Peter Dickinson - Tulku

She laughed, and her fingers flicked dismissively at her habit.

‘You’re forgetting I’m an actress,’ she said. ‘I like to get myself into a part and play it proper. Not that I ain’t serious about what old Amchi’s been telling me – fact, it makes more sense to me than anything I’ve heard from all the other holy bodies what have tried to make a decent Christian of me. But look at it another way – I’ve got to take it serious, haven’t I? Old Amchi would spot at once if I didn’t.’

‘But you’re coming, all the same?’ insisted Theodore.

‘Course I am. I told you as I nearly died having my other kid. I’m not risking that again, any more than I can help. I’m getting myself to where there are proper doctors, whatever old Amchi says.’

‘Good,’ said Lung. ‘Now, Sumpa make this plan . . .’

‘No, don’t tell us, love,’ interrupted Mrs Jones, ’or Amchi’ll smell it out. Don’t you think so, Theo?’

Theodore nodded. In the glimmering room at the top of the Lama’s house the odour of conspiracy would have reeked about them like incense.

‘I guess you’re right,’ he said. ‘Only how long have we got to wait?’

‘Five weeks,’ said Lung. ‘Then is big festival. Plenty people come to Dong Pe. Everybody most busy. We go then.’

As those weeks dragged by, Lung and Theodore discussed this conversation many times. Mrs Jones usually managed to turn the subject aside, but when Lung tried to insist on talking about the escape she refused to listen.

‘You know,’ she said once, ‘I’m like an old hank of wool what’s got itself all of a tangle, and now I’m sorting myself out and rolling me up into a proper ball what I can knit with.’

She seemed to find the days of waiting no trouble at all, and Theodore endured them well enough, but they were a trial for Lung. He took to visiting Major Price-Evans with Theodore, helping to clean the temple and arguing, very formally and politely despite his inadequate English, for Confucianism against Buddhism. Theodore paid little attention to these debates, which were not very satisfactory even to Lung, because the Major was such a difficult opponent, tending to agree with everything Lung said and then somehow to incorporate it into his own side of the argument. One morning Lung, exasperated but still needing distraction, offered to mend the little windmill which was supposed to drive the second line of prayer-wheels. The Major was delighted, and Lung set about the job with his usual self-mocking competence, borrowing tools from somewhere and then – as if to spin the project out through the weeks of waiting – cutting every strut and joint as if he were making fine furniture.

So, slowly, the moment for escape neared, with increasing tension, like the felt approach of thunder. The monastery began to pulse with a sense of quickened life as the time of the great Festival came nearer. To Theodore’s relief the Lama Amchi announced a holiday from the lesson-periods, as it was his duty to meditate for three days before the start of the Festival, and first he wanted Mrs Jones to take part in the next ceremony of her initiation. He paused when he had made this announcement, and after Theodore had finished translating continued to stare at her with his misty but luminous gaze. She nodded.

‘Fair enough,’ she said. ‘If that’s the form, I’ll do a bit of meditating too. Ask if he can find me a cell or something, where I’ll be alone.’

‘The cell is already waiting,’ said the Lama. ‘Tomorrow morning we will hold the ceremony, and then the Mother of the Tulka can retire to her cell. For six days after that we will meet here each morning, so that I may teach her the exercises to follow when she is alone, and then we will both withdraw into silence.’

For a moment Theodore was horrified. This seemed to end all hope of escape. Then the thought struck him that perhaps Mrs Jones knew what she was doing – if she was supposed to be shut in her cell, and in fact they started their escape on the first night, then with luck it would be three days before she was missed. If that was in her mind, she gave no sign, but when Theodore looked at the Lama he found the old man watching him with an intent, half-amused stare, as though he had read every detail of his thought.

Next morning Theodore came out of the temple of the oracle with the tang of the Major’s greasy tea on his lips, and heard the tinkling bells on his right echoed by a new set on his left. He looked and saw that the line of prayer-wheels that had been motionless were twirling like the others. He wondered whether it made any difference that Lung, who had brought them back into meaningless motion, didn’t believe in them at all. Presumably not. His function was like the wind’s function – it didn’t believe in them either. Still, Theodore was glad for Lung’s sake that his work had been successful so he went back into the temple and climbed through the series of rooms at the back to the roof. The rooms were tiny, and empty except for the one on the ground floor. They were connected to each other by ladders like the one he used to clean the Buddha and the taller statues. He found Lung out on the roof, making final adjustments.

‘Well done,’ he said in English. ‘You’ve got them turning faster than the other lot now.’

‘Perhaps I mend that also,’ said Lung. ‘Happy you come, Theo, for you help me. This rope not good, fall off in strong wind, and my arms not long to hold two end.’

His readiness to talk English showed he was in a cheerful mood, but he slipped into Mandarin to give more detailed instructions. Theodore held, pulled and twisted as he was told, but when they set the windmill going again it turned out that this latest adjustment had unbalanced other elements, so that it now quivered alarmingly at each revolution.

‘The thing is full of demons,’ said Lung with a laugh. ‘No wonder in this place. Now how shall I exorcise them?’

He slipped a cord from a pulley and stopped the juddering, then paced around the mechanism, fingering struts and ropes. In the silence a bell clanked and was answered by another, sounds that made Theodore aware of a noise that he had heard for some time without noticing, the deep drone of temple music, joined now by the fluting and tinkling of lighter instruments. He moved to the parapet and looked over the edge.

The doors of the main temple opposite were open, but the mountain brightness was too strong for him to see anywhere into the dark, square hole from which the music came. Now he could distinguish the deep gargling chant of the choir-leader and the boom of response from the choir. He thought he could see the blue shimmer of incense streaming below the lintel and up into the glistening air. The courtyard itself was empty.

He was about to turn back to the trap-door when two monks, wearing the ceremonial gold cockscomb helmets, emerged from under the right-hand arch, followed by Mrs Jones and then four monks. It was a tribute to the vigour of her personality that he knew her at once, because she was wearing the full costume of a Tibetan nun, the heavy, belted robe and the ungainly pointed cap, even the yellow boots. Theodore must have gasped or made some movement that showed his surprise for in a second Lung was at his side, silent at first, then speaking in a voice that was like a groan of anguish.

‘She is shameless! Look how she walks, and yet she is but five months pregnant! It is my child, my child!’

He made a movement, as though to rush down into the courtyard and confront her, but then turned back to the parapet and stood quivering, whispering to himself or groaning aloud, while Mrs Jones, escorted by her small procession, crossed the courtyard. At the temple door she knelt with all her usual grace and touched her forehead on the paving, then rose and was swallowed by the dark square. Lung was in the middle of a long, relaxing sigh when he stiffened again and pointed at the mountainside. The Lama Amchi, unescorted and wearing his plain russet robe, was coming down the stairs from his house.