Beautiful Ghosts (12 page)

He gently returned the pot to the case, closed it, and replaced it on its shelf. Stealing a glance at the doorway, he lifted the Walter Scott novel from its resting place again and leafed through its heavy white pages, pausing at its color plates of knights in armor and damsels with sad, distant expressions. The borders of the plates, but not the other pages, were stained with many fingerprints. Near the front was a small printed legend. Published in London, it said, 1886. Looking guiltily toward the door but unable to fight the emotions the book had triggered, he turned to the opening page. With an unexpected rush of excitement he read out loud, in a hesitant whisper at first, then louder, pausing to step to the door so he could read toward the sky.

In that pleasant district of merry England which is watered by the river Don,
it began,
there extended in ancient times a large forest, covering the greater part of the beautiful hills and valleys which lie between Sheffield and the pleasant town of Doncaster.

Suddenly he realized his hand was trembling, his heart racing. The names floated on a flood of memory and, for a fleeting instant, he thought he smelled ginger. He read on, in a slow, sometimes quivering voice. His father and he had sat together by candlelight, wondering about the faraway, exotic places described in the novel.

Here haunted of yore the fabulous Dragon of Wantley,
he read on,
here also flourished in ancient times those bands of gallant outlaws, whose deeds have been rendered so popular.

After another five minutes he closed the book, clutched it to his chest a moment, then reverently returned it to its shelf, pulled the flowered cloth back over the shelves, and stepped outside, leaving the door as he had found it.

He walked along the outside walls of the house, circled the stable once more, then ventured down a path that wound through large rock outcroppings toward the northeast. After less than two hundred feet he froze. A Tibetan woman in a black dress sat on a large flat rock, facing the mountains, her back to him, a large brown dog at her feet. Kicking a stone in the path to warn of his approach, Shan slowly advanced. The dog did not move, did not bark, only silently bared its teeth.

When the woman finally spoke, it was in a casual tone, as if she had known he was there. “Do you celebrate the birthday?” she asked, turning, calming the dog with a hand on its head. Perhaps sixty years of age, she wore half a dozen necklaces of elaborately worked silver, lapis, and turquoise, the kind of finery reserved for special occasions.

“Yes,” Shan replied hesitantly, pulling his hat low. “Lha gyal lo.”

She offered a melancholy smile, rose with what seemed to be a great effort, and walked back toward the house, Shan a few steps behind her. Directing Shan to sit on a small plank stool she rekindled the fire under the kettle and began singing, an old song Shan had heard at the festival. She swayed back and forth as the water heated, clutching the rosary at her belt, her eyes avoiding him but drifting often toward the eastern horizon, toward Zhoka. After several minutes she disappeared inside and returned with a small copper bowl of flour, extending it toward Shan. He took a pinch then waited as she did likewise.

“Lha gyal lo,” he said again in a wistful tone and flung the flour into the air.

“May he live forever,” the woman said, and tossed her flour over her head.

She silently poured the hot water into the smallest of the churns, mixed in salt and butter, and began churning. Shan searched for words, wary of her seemingly fragile state. When she had poured the buttered tea she stepped back inside and reappeared with a wooden serving board covered with shelled walnuts and small white kernels of dried cheese.

“You think I am crazy,” she said, then looked again toward the east and sighed. “I know the festival was to have been yesterday. But everyone in the hills left, taken by a black horse that came in the night. My nephew had promised to visit in the afternoon, so we could have our own little festival.” She abruptly pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle a sob. “I think someone may have died. I know them. Only death would have kept them away.” She bent and thrust her palms to her eyes, which had welled with moisture.

“You sat out there all night?” Shan asked.

“The clouds kept hiding the moon. I didn’t want them to miss the house in the dark.” She pulled a little black box out of her sleeve. “I used this.”

Shan extended his palm and she set the box in his hand. Shan had seen such devices used by the army. It was a global positioning indicator, with a small screen for displaying latitude and longitude. Its red diode blinked to indicate it was active. It cost more money than half a dozen Tibetans earned in a year.

“One of my nephews gave it to me,” she said as Shan returned the device to her. “He says it helps people find their way. But it is so dim. I held it over my head in the night, to help them see it.”

“I was there,” Shan said. “At Zhoka.”

“You saw him, you saw my Jara and his children? He had gone to the bus in town and back to his herd. I should have gone to Zhoka with them but my legs are too worn.” She paused, worry in her eyes. “He was supposed to bring a little girl back from the bus. But there were soldiers in town.”

“Dawa?” Shan asked. “Dawa was there.”

The woman beamed and clutched at the rosary on her belt. “I have never seen her. When her mother was young, she used to help me at the kiln.”

“Jara’s family should return soon. Jara hurt his leg. Some soldiers frightened everyone. Dawa ran toward the south.”

A small moan escaped the woman’s lips. “Not the south. She cannot be ready for the south,” she whispered into her hands.

Shan looked back at the costly navigation device. “Where is your other nephew, the one who gave you the black box?”

The woman glanced up with worry in her eyes, then looked into the fire. “He lives in faraway places.” She looked back at Shan and shifted as though to stand. “If Jara hurt his leg, who will bring Dawa away from that place? I will go, if I have to crawl I will go.”

“What place?” Shan asked, but she did not answer. “A friend of mine has gone for Dawa,” he said. “She will be safe,” he added, hoping his uncertainty did not come through in his words.

They drank the strong, salty tea in silence, the woman gazing into the fire.

“When you said someone had died it was almost as if you expected it,” Shan said quietly.

“All who arise will go up,” she whispered. It was part of an old prayer, about the certainty of death.

“There was an old man, Atso. He fell climbing to a sacred cave.”

The woman was silent for more than a minute, then sighed. “He insisted on climbing up to the deity at least once a year. It was always the way he would die.”

For the first time Shan saw a charred strip of paper, at the edge of the fire. The last word written on the strip was still visible.
Phat.
It was the emphatic closing of a mantra to invoke deities. “Someone burned a prayer,” he observed.

“I should not have done so.” The woman plucked the paper from the ash and straightened it on her knee. “The black horse brought them, one for every family. Recite it a thousand times, she said. But she did not say why we were supposed to burn it after.”

“Liya?”

The woman nodded. “Our Liya.”

“For what deities?”

She leaned forward, fixing him with a somber stare. “Protectors. The wrathful ones.”

“Why?” Shan asked.

The woman said nothing but rose and led him to the stable. Inside, on a beam along the back wall, hung a line of old thangka paintings. They had all been mutilated, one cut in half and sewn back together, others riddled with holes. Underneath were half a dozen painted ceramic statues, some cracked, some with pieces missing.

“Godkillers.” The word rushed out of Shan’s mouth as if on its own accord, leaving them staring at each other. “They came here?”

“No. What would I have to interest such demons? People in the hills remember that artists once lived here, and bring things hoping they can be repaired.” She stepped outside with a quick step, as if the sight of the ruined art caused her pain, and poured them both more tea, motioning for Shan to sit again.

They drank in silence.

“Would you do that once more?” the woman suddenly asked with an awkward smile. “You can bring it outside where the light is better.”

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.