“Do you enjoy your new home at the relocation camp, Jigten Somala?” the officer asked as she read his card.
“The people of the motherland have been generous,” he murmured. Every Tibetan Shan knew had rehearsed lines they used when confronted by an official.
“No need to dirty your hands with all those animals,” the lieutenant said. “You even have electricity.”
“We strive to repay the people’s kindness,” Jigten recited.
“Electricity. Free food. Free shelter. A paradise on earth.”
Shan looked at the lieutenant. It almost seemed that she too had her rehearsed lines.
“Paradise on earth,” Jigten repeated.
“You were about to speak with Comrade-” she looked at Shan expectantly.
“Shan.”
“You were about to answer Comrade Shan’s questions,” she continued.
As Jigten looked back at Shan, fear was in his eyes. Once, in Tibet, people had feared demon deities whose slightest touch could destroy them. The demons had returned in the twenty-first century, wearing the grey uniforms of Public Security.
The lieutenant offered Shan a conspiratorial smile, then retreated out the door. Jigten sank onto a milking stool. “They don’t give us money in that camp. Just give us a little food and tell us to sleep in those damned boxes they call houses.”
“You’re not from Baiyun?” Shan asked.
“That’s for Chinese pioneers.” He gestured toward a low ridge beyond the town. Shan followed Jigten’s hand and saw several thin columns of smoke beyond the ridge, like distant campfires. “A hundred nomads taken out of the changtang, nearly our entire clan. The Chinese are teaching us what it means to be civilized.”
Shan fought a shudder. One of Beijing’s newest campaigns was to clear away the dropka, the nomad shepherds from the changtang prairie, the vast grassland wilderness that dominated much of central Tibet, and put them into camps. Shan fought the temptation to help Jigten to the window and follow him out. The lieutenant would not have gone far. He spoke in a low whisper. “Which explains why you might steal. But I asked you about those tablets.”
Jigten lifted a clump of wool from the dirt floor. It was the season for shearing sheep. When he pressed the wool to his nose his eyes took on a melancholy expression.
“This is a town of professors,” Jigten explained. “They like old things, especially old Chinese things. They speak of dead emperors like they were old friends. Sometimes they have medicine I can trade for. That’s all I want. Medicine. They refuse us any real medicine in our camp. There’s a professor with wire-rimmed glasses who has a daughter with lung sickness. Sometimes he has extra medicine. Those tablets would have meant a week’s worth at least.” He seemed to sense Shan’s hesitation, did not miss the worried glance Shan shot toward the entry. He rose and took a step toward the window, then another.
“Did Jamyang know these professors?” Shan pressed.
“Jamyang was a ghost,” Jigten said, taking another step. “People don’t really know ghosts. You can’t really steal from a ghost.” He put a hand on the sill, paused to see if Shan would stop him, then climbed outside.
Shan stared after the forlorn, limping shepherd, watching him disappear back into the marketplace crowd.
“Interesting technique,” came an amused voice behind him. “I heard about it in a seminar once. Yo-yo style. Reel them in and terrify them, then release them when they least expect it. When you pull them in again, when you really need them, they’ll be begging to help you.”
As Shan turned to face the knob lieutenant, she reached into a pocket and produced a bag of salted sunflower seeds, which she extended toward Shan before gesturing him to the bench against the outside wall.
He stole a long look at the slender woman as she sat down beside him. The lieutenant had probably been with Public Security for years but she did not have the brittle features and frigid eyes of most knob officers Shan had known. There was an unexpected softness in her face, an intelligent curiosity in her eyes. In another place, out of uniform with her hair loose over her high cheekbones, she would have been attractive.
But her reflexes were that of a knob. “I’ll try to arrest him for something soon,” she said in a distracted tone as she watched the throng. “Let him spend a night in my holding cell, then tell him I’m releasing him as a favor to you.” She sat down beside him. “A favor to Comrade Shan,” she added pointedly.
He returned her steady gaze as he took some of the offered seeds, struggling not to betray his fear. Tibet was rife with secret Chinese operatives. She had decided he was some kind of undercover officer, building a network of informers.
“To whom do I owe my gratitude?” he asked.
“Lieutenant Meng Limei, local liaison for Public Security,” she offered, then went back to watching the market. With a shudder Shan saw that two Public Security vehicles had arrived, parked on either side of the market. As he watched, a truck of armed police eased to a stop on the road. “At headquarters they always say the only way to round up the traditionalists is sending out teams to scour the mountains. Then Major Liang arrived. ‘Don’t be so clubfooted,’ he said, ‘haven’t you ever heard of letting the flowers bloom first?’”
It was one of Mao’s most infamous campaigns. Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom. Mao had told intellectuals and other rightists that they could criticize the government with impunity, even encouraged them to gather in protest and paint walls with democratic slogans. Public Security took months to secretly photograph them and record their identities, then closed in and arrested thousands.
“‘Let them come down on their own,’ Liang said,” she continued. “‘Find a way for them to feel comfortable with their traditional ways. Announce some kind of Tibetan festival,’ he suggested. I told him this market already attracts much of the local population every week.”
Shan gazed out over the gathered Tibetans, reminding himself that the roundups of Tibetans he had expected after the murders had not yet started. An old man with sparkling eyes sat with a plank on his legs, writing short prayers and handing them out to passersby. A child squealed with delight as another man, fingers extended at his temples, chased her like a wild yak. “These are but the early flowers,” he said, his heart like an anvil. “Arrest them and the ones you really want will burrow so deep it will take years to dig them out.”
Lieutenant Meng studied him. “You know more about the local Tibetans than you’re saying.”
“You know more about the murders at the convent than you are saying.”
Meng chewed on her seeds. “That’s being handled by our specialist from outside. Major Liang is in charge.” She meant, Shan knew, Liang was an elite troubleshooter from Lhasa or even Beijing. “As the senior local officer I am just assisting.”
“You mean your main assignment is pacification.”
The lieutenant did not disagree. “There was a new memo. We are supposed to speak of it as assimilation now. Embracing the indigenous population with the open heart of the Chinese motherland.” She spoke the words with raised eyebrows. For a moment Shan thought he detected sarcasm in her voice.
“Liang’s solution will no doubt make some political officer proud,” Shan observed. “Solving a murder by throwing a grenade in a crowd.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
Shan watched with foreboding as the big Chinese men in plainclothes positioned themselves around the market. “Beijing expects bold responses to murders. In Tibet it’s always simple. Round up a couple dozen Tibetans, sweat a few in interrogation so accusations of disloyalty start flowing. Collect enough statements to arrest a dissident and close the file with a press conference and an article in the Lhasa Times that warns about the ongoing dangers of splittists,” he said, using the Party’s euphemism for those who sought Tibetan independence. “It may sound good in Beijing but it doesn’t stop a killer. It will make your job a hundred times more difficult, Lieutenant.”