Fifty Degrees Below - Kim Stanley Robinson [174]
They sat there, looking down at the river. A lone kayaker was working her way upstream against the white flow. Below them Frank, who was standing by the shore again, was staring out at her.
Charlie gestured down at Frank. “He seems interested.”
“Indeed he does.”
They watched Frank watch her.
“So,” Charlie persevered, “maybe you could talk to Rudra Cakrin about this matter for me. See if he can do something, see if there is some kind of, I don’t know, exorcism he can do. Not that I mean to imply anything, just some kind of I don’t know. Re-individuation ceremony. To clear him out, and well—leave him alone. Are there such ceremonies?”
“Well . . . in a manner of speaking, yes. I suppose.”
“So will you talk to Rudra about doing it? Maybe just without much fanfare, so Anna doesn’t know about it?”
Drepung was frowning. “If she doesn’t know, then . . .”
“Then it would be for me. Yes. For me and Joe. And then it would get to Anna, by way of us. Why, does it have to be public?”
“No no. It’s not that.”
“What—you don’t want to talk to Rudra about it?”
“Well . . . Rudra would not actually be the one to decide about such a matter.”
“No?” Charlie was surprised. “Who then? Someone back in Khembalung, or Tibet?”
Drepung shook his head.
“Well, who then?”
Drepung lifted his hand as if to inspect it again. He pointed the bloodied thumb at himself. Looked at Charlie.
Charlie shifted on the ground to get a better look back at him. “What, you?”
Drepung nodded with his body again.
Charlie laughed shortly. All of a sudden many things were becoming clear. “Why you rascal you!” He gave the young man a light shove. “You guys have been running a scam on us the whole time.”
“No no. Not a scam.”
“So what is Rudra then, some kind of servant, some old retainer you’re doing a prince-and-pauper switch with?”
“No, not at all. He is a tulku too. But not so, that is to say, in the Khembali order there are also relationships between tulkus, like the ones between the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama.”
“So you’re the boss, you’re saying.”
Drepung winced. “Well. I am the one the others regard as their, you know. Leader.”
“Spiritual leader? Political leader?”
Drepung wiggled a hand.
“What about Padma and Sucandra?”
“They are in effect like regents, or they were. Like brothers now, advisors. They tell me so much, they are like my teachers. Brothers really.”
“I see. And so you stay behind the scenes here.”
“Or, in front of the scenes really. The greeter.”
“Both in front and behind.”
“Yes.”
“Very clever. It’s just what I thought all along.”
“Really?”
“No. I thought Rudra spoke English.”
Drepung nodded. “His English is not so bad. He has been studying. Though he does not like to admit it.”
“But listen, Drepung—you do these kinds of switches and cover stories and all, because you know it’s a little dangerous out there, right? Because of the Chinese and all?”
Drepung pursed his lips. “Well, not so much for that—”
“And think about it like this—you know what it means to suddenly be called someone else! You must.”
At this Drepung blinked. “Yes. It’s true. I remember my parents. . . . My father was really happy for me. For all of us, really proud. But my mother was never really reconciled. She would put my hand on her and say, ‘You came from here. You came from here.’ ”
“What do they think now?”
“They are no longer in those bodies.”
“Ah.” He seemed young to have lost both parents. But who knew what they had lived through. Charlie said, “Anyway, you know what I’m talking about.”
“Yes.”
For a long time they sat in the misty rumble of the great falls, looking down at Frank, who had now unclipped from his rope, and was walking over the jumbled rocks by the water, attempting, it appeared, to keep the kayaker in sight as she approached the foot of the falls proper.
Charlie pressed on. “Will you do something about this then?”
Drepung rocked again. Charlie was beginning to wonder if it signaled assent or not. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Now don’t you be giving me that!”
“What? Oh! Oh, no, no, I meant it for real!