Soul of the Fire (30 page)

“Because he knew the protesters would go to you, wherever you were.”

Her nod seemed forlorn. “Not all. But, yes, some came to understand how to honor themselves.”

“They talk with you and then embrace the flames. You have the last chance to stop them.”

Even in the night, he could see Dawa's eyes flash. “Never once did I say they should seek the flames!” Then she softened, and held her head in her hands for a long moment. “I must have had this conversation a hundred times with my father. I am no nun now, but people seek me out as a nun. The teachings say suicide is a grave sin, certain to lead to a far lower level of existence in the next life.”

“And how did you react when he said that?”

He could see her bitter grin in the moonlight. “You have it wrong, Shan. I would recite the teachings and he would argue. ‘We are living at the end of time, and the lives of humans at the end of time have to be different,' he told me, ‘they must be different, for it is on their backs that the next age is built. It is a time of bold action, of transition and new measures.' He would say he himself was made of two separate worlds, and he could never obey the rules of each of those worlds at once. He said we must be ready to do the unthinkable. ‘Good people grow lazy with their souls lulled asleep,' he would say. ‘If a few brave souls wish to wake them with fire, who are we to stop it?' I was the one who argued it was a sin.”

“I have seen photos of the immolations, Dawa, of the bodies afterwards. They haunt my sleep. Since the poems appeared, the immolations have increased. What does that make you? The spark for the fire? The wind that fans the flames?”

Dawa pressed her fist against her breast as if her heart ached. “At first when someone came who was contemplating immolation, I would do all I could to persuade them to stop. But most would not listen to me. They were coming to me not to be dissuaded but to tell me their act was an affirmation of our cause, to make the living stronger.” Her voice broke. “My father said our duty was not to stop them, but to show them the beauty in their final act so their spirits would be calm as they passed over.” A tear rolled down her cheek.

“The poems.”

She wiped her cheek and nodded. “The first two had been students with me, and we were sometimes disciplined by our abbess for writing poems and reading the poetry of Ani Jinpa when we should have been studying.”

“You wrote the poems for the immolations?”

“Never. Only those who had decided to end their lives would do so. But the word spread fast. It became another way of blessing the act. Once you decide to accept the embrace of Agni, you write a poem to show you did not die with hatred in your heart. My father said it was the way all of us should die, in courage and beauty. They come here or sent word for Yosen or Pema to go to them.”

“Bearing blank paper from Shetok.”

“We found a old stock of it, from the printing press they once operated. It had been blessed for use in sacred books a hundred years ago.”

The sound of the running water filled their silence. Above them, a nighthawk called. “That day of the funeral,” Shan suggested. “It wasn't you on that horse.”

“Of course not. We had to clear out Public Security. I stayed another hour, and we gave my father a proper ceremony. Afterwards, we took his body up to the fleshcutters.”

“I am sorry not to have known him.”

“You have much in common with him. Judson said you were going to speak at his funeral. What would you have said of a man you never met?”

Shan offered a weak smile. He
had
met Xie and sat in his chair, had lived with him since his first day at the Commission. “All I could think of is something that Judson himself told me. “I am only one, but still I am one.”

Dawa bit her lip and offered a sad but grateful nod.

“Did he not understand the danger he was in by serving on the Commission?”

“He had a weak heart. He lived week to week, day to day. He is the only one I know who would read that old poem from the Panchen Lama about death with joy on his face.”

“‘Empower us to take the essence of life,'” Shan recited.

Dawa completed the verse. “‘Without being distracted by its meaningless affairs.'” She looked up at the stars. “He did not know how long he would live, and he said if he did not go on the Commission, someone else without his understanding of Tibet would serve.”

“He did not know he would give his life for it,” Shan said. “But sometimes hidden crimes find hidden justice,” he added, hoping to comfort her.

“I'm sorry? Justice? For a bad heart?”

She saw the confusion in Shan's eyes as he turned to her, then seemed to sag. “People treat me like I have to be protected like a child,” she said in a tight voice. “Like I were some fragile little girl.”

“People treat you like the rarest of leaders.”

Her eyes filled with moisture again. “Tell me, Shan. Tell me all.”

He began with what he had heard about Xie's opposition on the Commission, which threatened Pao's plans, then explained what he had seen on the surveillance videos. “Tserung and Dolma knew, and someone else, who tested the contents of his stomach.”

Dawa gave another sad smile. “My cousin Pavri is the assistant to the chief doctor in Zhongje. She worked as a traveling nurse for the remote villages, the closest thing to a doctor they knew, but came back to Yamdrok to be near Dolma and Tserung. They are all the family she has left.”

Shan recalled the demure, bespectacled Tibetan woman who assisted Lam. She would have known how to incise and close Xie's stomach and use the lab to test its contents. She would have known, with her uncle, how to make the signs chalked on Lam's walls. She had also been the one, he remembered, to frighten the infirmary staff with tales of Tibetans ghosts.

Dawa was silent a long time, dabbing at her cheeks. “You're saying they suspected my father of secretly working against them. You didn't say why.”

“He argued the Tibetan side in every case.”

“That would have been expected, and no one would have expected him to change the outcome. Surely it would not be reason to kill him.” She reached out and squeezed his arm. “Tell me, Shan.”

He spoke toward the snow-covered peaks, struggling to get the words out. “Did you really think they wouldn't read his mail?”

She said nothing for several long breaths, then suddenly an agonized sob racked her body. “Father!” she cried. Her head dropped into her hands and she wept.

Shan put his hand on her back and she fell into his shoulder, still sobbing.

It was a long time before Dawa could speak. “Everything we do is touched by death,” she whispered. “He was the stronger of us. He would tell me always to think of death as only a rebirth.”

She straightened and scrubbed at her cheeks. “It was the Deputy Secretary who caused his death.”

“Someone acting on his instructions, yes.”

“You have to leave it alone, Shan. You don't understand how dangerous Pao can be. Stay away from him. Too many others have been lost.”

“I have known many like him.”

“I doubt it. He has no soul. He kills people on a whim, even his own people.”

Shan turned to her in surprise. “Why do you say that?”

“We saw how he does it. Rather, Sergeant Gingri saw it. Even when he reported it, I wasn't convinced. But then he showed me the video.”

Shan went very still. “Saw what exactly?”

“It was a little shrine with a tiny one-room chapel beside it, in one of those high passes on a back road into Lhasa. Gingri served in Lhadrung, and knows the army ways. Sometimes he finds out army secrets for us. An army officer made contact through a monk. He wanted to negotiate, to do something that would get him noticed in Lhasa, I suppose.”

“An officer in Lhadrung?”

“That tyrant Tan's county, yes. We are constantly trying to find out which detainees are in what camp. It is agony for the families not to know where they are, not to have some assurance that they are at least still alive. At least when they know where their loved ones are they have the chance to send letters, even visit. It gives them hope, when hope is spread too thin. That officer was willing to give us lists of names, but he wanted concessions, something he could take to Lhasa. He was ambitious, trying to make a name for himself. Gingri decided to try a test of his goodwill. Thirty unregistered artifacts for the list of one camp's detainees. The captain agreed, and Gingri set up an exchange at that shrine. Very remote, but right along the side of the road for easy access.”

“Lu,” Shan said. “Captain Lu was his name.”

Dawa paused and pursed her lips. “Perhaps. Ask Gingri. The sergeant took four of his men with him, and they were working on restoring the
chorten
as cover. The captain arrived, and surrendered the list. They were putting the artifacts into his car when another car arrived, a big black utility vehicle. Pao got out. He had a gun and starting shouting, shooting in the air, cursing all the Tibetans. Everyone fled. But when Sergeant Gingri reached the cover of the rocks, he turned on his cell phone.”

“But there are no cell towers in those mountains.”

“We distribute phones to all those who help us. Not to make calls but to take photos and videos. Cheaper than cameras.” She pulled out a small phone and tapped the screen several times, then extended it to Shan. “See for yourself.”

The image was surprisingly clear. Shan instantly recognized both the oversized black utility vehicle that Pao used as his limousine, and Captain Lu. The Deputy Secretary paced around the
chorten,
first speaking with a short person in black, no doubt another knob, who stayed in the shadows behind the car, then raising a fist at several Tibetans who were running up the slope. Puffs of smoke appeared as he fired more warning shots. He paused by Lu and spoke, then conferred with the knob at the other side of his car. Suddenly he stepped deliberately toward the officer, who was now loading the remaining artifacts into his car. Pao raised the pistol and shot Lu in the back of the head. A frightened gasp could be heard on the video as Gingri backed away, turning off the camera.

Tan's instincts, as always, had been right: Pao had murdered Captain Lu.

“What have you done with this recording?” he urgently asked.

“Not a thing. A senior Party official and a senior Chinese officer. Not our concern. Pao took all the artifacts, then put Lu's body in his car and that knob with Pao drove it away, following Pao. A few days later, a crew came and destroyed the shrine.” She shrugged. “We will build another.”

“But we can use this to stop him.”

Her answer was quick and forceful. “No. We cannot, Shan. We would stir up an earthquake in Beijing. They would react with massive arrests and closing of still more
gompas.
Exercising subtle leverage, for small victories, is our goal.”

“You are sitting on evidence that would change the balance of power in Tibet.”

“From one Pao to another? What does that get us?”

Shan looked into the dark waters. “Justice,” he said in a small voice.

Dawa made a sound that may have been a laugh. “We should raise a statue of you. The last man alive who thinks justice can still be found in Tibet.”

“Then why even allow us to enter your sacred valley?”

“We will surrender the video camera we took at Shetok for you to return to Major Sung, with the video of him with the burning Maos. We made copies.”

“Why? Why are we here?”

“To save the three prisoners. And to save Tserung and Dolma, for if we did nothing, they would have tried to arrange their escape and paid dearly for it.”

“Lokesh, Yosen, and Pema.” Shan repeated the names of the prisoners as he weighed her words. “How could you have known I would bring them?”

“You would never leave without Lokesh. And we made sure you knew Yosen could find me, and that you glimpsed Pema's missing finger,” she added with a small smile. “Sorry.”

“This is what you mean by small victories.”

“Now Sung will listen. Sung understands that the
purbas
will negotiate.”

“He will not last if he has no leverage against Pao. Give me the recording of Pao killing Captain Lu, and I will see that he listens. To negotiate what?” he added.

Dawa took a long time to answer. She finally looked back with wise, sad eyes. “Everything we do is about the same thing. We negotiate the end of time.”

She rose and left him to sit alone and ponder the wonders of Takhtang. It was probably the closest he would ever come to the fabled Shangri-la. He knew he would have to leave all too quickly, but knowing it existed would give him strength. He studied the landscape in the rising moon, trying to memorize all that he could so he could describe it to his son.
Chortens
gleamed in the moonlight. The light grey rock of the overhanging cliffs were like a glowing half dome. An antelope grazed by a grove of trees. A woman stood in the stream.

He stood and had taken a few steps toward her when the American woman turned and approached him.

“It's life-giving water, the Tibetans say,” Shan observed. “The streams that flow out of spiritual power places.”

Hannah gave a small, silent nod, then made a sweeping motion with her hands that took in the entire valley. “I feel so light when I am here, like sometimes I might just float away. Of course, Judson says it is just the altitude.”

“I'm expecting a five-hundred-year-old lama to appear at any moment,” Shan replied.

A smile lit her face and she abruptly stepped forward and embraced him. She squeezed him tightly, then held his hand as she released him. “You'll never know what this has meant to me, having the chance to see Taktsang again. You made it possible, Shan. Thank you.”

He began to grasp the pain he saw in her eyes. “You don't think you'll be allowed back in Tibet, because you won't support the government on the Commission.”