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Then I realize that Shakuntala is gone. She writes briefly to say that her father has died, and that she must stay in Delhi with her mother. The thought of my callous behavior on the day of her departure shakes me out of sleep at night, thrusts itself into everything I do, look here, it clamors, look at this. I try meditating to empty my mind of all cognitive thought, but I am unable to get away from myself. After a few minutes, I leap up, looking for some book or task to throw myself into. There is no quick confess-and-forgive formula in Buddhist practice. Buddhism requires a constant, relentless internal honesty, and I know I will be unable to proceed until I face my own behavior, my utter thoughtlessness in sleeping with the student, and my failure to be a true friend to Shakuntala. The only way out of this is straight through it. And while you are there, a voice adds, you might take a real look at the grief you have caused Robert.

Without Shakuntala, I am alone, neither part of the staff nor of the student body. I resolve to try to make amends with the staff members, but the thought of becoming one of “we the lecturers” makes me feel cold and cross, a hundred years old. It rains for several days, and I stay in bed, preparing lessons, eating peanuts, wrapped in sweaters and a heavy woolen kira against the cold damp. When the rain subsides, I put on my shoes and walk to the shops to get something more substantial than peanuts. The tops of the mountains are all engrossed in cloud, and the wind comes down from the dark peaks in the north, sharpened by its passage through brambles and thorns, carrying icy droplets of rain. While the shopkeeper packs my groceries in newspaper, I read the astrologers’ calendar on the wall, printed in Chhoeki and English. It is the Year of the Iron Horse, and the predictions are ominous, full of conflict and rain and the movement of peoples.

Four of the five who were arrested last year are back. They are subdued, associating with neither north nor south, nor with each other; they are years older, eyes shadowed and faces haggard. As for the one who is still missing, all I can find out is that he was “involved” and is now in jail. Dil has not returned. The southern students say the Situation deteriorated over the winter: there were curfews and travel restrictions, the government is canceling Nepali instruction in the southern schools, and families have to produce a land-tax receipt from 1958 in order to be counted as Bhutanese citizens. The northern students say that thousands of illegal immigrants have been found in the southern belt, and what country in the world wouldn’t take action against this.

In the newspaper, treason is still the key word, along with ngolops, traitors. The government was “deeply saddened to learn that some southern Bhutanese teachers, trainees, students and civil servants had taken part in activities aimed at harming the Tsawa Sum.” It is a matter of “great regret and disappointment that these people had become involved in anti-national activities against the government that had fed, clothed and educated them since their childhood.” The government says that clemency has been shown to all except the ringleaders, and the people’s representatives express disappointment at the government’s lenient stand. I have serious doubts about this expressed disappointment; the entire discussion sounds stilted, as if it had been scripted.

I begin asking direct questions. I get two sides of a story, two halves that do not make a whole.

See ma’am, it’s about democracy and human rights, the southern students tell me. We have a right to wear our own dress and speak our own language.

But the northern students say it is about their survival as a nation. Bhutan is a small country stuck between two giant neighbors, threatened by demographic pressures. We have to protect and preserve our traditions and culture.

What about our traditions and culture, the southern students ask. What about our