“A sturdy, shining ferry across the ocean of existence,” Yangke declared. His playfulness was genuine but so too was the melancholy that hung over him. “The biggest miracle is our abandonment,” he continued. “Everywhere people try to forget the world but seldom does the world forget a people. We have lost all our chains.”
“Not every chain,” Shan observed.
Yangke grinned. “My imprisonment has released me. I have become a tree, and the tree has become rooted in the teachings. I watch the sheep and memorize sacred texts. On the day I am able to prostrate myself again, my body will open up like a ripened fruit and a ball of fire will shoot out.”
Shan gestured toward the shabby little village. “The temple where you acquired your learning is well hidden.”
“My temple and I,” Yangke replied acidly, “had no further use for each other.”
And that, Shan suspected, was the closest to the mark any of their arrows had landed. Although Beijing was allowing Tibet to slowly rebuild a few monasteries, one of the ways it kept control was by periodically purging the ranks of monks who threatened dissent.
“This paradise of yours had no need of a lama until a murderer struck?” Shan asked.
“This paradise I returned to,” Yangke corrected, “can barely grasp the notion of one man killing another, let alone the horrible thing that they discovered. These are things not of our making but they will be our unmaking. For all its many faults, Drango is worth preserving.”
“Just as Gendun is,” Shan declared. “We must get him away from here.” Perhaps Drango might be worth preserving but it felt like a trap to Shan.
Yangke looked toward the stable. “I have known of him for years. They call him the Pure Water Lama because he was ordained before the Dalai Lama left.”
“He is unregistered,” Shan said, “like Lokesh and me. But as a senior lama, defying the government, he is in greatest danger. A bounty has been placed on him,” Shan added with a guilty glance toward Lokesh. The only time Gendun ever chastised Shan was when Shan expressed concern for him. Before Shan had introduced him to the mysteries, and suffering, of the outside world, Gendun had not left his hidden complex of caves where he was safe. “He will not leave here of his own will now, and when Public Security comes they will seize him and make him disappear forever.”
Yangke’s face sagged.
“None of us know anyone here,” Shan continued. “Why did someone send for Gendun and Lokesh?”
“You just said it. He is an outlaw.” Yangke turned to Lokesh, who was stroking the dog’s back. “For Drango it is only safe to deal with outlaws. Is it not true that in the old days the monasteries had their own police and judges who dealt with monks who performed criminal acts?”
Lokesh leaned forward, suddenly very interested. “Senior lamas, sometimes abbots, would sentence sinners among them to penance,” he confirmed.
“The ones who died so terribly last week, they were like holy men. And they too were outlaws. Just like the one in the stable.”
The big dog rose, growling. Yangke glanced back toward the village, his muscles tensing.
“Apricots!” an eager voice called. “Fresh from the orchard!” A compact man in a tattered fox cap jogged toward them, shouting as if trying to drown out anything Yangke might be saying.
“Chodron,” Lokesh muttered. It was the genpo, the village headman, carrying a small basket.
Yangke struggled to his feet and turned his back on the approaching man. “Forgive me for what I have done to you,” he said to Shan and Lokesh. “And all I am going to do. Lha gyal lo,” Yangke added. Then, the dog at his side, he hurried toward the grazing sheep, staggering as he tried to keep his heavy collar balanced.
The jovial air of the headman seemed to increase when he learned Shan’s name. He pushed his square, fleshy face under the brim of Shan’s ragged hat as if to confirm that there were indeed Chinese features in its shadow. Forcing some of the fruit into Shan’s hands, gesturing for Lokesh to follow, he escorted them down, into a small shed behind the main street where three pallets were arranged on the rough plank floor. Beside Shan’s frayed backpack rested a familiar canvas sack embroidered with sacred signs that Lokesh used for journeys, and the tattered work boots Gendun wore under his robe when traveling.
“There is another house that would be better for you,” the headman said to Shan. “Bigger. You would be more comfortable there. Dolma, the widow who lives there, will see to your needs.”
“We need only a floor for our blankets,” Shan said. At his first encounters with Tibetans, Shan was often feared, sometimes reviled. But the rare occasions when he was doted upon because he was Chinese made him much more uncomfortable.
“I insist,” pressed the genpo.
“Only if my friends can join me,” Shan replied.
“Of course,” Chodron agreed hesitantly. “It’s the house next to the stable. I will see that your bags are moved.”
Outside, a woman worked at the loom Shan had admired earlier, and a man had begun applying new whitewash to the walls fronting the street. “Are you preparing for a festival?” Shan asked, gesturing toward the pile of juniper wood.
“Two great events at once,” Chodron confirmed. “First the barley harvest, then the First of August,” he said. “There will be singing all night. And many jars of chang,” he added, the Tibetan barley ale. For the first time Shan saw several men by the granaries, working with stones on steel, sharpening sickles. Soon they would work in the fields, loading sheaves onto carts pulled by broad-backed yaks. Against the granary walls were stacked wooden flails and the wide, flat baskets that would be used to thresh and winnow the grain. To a village like Drango nothing was more important than the harvest, nothing more dangerous than a bonfire while the paper-dry barley still stood in the fields.
As Shan followed the genpo toward the largest of the structures along the short, dusty street, he glanced at Lokesh, seeing in his friend’s troubled eyes confirmation that he had heard correctly. August the First. The little village, so remote it seemed to have escaped the notice of the government since the day it was bombed from the air, was preparing to celebrate one of Beijing’s most patriotic holidays, the day set aside for praise of China’s military.
In the sparsely furnished sitting room on the second floor of his house, Chodron’s wife silently served them more buttered tea while the headman boasted of the accomplishments of his village. Most of the families had lived in Drango for eight or more generations, he explained. Once they had been renowned for their finely woven carpets like the one that adorned the room they sat in. Shan’s gaze drifted over the headman’s shoulder to a shelf heavy with books, all hardbound printed books, all in Chinese, then finally to a framed photo on the wall of a much younger Chodron in the uniform of the People’s Liberation Army.
As they walked back outside, a bell rang somewhere. Lokesh smiled. It was a way of summoning deities, a way of accompanying the rhythm of mantras. But these peals quickly became frantic, and from the slopes men began shouting. Sweet, acrid smoke wafted around the houses. The headman gasped and darted toward the street, Shan a step behind him. Someone had set the pile of juniper wood alight.
The village exploded with activity, some villagers running to the stream with buckets, others toward the fields with brooms and blankets. Every flying spark threatened their precious harvest. Shan ran with them toward the thick column of smoke, then saw Lokesh headed for the stable at the other end of the settlement. Shan paused only long enough to see the headman confer with the big farmer who had been guarding the stable door. The man began to run up a track along the stream at the side of the fields, pausing only to lift a heavy harvest knife from a bench by a granary.
A minute later, Shan was at his friend’s side. The guard at the door was gone, the chamber emptied of everyone but Gendun and his charge. Lokesh approached the pallet and lifted the man’s hand, taking his pulse at his wrist, then his neck, and temple. Shan brought tea from the kettle by the door.