Eliot Pattison - Beautiful Ghosts

“The work they did here was famous all over Tibet, famous even with the gods,” a deep soft voice suddenly interjected. Surya was a few steps behind Shan, standing at what had been the entrance to a small building. He was intensely studying a piece of rock in his hand. Not a rock, Shan saw, but a piece of plaster, part of a painting. The front half of a deer was plainly visible, a familiar image from a scene of Buddha’s first sermon. “Here,” the tall, thin monk said, speaking to the deer in a voice that was strangely apologetic, “here you must be nailed to the earth.”

As Shan approached him Surya stepped into the ruined building, still seeming unaware of any of them, like the day before.

In the silence that followed the monk’s odd words Shan surveyed the rubble in which Surya stood, a sudden, terrible sense of premonition making him desperate to understand. Part of one wall remained erect, the rest was nothing but stones, shards of plaster, and charred debris. Surya took another step, then seemed to weaken, falling to his knees. Lokesh rushed to his side then froze as Surya extended his long fingers toward the sky, opening and closing them repeatedly, as if trying to gesture something down from the heavens.

After a moment the monk reached toward a pile of rubble a few feet away. Shan stepped uncertainly toward the pile, a heap of burnt timbers and broken roof tiles. Liya stepped forward to help and in less than a minute they had uncovered a small cracked, wooden chest with two drawers, eight inches high, nearly twice as long. Surya’s eyes gleamed with excitement as Shan handed it to him, as if the monk, who like the rest of them was a stranger to the ruins, knew the chest. The brittle wooden front broke as the monk pulled the bottom drawer. Surya reached inside and extracted a handful of long graceful paintbrushes, gripping them tightly, holding them toward the sky. He closed his eyes as if praying a moment, then began passing out the brushes, one to each of those present. “Today will be the end of all things,” he declared in a dry, strangely joyful whisper, then smiled as he handed the last brush to Shan. “Blessed Atso. Blessed protector!” he cried.

Shan stared at the monk, his confusion greater than ever. Surya knew about the dead man. Had Surya somehow been trying to explain what had happened to Atso?

“Listen to that little girl,” Surya blurted out. “She is understanding.” The monk abruptly stood and stepped back toward the courtyard. Shan and Lokesh exchanged a confused glance. There was no little girl. The only children they had seen had been Jara’s sons.

Today will be the end of all things. Surya’s words echoed in Shan’s mind as he stepped back into the courtyard with Lokesh, the long narrow brush in his pocket. It would indeed be the end for Gendun and the monks if soldiers came.

He forced himself to focus on the chant and the reverent Tibetans in the courtyard. Jara stood with his wife ten feet from the chorten, watching the young monk who had taken up the chant, nodding as Surya settled beside the monk and joined the chant. Lokesh nudged Shan’s arm. Jara’s wife had one arm around a young girl, no more than eight or nine years, who huddled between Jara and the woman.

“She is my sister’s daughter,” Jara explained as Shan approached with his gaze on the girl. “From a city in Szechuan Province, hundreds of miles to the east, come to us to learn about life in Tibet. Her parents were from these mountains, but they were sent to work in a Chinese factory before she was born. She has never been here, never even been with Tibetans except her parents.”

“That statue,” Shan said. “Do you know where it came from?” As he watched, one of the old Tibetan women, then a second, rose and walked back into the shadows, toward where Atso’s body lay.

“There are many like it, if you know where to look,” the herder replied. “That one found the first god that was slaughtered, the big man,” he said, nodding toward a huge ox-like herder in a dirty fleece vest standing thirty feet away. “He said godkillers are the worse kind of demons. He brought one of the dead ones to us, in case someone in my family could heal it.”

“Are the godkillers the ones you meant,” Shan asked, “the ones who kill for a word? What word?”

The question seemed to hit Jara like a physical blow. He recoiled, then pressed a fist against his mouth, as if he feared what might escape, and stepped away.

“What is it?” the girl blurted out, her eyes locked on Surya, who sat only a few feet away. “What is wrong with these poor men?”

“It’s just a sound that souls make,” Lokesh explained with a satisfied grin. The words sent the girl deeper into her aunt’s apron.

“They don’t teach how souls speak in those factory towns,” Jara’s wife said, warning in her voice.

“But something in her is trying to listen,” Lokesh observed as the girl straightened, her head slightly cocked, her fear seemingly replaced with wonder as she gazed at Surya. One of the old Tibetans reappeared, her face clouded with worry, but she did not spread alarm. She was trying to control her fear, Shan saw. Despite Atso’s death she did not wish to disturb their first festival in many years.

“It scares me,” Jara’s wife confided in a nervous voice. “All these monks. If anyone from town…”

“My mother said each year this day is full of miracles,” Lokesh said, rubbing his grizzled white jaw thoughtfully. “Saints could appear from some bayal, she told me,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, referring to the traditional hidden lands inhabited by deities and saints. “It is a time for joy, not fear. When is the last time you celebrated this day?”

The woman turned her head away, but Shan could not tell if she was embarrassed or just trying to ignore Lokesh. After a moment her head slowly turned back toward Surya. “I was just a girl,” she said with a tiny, distant smile.

Lokesh turned toward a clay jar on a flat stone behind them, one of several scattered around the old courtyard, dipped his hand inside, then extended it toward her. She pulled her hands behind her back as though afraid, then, hesitantly, brought one hand forward and let Lokesh pour some of the white flour from the jar onto her palm. The woman stared uncertainly at her hand.

Lokesh grinned and made several small, upward motions with his open hand.

“I have a cousin who is in prison for doing what you ask,” the woman said, gazing solemnly at the flour Lokesh had placed in her palm. She sighed, then abruptly threw the contents of her hand into the air, a gleeful cry escaping her husband’s lips as she did so. In the next moment Lokesh did likewise, so that they were enveloped in a small cloud of barley flour.

The woman’s tense face cracked with a smile as Lokesh danced a little jig, his arms outstretched at his sides, looking so light it seemed he might float away. She flung more flour into the air, then clapped her hands as she raised her face to let the flour drift onto her skin. “He is alive for another year!” she called out. The cry was taken up by several of the older Tibetans, who began reaching into the jars themselves.

Throwing barley flour into the air was a traditional act of celebration, but the government had made it a crime for Tibetans to do so on this particular day. For today was the birthday of the exiled Dalai Lama.

“Lha gyal lo!” Lokesh called toward the sky. “Victory to the gods!”

The woman paused, looking over Shan’s shoulder and he turned to see the girl standing behind them, worry back on her face. Her aunt threw a handful of flour over the girl, who backed away from the cloud as if frightened of it.

As the woman studied the girl, her glee disappeared. She motioned the girl back toward Surya and the younger chanter.