“Get that . . . thing out of here!” she said as she pointed at me furiously. “I’m allergic!”
“Allow me to show you to another table, ma’am,” Kusali said as he pointed to a table near a window on the other side of the restaurant.
“Don’t want another table,” she wheezed. “I want that”—she flicked her hand dismissively—“away from me!”
“Moving to another table would have the same effect,” reasoned Kusali.
“This whole place is probably full of cat hair,” she said as her eyes streamed and she sneezed again. “Just get it out of here!” she demanded imperiously.
Over the years, I’d seen Kusali indulge some outlandish requests made by café patrons. But on this matter he was steadfast.
“That’s
not possible, ma’am,” he replied.
“Why not?!” The woman’s voice rose sharply.
“The magazine rack is her place. She likes it there.”
“Are you mad?” The woman trumpeted into her handkerchief. “How can a cat be more important—”
“She’s no ordinary cat. She’s—”
“Get me the person in charge,” she ordered, her shrill voice carrying across the restaurant.
Kusali drew himself up to his full, imposing height. “I am the person in charge.”
“Then the owner.”
The subtlest motion of Kusali’s head was all that was required for two waiters to manifest almost instantaneously at the table.
“Madam, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” he said firmly.
“I’m staying right here till you bring me the owner.”
As more waiters approached and Kusali’s expression turned to one of stern censure, the furious woman realized she was out of options.
“This place is disgusting!” Rising from her chair, she unleashed a stream of bitter invective about the restaurant, the staff, and the management. She saved her harshest words for cats, who she described as “vermin.”
Never had the Himalaya Book Café witnessed a tirade as poisonous. Nor a departure as threatening.
Turning at the front door to wag her index finger directly in Kusali’s face, she screamed, “You haven’t heard the last of this!”
A short while later I, too, left the Himalaya Book Café. Despite a very gracious apology from Kusali soon after the woman’s departure—which he delivered along with a consoling soupçon of cheddar—the truth is that I felt rattled. Unsettled. Disturbed in a way and at some deep level I was unable to account for.
It wasn’t only that the woman was allergic and a cat-hater. I was also surprised at the strength of my own feelings. From the moment she’d walked through the door, an instant and powerful animosity I hadn’t even known I possessed had welled up within me.
At an ordinary level, none of it made sense. But because of all the conversations I’d overheard through the years, I was aware of a reality that ran beneath the ordinary. Dynamics that might explain why things appeared to me the way they did.
In an entirely unexpected and unwelcome way, that afternoon it felt as though something in my distant past was catching up with me.
My paws led me back to Namgyal through force of habit. I was about to cross the courtyard when I caught sight of someone sitting alone on a bench under the cedar tree near the monastery gate. I could hardly believe my eyes. Catching a glimpse of Yogi Tarchin was a rare event, given that most of the time he lived in strict seclusion. Discovering him in the Namgyal courtyard was simply extraordinary. And to find him here, today of all days, seemed the most incredible timing.
Although Yogi Tarchin wasn’t a monk, he was revered by all for his accomplishments as a meditator. Stories about him were legendary. It was said that he had appeared in the dreams of his students, giving them instructions that later saved their lives. There were few things in the past, in the future, or in the minds of others that Yogi Tarchin seemed unable to see.
Whatever the inspiring stories about him, however, Yogi Tarchin was more inspiring still in person. Like the Dalai Lama, his presence was something you felt. You weren’t introduced to him so much as touched by his being. A field of profound serenity extended well beyond his physical form to embrace all those around him.
I had met Yogi Tarchin through Serena—the Trincis were long-standing friends and had helped sponsor him through numerous retreats. And even though I had been only a hanger-on during her visit to him, our encounter that time had seemed to be no casual thing. The night after I’d spent time with him, I’d had that astonishing dream—the one in which my past life as the Dalai Lama’s dog had been revealed.