The Skull Mantra (19 page)

Sergeant Feng paced in the corridor outside as she examined the scalp.

“All right,” she said at last. “Behind the right ear. A long ragged contusion. Some skin was opened.”

“A club? A baton?”

“No. Rough-edged. A rock could do it.”

Shan produced the card taken from the prosecutor's body. “Do you know why Jao would have been talking to someone about X-ray equipment?”

Sung studied the card. “American?” she asked, handing the card back. “Too expensive for Tibet.” She pulled a pad from her pocket and busily wrote notes.

“Why would he want such equipment?”

She shrugged. “Must have been for an investigation.” She turned the collar of her blouse up as if suddenly cold.

“What about the Americans at the mine? Would someone need this type of equipment for them?”

Sung shook her head. “They have to use the clinic like everyone else. Allocation of medical resources has been carefully planned.”

“Meaning what?” Shan asked.

“Meaning the most productive members of the proletariat must be supported first.”

Shan stared at her in disbelief. She was quoting something, as warily as if this were a
tamzing
session. “The most productive members, doctor?”

“There is a memo from Beijing. I can show it to you. It states that Tibetans suffer permanent brain damage by spending their childhood in oxygen-deprived altitudes.”

Shan wouldn't let her get away with it. “You're a graduate of Bei Da University, doctor. Surely you know the difference between medical science and political science.”

She returned his stare for a moment, then her gaze drifted to the floor.

“This must be difficult,” Shan offered. “An autopsy on a friend.”

“Friend? Jao and I talked sometimes. Mostly it was just the investigations. And government functions. He told jokes. You don't often hear jokes in Tibet.”

“Like what?”

Sung thought a moment. “There was one. Why do Tibetans die younger than Chinese?” She looked up expectantly, her mouth in a crooked shape that may have been a grin. “Because they want to.”

“Investigations. You mean murders?”

“I get dead people. Murder. Suicide. Accident. I just fill out the forms.”

“But you wouldn't fill out our form.”

“Sometimes it's hard to ignore the obvious.”

“And the others? You're never curious?” he asked.

“Curiosity, Comrade, can be very dangerous.”

“How many traumatic deaths have you investigated over the past two years?”

“My job is to tell you about this body,” Sung frowned. “Nothing else.”

“Right. Because that's what your forms are for.”

Sung threw her hands up in surrender. “Anything to shut
you up. Okay. I remember three who fell off mountains. Four in an avalanche. A suffocation. Four or five in auto accidents. One bled to death. Record-keeping is not my responsibility. And that's mostly the Han population. The local minorities,” she said with a meaningful glance, “do not always rely on the facilities provided by the people's government.”

“Suffocation?”

“The Director of Religious Affairs died in the mountains.”

“Altitude sickness?”

“He didn't get sufficient oxygen,” Sung acknowledged.

“But that would be death from natural causes.”

“Not necessarily. He lost consciousness from a blow to the head. Before he recovered someone stuffed his windpipe with pebbles.”

“Pebbles?” Shan's head snapped up.

“Touching, really,” Sung said with a morbid smile. “You know it was a traditional way to kill members of the royalty.”

Shan nodded slowly. “Because no one was allowed to commit violence on them. Was there a trial?”

Sung shrugged again. It seemed to be her defining mannerism. “I don't know. I think so. Bad elements. You know, protestors.”

“What protestors?”

“Not my job. I don't remember faces. If asked, I attend and read my medical reports to the tribunal. Always the same.”

“You mean you always read your reports. And a Tibetan is always condemned.”

Sung's only response was a sharp glare.

“Your dedication to duty is an inspiration,” Shan said.

“Someday I'd like to return to Beijing, Comrade. How about you?”

Shan ignored the question. “The one who bled to death. I suppose he stabbed himself fifty times.”

“Not exactly,” Sung said with a dark gleam. “His heart was cut out. I have a theory on that one.”

“A theory?” Shan asked with a flicker of hope.

“He didn't do it himself.” On the way out she threw open the door so hard Sergeant Feng had to jump out of the way.

 

Twenty minutes later he was in Tan's office. He had passed Yeshe in the waiting room, ignoring his agitated whispering.

“You, Prisoner Shan,” Tan declared, “must have balls the size of Chomolungma.”

“Do you know for certain the cases are not related?”

“Impossible,” the colonel growled. “They're closed cases. You're supposed to be filling in one hole, not digging others.”

“But if they are related—”

“They are not related.”

“The Lhadrung Five, the people call them. You mentioned them yesterday. I didn't understand when you said the protestors keep proving your point, that you were too easy on them after the Thumb Riots. It's because they are being arrested again. For murder.”

“The minority cultists have difficulty complying with our laws. Possibly it has not escaped your attention.”

“How many of the Five have been arrested for murder?”

“It only proves it was a mistake to release them the first time.”

“How many?”

“Sungpo is the fourth.”

“Jao prosecuted them?”

“Of course.”

“The connections can't be ignored. The Ministry would not ignore such connections.”

“I see no connections.”

“The five were all here in Lhadrung. Convicted and imprisoned together. A connection. Then, one after another, four are charged with murder. A connection. First three prosecuted by Jao. The fourth charged with Jao's murder. A connection. I need to know about those three cases. Proving a conspiracy might finish the case.”

Colonel Tan eyed Shan suspiciously. “Are you prepared to attack a conspiracy by the Buddhists?”

“I am prepared to find the truth.”

“Have you heard of the
purbas?
” Tan asked.

“A
purba
is a ceremonial dagger used in Buddhist temples.”

“It's also the name taken by a new resistance group. Monks mostly, though they don't seem to mind violence. A different breed. Very dangerous. Of course there's a conspiracy. By Buddhist hooligans like the
purbas,
to kill government officials.”

“You're saying all the others were officials?”

Tan lit a cigarette and considered Shan. “I'm saying don't let your paranoia conceal the obvious.”

“But what if it's something else? What if the Lhadrung Five themselves were the victims of a conspiracy?”

Tan gave an impatient wince. “To what end?”

“Covering a larger crime. I could not suggest anything specific without analyzing the other cases.”

“The other murders were all solved. Don't confuse the record.”

“What if there is another pattern?”

“A pattern?” When he exhaled smoke Tan had the appearance of a dragon. “Who cares?”

“Patterns can't be seen in just two deaths. Sometimes not in three. But now we have four. Something may have been invisible that could be seen now. What if it were obvious to the Ministry, which will have access to the files? Four murders within a few months. Four of the five most prominent dissidents in the county are tried for those murders, but no effort is made to link the cases. And the victims include at least two of the most prominent officials in the county. Two or three, you might explain as a coincidence. Four murders feels like a crime wave. But five, that might seem negligent.”

 

A pattern, Shan repeated to himself as he followed Yeshe and Feng into the clutter of the market square. There was a pattern, he was certain. He knew it instinctively, the way a wolf might smell prey on the far side of a forest. But where was the scent coming from? Why did he feel so sure?

The market was a jumble of stalls and peddlers selling
from blankets arranged on the packed earth. Shan's eyes opened wide as he absorbed the scene. Here before him was more life than he had seen in three years. A woman held out yak-hair yarn, another shouted prices for crocks of goat butter. He reached out and touched the top of a basket full of eggs. Shan hadn't tasted an egg since leaving Beijing. He could have stared at the basket for hours. The miracle of eggs. An old man tended an elaborate display of
torma,
the butter and dough effigies used as offerings. Children. His gaze settled on a group of children playing with a lamb. He fought the urge to walk over and touch one, to confirm that such youth and innocence still existed.

Sergeant Feng's hand on his shoulder brought Shan back to his senses, and he moved through the stalls. The questions flooded back, the scent of a pattern. Was it simply that he knew a man like Sungpo did not kill? No. There was something else. If it was not Sungpo then it was a conspiracy. But whose conspiracy? That of the accused? Or of the accusers? Would he show the world that the monks were guilty, for which he would punish himself forever, or that they were innocent, for which the government would punish him forever?

Feng bought a stick of roasted crab apples. A man with a milky eye whirled a prayer wheel and offered jars of
chang,
Tibetan beer made from barley. Yak cheese, hard, dry, and dirty, stood stacked beside a forlorn girl with waist-length braids. A boy offered plastic bags stuffed with yogurt, an old man some animal skins. Shan realized that most of the Tibetans wore sprigs of heather, tied or pinned to their shirts. A girl with one arm called for them to buy a scrap of silk to use as a
khata.
The air was filled with the pungent traces of buttered tea, incense, and unwashed humans.

A squad of soldiers was checking the papers of a wiry, restless-looking man who wore a dagger in his belt in the traditional
khampa
style. As the soldiers approached he gripped not the dagger but the amulet around his neck, the
gau
locket which probably contained an invocation to a protective spirit. They let him walk on. As the man gave his
gau
a pat of thanks, Shan suddenly remembered. The local
inhabitants had complained about the blasting because it angered Tamdin. Fowler had said no, she started blasting only six months earlier. She meant Tamdin had been seen more than six months earlier. Tamdin had been angry earlier. A pattern. Had Tamdin killed earlier?

Yeshe stopped at the far end of the market, beside a shop whose door was a filthy carpet supported by two spindly poles. Sergeant Feng eyed the dark interior of the shop and frowned. More than one Chinese soldier had been ambushed in such places. He pointed toward a stall selling tea near the center of the market. “I'll have two cups, no more.” He reached into his shirt and pulled out a whistle on a lanyard. “After that I'll call the patrol.” He pulled an apple from the stick with his teeth and walked away.

There was no window in the building, no doorway but the one they entered by. The interior was lit only by butter lamps, their meager light made even dimmer by the smoke of incense. As his eyes adjusted Shan discerned rows of shelves covered with bowls and jars. It was an herbalist's shop. An emaciated woman sat behind a wide plank laid across two upended crates. She cast a vacant stare at Shan and Yeshe. Three men sat on the earthen floor against the wall to the right, apparently in a state of stupor. He followed Yeshe's gaze to the left, into the darkest corner of the room. On a rough-hewn table sat a short, dirty conical hat with the bottom folded up. Behind it was a deeper shadow which had the shape of an animal, perhaps a large dog. “An enchanter's cap,” Yeshe said with a nervous whisper. “I haven't seen one since I was a boy.”

“You said nothing about Chinese,” the old hag barked. As she spoke one of the men on the floor sprang forward, grabbing a heavy staff that leaned against the shelves.

Yeshe put a restraining hand on Shan's arm. “It's all right,” he replied nervously. “He's not like that.”

The woman fixed Shan with a frigid stare, then pulled a jar of powder from the lowest shelf. “You want something for sex, eh? That's what Chinese want.”

Shan shook his head slowly and turned toward Yeshe. Not like what? He took a step closer to the table in the corner. The shadow at the table seemed to have shifted. It
was clearly a man now, who appeared to be asleep, or perhaps intoxicated. Shan took another step. The left half of the man's face had been crushed. Half his left ear had been cut away. A brown bowl sat in front of him, lined with silver. Shan studied the peculiar pattern on the vessel. It wasn't a bowl. It was the top half of a human skull.

Suddenly a second man leapt forward to hover at Shan's elbow. He muttered a threat in a dialect that was unintelligible to Shan. Shan turned and saw to his surprise that the man was a monk. But he had a wild, feral quality, a raw look that Shan had never seen in a monk.

“He says”—Yeshe looked at the sleeping man as he spoke—“He says that if you take a photograph you will be sent immediately to the second level of the hot hell.”

No matter where Shan turned, people wanted to warn him of the great suffering that awaited him. He turned his palms outward to show that they were empty. “Tell him,” he said wearily, “that I am not acquainted with that particular hell.”

“Don't mock him,” Yeshe warned. “He means Kalasutra. You are nailed down and your body is cut into pieces with a burning hot saw. These monks. They are from a very old sect. Almost none left. They will tell you it is real. They may tell you they have been there.”