The Buddha of Brewer Street

by Michael Dobbs

  Except the market of her childhood was now many thousands of miles away. It didn’t have hookers like Sophie. And it hadn’t sold King Edwards by the pound.

  Beds, beds, and still more beds.

  Once he’d had guest beds, granny’s bed, bunk beds, beds to bounce on and crawl under and pretend were Wild West forts or Spanish galleons. He’d even once had a water bed, but Elinor had thought that pretentious. He’d had more than enough of every kind of bed, when he’d lived in Holland Park. Whole tribes of children would arrive and promptly disappear into the wonderland of the attic or the wilderness of the basement, far enough away to let their mothers chat in peace and let Goodfellowe get on with his paperwork. Good days. But now he had nothing but his own bed and all he could stretch to for guests, even for Sam, was that cantankerous pull-out thing which called itself a sofa.

  And still she couldn’t be bothered to clear up after herself, the miserable little madam. But what could he expect of a seventeen-year-old daughter?

  The path from relative comfort to adversity had been nothing if not swift, forced out of Holland Park by the effects of AFD Syndrome – Acute Financial Dysfunction Syndrome. (He’d actually heard the phrase used, some psycho-babble given as evidence before the Social Services Select Committee; what bollocks.) That hadn’t been his only problem, of course. He’d also failed a breathalyser test which had reduced him to finding living quarters (he couldn’t call it home) within a reasonable bicycle ride of Westminster. He’d chosen Gerrard Street. Or, more accurately, Gerrard Street had chosen him. The rent and other expenses came to a thousand a year less than his parliamentary housing allowance, but the Chinese landlord hadn’t batted an eyelid when he asked for a receipt for the full amount. The additional thousand meant he could keep Elinor in her nursing home. Parliamentary allowances didn’t run to full-time psychiatric care for wives nor, come to that, did they run to a boarding school education for a seventeen-year-old. But what choice did he have? At least without a car he couldn’t fiddle his mileage allowance, unlike others.

  Sam hadn’t found it easy. A small garret studio with a platform for the bed stuck up in the open eaves could never pass as a family home and wasn’t particularly comfortable, but at least she found it convenient for the clubs and galleries when she came to London. She’d been coming up more frequently in recent weeks, often with her friend Edwina, and he was always glad to see her. Even if she didn’t clear up after herself.

  Goodfellowe started throwing the bedclothes into a slightly less rumpled pile and wrestling with the mattress mechanism. A year ago he and Sam had scarcely been able to talk, their conversations sheathed in the mutual embarrassment and misunderstanding which filled the gap between puberty and parenthood. Nowadays the embarrassment was all his. She was growing fast, almost too fast for Goodfellowe, with a lack of self-consciousness that had him averting his eyes and left her underwear strewn over his floor. As he gathered up the sheets and threw them onto the laundry pile, he found himself hoping that her lack of self-consciousness didn’t also mean a lack of self-restraint. He knew he should offer her paternal advice, even more so as she lacked a mother’s influence, but somehow whenever he ventured onto this particular field his words deserted him and the good intentions froze. His attempts were never less than clumsy and ultimately always proved unsuccessful. ‘Don’t worry, Dad,’ she had once consoled him; ‘fathers are always the last to know.’

  Yesterday she had arrived unexpectedly with a bundle of brochures and magazines under her arm. ‘Got to choose my university for next year,’ she had declared. Heavens, was it that time already? Growing up too fast! He wasn’t ready for this. But at least she had wanted his advice – or, if he were honest, his approval of her choice. University of London, by preference. Best history-of-art courses in the country.

  ‘And it will be near you,’ she had smiled, turning him as soft and as malleable as wax. ‘And Bryan.’

  ‘Who the hell’s Bryan?’ he had demanded.

  ‘Oh, just a boy I like. Nothing too serious yet. If it gets serious I’ll introduce you.’

  ‘What’s “serious”?’ he had enquired.

  ‘Backpacking in Umbria, maybe. Or at least driving lessons. He’s suggested it. Got a BMW 3-series. Black. Convertible. With a six-stack Kenwood CD.’

  He wasn’t sure whether he was being teased. ‘You can’t take driving lessons in a car like that.’

  ‘Got any better suggestions?’

  He had not. He still had several months to go on his ban and had long ago sold his own car. He lapsed into silence, speculating on what other lessons teenagers learnt in a black, 3-series BMW with endless stereo, and whether it made a difference if the soft top was up or down.

  She was on the verge of independence and he had no choice but to accept it. University. Separate holidays. Separate lives, for the most part. He could only be grateful that she shared some of her time and came to stay with him, a friend as well as a daughter – even if it did mean him scrabbling around dealing with dirty linen instead of matters of state. Although on reflection perhaps there wasn’t all that much difference.

  He threw a bundle of university brochures to one side and tried to fold the bed back into the sofa. But it was stuck, complaining, something in the way. A magazine had become wedged in a spring. It turned out to be a copy of Metropolitan, a publication that, in the language of the shout line, ‘Makes Young Women Turn On and Turn Over’. It made him feel uncomfortable. He’d never read one before, hadn’t realized it carried items like … He sat down – no, sank would be a better description – onto the bed. This was clearly going to be one of those growing-up sessions that fathers had to endure when they discovered what truly took their daughters’ interests. Like ‘Male Lust – Inside the Mind of the Man Inside You’. And ‘Bonking Your Way to Greater Brain Power’. The illustrations for ‘Nifty Ways to Naughty Nights’ were particularly vivid.

  He leafed through the pages, becoming involved in it rather more than he had intended. The photographs of the models were about as close as he got to female flesh nowadays, and he found himself making the most of it. Then, to his intense embarrassment, it dawned on him that any one of these full-figured and flawless young women could have been Sam. In pursuit of her interest in art she had posed for life classes, taken her clothes off for strangers, still did for all he knew, and although he had tried to be as dispassionate and as analytical about it as she was, he had failed. He knew what he felt about these young women, their bodies barely covered, their all too evident sexual attractions, and it served only to remind him what other men felt about Sam.

  He hurried on. Through the advice of the agony aunt (‘His Wife Doesn’t Understand Me’), past the breast-enlargement advertisements (‘the implant with impact …’), skipping over the tarot readings and astrology charts until finally he was done. Nothing left but the classified ads. He was about to toss the magazine to one side when he noticed she had marked one of the ads. Ringed it in ink.

  The Unplanned Pregnancy Advice Clinic.

  It took a little time for the thought to take hold. It was almost as if he were standing on the deck of a great liner which at first trembled then, very slowly, started to sink. The deck began to tilt and the familiar furniture to shift. He found himself scrabbling for his footing, his uncertainty turning by stages to confusion and then to fear. Little Sam. Pregnant? Suddenly he saw a life with so much promise, overflowing with such potential, now on the brink of – what?

  Ruin. His daughter. Just another social statistic. Of course! That’s why she’d been coming to London so frequently. Not to see him but to attend a bloody … a bloody bun club! He’d been a fool, felt deceived. But he also felt responsible. All those parental conversations he had tried to launch before retreating in embarrassment. That had been his part of the deal and he had failed. He had owed her more than that. Now she was paying the price, not only for her own weakness but for his, too. His fault. More guilt.

  And after the guilt came pan
ic. What to do? He didn’t know, had no idea. He’d never been a grandfather before.

  And who was the father? Bryan? Bryan! He’d kill bloody Bryan-the-little-bastard. Or whoever. Perhaps it wasn’t Bryan. Still more panic. No, he wanted it to be Bryan, he didn’t want a whole list of suspects.

  Little Sam!

  He swore, most vividly, but it didn’t help. And outside he thought he could hear a Black Dog braying, waiting for him. So, lacking any other inspiration and ignoring the fact that it was still only eleven o’clock, Goodfellowe rose unsteadily from the bed and fixed himself a drink.

  A different bed, still more makeshift than the first. Little more than a mass of complaining springs, no mattress, supported by four short and rusting iron legs. It was to the legs that they had tied her.

  Sherab should never have returned to Tibet. Such trips always involved risk. She was only a functionary, not a mighty maker of decisions, no more than a manager of Potala Travel in McLeod Ganj. But she handled all the travel arrangements for the Dalai Lama’s office and anyone with those sort of connections becamea subject of interest to the Chinese. A target. Yet her mother was gravely ill; it might be a final chance for Sherab to see her. She had no choice.

  Luck had not travelled with her. Sherab was riding in the back of a vegetable lorry along an ancient Khampa trade route, avoiding the main roads which were heavily patrolled, but every mile took her further east, to where the Chinese presence was most evident and oppressive, drawing her deeper into danger. Her head was covered to protect her from the swirling dust of the high plateau and the stench of burnt diesel, so she did not see the Chinese patrol at the side of the road. They weren’t looking for her and had little interest other than in liberating a few vegetables to accompany the yak broth they were brewing, but they became suspicious when they found Sherab hiding in the back, covered, and grew still more interested when they found the money belt packed tight with the savings she had intended for her mother. This was no ordinary peasant, concealed behind sacks, and with such soft hands. They could read fear in her eyes, and fear spelled guilt. Anyway, if she wasn’t guilty of something they would have to hand back the money pouch. So she had been apprehended, and Sherab’s life was squandered for an armful of vegetables.

  She had been taken to Gutsa Gaol to the east of Lhasa, not in the main section but in a wing reserved for the politicals. It was there they unravelled her true identity by matching sex, age, accent and eventually her face to their files. ‘Sherab Chendrol,’ they had said, ‘we believe you wish to be a good citizen. Please co-operate.’ And to encourage her they had put her in a ‘cooperation’ cell fourteen metres square with one overspilling bucket and twenty hideous women, every one of whom was disfigured by some malevolent skin disease that she presumed to be highly contagious. There was no room to hide, no place to wash, and several of the hags had made a point of brushing up against her. When in the morning she had begged to be put in another cell, she was brought down many musty flights of concrete stairs to this new place. It was below ground, dank, with only a single bare light bulb hanging awkwardly from the ceiling and condensation seeping down the walls. But she felt, at first, relief; at least it had a bed. And she was alone, except for the guards, three male and one female, who accompanied her. There seemed to be very little noise down here; it was a long way from any other part of the prison. She wondered why there was no latrine bucket; perhaps that meant she would not be staying here long. It was only then she realized this could be no ordinary cell.

  ‘I am nothing but a travel agent,’ she insisted, anxiously. ‘I have done nothing wrong.’

  ‘You work for splittists and imperialists who want to destroy China,’ one of the guards, evidently the most senior, answered roughly. Then he almost smiled, his tone softening. ‘We want nothing more than your co-operation.’

  ‘I only make travel arrangements. Travel arrangements,’ she repeated, like a mantra she hoped might keep her from harm.

  ‘For the Dalai Lama clique.’

  ‘I do what I am told.’

  ‘Good. That will keep you out of trouble,’ the officer applauded. ‘We intend you no harm. All we want is for you to do as you are told. Nothing more.’

  She had heard in McLeod Ganj from the thousands of refugees who flooded across the Himalayas of the many outrages that took place in Chinese prisons. But she had done nothing wrong, was of so little importance. If she returned their smiles, maybe they wouldn’t … She tried to push aside her darkest fears and concentrate on images of her baby daughter, not eighteen months old, with her first teeth, and of her son who was already growing up to look like his father.

  ‘Please, take off your clothes,’ the female guard instructed.

  Sherab knew there was no point in resistance. She sat on the edge of the bed. She thought of summer, of a picnic by the waterfall at Machchrial. Slowly she began to slip out of her clothes, as though preparing for a swim, and conjured up the sound of children’s laughter.

  ‘All of them,’ the female guard insisted.

  ‘It is not a problem,’ Sherab told herself. ‘So long as there is another woman present, it is not a problem. Not a problem. Not a problem.’ Another mantra.

  As the last item of clothing fell to the floor, the female guard swept up her clothes and without a backward glance disappeared through the door. As it closed, the men drew nearer.

  Sherab began to sweat, in spite of the cold. As she sat on the edge of the bed she could feel the raw and rusted metal biting into her flesh.

  ‘You have nothing to fear,’ the officer said. He was an inelegant man, balding, with a belly too large for his belt, a figure of contentment that could only result from a privileged position and an attentive wife. His smile, when he used it, was that of an indulgent father.

  ‘Please. Please don’t rape me,’ Sherab whispered.

  The officer shook his head in surprise. ‘We don’t rape Tibetans,’ he protested.

  ‘Better yaks,’ one of the other guards sneered. ‘Better yaks than Tibetan cows.’ And meant it.

  Sherab leant forward, trying to cover her nakedness, unable to meet their eyes. A razor’s edge of sweat carved its way down her back.

  ‘Nothing to fear,’ the officer continued, ‘so long as you cooperate. Take yourself back three years. To a moment shortly before the last Dalai died.’ The last Dalai. He lingered over the phrase. If only it were true. He began pacing around the bed, which was located in the middle of the cell, until he was unseen and behind her back. ‘The Dalai called together some of his most important advisers. From distant parts. In the greatest secrecy. You must remember the occasion because it was the final meeting he ever held in this world. I would like to know what was discussed.’

  ‘But I wasn’t present at the meeting,’ she protested, her voice hoarse. ‘I can tell you nothing.’

  ‘Good. Very good,’ the officer commended.

  ‘No, no! You’ve got it wrong,’ she insisted. Despite her circumstances her heart began to lift, for this was clearly a stupid mistake which could be easily resolved. And the officer seemed kindly. ‘I wasn’t at the meeting.’

  ‘Yet you were often in the Dalai Lama’s residence. You even live nearby. With your family. Your young son. And a little baby daughter, I am told.’ He knew all about her. And her family. And he wanted her to know that he knew. ‘It is perfectly possible that you visited the Residence at the time of the meeting.’

  Now she could see his mistake. He didn’t understand! But she could soon explain. ‘The meeting was a secret. No visitors were allowed that day to His Holiness’s quarters. Even the staff were sent away.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I wasn’t there!’

  ‘But there were many people present at the meeting.’

  ‘No, only three.’

  ‘Three. Only three. You see how easy it is to co-operate with us?’

  She had fallen into his trap.

  ‘So what did they discuss?’ The question was put agai
n, most gently.

  She shook her head in exasperation. How could he not realize? ‘I was not there. How could I know what they discussed? I only made the travel arrangements.’

  ‘Precisely. You made the travel arrangements. So you should have no trouble in telling me who the three were.’

  Suddenly everything had grown dark and confused in her mind; she could no longer trust her faded wits. The officer leant forward, to whisper. She could feel his breath prickle upon her damp shoulder.

  ‘All we need to know from you, Sherab, before we let you go back to your children, is the names of the three. Just their names. Nothing more. And then you may return.’

  She bit her lip to enforce her own silence. It was a mistake. She should have denied knowing who they were, perhaps she might have been believed. But silence implied secrets.

  ‘It seems a fair exchange. Your family for three names.’

  She shook her head, trying to clear it of confusion and temptation. Above her head the light bulb was swinging, casting leering shadows on the floor where her eyes were fixed.

  ‘I am a reasonable man,’ the voice behind her continued. ‘But, if I have a fault, it is impatience. Yes, sadly, I am an impatient man.’

  A long silence.

  There were to be no further chances. She was grabbed from behind. Jerked backwards. Stretched out on the iron bed. Her senses screaming but too terrified to cry out. Her wrists tied to the metal legs. And her ankles. With wire. Thin, spiteful wire. She was spreadeagled, her woman’s parts completely exposed. Vulnerable. Only then did she see why the light bulb had hung so awkwardly, for the fitting allowed for another attachment which was now in place. A long cable trailed from the light bulb to an instrument, like a thick chisel, which was held in the officer’s hand. The hand was protected by a thick rubber glove.