The Breath of God

by Jeffrey Small

  A tsunami of thoughts whipped through Grant. He and Kristin balanced themselves on the smooth rocks of the riverbank behind Jigme. If not for a simple accident that had cast him into the cold Himalayan water just a few hours from here, he would be hunched over his dissertation in Atlanta. The sun on this day shone as clear as it did on that day two months ago, but it hung lower in the sky, just above the mountain peaks that defined the green valley. The wind sweeping along the river had a bite, reminding him that winter was close by. Just as he’d lost Dasho, his kayaking guide, to the river, they were here to say good-bye to Kinley and the other monk murdered at Tiger’s Nest.

  The sound of tires crunching on gravel caused the monks to swivel their heads. Three silver Toyota Land Cruisers stopped on the grass shoulder. A murmur spread along the riverbank. First, three red-robed monks exited from the back seat of the lead car. Second, three orange-robed monks emerged from the last car—senior monks, as Kinley had been. One of the seniors looked particularly displeased—Lama Dorji, the conservative monk from the Punakha Dzong who feared the dangers of Western influence in the monastery. Grant reluctantly admitted to himself: the monk had been right.

  The murmur grew louder when the doors to the middle car opened. A civilian dressed in the traditional plaid Bhutanese gho exited the driver’s seat and then assisted from the rear of the vehicle a monk who appeared to be in his midseventies. Tall and thin, the monk held his posture erect but relaxed. The chestnut eyes set in the weathered face were sharp and alive as they surveyed the assembled group. He was dressed in saffron robes.

  The Je Khenpo.

  Only the king and the Je Khenpo, who was head of the country’s monk body—the dratshang—wore yellow. With help from the civilian, the Je Khenpo descended the bank to the river’s edge. The entire gathering of monks, including Lama Dorji and the other orange-robed seniors, bowed to him. The Je Khenpo spoke for some time to the gathered monks, who drank in every word he uttered. When he finished speaking, a melancholy chant rose from the group. Jigme and the monk beside him took turns emptying the bags of ashes into the flowing waters.

  A cloud of gray dust billowed from Jigme’s bag. Grant watched the fine particles cling to the surface of the water, riding the ripples over the small rapids.

  Just when he was so close to true understanding, his teacher had been snatched away. Over the past day he’d been contemplating everything he’d learned from Kinley. The monk had wanted him to experience the messages contained in the Issa texts firsthand, just as Issa had done. Grant worried that he’d failed his teacher. Issa had traveled to the east; he had studied Hindu and Buddhist doctrine; he had struggled with his own teachers; he had taught the lessons he learned to the disenfranchised; he had had a spiritual awakening to the presence of God within himself and the world around him—an awakening that transcended any particular religious doctrine. But something was missing for Grant.

  Now that he was in possession of the texts he’d worked so hard to obtain, he was surprised that he experienced a feeling he wasn’t expecting: incompleteness. Even if he was successful in persuading the authorities to let him take the texts out of the country, Grant feared that he wasn’t ready yet to assume the role of teacher. Recovering the texts was supposed to solve his problems: his dissertation, his reputation, his future, and the legacy of his past, but he felt only emptiness.

  Grant glanced at the now empty plastic bag that had held Kinley’s ashes. He thought of the emptiness in his own heart. He cast his eyes upward to the heavens. Not even a cloud.

  Then he heard the familiar voice. It came from inside. Kinley’s voice. The voice chastised Grant for looking to the sky for his answers. It chastised him for looking to the bag as well. Both revealed nothing but emptiness. The voice reminded him that the answers he sought were within, if only he would look deeply. Although the lesson was familiar to him, at this moment, the words in his mind suddenly became clear.

  He was grasping. Grasping for the answers. The river water playing over the smooth pebbles reminded him of one of Kinley’s earliest lessons. By looking deeply, he could understand the nature of water, but only by tasting it could he truly experience it.

  He exhaled fully and closed his eyes. His teacher’s voice faded and was replaced by the mournful cry of the chanting monks. Grant stood still for many minutes. He wasn’t aware of the passage of time, only the sensations of his gentle heartbeat, his soft breath, and the chant that vibrated to his bones.

  After the ceremony ended, the Je Khenpo walked directly toward Grant and Kristin. Jigme kneeled and touched his forehead to the ground in front of his leader, while Grant and Kristin bowed deeply. Grant lifted his head when he felt the old man’s hand on his shoulder.

  Bhutan’s religious leader spoke in a deep baritone. “So you are Grant Matthews and Kristin Misaki.”

  Grant was unsure of the proper protocol when addressing the most senior monk. Should he keep his eyes averted? Kristin replied in a quiet voice beside him, “Yes, we are, sir.”

  “Please, call me Ummon. That was the name Kinley used many years ago, when he was my student.” He gestured to the yellow robes on his body. “Before all this.” Grant glanced down the line of monks now all staring at them. In the middle was the small boy, another Ummon, who’d brought him food when he was incapacitated in Punakha and who’d alerted them to the tragedy at Tiger’s Nest.

  “Kinley spoke to me of his fondness for both of you.” The Je Khenpo spoke English with a British accent as Kinley had, and Grant was surprised by his warm, casual tone.

  “You were Kinley’s mentor?” Kristin asked.

  “So full of energy and ideas that boy was.” The Je Khenpo chuckled. “Quite a handful for his teachers. Constantly questioning, challenging them. It was I who thought a few years of regular school outside the confines of the monastery would suit young Kinley better in the long run. When he was one of only two students in the country to apply for a scholarship at Oxford, he asked me to write his recommendation. I always believed he would return one day to life as a monk.”

  Although Grant had a hard time picturing Kinley as a young student, the image of his friend as a rebel suited him just fine. “I’m so sorry, sir, I mean, Ummon.” The words stumbled out of Grant. “Tiger’s Nest. We didn’t mean to ...” How did he apologize to the country’s religious leader for the death and destruction that had followed them to Bhutan’s most sacred site?

  The Je Khenpo placed a comforting hand on each of their shoulders. “Evil exists in the world, as does good. From what I have heard, the two of you put your own lives in danger, both physically and professionally, in order to pursue what is right. All you can hope to do is to put forward the right effort with the right intentions. The results will fall where they will.”

  “Jigme is the one who should be commended. He saved our lives,” Grant said.

  “So I heard.” The Je Khenpo shot a reproving look at Jigme, who bowed deeply again. “A shame that monks are forbidden from competing in our national sport.”

  “I know that nonviolence is one of the key precepts of Buddhism,” Grant hastily added, “but without his actions, Kristin wouldn’t be with us today.”

  Kristin cast her eyes to the ground. Grant guessed her thoughts. While Jigme had shot Tim Huntley with the arrow, she’d been the one who actually killed him. He’d assured her that stabbing Tim had been necessary, that she’d saved both of them from being engulfed in flames, but he knew that she was still disturbed.

  “Yes.” The old monk reached out a hand and rested it on Kristin’s shoulder, seeming to sense her troubled thoughts. “If I have a pebble in my sandal, I remove it. But I do so without becoming frustrated at the pebble itself or angry at the person who forgot to rake the ground. Sometimes turning the other cheek should happen here”—he thumped his chest—“and not necessarily here,” he concluded, patting his face.

  Kristin smiled at the Je Khenpo. “I see now the source of Kinley’s wisdom.”

  Talking about
the events of that night a day and a half ago reminded Grant of their narrow escape. He shuddered. Tim Huntley would never torture or kill again. After a blur of interviews with local police and the U.S. consulate, Grant and Kristin had returned to their hotel, drained. Jigme kept the Issa texts at the dzong.

  The Je Khenpo’s voice interrupted his replaying of events. “I have a long drive to Punakha. I wish you both the best. Jigme will see to it that you leave with everything you came here for.”

  The meaning of the Je Khenpo’s words hit Grant. “You’re allowing us to take the Issa books to America?”

  The monk shrugged. “They have sat unused in my country for too long. It is time for the scholars in your esteemed universities to decide if these books are the treasures you think they are.”

  Grant inclined his head. “Thank you.”

  “Kinley said you were a quick, if hard-headed student, much like young Issa himself.”

  “What about your country’s laws against removing artifacts?” Kristin asked.

  “Hmm.” The monk brought his fingertips to his chin. “Technically those books never belonged to my country; they were sent here for safekeeping.” He winked at them. “An interpretation of the law, and a privilege of my position.”

  “How will the other monks feel about this?” Kristin asked. Grant glanced at Lama Dorji, who glared at them, as if to accuse them of bringing the very trouble to his country that he’d feared.

  “I make the decisions I believe to be in the best interest of the dratshang and then let the others take care of their own happiness.”

  “Ummon, before you leave. One question has perplexed me,” Grant said. “In Sarnath, we were told that your country made a generous donation to the temple, allowing them to add to the mural that led us here. We know that Kinley was behind it, but how did he arrange to fund the painting?”

  “Ah yes, we had been in discussions with the temple there for several years about helping to pay for an expansion of the mural. Kinley offered to travel there himself, with the funds we had already promised, to speed the process along.”

  “So Kinley took advantage of the opportunity to send us to the site of the Buddha’s first lectures and to give us the final clue to the location of the texts?” Grant asked.

  The Je Khenpo smiled, a familiar twinkle in his eyes. “The more we open our eyes around us, the more we see how everything is interconnected.”

  The Je Khenpo nodded to his assistant, who held his arm as they ascended the dirt bank. He then gathered his saffron robes, climbed into the SUV, and sped off.

  CHAPTER 56

  CASHIERS, NORTH CAROLINA

  “ARE WE CLOSE?” Kristin rubbed her face with her hands.

  Grant squinted to see through the fog on the road winding through Cashiers, a cozy mountain community in western North Carolina. “It’s been a year since I was last here, but I think so.”

  He flicked his blinker, slowed, and turned left just past a farmer’s vegetable stand. The three-hour drive into the Smoky Mountains should have been a pleasant one, but they had already traveled for two days without a break. After planes from Paro to New Delhi, then to Paris and finally to Atlanta, where they endured an hour-long customs line at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, they’d located Grant’s six-year-old Audi in the economy parking lot and begun their drive north.

  The anticipation of finally showing the Issa texts to Professor Billingsly kept Grant alert despite the jet lag. His mentor had been shocked when Grant called from Bhutan with the texts in hand. Issa’s story—the missing years in the life of Jesus—was now complete: his journey as a teen, the teachings that affected him, and his spiritual awakening. Grant’s excitement was tempered, though, not just by his exhaustion but by the knowledge of the price of obtaining the texts: Kinley, Deepraj, Razi, and the others who died.

  After listening to Grant recount the story, Billingsly had said that the department chair would have no choice but to reinstate Grant’s status immediately. When Grant mentioned his desire not to repeat the fiasco of the premature initial release of the Issa find, Billingsly offered to arrange a private meeting between Grant and Professor Singh of the department of Near Eastern studies in the privacy of his cabin in the mountains right away. Grant had visited his mentor’s cabin several times before; each October when the turning leaves were at their most colorful, Billingsly hosted a weekend retreat for his grad students. Today, however, the golden fall hues were a month past their prime, exposing branches that were mostly bare.

  They planned to spend two days in the mountains, and then they had to return to Atlanta to the FBI district office downtown. Although they had been debriefed by the U.S. consulate in Bhutan, the FBI wanted to interview them in person about Tim Huntley. Before they left Paro, Grant had learned from the consulate that Tim Huntley was in fact the man’s real name. He lived in Birmingham, and he’d traveled to Bhutan on a chartered jet, but that was all the information they had. At least he and Kristin were out of danger. Grant took solace in the realization that the man would never hurt anyone else.

  “How well do you know the professor coming with Billingsly?” Kristin asked.

  “Professor Singh? I met with him a couple of times before I left for India. Sharp, no BS.”

  “Can he really validate the texts?”

  “Complete authentication will take at least a year, requiring carbon dating, analysis of the ink, and study of the language, but he can give us a gut check on their age and authorship.” Grant glanced in the rearview mirror at the black duffel bag on the rear seat. Inside the bag rested a plain pine box wrapped in airtight plastic wrap. “As an expert in Pali, he can also provide a more complete translation.”

  “So if the texts check out, you take them to Emory with the credibility of both professors standing behind you.”

  “And likewise, if Professor Singh believes them to be obvious fakes, we save ourselves a new round of humiliation. But my instinct tells me they’re the real deal.”

  After another twenty minutes navigating up and then down a serpentine mountain road, they passed a chocolate brown sign with yellow lettering indicating they’d entered the Nantahala National Forest. A few miles later, Grant turned onto a dirt road. The road paralleled a noisy stream that flowed through the dense trees. After passing a lone log cabin, the road began to climb. A short distance later, a manicured gravel driveway peeled off to the right.

  “That’s Billingsly’s.” He pointed.

  “Where does the dirt road go?”

  “U.S. Forest Service property. Harold’s parents were fortunate enough to snag one of the few lots completely surrounded by national forest.”

  Rounding a bend in the drive, they approached the professor’s cabin, perched on a grassy clearing. Constructed of native stacked stone and large timbers with a steep-pitched shingle roof, the house looked more like a ski lodge one might find in the Rockies than a cabin in the woods.

  “Wait till you see the inside,” Grant said in answer to the astonishment on Kristin’s face.

  “On a professor’s salary?”

  “Family money.”

  “That his car too?” She pointed to a shiny black sedan.

  “Must belong to Professor Singh.”

  Grant lifted the bag from the back seat. They’d carried the texts from Paro to this remote mountain getaway with the same care they would’ve given a newborn baby. Now they would see what the experts thought. Grant experienced a slight queasiness in his stomach. In his heart he believed the documents were authentic, but there were no guarantees.

  Kinley. Deepraj. Razi. Grant caught himself heading down the now familiar path of playing over the events that led him to this moment. He practiced a meditation technique he’d come to rely on to get him through these mental movies: noting the memories as they arose and the resulting emotions they caused. Then he inhaled deeply, released the breath, and refocused his attention. In this case, his focus was on the reverberating pitch of the iron knocker that
Kristin banged on the tall mahogany door. He relaxed.

  “Grant, Kristin!” Billingsly exclaimed upon opening the door. “We’re so excited you made it back safely.” Then he frowned. “I’m still horrified by your story.”

  “You haven’t heard the half of it.” Grant gave his mentor a warm hug. “We’ll fill you in over dinner.” He nodded to the car. “Professor Singh?”

  “We’re waiting for you in the keeping room.”

  Billingsly led them down a hallway of wide-planked heart-of-pine floors, past a kitchen of old-world cabinets and modern stainless-steel appliances, and into a room that took Grant’s breath away every time he saw it. Soaring above the pine floors, heavy cypress beams supported a twenty-five-foot vaulted ceiling. To Grant’s left, a stone fireplace large enough for him to stand in took up the entire end of the room, but it was the view from the floor-toceiling glass windows along the length of the wall in front of him that left him speechless each time he saw it. The unobstructed vista of the multiple peaks and layers of the Smoky Mountains reminded him of the Himalayas surrounding the valleys of Bhutan. Taking in the wisps of fog swirling around the distant mountains, he thought of Kinley.

  So engrossed was he in the juxtaposition of the memory of his teacher with the mist-covered ridges before him now that he didn’t notice the silver-haired man rising from a worn leather club chair on the right side of the room. Kristin’s sharp intake of breath returned his attention to the room. The sight of the man in the tailored suit caused Grant to gasp as well.

  “Reverend Brady?” Kristin sputtered.

  CHAPTER 57

  CASHIERS, NORTH CAROLINA

  “TAKE A SEAT. ”Reverend Brady waved a hand to the coffee-colored, upholstered sofa.

  “Harold! How could you?” Grant’s face flushed a deep crimson. “You brought him here?”

  “I ... it’s very complicated. I think if we can explain to you the problems with these texts, you will come to agree with us.”