The Skull Mantra (24 page)

“Comrade Shan!” the man greeted loudly. “I am Director Wen.” He turned to Yeshe.
“Tashi delay,”
he said clumsily.

“I speak Mandarin,” Yeshe said with obvious discomfort.

“Wonderful! This is what the new socialism is about. I gave a speech in Lhasa last month. We must focus not on
our differences, I said, but on the bridges between us.” He spoke with great sincerity, turning to Shan with a sigh. “That is why it is so tragic when hooliganism takes on cultural dimensions. It drives a wedge between the people.”

Shan did not reply.

“Colonel Tan's office called about the investigation.” Wen paused awkwardly. “They requested my full compliance. Of course, no one need ask.”

“You are responsible for all the gompas in Lhadrung County,” Shan began after the tea was served.

“They must all obtain licenses from my office.”

“And each monk.”

“And each monk,” Director Wen confirmed, looking now at Yeshe.

“A heavy responsibility,” Shan observed.

Yeshe gazed at the floor in silence. He seemed unable to look at Wen. Slowly, stiffly, as though it caused him pain, he produced his notepad and began recording the conversation.

“Seventeen gompas. Three hundred ninety-one monks. And a long waiting list.”

“And the records of the gompas?”

“We have some. The license applications are quite lengthy. A comprehensive review is required.”

“I mean of the old gompas.”

“Old?”

Shan fixed Wen with an unblinking gaze. “I know monks who lived here decades ago. In 1940 there were ninety-one gompas in the county. Thousands of monks.”

Wen waved his hand dismissively. “That was long before I was born. Before the liberation. When the church was used as a vehicle for oppressing the proletariat.”

Yeshe kept his gaze fixed on his notepad. It wasn't Shan's previous explanation of Zhong's true intentions that was causing Yeshe's reaction, it was Wen. And it wasn't pain in Yeshe's eyes, Shan realized. It was fear. Why did the Director of Religious Affairs disturb him so? “In those days,” Shan said, “some of the large gompas had special dancing ceremonies on festival days.”

Wen nodded. “I have seen films. The costumes were symbolic,
very elaborate. Deities, dakinis, demons, clowns.”

“Do you know where such costumes would be today?”

“A fascinating question.” He picked up the phone.

Moments later a young Tibetan woman appeared at the door. “Ah. Miss Taring,” Wen greeted her. “Our—our friends were asking about the old festival costumes. How to find them today.” He turned to Shan. “Miss Taring is our archivist.”

The woman acknowledged Shan with a nod and sat in a chair at the wall. “Museums,” she began with a stiff, professional tone, removing her steel-rimmed glasses as she addressed Shan. “Beijing. Chengdu. The cultural museum in Lhasa.”

“But artifacts are still being discovered,” Shan said.

“Perhaps,” Yeshe ventured, “a costume was found in a recent audit.”

Miss Taring seemed surprised by the question. She turned to Wen. “We do compliance checks, yes,” Wen said. Yeshe would still not meet his eyes. “Licenses are meaningless if they are not enforced.”

“And you list artifacts?” Shan asked.

“As part of the wealth redistributed from the church, the artifacts belong to the people. The gompas hold them in trust for us. Obviously, we must verify what is where.”

“And sometimes new artifacts are discovered,” Shan pressed.

“Sometimes.”

“But no costumes.”

“Not in the time I have served here.”

“How can you be certain?” Shan asked. “There must be thousands of artifacts in your inventories.”

Wen smiled condescendingly. “Esteemed Comrade, you must understand that these are irreplaceable treasures, these costumes. It would be quite a discovery, to find one now.”

Shan looked at Yeshe, to see if he was still writing. Had he heard correctly? Esteemed Comrade? He turned to the archivist. “Miss Taring. You say all of the known costumes are in museums.”

“Some of the large gompas near Lhasa have been licensed to conduct the dances again. For certain approved events.
Tourists come.” She studied him with an air of suspicion.

“Foreign exchange,” Shan suggested.

Miss Taring nodded impassively.

“Has your office authorized any for Lhadrung?”

“Never. The gompas here are too poor to sponsor such ceremonies.”

“I thought perhaps with the Americans coming—”

Director Wen's eyes lit up, and he glanced at the archivist. “Why didn't we think of that?” He turned to Shan. “Miss Taring is handling our arrangements for the Americans. Tour guide to cultural sites. Speaks English with an American accent.”

“An excellent idea, Comrade Director,” the archivist said. “But there are no trained dancers. Many of these costumes, they are not what you think—they are more like special machines. Mechanical arms. Elaborate fastenings. Monks were trained for months, just to understand how to operate them. To use them in a ceremony, to know the dances and movements—some dancers underwent years of training.”

“But a short show at one of the new projects,” Wen asserted. “The Americans would not need the genuine dance. Just costumes. Some graceful swaying. Some cymbals and drums. They can take photographs.”

Miss Taring stared at Director Wen with a small, noncommittal smile.

“New projects?” Shan asked.

“I am pleased to say that some gompas have been rebuilding under our supervision. Subsidies are available.”

Subsidies. Meaning what? Shan considered. That they were looting ancient shrines to build pretend ones, destroying antiquities to pay for stage sets where Buddhist charades could be performed for tourists? “Did Proscutor Jao participate in reviewing the licenses for such projects?” he asked.

The director set his cup on the table. “Thank you, Miss Taring.” The archivist rose and made a slight bow to Shan and Yeshe. Wen waited for her to leave before speaking. “I am sorry. I believe you wanted to talk about the murder.”

“Comrade Director, I have been talking about the murder all along,” Shan said.

Wen stared at Shan with new curiosity. “There is a committee.
Jao, Colonel Tan, and myself. Each has a veto power over any decision.”

“For rebuilding only.”

“Permits. Rebuilding. Authorization to accept new novices. Publishing religious tracts. Inviting the public to participate in services.”

“Did Prosecutor Jao reject any such applications?” Shan asked.

“We all have. Cultural resources need to be allocated to avoid abuse. The Tibetan minority is only part of China's population. We cannot rubber-stamp every request,” Wen declared with a fuller, practiced voice.

“But recently. Was there any particular one that Jao refused to support?”

Wen looked up at the ceiling, his hands tucked behind his neck. “Only one in the last few months. Denied a rebuilding petition. Saskya gompa.”

Saskya was Sungpo's gompa. “On what grounds?”

“There is another gompa in the lower end of the same valley. Larger. Khartok. It had already applied for rebuilding. Much more convenient for visitors, a better investment.”

Shan stood to go. “I understand you are new in this job.”

“Nearly six months now.”

“They say your predecessor was killed.”

Director Wen nodded his head sadly. “They consider him something of a martyr back home.”

“But don't you fear for your life? I saw no guards.”

“We cannot be bullied, Comrade. I have a job to do,” Wen declared somberly. “The minorities have a right to preserve their culture. But unless there is balance, there is danger from reactionaries. Just a few of us have been trusted by Beijing to stand in the middle. Without us there would be chaos.”

The seeds of the night sky grew in Tibet. There the stars were the thickest, the dark blackest, the heavens closest. People looked up and cried without knowing why. Prisoners sometimes stole from their huts, under threat of the stable, to lie on the ground silently watching the heavens. The year before at the 404th an old priest had been found in such a position one morning, frozen, his dead eyes fixed on the sky. He had written two words in the snow at his side.
Catch me.

Shan leaned his head on the window as the truck climbed out of the valley on its long trip north, farther and farther into the sky. There was a test for novices at some gompas. Go out in the night and lie at a place of sky burial. Contemplate the heavens beside the bird-picked bones. Some did not come back.

“Everyone talks about this prisoner Lokesh.” Yeshe's voice came out of the darkness behind Shan. “You did something for him.”

“Did something?” Sergeant Feng interjected gruffly. “Kicked us in the ass, that's what.”

“Just a harmless old man. A
tzedrung
,” Shan said, using the Tibetan term for a monk official. “He had been a tax collector in the Dalai Lama's government,” Shan explained. “It was long past time for his release.”

Feng snorted. “Right. We just let the prisoners decide when we should open the gate.”

“But how could you—” Yeshe leaned forward. Having built up the courage to ask, he was not going to let go.

“I had seen a decree from the State Council ten years before. In honor of Chairman Mao's birthday, amnesty was declared for all members of the former Tibetan government. The decree had been overlooked by Warden Zhong.”

“So you just instructed the warden about his duties?” Yeshe asked with disbelief.

“I reminded him.”

“Shit,” Sergeant Feng groused. “Reminded him! Like a grenade down his pants he reminded him.” He slowed the truck and leaned toward Yeshe. “What Prisoner Shan does not say is that he couldn't remind anyone. Would have broken discipline. So instead he asked the political officer for materials to make a banner in honor of Mao's day.”

“A banner?”

“Big damned banner for all the world to see. Showed patriotic spirit, Lieutenant Chang bragged. Families were coming. Townsfolk were coming. Guards were on parade. Out comes the banner, on the roof of their hut. All honor to Mao, it said, in whose honor the State Council reprieved all former officials. Even showed the month and year of the decree, so no one would be confused. Political officer, he spent lots of time with Shan that week.”

“But this old man got released?”

“A petition was presented to Colonel Tan. It wasn't just a violation of law, it was a violation of a gift from Mao. Threat of demonstrations. So the colonel admitted to the world that Warden Zhong had made a mistake.”

On they drove, mile after mile, mingling with the stars. They were so high now the road seemed to have lost all connection to the planet. Only a few black patches along the edge of the sky showed they were still among the mountains.

“Why were you scared of Director Wen?” Shan heard himself asking Yeshe, unaware the question was even on his tongue.

“I did not intend to be scared,” came the disembodied reply a long time later. “But he is the
kenpo.
For all of Lhadrung.”

The earnest young Director Wen an abbot? Then Shan understood. “A priest would be scared of Wen.” Wen's chop made priests, or ruined priests. His chop ruined gompas.

“I am not a priest.”

“You were a priest.” Shan remembered Yeshe's haunting mantra in the skull cave.

“I don't know.” Yeshe's voice was hesitant, and pained.
“It was just a stage of my life. It was over long ago.”

You have no long ago, Shan almost said. Don't dare to speak of long ago, not until like the rest of us you have endured your ration of nightmares, not until you have memories so brittle they snap like twigs when the political officers scream for you to confess them. “Then you went to school in Chengdu,” Shan said instead. “But you were sent back for reeducating. Why?”

“It was a misunderstanding.”

“You mean a miscarriage of justice?”

Yeshe made a sound that may have been meant as a laugh. “Someone replaced a picture of Mao with a photo of the Dalai Lama in one of the classrooms. When no one would confess to the act, all six Tibetan students were sent home.”

“You mean it wasn't you?”

“I wasn't even at school that day,” Yeshe said forlornly. “I skipped to get tickets for an American movie.”

“Did you get them?” Feng asked after a moment. “The tickets.”

“No,” Yeshe sighed. “They were sold out.”

The silence of the sky overwhelmed Shan again. A ghost appeared in the headlights and seemed to hover as it watched them. Feng gasped. Only as it slipped over the side of the mountain did Shan see its wings. An owl.

“My old man was a carpenter.” The words suddenly floated into the air, like an uncontrolled thought. It took a moment for Shan to realize it was Feng. “They took away his shop, his tools, everything. Because he owned them. Landlord class. Dug irrigation ditches for ten years. But at night he made things.” There was something new in Feng's voice. He had felt it, too. The darkness.

“Out of cardboard. Out of dried grass. Sticks. Beautiful things. Boxes. Even cabinets.”

“Yes,” Shan said uncertainly, not because he knew such a carpenter but because he had known many such heroes.

“I asked him why. I was just a stupid kid. But he looked at me, all wise. Know what he said?”

A meteor shot across the sky. No one spoke.

“What he said,” Feng continued at last. “He said you
must always step forward from where you stand.”

Shan watched the stars for several more moments. “He was very wise,” he said. “I would have liked to have known your father.”

He heard Feng suck in his gut in surprise. Then he made the low gurgling noise that was his laugh.