Beautiful Ghosts Read Free Page B

know about Zhoka? What Chinese even would remember the place?” Liya scrubbed at one of her eyes. “I should have known better. I should have warned people.”
    “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