The Buddha of Brewer Street

by Michael Dobbs

  ‘No …’

  ‘That’s why you want to sell the house, isn’t it? To buy a new one for another woman.’ The complete inconsistency between her two accusations seemed not to bother her. But the anger came bubbling through. The veneer of maturity and almost ruthless practicality was stripped away to reveal the frightened teenager that still lay beneath. ‘Are you going to divorce Mummy?’ She seemed on the edge of panic.

  ‘No, no, no, darling …’

  ‘I can’t believe you could do such a thing! It’s disgusting!’ she screamed, heedless. She fled from the room in tears.

  There was no point in chasing her, not yet at least. He had tried to share, to bring them closer together. Instead he had split them still further apart. He wanted to help her. Instead it would have been kinder if he had hit her over the head with a lump of wood. Then used it on himself.

  There were two. And after the discovery of Osel on the mountainside and death of Yeshe in the gutters of the Street of Sorrows, each of them knew they were in great peril.

  Gompo was a Tibetan of considerable worldly experience. Born in India, he had served the Dalai Lama in New York and Europe. He drank whisky, preferring a single malt, loved Baskin Robbins (anything but Rocky Road) and was an accomplished guitar player and ten-pin bowler. But above all else he was Tibetan. As a child he had been recognized as the incarnation of Lama Thubten Sonam Norbu, an incarnated teacher of great seniority. Lama Thubten had, until his death at a considerable age in 1953, been one of the young Dalai Lama’s personal tutors and closest confidants. Gompo had followed in similar footsteps.

  Gompo was a man of unconventional outlooks and rarely met the expectations of the rest of the world. So, when he grew to appreciate just how much danger he faced in McLeod Ganj, and at a point when most men would have flown as far away from Tibet and the Chinese as their resources would allow, he did precisely the opposite. He travelled to Tibet. Where he would be amongst friends. And the last place on earth the Chinese would think of searching for him.

  Yet his homeland could be no more than a brief stopping place. From Lhasa he travelled by bus and lorry to the Chinese city of Lanzhou, amongst the Han themselves, and then by train to Mongolia, where once again he found himself in the company of those he could trust. Fellow Buddhists. More than seven centuries earlier, in the days when the great Mongol warlord Kublai Khan had ruled over China and most of Asia, the Khan had ordained that his empire would follow the Tibetan faith. While the empire had long since been hacked to pieces by a hundred thousand swords, in Mongolia the faith remained. Here Gompo found shelter. And new identity papers. And days later, just across the border near Lake Baykal in Russia, he also found the Trans-Siberian Railway that had borne him many thousands of miles westward, to the Buddhist Temple in St Petersburg.

  The temple was an anachronism. It had been built at the time when the authority of the Tsars was falling apart, before the Bolsheviks arrived, a small outpost of Oriental culture in the most Western of Russian cities. Then Stalin had happened. And with him came intolerance. Inquisition. One night his secret police, the NKVD, had burst through the door and dragged all the monks off to their headquarters in Litenyi Prospekt, where they had been tried, convicted, sentenced. That same evening they had been taken down to the soundproof cellars and shot. Not one survived.

  The granite temple with its tapering tower and vivid red porch had been confiscated by the state and afterwards used for dismembering animals in the name of experimental vivisection. It had taken almost fifty years and the collapse of Communism before the building, now dilapidated and stripped of all its religious artefacts, had been handed back and the presence of incense and prayer was once again felt within its walls.

  The temple was both an accident and a victim of history and still displayed many of its scars, but it served Gompo’s purpose well. Here he could rest while his friends obtained for him the necessary visa to continue his journey to Britain. The temple in St Petersburg was another place the Chinese would never think of finding him.

  But somehow they did.

  Gompo, although worldly, was yet highly spiritual, and while he waited for his documents and the chance to travel onward he spent much of his time in prayer. Every day he took himself to the prayer room with its dark wooden walls and heavy atmosphere. It held a tall gilded statue of the Prince Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha, with lotus stems growing from each hand, but on this image there were no precious stones and few inlays. This was a temple that lived on optimism rather than ostentation. Alongside Shakyamuni they had placed an effigy of Je Tsong-khapa, which literally translated meant Lord of Onion Land, the founder of the Gelug school. Then, in another corner, there stood representations of what was called the Tibetan Trinity, the great Buddhas of Wisdom, of Compassion and of Enlightened Energy. Tibetans love their images and before each of these in turn Gompo would prostrate himself. The floor was wooden and polished smooth by the knees and mittened hands of those who had been there before him, prostrating themselves full length while they paid their respects to the Buddhas.

  It was a Monday morning, early, while the mists still clung to the rivers of the great city, that Gompo began his devotions. Focusing. Cleansing his thoughts. He fell to his knees, then extended his hands on the floor in front of him until his body lay at full stretch. In the words of his ritual text, he took refuge in the Buddha. And, slowly, he withdrew his body and pulled himself back to his feet. Then he started all over again.

  Three times he repeated the series of devotions before each image while the monks engaged in their hypnotic chants and beat rhythmically on their drums and cymbals. It was tiring. As he prayed, Gompo would stay stretched out on the floor, prostrated, while he gathered his thoughts and spiritual strength. So no one thought it unusual when he did not move for a moment, indeed several moments. By the time other worshippers had begun to grow curious at his stillness, the two young men in the gallery had already disappeared. Even before the monks had discovered Gompo was dead, the two were weaving their motorbike through the heavy traffic of Primorsky Prospekt. And by the time the police surgeon discovered the tiny biochemical pellet embedded in Gompo’s neck, the two were a thousand miles away on the other side of the Urals, getting drunk on imported whisky with four under-aged and youthfully inventive hookers.

  Gompo had evaded his pursuers’ attentions for too long. He would not be given the chance to evade them again.

  My enemy’s enemy is my friend. The Chinese had never cared for their Russian neighbours. Even when both had been Communist, they had grown to be bitter rivals. Race before religion. And when the Russians had finally discarded Marxism, they had in effect stripped away Beijing’s last remaining ideological fig leaf, leaving them cruelly exposed. So the Chinese gained more than a little satisfaction when the new Russia began to be comprehensively gutted by the robber barons of organized crime. And when they wanted a favour, some small act of brutality performed on Russian soil, informally and in an untraceable manner, the Chinese never had much trouble in finding willing hands to assist. Often those hands had been trained by the KGB or now-decrepit Soviet military. Feed off the enemy, as Sun Tzu would say. Money rarely changed hands, it was usually explosives or weapons or occasionally opium and, in one case, irradiated cobalt dust with which disgruntled and unpaid officers of the Murmansk Fleet planned an attack on their old headquarters. By comparison, the assassination of a man in St Petersburg had been little more than a training run.

  And then there was but one …

  SIX

  Goodfellowe had done with democracy for the day. He’d voted at ten p.m. on a matter of great public sensitivity – at least, that’s what the Whips had told him, which is why they had commanded his presence in the Division Lobby, although the details of the measure almost totally eluded him. Something to do with drains? That was it! Measures to renew the crumbling Victorian sewer system beneath London while finding various exotic ways of getting others to pay for it. And about time. In Disraeli’s d
ay they’d had to hang perfumed curtains over the windows to block out the foul smell of the river. All the fault of the infamous Thomas Crapper and his devilish invention, the flushing toilet. When such systems had been installed in the households of the rich, who lived in the hills overlooking London, they had washed all the effluent down towards the river. The result was that the working classes huddled along its banks were repeatedly ravaged by lethal outbreaks of typhoid and militant socialism. Whole communities were wiped out as a result. Thomas Crapper had a lot to answer for.

  Goodfellowe had given his name to the Clerk who marked it on the voting list and he had re-emerged into the Chamber, which was beginning to empty rapidly as the day’s business was all but dispensed. At the door he found Baader.

  ‘Hoped I’d find you here, Tom.’

  ‘Paddy, what a surprise. Didn’t think they’d whip in the heavy cavalry for a little light skirmishing over drains.’

  ‘No, I’m paired, Tom. Not voting. I hurried over from the Foreign Office. Needed to see you urgently.’

  They sat down in the corner of the Chamber, well away from the few stragglers who remained.

  ‘Your visa case. The man Gompo,’ Baader began. He looked agitated. ‘You haven’t heard?’

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘He’s dead, Tom. Killed in St Petersburg.’

  ‘The balls of Buddha!’

  ‘No details. Of how he died. Whether it was an accident or …’ He trailed off, seemed ashen with shock. ‘I had to see you as soon as I heard, Tom. I feel almost … responsible in a way. I am sorry.’

  It took Goodfellowe several moments to take in the news. ‘Not your fault, Paddy, couldn’t be. Don’t blame yourself.’ He shook his head. ‘But what the hell is going on?’

  ‘I asked Consular & Visa to consider the application in principle without telling them of his whereabouts. I did what you asked, kept it in the strictest confidence. It couldn’t have leaked from our end.’

  ‘I’m grateful for that.’

  ‘Must have been an accident.’

  ‘He’d only been in St Petersburg a few days. How could they have found out?’

  ‘Must have been an accident,’ Baader repeated.

  ‘Do you really believe that?’

  ‘I want to believe that. Look, the Chinese Government doesn’t go round knocking off political opponents all over the place.’

  ‘They do in China.’

  ‘But not on the other side of the world. It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘You’re right. It doesn’t make sense.’

  The business of the House had now finished and they were sitting alone in the Chamber, silent, all but lost against the great expanse of green Gilbert Scott leather. Eventually Goodfellowe stirred.

  ‘Thanks for telling me, Paddy.’

  ‘It’s rotten luck, Tom. But probably nothing more than a terrible coincidence.’

  ‘Of course,’ Goodfellowe replied softly. ‘Trouble is, I’m a sceptical bastard. I don’t believe in coincidence.’

  Even deserts can bloom. And so had Goodfellowe. He’d grown accustomed to – but never accepted – life on his own. Breakfast with no companionship other than a transistor radio. A half-filled pot of tea, for one. Tubs of stale butter lurking at the back of the fridge. The sink he was going to clean, tomorrow. His domestic habits had grown increasingly lethargic.

  But since Elizabeth, so much had changed. He now talked with her over breakfast, even though she wasn’t there. A little obsessional, perhaps, but lonely people often grow obsessive. He shared smiles with strangers on the street. He could see colours again.

  But he still had no money. How the hell was he to finance a love affair when he could barely afford to live? You had to come out from between the sheets at some point and eat, and a Marks & Spencer tandoori dinner for two had considerable social limitations, particularly when your dinner guest was the proprietor of one of the smartest restaurants in Westminster. The Kremlin had come to be an icon to which half of Westminster seemed to gravitate – the half, that is, with expense accounts, where a single meal surrounded by the glittering memorabilia of Marxism could wipe away Goodfellowe’s entire food allowance for a week. He was going to have to make what little he had go a long way.

  Salvation, at least for their second date, came in the form of a request dropped by hand through his letter box in Gerrard Street asking him to visit the owner of The Himalaya Restaurant, just off Leicester Square, less than five minutes’ walk away. The letterhead announced that it was the only Tibetan restaurant in the entire country, but the letter itself didn’t explain clearly the purpose of the request. Still, Tibetan food might be fun and if he turned up in the evening there had to be some free hospitality thrown in. He’d take Elizabeth.

  The Himalaya, located on the first floor up a narrow set of stairs, was, as with all things Tibetan, simple and unpretentious. It was like being invited into someone’s front room, with hand-painted walls – the usual glaring Tibetan colour scheme – covered in old photographs and images of the homeland. And, again like all things Tibetan, in pride of place hung a portrait of the late Dalai Lama, smiling quizzically as though he were just about to burst into laughter. Which, knowing him, he probably was. As Goodfellowe walked through the single small room of the restaurant he could feel the eyes of the portrait following him. Wretched man! The Lama seemed to be pursuing him not simply through the restaurant but through most aspects of his life. Suddenly Goodfellowe chuckled. He’d almost said lives. Buddhist-speak. A mental slip. There couldn’t be such things as previous lives and reincarnation, could there? From his place on the wall, the Lama stared indulgently.

  Wangyal, the proprietor, a small man with a face as round as the sun and a full set of sparkling teeth, appeared agitated. ‘Mr Goodfellowe. Thank you, thank you for coming. This is so important.’ But for a while there seemed nothing more important to the proprietor than to ensure that Goodfellowe was taken through the menu in considerable detail. In truth, the pleasures of Tibetan cuisine were simple. Spicy soups. Meat and vegetable momo dumplings. Dishes of meat and egg noodle that were related much more closely to China than India. And butter tea, the staple of all Tibetan living. Goodfellowe took the cup in both hands and sipped. Elizabeth copied his example, and immediately spat out the tea.

  ‘Disgusting!’ she complained.

  ‘Mine’s all right.’ He took her cup and tasted. ‘Yours is fine, too.’

  ‘Then take it with my best wishes.’

  ‘An acquired taste,’ the proprietor explained.

  ‘And you seem to have acquired it,’ she said to Goodfellowe.

  ‘I’m enjoying it. It’s like …’ He searched for the comparison, but couldn’t find it. Bells within his memory were ringing as though across a great expanse of time. ‘I’ve tasted something like this before. But what, or when …’ He shrugged. ‘Bit like mother’s milk, I suppose.’

  So they sat and took pleasure in their meal and in each other’s company. Her marmalade eyes reflected the low lights and her lips, full and unusually expressive, grew animated as they spoke and smiled for him. Her clothes were immaculate, although he had a mind only for what lay beneath.

  The pursuit of women, he reflected, was very similar to the pursuit of politics. Both were indulgent, intrusive, often utterly irrational. Men would squander without restraint until their lives and reputations were left in ruins, then pick themselves up and do it all over again. The mistakes they made were eternal, yet somehow the lessons were never learned. But, oh! The joys of success, they drove a man onwards, never flinching, heedless of the fact that failure would devastate him utterly. Goodfellowe had a lot of experience of both the joys and failures of politics; it was time for a practice run with a woman, he thought. With this woman. And soon she would be in his bed. Idly he speculated about what his dying wish would be – to receive one final standing ovation from a political audience, or to lie one last time with Elizabeth? Hell, even for an Englishman there was no contes
t. An Italian or a Frenchman would have thought him mad simply for posing the question.

  As they lost themselves in each other, Goodfellowe and Elizabeth scarcely noticed the passage of time or that the restaurant was now all but empty. Wangyal, who throughout the meal had kept disappearing into the kitchen, was standing beside their table.

  ‘He is here,’ the proprietor announced simply.

  ‘Who?’

  Wangyal glanced anxiously as the only other couple still in the restaurant prepared to leave. ‘Wait,’ he instructed Goodfellowe, until he had bid the other customers farewell, the door was locked behind them and the blinds drawn. He also turned off the lights, it was only candlelight now. And conspiratorial. From behind the decorative curtain that led to the kitchen emerged a gnarled, stooped man, dressed in jeans and a casual shirt too large for him, who raised his withered hands together in traditional Buddhist greeting.

  ‘My name is Kunga Tashi. I have waited a long time to meet you …’ – he stumbled over the name – ‘Tummo Godfella.’

  Up on the wall, the portrait of the Dalai Lama was laughing at him.

  ‘I am happy to meet you, Kunga Tashi,’ he responded. Goodfellowe discovered Elizabeth looking at him curiously. To his own surprise he had raised his hands in imitation of the Tibetan’s greeting. He wasn’t usually so open to suggestion, but he found everything about these people disarmingly easy to copy.

  ‘No, Tummo Godfella. You should not be happy to meet me. For I am on a venture of great danger. Of death. But hopefully, if we prosper, of new life also.’

  ‘If we prosper? If we prosper?’ Goodfellowe enquired suspiciously.

  ‘I have much to explain.’

  And Kunga had sat down and told him about the circumstances surrounding the death of the Dalai Lama. About his instructions concerning the reincarnation, and the Search Group. ‘Three of us set out. One was murdered in India …’