“If they come,” she asked in a whisper, “what will happen?”
“They will separate everyone. Each will be interrogated. The knobs will seek to divide everyone, turn each against the other. First will be those who don’t present documentation of their loyalty oaths. If you haven’t signed an oath, you do not respect Beijing. A Tibetan who doesn’t respect Beijing is a splittist. A splittist is a traitor. Traitors have no rights. Imprisonment is the usual punishment, with no right to be registered as a nun ever again. But you can avoid the punishment if you just speak about the subversive activities of the abbess or the names of the traitors who hid the American woman.
“If that doesn’t work then they will begin speaking of those among you from bad families, merchants and landowners, whose files can always be reopened by political officers. When all else fails they will find out who harbors secret photos of the Dalai Lama and prosecute them. These are unsettled times in Tibet. Local law enforcement officers had been given great discretion to inflict punishment. They have but to chant the words ‘Dalai Lama splittist’ and they can destroy your life. If the knobs so choose they could arrive here in the morning and by noon everyone here will be gone, never to see one another again.”
Desolation clouded the woman’s face but was slowly replaced with defiance. She was, Shan could tell, a Khampa, from the old Tibetan province of Kham, where men and women alike had once been fierce warriors. “If they come,” she said.
“There is no if, Mother,” Shan shot back. “Only when.”
“But you did not come to warn us away.”
Shan looked out over the mountains again. He was not at all certain that the path he was trying to find would bring any less pain to the nuns. “The only way to change the course of things is to find the truth.”
“We know about Chinese and their truths. We have fifty years of suffering to show for it.”
“I had a teacher when I was in prison. A lama who had helped train the Dalai Lama when he was a boy. He said the reason Tibetans remained free in their hearts was because they knew that truth was more powerful than any law, any prison, any army.” The heat in the nun’s eyes began to fade. “Why,” Shan abruptly asked, “would the abbess be in the company of a Chinese gang leader?”
The nun was looking into her folded hands now, confusion on her face. “I have to lead the prayers,” she said, then turned and hurried to the chapel.
Shan followed her and settled onto folded legs near the rear wall of the little chamber. The only light came from the open door and the butter lamps that flickered on the altar below a small bronze Buddha. As the mantras began Shan closed his eyes and tried to push away his nagging fears. The soft chorus of the nuns was a salve to his aching spirit. He found himself beginning to mouth the familiar words, then joined his voice with the others.
He did not move as the nuns filed out, but searched their anxious faces. None of them looked at him. Only the senior nun stayed in the chapel, rising to go to the altar where she added more incense to the censers before turning to him.
“A few months ago some Chinese started appearing at the remote camps and farms, the ones high on the slopes,” she suddenly declared, “hitting people with sticks, breaking their tools, stealing whatever they wanted, sometimes burning feed saved for the livestock. It wasn’t so much like they were looting, for those people had little of value. More like they were trying to scare people away. They always left a black feather. Chinese, but not in uniform. Shorter and darker than most of those in that Pioneer town. When we heard they had tattoos we thought they must be escapees from prison. The abbess first went to one of the Tibetan constables to report it. The constable said he could do nothing, that it was a matter for those Armed Police.”
“You mean the Chinese gang from Baiyun was raiding the farmhouses.”
“You heard Abbot Norbu. For centuries the convent and Chegar gompa were the two anchors of the valley, one at each end, assuring its tranquility. It was always the duty of the abbot and the abbess to know of the troubles of the people, and to find ways to ease them. After the convent was destroyed the few nuns who survived came here, and the head of the hermitage became the abbess. We are responsible for the people of the valley. If a farmer’s family takes sick in the autumn, we nuns will go and take in the barley for them.”
“And so she arranged a meeting with the head of the gang. Lung Ma.”
“She just went to that old farm of theirs, with the oldest of our nuns, Ani Ama. The abbess just pushed open the door and went upstairs to see their leader. Ani Ama said his men laughed but not him. He seemed disturbed to see her. He just listened as she berated him and demanded he leave our people alone. Some of his men pulled out knives, but he spoke sharp words and they lowered the weapons.”
“You mean just before she was murdered?”
“No. Many weeks ago. Two or three months. Then last month he came for her. All the way up the stairs, gasping for breath when he reached the top.”
“To go with her to the convent.”
“No. That was later. He came because of his dead son.”
Shan looked up in surprise. “The son of the gang chief died?”
The nun nodded. “A driving accident. He wanted her to prepare the body in the old way.”
“The Jade Crows had threatened her with knives and she still went?”
“Of course she did. It was for the dead boy. His father was a different man, very shaken. Afterwards all those raids stopped.”
Shan considered her words. “So she followed him home that once,” he said, “and he followed her again later to the convent where they both died.”
The nun shook her head. “You misunderstand. She did not go to the convent for Lung, or Lung for her. They went because of Jamyang. Jamyang told her a demon had crawled out of the earth and had to be destroyed.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Halfway down the worn stone steps, Shan slipped into the steep field of rock outcroppings that flanked the stairs. Using the cover of the rocks, he moved slowly back up the slope, hoping not to attract attention. He could not be certain that Chenmo had deliberately directed him toward the little meditation shelter above the compound, and was even less certain when he reached it.
The hut was empty, devoid of furnishings other than two straw-stuffed pallets, two worn cushions, a low stool, and a bucket. On the wall was a ten-year-old tourist calendar with a glossy photo of Mount Kalais, the most sacred of pilgrimage peaks. He stood in the doorway of the decrepit, windblown structure, finding himself again looking toward the higher slopes, realizing that he would never be able to concentrate on the murders while Lokesh remained missing.
A gust of wind rattled the door on its wooden pintles, then whipped at a line of prayer flags tied to a nail on the corner of the building. Most of the line had blown away. Only half a dozen flags remained, suspended for the moment by the wind. Four of the flags were on faded cotton, but the last two were of a brilliant red material, breaking the traditional pattern of colors. They were not of the same fabric as the other flags.
Shan grabbed the line and pulled in the red flags. They bore the customary mani mantra, the invocation of the compassionate Buddha, inscribed in Tibetan. But on the reverse the mantra had been written out in English, with what looked like a ballpoint pen. Om mani padme hum, the letters said. The cloth was nylon, its edges hemmed with narrow strips of medical tape. Someone had cut pieces from a windbreaker or a tent to make prayer flags.
With a new determination he stepped into the hut and began systematically searching it, lifting the pallets and the small bags of yak-hair felt stuffed with fleece that served as cushions. Under one pallet was a tattered pair of leather sandals and a comb, under the other ten pages of Tibetan scripture. He looked back at the first pallet. A comb. Nuns kept their hair close-cropped, if not shorn altogether. He held the small black comb to his nose. It had a strangely cloying scent to it, too vague to be identified. Taking the cushions outside, he unfolded the flaps of cloth covering the stuffing. The first held only the familiar washed wool used in such cushions. The second held wool as well, but at the bottom there was something more, something that sent up an odor of citrus and coconut. He pulled out handfuls of wool, then a long silky skein which he carried into the sunlight. It was dark hair, brunet hair, more than eighteen inches long.