Memorial

XCI.Chester

morning and they go outside, alarmcocked rousing in Time to smells and chaotic embracing stunned-light of Mumbai but the mellow people gathered at the coffeeshop near Mahalaxmi Temple — seekers and pilgrims from Australia and Brazil and England and Italy and Finland and Russia — most call it “Bombay” so that’s what Chess starts saying too. (Easier than moom-bye — Bye, Mom!) Some of the old hands tell the American couple the most important thing: look both ways before crossing the street because the cars will kill you. And make sure bottled water caps are not subtly broken cause they fill em for resale and you’ll get sick. (He decides to stick with Coke in a can.) The Breach Candy Swim Club has a pool in the shape of India and that you must see. It’s private but if you want to have lunch there we can get you in.

They sat with their tea and Chester felt new-specie’d gladness sauntering past Mahalaxmi, hundreds in line at the temple, women so beautiful, spectacular saris, even the homeliest of the homely, cops and colonial buildings saturated with a bliss he could not fully absorb or recognize, no syntax, everything degraded and dustily decayed/wedding cake layered edible, if you looked hard enough you could find — thrust against skyline — as mathematically complex as anything cubenses had shown him — structures of enormous imagination and wealth, private homes like found objects, puzzlepiece jewels within holy impoverishment grid, the entire city like that, a living archaeological dig concealing walk-in walk-out tombs of prosperity, don’t be fooled by cliché and nonsense, that obsessive, corny, corrupt Western dream of destitution, yes there was disease/disfigurement, though this too: the ancient sacerdotal sussultorial seat of the imperial armies who guard Her, She, and those lucky enough to see they are Her students.

Soon the sweetly bedraggled troop trudged excitedly up a hill (looking both ways before they crossed), then loitered outside a tall apartment house with benevolent guard standing sentry. After 15 minutes, he smilingly gave a sign and the procession began, congregants racing up spiral staircase, shoppers at a spiritual fire sale, seeking enlightenment is like crying fire in an empty theater, Chess Herlihy shed his old self with each step, became enraptured on the ascent, the floors—2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th — old and beautiful and wood-oiled, woodclean well-kept, each more ornate than that which preceded, at the same time simpler too this is what the ascent to heaven must be like doors and moldings of residences on each level, made of teak — whoa! the guru owned the whole well why not, why always emphasis on poverty-enlightenment, why not a wealthy guru, without Western-style cynicism attached. Any idiot knew an enlightened man need not walk in rags. Why must it always be cartoonish, stupidly familiar? Why must our gurus live in caves? Why could we not—Chess was now a student of Time — there was so much noise outside, like an orchestra, chanting and hornblowing and shouting everpresent (another thing that for some reason comforted). He was now a student of Time and Her daughter, Space. At penthouse floor the couple removed sandals, placing them in trafficked rack of sole searchers before entering humble spacious suite, someone gently ushered them to a small but airy room inside rooms where they plunked down on cushions, 30 or so guests, shiny distraught obsequious eccentric crazy-vain grateful beings from all over the merciful Lonely blue Planet who had somehow converged on this coordinate, this very Space and this Time, and after a while the old silver-haired man, handsome and fit, came and sat down.

Chess shivered with delight.

Almost unbelievably, Ramesh looked straight at him and said, “Are you a seeker?”

Laxmi smiled and Chester smiled and said yes, he thought so. “A jetlagged seeker.” People laughed and the guru did too.

He asked for Chester’s name.

Then: “And what is it you are seeking?”

“What is it I am seeking?”

“Yes — Chester. What is it you are seeking?”

The visitor smiled, but was silent.

He didn’t want to fail the test.

“You see?” said Ramesh. “No one is ever able to tell me! Some say ‘love,’ but to me love is merely the other side of hate. Yesterday someone asked why the Source manifested itself in the forms that it did: trees, people, objects. Well, I cannot answer that, all I can say is it is energy, the Source contains no creations, nor can it contain dissolution. Without the movement of energy, you are left with ‘dead matter.’ Similarly, without the assertion of the ego in daily life, there can be no world as we know it! We believe that we have free will. Some have the sense their ‘free will’ is counterfeit. In other words, it has been proven that once one makes a decision, or takes action — which one must, each day! try not to, and see what happens! — one has no control over the results. Only 3 things can happen after one chooses an action: you get what you want, you don’t get what you want, or you get something that was completely unexpected—whether that be terrible or wonderful. That’s exactly what happened with Maurie. What I wanted was for him to get hard, then embarrassed; what I didn’t want was for him to walk out of the room the minute he saw the black guy; the completely unexpected thing was the fucking stroke. Hence, free will isn’t free, it’s nonexistent. But if one wishes to believe one has free will, without the awareness of a counterfeit quality, then by all means that is one’s destiny! (To believe that.) If one is to be frustrated, not recognizing that the nature of life contains opposites, beginning with male and female, and extending to good health and disease — if this frustrates one and one falls into self-pity, then that is one’s destiny according to the Cosmic Law! One may understand all of this intellectually, but to have the total understanding, that is a ‘happening,’ just like the monsoon, or the tsunami, or Katrina. Like drought or the Holocaust. There is no meaning to those events, they are merely ‘happenings.’ When one feels sorry for how much one suffers, all one has to do is think of the millions upon millions who would gladly change places with you: then you will thank God for the suffering He has allotted you! All is energy, manifesting itself: without such a manifestation, it would be dead matter—eventually that energy burns out and the cycle begins again. What we are seeking is harmoniousness with our fellow man: with the Other. We have been conditioned to be ‘god-fearing.’ I choose to be ‘god-loving.’

“So tell me, Chester: What is it that

her father choked and said that his roommate and baby would not be — coming home — Joan quashed and muted her own horror and said she wanted to come see him but Ray said best not to, not just now, better to speak over the phone (Oh! she would honor that) and yes, he still wanted their Dining Car dinner—even now, he was thinking of it! — so pleased when she told him—one more lie, forgive me, Lord, just one more—that his son would love to come and so looking forward to meeting him. To meeting his

“Dad,” she said, voice clenched from unending desolation visited upon her family, cruciation and glory as well, now the money didn’t seem such a laurel, it was dirty, a dirty balm, neck and neck with wretchedness, instead of slingshotting everyone far ahead, but her mood was foul and soon she would again feel soothed by it, enveloped, enwrapped and ensorcelled by and through Money. “Dad, listen: I am a rich woman! I am a very rich woman and I am asking you to please come live with me. There is so much time to make up. I am going to buy a house in Malibu, by the water. You always loved the water. Please come live with me. With us”—she didn’t care if she sounded like an abject little girl, didn’t care a witless whit—“I need my family! I’m going to have a baby—you are — going to — you and mom are going to be grandparents! Please. You can help me raise this child as you would have raised the one you lost”—should she have said it, that word, lost, both now choking because they were lost, now and always, all of them children, no matter their age, everyone was and had been lost, but they’d been found, just like the gospel song, they’d been found as well—“Daddy, please come. I’ll help close up your apartment and we’ll move everything to the new house. We’ll have a compound, a family compound, like the Kennedys! Remember the Kennedy compound?” (She knew that was a touchstone.) “I have lots of money, Father, millions and millions of dollars. Will you please come? Will you promise to — will you please say that you’ll come? I am asking you for myself not just because of what happened, but I think you shouldn’t be alone now—I don’t want to be alone, I don’t believe in it, not anymore. I used to think that being alone was everything. But not anymore…”

He agreed.

She didn’t know if he meant it, or his compliance was just to get her off him.

She didn’t care — the weight of the world was lifting.

She would do anything for this man.

He asked if Chesterfield would live with them too and she said Yes, forgive me my lies, but who knew, maybe he would, he was traveling now, location scouting, but Yes—the important thing being they would make a home together, she had no husband, she did not want to raise this baby alone — quickly adding that Marjorie would of course be there. Do you mean you told your mother and she agreed? That she—Yes. Forgive me Lord the bewilderness of lies but I cannot care anymore—yet it was true, Marjorie would live in the compound with nurses, gardeners, and upkeepers, the professional hunters and gatherers, there’d be the loveliest symmetry to it, their marriage come full circle, maypole circle of life and death, what did a little senescence matter, sense and insensibility, Joan not yet wanting to spring it on Ray that his ex was an invalid, traveler in the land of nod and derangement, not wishing to dispense more bad news than she had to, not now, whether right or wrong There is no right or wrong not even wanting to fudge the truth, but rather, to lie by omission. Is your mother still in India, he wanted to know. Yes, there it came, the quick efficient lie again, she was nothing but fabric woven from strands of lying DNA, so be it, that is who I am, I do my best, so be it that the carpet upon which we raise our tent is one of untruths, truth is sandy, truth is nomadic, like Freiberg’s temporary sultany digs, truth is a memorial, what is so wrong about a permanent nomadic structure for her (un)broken family. Joan said that Marjorie was still in Agra, at the Taj Mahal, and Ray said, Isn’t that wonderful, I always told Ghulpa I wanted to see the place then he choked again and she choked on her lies and his dreams, the lies of truth, then Ray asked his daughter if she knew the legend of it, the legend (he read in Reader’s Digest waiting rooms) of the Taj Mahal, and Joan said no, even though she did, fudging again because maybe he had something new to add and besides she had no strength in her head or her body and that it was good for him to talk. Ray said it was built by a king she could still see the childhood book and typeface: exalted Majesty, dweller of Paradise, the 2nd lord of constellations, the King Shah Jahan whose wife died giving birth, she was young, only 39, Reader’s Digest (or some other waiting room) said ½ a million women a year die that way, 10,000,000 more get some kind of injury during delivery, hard to believe anyone makes it through, old man choking and tragichuckling, adding he didn’t know if the king’s baby survived, he only knew the wife had died, he choked up again and Joan did too, she thought he was going to go on, about the black marble version of the Taj the king planned for his own crypt, the one that remained unbuilt across the river, dark dream of reflected eternal love, but her father said he had a favor to ask.

“You’re — an architect?”

“Yes.”

“I would like you to help with the stone, for my dearest, and the baby. There is a Forest Lawn on a hill that Ghulpa always thought was so pretty. I bought a little plot. They got there before me! Would you help with the stone? Would you help, Joanie? I don’t know much about that. All of her cousins, I don’t think they — I haven’t really talked to them…I don’t know what they…I would — would—”

He was choking again and she said of course (her passion rubbing out all the lies she had told) and the old man said he would call her back, he had to get off the phone, yes, I would be honored, Joan said, we’ll do something simple and beautiful, I’ll start work on it right now, you just let me know when you — I’ll call tomorrow and check in. How about if I call tomorrow?

She almost said please Dad let me come now.

Then he said:

“The shah was arrested by one of his sons. Can’t remember why. Your mother Marj would probably know. Poor fellow spent his last days in prison. But they say he could see his wife’s crypt — the Taj Mahal that we know today — from his cell. He sounded like a disembodied docent. I think that’s why they call it ‘a tear of sorrow on the face of time.’ You see, it was his tear. But I’m just an old man and maybe everyone knows that.”

HE said he had to hang up. He felt nauseous, a searing pain in his arm and chest, he collapsed, just missing the table I am glad I missed the table on that one though nausea and pain didn’t abet. He grabbed the phone to call back his daughter but couldn’t read the numbers on the piece of paper with her name so dialed 911 and said he was having some kind of heart attack and they asked a few questions, why would they ask anything, why not just come, maybe they were already on their way while the woman was asking whatever she was, if he remembered correctly they knew where you were calling from even if you didn’t give your address, she finally did say they were sending someone out but kept talking and after a while Ray just listened thinking about what Joan had said, how she’d take care of everything, not such a bad deal, he wondered how she’d gotten so rich, maybe she was exaggerating to impress her old man, that kinda ran in the family, he was thinking he was rich too but didn’t have millions, didn’t have so much but was happy to have a daughter back in his life who could help with the place on the hill for his Gulper and Lionel, he hadn’t mentioned “Lionel” to Joan yet, that wasn’t so respectful, not telling her the child’s name, even a dead child should have a name and be referred to by it, he just couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud, Ray was thinking they should engrave Lionel with maybe a lion on the top and a little train on the bottom even though BG hadn’t exactly agreed to it, to Lionel, but he thought she was well on her way, she had never said no, he definitely didn’t want the child unnamed on the stone, you know, “Baby Rausch” or something like that, and as he waited for help he thought about the beach — did she say Malibu? how nice it would be to sit in the sand, the feel of it through your toes, been a long time, he always loved to plant himself in the sand, he particularly enjoyed those hidden covelike beaches north of Pepperdine though couldn’t help but wonder about Joan and the “millions,” she probably said it to please him in his hour of need so to speak, he knew enough to know that architects don’t get that rich or maybe they did but those were the ones with big companies and lots of people working for them and as far as he knew his Joanie wasn’t in that category, Ray thought maybe she had told him that because she pitied him, he could understand that, still, all that talk of a compound, she didn’t seem like the kind to lie so brazenly, she seemed sincere, genuine — he hadn’t the chance to tell her he was a modestly wealthy man himself, he had planned to, at the Dining Car, but wasn’t sure when that would even happen (they still needed to coordinate with Chesterfield), maybe that wasn’t really necessary, not now, just his pride talking, but he wanted her to know that her Daddy made good, had almost $500,000 in the bank and could pay his own way, wanted to, didn’t need his son or his daughter taking care of him, it was time for their father to take care of them, and he could, now that Ghulpa and the little one were gone, they were his own, his blood, it was his fault he had lost them, but now they were found, they were retrievable, maybe Big Gulp and the baby boy were still retrievable, he saw that report on television about the coast of India, now those were poor people, a 3rd of the folks in India survived on less than a dollar a day, that meant the whole population of the US surviving on less than a dollar a day, the government sterilized them, once a woman had a few kids, especially if she’d had a son, the government came along and offered to sterilize them for free and after the tsunami a lot of parents lost their kids, all their kids, and the government was doing sterilization reversals, reconnecting fallopian tubes, recanalizing so the poor women could conceive again, but it only worked 50 % of the time, maybe it would work with Ghulpa, maybe they hadn’t fallen through the manholes of Hell into the flood and could still be found, Joanie and Chesterfield had been found, had not drowned, hell there would always be secrets, he could never tell those kids why he left, that was something he didn’t fully comprehend himself, how a grown man could leave his kids like that, he could understand leaving the wife but not the kids, what would it be like to see Marjorie again, he was happy that she agreed to the family being reunited, still what would that be like, maybe he wouldn’t be able to do it, didn’t have the courage, he didn’t need to think about it so much now, leave it alone pain crackling through his arm ohhh it was good enough she agreed, then the thought came that he had no will, left no provisions other than the monies would go to Ghulpa and their Lionel, now he wanted the estate to revert to his son and daughter but would need to hold on long enough to make those changes, though maybe not, maybe Joan could just go to whomever and say they had reunited, and the courts would be able to prove kinship by reverse patrimonial DNA, just like in the Cold Case Files, don’t think about that, just listen for the sirens, hold on he threw up, not too much, then tried to cover it with newspaper, like a dog would, the Friar squealing and licking his face, he tried to tell him not to worry but Ray couldn’t speak, so many secrets, how could he have left them he didn’t know himself, something that would remain sub-rosa, a mystery more than a secret, there were other secrets, things he could never reveal: he never wanted Joanie to know how only a few hours earlier he found something Ghulpa printed out from the Internet months before: How to Plan an 800 dollar Funeral, he knew it was meant for him, for Ray, nothing malicious, merely the Indian in her pragmatically researching the inevitable — the next heart attack that one day would floor him, with or without SWAT-flattened doors:

Plan Ahead, Know your rights, Shop around, Avoid a big-ticket urn and columbarium, Create your own memorial, Donate to Science, Saying goodbye

God bless! The 800 dollar funeral, why not? — she was saving everything for the kid, the Lionelhearted boy, and knew he would want the very same—

now he was at the door, he’d crawled to it, a blond man on the other side said, “Sir? Sir? Are you there? Are you in there?” Through thin curtains, Ray saw the group in uniform, huddling amongst themselves with fish and tackle boxes, peering in. He vomited. “He’s there! On the floor!” the door broke and they rushed him with all kinds of gear and IV wetbags and needles and thread: he thought of that day when he first met Ghulpa at pier’s end: water stretching out, infinitesimal expanse, fishing rods buckets and smell of bait.

They put a spike in him, so kind and methodical, the blond bent over and said

No engulfment. No tearing asunder. What you feared would come like an explosion is a whisper. Have you seen that episode too? Ray asked.

relax. Relax oldtimer. You’re gonna be fine. Clean him up. Clean his chin. Can you breathe? Got a good airway. Nothing in there. OK oldtimer Clean him up All around there were holes in the ceiling of the tenement with light pouring in

because there is no sin. The guru said we suffer needlessly from shame and guilt that stem from bad actions but we also suffer pride and arrogance from good actions. Likewise, what happens to us is not personal, but the result of Cosmic Law. We are as sandcastles, elaborately carved yet destroyed by children at the end of a summer’s day — swallowed up whence we came.

The root of guru was Sanskrit: Gu meant darkness, Ru meant light. Pain being from the Latin poena: punishment.

The more he listened, the more Chess felt at ease. Ramesh said events happen, deeds are done, but there is no individual doer of the deed. These are the words of the Buddha. Enlightenment is nothing but the removal of suffering, not of pain — we live in a world of pain and pleasure. We live in a world of duality but must not rest in dualism. To be enlightened is like climbing a ladder or racing up the spiral staircase to get to these rooms: until one reached the final step, one was not there, one did not know how much longer it would take, or what the rooms would look like once one arrived. The strange thing is that enlightenment looks much the same; the only change is perception.

They ended satsang with a prayer.

Give me only one boon, my Lord: May I never forget that Your will alone prevails. I will joyfully sing of Your glorious deeds. Give me the association of people who have total trust in You. I don’t care for Liberation, fame, or fortune. Tukaram says: If you don’t want Enlightenment to happen in this body, let it not happen, my Lord — I don’t care.

THEY stayed with Ramesh for 10 days.

They ate boondi laddoos and coconut burfi to celebrate Lord Ganesha and his sister Laxmi, washing down pumpkin-colored jalebi with cups of chai.

Laxmi (the mortal one) wanted to remain in Bombay, she didn’t know for how long, and Chess was fine with that but said he was going to move on. He gave her some money. 90 % of the settlement was in a bank in the States. When he had a little more energy, he was determined to remove the entire sum and open an account here in India, if legally possible; he hadn’t looked into it yet. He should have done that before they left but it was too much of a megillah. Maybe he would open an account in Canada or the UK or Frankfurt or Switzerland. Anywhere but the States. (Plus, he didn’t like the idea of being traced through financial records.) America was dead to him. America was a country where people went on eBay to buy vintage Hot Wheels for a hundred-thousand dollars, and performed cunnilingus on 7 month old babies in private, peer-to-peer file-sharing chatrooms. America was a place that spent $35,000,000,000 a year to lock up one out of every 138 citizens. The guru’s concepts and words made him less paranoid but there still existed a part of him that worried his friend might awaken and snitch him off. He would then be sought after by authorities, and the IRS would garnish his accounts, whether related to the student loan, Maurie Levin, or some other specious investigation/prosecution. Maybe he’d renounce his citizenship, but Chess needed to make certain such an act wouldn’t send up any flags. He would have to get his money out of there first. (Renouncing was probably a little dramatic.) For now, he considered himself retired. Gone fishin. The Scout is out!

Laxmi wasn’t ready to visit her father in Pune yet anyhow, and Chess wasn’t surprised. All good, he said. Truth being, he wanted to be alone, travel alone, the guru had bestowed the gift of propulsion and velocity, he wanted to set out by himself — like a proper man. The man he’d never had the chance to become. As had the itinerant mystic-poets, he would visit Ramana Maharshi’s 7-storied mountain (itself said to be a great guru), and go to Benares, 35-hundred year old nexus of death and rebirth. Hadn’t he come as a pilgrim? He even thought of acquiring a begging bowl. Chess knew he might not have come up with the idea if it weren’t for the security his settlement provided (plus he still had a hundred Oxy and 200 1-mg Klonopin; he was still too kultur-shocked to feel the FNF-induced pain full-bore. He heard you could get morphine tabs in Calcutta, which meant probably anywhere, and that Indian smack was rad. Opium was legal but supposedly hard to get your hands on, whatever with that, but the farmers were fucking licensed. Opium was the opium of the masses. Ha ha, who said that) but chose not to judge himself or his real/imagined cowardice, he had made a career out of that, he was casting off, on a new journey, look at him, look where he was, look where he’d been a few months ago, weeks ago, money probably wasn’t required, not in the end, wouldn’t be in the end, maybe the settlement would be abandoned, dormant in his account until turned over to some State Comptroller, maybe he would become a beggar, and that was what his teacher Time and Her daughter Space had wished for him all along.

Laxmi wanted to take the motorboat Elephanta Island (not far from her guru’s) but Chess thought it too touristy, he didn’t say as much, who was he to judge or throw cold water — let her go see the cave temples dedicated to Siva, he didn’t need to, hadn’t he already been privileged to serve as waterboy to the imperial army? Mascot to the gods! He had run with them like that boy in the Kipling story his father used to read to him at bedtime — clung in terrified ecstasy to hairy leathered backs while charging dark wet jungle Mysterium…

No, he’d hit the ashram of Sri Aurobindo at Pondicherry on the Coromandel Coast instead, where lay the grave of a woman called the Mother. A caffeine-swilling seeker mentioned having recently been, it came up in conversation during morning tea shared before satsang, a Down Under girl said something about “the Mother,” and Chester thought of his own. He wanted to honor Marj, she who brought him into this world, she to whom he’d never said a real goodbye, she whose sand was now being roughed up and returned to the Source — he wanted to honor Marjorie that way — a kind and right thing, an auspicious way to begin his real travels. She gave him a birthday card last year that said, “You don’t remember, but I’ll never forget the 1st time I saw you.” Though the ashram was in Tamil Nadu, the Tsunami hadn’t affected the city; an old seawall spared it. The Australian said that water buffalo roamed the streets. You could eat cheap and stay in an amazing 19th century sanitorium for $6 a night, rooms overlooking the Bay of Bengal, snakebirds and drongos circling overhead, and at temple the trilingual elephants (responding to English, Hindi, and Malayalam commands) blessed you with their trunks. I have already been blessed. Though I must take care to be unprideful — I must not suffer from that sin of sins. Still, it is true I have heard their sacred song, their supernatural call to battle. I have already been dusted by the earth that shakes from the stomping of columnar legs. I have had satsang and sadhana with All Who Matters: She Who Is So Righteously Guarded whispered to me there is No-Thing to guard. And yet, because, because She shared this, I must not swell with pride. For I am no sadhu…

They made love then he gathered his things.

She cried as he left but Chester said he would see her soon, on the wigged-out beaches of Goa, the ash-rammed shit- and blood-strewn alleys of Benares, the cubensic deserts of Rajasthan, in the dreammachines of Agra. (She said, “Why Agra?”—he thought she’d said something else.) He wanted to scope out Bodh Gaya and Calcutta then join the reunion with Laxmi’s Father in Pune. He knew none of this would happen. Best for her to press on alone, there was something to be said about the gravitas of aloneness, the aloneness America knew was brummagem, it was loneliness, aloneness of comfort and convenience, prideful, convenience store pride, and prejudice, no, now they would seek True Aloneness, not that of hedonists or ascetics, but Aloneness before the eyes of God. Best for her soul to be without him on this journey, he got her this far, she’d gotten Chess further, in her own way, both had done as much as they could for one another.

They would do for themselves, now — in solitaire.

That was how it should be.

He laughed out loud: “My Favorite Weekend”! I should dash something off and fax it to the Times …“I like having satsang with an avatar, after devotions to Durga. Then my girlfriend and I crap in a hole and

He was done with little mind-goofs. His goofs had ended with Maur

He walked until dusk

On a vast boulevard of whores where women stood before flimsy curtains and he thought of his camera, what an incredible location, I am a location scout still (Ramesh said that on their deathbeds, even holymen responded to their birthnames), but now I am scouting for Her, and for Time and Space. I am one of Her soldiers and mascots, waterboy in Her imperial army. He asked a passerby, a tourist, for money, and they smiled like they didn’t understand or pretended not to, maybe he wasn’t making sense, maybe he had only imagined he was talking but was really just thinking. He swallowed 3 Oxys. The sky darkened and the inkiness of the bay became like an unruly crowd and he began to beg in front of the Taj Mahal Palace and Towers Hotel but was shooed away and as he strolled toward the Gate of India he asked everyone he encountered, man, woman, or beggarchild for money, asked the beggars themselves! some of whom laughed and some got angry, that is what the guru said to expect, not from begging, but from the world and its dualism: laughter and anger, horror and joy, deformity and pulchritude, barrenness and fertility, poverty and wealth. Chester made certain to ask the poorest of the poor, the most diseased of the diseased, the most indecently scarified, made sure to ask each BardoBeing for cash because what difference did it make, all he had was Time, everything an ocean of time and space, all Hers, did not the beggars share those same radiant choppy waters? were they not created by his teacher? and if they had forgotten and washed ashore would they not return? If only everyone, both prosperous and needy, could see—from the dumb pisspoor park of the Gate of India, Chess saw — Elephanta Island and flickery boats in the harbor, and thought i will ask for money with my begging bowl, on the way to see the Mother. i have no shame nor have i pride. i am grateful. and if it is not Your plan to let Enlightenment happen to this body, let it not happen, O Lord! i am but a pilgrim He thought again of the mushrooms and remembered being brought to his knees, inadvertent posture of prayer in that small desert motel, watching intricate woof of carpet when there was none, head down, as if in a great basilica (which he was), this happened near the end of his cubensis journey, end of time with plant and planet, of voluntary conscription in Her army, divine enraptured bugle boy, end of time with Her as overseer, now he was drafted, a careering soldier, and in careening desert recalled these very words: if at least i find myself in the cathedral, i shall be honored. if in the end i am beggar or pilgrim on my knees and that is all, then i shall be honored. honored and grateful and moved. if at the end i am beggar among beggars in this cathedral, then that will surely be enough. how can i ask for more? how moved i will be. for She has said there is nothing to join nor is there anything to guard or protect, there is No-Thing

to take a number at the Hilton. Thousands of people: Barbet and Joan were #’s 2,178 and 2,179. But the feeling was all flowers and love, that old hippie feeling, rose oil and canyon good vibes run amok, and besides, it would take a shitload to bring her down, she was so fucking rich. Barbet held her close and she didn’t feel alone. You really need a hug, huh, he said. You need a hug from God. And you’re gonna get one.

He was funny, her Barbet.

A man in front of them reminded her (physically) of the Nicobar Islander on the Tsunami anniversary show who said the earth balanced on a colossal tree that could be jolted by spirits and that bad spirits were at the tree trunk trying to hurt people and good spirits were trying to save them. She thought of Lew and the branch-hanged Esther, and Samuel’s lost skeleton, and kept wondering if Andy Goldsworthy was going to do something like the piece he did in Tatton Park, a sheet of ice stuck between the bole of a Haw-thorn bisected by lightning. Ol AG had a lot of tricks up his sleeve.

She wondered what Calatrava was—

Barbet said they should have brought the pillow that Cora gave her mom. That way, they could’ve charged money for people who wanted hugs but didn’t feel like waiting on line. Then he said, “Oh, by the way, Calatrava’s out, Ando is in.” “Ando?” “Tadao Ando. What can I say. What’d I fucking tell you? The Birdman of Alcalatrava has flown. It’s like Russian roulette. Russian River roulette! Seems our friend Freiberg — isn’t that like My Friend Flicka? — ran into Tom Ford and Richard Buckley. Went to see the pied-à-soleil in New Mexico, with the indoor underground swimming pool? Got all hot and bothered. Ah so. So solly for Mr Ando. Tadao now have to deal with body of Jew woman hanging in bonsai tree! Maybe Tadao shrink bones. That way Jew Lady fit in bonsai tree. Tadao then stick Jew Lady and bonsai tree in stone alaah to honor Brentwood Country Mart Buddhism. Andy Goldsworthy make stone snake leading to dhau tree. Mr Goldsworthy make ness of dhau thorns, antlers and ice. Mr Goldsworthy make look like Spiral Jetty. Mr Goldsworthy make Eliot Ness.”

Joan said Ando would probably do something origami-like, in homage to Esther’s Eastern flirtations — like that black steel shop he did in Tokyo, hhstyle.com/casa.

Then she said that standing in line—and since when do you say “on line,” Barbet? What are you, suddenly from New York? — was like waiting to go on the Matterhorn.

“The Matterhorn’s been closed for, like 10 years!”

“OK, then Magic Mountain.”

“Also closed.”

She swayed gently into him, like a docking buoy against a pier. She emptied her mind then let it go where it would. Joan had looked at a house in Zuma that was gorgeous, 3½ acres smack on the coast. She wondered if it might be too cold for her mother. Plenty of room to build, which was nice. She could design something fun. Everything had been set in motion to create the Marjorie Herlihy Giving Foundation. Joan wasn’t sure exactly what charitable function it would perform but knew she wanted to do something major in India. For as long as she could recall, Marj had this thing to alleviate misery — it was never too late, as Barbet aptly reminded. Joan was in touch with Pradeep, in Delhi; he was brimming with ideas. She would travel there, maybe a year or so after having the baby, see that part of the world for herself. Who knew? Maybe Mom would be in better shape by then and be able to go along. One day, Joan would pour her mother’s cremains into the Ganges at Varanasi. It was the one wish that Marjorie had actually handwritten, in the margin of a travel book, before things went south.

2 in the morning, and they finally closed in on Amma. She was hugging people one after another, the stage garlanded with flowers, and all the time they’d been there — around 5 hours — Amma hadn’t left once, not to use the bathroom, not for anything, at least not that Joan was aware of, she hadn’t even seen the woman drink a glass of water. Maybe she was a saint. Barbet said Amma was in a trance, her bodily needs “in suspension.” The nearer they got, the more serious he became, as if to make up for earlier, sinister tomfoolery.

Why was she thinking of Sheryl Crow. She saw the ad, the got milk? ad. Please be all right. Please be in remission. She sent a prayer to Sheryl Crow please be all right. The ad said Milk Your Diet/Lose Weight! oh God. To keep the crowd on their feet, I keep my body in tune…rock hard. Oh

Attendants stood by. They told Barbet to remove his glasses for the imminent hug, handing both of them baby-wipes. The couple was asked to wash the sides of their faces that would touch Amma’s cheek. Joan was surprised to note that her heart was speeding up. The attendants helped them onstage; Barbet preceded her. Joan saw him kneel and then the holy woman embraced him. Amma whispered something in his ear. Then it was Joan’s turn. Her eyes filled with water. As they hugged, the saint whispered, “My daughter, my daughter, my daughter. Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes. Yes. Yes,” and then someone led Joan off as if in a dream as

Marj held the pillow close while it vibrated. She had a yeast infection and was catheterized but felt no pain. Cora had been to see her and thought, At least there isn’t that smell. The neighbor spoke of the pending trip with her daughter to the Taj Mahal but all Marjorie could think of was the Blind Sisters traveling together, holding hands in a row, linked like holy mendicants, all she could see was the Shadow Taj, the black one meant to be Hamilton’s crypt but abandoned when the Raja was imprisoned by his own son.

They called it the shadow monument—

Monument to the shadow drawings of the Blind Sisters…

SHE was looking for the elephant’s ballroom. The man in a turban and beautiful coat said, “Young lady, I’ve worked at this hotel for nearly 40 years and never seen that place myself!”

He stroked his bushy meesha, working his teeth with an ivory toothpick.

“But it is here,” she said, “my father will tell you!”

— so delighted to see Dad again. He looked ruddy and fit and wore tortoiseshell spectacles. She grinned at the familiar tiny beads of perspiration on his upper lip; she’d forgotten about those.

He said my little one, the monsoon is coming, and how lucky they were to be in the Presidential Suite, on an upper floor. But she wanted to know what would happen to all the poor people. She was quite concerned. Won’t they have peonies? Don’t you worry, he said dotingly, we’ll make certain none of them drown — to be sure! — and are fed proper meals, with dessert too. Marjorie asked about the ballroom and he said it was most likely underwater by now because it was somewhere beneath ground floor, no one really knew (she suppressed tears and he touched her cheek reassuringly), not to worry! the elephants could fend for themselves — and besides, the whole herd would be rescuing people, that was their job, plucking those who fell through manholes and such, sucked into the ballroom, why they’d snatch them like fish from a net, each and every one. He saw that her mood wasn’t exactly brightening so he added that ballroom water was special so that people could breathe until “our very long-nosed friends” came to their aid. But what about the dance? she asked. He laughed, lifting her in his arms. Little one, little mahout, don’t you worry. The elephants love to dance! They won’t let a thing like a silly monsoon spoil their fun. Now I said don’t you worry, Marjorie Morningstar

He dried her eyes till they shone again.

As they climbed the stairs — black marble — sumptuously costumed guests and impeccably mannered staff passed by, the latter bearing luggage and parasols and giftboxes and elaborate trays of spices and foodstuff. The water submerged the lobby and she realized her father’s words about the ballroom already being underwater were probably true. That made her sad but she tried to remember you could breathe in it and that the elephants were busy on their rescue missions. Still, she looked down from his arms at the rising tide and he saw she was afraid and said, “Joanie!”

Why is he calling me that?

“We’ll be safe, little one — safe and dry!”

Marj said she was worried about the elephants and he said don’t you dare. They protect, that is their job, that is their role in this world. That is Ganesha! They know how to take care of us. So stop your crying Miss Morningstar. You don’t want those tears to add to all the water around here, do you? Now that will make things harder for our long-nosed friends.

She nodded, closing her eyes as they ascended: up and up the spiral staircase through the inordinate, comforting bustle, she could hear the excitement of guests from the warm perch of her father’s arms, hear the rushing of water too but knew that he was right, the magnificent Taj Mahal Palace and its brigade of turban’d Ganeshas could never, ever let anything happen to them…a lifetime of climbing until they reached the capacious suite where food was laid out on silver platters. Perfumed lodgers from other rooms, some of whom were countesses draped in pearls, kundan and ariya, joined Maharajahs in breastplates and tunics bearing insignias of their various kingdoms, the royalty mingling while servants came and went, aristocratic children underfoot as well, stunning-looking well-mannered boys and girls her age; the girls with noses pierced by 22 karat gold. A Nizam and his retinue rose to greet her father who afterall was an extremely popular man, Marjorie’s mother was there too, she struggled from Papa’s arms to get to her, he set his wriggling daughter down but before she could make any headway the moppets ferried her aside to inform in hoarse whispers: The elephants are dancing tonight! After they rescue the last of the drowning people, they are going to dance! This is what the children told her. There was another ballroom, here, not in the basement as her father had said, but here, on higher ground! And off they went to

the headstone. Ray’s girlfriend was to be buried in Calcutta, come hell or high water — that was what Joan gathered from the industrious diligently sweethearted women he always called “the cousins,” one of whom it turned out was actually the dead woman’s sister.

Joan told them her father said Ghulpa wished to be buried here in the States, at Forest Lawn, in a plot already purchased, and that was when the Artesian brood confided there were “difficulties”—that the “spousal relation” was not “sanctified,” that the deceased was in fact not a legal resident. Joan understood.

She asked nothing more.

THERE were a host of stones to choose from.

“Do I have to pick it now?”

“No, no! This is just a selection.”

“Could something — can something be built? I mean, a design of some sort?”

“Do you mean a mausoleum?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure. I’m an architect…”

The woman smelled money.

“That depends on the amount of space you purchase. I can check in the particular area your father—”

“No, it’s all right.”

“In terms of ‘design,’ did you mean a photo?”

Joan was uncomprehending.

“There is a wonderful technology that allows us to etch a photographed image of the loved one into the surface of the stone.”

“I see. OK. Let me think about all that.”

“Take your time! And, of course, we’ll eventually need to know what you’d like to put on the stone.”

“On the stone?”

“In memoriam. Usually the simplest is best. ‘Less is more.’ You know, we actually had that epitaph. The man’s name was Les and the family wrote, ‘Les Is More.’ Quite clever. But you can do, well, anything that space allows. It could be a poem. Or a thought.”

“Oh — right! When do you need to know by?”

“Absolutely no hurry. The stone can be put down without a legend and engraved at a future time. Heavens, we have people think about it for years.”

On her way out, the words slowly surfaced—

Full fathom five thy father lies; of his bones are coral made; those are pearls that were his eyes. But doth suffer a sea change into something rich and strange.

— so beautiful but seemingly too fancified for the man she’d only begun to know.

Then, opening the car door, it came: the most perfect memorial she could imagine.

Joan rushed back to the office so she wouldn’t lose the courage. She wrote it for the caretaker:

RAYMOND RAUSCH

1930–2006

Father

There are some things Joan would never know, just as there is much in and of the world that can never be known, but the things that would remain unrevealed, were, in the scheme of mysterious gifts which had been tardily gathered, rather small.

As an example, she would never learn that the woman who abandoned this earth with Ray’s dead child — Joan’s sibling — had once worked as Pradeep’s nanny, and had fled, not through unhappiness, not entirely, but because it had been her fate, unlikely as most fates are, to meet a kind old man at the end of a pier one blustery Santa Monica day, an old man who would love and be lionized by her, who would live to see her death before he himself departed for other realms.

Joan had Friar Tuck in the car while driving to Cora’s to give the faithful woman a small keepsake of her mom’s. (A copper Buddha.) She thought it a tidy plan to adopt Raymond’s pet but had been bitten and was having 2nd thoughts; he cowered and low-growled, soaking the backseat towel in urine. When she arrived, Nip jumped from the open window and rushed to the neighbor’s new King Charles, given to her by Stein, her thoughtful Steinie, and the pair sniffed and shimmied and licked each other as if lifelong friends. Cora gave a hug then squinted downward, asking how far along Joan was. She stood back and blinked, but not at Joan’s tummy: it was something in the off-kilter gait of her 4-footed friend…Wasn’t this the terrier who costarred with Mr P on the Whisperer show?

The 2 had a moment of dissonance.

Cora explained how she knew this creature, she had met the Friar — hadn’t she? Didn’t they call him “Nip”?—Yes! said Joan — who’d been shot — hadn’t he been shot by the police? — Yes — well she had met Nip and his lovely owner, many times, a gemütlich old gentleman with an Indian companion who rarely left his side. They realized (not fully, though, not yet, and would never really be able to compass it) the astonishing coincidence of it all.

Joan asked if she could come in.

They went to the living room, where, over coffeecake and lattes, she told Cora everything. The dogs sat obediently, as if listening to a bedtime story.

“What a strange life this is!” said Cora, in one of the few genuine instances she would ever have such a complexly simple thought. “My, my, that is a different dog, that Friar! I remember him when he was freshly wounded—I was in the waiting room with Mr P, right on Sepulveda, your dad was there with his ladyfriend. A very pretty woman, in one of those colorful — what do they call them? — saris. But oh, he’s quite a different dog now!”

On cue, Friar Tuck trotted over to lick her hands and face with abandon. The Princess wasn’t far behind (Cora said she had to maintain the tradition of the Ps) — then did the exact same to Joan, as if in goodbye. Again the women laughed, to keep from crying.

“Would you mind if I kept him?” said Cora. “He is a delight. And look how they get along! See how protective he is of my Princess? Besides, my grandkids think Mr Friar Tuck is cool (they call him ‘5 °Cents,’ I’m not sure where that started). I know it sounds awful, but they see him as a ‘gangster’!”

Joan said that would be quite wonderful, suddenly feeling a mild yet fleeting horror over her secret fantasy of having Nip euthanized. She’d gotten the idea from an article in People called “The Angel of ‘Doggy Deathrow.’ ”

“But Cora — if you change your mind, any time, that’s just fine. If he gets out of hand in any way, or for any reason…”

“Don’t you worry, he’ll be perfect. We’re old friends! Aren’t we, Friar? Aren’t we, Mr 5 °Cents? My little Princess needs a companion — she’s been chasing her tail something fierce, and I had the feeling it’s from being lonesome. I’ve been thinking, Oh! I don’t want to have to call that Dog Whisperer again! He’s got far more troubled creatures to deal with!”

Joan gave her the figurine and invited her to the beach house, where they were still settling in. It was important Marj see her old friend.

“You better come visit,” she said, wagging a finger. “I don’t want Mom ‘chasing her tail.’ ”

“I love the beach — my grandkids too.”

“They’re more than welcome, any time.”

“You might regret saying that — you’re going to beat us away with a stick! I’ll bring the sunblock!” she said cheerily.

Joan was glad.

“What will you call her?”

She was nonplussed.

“The little one?” said Cora, nodding at Joan’s belly.

“Well, I don’t know if it’s going to be a girl.”

“Of course it will! Marj would love another girl. What will you call her?”

“I’ve been thinking about Aurora.”

“Rory!” said her hostess, with sparkling amiability.

It was odd, but Joan knew right away it was true — she would have a girl — and she’d always loved that name. Something about those magical Northern Lights (Pradeep once promised to fly them to Alaska for “front row seats”), the evanescent curtain, the rollicking name itself, which spoke inexplicably to her of the Old West and the Midwest too, of Rory Calhoun and Annie Oakley, whoever they were, her dream of who they were, but the lights, it was the lights she remembered, in National Geographic photos, drawings, or children’s book paintings, wonderful fireworked love-letters to our fleeting time on this beautiful world.

THERE was one detail that Cora always thought to reveal during subsequent visits to sandy Point Dume, but always, in the excitement and fussing over Marj, managed to forget.

Friar Tuck had tunneled under the fence that separated her home from Marj’s. Joan was going to sell the property but it wasn’t a priority; only the concrete foundation remained, barely visible, the earth around it wild and weedsprung. At night, the dog would pass through the hole — Stein kept filling it up, to no avail — and fall asleep where Marj’s bedroom used to be. It was the queerest thing. But he wasn’t doing any harm, and as long as her little Princess didn’t follow (she didn’t seem to have the inclination), well, after a while, Cora just thought to let the Friar be. He always came home, early in the morning, sweet-tempered as ever, but not before making a somehow poignant effort to kick clods of dirt to close the gap, as if shutting the phantom domicile’s door for at least another day. Sometimes, in fits of insomnia, and when it was warm enough, Cora looked over from her backyard — there he’d be, bathed in moonlight, in the exact same part of that now invisible house, as if at the foot of the old woman’s bed, sound asleep, like a clerk at a country inn.

The Friar repeated his routine until the lot was finally sold. From then on he no longer roamed, becoming closer to Cora in many ways than even her Princess, whom she still delighted in telling everyone that she loved “more than life.”

E N D

Bombay/Mexico City/Los Angeles, 2006