“That day in the square when you told me about Kami, you said, ‘I know she will do well with you,’” Shan said. “It was only later that I realized it sounded like you meant you would not be there.” Meng did not respond. “That woman, the caretaker who always hangs back. She’s not with you for Kami’s sake.”

“Care for Kami is part of our arrangement. But yes, she is a nurse. There are days when I need special medicines, days when I can’t really function. I used up almost all my savings on the trip down here and to pay for her and my medicines. I’m sorry. The money was supposed to be for Kami.”

Shan found he could not speak. He took her hand and gripped it tightly.

“I was supposed to go for another treatment today, but they aren’t really doing any good.” Meng lifted the beads in her other hand. “I came here instead and found another kind of treatment.”

“There’s always other doctors,” Shan murmured.

“No. It’s too advanced. They said if we had caught it a year earlier, when the pains first started, I may have had a chance. But the nearest doctors to my station were a hundred miles away, and I couldn’t leave Kami by herself.” Meng shrugged. “But I got her to her father. Like one of those pilgrim journeys in a way.”

“How long?” he asked after a long silence.

“Five or six months, maybe as much as a year.” Meng leaned her head into Shan’s shoulder and gripped his hand tightly. Tears were streaming down her face. “I’m so sorry, Shan.”

“I’m so sorry,” he echoed.

A new clip-clop rhythm rose from the corner of the temple. Neither spoke, neither moved, as another pilgrim made her way along the ancient path in front of them and slowly disappeared around the next corner.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The nondescript building Tink led them to was at the edge of the Norbulingka, the park of the elegant old Summer Palace once used as a residence by the Dalai Lamas during the warm months, a perfect location for a clandestine safe house. Shan guessed the plain-looking structure had been built during the years of Tibetan modernization in the 1950s when yak trains had hauled European furnishings over the Himalayas, including the old record player and stacks of 78 rpm records Shan had once seen in the young Dalai Lama’s residence. Housing had been built for senior officials close to the palace, and this house would have been only a few minutes walk from where the Dalai Lama had lived.