Eliot Pattison - Mandarin Gate

“The truth about the murders is with those who died.”

“If we know how to listen we can still hear it. You have part of it already.”

“Nonsense. I wasn’t there.”

“Jamyang died that day too. It was no coincidence. You went with the abbess to prepare the body of the Lung boy. Jamyang was there. What happened? Why was he frightened by the body?”

“I don’t think it was death that frightened him.”

“Then tell me, Ani Ama. Why did he flee that day?”

Ani Ama sighed and looked out over the camp. “I didn’t want to be abbess. I wanted to spend my last years in some quiet place at a loom. My mother was a weaver, and her mother before.” She watched the body as it was carried away, then began explaining. When Lung Tso had arrived to ask the abbess to help, Jamyang had been with her. He had asked questions of Lung Tso, shown great concern that one so young had died. He accepted the invitation of the abbess to join them. “The lama knew about the old ways,” Ani Ama explained, “and knew how to receive deities. As soon as we arrived at that old stable he began cleaning it, murmuring the right words, then lit incense for the gods before turning to the body. He was so reverent, so patient in cleansing the boy,” the nun said. “But then as he got to the neck he gasped, then frantically worked the skin, pushing it one way and another. The abbess asked what was wrong but he seemed not to hear.”

“What was it?” Shan asked. “What was on his neck?”

“Just a mark. A long straight mark like a deep bruise over the throat. The boy had died when his truck went off the road and crashed down a steep hill. His father said the mark was where the steering wheel had smashed against the boy’s neck before crushing his ribs. But Jamyang wouldn’t listen. It was like he was suddenly possessed. He left without another word to us. We didn’t see him for more than a week.”

“When was that?”

“He came back one night and sat with the abbess, alone. There were strong words, which was unlike either of them. Voices were raised. A day later she sent messages to the monastery.”

“Messages? What messages?”

The nun slowly shook her head. “I didn’t understand. She first sent Chenmo, who told me later. Only one word, Dharmasala, to be left on the desk of the monastery office. Later that day she sent another, with a shepherd who was passing through. A day after that she left by herself, saying no one was to follow. But I watched. At the bottom of the stairs the foreigners joined her.”

“To the convent,” Shan suggested.

“To go to die, yes,” Ani Ama said in an anguished voice.

It had begun with the Lung boy, Shan was certain now. But what had happened afterward? What had Jamyang been doing in the days before he returned to the abbess? Why would he have summoned Lung Tso to go to the convent at the same time, but not gone himself?

“That night Jamyang and the abbess spoke,” the nun said, “I dream about it. I understand now. The words they spoke were the ending. They didn’t know then but they were tying off the knots of the tapestry that had been their lives.”

“Only the beginning of the end,” Shan said. “Those knots are still untied.”

Ani Ama replied with a somber nod. She studied the hills for a long moment as if searching for a sign of the dead abbess. “We can’t just walk out of this place,” she said, a hint of invitation in her voice.

“No,” Shan agreed. He looked back at the shrouded body. “First you have to die.”

* * *

The guards escorting the burial detail wanted nothing to do with the bodies. They kept their distance, watching with revulsion as Shan and half a dozen others loaded the dead onto the wheelbarrows, then opening the back gate and quickly stepping aside. The dead were infected with disease.

Lokesh had explained that sometimes as many as half a dozen were dying each night. Shan, pushing the last handcart, gave silent thanks that there had been only two deaths that particular night, so that adding three more bodies had not attracted notice. He nervously watched the pair of guards pause to light cigarettes and looked back toward the little warehouse where Lung’s trucks were due. He breathed a sigh of relief as one of the guards split away toward the tractor that was used to push earth into the trench. Shan saw the blur of dust that signaled the arrival of Lung’s trucks. Then suddenly the second guard lifted his baton and thumped it down on the first body. Shan’s heart leapt as the guard approached the second.

“The organs of state must practice democratic centralism!” Shan suddenly shouted as the guard took a step toward the second cart, then darted forward with his cart toward the pit. “Today is chapter seventeen! Quickly! We forgot there is an early review session of Chairman Mao’s Quotations ! We cannot shame the Great Helmsman!” He mouthed a prayer, then hastily pitched his barrow sideways, letting the body he carried roll into the pit. He expected the guard to aim his baton at him, but the few moments of hesitation caused by Shan’s outcry had been enough. The man cocked his head toward the road. Lung’s trucks were at the warehouse, and someone was frantically shouting from the loading dock. Then suddenly Shan saw the movement on the road. A grey utility vehicle was speeding toward the camp, its red lights flashing. The knobs were coming, the knobs who hated to dirty their hands with the business of the People’s Armed Police.

With a sinking heart he watched the knob’s car slide to a stop at the front gate. In desperation his gaze shifted back and forth from the knobs climbing out of the vehicle to the warehouse. Dark smoke began pouring out of the engine compartment of the nearest truck. The men at the warehouse shouted, even louder, pointing at the truck, and were running away from it as it suddenly burst into flames.

The guard near Shan shouted for the other prisoners to dump their shrouded loads as the second guard, on the tractor, leapt off the vehicle and ran toward the fire. Shan gestured urgently to his companions, who emptied their carts, dumping the shrouds containing Cora, Ani Ama, and Lokesh onto the ground by sheltering rocks. The three rolled quickly away, pushing off the shrouds, and disappearing into the rocks as Shan threw the shrouds into the pit. The Tibetan who had carried the bucket of lime emptied it into the pit, then took Shan’s cart as planned and headed back toward the gate. But Shan stood frozen, watching as the three scrambled out around the nearby outcroppings. He heard Lokesh’s urgent whisper, calling him to join them as they had planned. Shan looked back at the knobs. He knew why they were there, knew that if he were missing when they searched for him in the camp that the hills would soon be crawling with troops.

“ Lha gyal lo, ” he called in a low voice to the three who watched from the rocks, pointing toward the high ground, then he turned and marched back to the gate.

* * *

Major Liang was standing at the window in the interrogation room at the Public Security district headquarters when Shan was shoved inside. He glared at Shan, crushed out his cigarette, took two steps, and slapped Shan in the face with the back of his hand.

“You think you can mock me!” he shouted. “You think you can interfere with my investigation without my knowing! By the time I am done with you, you will be begging for the bullet I will put in your head!”

Shan lowered himself into a chair at the table and stared out the window.

“You have a hard-labor tattoo on your arm,” Liang said to his back. “Do you know how few of those are seen in the reeducation camps? Those who survive hard labor are usually model citizens. If a number shows up in the camps a message is sent to Public Security for follow-up. Except no one can follow up your number. Impossible, I said, there has to be a record. I searched the data myself. It’s a Lhadrung registration number but Lhadrung has no record of you. An empty file. When I did a broader search I came up with a famous investigator from Beijing with the same name who disappeared years ago. The only real entry shows you as a ditch inspector for Lhadrung County. A ditch inspector who impersonates a senior investigator. Did you kill the real Shan, the one from Beijing?”