She Still Lives: A Novel of Tibet

169 Pages·2006·0.75 MB·English

by  Bill Magee

She Still Lives
SHE
STILL
LIVES
A Novel of Tibet
BILL MAGEE
Snow Lion Publications
Ithaca, New York
Boulder, Colorado
Snow Lion Publications
P.O. Box 6483
Ithaca, NY 14851 USA
[phone]
www.snowlionpub.com
Copyright © 2006 by Bill Magee
All rights reserved. No portions of this book may be reproduced
by any means without prior written permission from the publisher.
Printed in U.S.A. on acid-free recycled paper.
ISBN-10 1-55939-247-9
ISBN-13 978-1-55939-247-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in Publication Data
Magee, William A.
She still lives : a novel of Tibet / Bill Magee.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-55939-247-1 (acid-free paper)
ISBN-10: 1-55939-247-9 (acid-free paper)
1. Tibet (China)—Fiction. 2. Liberty—Fiction. 3. Dalai lamas—
Fiction. 4. Political fiction. I. Title.
PS3613.A3436S54 2006
813’.6--dc22
2006020103
To the Memory of Stella

One must think like a hero
to behave like a merely
decent human being.
—May Sarton
1
BEIJING RELEASES FIVE
Beijing, January 12, 2114 (Xinhua). Department of Pub-
lic Security officials today announced plans to release five
persons currently serving prison terms for their roles in the
Tibetan nationalist uprising of 2099. Mila Lakpa, Puntsok
Denpa, Jamyang Tashi, Basang Uri Garma, and Kunchok
Gunru, all of New Tibet City, were convicted of conspiring
with Tara Gyatso, the Seventeenth Dalai Lama, to create an
independent Lamaist state. “The men will be released during
the coming year,” said Chu Si-Chuan, spokesman for the De-
partment of Public Security. “However, there is no plan to re-
lease the Dalai Lama at this time. She is a long-time stubborn
secessionist who has tried to split her Chinese motherland.”
The prison doors opened reluctantly with the metallic grinding
of a rusted vault. For a few seconds the narrow portal afforded
an unsettling glimpse into the darkness of a maximum correc-
tional facility. Then the gates clanged shut again—but not before
Mila Lakpa stepped across the threshold to stand blinking and
befuddled in the hard, bright sun.
A burly Tibetan fellow and his black retriever dog were wait-
ing just down the hill. Seeing Mila, the man hailed him:
“Mila! Ma peh! Down here!”
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She Still Lives
Mila squinted at the owner of the voice. It was a voice to
cause avalanches. He saw a big powerful man in mountain buck-
skins under a broad leather hat shading a ruddy face. Face and
hat alike seemed smeared with grease and smoke. Mila hesitated
for a second, his meager, undernourished form blending into the
red blockhouse behind him. He looked around with an anxious
glance—then stepped out briskly. Away, away at last from the hat-
ed walls; trotting pell-mell down the hill; gaining speed, a very
little speed, and not without a creaking in the knees. He stumbled
once or twice on the steep and rocky incline but managed to bring
himself safely down from the prominence.
He was enveloped in a vast and odorous bear hug. A big
red face filled all of Mila’s vision. It was a rough face with uneven
angles, like a deflated soccer ball kicked hard by a disappointed
athlete, except that a large, happy, welcoming smile gleamed in
the center of it: “Mila, do you still recognize me? I am Kunchok
Gunru.” The grip he had on Mila’s arm was like a tourniquet.
Mila remembered.
“Gunru! I am honored that you have come to greet me.”
“Let me be the first to congratulate you on surviving your,
um, political eclipse, Mila.”
“Thank you, it is good to be free, my old friend.” Mila shad-
ed his eyes and gazed up at the cloudless sky, the sun very near
the zenith. “And to think it has been shining away up there all
this time,” he said. “My, my. No doubt we still have moon, stars,
clouds—the whole thing?”
“The whole thing. Mila, this is my dog, Gochen.”
Gochen was a glossy black hunter with a panting tongue
and bright, attentive eyes. “What a winning pup you have here,
Gunru!”
“You like her?”
“Most amazingly.” said Mila. “She looks smart as paint. Is she
yours?”
8
Bill Magee
“Just temporarily. Gochen and I are heading up into the
mountains.” He clapped a friendly arm across Mila’s shoulder.
“Come, Su-su packed us both a lunch. We will go down to the
village for our tea.”
They began walking down a side road to the village, avoid-
ing, as did all Tibetans, the main road to the prison.
“I did not recognize you at first, Gunru,” admitted Mila.
“When last I saw you, you were the aesthetic type. Now you look
splendid, like a woodchopper.”
“I was in the camps, Mila. Life in the camps is conducive to
robust good health, or so we are told there. Take my arm. These
rocks are loose footing for a jailbird.”
“I am very glad you survived, Gunru. I feared we might nev-
er meet again.”
“We have both survived, Mila.” Gunru’s sympathetic gaze
roamed across his old friend. “But, to be truthful, you look like
crap.”
Mila knew that Gunru was referring to his shockingly starv-
ed condition, to his sparse, graying hair, his missing teeth, his
flattened nose, and his stooped, shambling walk. Mila wanted to
say something to ease his old friend’s mind, but he could not find
any light-hearted way to describe his fifteen years of beatings and
deprivation—of maximum correction. How could he tell Gunru
what was in his heart? How to express his gratitude that, after so
many years of pacing alone around a dimly lit cage, he could now
hold hard to Gunru’s rock-steady biceps and proceed in a straight
line? He possessed no words for that.
“Listen, Mila,” said Gunru suddenly. “Su-su and I want to
offer you a few days rest at her place until you are ready to move
on again. What do you think?”
“I fear it will be dangerous for you.”
“The police? I am afraid you are no longer deemed a threat
to the State, my friend.”
9