The Skull Mantra is-1

by Eliot Pattison

  "Not exactly. It's just that this hooligan monk Sungpo, he had no idea of the effects of his murder. With Jao gone, the corruption case is in ruins. We've had to piece it together. We owe it to Jao to finish. We owe it to the people. But you are stirring up too much dust. You are beginning to frighten our suspects. You will ruin it."

  "If you're saying that Prosecutor Jao was going to arrest Colonel Tan, then Tan had more reason than anyone to kill Jao. Accuse him of the murder and Sungpo can be released. The knobs can stand down at the 404th. That's a solution."

  "Give me some evidence."

  "Against Colonel Tan?" Shan asked. "I thought you meant you already had evidence."

  "One might surmise you could have reason to celebrate the passing of the old guard."

  "I have a preference," Shan said contemplatively, "for natural causes."

  "You can't possibly think he would protect you."

  "I have been relieved of the need to worry about protection. I have been entrusted to the custody of the state."

  A sneer built on Li's face. "You are his fallback. His safety net. If you fail to build a case, he will create one. He will have his own case file even if you do not finish yours. All your actions can be construed as an effort to protect the radicals. Obstruction of justice is a lao gai charge in itself. I told you. I made inquiries about you. You weren't picked by Tan simply because you were investigator. You were selected because by definition you are guilty. And expendable."

  It was the only thing Li had said that Shan believed. Shan watched his own fingers move, seemingly of their own volition. They made a mudra. Diamond of the Mind.

  "No one will defend you. No one will say Shan is a model prisoner, a worker hero. Tan can't even put your name on the report. You don't exist. There is no need for you to be a victim also."

  It was the closest Li had come to putting his threat into words.

  Shan studied his mudra. "This place," he said with sudden realization as he surveyed the room again. "It is the Bei Da Union."

  Behind him, Shan sensed an abrupt movement by Li, as if his head had snapped up. "It is an old gompa. It has many uses."

  "I saw a list of gompas licensed for reconstruction. This wasn't on it."

  "Comrade. I fear for you. You don't want to listen to those who want to help you."

  "Does it have a license?"

  Li sighed as he eased off the ceremonial robe and tossed it on a stool. "It has been classified as an exhibition facility by Religious Affairs. It does not need a license."

  Shan raised his palms in a gesture of frustration. "I admire your ability to reconcile it all. For me, it is so confusing. If a group paid by Beijing meets to discuss educating the people it is socialism at work. But if people wearing red robes do so it is an unlicensed cultural activity."

  Li was studying Shan closely now. They were both aware of how dangerous the game was becoming. "You have been out of touch, Comrade. Much progress has been made in defining the socialist discipline for ethnic relations."

  "I do not have the benefit of your training," Shan admitted. He rose and moved to the door.

  "Where are you going?" Li asked, annoyed.

  "The sun is coming through the clouds." Before Li could protest Shan was moving into the courtyard.

  A van had arrived with markings for the Bureau of Religious Affairs. Workers were arranging benches at the side of the courtyard, as if for a lecture. Directing them was the young woman Shan had met at Director Wen's office- Miss Taring, the archivist.

  The moment he saw her Shan understood. In their underground refuge the purbas had said they knew about Shan's discussion of the costume with Director Wen. There was only one person who could have told them. Miss Taring had told the purbas, or perhaps she was a purba herself. He studied her as though for the first time. Her hair was tied in a tight bun at the back, and she wore a white blouse with a long dark skirt that gave her the gleam of professionalism, the model worker. She stopped, nodded casually and started to turn, too, when she caught his gaze. She slowly turned away to issue orders to the workers, her hands behind her back. Shan was about to turn when he saw her fingers moving. Her knuckles clenched together in fists, the thumbs facing each other at forty-five degree angles, the hands almost touching. He had seen it before, an offering mudra. Aloke, the lamps to light the world.

  She held the mudra only a moment, then slowly turned her head toward the rear of the courtyard. She then walked to the far wall and stood beside one of the large Buddha heads, turning at an angle toward something Shan could not see.

  He watched, perplexed, then walked toward the woman. She moved away before he reached the wall, not acknowledging him. He stood where she had stood, trying to understand. There was a gap between the buildings that was being blocked with brickwork. The job was not yet completed. He could see over the unfinished wall into an elegant courtyard. There was a man in the attire of a waiter carrying a tray with tall drinking glasses. A large wooden tub with steaming water was partially set in the ground. Two sleek young women in bikini swimsuits were stepping into it.

  He slowly turned, confused, and found himself facing the opposite direction. He stared for a moment in shock. There was a low building, a stable converted to a garage. Inside it were two red Land Rovers.

  Through the corner of his eye Shan saw Li approaching. He turned and slowly moved along the statue heads, letting Li catch up.

  "Is Lieutenant Chang of the 404th part of your Bei Da Union?" he asked.

  Li frowned. "I believe he qualified for membership," he said cryptically.

  "How about a soldier named Meng Lau?"

  Li ignored the question, and moved closer. "Listen, you should become a witness," Li offered. "Surely having the lead in an investigation must be overwhelming for one in your position. Become a cooperative witness instead."

  "A witness from the 404th?"

  "A witness recently transferred to trusty duties at the 404th, let's say. A model prisoner. I will vouch for you. You are always diligent, you have never been accused of lying, that kind of thing. Your problems have been of a different nature, in Beijing. The tribunal need not know of them."

  "But I have nothing to say." Shan kept walking. There was a pool in one corner of the courtyard. It was made of stone blocks, elegantly carved centuries before, and was populated with small silver fish. Lotus blossoms floated in it, and an empty beer bottle.

  "You might be surprised at what you could say," Li said from behind.

  Shan walked to the edge of the pool and turned. "You haven't described the nature of your corruption investigation." From his perspective he could see a small knoll just beyond the compound. On it was a magnificent seated Buddha, at least twenty feet high. It had an unfamiliar headdress. Shan recognized it with a start. Someone had bolted a satellite dish to the head of the Buddha.

  Li moved to his side and bent toward his ear. "Irregularities in the prison accounts. Unexplained withdrawals from state accounts. Missing military assets."

  "Are you saying that Tan and the warden are conspirators? You're implicating the warden?"

  "Would you like him to be implicated?"

  Shan stared, wondering if he had heard correctly. "I would need to see your files."

  "Impossible."

  "Let me speak to Miss Lihua."

  "Jao's secretary? Why?"

  "Let her confirm Jao's corruption investigation. She would know."

  "You know she is on vacation." Li shrugged as he saw the frustration on Shan's face. "All right. You can send a fax."

  "I don't trust faxes."

  "Okay, okay, as soon as she returns." He glanced at his watch. "The car will return you to town."

  Shan climbed into the car without looking back. He knew Li was lying when he said he didn't want Shan to be a victim. But was he lying because he was worried about the investigation or just for all the usual reasons?

  Li leaned into the window. The sneer was gone from his face. "Damn you, Shan. I don't know why I
'm telling you this. It's worse than you could ever imagine. Heads are going to roll and no one will be there to protect yours. You have to go back to the 404th and I have to get my case done before the madness starts."

  "The madness?"

  "They're opening an espionage case. Someone in Lhadrung has stolen computer disks containing secrets of the Public Security border defenses."

  ***

  Shan watched Dr. Sung march past Yeshe sitting on the bench in the corridor and into her dimly lit office. She threw her clipboard on a chair, switching on a small desk lamp, and pushed aside a plate of old, half-eaten vegetables. She hit a button on a small cassette player and turned to a chessboard. It was in the middle of a game. Opera music began to play. She moved a pawn, then spun the board about. She was playing against herself.

  After two moves she stopped and looked out at the bench. Muttering angrily, she twisted the lamp upward, illuminating Shan's chair in the corner.

  "The most fascinating thing about investigations," Shan observed with great fatigue, "is discovering how subjective truth really is. It has so many dimensions. Political. Professional. But those are easy to discern. What is hardest is understanding the personal dimension. We find so many ways to believe in the lies and ignore the reality."

  The doctor switched off the music and stared absently at the chessboard. "The Buddhists would say we each have our own ways of honoring our inner god," she observed, with a choke in her voice.

  The words shook Shan. Suddenly he did not know what to say. He wanted most of all to let her go, to leave the woman to her peculiar misery, but he could not. "When did you stop honoring yours?"

  He yearned for one of her sharp, angry comebacks, but all he got was silence.

  Unfolding Sung's letter to the American firm, he dropped it in front of her. "Did you feel you were lying to me when you pretended to know nothing about Jao's interest in an X-ray machine? Or did you really believe yourself because only your name was on the official record?"

  "All I said was that it was too expensive."

  "Good. So you didn't mean to lie."

  Sung absently moved a castle. "Jao asked me to write a letter. No one would suspect such a request from a clinic."

  "Why would he need to hide it? Why not just ask himself?"

  She picked up a knight and stared at it. "An investigation."

  "He would have wanted your help to operate it. He didn't say where he would need it?"

  She still stared at the chess piece. "Sometimes he would come, not very often, and we would sit here and play chess. Talk about things at home. Drink tea. It felt like, I don't know. Civilized." She put both hands on the knight and twisted it as though to break it.

  "So you wrote the letter to help in an investigation. To find something that was hidden."

  "It would be so easy to be like you, Comrade Shan, just to ask questions. But I told you before, there are questions that may not be asked. All you have to do is ask about other people's truth. Some of us have to live it."

  "A murder investigation?" Shan pressed. "Corruption? Espionage?"

  Sung laughed weakly. "Espionage in Lhadrung? I don't think so."

  "What was he going to use the machine for?"

  Sung shook her head slowly. "He wanted to know if it would fit in one of his four-wheel-drive trucks. He wanted to know the power source it would require. That's all I know."

  "Why wouldn't you ask? He was your chess partner."

  "That's why." Sung opened her hand and stared forlornly at the knight. "I assumed he wanted it to open one of their tombs. And if I knew that I could not let him sit here again."

  ***

  The 404th was like a cemetery. The faces of prisoners, gaunt and expressionless, peered out of the barracks. The patrols which kept them confined to quarters marched stiffly through the compound. The soldiers kept looking over their shoulders.

  The stable was in use. Shan could tell- not because there were screams. There were never screams from the Tibetans. Nor because of greater activity in the infirmary. He could tell because an officer walked by carrying rubber gloves.

  A cloud seemed to have settled over Sergeant Feng as he moved through the gates with Shan. He did not speak to the knobs on guard at the dead zone but looked straight ahead until they reached the hut, then opened the door for Shan and stood to the side gesturing him awkwardly inside.

  The scene was much as it had been when he left the hut six days earlier. Trinle lay in bed, prostrated by fatigue, a blanket covering his head and most of his body. The others sat on the floor in a circle, taking instruction from one of the older monks.

  Choje Rinpoche had braced his knees and back with a gomthag strap torn from his blanket, so he would not fall while meditating. One of the novices held a rag to the back of Rinpoche's skull. It came away pink with blood.

  It took several minutes for him to acknowledge Shan's inquiries. His eyes fluttered, then opened wide and brightened. He surveyed the hut with an intense, curious gaze, as though to confirm which world he was in. "You are still with us," he said, not as a question but as a declaration of welcome.

  "I need to know something about Tamdin," Shan said, fighting the knot that was tying in his gut. It seemed he felt the lama's pain more than Rinpoche himself. "Rinpoche," he asked, "what if Tamdin had to choose between protecting the truth and protecting the old ways?"

  Of all the paradoxes that riddled his case, the one that troubled him most was that of the killer's motives. Tamdin was protector of the faith, and his victims defiled the faith. But how could such a killer then let innocent monks die for his crimes? That was defiling the faith, too.

  "I don't think Tamdin chooses. Tamdin acts. He is conscience with legs."

  And flaying knife, thought Shan.

  "Like conscience with legs," the lama repeated.

  Shan considered the words in silence.

  "When I was young," Choje offered, "they said there was a man in a nearby village who prayed for Tamdin's help and never received it. He renounced Tamdin. He said Tamdin was a tale created for the dancers in the festival."

  "I haven't met many recently who would call Tamdin a fiction."

  "No. Fiction is not the word to describe him." Choje held his clenched fingers before Shan's face. "This is my fist," he said, then threw his fingers out. "Now my fist does not exist. Does that make it a fiction?"

  "You're saying in certain moments anyone can become Tamdin?"

  "Not anyone. I'm saying the essence of Tamdin may exist in something that is not always Tamdin."

  Shan recalled the last time they had spoken about the demon protector. Just as some are destined to achieve Buddhahood, Choje had said, perhaps some are destined to achieve Tamdinhood.

  "Like the mountain," Shan said quietly.

  "The mountain?"

  "The South Claw. It is a mountain but it hides something else. A holy place."

  "It is such a small piece of the world we have," Choje said, speaking so low Shan was forced to lean toward his mouth.

  "There are other mountains, Rinpoche."

  "No. It's not that. This-" he said, gesturing around the hut. "The world does not take notice of us. There is so much time before, and after. So many places. We are a mote of dust. No one outside should care about us. Only we should care about us. Our particular being occupies this place for now. That is all. It is not much, really."

  The words chilled Shan. Something terrible was going to happen. "You're never going back to the mountain, are you?" He looked up with dread in his face. "No matter what happens. You can't have the road built. That is what it's all about." Why was it so important? Is that where he had gone wrong, not paying enough attention to the secret of the mountain?

  "Waking up every day for fifty years, for a hundred years, is no great accomplishment, after all," Choje said with a serene smile. "It is like arguing that your mote of dust is bigger than my mote of dust. They are the arguments of an incomplete soul."

  They would bring othe
rs to build the road, Shan wanted to say. But he did not have the courage.

  "We have talked. All of us. Everyone has agreed. Except for a few. Some with families. Some who have another path to follow."

  Shan looked around. The khampa was gone.

  "They have received our blessings. They were accepted across the line this morning. Those of us who are left…" Choje said with his peaceful smile. He shrugged. "Well, we are the ones who are left. One hundred eighty-one. One hundred eighty-one," he repeated, still smiling.

  The whistle for exercise blew, then another, and another, in relays through the camp. The men began to stir, without talking, toward the door.

  "It is time, Trinle," Choje called with new strength, and the figure in the blanket rose. Not taking his eyes off Choje, Shan sensed Trinle struggling to his feet. With a shudder he realized that Trinle must have been in the stable. From the corner of his eye he saw the stooped figure wrap the blanket around his makeshift robe and over his head like a hood, then shuffle to the door.

  Only Shan and Choje remained in the hut. They sat in silence amid the brilliant shafts of light that leaked through the loose boards of the walls and roof.

  "What happened to that man? The one who didn't believe?"

  "One day part of the mountain above him collapsed. It destroyed everything. The man, his children, his wife, his sheep. And worse."

  "Worse?"

  "It was strange. Afterward, no one could remember his name."

  Suddenly there was a peculiar swelling of sound from outside- not a shout, but a rapidly rising murmur that carried through the camp. Shan helped Choje to his feet.

  They found the prisoners in the small yard behind the hut, or rather around the small yard, packed two and three deep around an empty space twenty feet in diameter.

  "He's gone!" exclaimed one of the monks as they approached. "The magic…" he began, but seemed unable to complete the sentence.

  "Like the arrow! I saw it. Like a blur!" someone shouted.