Bone Mountain is-3

by Eliot Pattison

  Beside the maps were sheets from old peche. From the words Shan could make out and the diagrams of plants they appeared to be directions for finding and using herbs. Six feet down the long table was another grouping of old writings, broader than peche leaves, arrayed around a tablet with the familiar caption decrying feudalism. The tablet had perhaps thirty names, in Chinese. Names were being transcribed from the old papers, which were records from an old gompa. They were names of lamas and monks, he suspected. The howlers were recording the names of the former inhabitants of Rapjung and Norbu to see if any of their families survived. Shan had been conscripted for similar tasks during his imprisonment. Refining the socialist context, a political officer had called it, when he had been forced to help cross-reference telephone directories with lists of old gompa members. The surviving families might not be punished, might never know they had been identified. But the party cherished such data, for future reference, for possible leverage when more information or intimidation might be needed. A white sheet was clipped to one peche page, bearing a Chinese translation. Jokar Rinpoche, a summary said, senior instructor at Rapjung and now a senior member of the Dalai Cult. At the top of the sheet someone had written an excited note. Guru Dorje, it said, this is the one, with the words underlined twice: he came from Rapjung. It was why the medical teams were staying. They had discovered Jokar's destination.

  A chalkboard had been propped on an easel at the end of the table, on which a list of numbered rules had been inscribed, with a number of cross-outs and corrections, as if they were still being drafted and refined: No contributions shall be made by the people directly to monks or nuns. The managing committee of the gompa must receive and record all contributions. All those who contribute more than two percent of income shall pay a tax equal to one hundred percent of the contribution. Labor contributed to reconstruction of any religious shrine, cairn, or gompa must be reported, valued, and taxed accordingly. Religious Affairs will strictly enforce the requirement that all religious artifacts are the property of the people's government. Those with personal shrines must pay a rental to the government. Gompas will be encouraged to start economic enterprises and will eventually be required to report a profit to maintain their licenses.

  It had the sound of a bizarre manifesto, the platform for a campaign that would truly mean the end of religious activity in Tibet.

  Shan looked back uneasily at the note that bore Jokar's name. Guru Dorje, it said at the top. It was like an irreverent nickname. Guru was Sanskrit, another word for lama, and the dorje, the thunderbolt scepter, was one of the most important implements of Buddhist ritual.

  Below the chalkboard at the end of the table lay a stack of reports with glossy covers. Each was nearly an inch thick and had a plastic spine along its left side. Prosperity Blooms in Norbu District, the title read. Shan stared grimly at the reports, then leafed through the top copy. Computer graphics had been heavily utilized, with graphs and tables and pie charts, most comparing current economic activity in the district with historic performance. The district was a powerhouse of development, the report explained. Barley production had soared four hundred percent. Sheep herds had increased threefold, goats almost fivefold. The severe health problems that had once debilitated the population were gone. Friction between the district's diverse populations had been eradicated.

  Beside the reports was a facsimile of a brief letter from Religious Affairs headquarters, congratulating Khodrak and Tuan on their success in the Serenity Campaign and noting that their proposal had met with enthusiastic support in Lhasa and Beijing. Lhasa looked forward to announcing the new institute for Tibetan children that would be awarded to Norbu. An institute. It was why Tuan had referred to needing more teachers, why Drakte had been so upset about Khodrak's falsification of the data. Sign the ledger, Drakte had told the woman at the Lamtso Gar, or all your children will grow up to hate you.

  Shan lingered at the door a moment, looking at the blackboard, then stepped back into the still-empty corridor. Drawing a deep breath, he walked into the office, staying in the shadows, away from the window. Over a hundred people sat outside, watching the speaker in the office window. No one, as he had hoped, had dared stay inside to work while homage was being paid to the Chairman. He quickly surveyed the room. Two photographs were taped over a filing cabinet. One was of Tenzin, taken in the conference room where Khodrak had confronted him less than two weeks earlier. Beside it was a photograph from a newspaper, showing Tenzin in a robe, his head shaven, greeting several important-looking Han, over a caption that said the Tibetan people welcome the Vice Premier. Over the door, invisible to those who looked in from the corridor, was a small banner, in Chinese only. Strike Hard. It was the name for one of Beijing's most aggressive campaigns against the Tibetans in recent years, in which the howlers and knobs had temporarily joined forces in another effort to pry Tibet's collective fingers from its rosary.

  He glanced at the clock. By now Somo and another of the purbas were dropping down the back wall, wearing uniforms of the 54th Mountain Combat Brigade. Suddenly there was applause, both over the radio and from outside. Shan darted out of the rooms a large office occupying the entire end of the floor opposite the conference room, with windows overlooking the courtyard, just in time to see Tenzin being led around the corner by one of the knob guards. The radio was switched off. Standing in the shadows, he watched as Khodrak stood and introduced the important visitors form Lhasa, then stated that it was his great honor to make an announcement that would reverberate throughout the world. The famous abbot of Sangchi, lost for so many weeks, had come to Khodrak, and the abbot had chosen to honor Norbu by announcing to the world, on May Day, on the steps of their own gompa, that he had not been fleeing or kidnapped but had simply been on retreat to better understand the socialist imperative. The assembly stared in disbelief before breaking into enthusiastic applause. The Religious Affairs officials conferred excitedly, then stood and vigorously shook first Khodrak's, then Tenzin's hand. The abbot of Sangchi, Shan saw, wore one of the Norbu gilt-edge robes.

  Shan watched, his heart racing, as Tenzin spoke, offering his gratitude to everyone at Norbu gompa. "If I have confused the people of Tibet," he said, "I apologize. Perhaps I myself was confused for a long time. But now, here at Norbu gompa, because of Chairman Khodrak, I have come to clearly understand my path," he said, and looked out toward the northern landscape. "I am a hermit who wanders the countryside," Tenzin said in a melodious tone, "a beggar who travels alone. I left behind the land of my birth and gave up my fertile fields."

  Khodrak and Tuan glanced nervously at each other. Tenzin was reciting one of Milarepa's songs, one of the ancient songs Lokesh sometimes sang. The Closing Song some called it, because it was written when the famous teacher lay dying. A dropka ventured forward to the podium and handed Tenzin a khata. Khodrak smiled icily then inched forward as another, then a third Tibetan offered Tenzin prayer scarves. Khodrak looked uneasily at the Bureau officials, rose and stood at Tenzin's side. One of the monks stepped forward with a camera and snapped a photograph.

  Shan's gaze drifted toward the wall by the window. Pinned there was another of the maps depicting the sterilization campaign. He turned to study the room. Along the wall by the door was a row of filing cabinets, above which hung a flag of the People's Republic. Past the cabinets, in the corner, sat a cardboard box, its contents covered with dust. They were photographs in uniform black frames, most of which were images taken in banquet halls or on the steps of important government buildings. Tuan was in all the photos. Tuan in a knob uniform, Tuan in a business suit, Tuan with Khodrak, raising glasses with army officers, even Tuan on the Great Wall. He looked up. In any other office these would be trophies, to be prominently displayed. But Tuan had no personal photographs on his walls, no mementos of his career.

  A different kind of photograph was pinned to the wall behind a large desk, a glossy picture ripped out of a magazine, of a small cottage on a tree-lined lake with a rowboat pulled up in fro
nt of it. Under the picture was a small table with a single drawer. Shan slowly opened it to find a large knife, a butcher's knife, and over a dozen packs of cigarettes. He looked back up at the cottage by the lake. It had the air of someone's retirement dream. He looked at the knife. It could have been used to kill Drakte.

  A facsimile page had been left on the otherwise empty blotter of the desk. Shan scanned it without touching the paper. It was confirming that transportation had been arranged for the Norbu delegation to attend the upcoming celebration for the Yapchi Valley oil project, in two days time. Lhasa had decided that the event provided the perfect opportunity for the anxiously awaited award ceremony for the Serenity Campaign. Norbu's new institute would be announced at that time. A photographer would accompany them, and a security contingent.

  A small black wire ran from the wall into one of the desk drawers. Shan opened the drawer to reveal a white dial telephone, with an index card of numbers taped to its side. He lifted the receiver to confirm it was live, warily set it down. He opened the drawer below to find medicine bottles, over two dozen bottles of pills. Standing, he paced the room, then found himself back at the desk, lifting the phone. He quickly dialed the first number, listed as the Religious Affairs district headquarters in Amdo town.

  A woman answered on the fifth ring. "Wei," she said. It was the universal syllable used over telephones in China, not a greeting, just an anonymous acknowledgment.

  Shan froze, about to hang up, then looked at the five digits on the face of the phone and recited them to the woman.

  "I am sorry," she said. "Everyone else is at the labor day celebration. If I can help the Director's office-"

  "It is a day for honoring heroes," Shan said.

  "Yes," the woman replied uncertainly.

  "The trip to Yapchi," Shan said. "The arrangements for travel. The Director wanted me to confirm that we received them, to make sure no last minute changes had been made."

  "No changes."

  Shan turned and looked at the picture of the cottage again. "The Director reminded us that heroes walk among us. It is why he wants the full names and addresses for the five, so they may be properly recognized."

  "I'm sorry?"

  "The Director has a private meeting with those from Lhasa. He has decided that on a day such as this all of the people's heroes must be honored. Those who work in secret too often get overlooked."

  "But you must have-"

  "Everyone else is at the labor day celebration," he reminded her. "If you are worried about security I will give you the identification numbers so you can cross-check them," he said, pulling out the paper Somo had given him, and carefully reading out the numbers for the five unexplained entries.

  "Very well," the woman sighed. "I will fax the list immediately."

  Applause from outside interrupted. Shan hung up the phone, closed the drawer, and darted to the front window. Khodrak was patting Tenzin on the back. Shan began unbuttoning the jacket he had borrowed, turned toward the door, and froze. Director Tuan stood in the doorway, fixing Shan with a ravenous stare.

  "I could have you shot," Tuan hissed. "I could have a bullet in your head by nightfall. I have had you checked with the Ministry of Education. Impersonating a government worker. Breaching state security."

  "Perhaps you forget you are no longer with Public Security," Shan observed woodenly.

  The Director of Religious Affairs opened his mouth to speak, then was interrupted by more applause. "We don't have time to worry about such niceties right now," he sneered, and stepped into the room. "Whatever you are- fugitive, dropout, deserter from the army perhaps? — we will find out. Later we will have time to decide what to do with a man who impersonates a teacher. A vile thing to do. There are places we can keep you in chains until we decide how best to dispose of you." He turned as though to call for assistance.

  "I never said I was a teacher," Shan shot back. "You jumped to conclusions. You also said I could be useful. You gave me your card." All he could hope for was to keep Tuan off his stride, buy time for Somo and the others.

  Tuan's mouth opened but his words became lost in a sudden fit of coughing. He backed against the wall by the door, his hand pressing a handkerchief to his mouth. When the coughing stopped he closed his eyes a moment as if he had grown faint. As he lowered the handkerchief Shan saw pink spots on it. "What were you doing here?" Tuan snarled, as he stepped away from the wall. Anger still colored his voice but the fire in his eyes had dimmed.

  "Watching the proceedings, like everyone else. It would be rude to enter the audience when such a prestigious guest is speaking."

  "You knew about him," Tuan said accusingly. "You were with the abbot. He was probably hiding behind the hill that first day we saw you."

  "He never told us he was the abbot."

  The Director stepped past Shan to the window and stared at Tenzin, still on the platform, then looked back at Shan. "We were going to draw up papers today, to decide who he was going to be if he refused to cooperate. An illegal reactionary. Perhaps the killer of our beloved Chao," he said icily. The threat was thinly veiled. Tuan needed to finish the hunt for Chao's killer, his final victory leading up to the awards ceremony at Yapchi. Tenzin would have been a convenient candidate. Someone else would have to be found.

  "But that was a problem for the Public Security Bureau," Shan said, eyeing the open door. "Your problem is winning the Serenity Campaign."

  Tuan followed his gaze and sighed, slowly stepped to the door and shut it. For a moment he seemed like an old, weary man, not angry but bitter. "That," the Director gloated, "has already been done. It only remains to collect our prize."

  Perhaps that was the mystery he should focus on, Shan thought. Perhaps he had not sufficiently weighed the stakes of the strange game Khodrak and Tuan played. "Your photograph in the Lhasa paper? A congratulatory letter from Beijing?" Such things would seem of little import to a man who kept such trophies in a dust-covered box. He remembered the chalkboard in the conference room, the list that had read like a manifesto. "The institute? A statue in Amdo town?"

  An odd light began to shine in Tuan's eyes. "Serenity," he said in a tired voice. "Serenity is all I want." He took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and held them under his nostrils as he had the time he met with Shan in the meeting room below. His sickness was in an advanced state, Shan realized. "The problem with everyone in Tibet is that they have been conditioned to settle for less. There are riches here, riches in the ground. Once we become the model, all things will be possible."

  We. He meant Khodrak and himself. He meant the district, his district, as a model of development. It was a dusty old paradigm, the use of an enterprise as a political model. The government would pour subsidies into such a model to guarantee its success, to create a propaganda model to demonstrate the correctness of its policies. More than a few of Beijing's most conspicuous models had later proven to be shams, rife with corruption and forged production records. He recalled the photographers and monks posing with hammers, the pictures taken of Padme and his monks with the young shepherds in new clothes, the doctors with young Tibetan mothers. Tuan and Khodrak knew the game well. They had packaged everything, ignoring the truth, ignoring the rules of the Serenity Campaign even, but playing by rules Tuan had learned from a long career in the government and as a Party member. Their institute could quickly become a corporation, and with control of the leading economic enterprise in the region, they would rule a small kingdom.

  "My partner arranged for Public Security to be told Chao's killer had gone into Qinghai. That was risky. My former colleagues can be overzealous."

  Shan stared at Tuan, trying to make sense not of his words, but of the man himself. He had once been one of those zealous knob officers, and retired. He had gone to seed and sprouted a new career, growing ever harder, more callous, more bitter. More sick. "Your partner is a busy man."

  Tuan gave an amused snort. "When you're a thunderbolt you can move fast and strike hard." It had th
e sound of a tired joke.

  Shan clenched his jaw. Guru Dorje, the note had said. Guru Thunderbolt. It was Khodrak's nickname. But Shan had seen the name on another piece of paper, scrawled at the top of the yellow slip Somo had found in Drakte's boot, the compilation of data on Public Security soldiers. "Your partner was asking Chao for information on your payroll," Shan observed, watching Tuan closely. Chao had not intended the payroll slip for Drakte. Perhaps he had it out, showing it to Drakte when the killer came, but the note was meant for Khodrak.

  Director Tuan paused. He glared at Shan, not seeming to notice that the fax machine by the desk was humming, was receiving a fax, then looked out at the podium with a forced smile. Strangely, he looked back at his photograph of a lake cottage.

  "I liked that Chao," Tuan confessed airily. "He was the only one of my staff who told jokes. He could fix things when herders became un-cooperative." Tuan's eyes narrowed. "I found him in that old stable, dead a few minutes, sliced open along his spine like a pig in a butcher shop. I thought the trail of blood was his at first, then I realized he would never have had the strength to rise from that wound. I sent my men to follow but they lost the trail in the mountains."

  Shan studied the Director, weighing his words. Tuan was saying, or at least trying to make Shan believe, that he was not the killer. "The one who ran may have not been the killer, he may have been a victim as well."

  Tuan shook his head. "We swept the town. Put up roadblocks, stopped all traffic for twenty-four hours. If the murderer had stayed in the town we would have had him."

  "You assume the murderer was someone you didn't know."

  Tuan shrugged as if disinterested, then studied Shan with narrowed eyes. "I will finish it, I will close this matter myself. Chao was one of mine. It is for me to decide." His words had the barest hint of an apology in them.

  Something icy crept into Shan's belly. "Reports have to get written for public executions. Someone in Lhasa will check. They expect evidence in the file."