Time and the Riddle: Thirty-One Zen Stories (6 page)

He smiled apologetically.

“That cat of yours is acting very strangely.”

“Yes. How?”

“Dinner is ready.”

“You were saying about the cat?”

“He purred.”

“Cats do purr.”

“He purred pleasantly.”

“I'll be with you in a moment,” the professor said. “I'll just wash up.”

He took a tiny plastic envelope from his desk, and went out to the garden, musing over a name. He was neither proud nor obsessed with any desire for immortality, even in the small botonist's world of the cactus, and he decided that
Echinomastus contentii
would serve very satisfactorily. The cat came after him mewing with delight as the professor shook a little of the yellow pollen into the plastic envelope..

“I do wonder how the world appears to you,” he said to the cat.

Apparently the cat, purring with pleasure, understood him completely.

“What a beautiful, incredible thing you are!” he said to the cactus.

From the house, his wife called to him. “What on earth are you up to out there? Who are you talking to?”

“A cactus,” he replied as he came back into the house.

“I don't think that's funny. If we could eat one meal where the food doesn't sit around and get cold while you fuss over God knows what to get yourself to the dinner table, I would be a very happy woman. Anyone else can come to dinner when dinner is ready, not you. You always have five things that must be done.”

“I'm afraid so,” the professor agreed.

“And I don't want that miserable cat in the room while we eat.”

The cat understood. He regarded his mistress plaintively, and then he marched reluctantly out of the room.

Barbara served the chicken and rice, and then informed him that she had run into Clair Maguire at the shopping center.

“Did you? I do hope you gave her my very best. And to her husband. He's a gifted man.”

“They're making him the head of Oriental Studies at U.C.L.A.”

“That's just wonderful,” the professor replied.

“It's more than just wonderful. It's forty thousand dollars a year.”

The professor nodded with appreciation.

“I don't think you ever hear me, Timothy,” Barbara said. “I said forty thousand a year.”

“Yes. Yes, of course. It's a handsome wage.”

“They're moving. Do you want some more rice?”

“No, thank you.”

“To Westwood.”

“Oh? Well, that will be nice. He can walk to the college.”

“They bought a ninety-thousand-dollar house. With a swimming pool.”

The professor smiled and nodded.

“Timothy, Timothy,” his wife said, her voice as soft and beguiling as she could make it under the circumstances. “I'm trying to tell you something. Bob Maguire will be the head of the department. They will have an empty chair in Oriental Philosophy, and Clair said he is thinking of you. It's thirty thousand dollars a year. Thirty thousand dollars.”

“That's very thoughtful of him.”

“Is that all you can say? It's double what you make now.”

“Well, a small college has its own problems.”

“But they're not your problems.”

“I just don't know whether I would be very happy at U.C.L.A. It's such an enormous place.”

“Well, I do know that I would be very happy in Westwood or Brentwood and driving a decent car instead of that miserable Pinto, and just once, just once in my life being able to take some friends for lunch to the Bistro and not thinking twice about the check—”

“What is the Bistro?” the professor asked curiously.

“You ass!” Barbara exploded. “You fool!”

“I'm terribly sorry.”

“Like hell you are! You wouldn't accept it—not even if Bob Maguire got down on his knees and pleaded.”

The professor was thinking of how he could possibly move his cactus garden. Some of the plants were twenty years old. There was no way he could imagine transferring them to another area. And as if she were reading his mind, Barbara snapped at him, “It's those damn ugly plants of yours, isn't it!”

He was trying to formulate some answer to this when suddenly Barbara burst into tears, leaped to her feet, and ran into the bedroom.

The professor sat at the table for a few minutes, lost in thought. Then he poured a cup of coffee, took out the plastic envelope of pollen, shook it into the coffee, and stirred. He brought the coffee into the bedroom, where Barbara was sprawled on the bed.

“Barbara,” he said gently.

She didn't move.

“Barbara, please look at me. Please.”

She sat up, presenting him with a tear-stained face, and the professor observed that she was a very handsome woman indeed, quite as attractive in her forty-ninth year as on the day he had married her. Even her frown of anger and disgust could not hide it.

“What do you want?” she asked coldly.

“I thought we might talk about this.”

“Why?”

“Well, it's not open and shut, is it? I brought you a cup of coffee. Please drink it. You'll feel better.”

He touched her most tender spot. Coffee was an elixir to Barbara She reached for the coffee, tasted it and then drained the cup. She took a deep breath and then stared curiously at her husband.

“Of course, you couldn't move the cactus garden, could you,” she said finally.

“I could move the smaller plants, certainly. That's no great task.”

“But the big ones?”

“They'd have to stay.”

“Oh, no—no.”

“It's no great loss.”

“But you love them. They mean so much to you.”

“Really not,” the professor said. “Not at all. They're there. I don't own them. A plant is a living thing. It has a life and existence of its own.”

“I never thought about it that way.”

“Well, most people don't. We're so used to owning things.”

“Then it's not the cactus garden,” said Barbara.

“I don't think so. Look dear, why don't we go outside and talk about this. It's a fine evening.”

He took her by the hand and led her out into the garden. The cat joined them. They sat down on the bench under an enormous hibiscus, and the cat leaped into Barbara's lap and curled up there, purring with pleasure.

“Whatever has gotten into this cat?” Barbara wondered.

“He seems very content.”

“Oh, I was so angry with you,” she said, stroking the cat. “Isn't there something we could do to improve his coat—I mean vitamins or something—he really is a handsome cat.”

“I'm sure. I'll have to ask the vet.”

“I don't know why I was so angry.”

“You had reason enough.”

“I can't think of any reason. Thirty thousand dollars is a lot of money. We could do things for the kids.”

“The kids are very independent.”

“They are. Do you know, I think they resent gifts.”

“That's understandable,” the professor agreed.

“It's nice to think about living in Westwood, but I do love this old house. And our friends are here.”

“I could commute. It's not a long drive on the freeway.”

“You'd hate it.”

“Well, not really. But I do have a dozen students who are very dear to me. I don't know whether that's worth giving up such an enormous increase.”

“Timmey,” she said, “we are not starving.”

“No—” He reached out and touched her cheek. “Do you know how long it is since you call me Timmey?”

“Is it that long?”

“I can get two more years out of my Volkswagen. We could turn in the Pinto and get you one of those big Chevies, what with the rebate and all that.”

“A gas guzzler? Not on your life. I am perfectly content with the Pinto. Anyway, I don't want to talk about cars. Look how the light strikes the cactus now. I never realized how beautiful they are.”

“People don't, because they are strange and different. We're so afraid of anything different.”

“Come to bed,” she said suddenly.

“It's only nine o'clock.”

“Come to bed.”

“Shall we do the dishes first?”

“The hell with the dishes,” Barbara said. “Come to bed.”

Barbara was asleep when the professor awakened in the morning. He lay there for a while, watching her. No doubt about it, she was quite as attractive as the day they met, and he reflected upon the singular joy of sex between two people who were without rancor, without selfishness, without frustration and very much in love.

He got out of bed quietly and dressed without awakening his wife, and then he went out to wish a good morning to
Echinomastus contentii
, who had survived the night quite well, and whose lovely petals glistened with a drop or two of the morning dew.

The cat joined him, rubbing contentedly against his leg, which prompted the professor to say, “Cat, there are more things in heaven and earth than I have ever dreamt of, which is hardly original but very much to the point. What are we going to do about it? I really don't approve of people who interfere, and here I've interfered with three of us.”

Then he sighed, climbed into his aged Volkswagen, and drove to the college.

Since he had skipped breakfast at home, he went first to the faculty dining room, and joined two of his colleagues. One of them was Professor Roscoe Martin, widely known as dean of the P.O.D. Society, P.O.D meaning “prophets of doom,” who stood by his flat statement—on television talk shows as well as in scholarly magazines—that mankind would not be around in 1985, considering the rate at which we were destroying the environment. The other was Professor Hallis Grundy, business administration, corporate management, etc. They waved to Melrick, and he sat down at their table and ordered his orange juice, eggs, and toast, and then smiled with pleasure for their company.

“You are disgustingly content,” Grundy said. “You sit down with two of the nastiest malcontents on this miserable faculty, who are even more ridden with dissatisfaction and jealousy than our average unattractive colleague, and you act as though you were convening a caucus of saints. That's a stinking attitude.”

“I agree,” said Martin.

“Well, it is a lovely day,” Melrick said.

“Did you notice the smog or didn't you?” Martin snapped at him. “It's lying against the mountains like a stinking yellow blanket. By the day after tomorrow, we'll have the worst reading in the history of Los Angeles County. In L.A. County alone, this week should bring us 83.14 smog-associated deaths.”

“Is the point-one-four a child?” Melrick asked mildly.

“I
marvel at people like you,” Grundy said to Melrick. “Here we are in one of the worst depressions in history, runaway inflation, more business failures per week than ever in history, and you smile.”

“Not to mention,” Martin added quickly, “the pollution of the sea. That's the killer. We may stop spray cans and supersonic flights in time to save the ozone layer, but as far as the sea is concerned, we've passed the point of no return.”

“Now hold on,” said Grundy. “Don't go into that lecture of yours on the oil companies.”

“This man,” Martin responded, directing a finger at Grundy, “is paid four times what any of us earn because he sits in a chair established by the so-called Energy Council, a front for the international oil trusts—”

“You can't prove that,” Grundy said cheerfully.

“You will go with the rest of us,” Martin said comfortably. “You, me, the oil executives, old, young—there are no lifeboats on spaceship earth.”

“I wonder,” Melrick said, looking up from his scrambled eggs, which were very tasty indeed, “whether you ever thought about the cactus?”

“That is a non sequitur, if I ever heard one,” Grundy snorted.

“Oh, no. No, indeed. Very much to the point. You know, the seas dried up. The rain stopped, and the plants had to adapt. They became cacti.”

“They were plants.”

“People are very adaptable, you know,” Melrick said.

“Sheer nonsense.”

“Perhaps,” Melrick said. “But this doom that is facing us—it's the result of greed, isn't it? A lust for money, for power, riches, things, baubles, man's discontent with himself as he is, envy of one's neighbor, desire—”

“That's putting it rather harshly.”

“Are you going to change man?” Martin demanded.

“Man is always changing, you know. Otherwise, he could not conceivably endure this thing we call civilization. Now just suppose—just suppose we were to find some miracle drug that would rid man of greed, aquisitiveness, envy, the desire for power, for things?”

“Ambition?” Grundy demanded.

“What we call ambition—yes, indeed.”

“God save us from that.”

“Why?” Melrick wondered.

“Discontent is the only thing that makes it work.”

“Your way.”

“What other way is there, Melrick?”

“I like to think that there's another way.”

“As much as it pains me, I must agree with Grundy,” Martin said.

“Yes—but suppose one did come up with such a drug. What would happen?”

“They would destroy the drug and kill its inventor.”

“They?” asked Melrick. “Who are they?”

“Myself, to begin with,” Grundy stated emphatically. “Any community leader with an ounce of responsibility. Any executive of a large corporation. Any political leader. Any man who values civilization.”

“Do you agree with him?” Melrick asked Martin.

“I'm afraid I do. You're talking about something a hundred times worse than heroin. Just think of what it would do to our tenure.”

Melrick sighed. It was time for his first class, and as he walked across the campus, he wondered what Chuang Tzu would have made of his predicament. He mused over it through the day, and he was relived, when he returned home, to be greeted with an enveloping embrace from his wife.