Professor Bhatt clapped his hands together. “That wouldn’t be KG, would it? I hear you’ve become one of his favorite students.”
“KG?” Grant’s eyebrows rose. “You know Kinley Goenpo?”
Deepraj chuckled. “Oh, we have quite a history together.”
CHAPTER 35
OLD VARANASI, INDIA
NASTY.
The word came to Tim as he searched through his duffel bag in the rented flat. The same word had come to him as his rickshaw driver had driven him through the streets of Varanasi yesterday. To him, the word accurately described this country, this city, this room, and now the way he felt.
Tim removed the large pink bottle from an inside pocket. Not bothering to read the directions, he chugged a third of the medicine. Anything to quell the explosive feeling building in his bowels. He’d been careful with what he’d eaten so far, but something had caught up with him. In the Army he’d been protected from the local cuisine with MREs. He wished now that he’d brought some with him.
Tim replaced the bottle in his bag, which he then dropped onto the room’s dusty floor. Reclining on the hard, lumpy mattress, Tim cursed the rickshaw driver who had found the flat. The formerly white plaster of the walls and ceiling of his room had turned a dull gray from years of grime and pollution. Chunks of it had peeled back, hanging loosely like the leaves of a giant plant, revealing the concrete block of the structure behind it. On the trip from the train station, his driver had promised the flat to be just what Tim wanted—quiet, with a private first-floor entrance through a nondescript alley in the heart of the Old City of Varanasi.
Tim recalled the man’s rapid-fire English. “I negotiate very fair deal from owner,” he’d said. An owner, Tim suspected, who was no doubt a relative of the driver’s. What sealed the deal for Tim, though, was when the man asked with a mischievous look, “You don’t mind sleeping near the path the corpses take on their way to the cremation ghats?”
“Cremation ghats?” Tim asked, his curiosity aroused.
“Yes, along the banks of the Ganges River, stone steps, the ghats, lead from the city streets to the water.”
“Are you telling me they cremate bodies outside on these steps?”
The driver glanced over his shoulder at Tim and laughed. “Every day.”
The disgusting image of bodies cooking like hot dogs on a campfire confirmed for Tim the primitiveness of this society. Unfortunately, once he’d engaged the driver in conversation, he couldn’t shut the man up. Over the whine of the motorbike’s engine pulling the creaky rickshaw, the man droned on, explaining that Varanasi was to Hindus what Mecca was to Muslims: a holy pilgrimage site to be visited during their lifetime. The Ganges was believed to have cleansing powers both spiritually and physically for those who bathed in its waters.
“We Hindus believe,” the driver had said, “that Varanasi is the ultimate place to die. By dying here, we are released from the endless cycle of reincarnation and death.”
The extent of the superstitions and bizarre beliefs of non-Christians never ceased to surprise Tim, but he would use their perverted ideas to his advantage. He would be able to carry a semiconscious person to his flat without arousing suspicion; the sight of a weak, terminally ill traveler who had come to die in Varanasi wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.
CHAPTER 36
VARANASI, INDIA
DEEPRAJ SMILED AT the astonished looks on Grant’s and Kristin’s faces. “Kinley and I overlapped at Oxford for two years. In a sea of Anglo-Saxons, I was comforted to find a friend from my part of the world.”
Closing his still gaping mouth, Grant asked, “Have you spoken with him recently?”
“Have I spoken with him? He was sitting just where you are two weeks ago.”
Grant and Kristin looked at each other for a second time. Kristin leaned forward. “We’ve been told to go to Sarnath. Did he mention that to you?”
“No. He only told me to expect you. I learned many years ago not to push Kinley when he’s not inclined to talk.”
“Do you know about the texts he showed us while we were in Bhutan?” Grant asked.
“I’ve been following the news online. I was even able to watch the video of your TV appearance at Emory.”
Grant’s face fell.
Deepraj patted his shoulder. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You were quite good actually. Poised, intelligent, knowledgeable. You were just ambushed. I can’t fault you for your reaction.”
“What do you think about the texts?” Kristin asked.
“As a young man, I heard the stories of Jesus’ travels through my country. Many Indians are familiar with his trek.”
Grant’s face hardened. “But the key question is whether these texts just chronicle a legend that developed later, or whether those events actually happened as recorded.”
“Does it really matter?” the professor asked.
“Of course it matters. If Jesus’ experiences with Hinduism and Buddhism shaped his understanding of God and formed the basis of his own teachings, then we have a very different understanding of him as a man.”
The professor nodded his head, although to Grant it looked like he was nodding not in agreement with his argument but in understanding of a larger issue. “Kinley and I discussed how you see the world in such black-and-white terms.”
Grant was reminded of this same critique that Jigme and Razi had made of him. Then an idea came to him. Just as he had realized at the Taj that the encounter between the Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist students—he, Razi, and Jigme—was not a coincidence, he thought about the professor standing in front of him: a professor of Hindu studies. Then a single word popped into his head—connection. One of Kinley’s favorite teachings was that life was not a series of individual incidents but that we live in an web of interconnections.
He spoke quickly. “I know the texts are more important than just revealing the nonsupernatural aspects of Jesus’ life.” He tapped on the professor’s desk. “They show the connections among the various world religions in a way that previously was less apparent.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled.
Rather than applaud Grant’s insight, Deepraj rose from his seat and pointed to the darkening skies outside the small window above the humming AC unit. “Care to join me for an early dinner?”
“We’re starved,” Kristin replied.
Deepraj led them out of the main university entrance and down Assi Road, negotiating a path through sidewalk tables overflowing with fresh fruits and vegetables, many of which Grant had never seen before. The professor stepped into a small store that sold perfumes and tonics stored in hundreds of unlabeled bottles on wooden shelves. Before Grant could ask what they were doing in the place, Deepraj led them through the rear door of the store into a dark and dank alley behind the crumbling concrete building.
Grant’s instincts immediately kicked in. Since the attack in Agra, his senses had been alert for any sign of danger. He scanned the shadows. Nothing but the stench of rotting garbage. He watched Deepraj climb a shaky metal staircase that led to the second floor.
“Don’t worry, my American friend,” Deepraj said, laughing. “Very fresh food. We won’t drink water, however, just beer.” He held open a rusty door.
As soon as he stepped inside, Grant relaxed. In contrast to the grimy alley, the restaurant was colorful, clean, and infused with the smell of turmeric, cumin, and baking bread. Fabrics in a rainbow of silk billowed across the ceiling from the center of the room and then draped down the walls, creating the illusion that they were in some maharajah’s tent. The restaurant held only seven tables, and they were the first customers of the night to arrive. The host, a slight man who was a full head shorter than Grant, greeted the professor by placing his hands to his chest in prayer position and bowing deeply.
While the host sat them and brought naan and cold bottles of Kingfisher beer, Grant studied Deepraj. Kinley had planned for them to meet this Hindu scholar, just as they’d met the Islamic student i
n Agra. Based on what he knew from Karma and now Deepraj, Kinley had left the monastery immediately after Grant and Kristin had flown back to the States and had traveled to Varanasi. Jigme had followed shortly afterward. After he’d visited with Deepraj, Kinley must have gone to Agra, where he’d met Razi and planned Grant’s trip there. But what’s waiting for us tomorrow morning in Sarnath? he wondered. He hoped to find Kinley and the texts there.
“Now, Deepraj,” Kristin said, “the books Kinley showed us described Issa first studying the Vedas when he arrived in India, before he continued on his travels and focused on Buddhism.” She tore off a piece of naan slippery with butter and waved it in the air as she spoke. “I understand that the Vedas are the sacred scriptures to the Hindus, but the Issa texts are not entirely clear on what Issa would have learned from them.”
The professor set his glass on the table. “I cannot even begin to summarize a religion as diverse as Hinduism over dinner, but let me give you a few thoughts to ponder. We don’t have a founding date or figure for our religion, but it is certainly among the oldest surviving religions in the world today. In existence for thousands of years, Hinduism has survived occupations by Muslim and Christian rulers because of its adaptability. You see, we do not believe in only one spiritual path. In fact, our religious scriptures, the Vedas, describe multiple paths to God—intellectual, physical, spiritual, emotional. Just as my students all have different learning styles—some are more visual and learn through reading texts, others must hear my lectures to learn, while others must experience the reality of my teachings themselves before they accept them—each person has a different proclivity toward the best path to his or her spiritual center.”
“But,” Grant said, swirling around the Kingfisher in his tall glass, “if there really is just one ultimate truth—call it God or whatever—why wouldn’t one spiritual approach or paradigm of beliefs work for everyone?”
“If different nations speak different languages within their borders, why wouldn’t God speak in different religious contexts to different cultures?”
A look of confusion passed over Grant’s face. “You speak of God in a monotheistic way, like a Christian or a Jew, but doesn’t Hinduism recognize literally thousands of deities?” He asked the question rhetorically, pointing to a bronze statue that rested on a shelf near the entrance to the restaurant. The figure had a portly human body, four arms, and an elephant head. Then Grant turned and gestured above the kitchen door to a tapestry made from shimmering red and gold threads that depicted another god who had six arms and a wide human face with a third eye peering out from the center of his forehead.
“Ah, your Western mind-set at work.” Deepraj chuckled. “The world is not so dualistic: what you see as black may really also be white and vice versa.”
“I don’t mean to be disrespectful, Professor, but that sounds awfully New Age. In today’s world, we can prove scientifically that something is black or white.”
“Can we? Now, I’m not a scientist, but my understanding is that modern physics—quantum mechanics, relativity—rests on the very notion that reality is not always fixed or measurable. Light, for example, can act as a particle or a wave; subatomic particles can behave as if they are in more than one place at the same time; and even time has no absolute value but can speed up or slow down depending on certain variables.”
The food arrived without Grant even having seen a menu. They spooned the steaming items out of shiny metal bowls that kept appearing on their table, one after the other. Grant lost track of the number of courses the owner s wife, a quiet round woman, brought to their table, but he was relieved to find the food fresh, tasty, and most important, thoroughly cooked. The dishes were as colorful as the room décor: carrot and coriander soup, orange peppers and bright green beans in red curry, potatoes in green curry, tandoori chicken cooked to a brick red from the spices in which it had marinated, and longgrain white basmati rice.
After swallowing a mouthful of curry, Grant tried again. “But what does that have to do with Hinduism’s view of God?”
“Hinduism is not monotheistic, it’s true, but contrary to your impressions from having seen our many temples, or even these representations dedicated to the various Hindu deities”—Deepraj gestured to the elephant-man statue and the colorful tapestry—“we are not polytheistic either, at least not in the sense that the Greeks or Romans were.”
“What are you then?”
“Ah.” Deepraj chuckled. “How do you describe the infinite, the indescribable, that which existed before words, before matter, before the universe?”
“Through analogy and metaphor, I guess,” Kristin said.
“And through mythological tales,” added Grant.
“Right on both counts. Even we Hindus find it easier to visualize God in various manifested forms than as some undefined concept. So while we have the concept of God, or Brahman, as the infinite power behind existence itself—an omnipresent but formless and inconceivable presence—we visualize this power and influence by its various manifestations. You see, the cosmological questions of the existence of the universe and our purpose in it are not issues we deal with every day like the joy of birth, the emotional closeness felt between lovers, or the pain of sickness and death. So to express these influences of God, we see the manifestations of Brahman in deities such as Lord Vishnu, who protects and watches over us, or”—Deepraj nodded to the colorful tapestry with its figure whose penetrating third eye seemed to focus on their table—“Shiva, the destroyer, who incidentally is seen as the deity who rules over the city of Varanasi. Of course, our most popular god, Lord Ganesh”—he now pointed to the bronze elephant-headed statue by the door—“is the god of good fortune and prosperity.”
Grant eyed the figures again, taking a swig of his Kingfisher. At home he usually preferred darker stouts, but tonight in the warm restaurant with the food whose spices accumulated with each successive bite, the cool lager helped to quench the growing fire in his mouth.
“Indeed,” the professor continued, “we have a saying that Hinduism is a religion of one God but many faces.”
“But isn’t the danger of this approach,” Grant asked, keeping his tone reasonable so he wouldn’t sound like he was trying to debate this man’s religion, “that people lose sight of the purpose of these myths and that religious practice becomes merely idol worship, praying to a deity to provide whatever it has control over?”
“True.” The professor stroked his chin. “The excessive focus on rituals designed to influence the gods was one of the reasons the Buddha distanced himself from some of the practices of Hinduism.”
“Much like Martin Luther sparked the Protestant Reformation by speaking out against the excesses of the Catholic Church,” Grant added.
“Wait. You’re losing me,” Kristin said. “I thought that Hindus saw the Buddha as one of them, that they absorbed Buddhism into modern-day Hinduism, which is why Buddhism as a separate religion is not heavily practiced in the country of its origin.”
“Yes, a good observation,” Deepraj said. “In fact, Hindus see the Buddha as an incarnation of Vishnu, which leads us back to your original question concerning Jesus.”
Grant frowned in confusion, not sure how the discussion had returned to its origin. Just as he turned to Deepraj to pose his next question, the small restaurant plunged into total darkness.
CHAPTER 37
VARANASI, INDIA
TIM GLARED ACROSS the flat’s small sitting area to the bathroom at the far end of the room. Why did I rent this pit? An extended acidic burp erupted from his mouth. The coming night wasn’t going to be pleasant.
His “private bath” was hardly large enough to turn around inside. It didn’t even have a separate shower or tub—only a hand-held nozzle attached to the wall and a floor drain in front of the porcelain sink whose layers of brown mold and mildew obscured its original white color. Most disturbing to Tim, though, was the toilet, or lack thereof: a hole in the floor with two indentations
on either side to place your feet.
“How the hell am I supposed to take a crap like that?” he mumbled.
He suspected he would be finding out very shortly. At least he’d had the foresight to buy some toilet paper from a small market down one of the mazelike alleyways that surrounded his flat. Eyeing the bucket that sat next to the Indian toilet, he told himself there was no way in hell he was going to forgo the rough paper and wash his ass with his bare hand and water from that thing.
Tim wiped his clammy forehead with the back of his hand. So far his plan was not following his expectations. He’d hoped to grab the Jesus texts in Agra, or at the least discover their precise location. The grab and run with the monk had gone to hell. He knew that covert operations were unpredictable, but he’d handled the Muslim efficiently. Then he’d been only a few yards from disappearing into the shadows of the guest house when Matthews and Misaki ruined his plans. The memory of Matthews’s defiant stare made Tim’s pale face flush with anger. Temporarily forgetting about his growing nausea, Tim anticipated the time when he would put a bullet through the grad student’s brain.
He snatched his phone from the table by the bed and checked the browser. Nothing, again. He hadn’t picked up Matthews’s cell phone in over a day, which most likely meant he’d turned off his phone or the battery had died. Fortunately, Tim had another option. The latest intelligence he’d received revealed that Misaki had previous ties in Varanasi, a Professor Deepraj Bhatt. Tim wondered whether he held the clue to the texts. He’d spent the past day scouting the university where this professor worked. He’d planned to pay a visit that afternoon, but now with his protesting stomach, he’d be forced to wait until the morning.
Tim knew that no covert op was foolproof, but the uncertainties here ate at him. This was supposed to be his moment of glory.
With little warning, his stomach violently lurched, sending him hurtling to the bathroom. He barely made it to the hole before dropping to his knees and vomiting out his stomach’s contents.
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