(We had long since lost 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 entering 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, Joshua?” it said in perfect Aramaic.

“Yes,” said Joshua.

“And who is this?”

“This is my friend, Biff.”

“Now he will be called Twenty-one, when he needs to be called, and you shall be Twenty-two. While you are here you have no name.” The statue wasn’t 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 also 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 wasn’t a line in his face.

“He’s 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. Kill 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 satchels away from us and left. He returned in a few minutes 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 you’ve never been completely sure whether you were the Messiah or not?”

“Yeah.”

“Tomorrow, if they don’t kill you first thing in the morning, tell them that.”

The next morning Number Seven Monk awakened Joshua and me by whacking us in the feet with a bamboo staff. To his credit, Number Seven was smiling when I finally got the sleep cleared from my eyes, but that was really a small consolation. 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 clean-shaven and his head was also shaved except for a small tail 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 impossible 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 that’s how they appeared to me for the first few months. Later, I’m 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. That’s why they call it a “uniform.” But alas, I’m 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, that’s not right, we didn’t 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 cobra’s, whacked us both on the side of the head with it. “I said sit!” he said.

Then we sat.

“Jeez,” I said, rubbing the knot that was swelling 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 sound any second and we needed to stock up. I think I even stopped breathing 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, Joshua’s 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 Joshua’s head. I covered my own head with my arms but the blow 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.

Joshua’s dark brown eyes showed neither pain nor fear, just confusion as deep as the confusion of a calf who has just had its throat cut by the Temple priest.

The stick whistled through the air again, but this time I caught it in mid-swing, wrenched it out of Gaspar’s 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, I’ll 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 minutes, thinking and rubbing our goose eggs. Well, it had been an interesting trip and all, but Joshua wasn’t 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. “We’d better find some breakfast if we’re 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 climb down.”

“I’m not leaving,” Josh said.

“You’re kidding.”

“I have a lot more to learn here.”

“Like how to take a beating?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m not sure Gaspar will let me back in. He didn’t seem too pleased with me.”

“You threatened to kill him.”

“I did not, I warned that I’d kill him. Big difference.”

“So you’re not going to stay?”

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? Home? 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?