Bones of the Earth

by Eliot Pattison

  “Yes and no,” replied the American. “That’s not the woman I saw today. I saw the woman from the train. She was wearing a loose jacket today, but underneath were tight jeans, makeup, and manicured nails. She knows how to deliver the goods.”

  “Goods?”

  Pike rolled his eyes. “She’s trained to use her body, Shan. She was in Hong Kong, I am sure of it. She took that man to her hotel room, and in a few hours he was ready to give her anything she asked for.”

  Shan looked with despair over the queue of eager passengers waiting for the next train. “Every time we think we have a lead, we slam into a stone wall. We don’t have the maps. We have no proof that this woman killed Sun. We have no proof that she was in Hong Kong. We don’t even know her real name or where she really lives.”

  “Not for a couple more hours anyway,” Pike said with a dangerous grin. “Tink is tailing her.”

  * * *

  Shan was early for his rendezvous at the Jokhang Temple with Meng and so took advantage of the thinning crowds to get reacquainted with the thousand-year-old structure. He paused inside the entry to buy incense from a toothless old woman then walked slowly inside, letting his senses adjust to the dim light and the acrid scent of incense and butter lamps. A few pilgrims were still completing the interior circuit, pausing at each of the little low-doored chapels that lined the passageways. Shan ascended the nearly empty stairs to the second floor, where a more condensed ring of chapels encircled the hall. Shan sat on a bench near a shrine to a protector deity and closed his eyes, sensing the air of ancient devotion that seemed to permeate the temple. Here the afflicted and other seekers had come for centuries, lighting incense and lamps to converse with the gods. Lokesh said that if you tuned your soul just right, you could hear the echoes of the devout from across time. Shan looked down at a stick of incense in his hand and wondered if it would provide the cleansing he needed after spending two hours with the Commissar. The different mantras of the few pilgrims and monks still in the chapels flowed out into the hall and seemed to combine into one rhythmic prayer. He let the sound wash over him, let it become the salve he needed for his aching spirit.

  After a few minutes, he rose and walked along the chapels, exchanging greetings with the monks and nuns who were beginning to sweep the floors, and pausing in a chapel to light his stick before the Historical Buddha. As he passed a chapel on the way to the stairs, he recognized the images of the Medicine Buddhas over an altar on which a solitary incense stick burned. The only occupants were two women murmuring in the corner beside the altar. He extracted another stick, intending to light it for Ko. He bent to pass through the low entry then froze and abruptly backed away. The two women were a nun and Meng.

  Neither had seen him, and Shan edged into a shadow where he could study them without being conspicuous. They were facing each other, not the gods, and the nun was holding one of Meng’s hands while working the beads of a rosary, a mala, with her other hand. Shan found himself inching closer, trying to understand, then he saw the glass of water sitting between them. Meng wasn’t there as a tourist, wasn’t there because she had struck up a casual conversation with the nun. They were reciting a Medicine Buddha mantra, slowly, because Meng stumbled over the words. The mantra was considered to be a powerful antidote to disease, provided it was recited the traditional one hundred eight times over a glass of water, which the patient then had to drink. Shan watched until the nun squeezed Meng’s hand and gestured for her to lift the glass.

  He left the temple, then the temple grounds, and walked around the adjoining block before reentering the courtyard a few minutes past their appointed hour. Meng waited for him on a bench. He sat beside her. They both looked up as a chorus broke out above them.

  “From one of the roof chapels,” Shan said.

  “It sounds like blessings drifting down from the heavens,” Meng observed, then after a moment pointed to the main gate. “There’s a strange fossil in the flagstones,” she said.

  “It’s called the Amolongkha,” Shan explained. “The old ones have many different stories about it. Some say it was a demon trapped in stone by the earth gods. Some say it is a protector, sleeping there until it is needed.”

  “It’s not needed now?” Meng asked after a moment.

  Shan did not reply. “We should walk the pilgrim’s path around the temple,” he said instead.

  “I have a long drive back,” she said. Her voice was weary.

  “The Nangkhor Kora is the name of the path,” he said, and rose, extending a hand. “It’s been redeeming souls for over a thousand years. Lokesh says pilgrims leave tiny traces of spiritual energy along their paths, in which case this one must have the most energized air in all of Tibet.”

  Meng hesitated, cocking her head toward a clip-clop sound at the main gate. An old woman was progressing along the path in traditional prostrations, rising, advancing a step then dropping her body to full length on the ground. The sound came from the worn wooden blocks strapped to her hands to protect them.

  “The two-legged horse, some of the old Tibetans call it,” Shan said of the rhythmic sound made by the wooden blocks. “I was in a cell once with some old monks. It had a narrow window near the ceiling that allowed in a little light and sound. There was a shrine nearby, and every few days their faces would light up with joy when they heard that sound. Clip-clop, clip-clop. Some pilgrims travel like that for weeks, even months. Good for the soul, terrible for the knees.”

  Meng gazed at the ragged, stick-thin woman. For a moment Shan thought he saw envy in her eyes.

  They walked along images of deer and dharma wheels that adorned the outer wall then reached the long line of prayer wheels mounted along the kora path, huge brass drums embossed with auspicious signs and the mani mantra, which was offered to the gods with each spin of the wheel. Shan showed Meng the best grip for spinning the wheels, and they advanced down the line like eager pilgrims, setting each one in motion. Meng laughed as they spun the first one, Shan’s hand on hers, but her smile faded, and as they reached the last one it was replaced with a somber, almost desperate expression.

  In the shadows behind the temple they sat on a bench and watched in silence as the old woman caught up and passed them, her passage marked by the fading, hollow sound of her wooden blocks.

  When Meng’s eyes came back to him Shan turned over her hand and dropped something in it.

  “What’s this?” she asked as she lifted her hand.

  “My rosary, my mala. The beads are carved sandalwood. Lokesh thinks it may be two or three hundred years old, making it saturated with spiritual power.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I want you to use it, not one of the cheap plastic ones I expect you bought here.”

  Meng stared at the old beads. “Why would I need beads?” she asked in a tight voice.

  “For your mantra. There’s more than one for the Medicine Buddhas. Om bhaisajy bhaisajye bhaisajye samugate svaha, that’s probably the one you were taught in their chapel. Once you start you need to finish all the beads, all one hundred eight.”

  Meng seemed to sag. “Can’t we just pretend for a while longer?” she whispered. “Not everything in life has to be investigated.”

  “Pretend?”

  “Pretend that we would raise a beautiful young woman together.” Meng’s voice cracked as she spoke. “Pretend you and I would sit in her university graduation and laugh about being taken for her grandparents.”

  “That day in the square when you told me about Kami, you said, ‘I know she will do well with you,’” Shan said. “It was only later that I realized it sounded like you meant you would not be there.” Meng did not respond. “That woman, the caretaker who always hangs back. She’s not with you for Kami’s sake.”

  “Care for Kami is part of our arrangement. But yes, she is a nurse. There are days when I need special medicines, days when I can’t really function. I used up almost all my savings on the trip down here and to pay for her and my med
icines. I’m sorry. The money was supposed to be for Kami.”

  Shan found he could not speak. He took her hand and gripped it tightly.

  “I was supposed to go for another treatment today, but they aren’t really doing any good.” Meng lifted the beads in her other hand. “I came here instead and found another kind of treatment.”

  “There’s always other doctors,” Shan murmured.

  “No. It’s too advanced. They said if we had caught it a year earlier, when the pains first started, I may have had a chance. But the nearest doctors to my station were a hundred miles away, and I couldn’t leave Kami by herself.” Meng shrugged. “But I got her to her father. Like one of those pilgrim journeys in a way.”

  “How long?” he asked after a long silence.

  “Five or six months, maybe as much as a year.” Meng leaned her head into Shan’s shoulder and gripped his hand tightly. Tears were streaming down her face. “I’m so sorry, Shan.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he echoed.

  A new clip-clop rhythm rose from the corner of the temple. Neither spoke, neither moved, as another pilgrim made her way along the ancient path in front of them and slowly disappeared around the next corner.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The nondescript building Tink led them to was at the edge of the Norbulingka, the park of the elegant old Summer Palace once used as a residence by the Dalai Lamas during the warm months, a perfect location for a clandestine safe house. Shan guessed the plain-looking structure had been built during the years of Tibetan modernization in the 1950s when yak trains had hauled European furnishings over the Himalayas, including the old record player and stacks of 78 rpm records Shan had once seen in the young Dalai Lama’s residence. Housing had been built for senior officials close to the palace, and this house would have been only a few minutes walk from where the Dalai Lama had lived.

  The building, with walls of tan stucco and a red-tiled roof, was a duplex, but Tink had reported that the second unit was empty, without any furnishings. After sitting in the darkened street for nearly an hour, Pike muttered impatiently and opened the door of Shan’s car. “I’ll just reconnoiter a bit.”

  “There could be a security system,” Shan warned.

  “Doubt it. The security of a safe house is based on it being unknown.” The American rummaged in his backpack and extracted a pair of pliers, a screwdriver, a flashlight, and a small flat metal bar. “Just do your job, Constable,” Pike said in a tone meant to preempt any questions. Then he slipped into the shadows.

  The woman appeared a quarter-hour later, carrying a shopping bag from the bus stop down the street. Shan waited a few minutes then knocked on the door. He stood to one side so as not to be seen through the window, then planted a foot inside as she opened the door. She gasped as she recognized him and retreated several steps.

  “Bastard!” she hissed.

  “A pleasant evening,” he observed as he closed the door behind him. “You can smell the flowers in the Dalai Lama’s gardens.”

  “You have no idea what you’re dealing with, Constable,” she said when she found her voice. “You should just go. I don’t have to tell anyone that you breached state security. Not yet.”

  In contrast to its simple exterior, the house was expensively furnished, in Western style, with a large flat-screen television on one wall and photographs of European cities on another. Shan motioned her to the overstuffed sofa. “State security,” he repeated. “Is that what you call it? Assembling false evidence for the murder by execution of Metok. The murder of Sun Lunshi on the sky train. Demeaning yourself to play the widow of Metok in order to find and destroy the evidence of murder by your handlers. You were their spy among the nuns at Larung Gar, the one who arranged the death of Tara Namdol. So busy. So many faces. How do you keep them all straight?”

  She sneered at him. “Huan wanted me to shave my hair off. I said wearing a robe and taking off all my jewelry was as far as I would go. I learned that novices don’t shave until they take their vows, so it worked fine.”

  “What an abundance of names you use. Do you even recall your real one?”

  The woman’s eyes flared. “Just call me a loyal soldier in the service of her government.”

  “Try Kim Nakai,” came an amused voice in English. Pike stepped out of a darkened doorway, holding a badge on a lanyard. “Kim. Sounds Korean,” he added, then fanned three passports in his other hand. “The one in front shows entry into Hong Kong six weeks ago.”

  The woman’s fingers curled, and she tensed for a moment as if about to leap at Pike, then she calmed and decided to speak to Shan. “My father was from North Korea. He provided many services to Beijing and was allowed to emigrate.”

  “Intriguing,” Pike said. “A spy for the Chinese in North Korea. Following in daddy’s footsteps?”

  Kim slid along the sofa as if to distance herself from the American as he approached. She twisted as she reached the end, pushing her hand into the cushions.

  “Looking for this?” Pike asked, suddenly aiming a pistol at her. “First place I looked, since I realized you must do a lot of your work on your back.” He hefted the weapon in his hand. “Wonderful gun. A German Walther. So cosmopolitan of you.”

  Kim seemed genuinely frightened of Pike. She rose to stand behind Shan.

  “It isn’t the bullet you need to worry about, sister,” Pike said, heat rising in his voice. “It’s who we’re going to tell about your misadventures.”

  “Your Colonel Tan is a worthless relic!” she spat. “He is powerless in Beijing. His hour is over!”

  Pike ignored her. “Tan is just one possibility. There’s the Hong Kong authorities for the bank fraud you committed. The Ministry of Justice in Beijing for arranging a murder by execution—something like that undermines the people’s faith in government. How about the Ministry of Tourism for committing a murder on their precious train? Or perhaps one of the American newspapers with the tale of how you helped to kill my daughter?”

  Kim’s sneer slowly faded.

  “I was thinking more of the Party disciplinarians,” Shan said, “about the conspiracy of the Amban Council to take over Lhadrung County. But, of course, my first choice is the Commissar. Or do you just consider him another old relic too?”

  The words caused her to sag, and she lowered herself onto the sofa. “I am just a soldier. I obey orders.”

  Pike began opening the drawers and doors of cabinets, pocketing two extra magazines for the pistol, then smiling as he extracted several pieces of paper from a desk drawer and scanned them. “Boarding passes to and from Hong Kong,” he declared. “A taxi receipt from Golmud on the day you boarded that train. Cab fares to and from Metok’s apartment. Behind on your expense reporting, Miss Kim? What’s next, a receipt for the sleeping pills that killed Sun Lunshi? Using soda as a murder weapon, how original.”

  “We are taught to improvise,” she snapped back. Her gaze hardened. “And a foreigner acting against the People’s government will not simply be deported. There’s evidence that could indicate that you killed that man on the train. I would be happy to supplement it. That would mean hard labor for the rest of your life. Perhaps in one of the prisons that we will soon be overseeing?”

  Pike emitted a low growl. His lust for vengeance for his daughter’s death had been like a slow smoldering fire, and the flames seemed closer than ever to eruption.

  “We just want to chat a few minutes, Kim,” Shan said, “then we can leave. Tell the truth and you can forget all about us.”

  “For a starter, where are the maps you took from Sun?” Pike interjected. “In Huan’s office?”

  Kim stared at both men in silence, then gestured toward the closet by the door. “No one cared about the maps, other than to keep them out of the hands of Metok and his foolish friends.”

  Pike opened the door and pulled out a black plastic tube from the closet.

  “Good,” Shan said, “an encouraging start. Now let’s chat about Hong Kong.”


  She asked for a drink and laughed when Shan brought her a glass of water, then she stepped to a cabinet and retrieved a bottle of whiskey. She looked at them expectantly. Pike nodded, but Shan just took a sip of the water.

  They spoke for nearly an hour, during which Kim warmed to her task. She seemed not to consider their questions a serious threat and was not shy about boasting about her undercover accomplishments, since she clearly expected that Pike would be deported soon and Shan would be arrested. She confirmed that she had gone to Hong Kong to suborn testimony about Metok. She laughed when Shan asked where the money was and, in a taunting tone, explained that she had stolen account records and forms from a bank clerk and created a false account document as supplemental evidence. “Right there, in the second drawer,” she said, nodding toward the desk. “I brought more forms back, just in case.”

  After finishing her glass of whiskey, she enthusiastically declared her relief to be finished with the boring role of Metok’s wife, for which she had borrowed the daughter of a Public Security secretary, bribing her with a new computer in order to have her report to the apartment for two hours each day. Kim proudly recounted the details of her mission on the sky train, which she claimed to have executed flawlessly. “He might have saved himself if he had called for the doctor,” she added with a shrug, as if it assuaged her conscience.

  Finally, she yawned and stood. “I’m tired. We’re done.”

  “No,” Shan said, “sit at the desk. You have some writing to do. Just some supplemental evidence, as you say.”

  Half an hour later she threw her pen down. “I’ve done what you want. Leave,” she snapped, and stepped toward her bedroom.

  “One more thing,” Pike said with a grin, and before Shan could stop him he slapped the woman with the back of his hand, so hard the blow sent her sprawling back onto the sofa.

  She glared at the American as she rubbed her cheek. “You have my gun,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “My gun now,” Pike growled.