Eliot Pattison - Mandarin Gate

Staying in the shadows, he watched the monks at the wall as much as the worshipers, noting the pinched, unsettled expressions on the men in maroon robes. Were they being punished? Were they being brainwashed? Or were they the watchdogs of the temple?

An old man settled nearby and began a mantra in a low, dry voice. The sound invoked fond images of Lokesh and the lamas they knew, and he soon found himself drifting under its spell.

He was so focused on the mantra that the movement did not register at first. It seemed to be just another pilgrim adjusting his position as he paid homage to one more deity. But then the man, wearing a hat low on his head and mumbling a low mantra, seemed to stumble against one of the seated figures in the shadows, a monk. As he bent over the monk his mantra changed to a curse and he slammed his fist into the robed figure. The monk rolled away, trying to escape.

“Bastard! Murderer!” the pilgrim shouted in Tibetan, and leapt over the monk, blocking his path then pummeling him with his fists.

The monk moaned and covered his head with his arms, then pushed up, knocking the pilgrim back. The man staggered forward, landing another blow on the monk, before shoving him down, slamming his head on the stone flags.

“Jigten!” Shan shouted as he recognized the attacker. He shot up and began pushing his way through the crowd of shocked worshipers

The young monk cried out in pain but offered no resistance. “Killer!” Jigten shouted as he began kicking him. As he bent to slam his fist into the monk’s jaw, Shan broke free of the crowd and leapt forward to grab his arm.

But other arms reached Jigten first. Four monks were suddenly pulling the two men apart, then a moment later uniformed knobs appeared from the shadows of the corridor. A big man in one of the grey uniforms viciously kicked Jigten, propelling him across the floor. As the knobs placed manacles on the shepherd, Shan knelt over the bruised, whimpering monk, wiping away blood with his sleeve, and gasped. It was Dakpo.

One of the knobs noticed Shan’s reaction and eyed him suspiciously. Shan retreated, joining the throng of frightened worshipers fleeing the chamber.

He stood in the courtyard, numb with despair. Somehow he had begun to believe Dakpo knew more than any of them about the murders, that his mysterious quest in the north would hold a key to the puzzle of the valley and its monastery. But all that was lost. A monk involved in a civil disturbance was guaranteed incarceration, and probably loss of his robe.

Police vans with flashing lights rolled up, followed by an ambulance. As he backed away someone gently pulled his arm. He let Meng guide him across the street to a table in the shadows of the café. He watched forlornly as uniformed men and women swarmed into the courtyard. Dakpo was limp as two knobs carried him out of the temple. Jigten had hit him hard, knocking his head on the stone flags.

Shan found himself rising from his chair as the officers hauled the monk into the ambulance. Meng pulled him down. “It’s not what you think,” she said, and he watched, confused, as the ambulance drove away without a police escort.

“I don’t understand,” he said to Meng, but she was calling the waiter, ordering tea.

“I bought you something,” she said after he had sipped his cup. He noticed now a small parcel wrapped in brown paper at his elbow.

“Where’s the hospital?” he asked.

“It won’t be hard to find.” She nodded toward the package with an awkward smile.

“Why wouldn’t the police go with Dakpo?”

Meng ignored his question. “I passed a little shop that sells souvenirs. The man said this was an old one. You don’t have yours anymore.”

Shan studied her a moment. She seemed to have grown younger. There was a light in her eyes he had not seen before. Leave her, a voice inside shouted. She’s a knob. She’ll always be a knob. You loathe knobs. He opened the package.

It was a strand of Tibetan prayer beads.

“A mala?” he asked in surprise. He glanced back at the disappearing ambulance, then felt the touch of the beads. It was not simply a mala, it was a very old and rare sandalwood mala, each bead exquisitely carved with the head of a deity. “I can’t,” he protested. “It’s a treasure.”

“Don’t be silly. They’re being sold to tourists.”

He watched as his fingers began working the beads as if of their own accord. They had a warm, natural feel, with a patina of long use.

“You wear that well,” Meng offered.

Shan looked up. “I’m sorry?”

“Your smile. I haven’t seen it before. When’s the last time a woman brought you a present?” Her question was as much a surprise as her gift.

His ran his hand over the stubble of his hair, painfully conscious of his shabby clothes. It had been nearly thirty years. “A long time,” he answered softly.

She too wore her smile well. For a moment he forgot about Jigten and Dakpo, then his gaze drifted back to the beads. “The shop,” he asked, “can you take me there?”

The little store was tucked between a noodle stand and a bicycle repair garage, its front window lined with little plastic busts of Mao labeled in Tibetan and Chinese, soapstone snow leopards and genuine yak tail fly whisks. Inside, at the back, was a display case filled with malas, ritual purba blades, temple bells, and gaus, all of them finely worked antiques. They were being sold as if they were just more cheap trinkets.

Shan glanced in confusion at the shopkeeper, who was busy with a Chinese family. “I don’t understand. These should be in museums.”

Meng shrugged. “They say the vaults are full. If it’s gold or silver it’s melted down, but otherwise they allow for disposal locally.”

Shan felt a growing unease. “What are you saying?”

“There’s bins at the entrance to the camps. We take them. Sell them by the kilogram at auctions.” Her grin quickly faded as she saw the pain on Shan’s face. “We don’t get them all,” she offered awkwardly. “Some get hidden.”

Shan looked away. The Chinese boy began demanding that his father buy him a temple bell with an elegant tiger engraved around it.

He found himself on the street, strangely short of breath. The crowd buoyed him down the pavement. Minutes later he was standing at the entrance to the temple again, telling himself to forget Meng, that Jigten was somewhere inside the complex, under arrest and needed his help.

Suddenly his arm was pushed down to his side.

“Don’t show it,” a Tibetan woman warned. It was the noodle vendor he had seen the day before. She gestured him toward her stall.

“Show what?”

The middle-aged woman nodded toward his arm, then stepped between Shan and a passing policeman. He had forgotten about the bloodstains on his sleeve. Dakpo’s blood.

“They are looking for you. They think you may have been part of the attack on that monk.”

“But I was trying to stop it,” he protested. The woman shrugged.

“The other one,” Shan said in an urgent whisper. “The Tibetan who jumped on the monk. I have to find him.”

The woman shook her head. “You won’t see him. Not for a year or two. The knobs will interrogate him, then the police will take him away.”

“Where?” Shan pressed.

The woman frowned. “Are you deaf? I said they are looking for you. They will take you away too.”

“That police station behind the Institute?”

“They have special treatment for Chinese who help Tibetan hooligans.”

Shan clenched his jaw and stepped away from the gate. As he reached the corner another hand pulled him back. “Don’t do it, Shan.”

When he turned he saw the pain in Meng’s eyes. “I’m sorry about those beads. I just thought…” Her words trailed away and she took a deep breath. “There’s no need for you to go.”