Eliot Pattison - Beautiful Ghosts

Shan lowered his drink halfway through a swallow. “You are offering me a job?” he asked in disbelief.

“It would give you a future. At least a way to build a future. We could do something about your status. Your current arrangement is little better than prison,” Ming added.

“You mean you want me to be in charge of recovering and destroying Tibetan artifacts?”

Ming frowned. “I run a museum, not a scrapyard.”

“I was there yesterday,” Shan pointed out.

“Those little ornaments? They were worthless. Political handicaps. Removing them from use was a service to the country. These people have to be shown everything. They are like children. It is part of their education about life in a new century.”

“I had a friend named Surya who told me once that art lies in the deity that beholds it. To those people those things were art. And more.”

Ming drained his bottle. “Deity this, deity that. It seems to be the excuse every Tibetan uses for doing nothing. A way to justify being lazy.”

Shan stared at the bottle in his own hand, remembering the anguish on the faces of the Tibetans in the courtyard as their beloved altar sculptures were ripped open. An old woman had held her belly, as though what was being ripped apart was in her womb.

He felt Ming’s glance and heard the director sigh. “I must be more tolerant,” Ming said. “I apologize. I salute you. No doubt it is your sensitivity that makes you so valuable.”

The words made Shan stare out the window a long time. He replayed the events at the field in his mind. The director had separated him from Yao for a reason. “I have no work papers,” he said.

“A phone call can fix that. I could arrange living quarters at the compound. A car, or at least a utility vehicle.” Ming slowed the car and began weaving in and out of the throng of bicycles that marked the approach to town. “I could authorize you to hire Tibetans,” he said in a careful tone. “Say five or six. I will negotiate with Religious Affairs to take over the compound in the name of the museum. You could restore it as you see fit, with money from Beijing.”

“There’s Colonel Tan and Inspector Yao,” Shan said, intensely attentive now.

“Tan is a dinosaur, easily disposed of when it is time. Yao can be recalled. It may be he misunderstood something, perhaps overreacted. There would be no shame in it, no mark on his record. He is just in danger of mischaracterizing the crime. You of all people know the damage that can be done. By helping him understand you help all of us, especially yourself and your Tibetan friends.”

Shan’s mouth was suddenly very dry. He fought the urge to retrieve another drink from the rear seat. “Perhaps,” he said slowly, “I could demonstrate that the thief was Tibetan, acting on a political pretext, that the thief is dead, perhaps after destroying the stolen art.”

Ming offered a respectful nod. “For a man with your instincts rehabilitation may come swiftly,” he said, then paused and cast an ironic grin toward Shan. “I read something about lamas,” he added after a moment, “how sometimes they help the dying find their new incarnation. Let me be your lama.”

They moved through the town quickly, Shan keeping an eye on the streets. For a fleeting moment he saw an old man in ragged black clothes, pushing a cart down an alley. It could have been Surya, hauling night soil, or just another Tibetan peasant carrying his meager produce to market.

“Someone who would help you would need a map of the sites you intend to study. The old gompa, the caves.”

Ming shrugged. “Every team leader already has one,” he said, and pulled a paper from a folder on the seat between them, handing it to Shan. “You can be my eyes. Something new has surfaced. A huge golden Buddha is somewhere in the mountains. I want it, Shan. Find it for me and you’ll get your new life.”

Was it his arrogance, Shan wondered, or just his political ambition, that made him so blind? “Before we are finished I will find it,” Shan vowed.

“Excellent. Our little secret.”

“Surely Miss McDowell knows,” Shan ventured.

“Our little secret,” Ming repeated.

It might be difficult to understand what was happening among the Tibetans in the mountains, Shan thought, but it seemed impossible to grasp what was passing among the strangers in Lhadrung. “All power is based on secrets,” he observed after a moment.

Ming shot him an amused glance. “Meaning what?”

“Secret prayers. Secret caves. Secret letters from the emperor. A lost secret letter implicating Lhadrung in the theft of the fresco in Beijing.”

Ming slowed the car and studied Shan warily. “Because of the incompetence of the Beijing police.”

“You’re the one who found it, who explained what it said.”

“Not so surprising. The cottage was my project. I was there within an hour after the robbery was reported.”

“But such a coincidence, to find that letter just then.”

“Not at all. There was some kind of old vault in the wall behind the fresco that had originally opened into the room on the far side, but it had been sealed in years ago.”

Ming, Shan realized, had just told him where he had found the secret amban papers. “You said the letter proved the theft was a political crime. But to be so the thieves would have to go public, make a statement.”

Ming lit a cigarette. “We scared them, drove them into the hills. They’re hiding for now. The fact that you found Lodi proves my point.” He blew a stream of smoke toward Shan.

“Lodi’s killers are still up there,” Shan said, watching Ming’s face carefully.

“Killers?” Ming smiled thinly. “There is already a confession. Perhaps I neglected to tell you. I had it typed up, and signed. By Surya, with two army officers as witnesses. Just in case.”

Shan stared at him in disbelief. “No,” he said in a level tone. “It was a big Mongolian named Khan, who smokes sweet cigars, and a short Han named Lu.”

Ming slowed the car. In his eyes there was no alarm, only a tremor of excitement. “You have such capacity for subtlety, comrade, that I am surprised I must explain. You are the one who confirmed that Lodi was indeed killed. I have in my possession a signed confession from Surya saying he killed a man in the mountains. There would be no need for an investigation. You’ve done all the necessary work, proven the crime. All I have to do is have an official file opened, submit the confession with my supporting statement, and Surya goes to a firing squad.”

If Shan were to pursue Khan and Lu, Ming was saying, Ming would see that Surya was executed. Khan and Lu were somehow opposing Ming, but Ming still could not afford to have them arrested. “What exactly do you want me to do?”

“I told you. Work for me. Share in my riches. Prove yourself in the mountains. The monks were fastidious about keeping records of what they did in the old monasteries. Even two hundred years ago. Bring me the records. Find the location of the Mountain Buddha. Find the details of the amban’s travels. You’re the one who can do it. Perhaps the only one.”

Shan fixed Ming with a cool stare. “Tell me what you did to him, to Surya, when you met him in the mountains.”

“Nothing. We spoke about art. I told him I collected paintings, had more art than he had ever seen.”

“Did you tell him you were an abbot?”

Ming’s thin smile returned. “You have to speak in terms these people understand. I couldn’t simply say I was a museum director, now could I?” He seemed pleased with the hopelessness that entered Shan’s eyes.

Shan suddenly realized where they were, what road they had turned onto at the last fork. His throat was bone dry again. His skin crawled. “This isn’t where-” he protested. He found himself sinking into the seat. The road had only one destination. The 404th People’s Construction Brigade.