“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.”
I am light, now I fly, now I see myself beneath myself, now a god dances through me.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
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?”
“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.”
“That sounds—”
“Don’t worry, it’s not that hard to learn. I have pictures.”
We were four days at Joy’s palace, enjoying comfort, food, and drink such as we hadn’t experienced since we’d last seen her. I could have stayed forever, but on the morning of the fifth day Joshua stood at the entrance to Joy’s bedchamber, his satchel slung over his shoulder. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. We shared breakfast with Joy and she met us at the gate to say good-bye.
“Thanks for the elephant,” she said.
“Thanks for the camels,” Joshua said.
“Thanks for the sex book,” Joy said.
“Thanks for the sex,” I said.
“Oh, I forgot, you owe me a hundred rupees,” Joy said. I had told her about Kashmir. The Cruel and Accursed Dragon Princess grinned at me. “Just kidding. Be well, my friend. Keep that amulet I gave you and remember me, huh?”
“Of course.” I kissed her and climbed on my camel’s back, then coaxed him to his feet.
Joy embraced Joshua and kissed him on the lips, hard and long. He didn’t seem to be trying to push her away.
“Hey, we had better go, Josh,” I said.
Joy held the Messiah at arm’s length and said, “You are always welcome here, you know that?”
Josh nodded, then climbed on his camel. “Go with God, Joy,” he said. As we rode through the gates of the palace the guards shot fire arrows that trailed long tails of sparks over us until they exploded above the road ahead: Joy’s last good-bye to us, a tribute to the friendship and arcane knowledge we had all shared. It scared the bejeezus out of the camels.
After we had been on the road awhile, Joshua asked, “Did you say goodbye to Vana?”
“I intended to, but when I went to the stable she was practicing her yoga and I didn’t want to disturb her.”
“No kidding?”
“Really, she was sitting in one of the postures you taught her.”
Joshua smiled. It didn’t hurt anything for him to believe that.
The journey on the Silk Road through the high deserts took us over a month, but it was fairly uneventful, except for one attack by a small group of bandits. When I caught the first two spears they flung at me and flung them right back, wounding the two who had thrown them, they turned and ran. The weather was mild, or as mild as one can expect in a deadly and brutal desert, but by now Joshua and I had traveled so much in this sort of harsh country that there was little that affected us. Just before we reached Antioch, however, a sandstorm whipped up out of the desert that left us hiding between our camels for two days, breathing through our shirts and washing the mud out of our mouths every time we took a drink. The storm settled enough to travel, and we were at a veritable gallop in the streets of Antioch when Joshua located an inn by impacting with its sign on his forehead. He was knocked back off his camel and sat up in the street with blood streaming down his face.
“Are you hurt badly?” I asked, kneeling beside him. I could barely see in the driving dust.
Joshua looked at the blood on his hands where he had touched his forehead. “I don’t know. It doesn’t hurt that badly, but I can’t tell.”
“Inside,” I said, helping him to his feet and through the door of the inn.
“Shut the door,” the innkeeper shouted as the wind whipped through the room. “Were you born in a barn?”
“Yeah,” said Joshua.
“He was,” I said. “Angels on the roof, though.”
“Shut the damn door,” said the innkeeper.
I left Joshua sitting there by the door while I went out and found shelter for the camels. When I returned Joshua was wiping his face with a linen cloth that someone had handed to him. A couple of men stood over him, eager to help. I handed the cloth to one of them and examined Josh’s wounds. “You’ll live. A big bump and two cuts, but you’ll live. You can’t do the healing thing on—”
Joshua shook his head.
“Hey, look at this,” one of the travelers who had helped Joshua said,
holding up the piece of linen Joshua had used to wipe his face. The dust and blood from Josh’s face had left a perfect likeness on the linen, even handprints where he’d gotten blood from his head wound. “Can I keep this?” the fellow said. He was speaking Latin, but with a strange accent.
“Sure,” I said. “Where are you fellahs from?”
“We’re from the Ligurian tribe, from the territories north of Rome. A city on the Po river called Turin. Have you heard of it?”
“No, I haven’t. You know, you fellahs can do what you want with that cloth, but out on my camel I’ve got some erotic drawings from the East that are going to be worth something someday. I can let you have them for a very fair price.”
The Turinians went off holding their pathetic swath of muddy cloth like it was some kind of holy relic. Ignorant bastards wouldn’t know art if you nailed them to it. I bandaged Joshua’s wounds and we checked into the inn for the night.
In the morning we decided to keep our camels and take the land route home through Damascus. As we passed out of the gates of Damascus on the final leg home, Joshua started to worry.
“I’m not ready to be the Messiah, Biff. If I’m being called home to lead our people I don’t even know where to start. I understand the things I want to teach, but I don’t have the words yet. Melchior was right about that. Before anything you have to have the word.”
“Well it’s not just going to come to you in a flash here on the Damascus road, Josh. That sort of thing doesn’t happen. You’re obviously supposed to learn what you need to know in its own time. To everything a season, yada, yada, yada…”
“My father could have made learning all this easier. He could have just told me what I was supposed to do.”
“I wonder how Maggie’s doing. You think she got fat?”
“I’m trying to talk about God here, about the Divine Spark, about bringing the kingdom to our people.”
“I know you are, so am I. Do you want to do all of that without help?”
“I guess not.”
“Well, that’s why I was thinking about Maggie. She was smarter than us before we left, she’s probably smarter than us now.”
“She was smart, wasn’t she? She wanted to be a fisherman,” said Josh, grinning. I could tell that the thought of seeing Maggie tickled him.
“You can’t tell her about all the whores, Josh.”
“I won’t.”
“Or Joy and the girls. Or the old woman with no teeth.”
“I won’t tell her about any of them, not even the yak.”
“There was nothing with the yak. The yak and I weren’t even on speaking terms.”
“You know, she probably has a dozen children by now.”
“I know.” I sighed. “They should be mine.”
“And mine.” Joshua sighed back.
I looked at him as he rode beside me in a sea of gently loping camel waves. He was staring off at the horizon, looking forlorn. “Yours and mine? You think they should be yours
and
mine?”
“Sure, why not. You know I love all the little—”
“You are such a doofus sometimes.”
“Do you think she’ll remember us? I mean, how we all were back then?”
I thought about it and shuddered. “I hope not.”
No sooner did we pass into Galilee than we began to hear about what John the Baptist was doing in Judea.
“Hundreds have followed him into the desert,” we heard in Gischala.
“Some say he is the Messiah,” one man told us in Baca.
“Herod is afraid of him,” said a woman in Cana.
“He’s another crazy holy man,” said a Roman soldier in Sepphoris. “The Jews breed them like rabbits. I hear he drowns anyone who doesn’t agree with him. First sensible idea I’ve heard since I was sent to this accursed territory.”
“May I have your name, soldier?” I asked.
“Caius Junius, of the Sixth Legion.”
“Thank you. We’ll keep you in mind.” To Josh I said, “Caius Junius: front of the line when we start shoving Romans out of the kingdom into the fiery abyss.”
“What did you say?” said the Roman.
“No, no, don’t thank me, you earned it. Right at the front of the line you go, Caius.”
“Biff!” Josh barked, and once he had my attention he whispered, “Try not to get us thrown into prison before we get home, please.”
I nodded and waved to the legionnaire as we rode away. “Just crazy Jew talk. Pay no attention.
Whimper Fidelis,
” I said.
“We have to find John after we see our families,” Joshua said.
“Do you think that he’s really claiming to be the Messiah?”