46

PALDEN LHAMO

HHDL’s Private Residence, Mcleod Ganj, Dharamsala,

Himachal Pradesh, Northern India

November 1, 2014

The Dalai Lama’s reception room was much changed since Beth’s last visit, brighter and more colorful. Yet, as she walked in with Quinn, she was overwhelmed by the feeling that she was somehow coming home.

His Holiness stood to receive them, the morning light through the windows catching the facet in the lenses of his bifocals with a glint.

“Hello again, Mrs. Elizabeth Waterman, the rock who does not roll, and welcome, Mr. Neil Quinn, the man who climbs the highest of mountains,” he said jovially, breaking protocol to embrace them both warmly. “How do you like my redecorated room, Mrs. Elizabeth, to your approval? Less now like ‘Exit Lounge’ I am thinking. Ahaha!”

Beth smiled—that laugh as contagious as ever—then, after looking around at His Holiness’s remodel, nodded. “Now sit both of you, please. You must be tired from your great efforts. Ahaha!”

Beth and Neil did as they were told while the Dalai Lama turned and spoke to his private secretary. The secretary handed him a wooden tray on which rested the kapala and the small brick of brown pages it contained. He then left the room.

“Not Rolling Stone magazine I am afraid, Mrs. Elizabeth, but most important reading for someone in my position,” His Holiness said as he picked up the set of texts and began to lay out individual pages as if dealing cards. “A message I sent to myself from the past to explain a future I was struggling to see.”

In their center he placed a page that had no words only a picture. “You found a different needle than the one I think you were looking for, Mrs. Elizabeth, and we are grateful to you both, and to your friend Sir Jack Graham for ensuring that you could deliver it to me,” the Dalai Lama said as his finger rested on the faded image of a blue-skinned, red-haired goddess astride a white mule.

“The child, Yangchen Norgyu, is not the Panchen Lama, and of course, she can’t be me because I am.” His Holiness smiled as he let the point take. “But she is indeed a tulku, an emanation of Palden Lhamo, the protectress spirit of Tibet. The texts within my kapala said that she would come to accompany me through my final years and empower our future over those who might seek to hinder it.”

The private secretary returned with Yangchen Norgyu. The child’s hair was still short, but red and lustrous like burnished copper, beginning to curl like the waves of a certain lake in the high mountains. Her eyes were dark beneath curved full eyebrows and a furrowed brow. The lips pursed in an intense concentration. From her right hand hung the mala, the skullbeads clicking through her small fingers as if silently counting time. In the other hand she was holding Fuji’s prayer wheel. She left the private secretary’s side to sit on the right side of the Dalai Lama.

“Mrs. Elizabeth, what will you do now?” His Holiness asked.

“I think I am going to continue Henrietta Richards’s work in Kathmandu. The truth is important.”

“It is everything.”

Yangchen whispered something to the Dalai Lama who turned to momentarily look down at the child in surprise, before saying, “If you will it.”

From within his magenta robe the Dalai Lama took his Patek Philippe watch and handed it to Beth.

“You must take this.”

Beth looked at the exquisite pocket watch now cradled in the palm of her hand and asked, “The masterpiece of complications?”

“Always.”

“But why me?”

“She wants you to look after it for the next generation. She says that I will return and when I do, I will of course know my favorite watch just as I immediately recognized this kapala.” His hand stretched forward to rest on the engraved skull. “You can return my timepiece to me then, but perhaps if I wasn’t to recognize it, you would understand what that meant and take the appropriate action. We need to be sure that no counterfeit dalai lamas are being offered to the world.”

The Dalai Lama turned to Neil Quinn. “And you, Mr. Quinn?”

“As Yangchen said to me, ‘the mountains remain’ and I will keep on climbing them and try to help your people as I do it.”

Yangchen Norgyu whispered something more to the Dalai Lama and passed him Fuji’s prayer wheel.

The Dalai Lama reached forward to give the prayer wheel to Neil Quinn. “It seems that you will need this for your next journey into the sky.”

The child said something more to His Holiness who stared long and hard at Beth and Neil.

“Yes, I do see it now,” the Dalai Lama finally said. “Two new ghost moths. So, Mrs. Elizabeth, even you must now believe in reincarnation?”