The Breath of God (13 page)

“So these texts were written by ... ?” she asked.

Kinley answered, “The monks in India who taught Issa. They were impressed by an unusually bright and receptive student, a student who became well known years later. You see, controversy followed young Issa wherever he went, even after he was martyred.”

“Issa was killed?” Kristin asked.

“A story for another time,” Kinley said, glancing at Grant. A short time after Kinley had revealed the existence of the texts to him, Grant had realized that the monk knew the truth behind Issa's identity. He'd mentioned to Kinley that until they were published, it might be safer for all of them if this fact remained secret.

“These silks, Kinley?” Grant asked, changing the topic.

“Only a hundred years old or so; they were added later to protect the books, and are changed by the librarian when they deteriorate.” Grant noted that many of the other books on the shelves around them were wrapped in similar silks.

“If Issa lived in India,” Kristin asked, “and these texts were written in a monastery there, what are they doing here in Bhutan?”

“For several hundred years after Issa's death, the texts remained in the monasteries where they were written,” Kinley explained. “But then, as
Hinduism began to reassert itself over Buddhism as the dominant religion in India, the books were collected and sent to a monastery in Tibet. During the nineteen fifty-nine revolt by the Tibetans against their Chinese occupiers, the monks boxed up the contents of their libraries and secretly sent them out of the country with the Dalai Lama, just before the Communists suppressed the dissenters. The various texts were divided and sent to monasteries throughout Nepal and Bhutan,”—Kinley gestured to the shelves of books surrounding them—“where they have sat to this day, largely forgotten.”

“What about the book that Nicholas Notovitch saw in the Himis monastery in eighteen ninety-four?” Grant asked.

Kinley shrugged. “In the days before the printing press or computers, it was the practice of the monks to copy by hand the ancient texts.”

“As was the case with Christianity.”

Kinley nodded. “My guess is that the monks at some point translated these books”—he pointed to the narrow books on the table—“into Tibetan, as they did with thousands of others, and then sent the manuscript out to Himis, where Notovitch saw it.”

“But that manuscript is no longer there.”

“Yes, a mystery indeed.”

Grant considered the treasure laid out on the table before him. While the disappearance of Notovitch's discovery had always been the mystery Grant sought to solve, it was now irrelevant. Grant had evidence of much greater importance. He had the original texts documenting the existence of Issa.

“Does Lama Dorji know about this?” Kristin asked.

Kinley shook his head. “We have other interesting writings in here as well, but if they do not relate directly to the Buddhist canon, then he sees them as a distraction from our mission.” He gestured to the shelves around him. “So they sit here for hundreds of years collecting dust.”

Grant was beside himself thinking about the ramifications of these texts. That such a treasure could remain sitting in the monastery forgotten was beyond something his curious mind could relate to. “Kinley, you know that these texts need to be in a university or museum, where scholars can study and analyze them.”

“I do, but Lama Dorji will never give his permission, and the Je Khenpo will need to be persuaded.” Kinley rested his fingertips under his chin. “Something I will consider.”

“Would international pressure from academic institutions persuade the Je Khenpo?”

“Possible. It would have to be handled delicately.” The monk turned to Kristin, who was craned over the table studying the writing. “The camera?”

“Oh, yeah.” Kristin glanced to Grant as if she were going to ask,
What was so important about Issa that these books deserved to be in a museum?
The anticipated question never came. Instead, she unzipped the case from around her Nikon and removed the lens cap.

Kinley closed the wooden cover of the narrow book and lay the silk next to it. Kristin took pictures from several angles using both a flash and the sunlight that splashed across the table from the single window. Using the scarf, Kinley gently turned the pages as she photographed them.

The whole time she photographed what must have been more than a hundred pages of text, Grant shot numerous glances to the closed library door.
How much time do we have?
His ears were alert for any sound of a person climbing the steps, but he only heard the clicking of the camera.

When Kristin finished, he turned to Kinley. “Will you translate for us?” His fully charged, thin white laptop was open in front of him. His fingers quivered above the keyboard. The three years he'd spent studying Tibetan would be of no use to him with these texts. Until he returned to Emory with Kristin's photographs, he would have to rely on Kinley yet again.

“I am ready,” Kinley said, turning to the first page of the first book, “but are you prepared?”

“Prepared? For heaven's sake, Kinley. This has been all I've thought about for the past five years. It's hard to even contemplate.”

“That's what I want you to consider. When we walked up to this room, how many steps did we climb?”

Grant felt the familiar frustration with his new teacher rising. “Six floors, must have been well over a hundred steps, but I don't see what climbing steps has to do with anything.” Grant folded his hands in his lap.
He knew the more anxious he appeared, the longer Kinley would draw out his lesson.

“To reach this room, to read these manuscripts of Issa, you had to climb many steps,” Kinley said patiently. “Each step brought you closer to this table, but once you used a step, you left it behind. You left it not in a disparaging way that the lower step was now beneath you, but instead you left it knowing that it had served you well, a necessary step to get where you are today.”

A stillness settled over the room as Kinley stared at Grant, obviously waiting for his reaction. Even Kristin, who seemed to always be toying with the objects around her, sat quietly.

“Okay.” Grant thought back to one of Kinley's earlier lessons and the cup of cool water that the monk had dumped on his head. “If I hadn't been raised in a fundamentalist household, if I hadn't gone to grad school, if I hadn't broken my leg on the river, then I wouldn't be here today.” He squinted at Kinley. “So I need to be more respectful, or maybe forgiving, of my own past, even the painful things, because those events have brought me to these manuscripts?”

Kinley nodded. “Our lives are interconnected with the actions that came before as well as our environments, but there is still more.”

“There always is.”

Kinley pressed on. “A Chinese Zen teacher once said, ‘When you are full of doubt and uncertainty, even a thousand books of scripture are not sufficient; but when you truly understand, even one word is too much.'”

Grant pondered the saying for a moment. “These texts are nothing more than yet another step in my journey?”
But how can that be?
he wondered. If Kinley's translation contained the same revelation that the Notovitch's manuscript did, then this was the type of find an academic experiences once in a lifetime if he or she is lucky. He imagined the effects it would have on the history of religion.

“And as with your previous steps, someday you will move beyond this one too.” As if reading Grant's mind, he added, “As a historian, Grant, you might be adept at discovering the
what
: what happened in Issa's short life.”

“Of course.”
Isn't that the point?
he thought. In this case the
what
answered a crucial question that had remained unanswered for two thousand years.

“The
what
can be useful, yes, just as the
how
that scientists teach us can be.” The monk caressed the silk covering the first book. “The importance of these texts goes beyond history. You are missing a bigger mystery here.”

Grant scrunched up his brow.
How can that be?

“The
why
,” Kristin said.

Kinley nodded. “Just as Issa uncovered an ancient wisdom on his journey, Grant, you must do the same with these texts. Ask not just what, but why. Religion is not about what has happened in the past, but about what is happening to us in the present.”

Grant sat without moving, his gaze on the table in front of him. He was suddenly struck by a memory from his early adolescence. A memory that seemed entirely out of place at this moment: he was lying in bed late at night, praying that the divine light would shine on him and remove his doubts so that he could believe just like the others around him did. He looked at the faded black lines of the ancient text in front of him. Then he raised his eyes, looked between Kinley and Kristin, opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it without saying anything.

“Let us see how good my ancient Pali is, shall we?” Kinley opened the first book.

Grant's fingers flew across the keyboard as Kinley began to translate the story of Issa.

H
AD HE RUINED his life?

Staring into the glowing embers of the campfire as he lay on his reed mat, Issa couldn't push the question out of his mind. In leaving on this journey, he had gone against the wishes of his parents and teachers. But he needed to find the answers. Now, he wasn't even sure of the questions. Thoughts swirled in his mind much like the hot, red sand had swirled around his legs as he had walked alongside the caravan earlier that day.

An unfamiliar noise from the far side of the camp startled him. His heart racing, the teenager sat up.

Silence.

The other dozen men slept peacefully around him. Probably nothing to worry about.

Issa settled back on his mat, tightening the wool cloak around his bony shoulders against the cool desert wind, the
ruach
. Breathing deeply, he found comfort in the aroma of roasted wood. Why had he been so jittery? Maybe it was the strange land, the different customs. Far from his own people, he now slept beside Egyptian beer merchants and Chinese spice peddlers.

When he had crept out of his parents' modest stone dwelling that night many months ago, he had felt full of confidence. His parents expected him to follow a life he wasn't ready to accept. Although he enjoyed the attention of the families who knew of his reputation and brought their daughters to meet
him, he had too much to learn, too much to experience before he was ready to marry. He was only fourteen, after all.

A loud grunt followed by a wet snorting sound returned Issa to the present. That was it—the noise that had startled him earlier. The camels.

The animals had acted strangely the last few nights. Camels did not rank high on Issa's list of God's creatures. Loud, smelly beasts, they enjoyed biting his shoulder if he ventured too near during the endless daily walks. Keeping outside biting range didn't guarantee escaping their displeasure, either; they would just as happily spit a glob of warm mucus down his neck. When the merchants traded the more civilized horses for the camels last month, they had told Issa that these disagreeable animals could not only carry heavy packs on their large hump through the searing desert heat but could also remember the exact path walked months earlier. Tonight they just kept him awake, and tomorrow he faced yet another day in the scorching sun, shuffling across the endless red landscape through dried grasses, thorny bushes, and scraggly trees.

Once the camels settled down, the night stilled. Even the insects decided to sleep. As Issa stared at the heavens dotted with the faint light of countless stars, the questions played again in his mind. He squeezed his eyes closed and pushed away the doubts. He knew he was destined for something larger, but what, he wasn't quite sure. He had made the right decision, he repeated to himself.

As a child, he had enjoyed listening to stories from the merchants who traveled through his village, bringing tales from the East, along with their brightly colored silks, brilliant stones, and pungent spices. These men radiated an energy that eclipsed their gruff and uncultured mannerisms, an energy absent from the teachers who didn't appreciate Issa's unique perspectives.

He was a smart, if sometimes unruly student. He may have asked too many questions, but what was the point of learning if not to question? Unfortunately, his elders saw his probing as disrespectful. During his travels, he would find the answers he sought.

Another sudden bout of coughing and spitting came from the camels. Issa jolted upright. Brushing his matted black hair from his face, he peered into the
dense night. The camels were only thirty paces away, but he couldn't make out their dirty beige coats in the darkness.

Manu, the newest addition to their caravan, stirred on the other side of the fire. A native of this land, he would know what disturbed the animals. But Manu just grunted and rolled over. Issa debated waking him, but one look at the man's forearms—larger than both of Issa's lanky legs together—as well as the crescent-shaped knife strapped to his belt, convinced Issa to let the beefy man sleep.

Issa took some comfort in knowing that if anything unusual happened, the four porters would check on the animals. Not hearing their voices, he relaxed onto his mat. The porters were accustomed to the habits of these beasts, since they slept next to the smelly creatures for warmth, unlike the merchants, who were permitted to sleep by the fire. Difficult fate these porters had: carrying the sacks that didn't fit on the backs of the camels, cleaning up the campsites. The merchants barely acknowledged their presence. Issa tried to strike up conversations with the porters, but they seemed to be made uncomfortable by the attention, and he was unsure how to proceed. Issa's father was only a
tekton
by trade, and making tables and doors didn't provide enough money for the family to afford even a single slave.