The Assassin Lotus

by David Angsten

  And yet...

  It hadn’t been imagined. It had been felt. Perceived. Experienced. It had literally taken my breath away.

  Infinity. The ungraspable. Not the transitory, dreamlike, dust-mote galaxies, but the unbounded, never-ending void that contained them. The eternal mystery of that—the cosmic, brain-busting whole of it—that was the “truth” that overwhelmed me.

  My eyes fell again upon the Buddha book. Page after page of figures from a dream. And in the space around them, those gently arcing curves.

  Bands of a rainbow. Segments of a circle. Portions or parts of…

  The whole.

  All at once I knew what lay hidden in the book. In a rush I started tearing out the pages.

  38.

  Mandala

  AT TEN ACROSS, the first row was complete. The next ten pages filled the row below that. I continued on, page after page, following the order of their sequence in the book, until gradually the overall picture took shape. River segments joined, mountain ranges linked. The rainbow arches bridged across pages, forming perfect circles.

  Gradually the various Buddhist entities settled themselves in the scheme. Beyond the farthest circle, the demons found their lair, while the empyreal gods and bodhisattvas alighted the inner rings. Halfway through the fifth row, I reached the massive Buddha. He would sit alone at the gravitational center, the light-giving sun in this sacred solar system. Encircled by a chain of snow-capped peaks, the Buddha held the lotus in his upraised hand while pointing down into the void with his other.

  The secret of the book was not a secret at all; it had been right there before me all along. Ten rows down, ten rows across, the hundred separate sketches formed a mandala. I recalled now seeing these artworks in India. As inlaid mosaics, painted wall murals, or hanging paper scrolls, they were used by Hindus and Buddhists alike as objects of deep meditation. Tibetans, highly enamored of the art, developed the most complex and intricate designs. Their legendary sand mandalas, meticulously constructed by supremely patient monks, were ritually destroyed shortly after their completion, illustrating the impermanence of all things.

  I kneeled now at the base of the assemblage to take in the picture as a whole. It was difficult to make out in the dim starlight, and under the constant current of air, the sheets stirred restlessly—I had to keep reaching out to realign them. Despite this disturbance, the configuration’s overall symmetry and order, anchored to the firmly rooted Buddha in the center, generated a calming, almost sedative effect, and reminded me of the feeling I had at the window of Steinberg’s shop.

  For a long moment I stared at the pages, wondering what it all meant.

  “You’re an artist.”

  I turned to find Faraj standing behind me, along with the crewman who’d been playing solitaire. “I’m not,” I said. “But you’re the second person to tell me that tonight.”

  “If you are not artist,” he said, “then you must be Buddhist.”

  “No. Not in this lifetime, at least.” I stood up. “This was drawn by my brother Dan. He must have copied it from a temple or museum or something. I’m trying to figure out if it can tell me where he is.”

  A page at the edge blew askew. Faraj bent down to adjust it—the drawing of the yogi with the female partner on his lap. “I think is from Tibet,” he said, gazing down at the mandala. “But this…this design is different.”

  He was right. Something about the layout did seem odd, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. “What is it, do you think?”

  “There are circles,” he said. “Only circles. The ones I see, from Tibet, they have a square inside.”

  “Yeah…you’re right.” The mandala had no square at the center, just the inner ring of mountains. “I’m not sure what that means.”

  “It means…he is in paradise.”

  “Dan?”

  “The Buddha.”

  A page blew. I nudged it back in place. “Buddhists don’t believe in paradise, Faraj.”

  “Oh yes. They believe it. They believe it is inside, here.” He pointed to his head.

  I looked back at the drawing and at the demons in the outer circle. “It’s an unusual paradise that has devils in it, too.”

  “No, no. The jinn cannot touch him. Inside, Buddha is safe.”

  “Safe?”

  “Yes. See? He is safe from evil. Like inside a wall of mountains.” He traced the circle of mountains around the Buddha.

  I remembered what Dr. Fiore had said in the garden back in Rome: paradise—the “wall around.” Separate from the world, yet within it.

  “How do you know these things?” I asked.

  He laid his hand over his heart. “I am Sufi Muslim. We believe the same. ‘The Source is within you,’ Rumi said. ‘And this whole world is springing up from it.’”

  “But how do you know about mandalas?”

  “I trade Persian rugs—they have mandala, too. Made of flowers. And vines. With a beautiful garden in the center, like paradise.”

  I thought of my threadbare Oriental rug with its flowery central medallion—awash in Maya’s blood. I nodded toward the Buddha. “Your garden has no wall to keep it safe.”

  Faraj smiled. “The wall must be in your mind,” he said.

  “Right.”

  Faraj gazed down at the mandala again. “To be honest, I prefer the Persian,” he said. “Is more…pleasing. I tell my customers, is like you are buying a piece of—”

  A shout from the pilothouse cut him short. Inside, the acting pilot pointed out to sea.

  Faraj quickly scanned the horizon. The boat abruptly slowed.

  “What is it?” I asked. I could see no ships or lights in any direction.

  “The radar,” Faraj said. He hurried off to the pilothouse with the deckhand at his heels.

  I quickly gathered up the mandala pages and stuffed them into my pack. Before I finished, all three men emerged from the pilothouse and stepped to the forward deck. Faraj raised the pair of binoculars.

  Though the eastern rim of the sea had lightened, dawn had not yet broke. I stepped up beside the men and scanned the faint horizon. A speck of light had appeared.

  “Is coming fast,” Faraj said.

  “Iranian?” I asked.

  He studied the gradually brightening point of light. “Yes. A patrol boat.” He handed off the binoculars and turned to me. “We are approaching Türkmenbashy. The Iranian Navy is patrolling the coast. They spot us with their radar.”

  The tone of his voice unnerved me. “What do we do?” I asked.

  He peered at the growing light. The form of the boat was taking shape—a prow riding high on the water.

  Faraj looked at me with pity, then took Sar’s cowboy hat off my head and wordlessly flung it overboard.

  I bristled.

  “I’m afraid you must sleep with the fishes,” he said.

  The three men held their gaze on me. I glanced from one pair of eyes to the next.

  39.

  I am the Buddha

  “JUMP,” FARAJ ORDERED.

  I stood anxiously on the edge of the deck, battling the worm in my gut. “There must be another way,” I insisted.

  “There is,” he said. He nodded over his shoulder at the oncoming cruiser. “They take you, they arrest us, they confiscate our boat.”

  The three men watched me and waited. I looked down into the glistening darkness, my heart crawling into my throat. Some fates are worse than death, I thought.

  “Do it!” Faraj shouted.

  A spotlight beam traversed the water.

  “Now!”

  The beam swept toward us. I jumped.

  The drop was short and ended quick—not with a splash, but a whimper. The whimper came from me as I landed on the heap of gutted fish in the hold. The iced sturgeon, stripped of their eggs, were bound for markets in Turkmenistan. The plan was for me to “sleep” under them while the Iranians made their search of the boat.

  The stench in the hold nearly gagged me. Ice shards fille
d my boots. I strained to see in the dimness, but when the hatch slammed shut above me, the hold went completely black.

  If the Iranians boarded, they’d be sure to check the hold and I could be easily spotted. So following Faraj’s orders, I started digging down into the fish. The carcasses were heavy and frozen, with knuckled, rocklike spines, and fins that cut like razors. Faraj had lent me his leather gloves, but hardly had I started when the left one slipped off. Searching for it in the dark, I snagged my thumb on pin-sharp teeth and cut my fingertips. Blood soon bathed my hand. I gave up on the glove.

  The idling engine thumped nearby. Above its noise came shouting—calls, questions, commands. It spurred me to dig deeper. Chunks of ice slipped down my sleeves and up the legs of my trousers. I wriggled and squirmed, burrowing down, steeling myself against the cold and the stench. Finally I found myself so buried under sturgeon it became nearly impossible to breathe.

  I stopped and listened. The shouting had ceased. Footsteps clattered back and forth across the deck. Wondering if my limbs and clothes were covered, I lay there, sucking in the suffocating air.

  Minutes passed with agonizing slowness. I was now frantically gasping for breath. The darkness began to twinkle and glitter—consciousness seeping away. Then, from the cold or the mounting fear, my body started to shake. Within seconds it was uncontrollable.

  The hatch cracked open and slammed to the deck. The sudden loud smack of it startled me. Voices poured down into the hold—unfamiliar voices. Then a light beam passed over the fishes above me, flaring through gaps and translucent fins.

  I held my breath.

  Only minutes before, up on deck, I’d been struck by the calming effect of the mandala. I thought of it now as I tried to steady the shivers of fear rippling through me: the Buddha sitting serenely at the center of the cosmos, safe inside his circle of snow-capped peaks, unthreatened by the demons, immune to the cold, free from every peril, even death.

  A man spoke calmly, his voice far away. The light beam swept back over me.

  I dared not breathe.

  Around me, the darkness danced with glitter, and the voices faded into silence. Dangling over a black abyss, I clung in desperation to a fraying thread of thought: I am the Buddha, encircled by mountains, safe from every peril, even…

  My eyes became transfixed by the glowing fissures above me. They seemed to grow brighter and brighter, until finally they merged with the twinkling glitter and bloomed into a blinding glare.

  “WAKE UP!”

  Awaken to the rustle of silk skirts, to the scent of jasmine oil on her wrist, to the clink of her coins in the alms bowl, to the young bride’s whispered prayer.

  I sit in the dust of the village road, grinning under closed lids despite the slashing sun. The wedding procession, the bride’s scent, the hunger pains, the flies—all come and go like night and day. All things must pass—

  “Wake up!”

  Awaken to the creak of the wagon wheels, to the odor of the defecating horses, to the wife’s farewell to her warrior, to the clatter of armor and swords.

  I sit in the mud of the village road, grinning under closed lids despite the pouring rain. Though I live in every passing soldier, there’s nothing I need do. Just sit in silent testament. Peace comes from with—

  “Wake up!”

  Awaken to the smoke of the funeral pyres, to the futile pleadings of the mourners, to the wail of the grief-stricken widow, to the chant of the senile priest.

  I sit in the dark of the village road, grinning under closed lids despite the falling snow. Though demons circle, they pose no threat. Grief cannot devour me; the cold can only bite. I am the Buddha, and I am free. Free from want, free from fear, free from the bonds of birth and death. There is no joy like the joy of freedom!

  “Wake up, Jack—you’re safe.”

  THE KARAKUM

  40.

  Camel Crossing

  I AWOKE TO A LIGHT so harsh and bright, it took a moment to realize I was staring at a scorpion. Its claws were raised and its tail was curled in the much feared pose of attack. The sight of it sent a little shiver through me. I was relieved to discover it was dead.

  The critter was encased in the transparent globe of the gearshift knob in the truck. It amazed me that I hadn’t even noticed it until now, but Faraj had been at the wheel ever since we’d left the coast, and despite his steady speed across the endless, flat terrain, his hand had rarely lifted off the stick.

  Until now. Now he had left the truck at the side of the road and was walking off into the desert, past the triangular yield sign that displayed the silhouette of a camel. If there really were wild camels in this godforsaken desert, none had dared venture into view. The Karakum—the Black Desert—looked exactly the same here as it had three hours earlier, when I’d fallen asleep out of boredom: an infinite litter box of sand and scrub, bisected by a crumbling highway. At the Caspian the sun had been an orange beach ball and the air had been crisp and clear. Now I squinted achingly into a bright desert haze as I watched Faraj trudge across the sand.

  What was he up to? I wondered.

  Something about the Iranian still troubled me. I wasn’t quite sure I could trust him. He seemed to be withholding some part of himself, some secret too dark to reveal.

  We had spent the previous day in the slummy outskirts of Türkmenbashy, where the family of the solitaire-playing crewman put us up. I scrubbed myself clean from my sleep with the fishes, and had to hand-soak Sar’s stinking duster. We feasted on a homemade meal of something called manty, a kind of ravioli filled with goat meat. During the dinner I told Faraj my harrowing tale of the lotus, and of Sar’s scheme to attract and catch the assassins on the ferry. He warned me the Iranians would not be easily deceived, and seemed genuinely concerned for my safety. When I told him we planned to meet up at the archaeological site, some 300 miles southeast through the desert, he offered at once to drive me. He was heading that way with the shipment of sturgeon and some crates of black-market caviar. At the bazaar in Ashkhabad, he’d sell it all and pick up a load of his family’s Persian rugs, which he then would take back to Azerbaijan to be sold through his patron, Pashazadeh.

  I told him I didn’t want him to go out of his way.

  “The desert’s a boring drive,” he said. “The detour would be interesting.”

  “Hopefully that’s all it’ll be,” I said.

  He grinned. “I’ll say my prayers.”

  Despite his assurances, it felt as if he were looking for an excuse to help me out. He’d already taken a heck of a risk, and forfeited his wages to boot. Now he was volunteering to drive me to a place that potentially could be very dangerous—the site where the coveted seeds had been found and the last place Dan had been seen. While Faraj seemed well-intentioned, I knew he had spent time in prison, and I woke up more than once that night wondering what exactly he was after.

  We departed the next morning before dawn. As the sun bubbled up from the black Karakum, I asked Faraj to tell me his story. “Why is it you want to help me?”

  His answer came as a shock. “This man who is after you. I know this man.”

  “Vanitar?”

  “We were once great friends,” he said.

  I suddenly had the horrible feeling I’d made a grave mistake. “Were friends. Not anymore?”

  Faraj fixed me with his dark brown eyes. “Vanitar Azad is the most evil man I know.”

  I breathed in relief. “This may sound strange, but I’m glad to hear you say that.”

  “It’s why Pashazadeh contacted me to take you over the Caspian. He knew about our past together, that I would jump at any chance to revenge myself on Vanitar.”

  Vengeance. Again. The basic operating principle of the entire Middle East. I asked Faraj what happened between him and his former friend.

  He pulled out his pack of cigarettes. “Do you mind?”

  “No.”

  He thumbed his lighter and lit one up. “Vanitar used to hate it when I smoke in the ca
r. Believed it was haram—sinful.”

  “I was told he’s some kind of fundamentalist.”

  “He wasn’t always like that.” The two of them had grown up together, he said, in a rough neighborhood in South Tehran. Faraj was the youngest son of a rug merchant who was robbed and killed when Faraj was just a baby. Vanitar’s father was killed a year later in the horrendous Iran-Iraq war. Both boys fell under the influence of Vanitar’s older brother, the street fighter Arshan. Yet despite their rebellious and somewhat dissolute youth (opium smoking, petty crime, bootlegged American movies and music), the boys managed to score high in their concours exams and went off to attend university.

  “That’s where our paths first parted,” Faraj said. “Vanitar started at university in Tehran, but eventually transferred to a seminary in Qum, where he studied Islamic religion and philosophy. I pursued the study of history in Isfahan, while working part-time for my uncle in the rug business.”

  Although Faraj was involved in several protests at his school, it was this uncle—a spirited devotee of Sufism—who first got into serious trouble with the Iranian regime. In the Land of the Ayatollahs, followers of Islam’s inner mystical tradition are regarded with suspicion by the orthodox. Ruling clerics question the allegiance of those devoted to Sufi masters, and denounce Sufi practices as alien to the Koran. Strongly influenced by the traditions of the Hindus, Sufis believe the same truth lies at the core of all religions, and that the individual, through his own efforts, can achieve a kind of spiritual union with the divine.

  Faraj grew intrigued with the Sufis’ inner focus and his uncle’s liberal view of religion. Though it clearly contradicted the Shi’a Islam of his youth, Faraj came to see it not as a betrayal of his faith, but a return, in a way, to its roots. He eventually decided to join his uncle’s Sufi brotherhood.