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.’
‘Then you are, so to speak, a blank slate, waiting for the writer’s hand. What will he write there? Let it be my hand, and I shall write truths which will set you on the path to enlightenment, to the bliss which is beyond being. Or keep the slate blank and let the wheel turn on, to carry you through countless more existences until perhaps it reaches a point where such a chance comes again.’
‘Stone me,’ said Mrs Jones. ‘I’ve had some funny offers in my time . . .’
Her last two comments had been flippant, but the tone behind them had been at odds with the words. Theodore, used to her moods now, had sensed the change while the Lama had been speaking. At first she had listened to the talk about guru and chela with wary politeness, nodding at the end of each phrase to show she had understood; but when the Lama had begun to speak of her supposed past existences – an idea which Theodore thought too absurd to take seriously – her pose had stiffened and her eyes had flashed behind her veil, and each nod had been more decisive than the last, as if she not only understood the nonsense but accepted it. In the silence that followed her muttered comment Theodore heard once more the thin wheezing sound he had noticed earlier.
‘Tell him it’s a deal,’ said Mrs Jones suddenly. ‘Tell him I’ve always known, since I was a tiny kid, I wasn’t here only this time. I couldn’t of become me, bang, like that, out of nowhere. There’d got to be something before.’
‘It is a mighty spirit,’ said the Lama. ‘Blind and bound it has yet groped towards the way. Tomorrow we shall hold the ceremony of initiation in which I accept you as my chela and you accept me as your guru. Till then I must prepare myself with meditation.’
He rang a small bell. Mrs Jones rose, smoothing her skirt, and curtseyed. Theodore rose too and contrived a bow which was little more than a stiff nod, but the Lama had his eyes closed. A strange monk came in and stood by the door. Still with his eyes shut the Lama intoned a Tibetan blessing. They left.
The courtyard at the bottom of the stairs was still crowded, but an escort of half-a-dozen monks formed up and led them through. This time the people pressed closer and a strange cooing hum rose and fell. Mrs Jones strolled through the mass as though it was all perfectly normal.