The Breath of God

by Jeffrey Small

  Like a magnet attracting his attention, the terror of what waited for him on the sofa forced Grant’s head to turn and look.

  Kristin sat immobile on the center cushion, her eyes wide. Hope flooded through Grant’s veins. The words barely came out of his mouth, “He missed?”

  She shook her head. Her eyes fell to the figure collapsed at her feet, partially hidden by the coffee table. Keeping the gun trained on Jennings, Grant moved toward Kristin. She said in a quiet monotone, “He jumped in front of me.”

  Professor Billingsly’s twisted body lay in a heap at her feet. A stream of blood ran along the pine flooring.

  Grant bent over to check for a pulse.

  “Grant!” Kristin screamed from beside him.

  Grant swiveled his head. Jennings flew toward him, as if propelled by an unseen force. His face was neither contorted in rage nor pain but was calm, expressionless. He held his broken right arm to his stomach. He swung the iron poker with his healthy hand. In a second it would connect with Grant’s skull.

  Grant felt the smooth grip of the revolver in his hand. He raised the gun toward Jennings’s hurtling figure and pulled the trigger. Both the explosion and the recoil were more dramatic than he expected. Jennings jerked as if he’d been punched. Grant pulled the trigger a second time. Jennings crashed to the ground, bouncing hard against the wooden edge of the coffee table. The acrid smell of gunpowder filled Grant’s nostrils as the thunderclap of the shot faded from the room.

  Jennings was dead.

  Grant knew that he would have to deal with the emotional consequences of his actions, just as Kristin had with Huntley, but that would have wait. He laid the pistol on the coffee table and pushed the sofa back. He then gently rolled Professor Billingsly over. The front of his green striped Oxford shirt was soaked in blood. Grant’s mentor—the man who had given him a chance at Emory, the man who had betrayed him, the man who had just sacrificed his life for Kristin’s—had also died.

  Grant’s eyes stung and his throat burned, but his voice remained strong. “I forgive you, Harold. Thank you.”

  “He’s alive!” Kristin shouted.

  Grant turned. Jennings is still alive? The gun was still on the table, but Jennings hadn’t moved.

  “Brady!” Kristin knelt by the reverend.

  Grant picked up the gun, tucked it into his belt, and hurried to her side. Brady’s face was pallid and a low moan escaped his lips. Kristin snatched a white handkerchief from Brady’s front suit pocket and opened his jacket. The bullet wound just below his right shoulder oozed blood down his blue pinpoint cotton shirt. Brady winced when Kristin pressed the handkerchief directly on the wound. Grant knelt beside them.

  “Stay with us, Reverend,” she said. “Your body is going into shock, but you’re going to make it.”

  Brady’s eyes blinked closed and then opened again, focusing on Grant. “I had no idea. Please understand that.” Brady’s hand grasped Grant’s arm with a strength that surprised him. “All the suffering and death. That was not part of God’s plan. I’m so sorry.” His eyes closed again, but he continued to take shallow breaths.

  “I’ll stay with him,” Kristin said. “Can you call nine-one-one?”

  Grant walked back to the sofa, sat on the floor by the body of his mentor, and dialed from his cell phone. After explaining the events to a confused mountain emergency operator who promised to send the police and an ambulance right away, Grant hung up the phone. He rested the gun on the floor beside him, not wanting to touch it again. He then pulled the bag of texts from the coffee table onto his lap. The heaviness was comforting. Kristin still knelt on the opposite side of the table over Brady, keeping pressure on the wound and quietly reassuring him that help would be there soon. Grant felt an unexpected emotion for the man who had humiliated him on national TV.

  He felt pity.

  Brady was blinded by his ego, but he was also a man who believed passionately. Just like my father, Grant realized. Grant exhaled the air in his lungs and with it felt the tension in his body begin to ease. With a new clarity he saw how he’d harbored negative energy—about Brady, about his father—like a petri dish growing a virus unchecked by antibodies. He’d viewed himself as the victim, but sitting on the floor surrounded by death, a death that one day he would inevitably encounter personally, he understood how he had created the negative energy within himself. His father and Brady were the men they were, just as he was the man he was.

  He’d wondered for so many years if he’d ever be able to forgive his father. Maybe he’d just used the wrong word. Surrender. Acceptance. Those seemed better.

  He inhaled deeply, taking in the aroma of cool mountain air infused with the woody smoke from the fire and the sweet smell of gunpowder. The adrenaline racing through his body dissipated, and his heart rate slowed.

  He turned his attention from the carnage around him to the view out the picture windows. The fog that earlier enveloped the mountains had cleared. Rays of yellow sunlight danced across the pine-covered peaks before him. Without taking his eyes from the view, he unzipped the bag in his lap and slipped his hands inside. He traced his fingers across the top of the smooth box.

  He thought of the books inside, and the story of Issa.

  He focused on his breath—the molecules of air moving in and out of his nostrils—just as Kinley had taught him two months earlier. He allowed his eyes to close halfway. After several minutes, Grant noticed the energy. It started as a tingling across the surface of his skin. He felt the presence of every hair follicle on his body as if they were each charged with static. He felt alive. But rather than grasp at the feeling, he simply watched it play across his person. Gradually, the energy drew inward like water swirling down a drain. He followed the energy until it coalesced into a tiny spark of light suspended in the darkness within his soul.

  He focused on the spark. He breathed into it as he might fan a fledgling fire. The spark grew into a flame. When the flame began to spread outward from the core of his being, he became aware of a sense of peace that he’d not thought possible under the circumstances. Then he realized he felt another sensation washing over him. He felt love. Love for Kinley, love for Kristin, and strangely even love for Brady, Jennings, and Billingsly.

  Grant now saw how they were all linked together.

  He now poured his breath into the flame within his soul, fanning the fire. His breath.

  Atman. Nephesh. God.

  EPILOGUE

  YALE UNIVERSITY NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT FIVE YEARS LATER

  A SINGLE FLOWER EIGHT inches in diameter. An abundance of canary yellow petals. The petals’ edges curled up saucerlike, forming a large cup surrounded by circular, flat, forest green leaves.

  A lotus.

  Grant studied the flower floating in the water bowl on his desk: the tiny veins running through its petals, the yellow stamens reaching out like miniature tentacles, the hint of fragrance reaching his nose. He mentally retraced the path that brought it here: the florist, the farmer, the plant, the seed, the generations of previous plants, the water, the soil, and the light. He recalled learning five years earlier that a lotus could grow in the foulest of conditions but still rise above the surface, producing radiant blooms. Beauty from darkness. Now it rested on the desk in the wood-paneled classroom of Harkness Hall on the Yale campus.

  Grant turned his attention from the flower to the view through the leaded glass panes of the window. The late morning sun brought out the warm earth tones from the Gothic arches and cathedral spires of Sterling Memorial Library, opposite the expansive green lawn from his building. The light warmed Grant as well. Although he’d just showered at the Payne Whitney Gym, Grant realized he was still sweating from his morning workout.

  Her train should’ve arrived by now, he thought for the fourth time in the past half hour. He then smiled at his impatience. Almost two weeks had passed since they’d last seen each other. He reached for his cell phone. Maybe she’d texted. It wasn’t in his pocket. He shook his head,
remembering. He’d left it charging on the kitchen counter again.

  Grant turned at the sound of the classroom door opening. His pulse quickened at the sight of the fifteen noisy juniors and seniors filing into the seminar room. The university had been in session for almost two months, and he still experienced a rush every day he walked into his class on comparative spirituality.

  A gangly senior with shaggy blond hair and curious blue eyes spoke to him from the center of the front row. “What’s up, Professor?”

  “Just hangin’, Mr. Hodges,” Grant replied. He raised his voice over the clamor of the students dropping their book bags on the floor and talking as they slipped into their seats around the U-shaped table. “Waiting for your colleagues to decide they’re ready for another inspiring lecture.” A few laughs spread across the room.

  Grant sat on the edge of his desk facing the semicircle of students. While he gave them a minute to boot up their laptops, he reflected on the whirlwind of the past five years that had brought him here.

  The media circus surrounding the New Hope Church had required months of interviews and testimony from Kristin and him. A subsequent IRS investigation that revealed illegal contributions and misuse of funds resulted in the shuttering of the church. As William Jennings had predicted, the banks also foreclosed on the New Hope Community development and then sold the partially completed project at auction for a fraction of the construction costs to a national homebuilder who eventually made millions using the project’s New Urbanism design minus the church affiliation.

  After extensive investigations, the authorities decided not to charge Reverend Brady with a crime. It appeared not only that the deceased Jennings had masterminded the events leading to the deaths, but that he’d kept the details away from his boss, just as he’d done with the financial workings of the church. Brady, however, had been disgraced. He withdrew from the election for the presidency of the NAE and disappeared from public view. Grant later read that almost three years to the day year after New Hope closed, a small church opened in Montgomery whose head pastor was none other than Brian Brady.

  After an extensive search of the deceased Tim Huntley’s apartment and computer hard drives, the FBI also linked him to the bombing at Emory. In addition to finding gigabytes of extreme political and religious propaganda and conspiracy theory writings, the FBI also discovered that Huntley had researched other potential targets. When they looked into Huntley’s military career, they found that he’d been discharged from the Army because of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on homosexuality that had since been repealed. But his file also contained numerous reprimands for disrespecting senior officers and engaging in inappropriate speech. As part of the investigation, one of Huntley’s work colleagues and childhood friends, Johnny Meckle, was arrested and convicted of the bombing and the murder of Professor Martha Simpson.

  Immediately following the police investigations, Grant had been reinstated at Emory with profuse apologies from the dean. He’d earned his PhD six months later. The formal release of the Issa Gospels, as they’d become popularly known, thrust Grant and Kristin into the media spotlight. They selected Yale as the location for the Issa Project, which they co-chaired. In addition to the many world-class resources at the university, the school’s Beinecke Rare Book Library served as the new permanent home of the Issa Gospels themselves. Grant found it appropriate that the documents were stored in a library that, like the monastery in which they were recovered, was itself an architectural marvel. Constructed as a giant cube of translucent marble, the library also coincidentally displayed the Gutenberg Bible, the first Western book printed from movable type.

  He’d never been so busy, yet so content.

  “Okay, let’s get started.” He knocked on the desk to get their attention. When the students turned their eyes to him expectantly, he began. “Yesterday we left off addressing some of the parallels in the life stories of Jesus and the Buddha: their birth stories, their temptations by the devil, the ability of both men to heal the sick by their touch, the resurrection and reincarnation stories, and finally and most important, how each used the practice of intensive meditation and prayer.” Grant paced in front of the room. “Today, let’s begin with the extensive parallels in the teachings of these two men. Anyone care to begin?”

  Before the students could respond, the door at the rear of the seminar room opened. Grant watched her walk around the table. The short Burberry skirt emphasized her toned legs. Only he could detect the slight bump under her cream blouse. They hadn’t told anyone yet.

  “Class, I’m sure everyone knows my wife, Ms. Misaki.” Kristin waved to the students. He embraced her. She responded by kissing him fully on the lips, which drew several whistles from their audience.

  After he reluctantly released her, she turned to the students. “Hello, class.”

  A curly-headed woman dressed in sweats emblazoned with a giant blue Y fidgeted in her seat, as if she were in the presence of a rock star. She blurted out, “We saw you on TV yesterday!”

  Grant had seen her as well. New York was the final stop on the book tour. Just three weeks earlier, they’d released their second book exploring the Issa Gospels. The first was a rushed-out translation with few editorial comments, but the new one examined the issues the manuscripts raised in their historical context. They decided that Grant would remain at Yale, teaching and overseeing the day-to-day activities of the Issa Project while she took a semester’s leave from her duties to lecture on the book.

  “Left your cell phone at home again?” she asked. He nodded. “So, I take it you haven’t seen this yet?” She held up a folded newspaper.

  He looked at her quizzically.

  “Anyone?” She displayed the paper to the students but received only blank stares. “I guess you guys just roll out of bed in time for your eleven o’clock class.” She hoisted herself onto Grant’s desk, crossed her legs, and opened the paper to the front page.

  Printed across the top right column, the words VATICAN ANNOUNCES RELEASE OF ISSA MANUSCRIPT screamed at Grant. Kristin began to read aloud:In a surprise move, the Vatican announced late yesterday that they were releasing an ancient manuscript, which like the Issa Gospels discovered five years ago this month by Grant Matthews and Kristin Misaki, details the travels of Jesus of Nazareth to India and his study of Hinduism and Buddhism. According to Vatican representative Cardinal Giancarlo Giovanni, the Vatican manuscript was written in Tibetan and appears to be a later compilation of the various Issa Gospels found by Mr. Matthews and Ms. Misaki. Scientists and biblical scholars have dated the Issa Gospels, which were written in the ancient Pali language, to the early first century, predating the earliest books of the New Testament.

  According to Cardinal Giovanni, the Vatican manuscript has a “somewhat cloudy history.” Originally discovered in 1887 by Russian journalist Nicholas Notovitch during a stay at the Himis monastery in Ladakh, India, the text was acquired in the early 1930s by a Vatican contingent visiting the Himis monastery. The document allegedly remained forgotten in the Vatican archives until it was rediscovered last month during a routine cataloging exercise. When asked why the manuscript was not released when originally found, the cardinal replied, “In addition to questions as to the authenticity and age of this document, the text was found during a time of upheaval surrounding the beginning of the Second World War. The Church decided that releasing the manuscript during this critical period would not be in the best interest of the world.” Cardinal Giovanni went on to say that this news in no way affects the Catholic Church’s previously stated position on the books discovered by Mr. Matthews and Ms. Misaki.

  “Wow,” Grant said shaking his head. “I’m surprised the Vatican didn’t call us first.”

  “They must have wanted to control the publicity.”

  “What about the newspaper?”

  “The reporter called to apologize this morning before I jumped on the train. They received the story late last night and had to run it before t
hey could interview anyone, including us. But”—she checked her watch—“we have an interview scheduled in forty-five minutes that will appear tomorrow.”

  Grant was stunned. He didn’t believe for a minute that the Vatican simply forgot the manuscript amid the tens of thousands of documents stored in their archives, especially after the publicity over the past five years. The cardinals had waited to see how scholars would handle the Issa texts. Last year the Vatican, along with a number of mainline Protestant churches, had admitted that Jesus might have traveled to India during his formative years but that such travels in no way affected his status as the Messiah, nor would such an event contradict anything in the New Testament, which was silent on those years of his life.

  Most evangelical churches still referred to the Issa Gospels as “works of Satan” that should be categorically rejected along with any other apocryphal sources about Jesus. They held steadfast to their position that the early Church Fathers were guided by the Holy Spirit in choosing to include in the New Testament all the texts that were true to the word of God.

  Based on numerous requests for speaking engagements, however, Grant and Kristin were encouraged at the growing number of independent churches that were reexamining the way they taught about Jesus, and even the way they conducted their services. Each year also saw a greater number of interfaith conferences taking place, some sponsored by the Issa Project. He and Kristin were scheduled to give the keynote address at one in San Diego during winter break, and Grant was thrilled to hear that Jigme, who they hadn’t seen in two years, would be attending as well. Grant could feel the momentum building.

  The curly-headed woman clearly in awe of Kristin raised her hand. “You have a comment on this article, Ms. Lynn?” he asked her.