Soul of the Fire (29 page)

“You heard her poetry.”

“Sometimes she would write verses in the dirt because we couldn't afford ink and paper. She was often sick, and I would stay home from school to tend her. Until the day someone from the county council came and took me away to one of those Chinese boarding schools.”

“You have her poetry inside you.”

“I have nothing of her inside me!” Tuan snapped, resentment suddenly in his voice.

“People search ruins all over Tibet,” Lokesh said, echoing Pema's words, “and sometimes gems are found. You have built your own ruin to hide behind without even seeing the gem that lives inside you.”

“I am no gem! I am a goat! I am an abomination! I will continue to be an abomination after I leave here! I strive to be the best abomination I can be!”

The old nun fixed him with a patient gaze. “You are an abomination only because you think it so. What you are is the son of one of the most holy women I ever knew. She touched hundreds of lives and lifted thousands of hearts.”

Tuan said nothing. They left him alone with his mother's poetry.

Shan and Lokesh gladly accepted Dawa's invitation of a tour of the cavern temple complex. After the valley was discovered and declared a place of extraordinary spiritual power centuries earlier, monks had moved there, she explained, first to a small
gompa
they built in the center of the valley. But then an oracle declared that they would be vulnerable to sky demons, and they had to retreat inside the mountain.

Lokesh grinned. “He had a vision of helicopters and fighting planes.”

Dawa, who was clearly growing attached to the old Tibetan, smiled and put a hand on his shoulder, then continued. “There was a shallow tunnel here that they began extending, carving chambers out of the mountain. The first chapel was consecrated seven hundred years ago. The monks chiseled rock for centuries. We still find new chambers and secret little shelves with artifacts and secreted prayers.” They entered small chapels and teaching halls, then passed rows of monks' cells before she paused at a heavy double door carved with ornate symbols. “Most prefer the main sanctuary, but this has always been my favorite.” They entered a long candlelit chamber lined with shelves, each packed with
peches.
The floor of the chamber was lined with thick carpets. Half of it was taken up with cushions and low tables for those who preferred the traditional way of sitting on the floor to read. The other half had tables with mismatched stools and chairs. She indicated the shelves nearest the entry. “A full
kangyar,
” she explained in a reverent tone, meaning the 108 volumes of the Buddhist scripture, “and the
tangyar,
” she added, referring to the 225 volumes of learned commentary. “And our Lotus book,” she added, gesturing to a table on which several modern hand-bound journals lay. It was the chronicle of Tibetan suffering, kept secretly at
gompas
and temples all over Tibet. “Twelve thousand pages so far.”

They gazed for a moment in silence at these, the most sacred volumes of all, then with a cry of delight, Lokesh darted toward the commentaries. “Tsongkhapa!” he called out as he uncovered the first book he pulled from the shelf, then turned and fixed Shan with the expectant gaze of a teacher.

Shan grinned, recognizing the prompt to recite the words of the ancient master. “‘A human body and the encounter with the teaching are frequently not obtained. But now we have them.'”

“Now we have them!” Lokesh repeated, laughing as he gestured to the packed shelves.

“I am afraid we may be here for hours,” Shan said to Dawa.

The dissident leader grinned and retreated a step. “When you are done, your quarters are just four doors down the hall. Your packs are in there. Nothing elegant. Straw pallets and yak-hair blankets.”

“No better place to spend a night in all of Tibet,” Shan replied gratefully, and turned toward the shadows at the rear of the chamber.

He pulled book after book from the shelves, losing all track of time as he immersed himself not in the teachings but in the books of poems, songs, and chronicles of everyday life in ancient monasteries and convents. A group of herders made a six-month pilgrimage after all the sheep in their salt caravan had suddenly died. A yeti took up living with an old lama hermit in a high mountain cave. A yak train was dispatched with fifty new volumes of scripture, a gift to the fifth Dalai Lama.

When he looked out the window, he could see moonlight on the valley floor. He rose, stretched, then lifted a candle lantern to explore the darkened end of the chamber. Lokesh was so engrossed in reading the
kangyar,
he did not take notice when Shan walked by. In the corner near the outside wall, the long rectangular shape of the room had been broken by an inset closet of more recent construction. Heavy timbers cordoned off the corner of the library. He lifted the iron door latch and stepped inside.

Traditional Tibet fell away. The room was packed with electronic equipment, including a generator that vented outside and a row of car batteries. He pulled the cord of a hanging bulb, and the room was suddenly bathed in electric light. On a central table, a metal frame held a sophisticated camera suspended over a
peche.
A small whiteboard laid along the top of the exposed page said
Volume 798, Page 45.
They were photographing the library collection. At the other end of the table was a ring binder filled with various pages, some of them plastic inserts with pockets for smaller items. Some pages were typed, others handwritten. As he leafed through it, he saw the grisly images of his nightmares, the photos of immolations, statements from eyewitnesses, singed death poems, and half of an identity card for Kyal Gyari, the herder whose file had been reviewed on Shan's first day in Zhongje. Unlike what he had seen at the Commission, here was the real chronicle of the immolations.

On a shelf near the window sat a large radio with an antenna wire disappearing out the window. Shan twisted a black knob, and the radio hummed to life. Seconds later, a female voice with a British accent stated, “The time in Dharamsala is 2151. Rain showers are expected in the early morning hours.”

He stared in amazement at the machine. He had heard that Beijing jammed the American Radio Free Tibet broadcast in Tibetan but never bothered to jam the English-language version, since so few Tibetans spoke English. “World news coming up, but first our family news segment: Norbu wishes to tell his sister Kiri in Gyantse that their baby boy finally arrived. His wife is doing fine, and the doctors report the baby is healthy.”

Shan found himself grinning. Here was proof that Beijing didn't control everything in Tibet. Doubtlessly mixed into such messages were codes for the dissidents and the exile government, but most were for real people finding a way to bridge the two very different worlds on opposite sides of the Himalayas.

He listened to the world news, then shut off the radio and, holding his lantern, wandered out of the library into the corridor. The tunneled complex had a mystical air. Most of the walls of the hallway had been plastered, and were covered with aging images of demons and symbols, not all of which he understood. They seemed imbued with strange exotic scents, like memories of incense burned centuries earlier. He felt very small, but very alive.

After several minutes, he discovered a fresh, fragrant scent and followed it to another small chapel, where a
khampa
guard was slumped against the wall, asleep. The door swung open at his touch, and inside the chapel a dozen people were circled around a brazier, its smoke rising into a chimney hole blackened with age.

“Lhasang,”
came a whisper at his shoulder. Lokesh too had stirred from the library. “Dawa is being purified.”

Shan had seen the
lhasang
ritual performed years ago, in prison. The smoke purification ritual was used to draw deities down from the sky, following the column of fragrant smoke, to purify and strengthen the subject, who sat beside the brazier of smoldering juniper. The robed figure murmured a mantra, nodding her thanks as one of the nuns dropped another bundle of fragrant twigs on the coals.

The smoke shifted as flames spurted upward. The woman moved, causing the cowl that partially covered her face to drop.

It was not Dawa. It was Hannah Oglesby.

 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Suddenly a dozen faces were fixed on the two intruders. Some of the nuns cried out in alarm, others in anger. The short man who had led the
khampas
shot up with a furious expression and rushed at Shan and Lokesh with a raised fist.

“Sergeant Gingri! No.” Dawa stepped from the shadows by the wall as she spoke. “We are all friends,” she declared, and gestured them forward.

Shan did not move, but Lokesh hurried to the circle. Two nuns made a place between them for him. “We do not mean to interfere with—,” Shan began, then ended with a confused gesture toward the circle. It was impossible that the American woman was there, in this most secret of temples, among the most secret of the
purba
dissidents.

“A purification,” Hannah explained. Although her eyes smiled at him, her voice was tight and worried. “I am ever the student.”

“Student of what exactly, Miss Oglesby?” Shan asked.

“Student in the art of living well,” came a familiar voice. Judson emerged from the darkness and put a hand on Shan's shoulder, though whether it was a gesture of friendship or of warning Shan was not certain.

“I thought you two would have gone to Lhasa. How could you have known about…?” Shan's voice trailed off in more confusion.

“You know Americans. Insatiable tourists. With a three-day holiday, we thought we should take in the less traveled sights. Our dawn hikes at Zhongje don't stretch our legs enough.” The American brightened as he noticed Lokesh. “Is this him?” He stepped forward and offered a handshake, which Lokesh awkwardly accepted. “From a solitary cell to paradise.” He jerked his thumb toward Shan. “Your friend prays to the right gods.”

For a moment Shan bristled, but the lanky American was so good-natured, it was difficult to be offended. Judson exchanged a long inquiring gaze with Hannah as Sergeant Gingri loudly berated the now awakened guard in the hall.

Dawa approached and grasped Shan's arm. “The stars are amazing here,” the dissident leader said to Shan, and gently pulled him out of the room.

“You knew the Americans before,” Shan said as they settled onto a log bench that overlooked the old bridge.

“I apologize for Sergeant Gingri. He is responsible for security and takes his job very seriously. He thinks I should stay away from you, that he should get you back to Zhongje this very night. But I told him Tserung and Dolma trust you.”

“Your aunt and uncle.”

“It is a dangerous thing even to speak of family. Since I began … I began my new life, I have been careful to use only my first name. They had a dozen suspects in mind, but weren't sure who the
purba
leader was until recently.”

“After reading some of the poems,” Shan revealed in a tight voice, “I told them if the immolations were being coordinated, it would likely be by someone who once wore the robe of a nun or monk. I wasn't thinking. I believe they had already decided the leader was a woman.”

“You understand us well, Shan, and I am not the only nun or former nun among us who wore a robe. It was only a matter of time,” Dawa said. “I am not nearly so inclined to hide myself as those around me think I should. But I have always hidden my connections to the Americans. If discovered, it would go badly for them. They would be accused of espionage and fomenting rebellion. I am not sure their government could protect them.”

“People have been killed, Dawa. I have only been trying to understand the deaths. The last immolation was of a Chinese, disguised so Tibetans would be the scapegoats. Secrets are getting people killed.”

She stared into the night sky as she spoke. “I spent a year at a university in Colorado. Hannah was my roommate. We became very close, like the sisters we never had. I taught her Tibetan, she improved my English. Back then, Judson was her boyfriend, but he went away, got married and divorced. She and I stayed in close touch all these years, although I was not able to leave Tibet. We would talk on the phone whenever possible. When she was posted in Tibet for a few months, she had a week's leave and I was planning to take her to see the tourist places, but in Colorado I had spoken of Taktsang the paradise, where my father first took me as a girl, and she only wanted to come here. We are blessed that the Commission gave us the opportunity to come together one more time.”

One more time.
She made it sound as if it were the last time. The
purbas
had been planning something, planning since before Xie died. “Your father is gone, Dawa. You should leave Tibet.”

The
purba
leader smiled. “My name and picture are posted at every border crossing. Once, we might have gone over the mountain passes, but now they station snipers at all of them, hidden in bunkers covered with snow. They shoot everyone who tries to cross. In some, they have installed automatic machine guns triggered by anything that moves.”

Meteors streaked overhead. Something large, a yak or antelope, splashed through the stream in the shadows.

“You've been a dissident for years. I keep wondering why your father was even allowed to serve on the Commission.”

“They didn't know of my connection to their ex-convict Commissioner. I was wanted by the police, just as dozens of other active protesters were. My father said they cleared him to serve because he was the kind of political pedigree that the foreigners would sympathize with, that he would have instant credibility with them, and be a pliable symbol of the Party's tolerance. They never thought that he would dare resist Pao. No one ever does. He said I should come here until the Commission's work was done, that I should just let him fight the Tibetan battle before the Commission for now. He said to keep the protests quiet if I could.”