Nothing Sacred Part 15

The whites of his eyes shone all around his irises as he stared out beyond us, and beyond the mountains surrounding us to the sky.

Samdup might have actually been hit by the rock from the expression on his face, mouth and eyes both wide as he stared out at the shooting stars, one after another, a veritable meteor shower curving across the night sky.

But something was wrong. The bright arc of light pointed in the wrong direction, from earth to air.

"Oh, sweet Jesus and all the holy saints above us," Thibideaux whispered.

Soft footsteps behind me, and at my back I felt Marsh's breath on my scalp, heard his individual heartbeat added to the Colonel's, Samdup's and mine, smelled his particular brand of B.O., very sharp, extra pungent with fear, as we watched those meteors rise, not in the random, chaotic fashion of a true meteor shower, but very calculated: one, two, three, four to the northeast, Beijing way; one, two, three, four, to the west, where Ladahk lay; one, two, three, four, fainter, far south, and southeast toward Pakistan and Nepal.

"They're going in the wrong direction," I said and Marsh said, "Wait."

I waited. We all waited. And in a moment the sky to the north, beyond the great horned mountain where the moon rose, flashed a brilliant and barbarous rose-orange that glowed brighter and brighter until it was beyond color, beyond sound, blotting out the moon with its brilliance, and although I closed my eyes it burnt right through my eyelids.

"There goes Tashkent," Marsh said, as if with satisfaction, to himself.

The next flash was to the south and he said, "Goodbye, Katmandu," and to the east, "So long, Chungking," and when the whole sky was on fire so that it seemed the mountains themselves would melt and fold into pudding from the heat, a final, searing bolt of light rent the western sky. "And that's curtains for Kashmir." His voice had a manic edge to it.

I couldn't see anything anymore but soon I heard other voices, and felt hands shoving me down the steps again, felt the others stumbling after me, heard the cell door close behind us.

Thibideaux's teeth were clicking like a keyboard tapped by a mad typist, and I tried to hold him to stop his shaking but he cried so hard he shook me off. The Colonel halted his mumbling monologue once and asked quite clearly where Danielson had gone and Marsh halted his own monologue long enough to answer, "He kept going when I came back to see how the rest of you were doing."

"Good, good," the Colonel said, and kept mumbling. My sight returned to normal here in the darkness and after a while I lit my lamp and saw that somewhere along the way the Colonel and Thibideaux had lost their winter gear too and Marsh had also been stripped of his. So the camp officials knew about the escape attempt. It hardly matters now, I suppose, except maybe they'll find Danielson before he goes too far and has to die alone. There have been tremblings in the earth all night and I'm afraid this place will fall in on us-or I would be more afraid, except that I know how thorough Tea's "shorings up" have been. What worries me the most is that sound-the gushing and chugging have become a roar now, and underneath is a steady rhythmic pumping.

PART SEVEN.

FLOOD.

My eyes feel as if they've been sandpapered and my mouth is sour with the taste of blood, every muscle and bone as tight and sore as if I'd tied on a good one and been flattened in a barroom brawl. I awoke thinking," G.o.d, what a nightmare," until I noticed Danielson's empty cot next to me and saw Marsh sprawled, snoring noisily against the wall, the Colonel up and walking back and forth the two paces across the room. Thibideaux's body was knotted in sleep, his forearms over his crown as if he was fending off frags, as indeed he had been.

Sometime in the night the wind rose and my stone cot quivered. Pieces of stone and clods of dirt rained down from the ceiling. Once I awakened to a series of sliding thumps that I thought were fresh explosions until I heard the hiss and dry rattle of small gravel and realized that the thumps were probably caused by the sandbags in the hall falling from their perches.

My last dream of the night was again of a room full of robed men and women, chanting, praying, the ghosts of this place. No one came down with momos this morning, however, and the cell door swung easily open with a slight tug. We-the others awakened shortly after me and the four of us moved for once as if we had a collective mind-had to climb over the fallen mounds of sandbags to reach the stairs and haul sandbags away from the entrance to open the outer door. Samdup was not there, but sunlight bored through the canopy and birds wheeled and cried above the valley in the shadow of the mountains.

We stood for a moment looking out at what seemed a perfectly normal sunny sky, although the distant mountain peaks were more blurred than usual. No sign of preternatural brightness. No meteor craters. No melted mountains. Just the usual landscape and the half-ruined walls down the hill to the fields.

The pack train party poured out of the command bunker, intercepting us on our way down the hill.

They were dressed in winter garb, including the bundle I had been carrying, and except for looking hot and uncomfortable in the warmth of the valley they seemed like a normal group of winter sport fans ready for an outing. I didn't notice the particular navy blue parka Danielson had been wearing, however, which was a relief, because if I had seen it, it would have meant he'd been killed or recaptured.

Merridew scanned the sides of the mountains as well as he could under the canopy, looking for a lone dark figure moving against the snowy streaks on the raw stone slopes. My eyes followed his, but I also looked down over the sides of the cliff as we pa.s.sed near that, wondering if Danielson, temporarily blinded during the first burst of light, might not have fallen.

But then we rounded the last of the ruined wall and boulders that lay between the upper compound and the lower slope and the valley. I'd been hearing it all night, of course, for that was the noise thatpenetrated the walls, the roaring and gurgling, the murmuring and the chanting.

The guards from the night before stood at the foot of the hill, staring into what had once been the valley. I saw Samdup's back and Terton, Wu, Tsering, and Tea, who may have been, like the guards, up all night. The people in the pack train first stopped dead ahead of us, staring, then began running down the hill at breakneck speed.

The noise was not very loud now, merely a little bubbling and churning as the tiny pool that had formed the eye of the valley expanded, flooding the valley floor with steaming silver water that rippled quickly over the blossoms, the rocks, the lower row of garden, toward the stone yak corral.

At one end the refilled lake lapped the mountainside, at the other it sluiced into an abandoned stream bed which ran alongside the hill containing the compound.

The greatest strategist in the world couldn't have come up with better diversionary tactics than those covering Danielson's escape. Dr. Terton nudged Wu, who turned toward us from contemplating the lake.

She was smiling as I'd never seen her smile before, and she almost sang an order to the pack train, who were still so stunned that none of them thought to obey until the first one finally had the presence of mind to throw off her winter parka and run toward the yak pens. The other guards followed in demolishing the wall of the corral and driving the yaks up the hill, through the garden, tearing up careful plantings.

And so the lake has returned, more beautiful than the computer simulations, more beautiful than in my dreams even. It was the best thing that could happen. Its appearance seemed to wash away the confusion and fear of the night, which no one has commented on directly and only a few experienced anyway. The pack train was sleeping extra soundly with a draught the doctor had made, apparently, and the guards must have been too stunned to report what they saw in time for anyone else to see it. Or maybe we imagined it? The smell of the water is real and fresh and you can almost hear things growing. It does not breed an atmosphere conducive to thoughts of death on any scale.

Besides, it posed problems that forced everyone to work so hard we could shut out thoughts that are unthinkable anyway.

The pack train put off its departure to help us prisoners and the remaining guards dig up the seeds, shoots, and plants and replant them farther up the hill. By midday the water seemed to have reached its high point, the stream carrying the runoff through the boulders and rocks in the rest of the valley floor, and by nightfall the yaks were reopened within the waist-high walls of one of the ruined structures.

Nothing was said by anyone about Danielson, and Thibideaux, Marsh, Merridew and I returned to our cells when it was finally too dark to work. We were too tired to eat and fell onto our cots half asleep before we were fully p.r.o.ne.

I arose before the others this morning. Rereading my last two entries, I can hardly believe myself all that has happened. But the only evidence I see that anything extraordinary occurred is the lake-maybe the other was not what we thought. Perhaps some kind of atmospheric disturbance, nocturnal sunspots or something? It didn't seem to affect us here, except to bring back the lovely, lovely lake.

LAKE DAY.

The pack train left yesterday morning, the day after the lake appeared. I arrived at the command bunker as they were suiting up for the trek. Outside the wind scoured the surrounding mountaintops and sprinkled secondhand snow over the compound to land like sparkling confetti on the camouflage canopy.I skipped aside three steps and took another long gander at the lake. It sloshed gently in its reclaimed bed, as if settling in, its cobalt and aquamarine waters patting its sh.o.r.es into place. Avalanche grumblings keep the air from ever being still these days. Thank G.o.d the horned mountain already deposited most of its payload on the compound long ago or we'd probably be goners by now.

It was my usual day to work with Taring, though I thought I might ask to be relieved of my duties so I could help with the replanting. As I set out to find him at his usual tasks in the lower excavations, I pa.s.sed the pack train, equipping itself once more for the long trek ahead.

The corridor was crowded with people pulling on boots, extra pants, and layers and layers of sweaters, quilted vests and coats, felt hats and mittens. One bundled figure fell against me as it struggled to pull on a boot. I staggered back, caught a quilted arm, and stared into the lenses of Dolma's gla.s.ses.

They were steamed from her breath and I wiped them with my sleeve.

"You're going?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "A man will stay in my place. The lower rooms are filling with water. Their contents must be moved Captain Taring needs the men to help him. Don't let the flood ruin the books, Viva."

"I'm on my way," I said. "Don't let any rocks fall on your head, Dolma."

"Don't worry," she said, breathless and sweating now from the extra layers as she lifted the flap of her nylon hood to reveal a layer of heavy knit and a layer of felt. "Three hats. The stones will bounce off my head. Also two scarves and gloves beneath my mittens. Goodbye, Viva." Her mitten touched my arm and I wiped her gla.s.ses again.

"Goodbye, Dolma," I said.

"Yes," she said, replacing her gla.s.ses and looking at me as if she was going to be tested on my appearance later.

I turned away and quickened my pace on my way to the lower excavations. As I pa.s.sed the branch leading to Wu's office, I saw her and the doctor, walking rapidly in my direction. The doctor caught my eye for a moment. Her expression reminded me of my grandmother's when she was about to ask me something, but she didn't.

Men carrying armloads of seed packages hurried past me, and we got in the way of each other, the corridor not being wide enough for even two of the Asians to stand abreast, never mind a large-boned American like me.

The library and the corridor outside it were still dry, as were most of the upper rooms, but deeper inside the maze, water at first made itself known as mud, then an inch or so of tepid dampness until, by the time I reached Tea, it sloshed and steamed around my ankles, warming my feet to an almost uncomfortable degree.

"Viveka, be having a gander at this, will you! Here are the pipes-the ones we are seeing in the simulation," he said, indicating ceramic tubes with circ.u.mferences the size of automobile tires.

"Unfortunately," he added unnecessarily, "they are broken."

Buried in the walls and beneath the floor, the pipes had been exposed by the digging and the water.

Through the holes and gaps in them, water poured out onto the floor.Taring seemed quite pleased about it, hopping around like a cat pouncing from one delectable mouse to the next, as if the water was not about to ruin all of our work. "Feel, it is hot water- a hot springs used not only for hot water but also for a heating system beneath the floors and walls."

"I wish you could find the Off faucet, then," I told him.

He took me seriously. "Hmm, perhaps such a thing exists, though I have never heard of it.

Meanwhile, we must be funneling this water back downhill. This beneficial water will be most unbeneficial to our finds if we are not stopping it."

Just then one of the men rushing from the seed room with two bags under each arm knocked another one down and he slid in the mud, rupturing a bag and sending seeds flying everywhere.

"Let's do a relay line," I suggested, and when the guards ignored me, I went into the packet room, handed a sack of seeds to the man outside the door, and when he tried to go, stopped him and indicated that he should hand them to the next one. The line formed quickly. It was not, after all, a foreign concept to them, they just hadn't thought of using it yet that morning.

Tea finally found a way to staunch the water, but not before it flooded the generator. Most of the afternoon we worked in the glow of flashlights and oil lamps, until batteries and oil gave out. I wonder if anyone still knows how to make yak b.u.t.ter?

None of us slept that night, laboring to mop up the spill, to lay the seeds which had become wet out to dry, and repair other water damage. Those who were working in the field had to replant half of what we had planted already, and haul rocks and hand-plow soil accordingly.

When at last we were allowed to return to our quarters to sleep, the water had risen to cover the floor of the pa.s.sageway containing our cell to the third step from the bottom and was rising. I waded in and rescued my journal, but last night we and the other prisoners, as well as the guards, slept under the canopy, between the rocks. Sometime last night I was shaken roughly awake and hauled to my feet.

"You go to commandant's office now," said the guard. I was too sleepy to even see who he was but he was not one of the ones I knew fairly well.

He stopped outside the door and gestured for me to go in while he stood sentry.

Wu and Dr. Terton waited for me in Wu's office. The computer sat open on the tarp-covered desk and Wu frowned into it. Terton, I could have sworn, had been pacing until I entered, when she turned, dropped her hands to her sides and smiled at me, arranging her face into convincingly serene and benign lines.

"Ah, Viv," she said. "It has just come to our attention that one of your comrades, Mr. Danielson, is missing. We must locate him at once."

"Have you asked Colonel Merridew?" I asked. "He is the O. I.C."

"We're asking you," Wu said. "Where is Danielson? He is in grave danger."

"That's what he thought. I imagine that's why he left," I said and pointed at the computer, "Which side are you reporting his disappearance to anyway, Wu? The Indians, the Chinese, or the Soviets? Or is this a NACAF operation?"

"Don't be insulting," Wu said, looking and sounding genuinely offended at the mention of a possibleNACAF a.s.sociation.

"It has that sort of cosmopolitan flavor about it, you must admit," I said.

"The information is cla.s.sified," Wu replied coldly.

"Also," Dr. Terton added, "I think it matters very little now."

My heart skipped a beat and although I wanted nothing confirmed-nothing-I asked casually, "What do you mean by that?"

She shrugged and smiled the ingratiating smile of a pickpocket who hasn't seen your wallet but will certainly inquire of all her friends if they have done so. "Why, only that we have lost all contact with our supply lines apparently."

"Still you sent out another pack train."

"We are conducting this interrogation, Vanachek, not you," Wu said coldly.

Just as coldly, I said, "This is a prison camp. We are prisoners of war. It's our duty to escape and Danielson escaped."

"My word, child," Terton said, "have conditions here been so terrible that you would flee alone to what is out there?"

"I didn't go, he did. No, you know me, Doctor. No mountain climbing without one of your little spells. To tell you the truth, if this was any other kind of an establishment, I'd be happy enough to stay here instead of ever climbing another mountain pa.s.s or wearing an NACAF uniform again. You may not know this but they don't usually let anyone below the rank of major back into the country again, once you're on active duty. I can't go home again ..." I didn't even want to think about how true that probably was so I hurried on. "But the food is improved, and your guards are surprisingly human, for prison camp guards-or are they really just prisoners too? Your rosters confuse me."

"They are supposed to be confusing," the doctor said.

"They are supposed to be top secret," Wu added.

"Then you shouldn't leave your top-secret information lying around for me to find along with the stuff you and Taring put there for me to find," I told her.

"This is important, Vanachek," Wu said, and for a change, when she said it, it sounded important.

She'd dropped the cold, haughty b.i.t.c.h routine, dropped the off-with-your-head tone, and sounded merely annoyed and also, oddly, anguished. "I confess I do not much care for Sergeant Danielson but neither do I wish him to come to harm and his life is at stake. We need to know when he left and in what direction."

"I'll bet his life is at stake," I said. "If you find him, that is. And I don't know when he left or if he left and if so where. Away, I suppose, as fast as he could go." Merridew would be proud of me, I thought.

But I realized that Wu had just stepped out of her role as commandant in time for me to escalate mine as wronged and indignant POW. That particular persona had not figured greatly in my relationship with the camp personnel to date but I felt it necessary, if I was not to break faith with the Colonel and the men-maybe Danielson in particular-to behave as I imagined they would have. Still, something aboutWu's sudden change of demeanor and Terton's face, suddenly showing every year of her age and probably more, stopped me from reciting name, rank and serial number to them. "Since when have you been so worried about our lives?"

"Since the beginning," the doctor said simply, as if surprised I had to ask. "We are concerned about the lives of all of the people here."

"Were you concerned about the monks who lived here before the avalanche, before you turned this lamasery into a prison camp?" I asked. "What happened to them, anyway?"

"What monks?" Wu asked. "What do you know of monks?"

"I know that they haunt this place. I've heard them chanting, praying. Call me a crazy superst.i.tious kid if you will but I think their ghosts helped Danielson escape by conjuring up that lake you're so fond of, Commandant. They called it up with their chanting to confuse and distract you. I heard them."

Now I knew I was losing it but I was too tired to care. I figured I'd gone too far when Wu and the doctor exchanged glances.

"You heard monks chanting?"

"Yes, I did. And lots of other times. And don't tell me I'm nuts because I've read about what this country was like before you people took over and it was f.u.c.king full of magic."

"Before your people made it a perpetual battleground," Wu shot back automatically.

"Before the Chinese invasions and occupation," I countered. And then I was off and running with every real grievance I had against my captors-not anything they'd done to me, or the Colonel, or any of the others, but all of the things I'd heard about in casual conversations within the family (our family's casual conversations were more political and less casual than most) and, later, as historical wrongs in school. I couldn't seem to shut up. "I know who tore down the monasteries and shipped the art and the timber and everything they could lay hands on, back to China. And I heard how they burned ancient holy books and killed and tortured monks and nuns, not to mention your average citizen. Wu, you're married to a Tibetan. How can you care so little what happens to this country? Doctor, I can't understand how people like those guerrillas can keep from shooting you on sight. But you didn't figure on something. This country used to be the most spiritual place on the face of the earth. Now you may laugh at that, but in my family it meant something. My grandmother kept a picture of the Dalai Lama over her futon and Grandpa Ananda flew prayer flags from the garden fence. They weren't Tibetan Buddhists but they had great respect for Eastern religion and for what this country used to be. You people have destroyed it physically, and I read about how you tore up the people's books and paved the streets with the pages from sacred works so people would have to walk on them if they wanted to go to work or get food. I know how you strip-mined the mountains for minerals, polluted the streams, cut down all the trees, killed the animals and used the place for a toxic-waste dump. And I also know, G.o.d help me, that my country helped you do it but I personally sure as h.e.l.l did not, so don't tell me I don't hear ghost monks when I hear ghost monks. They're what make this place bearable and the only thing that helped me survive the humanitarian treatment you dished out when I first got here."

I ran out of wind then, and I also jolted myself into the renewed realization that the humanitarian treatment I sarcastically referred to was not necessarily a thing of the past and could be reinitiated at the whim of the women I was haranguing with my catalog of ancient historical wrongs.But as I tried to stare Wu down, she grew more and more crestfallen and finally failed to meet my eyes at all, cupping her hand over her own eyes. It couldn't be my display of historical rhetoric, I thought.

She let her hand fall to the table and looked up at Terton. "She's heard them," Wu said. "Why her?"

"Perhaps you've been under too much stress with your job here, Nyima. Don't take it so to heart.

As for Mr. Danielson, perhaps the pack train will reach him in time."

I remembered with satisfaction how much of a lead he had on them.