Redemption (26 page)

A light odor of incense hung over everything, and an atmosphere of peace reigned as though time didn’t exist. The architecture was massive, sober, and reminiscent of ancient China. At the center, a little Asian man in a long white tunic practiced movements of a style unfamiliar to Namara’s experienced eyes. The man approached him with a smile. Namara returned the smile and presented the monk with Sanfeng’s medallion. The monk motioned with head toward a building and had Namara leave his bag before following.

They traversed the monastery and entered into a building in which hundreds of candles maintained semi-darkness. The incense was stronger in here, and dried flower petals covered the entrance. Danny counted nine monks, excluding the one that had accompanied him, all dressed in that same white tunic, a sort of linen, apparently. They seemed to be in deep meditation and his guide moved him toward a monk who was seated at the other end of the wall. The latter opened his eyes upon feeling the presence of a visitor. The guide gave him the medallion, and he contemplated it for a long time before looking at Danny with a kind smile.

“How fares Sanfeng?"

“He’s doing really well.”

“It has been a long time since I’ve seen my old friend. What has become of him?”

“He lives in New York. He’s got a store.”

“New York?” he asked with amusement. “That does sound like him. You must be very special for him to have given you his medallion, and you must be very determined to have made it here. My name is Chao Heng. And yours?”

“Danny.”

“And you are here to learn, I take it.”

“Yes.”

“Very well. Welcome to
Lingdao
, which means, in Chinese, ‘Way of the Spirit’. Follow me, we shall find you clothes and food… surely you must be hungry!”

Chao Heng introduced him to other monks, who seemed just as amicable as him. He explained that Danny would live amongst them for some time, and thus Danny was welcomed as one of their own.

*     *     *

“Breathe… concentrate on your respiration and rid your mind of thought. You must loosen yourself until you no longer feel your own body,” said Chao Heng calmly.

“I’m gonna go nuts,” muttered Namara, whose legs trembled with exhaustion.

“Concentrate!”

They’d been holding the position for two hours. He was upright, knees bent, hands at chest-height as though he was holding a giant beach ball. His legs burned like fire and he couldn’t think of anything but pain.

“Empty your mind
completely
,” said Chao Heng, who was holding the same position with ease.

“I’m
trying
.”

“Don’t
try
, do…”

This torture had been the daily norm for Danny for a while now. Every day, they walked to a cave some distance from the monastery to practice Chao Heng’s exercises for hours. Chao Heng didn’t like questions. There was little conversation. Silence and tranquility lived here. Occasionally, a bird or one of the woodland animals would break the silence. Danny was practically fighting himself. He had no idea why he was doing the exercises, but do them he did, all day long.

His body hurt from staying still so many hours. The days ended around a fire, where Chao Heng played songs on his bamboo flute. The rest, they listened to the crackle of the fire and the sounds of the forest. The heavens glittered with millions of stars, taunting them with their own universal insignificance. The days seemed endless for Danny and he wasn’t getting closer to figuring out what good the training was doing.
Is being here a mistake?

He felt nothing and understood nothing of the meaning of it all. He wanted to leave. One night, by Chao Heng’s side, he yearned to ask him – interrogate him – what the hell he was doing here. He didn’t ask, of course, because he knew that it would be impossible to ask such questions of a Chinese monk. The apprentice obeys and trusts his master. Asking questions, arguing, would be considered an insult, and he wouldn’t jeopardize whatever bond they had. He stayed with the monks, clad in white like them, training like them, learning to tame the silence like them.

CHAPTER 36

Danny did his best to hold onto the markers of his reality – what day it was, what time, how long he’d been there. Eventually he was able to let go, forget everything. He became accustomed to this life’s rhythm and he’d never slept so soundly in his life. All the stress within him, the need to act and move, vanished bit by bit. At that moment he realized how much he’d been hauling around within him his whole life without ever realizing it. For the first time, he had a taste of inner peace, and he liked it. One day, after an hour in the cave with Chao Heng, his life ever-so-subtly changed.

Suddenly, he began to perspire intensely for no reason. The sweat soaked his clothes like he’d been running for miles. Then he felt his legs freeze from his toes to his hips. Cold shivers wracked his body.
This is it,
he thought,
I’m finally going nuts
…

“Hold your position. Do not think about what you’re feeling, it will pass!” ordered Chao Heng, who knew exactly what was going on.

There was a level he’d reached, a door that was opened. Danny knew it, and Chao Heng, too; he was smiling proudly. The following days were surprising and surreal. Throughout his exercises, pieces of his past began to swim to the surface: his parents’ death, and Chandra’s; his difficult childhood; Colombia; any trauma he’d ever experienced in his whole life. His memories came in flashes that were so strong he might have been reliving his whole life.

His body reacted with trembles and vibrations. It was like a movie in his head, like everything that he’d managed to tuck away in a little cerebral prison decided to break out. Chao Heng began to add more exercises, more secret techniques to his training. One day, as they lit the incense in the central cauldron, the gong rang, breaking the silence with its eerie resonance. Danny jumped. And when he turned to look, there was no-one in site, except a monk smiling at him from too far away. He wouldn’t believe his eyes, or his ears. It was impossible, but these phenomena became more and more frequent from then on. As he practiced a concentration exercise under a huge hundred-year-old tree, a bolt of lightning struck. There was an ear-splitting crack like a cannon, and the two halves of the trunk fell neatly on either side of him in a crash of breaking branches. Any other angle, and Danny would have been crushed. How coincidental that both Danny and the lightning bolt had chosen that tree, out of the thousands that grew in the forest.

*     *     *

My imagination’s playing tricks.
But at the same time, Namara couldn’t deny that everything seemed to be linked to his training. He felt more altered each day, and more serene. He saw the world around him in a different way, but he couldn’t put his finger on what way that was. One night, as he practiced, he felt a tap on his right shoulder and turned to respond, but to his shock, there was nobody, or at least nobody at arms’ length – but there
was
someone, a monk, sitting no less than three hundred feet away. Chao Heng smiled at Namara to see such confusion on his face and beckoned him over to the fire.

“Come over, Danny, I must speak with you.”

“All right.”

Chao Heng sat in front of the fire with his flute and raised his head to contemplate the stars.

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, they’re… magnificent.”

“You’ve begun to feel things?”

“Yeah… yes.”

“And you understand what they are?”

“Not really… maybe you ought to explain? I don’t know if I’m going crazy or I don’t know what…”

“It’s not your imagination, I assure you. The universe speaks with you. You’ve opened yourself to it. You serve the universe, and this is what happens.

“Ok, but I’m not serving anything. It all happened suddenly. I don’t have any control over what’s happening!”

“Not yet, but it’ll come, be patient! You have already heard of the Third Eye?”

“Yes. It’s a sixth sense of sorts, I take it?”

“Exactly. The capacity to feel and see things that others cannot. Extrasensory perception, if you like. In all cultures, since the dawn of time, certain individuals of highest knowledge had this sixth sense. Certain peoples of India have had this knowledge for centuries, but only a few really know the secret of the Third Eye. Some countries hide this knowledge within their religious dogma. The people of certain hunting tribes have such an ability that, through concentration and willpower, they can slow their heart rhythm to such a point that doctors couldn’t take a pulse. They bring themselves to legal death through relaxation and breathing. They become living dead, in the eyes of an outsider! The mind is much stronger than body and matter. Some have this clairvoyance, most do not. You do, but you ignore it at the moment. Sanfeng knew you had it, and I’ve seen it in you as well. You know, Sanfeng was probably the best and highest among us. Though he seems strange at first meeting, I can assure you that he is extremely powerful. His presence in America is no doubt a means of increasing his power, going by his logic. I am not worried for him. I am certain he does well.”

“I’m no clairvoyant, I’ve never had visions.”

“Some have it from birth, some attain it at a different level. Perhaps you don’t yet have precise visions, but you will be able to feel and see things. You can accomplish things that you wouldn’t believe. Only time will permit.”

“Why is this all happening to me?”

“Because you have something to accomplish. The universe holds no accidents. You are an integral part of it. You must learn to listen when it speaks to you, because it will indeed speak. You must open your perception of the invisible and question what you have taken for granted. Sometimes, reality is different from what we believe. And…”

“And?”

“You must make peace with yourself. The universe put you to the test with your life’s obstacles. You have suffered much, but you must understand that these were necessary challenges to become who you are. These hardships fashioned the force of your mind and will. You cannot be what you are without having lived what you have lived. This is what you must understand. Let go of that which chokes you. Do not dwell on them; they were necessary. Be serene, make sure it becomes a power that will protect against the obscure forces that exist and that you encounter.”

“Now I understand.”

And he did. He felt the transformation in him that brought about the inner peace he’d always sought, and for the first time, he felt his existence had meaning.

“Perfect. Now listen, and breathe.”

Namara closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he listened to the immensity of the moment.

*     *     *

The surrounding wood wasn’t an ideal source of firewood because of the humidity, but Danny was trying to find some nonetheless. A light fog floated through the air and over the vegetation. His arms were full of wood and he was ready to return when he saw a bush rustle in front of him. He heard low growls that made his heart rattle. He’d never heard a growl like that, so dark and savage. He disposed of his load gently on the ground, trying not to make a noise – and a great Chinese wild tiger stepped into view, no more than a meter away. It was startlingly orange and those black stripes slashed over fierce muscles. Its eyes were yellow with a wild glint, and they were looking right at Namara. His heart pounded and he wondered if his number was up.
What the hell’s a tiger doing in this region anyway
? The animal advanced furtively toward him until he could have easily laid his hand on its great head. A single swipe of its paw and he could be drained of blood in a few seconds. The tiger growled at him. Then it circled him, smelling him, and came to rest lying at his feet, like they were two of a kind. Danny had no idea what was happening, but the one thought that was clear told him that this was, quite simply, magic. He should have died already, but he knew, somehow, that the tiger would do him no harm. It was a species among the most ferocious and aggressive, and somehow, it respected him. Like they were lifelong friends. Danny began to calm down.

“Thanks for not eating me. Where did you come from?”

The tiger watched him without moving and Namara dared to stroke its back.

“I think that I have to go now… I hope you don’t mind?”

The animal stood and Danny collected his wood. As he left, he glanced back several times. The tiger never stopped watching him. He wondered if it was a dream, but after he’d glanced back twice and the muscular feline had not disappeared, he knew it was real. He returned to the monastery in peace.

*     *     *

Namara left Chao Heng and the monastery with some sadness to return to his old life. He felt like he was leaving behind a part of himself. But more than that, he returned transformed and more lucid than he had ever been. He thought again of Sanfeng’s words and, by all evidence, he’d known everything about Danny from the start. He had led him here, to his destiny. Now, he was ready to face his future, thanks to Sanfeng. Chao Heng told him to continue his training. His perception and abilities would continue to grow.

“In time, your skills will be such as... being able to taste odors or smell colors, ” retorted Chao Heng peacefully.   

CHAPTER 37

Dawn of 2015, Manhattan, NY, USA.

“We need to discuss Andy Bane’s offer and make a decision,” said Namara to his team around the table.

They stayed silent, except for Ming Mei.

“There’s only one thing that’s bothering me. Who are the instigators and what’s their goal?”

“She’s right,” said Shinsaku pensively.

“And if the goal of this, er, ‘secret society’
isn’t
as noble as he thinks?” asked Kamilia.

“Think about it. We’ve done contracts for the CIA, do you
really
believe that they were always honest with us as to the goals? Wake up, kids,” said Guerra.

  Kamilia rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, ok, granted, but all the same… it’s all a little too weird.”