The Skull Mantra is-1

by Eliot Pattison

  Back in the truck, Shan examined the clothing. They were caked with mud. Cheap work clothes, barely better than those issued to prisoners. But the battered shoes were wrapped in a jacket, a suit jacket. It was torn and soiled but of a very different quality, the product of a tailor's shop. In one pocket was a handkerchief and a bundle of business cards in a rubber band. Jao Xengding, they said, Prosecutor for Lhadrung County. Balti had been wearing Jao's jacket. It was cold that night, he said. He had put on Jao's jacket and sat on the hood of the car.

  In the second pocket were folded slips of paper in a clip. Shan unfolded the papers. Several were receipts, the top one from the Mongolian restaurant with "American mine" scrawled across the top. Beneath it was a small square of paper on which was written two words. Bamboo Bridge. A square of yellow paper said You don't need the X-ray machine. Below the words was a symbol like an inverted Y with two bars across the stem. It could have been the ideogram for sky, or heaven. It could have been careless doodling. Another slip listed cities. Lhadrung, Lhasa, Beijing, and Hong Kong it said, followed by the words Bei Da Union. Where had he heard that? The lama at Khartok, he remembered, the one who was the business manager, had said they were rebuilding with the help of the Bei Da Union. Bei Da was Beijing University.

  A fourth note may have been a shopping list. Scarf, incense, and gold, it said. One of the notes, he realized, was probably the one that lured Jao to his death.

  Shan was still trying to make sense of the references as they drove through the narrow pass that took them out of the plateau, having left Pemu near her herds after she had placed Yeshe's hand on her head and uttered a prayer of gratitude. A bolt of lightning erupted in front of them, igniting a bush on the side of the road. The bush roared into flame. No one spoke. They waited until the bush crumbled into ashes, then drove on.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The front gate at the Jade Spring barracks had been attacked. Boards were split, wire hanging loose. The heather was crushed for twenty yards on either side of the gate. In the light from the guard's shed Shan saw shreds of clothing hanging from the barbed wire. A somber, angry-looking squad was replacing the hinges on one of the two huge gates. Shan stared, blinking with exhaustion. He and Sergeant Feng had shared the driving for sixteen grueling hours. During his turn for rest he had been unable to close his eyes for more than a few minutes before being haunted by the vision of Balti as they had left him, rocking back and forth in the darkness of his tent.

  Shan stumbled out of the truck in confusion, his eyes reflexively searching for stains of blood on the soil.

  As he approached the guard's shed, floodlights were switched on, blinding him momentarily.

  When his vision cleared a PLA officer was standing beside him. "We missed you," the officer said with icy sarcasm. "They paid us a visit. You could have been guest of honor."

  "They?"

  The officer snarled out orders to the squad as he explained. "The cultists. There was a riot. Or nearly one. Just after dawn. A logging truck stopped. Dropped off an old man, wearing a robe. He just sat down. Not a word. We let him do his beads. A peasant rode by on a bicycle and stopped. We should have kicked them both down the road. But Colonel Tan, he said no trouble. No incidents. Beijing is about to arrive. Americans are about to arrive. Just keep it quiet." The officer opened the driver's door and glared at Sergeant Feng, as if he somehow shared responsibility for the incident.

  He signaled for the gate to open, then turned back to Shan. "In another hour there were six of them. Then ten. By noon maybe forty. The man in the robe, he was something special to them, I guess." Shan looked at the rags more closely. They weren't remnants of clothing from people thrown against the wire. They were tied to the wire. They were prayer flags.

  "So I go out to talk. Mediate. Discuss the socialist imperative of coexistence. You must move, I said. There's an army convoy coming soon. Heavy equipment. Someone could get hurt. But they say they want your man Sungpo released. They say he's no criminal." The officer's eyes flared. "Big secret. Everyone was ordered to strict secrecy. No one to know your monk is locked up here. I know no one here talked," he said with an accusing stare.

  "When I leave they move to the fence, begin chanting and rocking it. The poles begin to loosen. So I call out a riot squad. No guns. But they turn around and tie their hands together. Like a chain. With socks. Shoelaces. Whatever. They all get tied together. They're just showing their backs. Ignoring us. Chanting. What can we do? We have tourists coming. I'll be carrying night soil for recruits if some round-eye comes by and photographs us pounding on their backs."

  "The old man," Shan said. "He came from the north?"

  "Right. Ancient. As if he's going to collapse into dust."

  Shan, suddenly alert, looked up. "Where is he now?"

  "We finally let him through an hour ago. Only way to get them to leave. When the hell are you going to-"

  Shan did not stay for the rest of the irate question. He darted through the gate and ran to the guardhouse.

  Inside, the only lights were at the end of the corridor. Jigme sat at the cell door, watching Sungpo, exactly as Shan had left him three days earlier. Beside him was Je Rinpoche.

  The old man did not acknowledge Shan. He was facing Sungpo, who sat in the middle of the cell. They were not talking, but their eyes seemed to be focused on the same invisible point in the distance.

  As Shan opened the cell door, Yeshe placed a restraining hand on his arm. "You cannot interfere. We must wait for their return."

  "No," Shan insisted. "It is too late for not interfering." He stepped inside and touched Sungpo on the shoulder. Something seemed to surge through his fingers as he did so, like electricity without the shock. He told himself it was his imagination. Sungpo moved his head from side to side, as though shaking off a deep slumber, then looked up and acknowledged Shan with a negligible blink of his eyes.

  Je Rinpoche gave a deep exhalation and his head slowly slumped onto his chest. Yeshe glared at Shan with an unfamiliar vehemence.

  "Does anybody understand what is happening here?" Shan asked, his voice breaking with emotion. No one replied.

  Shan measured the look in Yeshe's eyes. "I need to speak to Dr. Sung. Go now. Call her. Tell her I must see her."

  "This old lama is meditating," Yeshe warned. "You cannot interrupt him."

  "Tell her I need to speak to her about the group called the Bei Da Union."

  Yeshe registered his disapproval with a frown, then spun about and left the building.

  Shan dropped to his knees between the two monks. "Do you understand what is happening?" he said again, more loudly, at a loss to find a way to stir the lama without such shameful rudeness.

  "A man was killed," Je Rinpoche said suddenly, his head lifting. "The government considered him important."

  Shan watched Sungpo. His eyes blinked.

  "They will enforce their equation," the old lama said matter-of-factly.

  "Equation?" Shan asked.

  "They will take one of us."

  "Is that what you want?"

  "Want?" Je asked.

  "What about justice?"

  "Justice?"

  Shan had used the Chinese word yi, the ideogram for which was a large human standing with a protecting sword over a smaller human. It was not a symbol favored by Tibetans.

  "Do we believe in Beijing's justice?" Je asked in the same serene tone he had used to speak to the mysterious raven at Saskya. He was speaking to Sungpo.

  Suddenly Sungpo spoke. He looked at Je, and only Je. "We believe in harmony," Sungpo said, in a voice that was barely audible. "We believe in peace."

  Je turned to Shan. "We believe in harmony," he repeated. "We believe in peace."

  "I was sent to a commune for reeducation," Shan said, looking at Je. "During the dark years." Everyone had their own name for the period of torment Mao had called the Cultural Revolution. "The first week we stood in a rice paddy. In the mud. In rows. They called us seedlings. No talking was allo
wed. The political officer said she had to have peace in the fields. If anyone spoke or laughed or cried they were beaten. We were quiet for a long time. But it never felt like peace."

  Je only grinned in reply.

  Sungpo seemed to be drifting off, back into his meditation.

  "I have questions," Shan said to Je, urgently. "Ask about the arrest. What did they say? When did he last see Prosecutor Jao?"

  Je leaned forward and spoke in a whisper to Sungpo.

  "He was away," Je explained, referring to Sungpo's meditation. "A long distance. He knew nothing until he returned. He found himself in a car, with manacles on. There were two cars, filled with uniforms."

  "Why did they find Prosecutor Jao's wallet there?"

  Je conferred with Sungpo. "That is a curious thing," he announced with wonder in his eyes. "Sungpo did not have the wallet. He did not know they found it there. Something could have come. Something could have put it there."

  "Someone or something?"

  When the old man sighed his throat made a wet, wheezing sound. "Sometimes when lightning strikes it leaves things. It was meant to be there. It does not seem important how it came to be there."

  "Lightning made a wallet materialize in Sungpo's cave?" Shan asked slowly, his spirits sinking.

  "Lightning. Spirits. They work in inscrutable ways. Perhaps it is their way of calling him."

  "And if the true killer is not found, if the death cannot be resolved, the 404th will continue their strike. They will be found guilty of mass treason."

  "Perhaps that, too, is the destined path to their next incarnation."

  Shan closed his eyes and breathed deeply. "Did Sungpo know Prosecutor Jao?"

  Je conferred for a moment with Sungpo. "He remembers the name from some trial."

  "Did he kill Jao?"

  Je looked at Shan wearily. "He has no weight on his soul. Only the width of a hair separates him from the gates of Buddhahood."

  "That is not a legal defense."

  Je sighed. "To kill anyone would be a violation of his vows. He is a true believer. He would have told me immediately. He would have stripped off his robe. His cycle would have been broken."

  "But he still will not say that he did not do it."

  "It would be an act of ego. We are taught to avoid such acts."

  "So the reason he is not protesting his innocence is because he is not guilty."

  "Exactly." Je smiled. He seemed very pleased with Shan's logic.

  "The head of the Religious Affairs Bureau visited the gompa recently. Did Sungpo see him?"

  "Sungpo is a hermit. If he were in meditation he would not have seen such a visitor even if he walked in and kicked Sungpo."

  Shan turned to Jigme. "Is there any other route to your hut, other than the trail we climbed?"

  "Old game trails. Or up the rocks."

  Sungpo drifted off. He seemed unable to hear any of them, even old Je. "To know that he dies for another's crime, isn't that a form of a lie?" Shan asked the old lama, fighting the desperation in his voice.

  "No. To falsely confess, that would be the lie."

  "The Bureau has been kept away for now. But before the trial, they will seek a confession. They seldom fail." He had seen a directive once in Beijing. "It is considered mismanagement of judicial resources, and an abuse of the socialist order, to proceed to trial without a confession. If he does not participate, one will be read for him."

  "But that would be inconsistent," Je observed, still in his serene voice.

  Shan envied his naivete. "The trial is conducted for the people, to instruct them." Or perhaps, Shan reflected, remembering Beijing stadiums packed with twenty thousand citizens to witness an execution, to entertain them.

  "Ah. You mean like a parable."

  "Yes," Shan said in a hollow voice. A vision streaked through his mind. The old woman with the mop and bucket, moving up the stairs behind Sungpo. "Except it is more absolute than a parable."

  ***

  Yeshe was sitting on the steps to their quarters when Shan went to gather blankets for Je, who insisted on staying in the cell block. "I am going to request a return to duties at the 404th. I'll take another year with Zhong if I have to," Yeshe announced as he followed Shan through the door. "I do not wish to be a part of this. It is too confusing. What if Jigme is right, when he says Sungpo can easily throw off a face?"

  "Meaning we should accept his sacrifice?"

  "It is not just Sungpo. You said it yourself. It will not be enough to prove Sungpo innocent. We will have to provide them with an alternative. They could arrest four or five more monks. Even ten or twenty. Call it a conspiracy of the purbas. They would all be deemed equally guilty. And maybe they would not stop with just the purbas. There are many forms of resisters."

  "You're saying the choice is to sacrifice Sungpo or sacrifice the resistance."

  "The resistance in Lhadrung County, yes."

  "You speak for the resistance now?"

  "You saw my gompa. I could not be a purba without breaking my vows. I would be expelled forever. There would be no hope of returning."

  "Is that your hope?" Shan asked.

  "No," Yeshe said, in a voice filled with emotion. "I don't know. Two weeks ago I would have said no. Now all I know is how painful a return could be."

  Shan remembered the dogs at Yeshe's gompa. The spirits of fallen priests, they said.

  There was a shout from outside, and a hammering of boots on the parade ground. Jigme was struggling with the knobs, being dragged away from the brig. Shan looked back at Yeshe. "I need your help. More than ever."

  By the time Shan reached him Jigme had been deposited a hundred yards from Sungpo's cell.

  "Only one visitor allowed to stay with the prisoner," the closest knob snapped, and marched away.

  "Not much you can do for him here," Shan observed as he sat beside Jigme.

  "If he would eat, then I could fix his meals."

  "There may be other ways," Shan suggested. "Depending on who it is you want to help."

  "Sungpo."

  "Sungpo the holy man? Or Sungpo the mortal?"

  Jigme took a moment to answer. "It is confusing sometimes. I am supposed to say it is the same."

  "You and I have Chinese blood. It is said that one of our curses is that we always compromise. Maybe it would take years to find the answer to that question. But in a few more days it will not matter."

  They sat in silence. Jigme began idly drawing in the dirt with his finger.

  "I want you to do something," Shan said. "Go to a place in the mountains. The Dragon Claws. We can get you food and water. There are blankets in the truck. Sergeant Feng can drive you there. He will check on you each day. But once you are out I do not know if the guards will let you through the gate again."

  Jigme thought a long time. "They say there is a demon up there."

  Shan nodded sympathetically. "I want you to find where the demon lives."

  Jigme did not shrink back, but his face drained of color.

  "He will not harm you."

  "Why not?" Jigme asked in a forlorn voice.

  "Because you are one of the few who are pure of heart."

  ***

  Dr. Sung would not stand still when Shan arrived. "Get out," she said. "You spread danger like infection." He followed her as she moved down the corridor of the clinic.

  "What is the Bei Da Union?" he asked, nearly running to match her pace.

  "Bei Da is the university. A union is a union," she snapped.

  "Are you a member?"

  "I am a doctor employed by the people's government. The only doctor here, if you haven't noticed. I have work to do."

  "Who was it, doctor?"

  She stopped and looked at him quizzically.

  "Who got to you?"

  Her face flushed. At first Shan thought it was anger, but then he saw it could be shame. "They say it's a club for graduates of Beijing University," she said. "Of course, there're only a handful of graduates in al
l of Lhadrung. They asked me to a meeting once. Dinner at an old gompa outside of town. I thought perhaps they were going to ask me to join."

  "But they didn't."

  "Except for Beijing there's little we have in common."

  "Who are they?" An orderly was mopping the floor, a Tibetan. He pushed the bucket toward them. Shan motioned for the doctor to move out of earshot.

  "The rising stars. The young elite. You know. Backdoor blue jeans. Sunglasses that cost an average family's monthly wage."

  "You don't like blue jeans and sunglasses?"

  Dr. Sung seemed surprised by the question. She gazed down the corridor before answering. "I don't know. I remember once I did."

  "How about Prosecutor Jao? Was he a member?" Shan said.

  "No. Not Jao. A graduate, but too old I guess. Li's a member. Wen of Religious Affairs. The Director for Mines. Some soldiers."

  "Soldiers? A major in the Bureau?"

  The reference to the Bureau seemed to disturb Sung. She considered the question a moment. "Don't know. There was one. He was slick. Arrogant. A bullet scar on one cheek."

  "Have you ever treated any of them?"

  "Healthy as yaks, every one."

  "Not even for a dogbite?"

  "Dogbite?"

  "Never mind." Shan had not forgotten that the secret charms being bought by the ragyapa had included charms against dogbite. There was no logic to it, but something about it continued to gnaw away at him. Someone wanted to be forgiven by Tamdin but protected from dogs.

  "Did Jao ever tell you he expected to be moving away? A reassignment?"

  "He dropped hints. About how good it would be, back in the real China."

  "His words or yours?"

  She flushed again. "He talked about going back. Everyone does. He said he would buy a color television when he got home. Said in Beijing they get stations from Hong Kong now. I guess he finally made it," she added, as an afterthought.

  "He made it?"

  "To Beijing. Miss Lihua sent a fax from Hong Kong. Requesting his body and effects be sent back."

  Shan stared in disbelief. "Impossible. Not until the investigation is over."