Mandarin Gate (6 page)

“Jamyang had other artifacts. A jade seal. Some figures set with jewels,” Shan said. “But you left them and shouldered those heavy tablets. Why?”

“Black market,” the man said, looking at Shan’s feet. “Tourists buy such things.”

“In Tibet, tourists want Tibetan things,” Shan observed, “small things that can be stuffed in a suitcase.”

The man shrugged. “Some outsiders need other things. Cans of food. Blankets.”

Shan studied the man in confusion. Outsiders. Foreigners were strictly prohibited from entering Lhadrung County. “What is your name?”

The shepherd took a step to the side as if thinking of charging past Shan. “I am a loyal citizen.”

“I can go out into the market,” Shan said, “and have your name in five minutes. Of course then everyone will know someone from the government is seeking you.”

The man’s eyes were smoldering now. He was taking on the air of a cornered wolf.

“Tenzin Gyalo,” the man offered.

“No. You are not the Dalai Lama.” Shan took a step closer. “You are a shepherd who has misplaced his flock.”

The words seemed to unsettle the man. He looked back at the animals in the stall with what, for an instant, seemed like longing. “Sometimes I help out on market days. It’s good to work with the animals again.” He took another step to one side as he spoke, made a feint to the left, then darted past Shan on the right.

As Shan spun about, ready to pursue, a shovel handle appeared between the man’s legs and he tripped, sprawling on the ground. He quickly sprang back up but just as quickly a hand grabbed his collar and swung him about, propelling him back into the stable.

“You can cooperate here,” came a level voice, “or you can cooperate in my detention cell.”

Shan’s throat went dry as a uniformed knob entered the stable. He glanced at the window himself, instinctively thinking of fleeing, then recognized the woman. It was the lieutenant he had spoken with at the convent. As she approached the shepherd her hand touched the manacles on her belt.

“Jigten,” the shepherd said in a stricken voice. “Jigten is my name.”

The lieutenant extended her hand, palm upward, and the man unbuttoned his shirt pocket and extracted his registration card.

“Do you enjoy your new home at the relocation camp, Jigten Somala?” the officer asked as she read his card.

“The people of the motherland have been generous,” he murmured. Every Tibetan Shan knew had rehearsed lines they used when confronted by an official.

“No need to dirty your hands with all those animals,” the lieutenant said. “You even have electricity.”

“We strive to repay the people’s kindness,” Jigten recited.

“Electricity. Free food. Free shelter. A paradise on earth.”

Shan looked at the lieutenant. It almost seemed that she too had her rehearsed lines.

“Paradise on earth,” Jigten repeated.

“You were about to speak with Comrade—” she looked at Shan expectantly.

“Shan.”

“You were about to answer Comrade Shan’s questions,” she continued.

As Jigten looked back at Shan, fear was in his eyes. Once, in Tibet, people had feared demon deities whose slightest touch could destroy them. The demons had returned in the twenty-first century, wearing the grey uniforms of Public Security.

The lieutenant offered Shan a conspiratorial smile, then retreated out the door. Jigten sank onto a milking stool. “They don’t give us money in that camp. Just give us a little food and tell us to sleep in those damned boxes they call houses.”

“You’re not from Baiyun?” Shan asked.

“That’s for Chinese pioneers.” He gestured toward a low ridge beyond the town. Shan followed Jigten’s hand and saw several thin columns of smoke beyond the ridge, like distant campfires. “A hundred nomads taken out of the
changtang,
nearly our entire clan. The Chinese are teaching us what it means to be civilized.”

Shan fought a shudder. One of Beijing’s newest campaigns was to clear away the
dropka,
the nomad shepherds from the changtang prairie, the vast grassland wilderness that dominated much of central Tibet, and put them into camps. Shan fought the temptation to help Jigten to the window and follow him out. The lieutenant would not have gone far. He spoke in a low whisper. “Which explains why you might steal. But I asked you about those tablets.”

Jigten lifted a clump of wool from the dirt floor. It was the season for shearing sheep. When he pressed the wool to his nose his eyes took on a melancholy expression.

“This is a town of professors,” Jigten explained. “They like old things, especially old Chinese things. They speak of dead emperors like they were old friends. Sometimes they have medicine I can trade for. That’s all I want. Medicine. They refuse us any real medicine in our camp. There’s a professor with wire-rimmed glasses who has a daughter with lung sickness. Sometimes he has extra medicine. Those tablets would have meant a week’s worth at least.” He seemed to sense Shan’s hesitation, did not miss the worried glance Shan shot toward the entry. He rose and took a step toward the window, then another.

“Did Jamyang know these professors?” Shan pressed.

“Jamyang was a ghost,” Jigten said, taking another step. “People don’t really know ghosts. You can’t really steal from a ghost.” He put a hand on the sill, paused to see if Shan would stop him, then climbed outside.

Shan stared after the forlorn, limping shepherd, watching him disappear back into the marketplace crowd.

“Interesting technique,” came an amused voice behind him. “I heard about it in a seminar once. Yo-yo style. Reel them in and terrify them, then release them when they least expect it. When you pull them in again, when you really need them, they’ll be begging to help you.”

As Shan turned to face the knob lieutenant, she reached into a pocket and produced a bag of salted sunflower seeds, which she extended toward Shan before gesturing him to the bench against the outside wall.

He stole a long look at the slender woman as she sat down beside him. The lieutenant had probably been with Public Security for years but she did not have the brittle features and frigid eyes of most knob officers Shan had known. There was an unexpected softness in her face, an intelligent curiosity in her eyes. In another place, out of uniform with her hair loose over her high cheekbones, she would have been attractive.

But her reflexes were that of a knob. “I’ll try to arrest him for something soon,” she said in a distracted tone as she watched the throng. “Let him spend a night in my holding cell, then tell him I’m releasing him as a favor to you.” She sat down beside him. “A favor to Comrade Shan,” she added pointedly.

He returned her steady gaze as he took some of the offered seeds, struggling not to betray his fear. Tibet was rife with secret Chinese operatives. She had decided he was some kind of undercover officer, building a network of informers.

“To whom do I owe my gratitude?” he asked.

“Lieutenant Meng Limei, local liaison for Public Security,” she offered, then went back to watching the market. With a shudder Shan saw that two Public Security vehicles had arrived, parked on either side of the market. As he watched, a truck of armed police eased to a stop on the road. “At headquarters they always say the only way to round up the traditionalists is sending out teams to scour the mountains. Then Major Liang arrived. ‘Don’t be so clubfooted,’ he said, ‘haven’t you ever heard of letting the flowers bloom first?’”

It was one of Mao’s most infamous campaigns. Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom. Mao had told intellectuals and other rightists that they could criticize the government with impunity, even encouraged them to gather in protest and paint walls with democratic slogans. Public Security took months to secretly photograph them and record their identities, then closed in and arrested thousands.

“‘Let them come down on their own,’ Liang said,” she continued. “‘Find a way for them to feel comfortable with their traditional ways. Announce some kind of Tibetan festival,’ he suggested. I told him this market already attracts much of the local population every week.”

Shan gazed out over the gathered Tibetans, reminding himself that the roundups of Tibetans he had expected after the murders had not yet started. An old man with sparkling eyes sat with a plank on his legs, writing short prayers and handing them out to passersby. A child squealed with delight as another man, fingers extended at his temples, chased her like a wild yak. “These are but the early flowers,” he said, his heart like an anvil. “Arrest them and the ones you really want will burrow so deep it will take years to dig them out.”

Lieutenant Meng studied him. “You know more about the local Tibetans than you’re saying.”

“You know more about the murders at the convent than you are saying.”

Meng chewed on her seeds. “That’s being handled by our specialist from outside. Major Liang is in charge.” She meant, Shan knew, Liang was an elite troubleshooter from Lhasa or even Beijing. “As the senior local officer I am just assisting.”

“You mean your main assignment is pacification.”

The lieutenant did not disagree. “There was a new memo. We are supposed to speak of it as assimilation now. Embracing the indigenous population with the open heart of the Chinese motherland.” She spoke the words with raised eyebrows. For a moment Shan thought he detected sarcasm in her voice.

“Liang’s solution will no doubt make some political officer proud,” Shan observed. “Solving a murder by throwing a grenade in a crowd.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

Shan watched with foreboding as the big Chinese men in plainclothes positioned themselves around the market. “Beijing expects bold responses to murders. In Tibet it’s always simple. Round up a couple dozen Tibetans, sweat a few in interrogation so accusations of disloyalty start flowing. Collect enough statements to arrest a dissident and close the file with a press conference and an article in the
Lhasa Times
that warns about the ongoing dangers of splittists,” he said, using the Party’s euphemism for those who sought Tibetan independence. “It may sound good in Beijing but it doesn’t stop a killer. It will make your job a hundred times more difficult, Lieutenant.”

Meng frowned. “People in Beijing went into a blind fury when they saw those crime scene photos. A Chinese flag in red paint and blood. Two dead Chinese men with their boots on some peasant woman. Of course it was a dissident.”

“You mean they want it to be a dissident. And in doing so they become the murderer’s puppet. You’re in charge of local assimilation. Special troubleshooters sent by Beijing come and go. You’ll still be here. You’re going to let them set things back by years. And set your career back.”

She lowered her sunflower seeds. “I’m listening.”

“They haven’t thought it through yet but eventually they will. It will begin like a little bell ringing down a long tunnel. In a case like this it could take weeks before anyone even stops to listen to it. But eventually it will be heard. Eventually the clapper on the bell feels like a hammer on the skull to some of those involved.”

Meng’s mouth twisted in a half frown. “Do you always speak in riddles?”

“The truth will come back to haunt you. No matter what public label is put on it, those in Beijing will eventually realize this could not have been an act of political resistance. It was too clumsy, too inconspicuous, too simple.”

“These are simple people.”

“They are simple. Not simpletons. Arresting a few random agitators may feel good today but eventually those in Beijing will see it has caused a bigger problem. There’s a new term used by the Party, civil unrest with physical manifestations. The kind of problem it takes a battalion of troops to solve. Colonel Tan runs this county. They will be his troops, led by him personally. Do you know him?”

“Tan the sledgehammer. He chews bullets for breakfast.”

“When he comes he won’t care if you’re Chinese or in a uniform. If you are in the way of his machine it will roll right over you.”

Meng studied Shan as if for the first time. “You speak like someone wise in the ways of Beijing.”

“I spent twenty-five years beside those who define those ways.”

The announcement seemed to worry Meng. “Everything I do is consistent with guidance from Beijing,” she quickly explained.

“Guidance from Beijing is kept intentionally vague. That way when some remote cadre makes that excuse she can be blamed for misinterpreting it, even abusing it.” He glanced at the distant mountains. Lokesh was up there. He had to keep Lokesh safe, had to keep Jamyang’s secret life safe. He gestured toward the market. “Of course, you can round these people up today. But that will just light the fuse. It will be weeks before the powder keg explodes, before the folly of it becomes apparent. Then more weeks of meetings, even secret hearings. I used to prepare scripts for such hearings. In the end it will be the field officer’s mistake. The senior local officer always should have known better.” Shan spoke in a slow, level voice. “You’re going to need political reeducation, Lieutenant Meng, at one of the big institutes back east. Living in a dormitory, reciting Party scripture for hours every day, sitting for more hours in criticism sessions, looking over your shoulder for the one who is going to make you the subject of the next session. You will be expected to volunteer for one of those patriotic brigades that wave banners in parades. Some cadres find it quite invigorating. Like taking an extended vacation with the Great Helmsman.”

She returned his steady gaze without expression then broke away to study the Tibetans once more. He was not sure he had scared her so much as piqued her curiosity.

“I need more,” she said at last. “I need a reason to talk to headquarters, a reason to change their orders.”

Shan nodded toward the Tibetans. “The market is where the truth gets told. You are doing your job, always sifting for local intelligence. You picked up a rumor. People know about the dead woman.”

“Know what? Whoever she is, she has been abandoned. No one has reported her missing. No one has asked about the body.”

Shan stared at her a moment. “No one told you? She was a nun.”