Shan did not need the sunlight to know what was on the walls. He had been in scores of such offices all over China. There would be a photograph of the rehabilitated Mao, pictures of military life, photos of a favorite command, a certificate of appointment, and at least one Party slogan.
"Sit," the colonel ordered, gesturing to a metal chair in front of the desk.
Shan did not sit. He examined the walls. Mao was there, not the rehabilitated one but a photo from the sixties, one that showed the prominent mole on his chin. The certificate was there, and a photograph of grinning army officers. Above them was a picture of a nuclear missile draped with the Chinese flag. For a moment Shan did not see a slogan, then he saw a faded poster behind Tan. "Truth," it said, "Is What the People Need."
Tan opened a thin, soiled folder and fixed Shan with an icy stare.
"In Lhadrung County the state has entrusted the reeducation of nine hundred and eighteen prisoners to me." He spoke with the smooth confident voice of one accustomed to always knowing more than his listeners. "Five lao gai hard labor brigades and two agricultural camps."
There was something Shan had not seen at first, fine wrinkles below the close-cropped graying hair, a trace of weariness around the mouth. "Nine hundred and seventeen have files. We can tell where each was born, their class background, where each was first informed against, every word uttered against the state. But for the other one there is only a short memorandum from Beijing. Only a single page for you, prisoner Shan." Tan folded his palms over the folder. "Here by special invitation of a member of the Politburo. Minister of the Economy Qin. Old Qin of the Eighth Route Army. Sole survivor of Mao's appointees. Sentence indefinite. Criminal conspiracy. Nothing more. Conspiracy." He pulled on the cigarette, studying Shan. "What was it?"
Shan held his hands together and stared at the floor. There were things far worse than the stable. Zhong didn't need Tan's permission to send him to the stable. There were prisons where inmates never left their cells except in death. And for those whose ideas were truly infectious, there were secret medical research institutes run by Public Security Bureau doctors.
"Conspiracy to assassinate? Conspiracy to embezzle state funds? To bed the Minister's wife? Steal his cabbages? Why does Qin not trust us with that information?"
"If this is some sort of tamzing," Shan said impassively, "there should be witnesses. There are rules."
Tan's head did not move, but his eyes shot up, transfixing Shan. "The conduct of struggle sessions is not one of my responsibilities," he said acidly, and considered Shan in silence for a moment. "The day you arrived, Zhong sent your folder to me. I think it scared him. He watches you."
Tan gestured to a second folder, an inch thick. "Started his own file. Sends me reports on you. I didn't ask, he just started sending them. Results of tamzing sessions. Reports of work output. Why bother? I asked him. You're a phantom. You belong to Qin."
Shan gazed at the two folders, one with a single yellowed sheet, the other crammed with angry notes from an embittered jailkeeper. His life before. His life after.
Tan drank deeply from his teacup. "But then you asked to celebrate the chairman's birthday." He opened the second folder and read the top page. "Most creative." He leaned back and watched the smoke wisping toward the ceiling. "Did you know that twenty-four hours after your banner we had handbills circulating in the marketplace? In another day an anonymous petition appeared on my desk, with copies being passed around the streets. We had no choice. You gave us no choice."
Shan sighed and looked up. The mystery was over. Tan had decided he had not been punished sufficiently for his role in Lokesh's release. "He had been imprisoned for thirty-five years." Shan's voice was little more than a whisper. "On holidays," he said, not knowing why he felt the need to explain, "his wife would come and sit outside." He decided to address Mao. "Not allowed closer than fifty feet," he said to the photograph. "Too far to talk, so they waved to each other. For hours they just waved."
A narrow smile, as thin as a blade, appeared on Tan's face. "You have balls, Comrade Prisoner Shan." The colonel was mocking him. A prisoner did not deserve so hallowed a title as Comrade. "It was very clever. A letter would have been a disciplinary offense. If you had tried to shout it out you would have been beaten into silence. Your own petition would have been burned."
He inhaled deeply on his cigarette. "Still, you made Warden Zhong look like a fool. He will always hate you for it. He asked for your transfer out of the brigade. Said you were a saboteur of socialist relations. Couldn't guarantee your safety. The guards were furious. An accident could happen to Minister Qin's special guest. I said no. No transfer. No accident."
Shan looked into Tan's eyes for the first time. Lhadrung was a gulag county, and in the gulag, prison wardens always had their way.
"It was his embarrassment, not mine. Releasing the old man was the right thing. Gave him a double ration book." Smoke drifted out of the colonel's mouth. He shrugged as he caught Shan's stare. "To correct the oversight."
Tan closed the folder. "Still, I grew curious about our mysterious guest. So political. So invisible. I wondered, should I worry about the next bomb you might throw our way?" He took another drag on his cigarette. "I made my own inquiries in Beijing. No more information, they said at first. Qin was not available. In the hospital. No more data on Qin's prisoner available."
Shan stiffened and looked back at the wall. The chairman seemed to be staring back now.
"But it was a quiet week. My curiosity was aroused. I persisted. I discovered that the memo in the file was prepared by the headquarters of the Public Security Bureau. Not the office in Xinjiang that arrested you. Not in Lhasa where your sentence was entered. Over nine hundred prisoners, only one has a file prepared by the Bureau's Beijing office. I think we never appreciated just how special you are."
Shan stared into Tan's eyes again. "There's an American saying," he said slowly. "Everyone is famous for fifteen minutes."
Tan froze. He cocked his head and continued to stare at Shan, as if he wasn't sure he had heard right. The knife-edge smile slowly reappeared.
There was a rustle of small feet behind Shan.
"Madame Ko," Tan said, the cold smile still on his face. "Our guest needs more tea."
The colonel was too old to be on the promotion lists, Shan decided. Even at his exalted level, a post in Tibet was a post in exile.
"I found more about this mysterious Comrade Shan," Tan continued, shifting into the third person. "He was a Model Worker in the Ministry of Economy. Commendations from the chairman for special contributions to the advancement of justice. He was offered Party membership, an extraordinary reward for someone halfway through his career. Then he did something even more extraordinary. He declined. A very complex man."
Shan sat. "We live in a complex world." He saw that his hands, unconsciously, had made a mudra. Diamond of the mind.
"Especially when you consider that his wife is a highly regarded Party member, a senior official in Chengdu. Former wife, I should say."
Shan looked up in alarm.
"You didn't know?" Tan asked with a satisfied smile. "Divorced you two years ago. Annulled, actually. Never lived together, she said."
"We"- Shan's mouth was suddenly bone-dry-"we have a son."