Solomon's Secrets: The Past

This week, my seven actions for  

Operation Author: 365 Actions to Becoming a Successful Author 

 I will serialize chapters from Solomon's Secrets, 1 a day for 7 days.

Yesterday I accidentally skipped a chapter, a further Prologue.  This chapter comes before chapter 1, but the narrative thread isn't disrupted if I slot it in here.

In this chapter, we go back to the past, to March 1908, to a well known archeological excavation that I've fictionalized and added to.

I conducted extensive research on the International Dunhuang Project and the Silk Road expeditions of Marc Aurel Stein.


International Dunhuang Project: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Dunhuang_Project

I read FindersKeepers: A Tale of Archaeological Plunder and Obsession and based much of this chapter on that research

Dunhuang, China - March 1908

Marc Aurel Stein pulled his coat tighter, opening the folds and sending sprays of dust into the icy wind. His face wrapped in woolen scarfs, his hands packed into several pairs of gloves. The wind needles on flesh.

The dirty blur on the horizon, he’d thought was a distant saddle of rock, was coming into focus. The wind began to drop almost as quickly as it had whipped up from the Taklamakan desert, and with it, the Hungarian-British Archaeologist and his team’s spirits lifted.

A thousand miles. Through desert, precarious mountain passes, jagged gorges and the impossibly vast grasslands of the Asian Steppe. Following in the footsteps of his hero, the great monk Xuanzang, the most anticipated moment of this expedition along the Silk Road was almost upon him.

As he led his caravan to the gates of the mud brick citadel of Dunhuang, he was dreaming about a warm bed and a hot meal. He rehearsed what he needed to say in his mind, piecing together fragments from the dialects he had picked up along the year-long journey. He had always been plagued by what he called the eel-like perplexity of Chinese phonetics on his unmusical ears.

Managing to make himself understood by the brusque guards at the gate, his party was harried through.

Stein had imagined these people would welcome his group of hungry paying visitors to their humble community, but there was a sense of unrest in the air. People viewed them with suspicion. Leather faced women in brightly coloured woolens whispered in huddles and threw skeptical glances. While on his travels he’d heard tales of citizens on the verge of rebellion here. People liked to gossip, but there seemed some truth in it. He clutched the pouch at his belt, heavy with reassuring coin.

He drew his camel to a halt and she grunted in relief. He dismounted and uncovered his face, displaying a broad smile and bristling moustache as he stepped towards the clutch of local elders waiting to receive them.

He took out his passport and in disjointed local tongue explained enough. His passport wrongly identified him as ‘Minister of Education for Great Britain’ and had earned him a good deal of leverage to this point.

Immediately deferential, the leading elder explained he was the city magistrate, apologised they had not prepared an appropriate welcome for a man of his stature, and set about organising an army of scurrying assistants to cater to their every need.

“Foreigners don’t visit us often. You honour us, Sir,” said the Magistrate in his own language which Stein just about understood, “Is there anything you seek our assistance with?”

The Archaeologist mulled the question over for a moment. Making the decision to forego food and rest. The adrenalin was still powering through his limbs and the excitement of being so close was overwhelming.

The caves, and the mysterious library, were waiting out there in the desert for him.

“Mr Magistrate,” he began, in the best Chinese he could manage, “you are very kind. We are here to see the Caves of a Thousand Buddhas.”

The magistrate, who was about his height and stature, pinched his face with confusion.

“The Caves of a Thousand Buddha’s?” Stein repeated, in his most considered Chinese, but the man shrugged and looked to his companions for assistance.

Stein turned to his interpreter, Chiang-ssu-yeh, who stepped forward, abruptly finishing his hushed conversation with one of the labourers from the caravan, and nodded to the magistrate. The two men exchanged a flurry of lyrical words, too quickly for Stein to keep up with. He waited, as patiently as he could manage for the two men to finish.

“What did he say?”

“He say, this is fine. He will take us there. He get camels and some provisions and meet us at the gate in one hour. He say we go to tavern first if we need food and rest.”

“Splendid!” said Stein, smiling widely at the magistrate and offering his hand.

He thanked him in his language, bowing respectfully then ushered his party away to take a short break before they returned to the saddle.

The Caves of a Thousand Buddhas were ten miles out of town, along a dry river bed and through rocky scrubland. The cold had dissipated and Stein rode at the head of the caravan beside the local guide in loose robes glistening in the early evening mist. They passed a grove of bare elm and poplar trees before approaching a towering cliff. It was honeycombed with hundreds of hand hewn grottoes, long forsaken temples devoted to a bygone era. Ragged silk scarves left by pilgrims fluttered a multicloured wave. Made more vibrant when set against the barren landscape of sandstone cliffs and soaring dunes.

He had imagined how magnificent this place could be, but he hadn’t prepared himself for this.

Inside the caves it was spectacular. His eyes widened and took in carved and brightly painted archways cut into the rocks leading to a maze of catacombs, each more spectacular than the last. Rock, in situ, carved to rival the grandest cathedrals and classical architecture in the world. A spontaneous bout of laughter rattled through him. He’d powered into the cave, determined, confident, only to find himself humbled and speechless.

Bright pigments formed into a dreamscape of icons, faces, fanciful animals and dragons. He worked his way through the tangle of corridors and meditation caves in silent reverence. He ducked through an archway and the space opened up to a massive hall.

“G..g..good Lord,” he said. He took a step back and looked around, his legs feeling weak and wobbly.

“Mr Stein, should I set up the camera?”

He flicked a stern look at his young apprentice, who was stumbling through the caves behind him laden with bags and a tripod.

“Be careful, boy!” he shouted, his voice amplified in the cavernous space.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the young man put his pack down on the floor. “Well, that is mighty impressive,” he said, stretching upright with his hands on his hips, “That is the largest statue I think I have ever seen. It’s good isn’t it?” he said, smiling enthusiastically.

“Good? It’s good?” Stein’s face was set with an exasperated frown, “This could be the greatest find of my career. And all you can say it that it’s good?” he hissed, shaking his head he stepped closer to the enormous, intricately carved reclining Buddha. He fiddled with his moustache as he leaned closer, examining the fine detail.

“How can I help?” chirped the young man.

“You can start by being quiet.” He glanced around at his apprentice.

Tall and spindly, Frances was an awkward boy with a tendency to be clumsy. Stein hummed while he thought about how to occupy him.

“You could set up the Brownie over there, in the middle, where there is plenty of room and you have little chance of breaking anything!” he raised an eyebrow at the boy, “be off with you lad, and let me work.”

He took a pencil and some parchment from his pocket and proceeded to take a rubbing of the carvings on the side of the statue, his lips fluttering as he passed a narrative through his head of the story behind this find.

The din of the rest of his team, reverberating down the halls as they discovered the caves for themselves, faded into white noise. His mind was full, tripping over itself with the enormity of it. He could spend the rest of his career methodically examining every part of this hall and its adjoining rooms, let alone the rest of the complex, and the mysterious library he had heard about but was yet to see evidence of. He had almost forgotten the stories about the library and its reputably irascible custodian, a monk by the name of Wang Yuanlu. That was why he was here, but for now, it faded from thought.

“Is my camera set up yet, Frances?”

“Almost,” a grunt, a pause and a clatter, “There. All set, sir.”

For the next few hours Stein’s team were organised and set to work, cataloguing, making images, notes and taking pictures. Before long the room was filled with a haze of dirty metallic smelling smoke.

As night drew in, the team were forced to stop work and leave the caves when a local man was sent by the magistrate to warn them of an impending storm.

Their work, and the undiscovered library, would have to wait until the morning.

*

Marc Aurel Stein 1909 (image from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Aurel_Stein)

 

The Caves of a Thousand Buddahs, Dunhuang, China (image from: http://www.nytimes.com)

 

The Caves of a Thousand Buddahs, Dunhuang, China (Image from: http://rolfgross.dreamhosters.com/China-Web/Dunhuang.htm)

 Tune in tomorrow for the next chapter...

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