The Business

'Aw, shit, no, they're great people.  You wouldn't want to confuse them with anybody who gives a fuck, mind you.' Rich was an Ozzie civil engineer.  He laughed. 'Some of the fellas disagree, but I think they've got a great attitude to life, but then they think they're going to be reincarnated or something like that, you know?'

I smiled, nodded.

'Who needs crash barriers if God's looking after you and you might come back as something better next time anyway, you know?  Fucking hard little workers, though.  Don't know when to stop.'

And more circulating.  Michel was a French doctor, moodily good-looking but one of those people who makes no effort to be attractive or even interesting beyond keeping their good looks kempt.  He was a bit dour, as we say, but provided an overview of medicine in Thulahn, which was pretty basic.  High infant mortality, poor ante- and post-natal care in the outlying villages, whole population prone to influenza epidemics which killed a few thousand each winter, some malnutrition, a lot of preventable and/or easily treatable blindness.  Goitres and other deficiency conditions a problem in some of the valleys where they didn't get a full spectrum of minerals and vitamins in their diet.  No sign of gender-biased infanticide.  AIDS known but not common.

On which negative but happy note, the good doctor propositioned me in a bored sort of way that left it open whether he was so used to women falling into his arms that he'd got out of the way of putting much effort into it, or was so frightened of rejection he thought it wise not to invest the suggestion with too much significance.

I did my impression of the Roman Empire, and declined.

* * *

Blue pine and chir pine, prickly leaved oak, Himalayan hemlocks and silver firs, juniper and scrub juniper filled the crannied spaces where any soil had gathered, the last — stunted, blasted by the wind, burned by frost but still just growing — only finally petering out at five kilometres above sea level.

'This is a pluralist society.  We respect the beliefs of our Hindu brothers and sisters.  Buddhists tend not to see themselves as being in competition with others.  The Hindu faith is like Judaism, providing an ancient set of rules by which one may live one's life and order one's thoughts.  Ours is a younger religion, a different generation of thought, if you like, grafted upon a set of much older traditions, but having drawn lessons from them, and respectful of them.  Westerners often see it as more like a philosophy.  Or so they tell us.'

'Yes, I know a few Buddhists in California.'

'You do?  So do I!  Do you know—?'

I smiled.  We swapped a few names but, predictably, came up with no matches.

Sahair Beies was Rinpoche, or head lama of Bhaiwair monastery, the biggest in the country.  I had already seen it, albeit from a distance, strung across the rock faces above the old palace a few kilometres out of Thuhn.  He was slight, indeterminately old, shaved bald and wore very deeply saffron robes and little wireframe glasses behind which intelligent-looking eyes twinkled.

'You are a Christian, Ms Telman?'

'Nope.'

'Jewish, then?  I have noticed that many people whose names end in "-man" are Jewish.'

I shook my head. 'Evangelical atheist.'

He nodded thoughtfully. 'A demanding path, I suspect.  I asked one of your compatriots what he was, once, and he replied, "Devout Capitalist."' The Rinpoche laughed.

'We have a lot of those.  Most are less open about it.  Life as acquisition.  Whoever dies with the most toys wins.  It's a boy thing.'

'He gave me a lecture on the dynamic nature of the West and the United States of America in particular.  It was most illuminating.'

'But it didn't persuade you to move to New York City and become a venture capitalist or a stockbroker?'

'No!' He laughed.

'What about other faiths?' I asked. 'Do you, for instance, get Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses turning up here?' I had a sudden comical image of two guys in sober suits and shiny shoes (covered in snow) shivering outside the giant doors of a remote monastery.

'Very rarely.' The Rinpoche looked thoughtful. 'Usually by the time we see them they are…changed,' he said.  His eyes bulged. 'Oh, I find physicists much more interesting.  There have been some famous American professors and Indian Nobel Prize winners I have talked to, and it struck me that we were — as one says — on the same wavelength in many ways.'

'Physics.  That's our Brahmin faith.'

'You think so?'

'I think a lot of people live as though that's true, even if they don't think about it.  To us, science is the religion that works.  Other faiths claim miracles, but science delivers them, through technology: replacing diseased hearts, talking to people on the other side of the world, travelling to other planets, determining when the universe began.  We display our faith every time we turn on a light switch or step aboard a jet.'

'You see?  All very interesting, but I prefer the idea of Nirvana.'

'As you said, sir, it's a hard path, but only if you think of it.'

'One of your American professors said that to study religion was merely to know the mind of man, but if one truly wanted to know the mind of God, you must study physics.'

'That sounds familiar.  I think I've read his book.'

The Rinpoche pinched his lower lip. 'I think I see what he meant now, but I could not explain to him that the thoughts of people and the phenomena we seek to explain through physics might all be revealed as…subsidiary to the attainment of true enlightenment, which would be like the result of one of those experiments which use high energies to show that apparently quite different forces are in fact the same.  Do you see what I mean?  That having achieved Nirvana, one might recognise all human behaviour and the most profound physical laws as being ultimately indistinguishable in their essence.'

I had to pause while I let this sink in.  Then I stood back a pace from the Rinpoche and said, 'Wow, you guys don't just wander into this job, do you?'

The Rinpoche's eyes sparkled and he held one hand over his mouth while he giggled modestly.

Amongst and above them snow pigeons, sunbirds, jungle crows, barbets, choughs, warblers, babblers, grandalas, accentors, Himalayan griffon vultures and Thulahnese tragopans hopped, flitted, scurried, dived, wheeled or stooped.

I was on my way back from the toilet; I nodded and smiled at the little lady-in-waiting as she headed where I'd just been, then spotted Josh Levitsen letting himself out of a door and on to a terrace overlooking the dark town.  I followed him.  He stood by the stone parapet, swaying, hands cupped in front of his mouth as he fumbled with the Zippo, his face suddenly yellow in the flame as the lighter flared.  He looked up as I approached.

'Hey, Ms Telman, you're going to catch your death of cold out here, you know that?  Nice dress.  Did I say that earlier?  You're a babe, you know that?  If you don't mind me saying so, that is.  Here, you wanna toke?  Sun's over the yard-arm and shit, right?'

'Thanks.'

We leant on the stonework.  It really was quite cold, though at least there was no wind.  I felt the hairs on my arms prickle, goose-bumps rising.  The grass was strong.  I held it in for a while, but ended up coughing on the exhale.

I handed the skinny joint back to Levitsen. 'Good shit.  Local?'

'Thulahn's finest.  Every pack comes with a sanity warning from the Lord High Surgeon General.'