At first Shan thought the old man who broke out of the ranks was one of the transferred hard labor inmates, for he hobbled as if lame, one shoulder seemed strangely crooked, his unruly hair was mostly gray, and his face was lined with age. But as he approached the platform he grew more erect and his limp became less noticeable, as if he were growing younger before their eyes. He cast a long glance at the gate, where a young Tibetan woman had appeared, holding the reins of two horses.

The warden seemed oddly relieved as the man named Yankay Namdol obediently bowed his head, as if he had feared the graduate would behave disrespectfully in front of Tan. A soldier dropped a soiled drawstring bag at his feet, then the warden handed him his diploma and little red book. Yankay bowed his head to the gathered officers then backed away as he extended a hand into his bag, extracting a tattered coat, one of the sheepskin chubas favored by herders. The scores of witnesses watched with a strange, silent fascination as he put it on over his pajama-like prison tunic. He turned toward the brigade of prisoners, held the book over his head and made a deeper bow to them, raising a murmur of amusement in the ranks. Then he waved toward the woman at the gate and began walking in her direction, then paused to watch as several dogs ran out of the storage sheds behind the office building and began barking. A team of mules hitched to a cart of night soil bolted, their teamster running down the road after them. Shan saw the hint of a smile on the old man’s face, and when he continued toward the gate his limp had nearly disappeared.

Shan did not fully understand the little drama he was watching. He bent toward Tan. “What was his crime?” he asked.

“He killed two soldiers.”

Shan stared at the colonel in disbelief. A Tibetan who killed two soldiers would not even be alive a year later, let alone be walking out of a light duty education camp.

Tan frowned. “There were complications,” he added.

But Shan only half-listened, for he was now watching the strange motions of the Tibetan. Thirty paces from the gate he paused and pulled from his bag a bundle of dried sticks. He extended the bundle to each of the four directions then dragged his heel in the dirt, inscribing first a six-foot-wide circle then a series of short lines like tangents along its edge, before continuing on. The warden cursed under his breath and leaned toward a subordinate, pointing toward the circle in the earth and sending him to erase it. But at a sharp command from Colonel Tan, the young officer halted.