Don Winslow - The Trail to Buddha_s Mirror

Neal expected something grim, but the monastery’s guesthouse was actually cheerful. He stood in a square, open courtyard defined by four three-story wooden buildings. Every floor had a balcony running the length of the building and was sheltered beneath a sharply pitched black tile roof. There were about eight rooms on each floor.

A pond dominated the center of the courtyard. Stepping-stones and arched bridges wended through tall ferns and stone statues of frogs and dragons. Golden carp hid under the bridges or swirled lazily underneath huge lily pads.

Small pavilions, resembling neat caves, interspersed the ground-floor rooms. Tall covered jars served as stools around circular tables, and Neal figured that these shelters were built for alfresco tea parties during what had to be frequent rains.

The whole effect was lush, hospitable, mystical, and decadent.

Neal’s room was on the top floor. It was small, but clean and comfortable. A mosquito net covered the kang. For washing, there was a basin, with pitchers of hot and cold water. A thermos of hot water, a lidded teacup, and a jar of green tea had been set on a side table. There was a single chair and a small desk. One window looked out on the courtyard. Another, on the other side of the room, gave a view of the forest and the roofs of the temple. The room had no bathroom, but a lavatory was four doors down. It had a room of toilets and another room with large cedar tubs.

Neal washed up and then joined Wu and Peng for a quick lunch of fish, rice, and vegetables. After lunch they worked their way back through the garden maze to Buddha’s head, and then followed a cliffside path along the river. They were headed for another large monastery, about three miles up the river. Neal could see its tiled roof, shining golden in the sun, peeping through trees on a knoll ahead.

I wonder what they want me to see up there, Neal asked himself. Maybe Mao is alive and living as a monk, and they want to see if I’ll keep my mouth shut again.

Mao wasn’t there. Or if he was, Neal didn’t see him. Neal did get a tremendous view of the Min River Valley from a pavilion on top of the knoll, and the temple housed the usual array of Buddhist saints, but none of them was Mao, and Neal was impatient to get going.

He posed for the cliche tourist photos: at the pavilion, at the temple, on the trail back to the Buddha, standing on Buddha’s toenail, standing by Buddha’s head. He perfected the wooden tourist smile, the self-conscious “Here I Am at-” stance, and the classic Staring Off into the Distant Horizon profile. It felt strange to him. After all, he had spent a lifetime trying to stay out of photographs, and here he was posing for them. But he knew they would need them for his Frazier cover, so he stood, smiled, and stared.

Finally the sun dropped behind Buddha’s head, putting a halt to the photo opportunities, and after an austere dinner at the monastery Peng took his camera and left. Neal and Wu repaired to one of the courtyard pavilions and shared a cup of tea and a little Twain chatter, and then Neal pleaded fatigue and said good night.

He lit the kerosene lamps in his room, poured himself a cup of tea, and settled into Random for an hour or so. He had a hard time concentrating. Is this thing really over? he wondered. Do I really start the trip home tomorrow? And what then? What will Friends say? I’ve fucked up the gig completely, and it’s unlikely they’ll reward me with a ticket to grad school. No, that’s out. Well, I still have some money in the bank, maybe I can go somewhere else. Yeah, right, with a whole file of “incompletes.”

And what will Graham say? He’s probably been worrying himself sick, rubbing a hollow into his real hand with his artificial one. He’ll be glad to see me, but royally pissed off. Maybe I can make it up to him.

So I’ll get out of here, fly to Vancouver, call Dad, and see what’s what. Probably the best thing is to keep going, go back to the cottage in the moors for a few weeks and try to sort things out.

Like Li Lan.

Yeah, face it. Almost everything that’s happened in this whole sad gig has happened because you were obsessed with Li Lan. You got shit-faced and gaga at the Kendalls’, you went off half-cocked, so to speak, to Hong Kong, where you walked into not one but two traps, and then you had to be spirited into mainland China, all because you were thinking about her and not the job. Now Pendleton gets to spend his life working for the Chinese, your so-called career is dusted, and why? Because you’re in love with Li Lan.

And that’s the saddest thing, he thought. I still am in love with Li Lan.

He got up from his chair. He was too restless to work, too wired to sleep, and there was no booze. Time to go see Buddha.

A thick mist had settled in the night air, and torches barely lit the courtyard. He found the gate and made his way through the garden. The monks had set torches in large stone holders around the Buddha, and Neal could just discern the shape of Buddha’s head as he approached it.

So it took him a minute when he saw the woman to decide that it really was Li Lan.

She stood in the gray mist with the giant Buddha at her back. She was wearing a black silk jacket and black pants. Her hair was long and straight, with a single red comb on the left side. Her eyes were delicately lined, and she wore red lipstick. Her hands were clasped in front of her thighs.

She saw him first and stood still until he recognized her.

“I came to find you,” she said.

A solid ache gripped his chest.

“Why?”

“I wish to explain.”

“I’d sure like to hear that.”

“Can we walk?”

“Wait a second. You want me to follow you down another dark path? What do you have waiting out there this time? Guys with knives? A bamboo cage? Or a nice deep drop into the river?”

She dropped her head. Neal could just see the tears well in her eyes and then spill over. She’s good, he thought. She’s very good.

“You have no reason to trust me,” she said.

“You got that right.”

She looked up at him. “You may choose the path,” she suggested.

“Turn around. Put your arms over your head.”

He patted her down. No knives, no guns. But she hadn’t had a knife or a gun when she’d punted Ben Chin’s head into the wall, either. His hands got sweaty as he touched her. He was shook up, and he didn’t like it.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“They say I’m going home tomorrow. I’m trying to make sure it’s not home to Jesus.”

“I am not carrying any weapons.”

“You are a weapon.”

“I only want to talk.”

He turned her around, which was a mistake because then he could see her eyes. They took a lot of the tough out of him.

“So talk,” he said.

“Not here.”

“Why not here?”

“It is dangerous.”

Well, we wouldn’t want to do anything dangerous all of a sudden, would we?

“Where, then?” It was a rhetorical question, because Neal Carey wasn’t following her anywhere.

“Perhaps your room?”

Except maybe there.

She sat on the bed. He closed the bamboo shades and turned the lamp down low. There was no lock on the door, so he set the chair against it and sat down. She closed her hands in front of her and looked at the floor.

He wanted to get up and hold her, but he couldn’t seem to move. He felt like he was living inside a marble statue.

“So talk,” he said.

“You are angry.”

“Goddamn right I’m angry,” he hissed. “Do you know what it was like in that shithole in the Walled City?!”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “You are well now?”

“Terrific.”

“Good.”