I had gone through a phase of cultivating wise mystic answers, but frankly one gets too old for such things, so blurted, “Are you with the Chinese security services?”
“Of course, revered sir,” he intoned, bowing from his seated pose, hands together, in the custom that is respectful for Thais addressing a teacher. “We have very little interest in this country, but it has been suggested by some that you are in fact a Western imperialist agent intending to ally with such counter-revolutionary forces as bourgeois separatist the Dalai Lama, and that your temple is a hub of capitalist subversion created to strike at the heart of our glorious people.”
He spoke all this so pleasantly that I was forced to ask, “Isn’t that bad?”
“Of course it’s bad, revered sir! It would be the kind of subversive activity that would prompt retaliation from my government, though of course,” a flash of bright, cheerful smile, “you would naturally be protected by your imperialist allies, and there would doubtless be repercussions.”
“Oh!” I exclaimed, realisation dawning. “You’re threatening to kill me?”
“I would hate to go so far, revered sir, not least as I personally believe that you are merely an eccentric Englishman looking for an easy time.”
“How would you kill me?” I asked. “Would it be quick?”
“I would hope so, yes! Unlike your propaganda, we are not barbarians.”
“Would I have to know about it? If you were to, say, kill me painlessly in my sleep, would that be an option?”
A look of consternation flashed across Shen’s face as he considered this. “I imagine it would be politic for everyone involved if we could make your death seem both painless and natural. Your being awake would doubtless lead to a struggle and signs of self-defence, which would be unacceptable in a monk, even an imperialist pig monk. You’re… not an imperialist pig, are you?”
“I am English,” I pointed out.
“There are good English communists.”
“I’m not communist.”
Shen chewed his lower lip uncertainly, eyes darting round the edge of the room as if he half expected to find a crack in the bamboo walls through which a rifle might appear. Then, in a rather more hushed voice, “I am hoping you aren’t an imperialist agent, revered sir,” he murmured. “I was asked to compile the case file against you and I couldn’t find any evidence that you were more or less than a harmless madman with old-fashioned beliefs. It would be a poor reflection on my paperwork if you were to turn out to be a spy.”
“I’m definitely not a spy,” I assured him.
He looked relieved. “Thank you, sir,” he exclaimed, wiping his forehead with his sleeve and then hastily bobbing an apology for this act of sweaty disrespect. “It did seem very unlikely, but you have to be thorough, times being as they are.”
“May I interest you in tea?” I suggested.
“No, thank you. I can’t be seen fraternising unnecessarily with the enemy.”
“I thought you said I wasn’t the enemy.”
“You’re ideologically corrupt,” he corrected, “but harmless.”
So saying, and still bowing profusely, he made to leave.
“Mr Shen,” I called after him. He paused in the door, his face with the strained expression of a man who sincerely hopes that his desk is not about to become busier. “I cannot die,” I explained politely. “I am born, and I live, and I die, and I live again, but it is the same life. Has your government got any information on this which may be of use to me?”
He smiled, genuine relief flooding his features. “No, revered sir. Thank you for your cooperation.” Then, an afterthought, “Good luck with all that.”
He let himself out.
He was the first spy I have ever met, and Franklin Phearson was the second. Of the two, I think I preferred Shen.
Chapter 13
Some seventy or so years later, Phearson sat across the table from me in that manor house in Northumbria and grew angry as I said, “Complexity should be your excuse for inaction. The complexity of events, the complexity of time–what good is this knowledge to you?”
It was raining outside, a hard, relentless downpour that had come after two days of stifling heat, an unclenching from the sky. Phearson had gone to London; on his return, he had brought more questions and a less yielding attitude.