The Dalai Lama's Cat and the Power of Meow (The Dalai Lama's Cat 3)

All the time Ludo had been speaking, Serena continued to hold Sid’s gaze with a meaningful expression, as though Ludo’s message had an especially personal significance.

I had followed the relationship between Serena and Sid since its earliest days. Among the many qualities of cats is our ability to tune in, to scrutinize, to play close attention to our human companions long after they have forgotten we are even in the room. This was how I knew that, in recent months, things between Serena and Sid hadn’t been easy.

Some years Serena’s senior, Sid had a past. Specifically, in his early twenties, he had been married to an Indian woman, Shanti, with whom he’d had a daughter, Zahra. Shanti had been an extraordinary woman: beautiful, unwaveringly loyal, vivacious, and kind. Sid had once confided that she had also possessed the same unusual clear blue eyes as me. But their marriage had been extremely difficult from the start. Shanti came from an immensely wealthy and prominent family, the Wazirs, who had arranged for her to be married to the son of an equally powerful family. It would have been a union of two of the grandest dynasties in India, and it would have preserved their status and power long into the future. Shanti rejected the arranged marriage in favor of Sid, the kind but poor maharajah of Himachal Pradesh, which was considered a shameful match by her parents—especially the socially ambitious Mrs. Wazir.

Tragedy struck eight years after they were married. Shanti, driving along a treacherous pass in the mountains, lost control of her car and drove off a cliff. She died instantly, leaving Sid with their five-year-old daughter, Zahra—and no end of self-blame that, if he had been with her on the journey, perhaps things may have turned out differently.

Sid was a loving father, but he felt he could never begin to compensate for the loss of his little girl’s mother. Over the years he had been careful about introducing his daughter to other women. It had been a sign of immense trust when he brought Serena into their lives.

Serena and the now-fourteen-year-old Zahra had got along well from the start. Serena took her out shopping for clothes, showed her shortcuts in math, and introduced her to a whole new world of gourmet cuisine. Their relationship had quickly become warm and special.

All had seemed well until Serena detected that, despite outward appearances, it wasn’t just the three of them in this relationship. Sid had planned a first, glorious vacation for the three of them to Europe, during which they were to visit London, Venice, and the South of France. But a week before they were due to leave, they were told that the health of Mr. Wazir had taken a dramatic turn for the worse. The holiday had been canceled. Sid hurried Zahra up to see her grandfather who, it turned out, wasn’t nearly as ill as they had been led to believe.

More recently, the house Sid had bought for them as a new family home had become a source of stress. Not wanting Serena to move into the building from which he ran his businesses, Sid had purchased a spacious bungalow for the three of them. Although well located, the house apparently needed a makeover. Instead of taking only a few months to complete, the planned renovations had become bogged down with inexplicable building delays.

As the yoga class ended and students began making their way onto the balcony outside, Sid and Serena sat up on their mats. Reaching over, Sid took her hand in his.

“So . . . ,” he said with a playfulness in his expression, but a genuine concern, too. “You think I am trapped in ways of thinking that no longer serve me well?”

Serena drew his hand closer, folding it between hers. “You are the kindest of men, Sid.” She glanced down. “Sometimes I just think you are maybe too trusting.”

There was a pause before he nodded. “This is about the Wazirs.”

“Sid—”

“They’re still her grandparents, whatever else happened between them and me.”

“I know that. You’ve been very honorable.”

“It’s not about honor. It’s about Zahra having a normal relationship with her grandparents and a link to her mother.”

“Which I would never want to interfere with.” Serena looked back at him. I could see the anguish in her eyes.

“Well, then . . .” Sid shrugged. Withdrawing his hand from hers, he rose to his feet, turned around, and began to roll up his yoga mat.

“I know you worry about me being taken advantage of, and I am touched that you do.” He reached out and traced her cheek with his forefinger. “But you have no need to be concerned, my darling. It’s right that Zahra should stay in touch with the Wazirs, but they have nothing to do with you and me and our life together. They live in a different world.”

Padding along the upstairs corridor that evening, after my return from the yoga studio, I paused outside the executive assistants’ office. Tenzin was behind his desk and on the phone—he would sometimes stay late to make international calls. Whatever he was talking about seemed to engage him. There was a sparkle in his eyes. Wobbling into the office, I hopped onto the empty desk on the other side of the room. Until the year before, this desk had belonged to Chogyal, His Holiness’s adviser on monastic matters. But Chogyal’s untimely death had left a vacancy that, despite many interviews, had so far been impossible to fill.

“Well, HHC!” Tenzin beamed as he put down the phone. “You’re becoming quite the celebrity!”

At that very moment, the Dalai Lama stepped into the room.

“That was the producer of this afternoon’s interview, Your Holiness,” Tenzin said as he gestured toward his phone. “With a request.”

His Holiness raised his eyebrows in surprise and came over to where I was sitting on Chogyal’s desk. I flopped over to my side, stretching my paws out in front and behind me as far as they would go, offering the full curve of my fluffy white tummy for him to stroke.

“They were planning to cut HHC out of the interview and record a different ending,” Tenzin continued. “But when everyone in the editing suite saw her, they loved the segment and are insisting she be kept in. They are requesting your permission to show the whole thing, unedited.”

The Dalai Lama shrugged, unconcerned, as he leaned over to stroke my luxuriant tummy. “You see, all sentient beings can create happiness. Look at this little one. She will help more people to learn about loving-kindness than most beings on Earth. She will also make many people laugh.”

“Her methods are certainly . . . unorthodox,” observed Tenzin.

“Spontaneous. Delightful.” His Holiness chuckled. “Soon, I think, this cat will be more famous than the lama.”

CHAPTER THREE

Are you regularly mean to someone? Do you belittle a particular person quite frequently? This may seem a strange question. Readers of a more sensitive nature may be offended that I am even asking.