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  “A bit like that.”

  Actually Chodrak did not have a bad image of Christian missionaries. He sometimes came across them quietly at work in the streets of Mumbai, selflessly aiding the poor of the city - of whom there were very many - and he could not help but admire their sacrifice.

  “I must apologize for our two students,” said Respier as he led Chodrak down several corridors to a classroom. “They were a little over-enthusiastic. We have been doing some studies on world views, and they read in the newspaper an article about an Indian version of Noah’s Ark being made here in Melbourne. They decided that only Christians should be able to make movies about Christian stories, and took it upon themselves to disrupt your filming, which of course is quite unacceptable. We certainly train our students to respect all other religions.”

  “It was a minor interruption,” said Chodrak truthfully. “I am sure it is possible to find some way they can - what’s the word? - atone.” He laughed, to imply that he was really just joking.

  “Maybe they can go and pick up rubbish at a few Buddhist temples,” said the teacher. Chodrak chuckled appreciatively.

  They entered the room, a small area with a table and whiteboard at the front. About twenty students were seated in a semi-circle, including the pair who had arrived at the film lot.

  Respier introduced him. “It’s not often that we have the chance to meet a real-life English-speaking Tibetan Buddhist,” he joked to the students. “Not one from India, which is probably where the pulse of Tibetan Buddhism is beating most strongly nowadays. And not one whose father was a priest. We have fifty minutes. I propose that you start asking questions, and we’ll try to get a bit of a discussion going.”

  Respier sat on one side. Chodrak remained standing in the center of the room.

  A young man raised his hand. “If a baby is born disabled, or blind or something, do you believe that that is because of some kind of bad behavior in a previous life?”

  “Yes, exactly.” Chodrak noticed Respier smile. He wondered if he had set this question up with the student.

  “But it doesn’t sound very nice to tell a blind person that they are to blame for their misfortune,” said the student. “Or their parents that they might be to blame.”

  “Quite the contrary. I think it is a very nice thing to tell the truth.”

  “The truth?”

  “If you have the great misfortune to be born blind or disabled, or to be the parent of a blind or disabled baby, it can be a comfort and blessing to be told that there is a reason. That you did something bad in a past life. And that there is hope. That if you live a life of virtue and merit you will be reborn a better person. I know parents whose children were born with disabilities who have been greatly helped to hear such words.”

  “But you are saying that if a person suffers, it is essentially their own fault?”

  “Yes. That is exactly what I am saying.”

  A young lady raised a hand. “It’s been two years since the Dalai Lama died. When are they going to choose a new one.”

  Chodrak smiled inwardly. He was certainly not going to reveal his special secret. “It could be a long time before they finally find the new Dalai Lama,” he said.

  When the class was over Chodrak called over the two students who were the cause of his presence at the college. “I want to talk to you in private,” he said in a low voice. “I have a proposition that might interest you.”

  Chapter 32

  Melbourne, Australia

  Harel felt a mood of disquiet as his flight touched down in Melbourne, having just enjoyed a short break touring the museums of Seoul and Tokyo, and he wished now he hadn’t let Matt’s widow Sue talk him into this trip.

  He liked Australia. He had actually been here once before, five years earlier, to study Aboriginal art, and spent a week in the center of the country, near Uluru and Alice Springs.

  But he doubted very much that he was going to get any closer to solving the mystery of his brother’s death. He doubted that this trip would help him clear his name as a possible accomplice in the theft of Indian antiquities. He also now thought pretty ridiculous his earlier notion that he was going to get some kind of academic scoop, and find out about the new Dalai Lama.

  Nevertheless, at least one source of pleasure awaited him. An old friend was waiting at the airport.

  “Rafa, lovely to see you. Lovely. Yes, lovely.” Frank Respier was British. Very British. He was a contemporary of Harel’s father, both men having served on the mission field together in South Korea. Now retired, he had moved with his wife to Australia, to become lecturer in missiology at the Melbourne Theology College.

  Harel pushed the trolley with his luggage as Respier led him to the car-park.

  “Now, you know you are staying with Louise and me,” he told Harel.

  “Look, it’s very kind, but I’m quite happy at a hotel. I…”

  “I’ll be utterly offended if you don’t stay with us. And Louise wouldn’t forgive you. A missionary, the son of a missionary, brother of a missionary.”

  “You do know that I haven’t been a missionary for more than ten years. That I walked out.”

  “We’ll call you a retired missionary. Now in academia. Just like me. When we came to live in Melbourne we deliberately chose a house with a detached unit, so we could provide accommodation for visiting missos, exactly like your good self.”

  Respier might have sounded like, and even looked a little like, a retired British colonial administrator, but he drove a car just like a retired missionary - a Mitsubishi Lancer, at least twenty years old, with dents and rust on both sides.

  “So terribly, terribly sorry to hear about your brother,” he said, as they rattled off down the Tullamarine Freeway towards the college. “A lovely, lovely boy. Your parents must be heart-broken. We all pretend that it is so honorable to die on the mission field, but when it actually happens it is devastating. Truly devastating. He was married, wasn’t he?”

  “With a wife back home in Kansas due to give birth any day.”

  “Well, at least she wasn’t there when it happened. She was spared. And let me be the first to say that I know he wasn’t smuggling antiquities. I know him.”

  “How did you hear about that?”

  “I phoned your dad. He told me all the very sad details.”

  Then he changed the subject. “Look Rafa, your phone call was pretty enigmatic. Not to mention hard to hear. What exactly is the purpose of your visit to Australia? I really didn’t follow?”

  “Well, one reason is I got kicked out of India. So I couldn’t stay there. And I’m being accused of helping traffic artworks. Smuggling them out of the country to overseas buyers. In my business that’s a serious accusation. There’s a lot of politics at universities, and there are always people ready to use an accusation like that against you, no matter how far-fetched it might be. So I want to clear my name. But really I’m doing this for my parents. And Matt’s wife.”

  He explained in detail all that had been happening.

  “And you’re planning to - what, exactly?”

  “Matt’s wife Sue said that Matt would have wanted me to follow this through. Fly out to Uluru. Find out what’s happening. Somehow connect it all to Matt, and somehow show that he wasn’t smuggling antiquities. I must admit that during the flight I started wondering why I believed her.”

  “And what are you expecting to find?”

  “Exactly. That’s the question I’m now asking myself. I have to admit that I don’t even know where I’m going to start. Though I have a contact back in Dharamsala, a former student who’s now a Buddhist monk, and I think he’ll be able to help, once I can get hold of him. But that’s one reason why I’ve flown into Melbourne first. I know you, and I was hoping you and all your contacts might somehow be able to help.”

  “Maybe I can introduce you to an interesting Tibetan guy, here in Melbourne right at this moment. A Bollywood film maker. Making a movie in Melbourne. His father was actua
lly a Tibetan Buddhist priest. His name is Chodrak. Do you know him?”

  “Spiritual art covers a pretty broad spectrum, but I haven’t expanded my territory yet into Bollywood movies. No, I don’t know that name.”

  Respier explained how he came to meet the director. “He came to the college yesterday. An interesting guy. Very talkative. We had an interesting discussion about Buddhism and Christianity.”

  “Did you talk about the Buddhist religious persecution of Christians?”

  Respier smiled. “It’s not fair, is it? In Buddhist countries like Sri Lanka there’s some dreadful persecution of Christians and people of other religions. Not to mention that large numbers of Japanese Buddhists were right behind their military government when it was invading other countries in World War Two. Yet today it seems we have everyone in the West thinking of Buddhism as some paragon of tolerance, while Christians are seen as the intolerant ones. Even the Tibetan Buddhists have had plenty of wars in their history.”

  “I think it was the late Dalai Lama, with his very benign image, that has helped so much.”

  “Yes, he was a tremendous force in helping Buddhism spread. It will be interesting to see if a new Dalai Lama, when they find one, can keep the momentum going.”

  “This’ll be an interesting one for the historians - how much of the flowering of Buddhism in the West in the late twentieth century was the result of the personality of the Dalai Lama?”

  “Another question - how much did Buddhism really grow? Did it grow at all? It’s been in decline in the East. If you ask me, the big story in the second half of the twentieth century has been the enormous growth of Christianity in Asia - in South Korea, now in China. The media have missed it. I think historians will find a very different story.”

  “I do agree.”

  “Here’s another one to think about - two thousand years ago Jesus came along, giving humans direct access to a loving God. And it was around the same time that Mahayana Buddhism came along, with all its many deities, allowing Buddhists access to loving supernatural beings. What do you make of that?”

  Harel laughed. “I’ll leave you to fight that one out in the staff common room.”

  They pulled up at the college.

  “I’ve just a couple of little chores to complete,” said Respier. “Then I’ll take you round to our home and you can relax there if you prefer. I’m just a five-minute drive away.”

  He escorted Harel to the staff lounge. “Make yourself some coffee and catch up on the latest theological literature. You’ll find a nice selection here. I’ll just be fifteen minutes or so.”

  Harel was alone in the spacious room. He felt like lying on one of the comfortable sofas and sleeping. But a strong cup of coffee seemed a wiser option. He had spent so much time in airplanes over the past week that he hated to think what it was going to do to his sleep patterns.

  He pressed buttons on a machine to brew himself a strong cappuccino and was taking the first sip when Respier returned, clearly perturbed. “Rafa, quick. There’s something you need to hear. Come with me.”

  Harel followed him down a corridor, and then they marched straight into one of the offices. A middle-aged man with a beard and black-rimmed glasses sat at a wide desk.

  “Rafa, this is our principal. Jonathan Priming. Johno, this is Rafa Harel. Son of the famous John Harel. Missionary extraordinaire.”

  They shook hands. “It’s good to meet you,” said the principal. “I never met your father, but I knew all about him. Frank told me yesterday that you were coming to Melbourne.” He offered Harel a seat, and then sat back down and took up some worry beads. “I do this when I’m stressed. Don’t worry, they’re not Catholic beads. I believe they’re Buddhist.”

  He smiled at his own joke. Melbourne Theology College was heavily evangelical. There was possibly a time in its long history when Buddhists would have been more welcome than Catholics.

  Harel looked back at Frank. “You said there’s something I should hear.”

  “This is all just college gossip,” said the principal. “And the Bible tells us that gossip is a sin. Fortunately, Martin Luther advised Christians to sin boldly, and so several students have come and told me. I actually didn’t believe what they were saying, but now Frank has just advised me that you are also saying something similar. Something that might confirm it all.”

  Harel raised his hands in a show of incomprehension. “I must be jet lagged or something, but I really don’t follow you.”

  “It seems a couple of Frank’s students have become a little too enthusiastic. First, they picketed a movie that’s being made here in Melbourne. A Bollywood production of Noah’s Ark.”

  Harel nodded.

  “But there’s been a new development. Something I still find almost impossible to believe.”

  Harel waited.

  “It seems this Indian director has told them that the new Dalai Lama has been found in Australia. Out in the desert somewhere, around Uluru. Frank tells me you’ve heard something similar.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s exactly right.”

  “As I said, without your confirmation I would have dismissed the whole thing. Anyway, what appears to have happened is that our two students this morning set off to Alice Springs to look for this kid. The new Dalai Lama. Accompanied by the director, apparently.”

  “What on earth for? Why should they care about finding this boy?”

  The principle paused. “Well, it seems - at least this is the story that I am hearing - it seems that they plan to baptize him.”

  Chapter 33

  Uluru, Central Australia

  Harel drove down a long, winding, sandy road. He was not sure if the terms and conditions of his car rental allowed this. On his previous visit to central Australia he heard stories of drivers who became stranded deep in the desert, while driving their own cars, but found it cheaper to abandon their vehicles rather than pay the tens of thousands of dollars required to tow them out.

  An unanticipated bonus of this trip Down Under was that he could catch up on the latest Aboriginal art, and he had just spent a couple of hours touring the galleries in Alice Springs.

  He had also been able to make contact with Peter in Dharamsala. Peter passed on the latest findings - that the astrologers had ascertained that the boy was in a town known as Burumarri Creek, and a couple of senior priests had flown out to locate and meet him.

  He had called Sue as well. She said that her sources had also told her about Burumarri Creek. Harel wondered who these sources might be - or was it just Peter?

  From Alice Springs he had flown to the tiny airport near Uluru, then rented a car and took off into the desert. The road extended further than he recalled, but then at last he recognized the run-down shack that housed one of the country’s most famous Aboriginal artists, a man whom everyone knew simply as Uncle Barra.

  Harel had met and interviewed him extensively on his previous trip to Australia. He was old then. He was five years older now, and without even a telephone, let alone fax, email or SMS, it was impossible to be sure that he was at home. So Harel had placed some quick calls to knowledgeable gallery owners, who said Uncle Barra nowadays seldom left the premises.

  He pulled up outside the house. The front door was wide open. He got out of the car and peered inside. No one was evident.

  Tentatively he knocked on the door. Still no one appeared.

  “Uncle Barra!” he shouted. “Uncle Barra! Are you home?”

  He waited at least a minute, and then he heard a shuffling sound. And then an old man appeared, walking slowly down the hallway. Uncle Barra looked much older now than on their previous meeting.

  The man looked at Harel. “I don’t have any new paintings.”

  Harel smiled. It was as if they had just met the previous week. “I’m not here to look at your latest paintings.”

  “I give them all to Stephen.” His voice was strained. Harel knew that Stephen was a gallery owner who handled a lot of Uncle Barra’s works.


  “I’m here about something else. Though of course I would love to see your paintings again. Even the old ones.” Especially the old ones, thought Harel. They are by far the most exquisite.

  “What do you want?”

  “I have a problem. A slightly strange problem.”

  Uncle Barra waited.

  “I’m looking for a two-year-old boy who might become the next Dalai Lama. Do you know who the Dalai Lama is?”

  “Tibet,” said Uncle Barra simply.

  “The old Dalai Lama was a very famous man. He traveled the world. I think he even visited Australia a few times. Anyway, he died two years ago. Now this will sound strange, but some people are saying the next Dalai Lama is going to be found in Australia. From around here.”

  “I know.”

  “You know?”

  Harel waited. Uncle Barra did not seem to feel that further explanation was needed.

  “You know?”

  “I know.”

  “But…I mean, how do you know? And what do you know?”

  “I know,” said the old man.

  “I need to find him - this boy. It’s very important. It’s why I’ve come to Australia. My brother was killed - murdered - and I think that finding this boy might be the key. I believe he’s in a place near here, called Burumarri Creek. I was hoping that you might be able to help locate him.”

  As a Christian, Harel felt uncomfortable. He was seeking some kind of spiritual guidance. He knew that Uncle Barra was more than just an artist. He was also a healer, which was a distinguished position in Aboriginal culture. And he was an elder of his tribe. But more than that, he was clearly a kind of shaman. He seemed to be able to contact the spirits. No wonder his paintings conveyed such power.

  Uncle Barra said nothing. Harel wasn’t sure what was going to happen next. He waited.

  Then Uncle Barra abruptly began dancing a slow dance. He was an old man. He looked to the blue sky, he raised his arms, then he moved them in a rowing motion. When he had finished he took a large stick and began drawing in the red sand.