by David Michie
I’m not sure if it was the power of suggestion, dear reader, but my mind seemed amazingly clear. I felt very little agitation. Even despite the Dalai Lama’s extraordinary reference to “Little Sister,” I was able to focus my mind not on speculating what that might mean but on simply breathing in and out with a sense of serene calm. Was this about to be my best meditation session ever?
Apparently not.
It was only some time later when I realized that I must have fallen asleep. As I blinked my eyes in an unfamiliar darkness, it took me a while to recollect where I was—or rather, where I had been.
Because something told me I was no longer in the same place.
Still coming to as I sat up in the box, I pushed the leather flap off with my head and looked around. I could see I was no longer in the meeting room. Someone must have picked the box up and carried it away with me in it after I had nodded off. The only source of light came from a gap beneath a door, but it allowed me to see that shelves and boxes surrounded me. I recognized where I was: the archive room in Namgyal Monastery.
My every instinct was for escape. Getting out of the box wasn’t easy, given the limited space between the top of it and the shelf above it. I had to scramble for quite a while, but I finally managed to kick against the edge of the box. I flopped down on the other side of it in an ungainly fashion. I made my way along the shelf and to the corner.
No sooner was I there than the archive door began opening, creating a sliding wall of light. A monk stepped inside.
I meowed pitifully.
The monk ignored me. He casually placed a large, heavy book on top of the box from which I had only just escaped. He did an about-face. As he did, I saw it was one of the monks who ran errands on behalf of the senior lamas—the one who was deaf.
Before I could think of any way to attract his attention, he had slammed the archive door shut. I was returned to darkness. I recognized that, if I had woken only minutes later, I would have found myself trapped in the box with no possibility of escape.
It was a sobering recognition. As was the knowledge that the meditation session I had started earlier had turned out to be less of a revelatory experience than I had hoped. I may have enjoyed greater freedom from agitation than usual, but it seemed that my mind had quickly succumbed to dullness.
There was nothing for me to do but wait. I had no idea how often the archive room was used or how often people walked past it. I had no way of getting to the floor—I was too high up. Being a cat with weak rear legs on account of a kittenhood injury, I was unable to leap from great heights. My only choice was to stay where I was, listen carefully for passersby, and meow very loudly.
After what felt like an interminable wait, I became aware of the door rolling open again. I raised my head and meowed loudly at the same instant that a monk stepped inside and switched the lights on.
It was Oliver. He looked over to find the source of the meow.
“HHC!” he exclaimed when he saw me huddled in the corner. He frowned at the battered cardboard box directly in front of him and reached out to touch the heavy book on top of it.
“Good Lord!” he said. It wasn’t an expression I’d heard a Tibetan monk use before. “How on earth did you escape from there?”
Then he scooped me off the shelf and carried me outside, locking the archive door behind him. I allowed him to carry me along a winding corridor that eventually led to the temple and out into the familiarity of the courtyard before struggling to be put down.
“Don’t you want to come home, HHC?”
Early-afternoon sunshine filtered through the clouds. Having been trapped in darkness for the past few hours, what did he think? I continued to struggle.
Oliver evidently had different ideas about what should happen next, so I had to extend my claws—just slightly—to show I meant business. After one further scramble, I tumbled out of his arms and to the ground. Finding my feet, I raced across the courtyard as fast as my wonkiness would allow.
Oliver pursued me, but slowly. At the gates, I turned and glanced back to see him trotting in my direction.
“HHC!” he was calling. “Come back here, you mischievous wretch!”
I could see that his heart wasn’t in the chase. Darting to the left, I made my way behind some bushes at the side of the road. I was free!
I hadn’t progressed much farther along the road when I caught a whiff of it again—that bewitchingly compulsive scent. I quickly abandoned my original impulse to visit the Himalaya Book Café and search for an afternoon treat. I remembered the first time I’d first detected that scent on the upstairs windowsill. And again, the evening with Geshe Wangpo, when I decided that it must be coming from somewhere along this road.
Paws hastening, I continued on my way until I had passed the boundary of Namgyal and come to the small, secluded garden that lay between Namgyal Monastery and a retirement home. I would visit here from time to time to attend to the calls of nature. As I clambered toward the garden today, I glanced across the lush, green square and its vast, mature cedar tree canopy, nostrils flaring. Each side of the garden was bordered by flower beds containing agapanthus, calla lilies, dahlias, and other flowering plants. The beds contained neatly raked, loose soil—very convenient for feline comfort. But I could detect no sign of that particular smell.
The garden may have been a horticultural haven, but today, as always, it was deserted. The inviting wooden bench under the boughs of the cedar tree was empty. Residents of the retirement home sometimes sat on a veranda that overlooked the verdant space, but they were nowhere to be seen. Occasionally, I had noticed that the door of a wooden shed in the corner of the garden would be left open. A figure sometimes moved about inside. But apart from that, I had never seen a human anywhere near the place.
I was beginning to think I’d have to go farther along the road to find the origin of the scent when the wind changed, and, suddenly, I caught a gust of it fully in the face: intense, unmistakable, and coming from very close by.
I began scampering across the lawn against the direction the wind was blowing. The lure of it was irresistible. As I walked, it grew stronger. Soon I crossed the grass and found myself at a flower bed. I came face-to-face with a cluster of plants with heart-shaped leaves and white flowers. Their abundant, mesmerizing, heady perfume filled the air.
I began chewing their green stalks. Dear reader, I had no choice. I was compelled! Reaching into the bed, I licked the stems and shook my head. I found myself so overcome with desire for this strange fragrance that I began to quiver. I rubbed my face against the plants. Then I launched myself completely into the bed, crushing stalks and bringing flowers down upon me.
Oh bliss!
I stretched and rolled and curled my whole body into the redolent foliage. I couldn’t get enough! Never had I abandoned myself so completely to such sensual indulgence—not even during my ill-fated romance with the mackerel tabby. Could this be the legendary catnip? The plant whose potent, almost magical effect is one for which we cats are born with such an unfettered craving?
At some point the effect started to wear off. The pleasure became less vivid. The scent less beguiling. Curled like a furry croissant in the flower bed, I closed my eyes and felt the warm afternoon sun on my face.
Time for a nap.
As I dozed off, I found myself wondering dreamily how it was I had never found these flowers here before. Who had planted them? And why?
That night as I relaxed on a sofa, His Holiness sat beside me, reading. After an adventure-filled day, I had returned home ravenous, and I now sat with a tummy full of food, content and replete.
It was getting late when one of the Dalai Lama’s security guards arrived with a visitor—Geshe Lhundup.
“You asked me to bring this to you, however late,” Geshe Lhundup said somewhat apologetically as he laid a cloth-wrapped text on the table in front of His Holiness.
“Thank you very much.” The Dalai Lama’s smile filled the room. Leaning over, he q
uickly unraveled the cloth wrapping to reveal the pages inside them.
“I made two copies. One for you, and one for me to study. The original is with security. First thing tomorrow morning, it will be taken to New Delhi for carbon dating.”
His Holiness was looking at the copy of the text. The long, narrow pages were covered in writing. “Have you had a chance to look at any of this?”
“Only briefly, Your Holiness.”
“I know you don’t like to say anything until you’re sure,” the Dalai Lama said as he waved his hand playfully toward Geshe Lhundup. “But do you have ideas about who might have written it?”
There was a pause while Geshe Lhundup tried to find the right words. “We can rule out any of the standard texts’ commentators. From some of the references I noticed, the document would have to have been written after the year 1500.”
His Holiness looked up, an intensity in his expression.
“My instinct still tells me that this text is from the time of the Great Fifth.”
“As you said earlier.”
“What I did not say”—here Geshe Lhundup lowered his voice—“is that I think at least part of this text may have been written by the Great Fifth himself.”
His Holiness’s eyes widened momentarily.
“Several different hands wrote this. One of them, in the central portion, has several distinctive qualities similar to the handwriting of the Fifth Dalai Lama. But, of course, I have to check most closely.”
The Dalai Lama nodded as he looked back at the text.
“I will leave you to study it,” Geshe Lhundup said as he stepped back.
“Yes. Thank you, Geshe-la.” His Holiness glanced up at the lama again with a smile.
Almost as an afterthought, Geshe Lhundup told him, “I’m sending the metal tube and leather carrier for carbon testing, too—though, of course, they may be younger than the text.”
The Dalai Lama pondered this for a moment before he said, “You may want to tell them to ignore any stray whiskers they may discover in the leather carrier.”
“Ah yes, I heard about that.” Geshe Lhundup glanced down at me. “HHC fell asleep in it earlier.”
I pressed my ears back at this remark.
“Perhaps she was trying to meditate,” suggested His Holiness beside me in a kindly tone. “You know how it is when we finally free our mind of agitation . . .”
“Indeed,” agreed Geshe Lhundup. “We seem conditioned to be in only one of two states: agitation or sleep.”
“Yes, yes. Remaining in a state of clear spaciousness, free from thought, isn’t easy. Especially when we are learning to meditate.” I felt his hand stroke my neck reassuringly.
His Holiness sat up late into the night reading the copy of the text. I could tell he was completely absorbed by it. Only well after midnight did he turn out the light. I felt him reach over to the end of the bed, as he always did when the room fell into darkness, to reassure me.
“You know, little Snow Lion, there are two kinds of treasures, or termas. One kind are physical termas, like the text. But more important, more valuable, are treasures of the mind. These revelations can be very precious. Mental termas can help us realize our true nature.”
In moments, I had drifted to sleep.
I’m in a harness strapped across the front of the novice monk. We are moving quickly along the side of the mountain. More than anything, I am aware of fear. Anxiety rises from the body of the novice, permeating the very cloth in which I am held.
“Om mani padme hum. Om mani padme hum.”
He whispers Tibet’s most famous mantra under his breath.
Ahead of us, in the distance, a group of fellow travelers is moving quickly.
“Norbu! Hurry!” Lagging behind the group, a large, powerful man points in the direction from which we have come.
“The soldiers are not far behind!”
Even before looking down at the shaggy fur on my feet, I know from the quality of the experience that I am the Dalai Lama’s dog, being carried from Tibet to India. Just as I know the person who is carrying me. In the dream he appears as a novice monk, Norbu, but I am much more familiar with him as someone different. Someone, in that curious way of dreams, who I can’t place.
We are falling behind, I realize now, because Norbu is limping. His left foot is weak. As much as possible, he is trying to avoid putting weight on it.
“Om mani padme hum.”
He is trying to catch up with the fellow travelers way out in front. I hear him grunting in pain from his wound. My safe passage has been entrusted to him. It is a purpose I know he regards as a sacred mission.
“To freedom, Little Sister,” he reminds me, looking down at me where I’m secured in the cloth harness.
It begins to snow, and the rocky path becomes slippery. The white dusting on the landscape makes the dark clothes of the fleeing Tibetans even more visible.
Norbu doesn’t possess the kind of footwear needed for robust travel through the mountains. He has nothing to match the boots of our pursuers.
“Norbu!” The man in front is turning back in our direction again. He waves his hand frantically.
There is nothing Norbu can do that he isn’t doing already. He is moving as fast as his handicap will allow.
Which isn’t fast enough.
In the cold mountain air, the crack comes like the sound of a dry, narrow branch being broken. Norbu slumps to the ground. He lies on his right side, eyes shut.
I whimper.
I can’t see anything at first. In moments, I am overwhelmed by the sweet, cloying smell of blood.
The broad-shouldered man is hurrying toward us. With a scarf wrapped around his face against the cold, I can’t see his features, but I have no doubt as to his courage. Despite the risk to his life, he is checking Norbu. He sees where the bullet has gone through Norbu’s chest, just inches away from where I am being carried. There is nothing to be done.
He slashes the harness from Norbu’s body. I feel two large, strong hands tug me upward. There is something powerful, even primal about that sensation of being lifted to safety.
For an instant, I look down to where blood is flowing from Norbu’s body and forming a bright-red stain in the snow.
I suddenly realize who this person is now.
Serena.
CHAPTER SEVEN
When you have a dream as vivid as that, dear reader, it stays with you in the days that follow. On my first-floor windowsill, absorbed by the passing moods of the weather, there would be moments where, for no apparent reason at all, an image from the dream would come back to mind and I would relive the experience.
Monsoon season was coming, so I spent a great deal of time looking out that window.
When the clouds are so low and leaden that day transmogrifies eerily into darkness, when the breeze blowing through the window is steeped in the clean scent of dust-purged streets, when the rain performs a vigorous tattoo on the Namgyal courtyard, the Dalai Lama will often get up from where he sits and turn on the corner lamp. Our room instantly becomes a haven of shelter amid the thunderous wildness. The thangkas on the walls seem to come to life then, the rich reds and golds of their ornately woven panels illuminated in the soft light, the holy beings depicted on them looking as though they might at any moment step down from their lotus thrones and into our warm sanctuary.
On such occasions, His Holiness often comes over to reassure me.
“Are you all right, my little Snow Lion?” he inquires, bending to where I sit. For a few moments we look outside, watching raindrops streaming down the other side of the window. The Dalai Lama strokes my neck or murmurs a few mantras in my ear. And it always seems to me the most curious and delightful paradox that when the world outside is at its most threatening is the very time that I feel most protected. The light within glows strongest in the darkness.
It was just such a morning when Mrs. Trinci and Serena arrived, windswept and somewhat damp. Six weeks had passed since their fi
rst meditation lesson with His Holiness. As Serena stepped into the room I studied her more closely than usual.
I was still coming to terms with the extraordinary revelation in my dream. I wondered if Serena herself had any inkling. Did she realize that, in a previous life, she had died in her mission to carry me across the Himalayas? Did she know that, as her little sister, my safe passage had been her most heartfelt concern to the very end? It certainly explained the intense closeness I’d felt for her since we’d first met. Our friendship in this lifetime was renewing a bond that went much further back into the past. I was also wondering what happened after my rescue. Had the large man with the powerful hands brought me all the way to India? And how had I come to find myself being looked after by Ludo?
As soon as Serena and her mother sat down and tea was poured, I approached where they were sitting in the lamplight, launched myself onto the sofa, and curled up between the two of them. I felt snug and protected there, away from the torrential downpour outside.
“So,” His Holiness began, looking at Mrs. Trinci. “It is six weeks since you began the meditation challenge. Have you found the practice useful?”
Although his inquiry was directed at her, he embraced us all with his warmth.
“I’m still very much a beginner,” Mrs. Trinci told him. “But I think it is helping. I feel a bit . . . different.”
I looked up at Mrs. Trinci and fixed her with my unwavering sapphire-blue inspection. I noticed how her makeup seemed to be applied in a more subtle way—gone was the heavy mascara she used in the past. And instead of the armful of bracelets that would clang together every time she moved her arms—being Italian, emphatic gesticulation was a frequent occurrence—she now wore only a single gold bracelet. It gleamed prettily in the lamplight.
The Dalai Lama gestured for Mrs. Trinci to go on.