by Fritz Galt
Sullivan considered how ridiculous it might sound under the circumstances. “I believe Shangri-la does exist.”
Linda stared at him under drooping eyelids. “Oh-kay.”
That showed how one should know a person better before getting involved.
“Just bear with me,” he said. “I’ll explain it after we finish this.”
He returned to the book. The Bureau for the Study of Ancestral Heritage employed the services and relied on the research of Sanskrit scholars, German hunters and Swedish explorers to delve into the secrets of Tibet. Seeking protection from the Chinese and British, Tibet invited the Germans to their festivals, hoping to maintain good relations with fellow Buddhist Japan.
The Germans measured over 300 skulls of Tibetans and determined that they were an intermediary race between the Mongol and European races.
Sullivan snapped the book shut and closed his eyes. He tried to imagine Germans in their frantic and futile search for superhuman power. It was clear that Hitler was driven to find the origins of his race for more than propaganda purposes. He truly believed that he was a god.
“So, did Hitler believe in Shangri-la?” Linda asked.
Sullivan winked. “Let’s leave it there for now and move on to Stalin. How was he interested in Shangri-la?”
“You begin,” Linda said, sticking with precedent and seniority.
Sullivan cleared his throat. He had focused more on Stalin’s diplomatic and military attempts to find Shangri-la. His research had gone into Stalin’s wars with Japan over Outer Mongolia. Japan had annexed Inner Mongolia to Manchuria and then taken Outer Mongolia by force. Calling Japan “Shambhala,” Emperor Hirohito hoped to win the support of the Mongols to take over Outer Mongolia and Siberia and form a pan-Mongol Japanese protectorate. It made Hirohito’s motives suspect as well. Under the short-lived Nazi-Soviet Pact, Stalin quickly ousted Japan from Outer Mongolia. Lastly, Sullivan described Stalin’s effort to acquire a part of China by signing the Potsdam Proclamation calling on Japan to surrender unconditionally.
“Now I suppose you’ll throw another book at me.”
Linda leaned forward and slid a thin volume his way. It was titled “Trek to Shambhala.”
Stalin was fascinated by the idea of a Shangri-la and believed it was somewhere in southern Siberia. The book was a first-hand account of an expedition that he had organized to search Siberia for that hidden utopia.
And the chief agent for this expedition was none other than the revolutionary, assassin, intriguer, secret police spy, and adventurer Yakov Blumkin.
A top-secret laboratory was established in the Moscow Power Engineering Institute. Its purpose was to study ESP, hypnosis and brainwashing with respect to radio waves. The specific purpose was to learn how to telepathically read the thoughts of enemies from a distance and remove information from the brain. The existence of the laboratory was one of the main state secrets of Soviet Russia, which financed it until May of 1937.
“This reads like a hack novelist’s take on the USSR,” Linda said.
“Don’t be so certain we didn’t try it ourselves.”
In 1926 and 1928, the Soviet secret police financed covert trips to Tibet in search of the “magicians of Shambhala,” natives rumored to possess telepathic powers. A famous artist and theosophist, Nicholas Roerich, led two expeditions to Lhasa, while Yakov skulked around disguised as a Buddhist Kalmyk Mongol officer and as a lama.
They didn’t come back with telepathic powers. Instead, they returned with stories of how difficult the place was to reach. Yakov spread out a map of the region where, according to approximate data, the mysterious Shambhala was located. “Before you lies the white wall of the eastern Hindu Kush. From its snow apexes it is necessary for you to go down into the slums of North India. You will be met with a most staggering impression if you are introduced to all the horrors of this road. Porters will cross jagged rocks and cliffs, as horses cannot traverse the pass.”
“I went once on these paths,” Yakov continued to relate. “My friend’s translator changed from a fresh and cheerful fellow to an old man. People turned grey from all the anxiety, and they began to fear space. It was necessary for me to rest awhile, and when I began again, I overtook the porters and found two translators weeping. They said, ‘It is terrible to go there. You will die there.’”
When he looked up, Sullivan saw Linda staring at him. “And you sent your son there?”
He shrugged. “It was Brad’s choice.”
“So I take it Stalin never went.”
“We shall see,” he said. “Turning now to Roosevelt.”
“You go first,” she said. “What have you found?”
“Again, we have intense interest in the concept of Shangri-la,” he said, recalling the superficial Internet searches he had performed. “FDR was ailing and thus named the presidential retreat during the war ‘Shangri-la.’ He named an aircraft carrier in the Pacific ‘Shangri-la.’ And the code name that the American army used for Kunming, the stronghold of the Nationalist Army in southwest China, was ‘Shangri-la.’”
“Is that all?”
He shifted uncomfortably. How far into the area of speculation should he venture? “Add to that the fact that the American military in China concentrated on building the Burma Road from the Bay of Bengal up through jungles and mountains to Yunnan Province. And Roosevelt disappeared for months on end during the war on unspecified warships somewhere in the Pacific. How’s that sound to you?”
“You’d make an excellent conspiracy theorist.”
That stung. “And what do you have on FDR?”
“Well, beyond the obvious that you just mentioned, there was a possible mole that FDR had planted in western China and Tibet.”
“Mole?” As a CIA case officer, he was naturally intrigued.
She pulled out the biography of a man named Joseph Rock.
“Who’s he?”
“He’s an Austrian who later moved to Hawaii and became a U.S. citizen.”
“Austrian? As in Vienna?”
“Yes. Like Hitler. For over twenty years spanning the 20s and well into the 40s, Joseph Rock lived and worked in western China and Tibet. Ostensibly there under grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he spent most of his time documenting the local cultures and plant life and publishing articles that described the area in microscopic detail. He was a staple of National Geographic with his articles and photos, and most likely inspired James Hilton to write Lost Horizon.”
“Why do you say he was a mole?”
“Rock worked both sides of the Atlantic. His research helped Hitler’s Bureau for the Study of Ancestral Heritage as well as his American masters, who wanted to map and document the region. It’s hard to say exactly who he was communicating with, exactly what he found, and where his loyalties lay.”
“Now you’re beginning to sound like the conspiracy theorist.”
“I guess it’s safe to say that Shangri-la was on everyone’s mind during the war,” she summed up.
“As it is today,” he said. “Let’s grab lunch.”
Chapter 51
Thursday
Brad and May awoke early Thursday to the sounds of fishermen preparing for their morning catch. Brad sensed that he was getting closer to Shangri-la, but it was down to two days and he had no clues. May bade a fond farewell to the statue of her father and they headed down to the quay.
“I want to catch a boat to the other side of the lake,” Brad announced.
“North?”
He nodded. They would follow the incense.
Presently, a tour boat pulled up, and a group of Japanese and Greeks stepped ashore to visit the island.
They departed an hour later with Brad having befriended a young couple from Thessaloniki.
“We’ll pay our way,” Brad offered. Not that he had much money.
“No problem,” the young man named Dimitrios said. “It’s already paid for.”
Soon they were heading toward a pier off the town of
Xizhou at the end of the lake. The waves calmed as they approached the warren of two-floor shops and family compounds.
“Next on the agenda,” Dimitrios said, “is a Bai tea ceremony.”
Brad was starving, and tea would help.
However, May had other plans. While the group headed for the ceremony, she tugged Brad toward the bus station. “What is our destination?” she asked him.
He looked around. He needed to get a better feel for the area. It was market day, and all the squares were filled with farmers selling produce. Among the trishaws and handcarts, a police car was coming their way. That settled it.
“Let’s stick with the tour group.” The group had gathered outside a family compound. “Follow me.”
May grimaced impatiently, but let him take the lead. Perhaps she didn’t feel as conspicuous as he did, but her sleek pants suit did clash with the drab tapestry of the market.
They were joined by another busload of foreigners at the Bai house to attend the tea ceremony. Brad and May took seats on lacquered chairs on one side of the courtyard, the side of the residence that seemed built for people to inhabit, as opposed to the storerooms under the balcony across the compound.
Soon, lights illuminated an improvised stage. An emcee, his hands cupped before him, invited the group to join in the ceremony.
A lively performance followed. Brad was there to hide from the police, but grew enchanted by the dancers. Their red- and white-feathered headdresses resembled those of American Indians. A bride appeared in aviator sunglasses while men strummed air guitars. The performance enacted the various stages of a person’s life, symbolized by different flavors of tea.
With actors bounding around the stage, women brought out the first serving of tea. Brad greedily took a cup. It had a woody-taste meant to represent bitterness and the heartache of first love.
Then the male and female leads began to warm up to each other, prodded on by suggestive movements of the dancers around them. Another tea was brought out, and Brad slurped from the small round cup. Yum. It was honey-sweet…with cheese sitting at the bottom.
He politely set the rest of the drink on the tea table beside him. He took the opportunity to look back at the audience. One Japanese man was whistling at the women. He must have confused the performance with a burlesque show at a previous stop.
Then the music turned mellow as the couple settled into a rich and full life. Women finished pouring the last type of tea and brought it around. Brad glanced over his cup at May, and their eyes met. This promised to be the sweetest tea of all. Would they ever achieve such bliss?
He took a sip and nearly choked to death.
Apparently, the tea was meant to show the spicy aspects of life after marriage. The strong cinnamon flavor clogged his throat and wasn’t going down. Doubled over, he fought the urge to cough it back up. He gasped for air and perspired heavily. He wiped his forehead and looked at May. Judging from her smile, the tea had gone down well.
The ethnic Bai reenactment of the three phases of life reminded him of his readings of the Buddhist Kalachakra, the Wheel of Life. The initiation ceremony asked one to relive the stages of childhood. There were seven parts to the Buddhist ceremony, each related to a stage of development of an infant into adulthood.
While the dancers performed their final number, he ruminated over the Kalachakra tantra. After taking a week to create a round mandala out of colored sand, priests and the vajra master gave their students the “Seven Childhood Initiations.” The purpose was to help them become reborn in the ideal, fit to enter the perfect world of the mandala.
The Kalachakra text was supposedly created in Shambhala. It described Shambhala and the original was thought to still reside there. Brad had paid close attention to the subtleties of the text and the ceremony that sprang from it. He could still recite the Buddhist seven significant events in the life of a child that the ceremony was meant to relive.
In the first initiation, the child received a name. Then he would have his first bath, followed by other initiations: getting their first haircut, experiencing the five senses for the first time, having his ears pierced, uttering his first word, and lastly learning how to read.
Only when the student was reborn, the symbolic blindfold could be lifted and he would see the mandala in all its perfection. Like a spiritual roadmap to Shambhala, the mandala guided the new initiate toward paradise, represented by a lotus blossom.
Was he ever going to see that mandala and find Shangri-la? He thought back over the past day when he and May had entered the Dali area with its profusion of religions and ethnic groups. The disorientation that he experienced seemed almost mystical at times. And he couldn’t help wondering if he was being sucked into an initiation of his own, reliving the stages of his life.
After all, he had unwittingly undergone the first two initiations. He had been given a name, never mind that it was Ming Wen, a girl’s name. And he and May had taken an unscheduled dip in Erhai Lake. If he ended up in a barbershop getting his first haircut, that would prove he was on the road to Shambhala.
He waved good-bye to Dimitrios and his girlfriend as the last of the tour buses pulled away. It was clear to the local vendors that he and May were the only big spenders left, and they swarmed around with goods to sell. The noise was attracting the attention of a pair of policemen.
Brad looked around. They had to disappear. The smell of local food was wafting from a nearby courtyard. “Shall we dine?”
May took one look at the police and stepped through the doorway into what was an otherwise empty restaurant. Thankfully, the pesky hawkers remained behind.
Brad hadn’t had a good meal in days, and this promised to make up for it. A waitress led them past a rock pond to a room with open windows that overlooked the courtyard.
“Shall we eat al fresco?” he asked.
May screwed up her lips. “Let us eat Chinese food.”
And that is what they did. May ordered the complete menu.
A clay pot of spicy beef was brought out. With one eye on the front gate, Brad allowed himself a nibble. Next came a pot of stir-fried garden vegetables that he could not resist. Then a plate of shrimp followed by a tureen containing tofu and spinach soup. The sweet and sour pork also hit the spot. He liked the two vegetable dishes that followed, particularly the fried cabbage. He spooned several heaps of rice onto his plate and kept his chopsticks busy. He chased it all down with a bottle of Dali beer.
“That will do for now.”
When May looked confused, he went for a simpler phrase.
“I’m stuffed.”
The waitress poured them tea to help with digestion.
Brad enjoyed the tea. He listened to the water trickling in the pond. He would make an excellent old man some day, hanging out with his buddies at the city park. And May would make a fine old lady with whom to while away the hours at home.
“Ay-yo!” she said under her breath.
What was it? He had been facing the gate the whole time and nobody had entered. He turned to look where she was pointing.
The two policemen in white uniforms with official shoulder boards were standing in the next room asking questions.
“That’s our cue to leave,” Brad said, and helped May out of her chair.
He spotted a door leading to the interior of the building, presumably a kitchen and living quarters.
“Go through the building,” he said.
Steam rose from a boiling vat and from dumpling baskets. A rear door led onto a back alley no wider than their shoulders. May ducked under the laundry that hung in their way, then paused at a gate.
“Follow me,” she said, and entered what turned out to be another courtyard.
They ran into huge sheets hanging up to dry. The fabric was tied in little designs and dipped into blue dye. Brad glanced in an enormous barrel of something akin to indigo, where an old man stirred a wad of cloth. Then he heard footsteps closing in from behind.
“Pour on the speed,”
he called ahead, and ran headlong into a sheet. He bounced off it and looked for a way out of the maze. His vision was affected by ooze that dripped from his forehead. Then someone ran into him from behind. It was May. They were going in circles.
Her face was also streaked with blue dye. They were marked.
He found daylight to the south, the traditional gateway in a Bai building.
“This way,” he whispered.
They aimed for the light and turned down a second alley, the police in hot pursuit. He was beginning to regret his big meal. Maybe he should have turned down the beer.
A heap of white powder lay in the way. Then Brad saw a half-painted wall. The mountain of lye was used to whitewash the wall. The dangerous chemical could destroy his shoes and eat away at May’s bare feet.
“Jump,” he called back to May, then hurled himself over the small mound. He landed on a wobbly tile on the other side and nearly fell on his back.
May charged toward him. She launched into the air with more grace than a Chinese gymnast and landed in his arms.
His two blue-dyed hands left streaks down her back. She grabbed him by the hand. Together, they squeezed between the ever-narrowing walls. Along the way, they passed closed gates that led to further courtyards.
The footsteps had stopped behind them. The policemen must have balked at the whitewash, unwilling to ruin their shoes.
May turned a corner out of sight of the cops.
“In here,” she called.
It was another temple. On closer inspection, it was a pair of shrines. For a country that had tried to rub out religion, he had seen a lot of temples in one day.
May led him behind an altar and pushed him to the floor. He burped and lay down. She panted beside him.
He studied the deep blue sky through the oranges and perfume bottles on the altar table. Perfume?
“Why is there perfume on an altar?”
May sat up and glanced at the artwork and characters painted on the red walls.
“This is for a man who killed a—” The word eluded her, so she made a hissing noise.
“A cat?”
