Eliot Pattison - Beautiful Ghosts

The words caused Shan to look toward the ridge above the ruined gompa. In a patch of summer flowers sat a solitary figure, a slender woman in black, scanning the landscape with binoculars. Liya, one of the few hill people who secretly helped the monks, was keeping watch.

“Prayers must be spoken,” Lokesh declared.

“No,” the herder shot back. “We have no rites in these hills. That’s how people get arrested.”

“But you came today,” Lokesh pointed out.

“That woman up there,” the herder said, gesturing toward Liya, “she rode a horse from camp to camp, saying in front of my family that a miracle was going to happen here today. How could I say no to Liya with the children listening? They were even singing on the way this morning. They never sing. Then we found Atso lying like that near his hut.”

It wasn’t the herder’s description of events that pained him the most, Shan realized, but the way his despair was somehow devoid of emotion, as if all his grief had long ago been used up.

“And now a man in a robe waits to trap us,” the herder added. “The way of godkillers.”

The expression tore at something inside Shan each time it was spoken. “Why would you use such a terrible word?” he asked.

With his blade the herder lifted a small sack from the side of the corpse. As Shan took it and upended its contents onto the blanket another mournful cry left Lokesh’s lips. It was a small, delicate silver statue of Tara, the protective goddess, perfect in every respect except that her head had been flattened, destroyed by a violent blow. The herder prodded the statue over with the blade. The goddess’s back had been split open, as if she had been stabbed from behind.

The devastated statue seemed to upset Lokesh even more than the dead man. The old Tibetan picked up the broken goddess, cradling her in his arms a moment, his eyes glistening with moisture, before laying her back beside the battered corpse, whispering to her all the while. Shan could not hear the words, but the sorrow in his friend’s voice was unmistakable.

When Lokesh looked up again he gazed at the herder with an unexpected determination. He slowly rose and took the herder’s arm, leading him a few steps to where they could see Surya again. Lokesh would not let the herder’s fears destroy the festival.

“Listen to that sound he makes. Look at that chorten, ” the herder said, referring to the shrine. “If he’s not from the government he is a sorcerer. I bring my sheep to these hills every spring. It was never there before. Built by ghosts.”

Built by ghosts. Shan and Lokesh exchanged a glance. In a way the man was right. For the monks of Yerpa, the hidden hermitage where Shan and Lokesh lived, had built the small elegant structure by moonlight, with one monk always praying as the others constructed the tiered foundation and its bell-shaped spire. It was to be a monument to the ruined gompa, a sign that the deities had not entirely forgotten the local people.

“Ghosts and murderers, and Liya makes me bring my family here.”

“I’ll tell you a secret,” Lokesh whispered, an unusual edge of emotion in his voice. Shan knew how it pained his old friend to see the people of the hills react to them with such suspicion and distrust. Lokesh closed his eyes a moment as if to calm himself. They were on the brink of disaster, Shan realized. A few more words from the herder to the other Tibetans and they would all flee, some perhaps spreading word of killers, but others of illegal monks, which would bring soldiers into the mountains.

Lokesh pulled out the silver amulet box, the gau, he wore around his neck and carefully opened it. It was an extraordinary thing to do with a stranger, and the action quieted the man. Inside the gau, under several small folded pieces of paper which Lokesh emptied into his hand, was a tiny photograph of a bald monk wearing spectacles, his face serene but laughter in his eyes. “That monk who chants,” Lokesh explained, “his name is Surya. He comes from high in the mountains, not the world below. And inside his gau he also carries a picture of the Dalai Lama.” He pointed with a gnarled finger to the photograph. “Have you truly forgotten what today is?”

The man’s brow furrowed and he pressed his palm tightly against his temple, as if in sudden pain. He stared at Lokesh, then Surya, and the fear in his eyes slowly waned, replaced by a sad confusion. He reached into his shirt and extracted a prayer box that hung around his own neck. “I have one of those. My father wore it, and his father.” He stared at his small, elegant silver gau. “But it’s empty,” he added in a haunting tone. “When I was a boy my teacher burned what was inside.” The words seemed to remind him of the dangers in the hills, and he glanced back at Atso’s body. “His murderer is out there, stalking old Tibetans. You must flee, too. In town they say there’s a bounty on someone’s head. Soldiers are searching. We have to…” His voice faded as his gaze returned to Lokesh.

“What old Tibetans?” Shan asked in alarm. “Who has a bounty…” His own words drifted away as he glanced back at Lokesh.

With a fingernail the old Tibetan was slowly prying the photograph from his gau. As the herder watched in disbelief Lokesh placed the photo in the man’s own prayer box. “We will ask Surya to write a prayer for it, to keep by your heart,” he said.

The herder’s jaw opened and shut several times as if was struggling to find words. “You truly mean it, that he is a real monk?” Emotion flooded the man’s face. Confusion, but also gratitude, then awe and pain. “My name is Jara,” the man whispered, not taking his eyes off Surya now. “In all my life I have never seen a monk, except the ones who visit from Lhasa once a year with the Bureau of Religious Affairs. They make speeches, not prayers. The children never…” The words choked in his throat.

“It’s too dangerous for a real monk,” he continued in an urgent voice. “If he’s a real monk, here, then he’s an outlaw. Those soldiers will take him to that prison in the valley. He must cover his robe. Please, for all of us, cover his robe. You have no idea how terrible that prison is.”

Lokesh grinned and rolled up his sleeve. The herder stared in confusion, until his gaze fell upon the long line of numbers tattooed on the old Tibetan’s forearm.

“You were there?” the herder asked with an anguished groan. “You were a prisoner and still you risk doing this?”

Lokesh pointed to an old cracked metal brazier by the chorten, a ceremonial samkang, where a small juniper fire burned. “The fragrant smoke attracts the deities. They will protect us. You’ll see.”

Shan glanced back toward Liya, still perched high on the hill. Not everyone relied on the deities for protection. She was watching the west, toward the garrison at Lhadrung Valley, and surely would have called out if she had seen soldiers.

“That song he makes,” Jara said, gesturing to Surya. “Is that what monks do?”

Lokesh shrugged. “It’s part of the celebration. He has found his serenity and is rejoicing,” he added as he exchanged an uncertain glance with Shan. The day before at Yerpa they had found Surya destroying a painting of a god he had worked on for weeks. He had not acknowledged them when they had asked why, only silently slashed at the cloth, had not spoken to anyone since. But now the chanting appeared to have brought back the joyful Surya they both knew.

The words seemed to heighten Jara’s anxiety. He nervously looked back toward the slopes. “Tibetans don’t celebrate in Lhadrung, unless it is a Chinese holiday. This is Colonel Tan’s county,” he added with a shudder, referring to the iron-fisted officer who ran the county, one of the few still under military rule.