Beautiful Ghosts (4 page)

They sat in silence and listened to the distant throat chant.

“What can be said to all these people, who have never been inside a temple?” Shan asked at last. “To those whose fear has been so great they have never even spoken with a monk?” There was to be a meal at noon, when Gendun meant to address the gathering.

Gendun smiled. “We will teach them to begin falling with their eyes open.” It was one of the old teaching riddles, one Gendun had used with Shan in Shan’s first days at Yerpa. What is the way of human life, the student asked. An open-eyed man falling down a well, the master replied. As jarring as the words seemed at first, Shan had come to recognize them as the perfect caption for the lives of those who lived at Yerpa. The spirit was jostled through many life forms in its development, Surya had told Shan during his early days at Yerpa, and could expect to live a brief human incarnation only after a thousand other incarnations. Life was so short, and the human incarnation so precious, that the hermits of Yerpa devoted every moment to enriching it, not only through their religious teachings but by creating wondrous works of art, illuminating manuscripts, writing histories, composing poetry and creating beauty in the ways that translated the teachings of compassion into the smallest of actions. Once you recognized the well you were tumbling into, Gendun was fond of saying, what else could you do?

Gendun knew as well as Shan that one informant, one errant patrol on this day, could mean the end of Yerpa, which had sheltered monks, scholars, and hermits for nearly five hundred years. The end of a place Shan had come to view as one of the great treasures of the planet, a brilliant gem on the crust of a drab world.

“I have brought what you will need, Shan,” Gendun said, gesturing toward a tattered canvas drawstring bag with faded, once elegant Tibetan script depicting the mani mantra, the traditional invocation of compassion. “Lokesh can show you the way this evening. There is a full moon.”

Gendun and Shan had solemnly packed the bag the day before as Gendun spoke of ancient hermits and recited poems the hermits had written. In the excitement of the day Shan had forgotten that he was about to leave on a solitary month-long hermitage in a cave deep in the mountains.

The sight of the bag released a new flood of emotion. Not long after he had returned to Yerpa from the north the month before, Shan had fallen gravely ill, burning with fever, lapsing in and out of consciousness for three days. When he recovered, Gendun had been very quiet around Shan, as if troubled. Something had happened that no one would speak of. Fearful that a new danger had arisen for the monks, Shan had pressed Lokesh until the old Tibetan had explained that in his fever one night Shan had called for Gendun like a frightened child, crying, saying he had to go home, saying he had to be free now.

The words from Shan’s sickness had strangely shaken Gendun and Lokesh. It was why Shan’s fever had lasted so long, Lokesh had explained, leaving him so weak he could barely sit up, because his spirit had become so imbalanced, because he had what the Tibetan doctors called heart wind.

Shan had no home beyond Yerpa, no real family but the monks and Lokesh. But Lokesh explained that the fever had burned away into a dark place inside Shan, a desperate place that had not been touched by the Tibetans’ healing, a place the Tibetans did not know how to reach. It had hurt Shan beyond words to see the self-doubt on the countenances of Gendun and Lokesh, and it had been days before he could bring himself to speak about it, to try to explain it away, as a dream perhaps, one of the recurring dreams of himself as a boy looking for his father. Don’t believe that voice, he had wanted to tell them, don’t believe that part of me doesn’t want to stay with you, don’t believe that you are incomplete as teachers.

“You must journey inside,” Gendun had finally told him, using one of his phrases for a long-term meditation. “You must find a way to stop imprisoning yourself. I know a cave,” he had announced, and they had spent more than a week preparing, meditating together, selecting the items to accompany Shan. A few butter lamps. Two blankets. A pouch of barley, a small pot, a pouch of yak dung for fuel. And his old heirloom throwing sticks, used by Shan and several generations of his family before him to contemplate the Tao te Ching, the ancient Chinese book of wisdom.

“How could I leave now?” Shan asked in a whisper, not even sure Gendun could hear, but knowing what the answer would be. “The soldiers will tell Colonel Tan about the festival now. There will be danger for the monks of Yerpa, danger like never before.”

“For us there is nothing more important than meeting these people, for whom the Buddha has been but a shadow all these years. For you there is nothing more important than reaching that cave.”

There was movement behind them. They rose and discovered Liya, gazing at them hesitantly. The shy young woman seemed somehow stricken. Lokesh appeared behind her, glancing with a worried expression toward Shan, trying to calm Liya with a hand on her shoulder.

The big ox-like herder emerged from the shadows, leading Jara and most of the other hill people.

“Soldiers!” he barked, pointing to the old stone tower. “Between us and our homes!” The Tibetans were murmuring excitedly, fear back in their eyes. “The whole world knows of your secret festival!” the big herder snapped at Liya in an accusing tone. “You may as well have sent a personal invitation to that damned colonel.”

Liya turned toward Gendun, and her eyes grew wide in surprise. Shan followed her gaze to discover that Gendun had settled onto the long lintel stone. He was in the lotus position, feet folded under him, his right hand open, fingers pointing downward, in the earth witness
mudra,
one of the ritual hand gestures. He was facing the western ridge, in the direction of the soldiers. One of the old women who had been sitting at the chorten pushed forward and settled to the ground in front of the lama. “If soldiers are coming today,” she declared, “here is where they will find me.”

Liya stepped to the woman’s side. “We can hide and be safe,” she said. “Shan and his friends will help us.”

Strangely, the words silenced the crowd. Liya gasped, her hand shooting to her mouth, then exchanged an alarmed glance with Lokesh.

“Shan?” the big herder shouted at her, then stepped to Shan and knocked off the wide-brimmed hat that had been obscuring his features. “Damn me!” he spat, then turned to those behind him. “This is the one? The Chinese who always intrudes in Tibetan things? She’s right, Shan will help us get out of this,” he said with a cruel grin, his scarred face looking wild and hungry.

“Shan is going on retreat,” Lokesh declared in a plaintive tone and stepped between Shan and the herder.

“Right,” the man growled. “With a chain and a pickax.” He turned to address the Tibetans gathered behind him. “He’s the one they’re looking for. There’s cash money on his head,” he declared, raising his voice. “One hundred American dollars. Enough to keep all of us fed for months.”

Gendun began a mantra.

Shan stared, his throat suddenly bone dry, looking from his friends to the fiery herder. “Who is paying?” he heard himself ask. Bounties were not uncommon in modern Tibet, whose communist masters had developed their own peculiar twists on market economies.

“Only a rumor,” Liya said in a tight voice. “It’s Tan. People say you’re to be taken to Colonel Tan.” She looked up into Shan’s eyes. “You never go to town. Even if it were true we thought you would be safe staying up here. These people don’t know you. Didn’t know you,” she corrected herself, pain in her eyes.

“It’s no rumor,” the herder snapped. “There’re papers in shop windows now.”

“I’m sorry,” Liya said to Shan. “Tan must want you back. You just have to go deeper into the mountains. Your retreat. Go now,” she said, gesturing toward the bag.

Shan’s release from prison had never been official. Liya meant back in hard labor prison, back to the 404th People’s Construction Brigade.

Shan’s gaze drifted toward the bag bearing the mani mantra. He knew his friends had not been trying to deceive him by not revealing the bounty, nor trying to protect him. Bombs fell, bullets were fired, bounties were levied. To Shan, like his Tibetan friends, such things had become little different from hailstorms and winds, part of the harsh environment that had evolved in the world they inhabited. They might pull their hats down and quicken their pace, but they would not step off their path. The bounty would have as little significance to Lokesh or Gendun. What mattered to them was that Shan completed his month’s retreat.

“Soldiers like that, if they get angry they’ll burn our houses, kill our herds,” the huge herder growled.

Liya stepped beside Lokesh, in front of Shan. “We would not give up Shan any more than we would give up one of these monks,” she declared sternly.

“You understand nothing!” the scar-faced herder shouted, glaring at Liya. “You never told us about what you planned here. It is the wrong time for monks and festivals. So naive!” he spat. “You brought this on by luring everyone here with false hope! The only chance to keep the soldiers away now is to give up Shan.”

Jara’s wife appeared, holding the hands of their two sons, looking at her husband with an intense, searching expression. Jara took a step toward his wife, then looked down at his chest, seeming surprised to find one hand closed tightly around his gau. His head slowly rose as he looked at Lokesh and his sons, then he turned and sat cross-legged in front of Gendun. Two more herders, tough middle-aged men with bone-hard faces, pushed past Jara’s wife to join the big herder, eyeing Shan with hungry expressions. But the woman seemed not to notice them. She stared in wonder at her husband, still clasping his gau, and the joy slowly returned to her face.

“A hundred American!” the scar-faced herder spat. “They want him in prison!” The man turned to those behind him. “When did we ever have a chance to put a Chinese in prison?” he asked with a laughing snort. “We can make this a day for celebration after all!”

“No!” Liya barked. “He is one of us! He is protected by our clan!”

“You just run and hide in the south when danger comes,” the herder shouted at her. “It’s easy for you to appear for a day, then leave. We cannot hide. We have to live here. Atso was murdered. Isn’t that warning enough? We must be rid of the Chinese and their godkillers,” he growled, pointing at the monks.

Shan did not move. He sensed Liya tense as if she were about to spring on the man, but instead she closed her hand around his arm, as though to keep them from dragging Shan away.

“Not murdered,” Shan said. “It was an accident.”

“You don’t know that,” the herder spat.

“I do. Atso has told us.”

The herder’s face darkened. “We don’t make light of the dead.”

“But you would make light of the truth?” Shan asked soberly, surveying the Tibetans. “Why was Atso at the foot of that cliff?”

“That’s where the godkillers found him, that’s where they beat him, a hundred feet from his hut.”

“His boots were wrapped in jute but they were not falling apart. His hands were scratched and gouged.”

“He fought back,” the herder snapped. “They probably beat that little Tara in front of him, to torture him.”

“No,” Shan said. “She was attacked elsewhere.” He glanced at Liya, who nodded then darted out of the yard. “What did Atso do, all these years since his wife died?”

The Tibetans glanced uneasily at each other, the oldest keeping their eyes from Shan.

“There were no strands of wool on his clothes, none of the lanolin in his hands that he would have if he worked with sheep. I’ll tell you what I think,” Shan said. “He tended the old shrines, the hidden ones. He had a prayer box, he had beads. He had a pouch of flowers in his pocket, another of wood chips. And water. It’s what you put on altars in the old days. He still believed. He was going to an altar.”

Liya reappeared, holding the little silver statue. Shan set it on a flat rock in the bright sun. “I think I know that high valley where Atso lived,” he continued. “It is very dry, all rocks and heather. Why was the hut there? Who would build in such a place?” When no one answered he pointed to the gash in the back of the goddess. “If you look carefully you will see something trapped in a fold in the metal, because whoever did this cut the statue open first then turned it over and smashed the head. A piece of grass was trapped in the folded metal. There is no grass where he lived.”

Liya extracted a folding knife from her pocket and pried back the fold in the metal. She reached into it and pulled away a green blade, holding it up for all to see.

“It proves nothing,” the herder growled.

“Why was the hut there?” Shan demanded again, very slowly.

“The cliff above faced south with a small spring below,” Lokesh offered in a contemplative tone, referring to two of the attributes of a traditional place of spiritual power. The old Tibetan turned toward the others and repeated Shan’s question.

“A cave,” the old woman by Gendun said, nearly in a whisper. Someone near her cursed, another shouted for her to be silent. Instead she spoke more loudly, turning to speak to Gendun, as if he had asked the question. “High up on the cliff,” she cried out, “an ancient place where gods dwell. The hut was built for those who protect the cave, who serve the gods.”

Shan looked at Gendun, and realized that the lama’s glance at Atso’s body and brief words should have told Shan everything he needed to know about the dead man. The lama had known that Atso was engaged in sacred work. “When he found the goddess somewhere else, on a grassy slope, he decided he had to protect it,” Shan said, “maybe heal it, by taking it to the holy cave.”

“It’s what he would do!” the old woman gasped in sudden realization.

“He wrote a mantra a thousand times for protection, then wrapped his boots in jute for better traction and climbed the cliff,” Shan said. “But he fell, breaking his legs, ripping his ear, breaking the bones on one side of his face where he hit the rocks. There is no murderer,” Shan declared in a loud, slow voice. “There are no monks who kill.”

As he spoke Liya pointed excitedly toward the old tower. “The soldiers are gone!”