Lamb The Gospel According to Biff Christs Childho - By Christopher Moore Page 0,130

she does that," said Joshua, when I swung over the edge of his nook and announced the news. He and Melchior had been meditating and the old man, as usual, appeared to be dead. "She used to do it all the time when we were kids. She sent James and me running all over the place washing down walls before people saw. Sometimes her face would appear in a pattern of water drops in the dust, or the peelings from grapes would fall just so in a pattern after being taken out of the wine press. Usually it was walls."

"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."
Chapter 23
Part V

Lamb

I am light, now I fly, now I see myself beneath myself, now a god dances through me.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

Chapter 23

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