Last Gasp (23 page)

He had walked many thousands of miles, clad in black robes and carrying only his stick and his bowl, and in all that time he had rarely been hungry. The people were poor and had little, but he had nothing, and it was the custom to provide for those less fortunate than oneself. A handful of brown rice. A hunk of maize bread. On good days a small portion of goat’s meat, sometimes with mashed beans. Perhaps even small fishes, cooked underneath flat stones in the glowing embers until the skin was crisp and brittle. Each meal was a feast.

No, his body had never suffered the pangs of hunger, even though his soul constantly hungered.

He had sat with priests and wisemen, listening to them while remaining silent himself, struggling to understand. Letting them fill the empty bowl of his mind as the villagers replenished his feeding bowl. The knowledge had been dreadfully slow in coming and painfully acquired. In the early days language was the obstacle. Using signs and gesture and his scant vocabulary he had come to understand the essence of their teaching, yet the greatest obstacle still remained: the rigidity of his mind, its dogmatism and unwillingness to accept.

Eventually he found himself in the mountainous region of the northeast where the holiest men lived. There he discovered, as if by divine revelation, that the enlightenment he was seeking was in a place he had never suspected—inside himself. And with the knowledge came the awareness that first he had to strip off, layer by layer, the defenses that had been erected and reinforced since birth to protect his vulnerable personality.

The vast majority of human beings were encased inside this protective shell all their life. The love of self and the desire to impose it on others, on the world at large, made them try to re-create every person and every thing in their own image.

So the first step, he now came to see, was to let go—to disinherit his bodily needs and accept the world as it is. To accept what is given. From this moment on he discarded his own personality, his own identity, and miraculously found himself beyond the barrier in a world that was completely changed because he himself had undergone a metamorphosis.

His body erupted in sores, which festered and became succulent feeding places for parasites and flies. He almost died of malaria and lay for days in a burning, shaking stupor, tended by two old women who starved the fever out of him. Twice he was bitten by venomous snakes, which had curled close to share his body heat while he slept. He became thin, almost to the point of emaciation, with stringy arms and lean flanks; yet harder, tougher, and more resilient, able to withstand the heat and cold and the hardships of travel over long distances, always on foot.

One accident damaged him permanently; he had fallen down a steep rocky ravine and smashed his left knee. The healing took many months, leaving the limb misshapen, and thereafter his walk was lurching and ungainly and caused him much pain.

His face changed beyond recognition—burned and cracked by the sun and blistered by the wind, the flesh tautened on his cheekbones, leaving deep hollows beneath. His chin became a jutting knob of bone. In this prematurely aged mask his eyes appeared uncommonly large, the whites tinged with blue so that they seemed even whiter, the brown irises clear and brilliant like convex mirrors. His stare was daunting in its naked, uncompromising directness.

He acquired a new name, too:
Bhumi Bhap.
Which in the language of his teachers means Earth Father. With this final change the transformation was complete. The inner and outer man had been reborn.

There were still vestiges of his former life, traces of racial memory, which sometimes surfaced in dreams. He could not erase them completely, even though they had no meaning or relevance in his new philosophy: The past was truly dead.

Now the time had come for this new being to fulfill the purpose for which it had been created.

He stayed three weeks in New York while arrangements were made. The ashram was a converted loft in what had been a warehouse on Cleveland Street in the SoHo district. For much of the time he sat and meditated. Whenever approached by any of the young initiates who had heard of his pilgrimage he was amazed to find that they shared his beliefs; he was no longer alone as he had been all those years ago when he set out on his quest.

In these young people he saw signs of spiritual malaise, which were symptoms of a national, perhaps worldwide, dissatisfaction: a growing body of youth looking for the way ahead and seeking it in the ancient religious teachings. How, he wondered, could this sickness and dissatisfaction be channeled and used? It was taught that the self and ultimate reality were one and the same, given expression as “Thou are That.” Then how to reconcile this tenet of the faith with his own desire for change? The world must be reborn, just as he had been reborn. But rebirth demanded a death. It was already sliding toward the brink. He could watch it die—more, he would help it toward self-extinction.

They would follow him, these thousands of young people, if he were prepared to lead. But lead where? He must find the answer.

From New York he flew to Las Vegas and from there he went north to a small settlement between the townships of Sunnyside and Lund on the banks of the White River, overlooked by Mount Grafton. Even while flying over the Rockies and seeing once again the familiar topography, no stray thought or memory of his previous life impinged upon the serene surface of his mind.

The past was truly dead and buried.

There were a few shacks grouped around a clearing in the trees. About fifty members of the faith lived there, young men mostly, with shaved heads and saffron robes. When one of them asked why his own robes were black, Bhumi Bhap replied, “In mourning.”

In one of the shacks he unpacked his few belongings, including his bowl and wooden spoon, asking to be excused from their company. Alone, he adopted the posture advocated by the Bhagavad-Gita, repeating silently over and over again, Upright
body, head and neck,
which
rest still and
move
not, with inner gaze that is not restless, master of mind,
hoping
for nothing,
desiring
nothing.

Hunger sharpened his senses while meditation relaxed his mind. The outer world faded away and in a state of semitrance his cosmic awareness unfolded like a flower in the spring rain.

Listening.

Watching.

Touching.

Tasting.

Experiencing.

His senses reached out like the soft white shoots of a plant into rich moist earth. His consciousness expanded until it transcended time and space. His inner eye conjured up the blue-white bowling ball swinging through the void. Only it was not as he himself had once seen it, clear and sparkling. Now it was wreathed in a gray miasma. The atmosphere was a dense impenetrable blanket. The once-sweet rainwater that flooded from the skies scorched the flesh. The oceans moved sluggishly, clogged with dying plants and fish. Every breath was a painful gasp.

This was how it would be. This was how it must be.

His inner eye probed the future and saw the horror. It couldn’t be changed. Had he not been taught to give way to the laws of nature operating inside himself in order to release his true self from that bondage? What was outward reality, after all, but a sham, a deceit, a trick of the imperfect senses? The planet was dying. What matter to him?

... hoping
for nothing
desiring
nothing ...

Surely that was the one true path? But what about his pilgrimage and its ultimate purpose? Was he now to foresake it?

Bhumi Bhap didn’t know. He had failed before he had begun. He felt utter despair.

The crude wooden walls of the shack swam back into focus. The oil lamp, turned low, burned with a smoky orange light, making a steady dim circle on the sandy floor. In this circle, at his feet, he saw the scorpion.

It was the color of pale amber, its translucent body relaxed, not curled in the stinging position. The claws twitched and inched forward across the sandy floor toward him, wavering slightly as if preparing for a courtship dance. Possibly it sensed the heat of his body.

Bhumi Bhap waited, motionless, his senses quiescent.

One of the creature’s claws touched the big toe of his left foot and immediately stopped. After a moment the claw opened and tentatively gripped his toe, as if testing it. The creature had to decide between three options. Food. Friend. Enemy.

Which was it to be?

Bhumi Bhap lost sight of the scorpion as it crawled beneath his bent right knee. He was being tickled on the sole of his left foot. The claws appeared, like blind insects, over the curve of his thigh. Up it came, laboring to gain a purchase, its segmented body gleaming faintly in the lamplight.

His right hand was spread on the crown of his knee and the scorpion used his fingers as the rungs of a ladder to haul itself onto the back of his hand. There it rested, claws raised in the attitude of a boxer wearing outsize gloves, prepared to defend itself.

Bhumi Bhap could hardly feel it, it was so light. Just a few grams on delicate jointed legs—yet the bulbous gland with its pointed sting at the end of the coiled tail contained enough venom to kill a creature several thousand times its size and weight, including a man.

A mosquito whined in the stillness. The oil lamp unfurled its dark ribbon of smoke to a blackened spot on the ceiling. Unlike a Christian or a muslim, Bhumi Bhap could not pray to God or Allah for deliverance from this peril; his faith admitted of no supreme deity. Instead there was the impersonal concept of a vast oceanic experience with which selfhood could be merged. Brahman, or the ultimate reality, could be attained by any method the disciple wished, providing he had dispensed with ego. And without ego there could be no fear of death of self, since that imposter no longer existed.

The scorpion (Bhumi Bhap knew) was a test. Had he felt fear he would have failed. It would have shown that his ego, his identity, was intact.

But he felt no fear.

His ego was dead.

He had passed the test A-OK.

He raised his hand and brought the scorpion level with his eyes and looked at it. The creature was alerted. Its tail sprung up and arched stiffly over its head, the sting extended and poised to attack. Slowly and carefully Bhumi Bhap placed his hand flat on the floor. The sting retracted and the tail coiled back on itself and the scorpion crawled off into the darkness.

From outside came a low rhythmic chanting. Over and over the chant was repeated until the night air vibrated and seemed to solidify around him.

With the index finger of his left hand he traced the sacred symbol in the circle of lamplight at his feet. Bhumi Bhap knew what had to be done, and knew that he had the strength and the will to do it.

He would become death, the shatterer of worlds ...

“You think he’s worried about something?” Chase scooped up a forkful of mashed potatoes and peas. “The letter doesn’t actually say so.”

“How could it?” Cheryl said impatiently, chewing on a piece of steak and swallowing it. “They’d never have let it through. Besides, it would be far too dangerous.” She took a drink of water, ice cubes clinking in the tall glass. “But I know Boris and I know he was trying to tell me something.”

“That was weeks ago, almost three months, and you haven’t heard anything since.”

“That’s what worries me. I wrote back at once—just acknowledging his letter, that’s all—and haven’t heard another word.” She dug into another piece of steak.

They were in the Scripps cafeteria eating a late lunch among tables that bore the debris of several hundred people, now departed. Cleaners moved methodically along the aisles pushing rubber-wheeled trolleys that reminded Chase of stainless-steel coffins.

The scrape and clatter made it difficult to concentrate, though Cheryl seemed not to notice. It was four years since their last meeting. At that time she was still suffering the loss of her father, grief that was churned up with anger because in bland police jargon “Vehicle unknown, Driver unknown” had been responsible for the so-called accident.

Wiping his mouth with a paper napkin, Chase said, “You could be right, but you’ll admit it’s pure conjecture until you hear anything more.”

“What if I don’t hear?”

“Then you don’t. Perhaps he is trying to tell you something, but there’s no way of knowing or finding out.”

Cheryl pushed her plate away and toyed with a dessert spoon. “It really gets to me. This damn world is full of closed doors. You bust through one and, boy, there’s another—locked and barred and plastered with
NO ENTRY
signs.”

“We all suffer from that,” said Chase with some feeling.

Cheryl raised her eyes. “You too?”

He told her about his meeting with Bill Inchcape at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and of the classified predictions that DELFI was supplying to ASP in Washington.

“What’s ASP?” Cheryl asked.

“One of these cloak-and-dagger organizations at the Pentagon. Advanced Strategic Projects, which is a handy catchall title meaning almost anything. I got the impression that Bill Inchcape was reluctant even to mention it. It isn’t supposed to exist.”

“It’s a new one on me.”

They left the cafeteria and strolled in the sunshine down to the long concrete arm of the pier jutting out into the ocean.

“It’s good to see you again, Gavin,” Cheryl said, taking his arm. “How’s Dan?”

“He’s fine. At the moment he’s exploring the difference between the sexes.”

“At six years old?”

“Well, he’s a late developer.”

Cheryl laughed, squeezing his arm. He imagined her for a moment as a schoolgirl: blond pigtails, wide blue eyes, snub nose, and drenched with freckles. Maybe the American habit for braces was vindicated after all, he thought, in her bright perfect smile. But there were underlying changes he hadn’t seen before, not so much in her physical appearance as in a hardening of her attitude, her old cynicism now edged with despair.

Cheryl’s office was in the glass-walled annex of the marine biology division, set among lawns and shrubs and gravel paths. Much of her work these days was concerned with evaluation of data for the Marine Life Research Group, whose main function was to record low-frequency fluctuations in the ocean currents. Not only did these affect the growth and distribution of marine life, but their dynamics played an important role in determining the atmospheric climate, particularly in the Pacific Basin.