“You mean he was embarrassed by whatever happened here?”
“I hope he was embarrassed, if there was a Shambhala and he drowned it.”
“Maybe you could come back with scuba gear.”
“Maybe.” He walked back to the brow of the cliff. To the south were the plains and mountains they’d already crossed, an immensity of emptiness. Far below, their parked Land Cruiser was a tiny toy. Vultures wheeled between them and that bottom.
“So it ain’t here?” Mackenzie asked. Told you so, he thought to himself.
Jake ignored him, looking all about. He glanced at the lake but didn’t seem inclined even to scramble the final distance to its shores.
Instead, he suddenly stiffened and pointed, bringing to Rominy’s mind for a moment one of Delphina Clarkson’s hunting hounds.
His head turned to them and he smiled. “Smoke.”
42
The Nunnery of the Closed Door, Tibet
September 19, Present Day
T he nunnery that Jake had spotted was a hunkered quadrangle built like an old Tibetan fort. A stone outer wall twenty feet high grew organically out of the rocks on a steep ridgetop that jutted like a tongue from the Kunlun Mountains. The wall undulated with the terrain to enclose a temple, sleeping cells, and kitchen. The wall and utility buildings were gray, while the rectangular, flat-roofed temple was the red ocher of the Potala Palace. The buildings turned inward from the world-all doors and windows opened onto the courtyard, not the harsh environment-but prayer flags rose gaily to the apex of a darchen like lines to a Maypole. Golden finials marked the temple’s four corners.
It was from this refuge, so earth-toned that it was invisible from any distance, that smoke emanated.
“What the devil are Buddhists doing way out here, Sam?” Jake asked their guide.
“Contemplating the universe.” He shrugged. “Usually the monasteries are near villages. I’ve never heard of this one.”
“An unlikely location,” Jake murmured. “Unless there is a Shambhala.”
Getting to the nunnery was a tricky traverse, halfway down the rock dam they’d already climbed and then sideways to meet a goat track that led to the protruding ridge. A squall swept down from the mountains, first blowing gritty dust and then, when the sky darkened, rain mixed with snow. The dust and ice bits stung. The Americans, hoods up, looked like pilgrims themselves.
The gate, so old its wood seemed petrified, looked firm enough to withstand a battering ram. But it was the design upon them that startled Rominy. Strips of brass had been laid to make a pattern of interconnected squares, woven together so that each led to the other. It vaguely reminded Rominy of an Escher drawing of endless staircases leading up and down at the same time, an illusion that tricked the senses, but that’s not why she found it arresting.
It was the same pattern etched onto the gold coins left in Benjamin Hood’s safety deposit box.
“What does that symbol mean?” Rominy asked.
“That? Infinity,” Sam said. “You see it everywhere in Tibet, just like you see swastikas at times. They’ll take symbols like that and weave them into more complicated ones like a sun wheel.”
Jake raised his eyebrows and gave her a glance. Rominy shivered in the damp.
Hood’s souvenir gold coins weren’t a clue to a North Cascades gold mine. They were a reminder of this nunnery. A sign they’d come to the right place.
The Americans were wondering how to contact the residents inside when the gate suddenly swung open of its own accord and scarlet-clad nuns beckoned them into the courtyard that promised shelter from the wind. A returning sun made the puddles on the cobblestones shine and steam.
The two young women who greeted the travelers were not at all surprised at their visit. From this aerie they could have seen the Land Cruiser’s plume of dust for miles and followed the Americans’ antlike assault up the rock dam. Yet so artfully was the nunnery situated that it was invisible from the base of the waterfall. It watched, without being seen.
The heavy gate swung shut behind them.
The nuns spoke and, as always, Rominy struggled even to pick out meaningful syllables. Dga’ bsu zhu sgo brgyab.
“I think it was, ‘Welcome to the Closed Door,’ ” Sam said.
“But they opened it.”
“And closed it again,” Jake said.
After the hike and rain, Rominy was trembling with cold. The nuns beckoned them onward to the temple. Inside, a single shaft of light shone down from a clerestory at the ceiling. The perimeter was shadowy, lit only by the flames that burned in lamps of yellow yak butter. The lamps weren’t enough to make it really warm, but it was drier and warmer than outside. Rominy shivered and a young nun slid a red woolen cloak over her shoulders, which she gratefully wrapped around her. A huge, bronze-colored Buddha, the bright paints of its decoration faded by decades of time and lamp smoke, rose toward the clerestory, its flesh as round and robust as a planet. In front was an altar with seven sacred silver bowls of water and sculptures carved from butter, as transitory as life itself. To the side was a pillared seating area, the wooden benches softened by pillows. They were directed to sit.
“ Kha lan,” Sam offered. Thanks.
Steaming cups were brought. Rominy sipped. It was milky broth, strange, but pleasantly hot and rich.
“Butter tea,” Sam said. “Yak butter has the protein and fat to keep you going. Some people can’t stand it, however.”
Jake had put his aside.
“Anything warm is heavenly,” Rominy said. “I’m so discouraged. We’ve come so far for nothing.”
“Not necessarily,” Jake said. “Why is this nunnery even here?”
“Yeah, maybe we came for this experience,” said Sam. “These nuns are friendlier than Scientologists trolling for converts at a singles bar. We lucked out.”
Their eyes adjusted to the gloom. Nuns were silently stitching and weaving. Great skeins of yarn-yak wool, she guessed-were heaped in corners. The colors were brilliant, and she wondered if the handiwork was sold in Lhasa to support the nunnery. She assumed they must have gardens or fields somewhere, but how did they get even the most basic tools to such a remote place? Were there no monks?
After tea, the day fading, the Americans were beckoned with gentle pantomime to rooms in the adjoining dormitory. Each cell had two cots, and Jake and Sam were given one room and Rominy another, the nuns making it plain they were expected to spend the night. Supper was barley cake tsampa s and dumpling momo s, and then thugpa, a noodle soup. The flavors were plain and pastelike to Western palates, but the trio ate greedily, the nuns pleased with their appetite. Everything was dim and medieval. There was no electricity, only butter lamps. When the Americans finished the nuns withdrew and they were left to sleep on cots of woven leather, the only mattress layers of thick woolen blankets. Rominy thought the strangeness would keep her awake.
The next thing she knew, it was morning.
They were given broad bowls of warm water to wash in, and then led outside to a courtyard bright with high-altitude sunshine. The snowy crowns of the Kunlun Mountains soared above the nunnery roof. Vultures, majestic from a distance, wheeled through the vault of heaven.
“Sky burial,” Sam whispered as she watched them. “Traditional Tibetan practice is to dismember the dead and put them on a rack for the vultures to devour. It’s considered divine recycling.”
“It seems appropriate here,” Rominy said. “Like letting them go to the sky through the birds. There’s more sky here than in Seattle, Sam. Closer sky.”
“You’re beginning to see why I stayed.”
She wondered if Jake minded that she was talking more to Sam. The guide’s questions, while uncomfortable, had made her feel he cared. Her boyfriend didn’t seem to notice. It would have been selfishly satisfying if he had,
