The Breath of God

by Jeffrey Small

  “Ever since Isabelle’s death, with guys—” She brushed her hair out of her face. “I mean, I’m not a virgin. It’s just that if I really like someone, I can’t—”

  “Hey, don’t stress about it.” He took her hand. “I understand.”

  “It’s getting late.” Kristin stood, tucked in the shirt she normally wore loose, and buttoned her jeans. “We need to get some sleep before we get back to work on your situation tomorrow.”

  His humiliation at the debate, which he’d briefly forgotten until this moment, seemed to have brought them closer, but now she wouldn’t look him in the eyes. Kristin moved toward the bedroom door, her back now toward him. He felt an insecurity expanding within his chest as questions danced in his head. Was it really the memory of her sister that caused her to pull away or was it something else? After everything that was going wrong, he wasn’t sure he trusted his own judgment. He couldn’t afford to have things weird with Kristin. He needed her now as much as he’d needed her camera in Bhutan.

  She turned toward him and said, “We have plenty of time to talk later.” The bedroom door closed behind her.

  CHAPTER 24

  EMORY UNIVERSITY ATLANTA, GEORGIA

  WHAT DOES BILLINGSLY WANT? Grant paused outside his mentor’s office door.

  The professor had called an hour earlier on Grant’s cell just as he and Kristin were finishing breakfast. In an unusually strained voice, Billingsly asked him to come alone, so he’d dropped Kristin off at a Starbucks near campus. He thought the professor’s request odd, but it was just as well. An awkward tension hung between Kristin and him that morning. Neither had mentioned the events of the previous night.

  Reaching for the door handle, Grant wondered whether the professor had made progress with the government of Bhutan through his university contacts in the Emory-Tibet Partnership, a program of study in Tibetan Buddhism. He also hoped that his mentor would have some advice on how he should handle the fallout from Brady’s attack. Today Grant needed his counsel more than ever.

  As Grant opened the door, a powerful sense of déjà vu sucked the breath from his lungs. Billingsly sat at his desk wearing a stern expression behind his half-moon glasses. Perched in one of the two black maple chairs and dressed in gray wool slacks and a wrinkled blue blazer with brass buttons was Chair of the Religious Studies Department Edward Flannigan. Wisps of white hair were combed over a pale scalp. The hazel eyes behind the horned-rim glasses surveyed Grant as he froze in the doorway.

  Sophomore year again.

  “Please, Grant, have a seat.” Billingsly motioned to the other empty chair.

  Grant limped to the center of the office but felt as if he’d left his stomach at the door. He lowered himself into the hardwood chair and stretched out his right leg, which had begun to throb.

  “Have you seen this?” Dean Flannigan tossed a newspaper into Grant’s lap.

  Grant had meant to pick up a copy with his nonfat latte at Starbucks, but he had been running late. The paper was folded open to an article with his picture embedded in the copy. The emptiness in Grant’s stomach deepened when he began to read.

  Emory University doctoral candidate Grant Matthews and travel journalist Kristin Misaki stunned the theological world with the Internet release of what they claimed to be a translation of seven ancient books discovered in the tiny Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan in the Himalayas. The manuscripts purported to describe the so-called lost years of Jesus, the period in his life from ages 12 to 29 on which the Bible is silent. In a lively debate broadcast by CNN from the Emory campus on Wednesday, the Reverend Brian Brady, Pastor of the Alabama-based New Hope Church, shocked the crowd, as well as an unsuspecting Mr. Matthews, by revealing that Matthews had been found guilty of plagiarism during his sophomore year at the University of Virginia.

  In an exclusive telephone interview yesterday, Lama Dorji, Senior Monk in the Punakha Dzong Monastery where the alleged manuscripts were supposedly discovered, denied the existence of any books in the monastery describing the life of Jesus. “Our library contains the sacred Tibetan Buddhist texts used by our monks. We would have no need to keep Christian writings here,” the lama said through his translator. “If such texts [about the life of Jesus] existed, we would have turned them over to Christian scholars many years ago.”

  When asked whether he knew of any activities of either Mr. Matthews or Ms. Misaki at the monastery, the senor monk confirmed that Mr. Matthews had stayed at the monastery for a number of weeks, recovering from injuries received in a kayaking accident, but that he had been “under strong pain medication from a local doctor and confined to his room for the duration of his stay [there].” Lama Dorji had no recollection of meeting Ms. Misaki but did say, “Each week a few Western tourists walk through the grounds of our goemba [monastery], but they are always escorted by a guide. A lay person, especially a non-Buddhist, would not have access to many of the areas within the goemba, including our library.”

  Repeated calls to Mr. Matthews in Atlanta were unreturned.

  Grant’s fingers shook as he finished the article. Resisting the temptation to hurl the paper across the room took every bit of his self-control. A torrent of questions flooded his mind. How did the reporter discover they’d found the documents in Punakha? Up until this moment he’d believed the monastery to be the one thing the press didn’t have a lead on. He’d been careful in the debate not to give any clues that might lead to the dzong. The more important question pounding behind his temples, however, was where were the texts? Were they being hidden by Lama Dorji? What had happened to Kinley? He felt the pressure in his head begin to build. Not only was he unable to answer these questions, he was powerless to do anything to get the answers. Bhutan was half a world away.

  Then, for the second time in as many days, a more disturbing thought arose. If he was honest with himself, he really didn’t know whether the documents were authentic. He’d implicitly trusted Kinley. But Kinley had vanished. And even if the texts were legitimate, no one would take him seriously after the lama’s denial. Was it possible that the skeptics in his department were right? Had he thrown away a promising academic career to chase some Holy Grail quest?

  “What do you have to say for yourself, Mr. Matthews?” Dean Flannigan interrupted the tornado of thoughts in his head.

  “You have to understand,”—Grant’s voice rose an octave—“Lama Dorji is very much a traditionalist. He doesn’t want Westerners in his monastery, and particularly not in the library. He has no interest in cooperating. I just never thought he’d lie about it. He must be covering up to prevent a deluge of media attention on the monastery.”

  “Have you spoken with Kinley yet?” Billingsly asked.

  Grant dropped his voice and his head. “I’m still waiting to hear from him.”

  “So you have no independent verification of the texts?” Flannigan asked.

  Grant stared at the floor.

  “And the pictures you said you had of the books somehow mysteriously vanished?”

  Grant nodded.

  Professor Flannigan cleared his throat. “Mr. Matthews, the school is uncomfortable with the current situation. This publicity reflects negatively on all of us, especially in light of your past problems.”

  “Wait! I have an idea.” Grant knew he sounded desperate, but then again he was. “I’ll just return to Bhutan and find the texts.”

  The department chair shook his head. “In two weeks you’ll be given a formal disciplinary hearing. Until then, I have no choice but to suspend you temporarily. Your stipend for living expenses will continue, but your scholarship and any travel-related reimbursement will be curtailed pending the results of the hearing.”

  “Harold.” Grant pushed himself halfway out of his chair. “You know this is bullshit. I just need more time.”

  His mentor refused to meet his eyes as he replied, “I know this is difficult, but our hands are tied. I think a couple weeks’ break from school will be best for everyone.”

  Gra
nt couldn’t believe what he was hearing. How am I to defend myself without the time or the resources to do so? The premature release of the texts, the missing pictures, Kinley’s disappearance, Brady’s revelation, and now his suspension. The throbbing in his leg had migrated up his hip and combined with the pounding behind his eyes; he was barely able to stand. He no longer saw either of the professors: the obstacles before him obscured everything.

  CHAPTER 25

  STARBUCKS, BRIARCLIFF ROAD ATLANTA, GEORGIA

  A SCREECH ECHOED THROUGH the coffee shop as Grant dragged a wood chair from a table over to the plush green armchair where Kristin sat on her knees with her tie-dyed silk skirt tucked under her legs. He noted how the turtleneck clung to her curves as he collapsed into the chair beside her. She wore her hair in pigtails.

  “Your meeting?” she asked.

  “I’ve been suspended, pending an emergency investigation.”

  “Because of this?” She rotated the laptop he’d lent her. The website displayed the same article he’d read in Billingsly’s office minutes earlier. Her blue eyes blazed with an anger he hadn’t noticed when he first sat.

  “UVA all over again,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “Your case doesn’t look very strong from an outside perspective.”

  “No, but they’re not even giving me a chance.” He stood. “Drink?”

  She shook her head and pointed to the untouched cup of tea on the small round table beside her.

  When he returned with his second nonfat latte of the day, they sat in silence. Sipping from his cup, Grant recalled the pages of notes he’d taken and the outlines he’d typed when he was in Bhutan. He thought he’d planned for every contingency, but nothing was turning out the way he expected.

  He gulped his drink and winced when the hot liquid made direct contact with his throat. He removed the white plastic lid, releasing the pent-up steam. Swirling his drink, he watched how the frothy bubbles of milk clung to the sides of the cup. A memory stirred within him: lying in the monastery bed, his leg propped on blankets, Kinley offering him a cup of water.

  Grant brought the latte to his nose and inhaled the rich aroma. He took a more cautious sip, savoring the layers of flavors. He thought about the coffee beans, the plants growing in the tropical sun, nourished by the soil and the rain. He placed his cup on the round table beside his chair and looked to the laptop resting on Kristin’s knees.

  This was easier in Bhutan. Without Kinley’s guidance, he felt lost putting into practice the monk’s techniques.

  He glanced out the coffee shop window. The chatter of the other patrons became white noise in the background of his thoughts. Across the parking lot, a lone maple tree grew out of an island within a sea of asphalt. Its branches were bare.

  Naked in the autumn wind. Like he was.

  The potential unknowns scared him—the changes in his life he couldn’t control. But then he recalled Kinley telling him that the future would always be a potential unknown. The essence of life was change, the monk had taught. “Even what you think of as the fixed entity that is Grant Matthews,” Kinley had said, “is an illusion. Physically you are not the same person you were when you were ten years old. Every day, cells in your body die and are replaced with new ones. The neurons in your brain form new connections, as the old, unused ones die away. Memories fade, but are replaced by new ones. The thoughts and worries you have today are different from the ones you had then, just as the thoughts and worries you will have ten years from now will be different from those you have now.”

  Suddenly Grant knew what he had to do. He pushed aside his teacher’s voice. He decided to make the proclamation he’d made in Billingsly’s office a reality. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became. He would prove to the professors, to the Bradys of the world, to his dead father, that he was right. He had one problem, though.

  “You can’t give up,” Kristin said suddenly, mirroring his thoughts. “You need those texts even more than you realize. Since your accident on the river, you’ve been on a quest as well. Maybe there’s something you’re supposed to learn from Issa.”

  Grant cocked his head. My own quest? He hadn’t thought of it in those terms before. “My only option is to return to Bhutan and bring back the texts, but I spent my savings on my last trip. Now with my suspension—”

  “Look, I’m pretty frugal abroad. I still have some unspent travel funds, and my next story won’t be overdue for another month.”

  “You’d do that?” He didn’t add after last night, but he thought it.

  “Of course.” She grabbed his arm and shook it. “For some reason, you’re getting royally screwed here. I helped you get into this mess by taking the photos, and I’ll help you get out.”

  The computer in her lap beeped, causing both to jump.

  “Email,” Kristin said.

  Grant reached across her and clicked on the mail icon at the bottom of the screen. Several seconds passed before he realized who the sender, jigmemonk, was.

  “I don’t believe it!” Grant exclaimed loudly enough that a young couple at the next table glanced over. He lowered his voice. “Jigme.”

  “Kinley’s apprentice? The one who never spoke?” she asked.

  “Yeah, check this out.”

  Grant read the email aloud:

  Greetings Grant and Kristin, I have completed my retreat in silence, and am once again permitted to communicate via more conventional means. I apologize for taking so long in returning your messages. Since you left our humble country, our life has become more complicated, requiring that we take time to travel.

  Have you practiced the techniques you were taught during your stay? Knowing how much you enjoyed our teacher’s koans, he also asked me to pass along the following one for you to ponder:

  The student asked his master, “Is it true that Isa built his monument to mankind as a crown, not of thorns, but as a palace of grief?” To which the master replied, “Only through death can we see his symbol of eternal love, reflected in a pond by the light of the full moon.”

  We do miss seeing you and hope that you will be able to visit at the very first opportunity. Peace to you.

  “I don’t get it,” Grant said, rereading the email to himself. “With everything we’ve been through, the first we hear from them is another one of Kinley’s mind twisters.”

  Kristin continued to stare at the email.

  “Well?” Grant said, growing agitated in spite of himself. Suddenly he became aware of the sound of grinding coffee beans. The noise grated on his nerves. He felt himself falling back into despair, indulging Reverend Brady’s accusation that he was being messed with. He’d spent the past week pleading with Karma through phone calls and emails for a glimmer of information on either Kinley’s whereabouts or the status of the texts, and until this vague email he had nothing.

  “I don’t think it’s really a koan.” Kristin’s voice grew animated. “It’s a riddle or a clue!”

  Grant stared at the screen. A spark of hope ignited within his chest. He knew that the witty but confusing stories Kinley had delighted in posing to him in Bhutan were not true riddles, because the questions they posed didn’t have a single solution. The stories were called koans—sayings made popular by the Zen schools of Buddhism in China and Japan that were meant to shock the mind into thinking outside its usual boundaries.

  “Look at the final sentence. She pointed to the computer. “He wants us to visit ASAP.”

  “You think Kinley was nervous sending us explicit meeting instructions after the negative publicity we’ve received and his problems with the lama?”

  “I do.”

  Suddenly the lack of communication from Kinley and the lama’s claim that the library held no texts on Issa made sense to Grant: Kinley must have taken the texts with him when he left, and now he was ready to meet with them.

  Grant sipped his latte. “Okay, the clue seems to refer to Jesus. We have the reference to Issa, and the crown of thorns th
at Jesus wore at his crucifixion, and then the idea that his death brings eternal life through God’s love.” He paused for a moment, furrowing his brow. “But I don’t see how that leads us anywhere. The palace of grief? Does that mean something to you?”

  Kristin reread the email, her lips silently mouthing the words. She then pointed to the first line. “Here: ‘Isa built his monument to mankind as a crown, not of thorns, but as a palace of grief.’ Jigme spells the name ‘Isa’ with one s. When used as the Indian name for Jesus, didn’t you tell me it was spelled with a double s?”

  Grant nodded. “I assumed he just misspelled it, or used the Islamic form, which has only one s.”

  “Look at the rest of the sentence: the crown refers to a monument which is specifically not of thorns but is related to a palace of grief.”

  “Not of thorns.” Grant pictured Kinley’s twinkling eyes. “A misdirection. How like him. The riddle isn’t about Jesus at all.” Then he saw the clue. “Monument! It’s about an actual monument, not a metaphorical one. And the monument has something to do with grief. Like a cemetery or something?”

  Kristin smiled broadly. “The most recognizable monument in India is a palace of grief. The Taj Mahal.”

  “It is?” The spark of excitement flamed within him. “I never had time to visit Agra when I was in India.”

  “I spent a week there writing about the Taj,” she said. “Emperor Shah Jahan commissioned the monument in sixteen thirty-one, not as a palace in which to live, but as a mausoleum for the remains of his second wife, Mumtaz, who died while giving birth to their fourteenth child.”

  “Fourteen kids? That’s one dedicated mother.”

  “As dedicated as the emperor, who loved her above all his other wives. So the grandeur of the Taj came to symbolize his eternal love.”

  Grant read aloud from the email, “‘Only through death can we see his symbol of eternal love.’”

  “Exactly. Also, the name Taj Mahal translates literally as ‘Crown Palace.’”

  “Just like the riddle says, but”—Grant sat up straighter, the pain in his leg and his troubles at the university momentarily forgotten—“what about Isa?”