page22 (1/2)

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Tamil, as it turned out, was not a small town in southern India, but the whole southern peninsula, an area about five ti for Melchior was akin to walking into Jerusale for a Jewish guy, anyone seen hi for us was that we knew Melchior's occupation, he was an ascetic holythe coast and that he, like his brother Gaspar, had been the son of a prince We found hundreds of different holyin complete austerity in the forest or in caves, and usually they had twisted their bodies into soi who lived in a lean-to on the side of a hill overlooking a se He had his feet tucked behind his shoulders and his head see end of his torso

"Josh, look! That guy is trying to lick his own balls! Just like Bartholoe idiot These are my people, Josh These are my people I have found home"

Well, I hadn't really found ho soa" means in Sanskrit: discipline) and he wouldn't teach me because my intentions weren't pure or some claptrap And he wasn't Melchior It took six months and the last of our money and we both saw our twenty-fifth birthdays before we found Melchior reclining in a shallow stone nook in a cliff over the ocean Seagulls were nesting at his feet

He was a hairier version of his brother, which is to say he was slight, about sixty years old, and he wore a casteand white, shot with only a few stripes of black, and he had intense dark eyes that seemed to shohite at all He wore only a loincloth and he was as thin as any of the Untouchables we had hat

Joshua and I clung to the side of the cliff while the guru untied frootten himself into It was a slow process and we pretended to look at the seagulls and enjoy the view so as not to e impatient When he finally achieved a posture that did not appear as if it had been caused by being run over by an ox cart, Joshua said, "We've come from Israel We were six years with your brother Gaspar in the monastery I am - "

"I knoho you are," said Melchior His voice was inning to recite a poenize you from when I first saw you in Bethlehem"

"You do?"

"A rew out of the swaddling clothes"

"Yes, soo"

"Not sleeping in that er anymore?"

"No"

"Soer, some straw, maybe a blanket Not that I need any of those luxuries, nor does anyone who is on the spiritual path, but still"

"I've come to learn from you," Joshua said "I ao about it"

"He's the Messiah," I said helpfully "You know, the Messiah You know, Son of God"

"Yeah, Son of God," Joshua said

"Yeah," I said

"Yeah," said Joshua

"So what do you have for us?" I asked

"And who are you?"

"Biff," I said

"My friend," said Josh

"Yeah, his friend," said I

"And what do you seek?"

"Actually, I'd like to not have to hang on to this cliff a lot longer,numb"

"Yeah," said Josh

"Yeah," said I

"Find yourself a couple of nooks on the cliff There are several eis Ramata and Mahara recently moved on to their next rebirth"

"If you knohere we can find so time since we've eaten And we have no money"

"Tiry as well Bring rain of rice"

Joshua and I climbed across the cliff until we found two nooks, tiny caves really, that were close to each other and not so far above the beach that falling out would kill us Each of our nooks had been gouged out of the solid rock and was just wide enough to lie down in, tall enough to sit up in, and deep enough to keep the rain off if it was falling straight down Once ere settled, I dug through rains of rice that had worked their way into a seam I put them in my bowl, then carried the bowl in my teeth as I made my way back to Melchior's nook

"I did not ask for a bowl," said Melchior Joshua had already skirted the cliff and was sitting next to the yogi with his feet dangling over the edge There was a seagull in his lap

"Presentation is half theJoy had once said

Melchior sniffed at the rice grains, then picked one up and held it between his bony fingertips

"It's raw"

"Yes, it is"

"We can't eat it raw"

"Well, I would have served it up steareen onion if I'd known you wanted it that way" (Yeah, we had molecules in those days Back off)

"Very well, this will have to do" The holy rains in his lap, then closed his eyes His breathing began to slow, and after aat all

Josh and I waited And looked at each other And Melchior didn't ry and tired, but I waited And the holythe recent nook vacancies on the cliff face, I was a little concerned that Melchiorepidemic

"He dead?" I asked

"Can't tell"

"Poke him"

"No, he'shim"

"He's Untouchable"

Joshua couldn't resist the irony, he poked hii opened his eyes, pointed out to sea and screaull!"

We looked When we looked back the yogi was holding a full bowl of rice "Here, go cook this"

So began Joshua's training to find what Melchior called the Divine Spark The holy man was stern with me, but his patience with Joshua was infinite, and it was soon evident that by trying to be part of Joshua's training I was actually holding hi in the cliff, I took a long satisfying whiz over the side (and is there anything so satisfying as whizzing froh place?) then climbed to the beach and headed into the nearest town to look for a job Even if Melchior could rains of rice, I'd scraped all the stray grains out of both uy to twist up and lick his own balls, but I couldn't see that there was much nourishment in it

The name of the toas Nicobar, and it was about twice the size of Sepphoris in my homeland, perhaps twenty thousand people,from the sea, either as fisher at only a few places, I realized that for once it wasn't , it was the caste system It extended far deeper into the society than Ruer four dictated that if you were born a stonecutter, your sons would be stonecutters, and their sons after them, and you were bound by your birth to never do any other job, regardless of how good or bad you were at it If you were born a ician, and the only way you'd get out of death orelse The one skill that didn't seee idiot, but the Hindus seemed to thrust the s there I did haveal, but every ti would hop souy to steal my action By the late afternoon I had one tiny copper coin and the steward of the beggars guild had coain, he'd see that I was aduild by the is

I bought a handful of rice at theout of town, ood monk, when I saw before me a most delicate set of toes, painted verle with copper bangles, an inviting calf decorated with hennaed designs as intricate as lace, and froht skirt led me up the seam to a bejeweled navel, full breasts haltered in yellow silk, lips like pluht as a Roman statue's, and wide brown eyes, shaded in blue and lined to er's They drank me in

"You're a stranger," she said One long finger on my chest stopped me on the spot I tried to hide ht of hand, ended up spilling the grains down my front

"I'm from Galilee In Israel"

"Never heard of it Is it far?" She reached into ht againstrains, one by one, into my bowl

"Very far I've coe, that kind of thing"

"What is your name?"

"Biff - or Levi who is called Biff We do that 'who is called' thing a lot in Israel"

"Follow e" She hooked her finger into my sash and walked into a nearby doorway, for some reason completely confident that I would follow

Inside, amid piles of colorful pillows strewn about the floors and deep carpets the likes of which I hadn't seen since Balthasar's fortress, stood a carved cae codex lay open The book was bound in brass filigreed with copper and silver, and the pages were made of a parchment finer than I had ever seen

The woman pushed me toward the book and left her hand on e The handwritten script was gilded and so ornate that I could barely make out the words, which didn't ht my eye A man and a woman, nude, each perfect The , her feet hooked over his shoulders, her arms held behind her as he entered her I tried to call one woman

"Ancient sacred wisdoift from a patron The Kama Sutra, it's called Thread of Desire"

"The Buddha said that desire is the source of all suffering," I said, feeling like the kung fu master that I kneas

"Do they look like they are suffering?"

"No" I began to tre out of the co

"Would you like to try that? That suffering With me?"

"Yes," I said All the training, all the discipline, all the control, gone in a word

"Do you have twenty rupees?"

"No"

"Then suffer," she said, and she stepped away

"See, I told you"

Then she walked away, trailing the scent of sandalwood and roses behind her as she went to the door, her hips waving good-bye to les on her ar rotto At the door she crooked a finger for me to follow her out, and I did

"My name is Kashmir," she said "Coe at time Twenty rupees each"

I took rains of rice and went back to my holy, stupid, useless, stupid male friends at the cliff

"I brought some rice," I said to Joshua when I had cli and we'll have enough for supper"

Josh was sitting on the shelf of his nook, his legs folded into the lotus position, hands in thethe path to the Divine Spark," Joshua said "First you have to quiet the mind That's why there's so much physical discipline, attention to breath, you have to be so completely in control that you can see past the illusion of your body"

"And how is that different from e did in the monastery?"

"It's subtle, but it's different There the mind would ride the wave of action, you could hting There was no goal because there was no place to be but in the oal is to see beyond the li the postures Melchior says that an accoh a hoop the size of his head"

"That's great, Josh Useful Now let me tell you about this woan to tell him about my day, the woht be the sort of ancient spiritual inforht need

"Her name is Kashmir, which means soft and expensive"

"But she's a prostitute, Biff"

"Prostitutes didn't bother you when you wereme help you learn about sex"

"They still don't bother me, it's just that you don't have any money"

"I got the feeling she likes me I think maybe she'll do me pro bono, if you knohat I mean?" I elbowed him in the ribs and winked

"You et your Latin? 'Pro bono' ood'"

"Oh I thought itto do me for that"

"No, probably not," said Josh

So the next day, first thing, I made may way back to Nicobar, deter on the street next to one of the blind, no-legged beggar kids The street was packed with traders, haggling, oods and services, and the kid was e I was astounded at the ah for three Kaht there Not that I would steal from a blind kid

"Look, Scooter, you look a little tired, you want me to watch the bohile you take a break?"

"Get your hand out of there!" The kid caughtfu "

"Okay, fine, how about I show you soht of hand?"

"Oh, that'll be fun I'm blind"

"Look, make up your mind"

"I'o away"

So I went away, despondent, defeated - not e of the Kama Sutra I skulked back to the cliffs, climbed up to my nook, and resolved to console ht's supper I opened my satchel and -

"Ahhh!" I leapt back "Josh, what are you doing in there?" And there he was, his beatific old Joshua face with the sole of a foot on either side like big ears, a few vertebrae showing, one hand,amulet vial, and a jar of myrrh

"Get out of there How'd you get in there?"

I've mentioned our satchels before The Greeks called thes They werestrap we could throw over our shoulder, and I suppose if you'd asked et a whole person in one if you had to, but not in one piece

"Melchior taught ht I'd surprise you"

"Worked Can you get out?"

"I don't think so I think my hips are dislocated"

"Okay, where's lass knife?"

"It's at the botto"

"Why did I know you were going to say that?"

"If you get ht me how to multiply the rice"

A few e of ulls were attracted by the huge pile of cooked rice that lay between us on the ledge

"That's theI've ever seen" Except that you really couldn't see it done One minute you had a handful of rice, the next a bushel

"Melchior says that it usually takes a lot longer for a yogi to learn to manipulate matter like this"

"How er?"

"Thirty, forty years Most of the time they pass on before they learn"

"So this is like the healing Part of your, uh, legacy?"

"This isn't like the healing, Biff This can be taught, given the time"

I tossed a handful of rice into the air for soulls "Tell you what Melchior obviously doesn't likeLet's trade knowledge"

I brought rice to Joshua, had him multiply it, then sold the surplus in thefish instead of rice because I could raise twenty rupees in fewer trips But before that, I asked Joshua to come to toith ling, oods and services, and over on the side, a blind and legless beggar was e

"Scooter, I'd like you to meet my friend Joshua"

"My name's not Scooter," said the waif

A half hour later Scooter could see again and enerated

"You bastards!" said Scooter as he ran off on clean new pink feet

"Go with God," Joshua said

"Now I guess we'll see how easy it is to earn a living!" I shouted after the kid