Christopher Moore - Lamb - The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal

“Ancient sacred wisdom,” she said. “The book was a gift 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 knew I was.

“Do they look like they are suffering?”

“No.” I began to tremble. I had been too long out of the company of women. Far too long.

“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 me all the way across the room, the bangles on her arms and ankles ringing like tiny temple bells calling me to worship at her secret grotto. At the door she crooked a finger for me to follow her out, and I did.

“My name is Kashmir,” she said. “Come back. I’ll teach you ancient and sacred knowledge. One page at time. Twenty rupees each.”

I took my stupid, pathetic, useless grains 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 climbed to my nook in the cliff. “Melchior can do his rice thing 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 the mudra of the compassionate Buddha. “Melchior is teaching the 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 what we did in the monastery?”

“It’s subtle, but it’s different. There the mind would ride the wave of action, you could meditate while on the exercise posts, shooting arrows, fighting. There was no goal because there was no place to be but in the moment. Here, the goal is to see beyond the moment, to the soul. I think I’m getting a glimpse. I’m learning the postures. Melchior says that an accomplished yogi can pass his entire body through a hoop the size of his head.”

“That’s great, Josh. Useful. Now let me tell you about this woman I met.” So I jumped over to Josh’s ledge and began to tell him about my day, the woman, the Kama Sutra, and my opinion that this just might be the sort of ancient spiritual information a young Messiah might need.

“Her name is Kashmir, which means soft and expensive.”

“But she’s a prostitute, Biff.”

“Prostitutes didn’t bother you when you were making me 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 know what I mean?” I elbowed him in the ribs and winked.

“You mean for the public good. You forget your Latin? ‘Pro bono’ means ‘for the public good.’”

“Oh. I thought it meant something else. She’s not going to do me for that.”

“No, probably not,” said Josh.

So the next day, first thing, I made may way back to Nicobar, determined to find a job, but by noon I found myself sitting on the street next to one of the blind, no-legged beggar kids. The street was packed with traders, haggling, making deals, exchanging cash for goods and services, and the kid was making a killing on the spare change. I was astounded at the amount in the kid’s bowl; there must have been enough for three Kama Sutra pages right there. Not that I would steal from a blind kid.

“Look, Scooter, you look a little tired, you want me to watch the bowl while you take a break?”

“Get your hand out of there!” The kid caught my wrist (me, the kung fu master). He was quick. “I can tell what you’re doing.”

“Okay, fine, how about I show you some magic tricks. A little sleight of hand?”

“Oh, that’ll be fun. I’m blind.”

“Look, make up your mind.”

“I’m going to call for the guild-master if you don’t go away.”

So I went away, despondent, defeated—not money enough to look at the edge of a page of the Kama Sutra. I skulked back to the cliffs, climbed up to my nook, and resolved to console myself with some cold rice left over from last night’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, my ying-yang 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 them wallets, I guess you would call them duffel bags. They were made of leather, had a long strap we could throw over our shoulder, and I suppose if you’d asked me before, I would have said you could get a whole person in one if you had to, but not in one piece.

“Melchior taught me. It took me all morning to get in here. I thought I’d surprise you.”

“Worked. Can you get out?”

“I don’t think so. I think my hips are dislocated.”

“Okay, where’s my black glass knife?”

“It’s at the bottom of the bag.”

“Why did I know you were going to say that?”

“If you get me out I’ll show you what else I learned. Melchior taught me how to multiply the rice.”

A few minutes later Joshua and I were sitting on the ledge of my nook being bombarded by seagulls. The seagulls were attracted by the huge pile of cooked rice that lay between us on the ledge.

“That’s the most amazing thing I’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 much longer?”

“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 some seagulls. “Tell you what. Melchior obviously doesn’t like me, so he’s not going to teach me anything. Let’s trade knowledge.”

I brought rice to Joshua, had him multiply it, then sold the surplus in the market, and eventually I started trading fish instead of rice because I could raise twenty rupees in fewer trips. But before that, I asked Joshua to come to town with me. We went to the market, which was thick with traders, haggling, making deals, exchanging cash for goods and services, and over on the side, a blind and legless beggar was making a killing on the change.

“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 miraculously his severed legs had been regenerated.

“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.

“He didn’t seem very pleased,” said Josh.

“He’s only learning to express himself. Forget him, others are suffering as well.”

And so it came to pass, that Joshua of Nazareth moved among them, healing them and performing miracles, and all the little blind children of Nicobar did see again, and all the lame did stand up and walk.

The little fuckers.