Chiun clutched the phone more tightly. "Has there been another?"
"No."
"This is good."
"Remo asked me to consult with one of the psychiatrists here," Smith said.
"That is not like him."
"I know, Master Chiun. But he seems unusually troubled."
"It will pass"
"It is to be hoped. I cannot allow my enforcement arm to be at large if he is suffering from some sort of multiple-personality disorder."
"Fear not, Smith. It is nothing of the sort. Remo is merely going through a phase. It will pass."
"And when it does, will Remo be the Remo we know?"
Chiun compressed his thin, papery lips and said nothing. It was a question he could not answer. Possibly a question without any good answer.
"Remo informs me that the matter of Squirrelly Chicane has been brought to your attention," Chiun said at length.
"I declined the President's request that we bodyguard her. It is not our problem."
"Even if some difficulty befalls her?"
"She is an American citizen exercising her prerogative to travel where she will."
"It occurs to me, O Emperor, that perhaps all Remo needs is a vacation."
"I would prefer that one of you remain on standby. Something may come up."
"Very wise, O Smith. Allow me to suggest that Remo be the one to remain standing by. He does that better than I."
"If you wish to take a vacation, by all means. Go."
"I have some property that I must return to my native village. But I do not wish to squander a vacation doing so, for it will be duty, not pleasure, that compels my journey."
"I fail to understand," said Smith.
Chiun's voice lifted. "Do you not recall in my last contract, the clause numbered seventy-eight?"
"Clause seventy-eight?"
"The clause that allows the Master of Sinanju to take leave when he will. Unpaid leave."
"You mean a sabbatical?"
"If that is the proper word, yes."
"By all means, Master Chiun, take a sabbatical."
"Your understanding knows no bounds."
And the Master hung up. Immediately he began packing. Only one trunk this time. The taxi driver managed it quite successfully, causing no damage and retaining his limbs.
Chiun did not awaken Remo. Nor did he bring his roomful of gold with him. There were things more important than gold. Not many, but a few.
One of the most important things was that Remo not accompany him to Tibet. For he might recognize it, and the consequences of that not even the gods could predict.
Chapter 17
High over the Indian Ocean, Squirrelly Chicane was cramming for her high-profile meeting with the Dalai Lama.
She sat cross-legged on an overstuffed cushion that was in turn placed on an exquisite Oriental rug. She swam in her saffron robes, but Lobsang wouldn't allow her to have it taken in by even the finest of Beverly Hills couturiers. Her maroon lama's miter cast a rhinoceros-horn shadow over the pages of her book, making the words hard to read by the overhead lights.
It was night, so throwing aside one of the window hangings on Kula's private plane wouldn't have helped.
It was a neat plane, Squirrelly thought. Like a flying barge. No wonder Kula called it his skyboat. If Cleopatra had lived in the twentieth century, she would have had one just like it.
They were on the last leg of their flight to Delhi. Or Bombay or wherever it was they were going.
When Lobsang had first explained that they were going to the holy land, Squirrelly had said, "We're going to Israel!"
They had looked at her funny. But then they always looked at her funny. They were still getting used to the idea of a Bunji Lama who was both white and female.
"To Buddhists," Lobsang patiently explained, "India is the holy land."
"I've never been to India," Squirrelly had said. "I don't think."
"It is a wonderful land, not only because it is the cradle of Buddhism, but because it is free. Unlike Tibet. "
"After I'm done, Tibet will be free."
"First you must relearn your faith."
"I brought my entire collection of Hermann Hesse and William S. Burroughs books."
The two looked blank. Cute but blank.
Squirrelly showed them her copy of Dharma Lion and after Kula has translated the title, Lobsang had smiled happily. They were so easy to please.
So Squirrelly had sat down to read. The funny thing was, her copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance had vanished. She knew she had brought it aboard. They had hardly let her bring anything. Lobsang had turned away most of her luggage, saying that her purpose as the Bunji Lama was to renounce the physical world.
They let her keep her stash of bhang. For some reason, they had no problem with that. That was when Squirrelly knew that she was going to really like being a Buddhist.
The more she read, the more it confirmed her sense that she had found the perfect spiritual identity in the perfect body. She was the Bunji Lama and she was still Squirrelly Chicane. It was better than sharing that Siamese soul with Mae West.
She liked everything she read about Buddhism. All people and things were in harmony, because everything that happened was predestined to happen. Therefore, no one ever screwed up in the cosmic sense.
"It's all scripted!" Squirrelly had blurted out in a moment of true epiphany. "It all connects!"
Of course, killing was prohibited. Yet no person or thing ever really died in the absolute Western sense of dying. Instead, a soul moved up or down the karmic ladder according to the life that had been led. So while it was bad to kill, no one should be punished for it. Karma would take care of everything.
Further, there were seven heavens and seven hells, instead of the harsh pass-fail Christian system. When you died, you dropped your body like last year's fashions. And when you wanted to pray, you spun a little gimcrack and it prayed for you.
Wonderfully balanced, unjudgmental and handsoff, it was the perfect belief system, Squirrelly decided.
And Buddhas. There were hundreds of Buddhas. As the Bunji Lama, Squirrelly was the reincarnation of the Buddha to Come, who was a really good Buddha to be because everyone looked forward to his return. As a Buddha, Squirrelly would be continually reborn into the world in order to regenerate it by relieving its suffering.
"This makes perfect sense to me," Squirrelly said, patting the dyed-saffron curls that peeped out from under her miterlike lama's cap.
Then the engine whine began to change pitch, and Kula came back from the pilot's compartment to say, "We have arrived, Bunji"
"Fabulous," said Squirrelly, going to a window.
She looked down and saw nothing. Literally. The earth below was like freshly washed blackboard.
"Where is the city? Where are the lights?"
"They are telling us that there are no lights," Kula said unconcernedly.
"What happened to them?"
"No electricity."
"How thoughtful. Conserving the lights at night when they're not needed."
"They are also forbidding us to land."
"Why?"
"The Hindu fear Beijing's displeasure."
"So what do we do?"
Kula beamed. "We land, of course. For we fear no one's displeasure but Buddha's. "
The landing was rough. The airport was without power, too. So there was no radar in the tower, no marker lights on the runways, and the boarding ramps were inoperative.
Squirrelly didn't care. The jet's flat tires could be fixed, and she didn't need a ramp. She took a puff of her roach and closed her eyes. But Kula pulled her back before she could invoke her newfound powers of levitation.
After they had rolled the air stairs up to the plane, Kula threw open the hatch. Squirrelly, trying to keep her maroon lama's hat in place, stepped out onto the top step.
First she noticed the crowds. There were none.