something and just exploded. The baggie broke and the milk shot up and sprayed all over the room. I couldn’t believe one bottle could hold that much. Even now when I’m cleaning the living room I come across little white dots of dried milk here and there, like on the mantelpiece or the windowsill. Another little reminder of my Mother’s Day freak-out.’
‘Ha. The morph moment. Well Charlie, you are indeed a pathetic specimen of American manhood, yearning for your own Mother’s Day card, but just hang in there – only seventeen more years and you’ll be free again!’
‘Oh fuckyouverymuch! By then I won’t want to be.’
‘Even now you don’t wanna be. You love it, you know you do. But listen I gotta go Phil’s here bye.’
‘Bye.’
After talking with Charlie, Anna got absorbed in work in her usual manner, and might well have forgotten her lunch date with the people from Khembalung; but because this was a perpetual problem of hers, she had set her watch alarm for one o’clock, and when it beeped she saved and went downstairs. She could see through the front window that the new embassy’s staff was still unpacking, releasing visible clouds of dust or incense smoke into the air. The young monk she had spoken to and his most elderly companion sat on the floor inspecting a box containing necklaces and the like.
They noticed her and looked up curiously, then the younger one nodded, remembering her from the morning conversation after their ceremony.
‘Still interested in some pizza?’ Anna asked. ‘If pizza is okay?’
‘Oh yes,’ the young one said. The two men got to their feet, the old man in several distinct moves; one leg was stiff. ‘We love pizza.’ The old man nodded politely, glancing at his young assistant, who said something to him rapidly, in a language that while not guttural did seem mostly to be generated at the back of the mouth.
As they crossed the atrium to Pizzeria Uno Anna said uncertainly, ‘Do you eat pizza where you come from?’
The younger man smiled. ‘No. But in Nepal I have eaten pizza in tea houses.’
‘Are you vegetarian?’
‘No. Tibetan Buddhism has never been vegetarian. There were not enough vegetables.’
‘So you are Tibetans! But I thought you said you were an island nation?’
‘We are. But originally we came from Tibet. The old ones, like Rudra Cakrin here, left when the Chinese took over. The rest of us were born in India, or on Khembalung itself.’
‘I see.’
They entered the restaurant, where big booths were walled by high wooden partitions. The three of them sat in one, Anna across from the two men.
‘I am Drepung,’ the young man said, ‘and the rimpoche here, our ambassador to America, is Gyatso Sonam Rudra Cakrin.’
‘I’m Anna Quibler,’ Anna said, and shook hands with each of them. The men’s hands were heavily callused.
Their waiter appeared. She did not appear to notice the unusual garb of the men, but took their orders with sublime indifference. After a quick muttered consultation, Drepung asked Anna for suggestions, and in the end they ordered a combination pizza with everything on it.
Anna sipped her water. ‘Tell me more about Khembalung, and about your new embassy.’
Drepung nodded. ‘I wish Rudra Cakrin himself could tell you, but he is still taking his English lessons, I’m afraid. Apparently they are going very badly. In any case, you know that China invaded Tibet in 1950, and that the Dalai Lama escaped to India in 1959?’
‘Yes, that sounds familiar.’
‘Yes. And during those years, and ever since then too, many Tibetans have moved to India to get away from the Chinese, and closer to the Dalai Lama. India took us in very hospitably, but when the Chinese and Indian governments had their disagreement over their border in 1960, the situation became very awkward for India. They were already in a bad way with Pakistan, and a serious controversy with China would have been …’ He searched for the word, waggling a hand.
‘Too much?’ Anna suggested.
‘Yes. Much too much. So, the support India had been giving to the Tibetans in exile –’
Rudra Cakrin made a little hiss.
‘Small to begin with, although very helpful nevertheless,’ Drepung added, ‘shrank even further. It was requested that the Tibetan community in Dharamsala make itself as small and inconspicuous as possible. The Dalai Lama and his government did their best, and many Tibetans were relocated to other places in India, mostly in the far south. But elsewhere as well. Then some more years passed, and there were some, how shall I say, arguments or splits within the Tibetan exile community, too complicated to go into, I assure you. I can hardly understand them myself. But in the end a group called the Yellow Hat School took the offer of this island of ours, and moved there. This was just before the India – Pakistan war of 1970, unfortunately, so the timing was bad, and everything was on the hush-hush for a time. But the island was ours from that point, as a kind of protectorate of India, like Sikkim, only not so formally arranged.’
‘Is Khembalung the island’s original name?’
‘No. I do not think it had a name before. Most of our sect lived at one time or another in the valley of Khembalung. So that name was kept, and we have shifted away from the Dalai Lama’s government in Dharamsala, to a certain extent.’
At the sound of the words ‘Dalai Lama’ the old monk made a face and said something in Tibetan.
‘The Dalai Lama is still number one with us,’ Drepung clarified. ‘It is a matter of some religious controversies with his associates. A matter of how best to support him.’
Anna said, ‘I thought the mouth of the Ganges was in Bangladesh?’
‘Much of it is. But you must know that it is a very big delta, and the west side of it is in India. Part of Bengal. Many islands. The Sundarbans? You have not heard?’
Their pizzas arrived, and Drepung began talking between big bites. ‘Lightly populated islands, the Sundarbans. Some of them anyway. Ours was uninhabited.’
‘Did you say uninhabitable?’
‘No no. Inhabitable, obviously.’
Another noise from Rudra Cakrin.
‘People with lots of choices might say they were uninhabitable,’ Drepung went on. ‘And they may yet become so. They are best for tigers. But we have done well there. We have become like tigers. Over the years we have built a nice town. A little seaside potala for Gyatso Rudra and the other lamas. Schools, houses – hospital. All that. And sea walls. The whole island has been ringed by dykes. Lots of work. Hard labour.’ He nodded as if personally acquainted with this work. ‘Dutch advisors helped us. Very nice. Our home, you know? Khembalung has moved from age to age. But now …’ He waggled a hand again, took another slice of pizza, bit into it.
‘Global warming?’ Anna ventured.
He nodded, swallowed. ‘Our Dutch friends suggested that we establish an embassy here, to join their campaign to influence American policy in these matters.’
Anna quickly bit into her pizza, so that she would not reveal the thought that had struck her, that the Dutch must be desperate indeed if they had been reduced to help like this. She thought things over as she chewed. ‘So here you are,’ she said. ‘Have you been to America before?’
Drepung shook his head. ‘None of us have.’
‘It must be pretty overwhelming.’
He frowned at this word. ‘I have been to Calcutta.’
‘Oh I see.’
‘This is very different, of course.’
‘Yes,