Kim Robinson - Sixty Days and Counting

Frank and Charlie gave each other a look. “We knew that, but like just how important?” Charlie asked.

“Well, it is one of the power spots, for sure. Like the Potala, in Lhasa.”

“So the Potala has the Dalai Lama, and Khembalung has you?”

“Yes. That’s right.”

“So how does the Panchen Lama fit into that?” Charlie asked. “What’s his power spot?”

“Beijing,” Frank said.

Charlie laughed. “It was somewhere down in Amda, right?”

Drepung said, “No, not always.”

Charlie said, “But he’s the one who was said to be on somewhat equal terms with the Dalai Lama, right? I read that—that the two of them represented the two main sects, and helped to pick each other when they were finding new ones. Kind of a back-and-forth thing.”

“Yes,” Drepung said.

“And so, but there’s a third one? I mean is that what you’re saying?”

“No. There are only the two of us.”

Drepung looked over at them.

Charlie and Frank stared back at him, mouths hanging open. They glanced at each other to confirm they were both getting the same message.

“So!” Charlie said. “ You are the Panchen Lama, that’s what you’re saying?”

“Yes.”

“But—but…”

“I thought the new Panchen Lama was kidnapped by the Chinese,” Frank said.

“Yes.”

“But what are you saying!” Charlie cried. “You escaped?”

“I was rescued.”

Frank and Charlie paddled themselves into positions on either side of Drepung’s kayak, both facing him from close quarters. They laid their paddles over the kayaks to secure themselves as a loose raft, and as they slowly drifted downstream together, Drepung told them his story.

“Do you remember what I told you, Charlie, about the death of the Panchen Lama in 1986?”

Charlie nodded, and Drepung quickly recapped for Frank:

“The last Panchen Lama was a collaborator with the Chinese for most of his life. He lived in Beijing and was a part of Mao’s government, and he approved the conquest of Tibet. But this meant that the Tibetan people lost their feeling for him. While to the Chinese he was always just a tool. Eventually, their treatment of Tibet became so harsh that the Panchen Lama also protested, privately and then publicly, and so he spent his last years under house arrest.

“So, when he died, the world heard of it, and the Chinese told the monastery at Tashilhunpo to locate the new Panchen Lama, which they did. But they secretly contacted the Dalai Lama, to get his help with the final identification. At that point the Dalai Lama publicly identified one of the children, living near Tashilhunpo, thinking that because this boy lived under Chinese control, the Chinese would accept the designation. That way the Panchen Lama, although under Chinese control, would continue to be chosen in part by the Dalai Lama, as had always been true.”

“And that was you,” Charlie said.

“Yes. That was me. But the Chinese were not happy at this situation, and I was taken away by them. And another boy was identified by them as the true Panchen Lama.”

Drepung shook his head as he thought of this other boy, then went on: “Both of us were taken into custody, and raised in secrecy. No one knew where we were kept.”

“You weren’t with the other boy?”

“No. I was with my parents, though. We all lived in a big house together, with a garden. But then when I was eight, my parents were taken away. I never saw them again. I was brought up by Chinese teachers. It was lonely. It’s a hard time to remember. But then, when I was ten, one night I was awakened from sleep by some men in gas masks. One had his hand over my mouth as they woke me, to be sure I would not cry out. They looked like insects, but one spoke to me in Tibetan, and told me they were there to rescue me. That was Sucandra.”

“Sucandra!”

“Yes. Padma also was there, and some other men you have seen at the embassy house. Most of them had been prisoners of the Chinese at earlier times, so they knew the Chinese routines, and helped plan the rescue.”

“But how did they find you in the first place?” Frank said.

“Tibet has had spies in Beijing for a long time. There is a military element in Tibet, people who keep a low profile because of the Dalai Lama’s insistence on nonviolence. Not everyone agrees with that. And so, there were people who started the hunt for me right after I was taken by the Chinese, and eventually they found an informant and discovered where I was being held.”

“And then they did some kind of…?”

“Yes. There are still Tibetan men who took part in the rebellion that your CIA backed, before Nixon went to China. They have experience in entering China to perform operations, and they were happy to have another opportunity, and to train a new generation. There are those who say that the Dalai Lama’s ban on violence only allows the world to forget us. They want to fight, and they think it would bring more attention to our cause. So the chance to do something was precious. When these old commandos told me about my rescue, which they did many times, they were very pleased with themselves. Apparently they watched the place, and spied on it to learn the routines, and rented a house nearby, and dug a tunnel into our compound. On the night of my rescue they came up from below and filled the air of the house with that gas that the Russians used during that hostage crisis in a theater, applying the correct amount, as the Russians did not, Sucandra said. So when they rescued me they looked like insects, but they spoke Tibetan, which I had not heard since my parents were taken away. So I trusted them. Really I understood right away what was happening, and I wanted to escape. I put on a mask and led them out of there! They had to slow me down!”

He chuckled briefly, but with the same shadowed expression as before—grim, or pained. Anna had spoken from the very start of a look she had seen on Drepung’s face that pierced her, but Charlie had not seen it until now.

“So,” he said, “you are the Panchen Lama. Holy shit.”

“Yes.”

“So that’s why you’ve been laying low in the embassy and all. Office boy or receptionist or whatnot.”

“Yes, that’s right. And indeed you must not tell anyone.”

“Oh no, we won’t.”

“So your real name is…”

“Gedhun Choekyi Nyima.”

“And Drepung?”

“Drepung is the name of one of the big monasteries in Tibet. It is not actually a person’s name. But I like it.”

They drifted downriver for a while.

“So let me get this straight!” Charlie said. “Everything you guys told us when you came here was wrong! You, the office boy, are actually the head man. Your supposed head man turned out to have been a minor servant, like a press secretary. And your monk regents are some kind of a gay couple.”

“Well, that’s about right,” Drepung said. “Although I don’t think of Padma and Sucandra as a gay couple.”

Frank said, “I don’t mean to stereotype anyone, but I lived in the room next to them for a few months, and, you know, they are definitely what-have-you. Companions.”

“Yes, of course. They shared a prison cell for ten years. They are very close. But…” Drepung shrugged. He was thinking about other things. Again the tightened mouth, with its undercurrent of anger. And of course it would be there—how could it not? Once Drepung had said to Charlie that his parents were no longer living; presumably, then, he had reason to believe that the Chinese had killed them. Perhaps the search for him had made this clear. Charlie didn’t want to ask about it.

“What about the other Panchen Lama?” he said. “The boy that the Chinese selected?”