Prayer of the Dragon (9 page)

Shan followed his escort up two flagstone steps into a large room lined with a huge carpet in which were woven traditional Tibetan symbols. The left wall was covered, floor to ceiling, with shelves of books and that to the right with paintings, dramatic mountain landscapes, and maritime scenes, all in Western style. In the center of the floor was a huge overstuffed U-shaped sofa, arranged to give the occupants a view out a long row of windows in the far wall. As his escort paused, gazing toward a half-closed door by the paintings, Shan took tentative steps toward the windows, his eyes on a powerful telescope that stood on a tripod.

He paused and placed a hand on the sofa, pressing his fingers into the soft fabric. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. The house was impossible. It belonged in the Swiss Alps or the mountains of North America. Except for the homes of senior Party officials he had never seen such a residence in China, let alone on a remote mountain in Tibet.

“You may sit,” his companion said, still in perfect Mandarin. “The doctor does not begin dissections until after his morning refreshment.”

Shan did not sit but walked past the sofa, watching the westerner, glancing at the three doors that led out of the large, comfortable chamber, mentally tracking the distance to the entrance behind him, his instincts shouting out warnings. Soldiers must be near. Any moment he would be seized.

The blond man lounged on the sofa, hands behind his head, an amused grin on his face as he watched Shan. The closest of the three doors leading out of the room was open, revealing a sunlit chamber containing a large wooden desk. The shelves built into the wall behind it held three-ring binders and notebooks, dozens of them, with carefully printed labels too small for Shan to read from where he stood.

“I was not aware there were still palaces left in these mountains,” Shan remarked.

The westerner’s grin was honest, almost friendly. “Dr. Gao and I long ago decided the only good place of comfort is a hidden place of comfort.”

Shan lingered another moment at the office door. On the wall behind the desk were at least thirty photographs, in identical gold frames, most in black and white. Some were posed portraits of distinguished gatherings, many were of men shaking hands with victorious smiles, three were of a man standing beside models of rockets. One showed an actual rocket sprouting out of a cloud of smoke. A chill crept down Shan’s spine. Even from that distance he could recognize several of the men in the pictures. At least two were former general secretaries of the Party and three were past commanders of the People’s Liberation Army.

Sounds behind the door on the opposite side of the room drew his escort’s attention. Shan stepped to the second door, which led to a short flight of stone steps, beyond which he could see a chamber furnished only with a bamboo mat on the floor, three of its walls lined with the fragrant wood used in temples, the fourth consisting entirely of glass, opening toward the long fertile valley below. A Chinese man with close-cropped graying hair stood facing the window, both arms raised parallel to the ground, right arm bent backward, left slowly moving forward, in one of the traditional postures of Tai Chi, called Bending the Bow.

The man was clad in a short white robe and loose white pants, his feet bare. Below the window five granite spheres of different sizes rested on a bed of white sand. The sounds of the wooden flute came from concealed speakers. Shan warily stepped to the side of the doorway, pushed a hand into his pocket, and pinched his thigh. He needed to awaken from this strange dream.

Something touched his arm. He spun around. The blond stranger was extending a glass of iced water. Shan accepted the glass, then caught himself staring at it and looked up self-consciously.

“It’s just water,” the man explained, lifting an identical glass to his lips.

“It’s the ice,” Shan said. “I can’t remember the last time I had a drink with ice cubes.” The world Shan lived in now did not avail itself of refrigerators, televisions, telephones, or any other machines.

“You don’t get out much.”

“I am out,” Shan said, still wary, “all the time.”

The westerner grinned again. “We’ve got tons of it. The army first used this as a barracks for guards, a patrol base. There’s a walk-in freezer downstairs that once supplied twenty men. We only need to be resupplied four times a year. When I get lonely for home I walk inside and slide around the floor.”

“Ah. I grew up in the north as well,” Shan said. “I used to look at photographs of skaters when I was a child. One year I greased blocks of wood and tied them to my feet.”

“We used to skate for miles down a river, almost to the Baltic Sea. There were kiosks on the ice that sold little sausages on sticks and sugared tea.”

“Poland?” Shan queried, and dared a long swallow.

“The German Democratic Republic. Its athletes were so good the rest of the world had to make it disappear. My name is Heinz Kohler.”

Shan shook the hand that was offered but did not reply. He drained his glass and stepped to the telescope, half expecting Kohler to stop him when he pressed his eye to the tube. He pulled back in surprise at the image that leapt to view, glanced at the bemused German, and looked again. In a great nest on a cliff nearly half a mile away he could see three young birds of prey, their beaks uplifted, opening and shutting. The home, no doubt, of the lammergeier he had seen.

“Karl, Friedrich, and Albert,” Kohler declared.

“Marx,” Shan ventured after a moment, “Engels, and Einstein.”

Kohler’s blue eyes went round for an instant and he nodded respectfully. “Dr. Gao is on a first-name basis with all the great ones.”

Shan ran his hand down the sleek, powerful instrument. The telescope had been imported long ago, probably from Kohler’s native country, but the squat tripod was homemade. A small metal plate, painted over but still legible, declared it to be the property of the People’s Liberation Army.

“I should be leaving,” Shan said with a glance toward the entrance.

“That would be ungrateful.” Kohler settled into a wooden chair by the entry as if assuming the role of sentry and gestured Shan toward the sofa. On the low table in front of it were magazines, in Chinese, English, and German, all at least two months old, devoted to science and engineering, fashion and gardening. None were newsmagazines.

For ten uneasy minutes Shan listened to the muffled clink of dishes and to footfalls passing the one doorway he had not been able to explore. For a moment he heard the dim, urgent beat of rock and roll. He paced the width of the room, studying it again, listening to the creaks of the floorboards, seeing now that although the furnishings were elegant, their construction was rougher than he had first realized. Finely trimmed boards had been fastened over crude planks. It had been built as a barracks, not a palace. But someone accustomed to palatial comforts, with palatial possessions, was living in it. He stepped to the window, fighting the urge to train the telescope on the distant installation below. It was not large enough for an infantry garrison and had none of the repetitive white ground hatches and mobile cranes that would indicate a missile base.

He became aware of Kohler standing expectantly at the far door, which now stood open. Shan stepped past him into a small, elegant dining chamber. The walls were of white plaster, and the paintings displayed on them of bamboo and snow and birds. On the table were four porcelain bowls of traditional Tibetan soup with noodles. Behind the door was a large framed work of calligraphy, one of the slogans handwritten by Chairman Mao, copies of which had once been framed and hung in every government office. STRIVE FOR THE PEOPLE, it proclaimed. It was, he suspected, also an original.

“I should wash,” Shan said.

Kohler tossed him one of the linen napkins from the table.

A youth burst through the swinging door bearing a bowl of steaming rice and vegetables. He was Chinese, perhaps twenty years of age. His long hair had a narrow blond stripe bleached along the left temple. His clothes were all black. Muffled music came from a pair of earphones hanging around his neck, connected to something small in his pocket. The boy paused, studying Shan for a moment, taking in his ragged clothes. A restrained laugh escaped his lips. He turned to Kohler, extended a finger to his brass-studded ear, and pulled the trigger of an imaginary pistol.

A moment later, the man Shan had seen doing meditation exercises entered, now wearing a neatly pressed white shirt and khaki pants. The youth stiffened, quickly removed his headphones, and disappeared into the kitchen. The man greeted Shan with a nod, his eyes showing not the contempt Shan expected but curiosity. Shan’s tattered work shirt was hard to miss, but he was looking at Shan the way Shan would examine a stranger, taking in the small scars on his hands, evidence of his years of manual labor, the freshly split fingernails that spoke of recent rock climbing, the small round nub of scar on his neck that, to the experienced eye, suggested the hospitality of the Public Security Bureau.

“I am Gao Hu Bo,” his host offered, gesturing for Shan to sit as he took his place at the head of the table. “Please,” Gao said, pushing the bowl of rice toward Shan. “You are no doubt hungry from your morning exertions. Few goats are up to that passage.”

“I was seeking a few other goats,” Shan said in a level voice.

Gao’s steady gaze did not drop but a thin smile formed on his lips. “Officially this entire valley is a military reservation. Officially, Heinz and I are supposed to call friends below should intruders appear. Their response time averages eleven minutes. They would convey you to a rather unpleasant place.”

“Of course,” Kohler interjected, amused by the conversation, “what is unpleasant to one man may be mere routine to another.”

The youth in black reappeared, carrying a teapot, and slid into the last empty chair.

“Officially,” Shan said, every nerve alert, acutely aware of the treacherous ground he trod on, “this would not be an approved place for a general to retire to.” For Gendun’s sake, he could not afford to be arrested.

The youth choked back a laugh. Then, eyes lowered, he began to noisily consume his soup.

“Since you are as yet unacquainted with us,” Dr. Gao replied in his smooth, refined voice, “we will not take that as an insult. Generals are seldom invited to this table.”

“Still,” Shan said, “I can’t help but wonder if your invitation to lunch means I am to be the main course.”

Gao’s laugh was genuine. He rose and extended his hand. “I like you, comrade. When I saw you coming down the slope in the open sunlight I said, there is a man without fear, the rarest of creatures.”

Shan hesitantly took the man’s hand. “I am called Shan,” he said, “and in the world I inhabit fear is as common as salt.”

Gao held his hand for a moment as he gazed at the row of numbers tattooed on Shan’s forearm. Shan mentally raced through the possible explanations for his host’s presence there. One moment Gao seemed like a monk, the next a gloating bureaucrat. Gao was not a soldier. Senior politicians were sometimes disciplined with internal exile, but never in such comfort.

“My nephew, Feng Xi, is visiting from Beijing,” Gao explained as he sat again and began to eat. “Summer vacation from his labors at the university.”

The youth acknowledged Shan with a disinterested nod. “Thomas,” he interjected. “My name is Thomas.” Even before Shan had been sent into exile, to the gulag in Tibet, it had become popular among certain of China’s globally connected youth to adopt Western names.

Gao offered the boy a patient smile and spent several minutes describing the nest of lammergeiers they had been observing. Kohler took over the conversation, speaking about the weather, recent news reports describing the cloning of a dog, the announcement of a new Chinese space mission, and even, to Shan’s mute surprise, a new movie about invaders from outer space.

“Of course, if it were true, the aliens would have had to travel thousands of years to get here,” Thomas interjected.

“Hardly seems worth the trouble,” Kohler rejoined.

“It is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light,” the youth added with a hint of pride. “We’ve done the calculations.”

“Nearly as difficult,” Shan offered, “as trying to bridge the worlds on the two sides of this mountain.”

“We know of no one else who has traversed the old pass, if that is what you seek to learn. No one crosses without our knowledge since, as you see, we are situated like a gate across the path.”

“There are miners.”

“The miners are the perfect buffers for us. They may be terrified of us but everyone else is terrified of them.”

Shan declined a serving of what the boy described, in English, as French fried potatoes. “I know that for some men, forbidding them something only makes it more desirable.”

Kohler set his utensils down. “At our table, we are the ones allowed to prod and pry. Why are you here?” he asked.

“Because two men were murdered on the other side.”

“And are you playing policeman?”

“A man may be punished although there is no proof of his guilt. A lama is being punished for not condemning the man.”

“Rapaki?” Kohler asked. “Who would want to hurt a crazy hermit? Good court jesters are hard to come by.”

Shan did not correct him. The conversation was beginning to get interesting. It was the first time he had heard that name.