“So after India, you came to Bhutan?”
“I traveled here to report on the annual Thimpu Tsechu.” She brushed her hair from her eyes again. “Heard of it?” She continued without pausing for a breath or an answer. “A festival of elaborate costumes, masks, and dances in Bhutan’s capital city. Then I hooked up with a tour group to come here to check out the dzong; it’s the country’s largest, you know.”
As he observed her speak with her hands as animatedly as with her mouth, a realization struck him. This attractive woman and her expensive digital SLR camera could be the answer to one of his conundrums: documenting the discovery that he couldn’t take with him.
But he immediately questioned whether he could trust sharing such an important archaeological find with a woman he’d just met. And a journalist, no less. Then he realized that he didn’t have to trust her fully, or even confide in her, to get her help. He took a chance. “When you were in India, ever hear of an ancient saint named Issa?”
She shook her head. “Even in my writing, it’s difficult to keep straight the bewildering array of Hindu gods and goddesses. Part of your dissertation research?”
“Related to it. The library here may have some manuscripts helpful to me.” He didn’t need to reveal the true importance of Issa to enroll her in this project. “Want to meet a friend of mine? The monk who runs this place is in one of the temples right now.”
“Sure.” Kristin surveyed the courtyard. “Looks like my tour group abandoned me anyway.”
Grant saw that the only other people in the courtyard were local villagers. He recalled Kinley mentioning that some Bhutanese holy man was visiting the monastery to give blessings in the main temple that day. Kinley had invited Grant to watch, but Grant had thought a breath of fresh air would do him more good than participating in the superstitious ritual.
Kristin zipped her camera into the small daypack slung over her shoulder and jumped to the ground. “Here, give me your hand.”
“No, I’ve got it.” Grant attempted to stand, but the weight of his cast swinging off the wall caused him to stumble. He would have fallen to the ground, but she caught him without flinching.
“Sorry about that.” His face flushed red. As she straightened him onto his good leg and handed him his crutches, he caught the scent of her hair.
She put her hand on his upper arm. “Might as well earn some good karma by helping out a cripple.”
Her teasing felt comfortable to him, as if they’d known each other much longer. Enjoying her touch, Grant led her to the perimeter of the courtyard, which was enclosed on all sides with the two-story dzong building. The top floor contained dorm rooms like his, while the elaborately painted woodwork and large decorative doors on the first floor led to the various temples in which the monks worshipped. Now that the time was upon him, he felt his stomach twist.
With his crutches clicking against the stone pavers, Grant fell behind three elderly ladies with sun-weathered faces. The women walked hunched over from decades of tilling fields. Each carried items of food—bags of rice, fruits, even soup cans—in one hand and Buddhist prayer necklaces made of sandalwood beads in the other. Grant noticed that each woman’s lips moved silently as she walked.
“Like praying over rosaries.” Kristin nodded toward the ladies.
“You Catholic?” he asked.
“Raised that way.”
“But no longer?”
“Not since my sister’s death.”
“I’m so sorry,” Grant said quietly. He contemplated sharing the story of his father’s death, but then he quickly shut off that idea. He never discussed that event with anyone.
They followed the women, climbing five stone steps at the end of the courtyard. A pair of ten-foot-tall carved doors, finished in a metallic gold, flanked exterior walls that depicted a mural done in luminous primary colors: an epic battle raged between sword-wielding gods and fiery demons. The women removed their shoes and disappeared inside the temple. Kristin stooped to unlace her hiking boots, while Grant kicked the single sandal off his left foot.
Kristin tilted her head. “What’s that?” A rhythmic beating of drums and chanting spilled out of the open doors.
She walked inside the temple, and he followed. Inside, the pungent smell of incense wafted across the room to greet them.
“It’s the Mantra of Compassion,” he said a little louder than he intended. The harmonic chant of twenty young monks dressed in crimson robes echoed throughout the cavernous two-story hall. Grant had heard the same chant drifting up to his room many times over the past weeks: “Om mani padme hum.”
She put her finger to her lips, so he leaned into her. “It’s Sanskrit. Originated in India, but it migrated to Tibet. A form of meditation for the monks.” He couldn’t believe how intoxicating it felt to be close to someone he’d only just met.
“What’s it mean?” she whispered in his ear.
“My friend Kinley translated it as ‘the jewel in the lotus of the heart.’ I think it has to do with the idea that the light of the divine burns inside each of us.”
“Beautiful.”
“I guess so.” His eyes lingered on her face, then followed her gaze around the temple. The rectangular hall was supported by twenty-foot-tall bronze-coated wooden columns around the perimeter of the room. Above them, a balcony circled three of the four sides of the hall. Above the balcony, an elaborately carved and painted wooden ceiling mirrored the decorations on the wood trim on the exterior of the building. On the right end of the room where the balcony ended, six monumental statues rose from behind a stone altar. Grant recognized the one in the middle, the tallest at two stories in height, as the Buddha. The only light came from windows placed high in the second story and from the candles along the altar.
The chanting rose from the monks seated on reed mats in a rectangular formation in the center of the room. With the exception of the young boy, Ummon, whose shy smiles Grant had become fond of whenever the boy brought his morning tea, the monks were mostly in their teens or early twenties, like Jigme, who also sat among them. Every other monk held a drum attached to a twenty-four-inch stick. They beat the drums in unison with a second padded stick while they chanted with their eyes closed. Two elderly monks sat at one end of the rectangle, blowing into long wooden wind instruments that reminded Grant of Swiss alphorns.
Grant could feel the bass reverberation of the drums within his core, and the harmonic voices of the monks filled the air with a weight almost as heavy as the atmosphere of candle smoke and incense. If Grant hadn’t had something more important on his mind at that moment, he might almost have found the effect calming.
“That’s him.” Grant nodded to the only monk in the center group dressed in orange robes. Kinley had explained that orange designated his position of honor as the senior monk present at the monastery. Kinley paced around the group holding a string of prayer beads, which he would periodically shake in front of any of the young monks who drummed out of rhythm from the others.
Grant had to restrain himself from hobbling over to Kinley and begging to be taken to the library. Over the past week, he’d offered to help the monk strategize how to sneak him in, but Kinley had only changed the subject. Then a troubling thought occurred to Grant. Would Kinley use the villagers’ activity in the monastery as an excuse to delay the unveiling of the manuscripts again?
Grant watched the stream of villagers pass by the seated monks and head to the far left end of the temple, the opposite end from the giant statues. The locals lined up in front of an oversized throne, upholstered in a luxurious purple velvet and perched on a platform six inches above four simple wooden chairs that flanked it. They stacked the food they brought next to a small altar on the side of the platform. Then Grant saw the figure sitting on the throne.
CHAPTER 8
EMORY UNIVERSITY ATLANTA, GEORGIA
ENGLISH LIT PROFESSOR MARTHA SIMPSON pulled her pashmina tighter around her neck. A brisk wind had picked up since she’d l
eft Harold Billingsly’s house. Fortunately, the parking deck was just around the corner. She glanced over her shoulder, checking that the maple-lined sidewalk behind her was still empty. She might have been more cautious about walking alone on the city street if it had been midnight, but at five AM the streets were deserted. The only vehicle to be seen was a white van parked across the street by the CDC buildings. Probably the cleaning crew, she thought.
Picking up her pace, she recalled the lecture she and Harold had attended the previous evening. She’d found Professor Browning’s comments on Leonardo’s use of chiaroscuro in The Virgin of the Rocks particularly interesting, but she guessed that Harold had gone just to be nice to her. Art history wasn’t his passion like it was hers. He’d attended the lectures and museum trips because they excited her. She was lucky to have found a man who was as caring as Harold was. Sure, he was ten years her senior, but at her age that no longer mattered.
Although they had only been on four formal dates, they had known each other for years through various faculty functions. She’d even sat in on some of his lectures. He was an engaging speaker and a first-rate theologian. Lately he’d been excited about a new project that had piqued her curiosity when he told her he couldn’t reveal any details about it yet. For some reason, it had to remain secret, but he’d promised she’d be the first to know. Martha wasn’t religious herself, but she respected Harold’s passion and his views. She was also looking forward to the following weekend, when they had plans to go to his cabin in the mountains of western North Carolina. The fall leaves would be at their peak then, and she was excited to spend some time lounging by the fireplace with him.
She opened her purse, a colorful Vera Bradley, and removed the round tin of Altoids. Trying to pry the lid open, her fingers slipped, and the container of mints tumbled to the sidewalk.
“Darn it!”
The can rolled across the pavement and stopped at the edge of the grass. At least it didn’t open. The last thing she wanted to do at this hour was to collect a hundred little candies from the sidewalk. She bent over and reached for the tin.
The wall of heat hit her as unexpectedly as if she’d stepped onto the street and was struck by a speeding truck. The invisible force picked Martha up off her feet, sucking the breath from her lungs. The thunder of the explosion rang through her head. Then the dark night around her erupted into an orange inferno, engulfing her world.
Strangely, she didn’t experience any pain.
CHAPTER 9
PUNAKHA DZONG, BHUTAN
RECLINING ON THE THRONE at the far left end of the temple was a rotund monk about thirty years old. Unlike the crimson-robed monks Grant had seen during his stay, this monk wore orange, just like Kinley. Who is this other senior monk? Grant wondered. He immediately worried about how this development might affect Kinley’s ability to take him to the off-limits library.
In spite of his impatience, Grant stood by Kristin and watched as the villagers received a ritual blessing from the orange-clad monk. When the villagers approached the throne, they prostrated themselves three times on the wooden floor. Then they rose, covered their mouths with their left hands, and bowed their heads in front of the holy man. He reached out with a lemoncolored staff and touched their heads while mumbling a blessing with the bored expression of an assembly worker in the middle of his shift.
“Reminds me of when I was thirteen,” Kristin whispered in his ear, her hair falling on his cheek, “dressed in a frilly white confirmation dress, which made my mom happy. I knelt at the altar in the cathedral. When I bowed my head, the bishop blessed me.”
Grant turned to face her. “You know, many rituals of the Church and its monasteries were patterned after the monarchies they existed under.”
“So the bishop’s pointy hat is like the king’s crown?”
He nodded. “The bishop, as well as the most senior monk here, also carries a pastoral staff, just as the king would carry a royal staff; each wears unique royal robes; each sits on thrones elevated above their minions; subjects kneel in deference to them and bring offerings in the form of tithing to the Church and taxes to the king.”
Ten minutes later, the drumming from the young monks in the center of the temple ceased. While the blessings from the holy man on the throne continued, Kinley nodded to the students, who opened the Buddhist textbooks lying beside them. Grant knew that the books were four inches wide by twelve inches long and printed in Tibetan, and that each page contained a single verse from an ancient Buddhist text, which the young monks would repeat until they knew it by heart. He’d seen Jigme’s textbook on several occasions. As he and Kristin stood there, a few, including Jigme and Ummon, turned to smile at them, but most stole curious glances at Kristin.
With the students occupied, Kinley strode over to the temple doorway where Grant and Kristin waited. Grant tried unsuccessfully to suppress his excitement.
“You must be feeling better today.” Kinley gave Grant’s arm a fatherly squeeze.
“I can climb steps safely now.”
“Ah, but I see you’ve brought a lovely friend to visit,” Kinley said, bowing to Kristin.
He’s avoiding me, Grant thought.
“Well, if Grant won’t introduce me,” Kristin said, extending a hand. “Kristin Misaki.”
“Kinley Goenpo.” The monk bowed again, taking her hand. “Japanese?”
“My father’s family was from Okinawa, but my mother is pure New England Catholic.”
“The combination suits you well.”
Kinley smiled. Grant noticed that when Kristin shook the monk’s hand, she used both of hers in a familiar embrace. He recalled the thrill he received in the courtyard when their hands touched for a moment longer than was necessary. She’s the touchy-feely type, he thought.
Grant opened his mouth to suggest that they move outside where they could speak in private, but Kristin spoke first. “Who’s he?” She pointed to the throne.
“Lama Dorji. He arrived today. He’s the fifth reincarnation of a holy lama who lived several hundred years ago. These people have come to receive a blessing from him.”
“Will he be staying here long?” Grant asked.
“Only until the Je Khenpo arrives in two weeks.”
“Who’s Jay Kembo?” Kristin asked.
Kinley chuckled. “No, the Je Khenpo is the head abbot of the dratshang, the central monk body; he’s our country’s spiritual leader, and a friend. Soon, he and several hundred monks will move from the Thimpu Dzong in our capital, where they’re based during the summer, back to Punakha. Our lower altitude provides a more temperate climate in the winter months. Lama Dorji and I usually meet a few weeks before to go over logistics.”
Grant felt the handles of his crutches become slick with the sweat from his palms. First, some reincarnated holy man had drawn crowds of villagers into the monastery and next hundreds of monks would be returning. He might only have a brief opportunity for Kinley to sneak him into the library.
Then he sneezed. The incense that had seemed pleasant ten minutes earlier now seemed to restrict his oxygen intake. A number of the villagers turned their heads and stared at him.
“Excuse me,” Grant said. “Maybe we should step outside?”
Instead of following his request, Kristin stepped further inside the temple, stopping at the wall on their left. She brought her face right up to a section of the mural that covered the wall’s entire fifty-foot length. “Hey, this looks familiar.”
Kinley moved to her side. “A poor country’s version of stained glass.”
“Sarnath,” Kristin said. “India. A temple there has a similar mural. Down the road from Varanasi, where I was writing my last article.”
“Yes, that one is also lovely.” The monk waved a hand across the fresco. “The life story of the Buddha.”
A coughing behind them drew their attention. Grant felt the stares. Turning his head, he saw that the lama had paused his blessings and was now glaring across the hall toward them. Kinl
ey exchanged a look with him that Grant couldn’t interpret, but he felt distinctly uncomfortable.
“Maybe we should move,” Grant said.
The lama gestured to the three of them with his staff.
“We’re being summoned,” Kinley said.
Kristin started off with Kinley in the direction of the throne. “I’ve never met a reincarnated lama before,” she said over her shoulder to Grant, as if that was why she had traveled to Bhutan.
Unsure of the proper protocol when he reached the altar in front of the lama, Grant bowed as best he could without falling over his cast. Kristin did the same beside him. Lama Dorji was indeed about Grant’s age but much shorter and at least forty pounds heavier. His round face with its smooth head sat on top of his orange robes like a small pumpkin resting on a larger one.
The lama dipped his head in Grant’s direction but ignored Kristin. “So you are the American Kinley Goenpo has permitted to stay in the goemba?” He spoke in a singsong voice that was higher-pitched than Grant expected.
Grant opened his mouth to respond but closed it when Kinley rested a hand on his shoulder. His friend replied, “Grant was near death when Jigme and I carried him here, la.” Kinley said, adding the formal la as a sign of respect.
“You are better now, no?” Lama Dorji asked Grant.
“I’m mobile now. The doctor says I can leave soon.”
Lama Dorji turned to Kinley. “The preparations for the Je Khenpo and the dratshang?”
“I scheduled the juniors to clean the dormitories Friday, la.”
“What about these disruptions?”
“Disruptions, Lama Dorji?”
“This American and”—the lama flicked his hand toward Kristin—“this woman. I know the temptation that cavorting with these foreigners must hold for you. After all, you did leave the order to study in the West.”
When the lama grinned at Kinley, Grant heard Kristin inhale sharply beside him. The lama’s teeth were deeply stained and his gums oozed a bright red saliva, giving him the appearance of a vampire in the midst of a kill. The plate on the narrow altar in front of the lama revealed the source of the blood: three leaf-wrapped betel nuts. Grant had seen some of the other monks chewing these around the monastery. Kinley had explained that the betel nuts acted as a stimulant and that they were used much in the way some Westerners chewed tobacco, but in place of the dark, leafy spit produced by tobacco, the betel nut produced a crimson red juice that permanently stained one’s teeth over time. Kinley never cared for them, and, he explained, the Buddha taught that if the mind was under the control of narcotic substances, truly transcending one’s thoughts and emotions would be impossible.
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