Neon Lotus (31 page)

But there
was no way to make allies of them now, no way to clear up whatever confusion
had arisen. The monks might trust no one but themselves, having lived so long
with the suspicions of the three-eyes: It was pointless to worry about them
now. Their enmity was a natural product of their circumstances.

The lights
began to intensify. She could hardly see beyond the limits of the mandala
except when she looked into the dark air above. The flicker of the walls
sickened her, made her dizzy.

She put out
a hand to steady herself. Her fingers closed on warm metal.

She looked
around to find the vajra under her hand. She started to tug on it, to see if
she could pull it free, but the counter flashed insistently:
NO-NO-NO.

“Jetsun,”
she said, “come here.”

“They’re
insane,” he said of the monks. “They’re risking the whole project—the vajra
itself,” he said. Then the counter caught his eye:
LOTUS-LOTUS-LOTUS.

Marianne set
the flower beside the vajra, letting the ornaments touch. A froth of images
appeared in the air above the podium. Light rays sprang and darted between the
vajra and the lotus. Marianne and Jetsun clung to the podium, the only stable
point in that maddening maze of light and speed. The walls were spinning so
swiftly now that she expected the whole mandala to explode. Jetsun yelled
something, but she could not hear him.

TOUCH, flashed the counter. TOUCH.

They both
put out their hands. They touched the lotus, the vajra, and each other.

The mandala
howled with a powerful jolt of energy, a blast which the monks intended to
destroy them. But the lotus raised its voice in a subtle song and subsumed the
blast, which was no more than the amplified power of the vajra itself. The
ornaments transformed the death-bolt.

The walls of
the mandala began to spark and ignite. Marianne smelled smoke and ozone. The
vajra power coursed through her, seeking a focus. She knew that the power to
channel the energy was hers. Instinctively she started to aim it at the monks
who had trapped them here; they would die like the three-eyed scientist and
Tsering’s murderer. Let them taste their own anger—

But
something kept her from the blind destruction. It would gain them nothing, and
the monks were not truly to blame. They had kept the vajra safe. In a sense
they were still allies. She must use the deadly energy to liberate them.

Yes. . . .

Now, at the
center of the reeling mandala, she felt herself dissolving, blurring into pure
forms of energy, flowing into Jetsun as well as into the ornaments of Chenrezi.
The moment of destruction had passed, had been transformed into an opportunity
for creation. Marianne had never felt such self-contained coherent power as
that which was generated by the fusion of the nectar, the lotus, and the vajra
wand. The fabric of space closed in around them. At first she thought the walls
were slowing down, the mandala coming to a stop—but then she saw the figures
frozen on the ramps above, frozen in midstep, blurring into darkness. Time
itself was halting.

The void
beckoned.

She took a deep breath,
squeezed Jetsun’s hands, and closed her eyes.

They were in
a mandala, but not the one she expected. This was the dark place she saw when
her eyes were closed, where colors were reversed and strange hues lay limned
upon the darkness. She floated in space, watching the mandala as it shifted its
forms and began to glide through emptiness.

Despite the
absence of real light, she could see. The mandala expanded around her, until
its limits were like the horizon. It resembled a vast map. She had seen it somewhere
before. The vajra glowed at the eastern edge, amrita spouted from a pitcher in the
north, and the lotus unfolded its petals and emitted a pink radiance throughout
the west.

Now, at the
center of the map, a bright wheel appeared. It looked like moon and sun fused
in one. She reached out for it, as if it were a precious coin she longed to
spend.

She realized
where she had seen the map. It was the one on the wall of Chenrezi’s cavern. It
was the world.

And then
they were falling, plunging down toward the bright central wheel.

The map lost
its quality of abstraction. Instead of painted lines representing rivers, she
saw winding silver tracks reflecting moonlight. She saw hills with the star-thrown
shadows of clouds moving across them. She saw desert lands, a trackless waste
of ice and sand, absolutely empty . . . .

Empty except
for a mandala. A shifting, bright circle made of light had sprung into being on
the plains as if to call them from the sky. It offered solace, a safe harbor.
Something powerful drew them. Voices rose in chanting and in song. She saw the
moonlight shining from a metal disk in the midst of that mandala; she saw the
faces of nomads and felt the rushing of wind.

And then
they landed.

She fell
without letting go of Jetsun Dorje or the lotus or the vajra. She felt as if
she had seen the entire world in an instant, had looked every direction at
once. But now her mind was focused on this one place, this single spot which
might have been the center of the universe.

Around her
was cold earth, baked hard by the sun and scoured smooth by the wind. She gaped
at the midnight sky then at the lantern-lit faces staring down at them.

She sat up
slowly, helping Jetsun to do likewise. The
two of them gazed down at the
golden disk on which they had landed.

It was the
fourth ornament: Chenrezi’s wheel

“I don’t
believe it,” said a man in nomad garb, kneeling beside her, examining the lotus
and vajra with interest but not daring to touch them. He glanced at her,
narrowing his eyes behind round spectacles.

“You!” he
said.

“Changchup,”
she replied. “You’re Dhondub’s brother.”

“He
mentioned we might expect you, but not so soon . . . and
not like this.”

“The vajra
carried us,” she said.

She regained
her feet and looked around at the mandala of lanterns which the nomads had
formed. Skinny Changchup shook his head in amazement.

“We haven’t
formed
a
mandala in weeks,” he said. “Tonight it seemed important. The
wheel itself insisted, though not in words, The urgency formed in all our minds
at once; we found ourselves agreeing on the need for a mandala. And now this!”

She looked
across the formation. Slowly, the colored lights were blinking out. She could
see the dark shapes of tents on the horizon and the white of snow around them.
She put her arm around Jetsun, then turned back to Changchup.

“There’s
much to discuss,” she said. “But can we sleep first? I don’t know about Jetsun,
but I’m exhausted.”

“How far
have you come?” Changchup asked.

“Halfway
across Tibet,” said Jetsun Dorje.

Changchup
nodded. “No wonder you’re tired.”

Marianne
stood on the disk for a moment after the others had started to walk away. In
her right hand she held the vajra, in her left the lotus. The wheel was at her
feet and amrita ran in her veins. Her circumambulation of the Tibetan mandala
was nearly complete; only the Wish-Fulfilling Gem remained to be found.

For the
first time she had the notion that this journey had served more than one
purpose. It was not merely Chenrezi who would benefit from the finding of the
ornaments, for at every encounter Marianne herself had been changed in ways she
could hardly describe. If the mandala symbolized the perfection of the soul,
then what
powers
would be hers once she had successfully negotiated the obstacles of each realm
of the circle?

Perhaps in the end
,
she
thought,
I will truly be the Gyayum Chenmo. Perhaps
I will be worthy of Tibet.

“Marianne!” Jetsun
cried. “Are you coming?”

She nodded
and started after him. Two nomads were waiting to take up the golden wheel.

I will
finally be the Gyayum Chenmo
, she
thought. And then she had a thought that chilled her more than the snow-laden
wind.

When it happens
,
will I cease to be Marianne
Strauss?

PART FIVE:
THE CLOUD PRISON

16.
Reforming the Formless

The city of
Lhasa lies in the Kyichu valley, in the south of Tibet. The journey from
Changchup’s camp in the Changthang had taken over a week, due to road
conditions that opposed the sleek sailing bikes even when the wind was in their
favor. Jetsun and Marianne had spent much of their time with the sails packed
away, pedaling through heavy rain and snow, anxious to get out of the
wastelands before winter made the cycles all but useless. In another few weeks
they would have been caught in the snow, forced to negotiate the mountain
passes on foot.

After a
climb that lasted most of an afternoon and swallowed the last of their
emergency batteries’ reserves, Marianne and Jetsun crested what they knew was
the last peak on their journey. The mountain walls obstructed any view of the
valley. They drank water, shared some food, and decided to press on
immediately.

“It’s
downhill from here, after all,” Jetsun said. He slipped back down into the
cycle’s transparent shell and took off around a sharp curve in the road. Marianne
waited for an ancient truck to pass, groaning and coughing smoke, then she put
her feet back into the pedals, released the brake, and coasted after Jetsun.
The bike’s generator whined, recharging the batteries. For a few days it had been
heavenly to fly along the Changthang’s highways with a sail flapping above her:
but there had been all too much pedaling since then. She was anxious to finish
the trip and get out of the cycle for good.

Almost
immediately she found herself flying along the edge of a precipice. The old
truck sped away below, passing Jetsun and
leaving
them in
silence. She looked out through the darkening air onto a long, broad valley; in
the shadows far below she saw a glint of gold.

The Potala has golden roofs
,
she
thought.
Could that be it?

She had to
pay strict attention to the winding road; she couldn’t distract herself with
sightseeing. As the sun set, the golden flames dimmed and then vanished. The
evening sky was reflected for a bit longer in the ribbon of the Kyichu river.
She had frequent glimpses of the city below but no fine details emerged until
she had descended a thousand feet. Then she saw the gray shapes of buildings,
bare plazas, headlights drifting along the outer roads of the city. Soon she
was so low that the shapes of buildings began to blend with the mountains
rising on the far side of the valley.

Lhasa, for a
time, had been Tibet’s one cosmopolitan city. Signs of its former affluence
were still apparent on the outskirts of the city. Several tall modern hotels,
once world-class, now appeared dark and dangerous with broken windows; trails
of smoke drifted from the rooftops. A few souls gawked at them from the
roadside as they sped toward the city. They passed other bicyclists, though
none rode cycles as sophisticated as their own. Changchup’s clan had built a
fleet of the sailing bikes, basing them on stolen plans downloaded from a
French industrial satellite.

Marianne
sought out the Potala again, but with the sun gone there was no golden gleam to
betray it. It should have towered above the city, its white walls rising like
the steep slopes of a hand-carved mountain, a fortress. She thought she saw
something that might have been the Potala—a gray hulk looming like a battleship
over the city—but it looked so drab and mistreated that she could not believe
it was the former residence of the Dalai Lamas.

Lhasa had
been the site of much rioting during the early years of the Chinese civil war,
by which time all foreign tourists had been sent home or turned away at Tibet’s
borders. Consequently there had been no one but
native Tibetans to protest
when the holy Potala—originally modeled after the legendary cloud-palace of
Chenrezi—had been converted to a prison for holding activists and prisoners of
conscience. In any case, for decades prior to this final indignity the palace
had been mainly a department store selling replicas of Tibetan relics at
astronomical prices.

Briefly a
searchlight lanced out from the ramparts of the monstrous structure Marianne
feared might be the new Potala. As it swept through the hidden depths of the
city, she felt a wave of revulsion and sadness.

It was the
Potala, but seen from behind. Once a citadel for the god-kings, now it was a
prison for political offenders.

She
remembered Chenrezi saying that the signs of doom were on the land. At the
point where heaven met earth, the new keepers of the holy city had committed an
elaborate and deliberate blasphemy, imprisoning Tibetans in the very building
that symbolized their national religion. It seemed as if there were nothing
left in Lhasa worth protecting, nothing the government feared to lose, no
defilement that wouldn’t suit their ends.

She had to
remind herself not to judge the Chinese too harshly. They, too, were motivated
by the inevitable pressures of history and geography. There was goodness in
each of them, just as there was evil in herself. Liberation must reach all
humanity, not a chosen few. Enemies—as the Last Dalai Lama had remarked—taught
patience.

She waited
to be stopped at a checkpoint. Instead, the city lay wide open, completely
vulnerable. It engulfed them. That was when she knew that nothing the Chinese
considered worth protecting remained in Lhasa.

Jetsun
signaled to her a few minutes later. They braked and extricated themselves from
the sailing bikes. The streets were too dark and crowded to permit easy
passage. Marianne was anxious to hear his voice. She felt that she could not
absorb all the impressions Lhasa offered without his support and companionship.

It was
unnerving to be surrounded by people after weeks in the wilds and wastes of
Tibet. The streets were as crowded as any she had walked in India. A familiar
claustrophobia took hold of her.

A
searchlight passed over the avenue, briefly glaring
on the faces of the Lhasans.
She looked up and saw that it was the same beam she had noted before. She could
no longer see the Potala. The light seemed to hang by itself against the dark
silhouette of the southern mountains. Above that jagged natural wall the stars
were burning, but they seemed to cast no light on the city.

“It’s around
here somewhere,” Jetsun said. “The street we want.”

“Do you need
the map?”

“I memorized
it. Can you read that sign?”

There was a
post at the side of the street, bearing a dark sign. She drew a flashlight and
aimed it at the plaque.

“Avenue of
the People’s Bliss,” she read.

“That’s it.”

“I had
imagined something different.”

They peered
together down the avenue. Bodies jostled in the darkness, but there was no
evidence of their bliss. A few lights filtered through lattice windows,
offering faint illumination. As they advanced she discovered that the walls of
the narrow alley were lined with people huddled over tiny fires or curled up in
rags, sleeping with their eyes half open. The street smelled of filth, sewage,
and sickness. Had the climate been warmer, it would have been as bad as
anything in India. She gagged several times, trying not to question the muck
that clung to her shoes.

They had
gone a short distance when Jetsun stopped to ask directions of an old man. He
seemed too weak to answer with words, but he feebly swung his tin prayer wheel
at the wall across the street.

Marianne
found a door in the wall. She knocked on it and discovered that it was solid
wood. She was surprised it hadn’t been burned for fuel long since. Certain that
her knocking had not been heard, she raised her fist to strike again.

The door
opened.

“We’ve
nothing else to spare,” said
a
woman in the doorway, gently. “I am sorry. . . .”

“Pema!”
Marianne said.

Pema threw
open the door and spread her arms, shrieking with delight. As she embraced
Marianne, the doorway filled with shapes and shadows. She stumbled in, seeing
the faces of her old friends, the nomads. She whirled around to see if Jetsun
needed help with the cycles;

he had pushed one through the door
and a nomad boy was helping him with the other. Still clinging to Pema, she
looked around for Dhondub Ling and Reting Norbu. They were nowhere to be seen.

There was
hardly time to ask after them. The single room was crowded and everyone in it
had questions for her. She reached out for Jetsun’s hand, felt his warm squeeze
in return. He slipped an arm around her as Pema cleared a path for them and
fluffed several cushions near the stove in the center of the room.

“Sit, sit!
You must be exhausted.”

They dropped
gratefully to the floor, taking cups of tea and bowls of warm, moist tsampa.

“I’m sorry
there’s nothing more to offer you,” Pema said. “It’s been hard to find anything
to eat in the city. We’re cut off from our supplies. Dhondub has been trying to
arrange—”

“What have I
been doing?” asked a gruff voice from behind Marianne. She turned to the door
through which they had just come, then jumped to her feet. Dhondub stood there
grinning. Behind him, hurrying into the room, came Reting Norbu. The doctor
beat Dhondub to her embrace.

“Ah, Reting,”
she said. “Have you been well? You look better than the last time I saw you.”

“Physically,
I am in great health; the nomadic life suited me, I suppose. But mentally,
things are not so good. The city is in a sad state.”

She released
him for a moment in order to hug Dhondub.

“Your
journey went well?” he asked.

“From the
Changthang to Lhasa was the easiest leg of the trip.”

“My brother said
he’d seen you safely off.”

“You’ve
talked to him?” asked Jetsun. “What of the ornaments?”

“They’re on
their way to Chenrezi even now,” Dhondub replied. “Four out of five. We’ve had
a great success. Only the Wish-Fulfilling Jewel remains, but I’m confident it
is somewhere nearby. It’s just as well Mr. Fang brought us here, though I would
rather have taken my chance on the plains if it came to that.”

“I don't
think you would have fared too well,” said another voice. “Not so near the
Mines of Joy.”

Marianne
looked past Dhondub and saw this last speaker shutting the door behind him. He
turned and bowed to her, smiling. “Gyayum Chenmo.”

“Mr. Fang!
You’re here in Lhasa, too?”

“I would
never send a friend anywhere I’m not willing to go myself. Besides, this is my
home. I have a remarkable amount of freedom here. It’s the least secure spot in
all Tibet, the only place where I can safely mix with the natives without
arousing the least bit of suspicion.”

“But why the
relocation?” she asked.

Mr. Fang
shook his head gloomily. “It was forced upon us. The rioting in the Mines of
Joy did not die down. The embers of discontent smouldered for many days. As
soon as things seemed calm again and the soldiers had begun to retreat, the
rebellion started up in earnest. Tibetans seized a military encampment, taking
a number of copters and prime stores of munitions. They began to bomb the
Mines. The government authorized complete withdrawal from the city, followed by
neutron demolition. I don’t know how many tens or hundreds of thousands died
there. I did what I could to evacuate those around the city, though I was
helpless to assist anyone still inside. Since I feared that the slaughter might
spread in the aftermath, I came looking for you and discovered that you had
already gone on. So I did what I could to save your friends.”

“He was
right enough to do it,” Dhondub admitted. “The soldiers have been hunting on
the plains, I hear.”

“Hunting
what?” Marianne asked, puzzled.

Reting Norbu
took her arm gently. “Niche-runners, my dear. And those nomads who didn’t join
the airlift.”

Jetsun’s
face was livid with rage. “Why don’t they nuke the Tibetan plateau and be
efficient about it? It’s the same old campaign: pure genocide. The Chinese
won’t be satisfied until there’s not a single racial Tibetan left on this
plateau. And then they’ll sing of how they gloriously defeated the demons of
internal dissent, of how they ‘liberated’ the downtrodden Tibetans.”