Текст книги "Bone Mountain"

Автор книги: Eliot Pattison

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Текущая страница: 30 (всего у книги 39 страниц)

It was a narrow space, no more than three feet wide. As they stepped inside Nyma lit a match. They had no candle, no butter lamp, no electric light. But they also had no time to linger. Nyma extended the match in one direction, then the other. The musty closet ran for twenty feet. At one end was a bench, on which cushions were stacked, at the other shelves.

They had no time to look further. Nyma blew out the match and stepped back into the cell with Shan. He pushed the opposite, raised end of the trigger plank and the rear wall groaned softly and settled back into place, the plank snapping back into position.

Outside, several dropka were turning the huge prayer wheel. An excited dropka asked a passing monk if they could keep turning it past the posted hours, in honor of the holiday. The monk nervously replied he would relay the request to the Committee.

As he walked back around the compound Shan realized there was no sign of the Committee, no sign of Khodrak or Padme. No sign of Tuan. Despite the glimmer of hope he had felt when Lin's letter had been delivered, it now seemed impossible that Tenzin and Lokesh could be there, that the presence of an important prisoner like Tenzin would not be evidenced somewhere in the gompa. There could be other places, he realized in despair, secret places the purbas did not know. The guard at the gate could be there simply because of all the Tibetans camped outside the gompa.

He leaned against one of the old wooden dormitory buildings and slid down the wall to settle onto the earth. Other Tibetans were scattered around the grounds, some saying their beads, others just basking in the sun, perhaps taking a rest from prayers in the lhakang. He watched the windows of the two large buildings. In the center of the floor above the dining hall a man in a white shirt appeared periodically, sometimes looking outside, usually standing a few minutes with his back to the glass. Two pairs of men in white shirts patrolled the grounds, talking energetically, like monks engaged in religious debate. A man in an apron sat on the steps that led to the kitchen, holding a broom upright. Shan studied him. He was younger, more athletic-looking, than the other kitchen workers. His apron was unstained and he seemed little interested in helping with the kitchen labors.

A line of monks streamed out of the rear of the first building, each carrying a small notebook. The wind caught a piece of paper extending from one of the notebooks, sending it tumbling down to the ground. Without thinking Shan rose and grabbed it for the monk. It was a piece of lined paper. Imprinted at the top were the words Feudalism is Regression, and below were handwritten notes, in Chinese. He extended the paper to the monk, who took it from him with an awkward smile.

Out of the corner of his eye Shan spotted a similar piece of paper, crushed and trodden, half-buried in the earth. Something about the peculiar way it was folded drew him to it, and as he bent to lift it from the ground his heart leapt. It was a spirit horse.

He stuffed the paper into his shirt and ventured closer to the kitchen. A worker appeared at the door with a mug of tea for the man sitting outside, who stood and shouldered the broomstick like a rifle. The Tibetan with the tea cowered, and scurried away as the man laughed and took the tea.

Shan wandered the grounds, trying to keep an eye on the central building without appearing conspicuous. In front of him a middle-aged dropka woman gave an exclamation of joy and bent to retrieve another of the paper horses where it had blown against the building. She held the horse in the wind, laughing as it fluttered like a tiny banner.

At the center window on the top, the howler peered out again. Fearing he would be noticed, Shan bent his head and joined a group of dropka, trying to will them to move slower as they passed the building. He chanced another look at the second floor, as they passed the end of the building, studying the distance to the ground. A young man might be able to lower himself from a window at the top and run away. But Lokesh would probably break a bone.

In the front courtyard preparations for the next day's festival began in earnest. A huge flag of the People's Republic had been hung on the front of the administrative building, suspended by ropes from two upper windows. The ropes were not secured inside but on a series of small hooks he had not noticed before, small iron hooks that ran along the sills of all the windows. On traditional Tibetan holidays special thangkas would have been hung from such hooks. At some large gompas special towers had been built solely for the purpose of displaying holy paintings on such occasions. But Chairman Khodrak had chosen a banner of a different kind.

"Special guests," Gyalo reported excitedly when Shan reached the purba truck. "One of the workers in the kitchen was at the archery range. An old man, a carpenter, knew him, and he learned that they have been preparing meals for two special guests who are confined in one of the rooms upstairs." Shan held out the paper horse for Nyma and the others to see, and explained how the military men in white shirts were watching over the second building.

"Who takes the meals?" Shan asked.

"The guards," the monk said in a disappointed voice. "But the guards won't go in to take out the night soil. They want Tibetans to carry it."

They joined in the preparations that afternoon, Shan with his hat pulled low, helping to raise ropes with paper streamers from the administrative building to the wall, then carrying juniper wood to the large samkangs that flanked the gate inside the wall. A loudspeaker announced that the chairman had graciously suspended the rules for the prayer wheel and furthermore the chairman had decided to allow the visiting families to take as much of the yak dung as they might carry, even to the extent of taking loads to their home hearths. Shan greeted the news with a grin, and spent most of the afternoon carrying baskets of the dung with the Tibetans, his face covered in its dark dust, the guards moving away from him as he approached. He passed the kitchen building half a dozen times before he found the guard at the steps bent in slumber, and he paused, futilely watching for movement at the upstairs corner windows. When Shan reported that the guard was napping, Gyalo, who had not dared to enter the gompa since deserting it, picked up a handful of the dung from Shan's basket and powdered his own face with it, then joined Shan with an empty basket. He wore a heavily patched vest, and a necklace of the blue beads favored by many of the dropka, with a broad-brimmed hat that kept his face in shadow.

As they reached the kitchen door, where the guard still slept, the old Tibetan carpenter appeared on the steps and gestured for them to follow him into the kitchen. He pointed to two buckets of fresh water by the inner door, then whispered to a middle-aged Tibetan man in an apron, who picked up a mug of tea and quickly arranged half a dozen sweet biscuits on a plate. They followed the kitchen attendant, each carrying a bucket of water, through the empty dining hall, and up the stairs at the center of the building. The attendant greeted the guard affably, extended the cookies toward him, and nodded Shan and Gyalo toward the door at the end of the corridor over the kitchen, the only door on the hallway that was closed.

There was no lock on the door. They stepped inside quickly and Gyalo closed the door behind them. A small table sat in the center of the chamber, with a pad of paper and two pencils. Two figures lay on straw pallets leaning against the wall under the windows.

"Lha gyal lo!" Gyalo whispered.

Tenzin was in the lotus position, his face drained of strength and color, doing his beads with a weary helpless expression. Lokesh was beside him, his eyes closed, his legs sprawled in front of him, under a blanket. Tenzin stared uncertainly at them, studying Shan slowly, as if he had a hard time focusing his eyes. When he recognized Shan anguish filled his face. "They don't understand," he groaned. "They refuse to believe I have left that life behind. They-"

Shan raised his palm to silence Tenzin. "I know, that man suffocated, and a new man was born."

"But I caused so much sorrow," Tenzin said, and he seemed about to weep. "You can't be caught… Not you, too. There're guards," he warned."You will be-"

Shan cut him off by gesturing to Lokesh. "What happened to him?" he asked as he studied Lokesh's slumped figure. His friend's hands clutched his beads. He seemed asleep, his breath making a dry rattling sound each time he exhaled.

Tenzin gestured weakly toward Lokesh's left foot. "They had a big clamp," he moaned. "A carpenter's clamp. But that Tuan is no carpenter." He looked up at Shan with a forlorn expression. "I never knew men could do such things," he croaked, with the voice of a much older man. "They made me watch."

Shan lifted the blanket over Lokesh's foot. The ankle was swollen and purple. Something was broken inside it.

"Lokesh didn't say anything, just did his mantra as they turned the clamp. He warned me before it happened that they would do something to him, and that I should not worry, that I should understand it was just a test of faith, nothing more, and he was used to such tests. But the test was for both of us he said."

For a moment a fire raged inside Shan. They had tortured his friend, they had slowly tightened the clamp until a bone had snapped. In a gompa. For what? To find out about Shan? No. It was about Tenzin. To find out about the purbas helping Tenzin. To persuade the abbot of Sangchi to return to the prescribed path.

It was the reason for the light guard. Lokesh could not walk. And the howlers would never expect Tibetans to endeavor a rescue.

"I think I could get out the window," Tenzin said. "But I would not leave him."

"Doctors," Shan said. "There's a medical team here who could help with his leg."

"I asked," Tenzin said wearily. "That Khodrak and Director Tuan, they said they would think about it. First they want me to sign papers, to give a speech, to say I was on retreat to perfect the Serenity Campaign, to state that officials in Lhasa are wrong in suggesting I was fleeing. On retreat to study the integration of Buddhist thought with the characteristics of Chinese socialism." It was an idiom of political officers. Build industry with the characteristics of Chinese socialism. Strengthen education with the characteristics of Chinese socialism. "I told them I had indeed been contemplating that topic," Tenzin said pointedly, gazing forlornly at Lokesh again. "He doesn't complain. Lokesh just does his beads when he's conscious, or sings one of those pilgrim songs. But I think a break like that, it is very painful. He keeps writing a letter with the paper they gave him for self-criticism. A letter to the Chairman in Beijing. He says he is going to deliver it personally. Sometimes he folds papers and asks me to drop them out the window. He said strong horses will come and we can drop out of the window onto them and ride away."

Shan stared painfully at his old friend. "But if they keep you here," Shan said, "they must remain hopeful that you will cooperate."

Tenzin sighed. "Khodrak acts like I am his personal prize. Great for their careers, I heard him say to Tuan, the best thing ever. They've invited a senior delegation from Religious Affairs to the festival."

Shan could not take his eyes off Lokesh. He lifted one of Lokesh's hands and squeezed it. The old man's eyes fluttered open. He gazed dreamily at Shan, then lifted his fingers and touched Shan's cheek, as if to determine if he were real.

Suddenly Gyalo was pulling him away. "The guard is finishing. If he begins to pay attention to us, my friend, we will be in much trouble," he said in a desperate tone.

Lokesh's eyes fluttered shut again.

Tenzin grabbed Shan's arm. "You must understand something. They could come any second," he said urgently, and looked into Shan's eyes with deep despair. "Someone must know this in case we disappear. He went there for me. He died because of me."

Shan and Gyalo froze. The abbot of Sangchi suddenly seemed very old. "Some nights I can't sleep because I see him standing, dying, on that mandala."

Shan swallowed hard. "You mean Drakte. You mean you sent Drakte to Amdo town."

Tenzin nodded. "He was going anyway, but I had asked him to find me one of those Lotus Books, to bring it to me. He went there and the knobs killed him for it. He lost the book. He lost his life, because of me," Tenzin said in a desolate voice.

Gyalo pulled on Shan's shoulder but Shan would not move. He looked from Tenzin's tortured face to Lokesh, then to the paper on the table, and slowly pulled the pouch with the ivory rosary from his pocket. "Drakte was supposed to use all your things to leave a trail in the south. But he kept one thing back." He handed the pouch to Tenzin, who opened it and stared inside.

He heard Tenzin's breath catch, and watched the man's face sag. "My grandfather gave these to me," the Tibetan whispered. "He said they are the only valuable thing a monk should have, because they are his connection to his god."

Shan watched as Tenzin twined the beads around his fingers. "You have to tell them," he said slowly, "tell them you'll make your speech. Tomorrow. You have to play the abbot again," he said apologetically, "for a few minutes more." Then he leaned into Tenzin's ear to explain.

Night had fallen when Shan drifted toward the rear of the encampment, to walk among the stars. But as he passed the dropka tents by the yak herd he was distracted by a strange sound.

"Humm, humm en da rengg," a dropka youth recited in a singsong voice. It had the sound of a mantra, but unlike any Shan had ever heard. He rounded the tent to see a group of dropka, young and old, sitting by a huge yak-dung fire, beside which Winslow was standing. Shan spun about, alarmed that the American would be so careless as to come down from the hiding place on the ridge after they had all agreed it was too dangerous for him to do so. But then he saw two lean men standing at the edge of the circle, facing the gompa. One was close enough to recognize, one of the stoney-faced purbas who had been with Tenzin at Yapchi.

Winslow acknowledged Shan with a grin. For a moment Shan thought he was waving at him, then he realized the American was leading the dropka in song.

"Whur da deaar end nat'lope ply– yy," the dropka continued. It was an American song, in a rough approximation of the English, one of the Western songs approved for the public address systems of Chinese trains: Home, Home on the Range.

As Shan sat near the fire, trying to join in the spirit of the circle, his concern for the American increased. It was too dangerous for him to come to the encampment, even with purbas protecting him. He would be an illegal now, without the protection of his passport, without any identity as far as the authorities would be concerned. Like Shan, Winslow didn't exist now, and if captured he might be made to disappear.

In the dim light on the far side of the fire Shan became aware of another figure, seated on the back of a horse cart, a dour Tibetan man, Shan's age, flanked by two of the purbas he had seen on the ridge. Shan rose and edged around the ring. But when he got close to the cart the nearest purba stepped in front of him. The man on the cart stared at Shan with hooded eyes, showing no greeting, no emotion of any kind. In the firelight Shan could see two deep gutters of scar tissue along the man's cheek, and the flame in his eyes. He saw much that he recognized in those eyes. They were prisoner's eyes, filled with a weary, sad intelligence, but they were also extraordinarily fierce eyes, lit with fury and righteousness alike. Shan had seen the same eyes on thangkas of wrathful protector demons.

Shan took another step forward and the purba's hand closed around his arm like a cold vise, and pressed it against something near his chest. A pistol butt, in a shoulder holster. Shan froze, then stepped back out of the purba's grip, studying the lines of scar tissue on the man's cheeks. It was the one they called the Tiger, he somehow knew, the legendary purba leader with the stripes on his face. The two most wanted men in all Tibet were at Khodrak's gompa.

Shan retreated to the far side of the circle. He wandered out onto the plain, into the comfort of the night, trying to fight the new fear that the Tiger's presence had ignited. An owl called. The mountains on the horizon glistened in the moonlight. The appearance of the purba leader unsettled Shan as much as if knobs had risen out of the fire. The Tiger was not there to help Shan. The Tiger was famed as a man of action. It was said that his mother had been Moslem. Moslems believed in retribution. The Tiger was so hunted, so prominently marked for destruction he could easily have an army of knobs on his trail at that moment. The words Anya had spoken their first night on Yapchi mountain came back to him. So many have died, the oracle had said, so many still to die.

Shan found himself sitting, staring at the sky, beseeching the stars. If only he could just take Lokesh and go. He had no more hope to give the Tibetans, he had no way of seeing through the mysteries that shrouded the gompa and Yapchi Valley. All he could see was the danger.

Time passed, perhaps an hour. Something moved in the darkness, ahead of him. A man, sitting on a rock a hundred feet away, was holding something that glinted in the moonlight, looking not at Shan but out onto the plain.

"The lamas have no patience for me," a deep voice suddenly said behind him. "They say I shouldn't expect to achieve so much in one lifetime." It was an extraordinary voice, hoarse and powerful, like a growl but not exactly. How had Lhandro described it? Like someone roaring in a whisper, because the knobs had broken his voicebox.

As Shan turned toward the man with the ravaged face he saw a second guard sitting on a rock, fifty feet away.

"I told them when I was young I had teachers from the tantric schools who taught that with the right practice you could achieve Buddhahood in one lifetime."

Strangely, Shan realized, he had never heard another name for the Tiger. He shifted uneasily, wondering how many more men with guns lurked in the shadows. And how often the Tiger spoke with Chinese in the night.

"I tell them compared with that, what I seek seems so little." The man sat beside Shan and watched the sky a moment. "When you're always on the run, always moving after sunset, the night sky becomes your home," he said, and for a moment sounded very tired. "You have a man who wrote a letter. Colonel Lin is no friend of Tibet. He has been written, more than once."

Written. The Tiger meant written in the Lotus Book, the purbas' compendium of atrocities against Tibetans.

"I would like to spend time with that Colonel," the purba leader said in a businesslike tone. "Take him somewhere. Valuable things could be learned."

Shan felt his belly clench. "Lin is injured," he said weakly. "Why?" he asked, looking into the man's ravaged face. "Why would you bother to speak to me about this? The purbas know where Lin is."

The man said nothing. Something moved in the distance, and one of the purbas with the guns leapt up. After a moment Shan heard the clatter of small hooves, those of a wild goat or gazelle, and the man returned to his post. Shan studied the Tiger. He seemed like another rock in the night, a lonely statue whose face was slowly being etched away by the wind. Shan realized that the Tiger might have answers to many of the questions that had been plaguing him.

"Why are there no knobs here?" he asked suddenly. "Why didn't the knobs take the abbot of Sangchi?"

The Tiger sighed. "The ones who have him are knobs and not knobs. Things are adrift in this district. Even those knob doctors aren't sure who to report to. We intercepted a request they sent to Lhasa, asking for instructions. They want to go up onto the Plain of Flowers to find the medicine lama. But Tuan and that abbot Khodrak want them here."

"But if monks become the political enforcers," Shan said. "What can the people do to…" his voice trailed off.

"Right," the Tiger said grimly.

"Somo said there are other knobs working for Tuan somewhere else. Five others."

"We can't find them. No one knows where they are. We have tightened security everywhere. No new faces are permitted at any of our meetings now. We have word out all over the district. But those five are not to be found. Everyone is wary, very nervous. It is getting more and more dangerous."

They sat in silence. Crickets sounded somewhere.

"I went to that hermitage where you started but you had already gone," the Tiger said suddenly. "The dropka who were there told us about an old lama taking away the body of Drakte. We followed, and stayed at the durtro until the vultures were done, trying to understand what had happened to him. We talked into the night, and when we awoke your lama was gone, into the mountains."

Had he been wrong about the Tiger? Was he there about Drakte, about finding revenge for Drakte? "I know Drakte was at Amdo town that night," Shan said. "Getting one of the Lotus Books. But why there, why couldn't someone have met him away from the dangers of a town?"

"That damned Serenity Campaign. The howlers are keeping scores for economic success. We laughed about it at first. But this gompa, this Khodrak, decided he had to have the best score in Tibet. And he did." The Tiger gazed at a particularly bright star.

"But it has to be lies," Shan said.

"Exactly. Drakte found out. He had other duties, but he was from this region originally, and he would not allow Khodrak to get away with the lies. It became a personal quest of his, even though I opposed it. When he finished his work for us in the south he roamed through this district to collect the true data. When he found out that a boyhood friend was Tuan's assistant he said it was destined, that he was meant to give it to that Chao. And Chao readily agreed, even said he would trade Drakte something just as good."

"But they were attacked."

"It must have been a trap. To a man like Tuan, Chao would have been a traitor. Chao died, and Drakte was fatally wounded. The Lotus Book Drakte carried was lost."

"How did Chao die, exactly?"

"A stab in the back, wide, like a butcher's knife. They were at a garage. It could have been an ax. Chao died immediately. If Drakte had come to us we probably could have saved him. But he went to you instead."

"You sound convinced they did not attack each other."

"That bastard Tuan must have discovered them. He would have been furious with Chao. Chao could have ruined him. Easiest solution for Tuan would have been to kill them both. He was in Amdo that night, in meetings about the Serenity Campaign. He could kill Chao, say reactionaries did it, and call him a martyr."

They listened to the crickets again. The Tiger pointed out a falling star. "Why speak with me?" Shan asked again.

"I told you. Because of that colonel. There's a woman back there who speaks like a nun," the Tiger said, "from that village that was burned. She says we can't have Lin unless you agree."

They were silent again, for a long time. "All they wanted was to complete their deity," Shan said in a sad, lonely voice.

"All I ever wanted was to grow barley with my father," the feared leader of the purbas replied, in a tone that seemed to match Shan's.

"That deity has to be mended in the light, not in shadow," Shan said after another silence, and he looked skyward, puzzled at the words that had drifted off his tongue. He heard the purba general sigh, and he waited for an answer, but none came. He turned and saw that the Tiger was gone.

When he returned to the campfire the dropka had retired to their tents and Winslow was huddled with Nyma, Lhandro, and Somo. Somo asked Shan to repeat in detail everything he had seen inside the gompa, and they reviewed their plan once more. Everything was ready, but no one had anticipated that Lokesh could not walk.

"That," Winslow said slowly, sprouting a grin, "must be the reason I am here."

The little bell came from far away to reach him, its first peal sounding like an alarm in his consciousness. Shan sat upright in his blanket. It was before dawn. He had slept fitfully, kept awake by Winslow as Lhandro and Nyma taught him a strange dance step in the shadow of the truck. The bell sounded again. Something inside him had been listening, the lao gai Shan who had learned all the many types of bells, sirens, and whistles used by the knobs and their prison guards, had learned to know which bell summoned guards with rifles, and which brought guards to search their barracks or carry a prisoner to the infirmary. Slowly he realized this bell was to summon monks to their predawn prayers.

He rose and stepped around the sleeping Tibetans and through the grey light toward the gates. A solitary guard leaned against one pillar. Electric lights illuminated the assembly hall. Monks were filing out of the sleeping quarters that lined the two side walls of the gompa and entering the lhakang.

"Two long cars came in the night," a voice said at his shoulder. Somo. "Red Flags I think," she added, referring to the limousines used by many of Tibet's senior officials.

"The Bureau of Religious Affairs," Shan said. "The ones Tenzin said were coming from regional headquarters."

They watched from the truck as the monks streamed out of the lhakang an hour later, carrying benches and cushions to the courtyard in front of the administrative building. A table was brought from the dining hall to the building entrance and by fastening boards to it several monks converted it to a makeshift speaking platform with a wooden crate for a step. A man in a shirt and tie appeared in the doorway with another Chinese flag, which he affixed to the front of the platform. Shan followed the first group of Tibetans into the gompa, the guard watching not the Tibetans now but the officials at the entrance.

The window of the upstairs office opened and a large loudspeaker appeared in it. Anthems began to play, until abruptly someone was addressing them. "Citizens of China," a thin voice said. "We salute you. It is you, the children of industry, who have made us a great nation and who will make us greater still." It was the radio. Someone had patched in the May Day speeches from Beijing. A murmur shot through the courtyard. It was the supreme Chairman himself, addressing the nation.

Padme, wearing his robe over a pair of blue jeans, appeared in the door with an uncomfortable expression, studying the disorganized crowd. He glanced up at the window as though debating whether to turn the radio off, then quickly ordered everyone in the courtyard to be seated on the benches and carpets and listen. It might appear unpatriotic not to stop and listen while the Chairman spoke, and even more so to turn the radio off now that the speech had started. Padme dispatched the guard to command the Tibetans outside the gates to attend, darted inside, and reappeared a moment later, without his jeans, to sit in one of the chairs on the podium. Shan remembered the blue jeans they had seen at the burned patch of herbs, and how Winslow had given the monk the yellow nylon vest from the burned meadow to wear. When they had arrived at the gompa with the injured Padme, he had been recognized from a distance. Because the vest, like the jeans, had belonged to Padme.

A tall distinguished Tibetan appeared, grey-haired, wearing a business suit, closely followed by a stocky Han in nearly identical attire, hurriedly straightening his tie. Emissaries from the Bureau of Religious Affairs. The two mounted on the podium and sat beside Padme. Dropka and rongpa began to arrive in family groups and sat on the carpets near the wall.

Then, as the crowd dutifully stared at the loudspeaker in the window, Shan watched as two men in light blue uniforms carried a stretcher with an old man from behind the central building toward the medical station. He sighed with relief. Tenzin had understood the bargain he had to reach with Khodrak. Shan gestured to Gyalo and the two men inched their way along the wall.

Ten minutes later, neatly attired in the white tunics of the kitchen workers, Shan and Gyalo approached the medical team and announced to a technician sitting by the door that they had been sent for the old man with the bad foot. They waited another ten minutes, then the door of the station opened and a man in blue, a stethoscope around his neck, motioned them inside.

"He's sedated. A bad fall, that one. Had to put on a walking cast to stabilize the bone. He'll need crutches for a month at least." The man hovered over a clipboard with an incomplete form, then someone called for him to join the celebration. Chairman Khodrak was waiting with his visitors. The doctor sighed and tossed the clipboard on the table. Suddenly the technician appeared in the door. The man ignored Shan and Gyalo at first but then he stilled and slowly faced the monk. "He's one of those!" the man cried out, pointing at Gyalo. "One of the banned ones! The chairman must be told!"

The doctor gaped in confusion then stared at the radio handset that sat on the table six feet away. He was leaning forward, seemingly about to reach for the radio, when a rope materialized and settled over the technician, pinning his arms to his side. Before the man could cry out, a wooden post hit him on the head, one of the stanchions that had held the rope outside the clinic. The man slumped to the floor, colliding with the doctor as he leapt for the radio. A long, lanky form sprang through the air and Winslow was on top of the doctor, straddling him. The doctor fought for a moment, tearing at the American's clothes. The American launched an arcing blow with his fist that connected with the doctor's jaw and the man fell back, limp.