The woman came closer. She smelled of strong soap and peanut oil. “You are supposed to sign in to use the reference materials,” she chided, extending a clipboard.
Shan apologized and quickly wrote his name at the bottom of a list of names.
“Beijing?” she asked in a more relaxed tone.
“My home.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “I am from Tianjin! Practically neighbors.”
“Practically neighbors,” Shan agreed. He fixed the woman with a meaningful gaze. “Surely there was much drama during this region’s transformation. So remote. So close to the border. So many locals mired in the old ways. I used to go to Tianjin,” he added. “I used to watch the ships.”
The woman gave an exclamation of excitement and Shan listened patiently for several minutes as she recounted tales of walking the docks with her parents when she was a child, of an uncle who used to sail on freighters that traveled all over Asia. At last she stood, retrieved a stool, and searched the shelf over the window, producing a dusty volume that she handed to Shan with a satisfied smile. “So many just want to come in to read about yeti, or all the foreigners who have died on our mountain. And until I arrived last year the collection was so incomplete, it took me months just to understand where she had left off.”
“Left off?”
“My predecessor. Poor woman had lived here for fifteen years without ever going up to the base of Chomolungma. And the one day she finally decides to drive up her car fails her.”
Shan leaned forward. “Are you saying she died?”
The librarian’s eyes widened as she gave a melodramatic sigh. “Brakes failed; off a cliff she flew.”
“And books were missing after she died? They were here once, and were stolen?”
The woman shrugged. “Stolen, misplaced. They were part of the overall collection she had been compiling on the local history of the People’s Republic. I had to make calls to Shigatse to get these, the only ones in the county I think. I can’t imagine why the most important book of all for those interested in local history should be missing.”
The book was a limited edition, published by the Party, entitled Heroes of the Himalayan Revolution. After passing over several pages of Party platitudes, Shan reached a dry chronicle, written in a clerical style, which opened by stating that the struggle to unlock the grip of the landlord classes in the region required more resources than elsewhere-the Party’s way of acknowledging that there had been genuine resistance from the local Tibetans. He passed over pages with more lists of the landlord class, expanded as the fervor of reform spread to include not only the large landowners but smaller and smaller farms. Those who owned fifty sheep, then those who owned ten sheep. Those who owned a yak and a dog. As the reform committees, led by ranking members of the peasant class guided by Chinese, began to redistribute the wealth, “hooligans in the mountains” sought to interfere. A company of infantry was brought in. A brigade. A battalion. It was the closest an official chronicler would come to admitting there was an ongoing armed rebellion against the Chinese. Campaigns to eliminate the hooligans were launched along the border with Nepal, in the hills above Shogo, in the valleys below Tumtok village.
But real reform had not started until Mao had dispatched his youth brigades, the Red Guard. Few members of Shan’s generation would speak openly of the Cultural Revolution, Mao’s euphemistic caption for the years during which the Red Guard inflicted chaos and terror on the country. Youthful zealots, often no more than teenagers, had set themselves up as de facto rulers in many regions, even taking over units of the army. Only when the Red Guard had established itself in Tibet had the systematic destruction of monasteries and temples begun.
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.