Neon Lotus (17 page)

“Here,” she
replied.

She opened
her eyes and found that she was looking down through the bars of the catwalk.
The searchers’ lights flickered across the ground and occasionally showed Munpa
in silhouette as he climbed the last few yards to safety, hauling the ladder
with him by its lowest rung.

A moment
later, they were reunited on the ramp. Munpa conferred in whispers with those
who had helped Marianne, then he nudged her gently. “Go on tiptoe,” he said.

She got to
her feet and found a handrail to follow. They crept through the black air,
leaving the inspectors shouting and swearing beneath them, and finally passed
through several curtained enclosures before coming out into the violet light of
evening. They had reached the roof of the factory.

She sighed
at the first touch of fresh air, but flinched at the light. Fortunately, it was
not too bright. They stood in a courtyard between several squat metal huts.
Clay pots full of wildflowers were set along the walls. Prayer flags flapped
overhead and sacred windmills whistled in the rising breeze. A handful of faces
watched them from the doorways, most of them children.

Munpa stepped
in front of her and said, “Who are you?”

“This is the
Gyayum Chenmo,” said Common Good, interceding on her behalf.

Munpa’s eyes
widened. He took a step back and dropped to his knees, putting his hands to his
forehead. Before she could say a word to stop him, he had thrown himself down
on the hard metal floor.

“Please,”
she said. “Don’t do that. It’s you who deserve my thanks.”

The little
man continued until he had made three full prostrations, by which time a crowd
had begun to gather in the courtyard.

“Let them
honor you,” Tara whispered to her. “You inspire them, Marianne. You bring them hope.
You have no right to refuse their offerings.”

“Gyayum Chenmo!”

Word spread
quickly. The people of the rooftop appeared with offerings of scarves, tattered
but clean, and flowers which they had tended themselves. Their eyes were full
of tears; hands reached out to touch her, as if her mere presence were a
blessing. She was pressed into a corner of the courtyard, unable to free
herself. As she sought the right words to reassure the crowd, Common Good
pressed her arm and said, “Here she is, Sonam.”

A lilting
voice cut through the clamor. Marianne felt Tara’s mind swimming to the fore of
her thoughts. The crowd parted to admit the newcomer. She had a glimpse of a
dark, sharp-faced woman dressed in faded rags.

For a moment
no one moved, neither Marianne nor the people of the rooftop nor the woman from
the west. The Gyayum Chenmo and the madwoman stared at each other.

Marianne
felt herself waver and dissolve, giving way to the rainbow goddess within her.
She was no longer Marianne Strauss. Instead she became a young girl decked in
jewels and silk finery, a radiant bodhisattva in the midst of her worshipers.

In that same
instant, the madwoman no longer seemed a woman at all. Tara’s eyes saw her as
an enormous lotus with petals that shimmered like rain, capturing all the tones
of red light, a blossom that seemed to have been carved from a single ruby. On
each petal was a golden glyph, a syllable from the language of ritual. In the
midst of the lotus was a scarlet mouth, and the lips of the flower were singing,
“Gyayum Chenmo.”

Marianne
came to herself with a start. She was human again, quite mortal, dressed in her
dusty nomad’s clothes, her skin dark with pigments and unlustrous. And the
madwoman, the lotus, was simply a woman with tired eyes and a sad mouth who
looked as if she had accepted defeat and expected nothing of life beyond this
moment.

The tattered
woman smiled. When she spoke, her voice was the voice of the lotus.

“Orn mam
padme hum!”
she sang, cupping her hands before
her. Tears fell into her palms. “Hail to the jewel in the lotus!
Om tare tu tare Tara svaha!
Born of
Chenrezi’s tear, compassionate daughter, companion and protector! Golden Tara!
Green Tara! White Tara! Sayer of the sacred words which strike down all evil
forces! Cry
Phat!’
Cry
‘Ture!’
Cry
‘Hun!’
Pierce the sky and trample your foes, and the way shall open
before you. Take the path that lies to the west, and your father-mother
Chenrezi shall have what was his long ago.”

“To the
west,” said Marianne. “Have you seen the lotus then?”

The woman
sank to her knees. Marianne stepped forward, knelt down, and joined hands with
her.

“She has
seen,” said the voice of the lotus. “She is with me now, high in the snowy
mountains, safely hidden in a vale of three falls. It is cold here, and so
lonely. Once in ten years I bloom, but there are never eyes to behold me, no
one to witness my beauty. But this woman, straying through the wilds, caught
sight of my first red bud. I reached out to her, I spoke to her, and I sent
some of myself away with her to see if anyone still sought me. A part of her
remains with me until she can return. It warms me like a sugar-rich sap, so
that I live a bit longer than usual. But you must hurry if you are to find me,
or the icy doors of winter will close about me. She will bring you to me if . .
. Are you the one who seeks me?”

“Yes,”
Marianne said, squeezing the woman’s hands. “Yes. Chenrezi seeks you. You will
be reunited.”

“Chenrezi!”

The woman
threw back her head and let out a single piercing note, a beam of sound. Marianne’s
heart quickened, thinking that perhaps she had sent the lotus a message,
telling them that she was on her way.

Then a
shadow passed over the roof, blotting out the first stars.

A
helicopter.

Marianne saw
insect faces peering down at her; black-goggled heads swarmed from the open
sides of the craft. Screams went up from the rooftop and people began to
scatter. A dozen hands caught at Marianne, trying to pull her in every
direction.

The other
woman rose to her feet and began to sing to the helicopter, an eerie tune that
she trained on the soldiers as if it were a sonic weapon. She spread her arms
and wailed, holding their attention. They must have known she was the strange
woman Common Good had smuggled into the Mines of joy—the one they were looking
for.

Marianne saw
them raise their weapons. She tried to pull the woman down, but other hands
held her back.

Then someone
started firing—not one of the soldiers, but someone on the rooftop.

Black
goggles shattered. A soldier fell back into the copter, screaming.

Burning
light sprayed down on the roof, spilling from the soldiers’ guns. Marianne
dived through a shadowy doorway, then twisted around to look back at the roof.

The
helicopter lurched away, seeking a place to land. She saw Munpa balancing a
heavy black cylinder on his shoulder. It jerked, spat fire, and a huge ball of
flame enveloped the hub of the copter’s rotor. The copter tipped and fell
sideways, past the edge of the roof.

Common Good
thrust himself through the doorway, spotted Marianne, and shook his head.

“
It’s war,” he said, helping her to her feet. “We
must get you away from here.”

“The lotus!”
Tara cried to her. “Where is she?”

Marianne
tore herself from Common Good and hurried through the confusion on the
rooftop, searching for the madwoman. She almost stumbled over her.

The woman
lay crumpled on her side, her face seared and split by intense heat, one eye fused
shut. The stench of burnt flesh made Marianne gag, but she did not turn away.
The woman’s mouth was moving; the faintest echo of a song drifted from her
lips.

“Can you
hear me?” she asked.

She took the
woman’s head in her hands and turned it gently to face the sky. Her other eye
was clear, gaping with the last of its life.

“Marianne,”
said Tara urgently, “let me take her now.”

Marianne had
no time to reply. Tara was moving in her mind, working her hands. She bent over
the woman and fixed both her eyes on that dying one.

Marianne
receded into the distance. She wondered if she had gone to the place where Tara
dwelt, deep in the corners of her mind. The sounds of the rooftop faded away,
along with the cries of pain and calls to war. Night had fallen. She walked
into darkness without fearing that she might lose her way.

Ahead was a
faint white light, slowly growing brighter.

It rippled
along rock walls, fanned over a tessellated floor. At last she recognized her
whereabouts.

Taking a
long step, she entered a huge cavern. Chenrezi stood before her.

She
approached him slowly, unhurried, unsurprised to find herself here. He watched
her with curiosity in all of his thousand and twenty-three eyes. Ten beatific
faces smiled down on her, while fierce Vajrapani’s face kept watch over the
chamber.

“Hello,
Marianne,” Chenrezi said.

She bowed
slightly. “I don’t exactly know what I’m doing here,” she said, “or how I
came.”

“Tara had
some urgent business. She’s bringing another mind into yours.”

“Another
mind?”

“The voice
of the lotus is your voice now. You will know something of what this woman
knew. She is like a lost part of us, calling out to be restored. You are the
crucible where we will join into one.”

Marianne
shook her head. “I can’t have anyone else inside me. It’s hard enough, at
times, with Tara.”

“You won’t
know she’s here, I promise. But she can help us. It will last only until you
recover the lotus.”

“What if I
don’t? What if it closes up again for another ten years?”

Chenrezi did
not answer her.

“Will I have
to die again and again, and be forever reborn into the same quest?”

He was
receding now, a white flame dwindling to a speck and finally blinking out. She
could hear voices outside of her again.

“Chenrezi,”
she said. “Please help me.”

An eye
appeared in the darkness beneath her; she felt as if she were looking down into
a well from which she had just climbed. She gently laid the woman’s head to
rest, then let her own head sink forward. She wept until a hand squeezed her
shoulder.

Common Good
said, “We can’t stay here any longer, Sonam.”

She nodded
and reached out to close the woman’s eye.

She realized
that there were a few people standing around them, watching. They all carried
weapons now. Munpa had his black cannon.

“Where will
we go?” she asked.

“Everywhere
is equally bad,” said Munpa. “The trouble will spread quickly. This is the
night we’ve all dreaded and anticipated.”

Out in the
darkness she could hear more helicopters. The sounds of shouting and gunfire
had begun to fill the city. From where she stood, she could see flames licking
up
around
a nearby building.

“Our time
has come,” said a woman next to Munpa. “It is good.”

Common Good
stepped to the edge of the roof and beckoned for her to follow. She saw a
narrow plank leading over a deep black abyss between the buildings. Down below,
where the copter had crashed, were a few smouldering sparks.

Before she
stepped onto the bridge, her eye was caught by slashes of light flickering
through the air above the city. Another helicopter burst into flames; she heard
screams a second later. She wondered how many had died; how many more would die
before dawn?

“I’ll go
first,” Munpa said.

“No, let
me,” said Marianne.

She took her
first step over the gulf.

8.
Mr. Fang

Marianne
felt cold stone beneath her and a warm hand on her brow.

“Where am
I?” she wondered aloud.

“Sh. . . . Try
and rest.”

“But where
am I?”

Opening her
eyes, she saw a familiar face looking down. It was the madwoman, the Voice of
the Lotus, bending over her, whispering a soothing song. Rainbow Tara stood
beyond, watching with great concern. And above Tara, coming into focus now,
were the clustered faces of Chenrezi.

She sat up
quickly. “How did I get here?”

The lotus
song faded as the madwoman moved back. Tara knelt by Marianne, reaching for one
of her hands.

“You must be
very quiet, Marianne. Quiet as the dead. We dare not let you wake just yet, for
if you were to move . . .”

She rose to
her feet, clutching Tara’s hand. “You mean I’m sleeping?”

“Unconscious.
You struck your head. Now I think you had best be still, so that you bring no
attention to yourself throughout the rest of this day.”

She stared
up at the ceiling of rock. In the true cavern of Chenrezi, that stone had been
flecked with fire, alive with energy. Now the darkness of it amazed her. She
felt like a prisoner in her own body.

“Common
Good,” she murmured. “Where did he go?”

She recalled
a violent encounter in the Mines of Joy. Soldiers had cornered six of them in
an alley full of scrap metal and broken rocks. Munpa had blasted through a
warehouse wall, opening an escape route into darkness. The six plunged in
together, but they became separated; Marianne and Common Good emerged alone.
Fighting raged around them, the streets were full of fire; explosions rocked
the Mines of Joy as factories were destroyed.

“Dhondub
will never forgive me if you come to harm,” Common Good had said as they darted
from shadow to leaping shadow. “I’ll get you away from here, Sonam. And safely,
too, I swear it.”

They’d made
swift progress through the city, but the streets filled with soldiers as they
approached the northern
perimeter.
Common Good, however, insisted that they press on.

“Reinforcements
will come from all over Tibet and China if this fighting goes on—which I think
it will. The longer we wait, the better prepared our enemy will be. We must
escape now.”

At last they
reached the northern checkpoint. Most of the streetlamps had been broken in the
fighting, leaving long stretches of darkness which they used for cover as they
approached the gate. Common Good left Marianne in a dark corner near the
station, then backtracked and dodged across the dim street. She saw him moments
later, creeping along the opposite wall. Suddenly he stepped into the spotlight
of the border guards and hailed them loudly, waving his gun.

As the few
guards in the station walked toward him, Marianne abandoned her cover and ran
down the road past the checkpoint. A moment later, she was outside.

Behind her,
she heard Common Good yelling at the soldiers. Bullets chattered. There were no
more words exchanged.

She tried
not to think about it. She hurried away from the sparse lights, abandoning the
road. The ground was scarred with trenches. She stumbled a few times, once
running straight into a mound of earth that seemed to blend with the horizon.
On the far side of this mound, another trench waited to swallow her. When she
landed, she must have struck her head. The next thing she knew, the Voice of
the Lotus was waking her.

It was no
longer possible to keep from thinking about Common Good. However briefly, he
had been a friend and a companion—a protector. He had sacrificed everything for
her; and who was she, really? No one. She could not believe that her life was
worth any more than his had been. What did it matter that her head was full of
voices, strange images? They might signify nothing more than her own insanity.

The cave
seemed to echo with the distant sound of gunfire, as if her memories had taken
on a life of their own, here in the depths of her mind. She expected the sound
to fade when she paid closer attention, but it kept on for as long as she
listened.

Finally she
asked Tara, “Do you hear the fighting?”

“The Mines
of Joy are still at war. That’s why you must remain quiet. At night you’ll have
a better chance of getting away.”

“Away to
where? I don’t even know where I am. How will I ever find the nomads? They’ll
keep moving on, but without the news that I was supposed to bring them. I
wasted myself. . . .”

The cavern
started to quiver with life. She had a glimpse of Tara’s face, startled by the
sudden movement. Then she was rising through depths of dark water toward a
distant sun. She heard voices in her ears and a strange far-off commotion.

I’ve been
found out, she thought. Her eyes popped wide open.

Five people
stood above her, silhouetted against the sun. She was blinded for a moment, but
soon she could see the drab green uniforms. Three men and two women, Chinese.
They didn’t seem to know enough Tibetan to ask her who she was.

The women
grabbed her under each arm and hauled her out of the trench. Marianne’s head
spun. She saw a jeep, beyond it another, and then a row of tents under
construction. Soldiers were everywhere, with weapons in their hands. A nearby
road was lined with cars and carriers.

Her defeat
seemed certain. As if Common Good’s death had not seemed worthless enough
already, now she found herself captured. She should never have disregarded
Dhondub’s sound advice.

As they
walked her toward the one tent that stood completed, she cast a glance over her
shoulder and saw broken buildings beyond the ruined walls of the city. Smoke
was thick in the air but the wind blew the worst of it toward the south. Not
only Common Good had died on her account, but who knew how many hundreds or
thousands of others? The Mines of Joy had become a bloody battleground—the
only conceivable thing worse than what it had been before.

And the
revolt had been forcibly suppressed. As Common Good had feared, reinforcements
had come quickly.

The main
tent’s interior resembled an office building. Paper partitions divided it into
a warren, reminding her momentarily of Common Good’s domicile. The bare heads
of clerks moved behind the screens, their voices muted and polite. Telecoms
buzzed, printers clattered. The sudden appearance of a bureaucracy on the
fringe of a battlefield struck her with ominous finality. It was certain proof
that the fighting had been quelled.

The women
stayed at Marianne’s side while one of the men went down an aisle. She watched
him enter a cubicle in a far corner of the tent and bow slightly; the crown of
another head, bald, rose opposite him. The soldier returned, accompanied by a
somewhat paunchy older man who smiled when he saw Marianne.

Dismissing
the soldiers, he took her hand and said in Tibetan, “My dear woman, what
happened to you?”

She was
stunned by his polite manner. For a moment she could do nothing but stammer.

“Never
mind,” he said. “There’s time to straighten all this out. Come join me for tea.
I am Mr. Fang. You’re the only person I’m aware of to make it past the walls.
May I have your card please? Are you a citizen of the Mines?”

One hand was
on her elbow, urging her down the aisle; the other reached for her
identification card. Fortunately, she had not lost it. He glanced at it and
said, “A nomad? How did you come here, so far from any clan?”

“I came to
buy supplies for my people.”

He smiled,
leading her into his cell; he offered her a seat before the portable desk.
“Didn’t dare bring the group any closer than this to the city, eh? I’m
surprised they gave such a risky errand to you. You must be someone’s prized
daughter . . . or perhaps wife? Hm?”

“I am the
daughter of Dhondub Ling.”

Mr. Fang
examined his console screen as it read her identification card. “So I see.
Shall I check on your parents’ whereabouts at this moment?”

Her
heartbeat quickened; she sat forward and tried to see the screen herself. “Can
you take me back to them? There was such trouble in the city—I had not yet
entered when I heard the fighting begin. My horse bolted at an explosion and I
was thrown and hit my head.”

He sighed
and touched the screen, which was still hidden from her sight. “How
unfortunate.”

She didn’t
think he referred to her blow. “What do you mean?”

He took a
breath and any sign of consternation left his face. With a diplomatic smile, he
said, “Your family’s movements are classified.”

“I don’t
understand. . .

“Neither do
I. It could mean anything. Most likely, they’ve trespassed without knowing
it—that is, they’ve entered a sensitive area and are being shepherded out of it
even now. They could reappear at any time, but until then . . .” He spread his
hands.

“Is that the
only reason they would be classified?”

Mr. Fang
kept smiling. “They might be suspected of some illegal activity. My console
wouldn’t tell me that. Are they?”

“I don’t
know what you mean,” she said. “We are simple people who harm no one. We follow
all your rules.”

“Not my
rules,” he said.

She was not
at all sure she understood this man or his intentions. She had the feeling he
was playing with her, trying to trick her into revealing herself. There was
another possibility which his last remark suggested. He might mean to gain her
trust and reveal a few secrets of his own. Following such a slim and
treacherous hope could lead her into disaster. She decided to ignore his
opening.

“Will I be
released?” she asked.

“Not until
there is a place for you to go. We cannot simply have you wandering all over
the map. No, you can stay here a bit, at least until we know where your family
has gone; then we’ll see about reuniting you with them.”

“I’m to be
your guest? Do you often treat Tibetans with such hospitality?”

He stood up,
turning toward a pot of tea which sat warming on a camp stove behind him.
Softly he murmured, “Whenever I can.”

***

She was a
guest, but a guest under guard. If she wished to leave the small tent that Mr.
Fang provided for her, she was accompanied every step of the way. Through the
rest of the day she watched trucks and helicopters entering the smouldering
Mines of Joy. Everything she had seen yesterday was changed now—destroyed. The
Tibetans had played the greatest part in the destruction. They had wrecked the
factories with great enthusiasm, even though it meant destroying their own
homes and livelihoods. Cries of glee had echoed in the streets last night, as
loud as any screams of defeat.

And yet they
had lost. They would pay dearly—those who had not already paid with their
lives—for the few hours of desperate rebellion. The survivors would no doubt be
made to live in the ruins. Factories would be rebuilt, but she doubted that a
cent would go into repairing whatever there had been in the way of residences.
The dead would be cremated, the living would sleep in ashes. And when the
winter came . . .

She turned
away from the Mines of Joy. In her tent, she lay tossing and grieving for the
few faces she could remember from the city. Common Good. Munpa. The children of
the rooftop.

At twilight,
Mr. Fang was freed from his official duties. He appeared at the entrance to her
tent, carrying a covered tray from which the smell of food drifted like a
dream.

“I thought
you might be hungry,” he said, setting down the tray. “I also wondered if you’d
like company.”

“Please,”
she said. She was wary of him, but he had aroused her curiosity as well as her
appetite. He uncovered a platter of momo, Tibetan dumplings.

“Have you
heard any more of my family?” she asked as he spooned soup into two bowls.

“Nothing
yet. I am confident that the morning will bring more information—unless, as I
said, they’re under suspicion for one reason or other.”

“Why would
that be?” she asked, raising her bowl to sip.