The Dalai Lama's Cat and the Art of Purring Read Online Free PDF Page A

earrings, and a glittering jeweled collar. As the evening wore on, she went from table to table, and I couldn’t help but notice how touched people were by her warm heart. During the time she spent with them, she made them feel as if they were the center of her world. And she in turn was moved by the outpouring of affection she received.
    “It’s so wonderful that you’ve come back, my dear,” an elderly lady who was a family friend told her. “We love all your ideas and energy.”
    “We’ve needed someone like you in Dharamsala,” a classmate from Serena’s school days had said. “All the most talented people seem to leave, so when someone comes back we treasure them more than you can imagine.”
    Several times during the evening I watched her lip tremble with emotion as she raised a handkerchief to dab the corner of her eye. Something special was happening in the Himalaya Book Café, something that went beyond the Indian banquet, however sumptuous, and was of much greater personal significance.
    The clue to it came several nights later.

    Over the past few weeks, an intriguing working relationship had been unfolding between Serena and Sam. Serena’s vivacity was the perfect complement to Sam’s shyness. His cerebral wonderland was balanced by the here-and-now world of food and wine that she inhabited. And knowing that she was only a caretaker who would be returning to Europe in a few months gave their time together a bittersweet evanescent quality.
    They had gotten into the habit of ending each evening that the café was open for dinner in a particular corner of the bookstore section. Two sofas arranged on either side of a coffee table made the perfect spot from which to survey the last of the restaurant’s diners and talk about whatever was on their minds.
    Headwaiter Kusali no longer needed to be asked to bring their order. Shortly after they sat down, he would arrive bearing a tray with two Belgian hot chocolates, one with marshmallows for Serena, the other with biscotti for Sam. Also on the tray would be a saucer with four dog biscuits and, if I was still at the café, a small jug of lactose-free milk.
    The soft clink of the saucer on the coffee table was the cue for Marcel and Kyi Kyi, who had obediently remained in their basket under the counter for the whole of dinner service. The two dogs would scramble from their basket, race across the restaurant and up the stairs, before sitting at the coffee table with heads cocked and pleading eyes. Their eagerness never failed to bring a smile to the faces of their two human companions, who would watch the dogs devour their biscuits, snuffling up any crumbs on the floor.
    I would make my way over in more leisurely fashion, stretching myself for a few quivering moments before hopping down from the top shelf of the magazine rack to join the others.
    After their biscuits, the dogs would jump up on the sofa, flanking Sam as they lay on their backs, in eager anticipation of a tummy rub. I would take my place in Serena’s lap, kneading whatever dress she happened to be wearing while giving her an appreciative purr.
    “There’s already been a flurry of bookings for our next banquet,” Serena told Sam that particular evening after all five of us were settled.
    “That’s great!” he said, sipping his hot chocolate contemplatively. “H-have you decided when you’re going to tell Franc?”
    Serena hadn’t. Still in San Francisco, Franc knew nothing about last Wednesday’s Indian banquet experiment. Serena had been holding to the wisdom that it is sometimes better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.
    “I thought I’d let him have a pleasant surprise when he gets the month’s financials,” she said.
    “He’ll get a surprise all right,” agreed Sam. “The biggest take for a single night since the café opened. And it has turbocharged everything since. The whole place has become more vibrant. There’s more of a buzz.”
    “I’ve thought that, too,”