The book switched format to reprints of newspaper articles, complete with photographs. A description of the Red Guard moving against small monasteries came under the headline HEROES DEFEND HOMELAND, with a flowery passage about Mao’s Children, one of the Guard’s many labels, attacking members of the reactionary Dalai Lama gang in the fortresses they called monasteries. Coarse, grainy photographs followed of lamas being paraded through town wearing the conical dunce caps often placed on the subjects of political struggle sessions. THE LEADERS OF THE EXPLOITER CLASS AT LAST BROUGHT TO SUBMISSION BY THE 117TH YOUTH BRIGADE, read one of the captions. In another photo the flag of Beijing was crossed with another, its insignia blurred by the wind. Others showed mountain gompas in ruin, piles of weapons seized from remnants of the exploiters, smoking remains of the houses of suspected rebels. In one of the pictures members of the Brigade posed with weapons like warriors, wearing bandoliers, waving heavy automatic pistols over their heads. Finally he reached a large photo, carefully staged, of more old Tibetans in conical hats sitting in a struggle session before a raised table of revolutionary inquisitors in the courtyard of the old gompa. Hanging in front of the table was the flag of the youth brigade, consisting of a hammer crossed with a lightning bolt on a dark background. At the center of the table sat an attractive young girl with familiar features. The caption read TIRELESS COMMANDER WU LEADS ANOTHER STRUGGLE SESSION IN SHOGO.
Reports of speeches followed, from National Day ceremonies, visits of Party dignitaries, followed by an article captioned Final Campaign Against Traitors in Mountains, a brief description of how the Hammer and Lightning Brigade was finally scouring away the last vestiges of resistance by machine-gunning all herds and leveling most of the villages in the high ranges.
The book abruptly ended with no conclusion, no final chapter celebrating Beijing’s victory. Shan closed it and looked at the librarian, who was watching him with a satisfied expression. “The story ends rather suddenly,” he observed.
The woman sighed and pointed to a small legend at the base of the spine. Volume One.
“May I see the next?”
“I wish you could. After all the trouble I took to get it last year, it has now gone missing.”
Shan chewed on the words. “Missing since when?”
“A week ago, maybe two. Our reference works are not for circulation. Someone,” she declared in a pained voice, “stole it.”
“Stole it again, you mean.”
The woman frowned, then nodded.
“Surely you can determine who could have committed such a crime.”
“We are not crowded usually but during the season many people come and go.”
“During the season? You mean foreigners?”
“It is why we have fresh paint, a new roof, more funding than any other library our size in the county. When the weather doesn’t permit treks to the mountain, tourists need something else to do. We have a display of local artifacts in the adjoining room.”
“Would foreigners do research?” Shan asked, working to keep his tone casual.
“A few. Not many can read Chinese.”
“Surely you make them sign in? I work for Tsipon,” he added quickly in a confiding tone. “I could make inquiries of the foreign climbing parties.”
The woman studied him a moment then hurried away to the office at the back of the main chamber. The moment she disappeared he opened the book to the photograph with Commander Wu and, with a shamed glance toward the office, ripped it out and stuffed it inside his shirt. A moment later the woman reappeared, sifting through several sheets of paper as she walked that were identical to the one Shan had signed. The entries for the past four weeks included over three dozen names, several German, some Japanese, another French. Only one person had visited multiple times. Megan Ross had started doing research nearly a month earlier, and had been at the library the day before she died.
Chapter Twelve
As he hurried down the steep ladder stair into the dim old gompa rooms Shan nearly tripped on a limp form at the bottom. Gyalo lay in a heap, more dead than alive. Shan quickly lit more lamps from the one he carried and knelt at the old man’s side. The tips of his fingers were scratched and bloody. He had been clawing at the hatch above, Shan realized, like a wild animal trapped in a cage.
The old Tibetan did not acknowledge him, but did not resist as Shan half dragged, half carried him back to his pallet. His breath was harsh and raspy. His shirt clung to his body in patches of red where several wounds had reopened. Shan worked silently, stripping off the shirt, washing the wounds, gently pushing back the hand that now tried to stop him, ignoring the whispered curses in Chinese and Tibetan, gradually becoming aware that the curses had been replaced with a rambling soliloquy made up of snippets of drinking songs, lonely shepherds’ ballads, and mantras to the Tibetan gods.
When he finished and Gyalo was wearing one of Shan’s old shirts, Shan sat a few feet away on the floor and listened, watching the flame of the nearest lamp, until he himself slipped into a mantra, the prayer for the Compassionate Buddha. He did not know when the cadence of the old man’s words changed, but became aware that Gyalo was sitting upright against the wall, chanting in unison with him, staring at the same flame. Shan lowered his voice. Gyalo kept up the chant, pausing several times to look into the shadows and interject louder words of gratitude to Rinpoche. The old Tibetan, Shan realized, was back in a temple of his youth, chanting with the novice monks as they took lessons from a lama.
After several minutes Gyalo’s eyes flickered. As he looked up and focused on Shan his words faltered, his face flushed with embarassment and he grew silent.
Shan extended the photo he had taken from the library, holding it a few inches from the Tibetan’s face.
Gyalo seemed to take a long time to grasp what he was looking at. Then a shuddering moan rose from his throat. His shoulders sank, his chest sagged.
“They were here,” Shan said. “The Hammer and Lightning Brigade lived in your gompa before they destroyed it. But what did they do in the mountains?”
“They died.” Gyalo spoke in such a low whisper Shan was not sure he had heard correctly. “They whimpered like children and died.” The Tibetan pulled the photo from Shan’s hand and held it closer to the lamp, his eyes growing round.
“These were the ones,” Shan said, “the ones who-” he painfully searched for words-“who took away your robe.”
Before he could react Gyalo began ripping the photo. By the time Shan had seized it he had torn off a long strip, two inches down the left side. The Tibetan jerked free, then slowly turned and set the strip upright in a little chink in the rock wall that had been made to hold a small deity figure. Emotions filled the old man’s face as he gazed at the strip, emotions Shan had never seen there, emotions he could not name.
Shan lifted the lamp and held it close, seeing that a single figure was framed in the strip Gyalo had claimed, that of a sturdy, plain looking Chinese girl wearing a military tunic.
It took a moment for Shan to understand, then he looked away in shame. Gyalo had saved the image of the Chinese wife who had been forced upon him to break him as a monk.
Constable Jin had his feet up on his desk, staring so intently at a dog-eared Western travel magazine in his lap that he did not even notice Shan until he put his hand on Jin’s telephone. He muttered a quick curse, dropping his legs to the floor.
“I need to make a private call,” Shan declared.