Drepung nodded. “I wish Rudra Cakrin himself could tell you, but he is still taking his English lessons, I’m afraid. Apparently they are going very badly. In any case, you know that China invaded Tibet in 1950, and that the Dalai Lama escaped to India in 1959?”

“Yes, that sounds familiar.”

“Yes. And during those years, and ever since then too, many Tibetans have moved to India to get away from the Chinese, and closer to the Dalai Lama. India took us in very hospitably, but when the Chinese and Indian governments had their disagreement over their border in 1960, the situation became very awkward for India. They were already in a bad way with Pakistan, and a serious controversy with China would have been…” He searched for the word, waggling a hand.

“Too much?” Anna suggested.

“Yes. Much too much. So, the support India had been giving to the Tibetans in exile ”

Rudra Cakrin made a little hiss.

“Small to begin with, although very helpful nevertheless,” Drepung added, “shrank even further. It was requested that the Tibetan community in Dharamsala make itself as small and inconspicuous as possible. The Dalai Lama and his government did their best, and many Tibetans were relocated to other places in India, mostly in the far south. But elsewhere as well. Then some more years passed, and there were some, how shall I say, arguments or splits within the Tibetan exile community, too complicated to go into, I assure you. I can hardly understand them myself. But in the end a group called the Yellow Hat School took the offer of this island of ours, and moved there. This was just before the India-Pakistan war of 1970, unfortunately, so the timing was bad, and everything was on the hush-hush for a time. But the island was ours from that point, as a kind of protectorate of India, like Sikkim, only not so formally arranged.”

“Is Khembalung the island’s original name?”

“No. I do not think it had a name before. Most of our sect lived at one time or another in the valley of Khembalung. So that name was kept, and we have shifted away from the Dalai Lama’s government in Dharamsala, to a certain extent.”

At the sound of the words “Dalai Lama” the old monk made a face and said something in Tibetan.

“The Dalai Lama is still number one with us,” Drepung clarified. “It is a matter of some religious controversies with his associates. A matter of how best to support him.”

Anna said, “I thought the mouth of the Ganges was in Bangladesh?”

“Much of it is. But you must know that it is a very big delta, and the west side of it is in India. Part of Bengal. Many islands. The Sundarbans? You have not heard?”

Their pizza arrived, and Drepung began talking between big bites. “Lightly populated islands, the Sundarbans. Some of them anyway. Ours was uninhabited.”

“Did you say uninhabitable?”

“No no. Inhabitable, obviously.”

Another noise from Rudra Cakrin.

“People with lots of choices might say they were uninhabitable,” Drepung went on. “And they may yet become so. They are best for tigers. But we have done well there. We have become like tigers. Over the years we have built a nice town. A little seaside potala for Gyatso Rudra and the other lamas. Schools, houses hospital. All that. And sea walls. The whole island has been ringed by dikes. Lots of work. Hard labor.” He nodded as if personally acquainted with this work. “Dutch advisors helped us. Very nice. Our home, you know? Khembalung has moved from age to age. But now…” He waggled a hand again, took another slice of pizza, bit into it.

“Global warming?” Anna ventured.

He nodded, swallowed. “Our Dutch friends suggested that we establish an embassy here, to join their campaign to influence American policy in these matters.”

Anna quickly bit into her pizza so that she would not reveal the thought that had struck her, that the Dutch must be desperate indeed if they had been reduced to help like this. She thought things over as she chewed. “So here you are,” she said. “Have you been to America before?”

Drepung shook his head. “None of us have.”

“It must be pretty overwhelming.”

He frowned at this word. “I have been to Calcutta.”

“Oh I see.”

“This is very different, of course.”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

She liked him: his musical Indian English, his round face and big liquid eyes, his ready smile. The two men made quite a contrast: Drepung young and tall, round-faced, with a kind of baby-fat look; Rudra Cakrin old, small and wizened, his face lined with a million wrinkles, his cheekbones and narrow jaw prominent in an angular, nearly fleshless face.

The wrinkles were laugh lines, however, combined with the lines of a wide-eyed expression of surprise that bunched up his forehead. Despite his noises and muttering under Drepung’s account, he still seemed cheerful enough. He certainly attacked his pizza with the same enthusiasm as his young assistant. With their shaved heads they shared a certain family resemblance.

She said, “I suppose going from Tibet to a tropical island must have been a bigger shock than coming from the island to here.”

“I suppose. I was born in Khembalung myself, so I don’t know for sure. But the old ones like Rudra here, who made that very move, seem to have adjusted quite well. Just to have any kind of home is a blessing, I think you will find.”

Anna nodded. The two of them did project a certain calm. They sat in the booth as if there was no hurry to go anywhere else. Anna couldn’t imagine any such state of mind. She was always in a tearing hurry. She tried to match their air of being at ease. At ease in Arlington, Virginia, after a lifetime on an island in the Ganges. Well, the climate would be familiar. But everything else had to have changed quite stupendously.

And, on closer examination, there was a certain guardedness to them. Drepung glanced surreptitiously at their waitress; he looked at the pedestrians passing by; he watched Anna herself, all with a slightly cautious look, reminding her of the pained expression she had seen earlier in the day.

“How is it that you came to rent a space in this particular building?”

Drepung paused and considered this question for a suprisingly long time. Rudra Cakrin asked him something and he replied, and Rudra said something more.

“We had some advice there also,” Drepung said. “The Pew Center on Global Climate Change has been helping us, and their office is located on Wilson Boulevard, nearby.”

“I didn’t know that. They’ve helped you to meet people?”

“Yes, with the Dutch, and with some island nations, like Fiji and Tuvalu.”

“Tuvalu?”

“A very small country in the Pacific. They have perhaps been less than helpful to the cause, telling people that sea level has risen in their area of the Pacific but not elsewhere, and asking for financial compensation for this from Australia and other countries.”

“In their area of the Pacific only?”

“Measurements have not confirmed the claim.” Drepung smiled. “But I can assure you, if you are on a storm track and spring tides are upon you, it can seem like sea level has risen quite a great deal.”

“I’m sure.”

Anna thought it over while she ate. It was good to know that they hadn’t just rented the first office they found vacant. Nevertheless, their effort in Washington looked to her to be underpowered at this point. “You should meet my husband,” she said. “He works for a senator, one who is up on all these things, a very helpful guy, the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee.”

“Ah Senator Chase?”

“Yes. You know about him?”

“He has visited Khembalung.”

“Has he? Well, I’m not surprised, he’s been every He’s been a lot of places. Anyway, my husband Charlie works for him as an environmental policy advisor. It would be good for you to talk to Charlie and get his perspective on your situation. He’ll be full of suggestions for things you could do.”