The Secret Letters of the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari (7 page)

Suddenly the young man stopped at the entranceway of a new tunnel. It was separated from the one we had followed by a piece of rusted iron fencing. The tunnel was dark. My guide moved the fence to one side and turned into the blackness. He paused and looked behind at me, making sure I was following.
I moved uncertainly out of the anemic light as his back disappeared in front of me. I took a few more steps. Then my foot knocked against something. A wooden rattle filled the air, and I froze. As I did, light flared around me. My guide had snapped on his flashlight. Suddenly I wished he hadn’t. The gruesome orderliness was gone. Bones were everywhere—scattered across the floor around our feet, cascading from loose stacks against the walls. The glare from the flashlight caught on waves of dust and tendrils of cobwebs that hung from the ceiling.

“
Ça c’est pour vous,
” said my guide. He thrust the flashlight at me. As I took it, he brushed past me.

“What—” I began to call out.

Before I could finish my question, the man snapped, “
Il vous rencontrera ici.
” And then he was gone, leaving me alone, fifty feet underground, a solitary human being standing in a sea of the dead.

There was nothing to distract me now. The air was still but the tunnel walls seemed to be squeezing in on me. The ceiling appeared to shudder—I was sure that, at any moment, it would come crashing down.
This isn’t real,
I tried to tell myself.
This is an anxiety attack.
But panic was beating through me, threatening to tear me apart. I wanted to lean against something, to hold myself up, but I was too afraid to move through the bones.

After what seemed like hours but was probably only a few seconds, I heard the sound of footsteps.

A small man appeared out of the shadows. “
C’est moi, Antoine
,” the figure announced. Just as he did, I began to sway.

“
Mon dieu!
” said Antoine. He grabbed my arm and steadied me. Then he moved to a gap between the piles of bones along
the wall. He retrieved two small folding stools and brought them to the middle of the tunnel, unfolding them on the uneven ground.

“
Asseyez-vous,
” he said. “Sit, sit.”

Antoine was probably in his fifties, white curly hair surrounding a pale, wrinkled face. He wore small round glasses and something that approached a dark lab coat. Like Ahmet, he had a kind face, but there was a studious air about him.

“I apologize for making you wait here for me,” said Antoine. “I’m working this evening—restoration. Gradually, the bones settle, fall over. And there have been incidents of vandalism. It is a constant effort.”

My breathing was beginning to slow. The one good thing about my panic attacks was that they didn’t last long. It was as if my body simply couldn’t sustain the energy they required. I wiped my brow and muttered, “It’s okay.”

Antoine nodded and smiled gently. “I’m not surprised you don’t like it down here,” he said. “Most people are okay until the place empties. They don’t really want to be alone with their thoughts down here, the way I am each day. But you know, we grow fearless by doing those things we fear.” He patted his pockets and pulled out a small tin. Lifting the lid, he offered me a candy. I shook my head, and he popped one in his mouth before settling the tin back in his pocket. “As a very young boy, I lost my father,” he said. “Everything I knew about him was from the past—perhaps that’s why I became so interested in history, in archives. But the sight of him in his coffin haunted me for years. Haunted me. When this job opened up, I thought,
No, no working with bones, with the dead. That’s the last thing I want to do
. But then I realized that it was precisely because
I feared the dead that I should take this job. It has been,” he laughed, waving his hands around, “liberating.”

Then he leaned forward and stared at me. “Are you feeling better?” he asked. I nodded.

“Oh,” he said then, as if remembering something. “Here.” He handed me a small parcel and a square of folded parchment, like the one Ahmet had given me in Turkey. “I have to continue working,” he said. “But I know you won’t mind leaving me now, will you?” I shook my head and attempted a smile, a little surprised at the brevity of the meeting I’d traveled so far for. We both stood up. “I think you can find your way out,” Antoine said. He moved toward the metal barrier and pointed down the dimly lit tunnel. “That way,” he said. “Just follow the tunnel and don’t go down any of the offshoots that are fenced off. I’ve asked Jean to leave the door open so you can let yourself out.”

I had pocketed the package and the parchment. “Thank you,” I said, as I moved past Antoine. “Thank you.”

As I hurried down the tunnel, I heard Antoine call out, “Courage, Jonathan! That’s the only way to live. And remember, bravery isn’t really something you feel. It’s something you show.”

I moved through the tunnels. The symmetry, the neatness, the intricate arrangement of bones was a relief compared to the raw mess of Antoine’s tunnel. If I hadn’t been so anxious to get out of the tight space, I would have lingered to admire the artistry. Instead, I took deep breaths and reminded myself that the end was just around the corner, or the next one. Eventually, I made my way to the bottom of another stone staircase. I climbed up as quickly as I could, my legs aching slightly from yesterday’s Arc de Triomphe climb. When I reached the top,
I moved outside with relief. The fresh evening air was like a blessing. I took several greedy gulps before I headed down the sidewalk toward a bench.

I lowered myself onto the seat and turned my attention to the small bundle that Antoine had handed me. I peeled back several layers of yellowed tissue paper. At the center of the tissue was a tiny metal skull. The jaws of the skull were parted, making it appear to be grinning at me. Or laughing. That made me smile. I turned the miniature skull over in my hands. Antiqued bronze, perhaps. Or some sort of iron alloy. I took the leather pouch from around my neck and dropped the talisman in. Then I carefully unfolded the parchment.

Embrace Your Fears
was the title. I chuckled. Of course this talisman would be about fear. I continued to read:

What holds us back in life is the invisible architecture of fear. It keeps us in our comfort zones, which are, in truth, the least safe places in which to live. Indeed, the greatest risk in life is taking no risks. But every time we do that which we fear, we take back the power that fear has stolen from us—for on the other side of our fears lives our strength. Every time we step into the discomfort of growth and progress, we become more free. The more fears we walk through, the more power we reclaim. In this way, we grow both fearless and powerful, and thus are able to live the lives of our dreams.

I pulled the notebook from my jacket pocket and tucked the parchment inside. Then I put the pouch back around my neck and headed for the metro.

It was not quite six-thirty. My whole catacomb ordeal had
taken less than an hour. In the afternoon I had received a message from Julian, saying there would be a plane ticket waiting for me at the terminal the next morning. I had the whole evening before me. I decided that I would return to the hotel and clean up a bit. Then I would head for Place du Trocadéro, across the river from the Eiffel Tower. I would have dinner in a restaurant there, and then watch the lights of the tower before I headed for bed.

I got off the metro at the Charles de Gaulle Étoile station and headed down the Champs Élysées. I was lost in thought the whole way back, thinking about my dark moments in the tunnel, my panic and my survival. When I got to the hotel lobby, I headed over to the elevator. When the doors opened, I stepped in and pressed “four.” I looked out through the doors, toward the lobby, but I didn’t move. The doors slowly slid shut. And then the elevator started to lift. This was the first time I had taken an elevator in twenty years. I was terrified. But it felt okay.

I
HAD TRIED TO REACH
J
ULIAN
several times while in Paris, but his phone remained unanswered. No explanation of where I might be heading, or of whom I was to meet, or about how long I would be. I clenched my teeth. I deserved some details, some information. I called him one more time, but there was no answer.

So there I was the following morning, standing like an idiot in front of the startled Air France check-in attendant, my eyes bulging and my voice suddenly hitting the heights of a soprano. “Osaka?” I squeaked. “Japan? Are you kidding me?”

I don’t know why this particular destination should have rattled me. I suppose it was the prospect of putting my already jet-lagged body on a twelve-hour flight. My head hurt just
thinking about going off to yet another place I had never before been, about dropping into a country where I knew no one and spoke not one word of the language.

As I shuffled down the aisle on the plane, I realized with despair that I was in a middle seat—a middle seat in the middle aisle. On one side of me was a large man who immediately commandeered the armrest. On the other, a slight woman who quickly pulled a book out of her bag and rested it on the pull-out seat table: the international sign for “don’t talk to me.” That was fine by me. I was in no mood to chat.

I thought I too might read or watch a movie, but my mind was racing about, touching on everything that had happened over the past few days. And I couldn’t seem to get comfortable. It wasn’t just the fellow spilling over the seat next to me or the jet of cool air blasting past my right ear, courtesy of my other neighbor’s efforts to adjust the overhead fan. My clothes felt tight and itchy, my throat dry, and the leather pouch that held the talismans seemed to be digging its cord into my neck again. With some difficulty, I got the thing out from under my shirt. I put it into my pants pocket, but I couldn’t seem to position it in a way that would keep it from jutting into my hip. My carry-on was now buried in the overhead compartment, and I didn’t want to put the pouch in the seat pocket in front of me. I was sure I would accidentally leave it there when I got off the plane. As I was fiddling with my pockets, shifting around in my seat, the woman next to me sighed audibly. That annoyed me, but she was right. I was making a nuisance of myself. I put the cord around my neck and stuffed the pouch back under my shirt.

Six hours into the flight, I began to brood about what lay ahead. I would be arriving in Osaka in the early morning,
although it would be late at night on the Paris clock. I would miss an entire night of sleep. What’s more, I had six hours stretching ahead of me, six more hours in this cramped space. The only solution, I thought, would be to take a nap—hoping a few hours of sleep would both hurry the trip and make my first day in Japan bearable. Clearly other people around me had the same idea. The fellow next to me had nodded off; the woman on the other side had finished her book and was reclining her seat and closing her eyes. In fact, everyone around me seemed to have fallen silent. Everyone, that is, except two young women directly behind me.

They were speaking in English. During the course of the first few hours of the flight, I had overheard one of them saying she was heading to Osaka to teach English as a second language. The other young woman had explained, in French-accented English, that she had relatives living in Osaka. She was going to use their place as base for a three-month trek through Asia. They had been exchanging bits and pieces of information, but at the halfway mark of the trip they seemed to hit a new level of intimacy. The conversation was now imbued with an energy and enthusiasm—and a
volume
—that might have been more appropriate in a noisy nightclub than in a crowded plane. I tried to ignore their talk, but I couldn’t. I pulled out my airline headphones and put them on. I flipped stations, looking for one that was playing soothing music, but nothing could quite drown out the percussion of voices behind me. I couldn’t figure out how the guy next to me was snoring through the racket.

The hours stretched on and on. I heard about cheating partners and fair-weather friends. About awesome yoga classes and
tasteful tattoos. About hair extensions and deep colon cleansing. By the time they hit their plans for the future, I was feeling homicidal. Eventually I reconciled myself to a string of comedies on the movie channel, but the second-rate hijinks did nothing to lighten my mood.

When I finally stumbled off the plane half a day after I had first shuffled on, an impossibly tedious twelve hours of recycled air and leg cramps behind me, I was in a fog, beyond rational thought. Not knowing what else to do, I followed the crowd until I ended up wedged in a mass of bodies pressing toward the baggage carousels.

I was fully aware that there was no real need to squeeze in around the conveyor belt yet. Sometimes airline baggage arrives so slowly, it seems it came over on the
Queen Mary
rather than on the same plane you had been flying on.

I moved over to a wall and slid down until I was squatting. Then I pulled my phone from my pocket and turned it on.

I noticed immediately a message from Julian.

Dear Jonathan,

So sorry not to have been available when you called, and not to have given you more details. I did leave a message with the name of the next safekeeper and instructions, but it sounds as if that call somehow went missing from your hotel system. At any rate, you will be staying with a delightful young woman named Sato Ayame (Ayame is her first name) at her family’s inn in Kyoto. She will meet you at the airport. Enjoy your time in Japan.

Have fun,

Julian

I sent Annisha and Adam a message, telling them I had landed in Osaka, and then placed the phone back in my pocket. As I did, a familiar voice caught my ears.

“It’s just been so great getting to know you!” The voice was coming from one of two young women standing shoulder to shoulder in front of the baggage carousel. My incessantly chatty neighbors. I felt a headache ratcheting up. There seemed to be nothing happening with the baggage, so I stood up and escaped down the hall to find a bathroom. By the time I had returned, bags were clunking down from the chute and making their way around the conveyor belt. The dark-haired girl was leaning over the baggage, pulling a pink plaid duffel bag off the belt. I moved closer to the carousel. After watching one revolution, I could see that my bag had not yet fallen, so I turned my eye to the chute. Twenty minutes later I was still there, still willing my luggage to come cascading down toward me. But it was clear there was nothing left to disgorge. I turned my attention back to the few bags that remained on the revolving circuit. But as much as I wished it, my own was not among them.

I had a toothbrush and one pair of clean underwear in my carry-on, but all my toiletries and most of my belongings were in that absent baggage. I could feel tension squeezing my temples. My head was thumping, my chest tight.
Why me?
I thought. A million miles away from home, without my stuff. And now facing an enormous hassle.

Most of the crowd from my flight had disappeared. I looked around the area. The Kansai airport was new, bright and sleek, but like so many large airports it had a labyrinthine feel—a confusing vastness that made it seem both crowded and chillingly empty. The signs were in Japanese and English, but the
English looked abbreviated. I was beginning to despair of figuring out where I should go or what I should do. And there was still customs and immigration to navigate before I could exit the area and find Ayame.

The long flight, the nattering passengers, my deep fatigue—it was as if a little switch had been thrown. In an instant, I was no longer anxious, but in a rage. My heart was pounding and my limbs felt twitchy, as if electricity were running through my veins. I noticed a man standing some distance off, in a uniform that looked like it might have been airport issue. I almost lunged at him.

In retrospect, I see how enormously lucky I was. It is not a wise idea to lose your temper in an airport these days. It was a miracle I wasn’t hauled off to some interrogation room or, worse yet, arrested. But somehow or other, I was escorted through customs and immigration, was introduced to the airline employee who promised to find my luggage, and was courteously deposited in the arrivals meeting area, shaking and spent. Before all that, however, I had unloaded my mind, in English and a few halting bits of French, to everyone who would listen. I had to wonder if a language barrier kept most of what I said a bit of a mystery to the people who had helped me. It seemed hard to imagine that simple politeness or kindness could keep anyone from telling me what I could do with myself and my missing baggage.

My temper tantrum, and all the ensuing maneuvers, had left me feeling hollow and frail. All I wanted to do was collapse in a car and be chauffeured to a comfortable bed. I looked around the arrivals area desperately. Standing several yards away, near some seats and a bank of phones, was a woman
of about thirty. She had shiny neck-length hair and wore a bright green shirt and faded jeans. She wasn’t holding a sign as Ahmet had been, but she was clearly looking for someone. When our eyes met, she cocked her head and walked toward me. As she got close, she smiled. “
Hajime-mashite. Jonathan Landry-sama?”
she asked. I nodded, and she bent at the waist to give me a little bow.

I thought back to when I had moved into sales, and the firm had sent me to a seminar on business etiquette in other countries. I had forgotten nearly everything, but now I realized that, in my hour in the Kansai airport, I had probably broken every rule of Japanese civility. It really was a marvel that I had been treated with such patience. Now I bowed in return, trying to make it a little deeper than Ayame’s.

“Welcome to Japan,” Ayame said. “It is a great honor to meet you.”

“Oh thank God! You speak English,” I said before I could stop myself.

Ayame bowed again and smiled.

“Yes,” she said. “I teach English literature at Kyoto University, so it’s something of a prerequisite.”

I tried to recover myself by apologizing for my comment about her English and explaining my relief. “It’s just that they’ve lost my luggage,” I told Ayame. “I need to go back to the airline desk and give them an address where they can send it when they find it.”

Ayame accompanied me to the airline counter. She asked for my permission to do the talking—an offer I gratefully accepted. My nerves were still raw. I didn’t trust myself not to fly off the handle again.

Ayame talked to the attendant in Japanese. When she turned from the counter she told me that my baggage had been located and was on a later flight to Osaka. It would be sent by courier to the inn in Kyoto as soon as it arrived. She then started walking down the long glass-walled corridor. I expected to be led to the car park, but Ayame said we would be taking the train from the airport station to Kyoto, and then a cab to her parents’
ryokan
in East Kyoto.

“A
ryokan
,” she explained, “is a traditional Japanese inn. I hope you will find it comfortable. Many travelers enjoy the change from Western-style hotels.”

T
HE TRAIN WAS CROWDED
, but Ayame and I found two seats together. As we settled ourselves, she told me that the ride would take about an hour and a half. I couldn’t stifle a deep sigh. Ayame looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m sorry. I’m not deliberately trying to be offensive. It’s just that I’m so tired from all this travel. I don’t even know what time it is—or what day of the week! And this still seems ridiculous to me. I just don’t understand why you ‘safekeepers,’ or whatever Julian likes to call you, can’t mail these things back.”

“I know that Julian must have good reasons for wanting to do things this way,” Ayame replied. “Perhaps what you need to do is just be a little more philosophic about the adventure. After all,” she added gently, “life is a journey….”

“Yeah, yeah,” I couldn’t stop myself now, “but this isn’t a journey. This is some kind of messed-up fun-house ride. I’ve been all over the flipping world in the last little while … Buenos Aires,
Istanbul, Paris … and God knows where I’ll be tomorrow or next week.”

“Umm, yes. That’s difficult,” Ayame said gently. “But you know what they say? It doesn’t matter where you are going, just who you are becoming.”

But I was in no mood for homilies.

“What is it with you people?” I snapped. “You all sound the same. You all sound like Julian.”

Ayame looked bemused rather than annoyed.

“Does that surprise you? We are all good friends of Julian. We have all learned so much from him. We have all changed our lives because of him,” she said.

“Well, my life is changing, too,” I said, “but I’m not so sure it’s going to be for the better. Everything’s going to hell at work. And my wife…”

I stopped there. I didn’t want to talk about that. I didn’t want to think about all the things that were missing from life. My wife. My son. My luggage.

After a moment of quiet, Ayame spoke up again.

“You must be worried too about Julian,” she said.

“What?” I said.

“That he has asked you to collect the talismans. That he needs them. Are you worried about why he needs them? About the person he needs to help?”

I hadn’t been thinking much about that lately. What if Julian wasn’t telling the truth about my mother? What if my mother was ill? My mother is one of those people who generally makes life look effortless. I think I was about twelve before I realized that she got sick like everyone else.

If it wasn’t Mom, maybe it was my sister, Kira. Although
she was two years younger than me, I always thought of her as the responsible one. She was the one who watched over Mom when Dad died, who reminded me of Mom’s birthday or told me when Mom needed a phone call or a visit. She was the one who kept in touch with me, who did all the heavy lifting in the relationship. Would she even tell me if she was sick or in trouble? And then there were my aunts, uncles and cousins.