Neon Lotus (34 page)

A fainter
sound came from above,

Hissing. . .
.

She put up
her hand and felt a cool spray of mist. Before she realized what it was, she
had already inhaled too much of it.

* * *

She awoke to
groaning and whispers, to darkness. A voice in the distance kept shouting and
every shout echoed. She reached along the cold floor where she lay, feeling
grit beneath her fingers, chips of stone, damp earth. After several inches she
encountered something soft—an arm.

“Hello?” she
said.

“Hello,”
whispered a woman. “Who are you?”

“My name is
Sonam Gampo. And you?”

“Tara
Wangdu.
^”

Marianne’s
heart leapt for a moment at the name of Tara. If only Tara were with her to
offer advice or give her some inspiring vision.

Tara
Wangdu’s fingers closed around Marianne’s. “We’re in the dungeons, aren’t we?”

“The
dungeons?”

“Of the
Potala. There are hundreds here; only the dungeons are big enough to hold so
many.”

“Were you in
the riot?” Marianne asked.

“Yes, but I
think there are also people here from older riots, prisoners of many years.”

“The
Potala,” Marianne said in disbelief.

“I pray my
husband escaped. Otherwise, who will take care of our children? I was heading
home when the trouble began; the soldiers themselves herded me toward the
square. How could I tell them I wanted no part of it? One of them aimed a gun
at my head!”

Tara Wangdu
began to weep. Marianne put her arms over the woman’s trembling shoulders and
lay there shivering beside her with her eyes wide open, trying to detect some
spark of light. She had never seen such a thorough
darkness. The dungeons of the
Potala were windowless, carved deep in the bowels of Red Hill.

After a time
she sat up and swept a hand in the other direction. There was a body there,
too; it moaned when she touched it. She drew her hand away.

Hundreds of
us, she thought.

The wailing
of many voices echoed through the black confines, ringing into distance. She
wished that she could rise and explore their prison, but she was afraid of
losing her place, afraid she might never find it again. At last she realized
that the place itself was meaningless.

“Tara
Wangdu,” she said, “are you well enough to rise?”

“What for?”

“I don’t
want to leave you alone, nor do I much want to be alone myself. But I would
like to explore these dungeons. We can follow the wall and perhaps make out a
map.”

“What does
it matter? We’ll be here forever. We’ll have time to count every speck of dust
in this place.”

“I hope
not,” Marianne said. “Well . . . will you be all right on
your own, then?”

“No!” She
heard Tara’s frantic movement. “I’ll come with you. But it seems pointless.”

There was
one direction from which Marianne had heard no sounds. Holding Tara’s hand,
crouching, she moved toward this silent region and encountered a wall. Leaning
against it, she rose to her feet. Tara stood up beside her.

“Hold onto
me,” she said. Then, keeping one hand on the wall, she proceeded to the left.

She had no
sense of progress as she measured their dark confines. When the way, as often
happened, was blocked by bodies, she stepped around or over them. Once she
encountered a heavy steel door mounted flush with the wall. Peering into the
cracks around the edge of the door, she sought any faint glimmer of light but
saw nothing.

“Maybe we
should wait here,” Tara said. “They have to come sooner or later, to bring food
and water. They won’t let us starve, will they?”

“I don’t know,”
Marianne said.

“You’ll wish
they would, soon enough,” volunteered a third voice. “It’s better than going on
living in here.”

It sounded
like a man, an old man who had grown hoarse from shouting and weeping. Now he
could scarcely raise his voice above a whisper.

“The irony
of it is that these were once granaries and treasure houses. Not even a mouse
could slip in here.”

Marianne
moved closer to the man, away from the door. “You must have been over every
inch of the place.”

“Oh, those
of us who’ve been here long enough, we’ve come to know and love every corner.
You will too, in time.”

“Is this the
only door?” she asked.

“That door
leads into another wing of the dungeons. If you want to find where you came
through in the first place, you must go back the other way—far, far back. We’re
in the hinterlands here. Not that it matters. I have friends near the door who
bring me food when the guards deign to serve it. Things are quieter here, more
restful. That’s all changed tonight, though, with the likes of you. It’s the
most new arrivals to this wing that I’ve seen. What were all of you up to out
there?”

“There was a
riot,” Marianne began.

“The Gyayum
Chenmo is in Lhasa!” Tara piped up. “The Governor all but admitted it.”

“Ah,” said
the old man bitterly, as if clearing his throat. “So you thought your day had
come, you thought you’d finally send the invaders home with their tails between
their legs. And did you actually see your savioress?”

“It was
nothing but rumors,” Marianne said, wrapping her arms around herself to
suppress a chill.

“Rumors,
yes, and the people went wild. Rumors of that sort are most dangerous.”

“But she has
come,” Tara Wangdu said. “There have been strange shapes in the clouds: flying
creatures, bodhisattvas. Two nights ago someone saw a huge wheel spinning
against the setting sun, with a thousand spokes like the arms of Chenrezi.”

“And I
thought
I
had gone mad,” said the old man.

“But these
are auspicious signs—”

“Auspicious
in what way? And what have they accomplished? You’re here to rot in the Potala
until you die; is that what you foresaw in the clouds? No, people interpret
portents to match their hopes
and fears. And Tibet has lived with fear so long that it has nothing left but
hope. No wonder you see these things as auspicious.”

“You talk
like a Communist,” said Tara Wangdu.

“Hm. And
suppose I am?”

There was a
lengthy silence.

“Do you
think I’m afraid to admit it? Why would I joke about such a thing? It didn’t
save me from this pit.”

Tara Wangdu
sounded unbelieving. “The Chinese don’t lock up their own—”

“Believe
what you want. I was sent from China to look over the situation in Tibet, to
make sure that things had not gotten out of hand during the civil wars. They
hadn’t been expecting me. I was a big surprise.”

“Them?”
Marianne asked. “Who?”

“Rato and
his henchmen. Rato took advantage of China when it was distracted. He amassed
great power and a private fortune. I learned he had melted down the statues in
the Central Cathedral and replaced them with plastic replicas. With what he gained,
he bribed countless Chinese officials; the corruption spread much more
efficiently after that. And when things settled down in the mainland, Rato
reassured us that all was well in Tibet. The balance had been maintained, he
said. Naturally he would appreciate military support from time to time, but
otherwise the region functioned perfectly well. I soon discovered that all the
funds from China were funneled directly into Rato’s pockets. The only interests
he looked after were personal ones.”

“You discovered
all this on your own?” Marianne asked.

“I had some
authority, but not so much that Rato feared me. At first I accepted his bribes
so that he would trust me. I never spent that money. I intended to surrender it
when I uncovered all that I could learn of his plans. Somehow he became
suspicious of me; my apartments were searched in my absence, and my notebooks
were discovered, with all the records I’d been keeping of Rato’s activities. I
suppose they faked my death or disappearance when they threw me here. I don’t
know why they didn’t simply murder me. Perhaps Rato still hopes to find some
use for me.”

“No one
trusts him,” Tara Wangdu said after a moment. “We thought him a servant of the
Chinese.”

“He serves
no one but himself. Don’t you know the motherland was ready to relinquish
Tibet? Has word not reached you of the Great Leap Upward?”

“The Great
Leap Upward?” Marianne asked. “What is that?”

“The
Twenty-Year Plan, my friend. The Exodus. Construction has already begun, the
ships are underway. The next expansion of China will carry us into space. Slow
ships, sleeping passengers, will drift forth to seed the stars. It will greatly
ease the problems of overpopulation, while serving ideological goals as well.
Tibet was close to having its independence restored entirely until Rato showed
us how well it could function under his command, and how well it could assist
in the Great Leap Upward. The mines are more efficient than ever; the materials
to build the starships now issue from the Tibetan soil. If you could have held
on for another twenty years, your freedom would have been handed to you. But
Rato may have changed all that.”

“Rato,”
Marianne said. “Where did he come from?”

“He is a
Tibetan, like yourself,” the old man said. “But that raises another question.
Your accent is most unusual. I am conversant in many Tibetan dialects, but
yours . . . as I say, it’s strange. If I didn’t know
better, I would say I detect a distinct European flavor.”

Marianne
held her breath for a moment, then released it with a prayer.

“I was
educated in the United States and Switzerland,” she said.

Tara Wangdu
gasped.

“Insanity!”
said the man.

“Do you
speak English? French?” she asked.

“Certainly.”

“Then listen
to my voice,” she said in English. “Listen to my voice,” she said in French.

“You are not
Tibetan,” said the old man.

“I . . . serve
Tibet. My roots are here.”

“Serve Tibet
in what capacity?” he said with a sarcastic laugh. “From the depths of the
Potala? I’m sorry that after traveling so widely you should end up here.”

“Perhaps it
is part of the roundabout route I must take,” she replied. “I do not think my
road ends here. Recently I have seen enough miracles to convince me that
nothing is what it seems.”

“It wasn’t
miracles that taught me the truth of that phrase. You asked what I thought of
Rato’s intentions for Tibet? I think he means to destroy it. He will strip it
of its resources, drain its people of their last drop of blood, and make
himself into a kind of god, protected by his deluded army of murderous man-made
bodhisattvas. He has insane intentions. I once heard his lackeys whisper of the
powers he has twisted to his purposes—the very forces that created our
universe, the essentials of existence and consciousness. He may unleash a
primal energy that will make nuclear bombs look like firecrackers. Then he will
leave the Earth. . . .

“But now
that I have told you of Rato and myself, I wish to learn more about you.”

What had she
to lose? she wondered.

There was no
more private realm in all Tibet than this dungeon, buried beneath the noses of
the authorities. In a circumstance such as this, what option did she have but
to rally all her powers? She knew that she must claim her birthright now, that
she must make herself known to the Tibetans—or at least those few imprisoned
with her in the Potala.

“My name is
Marianne Strauss,” she whispered.

“A good
Tibetan name,” the old man said, chuckling.

“But that is
not the name by which I am known in Tibet. I am sometimes called, ‘Gyayum
Chenmo.’”

She heard a
gasp from Tara Wangdu. Beyond that, the silence seemed impenetrable. The voices
of the other prisoners faded, fell away. There in the darkness she felt as if
she were radiant, glowing with light. A switch had been thrown in her soul, a
vital connection made.