400 Boys and 50 More (47 page)

He instructed his team to continue interviewing the monks, confident that more obvious and easily crushed dissidence would be uncovered among them. Even such small-scale victories boosted morale. By nightfall the work team—except for a small contingent that had remained in the village—was fully situated in various drafty cells of the main temple. The monks were housed in the main dormitory—already prisonlike and easy to patrol; a few others were charged with feeding them. The fractious monk who had incited the Spring Festival uprising, the first one shot, turned out to have been the head cook. Zhogmi would not vouch for the quality of the food the cook’s frightened assistants prepared. It was another demonstration of the principle that criminal activity injured mainly the criminals themselves.

Zhogmi took a chamber in the main temple for himself. After preparing a bowl of noodles on a small camp stove, he sat huddled on his cot, wrapped in blankets, trying to keep from freezing. The stone walls and floor sucked all the warmth from the air; his oil-burning heater was useless against the endless chill. The work team’s voices and laughter echoed through the building, but scarcely filled it. Still, it was a more reassuring sound than the mournful, morbid chanting of the monks would have been. His mood was black. He kept thinking for no good reason of the old man he had shot, and the paintbrush, and that chipped wall smeared with blood of exactly the hue that had tipped the brush.

After a restless hour, in which sleep began to seem ever less likely, Zhogmi rose—still fully dressed and wrapped in a blanket—and took a lantern into the hall. Night had turned the temple into a cave; he feared a wrong turn might lead him into the bowels of the earth. Then he saw on a threshold the tear-shaped pattern left by a paintbrush, with a few bristles caught in the dried red pigment.

He stepped slowly into the room and played his light over the wall, looking for the suggestive outlines he had seen that morning.

The light trembled in his hands.

For a moment he thought it was an illusion, but he held his breath and moved forward to examine the wall. There was no mistaking it. A painter had been at work. In defiance of his orders, the restoration had continued!

What this morning had been a few curved outlines, now formed a solidifying shape. The figure looked almost feminine, but there was something grotesque about the shape of the head. He knew it was not unusual for these barbaric figures to possess a multitude of arms, but here the shoulders and limbs were blurred—probably through the artist’s haste—and poised in a position that made little sense in terms of human anatomy. Where before, the figure had been hollow, with no inner color other than that of the wall, now it was a deep, rich red, as if the old man’s blood had soaked into the stone and spread to neatly fill the contours.

None of these details surprised him nearly as much as the sheer fact that it had been painted at all. Who would have dared? And how could they have managed it, with the temple occupied all day by the work team?

Some rogue monk must be hiding in the temple, or coming and going by an unknown entrance. He backed out of the room and began calling for his men. No one would sleep until they found their culprit. This suited Zhogmi, as he knew he would find sleep impossible in any case.

The members of the DMC dwelt at the edge of the monastery grounds, in a row of small prefabricated houses. At first, Zhogmi intended to rouse them all, but he decided to strengthen his relationship with Jing Meng-Chen alone for now.

Jing Meng-Chen came out uncomplainingly, instantly cooperative, though he looked puzzled when Zhogmi explained the reason for the search.

“I don’t see how that could be. Painted, you say?”

“Clearly by one of the monks, and not one we had in our custody.”

“All the monks have been accounted for. They are all in your charge.”

“Then some other artist—a layman working with them.”

“Not to contradict you, but—”

“Speak your mind. I'm sure your thoughts run close to the truth.”

“There’s no one qualified to continue that work. We requested other artists from some of the larger monasteries to help with the painting, but never received permission. Gyatso Samphel was to do all the major work himself. Few in this area are sufficiently trained even to follow his instructions.”

“Some clever rascal must have managed to hide his skill from even you.”

“Can I see this restoration?”

“If you think it will give you some idea of its author, yes.”

As they hurried across the compound, shouts from the dormitories told them that the monks were being roused for questioning. Zhogmi asked Jing Meng-Chen whether there might be any overlooked entrances to the temple, and he admitted that there were a few small apertures through which even a child would have trouble squeezing. Then they reached the mural.

Jing Meng-Chen’s surprise was no greater than Zhogmi’s. In the brief interval since he’d last seen the wall, the restoration had continued still further!

The red body of the goddess now was dotted with dozens of colored specks, like an array of violet, green, and golden stars just coming into focus in a telescope. And she had eyes now. . . round black eyes gleaming wetly in that troubling, incomplete face. Jing Meng-Chen ran a finger over the wall, looked at it. “Dry,” he said.

“Someone’s inside the temple!” Zhogmi cried.

Jing Meng-Chen turned toward him with an amazed look. “I'm telling you: no one here could do this.”

“What skill does it take to wave a brush?”

“Sir, we weed out potential subversives early on—that means the intelligentsia, anyone with talent. Once, the best Tibetan minds might have studied in the monastic colleges, but today that would be an explosive situation. Talent is discouraged. This is how it must be.”

“You're saying that all the monks are morons.”

“No, most are simply mediocre because uneducated. We want them that way. Thus, the tourists—if they ever come—will see what appears to be a functioning, vital monastery, and they will contribute generously to its operation; but meanwhile, the words the monks chant are meaningless to them. When the Tibetan tongue finally ceases to be spoken, then the texts will seem even more nonsensical . . . and the religion will naturally die out as planned.”

“All this happens slowly, Jing Meng-Chen. Many still remember the old ways, and will engage in subversion to restore them.”

“But this. . . .” He raised his hands to the wall painting. “This goes far beyond subversion. This is the work of a skilled and knowledgeable artist. I tell you: I know each of the monks here; I know them intimately. None is capable of this. I was raised in that village out there, and there are no artists in it. Gyatso Samphel was the last!”

“Then what are you saying? That this image is painting itself?”

Jing Meng-Chen’s face grew pale. “Certainly not!”

Zhogmi regretted that he had even expressed this fanciful impossibility, for it made him appear as superstitious as the locals. He turned away from the wall. “There’s a rational explanation. Someone in our midst who comes and goes without attracting attention. Tell me. . . .”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell me about Jowo Tenzin.”

Jing Meng-Chen hesitated. “He is a good man, devoted to the Party, determined that the monastery function in accordance with official policy.”

“So it would appear. He is full-blooded Tibetan, is he not?”

“Yes.”

“And can we be certain where his loyalties lie?”

“I think so. He’s not a religious or superstitious man. Nor does he have any artistic skills I am aware of.”

“Nevertheless, I am convinced he is practiced at deception. His record books are a tangle of what I believe to be deliberate obscurations, disguised to look like mild incompetence.”

“Are you saying he steals from the monastery?”

“Not from the monastery, from the government! The monastery has no money of its own. If I prove this crime against him, it is likely that he will be suspected of others.”

Jing Meng-Chen looked pained.

“No one likes to hear such things about his superiors; but I have reason to think Tenzin soon may be leaving his post. Would it please you to lead the DMC yourself?”

“I'll happily serve the Party in whatever office is entrusted to me.”

“But you can tell me nothing more of Jowo Tenzin?”

“No. I did not realize the accounts were in such disarray. I am sorry to hear that he is under suspicion.”

“Not only for theft.” Zhogmi gestured toward the red figure. “This is also a serious transgression.”

A member of Zhogmi’s work team appeared in the doorway. “Nothing,” he said.

Zhogmi felt an overwhelming futility and exhaustion. Dismissing the man, he turned back to Jing Meng-Chen.

“I'm sorry to have interrupted your rest,” he said. “It’s obvious we'll learn nothing more tonight. But please . . . no word of my suspicions to Jowo Tenzin.”

“Of course not.”

Jing Meng-Chen bowed sharply, then hurried from the chamber.

Zhogmi listened to his footsteps receding, then faced the mural and marveled at the audacity of its creator. There was something seductive about the creature it depicted. Her curves were sinuous, openly erotic, as were in a way the eyes. He was well aware that the old gods of Tibet were often portrayed in a manner to arouse the lust of celibate monks—to keep them more firmly bound to their religion by infusing it with sensual snares. And all while they denied the importance of the body. Such hypocrites, these Buddhists!

He moved back to the far wall and sank down, retrieving the blanket he had dropped there earlier, drawing it around him. The red figure seemed to waver as he stared at it, but that was fatigue, making the whole room swim. He would guard the wall himself tonight; no further restoration would be allowed. It seemed strangely important that the renegade artist not be allowed to finish, as if to complete the painting were an act of revolution.

The painted jewels glimmered like actual stones. His eyes watered, but he forced them open. His mind wandered along the lithe lines of the figure, the suggestions of firm, small breasts, a dancer’s hips and thighs. If only the face and head were clearer—he could almost imagine a pretty woman’s face materializing around those eyes. She seemed to smile in greeting, though her mouth was oddly proportioned—too wide, too stiff. . . . And then he realized why the arms were held so strangely, and why they appeared blurred. They were not arms at all, but wings.

Outside, he heard a stirring of air. He fought to keep his eyes open, to stay on guard. But he felt drugged, betrayed. Ceasing to struggle, he slept.

IV

Jing Meng-Chen shivered with fear as he hurried back to his house.
Restoring itself,
Zhogmi Chhodak had blurted. Impossible—but no more so than his other explanations. There simply was no one in the area versed in such painting—and no one who knew the attributes of the Vulture Maiden as thoroughly as Gyatso Samphel.

As he approached his house, he received an additional shock. Someone hurried out of the shadows, seizing him sharply by an elbow and drawing him around the corner. He knew from the man’s huffing breath that it was Jowo Tenzin, even before he spoke.

“Jing! Where have you been? What’s the commotion?”

“Zhogmi Chhodak believes someone is continuing the restoration work on Gyatso’s mural.”

“Painting? But that’s impossible.”

“I told him as much, but still—the work speaks for itself.”

“You've seen it?”

“Yes. Skillfully done, and quickly, too. It looks just like Gyatso’s work.”

Jowo placed a hand on his shoulder. “I know how close you were to him, Jing. You—you were practically his son.”

Jing did not feel comfortable confiding in Jowo Tenzin, especially after Zhogmi’s warnings. He merely nodded and said, “I must be alone now.” Jowo stood aside, and Jing went on into his tiny home.

He threw himself down in the dark, hoping to escape the mesh of anxious thoughts. Sleep, however, would not come. He kept hearing the morning’s gunfire and feeling the bullet graze his shoulder; he remembered the cry of the vultures and the way his knife had parted limbs and ligaments. He could not shake the sight of the Vulture Maiden. She seemed to brighten and solidify on the inside of his eyelids, as if Gyatso Samphel were alive within him, painting her there, imbuing the image with his own lost life.

It was further thoughts of this nature that sent him from his bed and across the monastery, stopping once near the temple entrance to answer the challenge of a work-team guard. He made his way over the gravelly hillside, into the warren of old cells that had once housed monks and supplies. The little structures were all crumbled and open to the elements, save for the one that Gyatso Samphel had restored, patching the roof and supplying a door that lay open tonight, creaking in the wind. Inside, he found and lit a candle stub. Gyatso’s few belongings were in disorder; no doubt the work team had considered this a likely hiding spot for their supposed rebel artist. Gyatso’s brushes and pencils lay on a small shelf, with vials of colored powders and various sorts of paper. Gyatso had collected scraps of all colors and sizes, using them as blank surfaces for sketching. Jing rummaged among them until he found what he sought on the back of a packing slip. His breath lodged in his throat when he smoothed the sheet against the wall.

It was the Vulture Maiden, beyond any doubt. She was lightly and rapidly sketched, but still exquisite, complete with all her ornaments and delicate gestures of arms and wings; her slyly cocked head and gaping, curved beak gave her the look of life. She matched almost exactly the goddess now taking shape on the temple wall. This was one of Gyatso’s preliminary sketches, a hasty packing-slip
thangka
.

Jing folded up the paper and slipped it into his jacket. If he got the chance, he would compare it to the mural, and prove to himself that it was precisely the design Gyatso had carried in his head. But more than that, he took it with the thought that it was the most precious thing Gyatso had possessed, and therefore the most meaningful token of his friendship.