Soul of the Fire (38 page)

Lokesh upturned the envelope onto his palm. The severed half of his identify card fell out, with a red ribbon tied to it. His life had been ransomed.

Shan waited at the gate the next morning with a small backpack hanging on one shoulder. He had arrived at Zhongje with nothing and was leaving with only two bottles of water and a few apricots given him by Dolma. It was early, but after saying good-bye to the old Tibetans, he would need to find a truck going east in the hope of reaching Lhadrung County before nightfall. With Tan incapacitated, Pao would find Shan, sending brutes to take him to a new and distant prison, but first he had to find a way to see his son, Ko, to say good-bye to him for a few years.

Pao walked out of the town hall leading his retinue of attendants and minor officials. When he spied Shan, his thin smile widened, and he spoke to a knob, who pulled Shan out of the crowd. “You know you cannot hide from me,” Pao declared. “The first thing I do when I reach Lhasa will be to issue two orders. First to teach you to meddle in the affairs of the Party. Five years in the desert sounds about right.” Shan returned his gaze without speaking. “There may have been an agreement with Dawa, but I am not bound if she is dead. Next, I will sign the order to reduce Yamdrok to rubble!”

“Lha gyal lo,”
Shan said in a steady voice.

Pao slapped him.

Shan watched as the Deputy Secretary paraded toward his car, shaking hands with some onlookers and waving to others. Tuan, in suit and tie, waited behind the wheel. Pao had won, though not everything. The Commission was gone, Dawa was safely out of China, and Lokesh was safe. It was the kind of victory Shan knew he had to settle for in Tibet, and the memory of it would help him endure his five years in the desert gulag.

Tuan gestured him toward the car. “I learned much, Rinpoche,” he said. He wore a strangely serene smile.

“I am no teacher,” Shan protested. Tuan had been trusted by Dawa and Hannah with their secret plan. At the shepherd's hut, he had agreed to help them with their subterfuge by making sure Sung believed Dawa was on the slope. That unlikely trust had made everything possible, including the calm smile now on Tuan's face. He had found forgiveness, and more. He was closer than any of them to Hannah when she'd ignited herself, witnessed the vast courage, both of spirit and body, the American woman had shown.

“You are the best teacher I ever had. I was blind, and you made me see. My mother would not be proud of my life, but maybe there will be pieces of it she would be proud of.”

“Dammit, Tuan!” Pao snarled as he climbed into the backseat. “I have an appointment in Lhasa. Drive!”

Tuan seemed not to hear. He held up his hand, showing how he had made a ring out of the hair of the sacred white yak, then he smiled at Shan again and handed him an envelope.

Confused, Shan accepted the envelope, then watched as Tuan began inching the big black utility vehicle through the crowd of officers and local dignitaries. As the car approached the gate, Shan opened the envelope and upended it onto his palm. A piece of familiar parchment and two pieces of plastic slid out, the two halves of Tuan's identity card.

Shan's heart went cold. “Nooo!” he shouted as the car left the gate. Strangely, it did not turn toward the Lhasa highway but moved in the opposite direction, up the gravel track toward Yamdrok. As Shan ran up the road after it, he could hear Pao cursing Tuan for being such a fool, and saw him slide forward to pound Tuan on the shoulder.

Tuan slammed the accelerator down. Shan kept running, to the bend that gave him a view of the road into the village.

“Tuan! Noooo!” he cried again as he finally understood.

The big black car left the road at the wind fangs, at such a speed that it continued through the air for a surprisingly long time before abruptly plummeting out of sight. A moment later came a terrible gnashing of metal from below. The fireball was so high tongues of flame could be seen over the edge of the cliff.

Shan had to wipe his eyes to read the poem on the parchment.
The end of time,
it said,
just means time to start over.

 

EPILOGUE

Sometime in the night, someone crept into the equipment compound and painted the
mani
mantra along both sides of the huge bulldozer. Tserung had stirred Shan from his sleep to go with a handful of villagers to witness its departure. As the heavy truck towing it back to Lhasa left the gate and sped up, a strand of prayer flags secretly fastened to the rear unfurled in the wind. The Chinese onlookers frowned and turned away. The Tibetan onlookers smiled, and Tserung pounded Shan on the back. Yamdrok had been saved yet again.

Shan had lingered one more night, sleeping on the floor of the old farmhouse by Lokesh. When Tserung and Shan returned to the house, he found his friend packing a canvas bag for travel. Sergeant Gingri stood at the doorway, waiting to escort him on secret mountain trails back to Taktsang.

“You will come visit,” Lokesh said to Shan, not for the first time.

“As often as I can.”

“And as soon as I reach Taktsang, I will start the Bardo ceremony for young Tuan. We will do the full seven weeks, and read all his mother's poems to his spirit.”

The emotions that welled up in Shan were so overpowering, he could only nod.

“I will write to Ko,” Lokesh added in a tight voice. The old man's eyes were moist. “And when the heavy snows come, you and I can spend days just reading in the library.”

“I can think of nothing I would like more,” Shan said, forcing a smile. His throat was tight, and he struggled not to show the pain of their separation. Lokesh had been his companion, his steady anchor, for years. He reached into his pocket and produced the half of the identity card Lokesh had given him. “You can tape it together,” he suggested. “No one need know.”

Lokesh smiled back and shook his head. He raised the battered old Tibetan coin. “You forget I work for the Dalai Lama's government. I will take no such card ever again.”

Shan looked deep into his friend's sparkling eyes. They both knew the words were dangerous, and being caught without his identity card would mean prison again.

“Lha gyal lo,”
Shan whispered as Lokesh pushed the piece of plastic back. Shan stared at it for a moment, then extracted his
gau.
He opened it and placed the half card on top of the special prayers already inside, one of which had been written by Lokesh's wife before she died.

Lokesh grinned and hoisted the bag onto his shoulder.

Shan stood by the
tarchen
as Lokesh and the sergeant climbed the trail, and he watched until they were out of sight.

Half an hour later, Shan was walking past the Zhongje gate when Dr. Lam came running out. “I saw you on the road,” she said. “Two things.” She extended a large medicine bottle. “I know your son is in prison. These are vitamins. I wrote medical orders with them, stating the prison is required to allow him to have them. He should take them every day.” Her Tibetan assistant Pavri stepped out from behind her, holding Tonte, who looked up, eyes brightening as it he saw Shan. Lam took the dog and handed it to Shan. “He has no home here,” she said. “I think he is your protector demon.”

Shan exchanged a long pointed glance with the woman. She would keep the secrets of Hannah Oglesby safe. “Travel well, Shan Tao Yun. Our country isn't—” Her mouth twisted as she searched for words. “I think where you go, it becomes the country it should be.”

His smile was tiny but warm. She backed away, as if fearing to say more, then turned and hurried back into the town. The dog began licking Shan's face.

When he turned, Major Sung was standing by a staff car with an open door. “Get in,” he commanded. The officer looked weary. He had spent much of the last day directing the recovery of the bodies of Pao and Tuan and trying to explain to officials from Lhasa the strange mechanical defect that had caused their tragic accident.

Sung remained silent as they drove around the base of the mountain. It wasn't until the stable came into view that the major finally spoke. “I checked with Lhasa. No orders have been signed for your arrest, or for the destruction of Yamdrok. I will see to it that no such orders will be issued.”

At the stable, four troop trucks waited. A dozen knobs stood beside them, most with automatic rifles slung over their shoulders.

“They are being released,” Sung announced. “Going home. I told the officers here that Pao ordered it before he died.”

The Tibetan detainees cowered by the building, frightened of the knobs. “They think they are going to prison,” Shan observed.

“That's why I brought you. Tell them.”

Shan looked at the detainees uneasily. He doubted they would trust him. As he approached, a solitary figure stepped forward and greeted him with a nod. It took a moment for Shan to recognize the old man in the shepherd's vest to whom he had given a roll of candy.

“We are waiting,” the Tibetan declared with a smile.

“Please, Grandfather. These men have little patience.”

“Do you say we must go on trucks with these men who have beaten us and tortured our gods?”

Shan looked back at the line of sullen knobs. They were furious, he knew, about the death of Pao. He could indeed not predict what would happen once the detainees were driven into the mountains.

“We are waiting!” the old man said again with an odd lightness now in his voice. A murmur of excitement rippled through the detainees.

Shan turned to see two battered farm trucks driving up the gravel road. No one moved until the trucks rolled to a stop and their sputtering engines died. One of Sergeant Gingri's
khampas
climbed down from each of the driver's seats, two women out of the passenger doors. Yosen and Pema were dressed in simple farmers' clothing.

“Are their identity cards returned?” Shan asked Sung.

The major looked as if he had bitten something sour. “The sergeants in charge of the convoy have them. We can't just let them go like that. Some are hundreds of miles from their registered homes. I am accountable—” His gaze hardened as he looked toward the sound of a new vehicle on the gravel road.

Shan's heart sank. The limousine of a high official was approaching. He quickly found the two nuns. “Please,” he asked. “No confrontation.”

Behind him, the limousine slid to a stop. A moment later came the sound of boots on gravel. The soldiers stiffened and stood at attention.

“Is there a problem, Major?” came a haughty voice.

In the corner of his eye, Shan saw Sung deliver a nervous salute. “The Commission detainees, sir,” Sung reported. “Just some final housekeeping.”

“Comrade Shan is proficient with such details,” the officer declared to Shan's back.

Shan turned in surprise. Although he still looked weak and pale, Colonel Tan stood straight and tall in his neatly pressed uniform. Shan said nothing, and Tan did not acknowledge him but instead paced along the front row of detainees. A boy dropped a little twine doll of a yak. Tao bent and retrieved it for the boy, then turned to Shan with a raised eyebrow.

“They're hungry,” Shan stated. “They have a long drive ahead. They need their identity cards.”

Tan turned to Sung. “Do you have food?” he asked.

“A few bags of grain inside. Otherwise, just food for the staff. Sir.”

“Whatever you have, bring it out. All of it. And return the cards,” Tan ordered, gesturing to the battered trucks. “No need to waste the time of crack troops. Tibetans can take care of Tibetans today.”

Sung seemed oddly relieved. He deployed his troops quickly, tasking the sergeants to distribute the identity cards and the others to bring the food from the building. When they finished, he quickly had the soldiers climb into their trucks and drive away. The major leaned into his car and retrieved the dog, which he handed to Shan. With a cry of delight, Amah Jiejie leapt from the limousine and rushed to take Tonte.

Sung studied the Tibetans now climbing into the old trucks, then turned to Shan. “Do I say thank you?” he hesitantly asked.

“Perhaps just good-bye.”

The major nodded and stiffly extended his hand, which Shan accepted. He turned and saluted Tan, then without another word drove away.

Several of the Tibetans came forward to express their gratitude to Shan. A few thanked Tan, who murmured awkward acknowledgment. The old man in the shepherd's vest shook Tan's hand vigorously, uttering a prayer in Tibetan as he did so.

As the trucks pulled away, the Tibetans in the back broke out in song. When Shan turned to Tan, the colonel was looking into his palm with a puzzled expression. The old shepherd had left a
tsa tsa
in his hand.

Amah Jiejie settled the dog into the car and turned to Shan expectantly. He looked uncertainly from her to the colonel. “We must go now, Xiao Shan,” she said, gesturing him into the car. “The colonel made a phone call to the prison. No more solitary confinement for your son.” She looked at her watch. “Arrangements have been made. If we hurry, you will have dinner with him tonight.”

 

AUTHOR'S NOTE

For decades, Tibetans have had little choice but to watch and suffer as their land has been overrun with Chinese soldiers and their culture methodically dismantled. Their lack of resistance stems not from a lack of resolve or love of freedom but from deep-rooted teachings of non-violence. In a land where the slightest hint of protest is hammered down and traditions discourage fighting back, there are few options to express opposition.

The first Tibetan self-immolation as an act of protest occurred in 1988, but in recent years these suicides have rapidly increased. Since 2011 dozens of self-immolations have occurred, many by monks and nuns, but young fathers and mothers, grandparents, even teenagers number among the victims. While such deaths are especially wrenching, even horrifying, these immolations also have a solemn and heroic aspect. There is something uniquely Tibetan about them, the acts of proud, devout people who, left with no other means, make the ultimate sacrifice to express desperation for their country and frustration that the world turns a blind eye to its plight.