Farewell Pass
In the frozen stillness before dawn, when only the baying of Tibetan mastiffs and the cries of wild beasts broke the silence, the escape party crept up the steep, ice-glazed path above the village, toward the mountain pass. Soon the carpet of shimmering stars faded into the brightening twilight sky, and the sun broke the horizon like a blinding explosion, gilding the peaks of the mountain range across the valley. The party pushed on until the wind whipped prayer flags at the top of the pass came into view, and Pa Dorje, the group's leader, signaled a rest while they were still shielded from the fierce winds further up. The party of twenty-six people included six young couples, some with their children, and some elders sturdy enough to make the fifty-mile trek over two passes to the Sikkim border. They shed their heavy khurshing packs, and leant against the mountainside to soak in the sun, while some gathered kindling to brew tea and unpacked bowls, tea churn, and tsampa.
Suddenly, a woman's cry pierced the howling wind, "Look! Look!" She stood crouched on the path, fifty feet below the rest of the group, her trembling fingers pointing down at the valley. One by one, they turned toward their village, where the sun had yet to reach. The headman's home was ablaze, and tiny figures scurried between houses and across the fields, silhouettes against the shadowed landscape. The passing mule train leader's warning two days earlier about a Chinese patrol in the next valley had proved correct. He had also informed the headman that Kundun, the Dalai Lama, had left Lhasa four days earlier and that the city was under siege. That night, the village hummed with hushed prayers for His Holiness' safety, gyaling horns and drums emanated from the monastery late into the night, and the air was heavy with the scent of burning juniper from every rooftop. And then last night, after a day of tense crises in every household, those attempting to escape and the ones staying behind consoled each other through tears and khatak offerings, begging one another to take care and to be strong.
Through his treasured Chevalier binoculars, acquired long ago in Lhasa, Pa Dorje, the group's leader, saw soldiers storming the settlement, hauling people from their homes. The thundering river beside the village swallowed their screams, but he could read the violence in their movements. His chest tightened as his suspicions about the recent meeting of village leaders summoned by the Chinese, became clear. This was no "liberation from foreign forces," as the Chinese had claimed. In all his fifty years, walking the trade routes from Lhasa to Kalimpong, across the Indian border, he had never once encountered a single "American imperialist oppressor" the Chinese railed against. His weathered hands trembled, prayer beads clicking against the binoculars' brass casing, as he described what he was seeing and then quietly recited the Mani mantra for the people below, and soon the whole group was reciting the mantra, their voices quivering with fear and despair.
Two weeks earlier, the village had sheltered resistance fighters, providing food and care for the wounded. At a hurriedly called village council, the headman had urged simply supplying the fighters and sending them on, fearing Chinese reprisal against the whole village. But Pa Dorje had pounded the table with his fist and declared, "The day our village denies rest and healing to our warriors is the day I sever my own head." Those gathered nodded and mumbled, "True, true." The headman acquiesced and then urged anyone traveling outside the village to maintain strict secrecy. Yet somehow, the militia's presence had reached Chinese ears. Pa Dorje's hands now trembled as he held the binoculars tightly against his eyes to stem the tears.
As their mantra reached a fevered pitch, with some collapsing to their knees in anguish, someone spotted a small column of soldiers, their rifles glinting in the morning sun, crossing the bridge and scrambling up the path toward them. The mantras ceased to a silence, with only the low wail of the wind and the sobbing of children to be heard. Pa Dorje gathered the men in a circle and turned to Pasang, a young man who'd served a term in the Tibetan army, for guidance. Gentle by nature, Pasang had been anticipating a peaceful life with Shilo, his new bride from the neighboring village. But as he surveyed the faces around him, faces that had smiled just three months ago at his wedding, faces he had known all his life, his gentle features hardened to a beaten copper mask.
"Over there!" someone cried, pointing to the Chinese soldiers rounding a bend a thousand feet below. The usual drawn out protocols of deliberating even the smallest matters that would have taken place just days earlier, now seemed irrelevant, like a custom from a golden era long gone. Pasang stood up, his voice steady despite the fear churning in his stomach, and announced that he and two others would hold off the Chinese while the rest crossed the pass and onto the border without pause. The brutal logic of survival silenced them all.
Pa Dorje and Chok Pasang, the two elders, stepped forward immediately. Chok Pasang quieted his wife's protests with a jest about sending the Chinese straight to Amitabha's paradise before catching up with the group, then went over and whispered in her ear, his voice thick with unshed tears, begging her to live, to follow Kundun, and carry their stories forward. As the others prepared to depart, Pasang pulled Shilo aside and gave her instructions on finding his uncle in Kalimpong. He placed a finger gently on her lips as she started to plead with him, and then touched her forehead gently with his in farewell, a gesture that for the first time seemed both eternal and cruel in its brevity. Shilo heaved a deep sigh, wiped away her tears, and as if to say, "I won't let our world fall away," gave Pasang her radiant smile – the same smile that had first captured his heart in the high meadows when they were teenagers herding their family's sheep. Shilo had always felt safe with Pasang, always finding joy and laughter in his presence. She removed her grandmother's silver hairpin from her hair, its turquoise catching the sun like a tear, and tucked it inside his chuba. "I want it back" she whispered, and then turned to join the group.
When the party reached the pass, strewn with stone cairns and prayer flags snapping in the wind, Shilo turned around one last time. The three men looked like dots against the vast landscape, yet she could still make out Pasang's distinctive stance. "Next time," she promised the wind, closing her eyes to burn his last look into her memory – the love and adoration in his eyes.
The defenders watched their people disappear one by one over the pass, then turned to face their destiny. Now within charging distance, the Chinese rested behind rocks, their positions betrayed by threads of cigarette smoke. Pasang inspected their weapons, praying that the ammunition would fire. The village had traded the rifles and pistols for two years worth of wool when news of Chinese atrocities in Kham and Amdo, the provinces to the east and north, first reached their valley.
Pasang positioned the two "Palas" - honorific term meaning, "Fathers", behind rocks - instructing them that their sole purpose was to pin down the Chinese for as long as possible. He told them to make every bullet count, and most importantly, to avoid any heroics that would get them killed early and doom the mission. Without further words, they bowed deeply to each other. "Bod Gyalo!" Pa Dorje cried – Victory to Tibet – and they roared it thrice, their voices echoing off the mountain walls.
As the Chinese started shouting orders, Pa Dorje and Chok Pasang began reciting the Chenrezig mantra, seeking the deity's infinite compassion for themselves and for the lives they were about to take. As Pasang peered through the binoculars at the invaders below, somehow his grandfather's tales of Gesar of Ling sprang to mind. As a child, walking alongside the river with the old bard, Pasang had been mesmerized by the stories of the heroic warrior king's conquests and the gallant battle songs which his grandfather would sing, his hands sweeping the horizon as if he were actually seeing a thousand heroes and their horses in armor, charging under a sky blackened with arrows. As the Chinese began to approach, one of those verses emerged from Pasang's lips, as a low whisper.
The soldiers advanced methodically, darting between rocks, their number far greater than expected. When their footsteps crunched in the snow, Pasang unsheathed his Radri sword and laid it beside him. Pa Dorje's first shot shattered the tension. The Chinese dove for cover, shrieking orders the Tibetans didn't understand. Pasang's song grew louder, his voice now a deep rumble, as he swore to the Three Jewels that not a single Chinese would cross this pass to pursue Shilo and the others. He remembered her eyes as they had touched foreheads and thought, 'Next time."