Eliot Pattison - Soul of the Fire

Judson paled. “Jesus. No,” he groaned. “Not Lokesh.”

Shan pulled out the other half of the card. “For years, he and I have gone all over Tibet seeking out old books and artifacts, hiding them for another generation, like the ancient lamas hid treasures hundreds of years ago for pilgrims to find. We put precious Buddha images and old peches in caves deep in the mountains, and he would seal them with special prayers. We would go in the night to old chortens being dismantled to save the relics inside. But I came to realize that Lokesh himself was the real treasure. He may be the last survivor of the Dalai Lama’s government before the occupation.”

Dawa gazed forlornly at the piece of plastic in her hand. “How can we not respect the decision of such a man?”

“You make it too easy for him to die.”

Shan’s words seemed to stab deep. Dawa bit her lip and was silent a long moment, then reached around her neck and pulled away a strap. Shan expected to see a gau, but instead it held a drawstring pouch. “Too easy?” The sturdy purba leader suddenly looked frail. She upended the pouch on the little stool beside the altar. “This is the opposite of easy.”

Dozens of severed identity cards fell out on the stool. “We have never decided for any of them. I have never not tried to convince them to stop, to find another way to express their commitment to a new Tibet.” Her voice cracked as she spoke, and she had to pause to collect herself. “I met every single one who came with these cards. Every night I try to remember each of their faces before I go to sleep. There was a farmer in Kham named Jigme. ‘If this is the end of time,’ he said, ‘then I should be able to decide how to end my time.’”

Shan saw the tracks on her cheeks. She had been crying before he came, at the altar. “Would you do this, offer yourself to the fire god?”

A melancholy smile rose on Dawa’s face. “There is nothing I would not do for our cause. There are many ways to die,” she added almost in a whisper.

As Shan tried to make sense of her last words, a shadow fell across the entry. Hannah Oglesby took a step inside, then froze as she saw Shan. A bandage was taped across her left temple, where the knob had struck her. When she saw the identity cards on the stool, she lowered her head and retreated a step.

“Shan came to join us, Hannah,” Judson said. “We were-” He glanced at Dawa. “-speaking about gods again.”

Shan picked up one of the card fragments, then another. He saw names he recognized from the Commission files. Dorje Chugta the young nun, Korchok Gyal the forest warden, Kyal Gyari, and many others. The reports in the files had been sterile, impersonal accounts filtered by Public Security. The cards made the dead real. Here were living men and women who had dedicated all that they were, and all that they ever would be, to the fiery god of freedom.

“You can still run,” Shan said to Dawa.

The dissident silently shook her head.

“I have another way to end what Pao is doing. You don’t have to turn yourself in. Lokesh doesn’t have to die.”

Dawa began gathering up the cards. “Having the Commission succeed is bad enough. But when it does, Pao will gain absolute power. He is the demon who has been lurking on our horizon for years. He will be the end of Tibet. He will consume it like a ravenous animal.”

Shan rose, painfully aware that if he was absent too long, Tuan would start looking for him. He glanced at Hannah. She hadn’t retreated, she had closed the door and moved to a pile of blankets next to it, as if guarding it the heap. “Pao is a practical man,” he tried. “He may make a deal.”

“Exactly. He must be given something he wants even more than a successful Commission,” Dawa said. “There is only one thing he wants more. Me.”

“He’ll torture you.”

“Living in Pao’s Tibet is already torture.”

Shan took a quick step past Hannah, then turned and pulled up the blankets. Underneath were four large metal cans with spouts. Each was marked, in English and Chinese, with the words AVIATION FUEL.

“Shan, no,” Dawa said, pleading in her voice now. “It is not for us to change decisions made in the hearts of others. Some are convinced of the need to keep the protests alive.”

Before he could react, the latch on the door lifted. Judson sprang forward to cover the cans as the door opened.

“Oh!” Tuan exclaimed to the American. “I was looking for Shan. One of the constables saw him come this way.” He nodded awkwardly at Judson and Hannah, then froze as he saw Dawa. He backed up, looking down now. “I didn’t see anything,” he said. “No one but Shan. No one,” he repeated in a worried voice. “I only wanted a quiet place to talk with Shan. There’s news.”

“News?” Shan asked. He glanced in alarm at Dawa.

“The son of Ani Jinpa can always speak freely with all of us,” the purba leader said.

Tuan retreated a step outside. “A development, you might say. Pao gave me a draft speech to review.” He turned away from the door as if uncomfortable speaking to the others. “He’s very excited about it. A new campaign, all his own idea. ‘Fertilize the Motherland,’ he wants to call it. No one is to know until he announces it next week in Lhasa.” Dawa stepped in front of him. He glanced at her again, then looked down, wringing his hands. “It’s the end of Tibet,” he said in an agonized whisper.

It was Dawa who broke the silence. “Tell us, Tuan. Tell us everything.”

“Reverse immigration is how he describes it, a mirror image of the days when they moved entire city blocks of Chinese from the east by truck convoy into Tibet.” He looked toward Zhongje as he continued, as if he could not bear to look at any of them. “He means to ship entire Tibetan towns to factory cities in the east. Tens of thousands of people. He has a map of every protest, every immolation site. Every Tibetan within five miles of each site is to be shipped east.” Tuan’s voice tightened as he spoke. He seemed short of breath. “They could do it,” he said, this time with a glance at Shan. “The new train will make it possible. He says it’s all just a matter of logistics.”

No one spoke. Hannah raised a hand to her belly as if the news had physically struck her, and slowly settled onto her knees in front of the makeshift altar. She looked like one more anguished nun.

Tuan suddenly looked up at Dawa. “You should go. Please go. They are tracking your phone.”

The purba leader looked at him in surprise, contemplating the troubled Religious Affairs officer for several long breaths. “I will not run, Tuan,” she said at last, then fixed Shan with a long, pointed gaze before turning back toward Tuan. “But I would like to make you Pao’s hero.”

* * *

The Commission meeting that morning was abruptly canceled after Tuan entered and urgently conferred with Major Sung and Madam Choi. An hour later, Sung and Choi waited at an outdoor table of the little street café, staring at an empty chair. Plainsclothes knobs were in the café and in the shadows of the adjoining buildings. The appointed time came, and no one filled the chair. Shan waited ten more minutes, Dawa’s words echoing in his mind. She had taken him aside and spoken with him after Tuan headed back up the slope. “I ask of you the most difficult thing of all, Shan,” she said. “I ask you to do nothing, only deliver a message.” Finally he emerged into the sunlight and took the chair.

“No!” Choi barked, and urgently motioned Shan away. “We are expecting someone!”

Shan only stared at Sung.

The major muttered under his breath, then raised a palm toward Choi. “The purbas ’ representative is here, Madam Chairman.”