Neon Lotus

by Marc Laidlaw

  The Tibetan woman smiled, clutching Marianne’s arm joyfully. “Oh yes! I have a license from the government. I’m carrying supplies from an Uygur factory to Golmud itself; raw materials and some machinery, so they don’t watch me too closely. We’ll hide you well. You can slip right in.”

  Marianne grinned at Jetsun Dorje, then turned to the two other drivers. “Now, I must also send a message south to a nomad camp. Is anyone heading that way?”

  * * *

  The hovertruck hissed over the steaming road, windshield wipers working constantly. Gyan Phala, Jetsun Dorje, and Marianne rode together in the front seat, their eyes a dozen feet above the highway. By midafternoon the road was dry and they could dearly see the mountains around them. They curved around the shore of a great lake so deep and clear that it looked like a sheet of glass set over a black pit. It was dammed at the southeastern end, for Gyan Phala informed them that it was a main source of hydro-electric power for this region. They followed the runoff from the mountains, and soon reached the provincial border.

  There was a hatch in the back of the driver’s cabin which opened directly into the storage compartment. Jetsun and Marianne squeezed through, then let Gyan Phala lock it behind them. They took up cramped positions in spaces she had cleared for them at the start of the drive.

  Marianne felt the truck slow to a halt, heard muffled voices, and a minute later daylight trickled through the jumble of crates and covered machinery where she hid. The inspectors couldn’t get into the truck; it was packed tight. Nonetheless, she did not breathe freely until they were moving again and she heard the hatch being unlocked.

  “I’m going to stop at Gozha Lake and buy supplies,” said Gyan Phala. “We’ll get to the Tsaidam sooner if we eat on the road.”

  “You’ll have to sleep sometime, though,” Jetsun said. “I’ve always wanted to drive one of these.”

  “No,” said Gyan Phala firmly. “No one drives this truck but me, and I never sleep on the road. Don’t worry, we’ll make good time. If the weather holds, we’ll be in Nur Turn by dawn the day after tomorrow.”

  Jetsun folded his arms and gazed out the window, upset at having his offer rebuffed.

  Night fell. Through the violet shadows of evening she saw lights ahead of them, speckling the landscape. Stars came out above the towns. She put her hand on Jetsun’s and squeezed gently; he returned the pressure.

  Gyan Phala made a slight sound. “Are you two married?”

  “No,” Marianne said.

  “Not yet,” said Jetsun brightly.

  Marianne stared at him, remembering last night’s fire. She felt a warmth beginning in her belly, a flame licking upward. Even so, she shivered when she met his eyes.

  She hardly knew him, after all. They had been close companions, but for such a short length of time that it seemed inconceivable he should be claiming such a large part in her future. But his smile was innocent, his eyes loving, and she could not resent his comment. This was neither the time nor the place to voice her fears.

  “I see,” said Gyan Phala. “That must make you the Great Father.”

  Jetsun Dorje laughed aloud. He rolled down his window, stuck his head out into the frigid evening air, and howled at the blue landscape.

  “I wish you luck with this wildman,” Gyan Phala said quietly to Marianne. “Would you tell him to come in and close the window? He might draw attention we can do without. Also, it’s freezing out there.”

  * * *

  Sometime in the middle of the night, Marianne came awake to find Jetsun’s arm draped over her shoulder. He was snoring faintly in her ear. She glanced up through the windshield and saw the stars hanging still and bright above them. It was a cloudless night, without rain or snow, and no steam rose from the road. She looked over at Gyan Phala who sat slightly forward with her eyes tipped toward the sky.

  “Gyan,” she whispered, not wanting to wake Jetsun. “If you want to sleep for a few hours, you should go ahead. It won’t matter to us in the long run. We have no pressing appointment in Golmud.”

  Gyan Phala did not seem to hear her. Marianne sat up and repeated her name, wondering if she had fallen asleep at the wheel.

  But no, she held the wheel firmly, steering as necessary to meet the occasional curves and variations in the strip of black highway.

  “Gyan Phala?”

  Still the woman made no response. She stared at the horizon, seeming to watch one of the thousands of stars far ahead of her. For as long as Marianne watched her, she failed even to blink.

  She had said she rarely slept on the road. She was in some kind of trance.

  Marianne glanced at Gyan Phala’s wrists but saw no lung-gom straps. Remembering her night with the niche-runners, she felt certain that this was something similar, though the woman used no drugs. She must have learned some other technique for inducing the trance state. It was an ancient practice in Tibet, most useful in the days when the major means of travel was pedestrian. Trance-walkers could commonly be seen striding across the vast barrens of the Changthang, their eyes fixed on the heavens, hardly seeming to see the ground before them as they moved without faltering, without missing step or stumbling on a stone, traveling day and night almost without cease.

  Here was something new in Tibet: a trance-driver.

  Marianne left off calling Gyan Phala’s name. Why break her trance? If they reached the Tsaidam basin sooner, it would be all the better for them.

  She gave thanks for the intense, attentive woman in whom they had put their trust. Then she rolled toward Jetsun, laid her head on his chest, and was once more fast asleep.

  * * *

  The next day was spent traveling at what seemed like a crawl while the mountains rose and fell to the north and the plains of the Changthang spread away in ever greater monotony to the south. Gyan Phala was quick to point out the ghosts of huge farming combines and shattered green-domes which had once covered the region. Little remained of the agricultural experiments except gray weeded wastelands and the skeletons of irrigation equipment. Civil war in mainland China had absorbed the last generation’s energy and temporarily destroyed China’s economy. During the conflict between liberal and conservative elements, the most gifted Chinese administrators in Tibet had been obliged to return to the lowlands, there to die in the battles that raged until the new popular regime took power. Gradually, as was the way with most revolutions, the popular regime lost its popularity, becoming entrenched in new forms of conservatism. Tibet had been all but forgotten in the crisis, and now was remembered mainly for its mineral resources. Gyan Phala noted that the new generation considered China proper—meaning the mainland—its only true concern. No one spoke any more of improving the lot of Tibet, which had been tagged onto the mainland during the twentieth century at great expense and with small return for the investment. The Chinese seemed content to let Governor Rato run the country at a level of bare subsistence, as long as he saw to it that Tibet provided all it could in the way of ore and fuel.

  “They should free us,” Gyan Phala complained. “We have a heritage and a destiny, but our culture is smothered at the moment. It survives underground, in stunted form. With every year that passes, it becomes harder for them to eradicate our traditions. We grow tougher. And yet they won’t give us back our land. Is it true that there are lawyers fighting for Tibet’s independence in the world courts?”

  Marianne nodded. “It has been a long battle, yes, but I’m afraid that whatever ground has been gained is mainly illusory—or rather, intellectual. Historically, Tibet has always been an independent nation; its relations with ancient Chinese dynasties never brought it under their dominion. Legally, it should still be free. It was occupied by the Chinese in violation of numerous treaties. But still, it has been a Chinese possession for so long that it would take a miracle to restore independence now.”

  “Miracles are our chief weapons,” Jetsun said. “The lotus is nothing, if not miraculous.”

  Marianne smiled, reminded of the fl
ower, and took it from her pocket.

  The rosy bud glowed, even crackled, with light. Gyan Phala gasped, staring at it, and said, “Who is that in there?”

  “What do you mean?” Marianne asked.

  “That boy—the hologram.”

  Marianne brought the bud close to her eyes, thinking that she saw a small pale shape like a teardrop deep in the heart of the lotus. It did resemble a face, but she could not quite make it out.

  Then Jetsun said, “I see him. It’s that boy.”

  “Tsering?”

  As she said the name, his face came into focus.

  It was Tsering, the brother of Dolma Gyalpo. His eyes were bright and alive. His smile widened when she saw him. The lotus hummed and then its song began to modulate, forming syllables, speaking words in a familiar voice.

  “Hello, Sonam Gampo! I asked if I could come along with you. I’m so glad that you brought me.”

  “Do you know where you are?” she asked.

  He looked puzzled, but it passed in a moment. “Yes. My sister—I saw her for a few seconds, in the waterfall—she explained that the lotus was bringing me into itself. I don’t know where my body is. I’m nothing but light now; light and this wonderful music. I think I must have died. Is that so?”

  She was unsure how to answer him. Remembering the young man’s body down in the pool, remembering the spray of blood in the mist, she felt herself on the edge of tears.

  “It’s all right,” he said brightly. “I’m not sad. This is like Dawachen, isn’t it? I’ve been born into the land of bliss, born right out of a lotus bud. Perhaps someday I will have a body again. In the meantime, I’m still here. And I get to come with you.”

  “We’re glad to have you along,” she managed to say. “I’m so glad to see you again, Tsering.”

  An infusion of sadness came into his eyes. “Only . . . where is my sister?” he asked.

  “Your sister went out on the last song of the lotus, I think. When you—when you died, the lotus mourned for you. Her song was very powerful.”

  “Oh. Then I suppose it’s no use looking for her. She won’t be back.”

  “Are you lonely?” Jetsun asked.

  “No,” said Tsering. “Not when I’m with all of you.”

  “You’ll need to put that away,” said Gyan Phala, who had overheard all this without comment. In fact, she had asked them very few questions about their mission and seemed to accept this latest development as if it were inevitable. “There’s another station coming up. You know when to keep quiet, don’t you?” she asked Tsering in a humorous tone.

  “Oh yes,” he said. “In here, it’s usually silent. That’s the most beautiful song of all.”

  12. The Laughter in Tsaidam

  At dawn they drove into Nur Turu, the westernmost settlement in the Tsaidam basin. Gyan Phala squeezed Marianne's shoulder sharply to wake her, then pointed out the lights ahead. A flashing red beacon warned that they would be required to stop.

  “Up, you two,” was all she said.

  Marianne and Jetsun hurried through the hatch and found their places amid the cargo. Moments later the truck came to a stop. She put her ear to the metal bulkhead and listened for the voice of the sentry.

  At first she thought she was hearing things. Someone was speaking to Gyan, a male voice, yet the conversation was far different from any she had heard at previous checkpoints. The tone of the man’s voice was unexpected. She heard him ask after the weather along the road and then, in a softer counterpoint, request her permits. He asked if she were married, where her family lived, and managed to mention the names of his wife and seven children before wondering aloud if she might consent to detail her itinerary. It was the strangest mixture of friendly banter and official commands that Marianne had ever heard. The man laughed frequently, becoming a bit hysterical at times; but the more humorous he became, the more clipped and restrained were Gyan Phala’s replies.

  Marianne heard pounding at the back of the truck and realized that the doors were about to be opened. Only the faintest light leaked into the trailer, for the sun had scarcely crested the opposite horizon. She was amazed to hear two new sources of laughter: the inspectors were joking between themselves, apparently finding something hilarious in every aspect of their job. It sounded as if they had been out all night carousing, rather than patrolling the highway through the length of a cold night’s vigil.

  As before, the sentries did not press into the contents of the truck. They could hardly have shifted any of the objects without mechanical assistance. The doors clanged shut and it was with great relief that Marianne finally heard the man at the cab bid Gyan Phala an amused farewell.

  She couldn’t decide what it was about the laughter of the guard that had disturbed her; she only knew that she would rather have been discovered and arrested by appropriately grim and dour-faced soldiers than by any number of laughing men. She sensed a dark undercurrent running beneath their bright, giddy hilarity. Was it cruelty? Fear?

  When they regained the cab of the hovertruck, the sun glared straight at them like a swollen orange eye. The road began to twist through coniferous hillsides patched with snow. Marianne thought she saw a glint of golden lakes far out ahead of them, but her mind kept returning to the laughter of the guards.

  “What did they find so damn funny?” she asked.

  “I wish I knew,” Gyan said. “It was evil laughter, that’s all I know. I was afraid they had detected you somehow; I kept expecting them to arrest me. I felt like the butt of some enormous joke. And those men were Tibetan, that’s the strange thing. Always before it’s been Chinese guards at the station. I’d have felt safer with those old Chinese. I don’t like it when my own brothers laugh at me that way.”

  The beauty of the Tsaidam gradually dispelled their sinister mood. After the barren desolation of the northern reaches of the Changthang, the basin seemed lush and populous even under a light covering of snow. The hillsides they traversed were frequently hewn into steps for rice cultivation; in this season they looked like slippery stairs. Marianne and Jetsun did not fear being seen in the truck, for Gyan assured them that she often picked up hitchhikers along these roads.

  Wherever they looked, the people of the Tsaidam were smiling. They smiled as they tramped along the roads, shivering in their ragged clothes; they smiled as they bent over the smouldering engines of ancient cars and straightened to wave at the truck hissing past. Marianne felt as if any one of the folks would have befriended them without question, would have brought them into their homes and offered them what food they had. It was the first sign she had seen of contentedness among the Tibetans. These people seemed completely satisfied with their existence. More, they seemed overjoyed.

  It was several hours before she drew an unwelcome connection between the unvarying good humor of the residents and the hilarity of the guards at the border station. Surely somewhere along the road they should have seen a child in tears, a farmer cursing his broken-down machinery, an old woman with a stern expression. But she had witnessed no sadness, no neutral stares, no wariness: no variation. The people here were happy and that was that.

  Around noon they crossed a swift glacial river and entered the town of Golmud. Crude tin-roof shanties cluttered the far side of the river, reminding her for a moment of the Mines of Joy. This similarity was shattered when she saw the faces of those who dwelt along the impoverished fringe of town. They looked radiant, blissful, at peace in the garbage-choked and puddled streets. If anything, they seemed even happier than those who lived deeper in the town where the streets were broad and well paved and the houses made of sturdy materials. There were modern buildings in Golmud, some of them rising as many as five stories high. These Gyan identified as apartments of the engineers and wealthier laborers who worked below the town in Golmud Laboratories.

  It was here, for the first time since entering the Tsaidam basin, that Marianne saw a man with a worried expression. He came running out of the main entrance to one of the apart
ment buildings, a black case under his arm. She wondered at his spotless olive uniform. He dived into a car that waited near the curb then sped ahead of them down the nearly empty street. Before the car vanished, Marianne descried an emblem on its trunk: a white teardrop with a red Chinese ideogram in the center

  “He's from Golmud Labs," Gyan Phala said. “I guess they aren’t laughing down there."

  “Where are we stopping?" Jetsun asked.

  “I’ll let you off at the east edge of town—you certainly don’t want to go to the Labs. When my shipment’s been unloaded, I’ll come back for you. I know a good inn where you can rest and get some food. I won’t be back before nightfall most likely, so try not to get into trouble."

  “And after your shipment’s unloaded, where will you go?" asked Marianne.

  Gyan shrugged. “That all depends. If they have a load for me, I’ll take it wherever it needs to go. But I’ll rest here for a few days first. How about you?"

  “I’m not sure. I’d like to find out if there are any three-eyes in Golmud—and maybe an airfield."

  Gyan Phala brought the hovertruck to a halt in a once-paved square beyond the towers of downtown Golmud. The three of them climbed out and stood stretching in the sunlight, gulping the crisp, cold air. The buildings seemed to rush away like steam at the edges of Marianne’s eyes. She had been staring at the moving road for so long that she could not get used to stationary objects.

  Gyan brought them to the bright red door of a two-story inn with flowerpots set along green window ledges. Inside, a single lightbulb burned in the center of a long room, gleaming on half a dozen scarred plastic tables. A few customers looked up at them with remote smiles and dazed expressions.

  As they took seats near the door, the inn’s proprietor appeared with stacked cups and a huge kettle of tea.

  “Gyan Phala!" he said with a happiness that seemed genuine enough, although he laughed far longer and more loudly than was warranted when Gyan introduced her companions.