The Empty Chair (26 page)

“When the fever receded, I lay seared in my bed, a shell-shocked soldier after furious battle. Weak but clear-headed. I don't think I've ever been that lucid in my life—I no longer pined, nor did I mourn you, but
celebrated
your existence without remorse. I thanked the Heavens that our lives had intersected for the brief and beautiful time that they did.
Upadana
8
left my body. Like dye entering water, my gratitude extended to everyone I'd ever loved and to everyone I'd ever hated too. My anger, fear and consternation, my seizures of longing became those of the world and the world gave them back; and somewhere in that process, gold was spun. My guru—‘the American' as you like to call him—later said I'd experienced metta, an instantaneous if temporary
bodhicitta.
9

“After a week of convalescence, I attended my guru's satsang and—how to convey—he smiled at me from his chair and all seemed right with the world. A simple smile that encompassed
everything!
O, Queenie, I had the strongest feeling—quickly ratified by my guru himself—that he
knew
,
knew
exactly
what had transpired. He saw the change that had taken place within. That was when he spoke to me so tenderly of
bodhicitta
and the Six Perfections. He said how humbled and grateful I should be for having had the experience and not to let pride carry me away.

“I never looked back. It took some doing but with the help of a blood-brother—the Samoan who watched over you at the clinic, you knew him as ‘Gaetano'—with Gaetano's long-distance help, I pulled off the trick of disengaging from various
undertakings
(there's a deliberate play on words there), both legitimate and illegitimate. He saw to it that final debts were paid and collected too. A large sum of money accrued to a Swiss account for ready access should the need arise.

“I applied myself to the concepts of ‘the American' with indefatigable resolve and rigorous intent. I kept a close eye on him, my Queen, to be sure! There was still a touch of the cynic in me, vigilant in its search for a chink in the armor, a flaw in his assertions, a sophistry in thought and action. But I failed at finding one. The harder I looked, the more convinced I was that the Great Guru's reluctant successor was also a
reluctant saint
.
I repledged my fealty and devotion. The truth being, each day this blond enigma loomed larger and more difficult to parse. I suppose it didn't hurt that there was an ease, a ‘naturalness' between us—at least I imagined there was!—as if we shared an agreement of some sort, one that transcended Mind. ‘The Fifth Column'—that's what he called Mind. O, he didn't think very highly of it at
all
, which was mildly ironic, in that one needed a very
fine
mind in order to have had such a thought in the first place. But he thought it a saboteur of the first rank . . .

“I craved being near him and gladly paid the price. For my guru was exhausting to be around . . . it wasn't that he was ‘intense,' which of course he
was
though not in the way we define the word. No, there was something about his
energy
, a heaviness, but an
openness and lightness too. Like an inverted bell . . . I know I'm not explaining it too well. Perhaps you've met such beings in your own travels on the path? Anyway, it's my understanding that such a characteristic—this heavy, dominating energy—is shared by any
muni
worth his salt.
These men are not sweethearts! Another consequence was more personal. The more time I spent with my guru, the more likely it was that he'd pounce, cudgeling me for an idiotic or glib remark, some inanity he'd found worthy of teasing me about for months! Which was actually of great benefit though it never felt that way in the moment. He was a
wonderful
mimic—it's not easy to watch oneself be eerily caricatured, especially in front of a large group. But always instructive . . . With public shaming, he dissembled your ego and pride, forcing you to examine your behavior, actions and beliefs. One had to be very much on one's toes. When he focused on you, look out! He saw right through me. Do you remember my fear? That the Great Guru was sure to
have my number
? Well, that worst fear came true after all! In spades. The best teacher, they say, is the one who tells you what you don't wish to hear. Unpleasant truths . . . ‘The American' was no pushover. In the beginning, his admonishments sent me to bed for a week. He never raised his voice but the sting could be felt for days, like a scorpion's. Yet he was capable of
unutterable
tenderness. If one despaired, he poured nectar on the wound. At the same time, he was completely without pity.

“The years fell away. I didn't miss my old life. Isn't that something? Did not miss being a
player.
I did miss
you
,
my Queen—well . . . a little, anyway! The Mogul Lane clan felt like family though I was careful never to make the mistake of being
familial
with ‘the American' . . . Slowly, I assumed the same tasks he'd performed for
his
guru—book publishing, distribution of audiotapes, all the sundry financial affairs. As you know, I was uniquely qualified to take the reins, by virtue of the profession I'd given up. It seemed the only activity I
didn't
inherit was making book on the ponies! You see, dear Queenie, my challenge was to be thoroughly
engaged
, to take on as many responsibilities as I could handle without becoming self-important or feeling like the ‘linchpin.' My guru would have picked up on that
in an instant—then out on my ass I'd go! Not really . . . I doubt he'd have been so merciful as to send me packing. No, he'd rather see me twist at the end of my own rope. I avoided such a pitfall by keeping busy (a glorious way to quiet the mind), doing service, immersing myself in the river of my guru and the tributaries of all the workaday
apparatuses
that kept Mogul Lane afloat
.
No time to ruminate! That was my
samasti sadhana.
10

“I tell you, Madame Q, I became
unrecognizable
to myself in the best sense! I channeled my sexual energies into the yogas
11
and yearning for God. There were no rules against sex—‘the American' didn't give a rat's ass—but I wanted to see what might arise after subtracting—then transmuting—the predatory obsessions of the flesh. I hadn't anything to lose; in a word, I'd already fucked myself to death. The game had gotten very old. Nothing to prove anymore on that particular front. It was difficult at first but in time became second nature.

“After four years, I disclosed to him the atrocities I'd committed in my long career . . . the wanton breaking of spirits, the taking of human life. Twas a high number of murders, my Queen, as you would have guessed. To this day my confession remains the most onerous and courageous of all my acts. I shall never forget the kindness, the
elegance
of my guru's response, and that's all I have to say about it. I'm committed to being honest about everything—at this stage, secrets would be pointless, even harmful—but in this one area, I'm afraid the books are forever closed. I know you'll understand.

“As the years went by, I had a stunning revelation. My previous life—life before Bombay—suddenly made sense! It presented itself as nothing more than the preparation for a crime, the crime of all crimes:
I was in the thick of planning my own murder.
My guru said there are many vehicles to take us to where we're going but human weakness is such that we imagine we'll know what such a vehicle
looks
like. And yet more than not, one finds oneself in a car bearing no resemblance to that which was imagined—no power steering, too fast or too slow, uglier
or prettier than we had dreamed. ‘The American' said that if one is
very
fortunate, the vehicle is pointed in the direction of one's destination. But that is the exception, not the rule. The Self makes terrible decisions! Its relentless drone of
me, me, me
can run a man right off the road or advise him to ditch the thing entirely when it doesn't drive to his expectations. The
hegira
,
he said, took
guts of steel
—‘All roads most assuredly do
not
lead to Mecca!' O, he scared the hell out of us when he talked that way . . . twas my worst fear to reach the end of the road and realize I had taken a wrong turn in my youth or middle age, and now it was too late.

“And so, my dearest darling, I came to see that it was my
destiny
to jump ship—like
Ben-Hur
!—to leap from one chariot to another—from the Great Guru's vehicle to that of ‘the American'—nothing short of an audacious
cosmic stunt
was required to keep me pointed toward the finish line. I was with him seven long years, seven years of such incomprehensible grace and mystery that even now, knowing all that I do,
I wonder if I could ever be convinced to trade them away . . . But at the end of my sojourn, something happened that undid all the splendor, undid everything I'd learned or
thought
I had, plunging me into suicidal despair. I used to fear my guru would see through me, but such a fear was child's play beside what happened.

Only the flutter of an eyelid betrayed his emotions. “I arrived at a dead-end. A wrong turn had been taken, and it was too late to go back.”

After a dramatic pause, Kura said:

“My guru vanished into thin air.”

I didn't mind being left with a cliffhanger. I knew more would be revealed, and soon. (And I should probably add that I already knew a little about the American's disappearance through gossip I'd heard over the dharma grapevine, and from the New Age rags too. But I never had the desire to do follow-up.) As we set upon our journey, I felt like a character in a story being written in real time. I could
smell
the pages we nestled in—tea-stained, dog-eared, bloody as his maiden copy of
The
Book of Satsang
,
and redolent of cigar smoke too. The passing landscape seemed like a dusty, petrified forest of Words. I was glad Kura had brought me up to speed before we left because now I was free to enter that delicious contemplative state evoked by
Wanderjahre
into unknown regions.

The convoy motored past the ecstatic, messy diorama of India while our knees jostled against each other; sometimes he took my hand in his. In close quarters, the tinted windows were defenseless against a world shot through by a midday cruelty of winter light. Kura looked frail, mortal. The sky was cloudless, its cupboards looted by katabatic winds . . . the profoundly unprofound thought occurred that even one day
he
would vanish, for good, as would the memory of all loves, old and new, as surely as “the American” had, never to be found nor perhaps meant to be. What's that poem of Dickinson? “Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me. The Carriage held but just Ourselves”—while Kura looked out from
our
carriage, I studied him with involuntary vulture's eye. The purple blossoms on the back of a hand that bespoke a recent hospital stay he'd chosen not to divulge . . . the contrived, carefree tom-tom of the carotid, a Trojan Horse that one day would betray him. It seemed to know I was watching and threw everything it had into its palpitations
.
There was something vulgar about the skin-deep show it put on—
vein
-glorious!—as if too eager to throw me off the scent that
she
was coming, Mother Death, gunning for this 62-year-old and whatever trombones he could offer. A few more floats and the parade would be over, the majorette could lay down her arterial drum . . . An overwhelming sadness fell upon me, far and away beyond the variety to which I was accustomed. I was used to being slowly pinned in the ring, a ragtag-team of tricyclic antidepressants and MAO inhibitors in my corner—but
this
sadness was out of reach of my tricked-out, penthouse-sized, suicidal splendor.
When our backseat gaze met, Kura graced me with a sweet, plaintive smile. I had the queerest sensation he was reading my mind. I know it sounds corny but that was when I had a newsflash: I swore for the life of me the missing guru was
him.
I fought the urge to tell him to call off the dogs and turn the frickin' car around. Everyone's always saying, “Find the guru within”—well ain't it the truth. But to each his own Easter hunt.

Driving deeper into the hinterland, the road grew more challenging. One of the cars in the motorcade peeled away as planned, dropping off like ballast. The subtraction felt organic, as if part of the logic of the expedition—to keep shedding our skin until we were newborns at the lost guru's door.

We ate sandwiches from little coolers. Having a meal loosened his tongue.

“When ‘the American' disappeared, Mogul Lane went wild . . . an ant hill stirred by the stick of a small boy. But this time the community reaction bore no relation to the period of mourning that followed the Great Guru's death seven years earlier. The police brought their limited expertise to bear; the investigation was blasé, desultory,
laissez-faire
. They hung around the shop with long faces, laboriously filling out paperwork before moving on to the precinct where gendarmes lazily auditioned the raft of crackpots, ascetics and prognosticators who had come forward with visions of my guru's fate—he drowned in the Ganga or repatriated to the U.S. or went up in a blaze of self-immolation, leaving only crystalline relics of the rainbow body behind, albeit in red, white and blue! As the spectacle wore on, my contempt for that conniving widow and her pack of jackals went
off the charts
. I never liked her but now I did nothing to conceal it; she unabashedly returned the favor. At odd moments I caught her japing, as if to gloat that ‘the American' (
she
called him that too, but always with a sarcastic twist) had finally gotten his comeuppance. In a matter of hours, my guru was purged from history, having
evanesced
under a lurid cloud of suspicion. Within days, his portraits were removed from the walls and burned; the books of his satsang I helped publish were no longer available. Even pages of the Great Guru's classic
that bore the American's name under ‘translated by' were torn out and replaced.