The Breath of God. Jeffrey Small

then parted a beige curtain from the room’s single window, allowing the sun to pour in.

      In the weeks he’d spent imagining the library, Grant expected it to be grander. The room measured twenty by thirty feet and had the musty odor of a closed space that hadn’t felt fresh air in years. Dusty Tibetan-style books, narrow and long like the ones he’d seen the students use in the temple, were randomly stacked on crooked shelves and in various piles on the floor throughout the room. He looked around with the eager expression of a miner prospecting for gold in an undiscovered mountain vein.

      “Let me see,” Kinley said, stepping over several piles of books. “Twenty-two years ago, I was the assistant librarian in the dzong. That’s when I first discovered the texts about Issa.” The monk ran a finger along one of the shelves, wiping up a line of dust. “Not much has changed.” He disappeared around a bookcase at the far end of the room, mumbling to himself.

      “How can we help?” Kristin whispered.

      “Oh, no help. Around here somewhere,” he replied from the other side of the bookcase. “This library doesn’t get used much. We keep the current texts downstairs.”

      The sound of books crashing to the ground startled Grant. “Are you okay?”

      “Found it.” Kinley reappeared carrying by iron handles a simple pine box the size of a small suitcase. He placed the box on a laminate table that looked like it had been salvaged from a 1970s garage sale but which sat on an exquisitely handwoven carpet.

      Grant and Kristin took two of the four wooden chairs around the table. Grant noticed that Kristin sat cross-legged in the chair like she had on the knee wall the previous day. While Grant gazed at the simple box, she reached across him and touched it, as if trying to glean its contents from the texture of the wood. Grant eyed her slender fingers and short but manicured nails as they traced the grain of the wood. As alluring as she was, her need to touch everything reminded him again that she was too much a free spirit.

      When Kinley lifted the lid of the box, which had neither lock nor latch, Grant held his breath. He rose from his chair and peered into the open container.

      Grant’s first reaction was surprise—more Tibetan-style books, seven, stacked on each other. Eighteen inches long by three or four inches wide, the books were individually wrapped in silk cloths of various faded colors. He recalled Notovitch’s description of the book he found at Himis: it was larger with an ornate cover.

      Kinley lifted a green, silk-wrapped book. He blew off the fine layer of dust from the silk and then slowly unwrapped the book. The cover was heavy and sturdy, woodlike, and the book was as thick as it was wide—about four inches. Kinley opened the cover using the silk so that the oil from his hands would not touch the book itself.

      “Well?” Grant said, craning over the table from the edge of his seat.

      Kinley stared at the first page for a long minute, then turned to the second page. Grant noticed that the pages, a beige color, were much thicker than normal paper, not really flexible, and seemingly handmade. Each book contained twenty pages at the most.

      “Aha,” Kinley said, when he turned to the third page. Grant saw some squiggly writing in faded black ink. He bolted out of his chair to stand over Kinley’s shoulder.

      “It’s Pali!” Grant said.

      “What’s Pali?” Kristin asked.

      “An ancient language”—he squinted at the text—“somewhat similar to Sanskrit.”

      “Can you read it?” she asked.

      He shook his head. “Only rudimentarily. I took a year of Pali and Sanskrit, but I had three years of Tibetan: that’s the language of the texts I was expecting to find.” He turned to Kinley. “Do you have any idea how old these are?”

      Kinley flipped a few of the thick pages. “First century, if I’m reading the words correctly.”

      First century! Grant’s mind raced. Judging from the thick pages, it appeared possible, but he feared to hope too much.

      “They do look pretty old,” Kristin said. Grant flinched when she reached a hand toward the open book.

      Kinley gently guided her hand to the table. “I grew up reading the Buddhist canon in its original Pali.”

      Grant knew that Pali was the language of the ancient Buddhist canon, and it was still in use in first-century India when Issa supposedly lived. The book that Notovitch had seen in the Himis monastery, however, was written in Tibetan, a language that developed centuries later. As part of his research, Grant had theorized that the Notovitch book, if it existed as he believed it did, was like the Gospels from the Bible. The oldest copies of the Gospels in existence were copies of copies of copies written more than two hundred years after the originals. More significant was the fact that the Gospels were written in Greek, although Jesus would have taught his apostles and his followers in Galilee in Aramaic. For decades after his death, stories of Jesus would have circulated first among his followers in Aramaic, and then later they would have been translated into Greek and then written down in various forms. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not apostles of Jesus who had known the historical man, as was the common but mistaken belief. They were men who were part of the later Jesus community who compiled the stories that were in circulation about him and composed the Gospels.

      Similarly, Notovitch’s discovery appeared to be a Tibetan translation and compilation of earlier sources, sources that would have been in the original Pali language that was in use during Issa’s travels in India. Grant had not imagined in his wildest dreams that he might uncover the original writings that Notovitch’s book was based upon. He’d assumed those would have been long destroyed or lost, just as the original sources for the Gospels had long ago disappeared. As he stared at the narrow books on the table, he felt his heart pounding in his ears.

      “Will someone at least tell me what we’re looking at?” Kristin asked.

      Kinley replied, “These books detail the journey of—”

      “Issa,” Grant interrupted. “The Indian saint I told you about yesterday. According to legend he left his home as a teen to seek a secret wisdom from the sages in the Himalayas.”

      “Secret wisdom. I’m game.”

      She sat back in her chair but glanced between Kinley and Grant, as if she suspected they were holding back on her. Grant knew that she was smart, and he made a decision to tell her the truth if she asked directly. Part of the problem was that she’d shown up unexpectedly, and he had a carefully laid-out plan for the release of this discovery. She’s a journalist, he reminded himself.

      “So these texts were written by ... ?” she asked.

      Kinley answered, “The monks in India who taught Issa. They were impressed by an unusually bright and receptive student, a student who became well known years later. You see, controversy followed young Issa wherever he went, even after he was martyred.”

      “Issa was killed?” Kristin asked.

      “A story for another time,” Kinley said, glancing at Grant. A short time after Kinley had revealed the existence of the texts to him, Grant had realized that the monk knew the truth behind Issa’s identity. He’d mentioned to Kinley that until they were published, it might be safer for all of them if this fact remained secret.

      “These silks, Kinley?” Grant asked, changing the topic.

      “Only a hundred years old or so; they were added later to protect the books, and are changed by the librarian when they deteriorate.” Grant noted that many of the other books on the shelves around them were wrapped in similar silks.

      “If Issa lived in India,” Kristin asked, “and these texts were written in a monastery there, what are they doing here in Bhutan?”

      “For several hundred years after Issa’s death, the texts remained in the monasteries where they were written,” Kinley explained. “But then, as Hinduism began to reassert itself over