Lamb

by Christopher Moore

  “Oh.”

  The Katha Upanishad sayeth:

  Beyond the senses are the objects,

  and beyond the objects is the mind.

  Beyond the mind is pure reason,

  and beyond reason is the Spirit in man.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You have to think about it, but it means that there’s something eternal in everyone.”

  “That’s swell. What’s with the guys on the bed of nails?”

  “A yogi must leave his body if he is going to experience the spiritual.”

  “So he leaves through the little holes in his back?”

  “Let’s start again.”

  The Kama Sutra sayeth:

  When a man applies wax from the carnuba bean to a woman’s yoni and buffs it with a lint-free cloth or a papyrus towel until a mirror shine is achieved, then it is called Readying the Mongoose for Trade-in.”

  “Look, she sells me pieces of sheepskin parchment, and each time, after we’re finished, I’m allowed to copy the drawings. I’m going to tie them all together and make my own codex.”

  “You did that? That looks like it hurts.”

  “This from a guy I had to break out of a wine jar with a hammer yesterday.”

  “Yeah, well, it wouldn’t have happened if I’d remembered to grease my shoulders like Melchior taught me.” Joshua turned the drawing to get a different angle on it. “You’re sure this doesn’t hurt?”

  “No, not if you keep your bottom away from the incense burners.”

  “No, I mean her.”

  “Oh, her. Well, who knows? I’ll ask her.”

  The Bhagavad Gita sayeth:

  I am impartial to all creatures,

  and no one is hateful or dear to me,

  but men devoted to me are in me,

  and I am in them.

  “What’s the Bhagavad Gita?”

  “It’s like a long poem in which the god Krishna advises the warrior Arjuna as he drives his chariot into battle.”

  “Really, what’s he advise him?”

  “He advises him not to feel bad about killing the enemy, because they are essentially already dead.”

  “You know what I’d advise him if I was a god? I’d advise him to get someone else to drive his friggin’ chariot. The real God wouldn’t be caught dead driving a chariot.”

  “Well, you have to look at it as a parable, otherwise it sort of reeks of false gods.”

  “Our people don’t have good luck with false gods, Josh. They’re—I don’t know—frowned upon. We get killed and enslaved when we mess with them.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  The Kama Sutra sayeth:

  When a woman props herself up on the table and inhales the steam of the eucalyptus tea, while gargling a mixture of lemon, water, and honey, and the man takes the woman by the ears, and enters her from behind, while looking out the window at the girl across the street hanging out her laundry to dry, then the position is called “Distracted Tiger Hacking Up a Fur Ball.”

  “I couldn’t find that one in the book, so she dictated it to me from memory.”

  “Kashmir’s quite the scholar.”

  “She had the sniffles, but agreed to my lesson anyway. I think she’s falling for me.”

  “How could she not, you’re a very charming fellow.”

  “Why, thank you, Josh.”

  “You’re welcome, Biff.”

  “Okay, tell me about your little yoga thing.”

  The Bhagavad Gita sayeth:

  Just as the wide-moving wind

  is constantly present in space,

  so all creatures exist in me.

  Understand it to be so!

  “Is that the kind of advice you’d give someone who’s riding into battle? You’d think Krishna would be saying stuff like, ‘Look out, an arrow! Duck!’”

  “You’d think,” Joshua sighed.

  The Kama Sutra sayeth:

  The position of “Rampant Monkey Collecting Coconuts” is achieved when a woman hooks her fingers into the man’s nostrils and performs a hokey-pokey motion with her hips and the man, while firmly stroking the woman’s uvula with his thumbs, swings his lingam around her yoni in a direction counter to that in which water swirls down a drain. (Water has been observed swirling down the drain in different directions in different places. This is a mystery, but a good rule of thumb for achieving Rampant Monkey is to just go in the direction counter to which your own personal drain swirls.)

  “Your drawings are getting better,” Joshua said. “In the first one I thought she had a tail.”

  “I’m using the calligraphy techniques we learned in the monastery, only using them to draw figures. Josh, are you sure it doesn’t bother you, talking about this stuff when you’ll never be allowed to do it?”

  “No, it’s interesting. It doesn’t bother you when I talk about heaven, does it?”

  “Should it?”

  “Look, a seagull!”

  The Katha Upanishad sayeth:

  For a man who has known him,

  the light of truth shines.

  For one who has not known, there is darkness.

  The wise who have seen him in every being

  on leaving this life, attain life immortal.

  “That’s what you’re looking for, huh, the Divine Spark thing?”

  “It’s not for me, Biff.”

  “Josh, I’m not a satchel of sand here. I didn’t spend all of my time studying and meditating without getting some glimpse of the eternal.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “Of course it helps when angels show up and you do miracles and stuff too.”

  “Well, yes, I guess it would.”

  “But that’s not a bad thing. We can use that when we get home.”

  “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

  “Not a clue.”

  Our training went on for two years before I saw the sign that called us home. Life was slow, but pleasant there by the sea. Joshua became more efficient at multiplying food, and while he insisted on living an austere lifestyle so he could remain unattached to the material world, I was able to get a little money ahead. In addition to paying for my lessons, I was able to decorate my nook (just some erotic drawings, curtains, some silk cushions) and buy a few personal items such as a new satchel, an ink stone and a set of brushes, and an elephant.

  I named the elephant Vana, which is Sanskrit for wind, and although she certainly earned her name, I regret it was not due to her blazing speed. Feeding Vana was not a difficulty with Joshua’s ability to turn a handful of grass into a fodder farm, but no matter how hard Joshua tried to teach her yoga, she was not able to fit into my nook. (I consoled Joshua that it was probably the climb, and not his failure as a yoga guru that deterred Vana. “If she had fingers, Josh, she’d be snuggling up with me and seagulls right now.”) Vana didn’t like being on the beach when the tide came and washed sand between her toes, so she lived in a pasture just above the cliff. She did, however, love to swim, and some days rather than ride her on the beach all the way to Nicobar, I would have her swim into the harbor just under water, with only her trunk showing and me standing on her forehead. “Look, Kashmir, I’m walking on water! I’m walking on water!”

  So eager was my erotic princess to share my embrace that rather than wonder at the spectacle as did the other townsfolk she could only reply:

  “Park the elephant in back.”

  (The first few times she said it I thought she was referring to a Kama Sutra position that we had missed, pages stuck together perhaps, but it turned out such was not the case.)

  Kashmir and I became quite close as my studies progressed. After we went through all the positions of the Kama Sutra twice, Kashmir was able to take things to the next level by introducing Tantric discipline into our lovemaking. So skillful did we become at the meditative art of coupling that even in the throes of passion, Kashmir was able to polish her jewelry, cou
nt her money, or even rinse out a few delicates. I myself had so mastered the discipline of controlled ejaculation that often I was halfway home before release was at last achieved.

  It was on my way home from Kashmir’s—as Vana and I were cutting through the market so that I could show my friends the ex-beggar boys the possible rewards for the man of discipline and character (to wit: I had an elephant and they did not)—that I saw, outlined on the wall of a temple of Vishnu, a dirty water stain, caused by condensation, mold, and wind-blown dust, which described the face of my best friend’s mother, Mary.

  “Yeah, she does that,” said Joshua, when I swung over the edge of his nook and announced the news. He and Melchior had been meditating and the old man, as usual, appeared to be dead. “She used to do it all the time when we were kids. She sent James and me running all over the place washing down walls before people saw. Sometimes her face would appear in a pattern of water drops in the dust, or the peelings from grapes would fall just so in a pattern after being taken out of the wine press. Usually it was walls.”

  “You never told me that.”

  “I couldn’t tell you. The way you idolized her, you’d have been turning the pictures into shrines.”

  “So they were naked pictures?”

  Melchior cleared his throat and we both looked at him. “Joshua, either your mother or God has sent you a message. It doesn’t matter who sent it, the message is the same. It is time for you to go home.”

  We would be leaving for the north in the morning, and Nicobar was south, so I left Joshua to pack our things on Vana while I walked into town to break the news to Kashmir.

  “Oh my,” she said, “all the way back to Galilee. Do you have money for the journey?”

  “A little.”

  “But not with you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, okay. Bye.”

  I could swear I saw a tear in her eye as she closed the door.

  The next morning, with Vana loaded with my drawings and art supplies; my cushions, curtains, and rugs; my brass coffeepot, my tea ball, and my incense burner; my pair of breeding mongooses (mongeese?), their bamboo cage, my drum set, and my umbrella; my silk robe, my sun hat, my rain hat, my collection of carved erotic figurines, and Joshua’s bowl, we gathered on the beach to say good-bye. Melchior stood before us in his loincloth, the wind whipping the tails of his white beard and hair around his face like fierce clouds. There was no sadness in his face, but then, he had endeavored his entire life to detach from the material world, which we were part of. He’d already done this a long time ago.

  Joshua made as if to embrace the old man, then instead just poked him in the shoulder. Once and only once, I saw Melchior smile. “But you haven’t taught me everything I need to know,” Josh said.

  “You’re right, I have taught you nothing. I could teach you nothing. Everything that you needed to know was already there. You simply needed the word for it. Some need Kali and Shiva to destroy the world so they may see past the illusion to divinity in them, others need Krishna to drive them to the place where they may perceive what is eternal in them. Others may perceive the Divine Spark in themselves only by realizing through enlightenment that the spark resides in all things, and in that they find kinship. But because the Divine Spark resides in all, does not mean that all will discover it. Your dharma is not to learn, Joshua, but to teach.”

  “How will I teach my people about the Divine Spark? Before you answer, remember we’re talking about Biff too.”

  “You must only find the right word. The Divine Spark is infinite, the path to find it is not. The beginning of the path is the word.”

  “Is that why you and Balthasar and Gaspar followed the star? To find the path to the Divine Spark in all men? The same reason that I came to find you?”

  “We were seekers. You are that which is sought, Joshua. You are the source. The end is divinity, in the beginning is the word. You are the word.”

  Part V

  Lamb

  I am light, now I fly, now I see myself beneath myself, now a god dances through me.

  FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  We rode Vana north toward the Silk Road, skirting the great Indian desert that had almost killed Alexander the Great’s forces as they returned to Persia after conquering half of the known world, three centuries before. Although it would have saved a month to cut through the desert, Joshua was not confident about his ability to conjure enough water for Vana. A man should learn the lessons of history, and although I insisted that Alexander’s men had probably been tired from all that conquering, while Josh and I had basically been sitting around at the beach for two years, he insisted we take the less hostile route through Delhi, and north into what is now Pakistan until we joined the Silk Road once again.

  A little ways down the Silk Road I thought we received another message from Mary. We had stopped to have a short rest. When we resumed the journey, Vana happened to walk over where she had just done her business and the pile was pressed into the perfect likeness of a woman’s face, dark poo against the light gray dust.

  “Look, Josh, there’s another message from your mother.”

  Josh glanced and looked away. “That’s not my mother.”

  “But look, in the elephant poop, it’s a woman’s face.”

  “I know, but it’s not my mother. It’s distorted because of the medium. It doesn’t even look like her. Look at the eyes.”

  I had to climb to the back of the elephant to get another angle on it. He was right, it wasn’t his mother. “I guess you’re right. The medium obscured the message.”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “I’ll bet it looks like someone’s mom, though.”

  With the detour around the desert, we were nearly two months getting to Kabul. Although Vana was an intrepid walker, as I have mentioned, she was a less than agile climber, so we often had to take long detours to get her through the mountains of Afghanistan. Josh and I both knew that we could not take her into the high, rocky desert once we passed Kabul, so we agreed to leave the elephant with Joy, if we could find the erstwhile courtesan.

  Once in Kabul we asked around the market for any news of a Chinese woman named Tiny Feet of the Divine Dance of Joyous Orgasm, but no one had heard of her, nor had they seen a woman simply named Joy. After a full day of searching, Joshua and I were about to abandon the search for our friend when I remembered something she had once said to me. I asked a local tea seller.

  “Is there a woman who lives around here, a very rich woman perhaps, who calls herself the Dragon Lady or something like that?”

  “Oh, yes sir,” the fellow said, and he shuddered as he spoke, as if a bug had run across his neck. “She is called the Cruel and Accursed Dragon Princess.”

  “Nice name,” I said to Joy as we rode through the massive stone gates into the courtyard of her palace.

  “A woman alone, it helps to have your reputation precede you,” said the Cruel and Accursed Dragon Princess. She looked almost exactly as she had almost nine years ago when we had left, except perhaps that she wore a little more jewelry. She was petite, and delicate, and beautiful. She wore a white silk robe embroidered with dragons and her blue-black hair hung down her back almost to her knees, held in place by a single silver band that just kept it from sweeping around her shoulders when she turned. “Nice elephant,” she added.

  “She’s a present,” Joshua said.

  “She’s lovely.”

  “Do you have a couple of camels you can spare, Joy?” I asked.

  “Oh, Biff, I had really hoped that you two would sleep with me tonight.”

  “Well, I’d love to, but Josh is still sworn off the muffin.”

  “Young men? I have a number of man-boys I keep around for, well, you know.”

  “Not those either,” Joshua said.

  “Oh Joshua, my poor little Messiah. I’ll bet no one made you Chinese food for your birthday this year either?”

&nb
sp; “We had rice,” Joshua said.

  “Well, we’ll see what the Accursed Dragon Princess can do to make up for that,” said Joy.

  We climbed down from the elephant and exchanged hugs with our old friend, then a stern guard in bronze chain mail led Vana away to the stables and four guards with spears flanked us as Joy led us into the main house.

  “A woman alone?” I said, looking at the guards that seemed to stand at every doorway.

  “In my heart, darling,” Joy said. “These aren’t friends, family, or lovers, these are employees.”

  “Is that the Accursed part of your new title?” Joshua said.

  “I could drop it, just be the Cruel Dragon Princess, if you two want to stay on.”

  “We can’t. We’ve been called home.”

  Joy nodded dolefully and led us into the library (filled with Balthasar’s old books), where coffee was served by young men and women who Joy had obviously brought from China. I thought of all the girls, my friends and my lovers, who had been killed by the demon so long ago, and swallowed my coffee around a lump in my throat.

  Joshua was as excited as I had seen him in a long time. It might have been the coffee. “You won’t believe the wonderful things I’ve learned since I left here, Joy. About being the agent of change (change is at the root of belief, you know), and about compassion for everyone because everyone is part of another, and most important, that there is a bit of God in each of us—in India they call it the Divine Spark.”

  He rambled on like that for an hour, and eventually my melancholy passed and I was infected by Joshua’s enthusiasm for the things he had learned from the Magi.

  “Yes,” I added, “and Josh can climb inside a standard-size wine amphora. You have to bust him out with a hammer, but it’s interesting to watch.”

  “And you, Biff?” Joy asked, smiling into her cup.

  “Well, after supper I’ll show you a little something I like to call Water Buffalo Teasing the Seeds out of the Pomegranate.”