“Why does the statue have a hole in the back?” someone asked. It was the same question that Charlotte had been about to ask.
“It was toppled over by looters centuries ago,” Marsha explained. “Most of the statues at Dunhuang are hollow. They’re constructed of clay modeled on a wooden armature. The looters were looking for hidden treasure inside them. The monks often hid manuscripts and other valuables in the statues’ bellies, believing that the treasures gave them spiritual power.”
“Imagine that!” said Vivian as she looked down at the torso of a fierce-visaged guardian spirit, bare-chested and heavily muscled.
Charlotte thought of Chu, the warrior with the chink in his armor.
“Before we talk about the painting,” Marsha continued, “I want you to travel back in time for a moment, and imagine this cave as it was during the Tang Dynasty. It would have been hung with silk temple banners, and lit with torches. Candles and incense would have been burning at the feet of the Buddha, and the walls would be resounding with the chanting of the monks. Now, let’s look at the mural of the Western Paradise on your left.” She shined her torch at the wall, revealing a mural that must have been twenty feet long and ten feet high. As they looked at it, Marsha pointed out the main features. The center of the mural was occupied by Lord Buddha, who sat on his magnificent lotus throne amid a majestic assembly of haloed divinities. Below him was a lotus pool, in which newborn souls in the form of babies emerged from lotus flowers under showers of falling blossoms. In the foreground, peacocks strutted across marble-tiled courtyards, and an orchestra played for dancers turning graceful pirouettes. In the background, a paradise of palaces, pavilions, and gate towers stretched off into the misty distance.
It was a gorgeous painting. Charlotte was especially struck by the colors, almost all of which seemed to have lost nothing with age, despite what Marsha had said about their having deteriorated. Two colors predominated. One—the shade of the lotus pools—was a limpid bluish-green somewhere between teal and turquoise that reminded Charlotte of the translucent glazes of the celadon bowls she had seen at the National Palace Museum. The other was a rich red ochre that reminded her of the desert sandstone. To her, they were the colors of China. The only sign of deterioration was in the pale pink flesh tones, which Marsha explained had oxidized to a dark chocolate brown, making the faces look as if they’d been painted by Rouault rather than a Tang master.
As Marsha explained the technical details of the painting—the nature of the plaster that was laid on the walls, the type of pigments that were used, how the designs were laid out—Charlotte wandered around the chapel, feeling as if she herself were submerged in that delicate, glowing green light. She was especially taken with the graceful asparas, the angej-like figures who hovered above the rooftops of the palaces and pavilions or darted swiftly in and out of the spiraling copper-colored clouds of the heavens.
The scenes on either side of the paradise mural were equally fascinating. Framed by a beautiful mosaic of flowers, they depicted the everyday life and concerns of the earth dwellers: women ground wheat, made pottery, or laid fruit out to dry in the sun; men hunted, fished, cut timber, forged iron, or transported their produce to market on the big-wheeled donkey carts that hadn’t changed in eleven centuries.
“I think I like these little paintings even more than the big one. They really show you what life was like back then,” said Vivian, who had joined Charlotte. “Look at this one!” she said, shining the beam of her flashlight on a painting. “The young couple is getting married!”
Captivated by the images, Charlotte found herself following Vivian along the low, narrow passageway that encircled the central pillar. She’d been told that when the caves were still active centers of worship, the pilgrims has moved clockwise around these pillars in their meditations, in the direction of the sun. In places, the stylized lotus pattern of the square bricks that paved the floor had been worn almost smooth by their feet.
She was studying a battle scene populated by dozens of the elegant, prancing steeds for which the Tang Dynasty was noted, when a piercing scream shattered the stillness.
It was Vivian. She was about ten feet away, in the chamber at the rear of the central pillar. Her arms were flapping around at her sides, causing the beam of her flashlight to zigzag wildly. She looked like a very plump chicken that was trying to fly.
Charlotte rushed toward her. She had just climbed the step up to the chamber behind the central pillar when she tripped over something. Shining the beam of her own flashlight at the floor, she could Hardly believe her eyes. It was a leg—a human leg, not the limb of a broken statue. The foot was sticking stiffly out over the step; it was a large foot, and it was clad in a brown and black boat shoe. With the beam of her flashlight, she followed the leg up to the rest of the body, which was that of a man lying on his back in the path that had been worn in the floor by the pilgrims’ feet. His face was turned toward the back of the cave, but he was clearly dead. He’d been stabbed in the chest. Like Larry, except that he appeared to have been stabbed several times, and there was much more blood. The blood had left a dark blotch on his navy-blue sweatshirt, and a puddle on the floor which had flowed into the pattern in the molded bricks, throwing the lotus design into clear relief. There were also gashes on his left forearm where he had thrown up his arm to protect himself. Even his hands were bloody: more gashes on his palms and the undersides of his fingers indicated that he had attempted to grab the knife away from his attacker. But despite all the blood, there wasn’t the strange, coppery smell that had permeated the air inside Larry’s tent. The blood was dry. Like the pigment in the pink paint used for the skin tones of the figures in the wall paintings, it had oxidized to a dark chocolate brown.
Though the victim’s face was turned away from her, Charlotte knew right away who he was. He was wearing the same clothes he had been wearing the evening before at the Lake of the Crescent Moon—brown wool slacks and a navy-blue sweatshirt. It was Peter Hamilton.
10
The discovery of Peter’s body was followed by the arrival of Ho and his entourage. Once again, they all sat in the overstuffed armchairs of the reception room, sipping bitter green tea and answering questions. Chu chain-smoked and spat, Ho wriggled his mustache, and Ho’s dim-witted assistant blinked stupidly. The fan whirred, and the photographs of Chou and Hua stared down from the walls. If Charlotte had been confused before, she was all the more so now. For two days, she had been operating under the assumption that Larry’s death was linked to his discovery of the T. rex skeleton, an assumption that was supported by the missing page in the field diary. But it seemed improbable that Peter’s death was also linked to the discovery of a dinosaur fossil. It was possible, of course, that the two men had been killed by different people, for different reasons. But the chances of two murderers being at large in an oasis less than a mile square were highly unlikely. There was also the matter of the mode of death. Both victims had been stabbed, which pointed to a single murderer. True, they had been stabbed in different ways—Larry had been stabbed once and Peter several times—but that could be accounted for by the fact that Larry had been asleep. He didn’t have a chance to fight back, hence the single, simple stab wound. As for Feng: since he’d been locked up in jail since Friday, there was no chance that Ho would be able to pin the murder on him this time.
After a subdued dinner and a brief tour of the Academy’s museum, whose few sorry relics—plates, jars, water pitchers, and tools used by the Dunhuang artisans—pointed up how few portable objects the Western explorers had left behind, they had all retired to their rooms. Charlotte felt as if she needed a good night’s rest. Larry’s death had been a shock, but she hadn’t lost the feeling of solid ground beneath her feet. Peter’s death left her feeling as if she were enveloped in billowy copper-colored clouds, like one of the asparas in the paradise painting. But they were roiling, noxious clouds that choked her breath, fogged her vision, and caved in when she tried to put her weight on t
hem. Then there was her throat, which was still scratchy and swollen. Tea would help, she thought, as she straightened up her room. After fixing herself a cup, she got out her I Ching coins. Maybe the Sage, as Kitty called it, would help her decide how to proceed. She could still go to the music store, but apart from that she had no ideas. There was no point in questioning Bert now. He might have been a remote suspect in Larry’s death, but she couldn’t conceive of any way in which he could be connected to Peter’s death.
This time the I Ching was no help. Or rather, it described her situation with perfect accuracy, which was no help at all. The hexagram that she cast was Hexagram 3: “Difficulty at the Beginning.” The situation was still dark and unformed, the I Ching said, describing it as “teeming, chaotic profusion.” It was up to her to wrest order from the chaos, but to find her way, she had to separate first and unite later, “just as one sorts out silk threads from a knotted tangle and binds them into skeins.”
Thanks a lot. But the Sage did offer one ray of hope: it said that the chaos was a result of the conflict among the many elements that were struggling to take form. Therefore, order was implicit in the chaos. As long as she kept her goal in sight and proceeded in an “orderly manner” rather than boldly plunging into the “forest of obstacles,” she would succeed in her undertaking. The question was, What was an orderly manner?
Bill Reynolds supplied her first clue the next morning. He had been in Dunhuang since Larry’s death, waiting for the police to release Larry’s body and effects. There was no point in his making the eleven-hundred-mile journey back to Beijing, only to have to turn around and come back in a few days. He intercepted Charlotte after breakfast in the courtyard where she had spoken with him on Saturday. Once again, they sat under the twisted old pear tree, drinking Luoky Cola. Peter’s death had come as a shock to him too; it was a rare occurrence for an American to die in China, let alone be murdered. An elderly tourist occasionally had a heart attack, but that was about it. And for two Americans to be murdered in the same town was virtually unheard of.
Reynolds’ narrow forehead was creased with worry. “The Fiske family is bringing up the heavy guns. They’ve already requested a full-scale Congressional investigation, and there’s no telling what kind of shit’s going to hit the proverbial fan now that two American nationals are dead.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have a problem with Peter’s family, too.” She told him about Peter’s hyphenated in-laws, Lord and Lady Waverley-Smythe, who, if they were as prominent as Peter implied, weren’t going to settle for any trumped-up explanations from the police, either.
“Damn,” was Reynolds’ response.
“Have the police told you anything about Peter’s death?”
“Only that the murder took place during the night, and that he was stabbed five times in the chest with a knife with a six-inch blade—the same type that was used in Fiske’s murder. They haven’t found the knife.”
On the cliff, Charlotte could see the white-jacketed security police scurrying like ants over the walkways and verandas, searching for the murder weapon, she assumed, or for any other clues that might turn up. “What about Larryls death?” she asked. “Anything new—from the interviews with the servants, for instance?”
Reynolds shook his head. “The servants insist he was killed by the kwei, the devil spirits. And everybody else claims to have been asleep in bed, except for O’Dea, who was out hunting for fossils in the desert.”
What about Bert? Charlotte wondered to herself. Had he lied to the police about being asleep? “When was the last time anyone saw Peter?” she asked.
“The evening of the murder, on the way back to his room. When he didn’t show up at the library the next day—that’s where he had been working—Chu thought he had gone to Bezeklik. He told us he was going there when we were talking about the destruction that took place during the Cultural Revolution, remember?”
Charlotte nodded.
For a moment, they sat there silently, looking up at the cliff.
Then Reynolds spoke. “Speaking of the Cultural Revolution, I finally got Kong, the director of the Chinese Academy of Dramatic Arts, on the horn yesterday. I told him you were interested, and he was thrilled. He wants to meet with you in Beijing. Will you be able to do it?”
“Yes,” she said, pleased that the project seemed to be, falling into place. “But what about the campaign against spiritual pollution? Chu’s son told me about it yesterday. He said that all Western films have been banned. Does the ban extend to plays, as well?”
“It would have, but the campaign against spiritual pollution is history. Chu’s son is a little behind the times. The Party bureaucracy abandoned it after it was generally conceded to be a failure.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” she said.
For a few minutes, they worked out the details of her meeting in Beijing. Then Reynolds checked his watch. “I’m meeting with Ho again in a few minutes. I’ll let you know if anything more comes up. Oh, there’s something else,” he added, pulling out a key from the pocket of his khaki chinos.
“What’s this?” she asked as he handed it to her.
“The key to Hamilton’s room. He’s been staying in the old guest house, as it’s called. It’s actually a temple with sleeping quarters for pilgrims, which Wang built. With the money he received from Stein for the manuscripts, I might add. It’s at the foot of the cliff opposite the secret library.”
“And?” said Charlotte.
“And, I thought you might want to look around a little. The police already searched it, but they didn’t find anything. You’ll find it just as it was when he died. Since his possessions are under our jurisdiction, they didn’t remove anything. I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary either, but then I don’t have your talent for detection. I’d appreciate it, however, if you were discreet.”
Charlotte smiled. “I will be,” she said.
“Second room on the left,” said Reynolds.
“No gritty details?” said Charlotte.
“No gritty details.”
Searching Peter’s room was certainly an orderly manner in which to proceed, Charlotte thought as she headed toward the temple. In fact, if she were to pick the most orderly manner, it would be to start there. She could have waited until nighttime to search, but she was curious. And now was a good time, before the daily onslaught of tourists from Dunhuang town. The paved avenue at the foot of the cliff was deserted. There were no groups of Chinese from Hong Kong having their pictures taken in front of the caves, no groups of fat Australian tourists with their shoulder bags and sun visors. There was only the tinkle of wind chimes, the chirrup of birds, the mutter of chickens, and the crying of a baby from the settlement of peasant homes hidden among the poplars and fruit trees. She was halfway along the cave complex when she encountered Victor sitting on a poplar-shaded bench in front of the library, a modern building that adjoined the museum.
She stopped to say hello. “Taking a break?” she asked.
“Sort of,” he replied. “Cooling off would be more accurate.”
The strain of reading the manuscripts must have been getting to him, Charlotte thought. He looked very pale and tired, and his sharp brown eyes were ringed with deep maroon circles. “Out here?” she asked. It must have been well over ninety degrees.
“I’m cooling off mentally, not physically. I just had a run-in with Chu. He won’t let me decide for myself which manuscripts to work on. He brings them out to me one at a time, like a kindergarten teacher passing out cookies, and I have to look each one over and decide whether I want to work on that one or not.” He sat with his hands clasped between his knees. As he spoke, he squeezed his fingers tightly together. His voice was bitter. He raised a hand to tug nervously at his goatee, and then continued. “Without being able to look over the whole lot, I have no way of knowing whether the manuscript I’ve chosen to work on is the most important one or not.”
“It sounds like Wang parceling out the m
anuscripts to Stein,” she said. It also sounded as if Chu delighted in using his authority to cause trouble, she thought, remembering Emily’s tear-stained face.
“Exactly, except that I’m not likely to win Chu over by professing my belief in his patron saint. Or by lavishly distributing silver for the restoration of the caves. I wish Averill were here,” he said. “He was much better at raising hell about these kinds of things than I am.”
“Chu’s probably getting back at Westerners in general through you,” she said. She went on to tell him how bitter Chu had been about the fact that the Stein Collection at the British Museum was inaccessible.
“I’m sure you’re right,” Victor agreed.
“Is Marsha having the same problems?”
“Not that I know of. But she works on the secular manuscripts, which are much less common than the religious texts. Because there are so few of them, they’re all interesting. She’s translating some Tang Dynasty ballads now.” He looked up at her. “Where are you off to?”
She evaded the question. “Just taking a walk,” she replied.
“Well, enjoy,” he said with a wave. “I guess I’ll get back to work.”
As Victor stood up, Charlotte ambled down the avenue. Once he was inside, she increased her pace. Just past the museum there was a small orchard planted with gnarled old fruit trees—apples, apricots, and peaches. Beyond the orchard lay the courtyard of the old temple. As she climbed the steps, she imagined that this was how the temples at the Lake of the Crescent Moon must have looked before the Red Guards had burned them down: quaint tiled roofs with upturned eaves, lattice-covered windows, intricately carved and painted woodwork. No one was around. The only signs of life were the butterflies that hovered over a plot of zinnias, and a couple of brown chickens who seemed to have made a nest under their shade. Crossing the deserted courtyard, she climbed a set of low steps to the loggia, which was supported by red-painted columns. Opening the ornate wooden door, she found herself in the spacious temple hall, which had a shrine at one end with gaudily painted statues of Buddhist deities similar to the ones in Cave 16. More of Wang’s bad taste, she gathered. The doors to the sleeping quarters opened off the temple hall.
Murder on the Silk Road Page 17
