After they passed out of town, Shigatse resumed exploding. Remo looked back. Fires were starting.
"Why are they burning down their own city?"
"It was built by Chinese. Now that Tibet is free, they want to live in a city built by Tibetans."
"Tibet isn't free yet."
"It is just a matter of another day or two now that Gonpo Jigme rides with the Khampas and the Bunji Lama has come to claim the Lion Throne."
"I had my hopes set on blowing into Lhasa quietly."
"We will blow into Lhasa as quietly as we are blowing out of this city," Bumba Fun assured him. And someone let fly with one of the whistling arrows that seemed to serve no other purpose than to substitute for fireworks.
Remo settled down for the ride. At least he was starting to feel as if he was making progress.
The mountains still seemed to be calling him, though. That part bothered him. How could mountains call him? And why?
Chapter 34
Old Thondup Phintso could not sleep. He tossed on his bedding of old yak skins, dressed in the maroon robe he rarely doffed, wondering what it could all mean.
The Bunji Lama was a mig gar-a white eyes. With saffron hair. That at least was a good augury. But a white eyes?
It was said that the Panchen Lama had been discovered in far-off America and while the new Panchen was not white, it was the farthest from Tibet that a tulku had been found.
He could not sleep, ruminating on these things, and when the dawn came and the hated blare of the loudspeakers began issuing the tinny discord of "The East Is Red," Thondup Phintso threw off the yak skins and walked barefoot and agitated through the dripping coolness of the Potala.
He came to the quarters of the Bunji Lama. The heavy wood door, carried on the backs of serfs from faraway Bhutan centuries ago, was closed. He put his ear to the moist wood and heard no sound.
Carefully he pushed the door inward. The hinges did not squeak, as he knew they would not.
A shaft of rosy light slanted across the sumptuous quarters. He saw the kang and its bedding all disheveled and hesitated, his heart high in his throat.
Then he saw the Bunji.
The Bunji Lama squatted over the chamber pot, saffron skirts hiked over his thighs. His urine tinkled in a golden rill into the waiting brass pot. The Dalai's personal pot.
Thondup Phintso narrowed his eyes. Something was amiss.
The Bunji looked up, blue eyes flashing in annoyance. And from the Bunji's mouth issued a shrill exclamation. "Jesus H. Christ! Can't a Buddha have any privacy around here?"
And eyes widening in shock, Thondup Phintso hastily withdrew. Pulling his robes about him, he ran, feet smacking the stone flooring like solitary applause, for the great wooden doors.
It was sacrilege. The Bunji was not only white, but a woman. Such a creature could never be allowed to claim the Lion Throne.
As much as he detested the thought, Thondup Phintso would bring this sacrilege to the attention of the Public Security Bureau.
If terrible events resulted, he comforted himself with the knowledge that they, like all things, had been ordained from the beginning of time.
THE EASTERN REACHES of Tibet unrolled in a long yellow-green carpet under the flashing wings of the Soviet-built CAAC turboprop plane.
Sitting in the copilot's seat, the minister of state security watched the unending pastureland roll by. It made him uneasy. All that barrenness. To go down in it was to face days, if not weeks, of cruel trekking to civilization, assuming one survived.
Ahead the horizon was a haze of mountain ranges. As forbidding as the eastern reaches were, the mountains would be infinitely worse. He dreaded the landing at Lhasa's Gonggar Airport so much that he could not bear to look at the mountains from a distance. To land at Gonggar, the pilot would have to ride a knifeblade channel between towering peaks in thin air that would test the turboprop engines.
Back in the passenger area, the Tashi squatted in the middle of the aisle, dwarfed by his retinue. He looked tiny, more like a creature out of superstitious mythology than a human being, as he spun the solid-gold prayer wheel that the minister of state security had presented to him as a reward for making the difficult flight to Lhasa. An altogether too pitiful figure on which to place the future of China's claim to Tibet.
In ten, twenty years, after the proper training and indoctrination, yes. It was conceivable. But rulers-even puppet rulers-were not selected and installed overnight. The advent of the Bunji Lama had changed all that. The minister of state security only hoped the Tashi was equal to the Bunji.
But not as much as he hoped that they would survive the landing at Gonggar.
THE BUNJI LAMA, it was recorded, assumed the Lion Throne without fanfare, notice or pomp, as befitted one who came to the sacred Potala in the dead of night on the selfless task of freeing Tibet from sorrow and slavery.
This was done in the early hours of the last morning of the second month of the Iron Dog Year, with no eyes but those of the all-seeing gods to witness the auspicious moment.
SQUIRRELLY CHICANE was still sleepy. Her brain felt like it had been soaked in ether. It was not a half-bad feeling, actually. She rather liked it. At least it was better than the pounder the high altitude had given her.
Looking around, she wondered where she was. The walls were painted with Buddhas, bodhisattvas and other mythic creatures. The ceiling was arched and high. The furniture was exquisite, especially the ornate gilt chair off in one corner. There were Chinese dragons or dogs or something decorating it.
Since there wasn't any place more inviting, she went over and sat down.
"Comfy," she said approvingly. Right then and there she decided that her awakening scene would be filmed on location. If the budget allowed. If not, it could probably be recreated on a soundstage in Burbank.
She wondered where she was. Her foggy brain failed to summon up the memory of how she had gotten to this place-wherever she was. Dimly she heard music-brassy, discordant, martial music. It seemed very loud, yet far away.
Squirrelly made a mental note to have the music replaced with a John Williams score-unless she ended up doing a musical. In which case she might take a fling at writing the music herself. After all, who was going to tell her no. She was the Bunji Lama now.
Footsteps came toward the closed wooden door. She arranged her robes about her crossed legs in case it was that dried-up Tibetan Peeping Tom, who had barged in while she was on the john.
"Bunji! Bunji!" It was Kula. The big Mongol barged in as if his mohair pants were on inside out.
He took one look and stopped, the alarm going out of his eyes.
Then he got down on hands and knees and began bumping his forehead on the floor. "This is a very great scam," he sobbed in English.
"What is?" Squirrelly said.
"You have assumed the Lion Throne."
"I have? I mean, I have! Where?"
"Your precious bottom sits upon it, Bunji.' "
Squirrelly leapt up. "This is the Lion Throne! Really? You're kidding me. You've got to be. Tell me you're kidding."
"I kid thee not, Bunji. The hour Tibet has awaited has come."