Eliot Pattison - Beautiful Ghosts

Shan looked at her a long time as he tried to understand her words, then set his tea down, stepped inside, and retrieved the novel. She offered a satisfied nod, filled their bowls again, then settled onto a wooden bench by the fire, the dog at her feet.

Shan read for a quarter hour, the woman smiling, sometimes looking dreamily into the fire, stroking the dog’s head. He began to sense she was reacting not so much to the words but to the general tones and cadences, the sound of someone reading in English.

When he paused to drink more tea she reached out and stroked the book. “You have a voice like a lama,” she said.

“I have to go up into the mountains now,” Shan ventured in English.

She flushed. “I not … understand good,” she said in the same language, apology in her voice. “It just reminds me of old things,” she added in Tibetan. “Good years, when I was a girl.”

When she looked up into Shan’s face he knew his own eyes were full of wonder. The quiet gentle woman had spent good years with someone who read English to her, probably more than fifty years ago. In the mountains of southern Lhadrung.

“I will look for Jara and your other nephew,” Shan offered.

She smiled but did not say yes. “The other one does not like people looking for him. He will just hide. I have lots of family,” she said with mischief in her eyes now. “But some of them are phantoms. Kind to me with everything but their presence.” She sighed. “It is better to forget about that one, about anything I said of him.”

Shan rose, handing her the book.

“If you come this way again please stop to read,” she said, pressing a handful of walnuts into his palm. “I will fix you a good meal.” She darted inside and returned a moment later still holding the book but handing him another object, a small painted tsa-tsa of Buddha.

“Why are there foreigners in the mountains?” he asked as he readied himself for the trail.

“Someone broke their vow,” she said in sudden despair, then she seemed to catch herself, and smiled. “Travel safe.”

“I am called Shan. I don’t know your name,” he said.

“My name is Dolma,” she said, and clutched the book to her breast. “But you may call me Fiona.”

* * *

Three hours later Shan was back at the old stone tower above Zhoka. There was no sign of life anywhere, on the slopes or in Zhoka itself. He stared at the paintings inside the tower base once more, then slowly circled the tower, pausing several times to study the ruins. It felt as though the ruins themselves were watching him, as if the old gompa were alive somehow, a living thing, long slumbering but now awake and watching. It was dangerous to misunderstand the secrets of Zhoka, Atso had warned Lokesh. But more than ever Shan was certain he had to understand those secrets.

There were new prints in the soil around the tower, prints of boots with light treads, not army boots, nor the kind usually worn by Tibetans. Someone else had visited the tower. Inside, he knelt in front of the old painting, and lit a match in front of the words obscured by Surya. Someone had made new words with a pencil. No, he realized as he studied the pattern, seeing that in spots the pencil lead followed a few dark lines that had not been obliterated. Someone had traced the old words, as if they had magically perceived them, or had known them before. It was in the old script, the scripture writing, and Shan struggled to make sense of all the words. Om Sarvavidya Svaha, it began. Hail Universal Knowledge. After the mantra were more words. Become pure for the earth palace, become fearful of the Nyen Puk. He stared at the last words. Nyen Puk. It meant cave of the Mountain God.

Along the cliff between the tower and the gompa was a long shallow swale in the earth he had not noticed before, the vestiges of what long ago was a well-used trail descending along the edge of the abyss that formed the northern boundary of Zhoka. He followed the path a hundred feet, squinting in the brilliant sunlight, then kneeling, studying for the first time the faint line of shadow along the cliff that indicated its route, imagining the cliff with monks walking along it. Returning to the crest he surveyed the landscape again. The cliff trail joined the main trail to the ruins at the tower, and a quarter mile away another, less used trail, continued along the crest after the main trail veered toward the gompa. He studied the crest trail, seeing new shadows now, discovering that it circled the gompa above the bowl in which it sat. The trail had been a kora, one of the paths that circled old gompas and shrines, walked by pilgrims to gain merit. It meant the tower had been a station on the kora, the first station encountered by anyone coming from the west, the direction most travelers would have come from. The beautiful painting in the base of the tower, the elegant mantra, and the passage under the painting Surya had erased, had been for pilgrims, to teach them about Zhoka.

He followed the overgrown path along the edge of the chasm, pausing several times to gaze over the edge, remembering his lost throwing sticks. As he entered the ruins he stayed in the shadows, walking along the edge of the courtyard with the new chorten, into the empty foregate yard. There was no sign of Gendun, no sign of the Tibetans who had fled. There was just the lintel and its message, as appropriate for investigators as for pilgrims and monks. Study Only the Absolute. Director Ming had used the words, had visited the ruins and spoken with Surya. Could Surya have destroyed the words at the tower because he knew of Ming’s interest? But Ming had been with Surya at the tower before. Surya, Shan suddenly realized, had destroyed the words because he had learned of something just the day before, in the tunnels, that would suddenly make them of interest to Ming and his colleagues, that would, if read, result in damage to Zhoka.

In the central yard, he found a butter lamp, left at the wall behind the chorten from their nighttime work there, lit it, and cautiously moved down the stairs. The pool of blood was still on the floor of the chamber with the paintings, dried a dark brown. He paced along the walls of the room. The terrible haunting air of the chamber seemed to have dissipated, the scent of death gone. For the first time since pocketing it he touched the strange peche leaf written in English, then examined the walls again. He explored the walls with his fingertips, reaching into the small cracks and ridges of each wall, examining every corner, gazing at the one wall of exposed rock and the image of the blinded deity on the adjoining wall. Surya and Gendun had acted as if the ruins on the surface were unimportant, as if the gompa had never been destroyed. Was it because the important features of Zhoka were all underground? If Zhoka had indeed been an earth taming temple its ancient builders may have started inside the earth.

Suddenly the sound of footsteps echoed from the tunnel beyond. Shan blew out his lamp. The steps stopped, low voices spoke, and beyond the entrance the strobe of a camera flashed, twice. The white shaft of an electric lamp pierced the darkness of the tunnel beyond, then into the entry that led toward Shan. Shan darted to the nearest corner and crouched. He waited thirty seconds, a minute, then just as he stood again a figure emerged through the door, fixing him in the beam of light.

“You!” a voice cried out in surprise.

Shan threw his hand up to shield his eyes and began slowly stepping sideways along the wall toward the door he had entered.

The intruder walked slowly toward Shan, keeping the beam fixed on his face. “What are you doing? How did you find this place?” The man stepped between Shan and the stairs.

As the beam was lowered toward the floor Shan was able to discern the features of the short Han from the government center, still wearing his white shirt and brown sweater vest.