Eliot Pattison - Prayer of the Dragon

“There are refreshments,” Chodron called to Gao as soon as they were in earshot. “Such an honor to have you and”-he looked uncertainly at the young Public Security officer who had helped Gao in Tashtul-“the military join us.” He gestured toward his house.

Gao ignored him. He turned to Shan. “Do you have a preference as to where we do this?”

“I do,” Shan said, and pointed to the empty granary where Chodron had carried on his tamzing sessions.

The headman looked about for his deputies, who had disappeared. The officer stepped forward and pulled him by the elbow.

“There is a relocation program,” the young officer announced when they were inside. The hesitation he had shown in Tashtul was gone. He was all business. “This is your one-hour notice.”

Chodron’s mouth opened, his jaw moved up and down, but no sound came out. The color slowly drained from his face. “My village!” he finally blurted out. “We can’t. . I am secretary of the. .” He looked to Gao, as if for help. But Gao stood silent, hands folded in front of him.

“I made no mention of the village,” replied the officer. “The honor is all yours.”

Chodron’s eyes narrowed as they studied the officer, then Gao, and finally Shan. Color began returning to his face. “I am the secretary of the-,” he began again in a louder voice.

The officer sighed impatiently, then extracted a folded letter from his pocket and extended it to Chodron. “You will see more than enough signatures.” He made a show of looking at his watch. “You now have fifty-five minutes.”

“Impossible!” the headman hissed. “We can’t begin to-” His voice faded away as he scanned the letter.

“Your wife,” came a soft voice from the shadows, “has chosen not to make the journey.” Dolma took a step forward, into the light. She looked radiant, a freshly polished silver-and-turquoise prayer amulet hanging over her simple black dress. “She is going to live with me. Your house is going to become the village school.”

Chodron fixed Shan with a spiteful glare. “I have many things to move to Tashtul.”

“Just your clothes,” declared the officer. “Your new home is nowhere near Tashtul.”

“But I have a house there!” Chodron protested. “I have a. .” He glanced at Dolma, and chose not to finish the sentence.

“Miss Jiling?” the officer replied. “I fear she left rather suddenly. Something about family trouble in Manchuria. And your house and all its contents are being sold.”

“Sold? You can’t just-”

“It should pay for the lost crop,” Dolma interjected. “That should feed us through the winter. With the money left over, we will begin rebuilding the old temple.”

“You!” Chodron spat at Shan.

“We’re not sure if we can find all your accounts,” Shan said in a level voice. “But no doubt Jiling knows where they are. She has probably already made withdrawals. She will have a lot of expenses in Manchuria.”

Chodron looked as if he was about to strike Shan. The officer stepped closer. “We asked Gendun what should be done with you,” Shan continued. “You owe your life to his compassion. We have arranged for your reincarnation. Without the inconvenience of a firing squad.”

The officer explained quickly now, permitting no more interruption. Professor Gao had been kind enough to arrange for a posting for Chodron as head of civil affairs for a military installation in Xinjiang. It was deep in the desert, but the dry climate was said to be quite good for the health.

Chodron seemed to shrink before their eyes. “You can’t do this,” he said, though his voice had lost all strength. “There are people I can call.”

“Your people,” Shan observed, “won’t return your phone calls. They’ve seen the letter, with the signatures from Beijing.”

“You!” Chodron snarled again. “You have no idea what I can-”

“Perhaps you haven’t read the final paragraph.”

Chodron’s gaze returned to the paper and the color drained from his face. The last paragraph reported that Chodron had been stripped of his Party membership. For the rest of his life he would be nothing more than a tiny cog among the vast wheels of the Chinese bureaucracy.

“If you wish to resist,” Shan said in a weary voice. “the ledgers will be in safe hands. Before she left, Miss Jiling surrendered the one from Tashtul along with an explanatory statement about census figures, government allocations, and your secret accounts. And the other as well.”

“There is no other,” Chodron said in a hollow voice.

“A loyal Party member such as you would no doubt be pleased if the entire village read The Quotations of Chairman Mao,” Shan suggested. “A clever touch. Your wife retrieved it for me.”

Chodron’s mouth opened and shut but no words came out.

“Fifty minutes,” the officer announced.

Before the headman left the chamber Dolma handed him a letter, ready for his signature. It was being sent as his last official act. The census numbers were being revised to reflect that, due to the relocation of their families, the children in boarding school would have to rejoin their parents, and the village would have no more school-age children to send to the school. This had been Dolma’s idea. She was bringing the children home and assuring that no more would be sent away. Yangke had decided to stay and become the first teacher in the new school. Chodron glared at Shan, then silently scrawled his name at the bottom.

No one bid the headman goodbye. The gathered villagers watched in silence by a small mound of boxes. While Chodron had been packing, Yangke, Shan, and two soldiers had been carrying the boxes from the helicopter. Gao had sent food, many crates of food, the likes of which some of the villagers had never seen. As they began opening the containers, Lokesh and Dolma appeared, helping Gendun to a nearby bench. When the roar of the helicopter faded into the distance, the old lama began to sing in a frail voice brimming with joy. His song grew stronger as the yellow and red flags were replaced with prayer flags prepared the night before in Dolma’s house. One figure stood apart until a small girl in a bright red apron stepped forward and put her hand in his. Gao had arranged to be picked up the following day.

The afternoon was spent in busy, near frantic preparation, following the careful instructions of Hostene and Lokesh, who had been consulting for days, with Gendun as mediator. They had settled on the second of the old granaries as the site because, Hostene explained, the circular stone structure most resembled the hogans of his people.

Shepherds had left their flocks to collect colored sands and pollen, returning with reports that many of the miners were fleeing the mountain. Several of the village women had helped Abigail make feathered spirit sticks and improvise jewelry to wear. Hostene had passed the previous day with Lokesh in an improvised sweat lodge. Shan had helped to carry hot rocks and water as they were needed for the Navajo purification ceremony.

Shan was watching, vaguely smiling, from one of the flat rocks above the village when he heard a rustle of gravel. Gao did not speak as he settled beside him. The scientist seemed older but also somehow more human. Below them, the children were helping Gendun walk to the bottom of the fields, where Trinle was staking out the dimensions of their new temple.

“I saw you put that pack in the rocks above,” Gao observed.

Since returning to the village Shan had spent hours alone every night, seated on the ledge above the village. He had finally reached a decision. There would be a day, not this day or the next, but soon, when he would slip away into the shadows. He loved the old Tibetans like blood relations but he could not bear the thought of causing them further harm. His life on the mountain was coming to an end. Lokesh understood, though no words had been spoken about it. His old friend had found him one night on the rock, had accepted the return of his prayer amulet, then sat with Shan in a silence that communicated far more than words. He had taken Shan’s hand, cupping it, joining it at the fingertips to his own cupped hand. It was the Treasure Flask mudra. What they had done together had been a great treasure, Lokesh was saying. Then he had pulled his hand away and walked into the shadows.