The Skull Mantra (5 page)

When he opened his eyes Tan was staring at him with a pleased expression. “Your brigade found a body yesterday,” he said abruptly.

“Lao gai
prisoners,” Shan said woodenly, “are acquainted with death.” No doubt they had told the boy that Shan had died. But died how? As a hero? As a disgrace? As a slave used up in the gulag?

Tan opened his mouth and watched the smoke rise languidly to the ceiling. “Attrition in the work brigades is always to be expected. Finding a decapitated Western visitor is not.”

Shan looked up, then turned away. He did not want to know. He did not want to ask. He stared into his cup. “You have confirmed his identity?”

“The sweater was cashmere,” Tan said. “Nearly two hundred American dollars in his shirt pocket. A business card for an American medical equipment firm. He must have been an unauthorized Western visitor.”

“His skin was dark. Black hair on the body. Could have been Asian, even Chinese.”

“A Chinese of such a rank? He would have been missed. And there was the business card from an American company,” Tan reported victoriously. “The only Westerners allowed in Lhadrung are those operating our foreign investment project. They are too conspicuous not to be missed. In two more weeks American tour groups will begin to visit. But none yet.” Tan pulled on his cigarette one last time before crushing it out. “I am pleased to see your interest in the case.”

Shan's eyes drifted past Tan to the slogan. Truth Is What the People Need. It could be read more than one way. “Case?” he asked.

“There will have to be an inquest. A formal report. I am also responsible for judicial administration in Lhadrung County.”

Shan considered whether the statement was intended as a threat. “My squad did not make the discovery,” he said tentatively. “If the prosecutor needs statements he should
talk to the guards. They saw as much as we did. All I did was clear a few rocks.” He shifted to the edge of his seat. Could he have been called in error?

“The prosecutor is on a month's leave in Dalian, on the coast.”

“The wheels of justice are accustomed to moving slowly.”

“Not this time. Not with American tourists on the way and an inspection team from the Ministry of Justice arriving the day before. Their first inspection in five years. An open death file could give the wrong impression.”

A knot began to tie itself in Shan's gut. “The prosecutor must have assistants.”

“There is no one else.” Tan leaned back, studying Shan. “But you, Comrade Shan, were once the Inspector General of the Ministry of Economy.”

There had been no mistake. Shan stood and moved to the window. The effort seemed to sap him of strength. He felt his knees shaking. “A long time ago,” he said at last. “A different life.”

“You were responsible for compiling the two biggest corruption cases Beijing has ever known. In your time you sent dozens of party officials to hard labor camps. Or worse. Apparently there are some who still revere your name, even those who fear it. Someone in your old ministry said it was obvious why you were in prison, because you were the last honest man in Beijing. Some say you went to the West and you're still there.”

Shan stared out the window, seeing nothing. His hand was shaking.

“Some say you went, and the Bureau brought you back because you knew too much.”

“I was never a prosecutor,” Shan spoke toward the glass, his voice cracking. “I collected evidence.”

“We're too far from Beijing to split such fine hairs. I was an engineer,” Tan said to his back. “I commanded a missile base. Someone decided I was qualified to administer a county.”

“I don't understand,” Shan said hoarsely, leaning against the window, wondering if he could ever find strength again.
“That was another life. I'm not the same man.”

“Your entire career was spent as an investigator. Three years is not so long.”

“Someone could be brought in.”

“No. That might demonstrate a certain . . .” Tan searched for the words, “. . . lack of self-sufficiency.”

“But my file,” Shan protested. “I have been proven . . .” His words drifted away. He pressed his hands against the glass. He could break it and jump. If your soul was in perfect balance, Choje said, you would just float away to another world.

“Proven what? A thorn in Zhong's side? I grant you that.” Tan opened the thick file and rifled through the papers. “I'd also say you have proven yourself shrewd. Methodical. Responsible, in your own way. And a survivor. For men like you, surviving is the supreme skill.”

Shan did not have to ask what Tan meant. He stared into his callused bone-hard hands. “I have been warned against regression,” he protested. “I am a road laborer. I am supposed to think in new ways. I build for the prosperity of the people.” It was the last refuge of the weak. When in doubt, speak in slogans.

“If none of us had a past, political officers would have no work,” Tan observed. “Failure to confront the past, that is the real sin. I want you to confront yours. Let the inspector live again. For a short while. I do not know the words the Ministry expects. I do not speak the language. No one here does. I want a file prepared that can be quickly closed. I am without the benefit of the prosecutor's thinking. It is not something I will discuss with him on the phone two thousand miles away. I need the matter framed in terms the Ministry of Justice understands. Terms that will not attract further scrutiny. I wager you still have the Beijing tongue.”

Shan sank into the chair. “You can't do this.”

“It's not much I'm asking,” Tan said with false warmth. “Not a full investigation. A report to support the death certificate. Explaining the likely accident that led to such an unfortunate demise. It could be your opportunity for rehabilitation.” Tan gestured toward Zhong's file. “You could use a friend.”

“Must have been a meteorite,” Shan muttered.

“Excellent! Precisely what I mean. With that kind of thinking we can wrap this up in a day or two. We will think of an appropriate reward. Say, extra rations. Light duties. Assignment to a repair shop, perhaps.”

“I won't,” Shan said in a very still voice. “I mean, I cannot.”

Amusement lifted Tan's face. “On what grounds do you refuse, Comrade Prisoner?”

Shan did not reply. On the grounds that I cannot lie for you, he wanted to say. On the grounds that my soul has been worn to a few thin threads by people like you. On the grounds that the last time I tried to find the truth for someone like you I was sent to the gulag for my trouble.

“Perhaps you have been confused by my hospitality. I am a colonel in the People's Liberation Army. I am a party member of rank seventeen. This district belongs to me. I am responsible for educating the people, feeding the hungry, constructing civil works, removal of waste, custody of prisoners, supervision of cultural activities, movement of the public buses, storage of communal food. And eradication of pests. Of any variety. Do you understand me?”

“It is impossible.”

Tan slowly drained his tea and shrugged. “Still, you are not permitted to refuse.”

Shan sat silently in the cold, dim room they assigned him in the prison administration building at the 404th, staring at the telephone. At first he was convinced it wasn't real. He tapped it with a pencil, half expecting it to be made of wood. He pushed it, wondering if the wire would drop off. It was a thing of the past, of another world, like radios and televisions, taxis and flush toilets. Artifacts from a life he had left behind.

He stood and paced around the table. It was a storage room without windows, the room where small groups met for struggle sessions, the
tamzing
where antisocialist spasms were diagnosed and treated. Ammonia wafted from cleaning supplies stacked in one corner. A small notepad sat beside the phone, plus three pencil stubs pocked with toothmarks. Feng sat in a chair at the door, peeling an apple. His smug face did little to alleviate Shan's suspicion that he had been led into an elaborate trap.

Shan returned to the table and picked up the phone receiver. There was a dial tone. He dropped it back on its cradle, pressing his hand against it as though to restrain it. To what end was the trap? A trap for Shan? If, after so long, neither Beijing nor Shan would tell them what his crime was, then perhaps they had decided to create one they could better understand. Or was it for Choje and the monks? Who did they expect him to call? Minister Qin? His party functionary wife who had erased their relationship? The son whose face he would not recognize even if he ever saw him again?

He picked it up again and dialed five random digits.

“Wei,”
a woman said impassively, with the ubiquitous, meaningless syllable used by everyone to answer phones. He hung up and stared at the telephone. He unscrewed the mouthpiece and found, as expected, an interceptor microphone,
standard Public Security issue. Such devices had also been part of his prior incarnation. It could be active or inactive. It could be for him, or standard issue for all prison phones.

He replaced the mouthpiece and surveyed the room again. Every object seemed to have an added dimension, a heightened reality, as to a dying man. He turned to the pad, marveling at the clean, bright paper. Such brightness was not a part of the universe he had entered three years earlier. The first page held a list of names and numbers, the rest were blank. With a slight tremble he turned the empty pages, pausing over each one as though reading a book. On the last page, in a top corner where it was least likely to be discovered, he made the two bold strokes that comprised the ideogram for his name. It was the first time he had written it since his arrest. He looked at it with an unfamiliar satisfaction. He was still alive.

Below his name he made the ideograms for his father's name, then with a pang of guilt, abruptly closed the pad and looked to see if Feng was watching.

From somewhere came a low moan. It could have been the wind. It could have been someone in the stable. He moved the pad away and discovered a folded sheet of paper under it. It was a printed form with the heading
REPORT ON ACCIDENTAL DEATH
.

He picked up the phone and dialed the first name on the list. It was the clinic in town, the county hospital.

“Wei.”

“Dr. Sung,” he read.

“Off duty.” The line went dead.

Suddenly he realized someone was standing in front of his desk. The man was Tibetan, though unusually tall. He was young, and wore the green uniform of the camp staff.

“I have been assigned to you, to help with your report,” the man said awkwardly, glancing about the room. “Where's the computer?”

Shan lowered the phone. “You're a soldier?” There were indeed Tibetans in the People's Liberation Army but seldom were they stationed in Tibet.

“I am not—” the man began with a resentful flash, then
caught himself. Shan recognized the reaction. The man did not understand who Shan was, and so could not decide where he belonged in the strata of prison life or the even more complex hierarchy of China's classless society. “I have just completed two years of reeducation,” he reported stiffly. “Warden Zhong was kind enough to issue me clothing on my release.”

“Reeducation for what?” Shan asked.

“My name is Yeshe.”

“But you are still in the camp.”

“Jobs are few. They asked me to stay. I have finished my term,” he said insistently.

Shan began to recognize an undertone, a quiet discipline in the voice. “You studied in the mountains?” he asked.

The resentment returned. “I was entrusted by the people with study at the university in Chengdu.”

“I meant a gompa.”

Yeshe did not reply. He walked around the room, stopped at the rear and arranged the chairs in a semicircle, as if a
tamzing
were to be convened.

“Why would you stay?” Shan asked.

“Last year they were sent new computers. No one on the staff was trained for them.”

“Your reeducation consisted of operating the prison computers?”

The tall Tibetan frowned. “My reeducation consisted of hauling night soil from the prison latrines to the fields,” he said, awkwardly trying to sound proud of his work, the way he would have been taught by the political officers. “But they discovered I had computer training. I began to help with office administration as part of my rehabilitation. Looking at accounts. Rendering reports to Beijing's computer formats. On my release, they asked me to stay for a few more weeks.”

“So as a former monk your rehabilitation consists of helping imprison other monks?”

“I'm sorry?”

“It's just that I never cease to be amazed at what can be accomplished in the name of virtue.”

Yeshe winced in confusion.

“Never mind. What kind of reports?”

Yeshe continued pacing, his restless eyes moving from Sergeant Feng at the door back to Shan. “Last week, reports on inventory of medicines. The week before, trends in the prisoners' consumption of grain per mile of road constructed. Weather conditions. Survival rates. And we've been trying to account for lost military supplies.”

“They didn't tell you why I am here?”

“You are writing a report.”

“The body of a man was found at the Dragon Claws worksite. A file must be prepared for the Ministry.”

Yeshe leaned against the wall. “Not a prisoner, you mean.”

The question didn't need an answer.

Yeshe suddenly noticed Shan's shirt. He stooped and looked under the table at Shan's battered cardboard and vinyl shoes, then back at Feng.

“They didn't tell you,” Shan said. It was a statement, not a question.

“But you're not Tibetan.”

“You're not Chinese,” Shan shot back.

Yeshe backed away from Shan. “There was a mistake,” he whispered, and moved to Sergeant Feng with his hands outstretched, as though beseeching his mercy.