Eliot Pattison - Mandarin Gate

In the silence that followed Shan realized the steady breathing from the bed had stopped. The old woman had pulled the blanket over her head but Shan could see her hollow eyes, open, staring at them in horror. She had been listening.

“You will have no more friends there,” Jigten said, his voice strangely hoarse now. “They will be no more. People go in but only hollow shells come out.”

* * *

The sun was low in the sky when Shan rose from the tall grass where he had been sitting, watching the Jade Crows compound. There was no sign of sentries. The big trucks were gone. Jigten had explained that twice a week they made long hauls, either to the southern border or up the northern road to Chamdo, Tibet’s third biggest city, even sometimes beyond, into Sichuan Province, to pick up supplies for the camps. The compound seemed nearly deserted except for the solitary figure he had seen climbing to the run-down stable on the slope above the farm. He cast a long, worried glance in the direction of Lokesh’s new prison, then muttered a prayer and began climbing the hill.

There was no door on the little building. For several moments Shan watched the man at the altar of planks and stones, then extracted a stick of incense from his pocket and lit a match against the wall.

Lung Tso spun about, his eyes flaring as bright as the match. “You have a lot of balls coming here, Old Mao,” he spat. His hand drifted toward the dagger Shan knew was in his boot.

“I bring incense to honor your gods.”

The words cut through Lung’s anger. He glanced back at the altar, seeming uncertain how to respond. On one side of the altar sat a simple sandalwood statue of Buddha, on the other a stout, decorated Buddha of the tropical lands. Beside them were two thick candles, a butter lamp, a glass of wine, and a white khata scarf, an offering scarf. At the very edge sat a small toy truck with another khata wrapped around it.

Shan wedged his smoking stick of incense between stones in the wall above the altar, murmuring a quick mantra before turning to the new Jade Crow chieftain. “Tell me something, Lung. Did your brother make this altar before or after his son died?” He half expected Lung to pull out his blade, but then he saw there was no fight in the man before him.

Lung Tso watched the smoke of the smoldering stick as he spoke. “After. Even then he kept it hidden. The night we burned his boy’s body he never came back to the house. I found him here, just before dawn, setting out the little statues.” He turned to Shan. “When we were young our mother took us to the temple. People would bring little things like images of houses and money and burn them. Should we burn something?”

“That was a temple of the Taoists,” Shan explained. “The Buddha does not expect it.”

“My brother said he had been having dreams about going to the temple with our mother,” Lung continued. “He said maybe we had been wrong to ignore the gods after she died. Maybe it was wrong to have roughed up all those Tibetans in the hills, he said, just because the police said so. He said our mother had warned him about making deals with demons.”

“You mean he thought his son’s death was some kind of punishment.”

“I told him his son died in a truck accident, that our dealing with the police was just good business, that the Jade Crows always made the best of their situation, it’s how we survived. But he wouldn’t listen. He said bringing the old nun was too late, that he should have done so long before.”

Shan paused. “You were here when she came?”

“The first time she came to us with another nun, right up the stairs as we sat at the table playing tiles. She demanded that we stop raiding the farms. My brother made sure she wasn’t hurt, even stopped the others from laughing at her, but agreed to nothing. When my nephew died he seemed to reconsider things. Lung Wi was a good boy, very smart, very lively. Always laughing. My brother was devoted to him. If we had stayed in Yunnan some of us might have avoided jail but my brother wouldn’t be separated from his son. The others don’t know it, but it’s why we came here, so my brother and his son would be together.

“When the boy’s body was brought back he wept. The only time I ever saw him weep. He pulled out an old box of our mother’s things and sat with them a long time. Then he took them and placed them around his son’s body. After a couple hours of sitting there in silence he left without a word. When he came back that old nun was with him. They washed the boy’s body and they said words together.”

“Your brother and the abbess?”

Lung shook his head. “The abbess and that other nun, the older nun. The monk too, though the abbess was in charge.”

“A monk? What was his name?”

“That Jamyang.”

“The tall lama with the red spot on his jaw?”

As Lung nodded Shan recalled he had seemed to know Jamyang’s name on his first visit. “Not as good as the nuns,” the gang leader added.

“What do you mean?”

“He disrupted things, stopped the prayers. He ran out like he couldn’t bear to be with the dead. What good’s a monk who is scared of death?”

Shan stared at the gang leader in confusion. “Where was the boy going when he died?”

“Jade Crow business,” was Lung’s only reply. He turned back toward the altar. “Do you have more of that incense?”

Shan found himself settling down in front of the altar. He absently handed Lung his last stick of incense. The gang leader lit it and stared at the little Buddha in the exotic garb, his head cocked, as if trying to understand how to speak to it. The last rays of the sun reached into the stable, bathing the altar in a golden glow.

Shan reached into his pocket and extracted the folded piece of paper he had found in Lung Ma’s holster. “This is what you wanted. This is what I took from your brother’s body.”

Lung Tso seemed not to hear for a moment, then he slowly turned and accepted the paper. His brows knitted in confusion as he read it. He looked up at Shan and gestured him closer to the little Buddhas. “My mother said in front of the gods no man can lie. This was it, this was all you took?”

“I swear it to you. These were the words that brought him to the convent that day.”

“Just dates and towns?”

“Certain dates. Certain towns, towns on the border, where things get moved out of China. And at the bottom that address in Chamdo. It was written by Jamyang.”

“This is why my brother died? I don’t think so.”

“A man cannot lie in front of the gods, Lung. Were the Jade Crows smuggling things across at those towns? Things like the cameras of those foreigners?”

Lung’s nod was so small as to be almost imperceptible.

“Where are they, where are the cameras?”

“Gone. Probably in some Katmandu market by now.”

“Look at the last two entries, Lung. One town, with two dates that were in the future when Jamyang gave these to him. One passed a few days ago. You’re planning operations there, to smuggle across the Nepali border on those dates. Someone is watching you.”

Lung’s eyes widened, as realization had finally hit him. “Fuck me.”

“Your nephew died,” Shan slowly declared. “Your brother and the abbess and Jamyang met here, because of his death. Then they and the German all died.”

“Fuck me,” Lung murmured again, repeating it several times. It had the tone of a prayer, the Jade Crow mantra.

Wind began to rustle the grass outside. They both stared at the little altar. The candles flickered. A nighthawk called.

“I want you to make a burnt offering after all,” Shan said at last. Lung looked up. “I want you to burn a truck for your brother.”