Grant froze where he sat.
He could no longer see either of his dinner companions or anything else in the restaurant for that matter. The clatter of cooking in the kitchen ceased along with the quiet chatter among the other patrons. The silence weighed on Grant as much as the darkness. He reached his left hand until he touched Kristin’s shoulder and the soft hair that fell around it. Her hand found his and closed around it. With his right hand, he felt around the table for his knife. Blunt, it wouldn’t make much of a weapon, but it was the only protection they had.
Finally Kristin broke the silence in a whisper. “Probably just a power outage. Happens randomly a couple of times a day in the city.” Grant felt some relief at Kristin’s explanation, but he detected a note of concern in her voice as well.
“Nothing to worry about,” Deepraj added more confidently. “We’re quite used to these little interruptions.”
“How long do they last?” Grant called out in the darkness. He felt odd talking to someone he couldn’t see. Nothing shone from the single window either. The entire block must have lost power.
“Sometimes three minutes, sometimes three hours,” Deepraj replied.
A small flickering light danced from the kitchen door toward them. The hostess placed a small candle on their table.
Grant relaxed. No sign of anything sinister. No psycho with a buzz cut waiting to jump them in the darkness. Kristin released Grant’s hand and then proceeded to recount for the professor the events that had taken place in Agra.
“That is truly horrible.” Deepraj shook his head. “Well, you will be safe here. Varanasi is not an easy city to navigate, and anyway I’m sure that, whoever that man was, he is hiding out from the authorities.”
“Let’s hope so,” Grant said, unconvinced.
Deepraj lifted his leather satchel from the floor. From inside, he withdrew a yellowed paperback book. “Have you read this?”
Grant squinted at the cover. The Bhagavad-Gita. He had a copy on his bookshelf at home but had never gotten around to reading it. “Been meaning to. It’s one of Hinduism’s most sacred texts, right?”
Deepraj nodded. “I always keep a copy with me.”
“Wasn’t it composed around the time of the Buddha?”
“Probably just after. Some scholars suggest that the text could be four thousand years old, but I think the more probable date is around five hundred years before Christ.”
“What’s it about?” Kristin asked.
“The title translates literally as ‘Song of the Lord.’ It’s an epic Sanskrit poem that tells the tale of a young prince, Arjuna, who rode in his chariot to a major battle between two competing sides of the royal family. He told his charioteer to stop between the two armies where his brothers and cousins prepared to kill each other. The prince’s driver, Krishna, then engaged him in a discussion about life, death, and reality itself. As it turned out, Krishna was none other than Lord Vishnu, who had manifested himself as a man—God incarnate.”
Interesting, Grant thought. The professor had chosen another example of an ancient people’s believing in God taking the form of a man. “So for Hindus, the Gita is a poem about the word of God as spoken through Krishna, while for Muslims the Koran is the word of God as spoken through the prophet Muhammad?”
“As I said earlier, God speaks to different cultures in the language with which they can best identify. How else can we interpret an infinite and indescribable God but through the lenses of our individual cultures, histories, and languages?”
“Do you think Issa would have studied the Gita on his travels through India?” Kristin asked.
“Most certainly.”
Grant leaned forward in his seat for a better look at the book. “So what would he have learned?”
“Ah, for that you will need to read the text for yourself.” Deepraj patted the book on the table. “But for a taste, imagine God not as a being who exists in some other place called heaven, but as the formless power underlying existence itself, as vast as the universe. God is a presence within every living thing.” Deepraj lifted the glass bowl that held the dripping candle. “Imagine a tiny spark of the essence of God existing deep within each of us, like a tiny flickering candle within this dark room. If our minds and emotions are distracted by the competing spotlights of greed and wealth, jealousy and lust, pain and depression, elation and euphoria, or even thought itself, we become blinded from seeing the tiny flickering candle in the center of our atman, our soul.”
Grant sat in silence, tracing his finger along the faint checkerboard pattern of the vinyl tablecloth. A voice from his childhood came to him. He was sitting on the hard church pew on a humid Virginia summer morning. His father strode in front of the altar, sweating more from the passion of his sermon than from the still air in the church without air-conditioning. Nine years old, Grant was captivated but afraid as he listened to his father’s words. With a fire in his eyes, his father depicted God sitting upright on his heavenly throne judging the newly deceased as they stood quivering in front of him. Those who had not accepted Christ were condemned to an eternity of damnation. Young Grant was determined that he would never be subject to that fate. His faith would remain strong.
Kristin stirred in her seat. “Deepraj, that’s quite beautiful. What an expansive and, at the same time, personal view of God.”
“Grant.” Deepraj rested his elbows on the table, a gleam in his eyes. “Doesn’t Christianity speak of God in equally ethereal terms?”
Grant touched his fingers to his lips. “The Holy Spirit,” he said, more to himself than to the others at the table. “One third of the Trinity—the Christian concept of God’s presence within us as a spirit that can be felt and experienced but not seen.”
“But wasn’t the concept of the Trinity developed much later, after the life of Jesus?” Kristin asked.
“In the fourth century, as a formal doctrine, yes, but the term, ‘holy spirit’ had its origins in the Jewish writings of the Old Testament. In Hebrew the expression ruah hakodesh, or ‘holy spirit,’ was used as a description of God’s presence as it empowered the prophets. Ruah translates literally as ‘wind,’ but in earlier biblical translations like the King James version of the Bible, it’s mistranslated as ‘ghost.’ In other passages God’s presence is described with a similar Hebrew concept—nephesh, which means ‘breath.’”
“Hmm,” Kristin said, reaching her hand toward the candle in the center of the table. Grant watched her rub a finger along the liquid wax that dripped down its side. She brought the finger to her lips and blew on it. “The breath of God.” She pulled the hardened wax from her fingertip and rolled it into a ball. “It’s the idea that God is what animates all life.”
Grant stared at her. An idea clicked into place. “In Genesis, God literally breathes life into Adam, a metaphorical representation of the concept you just described.”
She smiled while still rolling the wax ball in her fingers.
Grant thought about the various meditation techniques Kinley had taught him in Bhutan. Techniques that centered on the breath.
Grant’s eyes narrowed. “If Jesus learned this lesson in India, it could have profoundly influenced his view of God, especially since he would have known, as a Jew himself, about the concepts of ruah hakodesh and nephesh.”
“Every so often in history,” Deepraj said, “a great prophet will arrive—a Buddha, a Jesus, a Muhammad—who can not only see this spark of the divine within himself but focus on nothing else but that spark, fanning the tiny flame into a roaring fire, until the fire itself becomes the guiding center of that individual.”
As Grant contemplated the professor’s comments, the power flickered back on. He blinked while his eyes adjusted to the light. “If what you say is true,” he said, “wouldn’t such a prophet exude this fire to those around him? It’s not surprising that his disciples would want to deify their teacher if they witnessed the presence of God in that person.”
Deepraj, finished with hi
s meal, pushed his chair back from the table and clapped his hands like a child opening a present. “KG was right. What a wonderful student you are!”
Grant felt the warm feeling of pride wash over him. He’d already grown fond of this diminutive man with the expansive mind. He realized that receiving the respect of a professor he’d met only a few hours earlier meant more to him than the meager words of encouragement he’d received over an entire childhood under his father’s judgmental eye.
The good feelings were short-lived, however. Grant mentally shifted gears; as enlightening as the discussion with Deepraj was, he was anxious to get on with finding the texts. The images from the past weeks returned to him: the dusty covers of the manuscripts nestled in the plain pine box, Reverend Brady’s smug expression after he’d revealed Grant’s past, the death at the Taj Mahal, Jigme crumpling to the ground after being shot, the man with the steel eyes and fiery expression.
Grant’s tone turned businesslike. “Well, this discussion just underscores the importance of locating the Issa texts.”
Kristin turned to Deepraj. “We’re driving to Sarnath in the morning.”
Grant glanced at his watch. “We should probably get going.”
Deepraj pulled a five-hundred-rupee bill from his wallet and laid it on the table.
“Please, let me.” Grant reached for his own wallet.
“I wouldn’t think of it. It was such a treat to have the two of you for company in my city.”
Grant sensed he was engaged in an unwinnable argument, and a quick calculation revealed that the entire meal had only cost twelve dollars. He nodded in appreciation to the professor and then stood. Walking to the door of the restaurant, he removed his cell phone from his pocket and turned on the power that he’d kept off for the past day to preserve the battery.
“Can I get your cell phone number, Deepraj? We may want to reach you when we’re in Sarnath tomorrow.”
Grant again pondered what lay in store for them the next day. Will Kinley be waiting in Sarnath with the texts? He was running out of time at Emory, and Kristin’s money wouldn’t last long. Then a darker thought intruded: The man from Agra. Could he have followed us here?
CHAPTER 38
VARANASI, INDIA
“WHICH WAY’S THE RIVER?” Tim muttered.
He poked his head down yet another dark alley. Negotiating the labyrinth of six-foot-wide streets near his rented flat was more difficult than he’d expected. The streets ended or doubled back without warning, and he struggled to avoid touching the dirty people, stray dogs, and homeless cattle that congested the narrow passages.
He glanced at his watch. Eleven fifteen in the morning. The previous night had passed in a blur of misery. He’d lost precious time, but conducting his mission then would have been impossible. Tim had never been so sick in his life. Placing his hand on his side, he could feel his protruding ribs; the muscles around them were still tender.
After consuming a double dose of the antibiotic Cipro and the antinausea medication Phenergan, Tim slept for ten hours straight—double his usual time. He congratulated himself on coming prepared with his own medicines. Who knew what kind of doctors practiced in this place. When he woke at nine thirty, his legs were still shaky, but he was back among the living. He’d even nibbled on some hard bread.
More encouraging than his improved health, Tim had learned from his phone’s web browser that Matthews had finally turned on his cell phone. Selecting the history icon, Tim saw that they had arrived in Varanasi late yesterday, a day earlier than he’d expected. They traveled from the city center to Banaras University, where they must have met with Misaki’s professor friend, and then to the outskirts, where they’d remained for the night, about a mile and a half from Tim’s flat. A quick flipping of pages in his guidebook revealed that they were staying at the Hotel Taj Ganges, a hotel that read like an oasis compared to the scum pit he called a room.
Tim shook his head. If it wasn’t for this country’s unsanitary conditions, he’d have been waiting at the university yesterday when the targets arrived. He’d have to make up for it today.
He picked up his pace, turning east down another unnamed alley, carefully stepping over the cattle dung in the center of the street. He swatted at the flies swarming from the feces to the people around him and back to the shit piles again. He was only a couple of miles from the university, and so he decided that walking there would give him a chance to scope out the city, in addition to clearing his head. He absentmindedly caressed his forearms, more out of habit than any feeling of itchiness; he’d applied his lotion before leaving the flat.
“Fresh air?” he said to himself before letting loose a wad of spit to the stone by his feet. “What was I thinking?”
How could anyone ever get used to the stink in this country? To Tim, the stench of Varanasi overpowered even Agra’s. It was like nothing he’d experienced in his travels before. He concentrated on taking shallow breaths to lessen the impact of the nauseating cloud of incense emanating from the closet-sized stores lining the alley, the cooking stove fumes from the streetside stalls, the garbage strewn along the streets, and the human and animal urine flowing along the dips and cracks in the sidewalk. Although he’d showered an hour earlier, if you could call it that, Tim felt dirty, as if the essence of this city were polluting him.
He removed his phone from the inside pocket of his black windbreaker. Tapping the screen, he pulled up a map of Varanasi. After tapping the screen three more times and waiting for it to refresh, the map zoomed out, and the red dot appeared. About ten kilometers north of him, the dot blinked above the icon for a small town labeled Sarnath.
A call to the Hotel Taj Ganges earlier had revealed that the couple had paid for two more nights, and both the train station and the airport were in Varanasi, not Sarnath, so he was in no danger of losing his targets. He would first question the professor, and then he would properly greet Matthews and Misaki when they returned to their hotel.
Tim finally emerged from the claustrophobia of the alleys into the daylight. One block later the street terminated at fifteen stone steps—the ghats he’d heard about—leading to the water of the Ganges River. Tim turned right and walked along the top of the ghats, which stretched along the riverbank as far as he could see.
He welcomed the view across the river. Unlike the crowded and crumbling city around him, the far bank contained a stretch of grassy marshland that terminated in the foothills of mountains on the distant horizon. The suggestion that nature once ruled this area reminded Tim of how far he was from the woods and creeks of Alabama where he’d spent many an afternoon hunting. A few minutes later, he passed sewer pipes emptying a foul-smelling dark sludge into the river. He had to stifle his gag reflex when he saw the groups of men bathing waist-deep in the same water.
“Holiest river in India?” he said to himself.
Just when he thought the city couldn’t disgust him any more, he reached a three-story brick building extending from the street over the middle of the ghat in front of him. On the steps around the building, seven bonfires burned in various stages—some were smoldering coals, while others blazed fifteen feet in the air. The sickly sweet odor of the smoke mixed with an unfamiliar aroma caused an unpleasant feeling in his stomach. Drawing closer to the building, he saw a group of eight men dressed in white standing in a circle next to an unlit bonfire of stacked wood six feet in height. Tim slowed his pace. When he stopped parallel to the men, he noticed that seven of them stood in a semicircle while the eighth stood back with a camera gesturing for them to move closer together. Lying on the ground in the center of the smiling men was a corpse draped in a white sheet.
After the cameraman shouted new instructions, two men in the center bent over and propped up the corpse into a semisitting position. One of the men pulled back the shroud, revealing the lifeless head of an elderly Indian man. Something about the casual nature of the men drew Tim into the macabre photo op: was it the way they handled the corpse, the smiles
on their faces, or the knowledge that in a few minutes the body would be cooking on top of the pile of wood like a hog on a spit?
Walking around the end of the brick building, Tim came across bundles of wood stacked against the wall and extending a block down the street. Scrawny Indian men dressed in tattered clothes and worn sandals carried logs from the street to the brick building. Tim figured a few rupees would get one of these guys to build a cremation pyre.
He wondered whether anyone could bring a body here wrapped in a bedsheet and plop it on a fire.
CHAPTER 39
SARNATH, INDIA
THE MORNING SUN BURNED brightly in the cloudless sky as Grant and Kristin hustled down the dusty road leading from the public parking lot to the ancient ruins of Sarnath, the tiny town where the Buddha gave his first lectures twenty-five hundred years ago. Grant anxiously anticipated what they might find when they reached the temple where Jigme had sent them.
“You think Kinley has been hiding out here?” Kristin asked, the exact question that had weighed on Grant’s mind all morning.
“Don’t know.” After the disappointment of not finding him in Agra, Grant tried to suppress his expectations that their friend was waiting for them here. He was convinced, however, that their travels to Agra, then Varanasi, and now Sarnath—three holy cities for three different religions—was part of a larger lesson that Kinley had planned for them.
Grant waved off two teenage boys who trotted up to them. Undeterred, one boy held up a souvenir book for them to see, flipping through the colorful pictures of ruins, monks, and pilgrims.
“You English? American?” The boy asked.
“No thank you,” Grant replied.
“Only thirty rupees.”
Grant grabbed Kristin’s hand and continued down the road. As far as Grant could tell, Sarnath wasn’t a town as much as it was a collection of ruins, temples, and monasteries.
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