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she was, Karen continued, but he understood where she was coming from because he related to the mountains. They were his temples, and he made his own pilgrimages among them. ‘Take Lotus, for example. I believe in letting her experience the whole world as essentially benign. I want her to grow up as far as possible without fear, without unnecessary restrictions, without petty rules, so she can become her intended self within the stream.’
    Mair wondered if Lotus – quite understandably – dealt with excess benignity by having a tantrum or two.
    They had finished their coffee and cake. Karen dotted up the last of the crumbs with a fingertip and licked it. She said, ‘I must go. What are your plans? We’ll be out of town for four or five days.’
    ‘I’ve got some stuff to look into here. I don’t know how long that’ll take.’
    Karen studied her, her finger still resting against her lips. Mair noticed how the two or three other tourists in the bakery couldn’t help gazing at her companion.
    ‘You’re very mysterious, you know,’ Karen said.
    ‘No, I’m not,’ Mair protested.
    ‘But you’ve never let on why you’re in Ladakh. You’re not just here for a sightseeing holiday, I can tell that much.’
    Mair wasn’t going to try to describe the shawl to Karen, or the lock of hair, or the blanks in the family history that had colonised her imagination with such force. Awkwardly, she said, ‘My father died recently.’
    At once, Karen’s face flooded with sympathy. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said warmly. ‘That’s sad for you. You were drawn to a Buddhist country for a reason. Have you heard of punabbhava ? It means “becoming again”. That’s the belief we have in rebirth. It doesn’t annihilate grief or loss, and it isn’t meant to, but contemplation of it provides comfort. Sometimes it does, at least.’
    Her new friend meant well, Mair realised, and the way she talked might sound alien but it was certainly sincere. ‘Thank you.’ She smiled.

    Karen squeezed her hands and stood up. She paid for their tea, waving away Mair’s proffered money. ‘Where are you staying?’
    Mair told her.
    ‘So we’ll see you when we get back.’
     
    The next day Mair went to visit the Leh Pashmina Processing Plant. The weather was changing, as if to underline the Beckers’ absence. The gilded autumn sunshine Mair had begun to take for granted was filtered out today by low, thin grey clouds as the last leaves were chased down from the poplar trees by an insistent wind.
    A small man in a baseball cap emerged from one of the plant’s grimy buildings to meet her. ‘My name is Tinley. I am assistant manager of production. This way to see the magic, ma’am,’ he joked, as he led her across the yard to a concrete shed. Mair followed, not sure what he meant.
    Inside, four women squatted in a circle. They had shawls drawn over their heads and across the lower half of their faces. Between them towered a heap of fleece, thick curled clods of raw goat’s hair matted with dung, grease and twigs, looking exactly as Mair had seen it when it was stuffed into bags up on the plateau. There was no doubt that this was the untreated pashm fibre as it arrived by truck from distant Changthang. The women were teasing out the clumps by hand, removing the worst of the filth and sorting the hair into smaller heaps according to colour, from palest grey-white to dark brown. The air in the bare room seemed almost solid with the rancid odour of goat.
    Tinley made a small gesture of regret. ‘This is a colour-separating process. It can only be done by the human eyes.’ Then he brightened. ‘But, as you will see, the rest of our process is modern. Highly mechanised. Come this way, please.’
    A metal door slid open on runners and Mair stepped into the next section of the plant. She had been aware of the hum of machinery, but she blinked at the sheer size of what lay beyondthe door. The machine must have been fifty yards long, a leviathan