Eliot Pattison - Beautiful Ghosts

Before laying the book on the table Shan went to the final entry, dated May 24, 1959.

We celebrated the queen’s birthday today. I played the fiddle in the fore-gate, and helped the lamas dance a jig. We threw flour in the air and drank a spot of brandy. Victory to the gods.

“Lha gyal lo,” a soft voice said over his shoulder. Elizabeth McDowell had been reading too.

“Is that true, Miss McDowell?” Shan heard Lokesh whisper. “Do you wish victory to the gods?”

The question seemed to disturb Punji. She looked away, but her gaze slowly drifted back to the open journal. “I’ve seen letters my great-grandmother wrote about Bertram. He was full of mischief. Girls’ pigtails in inkwells, that sort of thing.” She produced a pencil, then leaned over the open book, at the last entry, and wrote for a minute, then straightened and walked toward the empty bed.

Dear Uncle Bert, Shan read. Then she had written the mani mantra in Tibetan, and added, We will make the gods victorious. Give you joy, Punji.

Shan joined Corbett, who was at the third chest now. The American lifted out several bundles. A peche wrapped in silk, another wrapped in fur. On the bottom was a long piece of cotton, unadorned, folded, and sewn along the bottom like a pouch. As Shan lifted it out and laid it on the table, Punji was suddenly at his side. She reached into the pouch and pulled out a piece of yellowed cotton, with two handprints in the corners, the back of a thangka. With a gasp Punji pointed to the edge of the cotton. It was jagged from being torn. She did not move, did not speak as Shan reached over and turned the cotton over, revealing four pairs of hooved legs trampling humans and animals.

“Zhinje!” Punji whispered, then she clamped her hand over her mouth, her face draining of color. She had spoken the name which had not been heard in nearly fifty years. After a moment’s stunned silence Punji began rolling up the thangka. “The monks must have brought it back from the north, when he died. With this,” she said in a suddenly urgent tone, “we can beat them. Go to the first level,” she said in English. “Past the eastern gate there is a meditation cell with a piece of grey felt draped over the back of an altar. The chapel has a shelf of old peche, some of them open for reading. The felt covers a hole. Lu and Khan found air flowing through a crack in the rock and chipped out a small tunnel. I’ll say you ran into the maze, that you’re lost. Go. Go now. I don’t want more people hurt. Lodi and I, we never meant for people to be hurt.” She looked up for a moment at the journal, then grinned at Shan, excitement in her eyes, and stepped toward the packs they had dropped in the corner, holding the precious thangka.

But as she slipped into the shadow of the far corner, a figure hurtled through the doorway, falling, landing heavily beside the bed. It was Liya, holding her belly as if she had been struck. Two figures entered the room. Lu, the cruel-faced plasterman, holding a hammer in one hand like a weapon, and Ko, holding a staff, wearing a victorious smile.

“She was trying to run,” Lu spat. “But our new friend stopped her. He’s fast with that stick. I didn’t know he was an escaped prisoner.” As he spoke Dawa appeared behind him, following closely, tears on her cheeks. Lu shoved her forward and she ran into Liya’s arms.

Shan felt something strange course through him as he returned his son’s cool gaze, an odd heat that was unfamiliar at first. Anger.

Ko pulled something from a back pocket and extended it toward Punji with a businesslike air. It was a small gold statue.

The British woman, shouldering her pack, hesitated, then offered a weak smile. She glanced at Shan, took the gold figure, then closed her fingers around Ko’s hand. The action seemed to pleasantly surprise Ko. The perpetual sneer left his face as she squeezed his hand, for a moment replaced by an awkward grin. Then he gestured for Liya and Dawa to stand.

“That’s not polite, boy,” Corbett said in English as Ko raised the staff as if to use it on him. “Bad company breeds bad manners.” The American threw an apologetic glance toward Shan then lowered the light in his hand and turned it off. As if on cue Yao turned off his light and stepped to the candles, blowing them out. As Lu glared at them suspiciously Shan extinguished his own lamp, leaving only the lamps held by Lu and Punji to light the room.

Suddenly Yao seized the light from Lu, throwing it against the wall, the bulb flickering then dying. Corbett grabbed Ko’s staff, slamming it into Ko’s jaw, knocking him to the floor as Liya grabbed Dawa’s hand and the two disappeared out the door. Shan darted to Punji’s side arid put his hand on the lamp in her hand. She glanced at Lu, who was lashing the air with his fists, trying to connect with Yao’s jaw, and relinquished the lamp.

Shan tossed the light to Corbett as he and Yao grabbed their backpacks. Corbett offered a small salute to Punji and disappeared out the door, Lokesh and Yao close behind. Shan lingered, staring at his son, opening his mouth to say something. But he had no words, and let Corbett pull him into the corridor.

They found the tunnel behind the altar on the first level as Punji had described, hidden by the felt that blended with the shadows. The six-foot-long shaft exited onto an open ledge, which they quickly surveyed with the beams of their lanterns, discovering rows of old wicker storage baskets, coils of heavy yak-hair rope, stacks of old blankets partly covered with chips of rock, and a dozen old wooden pulleys, heavy enough to take the thick rope. Yao found a ladder made of rope, new nylon rope tied to a pillar of rock, and threw it over the edge. In an instant he was over the side and Liya began climbing down. Shan lingered, confused, as the others followed. He knew now where they were, above the chamber with the stolen fresco, the room where Lodi had died. He walked along the ledge, opening the first of the baskets. It was filled with old musty barley. Several chisels, some nearly two feet long, and hammers lay beside it, and beyond them a long, three-foot-high curvature, a cavity carved in the rock that ran the full length of the ledge, over fifty feet long. It would have been the perfect place for the storage baskets, but they were not in it. It was empty. He stared at it in confusion then turned toward a strange rustling sound and watched as a loose peche leaf tumbled out of the tunnel, blown from the altar by the air current, floating down into the lower passage. It was, he realized, how Brother Bertram’s verse had found its way to the level below.

Corbett urgently called for Shan to join them below. He lingered another moment, gazing at a brown stain underfoot, then climbed down, pausing once more to look at the two rectangular holes cut in the stone. They were for a ladder. There should have been a ladder to the storage shelf. He paused, recalling the splinter of wood he had found in the passage to the stream, then ran as the American called again.

Only when they reached the foregate yard on the surface did they rest, panting for breath, Yao producing the last of the water bottles as Lokesh sat against the wall, cradling Dawa.

“She’s going to break it wide open,” Corbett said in a victorious tone. “Punji. She knows exactly what happened in Seattle and she’s going to tell me.”

“You don’t know that,” Yao interjected between swallows of water.

“I do. I saw it in her eyes.”

Shan studied the American. “You mean you’ve decided she had nothing to do with the girl’s death.”

Corbett frowned, but nodded. “I don’t need to arrest her. No extradition. No blacklist for entry into the United States.”

Yao grinned. He too seemed to sense victory. “Are you feeling affection for her, Agent Corbett?” he asked in a playful tone.