Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

least a week out of every month in the mountains with the yeti, going up not only with every group after alms, but often going up into the mountains by himself for days or, in the summer, weeks at a time. He never talked about what he did while in the mountains, except, he told me, that the yeti had taken him to the cave where he lived and had shown him the bones of his people. My friend had found something with the yeti, and although I didn’t have the courage to ask him, I suspect the bond he shared with the snowman was the knowledge that they were both unique creatures, nothing like either of them walked the face of the earth, and regardless of the connection each might feel with God and the universe, at that time, in that place, but for each other, they were utterly alone.
    Gaspar didn’t forbid Joshua’s pilgrimages, and indeed, he went out of his way to act as if he didn’t notice when Twenty-Two Monk was gone, yet I could tell there was some unease in the abbot whenever Joshua was away.
    We both continued to drill on the posts, and after two years of leaping and balancing, dancing and the use of weapons were added to our routine. Joshua refused to take up any of the weapons; in fact, he refused to practice any art that would bring harm to another being. He wouldn’t even mimic the action of fighting with swords and spears with a bamboo substitute. At first Gaspar bristled at Joshua’s refusal, and threatened to banish him from the monastery, but when I took the abbot aside and told him the story of the archer Joshua had blinded on the way to Balthasar’s fortress, the abbot relented. He and two of the older monks who had been soldiers devised for Joshua a regimen of weaponless fighting that involved no offense or striking at all, but instead channeled the energy of an attacker away from oneself. Since the new art was practiced only by Joshua (and sometimes myself), the monks called it Jew-dô, meaning the way of the Jew .
    In addition to learning kung fu and Jew-dô, Gaspar set us to learning to speak and write Sanskrit. Most of the holy books of Buddhism had been written in that language and had yet to be translated into Chinese, which Joshua and I had become fluent in.
    “This is the language of my boyhood,” Gaspar said before beginning our lessons. “You need to know this to learn the words of Gautama Buddha, but you will also need this language when you follow your dharma to your next destination.”
    Joshua and I looked at each other. It had been a long time since we had talked about leaving the monastery and the mention of it put us on edge. Routine feeds the illusion of safety, and if nothing else, there was routine at the monastery.
    “When will we leave, master?” I asked.
    “When it is time,” said Gaspar.
    “And how will we know it is time to leave?”
    “When the time for staying has come to an end.”
    “And we will know this because you will finally give us a straight and concrete answer to a question instead of being obtuse and spooky?” I asked.
    “Does the unhatched tadpole know the universe of the full-grown frog?”
    “Evidently not,” Joshua said.
    “Correct,” said the master. “Meditate upon it.”
    As Joshua and I entered the temple to begin our meditation I said, “When the time comes, and we know that the time has come for us to leave, I am going to lump up his shiny little head with a fighting staff.”
    “Meditate upon it,” said Josh.
    “I mean it. He’s going to be sorry he taught me how to fight,” I said.
    “I’m sure of it. I’m sorry already.”
    “You know, he doesn’t have to be the only one bopped in the noggin when noggin-boppin’ time rolls around,” I said.
    Joshua looked at me as if I’d just awakened him from a nap. “All the time we spend meditating, what are you really doing, Biff?”
    “I’m meditating—sometimes—listening to the sound of the universe and stuff.”
    “But mostly you’re just sitting there.”
    “I’ve learned to sleep with my eyes open.”
    “That won’t help your enlightenment.”
    “Look, when I get to nirvana I want to be well rested.”
    “Don’t spend a lot of time worrying about it.”
    “Hey, I have discipline. Through practice I’ve learned to cause spontaneous nocturnal emissions.”
    “That’s an accomplishment,” the Messiah said sarcastically.
    “Okay, you can be snotty if you want to, but when we get back to Galilee, you walk around trying to sell your ‘love your neighbor