Sky Burial

CHAPTER EIGHT

Lhasa by Night

One hundred foreigners who had witnessed the riot had gathered in a dormitory room at one of the Tibetan hotels. I was so glad to see John and Julie sandwiched on a bed with eight other travelers that I didn’t hear Andrew yelling from the middle of the room. John said he had spent the entire day in front of the police station. He photographed Tibetans besieging the police station and burning it to the ground; police taking pictures and video of the crowd from the rooftops; and police firing AK-47s and automatic pistols from the rooftops and the street. Julie had hidden three rolls of John’s film.

“The telex and trunks have been down for three days,” Andrew shouted. He held a clipboard as he spoke to the throng of people still buzzing with a cacophony of Asian and Indo-European languages. “There are no press here as yet. Which makes it imperative that we accurately record confirmed, firsthand accounts of what happened for the press when they do arrive. Before we start, I will state for the record that the purpose of this gathering is wholly nonviolent. As a group, we must condemn those individuals who threw rocks at the police.”

“I throw rocks at Chinese police if I want,” Otto shouted from a bunk bed in the back of the room. Other travelers who had participated in the demonstration hurled insults and profanity at Andrew. The meeting swiftly disintegrated into mayhem. I wanted to tell John and Julie what I had seen but I was mute. Even though I was a physician I felt unable to save anyone from dying. Throwing rocks at the police was the only thing I could do to try to stop the killing. Andrew gave up insisting that the rock throwers should be condemned and moved on to the next item on his list.

Andrew was a great organizer: he had to be in order to extract useful information out of the chaotic meeting. In less than an hour he confirmed that an additional six Tibetan men, women, monks, and children had died from gunshot wounds or beatings. “I’m afraid the police are taking the wounded to prison,” Andrew said. “Now, an American doctor who treated a man who was shot has something to say.”

Unexpectedly, I faced the crowd. I had always been afraid of speaking in public. I mentioned the wounded hiding in their homes who feared arrest if they went to the Chinese-run hospital. I estimated that there were ten times the number of wounded to the number of dead, and said that we needed more bandages and medicine. Julie volunteered to make the rounds of the Tibetan hotels later and collect medicine.

“The police are coming!” a voice outside the window called. People stampeded through the only door. I peered out the window and saw a Tibetan boy who worked at the hotel standing in the shadows. There were no police in sight, but I had no doubt that the meeting had been too loud.

Hours after the meeting, Julie and I fell asleep in each other’s arms in her room. Lobsang, a Tibetan man who worked at the hotel, awoke us at six the next morning with homemade momos (yak meat dumplings) and tomato-egg soup. “Very good,” Lobsang whispered excitedly to Julie. “Thank you for your help. Any wounded Tibetans, I am sending to you.”

“No tourists with sore throats,” I said.

“Yes,” Lobsang said, smiling broadly. “Don’t forget—I am not English-speaking. If the Chinese find out, I am finished.” Lobsang excused his still-smiling self and we organized the assortment of medicine that Julie had collected into piles of antibiotics, pain medicine, antiseptics, and bandages. We had one pair of hemostats to use removing bullets, but no sterile gloves or injectable anesthetic.

The different kinds of antibiotics we did have could provide broad-spectrum coverage for infections. This could save lives.

Andrew came in with a handsome blond couple. Heidi was a Swedish woman who, like me, had just graduated from medical school. She and I talked about not being able to do anything really helpful, and doing more harm than good if we were caught. Mark had a full beard and wore wool Tibetan pants and a vest. He looked like Saint Nicholas and turned out to be a lawyer from Australia who had lived in Tibet for the past eight months. He spoke good Tibetan and Mandarin. His dress and gentle demeanor stood out in marked contrast to Andrew, who wore a green army coat.

“You look tired,” Julie said to Andrew.

“I was up all night,” Andrew said, “trying to find someone at the Lhasa Hotel who would take a roll of film to Hong Kong. Let’s get started, shall we?” Andrew opened his clipboard and said that he had met a Norwegian orthopedic surgeon who would act as a backup if anything happened to Heidi or myself. The five of us would work as a team.

“This room will be our temporary base of operations,” Andrew said. “Mark, you and Heidi comb the Barkhor for contacts to more wounded. Stick to people you can trust, like elders and monks. Jake and I will meet you at ten in front of the Jokhang. I met a monk yesterday who told me there were many wounded monks hiding inside the monastery. I set up a meeting. Julie, you stay here and coordinate incoming messages. We should all meet back here at noon.”

At ten, when we all met at the main entrance to the Jokhang, a group of Chinese and Tibetan men were looking intently at two posters glued to the monastery walls. One poster was printed in Tibetan, the other in Chinese. I stepped closer to read them and two of the men raised their truncheons. I had to jump back to avoid being hit. Apparently, the men were police.

“Keep walking,” Mark said. As we continued on he explained, “These are posters from the underground. I saw them go up early in the morning before the undercover police staked them out. They say, ‘Ten to twenty people died yesterday. Ten to twenty more may die. It does not matter. The Chinese have been here for thirty years. Now is the time to act.’”

By now, circumambulating the Jokhang had almost become second nature. Not only did I recognize individual vendors selling jewelry, but also monks who had stayed in the same place reciting scriptures for weeks. One pilgrim stood out more than the rest. Regardless of the time of day he was naked from the waist up and did prostrations around the Jokhang. At first his spasmodic movements and piercing stares had frightened me. Today he smiled, and I felt an unspoken kinship with him.

Convinced that a side door near the Jokhang’s main entrance would open, Andrew stationed himself next to fifty older Tibetan men and women doing full-length prostrations. Like inchworms moving in place, they stretched out over the stones and then stood up, raising their clasped hands to the sky. Andrew devoted his undivided attention to the wooden door, which was obviously bolted on the outside. A small eddy of onlookers gathered in the stream. Even the Tibetans were wondering what he was doing. Andrew was a menace; I was sure he would get us all arrested. Heidi slipped a hand under Andrew’s arm and gently coaxed him away.

Mark led the four of us past the prostrators into the temple’s main entrance. Five somber Tibetan monks with well-muscled arms blocked the stairwell. Mark explained that Heidi and I were Western doctors and we were led up the steep stairs to the roof. Strings of prayer flags ran from the tips of the many-terraced roof to the tops of its golden spires, and carved wooden dragons jutted out from the corners like medieval gargoyles. We crossed several terraces, ran twice across open stretches, and climbed down some steep stairs to a dank room permeated by the smell of rancid yak butter and incense.

Our first patient told Mark that he had been shot in the stomach. He pulled up his shirt to reveal bloody gauze wrapped around his abdomen. Fortunately, the laceration skimmed but did not enter his side. “Kelsang was standing in front of the police station when a policeman on the roof shot him,” Mark said. I had been so absorbed with Kelsang’s wound that I had not heard him talking the whole time.

“How many demonstrations has Lhasa had?” Andrew asked.

“Since 1959,” Mark translated, “there have been many major demonstrations that these monks know of, all as large as yesterday’s riot. Yesterday was different only because Western travelers witnessed it.”

A dozen pus-filled craters dotted the next monk’s forehead. The oily salve he’d put on it made his burns look worse than they were. He held out a wide-mouth jar for us to examine the preparation of ground herbs it held. In my fledgling Tibetan I said, “Tibetan medicine is good.” The monk nodded and stared deep into Heidi’s beautiful cerulean eyes. Heidi told Mark to explain how important it was for the monk to avoid touching his face, and to wash his hands regularly with soap. I doubt the monk heard a single word Mark told him.

“Sonam here was one of forty-seven monks taken into the police station,” Mark translated. “At first the police used rifle butts and cattle prods to beat all of the monks. Lobsang Gyatso, a twenty-one-year-old monk from Sera Monastery, was beaten on his head with a shovel and fell to the ground inside the police station. Sonam did not see him get up. After the police station began to burn, everyone was taken into the back rooms. The place was getting very hot and Sonam saw a Tibetan policeman let some of the monks escape out a side window. A Chinese policeman saw this and shot the Tibetan policeman in the head with his AK-47. At this time Shue Chuntan, the head police officer, ordered another Chinese policeman to shoot one of the monks in the forehead. His name was Lobsang Deleg, and he was killed instantly. Buchong, a twenty-two-year-old monk from the Jokhang, was also shot. The bullet went in the front and out the back. Both monks were killed with AK-47s. The police told the monks that they had killed a total of eleven people inside and outside the police station. Sonam says the number is really much more, because that doesn’t include the Tibetans who will die in prison.”

Sonam talked so vehemently that the corners of his mouth were bleeding. This made him look grotesque. He seemed more interested in Heidi’s eyes. Heidi realized that the monk had a crush on her and held his hand. Andrew checked to make sure that he had recorded each monk’s name, age, and monastery correctly.

“If it weren’t for Champa Tenzin,” Mark said, referring to the grotesquely burned monk who ran with Sonam inside the burning police station and engaged the police in hand-to-hand combat, “Sonam thinks the police would have killed more people. Sonam and Champa Tenzin created so much commotion that others escaped. The police threatened to shoot anyone who did not exit one of the side windows and run back to the police lines. But after jumping out the window into the side alley, they took a chance and ran toward the Tibetans. He says his face was burned during his escape, and that his burns were minor compared to Champa Tenzin’s. This does not bother him compared to a rumor that he has mentioned several times.

“Sonam keeps saying that the police have killed two of the Jokhang monks with lethal injections. The police use two types of injection on the prisoners. One makes the prisoners talk freely. Another makes them crazy, if it does not kill them. He says the injections scare him more than being tortured.”

Walking down the main street the next day, I felt as though someone was staring at me and I turned around. People were running to get out of the path of an army convoy of twelve trucks. Each truck had machine guns mounted on its top and cab. At least thirty-five soldiers with fixed bayonets peered menacingly over the side rails of the trucks. Tibetans on the sidewalks made derogatory hand signals and uttered curses under their breath. The caravan of special forces had been sent from Golmud to quell any future uprisings. They had traveled across the Friendship Highway, as we had. With the arrival of reinforcements, snipers appeared on the rooftops around the Jokhang Temple. The soldiers enforced a 10:00 P.M. curfew.

“We were mentioned on the front page of the New York Times,” John said. “Two days in a row: ‘Two Americans arrested in Tibet,’” I had not seen John for two days and thought he was kidding. “I’ve never been more serious. That piece of paper I sent out with our names and passport numbers got on the wire service. Today I talked to correspondents from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, the Far Eastern Economic Review. So many I can’t remember. And they all want to speak to the young doctor who is sneaking out to treat the wounded. Andrew is pissed.”

John explained that three plane-loads of new arrivals to Lhasa had arrived from Chengdu. The passengers on each plane consisted of military officers and reporters; both groups were trying to look inconspicuous to the other. John said the Chinese were dumb to let the reporters in at all. The reporters didn’t sound that smart either—they were all staying at the Lhasa Hotel.

“Can you believe a French magazine is paying an American photographer $600 cash to sneak into Sera Monastery?” John said. “I’d sneak into Sera for free. We should go there tonight. You could treat patients and see a sky burial.”

“Do you know what Chinese soldiers did in Sera last night?” I asked.

“No! Do you?”

“They broke in at two in the morning to beat the monks with cattle prods and clubs with nails driven through the ends. The soldiers tried to force the monks to renounce the Dalai Lama and Tibetan independence. After half an hour many of the monks were bleeding profusely. Blood was everywhere. One monk lost his right ear. Several were executed.”

“How do you know this?” John asked. “Did the monks tell you? I’d give anything to be able to talk to an eyewitness.”

We talked about our respective “tourist” and “medical” undergrounds. John told me about his epic ride back from the Lhasa Hotel at 4:00 A.M., well after curfew, while dogs attacked him.

“I was hoping things would calm down after the riot,” John said. “It’s just getting worse. All the buses leaving Lhasa this morning were turned back.”

Some of the reporters traded bits of information ruthlessly, the way one might trade futures on a commodities exchange. Our story was valuable as an exclusive, if we had not spoken to any other information junkie. If we had, it was worthless. There were also reporters like Ed Gargan of the New York Times and Dan Sutherland of the Washington Post, who worked hard to get information on the streets instead of at the Lhasa Hotel bar. Tibetans and Westerners working to gather information and help the wounded felt deeply indebted to these and many other reporters whose presence, we felt, protected us.

A man named Adam who said he was from the State Department arrived in Lhasa with the reporters. Adam was tall, young, and blond, dressed in the khaki pants and upturned collar of an Ivy League preppie. He bumped into us on the street “accidentally” We talked, and John asked if he could get word to our parents that we were safe. Adam said that he could, if we signed a release of information. I didn’t trust Adam. “I advise both of you to leave Lhasa as fast as you can,” Adam said. “If something happens, we can’t do anything for you. The State Department has no jurisdiction in China.”

“We’ll be fine,” John said. “We’ve got a week before we have to leave.”

“None of my patients are fine,” I added, and I told Adam about the twelve confirmed deaths, how wounded Tibetans were afraid to seek medical care at Chinese hospitals, and how monks said that the police were using injections to debilitate recalcitrant prisoners.

“I’ll make a note of it in my report,” Adam said.

“What is China’s official statement about the riot?” John asked.

“The Chinese said that a few splittists staged a small demonstration,” Adam said. “They said that Tibetans were angered by what they saw, took guns from the police, and shot the Tibetan demonstrators. The Chinese estimate that one Chinese policeman was killed.”

“No police officer was killed,” John said. “To the best of my knowledge.”

“Leave Tibet now,” Adam said. “It’s for your own safety.”

“What is the State Department’s position on the riot?” John challenged.

“China is very sensitive about Tibet,” Adam said. “We hope they resolve this incident as soon as possible, but it’s not for us to get involved.”

The next afternoon two of our arresting officers, the young Tibetan trying to grow sideburns and the Chinese mute, followed Andrew and me into the market. We were on our way to see a ten-year-old boy who had a fever from an infected gash in his scalp, which he’d gotten when a policeman had struck him with a bayonet during the riot. “I see them,” Andrew said after I tipped him off, walking faster. The police were fifty feet behind us. Standing a head taller than the Chinese and Tibetans in the market, we were an easy target for our pursuers. “Follow me,” Andrew said, zig-zagging between Chinese women selling vegetables. “Shit,” Andrew exclaimed, as he splashed through a fetid orange puddle that spanned an alley. We ran down another cobblestone alley where human excrement seeped onto the street from a second-story toilet. A side alley let us sprint around a horse-drawn cart loaded with cabbages. We lost the police and resumed our search for the boy.

Andrew found the boy’s house at the back of a construction site, but a stout woman in a purple chuba would not let us in. Andrew pleaded with her in Tibetan and Chinese, but she closed the door. I did not blame the woman for not trusting us, but I could not face the boy’s dying from infection.

We saw sixteen patients on our second visit to the Jokhang, in a room where beams of light from windows near the high ceiling sliced through the dusty air. The monks were between seventeen and thirty five years old; all had been beaten severely. After the riot, the police had rounded up twenty Tibetan men, women, and children and took them to an empty schoolhouse. They were beaten for two hours before being released with a warning: “If you demonstrate again, we will kill you.”

A pattern to the beatings was obvious: bruises covered each person’s head, spine, kidneys, and all the major joints. Nightsticks left long purple bruises on the back and arms. Stones left large, irregular, macerated blotches on the skin. Gun butts left raised triangular patches on the scalp. The external bruises did not bother us as much as the probability of internal bleeding. Even a slow bleed inside the head would increase pressure on the brain until it herniated and the person died. All of the monks complained of headaches, but they were alert, had clear speech, and their pupils responded to light. I knew that several nights later some of them would begin to slur their speech and lapse into coma; I also knew that I was powerless to do anything except document what I had seen.

In exchange for mild pain relievers and reassurance, we were overwhelmed by effusive thanks. Unlike the other monks we had seen inside the Jokhang, no one knew or would tell us the whereabouts of others who had been wounded. As we prepared to leave, I wondered how many more wounded were hiding in Lhasa’s homes and monasteries. It was already four days after the riot. People with bullet wounds were dying from infection. Antibiotics were the only lifesaving thing I had to offer.

A nervous young monk came up to Mark and spoke earnestly. Mark translated, “His name is Lobsang. He is concerned about Jokhang monks who were arrested after the riot. He wants us to take their names to the Dalai Lama. Their names are Gyantsen Tharchin Champa Tenzin…”

“How many names is that?” Andrew asked.

“One name,” Mark said. “You know him. He’s the badly burned monk who ran in the police station with Sonam. He was arrested several days after the riot, along with Gampel Sengya, Donyo, and Gamyang Chodon and taken to Sangyip Prison.” How could I forget the image of the burned monk, which woke me up in the middle of the night crying?

“Lobsang says that special torture teams from mainland China arrived in Lhasa’s prisons after the demonstration. The monks are bound by metal cuffs on the wrist, which get tighter if they move. The cuffs are pounded while the police force the monks to say that Tibet is not free, and find out who organized the demonstrations. Each monk was stripped naked and beaten with clubs with nails driven through the ends, rifle butts, electric cattle prods, and truncheons. Lobsang says the police beat the monks into unconsciousness, then revived them with cold water. No food has been given to them for two days. ‘Tibet’s freedom will be your food,’ one of the policeman yelled at them. Lobsang also says that their testicles were crushed by policemen standing on them.”

“How does he know this?” Andrew asked.

“Lobsang tried to visit them in prison. He did not see the monks. But one of the Tibetan guards told him.”

“Ask about the special torture teams,” Andrew said, taking notes.

Mark translated after he talked with Lobsang for a while: “In addition to their beatings, the prisoners are hung by their thumbs, hung by their ankles upside down with a heater under their head until they pass out, tied to electric beds, and submerged in a tub of ice water. Lobsang says that these tortures were not done before the riot. He also says that he learned that the Austrian secret police helped train the Chinese police.”

“You’re under arrest!” a deep voice boomed as the door to my room was kicked open. I sprang into midair with nowhere to run as Julie stepped in. I told her she sounded like she had been taking voice lessons from tantric chanting monks. Within minutes we were playing hackysack on the Barkhor Square in front of the Jokhang. Hundreds of Tibetans gathered around to witness the spectacle. Julie kicked the hackysack high into the air, to the crowd’s astonishment, then let the sack bounce on her raised thigh and down to her feet, where she juggled it with the inside of each foot before passing it to me. The crowd cheered and pushed closer.

A handsome Tibetan Khampa with baggy burlap pants and untied boots stepped into our circle. Julie passed the sack to him and he kicked it hard over her head. The crowd cheered and a flock of children ran screaming after it. The largest boy returned the sack to our circle. He dropped the sack on his foot, juggled it three times expertly, and passed it to Julie. She juggled the sack a few times and passed it to the Khampa. The crowd cheered again as the sack soared over Julie’s head.

I realized that we were as much of a spectacle to the Tibetans as the chanting monks were to us. I passed my overturned felt hat, Several Tibetans extricated small, crumpled bank notes worth one cent from folds in their clothes and put them into the hat. One Tibetan woman gave us a two-cent note. A father gave his child a coin to hand to us.

This inspired Julie and me to bring a Tibetan woman into the circle. She juggled the sack several times until the Khampa strode boldly over to her, grabbed the sack, and kicked it back into orbit. The crowd cheered and more crumpled, well-worn notes dropped into the hat. One woman with an infant on her back gave us five cents. The same woman pointed to me and made throwing motions with her arm. Several Tibetans in the crowd mimicked with approval. They must have seen me at the riot. I felt uncomfortable taking any money from a woman with a child on her back, but she wouldn’t take it back. It was impossible to get the crowd to step back and give us enough room for more than a minute, impossible for the Khampa not to kick the sack as hard as he could each time he had the chance, impossible not to be awed by Julie’s agility. In half an hour we had enough money for a round of beer.

Mark pulled me off the sidewalk later that afternoon. It was the first time I had ever seen him looking distraught. He said he had just heard my name on Xinhua radio, in Chinese, broadcast from Beijing; it was said that I was a “splittist agent of the Dalai Clique,” and that I had urged Tibetans to throw rocks at the police. It was also said that I had been arrested with another foreign instigator and we were being taken to Beijing for further questioning.

“I’m sorry I have to tell you this,” Mark said. “I think you should know that Andrew told a reporter and a wire service that you threw rocks at the police during the riot. I couldn’t believe he could do such a stupid thing. The damage is done.”

I was stunned. I wandered away, and I’m not sure if I even said good-bye to Mark. Telling reporters that I had thrown rocks at the police jeopardized my being able to sneak out for medical rounds. Andrew had no reason to give anyone my name, unless he wanted to hurt me. I could feel myself exploding as my hotel loomed larger in front of my eyes. I found Andrew on the third-floor balcony, talking with John and a core group of travelers I recognized from the first meeting after the riot. Andrew didn’t wait for me to reach him before leaving the meeting. “Let’s talk in your room, shall we?” he said.

“Did you tell the reporters I threw rocks?” I exploded as soon as we were in my room.

“No,” Andrew said, sitting down calmly on the bed.

“Don’t lie to me,” I shouted. “Did you tell reporters I threw rocks at the police?” “Who told you this?” Andrew said, as though talking to a child. I yelled at him and he moved farther back on the bed.

John came in then and told Andrew, “Blake is easily excited. You should have seen how hyper he got when we were arrested.” He asked in a nonjudgmental tone if Andrew had told a reporter that I had thrown rocks. Andrew squirmed.

“Did you?” I yelled before John could intervene.

“Well…” Andrew stammered, “…yes, I did.”

“Why?”

“Because you did throw rocks.”

“Don’t you see how that jeopardizes Blake’s staying in Lhasa?” John interjected.

It became clear why Andrew wanted me out of the picture. The reporters had been more interested in talking to us than to Andrew, the self-proclaimed leader of the “tourist underground.” He was jealous. This was a brilliant way to get rid of me. My right fist tightened into a knot. I thought how good it would feel to punch Andrew, especially with his glasses on. “I’d like to punch you in the mouth,” I told him.

“Are you threatening me?” Andrew asked.

“No—yes, goddammit! I could be arrested again.”

“Well, calm down,” Andrew said. “We have to work together. We have to get medicine to Champa Tenzin.”