Exactly. Everything is going to be alright, he decides. And why shouldn’t it be? After all, the whole thing was Bhagwan’s idea. That they should unleash their own raw selves upon each other. That was the plan, wasn’t it? All he did was do what he was told to do. Surrender.

Slowly, the intensity of K’s shame fades. Hans is, no doubt, fine. He’s probably just licking his wounds somewhere. It doesn’t matter so much now, either, that K never finished the encounter group, that he walked out of the operation before he could be stitched back up. It is what it is, he tells himself. He allows the loving energy of the ashram to welcome him back, as if from a long, confusing journey. It is Christmas, weirdly. And then it is the New Year. It is 1977, the future. The memories from those underground days, already strangely unreal, begin to recede. Best of all, Yamini has moved into his room at last. Their love, K feels, is transforming him. Already he recognises a new gentleness in himself, a freshness. They are learning, bit by bit, to play and fight and laugh together, without clinging to some rigid idea of themselves, or each other.

Then, one morning, they are woken by a woman from the ashram office called Sharna. ‘Laxmi wants to see you,’ she informs K, brightly. ‘She asks you to bring your passport.’

While he dresses, Sharna chats to Yamini, who she met in a tantra group months earlier. They are both undergoing hypnotherapy now, and dedicate two hours a day to simply crying. It is clear that Sharna knows nothing, that she is just a messenger.

A rickshaw is waiting downstairs.

Twenty minutes later, all three of them are climbing out of the tiny cabin, at the ashram gates. It is nearly 6am. Yamini squeezes K’s hand and rushes off to dynamic meditation. Sharna escorts K to the office. Birds fill the trees above them. The air itself is shining.

Sitting behind her desk, Laxmi is drinking chai. She is expecting him. That same mischievous smile. The same kindness. Her assistant, Sheela, is sitting beside her, talking on the telephone.

‘Tell fuck-face I don’t give a shit,’ Sheela says, clearly enjoying herself.

Laxmi chuckles and gestures to the chair in front of her, inviting K to sit. She is turning an envelope in her hands.

‘So,’ she says, ‘your passport is in order, yes?’

‘My passport? Yeah, I think so …’ He hands it over. ‘How come?’

She flicks through the pages. ‘Good.’