Eliot Pattison - Mandarin Gate

“He died the same day as the abbess and the others.”

Trinle gave a small sigh of despair. “Truly the gods were looking elsewhere that day.”

“It was a bad day,” Shan agreed. “None of those who died were prepared. They are owed the truth about why they died.”

Trinle studied Shan a moment. He recognized the invitation in Shan’s words. “That is government business. Monks are taught to stay away from government business.”

“For a place that stays out of government business you have a lot of government visitors.”

Trinle straightened and fixed Shan with a sober expression. “The best way to deal with evil demons is to bring them among demon protectors.”

Shan returned his gaze. “The demon who killed the abbess and the others won’t come willingly. Help me find him.”

Trinle cast a worried glance toward the door. “This is a place of reverence. Why would you look here?”

“Because someone in a monk’s robe was there that day. He was the killer.”

Trinle stared in disbelief. “No. I could put on one of those grey tunics. It wouldn’t make me a knob.”

“Fake monk or real monk, all the gompas and convents will take the blame when the government discovers it. It was someone convincing, someone who looked at ease in a robe. A Tibetan with the close-cropped hair of a monk. Tell me, Trinle, has anyone left the gompa in the past year?”

The question seemed to trouble Trinle. “One went across.”

“You mean he died?”

“Across to India. He is safe now, has a job in the Dalai Lama’s government.”

Shan reminded himself that Chenmo had spoken of purbas in the valley, the resistance fighters who came from India. Chegar had a monk now in the exile government. The close scrutiny of Public Security was beginning to make more sense.

Outside, a loudspeaker interrupted the quiet of the courtyard, first with a burst of static, then with a repetitive call for a monk to report to the gatehouse. Shan recognized the name. Dakpo.

Trinle stepped to the entry and edged his head around the doorway to glance furtively into the courtyard. The voice on the speaker grew impatient as it called again for the monk. Trinle’s face clouded.

“Dakpo is missing?” Shan asked.

“He isn’t here.”

Shan considered the monk’s worried tone. “You mean he left without permission.”

As Trinle watched the activity in the courtyard he gripped the door frame as if to steady himself. Monks were hurrying into buildings. “He has duties elsewhere. If the abbot doesn’t calm them down, they will search every room.”

“And they will find contraband,” Shan asserted.

Trinle turned to Shan with challenge in his eyes. “We of Chegar gompa are true monks.”

There was something in his tone that unsettled Shan. Every gompa harbored secret, illegal photos of the Dalai Lama. Now he knew Chegar sometimes even displayed a flag of independent Tibet. Trinle seemed to be speaking of something else.

Shan looked back to where the demon protector was hidden. It was very old, very valuable. “If they come searching, put that protector deity on the altar and drape it with prayer scarves. They won’t know what they are looking at.”

Trinle considered Shan’s words a moment, then nodded. Shan stepped back out into the courtyard.

Norbu was speaking urgently with another monk near the gate. Shan slipped along the shadow of the opposite wall, keeping his head down, mingling with the handful of villagers who were paying homage, pausing as they did at the shrine stations along the wall. He heard only snippets of the abbot’s conversation. Norbu was clearly upset.

“How long?” the abbot demanded. “How long has he been missing?”

“He left two nights ago. After midnight.”

Shan ventured a glance toward the monk. He was clearly frightened. Norbu kept the gompa safe from Public Security by maintaining tight control. One errant monk could tip the balance.

Shan stepped closer.

“Perhaps he went on a pilgrim’s path, to visit the shrines,” the monk suggested.

Norbu muttered something like a prayer under his breath. “He is on a mediation retreat in the mountains,” the abbot declared more loudly, as if rehearsing the line. “When he returns he will gladly renew his loyalty oath.” Norbu straightened his robe and stepped back to the waiting knobs.

Shan kept his head down as the officers converged upon the abbot, slipping out the gate and into the village.

As in many such gompa villages, the old pilgrim paths converged near the gate. Without thinking Shan found himself pausing at the small stations along the main road, many of them nothing more than cairns of mani stones. It was what he and Lokesh would do, and he realized again how much he missed the old Tibetan. The past few months, when they had been together nearly every day, had been a blessing and he guarded himself against expecting he could go back to that simple, peaceful routine when the turmoil in the valley subsided. The troubles might never subside. The valley as it had been for centuries was not going to survive, and its demise would widen the gap between Lokesh and himself.

As he reached the edge of the hamlet he became aware of a low steady rattle coming from the long timber structure that had no doubt once been a barn for the gompa. With cautious steps he entered, following the sound to a stall at the back where the Tibetan woman who had been grinding flour now spun a handheld prayer wheel. She faced the deeper shadows at the rear of the stall. It took Shan a moment to make out the old man. Patrul sat cross-legged on a low table, his sightless eyes cast downward, looking like an altar statue more than a living human. Before him, like an offering, lay an aged brown mastiff.

Shan said nothing, did not move, did not want to cause the woman to break the rhythm of her wheel. Patrul’s hand left his mudra long enough for him to gesture Shan to sit.

“Your Tibetan is good,” the old man declared. “I have always been able to sense a Chinese. But not you. Why do you suppose that is?”

“I have been immersing myself in good Tibetan mud for the past few months.”

The blind man’s smile was serene.

“Rinpoche,” Shan said. “I had a friend, a hermit who passed over suddenly last month. He needs my help.”

Shan knew better than to expect a quick reply. The old man looked down as if studying his fingers with his blind eyes, then rested his hand on the head of the big brown dog, who instantly opened its eyes to stare at Shan. He had the uncanny sensation that the old lama was looking at him through the animal’s eyes.

“Jamyang was my friend too,” the old teacher said. “First came the news of his death. Then the others. It was a storm of death that day.”

“They still need us,” Shan said. He found himself addressing the dog.

“We still need them.”

Shan paused over the words. They were the perfect words, the exact thing that needed to be said. “I think the deaths were connected,” he offered.

“The deities needed them all elsewhere, all at once.” It was the old abbot’s way of agreeing.

“A monk was at the convent when the abbess and the other two died.”

The dog blinked.

“Are you some kind of policeman?” the blind man asked. The woman stopped moving her wheel.

“I am a pilgrim.”

“He is the one who digs ditches with Lokesh, Rinpoche,” the woman interjected.

The old man’s face brightened. “You almost died saving that lamb trapped in quicksand. They say the mud was nearly up to your shoulders.” A strange wheezing noise came from his throat. It took a moment for Shan to recognize it as a laugh.

“That lamb and I weren’t meant to die that day.”