A Thousand Steps

55

The Vortex of Purity parking lot is nearly full when they arrive, just after six o’clock. The evening is still, the eucalyptus trees sagging in the heat. To the north Matt sees the big birds circling in the thermals out over Windy Rise.

Matt and his father are in the pickup truck, and as Bruce backs into a reserved space near the auditorium, Matt reads the Hamsa marquee:

“What’s all this about?” asks Bruce.

“They have feasts when followers get to the next level of consciousness.”

“Followers of who, Captain Kangaroo?”

A group of white-robed young people drifts across the parking lot toward the auditorium.

“What’s with the robes?”

“The colors mean how evolved and enlightened they are.”

“The enlightened children of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

Matt looks down at his backpack lying in the bed. It’s heavy and deadly. But what if he needs it but doesn’t have it? He slings it over one shoulder as his father locks the truck.

Sara Eikenberg sits at the welcome table in a yellow-with-daisies sundress. Hair up and smile on.

“Hello, Matt,” she says coolly. “And Mr. Anthony. Welcome to the Vortex of Purity.”

She tears off and hands them each a feast ticket.

“Can you get Mahajad to talk with us after the program?” asks Matt. “In private?”

“What’s up?”

“Nothing.”

Her doubting look. “Of course I can. There are seats still open, near the back.”

It’s long dark by the time the Feast of the Spirit ends and Mahajad Om can talk with Matt and his father.

They cross the campus slowly — the swami in his crimson robe with the high collar and pointy shoulders. He’s barefoot as always and eating from a plastic plate — followed closely by his mother-daughter assistants, and, farther back, four of the men in white.

“So, what do you say, Mr. Om?” asks Bruce.

“I say, if your daughter was a prisoner at the Vortex of Purity, I would know! But yes, please search it all. If you find her I will celebrate with you. I have the keys to everything.”

He waves over the older woman, impatiently, as if he’s hailing a cab. She comes to him and hands him a small steel ring with a few keys of different sizes attached. He puts them in the pocket of his crimson robe and looks at Matt, then Bruce.

“You follow me.”

They start in the two-story library, which is unlocked. The shelves are mostly empty and Mahajad apologizes for the lack of books. It’s open and there’s no place for someone to hide or be held on either floor. There are windows all around, but not the kind that open. Nowhere to launch a glider.

“We are four years here, but not much progress on our library,” says the swami. “Time flies.”

The lecture halls and classrooms are locked but Mahajad lets them in and finds the lights. The rooms feel used to Matt, in a way that the library didn’t. His footsteps echo on the stairs and floors and Matt gets a whiff of the desperation he felt as he counted down the last few unsearched homes in Laguna. What if the Little Wings are wrong? he thinks. What if God answered your prayer with still another riddle?

The chapel is dusty inside and laced with cobwebs. Boxes of cobalt-blue tile stand open in the vestibule. They walk the aisle to the altar. Matt sees rattraps under the pews, some set but most not. The chapel basement is cluttered with paint cans and ladders and used drop cloths.

He’s beginning to feel foolish.

Again.

Om gives him that amused, curious look of his. “And next we have the dorms where some of our Evolvers, Enlighteners, and Ecstatics live and study in an ascetic, communal fashion. Many will be sleeping.”

They cross the commons. Mahajad drops his plate and utensils into a trash can on the path. Matt turns for a look at the women, who smile at him demurely, and the four men in white, who gaze at him blankly.

The dorms are two facing arcades of apartments that Matt and Kyle used to play hide-and-seek in. They interconnect. Mahajad knocks on the first door, which is answered by a mop-topped young man in a swimsuit and an open white robe.

“Swami, what’s up?”

“Have you seen the missing girl, Jasmine Anthony?”

“Who?”

“The girl on the many posters in town.”

“I haven’t been to town lately, Swami Mahajad.”

“Sorry to disturb you...”

“David.”

“Yes, Evolving David. Good night. See you in the morning when we Praise the Light.”

“Yes, sir.”

Some of the followers have been sleeping and it takes them a while to answer Mahajad’s firm knocks. They are all young and nice-looking. Again, Matt wonders how alike they are. Not exactly alike, but similar. Comparable. Bonnie and Sara and Danielle and Jasmine. And many of these others. The boys/men too.

None have seen Jasmine Anthony, though several remember her from early June, when the hippies and tourists were flooding in. One remembers Jazz as the ukulele girl from an LA Moves Happening.

She closes her door and Om turns to Matt and Bruce.

“Matt and father of Matt,” the swami says. “You can go from door to door and talk to everyone. I’m going to sit here on this bench with my assistants, and rest. It’s been a long day. When you’re done, I’ll be waiting.”

It takes them twenty minutes to finish off both rows of dorms but none of the beautiful, fresh young people have seen Jasmine lately, if ever.

Matt and Bruce walk back to the swami, who sits on the bench between the women. The four men in white wait under a nearby sycamore, hands folded.

“I’m sorry,” says Om. “But it’s good you searched. An untaken path can be a torment to the soul.”

“We’d like to see your residence and the bell tower,” says Matt.

“Oh, Matt, that is where I live. I certainly would have noticed if your sister was spending time there!”

“It won’t take long, Mahajad,” Matt says. “We need to search these last places. Against the torment you just mentioned.”

“You’ve searched everywhere in this city, haven’t you?”

“Pretty much.”

Mahajad sighs deeply, setting his dark hands on his big thighs. The women take his hands in theirs.

He looks at Matt with his usual forbearance and curiosity.

“Let us end your torment, then. I have houseguests, but come. It won’t take long.”

The swami’s residence stands on a knoll on the far commons, bathed in moonlight. The bell tower presides beside it, lit from below, its blue dome shining. Matt hears the Vortex generators humming.

The barefoot swami climbs his porch steps, then turns.

“Give me a minute to prepare my guests,” he says. “We were not expecting company this late.”

“We’ll help you,” says Bruce, taking off his Stetson.

“You are very distrustful of your swami,” says Om.

“We won’t take long,” says Matt.

“I hope not,” says the swami, shaking his head sadly and opening the right-side double door. Matt holds the door for the women, then follows them in. He looks behind him for the white suits but they’re gone.

The foyer is tile-floored, high-ceilinged, and dimly lit: white plaster walls with wrought iron sconces, its round archway framing a great room. Matt steps down to the hardwood floor, his eyes drawn to the enormous Persian rug in the great room’s center, to the large river-rock fireplace filled not with burning logs but with burning candles and incense. Seated on the heavy rustic furniture are the Sungaards, Bayott, and Danielle. Two white suits now stand in the darker recess of the big room. Two of the four, Matt notes.

Bruce is already at it with the guests, hat in hand, introducing himself in his best loud drawl.

“And this is my beloved son, Matt, with whom I am well pleased. Just kidding, I’m not God, but I am proud of Matt, only sixteen, and we’ll be out of here in a jiffy. I just have to make sure my daughter Jasmine hasn’t stowed herself away in this fine place — which I’m sure her mother, my ex-wife, would have done at Jasmine’s age. In a heartbeat. Anyway, we’ll make this quick, you weird fucking people.”

Matt sees the amusement on the Sungaard faces but they say nothing. Danielle shakes her head derisively. Bayott nods to Matt in recognition.

“My disciples in white must be with us at all times,” says Mahajad.

“Disciples?” asks Bruce, unbuttoning his jacket. “Is that what they are?”

“We will be leaving now,” says Bayott, standing with the Sungaards and the girl.

The women have disappeared. The second two white-suited disciples await them in the dining room.

Matt follows his father and Om into the dining area, passing a formally set table, where the silverware shines dully in the sparse light of an electric chandelier turned low.

He takes in the strange, dark, stuck-in-time home. He senses the disciples behind him but doesn’t turn to look. He’s aware of the heavy pack. When he thinks of what’s inside it, his breathing tightens and his strong legs feel undependable. He wonders if this is really happening.

Outside, a vehicle starts up then crunches slowly down the gravel drive. Through a window Matt watches the gray Mercedes van roll away. He wonders why people as rich as the Sungaards would be hanging around a spiritual center. Especially this late, on a weeknight. With a teenaged girl. The Sungaards aren’t spiritual. An orgy hostess and a money manager / surfer / bulk LSD purchaser? With their private squad of phony Interpol cops even the Hessians couldn’t handle? What do they need with Purity?

And what have they done to his sister?

In the big and well-lit kitchen, Matt watches two stout women conversing in Spanish while they wash dishes. The smell of carnitas lingers in the air, meat and onions and chilis.

“Buenas noches,” says Bruce.

“Buenas noches, señor,” they answer together.

Matt, with four years of Spanish under his belt, listens closely as his father converses with the women. No, they know no Jasmine Anthony. They have not heard of a kidnapped girl. His eyes wander the room as he imagines the great meals they must prepare here. He eyes the pantry and wonders what treasures wait behind the closed door.

The downstairs master bedroom is spacious and richly furnished, the bath small.

A short hallway leads to three smaller first-floor bedrooms, all neat and empty.

Matt has that feeling again. Not quite hopelessness, but almost. He tries to banish it, make room for willpower and optimism. Pictures Jasmine, age seven, coming through the fortified security door of the bomb shelter to rescue him. And at the beach by the bonfire, singing for her friends. Brushing her mother’s hair.

I can do this.

Back in the great room, Matt follows his father and the swami up the hardwood stairs. Bruce’s boot heels pound and echo. Two of the disciples look down from the dark recess of the landing above.

Matt looks into the first room: children’s bunk beds, two small dressers, Om shaking his big head as Bruce opens a closet door. Matt listens for the sound of the white-clad men but hears nothing.

Curious, he drifts back to the landing. Sees that the two disciples lurking upstairs a moment ago are now downstairs without having taken the stairs. He would have heard them. As he hears them now, clearly, as they stride into the great room from the direction of the kitchen, crossing paths with the Mexican cooks as they head for the front door.

“Adios, señors.”

“A good night also to you.”

Matt hears the man’s accent, similar to that of his boss. The swami’s mother-daughter assistants now sit by the cavernous, candle-filled fireplace, the mother on a chair and the daughter on the floor, legs crossed, meditating.

Then his father and the swami are back, and Matt follows them back down the stairs to the great room.

Om’s smooth baritone is edged with annoyance as he orders the mother and daughter out of the house.

“You have insulted away my guests and employees,” he says to Bruce. “And it is getting late. I shall be happy when you go and the Vortex is pure again. I have seen the cold weapon at your back, Mr. Anthony. They are not permitted here.”

“I need to see the bell tower,” says Matt.

The swami regards Matt with a wet black stare. “It is a useless relic of Christian-capitalist excess. The bells are gone. We have long ago boarded the door. You can pull on the wood with all your strength and it will not open, Matt.”

“I’ll try.”