Atdtda27: Germans and mint tea, 766-767

[Paul Nightingale]

Halfcourt reappears, transformed, "respectably turned out ... except for the
insane light in his eyes". No more the "elderly man in a shabby uniform"
(765), then. He is known to the book-dealer, generically if not personally,
associated here principally with German travelers (and Tariq will point out
that translations of the book in question are usually into German, 766;
although "[i]t helps to be a Buddhist", 767). So Halfcourt now appears as a
tourist?

>From rereading Yashmeen's letter Halfcourt has moved on to another
repetition, "dreaming persistently ..., always the same frustrating
narrative": one that erases the part played by Kit as messenger and
therefore Halfcourt's alternate. As Halfcourt seeks "the benevolence of
dream", or wishfulfilment, perhaps, the letter itself has now been
transformed into one "from a Tibetan scholar-prince to his father, who has
died and been reborn in Shambhala". The poem's addressee "is a sort of
fictional character, though at the same time real": in the first instance,
both Berra and Bear, perhaps (and cf. the status of Al Mar-Fuad on 757).
However, in the poem in question, the author (ie narrator?) addresses
instructions to a Yogi, "a figure in a vision, and also Rinpungpa himself"
(766), here seen to adopt the Yogi as some kind of alter-ego (as Halfcourt
considered Kit his "counterpart" on 762). Subsequently, "real person" is
echoed by Halfcourt's "a real place" (767); while Tariq's book-dealer
expertise juxtaposes Rinpungpa to another text's "author unknown" (bottom of
766).

Halfcourt ends the section, and chapter, bemoaning the absence of a reliable
map. On 764 Kit is shown the maps he will need for his journey to Siberia;
he is critical of the quality of the maps on offer, but Prance observes that
they must distinguish themselves from "ordinary travelers". On that occasion
Halfcourt, it seems, is party to the "metaphysical hogwash" Kit mocks; here,
he is wary of Tariq's take on Shambhala.