The Skull Mantra is-1

by Eliot Pattison

  The herder in the vest cocked his head in curiosity at Shan. "The Dronma," he said, "they follow the sheep. In the spring the yaks come down from the high land where they wintered. The sheep go up. Look for small tents. Look for prayer flags." He drew a map of likely locations, seven in all, in Shan's pad.

  As he did so Shan became aware of a new sound, from another tent. It was one of the rituals he had learned at the 404th. Although the roads were already muddy, someone was praying fervently for rain.

  Feng brought blankets from the truck and the three men slept with the children, rising when the goats began to bleat for the dawn milking. Shan folded one of the blankets and left it as a gift at the entrance of the camp.

  Inside the truck, sleeping on the back seat, was Pemu.

  "I will go with you," she said, rubbing his eyes. "My mother was Dronma clan. I will go and see my cousins." She made room for Shan and offered him a piece of bread.

  The distances were not that great. She did not need their truck to see her cousins. Perhaps, Shan considered, it was a test, a challenge. A Public Security squad would never accept a passenger.

  They had covered three of the valleys by midmorning and scanned the slopes with binoculars, to no avail. The skies began to darken. The herders had prayed for rain. Suddenly he understood why.

  "Yesterday," he said to the girl, who watched intently out the window, "your people saw a helicopter didn't they?"

  "The helicopter is always bad," she said, as if there was but one in existence. "When I was young the helicopter came."

  Shan looked at her expectantly.

  Pemu chewed her lip. "It was a very bad day. At first we thought the Chinese had a new machine to make thunder. But it wasn't thunder. They came to earth by the camp. I was only four." She looked out the window again. "It was a very bad day," she repeated with a distant, vacant stare.

  Pemu moved to the edge of the seat as they approached an outcropping along the path. When the track moved into a small, rugged canyon she asked to get out. "To clear rocks," she said. "I will walk in front."

  But Shan saw no rocks. Feng's hand instinctively moved to his pistol, and suddenly Shan realized that she had come to protect them, to use herself as a shield. After a moment, Feng, too, seemed to understand. His hand moved away from his holster, and he concentrated on keeping the vehicle as close to the girl as possible. They moved slowly, in brittle silence.

  Shan thought he saw a glimmer of metal ahead. The girl began singing, loudly. The glimmer was gone. It could have been a gun. It could have been a particle of crystal catching the sun.

  As they left the canyon she returned to the truck, with a new, haggard look. She began rubbing her belly. She started singing again, to her baby now.

  "My uncle is in India," she said suddenly. "In Dharamsala, with the Dalai Lama. He writes me letters. He says the Dalai Lama tells us to follow the ways of peace."

  They almost missed the small black tent in the fifth valley, in the shelter of a ledge. It took nearly an hour for Pemu to lead Shan and Yeshe up the steep switchbacks that led to the camp. Three sheep were tethered to a stake near the tent. Red ribbons were tied to their ears. A huge long-haired dog, a herder's mastiff, sat across the entrance to the tent. It reacted only with its eyes, watching them intently, then bared its teeth when they reached the smoldering campfire.

  "Aro! Aro!" Pemu called out, taking a tentative step toward the hearth.

  "Who would it be then?" a ragged voice called from inside. A small swarthy face appeared just above the dog. "You're right, Pok," the man said to the animal. "They don't look so fearsome." He laughed and disappeared for a moment.

  He came out on a crutch. His left leg was gone below the knee. "Pemu?" he said, squinting at the girl. "Is it you, cousin?" He seemed choked with emotion.

  The girl produced a loaf of bread from a bag around her waist and handed it to him. "This is Harkog," she said, introducing him to Shan. "Harkog and Pok are responsible for this range. We're not sure which is in charge."

  Harkog's mouth opened in a crooked smile that showed only three teeth. "Sugar?" he asked Shan abruptly. "Got sugar?"

  Shan explored the bag Yeshe had brought from the truck and found an apple, brown with age. The man accepted it with a frown, then brightened for a moment. "Tourists? Big power place on the mountain. I can take you. Secret trail. Go there, say prayers. When you go home you will make babies. Always works. Ask Pemu," he added with a hoarse laugh.

  "We're looking for your brother. We want to help him."

  The man's carefree expression disappeared. "Got no brother. My brother's gone from this world. Too late to help Balti."

  Shan's heart sank. "Balti has died?"

  "No more Balti," Harkog said, and began tapping his forehead with his fist, as if in pain.

  Pemu pulled the tent flap open. Inside there was a vague human shape, a shell of a man with a gaunt face and eyeslike the sockets of a skull. "Just his body is here," Harkog said. "Not much left. For days now. He stays awake. Night and day, with his mantras." He studied the rosary hanging from Yeshe's belt. "Holy man?" he said with new interest.

  Yeshe did not reply, but stepped closer to the tent. "Balti Dronma. We must speak with you."

  The brother did not protest as Shan and Yeshe entered the tent and sat down.

  Pemu stepped in behind them. "He's more dead than alive," she whispered in horror.

  "We have questions," Shan said quietly. "About that night."

  "No," Harkog protested. "He's with me. All those nights."

  "What nights?" Shan asked.

  "Whatever nights you ask about."

  "No," Shan said patiently. "That last night in Lhadrung he was with Prosecutor Jao. When Jao was murdered."

  "Don't know nothing about murder," Harkog muttered.

  "The prosecutor. Jao. He was murdered."

  Harkog seemed not to hear. He was staring at his brother. "He ran. He ran and ran. Like a jackal he ran. For days he ran. Then one morning I see an animal under a rock. Smells like a dying goat, the dog said. I reached under and pulled him out."

  "We came from Lhadrung to understand what he saw that night."

  "You do mantra," Harkog said suddenly to Yeshe. "Protect against demons while he sleep. Call back his soul so he can rest. Afterwards maybe he talk."

  Yeshe did not reply, but awkwardly sat next to Balti.

  Satisfied, Harkog left the tent.

  "Like you blessed my baby," Pemu said to Yeshe.

  Yeshe looked beseechingly to Shan. "I'm sorry," he said twice, once to Shan, and once to the woman. "I am not able to do this thing."

  "I remember what the woman said at the garage," Shan reminded him. "Your powers aren't lost, they have only lost their focus."

  Pemu pressed the back of his hand against her forehead.

  Yeshe emitted a little groan. "Why?"

  "Because he is dying."

  "And I am supposed to work a miracle?"

  "The medicine he needs can't be provided by a doctor," Shan said.

  Pemu still held Yeshe's hand. He looked at her with a new serenity. Perhaps, Shan considered, a miracle was already underway.

  Shan sat with the herdsman outside as Pemu stoked the fire and fixed tea. A clap of thunder shook the air about them. A curtain of rain pushed up the valley. As Harkog fixed a sheltering canvas over the fire circle, a chant began inside.

  Shan listened to the drone of Yeshe's chant for an hour, then left to bring back Feng and the food in the truck. The sergeant paused as they were leaving the vehicle, and ran back. "Have to hide the truck," he said over his shoulder. He did not say from whom.

  By the time they returned the rain had stopped and Yeshe was exactly as Shan had left him, seated in front of Balti's pallet, repeating his mantra of protection. There would be no stopping now until it was done. And no one, not even Yeshe, knew when that would be.

  They gathered firewood and cooked a stew as the sun set, then ate in silence as the heavens cleared and Yesh
e droned on inside the tent. Shan sat with Pemu and watched the new moon climb across the eastern sky. A solitary nighthawk called from the distance. Wisps of mist wandered down the slope. Feng lay down with a blanket and in a moment was snoring. Yeshe droned on. Pemu found a fleece and curled up in it, staring at the fire. At the edge of the flickering circle of light Harkog sat with Pok, the dog, facing the darkness. Yeshe was in his sixth hour of chanting.

  Everything felt so distant to Shan. The evil that lurked in Lhadrung. The gulag he would return to. Even the ever-present tentacles of Minister Qin and Beijing seemed part of a different world for the moment.

  From his bag Shan pulled the rice paper and ink stick he had purchased from the market. It had been a very long time. So many festivals had been missed. He rubbed the stick and with a few drops of water made ink in a curved piece of bark. He practiced, making small strokes in the air with the brush, composing the words in his mind before laying out the sheet and beginning to draw. He used the elegant old-style ideograms he had learned when he was a boy.

  Dear father, he began, forgive me for not writing these many years. I embarked on a long journey since my last letter. Famine raged in my soul. Then I met a wise man who fed it. The strokes had to be bold yet fluid, or his father the scholar would be disappointed. Written properly, his father would say, a word should look like wind over bamboo. When I set out I was sad and afraid. Now I have no sadness left. And my only fear is of myself. He used to write letters often, alone in his tenement in Beijing. He read the ideograms over, unsatisfied. I sit on a nameless mountain, honored by mist and your memory, he added, and signed it as his father would call him. Xiao Shan.

  Folding the second sheet into an envelope for the first, he pulled a smoldering stick from the fire and stepped into the darkness. He walked in the moonlight until he reached a small ledge that overlooked the valley, then made a small mound of dried grass between two stones and laid the letter on top. He studied the stars, bowed toward the mound and ignited it with the stick. As the ashes rose toward heaven, he watched reverently, hoping to see them cross the moon.

  He lingered, covered in stars. He smelled ginger and listened to his father, certain now that he could remember joy.

  Halfway back to the camp his heart leapt to his throat as a black creature appeared on the path in front of him. It was Pok. The huge dog sat and blocked his way.

  "They say it was a riding accident but it wasn't," a voice rang out from the shadows beside the trail. It wasHarkog. He had a strange new determination in his voice. "It was a land mine. Running from the PLA. Suddenly I was in the air. Never heard the explosion. My leg flew past me while I was still in the air. But the soldiers stopped. The bastards stopped." He stepped from the shadows and looked up into the sky, just as Shan had been doing.

  "You still stopped them?"

  "Three of them came charging after me, to finish me. I shouted a curse and threw my leg at them. They fled like puppies."

  "I am sorry about your leg."

  "My fault. I should not have run."

  They walked back together, slowly, silently, Pok leading the way.

  "We could take you both back if you want," Shan offered.

  "No," the man said in a slow, wise voice. "Just take his Chinese clothes. Everything else from Lhadrung. He must wear a fleece vest again. This has happened to him because he tried to be someone he is not. I got a truck ride there once. To Lhadrung. Good shoes. But that Jao, he was bad joss."

  "You knew Jao?"

  "I rode in the black car with Balti once. That Jao, he had the smell of death."

  "You mean you knew Jao was going to die?"

  "No. I mean people around him died. He had power, like a sorcerer. He knew powerful words that could be put on paper to kill people."

  They were close enough to see the glow of the campfire when Pok growled. There was a shadow against the rock, waiting. Harkog muttered an order to the dog and the two had already moved on toward the camp before Shan recognized Sergeant Feng.

  "I know what you were doing," Feng said. "Sending a message."

  Shan clenched his jaw. "Just walking."

  "My father tried to teach me when I was young," Feng said, in a voice that seemed to ache. Shan realized he had misread Feng. "To speak to my grandfather. But I lost it. Up here, so far away. It makes you think about things. Maybe-" He was struggling. "Maybe you could show me how again."

  Trinle had once told Shan that people had day souls and night souls, and the most important task in life was to introduce your night soul to your day soul. Shan remembered the talk of Feng's father on the road to Sungpo's gompa. Feng was discovering his night soul.

  They moved back to the ledge where Shan had sent his letter. Feng lit a small fire and produced a pencil stub and several of the blank tally sheets from the 404th. "I don't know what to say." His voice was very small. "We were never supposed to go back to family if they were bad elements. But sometimes I want to go back. It's more than thirty years."

  "Who are you writing to?"

  "My grandfather, like my father asked."

  "What do you remember about him?"

  "Not much. He was very strong and he laughed. He used to carry me on his back, on top of a load of wood."

  "Then just say that."

  Feng thought a long time, then slowly wrote on one of the sheets. "I don't know words," he apologized and handed it to Shan.

  Grandfather, you are strong, it read. Carry me on your back.

  "I think your words are very good," Shan said, and helped him fashion an envelope from the other sheets. "To send it you should be alone," he suggested. "I will wait down the trail."

  "I don't know how to send it. I thought there were words."

  "Just put him in your heart as you do it and the letter will reach him."

  ***

  When they returned to camp, Harkog, Yeshe, and Balti were sitting at the fire. Pemu, speaking in the low comforting tones that might be used with an infant, was feeding Balti spoonfuls of stew. The gauntness seemed to have been lifted from Balti and transferred to Yeshe, who studied the flames with a drained, confused expression.

  "We visited your house," Shan began. "The old woman married to the rat showed us the hiding place. It was made for a briefcase."

  Balti gave no sign of having heard.

  "What was in there that was so dangerous?"

  "Big things. Like a bomb, Jao says." Balti's voice was thin and high-pitched.

  "Did you ever see these things?"

  "Sure. Files. Envelopes. Not real things. Papers."

  Shan shut his eyes in frustration as he realized why Jao had trusted him with the papers. "You can't read, can you?"

  "Road signs. They taught me road signs."

  "That night," Shan said. "Where were you driving?"

  "The airport. Gonggar. The airport for Lhasa. Mr. Jao trusts me. I'm a safe driver. Five years no accidents."

  "But you took a detour. Before the airport."

  "Sure. Supposed to go to airport. After dinner he told me different. All excited. Go to the South Claw bridge. The new one over the Dragon Throat built by Tan's engineers. Big meeting. Short meeting. Won't miss the plane, he said."

  "Who did he meet?"

  "Balti just the driver. Number one driver. That's all."

  "Did he take his briefcase?"

  Balti thought a moment. "No. In the back seat. I got out when he got out of the car. It was cold. I found a jacket in the back. Prosecutor Jao gives me clothes sometimes. We're same size."

  "So what happened when Jao got out of the car?"

  "Someone called out to him from the shadows. He walked away. So I sat and smoked. On the hood of the car I smoked. Half a pack almost. We're going to be late. I honk the horn. Then he comes out. He's plenty mad. He's going to eat me like a pack of wolves. I never meant it. Maybe it was the horn. He was plenty angry."

  They weren't talking about the prosecutor anymore, Shan realized.

  "You saw him?"
<
br />   "Sure I saw him. Like a yak stampede I saw him."

  "How close?"

  "At first I thought it was Comrade Jao. Just a shadow. Then the moon came out of the cloud. He was golden. Beautiful. At first that's all I could think, like a trance. So beautiful, and big like two men. Then I see he is angry. Holding his big blade. Snorting like a bull. My heart stops. He did that. He stopped my heart. I kept telling it to beat but it wouldn't. Then I'm down in the heather. Running. I'm wetting myself, I'm crying. In the morning I found the eastern road again. Truck drivers stop for me. Between rides I run, always running."

  "Tamdin," Shan said. "Did he chase you?"

  "One angry son of a bitch, Tamdin. He wants me. I hear him in the night. If I stop the mantras he will have me. He will bite my head off like a sweet apple."

  "What was in the car?"

  "Nothing. Suitcase. Briefcase."

  "Where's the car now?"

  "Who knows? No driver, no more. Never again."

  "It wasn't found at the bridge."

  "That Tamdin," Balti croaked, "he probably picked it up and threw it over two mountains."

  ***

  When they left at dawn Balti was back in the tent, casting fearful glances outside, rocking back and forth with a new chant. Tears streaked his face. A bundle of clothing had appeared on Shan's blanket.

  "Move your camp," Shan said quietly to Harkog after Pemu had led Sergeant Feng down the slope. "So it cannot be seen from the road. In shadows where it can't be seen from the air."

  As Harkog nodded grimly, Yeshe extended a slip of paper. "Here. A charm," he said, "to be fastened to the tent. Let him chant. But he must follow my prescription. All day today. Half a day tomorrow. And only one hour a day afterward. For the next month. After tomorrow he must come out. He must walk the hills. The ghost is gone from him. He must become what he is."

  Harkog replied with a big three-toothed grin. "We'll be khampa."