The Breath of God (47 page)

“Shit!”

A dozen flashlights bobbed along the stairs on the other side of the cliff, just beyond the cafeteria. They would arrive at the monastery in minutes.

Tim flew down the steps. He stopped just above the dormitory where the monk lay dying. If he descended the last flight, the light from the open doorway would illuminate him. He had to make a decision quickly. Watching the number of flashlights approaching, he realized he could never fight them all.

But he'd come prepared. During his afternoon reconnaissance, he'd discovered that relying on one means of egress from the monastery, the stone steps, would be foolish. He shrugged off his backpack and yanked out the hundredand-fifty-foot-long rope. He hoped it would be long enough. He stuck his head over the stairway railing. The granite dropped for at least sixty feet, but then outcroppings of rock began to jut out. The darkness made it difficult to judge the distance, but he thought he spotted a series of ledges about twenty feet or so farther down that should lead to the other side of the cliff. If he were lucky, the ledges would go as far as the restaurant, where he could find his way to the trail below.

After pushing on the stair railing to test its strength, Tim threaded the rope through four of its thick wooden stanchions and tied off the end using a double figure eight knot. He tossed the rope over the edge of the railing and watched it disappear in the void below. Unless they shined their lights directly on this spot, they would never notice the rope until the morning.

Tim placed his hands on the railing ready to climb, but then he paused to peer at the dorm building one flight below him.

Kinley
. The stubborn monk was probably still alive. Tim hesitated. He couldn't see the beams from the flashlights anymore, which meant they had
rounded the crevice in the cliff where the steps crossed the small waterfall. They were very close. Could he risk a few seconds to run down and slit Kinley's throat? He was the true source of the lies about Jesus, the blasphemy that must be stopped. Plus, something about that monk wasn't natural. The last words the monk had uttered before falling unconscious were unsettling. He had looked at Tim with a strange expression: was it pity?
But why would the monk have felt pity for me when he's the one who has lost everything?
Tim figured that he was being condescended to, just as he so often had been by all the people who underestimated him. Then Kinley had said, “It is all right. I forgive you.”

The shouting voices that echoed up to him from the monastery gate on the other side of the dorm precipitated his decision for him. Tim pulled on his black gloves, slung his backpack over his shoulders, swung his legs over the railing and began smoothly lowering himself down the cliff just as he'd practiced in basic training.
He'll be dead soon
, he reasoned.

Grant was out of breath, and his leg was throbbing. With the atrophy in his right quadriceps, he struggled to keep up with Kristin's athletic strides as they ascended the dark steps below the monastery. The motivation of reaching his friend in time pushed him through the pain. Four police officers and eight monks preceded them by a few minutes. The hotel's night clerk had somehow persuaded a taxi to pick them up and take them directly to the trailhead, where Jigme waited. Grant tried not to imagine what they might find when they reached the monastery. He focused on his breath, just as Kinley had taught him.

“There.” Kristin pointed to the lowest of the monastery buildings, from which a glowing light spilled out through its open doorway. Grant heard shouting ahead.

“That's the dormitory. That's where Ummon left Kinley,” Jigme said.

Two minutes later Grant stepped to the doorway of the one-room building, blinking his eyes to adjust to the light. At first he had trouble interpreting the chaos of activity taking place. The room was awash in the flowing
crimson robes of the monks as well as the blue and white uniforms of two police officers. One of the officers spoke rapidly into a handheld radio, presumably to the other two policemen in their party who were searching the monastery levels above them. The monks shouted at each other in frightened Bhutanese.

The other officer met them at the doorway holding his arms out to block entrance into the dorm. As the officer and Jigme exchanged words, the scene came into focus for Grant. Four of the monks carried the body of their fallen brother to one side of the room, where they carefully laid him on reed mats. The other four monks circled around what had to be Kinley, dressed in orange, lying in the center of the floor. Grant's stomach lurched.

He shoved past the protesting officer who blocked the doorway. Kristin bolted into the center of the room after him.

“No!” she cried.

Grant's pulse pounded from his chest to his head. He stepped into the circle of monks. Kinley's normally robust complexion had turned ashen; his robes were soaked in blood. Two arrows stuck upright, buried inches into each thigh. Three monks knelt by his legs, pressing around the arrow wounds, while a fourth who looked to be a couple of years younger than Jigme cradled Kinley's head.

“Is he alive?” Grant croaked. For once, he didn't try to disguise the emotions welling up within him.

Jigme appeared by his side, speaking in Bhutanese to the younger monk. “He's unconscious, barely breathing.”

“Can't they remove the arrows?” Kristin asked. She knelt and took Kinley's hand.

“Not here,” Jigme said, surveying Kinley's legs. “The arrows are barbed. Pulling them out would tear his veins and arteries. If we could get him to a hospital, a doctor could surgically remove them.”

“What if we can't get him there in time?” Grant remembered his own accident and how he had to remain in the monastery in Punakha. But surely Paro had to have modern medical facilities? Then he thought about the difficult hike up the mountain.

Jigme grimaced. “The alternative is to break the arrows in half and push them out the other side, but in his current state, doing so would cause too much blood loss. Controlling the bleeding is the best we can do for now.”

The back of Grant's throat burned, making it difficult to swallow. His friend had saved his life, and now Grant was helpless to aid him. Then he noticed that the monk's ankles were tightly bound by duct tape. Grant dropped to his knees by Kinley's feet. Just as he'd done with Kristin only a few days earlier, he began to unwrap the tape. He moved slowly so that that he wouldn't disturb the arrows embedded in Kinley's thighs. He felt Kinley's calf muscle. The skin was cool to the touch. Not a good sign, he knew. The other monks cast wary glances at Grant, no doubt suspicious of the fact that he was a foreigner.

When he finished removing the tape, he balled it up and tossed it to the corner of the room. He wiped his sticky hands on his jeans and noticed that the denim was soaked through the knees with Kinley's blood. He rose and moved to Kristin's side where she sat softly crying, caressing Kinley's arm. Grant placed a hand on his friend's chest. His mind raced to figure out a way they could carry Kinley off the mountain without causing him any more harm. Then Grant felt a movement he wasn't sure was real or imagined. Kinley's chest seemed to expand, as if he was drawing in a deep breath.

Grant bent over the monk's pallid face. “Kinley, can you hear me? We're here for you.”

The raspy voice that came from his teacher's mouth startled him. “What took you so long?”

Hope surged through Grant. Kinley was conscious. The monk was strong. “Well, you monks didn't exactly build this monastery in the most convenient of places.” Grant smiled through his tears.

Kinley opened his eyes—eyes that were clear and knowing. Through chapped lips, Kinley returned Grant's smile. Grant addressed the young monk kneeling by Kinley's head. “Water. He needs water.” He seemed to understand and jumped to search the room.

“Wait, I think I have some.” Kristin pulled a half-filled plastic bottle from the daypack she'd carried up the mountain. She lifted Kinley's head and helped him drink. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Are you in much pain?”

“No, I am not,” he said hoarsely. “My body, on the other hand, has seen better times.”

“I wish I could remember.” She began to sob. “When I was his prisoner and unconscious, I ... I must have said something about this place. All of this death. I'm so sorry.”

“My dear”—Kinley squeezed her hand—“it is I who am sorry. When I sent you two on this journey, I meant for it to be an eye-opening experience. I was naïve, for I had no idea that it would lead to this suffering. Please do not cry for me. We will all die. My time just happens to be tonight.

“You will not die tonight,” Grant said, sitting up straighter. “We are going to carry you down the mountain.” Then he noticed a broom in one corner of the room.
That's it
, he thought. Knowing how fastidious the monks were about keeping the
goembas
clean, he imagined that several other brooms could be found. The plan formed quickly. They would fashion a stretcher from the broomsticks and the robes of the monks. Four men would carry the stretcher down, and the police would have an ambulance waiting at the base of the mountain.

“I think we both know that I've lost too much blood.”

Grant let his eyes fall to the puddle that was still spreading around Kinley's legs, in spite of the efforts of the three monks putting pressure on the wounds. He felt the wetness on his jeans. The hope he'd held moments before began to slip away. “But you can't die,” Grant said, as if the force of the words would make it so.

Kinley's eyes fluttered closed. Grant's heart skipped a beat until his friend blinked them open again. “What is the true nature of your journey, Grant?”

Grant was caught off guard. Even close to death, Kinley had not lost his knack for posing vague questions, but they didn't have time to sit here and discuss another one of the monk's koans. They needed to get him off the mountain. Grant opened his mouth to protest, but the determined expression on Kinley's face caused him to close his mouth and consider the question. The first response to pop into his head was the obvious one—to find the Issa texts—but he dismissed it as too trivial. He considered next the journey that brought him from Bhutan through India and then back again.
Is he referring
to my crash course on the interconnectedness of religion? Maybe the lessons of the similar mystical experiences shared by the Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad?

Kristin cleared her throat and tugged on Grant's arm. He was wasting precious time. Kinley's patient expression, however, communicated that he had all day to wait for Grant's mind to churn through the possibilities. Ultimately Grant realized that each of these answers captured part of the truth but none entirely. He also knew that Kinley did not like to receive ten answers to a single question. He had learned so much since his fateful kayaking trip, but then there had been so much suffering too.
Jigme's shooting. Kristin's attack
. He thought of Deepraj, Razi, and the old monk on the other side of the room. These men had sacrificed their lives for the lessons they had imparted to him. Too high a price.
What am I doing here?

“I don't know,” he answered in a low voice.

“Exactly!” Kinley's own voice contained a strength that belied his condition. “Not knowing is the ultimate truth.”

“But after everything we've experienced—”

“Ah yes, the most important lesson you have learned is that you still do not know. After a lifetime of study and meditation, I have realized that sometimes it is better to stop seeking the answers, stop asking the questions. Just be.”

Grant had not expected this response. For so long he'd searched for answers or, at the minimum, for the path that would lead him to the answers he needed. Something in Kinley's simple statement, however, resonated with him. Maybe he'd been trying too hard.
Grasping
.

Kneeling beside his dying teacher, Grant felt a strong sense of déjà vu: he himself lying crippled in a Bhutanese monastery, struggling to solve riddles that had no answer. But now Grant was the healthy one, and Kinley was incapacitated. He recalled one of the koans that Kinley had posed to him in what seemed like another lifetime.

“When the tree withers and the leaves fall ...” Grant began.

“The body is exposed in the autumn wind,” Kinley finished. “The answers you seek, my friend. Look first to your questions. The source of both is the same.”

Although he was still bundled up in his fleece and jacket, Grant felt naked before Kinley. He sensed Kristin's questioning expression, but he wasn't sure
that he could explain to her why what Kinley said suddenly made sense to him.