The Skull Mantra (53 page)

He slowly slid down the wall to the floor. Tears were streaming down his cheek. He found his rosary and pulled it apart. The beads slowly dropped onto the floor and rolled away.

Numbed by his helplessness, Shan filled a tea mug with water and handed it to him. It fell through Yeshe's hands and shattered on the floor. Struggling to find words of comfort, Shan began picking up the pieces of porcelain, then stopped and dropped to his knees. He stared at the shards in his hands.

“No,” Shan said excitedly. “Je told us exactly what we needed to know. Look!” he said, shaking Yeshe's shoulder as he held up a shard. “Do you see it?”

But Yeshe was beyond hearing him. With an aching heart
Shan rose, gave Yeshe one last painful look, then darted out of the building.

 

When Sergeant Feng and Shan arrived at the market, Feng made no effort to leave the truck. Shan moved straight toward the healer's shop. But he did not enter Khorda's hut. He stood in the alley beside it. A youth in a herder's vest appeared beside him. “Wait,” the youth said urgently. Moments later he returned with the scar-faced
purba.

“You don't need to go to the mountain,” Shan told him. “You don't need to sacrifice yourself. I found another way.”

The
purba
looked at him skeptically.

“I need to go with the food today. To the 404th,” Shan said.

“We don't deliver the food. It is the responsibility of the relief association.”

“But sometimes you go with them. There is no time for games. I know what happens now. Sometimes you leave someone behind.”

“I don't understand,” the
purba
said stiffly.

“The camp of the 404th is built on rock. There is no tunnel. There is no hole in the wire fence. And no one is flying through the air like an arrow.”

The
purba
surveyed the marketplace over Shan's shoulder. “Have you finished your investigation?”

“I've seen Trinle. Not at the 404th.”

“Trinle is a very holy man. He is often underestimated.”

“I don't underestimate him. Not now. For him the 404th is not a prison. He comes and goes on the business of Nambe gompa. He comes and goes with the
purbas.
There is no one else who could do it for him.”

“And how would we perform this magic?”

“I don't know exactly. But it shouldn't be difficult so long as the headcount isn't changed.”

The
purba
winced, as though he had bitten something sour. “To take the place of a prisoner would be foolhardy. It would risk immediate execution.”

“Which is why it is a
purba
who does it.”

The man did not react.

“Trinle is sick more than most,” Shan said. “We have
become used to it. Sometimes he stays confined to his bunk with his blanket over his head. Now I know why. Because it isn't him. I can guess how it is done. On agreed days
purbas
help with the food, when the relief association serves meals. One man wears prison clothes under his civilian clothes. When Trinle reaches the food tables there is a distraction. Perhaps he ducks under the tables and puts on the civilian clothes. The
purba
switches with him, and stays in the 404th until Trinle returns. The guards are not fastidious. They don't know every prisoner's face. As long as the head-count is the same, how could there be an escape? And as long as his face stays hidden, what other prisoners will suspect?”

The
purba
stared at Shan. “What exactly do you want?”

“I need to get through the dead zone. Today.”

“Like you said, it is very dangerous. Someone could be killed.”

“Someone
has
been killed. How many more does it take?”

The
purba
looked out over the market as though in search of the answer. “Cabbages,” he announced suddenly. “Watch for cabbages,” he said, and seemed to glide away.

Twenty minutes later as Feng drove through the town traffic, a cart of cabbages upturned directly in their path. As Feng moved into reverse, a second cart suddenly blocked them.

Instantly Shan jumped out. “This is what you must do. Go to Tan. Tell him he must come with you. To the 404th. Meet me at the wire with him in two hours.” He turned, ignoring Sergeant Feng's weak protest, and disappeared into the crowd.

An hour later he was inside the 404th, wearing an oversized wool hat and the armband of the charity, serving out bowls of barley gruel. When half the line had filed past, a bucket of water was dropped on a guard's foot. The guard shouted. The Tibetan carrying the bucket fell backward, knocking over a prisoner. More guards ran to investigate.

In the ensuing confusion Shan ducked under the opposite end of the long table, which had been draped with a dirty
piece of felt, discarded his jacket and entered the line, wearing prison clothes provided by the
purbas.

Choje was not eating. Shan found him meditating in his hut, and sat in front of him. His eyes flickered open and he put his hand on Shan's cheek, as though making sure he was real. “It is a joy to see you. But you have selected a troubled moment to return.”

“I needed to speak to the abbot of Nambe gompa.”

“Nambe was destroyed.”

“Its buildings were destroyed. Its population was imprisoned. But the gompa lives.”

Choje shrugged. “It could not be allowed to die.”

“Because of the promises made about Yerpa. To the Second Dalai Lama.”

Choje showed no surprise. “More than a promise. A sacred duty.” His lips curled into a weak smile. “It is wonderful, is it not?”

“Do the
purbas
know, Rinpoche?”

Choje shook his head. “They want to help all prisoners. It is the right thing to do. But they never needed to know our secret. We have a duty not to tell. It is enough for them to know that Nambe gompa lives, that by helping Trinle they keep it alive.”

Shan nodded as Choje confirmed his suspicion. “I understand now why Trinle had to go, why the arrow rite finally seemed to work. You had to be certain the knobs acted in public. Once the miracle happened witnesses were sure to come, as word leaked out of the magic.”

Choje looked into his hands. “We were worried, Trinle and I, that maybe what we did was a lie.”

“No,” Shan assured him. “It was no lie. What you have been doing
is
a miracle, Rinpoche.”

The serene smile lit Choje's countenance again.

“You know the world will think that all this was to save one soul,” Shan said.

“The soul of a Chinese prosecutor. It is not such a bad lesson, Xiao Shan.”

One hundred eighty monks commit suicide to save the soul of their prosecutor, Shan considered. Anywhere else it
would be the stuff of legend. But here it was just another day in Tibet.

“But you and I know it is not the real reason.”

Choje bowed his hands, the fingers touching at the tips. It was an offering
mudra,
the flask of treasure. Choje stared at it with a distant smile and pushed his hands toward Shan. Silently Shan did as Choje desired, forming his own hands into the shape. Choje made a gesture of pouring his flask into Shan's, then drew his hands slowly apart, leaving Shan with the flask.

“There,” he said. “The treasure is yours.”

Shan felt his eyes well up with moisture. “No,” he whispered in weak protest, and clenched his eyes, fighting the tears. They will still build the road after you die, he wanted to say. But he knew Choje's answer. It didn't matter, as long as Choje and Nambe gompa had been true.

“The thunder ritual, it is also part of Nambe's duty, isn't it?”

Choje nodded approvingly. “Your eyes have always seen far, my friend. Nambe was already centuries old when the vow was made to protect the
gomchen.
Nambe was the center of the ritual. It had perfected the practice. For a mortal being to make thunder requires an intense balance, the highest state of meditation. Some say it was the reason we were honored with the protection of Yerpa.”

“Trinle and Gendun, they are masters of the ritual.”

Choje only smiled.

They remained silent and listened to the mantras beginning outside as the monks finished eating.

“You came with a request,” Choje said at last.

“Yes. I must speak to Trinle. About that night. I know he will not talk without your permission.”

Choje considered Shan's words. “You are asking a great deal.”

“There is still a chance, Rinpoche. A chance to save Nambe and Yerpa. You have to let me find the truth.”

“There is always an end to things, Xiao Shan.”

“Then if there is to be an end,” Shan said, “let it end in light, not in shadow.”

“They would give them drugs, you know, if they caught
Trinle or Gendun. Like spells, those drugs. They would be powerless to resist the questions. They know that. If the soldiers try to take them, Trinle and Gendun will choose to die. Can you bear that burden?”

“If the soldiers try to take them,” Shan replied quickly, “I, too, will choose to die.” It was a simple thing, to die when the knobs finally came for you. If you ran away they would shoot. If you ran at them they would shoot. If you resisted they would shoot.

He saw Choje smiling at him and looked down. Shan's hands were still in the
mudra,
holding the treasure flask, as Choje began to talk.

Twenty minutes later he stood at the edge of the dead zone and took off his prison shirt. He took one step forward. The knobs shouted a warning. Three of them cocked their rifles and aimed directly at him. An officer pulled his pistol and was about to fire into the air when a hand closed around the gun and pushed it down. It was Tan.

“You have less than eighteen hours,” Tan growled. “You should be finishing the official report.” But as they moved away from the knobs his anger faded. “The Ministry delegation. They are already with Li. They changed the schedule. The trial will be at eight o'clock tomorrow morning.”

Shan looked up in alarm. “You have to delay.”

“On what grounds?”

“I have a witness.”

They arrived before dawn, as Choje had instructed. Do not speak to the
purbas,
he had said. Do not let the knobs follow. Just be there as the sun rises, at the clearing before the new bridge.

“There was no sign of him?” Shan asked as Sergeant Feng switched off the engine. “Maybe he moved to another barracks. He has no place to go.”

“Nope. He's gone. Down the road at nightfall,” Feng said. “You won't see him again.”

Yeshe's bag had been gone when Shan had returned to the barracks. “He didn't say anything, didn't leave anything?”

Sergeant Feng reached into his pocket. “Only this,” he said, laying the ruined rosary on the dashboard, nothing but string and two marker beads. He yawned and lowered the back of his seat. “I know where he went. He asked how to get there. That chemical factory in Lhasa. They hire lots of Tibetans, with or without papers.”

Shan put his head in his hands.

“We could ask patrols to pick him up, if you still need him.”

“No,” Shan replied grimly, and climbed out of the truck.

There was nothing, just the sliver of the moon over the black outline of the mountains. As the stars blinked out he found himself watching for Jao's ghost.

Another vehicle appeared along the road from town, and eased in behind the truck. It was Tan, driving his own car. He was wearing a pistol.

“I don't like it,” Tan said. “A witness who hides is useless. How will he testify? He will have to come with us, to the trial. They will ask why he speaks up now, so late.” He studied the dark landscape, then looked suspiciously at Shan.
“If it is a cultist, they will say he is an accomplice.”

Shan continued staring into the heather. “A group of monks were watching the bridge,” he explained. “They were trying to cause it to collapse.”

Tan muttered a low curse. “By watching it?” he asked bitterly. He looked back at his car, as though he might leave, then followed Shan slowly into the clearing.

“By shouting at it,” Shan said. How could he explain the rite of the shards? How could he explain the broken pots above the bridge or at Yerpa, where Trinle and the others trained in the old ritual of thunder? How could he explain the ancient belief that a perfect sound was the most destructive force of nature? “Not a shout, really. Creating sound waves. It was what scared Sergeant Feng that night he fired his pistol. Like a clap of—”

He stopped. In the gathering light he saw a gray shape thirty feet away at the end of the clearing, a large rock that was gradually becoming the shape of a man sitting on the earth. It was Gendun.

They stopped six feet away. “This is a priest of a nearby gompa,” Shan explained to Tan, then turned to the old monk. “Can you explain where you were the night of the prosecutor's murder?”

“Above the bridge,” Gendun said in a firm, quiet voice, as though he were saying prayers. “In the rocks, chanting.”

“Why?”

“In the sixteenth century there was a Mongolian invasion. Priests of my gompa stopped it from reaching Lhadrung by causing an avalanche to fall on the army.”

Tan glared furiously at Shan, but before he could turn away Gendun continued. “This bridge. It does not belong here. It is destined to fall away.”

He was interrupted by the sound of a heavy truck speeding on the gravel road behind them. As it skidded to a stop Li Aidang jumped out, clad in military fatigues. He took ten steps into the clearing, then snapped out an order. Half a dozen uniformed knobs began leaping from the truck. The major appeared in the headlights, a small automatic gun hanging from his shoulder. The troops formed in a single line along the road, in front of Li.

A strange serenity settled over Gendun, a distant look. He paid no attention to the knobs, but studied the mountains as if trying to remember them for future reference. He could not control his next incarnation. He might rekindle on the floor of a desert hut thousands of miles away.