Prayer of the Dragon (43 page)

“Heinz,” Gao said in a wooden voice. “It doesn’t matter. He’s on the way.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Major Ren. With Public Security troops.” Gao extracted his satellite phone from his pocket and held it up for Kohler to see. “You never searched me. I called them. Reception is remarkable from this altitude. It won’t be long. This is the easiest place to find for fifty miles.”

Kohler’s face sagged. “I want everyone on that ledge,” he ordered, “that high one that looks east. Now.” He gestured with the pistol. “Yangke in front.”

They walked in a solemn column. As the others entered the narrow gap in the rocks that opened onto the ledge, Kohler grabbed Shan’s shirt and pulled him back. “Shan and I are going to speak for a while. Anyone who comes through this gap before I say so will be shot.”

But Kohler was not really interested in conversation. He pushed Shan forward roughly, down the trail to the camp, onto the path toward the altar where Rapaki had prostrated himself.

Kohler said as they reached the edge of the fissure, “At the trial, you would be the one to tie it all together. No one else could. I started out thinking of you as a research scientist, drawing lines between disconnected facts. But that’s not what you do. You’re more like an artist. The barest touch of the brush, that’s your style.” Kohler’s tone became whimsical. He tossed the staffs into the abyss. “Every paradise needs more artists.” Shan tried to retreat from the rim. Kohler pushed him forward with the pistol against his spine.

“Two more months and I’ll be in India—a new man, a new life, in a villa like a castle by the sea. I can still run the company from there. Gao will be lonely, but we can talk on the phone.”

They reached the altar. Shan wondered how it would come. A violent shove? Or perhaps a blow from the pistol first? He remembered his nightmare of falling through bottomless darkness, passing skeletons who cringed when they saw him.

“He always had Thomas. He was going to spend more time in Beijing anyway, to be the boy’s mentor. We could have talked on the phone,” Kohler repeated, changing the tense of his words. “Nobody had to get hurt.”

Kohler set his pistol on the altar. He began unbuttoning his shirt. “You’re the only one who has any idea of what it’s like,” the German said. “The electric shocks. The batons. The pliers to the fingernails. We had a foreigner, a murderer, arrive in the winter, some poor fool from Pakistan. Outsiders who killed Chinese were always singled out for special treatment. They tied him naked to a pole out in the yard. He lived through the night but lost half a foot and six fingers to frostbite. Once he recovered, they beat him regularly and knocked out all his teeth. He ate worms when he could find them. Worms and rice gruel, that’s all he could eat. Most of his hair fell out. He was thirty-five when he arrived. After six months he looked seventy.” Kohler folded the shirt neatly, placed it at the foot of the altar, and glanced back at Shan. “You’re the only one who understands what I mean. Someday, somehow, you must make him understand.”

Shan took a step back, and another. “It doesn’t have to be like this, Heinz.”

Kohler slipped off his shoes, carefully rolled his socks into them. “I kept thinking the damned kid couldn’t possibly lift fingerprints from the rocks. He was just an amateur, after all. But he had to keep at it.”

“Like sending fibers for analysis taken from cloth stuffed in the victim’s mouth,” Shan said.

Kohler gazed toward a passing cloud. “Like sending the fibers,” the German agreed.

“From one of your scarves.”

“We trained him to be persistent in his quest for knowledge.”

“The price of fashion,” Shan said. “No one on the mountain but you wears cashmere.”

That message had sealed Thomas’s fate, Shan knew now. Kohler had ascribed a distant, almost abstract role to himself in the killings the night before. Shan knew that the reality was much more direct. Kohler had stuffed his bloody scarf into Tashi’s mouth and, later, when he was supposed to be hunting, helped Bing carry away severed body parts.

“Don’t tell him,” Kohler said in a whisper.

“There’s no need for Gao to know,” Shan agreed. “About that. Or about Thomas.”

It wasn’t simply that Kohler had been there when Thomas had died. He had summoned Bing and Rapaki to kill him.

Kohler pushed his shoes under the altar, his refined, assured voice returning. “You’re supposed to be unburdened, right? Like Rapaki.” He stepped forward. Along his naked back were the paired scars, familiar to Shan, where electric clamps had once been fastened. From his pocket he produced a small pouch, dumped some of its contents onto his palm, then sprinkled the yellow particles over his head. Not pollen. Gold dust. He paused for a moment, then poured the rest of the pouch over his shoulders.

“It’s going to be an adventure, this bayal. Rapaki and I will probably be bunk mates. I’ll debate physics with the gods who make lightning.” Kohler stepped to the end of the overhanging slab and carefully placed his toes over the edge, extending his arms out from his sides. Bare-chested, barefoot, glittering, he was like a graceful diver preparing for a championship performance. He leaned forward, keeping perfect balance as he fell, his golden head raised, arms outstretched, until he disappeared into the blackness below.

When Shan turned, Gao was there, watching, his face ravaged with emotion.

Abigail ran down the path. “He could have shot you,” she blurted out as she reached Shan.

“He could have shot me,” Shan agreed.

Abigail looked from Shan to Gao in confusion, then over the side of the fissure. “He had to act before the helicopter arrived. He talked about the gulag one night. He couldn’t face Public Security again.”

Gao held up his phone. “There is no helicopter,” he said. “The battery has been dead since that lightning storm.”

Abigail was trembling. Hostene put his arms around her.

“We’ll never make it down, not without staffs,” Yangke said.

Shan peered into the surviving pack. He pulled out Kohler’s folding knife, tossed it to Yangke, picked up a sharp, heavy stone, and pointed toward the summit. “You and I will go call our ride,” he said.

It took them a quarter hour to reach the radio relay station, another ten minutes to remove its power supply. An hour later the army sent a helicopter to investigate.

Chapter Sixteen

CHODRON AVOIDED SHAN and his friends after they returned to the village. When he saw Abigail he glared, then looked up the trail behind her, as if waiting for Bing to make an appearance. He seemed to be satisfied with asserting his authority by posting a guard at Dolma’s house to keep Gendun, Lokesh, and the two Navajos inside. He did not object when they sent for food, did not seem to notice when ever-increasing numbers of villagers began visiting, often staying for hours, not even when his wife joined them. Several times a day he started his generator. More than once Shan saw him walking alone in the blackened fields.

The day before August 1, the headman and his lieutenants began erecting decorations for his festival day, though few others joined in to help fasten the paper flags and faded red and yellow streamers to doorways. An hour after dawn on his long-awaited day, he began playing patriotic anthems over a portable stereo connected to his generator, then stood in front of it in dress clothes, waving his arm as if conducting a chorus while his men set off strings of firecrackers. Shan sat on a bench with Yangke, watching and waiting.

Chodron did not immediately hear the approach of the helicopter that landed in the fields above. He kept waving his imaginary baton, calling irately to the villagers who were ignoring him, watching the slope. Then his arm froze in midair and his forced smile evaporated. He had noticed the two men coming down through the fields.

“There are refreshments,” Chodron called to Gao as soon as they were in earshot. “Such an honor to have you and”—he looked uncertainly at the young Public Security officer who had helped Gao in Tashtul—“the military join us.” He gestured toward his house.

Gao ignored him. He turned to Shan. “Do you have a preference as to where we do this?”

“I do,” Shan said, and pointed to the empty granary where Chodron had carried on his tamzing sessions.

The headman looked about for his deputies, who had disappeared. The officer stepped forward and pulled him by the elbow.

“There is a relocation program,” the young officer announced when they were inside. The hesitation he had shown in Tashtul was gone. He was all business. “This is your one-hour notice.”

Chodron’s mouth opened, his jaw moved up and down, but no sound came out. The color slowly drained from his face. “My village!” he finally blurted out. “We can’t . . . I am secretary of the . . .” He looked to Gao, as if for help. But Gao stood silent, hands folded in front of him.

“I made no mention of the village,” replied the officer. “The honor is all yours.”

Chodron’s eyes narrowed as they studied the officer, then Gao, and finally Shan. Color began returning to his face. “I am the secretary of the—,” he began again in a louder voice.

The officer sighed impatiently, then extracted a folded letter from his pocket and extended it to Chodron. “You will see more than enough signatures.” He made a show of looking at his watch. “You now have fifty-five minutes.”

“Impossible!” the headman hissed. “We can’t begin to—” His voice faded away as he scanned the letter.

“Your wife,” came a soft voice from the shadows, “has chosen not to make the journey.” Dolma took a step forward, into the light. She looked radiant, a freshly polished silver-and-turquoise prayer amulet hanging over her simple black dress. “She is going to live with me. Your house is going to become the village school.”

Chodron fixed Shan with a spiteful glare. “I have many things to move to Tashtul.”

“Just your clothes,” declared the officer. “Your new home is nowhere near Tashtul.”

“But I have a house there!” Chodron protested. “I have a . . .” He glanced at Dolma, and chose not to finish the sentence.

“Miss Jiling?” the officer replied. “I fear she left rather suddenly. Something about family trouble in Manchuria. And your house and all its contents are being sold.”

“Sold? You can’t just—”

“It should pay for the lost crop,” Dolma interjected. “That should feed us through the winter. With the money left over, we will begin rebuilding the old temple.”

“You!” Chodron spat at Shan.

“We’re not sure if we can find all your accounts,” Shan said in a level voice. “But no doubt Jiling knows where they are. She has probably already made withdrawals. She will have a lot of expenses in Manchuria.”

Chodron looked as if he was about to strike Shan. The officer stepped closer. “We asked Gendun what should be done with you,” Shan continued. “You owe your life to his compassion. We have arranged for your reincarnation. Without the inconvenience of a firing squad.”

The officer explained quickly now, permitting no more interruption. Professor Gao had been kind enough to arrange for a posting for Chodron as head of civil affairs for a military installation in Xinjiang. It was deep in the desert, but the dry climate was said to be quite good for the health.

Chodron seemed to shrink before their eyes. “You can’t do this,” he said, though his voice had lost all strength. “There are people I can call.”

“Your people,” Shan observed, “won’t return your phone calls. They’ve seen the letter, with the signatures from Beijing.”

“You!” Chodron snarled again. “You have no idea what I can—”

“Perhaps you haven’t read the final paragraph.”

Chodron’s gaze returned to the paper and the color drained from his face. The last paragraph reported that Chodron had been stripped of his Party membership. For the rest of his life he would be nothing more than a tiny cog among the vast wheels of the Chinese bureaucracy.

“If you wish to resist,” Shan said in a weary voice. “the ledgers will be in safe hands. Before she left, Miss Jiling surrendered the one from Tashtul along with an explanatory statement about census figures, government allocations, and your secret accounts. And the other as well.”

“There is no other,” Chodron said in a hollow voice.

“A loyal Party member such as you would no doubt be pleased if the entire village read
The Quotations of Chairman Mao,”
Shan suggested. “A clever touch. Your wife retrieved it for me.”

Chodron’s mouth opened and shut but no words came out.

“Fifty minutes,” the officer announced.

Before the headman left the chamber Dolma handed him a letter, ready for his signature. It was being sent as his last official act. The census numbers were being revised to reflect that, due to the relocation of their families, the children in boarding school would have to rejoin their parents, and the village would have no more school-age children to send to the school. This had been Dolma’s idea. She was bringing the children home and assuring that no more would be sent away. Yangke had decided to stay and become the first teacher in the new school. Chodron glared at Shan, then silently scrawled his name at the bottom.

No one bid the headman goodbye. The gathered villagers watched in silence by a small mound of boxes. While Chodron had been packing, Yangke, Shan, and two soldiers had been carrying the boxes from the helicopter. Gao had sent food, many crates of food, the likes of which some of the villagers had never seen. As they began opening the containers, Lokesh and Dolma appeared, helping Gendun to a nearby bench. When the roar of the helicopter faded into the distance, the old lama began to sing in a frail voice brimming with joy. His song grew stronger as the yellow and red flags were replaced with prayer flags prepared the night before in Dolma’s house. One figure stood apart until a small girl in a bright red apron stepped forward and put her hand in his. Gao had arranged to be picked up the following day.

The afternoon was spent in busy, near frantic preparation, following the careful instructions of Hostene and Lokesh, who had been consulting for days, with Gendun as mediator. They had settled on the second of the old granaries as the site because, Hostene explained, the circular stone structure most resembled the hogans of his people.

Shepherds had left their flocks to collect colored sands and pollen, returning with reports that many of the miners were fleeing the mountain. Several of the village women had helped Abigail make feathered spirit sticks and improvise jewelry to wear. Hostene had passed the previous day with Lokesh in an improvised sweat lodge. Shan had helped to carry hot rocks and water as they were needed for the Navajo purification ceremony.

Shan was watching, vaguely smiling, from one of the flat rocks above the village when he heard a rustle of gravel. Gao did not speak as he settled beside him. The scientist seemed older but also somehow more human. Below them, the children were helping Gendun walk to the bottom of the fields, where Trinle was staking out the dimensions of their new temple.

“I saw you put that pack in the rocks above,” Gao observed.

Since returning to the village Shan had spent hours alone every night, seated on the ledge above the village. He had finally reached a decision. There would be a day, not this day or the next, but soon, when he would slip away into the shadows. He loved the old Tibetans like blood relations but he could not bear the thought of causing them further harm. His life on the mountain was coming to an end. Lokesh understood, though no words had been spoken about it. His old friend had found him one night on the rock, had accepted the return of his prayer amulet, then sat with Shan in a silence that communicated far more than words. He had taken Shan’s hand, cupping it, joining it at the fingertips to his own cupped hand. It was the Treasure Flask mudra. What they had done together had been a great treasure, Lokesh was saying. Then he had pulled his hand away and walked into the shadows.

“Once,” Shan declared in a quiet voice, “the traveling beggar followed an honored profession in Tibet.”

“I have to go back to Beijing for the funeral,” Gao said. “But I will return before the cold weather. I have many empty rooms. Even a wandering beggar may pause under a roof, maybe even take up residence in a burrow for the winter. We could read the old poets as the snow falls.”

AS PURPLE REMNANTS of the day lingered on the western horizon, Lokesh and Hostene commenced. The Navajo healing ceremony usually took nine days, Lokesh’s rites at least three. With Gendun’s counsel they had settled on a ceremony of seven days, a marriage of Hostene’s Mountainway chant and Lokesh’s Invocation of the Medicine Buddha. Faces would be smeared with pollen, Hostene warned, and long nights would be spent chanting. Long-sleeping deities would be awakened, Lokesh had countered, and there would be frequent pauses to check the pulse of their subject at her neck, wrist, and ankle. On the first night, Hostene would begin a Navajo sandpainting with Lokesh’s help. When that was finished Lokesh would start a Tibetan sand mandala, with Hostene’s help. The old Tibetans spoke with Abigail in soft, murmuring tones, assuring her that they had often seen even the worst of illnesses cured by the old ways.

As Shan settled onto the ground in the place saved for him between Gendun and Lokesh, Abigail smiled at him serenely. Shan had asked her why she had stopped writing in her journal. She had admitted that scientific evidence of links between their peoples would always be incomplete. Abigail had explained that her weeks on the mountain had taught her the difference between truth and mere fact. She had at last learned the truth about herself, and as for the rest, this mountain, these people, this ceremony would be proof enough for her.