The White Mirror (16 page)

 

Chapter 13

The muleteers were amusing themselves by practicing archery. From his vantage point near the outer door of the manor, Li Du watched a black arrow cut through the white and gray landscape. It struck a log hung from a tree at the pasture's edge. The log swung slowly back and forth.

Li Du considered walking toward them, but decided that the answers to more pressing questions lay in the other direction. He skirted the manor's outer wall until he reached the back corner and the trail that led to the stone stairs. He was about to start up it when he heard a stifled thud followed by the melodic clatter of logs tossed onto a woodpile. Turning toward the sound, he made his way along the back wall of the manor.

About halfway along it, in the shadow of the central tower, he found Doso standing in front of an enormous supply of stacked firewood. Doso's belted coat was parted and bunched at his waist, his arms out of its sleeves, freeing him to swing an ax in a broad arc over an upright log.

The ax struck the log's pale face and wedged deep into its center. Doso raised a booted foot to lever the heavy blade free. He remained for a moment leaning his elbow on his knee. Then, with a grunt, he pried the ax out. Li Du waited to speak until Doso had swung again. This time the blade struck deeper, but the log did not split.

“Will there be more snow?” Li Du asked.

Doso pivoted. When he recognized Li Du, he released the handle of the ax and straightened, raising a hand in greeting. “I think not,” he said, glancing up at the sky. “It will be warmer tomorrow. You are eager to continue on to the pass?”

“I know that Kalden is concerned about the arrival of winter,” said Li Du, approaching Doso through snow scattered with wood splinters and curls of bark. “He wants to be in Lhasa before the paths close.”

Doso nodded. “His decision to come this way surprises me. We rarely see caravans here—the road through Dajianlu is faster and easier.” His eyes flicked past Li Du to the path up the mountain. “You are on your way to the temple?”

“Yes.”

Doso turned his back to the forested slope. “I do not go there often,” he said. “I make my offerings at the temple within my own walls. When I was a younger man, I used to visit the shrines scattered across the peaks. Now Pema is old enough now to take the yaks up on his own.”

“He works hard,” said Li Du. “You must be proud to have a son so committed to the health and success of your family home.”

“Pema is a good boy,” said Doso. “But he spent too much time in the painter's studio. It was not a place for impressionable children—my wife never allows our younger ones to go there.”

“Why not?”

Doso reached an arm across his chest and pressed his hand to his opposite shoulder, grimacing at some ache. “I trust women to make these decisions. But Pema has a fascination with the place.”

“It seems,” said Li Du, cautiously, “that Pema was the only person with whom Dhamo associated.”

“I admit that it worried me,” said Doso. “I am a religious man, but the lord of a manor must pay attention to his land and to the people who live on it. He must marry a good woman and have sons with her. The life and duties of a man are different from those of a monk.”

“Does Pema wish to be a monk?”

For a moment Doso looked disconcerted, but his reply was firm. “No,” he said. “Pema is the eldest son and heir to this house. His responsibility is here, as mine was, as my father's was before me.” Doso turned to the half-split log and pried the ax from it. “Pema is fortunate to have lived to be a man,” he said. “You have seen the scar that marks his face?”

Li Du did not need to answer.

“Death almost took him,” said Doso, “soon after he became my son. He was not yet two years old.”

“That is very young to sustain such an injury,” said Li Du. “It must have been a dangerous wound.”

“Still a babe,” said Doso. “My wife—my first wife—was out gathering mushrooms with women from the village. Our son—” Something flickered in Doso's face, and he hesitated. “Our first son was only a little older than Pema, though he was much bigger and stronger. The two of them lay sleeping side by side in the soft moss. My wife told me that she heard a cry so loud and inconsolable that it rang to the tops of the trees. It was my son—Tashi was the name we gave him. He was wailing because he had woken to find his brother gone from his side.”

Li Du said nothing. He felt the tension of the other man's memory deep in his own stomach. Doso sighed and shook his head as if after many years he could still not believe what had happened. He continued. “The women rushed through the forest calling for Pema. It was my wife who found him in an outcrop of rocks. There he was, lying between two black bear cubs, his tiny face bloodied. His screams must have frightened the mother. The claw that rent his cheek left its permanent mark.”

Doso hefted the heavy ax, testing his grip, preparing to swing it again. “If Tashi hadn't screamed so loud,” he said, “we might never have found Pema alive. But my son was always that way. It was his self-appointed task to protect his brother from harm. We should have guessed, even before the delegation came, that Tashi was a holy child.”

*   *   *

Crystalline in their new coat of snow, the stairs rose through the forest beneath jade-green lichen garlands spangled with ice. As before, Li Du was obliged to rest beside the old hollow tree at the top of a particularly steep and crooked ascent. He waited for his heart to slow and his breath to return, then continued up.

Emerging from the trees, he saw that there was a new structure between the prayer flags and the temple. In the center of a circle cleared of snow was a pyre, a metal grid supported by layered logs and bound kindling. A wide trail of overlapping footprints led away from it into the forest a little way from the top of the stairs, suggesting an alternate route down to the manor.

Li Du passed the prayer flags and the pyre, climbed the stairs to the temple, and stood under its overhanging roof, hesitating in front of the door to the chapel. Behind him he could hear prayer flags fluttering like the wings of a hundred birds. Li Du pushed the temple door open and stepped inside.

The flames in the butter lamps strained toward him in the dark, then away as the air currents shifted. In front of the altar, the body that yesterday had been supine was now sitting up. Its limbs were wrapped in layers of thick white cloth and bound in a stiff arrangement, cross-legged, the hands tied in place at the knees. There was only a suggestion of a face under the wrappings, but still Li Du felt its gaze on him.

The Chhöshe was standing in front of one of the thangkas hanging on the wall. He was leaning forward, his nose almost touching the painting. Absorbed in his contemplation, he did not notice Li Du.

“I am sorry to—”

Li Du's quiet interruption caused the Chhöshe to swing around, startled. For an instant, Li Du thought that he was looking at Doso. The young man before him was a duplicate of his father. He had the same oval face, the same high, lean cheeks and sturdy jaw, the same thick neck and broad shoulders. He towered over Li Du.

As he had seen the Khampa do when they met lamas on the path or in villages, Li Du knelt and prostrated himself. The Chhöshe watched impassively as Li Du performed the movements awkwardly. When Li Du had touched his face to the ground three times, he stood up and wiped the dust from his hands.

“I am sorry,” he said, after he had introduced himself. “Is it wrong for me to be in the temple at this time?”

The Chhöshe shook his head. “I do not think it is wrong,” he said. His voice was unexpectedly frank, and belied his somber bearing. “In my school at Drepung, we often discuss what to do when Right Action is not clear.” His gaze shifted to the body at the altar. “Your presence here is a distraction for him, perhaps, but it is inconsequential compared to the others, the ones only he can see. He wanders in bardo. He does not know which of the six realms to enter.”

“I must apologize for my ignorance,” said Li Du.

The Chhöshe's eyes brightened with amusement. “It is said that here every district has its own dialect and every lama his own doctrine.” After a pause, he stepped closer to Li Du. “I recognize your voice,” he said. “Thank you for your help yesterday.”

“My help?”

“The foreign monk would not have left if you had not drawn him away.”

Li Du remembered Paolo Campo's zealous determination to interrupt the Chhöshe's prayers. “He was upset, as we all were, by the violent manner of Dhamo's death. The dictates of his own religion compel him to intervene.”

“His god must be a powerful one,” replied the Chhöshe, “to preserve him when he fell.” He paused. “Did you come here to make offerings?”

“I came to speak to you.”

“On what subject?”

“I—I have been preoccupied,” said Li Du, “with the sign that was painted on Dhamo's body—the white circle framed in gold.”

“The sign he painted on himself,” said the Chhöshe. “The mirror.”

“Yes. The mirror. Can you tell me what the symbol means?”

The Chhöshe hesitated, but when he spoke, it was with confidence that appeared natural to him. “The mirror is a symbol of the enlightened mind,” he said. “It sees objects as they are, and it reflects them as they are. It does not alter or distort what passes before it, as we alter and distort what passes before our eyes. It does not react to what it sees, as we react to what we see.” He paused, consulting his memory. “Ultimately, the mirror reveals objects as they truly are—illusions with no substance. The mirror shows us the truth. The mirror shows us emptiness.”

Li Du allowed the words to sink into his mind. “But why would Dhamo have painted it on himself?”

The Chhöshe was looking at him curiously. “I do not know.”

“Do you have memories of him?”

“What?” The question took the Chhöshe off guard.

“Do you have memories of Dhamo? You were a young child when he came to this valley and you left it.”

“I do not remember him. I do not remember this valley at all. As you say, I was a small child when I left.” The Chhöshe lapsed into silence. His gaze roved across the surface of the temple walls. “Drepung is very different. There are grand temples and golden prayer wheels, and hundreds of monks and pilgrims from every city. Not like this place, where there was only Dhamo.”

In the silence that followed, Li Du turned to the painting the Chhöshe had been studying. It was a simple image depicted in precious materials. Its surface was covered in gold leaf that had been burnished smooth. Onto the gold, vermilion figures had been painted with a fine brush. They were faint shapes—heads and shoulders barely distinguishable from their golden background.

“Is this Dhamo's work?”

The Chhöshe turned to it. “I do not know—it might have been. The family is wealthy. There are treasures here, and at the manor, purchased from other places.”

Li Du scanned the cluttered wall. “What will happen to the thangka that Dhamo left unfinished in his studio?”

The Chhöshe considered the question. “In a monastery, thangka painters have many assistants. Dhamo painted alone—there is no one to complete the work. What is your interest in thangkas?”

Li Du searched for an answer. “At an earlier time in my life, I was a librarian. I have a habit of asking questions about anything that involves ink on paper, parchment, or silk.”

The answer seemed to satisfy the young man. “If you wish to see the unfinished work, let us go and look at it together.”

Li Du followed the Chhöshe across the chapel and into the studio. The door to the inner room was closed. The Chhöshe strode across the floor ahead of Li Du and opened it. He was still for a moment, his shoulders blocking Li Du's view. Then he stepped aside. Li Du saw the narrow cot, piled with dark furs, as before, and the bowl of dried blue paint. The pillow still rested in front of the easel.

But the ties that had held the thangka suspended in its frame had been cut. There was nothing there. The painting was gone.

*   *   *

Hamza found Li Du sitting on the edge of Dhamo's cot, staring at the empty frame where the thangka had been.

“You know there is no painting in that frame,” said Hamza.

Li Du looked up. “I do.”

“I am relieved to hear it. Why are you looking at an empty frame?”

“Because this frame contained Dhamo's unfinished thangka. Someone has taken it.”

Hamza stepped more completely into the room. “This place has the feel of a prison,” he said. He knelt before the frame and examined one of the dangling threads. “The young Chhöshe is praying just on the other side of this wall,” he said, tilting his head toward the chapel. “He must know who took it.”

“I have spoken with him already,” said Li Du. “He says he was here yesterday afternoon, praying as you see him doing now. But he says that he did not see or hear anyone go into or out of the studio.”

Hamza was silent. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “And the Chhöshe? Could he have taken it?”

“Either he did, or someone else managed to enter and leave the studio carrying a thangka without him or anyone else noticing.”

Hamza assessed the frame. “How large was the painting?”

Li Du held his hands shoulder-width apart. “The Chhöshe told me that after I left yesterday, Doso and Rinzen arrived. I saw them myself on the stairs. He says that Pema came after them with a pack animal, and that he and Doso built the funeral pyre while Rinzen assisted the Chhöshe in preparing the body. A little later, Kamala brought them food. Andruk came in search of Campo. Incidentally, not one of them was here consistently through the afternoon. Which means that any one of them might have followed Campo into the forest.”