Neon Lotus

by Marc Laidlaw

  She tore one of the bulletins from the board and spread it between her fingers:

  NOTICE TO ALL CITIZENS

  OF THE TIBETAN AUTONOMOUS REGION

  Dangerous elements even now conspire to overthrow the Great Red Future and so plunge the T.A.R. into an abyss of ignorance far deeper than that seen in the prehistoric period before the liberation of the Tibetan peoples by Mao Zedung. False gods, prophets of reactionary doom, now invade our great country sowing seeds of superstitious fear meant to paralyze the freethinking people who are so close to achieving the goals of their revolutionary parents. The agents of enemy nations seek to reverse the course of our shining destiny! They must be revealed for what they are, and uprooted from this precious soil before they can poison it. Important projects held dear to the heart and spirit of the Common Dream have been subject to attack by these foreign agitators. Fortunately no harm has been done. We are stronger than ever before. Now we rise to defend our country by stamping out the cancers that grow within. Under the name of the “Great Mother,” there now moves in the T.A.R. a spy of great deviousness, who pretends to serve the progressive needs of the Tibetans while actually throwing them into a pit of blind despair. Do not be taken in by this false mother, who pretends to supersede the true Mother of the mainland. If you hear of such a one—no matter how slim the rumor—report your knowledge immediately to the office of the Governor of Tibet. Let this matter go no further! Do your part to save your country from the only true devils: foreign agents, reactionary capitalists, and fascist technicians!

  “I’ll be damned,” she whispered, reading the message again. “They’ve actually admitted I exist. . . .”

  * * *

  When she returned to the house on the Avenue of the People’s Bliss, the broadside was already under discussion, Jetsun grabbed her with a shout when she entered the room. “Where were you? We feared they’d already—”

  She laughed. “They don’t know I’m in Lhasa.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” said Dhondub. “Mr. Fang thinks they might suspect something of the sort. You’ve had plenty of time to travel from the powerplant to Lhasa, even by conventional roads. They probably suspect that your path leads to Lhasa. Somehow they have learned of the mandala map.”

  “But how?” she asked, again frustrated by the question that had troubled her in Golmud. “How could they know unless there were spies among us?”

  “Like that Fang,” Jetsun said. “Why do we trust him? He’s Chinese.”

  Dhondub grinned. “We’ve already been over Mr. Fang, Jetsun Dorje. You missed our interrogation.”

  “Yes,” said Dr. Norbu. “We doubted him when he came to warn us of trouble in the Mines of Joy. He voluntarily submitted to a test of his honesty. Remarkable drugs the nomads have invented.”

  “We know he can be trusted,” Dhondub said.

  “Have you used the drug on anyone else?” Marianne asked.

  “Yes, on everyone associated with the project at one time or another. Except you two.”

  Jetsun Dorje laughed. “I suppose we’re next, eh? Well, let’s get it over with.”

  Dhondub waved him off. “You’ve proven your intentions, Jetsun Dorje. Your life has been in greater peril than any of ours.”

  Jetsun gave Marianne a sideways glance and she wondered what was in his mind.

  “Still,” he said, returning his eyes to Dhondub. “I don’t want any lingering doubts. You should treat me as you would anyone else. I saw that mandala map. I learned the location of the lotus just before those three-eyed spies turned up looking for it.”

  “Jetsun,” she said, “don’t be ridiculous.”

  He turned on her. “You especially should allow me to be tested. Or else who knows how your doubts might grow? A seed is always small at first.”

  “All right,” she said, “then test me as well. Because I would be the perfect spy, wouldn’t I? Above suspicion, above reproach—”

  “Nonsense, nonsense!” Dr. Norbu called, pushing his way into the midst of the group. “We know who our enemies are. Why play these games?”

  “Because, Reting,” she said, “we don’t really know. We should do whatever we can to be sure of our ground.”

  She was filled with the sense of her mission, the importance of her task. She was the Gyayum Chenmo, after all. She was sure of herself, but it was critical that no one doubt her. She could not succeed in liberating Tibet without their complete trust. And in turn she must have complete trust in all those around her.

  “Were you ever tested, Reting?” she asked.

  He gaped at her, his face growing pale. He looked stricken, ill. Slowly he shut his mouth and clamped it tight. She heard him swallow as if gulping down a pebble. Then he turned abruptly, pushing through the nomads, heading out the door.

  “Oh no,” she muttered, growing chill, her sense of purpose fading. “Reting!”

  The door slammed.

  She started after him but a hand grabbed her arm. She turned to see Dhondub watching her with worried eyes. “What made you ask that? Of course he was tested. He volunteered.”

  “I didn’t mean . . .” She shook her head, but words failed her. She tore her arm away from him.

  “Wait, Marianne,” Jetsun said. “It’s my fault. I started this stupid—”

  She didn’t hear him finish. She rushed out the front door, looking both ways through the jammed street. She saw nothing but a bobbing mass of heads—some bare, some wrapped in rags, some covered by colorful caps or sculpted piles of hair.

  “Reting!” she called.

  She thought she saw him at the intersection, and she started in pursuit. Behind her Jetsun was calling. A cart rolled by, hung with clanging pots and pans; it drowned out the sound of her self-recriminations. She gave up wishing she had not said what she had, and threw herself into the chase.

  Doubt of Reting had been festering within her for weeks. She thought she had laid it to rest when she uncovered the wells of trust that had been part of Tashi Drogon’s memory; but she had been mistaken.

  She felt that she hardly deserved the old scientist’s noble past, for in a childish moment she had disgraced the friend of two lifetimes. She could never take back those words. Her sense of identity had turned to arrogance, untempered by the mature patience and restraint of her previous self. Had she become a rebel, a warrior, out of similarly arrogant motivations? She regretted that she had not followed in Tashi’s footsteps, refining the Bardo device and the Equation of Emptiness. That would have been truer to her nature. And scientific pursuits would never have led her to such idiotic behavior. For the sake of a cause, she had betrayed her oldest friend. Surely that was worse than the treachery of any spy.

  She hesitated at the intersection, looking both ways but seeing no one familiar.

  I must find him, she thought. I will do anything to apologize; I can never do enough.

  Someone grabbed her from behind.

  “He’s gone,” Jetsun said. “You’ll get lost yourself looking for him.”

  “I have to find him.”

  “No. He’ll come back. But the rest of us need you now, Marianne. We need the Gyayum Chenmo.”

  “Don’t call me that,” she said furiously, “you of all people.”

  “I of all people know how you deserve the title. I love you. I know that you’re Marianne. But you are also the Gyayum Chenmo. You’re the only one who has yet to accept that fact.”

  “I don’t deserve it,” she said, looking down at the street. “I’ve abused my authority.”

  “Marianne. . . .”

  She stared into his eyes, looking from one to the other. They had been through so much together, had weathered all sorts of difficulties. Always, until now, her troubles had stemmed from outside, from the obvious enemies. This time it was she who had done the damage.

  She thought of the neon mandala. The true demons were not alien to her nature; they were within her as well. She should blacken her tongue. It was not the Chinese wh
o caused trouble, not three-eyed men . . . it was the rashness of the human spirit, the obsessive demands of idealists. The symbols themselves created the danger. For the sake of a divine goal, she had spit in the face of an earthly creature.

  She drew closer to him, beginning to cry. “Why?” she asked, as his arms went around her. “Why did I do that?”

  “We all make mistakes.”

  She knew that Jetsun would help her through this time, as he had through the other times; and that was good to know. But what of Reting? Who did he have, after all? He had dedicated his life to Marianne. She had been both a daughter and a fatherly teacher to him, in the course of her lifetimes.

  She pushed Jetsun away from her, though it hurt to do so. She would not take comfort in anything or anyone until she had healed the wound she’d inflicted on Reting Norbu.

  “I’ll go back,” she said, “because I know I’ll never find him until he wants to be found. But I won’t forgive myself. And I don’t want you to forgive me either.”

  He grunted, not meeting her eyes. “Well, come back anyway,” he said. “Forgiven or not, we need you.”

  17. Lhasa Rising

  A nomad boy burst into the common room where the others sat around the stove eating supper. His face was flushed, his breath ragged from running, but his words were all too clear:

  “They’ve got the Doctor!”

  Marianne leapt up, dropping her bowl. A teacup shattered. “Reting? Who has him?”

  “The Governor. He’s on the public broadcasts right now. Somehow they’ve taken him hostage. And Gyayum Chenmo, they’re looking—they’re hunting for you.”

  She whirled toward the door as the room erupted into action. “Where?” she asked the boy.

  He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her into the darkening street, down the narrow lane, and out to the broad paved avenue. A crowd had gathered on the corner to watch the screen atop a kiosk. It was the first time she had seen any of the screens in operation.

  The broadcast image showed a man she did not know. He had a sharp tapering beard, a thin mustache, and wore dark glasses; the drab shoulders of his uniform were bright with epaulets.

  “That’s Governor Rato,” the boy said. “The message plays over and over again.”

  She stared up at the screen, wondering why the Governor’s image should frighten her. His words sounded like distant thunder, inaudible over the mumbling of the crowd. She pushed closer to the kiosk until she could hear but no longer see the broadcast:

  “—captured a traitor to the Tibetan people, an infamous collaborator with outside powers; a man, in fact, who was sent to carry out our enemies’ plans of corruption. By sowing dissent and reaping violence, they work to reverse all we have accomplished since the Cultural Revolution. He has been long known to us, though in the past he worked his evil schemes from abroad. Now he dares to trespass on the precious soil of our Autonomous Region, bringing in the old poisons of superstition and feudal values in hopes of turning our paradise into a dystopia worse than any in history. This man goes by the name of Dr. Reting Norbu; there is no telling what other aliases he has adopted.

  “But do not breathe easy, citizens, knowing that one monster has been contained. For he is known to have allies in Tibet—yes, in Lhasa itself! I have warned you of the one who calls herself the ‘Great Mother.’ Dr. Norbu is merely her lackey. The so-called Mother herself is still at large in Tibet, and she is an evil of far greater power and persuasiveness than this miserable confederate. But do not fear. We have caught the scent of her trail, and with your help we will yet purge the city of these ill-omened agents who haunt our ancient land like demons from prehistory. If you have knowledge or suspicions of their whereabouts, speak quickly and you will be well rewarded. They are in your midst even now. Be vigilant!

  “Again, here is a picture of the man we captured. If you have seen him in Lhasa and know his companions or his hiding place, notify the Civil Guard immediately.”

  Marianne pushed back from the kiosk. Staring up at the screen she saw the features of Governor Rato fade, to be replaced by those of Reting Norbu.

  Until she saw him on the screen, she had prayed that they were mistaken, or that this was all a ruse.

  But it was Reting. His face was blackened and swollen. He had been beaten. One eye was shut; the lid was raw. The other eye gazed into space. His mouth trembled and he seemed to be having trouble drawing breath. Because his distorted face filled the screen, she could see nothing of his surroundings. But if he were a prisoner, they were certain to have taken him to the Potala.

  Governor Rato reappeared.

  “Citizens of Lhasa!” he announced. “Your attention please! The Civil Guard has captured a traitor to the Tibetan people, an infamous collaborator with outside powers. . . .”

  The tape began to repeat itself. Marianne turned away. Those closest to the kiosk, who like her had already heard the message, also turned, forcing a path through the newcomers. As Marianne worked her way through the wedge of bodies, she picked up threads of conversations all around her, her mind weaving them into a continuous fabric.

  “The Gyayum Chenmo!” scattered voices whispered, “Has she come, then?”

  “She must be here.”

  “Do you see how the Governor trembles?”

  “The Gyayum Chenmo!”

  “It is the time of revolution, of rebirth—”

  “The earthquake last month, which toppled the antenna on Chokpori Hill-—that was a sure sign the Chinese will fall.”

  “Watch your tongue. Rato isn’t the only traitorous Tibetan in Lhasa.”

  “The Gyayum Chenmo. . . .”

  “Why won’t she reveal herself?”

  “She’s a goddess. She’ll remain invisible until it suits her. Perhaps she does battle with the demons in the hidden worlds, and only when she’s conquered them will she come down to lead us.”

  “Oh, Great Mother!” a woman wailed. “We are your children. Won’t you come to us?”

  Marianne took a deep breath, feeling nothing but shame as she heard the wishes of her people. To think of all the trust they put in her, when only she knew how little she was to be trusted. . . .

  What true Great Mother would send a friend into the hands of the enemy? She imagined Reting’s capture. He would have been in a daze, wandering through the streets, losing himself, perhaps being questioned by a guard who found him to be without proper identification. It had not taken them long to match him up with his true identity. They must have known for some time that he would show up in Lhasa. They had been on the lookout. Reting, after all, was more widely known and more readily recognized than Marianne.

  “Superstitious fools,” someone said loudly, almost in her ear. She twisted to see a well-dressed merchant caught in the ragged mob. “How can you speak of goddesses and Great Mothers? What good have they ever done Tibet? Did they honor your prayers and offerings? Did they protect you in the past? Fools! Our only ‘Great Mother’ is China. It is she who feeds us, she who keeps the peace, she who—”

  “I told you to keep your mouth shut,” snapped another. “Now this fool has heard you; he’ll be calling the guards on us before long.”

  The crowd twitched one way then another, like a single-celled organism trying to tear itself into battling twins.

  “They won’t hear a word out of him,” said someone else. “I’ll make sure of that—”

  “Get away from me!” the merchant shrieked.

  “Leave him alone, you idiot!”

  “Guards! Guards! The traitors are here!”

  The merchant wore a cluster of gold medallions on thick golden chains around his neck. Before anyone could tear it away from him, he had raised a golden whistle to his lips and blown a sharp blast.

  “Traitors! Traitors!”

  She struggled in vain to separate herself from the commotion. The entrance to the Avenue of Bliss receded as the mob rushed down the main street toward the center of Lhasa. The crowd thickened as it gathered m
omentum and followers. No one but those at the core of the mass could have known precisely what had seeded the riot, but everyone seemed aware that it bore a relation to Rato’s message, the capture of Dr. Norbu, and the seeming imminence of the Great Mother.

  If only they knew how near she was!

  Marianne abandoned any attempt to fight the crowd. She heard the shrilling of whistles all around her, and then the wailing of sirens began. For a while there was a carnival air to the riot. But it was fleeting.

  Somewhere nearby she heard screams and explosions.

  Bitter vapor. Smoke. The fire of a conflagration off to her right.

  The crowd carried her past a government building whose windows had just been shattered; flames had begun to streak through the broken edges, blackening the outer wall, engulfing a Chinese flag.

  The whiff of smoke and the sound of screaming caused a quickening in the crowd. She would have expected the rioters to panic and flee, each to his respective home; instead the Lhasans seemed to concentrate on the uprising, revealing a hidden passion and an inner calm. As one body, they streamed forward, focusing their efforts in the direction of the worst melee. The violence must have been spontaneous throughout old Lhasa: at how many street corners, beneath how many kiosks, had similar incidents touched off fighting? She only knew that wherever they went, chaos had been there ahead of them.

  The spotlights on the Potala wheeled crazily around the city, stabbing aimlessly into the dusky streets, lingering nowhere. Despite the mass of people blocking the way, she moved faster than she had by bicycle that morning. Fifteen minutes after watching the broadcast, she was pushed into the square beneath the Potala. She had the feeling that every able body in the city had flocked here to express its indignation.

  The sky was violet, and against it the Potala looked almost black. It was senseless to rage at the ancient palace; only helpless prisoners lived there. Instead, the crowd turned its rage on the white walls of Reformed Lhasa.