The Path Read online

  Behind him, he heard one of Father Edward’s birds enter the row of cages built next to the house. Father Jacques often thought it was an odd hobby his brother priest had, keeping pigeons only to set them free and watch them return. But then, he thought as he stood and dusted the dirt from the front of his black cassock, noticing how much of it refused to come out, he doesn’t understand why I like to spend my time in the garden. We are each of us different, unique, as God made us.

  He left his hand spade in the dirt and hurried toward the cages to close the door and shut the newly arrived bird inside. Edward will want to know of the bird’s return, he thought, and I could use a walk. Not stopping to change into a clean cassock or add the cape and biretta, he headed out through the side gate in the garden wall.

  As he walked down the city streets, people called out greetings, and he waved to them as he passed, occasionally stopping to ask if anyone had seen Father Edward. Before long a group of children, all about six or eight years old, had gathered around him.

  “Come and play, Bo-Bo,” they said, their happy voices chattering like the squirrels that filled the trees in his native France.

  “No, not now,” he told them. “Later. I’m looking for someone now.”

  “Who, Bo-Bo?” they asked, skipping and running round and around him. He often thought that children of this age were like spinning tops, either madly active or utterly at rest.

  “I am looking for Father Edward,” he told them. Then he patted the pockets of the trousers under his cassock and felt the lumps of candy he habitually kept there.

  “Run and find Father Edward for me,” he said, “and when you come tell me where he is, each of you will get a sweet.”

  Delighted, the children ran off, leaving Father Jacques in a sudden pool of silence. He watched them until they were out of sight. Then, with a smile, he resumed his walk, shaking his head at the wonderment of childhood, when every activity is a game and an excuse for happiness.

  He had only taken a few steps when he saw MacLeod turn onto the street a few yards ahead. Father Jacques had heard talk of another European in Lhasa. He was, they said, a friend and student of the Dalai Lama himself. Father Jacques was glad this sudden opportunity had presented itself; he was eager to meet this other man of the West.

  He began to walk faster, hoping to catch up to MacLeod, but it soon became evident that he was no match for the youth and vigor of the man ahead of him.

  “Wait,” he called out in French, panting slightly in the thin Tibetan air. “You, sir, please wait.”

  MacLeod turned at the sound of the French words behind him. Father Jacques saw the slightly startled expression on his face, the way MacLeod’s eyes looked up and down the front of his cassock, and he grinned sheepishly. He knew he was a disheveled sight.

  Father Jacques harbored no vanity about the type of figure he cut, even at the best of times. He knew that his wispy hair, once the color of straw, had faded to an indeterminate gray, and that he was thin as an old dog with narrow shoulders that were permanently hunched from years of bending over a shovel or a book. He sometimes thought the Vicar General had sent him to the mission field just so he would no longer have to look at him.

  I should have joined another Order, he thought, not for the first time as he hurried to catch up to MacLeod. I think the Franciscans would have found me easier to accept.

  But his father had wanted him to be a Jesuit and Jesuit he was—if one of unusual sensibilities for the elite Order.

  “Bonjour, Monsieur,” he greeted MacLeod, enjoying the treat of speaking his native French again and hoping this obviously well-traveled European understood. Other than Tibetan, and Latin of course, it was the only language Father Jacques knew. “I am pleased to finally meet you. I am Father Jacques Beauchamps.”

  “How do you do, Father. I am Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod.”

  Father Jacques was relieved to hear him speaking such good French, even if some of the words were spoken with a trace of a Scottish brogue. MacLeod was still looking at the priest with an amused expression, and Father Jacques made another swipe at the dirt encrusting his cassock where he had knelt on it.

  “Yes, I know your name,” he said. “I think everyone in Lhasa does by now. I heard it from my brother priest, Father Edward, whom I believe you’ve already met—and from Xiao-nan, of course.”

  Father Jacques saw MacLeod’s back stiffen slightly at the mention of Father Edward, and he inwardly sighed. His fellow priest was not an easy man to like even for himself, though out of duty and Christian charity he tried.

  “You’re another Jesuit, then?” MacLeod was saying. “From your habit, I wasn’t sure.”

  Father Jacques laughed. “No, I don’t suppose you were. Yes, I am a member of the Society of Jesus, though not, I’m afraid, a very pristine representative.”

  “Bo-Bo,” the children came running back in a crowd, dancing like miniwhirlwinds around him. “Bo-Bo, we’ve found him. Come and see.”

  “You’ve found him already?” Father Jacques at once turned his attention from MacLeod to the children, switching easily to the language of Tibet. “Then you shall each have the sweet I promised you. Let’s see,” he quickly counted the children, “eight of you. Yes, I’m sure I have that many.”

  He reached into his pocket and brought out his horde of candy. The children again squealed with delight as he handed them around. Father Jacques found he had two pieces left over and he offered one to MacLeod. When the Scotsman shook his head, Father Jacques shrugged, popped one candy into his mouth, and returned the other to his pocket.

  “Come, Bo-Bo,” the children resumed their calls, now speaking around the hard sweets in their mouths. They pulled on his hands and cassock with sticky fingers. “Come with us to Father Edward. Then come play with us.”

  Father Jacques smiled at them. “You lead the way, and I’ll follow. Go on now, I’m right behind.”

  That satisfied the children, and they ran off again. The priest turned back to his adult companion and the pleasantries of his native tongue.

  “Will you walk with me a little, Monsieur MacLeod?” he asked, once more in French. “I don’t often get to speak my own language, and you would be doing me a kindness.”

  “Certainly, Father, for as long as we go in the same direction,” MacLeod answered. “I have to say,” he continued as they resumed their walk, “you seem little like the other Jesuits I have known.”

  Father Jacques laughed. “No doubt they would be pleased to hear that. Have you known many of my Order?”

  “A few,” MacLeod answered, his expression turning shut and hard.

  And you did not like them, Father Jacques thought. Ah, well, there have been many I did not like, either.

  “Have you traveled much, Monsieur MacLeod?” he asked, thinking it best to change the subject.

  “Aye, Father,” Duncan answered, but his expression remained shut, as if this too was a subject he preferred not to discuss.

  Are you running from something, Monsieur MacLeod? Father Jacques wondered, or from yourself, perhaps?

  “You said Xiao-nan had spoken of me,” MacLeod said as if offering a safe subject. “Do you know her well?”

  “Oh, yes,” the priest answered quickly. He understood the offering and was grateful for it. “She comes frequently to see me. She is truly one of God’s sweetest children. They all are in this land. It is a haven of innocence, trust, and kindness.”

  “Aye, Father, that it is—and I would not like to see anything, or anyone, try to change it.”

  Father Jacques did not miss the edge in MacLeod’s voice. “Do you think that is why we are here, Monsieur MacLeod?” he asked softly.

  “Isn’t that what your kind do?” MacLeod answered. “Don’t you come to foreign lands to convert the people, to change them from their own culture and beliefs into your own?”

  “We come to tell them of God’s love for them, that is true, Monsieur MacLeod. But I would never force others into a belie
f they cannot share or try to change them from who they are.”

  “Then, Father Jacques, you are indeed different than the others of your Order I have met.”

  As their paths continued in the same direction, with MacLeod making no move to turn down a different street, Father Jacques could guess where he was going; the Choi house was only a quarter mile up the road. How much farther he was going he did not know, but he would be sorry to lose the Scotsman’s company.

  “You must come by our mission house sometimes, Monsieur MacLeod,” he said, watching as up ahead the band of children rounded a bend in the meandering street. “Do you like gardens?”

  “Aye, Father, I do. I enjoy the look and the smell of them, though life has not granted me much time in them, and I’m not much of a hand at their care.”

  “Well, you must come by then. We’ll sit in my garden, share a glass of wine, and, perhaps, talk of France. The wine is quite vin ordinaire, but I should like to talk of my homeland with one who has been there.”

  Before MacLeod could answer, they followed the children’s footsteps around the bend in the road. Up ahead was the Choi household.

  And in front of the house stood Father Edward—with Mingxia.

  There was nothing religious in his pose. She stood leaning her back to the house and he with his hands on either side of her, like a lover about to claim a kiss. Both Father Jacques and MacLeod stopped, shocked into stillness. As they watched, Father Edward reached up and took a strand of Mingxia’s hair. He began twirling it between his fingers as he spoke to her, bending his face close in an intimate whisper.

  Whatever he said pleased Mingxia. Her eyes sparkled, and she shifted her stance slightly into a pose as old as Eve and provocative as Lilith. Her back arched, so that her young breasts pushed upward and her body preened invitingly.

  Father Jacques quickly glanced up at his companion. The words “face like thunder” popped into his head when he saw MacLeod’s expression. The Scotsman suddenly strode forward, quickly covering the distance between himself and the couple. Father Jacques hurried along behind.

  MacLeod spoke no word to Father Edward, and Father Jacques found he admired MacLeod’s control. Another man might have struck the young priest. Father Jacques could see that MacLeod was tempted, but instead he grabbed Mingxia by the hand and, without stopping to knock, pulled her into the house. Then he slammed the door, leaving the two priests standing together outside.

  Father Jacques waited while Father Edward turned toward him, wondering what explanation the other priest would offer. He found himself taking a step backward from the look of anger and hatred on Father Edward’s face.

  “One of your birds has arrived,” Father Jacques said coldly. “Perhaps that is a better place for your attention than this house.”

  “Oh, it is,” Father Edward replied. The words held such an odd tone that as he turned away and began walking home, Father Jacques could not help but think they contained a hidden meaning.

  What are those birds of his? the French priest wondered. Perhaps I should take a closer interest in them.

  Ahead on the street the children were chasing each other, playing the universal game of tag. “Come play with us, Bo-Bo,” they called to him again, oblivious of the scene that had just passed.

  He waved at them. “I’m coming,” he called back, glad to put thoughts of Father Edward from his mind.

  At least for now.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I tell you, Mingxia, that is not the way a priest should act,” Duncan MacLeod’s voice was loud. He was not shouting, not quite, but he was angry. It was more than the presence of Father Jacques, a man whose honor MacLeod felt instinctively to be true, that had kept Duncan’s temper in check and his fist out of Father Edward’s face. It was the years of childhood training. It surprised MacLeod that after two hundred years, the conditioning should still be so strong.

  One did not hit, or do any violence, upon the person of a holy man. Although Father Edward’s actions seemed to rob him of that accolade, he still wore the cloth, the collar and habit of the office. It was this which had stayed Duncan’s hand.

  The whole family had come running into the main room when he had pulled Mingxia into the house, and now they were gathered around, flinching at his anger. Except Xiao-nan; she sat with her arm wrapped protectively around her little sister, staring up at MacLeod with dark and serene eyes, watching as his hands clenched and unclenched almost rhythmically by his side.

  “My sister is young, Duncan,” she said, her voice creating a pool of calm in a charged atmosphere.

  “She was not acting young,” Duncan snapped. “I’ve seen tarts on the streets of London and Paris with the same looks on their faces as the one she was giving that… that priest.” He spat the word.

  Mingxia began to cry quietly. She turned her head into her sister’s shoulder, and Xiao-nan’s arm tightened around her. The gesture touched MacLeod, reaching through his anger. He took a deep breath and then another, each time concentrating on exhaling his anger with the air. Then he sat down next to the girl.

  “Listen to me, Mingxia,” he said, his voice quieter now. “Priests of Father Edward’s church take vows, sacred vows, never to be, well, as a man is with a woman. Think of Father Jacques. He would not act as Father Edward did.”

  Still sniffling, Mingxia turned to him. “Father Jacques is old.” she said a little defiantly.

  “That does not matter, Mingxia,” Duncan continued. “Father Edward’s actions today were wrong. If he does not keep the vows he has taken, then he is a false priest and a man without honor. Either way, you must not encourage him. Do you understand?”

  Mingxia turned her head back into her sister’s shoulder, but she nodded.

  “She understands, Duncan,” Xiao-nan said. “She will stay away from the priest.”

  “I’m only trying to protect you, Mingxia,” MacLeod told the young girl. “I know more about such men than you do. Please trust me.”

  When Duncan sat down, Xiao-nan’s mother had slipped silently from the room, sensing the worst of his anger was spent. She returned now carrying a tray with tea and drinking bowls. As she set it on the table in the center of the room, Yao-hui Choi came and sat near his daughters. He looked at Duncan with the same calm expression Xiao-nan wore.

  “The matter is over, Duncan MacLeod,” he said. “My daughter will obey your words, and mine.”

  “Thank you, Yao-hui,” Duncan replied. “And I ask your pardon for disrupting the peace of this household.”

  “You sought only my daughter’s well-being, and you have blessed us by your act,” Yao-hui said, his hand waving a dismissive gesture into the air.

  Xiao-nan looked at her father in a silent request to speak, to continue the subject he had all but closed. He gave a barely perceptible nod, and she then turned to MacLeod.

  “As you have said, Duncan, we know little of these men and their ways, so I must ask you, what about the other men of the Western faith in our city? Are we not to trust them or to show them compassion through our friendship? Must we punish all because of one false action?”

  MacLeod smiled tenderly at her, his own heart gentled by the beauty of hers. “No, Xiao-nan,” he said. “I met Father Jacques this day, and although I bear no love for the Religious Order he follows, I believe he is a kind and honorable man. I have not met the Brothers in the city, but if you think they are also honorable, then I’m sure they are. You have a mind and a heart that sees clearly.”

  Xiao-nan’s mother passed the tea around and, as they drank, the silence put a seal on the conversation. MacLeod’s own unnamed suspicion of the priest had notched a bit higher, but for now all that needed to be said had been said; Mingxia and her family had been warned. MacLeod felt a sense of relief settle over him. He knew, however, that he had best not see Father Edward, at least for a few days, or he could not promise to hold his anger in check a second time.

  With the resiliency of youth, Mingxia had already recovered f
rom her tears. She finished her tea first and started to rise.

  “Mingxia,” her mother said, “you will remain at home today.”

  “But—”

  “No, there has been enough trouble. You will remain at home.”

  Mingxia turned and fled into the garden. As he stared after her, MacLeod was sorry to see the young girl so unhappy. It showed on his face, and Xiao-nan gently laid her hand over his.

  “Do not worry,” she said. “By tomorrow she will have forgotten all about her feelings today. Some new activity will capture her attention and she will be fine. My sister is truly proof that all things are impermanent and insubstantial.”

  “Not all things, Xiao-nan,” MacLeod said softly as he intertwined his fingers into hers. With his other hand, he put his small drinking bowl back on the tray. Then he stood, and Xiao-nan came to her feet beside him.

  “I think I should go now,” he said to her parents, “and let this house return to its usual quiet.”

  “I will come, too,” Xiao-nan said.

  MacLeod looked at her, staring deeply into her eyes. The serenity in them seemed to flow from her to him. It warmed him, embraced him until he did not know if a second or an hour passed while he looked at her—nor did he care.

  “I have something I would show you,” she continued, smiling a little smile that was for him alone and held just a hint of mischief.

  He returned it, not knowing what her plans were, but caring only that they would be together. He reached up and drew a finger softly down her cheek.

  “All right,” he said. He turned toward her parents in time to see them exchange a knowing glance. Were his growing feelings for Xiao-nan so obvious? he wondered. Well, perhaps they were.

  They took their leave quickly and stepped out into the afternoon sun. Tibet seemed a timeless place, and somehow, without his noticing, spring had given way to summer. The sun’s rays were almost hot on Duncan’s shoulders. They felt wonderful; he felt wonderful as he walked down the street with Xiao-nan.