The Empty Chair (29 page)

And off we went.

After only a few minutes, he shouted at the boy to shorten his stride.

“Far? How far? Is it far?” Kura asked, out of breath.

Our mischievous guide turned and stared past us like a dullard, his mouth gone lax and cretinous. He briskly “came to,” flashing a smile that was positively debonair. “
Not
far,” he said, self-amused. He resumed the hike before pulling himself short with a staccato burst of unprovoked hilarity. Each crazed uproar sent him closer to the ground, like a cartoon mallet was pounding on his head—Sammy Davis Jr. by way of Wile E. Coyote. We followed along at his mercy.

“Do you know what
surprised me?” I thought a little conversation might provide a distraction. “That Quasimodo apparently blew the mission's cover—I mean, by telling the gentleman what you were up to. I found that rather strange, no?”

“Not at all! He went strictly by the playbook. You see, as outsiders
we knew the locals might be somewhat
chary
. Indeed, the village at first disavowed any knowledge of ‘the American' though evidence strongly suggested he was in their midst. So we fell back upon Plan B—that I was searching for a long-lost teacher, which happened to be the truth. It was a scenario they could understand and respect.”

In no time at all we found ourselves on a steady incline, a winding trail that left any reminders of the village far behind. As usual I brought up the rear, affording yet another opportunity to brood over my darling's health. It was chilly but he'd removed his coat; while he compulsively swabbed his head with a handkerchief, I watched the vertical ellipse of perspiration between his shoulder blades ruthlessly colonize the shirt's remaining dry land. We kept stopping—rather,
I
kept stopping and calling out to the boy, under pretext of having to catch my breath—so Mr. Moncrieff could catch his. My entreaties had no effect. Kura whistled at him to slow the pace but our guide grew fond of the reedy warnings and played a game of speeding up, just to trigger the alert.

Leaving Kura's physical concerns by the wayside, I focused on his mental health. It suddenly occurred to me that my dear companion might not be right in the head—that the whole business, this
obsession
with the American might be part of a bigger picture, you know, an encroaching madness, even something hereditary finally come home to roost. Maybe he was losing his mind due to some fixable but as yet undetected anomaly such as Lyme disease or scurvy
 . . .
early dementia? I knew I was being a little dramatic but only as a way of throwing light on what deep down seemed to have a ring of truth. Let's say Kura
had
found the American (evidence to the contrary, I was beginning to have my doubts) and was about to come face-to-face. Well, what
then
?
What was the point?
Was he still trying to get back those seven freakin' years? The last
twenty
? Or was it simply revenge he was seeking? Could it be that the blow to his pride inflicted by the Hermit of the Cave—the Missing Link, the Grand Poobah, the whomever—had been fatal to the ego, poisoning and distorting it over the years as surely as by lead or mercury?

I was tired. When I get tired I tend to go to that “Hello darkness, my old friend” place. It took everything I had to put one foot in front of the other, trudging along in a fog of mutant hormones and garage sale neurochemistry. In that moment, I thought how wonderful it would be to transform into a burro, a sari, a rock, an ottoman, even smoke from one of the hundred trash fires burning just over the horizon. Because in the end, self-awareness has spectacularly diminishing returns (in fact, it's downright masochistic). All I knew was the responsibility had fallen squarely on
my
shoulders . . . after the aneurysm
I'd
be the one in charge of medevacing him out of some Himalayan fuckzone.
And oh my God, Bruce, I
so
did not give a shit about the American! I kicked my ass with every step, not only for accepting Kura's invitation to this sucky toad ride but for ever having gone to Bombay with him in the first place.

Now it was the boy who was whistling. He pointed to a clearing, then without further ado dashed back down the mountain as if carried by the wind.

The moment was nigh.

Kura put on his coat and ran his fingers through sticky hair like a bum about to step into church. Standing a bit straighter, he walked to his destiny as I followed—the dutiful wife I never was. After a few minutes here's what we saw:

An old man in a bright white kurta, raking grass. Tall, wiry, stooped, baked by the sun. As we drew closer, he looked up and smiled before returning to his chore. He was so poised it could easily be believed someone had tipped him off (which wasn't the case). If it's possible for a human being to “grind to a halt,” that's what Kura did. The shock of recognition gummed up his machinery
.

A nervous clearing of the throat. Then, “It is I—Kura!”

The stilted delivery was heartrendingly comic.

“Of course,” he said informally. “I know who you are.”

I recognized the voice but not much else. Scarred, ravished and beatified by nomadic years of exodus, the American was still intensely charismatic. His bearing was light yet commanding. The few teeth he possessed were jagged and betel-stained. Some sort of chronic affliction—ringworm?—swelled his ankles. His hair was mostly white and gray with inexplicably random sunspots of too-bright blond.

Kura gestured toward me. “This is Cassiopeia . . .”

(I was touched by the introduction.)

“Lovely!” exclaimed the old man.

“She came from New York to be with me.”

The American stared into my eyes and I shivered at the enormity of what was taking place—for the first time, I understood.
12
Without looking away, the guru said, “That's a wonderful friend.” I knew he didn't remember me, and was glad. I was freer to sit back and enjoy the play from my front-row seat.

“I've brewed some tea,” he said. “You must be thirsty.” With that, he turned toward home, its “front door” the congenial mouth of a most welcoming cave.

“No, we are
not
,” said Kura, blood up. “We are
not
thirsty, and we've brought water of our own!”

The old man bore a look of unsurprised surprise. “As you wish.”

I thought Kura had been rude, then called myself out for being prim. The occasion hardly demanded politesse.
Besides, I had a funny feeling the guru was pleased by his ex-student's
brio
—the manifestation of ch'i
was always welcome
.

“Since you are a man,” began the
siddha
,
“who enjoys cutting to the heart of things—a quality about you that I always admired—I shall do the same. It has been a
long while
since our paths crossed, but the Source has magnanimously collapsed time to arrange our rendezvous . . . twas predetermined, my dear old friend.
Wowee zowee,
this is no joking matter!

“I am one who long ago forsook living in the past
or
future, which seem to me
vastly overrated
. Even the ‘now' is overrated!” He laughed at the small quip—really very charming. “I never bothered to consider the consequences of my sudden departure on those who called me teacher, and I'll tell you why:
I was fighting for my life.
When a mortal man, a
man without knowledge
,
already burned to the
third degree
,
is in the midst of escaping an inferno, can he be forgiven for being oblivious to others left behind?

“But if I am to properly acquit myself, I'll need to provide some history. In the weeks that followed the death of the Great Guru, I found myself in a bit of a quandary. A ‘pickle.' The widow—a very aggressive woman, as well you may remember!—had virtually nominated me as ‘next in line.' But why did she feel the need for ‘the lineage' to carry on? (There
was
no lineage.) Certainly, it couldn't have been for Father's sake, to ‘honor his wishes,' for he had none. No wishes and no desires! Why, then? The answer is simple: the
ape's
need for figureheads is profound and enduring. But the trouble begins—and it always does!—when one confounds
figurehead
with
Godhead.
A symbol
can never be the real thing, isn't it true? Don't you agree? A symbol covers Truth as a narcotic masks pain. Do you see my point?

“I'm going to tell you something now that to this day makes me shudder.” He mimicked a swan shaking off water. “When I met the magical being who was to alter the course of my life
and
my death—I refer of course to my father, the Great Guru—one of the first things he did was to casually inform me of my Achilles' heel. He said this inherent weakness had been dictated by the stars and was so powerful it would stop at nothing short of my
total annihilation.
That was the pithy phrase he used. He said I was fortunate to have two choices: I could face the demon in battle—or I could
run.
He strongly suggested the latter! I begged him to elaborate on this fatal flaw; I was on the edge of my chair. He teased and tantalized, talking in circles before coming clean. He said the hound from Hell that was on my heels was
pride.
Pride—and arrogance,
its handmaiden. I think that because he was so queerly
blithe
about it (such were the sadhu's deceptive methods of delivery), I took his warning with a grain of salt.

“Perhaps now you'll see more clearly the fix
I was in when my guru—Guru among gurus!—left this world.
And I am speaking
apart
from having lost the light of my life. I spent seven years pruning the garden of Self (does that sound familiar?), watched over by that holiest of horticulturists. He stood behind me, steadfast, demonstrating how to yank the very weeds that were destined to choke me. There is no doubt I was his most careful student, which made matters worse. To my guru, I was a lamb he was shepherding home; to the others, I was the ‘golden boy'—quite literally, with my yellow hair! Which didn't help at all!—but
tarnished
gold. The ugly American who like a parasite had wormed his way into Father's heart. Because of me, there were whispers he'd gone senile. As the years passed, the rancor toward me softened and eventually, I came to be treated as Mogul Lane's favorite son. But I knew better, for in the Great Guru's
world there can
be
no favorites. Mindful of his warning, I took this whole teacher's pet business as a challenge. One more prideful weed to be pulled out by the root . . .

“I never took the Great Guru for granted. The more I drank from his cup, the deeper came my understanding that the man was truly empty.
He had achieved an optimal state of insuperable focus and discipline of purpose. In those difficult weeks that followed the cremation, a comment of his came back to haunt me. ‘The Universe always tests a man with that which he fears most.' At the time, it was just a casual remark over breakfast; only later did I realize he spoke directly to me. For years, I'd fought to expunge all vestiges of self-importance, that labor in the garden nonsense I spoke of. And just when I thought I was ‘getting somewhere' (a phrase of ill portent, to be sure), they offered to make me
pope.
I would be the ‘next' Great Guru, no strings attached! At first, the decision was easy. Because I'd already
vanquished
my ego, remember? O yes! Or so I thought. My humility was a source of great pride, something to inwardly boast about. I was resolute. No amount of logic or flattery could tempt me to assume the post. In fact, my refusal was proof in the pudding of my
advanced
state . . . do you see my point? After a while, I gained enough awareness to view the
conundrum for what it was: Father's
brilliant parting shot, a teaching that hadn't been possible to imbue until he drew his final breath . . . and created a vacancy! Really quite wondrous, an
exquisite
maneuver, don't you think? In the end, the most formidable lesson of all. The irony was that while my impulse had been to flee—hadn't he told me to run?—an invisible force kept me tethered. Was it ego? Or was it my guru's alternate voice, urging me ‘to face the demon in battle'? The dilemma drove me half-mad. Monday I resolved to leave, Tuesday to stay, and so forth.
The Universe always tests a man with that which he fears most.
My very essence was caught in a Chinese finger trap. The more I squirmed, the tighter the tourniquet!

“Almost a month passed. I lost 30 pounds. I kept no food down; my hair fell out; I was always cross. Everyone thought I'd become ill, can you recall? Acute ambivalence was killing me. Then I dreamt I was at the foot of my guru's chair, in agony. I longed for commiseration but no words came. The question
Why?
hung telepathically in the air. He answered, out loud:
Why not?
He told me that by
impersonating
a guru, I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. ‘After all,' he said, ‘the worst that can happen is the realization that you're a
shitty guru.
And so what?
Then
you can run
.
'