Meng hesitated, glancing at Shan, then she nodded and turned back toward the window. “No need. She climbs like a monkey,” Meng said, sipping at her wine.

As they watched, the girl climbed down a drooping limb then slipped around it on her hands and dropped directly onto the bust of Mao, straddling it. She began beating the head of the Great Helmsman like a drum.

Meng shook her head in dismay.

“Negligent parents,” Shan suggested.

“I am certain of it,” Meng replied with a hint of a smile. “We had to wash paint off her face today.”

“Why paint?”

The old woman who makes those charts and horoscopes seems to enjoy the girl. She has a gerbil as a pet. The only time Kami was quiet all day was then, just like on our prior visits.”

“Kami?” Shan had not heard the girl’s name before.

“Kanmei, but Kami suits her. It’s funny, but when the gerbil looks at her, she gets very quiet. I watched them today. The gerbil and Kami just stared silently at each other, the gerbil with his head cocked at her as if he recognized her. Those big eyes of his must hypnotize her.”

Shan smiled. “The Tibetans would say they knew each other in a prior life. The gerbil is the reincarnation of a famous lama.”

“I thought famous lamas went on to some higher level of existence.”

“Some do. But most in this region had disturbances in their devotion at the end of their lives. They couldn’t prepare for death the way they should have, or even broke their monastic vows in their final days.” He saw the question in her eyes. “Some monks and nuns were forced to marry and then forced at gunpoint to consummate the marriage in front of soldiers. Some were forced to disavow the Dalai Lama. Some picked up a gun to resist.”

Meng sipped more wine and offered one of her melancholy grins. “What will we come back as, Shan?”

“I tend to think I’ll be a surly yak. And I recall someone in prison telling me that every knob would be coming back as a beetle,” he said, and immediately wished he had not spoken the words, for she winced, not seeming to take them as a jest.

Meng touched her glass to his and spoke in a whisper. “Then try not to step on me, Constable,” she said.