"Rinpoche! We were going to send out searchers!" the first to reach him called, then cried out in dismay as he saw the injuries on Padme's face and arms.
Men in robes quickly surrounded Padme, supporting him at each shoulder as they escorted him past a small collection of rundown habitations and through the two tall square pillars on either side of the gompa gate. Shan and his friends stared toward the monastery uncertainly, then with a blur of movement a small brown dog was at Tenzin's feet, barking in a shrill, high-pitched frenzy, tugging his pant leg, tearing it. Tenzin bent to put a hand on the dog's head, and the dog bit it. Suddenly a stone flew through the air, hitting the dog on its side. The animal yelped and scurried away around the corner of the gompa wall.
Lhandro stepped to Tenzin, who held up a bleeding finger, and produced a water bottle to wash the wound. Shan surveyed the small buildings by the gate. In front of one crumbling packed-earth house a man with shaggy white hair and leathery skin sat under a crude awning, bent over a foot-powered sewing machine, working on what appeared to be a monastic robe. Another man, nearly as old, his head heavily bandaged, leaned against a rusty metal barrel, asleep. An old woman in a heavily patched chuba, her eyes glazed with cataracts, sat in the doorway of another house, little more than a hut, spinning a small prayer wheel. No one looked up. No one showed a victorious smile after witnessing Padme's return, or even after driving away Tenzin's attacker.
There was a single new construction outside the gate, a long narrow open-faced shelter of cinderblocks with a tin roof and a dirt floor. It was a familiar fixture of Shan's prior incarnation; they were called newspaper huts in Beijing or, by some, Party shithouses. Inside, on the back wall, a long glass-enclosed case displayed a recent copy of the official newspaper published in Lhasa, in Chinese. Shan looked back at the Tibetans scattered around the buildings. He doubted any of them spoke, let alone read, Chinese. Hesitantly stepping into the hut, he gazed down the row of newspaper pages, at the end of which was a board on which local announcements had been pinned. He quickly scanned the pages. A speech on foreign relations from the Chairman in Beijing was reproduced in its entirety, taking up three pages. A company from Shanghai, whose name he recognized as an entity owned by the People's Liberation Army, was building a hotel for tourists at the base of the Potola. Production of timber in eastern Tibet continued to surpass all records. The beloved abbot of Sangchi gompa, one of the largest in Tibet, previously reported to be defecting to India, was now known to have been kidnapped by members of the Dalai Cult- one of Beijing's favorite labels for those who resisted the party line in Tibet. A new hydroelectric facility had been dedicated southeast of Lhasa. A senior leader of the Dalai Cult, the notorious Tiger, was now believed to have killed Chao Yu, the heroic Deputy Director of the Bureau of Religious Affairs in Amdo town. Shan read the story twice. There was no reported evidence, just a statement from Public Security about the Tiger's record of violence and treason. The Tiger, the reviled reactionary puppet of the Dalai Cult, an accompanying article reported, would soon be cornered by Public Security forces and would meet the people's swift justice. A Tibetan school in Qinghai had sent the Chairman a map of China constructed entirely of rice. A Chinese school girl had saved a drowning lamb in Shigatse. There was a photograph of the lamb.
Shan paused at the last panel, half of which was taken up by a single announcement from Norbu gompa and the council that administered the township. A May Day festival would be conducted at Norbu, where the economic progress of the township would be celebrated in coordination with the holiday activities held in Beijing in honor of the global proletariat. Citizens were expected to participate, and a sheet with numbered lines was stapled below the proclamation for families or work units to sign up to display the fruits of their labors. The date was ten days away. Only one line had been filled in. Lhalung Pelgyi Dorje, it said, in the hurried scrawl of a prankster. It was the name of a Tibetan who, over a thousand years before, had killed a king who had almost extinguished Buddhism with campaigns of terror so severe they had not been seen again until the communists arrived. The hero was coming to Norbu, the writing said, and would bring one stale dumpling to honor the Chairman. No one else had subscribed to the May Day celebration. Shan studied the weary Tibetans who sat outside the gate. It was as though some of the local population were trying to embarrass the gompa, and others were scared of it.
"If we left now, we might reach the sheep by dark," Nyma suggested in a near whisper, as though she suddenly had doubts about receiving the blessings of the lamas. But before anyone could reply a middle-aged monk in an elegant gold-fringed robe emerged from the gate, smiling, his arms open in greeting, followed closely by two boyish monks.
Shan froze for a moment, and glanced with worry at Nyma. He recognized the monk, whose nose was long and hooked. It was Khodrak, the one who called himself abbot.
"Forgive us," Khodrak said. "We were so overjoyed at the return of our Padme that we neglected you." Shan looked over the monk's shoulder, past the gate. Over the ornate front door of the central building was a small banner in elegant Chinese script. Serene Prosperity, it proclaimed. "Those who saved our Padme are welcome in Norbu gompa," Khodrak proclaimed in a gracious tone, gesturing them toward the gate.
As Khodrak and his nervous young attendants escorted them across the neatly raked earth of the courtyard it became obvious that the rebuilding effort had been confined to only certain elements of the gompa. The three central buildings appeared to be of sturdy new construction but along both sides, parallel to the outer walls, were several long single-story buildings of wood and pressed earth, most of which were neither new nor well-maintained. They would have been built to house the monks, Shan knew, and for the many meditation cells and minor deity chapels common to traditional gompas. They were all framed in wood, with small, empty porches where rows of prayer wheels would have traditionally hung. The first of these buildings on each side of the main courtyard had been restored to resemble the newer central buildings, giving an elegant atmosphere to the entry courtyard, and each had a long red plank bolted over its doorway, bearing the mani mantra in recessed gold letters.
The abbot led them under the sign of the low building on the left, then excused himself, announcing that one of the young novices would guide them around the compound. The nervous novice showed them pegs where they might hang their belongings and explained that Norbu was the main gompa of the region, with thirty-five monks and novices, boasting one of the highest Religious Affairs scores in all of Tibet.
"Scores for what, exactly?" Shan asked the novice as he led them outside, past the first two central buildings, the first of which he had quickly identified as the administration building, the second as the site of the dining hall and instruction rooms.
The youth gave a short grimace. "Proper conduct," he said, staring straight ahead. "Serenity," he added in a strangely somber tone, and quickened his pace. In the southeast corner of the high wall stood a long wooden building and a stable, both in severe disrepair. They seemed to be huddling together, the last survivors of an older, different monastery, resisting the bigger, more modern construction in the center of the gompa. Shan studied the buildings, which were made of planks joined with pegs. Shovels and rakes were laid against them. A pile of tattered baskets, with thick shoulder straps and padded loops extending out of their tops were stacked against the stable. Shan knew such baskets, for he had carried one nearly every day for four years, the long loop on his forehead, hauling rocks and gravel for government road builders. Past the buildings in the corner of the outer wall was a four-wheeled wooden cart and a huge pile of dung, more than ten feet high. Towering above the dung pile in the shade of the poplar trees that grew outside the wall was a tall, thin pole on which were fastened a long radio antenna and a satellite dish.