Soul of the Fire (25 page)

“The future never comes to Tibet.”

Vogel shrugged. “People like you only prolong the pain for the Tibetans.”

“Is this a script for Madam Choi?”

“Being obsessed with legalisms is just a syndrome of the same sickness. We hear it from you every day. This evidence, that forensic report. You suspect a sham, but what you do is a sham. Law is nothing but a servant of policy. We ride the crest of a momentous wave, a tsunami carrying us to our destiny, and you want to sink us.”

“You really should write this down. The Deputy Secretary could use it in Beijing.” Shan leaned forward. “I was hoping we might talk about Macau. You had room 916. Pao had 918. Lu had 914. Her name was Sanoh Kubati.”

The mention of Macau derailed Vogel's train of thought. He looked away, toward the smoldering garage, and took a long time to collect himself. “The new world is going to be built across borders,” he began again, his voice less steady, “on the strong shoulders of men like Pao and myself. The new globalism is going on right before your eyes, and you don't even see it. Old legal structures are obsolete. They don't suffice. They don't meet the needs of the people.”

“Obsolete ideas. You mean like how the killing of a prostitute is still considered a murder?” Shan stated. “Or is it the one where all citizens, even high officials, must be held accountable for their crimes?”

A tall thin figure materialized out of the shadows and sat down uninvited. Judson folded his hands on the table and smiled stiffly at Vogel, who grimaced and turned back to Shan.

“If I am not mistaken, Comrade Shan, you spent years in a prison camp for clinging to that last foolish notion. How can you reconcile all the talk about law and democracy when the people don't even know their own needs?” the German asked.

Vogel seemed to be debating himself. Shan offered no reply. He was witnessing what passed for conscience among Party zealots. Prick their guilt, and they would speak of their secret knowledge of the greater good.

Judson could not resist. “Still drinking Pao's lemonade, I see,” the American quipped.

“Lemonade?” Vogel asked.

“Never mind. Where's your pipe, Heinrich? You cast more of a sympathetic figure when you smoke your pipe. Quaint and exotic at the same time.”

“You work for the United Nations,” Vogel chided. “You should take our work more seriously.”

“I have never taken anything more seriously in all my life,” Judson shot back. “And I agree that the old systems have failed Tibet. Like you say, individuals have to step forward when government has failed.”

Vogel seemed to sense they were on dangerous ground. He produced his pipe and fingered it as if looking for a distraction. “The UN is not a government. Rather a network of responsible individuals with common interests.”

“More like a social club for the elite,” Judson replied, and looked back toward Lin, who watched from a bench down the street. “This is just another political conference as far as you're concerned, Vogel. Strut in the spotlight and connect with new faces.”

“But Miss Lin is not a new face,” Shan inserted, and studied Vogel. “I suspect she was at Macau. Did she help you and Captain Lu?”

Vogel decided to fill his pipe, but had trouble filling the bowl, spilling tobacco around his feet. He did not look at Shan again until he stood. The wind was shifting, driving an inky cloud down the street. “You have an oratory to prepare for Xie's funeral, comrade,” he declared in a brittle voice, then disappeared into the smoke.

 

CHAPTER TWELVE

The grey-haired lama spoke in an almost conversational tone to Xie, reciting the ancient words of Bardo that explained what to expect in the difficult period between death and rebirth. The lama leaned forward from time to time as if to emphasize his words to the paper mask of Xie's face that sat on the low altar before him. The mask effigy was not uncommon in traditional funerals, for bodies were often removed to the fleshcutters before such ceremonies could be arranged.

“Are they going to bury it afterwards?” Tuan whispered, nodding toward the inked image of the dead man.

“They will burn it,” Shan explained, glancing at his companion, wondering if it was the Religious Affairs officer asking or the orphaned Tibetan. “Traditionally, there would be a seer who would pronounce the particular heaven or hell the dead one was bound for, based on the color of its smoke.”

Tuan leaned toward Shan's ear. “I thought we knew that already. The hell where you sit and listen to Madam Choi read files all day.”

On the low table before the seated lama, the drawing of Xie was surrounded by the Offerings of the Five Senses, representing the physical world he had departed. A mirror stood for sight, a conch for sound, a vase of flowers for smell, a small barley cake for taste, and a strip of silk for touch. Below the table were more bowls of food and drink to fortify Xie for his journey.

They were in what had been the entry chamber for the huge
dukhang,
the assembly hall that had once served the monks of Shetok
gompa.
Although that larger hall was reduced to rubble decades earlier, the tall airy room they gathered in had been restored to serve as the hall for the much-reduced
gompa.
Half a dozen large
thangkas
of old gods adorned the walls. Sweet juniper smoldered in a large brazier just outside the wide entry, whose double doors hung open to the courtyard where latecomers stood. Cones of incense burned on the altar above the effigy of Xie.

Benches had been brought in for the Commissioners. The other attendees sat on the stone flags of the floor or stood, like Shan, at the rear of the chamber. Sung, having promised no uniformed police, assigned four knobs in plainclothes to drive the Commissioners and staff and had stationed them like guards around the perimeter of the funeral assembly. A video camera on a tripod by the entry recorded all who entered. The major's eyes burned with a predator's hunger, darting back and forth, scrutinizing each woman who arrived, pausing over the tall, slender younger ones. The knobs ordered several women to pull their hair away from their face. Shan recalled the grainy photograph that been on Sung's desk, beside the old passport photo of a cheerful young student. The young student had transformed into the robed wraith of Sung's second photo.
Lotus blossom tattooed on left temple
someone had written on that photo.

He had the sense of being watched, and scanned the crowd. Near the door a teenaged girl stood, staring at him. It took a moment for him to recognize her with her intricately braided and beaded hair and clean, brightly colored traditional clothing, but he saw now it was the girl who been with the cart of snow at the Yamdrok clinic. He smiled and she gave a bow of her head in solemn greeting, then looked back to the altar.

Shetok
gompa
was the kind of place Lokesh and Shan liked to visit, a holy site where Lokesh would linger for hours, talking with the lamas about the symbols used in the old
thangkas
and murals or the artifacts flanking the bronze Buddha on the main altar. Shan studied the artifacts as the lama continued to address Xie. A silver-plated skull bowl. Two silver trumpets with gold adornments. A spectacular dancing
dakini
goddess in silver, with a gold face. In one
thangka
over the altar, a very old, ferocious blue tiger god hovered over the Buddha as if to protect him. From another, a horse-headed demon seemed to watch the crowd. Shan looked back at the ragged lamas and monks of the little impoverished
gompa.
It seemed unlikely that Shetok
gompa
had permission to possess such priceless artifacts. Shan looked again at the line of figures.

“When I misbehaved,” came a voice at his shoulder, “my mother used to say a blue tiger would fly out of the sky and bite my head off if I didn't ask forgiveness.” Tuan too was looking at the altar. “Those figures are all supposed to have serial numbers so they can be tracked in our database. If even one is unregistered, we could put the abbot in prison.”

Tuan gestured to one of the
thangkas
over the altar. “Lord of Death,” he muttered. “Should be the real patron of the
purbas.
”

“Actually, no. It is Tamdin, the protector demon,” Shan corrected. He saw the slight flush in his companion's face. “Tamdin,” he repeated, then pointed to the other
thangkas.
“To the left is Songtsän Gampo, Trisong Detsen, and Repachen. Those three
thangkas
are very old. All Tibetan emperors from distant centuries.”

For a moment, Tuan seemed the eager novice. He repeated the names, then gestured to the images on the right. “All demon protectors,” Shan explained. “Chenresik, Manjugosha, Chagna Dorje. The protectors of speech, mind, and body.”

Heads began turning toward the entry. Above the voice of the lama came a rumbling chant from outside accompanied by a hollow rattling and soft ringing. Shan edged toward the doors, Tuan a step behind.

A huge man in ragged, disheveled clothes danced in the courtyard with his arms raised beseechingly toward the sky. His long hair, hanging in tangles around his shoulders, had bits of fur and feathers tied into it. In one outstretched hand, he suspended a small pair of
tsinghas,
ceremonial cymbals. In the other was a
damara,
a hand drum made out of a human skull that sounded with each turn of his wrist.

The older Tibetans around them gazed at the man with worry, even fear on their faces.

“Better and better!” Tuan laughed. “Entertainment!” An old Tibetan man beside him cast a scolding glance at Tuan. “A weather witch, Shan! Bane of Public Security helicopters.”

The aged lamas in Shan's prison had often talked about the weather-makers, also called hail-chasers, who once roamed the Tibetan countryside, taking money from farmers to bring rain or repel hail. They were distant memories in most parts of Tibet, but here, Shan reminded himself, they were in a pocket of deep tradition, where Beijing's relentless campaigns to banish the old ways had never taken root.

Some of the younger monks slipped outside to watch the sorcerer. One gestured toward a line of gathering clouds on the horizon. Sung raised a hand to his mouth, speaking into a hidden microphone, and the men in suits converged on the door.

“What is this?” the major snapped as he reached their side.

“One of the old weather sorcerers, Major.” Tuan spoke with drama in his voice. “He makes storms. You know, the kind that bring down avalanches and slam helicopters into mountains.”

Sung's lips twisted in a silent snarl. As the storm raiser's dance took him toward the rear of the courtyard, toward the parked cars, the major ordered his men to follow. More Tibetans rose up to watch. Sung and Tuan pushed through to the courtyard, but Shan lingered, looking back. Only the last four rows of attendees had risen and crowded at the entry. Only the last four, as if their movements had been choreographed.

Outside, the conjurer turned his dance into a half run. With remarkable agility he leapt onto the engine hood of one of the utility vehicles from Zhongje, then onto its roof. He danced for a moment, then in a white cloud vaulted to the roof of the adjoining vehicle, dancing again and then leaping again in another cloud until he had jumped on all four of their vehicles. From each perch he was throwing barley flour into the air, as Tibetans often did on special holidays. But he had aimed the flour so that it coated the windshield of each vehicle. Sung cursed and pushed toward the man, who adroitly pulled himself from the last car onto the top of the old wall that surrounded the compound, where he continued his strange ritual.

Suddenly Shan realized the video camera was gone, and a new voice rose from the altar. A slender robed woman knelt before the effigy and was speaking to it in a melodious tone. Madam Choi, sitting at the front, seemed to have lost her color and her strength. She put a hand on Miss Zhu's shoulder as though needing help to stand, then a dozen monks behind her stood and started repeating mantras in loud voices. They moved between the altar and the Commissioners. Shan saw Choi trying to shout an alarm, but the monks drowned her out.

Shan worked his way through the crowd for a better view of the altar. The woman in the dark brown robe might have been a nun except that at her waist she wore a red embroidered belt and around her neck was a sash in three colors. Not a sash. She was wearing the flag of Free Tibet. With a graceful motion, she reached into a sleeve and laid an old pocket watch beside the effigy, then leaned a photo beside the inked face, an image of a small girl in the arms of a much younger Xie. Dawa, the most sought-after fugitive in Tibet, had come to pay homage to her father. She had taken Sung's bait.

Shan darted to the door, seeing that Sung had sent two of his men to climb the wall in pursuit of the weather-maker, who had worked his way to the wall over the gate. As Shan watched, he entered a little stone structure that may once have been a guard tower. Suddenly another of Sung's men appeared on the far wall, running toward the tower. The hail-chaser was about to be trapped.

“It's her!”

Sung spun about to see Madam Choi hammering monks with her fists as she struggled to get out of the crowd. “Dawa is here!” she frantically sputtered.

With quick, furious commands, Sung called back his men from the walls. As they leapt down, telescoping metal batons appeared in their hands.

Shan darted toward the altar. Nearly every attendee was now standing, many of them milling about, looking confused, though Shan now knew most were deliberately seeking to hinder the passage of the knobs. “Run!” he shouted in Tibetan. “She must flee!”

One of the knobs slashed through the crowd in front of Sung and Choi, striking savagely about with his baton to clear a path. Shan rammed the knob with his shoulder, pushing him off balance. The man roared with anger and pounded his baton into Shan's back, dropping him to his knees.