Eliot Pattison - Beautiful Ghosts

As the others followed, Shan paused to survey the plain again. The wind had indeed increased, and a low cloud of dust had risen along the floor at the far end so that the monoliths there seemed to be floating in an eerie brown fog. Now that the deities had gotten them there they seemed loath to let them leave.

They moved down the tortuous narrow path for several minutes, stepping through a short tunnel then over a narrow channel cut into the rock to emerge into a landscape like none Shan had ever seen. It seemed as if great square blocks had been cut out of the high steep ridge, each nearly a hundred yards wide, perhaps half as deep, and fifty feet high, creating a series of four giant steps leading to the top of the ridge. The tiers of rock had sprouted juniper and hemlock trees, and houses made of stone and wood. The houses were built along the mountain walls, connected by stairs carved along a small stream that cascaded down the ledges. At the base a small wooden waterwheel caught the water as it tumbled into a pool at the base of the ridge. People could be seen on every level-not many, not enough to populate all the houses. Some stared at the newcomers suspiciously. Most glanced at them and went about their labors, as if they had been expected.

Half a dozen of the inhabitants gathered behind Liya, as if they expected her to protect them. “What do you call this place?” he heard Yao ask.

“Bumpari Dzong,” Liya said, in a voice full of warning. “It is a very old place. They say before people lived here, gods did.”

Bumpari Dzong. It meant Treasure Vase Mountain Fortress. The old blind woman had referred to Lodi’s home as Treasure Vase, Shan remembered, the traditional place where spiritual treasures were stored.

Lokesh rubbed his palms together, seemingly delighted at her response. As Shan stepped to his side he began pointing, low sounds of pleasure coming from his throat, at two women pressing wool between two wet blankets, the first step in felt-making. Then to a small wooden frame loom where an elegant rug was being created. And a woman crushing plant stems with a stone pestle, making incense in the old style. They were things, Shan realized, Lokesh had probably not seen for years, for decades even, things from his childhood he may have assumed were lost forever.

The extraordinary terraced settlement was indeed living in a different century. The houses, the implements, the reverent relief carvings on the rock walls, even the homespun and embroidered clothing of most of the inhabitants could have been from the eighteenth century or earlier. But as he studied the inhabitants, Shan saw that the young woman sitting at the loom wore an expensive gold watch, and a teenage boy who worked at the waterwheel had stylish running shoes on his feet.

Corbett pulled on Shan’s sleeve. “The entrance path,” he said.

Shan turned to see a team of yak straining, pulling a huge slab of stone with braided leather ropes down the stone channel they had stepped across, sealing the tunnel that led to the village. Beside it a dark, compact man stood like a sentry, holding a musket. The man did not look like the others in the village. Shan suspected he was from across the border, from Nepal, probably of the Gurka people. In his wide belt was a curved blade, and what looked like an automatic pistol.

Liya ushered them toward a small clearing under a half circle of juniper trees growing at the base of the cliff that defined the western wall of the settlement. Vines grew up the cliff, and peeking through an opening in the vines was an animated, excited face carved in the stone, the laughing countenance of a Tibetan saint. Inside a ring of mortared stones a fire burned, a kettle on its grill of iron bars. Others arrived as the tea was being churned, one of them a middle-aged woman in a red embroidered dress, who brought a copper teapot which she filled from the kettle, then from a pouch at her waist dropped in several green tea leaves. She poured the green tea into four matching white cups-for Shan, Yao, Corbett, and herself-as the other Tibetans silently accepted bowls of traditional buttered tea. They sat in a circle, studying their visitors with expectant faces.

“We have waited long,” the woman in the red dress said in a warm tone. “Welcome to our village.” She spoke the words two times, once in Mandarin, once in English. As she sipped her cup the sun broke out of the cloud cover, washing the little clearing in a brilliant light.

“Your eyes!” Dawa blurted out, pointing at the woman. “What is wrong?” Then she paused and looked to Corbett and back at the woman. “They are like his! Like a goserpa’s,” she said.

Blue. The woman’s eyes were blue. Shan studied the other villagers, some of whose faces were obscured by hats. More than half of those he could see had blue eyes. They had found the blue men who lived in the south.

“Yes,” the older woman said, and handed the girl a wooden bowl of shelled walnuts. “A wonderful man lived here many years ago, an Inchi teacher. He was the grandfather and great-grandfather to most who live here today. He came from England a hundred years ago.”

The words caused Corbett’s head to snap toward the woman. “British?” the American asked.

The woman nodded. “In the Wood Dragon Year, hundreds of British came to Tibet. Many became good friends of our country. And more,” she added with a mischievous glint, then refilled their cups.

She was referring to the Younghusband expedition, Shan realized, in which Great Britain, reacting to exaggerated reports that Russia was establishing a military foothold in Tibet, had sent troops to force political and trading links with Lhasa. The year had been 1904.

“They came as soldiers,” she said. “Ready to do war. But for many the real fighting they did was inside themselves. They had not known about Tibet, about Tibetans.”

Shan searched his memory, recalling Western history books he had read with his father. There had been a few small battles, with heavy casualties among the Tibetans, who fought with charms and muskets against Maxim machine guns. The British had surprised the Tibetans by giving medical aid to the wounded Tibetans. The Tibetans had surprised the British by using the Buddhist scriptures as guidelines for negotiations. After leaving Tibet, Colonel Younghusband, the expedition leader, had been a changed man. He formed a new council for world religions, and spent his life working for global peace.

“You are our guests,” the woman said. “You may wash,” she said, pointing to a stone trough by the pond. “You may explore our world. We ask only that you respect the mourners,” she added, gesturing toward a small structure beyond the junipers that had the appearance of a temple. Two braziers flanked the door, each emitting a column of smoke. “And that you will not go to the top level, where there are sacred things. Later we will share food.”

Shan studied Liya as the woman spoke. Her face was clouded with worry, and she looked away when she met Shan’s gaze.

Dawa pulled Corbett toward the pond. Lokesh started up the path to the next level, where gardens of flowering shrubs led to a long elegant timber frame building.

Liya stepped toward the temple, as if to avoid Shan, who watched, sipping tea as the circle around the fire dispersed. He studied the strange, beguiling landscape, his gaze settling on a cottage at the opposite end of the first level, a sturdy wooden building with a gracefully sloping wooden shingled roof and a narrow porch on which were suspended a large prayer wheel and several flower boxes, spilling blue and red blossoms down the porch railing.

As he stepped onto the porch of the cottage, Shan found himself touching the exquisitely worked copper prayer wheel, turning it as he walked by. At the end of the porch was an old rocking chair, its rockers worn thin from long use.