The White Mirror Read Online Free PDF

bells down again on the table, now polished so bright that the walls of the room were reflected in each one. Li Du looked at the string of identical stretched reflections. His glance shifted to the round copper lid on the shelf, then to the painting in the corner. “I think,” he said, “that it was a mirror.”
    Hamza, who had followed the direction of Li Du’s look, lifted his eyebrows. “In this part of the world, mirrors are carried by gods.”
    Li Du nodded in the direction of the shrine in the corner. “In paintings like that one.” He stood up and crossed the room to examine the little devotional painting. It was a delicate piece of work that depicted a woman seated in an open flower against a background of green and blue. She held a curling plant with red and white blossoms. Open eyes stared from her palms, the soles of her feet, and her forehead. Her red garments floated around her.
    â€œThere is no mirror in this thangka,” Li Du said, “but I have seen them, held, as you say, in the hands of gods and goddesses.” Li Du recalled the visible outline of the fingertip that had pulled the serpentine length of blue paint from one side of the dead man’s chest to the other. “It was roughly done: the white circle, gold frame, and handle wrapped in blue ribbon.”
    â€œAnd you say that he did it himself?”
    â€œThat is how it appeared.”
    They were both silent for a moment, Li Du remembering the paint-smeared fingers and the terrible wound. “Did you meet a monk here?”
    Hamza shook his head. “There is at least one monk, but I saw him just before I heard what happened, so he cannot be the dead man. There is a mountain temple not far from here—he is inside it lost in prayer.”
    â€œYou visited a temple?” Li Du raised his eyebrows slightly. Hamza was adamant in his wariness of monasteries, which he insisted were dangerous places.
    Hamza shrugged. “In the name of exploration, not of worship. In the morning I went to the village, but I came back and had nothing else to occupy my time.”
    â€œYou did not return by way of the bridge?”
    â€œNo—the village is on this side of the water. There was no one about at the manor, and the pines were emitting a green light before the storm. I found stairs in the mountain like dragon’s teeth. How could I resist? So I climbed them, and of course I came to a temple. It’s always a temple or a shrine in these mountains. The snow became so heavy I feared I would become lost in it. I returned, and now I am here. My room is that way, closer to the kitchen and not so cold as this one.”
    â€œAnd the family—what are they like?”
    â€œThe usual kind of family. A lord, his lady, children to inherit the land and coin coffers and animals. The wife is young, and seems to know all that occurs in the manor. I heard her recite the amount of payment received for every animal they sold last year at the market as if she had only just struck the bargains.” Hamza glanced behind him and lowered his voice slightly. “Doso is from an old family, and he will tell you how his ancestor did some service for a king. And then he will tell you about all of his ancestors. And then he will talk about crops and the value of different yak breeds.” Hamza sighed. “And there is a mother, Doso’s, who turns her prayer wheel by the fire and does not speak. And the other visitors, of course.”
    â€œMore travelers? In this remote place?”
    Hamza nodded. “For a valley so difficult to find, an unusual number of people have found it. There is a dignitary from Lhasa. He is a man of high status who asks uninteresting questions about taxes and crops and the state of the roads and the health of other families of rank. But it will please you to know that one of your favorites is here—a foreign monk.”
    â€œA Jesuit?” Li Du had studied with