Blood of the Reich

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, but Jake seemed a million miles away with his thoughts. He dreamed of lost cities.

A hooded woman, head bent, was cross-legged on the paving, and they were directed to sit on the stones before her. The Americans awkwardly crossed their legs, several nuns in a semicircle behind. Then the central figure lifted her head, hood falling away. Like the others, her skull was close-cropped, its iron-gray hinting at her age. Her face was lined but kindly, a regal grandmother’s face, with the high cheekbones and deep-set eyes of her people.

“My name is Amrita,” she said in accented but fluent English. “You have come many miles to the Closed Door.”

“You speak our language?” Jake asked in surprise.

“We cared for an American generations ago and decided others might eventually be back. Your return has been foretold. The American taught us some of her tongue, and we’re not entirely isolated. I was educated in Lhasa and Beijing.”

“She? So it was Beth Calloway and not Benjamin Hood?” Rominy asked.

“Yes.”

“But where was my great-grandfather?”

“Shambhala. We never met him.”

This was disturbing news.

“Then Shambhala is really here?” Jake leaned forward.

“Where is here, Mr. Barrow? Yes, we looked at your identity while you were sleeping. Is paradise a place or a state of mind? Is the journey to reach it an outward one or inward?”

He sat back, disappointed. “I know you’re on a spiritual journey, but we’re on a physical one. Rominy’s great-grandfather and, it appears, her great-grandmother, came here and saw something. We climbed to where we thought Shambhala might be and found only a lake. If it doesn’t exist, so be it. But I want to know if it existed for real, not just in fable.”

“Your definition of reality and mine are not the same.” She looked at them closely, but not unkindly, in turn. “But I’ll show you another door to satisfy your curiosity. The real Closed Door may or may not open. It may or may not give you what you need to find.”

“Sometimes not finding is as important as finding,” Rominy said. “You need things to end.”

“Yes, beginning and endings. The Western goal, the Eastern illusion. Come.”

They entered the temple again, butter lamps flickering, the air tanged with incense and smoke, the Buddha vast and hazy as a dream. Amrita led them around the statue. At the back of the temple was an ancient black iron door set in a wall of stone. It looked crudely hammered but immensely strong. From her cloak she took a ring of big, medieval-looking keys and inserted one in the lock. It wouldn’t turn.

She addressed Jake. “This is the first Closed Door, Mr. Barrow. We never have occasion to open it, and so the lock is rusty. Do you have strong fingers?”

“Strong enough to get me this far.” He wrenched, there was a grind and a clunk, and the metal door was pulled open, squealing on its hinges. Even though the temple itself was chilly, the air that wafted out at them was noticeably colder and moist. Their breath fogged.

“We’ve been the gatekeepers for two hundred generations. But what we guard is very different now. Do you have electric torches?”

“Yes.”

“Then descend.” She looked at Jake. “Be careful what you seek.”

“I don’t seek it for myself.”

They stepped forward. On the other side of the door, stairs hewn out of mountain rock led downward in a spiral, like a castle tower. It was utterly dark below.

“I must close the door behind you to keep out the draft,” Amrita said. “Knock when you wish to return.” And with that the iron door swung shut, shutting with a booming clang. They jumped.

“Well, that’s cozy,” Sam muttered. “This feels like Frankenstein’s castle, and she’s Frau Blucher.”

“You’re a very skeptical guide, Sam,” Jake said.

“Lapsed. Converts turned doubters are the worst. I came for enlightenment and got statuary and yak tea. I think I’m homesick.”

“I’m paying you enough to get you home.”

“And you hired me to take you as far from it as we can get.”

“Well, I trust her,” Rominy said.

“You trust everyone,” said Sam.

They crept down, their flashlights providing a fan of light. In places they passed lovely carvings in the surrounding stone: a graceful script reminiscent of Tibetan-“It’s not the same,” Sam informed them-entwined with flowers, beasts, strange machines, and large-headed people in flowing robes. The bas-relief gave a three-dimensional quality so that the plants seemed to be blossoming from rock.

“These carvings weren’t done by nuns,” Jake said. “Shambhala is real.”

“So who did do them?” Sam asked.

“Ancients or aliens who knew more than we do. Don’t you think? I like the vines and trees. The Greeks believed we began as happy plants and devolved into our unhappy animal and human form, getting farther from the divine as we did so. The farther back you went, the better things were, they thought. The SS who came to Tibet thought that, too, that the distant past wasn’t something we escaped but a paradise of adventure and power we’d lost.”

“I don’t know,” Sam said. “An ancestral vegetable sounds even worse than an ancestral monkey.”

“There’s something peaceful in being a carrot,” Rominy said.

“Not on a salad bar.”

Then the walls would get plain again.

Suddenly one wall disappeared, and the Americans found themselves on an exposed stair at the side of a huge shaft a hundred feet across. It rose higher than their flashlight beams could probe. There were dark openings on the other side, and bats fluttered when Jake banged the edge of his flashlight on stone.

“Ventilation shaft,” he guessed. “Bats means there has to be an opening above. This was for Shambhala, my friends.”

“It’s huge,” said Rominy.

“Which means Shambhala was huge.”

“I smell water,” Sam said. “We’re going to hit your lake, Barrow.”

They carefully wound down the shaft, the staircase having no railing to keep them from falling. Then it wormed into the mountain again. A horizontal passageway ran on into darkness like the shaft of a mine. More stairs continued down.

“Down first,” said Jake.

The stairs ended a hundred steps farther at water, dark and still. There was no landing. The steps just continued into the deep.

“It’s the lake,” Jake confirmed. “He drowned Shambhala.”

“ Who drowned it?” Rominy asked.

“Your great-grandpa.”

“But why?”

He shook his head. “Who knows?”

“Look at the dark lines on the walls,” Sam said. “You can see how the water rises and falls with the seasons.”

Jake looked frustrated. “We need a submarine.”

“Into that? Better you than me, buddy.”

“This is as big as Machu Picchu or Angkor Wat. We’ll do it eventually.”

“Maybe Grandpa made the lake to bury whatever’s down there,” Rominy said. “Maybe it was something dangerous or evil.”

“Or something invaluable.” Jake sighed. “It’s still a find. I’ve still got a hot news story. Benjamin Hood drowns a city. Is that why he became a hermit?”

“Maybe he tried to hide what he found,” Rominy said.

They were quiet, the water opaque. Then Jake pointed back the way they’d come. “There’s still that horizontal shaft. Last chance. Let’s check that out.”

They climbed back to the passageway and followed it. The shaft ended abruptly at a massive door.

Again, a riot of decoration, but this time cast instead of carved, as if the door were made of bronze. The material was dark and swallowed light, however, and was unlike anything they’d ever felt. It wasn’t quite like stone, wood, metal, or plastic.

“Another dead end,” Sam said.

Jake seemed transfixed. “Not necessarily. Doors open.”

“There’s no handle or keyhole,” Rominy said.

Jake let his fingers trace the vines sculpted into the door. “Or it’s a different kind of lock.” He followed them down, a tangle of flowers, to a bas-relief of an anatomically correct carving of a heart. An artery was a tube with an opening like a flower, as thin as a fine vase but firm as steel.

“This is weird,” Sam said, his palm to the door. “Do you feel that? This substance kind of tingles.”

Rominy put her hand on the door. It seemed to vibrate in response, like a purring kitten. “It almost feels like it’s alive,” she agreed.

“Which raises the question of just what life is,” Jake said. “At what point does matter, allied with energy, become life? Is energy itself life? Do you know our brain’s chemistry throws off enough electricity to power a small lightbulb?”

“So talk to it, Barrow. Open, Sesame.”

“Wait, I recognize these designs,” Rominy said. “This door was drawn in the papers from Hood’s satchel. Maybe this is the way into Shambhala. The Closed Door! Why would Benjamin Hood have drawn this?”

Jake nodded and pointed. “Blood lock,” he said, pointing to the carving of a heart.

“Blood what?” asked Sam.

“According to my research, the Shambhala of legend devised a means by which doors could be opened only by a specified individual, who was identified by drops of his or her blood. The Germans who came in ’38 brought a vial of blood with them for just that purpose. They didn’t understand how such a thing could work, but today we know about DNA and how each of us has a unique genetic code. What’s interesting is that access could thus become hereditary; a descendant’s blood might contain the very same key.” He looked at Rominy. “A great-granddaughter, perhaps.” He slung off his pack and stooped to put it on the floor, groping inside. His tone had become businesslike. “Which explains, Rominy, why you’re really here.”

“What do you mean?”

He pulled out a knife and slid the blade clear from its hard scabbard. It was a wicked-looking, twin-edged weapon with an eagle on the handle and twin lightning bolts on the pommel. Some German words were etched onto the blade.

“What the fuck?” said Sam.

“I mean that I hope we found what we’ve been looking for after all.” Jake looked up at the woman he said he loved with a face drained of all expression. “I’m afraid I need your blood.”