Tulku to me.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Theodore. ‘Mrs Jones is here.’

‘Not all journeys are across space. Two consciousnesses may be far apart in the dimensions of earth and yet side by side in the dimensions of the spirit; two bodies may share one room, while their consciousnesses are separated as if by many mountain ranges. Now say this to the Mother of the Tulku. I will speak slowly and pause often, so that you may make my meaning sure. The oracle confirms that she bears a child, and that he will be the Tulku of the Siddha Asara, who in his last incarnation wore the body of Tojing Rimpoche. That much is certain, though the Ones who speak through the oracle use shadowy language. The oracle also repeated the signs that were to assure us that we had found the Tulku, and when it confronted the Mother of the Tulku it recognized the presence of Asara and shrank before him. It warned, too, in dark language, of dangers and betrayals to come – these will become clear as the wheel turns. And it gave us a further sign, which is not for us but for the Mother of the Tulku, that she may know whose body she bears. We interpret certain words as meaning that the Siddha Asara willed the death of the body of Tojing Rimpoche at a propitious moment, only a moon and a half gone by, and chose for his new incarnation a child that was newly conceived at the foot of a pillar beneath a foreign shrine. Was it so?’

Theodore stared at the Lama, felt his face go red and half-opened his mouth to say that he couldn’t ask Mrs Jones a question like that.

‘You are the guide,’ said the Lama gently. ‘You are, as it were, the bridge between us. We travel to and fro upon you, but our coming and going does not change you by a pebble or a grass-blade.’

Theodore turned his protest into a cough, and translated. Mrs Jones gave one of her throaty little chuckles.

‘Wonder how he knew that,’ she said. ‘I s’pose it might be right. I mean, that’s the first place it could of happened, ain’t it?’

‘Where?’

‘Oh, don’t you remember, that great lump of rock with the cave in it, where I told you my life history. That was a pillar, sort of, and it had a shrine at the top, too.’

Theodore explained in Mandarin. The Lama nodded.

‘You see?’ he said. ‘The oracle gives clear assurance to the Mother of the Tulku, so that she may know that all we ask of her is rightly asked.’

‘Tell him to come off it,’ said Mrs Jones. ‘No, I s’pose you better not. Just like my Auntie Rosa said, ain’t it? They tell you one true thing and expect you to swallow the rest because of it. Still, I wonder how he knew.’

‘I talked to the oracle-priest about the way we came,’ said Theodore. ‘I think I said we camped by that pillar. Of course I didn’t say anything about . . . about . . .’

‘Lucky guess, then,’ said Mrs Jones. ‘Perhaps old Lung’s been boasting a bit too. You’ll have to be careful what you say to His Reverence, Theo. We got to make him think we’re proper impressed.’

There was a long pause, during which Theodore became aware of something else in the room beside the three of them and the vague presence of the idols – a very faint, half-regular wheezing, whose source he couldn’t identify. He was too occupied with the struggle to translate to pay much attention to it, but decided there was probably a large dog asleep behind one of the several screens, snorting and wheezing through its dreams.

‘Thus it is yet more certain,’ said the Lama suddenly. ‘Now comes our task to prepare, that the Tulku may be born in an appropriate manner. It has happened sometimes that the Dalai Lama himself has been born in the hut of a serf, just as an offering at a shrine may if necessary be made from a common butter-bowl. But where we have choice we use more seemly implements, and thus it seems proper to us that the Mother of the Tulku should have knowledge of our faith, that she may compose herself into harmony for the birth of the Tulku.’

‘Oh Lor’,’ said Mrs Jones.

There was no need to translate the muttered moan. The Lama smiled at her with innocent sweet charm.

‘I must explain that this is the reversal of normal procedure,’ he said. ‘Normally a person who wishes to learn how to set his footsteps in the Way of Enlightenment will seek out a teacher, whom we call a guru , and ask him to accept the applicant as a student, whom we call a chela . The guru will consider the applicant’s worthiness, and set him harsh tasks to test his faith, and only then perhaps accept him. Now it is I, the guru , who am asking you, the chela , to accept me as your instructor. All instruction will be useless unless you are willing. If you refuse you will be in no way punished, but will be honoured throughout Dong Pe as the Mother of the Tulku, and when the child is weaned and able to leave you you will be rewarded with gold.’

‘Gold!’ said Mrs Jones. ‘What does he think I am?’

‘But hear me,’ said the Lama, speaking ever more slowly. ‘All the gold we can give you – and Dong Pe is famous for its wealth – is nothing beside the riches of instruction. You have a great soul. It has passed, perhaps, through the bodies of many princes who have fought great wars and given laws to empires. But for all their power and fame they were lashed fast to this world of things, which is not the soul’s true home, but is all illusion and folly. You cannot remember these past existences, but I perceive that as I speak of them your soul acknowledges their truth. And now the wheel of your being has turned, as it can do only once in many thousand years, turned to the point where you can begin to free yourself from illusion and seek the soul’s true home. The child is a Christian, but you have no beliefs.’

‘I got married in church, of course,’ said Mrs Jones, ‘but I can’t say as I ever took religion very serious.’