Her room was without electricity; her naked eternal motion I found best viewed in black silhouette against the left wall, thanks to moonlight entering through a window on the right, which also captured a piece of iron sticking out of one of the incomplete buildings, which now appeared to me like a piece of iron bamboo, thick as a fist, black as a stump, painted on a relative paleness.

Well, I’m prepared to swear on the whole of the Pali Canon that, with the help of Tara ’s finger, I held out for a full forty minutes. After that I figured she’d had her fun and if she wanted any more she could pay me.

A full condom later, we were lying in each other’s arms. I allowed a couple of beats before the grumpy words fled my mouth: “You didn’t come.”

She stretched out a hand to cover one of mine; I was tempted to withdraw it, but I opted for good manners and let it lie there. “I haven’t come for a very long time, Detective. My partner went back to Tibet and the Chinese threw him in jail.”

I gulped. “I’m sorry. Really. Stupid of me.”

“He was not my lover. He was my partner.”

I took a deep breath. “What does that mean?”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t guessed? Do you still think I’m a prostitute?”

I shook my head. “Oh, no. I’m starting to get the idea about Tibetans. Prostitution would be way too simple an explanation-and far too worldly.”

“But you really are a part-time pimp?”

I coughed. “You’re a yogin? You do Tantra?”

“Of course. Didn’t you like it?”

“It felt terrific, but it would have been nice if you’d remembered me from time to time.”

She smiled. “I think it is difficult for people with a Western background to understand how impersonal bliss really is.”

So to her I looked thoroughly Western? I mulled her revolutionary worldview for a moment, before descending to the mundane. “You do know Tietsin.”

She frowned. “Why do you say that?”

“Blade wheels. They’re a dead giveaway.”

She rolled to one side; when she rolled back I could see she was laughing her head off. “What’s so funny? Don’t tell me, blade wheels are ten a penny in Lhasa?”

“Of course. Blade wheels are central to our culture, like traffic jams in Bangkok.” She thought this very witty and cackled for a while, making her breasts shiver.

“You win,” I said. “Your blade wheels hurt, but they don’t do as much damage to the environment.” She nodded, as if to a backward child who was starting to get the idea.

Like an old-fashioned hostess of good breeding, she would not let me search for a cab on my own. When we found one, she insisted on sharing it with me, to make sure I got back safely to my guesthouse. Actually, she wanted to talk. I sensed a burden of responsibility toward me she needed to get off her chest.

“It’s all to do with Tibetan history. Buddhism came quite late to us, around about the eighth century, but didn’t really get going until eleven hundred. Tibetans then were wild people who lived in the most inhospitable region of the earth. Only the strongest, most virile men and the most resilient, fecund women survived. They were very physical people and very warlike. And eating meat was the only way to survive-it still is. So there was a lot of sexual energy to deal with. We weren’t going to go the Brahmin route and suppress it all by standing on our heads and living on weeds. Something had to be done to divert that energy into the higher chakras. So we developed Tantra, also known as Vajrayana Buddhism, also known as Apocalyptic Buddhism.”

I thought this was a way of explaining herself to me. But then she said, “I don’t know this Doctor Tietsin personally, but I’ve heard of him. He’s famous among some Tibetans, even revered. He helps a lot of people, especially newly arrived refugees. He gives them money. Some say he’s a kind of godfather with connections to the Nepal government. Some say he’s a throwback to our atavistic past. Some say he is the reincarnation of Milarepa.”

“Milarepa?” I remembered from the guidebook: the patron saint of Tibet.

“Yes. You see, like in every religion, there is the orthodox and the spiritual. Milarepa was a wild man, crazy, radical beyond belief. He started off as a black magician and slaughtered lots of people before he found the dharma. Maybe that’s why we love him so much.”

“Tietsin isn’t even a monk.”

“That’s his strength. He isn’t bound by anything. Some say he is beyond the path-that he is already free from suffering. He is just using that damaged body as a vehicle to help Tibet in its time of crisis.”

“And what do the others say?”

“That he’s quite mad and about seven hundred years behind the times.” She giggled. “He gave you a mantra, didn’t he?” I nod. “That’s what’s secret, not the blade wheel.”

She fell silent for a moment, just as we were turning in to the guesthouse. I said, “He gave me a mantra-what about it?”

“Oh, only that with him, you could be fully awakened in seven years-you won’t be interested in women at all.” She let a beat pass. “Or you could be the permanent inmate of a mental hospital. He doesn’t mess around. What you call psychosis, for him is a path to health. Or you could say that to him we’re all psychotic anyway, so there isn’t too much of a risk.”

When I was standing in the driveway, handing her money for the cab, she leaned out to say, “I don’t think it’s wise for us to meet again. I’ve opened your heart chakra too much, there’s a serious risk you’ll fall in love with me. Sexual slavery is the last thing I need. It creates such heavy karma. I’m sorry if I misled you. Goodbye.”

Well, how about that! I was doing a little jaw scratching when one of those niggardly, academic questions struck, as they do at times like these. I returned to the cab, which was in the process of turning around, and, feeling more like a traffic cop than a lover, knocked on her window and had her roll it down. “Just out of interest-why did you go with me tonight?”

She looked away and took a deep breath. “Male energy. The power that comes from all that boiling sperm. A girl has to have it from time to time, and there aren’t so many opportunities now that my partner’s in jail. You’ve restored balance and power, and I no longer feel I’m about to come down with the flu-and you were cute, too.”

That was it, farang. My one and only affair since I married Chanya, and the lady turned out to be a perfect yogin. I finished the joint about two hours ago, and I’ve been sitting among the billowing sheets of the deserted guesthouse all that time in a pleasantly ironic reverie. When I come out of it I realize what should have been obvious. There is no management, and the guesthouse is not open for business. The cleaning ladies are gone, and when I find a cop at the corner of the street he tells me the Nixon was busted last week for drug trafficking and won’t be open again until the owners have paid off the cops. He gives the impression that this is a routine event. There is also the suggestion that large-scale drug-running operations need government approval if they are to survive up here for any length of time.