Eliot Pattison - Soul of the Fire

“And religion became the opiate of the masses,” Shan said, reciting one of Mao’s favorite maxims, “the barrier that prevents them from achieving the socialist paradise.”

Tuan’s smile widened. “They can call it what they want, so long as they keep paying my salary. I am not your enemy, comrade. I want to make your visit with us as-” He searched for a word.

“Productive?”

“Exactly. As productive as possible.”

Shan eyed the figures who had begun to stream into the hall singly and in pairs. Most of the early risers wore Public Security uniforms. “Your Commission is never going to succeed,” he declared. “It’s only a question of how spectacular its failure is. Such failures are measured by how far up the Party apparatus the reports are read. I’d say after yesterday’s suicide, they are on the way to a Deputy Premier’s desk in Beijing.”

“We had nothing to do with that immolation.”

“Of course you did. The Commission was its primary audience. For the first time, there are Western witnesses to an immolation. The Western reporters will be unstoppable when they finally connect everything. The Commission that is supposed to stop self-immolations is causing more. Beijing labors to dampen the interest of the global community in the suicides. Yesterday that trajectory reversed.”

“I don’t know about such things.”

“But you know where Lokesh is.”

“Lokesh?”

“The old man. My friend.”

Tuan frowned. “That’s the major’s business.” He gestured toward the prison, now glowing in the early rays of dawn. “It was a huge abbey once, you know, home to college and a printing press and honeycombed with meditation cells. Thousands of inmates now. Hundreds of cells. Prisoners can be lost, paperwork mislaid.”

Shan cocked his head, trying to decide whether to read warning into Tuan’s words.

Tuan spooned his porridge, avoiding Shan’s eyes. “The Commission was the Deputy Secretary’s idea,” he said into his bowl. “Pao is the youngest ever to reach his rank, only a few years older than me. The ruler of all China held that job once, and made his reputation in Tibet. They speak of him as a candidate to fill those shoes in another twenty years. His suggestion of an international commission was cited at Party meetings as the perfect example of socialist thinking for the new era, the kind of leadership the motherland needs to achieve its global destiny. Party leaders call him a prodigy, a true revolutionary.”

True revolutionary . The words sent a shudder down Shan’s spine. It was more Party code, an accolade reserved for overachieving Party members. He had seen photographs of Pao Xilang in the Lhasa Times, an athletic-looking man who kept his hair so close-cropped, it sometimes appeared to be shaved. Pao giving speeches. Pao opening new schools and highways. “For Pao Xilang,” Tuan said, “the Commission has to be an unequivocal success. We are ordered to make it so.”

“Why are we having breakfast?”

“You need to embrace that success. Let me show you the Commission offices and get the key to your quarters. Your own little apartment.”

“You’ve been assigned to watch over me.”

“To assist. To facilitate. It must be a difficult transition for you.”

“To report every unpatriotic breath to Major Sung.”

Tuan shrugged once more. “You are unfamiliar to us.”

“Who put me on this Commission?”

“I have no reason to know that. Your name came in unexpectedly. The Deputy Secretary gets a hundred requests for political favors a week. He laughed when he read the request and approved it on the spot. That is irrelevant. You need to embrace the success,” Tuan repeated.

“Comrade,” Shan chided, “you make it sound like a business proposition. You must learn the syntax of Beijing. Better to say that in the name of the motherland I must embrace the truth of our mission. Make it chiding but patriotic at the same time.”

“Perfect!” Tuan exclaimed. “What an excellent team we shall make!”

Shan ate his porridge, considering his companion. Tuan clearly knew how to act the part of party zealot. Yet he did it with a strange detachment, as if it were a role he were playing, wearing a skin that did not perfectly fit. “But Commissioners are not without certain powers,” Shan suggested. “Otherwise, they might suspect they are mere puppets.”

“Of course,” Tuan agreed, then his face clouded. “What do you have in mind?”

“The Commission wants to demonstrate that the immolations are mere crimes. Let us confront the ugly truth, witness the grim reality. Get some vehicles ready. I will propose when we convene the meeting this morning that the Commission be taken to the scene of the latest crime.”

* * *

The scorched earth of the immolation site was in the center of a square, five paces to the side, defined by red tape strung on wooden stakes. Shan climbed out of the lead utility vehicle and quickly stepped over the tape, ignoring the guard who tried to motion him away, then squatted before the blackened soil. The guard cursed and advanced toward him, but was abruptly halted by a sharp syllable from Major Sung, standing by the second vehicle.

A shred of maroon, the remains of a robe, survived among the ruin. He ran his fingers lightly over the ash, around it, then lifted them to his nose. The ash had a sharp, acrid smell.

“You smell the accelerant. And there’s no container.”

Shan turned to see the major standing behind him.

“Another conspiracy,” Sung explained, not bothering to hide his impatience. He had fixed Shan with a smoldering stare when Shan made his proposal to the Commission, but his protest had been preempted by Madam Choi’s enthusiastic endorsement of the suggestion. She welcomed the opportunity to demonstrate to the foreigners the openness of China’s criminal investigation process.

“A gang of political hooligans,” Sung continued. “This monk did not act alone. They soaked him with the accelerant and left with the container, since it would betray their fingerprints.”

Shan’s eyes rested on a small patch of brown at the opposite side of the square. At the edge of the stain was something small and metallic. He slowly stood and inserted a hand into his pocket, where his fingers found an old foil gum wrapper. The other members of the Commission continued to stand by the vehicles as if too frightened to move. Madam Choi seemed to take his glance as a challenge, and she stepped forward with a determined expression, chiding the others to join her, then pulled the sullen Miss Zhu with her. As Major Sung turned toward them, Shan stepped to the other side, then stooped as if to tie one of the new shoes Tuan had brought for him. He deftly snapped up the little piece of metal, covering it in the foil before burying it in his pocket. The rusty stain he took it from was connected to the scorched earth by a thin line of the same color.

“You can see the footprints,” Major Sung observed to Madam Choi, pointing to the tracks of boots around the square. “Obviously there were several conspirators involved.” Miss Lin joined them, pacing with a studious air.

“Did an ambulance crew respond?” Shan asked the major. “Firefighters? Public Security troops?”

“Of course.”

“Did they have feet?”

Lin grinned. Major Sung spat a curse under his breath and turned away to bark at a squad of knobs arriving from the compound below.

Choi inched closer to Shan. “Your credentials say you have extensive experience with Tibetan affairs,” she ventured.

“Five years working alongside Tibetans in a hard labor camp. It felt extensive.”

Choi seemed puzzled. “You sound almost proud of it.”

Shan realized her surprise was not from his announcement, for she had seen his file, but from his tone. He had no idea who she really was. His desperation to save Lokesh was making him reckless. “My rehabilitation was not in vain,” he stated in the voice of an earnest cadre.