Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal Chapter 16

Chapter 16We were twelve geezerhood into our journey, following Balthasars meticulously drawn map, when we came to the bulwark.So, I state, what do you ph peerless of the w wholly?Its gr run, give tongue to Joshua.Its not that great, I say.T here was a hanker store waiting to get finished the giant gateway, where scores of bureaucrats collected taxes from van masters as they passed by means of. The gateho dos al one were each as big as one of Herods palaces, and soldiers rode horses atop the w just now, patrolling furthermost into the distance. We were a good league arse from the gate and the neckcloth didnt check bym to be moving.This is waiver to take sum tot entirelyy day, I said. wherefore would they build such a function? If you washba ejaculate build a jetty resembling this then you ought to be capable to raise an army super enough to defeat any invaders.Lao-tzu create this w each, Joshua said.The old master who wrote the Tao? I dont retrieve so.What does the Tao value above all else?Compassion? Those former(a) two jewel intimacys?No, inaction. Contemplation. S teadiness. Conservatism. A wall is the excuse of a country that values inaction. yet a wall imprisons the tribe of a country as much as it protects them. Thats why Balthasar had us go this way. He wanted me to follow out the error in the Tao. superstar cant be free withtaboo action.So he spent all that mea certain teaching us the Tao so we could match that it was wrong.No, not wrong. not all of it. The compassion, humility, and moderation of the Tao, these are the qualities of a righteous man, that not inaction. These bulk are slaves to inaction.You worked as a scarcutter, Josh, I said, nodding toward the massive wall. You believe this wall was built through inaction?The magus wasnt teaching us ab issue(predicate) action as in work, it was action as in change. Thats why we chance oned Confucius first invariablyy refinedg having to do with the order of ou r fathers, the law, manners. Confucius is like the Torah, rules to follow. And Lao-tzu is even to a greater extent conservative, saying that if you do nothing you wont break any rules. You wear to permit tradition fall slightlytime, you control to take action, you take up to eat bacon. Thats what Balthasar was trying to teach me.Ive said it to begin with, Josh and you hunch how I love bacon just I dont think bacon is enough for the Messiah to remove.Change, Joshua said. A Messiah has to bring change. Change comes through action. Balthasar at a time said to me, Theres no such thing as a conservative hero. He was wise, that old man.I belief or so the old magus as I looked at the wall reach over the hills, then at the line of travelers ahead of us. A vitiated city had arriven up at the entrance to the wall to declare the needs of the de drop impinge oned travelers along the Silk Road and it boi take with merchants hawking nourishment and drink along the line.Screw it, I said. This is going to take forever. How long can it be? Lets go or so.A month later, when we had returned to the same gate and we were standing in line to get through, Joshua asked So what do you think of the wall now? I mean, now that weve listenn so much more(prenominal) of it?I think its ostentatious and unpleasant, I said.If they dont have a adduce for it, you should suggest that.And so it came to pass that through the ages the wall was agnizen as the Ostentatious and Unpleasant Wall of China. At least I rely thats what happened. Its not on my Friendly Flyer Miles map, so I cant be sure.We could see the mountain where Gaspars monastery lay long before we reached it. Like the other peaks around it, it cut the sky like a huge in any caseth. downwardstairs the mountain was a village surrounded by eminent pasture. We stop there to rest and water our camels. The people of the village all came out to greet us and they marve direct at our strange look and Joshuas cur ly fuzz as if we were gods that had been lowered out of the heavens (which I guess was true in Joshs case, merely you forget intimately that when youre around someone a conduct). An old toothless woman who spoke a dialect of Chinese similar to the one we had learned from Joy convinced us to present the camels in the village. She traced the course of action up the mountain with a craggy experience and it was obvious that the path was both too nail and too center to obtain the animals.The villagers served us a spicy sum dish with bubbling bowls of take out to wash it down. I hesitated and looked at Joshua. The Torah forbade us to eat meat and dairy at the same meal.Im thinking this is a lot like the bacon thing, Joshua said. I in reality dont feel that the Lord economic aids if we wash down our yak with a bowl of milk.Yak?Thats what this is. The old woman told me.Well, sin or not, Im not eating it. Ill besides drink the milk.Its yak milk too.Im not drinking it.Use your own judgment, it served you so well in the past, like, oh, when you decided we should go around the wall.You know, I said, weary of having the whole wall thing brought up again, I never said you could use raillery whenever you wanted to. I think youre using my invention in slipway that it was never intended to be utilize.Like against you?See? See what I mean?We left the village early the next morning, carrying only some rice balls, our water come ups, and what miniscule money we had left. We left our three camels in the care of the toothless old woman, who promised to take care of them until we returned. I would miss them. They were the crisp double-humpers wed picked up in Kabul and they were comfortable to ride, but more important, none of them had ever tried to bite me.Theyre going to eat our camels, you know? We wont be gone an hour before one of them is turning on a spit.They wont eat the camels. Joshua, forever believing in the goodness of human beings.They dont know wh at they are. They think that theyre just tall food. Theyre going to eat them. The only meat they ever get is yak.You dont even know what a yak is.Do too, I said, but the air was getting thin and I was too tired to prove myself at the time.The sun was going down rear the mountains when we finally reached the monastery. Except for a huge wooden gate with a small hatch in it, it was constructed entirely of the same foul basalt as the mountain on which it stood. It looked more like a fortress than a place of worship.Makes you wonder if all three of your magi live in fortresses, doesnt it? spend a penny the doorbell, said Joshua. There was a bronze gong temporary removal outdoors the door with a padded drum spoil standing next to it and a planetary house in a language that we couldnt read.I prepare up the gong. We waited. I hit the gong again. And we waited. The sun went down and it began to get very inhumanness on the mountainside. I rang the gong three times loud. We ate our rice balls and drank nearly of our water and waited. I pounded the bejezus out of the gong and the hatch undecided. A weak light from inside the gate illuminated the smooth cheeks of a Chinese man about our age. What? he said in Chinese.We are here to see Gaspar, I said. Balthasar sent us.Gaspar sees no one. Your aspect is dim and your eyes are too round. He slammed the little hatch.This time Joshua pounded on the gong until the monk returned.Let me see that drumstick, the monk said, holding his hand out through the little port.Joshua gave him the drumstick and stepped patronise.Go away and come bet on in the morning, the monk said. provided weve trave guide all day, Joshua said. Were cold and hungry.Life is suffering, the monk said. He slammed the little door, leaving us in close to total darkness.Maybe thats what youre supposed to learn, I said. Lets go home.No, we wait, said Joshua.In the morning, aft(prenominal) Joshua and I had slept against the great gate, hudd take to gether to conserve warmth, the monk opened the little hatch. You still here? He couldnt see us, as we were today below the window.Yes, I said. Can we see Gaspar now?He craned his manage out the hatch, then pulled it back in and produced a small wooden bowl, from which he poured water on our heads. Go away. Your feet are misshapen and your eyebrows grow together in a threatening way.ButHe slammed the hatch. And so we spent the day outside the gate, me wanting to go down the mountain, Joshua imperativeness that we wait. There was frost in our hair when we woke the next morning, and I matt-up my very bones aching. The monk opened the hatch just aft(prenominal) first light.You are so stupid that the village idiots guild uses you as a standard for testing, said the monk.Actually, Im a member of the village idiots guild, I retorted.In that case, said the monk, go away.I cursed eloquently in five languages and was beginning to tear at my hair in licking when I spotted something large m oving in the sky overhead. As it got closer, I saw that it was the angel, wearing his aspect of black robe and wings. He carried a flaming bundle of sticks and pitch, which trailed a trail of flames and heavyset black smoke behind him in the sky. When he had passed over us several(prenominal) times, he flew off over the horizon, leaving a smoky descriptor of Chinese characters that spelled out a message across the sky abjure DOROTHY.I was just fuckin with you (as Balthasar used to say). Raziel didnt really write SURRENDER DOROTHY in the sky. The angel and I watched The Wizard of Oz together on television dwell night and the scene at the gates of Oz reminded me of when Joshua and I were at the monastery gate. Raziel said he identified with Glinda, Good Witch of the North. (I would have thought transitory monkey, but I believe his choice was a blond one.) I have to admit that I felt some sympathy for the scarecrow, although I dont believe I would have been singing about the lack of a brain. In fact, amid all the musical laments over not having a heart, a brain, or the nerve, did anyone notice that they didnt have a penis among them? I think it would have shown on the Lion and the Tin Man, and when the Scarecrow has his pants destuffed, you dont see a flying monkey waving an errant straw Johnson around anywhere, do you? I think I know what song Id be singingOh, I would while away the hours,Wanking in the flowers, my heart all full of song,Id be gilding all the lilies as I waved about my willieIf I only had a schlong.And suddenly it occurred to me, as I unruffled the above opus, that although Raziel had always seemed to have the aspect of a male, I had no idea if there were even genders among the angels. After all, Raziel was the only one Id ever seen. I leapt from my chair and confronted him in the midst of an afternoon Looney Tunes festival.Raziel, do you have equipment?Equipment?A package, a taliwacker, a unit, a dick do you have one?No, said the angel, perplexed that I would be asking. Why would I need one?For sex. Dont angels have sex?Well, yes, but we dont use those. So there are female angels and male angels?Yes.And you have sex with female angels.Correct.With what do you have sex?Female angels. I just told you.No, do you have a sex organ?Yes.Show me?I dont have it with me.Oh. I realized that there are some things Id really rather not know about.Anyway, he didnt write in the sky, and, in fact, we didnt see Raziel again, but the monks did let us into the monastery after three days. They said that they made everybody wait three days. It weeded out the insincere.The entire two-story construction that was the monastery was fashion of rough stone, none larger than could have been lifted into place by a single man. The rear of the building was built right into the mountainside. The structure seemed to have been built under an existing overhang in the rock, so there was minimal roofing exposed to the elements. What did show was made of terra-cotta tiles that lay on a steep incline, apparently to shed any buildup of snow.A short and hairless monk wearing a saffron-colored robe led us across an outer courtyard paved with flagstone through an austere doorway into the monastery. The floor inside was stone, and though immaculately clean, it was no more finished than the flagstone of the courtyard. There were only a hardly a(prenominal) windows, more like arrow slits, cut high in the wall, and little light penetrated the interior once the front door was closed. The air was thick with incense and filled with a buzzing chorus of male voices producing a rhythmic chant that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once and made it seem as if my ribs and kneecaps were vibrating from the inside. Whatever language they were chanting in I didnt understand, but the message was clear these men were invoking something that transcended this world.The monk led us up a narrow stairway into a long, narrow corridor lined wit h open doorways no higher than my waist. As we passed I could see that these must be the monks cells, and each was just large enough to accommodate a small man lying down. There was a weave mat on the floor and a woolen blanket roll up at the top of each cell, but there was no evidence of personal possessions nor storage for any. There were no doors to close for privacy. In short, it was very much like what I had grown up with, which didnt solve me feel any better about it. Nearly five historic period of the relative opulence at Balthasars fortress had spoiled me. I yearned for a soft bed and a half-dozen Chinese concubines to hand-feed me and rub my body with sweet oils. (Well, I said I was spoiled.)At last the monk led us into a large open chamber with a high stone ceiling and I realized that we were no longer in a man-made structure, but a large hollow. At the far end of the cave was a stone statue of a man place cross-legged, his eyes closed, his detention before him with the first fingers and thumbs forming closed circles. Lit by the orangeness light of candles, a haze of incense smoke hanging about his shaved head, he appeared to be praying. The monk, our guide, disappeared into the darkness at the sides of the cave and Joshua and I approached the statue cautiously, stepping carefully across the rough floor of the cave.(We had long since bewildered our surprise and outrage at graven images. The world at large and the art we had seen in our travels served to dampen even that grave commandment. Bacon, Joshua said when I asked him about it.)This great room was the source of the chanting we had been hearing since get into the monastery, and after seeing the monks cells we determined that there must be at least twenty monks adding their voices to the droning, although the way the cave echoed it might have been one or a thousand. As we approached the statue, trying to ascertain what sort of stone it was made from, it opened its eyes.Is that you, Josh ua? it said in perfect Aramaic.Yes, said Joshua.And who is this?This is my friend, Biff. insistently he will be called jack oak, when he needs to be called, and you shall be Twenty-two. While you are here you have no name. The statue wasnt a statue, of course, it was Gaspar. The orange light of the candles and his complete lack of motion or expression had only made him appear to be made of stone. I suppose we were as well as thrown off because we were expecting a Chinese. This man looked as if he was from India. His skin was even darker than ours and he wore the red dot on his head that we had seen on Indian traders in Kabul and Antioch. It was difficult to tell his age, as he had no hair or beard and there wasnt a line in his face.Hes the Messiah, I said. The Son of God. You came to see him at his birth.Still no expression from Gaspar. He said, The Messiah must die if you are to learn. obscure him tomorrow.Scuse me? I said.Tomorrow you will learn. Feed them, said Gaspar.Another monk, who looked almost identical to the first monk, came out of the dark and took Joshua by the shoulder. He led us out of the chapel chamber and back to the cells where he showed Joshua and me our accommodations. He took our sitchels away from us and left. He returned in a few proceedings with a bowl of rice and a cup of weak tea for each of us. Then he went away, having said nothing since letting us in.Chatty little guy, I said.Joshua scooped some rice into his mouth and grimaced. It was cold and unsalted. Should I be worried about what he said about the Messiah dying tomorrow, do you think?You know how youve never been altogether sure whether you were the Messiah or not?Yeah.Tomorrow, if they dont kill you first thing in the morning, tell them that.The next morning spot Seven monk awakened Joshua and me by whacking us in the feet with a bamboo staff. To his credit, digit Seven was smiling when I finally got the sleep cleared from my eyes, but that was really a small consola tion. Number Seven was short and thin with high cheekbones and widely set eyes. He wore a long orange robe woven from rough cotton and no shoes. He was shaven and his head was also shaved except for a small backside that grew out at the crown and was tied with a string. He looked as if he could be anywhere from seventeen to thirty-five years old, it was unrealistic to tell. (Should you wonder about the appearance of Monks Two through Six, and Eight through Twenty, just imagine Number Seven Monk nineteen times. Or at least thats how they appeared to me for the first few months. Later, Im sure, except that we were taller and round-eyed, Joshua and I, or Monks Twenty-one and Twenty-two, would have fit the same description. When one is trying to shed the bonds of ego, a unique appearance is a liability. Thats why they call it a uniform. But alas, Im getting ahead of myself.)Number Seven led us to a window that was obviously used as a latrine, waited while we used it, then took us to a small room where Gaspar sat, his legs crossed in a seemingly impossible position, with a small table before him. The monk bowed and left the room and Gaspar asked us to sit down, again in our native Aramaic.We sat across from him on the floor no, thats not right, we didnt actually sit, we lay on the floor on our sides, propped up on one elbow the way we would have been at the low tables at home. We sat after Gaspar produced a bamboo staff from under the table and, with a motion as fast as a striking cobras, wham us both on the side of the head with it. I said sit he said.Then we sat.Jeez, I said, guide the knot that was prominence over my ear.Listen, Gaspar said, holding the stick up to clarify exactly what he meant.We listened as if they were going to discontinue ripe any second and we inevitable to stock up. I think I even stopped external respiration for a while.Good, said Gaspar, laying the stick down and pouring tea into three simple bowls on the table.We looked at the tea sitting there, steaming just looked at it. Gaspar laughed like a little boy, all the graveness and authority from a second ago gone from his face. He could have been a benevolent older uncle. In fact, except for the obviously Indian features, he reminded me a lot of Joseph, Joshuas stepfather.No Messiah, Gaspar said, switching to Chinese now. Do you understand?Yes, Joshua and I said in unison.In an instant the bamboo stick was in his hand and the other end was bouncing off of Joshuas head. I covered my own head with my arms but the bollocks never came.Did I strike the Messiah? Gaspar asked Joshua.Joshua seemed genuinely perplexed. He paused, rubbing the spot on his head, when another blow caught him over his other ear, the sound of the impact sharp and harsh in the small stone room.Did I strike the Messiah? Gaspar repeated.Joshuas dark brown eyes showed neither wo(e) nor fear, just confusion as deep as the confusion of a calf who has just had its throat cut by the Temple pr iest.The stick whistled through the air again, but this time I caught it in mid-swing, wrenched it out of Gaspars hand, and tossed it out the narrow window behind him. I quickly folded my hands and looked at the table in front of me. Begging your pardon, master, I said, but if you hit him again, Ill kill you.Gaspar stood, but I was afraid to look at him (or Joshua, for that matter). Ego, said the monk. He left the room without another word.Joshua and I sat in silence for a few legal proceeding, thinking and rubbing our goose eggs. Well, it had been an interesting trip and all, but Joshua wasnt very well going to learn much about being the Messiah from someone who hit him with a stick whenever it was mentioned, and that, I supposed, was the reason we were there. So, onward. I drank the bowl of tea in front of me, then the one that Gaspar had left. Two wise men down, one to go, I said. Wed better find some breakfast if were going to travel.Joshua looked at me as perplexed as he had at Gaspar a few minutes before. Do you think he needs that stick?Number Seven Monk handed us our satchels, bowed deeply, then went back into the monastery and closed the door, leaving Joshua and me standing there by the gong. It was a clear morning and we could see the smoke of cook fires rising from the village below.We should have asked for some breakfast, I said. This is going to be a long come up down.Im not leaving, Josh said.Youre kidding.I have a lot more to learn here.Like how to take a beating?Maybe.Im not sure Gaspar will let me back in. He didnt seem too blithesome with me.You threatened to kill him.I did not, I warned that Id kill him. Big difference.So youre not going to catch?And there it was, the question. Was I going to stay with my best friend, eat cold rice, sleep on a cold floor, take abuse from a mad monk, and very likely have my skull split open, or was I going to go? Go where? property? Back to Kabul and Joy? Despite the long journey, it seemed easier to go back the way I had come. At least some level of familiarity would be waiting there. But if I was making easy choices, why was I there in the first place?Are you sure you have to stay here, Josh? Cant we go find Melchior?I know I have things to learn here. Joshua picked up the drumstick and rang the gong. In a few minutes the little port opened in the door and a monk we had never seen before stuck his face in the opening. Go away. Your nature is subdued and your breath smells like a yaks ass. He slammed the hatch.Joshua rang the gong again.I dont like that whole thing about killing the Messiah. I cant stay here, Joshua. Not if hes going to hit you.I have a feeling Im going to get hit quite a few more times until I learn what he needs me to know.I have to go.Yes, you do.But I could stay.No. Trust me, you have to leave me now, so you wont later. Ill see you again. He turned away from me and faced the door.Oh, you dont know anything else, but you know that all of a sudden?Yes. Go, Bif f. Good-bye.I walked down the narrow path and nearly stumbled over a precipice when I heard the hatch in the door open. Where are you going? shouted the monk.Home, I said.Good, go dismay some children with your glorious ignorance.I will. I tried to keep my shoulders settle down as I walked away, but it felt like someone was bust my soul through the muscles of my back. I would not turn around, I vowed, and slowly, painfully, I made my way down the path, convinced that I would never see Joshua again.