The Empty Chair

~ ~ ~

*Passionate love of God

The following interview took place in October 2005 and was redacted in the summer of 2013.

How does a story begin?

With the simplicity of situating it in time — anyhow, that’s one way…

Very well: it wasn’t too long ago, in the fall of 1997. I was living in Manhattan in a triplex penthouse overlooking Central Park, on 110th Street. My humble abode came complete with ballroom, landscaped terraces (one with infinity pool) and a small orchard guarded by a rooftop of gargoyles I’d become quite intimate with, having become one myself. The property belonged to my grandfather — or rather, his investment firm — rumor being it was once in the hands of a shadowy Jewish cabal of financial consultants to the Vatican. I was 47 years old and going through the mother of all depressions. I’d been out to sea too long and washed up on impotent shores. In my youth, I was a voraciously curious girl, an exotic wild child who cut a swath through all manner of New Age modalities. At the time, my mind/body explorations were thorough enough to have banished the need (or desire) to learn anything more. It was my modest opinion that I’d achieved a hard-fought measure of wisdom. Unfortunately, the moment such a thing is impetuously declaimed in one’s youth, even sotto voce, one acquires a nasty virus which lays dormant until awakened by the cue of that sometimes-fatal season, middle age.

I never thought I’d need access to that bewitching witch doctor world again. But there I was, all grown up and fighting for my life. It was heal thyself redux. I plugged in to the corporatized, kickass machine of Self-Help America, encompassing every spiritual, homeopathic, energetic practice known to man, goddess and horse (cf. equine holistic healing): magnetic therapy, tantric breath work, biofeedback, EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, marathon meditating, fungal scanning, sweat lodging, Adderall XR, Feldenkrais, Tensegrity, DBT, DMT, colloidal silver, craniosacral/chakra detox, Roman Catholicism, Reiki, Kabala and cancer-sniffing dogs, liposuction, ayahuasca, Watsu, What-The-Fuck, Qigong (it’s been good to know you), polarity, ibogaine, candidal querying, Munay-Ki, angel therapy, singing bowls, flushing bowels, benzos and botulinum rejuvenation, Lyme disease dousing, karma purification, cheap Thai massage, Third Eye vortexing, Lamictal, SSRIs, Christian Wholistics, Christian Louboutin, GABA, MDMA, AA, heroin, hypnotherapy, hysterectomy—

Then I ran out of time… or time ran out on me.

Yes, that’s better.

I was jilted by Time.

It was with more than a little fear that I realized help was definitely not on the way. I confined myself to quarters, false messiahs having dwindled to hormone replacement therapy, 450 milligrams of Wellbutrin q.d. and a hundred mgs of Seroquel, PRN.

I read all the books on depression and came to the disgruntled conclusion they were just another venal publishing cycle perennial, always given a clever “fall release” (to capitalize on those legions with SAD — Seasonal Affective Disorder) and gussied up in literary clothing — when the smarmy truth of it is that “blues porn” found its way to the shelves and talkshows with the same calculated predictability as addiction memoirs and diet books. And why shouldn’t it be so? Why did I think the genre was sacrosanct? Still, it rankled. The quality of blues porn always fell so far off the mark. Styron was the pioneer—Darkness Visible became the gold standard and I didn’t like his book, either. The depression mavens just couldn’t be trusted. It was my opinion that what the monks called “the noonday demon” was best served by my own customized definition:

de·pres·sion: a feverish oscillation between sorrow and remorse, simultaneously inducing grisly numbness and the too-real sensation one is hurtling into the abyss.

It was a melancholy Monday.

I was doing my daily exercises, panting on the treadmill of obliteration fantasies that kept me sane. These included selecting which of the twelve terraces would be the one I chose to leap from after lunch. To keep myself interested, I pictured exactly how I’d make that jump, and what my body would be doing during the fall. In my imaginings, it might take the form of a clean corkscrew, belly flop or spectacular swan. Inspiration struck when least expected. My head would rummage around and surprise me with a long-forgotten defenestration from Pasolini’s Salò—the piano player, having seen enough perversion and murder, steps off the balustrade with the eerie sangfroid of a maid dusting a sofa. I imagined one of my housekeepers catching (or not catching) my fall from the corner of her eye and promptly fainting. I saw myself flailing, a silent film of windmilling arms, gravity rushing me into the Lord of Pavement’s arms. These musings never failed to mischievously include a horrified gallery of sidewalk gawkers, some of whom impossibly watched my leap from its very beginning, and others whose heads whipped ’round at the explosion of metal, glass and bone-spray.

The comic relief provided by those arpeggios didn’t last very long. I’d surface to the pitiless present fast enough to get the soulsick bends, a rotten cork bobbing on dead calm domestic seas, mocked by the distant hum of vacuuming armies… I wouldn’t really surface, though, not entirely. I felt like a spelunker. Let me be more specific. Think of yourself as a spelunker — join me in my nightmare, won’t you? One who scubas through uncharted cave waters. Cave divers, they call them. You’re running low on oxygen — perilously low — you’re not sure how that happened, but there it is. A bad valve in the tank or a bad whatever. And when you realize this, you’ve been swimming for a quarter of a mile. Some of these caves are completely sealed off from each other, the only way they’re linked is by common waterway… and let’s say you already swam a quarter of a mile to get from one to the other, there’s no in-between, only an implacably hard ceiling of lava above your head. You’re running out of air and on the way back to your point of origin when your lights fail, even your back-up lights, a perfect-storm kind of thing. A perfect shitstorm. You try to get your bearings. You think you’re still heading back to that initial manhole that you lowered yourself from at the beginning of your little adrenaline-junkie adventure. You were supposed to come with a friend but they bailed because their kid got sick. You decided to go anyway. You didn’t tell them because you knew they would think that was a bonehead move and would just try to talk you out of it. So today, you’re extra careful about your prep: you’ve checked and double-checked the equipage. And everything was going so well but now you’re running out of air and there are no lights and the water’s dark as a moonless midnight. There’s no way to surface — nothing to do but go along laterally until the tube ends. You marshal your energy and say: Okay. This is shitty but I can do this. You really believe you’re swimming toward where you started but can’t be sure anymore. One of your feet feels funny and you reach back — you’ve lost a fin. Not good. You acknowledge a devilish voice that tells you you’re righteously fucked, but because you’re a pro — you’ve been doing this for 20 years, been in touchy situations before and always gotten out — whatever panic that arises is quickly tamped down by a reflexive athlete-warrior’s confidence that soon you’ll be out. Soon be savoring late afternoon sights, sounds and smells, throwing your gear into the backseat and talking with friends over wine and dinner about the already-legendary anecdotal hairiness of the day. Laughing about it… You see something faintly illuminated — a hole? phosphorescent lichen? — something in the distance that you jerk-flutter toward with your one fin. You understand it’s not your destination but right now you’re a pilot who needs to land, you need a runway, a clearing, anywhere, before the wings and wheels come off completely. You close in… it is a hole! You break surface. Remove the mouthpiece and inhale deep, germy draughts, a literal second wind — and with horror realize you’ve merely exchanged one darkness for another — darkness visible! That creepy, slamming doomsday sensation as the eyes adjust: it’s only an air pocket. By habit, you put the mouthpiece back in so you can get the hell out of there then remember the tank’s kaput. Done. You’re done. By perfect satanic design, the short-lived promise of escape — and sweet familiarity of breathing uncylindered air — jumpstarted your adrenaline, heightened your faculties. The full understanding of your predicament comes with nauseating certainty: sealed off. Your head just above water, elbows resting on the hole’s rocky rim to more or less comfortably keep it there — the rest of you wading in the grave. Now the other fin drops off too… finito. Somewhere into the void. That fin is lucky, you think. That fin is already dead, was never alive, and now, at least, is free. A moment of panic before instinct forces you to arch back your neck to create more space between you and the low ceiling of the pocket. Instinct requires the organism to seek more space or the illusion of more space. Heart hammering as your brain fritzes in the effort to solve an insoluble problem, instinct/habit makes you grab that useless mouthpiece again. You even keep it in your mouth a moment, as if to give yourself “distance” to help gather your wits. Sadly, there is no instinct that cleaves to the extinction of the entity it protects, no natural cyanidal impulse that shuts down systems in the face of certain annihilation, to allow one an easy (easier) death — no. (None of it is easy.) Only that relentless, dumb, primal imperative to save the organism at all costs, brain ordering neck to lean back on the fatal pillow of a slurried shelf, a brief truce before you drown. Nature has thoughtfully—so thoughtful—provided a small comfort cushion for your head on the available silt, an ergonomic bolster that instinct kindly arranges for you to make use of on your deathbed… nature and instinct, working together! The irony! Because at its terminus, the organism supercharges the integrity of its mandate: to survive at all cost (including death), to keep eyes and nose above the water until the end. Just doing its job… as when, with lightning speed, the animal — you — assayed the pocket’s height to be 14 inches and change, a sidebar left brain measurement made in the instant after you first exuberantly, accidentally smacked the top of the cryptspace with your skull. Unforgiving, non-negotiable instinct then bid you retreat and regroup. Come: lay your head on this silty pillow to sort things out. Come stay awhile. One never knows how one will behave at the end but this ending is so hopeless, so monumentally lonesome and grotesque that it comes as a shock that you’re still capable of logical thinking. Soon, you reason, hypoxia (and the attendant) hallucinations will put an end to my suffering. Not only is this true but its wise reiteration has the effect of soothing the panicked organism. (It was instinct that orchestrated that thought in the first place — instinct needs the organism to be calm because panic is the harbinger of erasure.) Resting on your sad pillow, waiting for your buddy-system pal hypoxia, you remember seeing a documentary about a man who survived falling overboard in a storm-tossed sea. He said there was a point when every cell in his body told him to let go… you draw succor from his words, and await such a directive. In your vertical, phone booth — like coffin, you berate yourself for having foolishly dived alone but self-recrimination is soon replaced by thoughts of your husband, your baby, a trip you once took to Poland and other random things, then wonder how long it will take to find your body or if it ever would be found and for some reason the idea of never being found makes you yelp like a dog accidentally stepped on by a party guest, nothing more pitiful than a human yelp, this one has a gasp thrown in and the yelp-gasp robs most of the remaining air, hastening your end—no! You get a fourth, an eighth, an eleventh wind! Instinct won’t let go — won’t let you go — yanking you to full awareness again. It slaps your cheeks and wants you alert, still wanting to save your life! Like the old joke about the patient dying but the operation being a success. Again, instinct arches your neck and bids you rest your head on the pillow. Instinct rallies, like a drowsy fly on a corpse. Instinct stage-whispers: Hey! aren’t you wondering where the light is coming from? From the beginning, a pathetic amount of light lit up the pocket, “lit” too strong a word, still, enough to draw you toward it from the waterway, to your phone booth grave, because the nearly invisible alteration in color — from below, it was a dime-sized deep grayness amid the black — was enough to catch your reptilian eye. It’s the end of the play; in the middle of your big death scene, instinct keeps interrupting from the wings, telling you — politely asking—to please make an effort or at least consider making an effort to dig or even think your way toward wherever that light is emanating. But your brain understands the feeble radiance is seeping from microscopic fissures in the rock. The brain overrules instinct’s clownish, crude, surreal fantasies of ascent and escape, and won’t let you take the bait. Your brain at last provides what it rarely seemed to, in life: dignity.

Her eyes filled with tears — the metaphor had transported her back to that time of severe depression. We took a 20-minute break then resumed. She seemed much refreshed.

When I’m in a normal frame of mind (ho ho! normal!) I’m actually quite capable of reveling — or wallowing, anyway — in the serene dullness of a familiar domestic landscape. But in the condition I was in then, it was those very things — hum of vacuum, chiding position of sun in the sky, sound of Spanish soap opera on kitchen TV — that held my feet to the flames. The more routine the trappings of my life became, the more banal, the more exquisite grew the pain. As the entry in my personal Devil’s Dictionary says, the sensation of speeding toward the abyss — insanity — is the thing that gets you. That unstoppable velocity before hitting your head on the ceiling of the air pocket… I was reading about a method of torture the narcos use called “bone-tickling.” They shove an ice pick in then click-and-drag. That I tickled my bones in the sanctuary of my own home was truly the devil’s work.

I was sitting there stewing about all this shit when my flip phone chirped. No one was on the line. I did that stupid thing we do and said “Hello?” over and over. Then:

“Queenie?”

I floated through shamanic dreamtime.

“Do you know who this is?”

It was almost 30 years since I heard that voice yet it was as familiar to me as any of my gargoyle friends. (The way I was feeling just then, I’d have been more than pleased to hear one of them speak.)

Knowing exactly, I still gave his name an interrogatory wisp.

“Kura?”

He laughed that laugh and my underground caves flooded.

I know it’s kind of one of those clichés (I have the feeling I’ll be using a lot of them during this story, apologies in advance), but this man actually saved my life. Back when I was oscillating between my own madness and another’s—oooh! To even think of that time before I met him absolutely makes me shudder, and to think of the time when we met… well, the woebegone part of me, the part whose head had been stuck for weeks in its 14-inch airspace, couldn’t help but wonder if the man behind the voice would save me. Again.

“Wowee zowee,” he said. (I hadn’t heard that one in a while.) “Stanley meets Livingstone!”

I’d been thrust into the way-back machine — Kura’s — where the cultural references were always a bit fusty.

“Though I have to say I didn’t look for you quite as long as Stanley searched for the good doctor, which was less than a year, I believe. I found you in a week’s time. Five business days to be exact.”

“This number is eight hours old! How in the world—”

“My Queen, you’ve been an endless presence in my thoughts. I was so happy to learn things turned out well for you.”

“They did? Someone forgot to tell me.”

“Ho ho! You’ve kept your wit.”

“While those about me were losing theirs.”

Ho ho, ha ha.

Okay, so we bantered. I always had a thing for The Lady Eve.

“You outlived your parents, which for many years was an iffy proposition, no? You routed the executors in court. All of the attempts to rob you of what was rightfully yours — and they were formidable — failed dismally.”

“True. But that’s a matter of public record.”

I wasn’t really in the mood for This Is Your Life, or the psychic TV routine either.

“Yes, it is. For the last few years, you’ve been depressed.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“How about if I tell you something you dare not utter, not even to yourself anymore?”

“Go for it.”

“A woman broke your heart.”

The wit and wind went out of me.

And I won’t talk about any of that — not to you, or anyone. You just have to trust me when I tell you this is something no one could have known.

“Dear Queenie, I must tell you that ‘more die of heartbreak’ is a phrase which only applies to myth and storybook. You, precious girl, are a survivor.”

I always hated that word.

I masked my emotions best as I could and said, “Well, that’s comforting.”

Kura laughed again. His voice was a few registers lower since I’d last heard it, accompanied by an echo of phlegm that hovered just shy of unfriendly, blurring the border of good health. His accent seemed to have thickened too yet somehow had rendered his English simpler and more precise.

All at once I grew nervous about the motive behind the call.

“Queenie,” he said, “I don’t have too much time.”

Though I took it to mean “at this moment,” I absorbed the poignancy of the remark. Then his speech took on a certain brusque, still delicate formality, as it always did when he got down to “brass tacks.” (Kura had a weakness for archaic American idiom.)

“I wish to make you a proposal. Do you have time to listen?”

Another thing came rushing back: whenever Kura had something “heavy” to lay on me, as they used to say, he asked his wild child (who’d grown into a louche woman) if she had the time to listen. I did then — or fancied so — and I did now. Though I have to admit, “proposal” triggered an absurd millisecond fantasy he might ask for my hand.

“Tomorrow morning, at a little before 7:30 o’clock a.m., a Rolls-Royce Phantom will pull up to the kerb outside your building. A black Phantom, I may add.”

He sniggered over that small, deliberate touch; the black phantom’s black Phantom, whisking away a white wraith.

(He was actually more of a mocha phantom.)

“I know it’s a bit early for you, unless your sleeping habits have changed — I stopped my man short of delving further. If you agree to what I propose, I ask you to appear outside no later than eight. I grant you a half-hour’s grace!” Came the laugh, again; no need to rub my nose any further into the epic, pathological tardiness of years gone by. “When the driver catches sight of you — most likely, he’ll be having a morning smoke — he shall go briefly rigid in that timeless salutation of the servant class, then flick his fag to the street, gather up your things, and whisk you to Teterboro, depositing you on the tarmac beside a private plane. My plane, at least for this particular hajj.”

He pronounced the already sensual word as a lover would an intimate act, drawing it out like an exhalation of hasheesh—stratocumulus of perfumed smoke.

“It will be a long flight but I believe you’ll find it quite comfortable. I know how important superior comfort is to my Queenie!”

And by the way, I couldn’t remember the last time anyone called me that. I’d gone back to my birth name, Cassiopeia, in my mid-20s — she of the constellatory skies — and, as Kura once enlightened, the namesake of the legendary black queen that hailed from a region called Ethiopia.

“There shall be three pilots and two stewards looking after you, and a doctor onboard as well, though I’m certain he will remain well-hidden — unless of course you get lonesome and wish to chat him up, for he is at your service. The gentleman walks softly but carries a big syringe. Actually, he’s bringing me some medicine; a godawfully expensive courier. I strongly doubt that you’ll require his ministrations… not to worry! He’s very good at tending to that once in a blue moon in-flight heart attack. O, he’s absolutely keen on it. You might say it’s his specialty!” The honeyed laugh, then avuncular advice: “My Queen, if you accept your old friend’s mysterious invitation, I encourage you to pack a very small bag…” No need to rub my nose any further into the epic, pathological over-packing that was — still is — my predilection. Je ne regrette rien. “Anything you may possibly need shall be provided upon arrival. Bring nothing formal, as there shan’t be any galas or social fêtes on this end. Why don’t you come in your pj’s? Isn’t that a fine idea?”

I’ve lived too long not to know the human animal’s universal default is a humbling insecurity. Fearless and resolute as he was by nature, Kura was unaccustomed to initiating a game whose results were uncertain. Ringing me up as he did after so many years was a risk outside of his comfort zone. He was wily enough to know that to presume I would say “yes” was an excellent way to court major disappointment. There were just too many variables. He could Sherlock around all he wanted but to suddenly be face-to-face — voice-to-voice — with the flesh and blood of a thing—me—fudged any predictable conclusions. I imagined that in weaker moments, parsing the rainbow of potential responses before he called (or even while we spoke), he must have shrugged his shoulders, conceding that the only leverage he had was la nostalgie.

He had reached out in desperation (and not a little madness, knowing what I now know) and leapt into the void. Though a good part of him must have been certain that he had me, as the dreaded phrase goes, “from hello,” I still felt him take my temperature during his pitch; but perhaps the tremulous bravado, the quaver in his voice, was indicative of ill health. I was in the dark in that regard, having in that moment no idea what the man had endured in the decades we’d been apart — what transformations had occurred on the physical, psychic and spiritual planes. When I didn’t push back, he was palpably relieved that his fall had been arrested.

“Throw a talisman in your Goyard duffle, Queenie! Something for luck — a mysterious truffle—we’ll need it. Yes, we shall need a bit of luck. And, ah! I should add that there will be no danger in our errand.”

He was being courtly, for he must have known he was the single person on Earth that I trusted most. Maybe courtly is the wrong word — our bond had been forged under the most savage, nearly fatal circumstances.

“I wouldn’t want you to be dissuaded for fear an old flame might catch you on fire.”

“I could think of worse ways to go.”

In my mind, I was already on the tarmac. It gave me great pleasure to know that in just a few moments, he would hear my assent to flight. I was suffused by the overwhelming feeling that so much had been hard for Kura of late and dearly wanted him — wanted us both — to believe that with this one call, everything would now go his way. He’d saved me once — maybe now, I could return the favor.

We could all use a little Hormone Replacement Therapy, no?

“Do you mind if I ask where this plane is landing?”

I didn’t care. But like a teenager with a crush, I suddenly wanted to keep him on the phone. Besides, there was nothing to lose by asking a few questions; we were officially going steady again.

“Of course, I don’t mind. That much you deserve! But first you must say yes. It is important—energetically.”

I Molly Bloom’d a breathless “Yes I said yes I will Yes” and the most glorious thunderclap of a laugh shook the Heavens, and my heart.

“You’ll be arriving in Delhi, late afternoon. But we shall only be there overnight. The next morning, we leave for points north — the second leg of your journey.”

“How many legs are there?”

“As many as a scarab’s.”

“How many is that?”

“For this, you must tell the computer to Ask Jeeves.”

“And you won’t say anything more until we meet. Correct?”

A dead quiet: it sounded like we lost our connection. In the split seconds that followed, I panicked, wondering if he’d call back… and if not, whether the velocity of madness would return with speedier vengeance. Might it begin with a rumor the call was a black phantom of my imagination? No doubt the result of striking my head against the roof of that underground grave…

Perhaps when I opened my eyes I’d be balancing atop a ledge watched over by my beloved gargoyles, a crowd of people below urging me on—

I heard him inhale.

He said, “I’ve found him.”

“Found who?”

“The American, Queenie! I found the American.”

Kura means “guide” in Swahili, and my friend was aptly named.

His parents were Muslim—Kura is close to Qur’an, no? — but he renounced Islam, just as he renounced most things. His father was a diplomat, a Francophile who uprooted his family from a small African country (an act not without controversy in its day) to settle in a working class Parisian neighborhood. After the move, Kura was inexplicably given a ludicrous new name: Pierre. “Lucky Pierre” is what they called him. By the time we met, in 1968, he was Kura again, the alias and its sobriquet long since relegated to the bits-and-bobs bin of dislocated childhood. (I should add that it was oddly retained as an occasional nickname, but mercy to those who added Lucky, because he thought that a jinx.) In truth, he was never comfortable with either appellation. At heart he was a refugee, a traveler in the shadowlands. The classic man without a country.

He was beautiful. O! He looked like a pharaoh. High cheekbones, aquiline nose, regal bearing. If he’d been raised in America, he was one of those men who would have been called “Duke.” Thin, light-skinned, light on his feet… green, piercing eyes — sad, delighted eyes. He inherited them from his mom, a Brit. She was a brilliant woman but on the cool side. Emotionally distant. I think he’d have preferred she had a little “white mischief” in her blood.

We met at a club in Chicago. I just turned 16; he was at least twice my age. I can’t remember why he was in the States but it would had to have been some monster dope deal. French Connection—sized. It was a terrible, self-destructive time for me. I wanted to leave the iron grip of my family’s wealth and dysfunction but didn’t stand a chance. I was in a vise.

I haven’t showed you this, have I? It’s probably time… [Her right hand slowly emerged from its brocaded silk sleeve, a night- blooming flower in search of lunar light. She held it out for inspection. I looked closely, with curiosity, as if it were an exotic pet — and got the feeling the hand was looking back. The index and middle finger were stumps; those that remained, bejeweled in priceless stones. The skin was covered by graceful, black henna tattoos, extending to the crook in her arm] I’m a southpaw, so it really hasn’t been too much of an impediment. I don’t parade it around, though I’m not particularly hyper-vigilant about concealing it either. I guess I favor it just a little. I’m as vain as the next girl but not so much about my hand, funnily enough. Anyway, my stock explanation is — or was, back in the day — that I was night-snorkeling along the Costa Smeralda and the propeller of our motorboat chopped them off. I’m going to tell you what really happened. [The hand retracted] So, back to Chicago, when Kura and I first met… I was in my wild-child phase. I walked around in a not-so-famous blue raincoat, a kid in a woman’s body. It was a rough club, oh boy, I don’t think it even had a name. No number on the building — a crazy hellish place. But exciting. I was a sick puppy! The only men I was attracted to were gangsters. (If you think that may have had a little something to do with my father, you better believe it did.) And I don’t mean gang-bangers, I mean gangsters. My Puerto Rican boyfriend was quick with a knife and I had a death wish—not a good combo. But aside from all that, I really wanted to bond with a killer. I had these warpy Caril Ann Fugate fantasies — remember Badlands? — they based that movie on her and her boyfriend — I wanted to meet someone who’d murder my parents without having to be asked! I wanted to ride off into the sunset with a soul mate sociopath.

We were in the parking lot of the club and my man was drunk. When he got drunk, he got very, very quiet. Never a good thing when that happened, nuh uh. Supposedly, I was the first girlfriend he’d had in years that he didn’t beat the living shit out of. The other gals who hung around the club — all older, 19 and up — they couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe I wanted to be with him or that it’d lasted so long. They just shook their heads. “He must really love you, Cassie.” (That was them being kind.) Mostly, they looked at me like I was psycho, which I was. I didn’t care what he did to me. I actually started to goad him. There wasn’t anything cute or courageous about it… it was ugly and degrading. He’d been in the penitentiary for murder, for like 10 years. He told me about two killings, contract killings he did while in the joint. That’s what they call the penitentiary — the joint. If you were a junkie you were a hype, and your needle was a harpoon. I picked up a whole new vocabulary. I learned about rigs and works and wolf tickets, oh I learned a lot. Quite the sentimental education. I thought he was afraid of me! Which probably he was, a little bit anyway… We were in the parking lot, standing next to his car. I said some stuff I knew I shouldn’t have. I was horrible, Bruce! I needed a shot — had a bad habit, an expensive one, and he wouldn’t give it to me. All part of our little S and M game. I was out of my skin. I think I probably called him — no, I did, I remember, I called him a fag. Nice, huh? Because he couldn’t get it up a hundred percent of the time and I thought I was the Fuck Queen of the Western World. He actually liked when I got aggressive in bed, he was one of those guys who liked to be dominated but didn’t want anyone to know it. So I called him all kinds of queer, loud enough for people to hear and then I said, “Why don’t you just fucking kill me, faggot?” I was wired like that, I had kamikaze swagger. (I must have been blasted out of my skull too.) You know, you can get away with stuff for a long time. Luck’s a big part of it.

That night, my luck ran out.

He grabbed me by the neck and I felt a sting. I remember it was freezing, a freezing wind like a knife itself. I wasn’t wearing my coat… I was cold, then suddenly warm. I smiled at him. I don’t know how or why but I knew it was the end. I was very calm… he smiled back. It was impossible to know what he was thinking, why he was smiling. In the slow-motion madness of it all I looked up and saw my namesake constellation. Really seemed to have the time to look — and it was upside-down. Did you know Cassiopeia is topsy-turvy half the year? She is, that was her punishment for sacrificing her daughter. It must have been like only 10° but I felt so warm, so sort of strangely… groovy. I thought he must have given me a hot-shot, spiked me somehow. And I kept having all of this time to stare at the sky… I was looking at one queen, he was watching another (me). Then I got so cold—talking about it now, it’s so vivid! I can feel and remember so much. Everything but his name. And I hope to fuck I never do. I’ve tried to before but it’s just gone, erased from the memory bank. One of those amazing tricks the mind’s so good at. I don’t ever want to remember it. Not ever—

My theory was that he had trouble in bed because he didn’t fuck with his cock, he fucked with his knife. The thing that excited him most was holding a blade to my neck during the act. That was the only way he could orgasm. Like a bad B-movie, isn’t it? Some deep Richard Widmark weirdness from the ’40s. What was that flick where he pushes an old woman in a wheelchair down the stairs? He’d make cuts on my neck while we made love, little crosshatches. Boy, I’m glad I don’t know you better or this would be too embarrassing! If I knew you any better, I don’t think I’d ever even have opened my mouth! Obviously, that excited me too — the knife — Jesus, what a sick puppy. O! Check this! You’ll like this detail: I wasn’t completely crazy because I always held his wrist when he came. Because there was always that possibility in the back of my head that he’d get overexcited and give me a slice, not really meaning to, you know, one nip to the carotid would be all she wrote. Finito. Over and out. Though he probably wouldn’t have stopped there… Hey, if you’ve gone that far, why not take the whole head! I could just picture his cronies (who weren’t very fond of me anyway) hustling him to a safe house before shipping the sonofabitch off to Central America or wherever.

Okay, the parking lot: later, I heard a whole mob was out there, but right when it happened it felt like we were totally, spookily alone. Like the scene in West Side Story when Tony and Maria are at a dance and suddenly everything spins and goes dark? And everyone disappears except for them? He got down on the ground, on top of me. I’d fallen into shock, staring over his shoulder at the upside-down Queen. His hard-on felt like the handle of a whip. He was rubbing it against me. Nice, huh. I mean, kinda thoughtful — who wouldn’t want a little frottage before dying? The familiar rhythm of his breath told me he was about a minute away from busting a nut. Sorry. That was crude. I’m getting drunk. Anyway, he was real quiet. Which, as I said, was not good. Didn’t ask me to look in his eyes like he usually did when he was gonna come, he was too far into the kill. I was pretty much gone anyway. You know, starting to merge with the jet-black majesty of woozy sky. He was good at what he did. (With a knife.) The weight of him on me was a comfort… then I felt this tug, but its meaning failed to register… then another — pinpricky tugs that sent me farther into the upside-down Queen’s palace.

In his trance, he’d taken two fingers. I didn’t know this at the time — they told me a few days later.

[points to a constellation, almost directly above]

See? Can you see her, Bruce? That’s her throne. See? See it? Tonight, she’s right-side up — all’s well with the world. Back on her throne where she belongs. As am I…

Okay, back to the parking lot!

There was this gust out his mouth — a stench — then he started spewing waste like a broken pipe. I probably thought he was coming… in my hallucinatory state. He lifted himself. Floated above me then stood straight up but as if not by his own power. It was eerie, like a crazy puppet pulled by unseen strings, something superhuman, something abominable had plucked him off me. I can still see his mouth as the body was dragged off, that septic mouth, smiley face crapmouth unleashing a torrent of bright, brackish blood. And that, my friend, was that. His invisible predator retreated to the lot’s far corner to fuss over its exsanguinated prey while someone wrapped something around my hand. That would be Kura. He used his shirt as a tourniquet, leaving him bare-chested in the cold, a very Kura move, the swashbuckling touch! I’m sure he knew I wouldn’t be able to appreciate the gesture but he did it anyway. (That, my friend, is style.) I know I smiled at him. I was smiling at everyone, especially Mama Cassiopeia — I was already pinned up there, clueless, to the topsy-turvy night.

Then upside-down I went, and fainted dead away.

I awakened in a too-bright room that smelled of ether and fast food.

Loud voices, laughter, shushing. Kura hovered close to Coat and Shabby Tie, who gave a tidy running commentary on my needle tracks — I had an abscess on the inside of my elbow — and couldn’t stop throwing up. Blood-soaked compress on hand and under rib… those cigarettes he was smoking — not Kura, but Coat and Shabby Tie — the ones that smell like weed and incense and cheap Egyptian perfume—clove. Oh, and Coat and Shabby was most assuredly a doctor because I knew my doctors. This one was pasty, late 40s, an abortionist-type out of Faulkner, with the missed-train look of one who’d burned his adrenals for a middling cause at too young an age. Or a tragic one — maybe on a balmy summer night, he’d backed out of the driveway and run over his kid.

Apparently the boyfriend’s knife found a relatively safe spot under the ribs and I’ll never know if the Nameless One missed the arteries and vital organs on purpose. Probably. He was a precise motherfucker, would’ve been a helluva surgeon in another life. I’ll never know what the Abominable Puppeteer did to him either, surgical-wise, once he got him to the far side of the lot.

Coat and Shabby stitched what was left of my fingers and did a pretty good job of it if I do say so myself. I must have been in that weird little private ER for two days. They transferred me to a chic Old World clinic, an upgrade from the other place to be sure. When I got my wits back, I discovered it was the Drake — that’s high-end hotel living for ya. The puncture seemed to take care of itself. The main concern was my hand, because bone infection is never a good thing.

I was there a couple of weeks. It was Christmastime. I had a 24-hour nurse. Every few days, a huge Samoan looked in on me. No way you couldn’t feel safe around that man. All of the people around Kura had heart. I knew they’d take a bullet for him, and probably had — or worse. My minder never spoke, which made me feel like an utter fool. Five-hundred pounds, with a Cheshire grin. I had the feeling he was close to Kura, and when in his presence I made sure I behaved. I even acted repentant, though for what I wasn’t sure.

All I did in my perfect, stately cocoon was eat club sandwiches and listen to The White Album. Lots of room-service hot fudge sundaes, lots of doodling and drawing, lots of journaling about my White (Mocha) Knight. I had become fairly obsessed. Because after all, I’d seen him just twice — once, when he stripped off his shirt to stop the bleeding and the other while being patched up by Coat and Shabby, which was kind of a dreamy corollary of the former, with more dope and less blood — so his messianic absence made a perfect breeding ground for my hormonal, father-starved, junkie-Rapunzel imagination to run wild. In my head, my mysterious savior was pure Thanatos, with a heavy dollop of Eros on top.

So there she was, Eloise with a social disease (gonorrhea, and cured, courtesy of Coat and Shabby). Fidgety, depressed, and packin’ on the pounds… feeling deserted by all her witchy-woman powers. Like a doomed prisoner, awaiting reprieve — I still held out hope that he’d gallop up and swoop me onto his saddle. And now I remember one of the things that tortured me. They never bothered to station a guard at the door of the suite to prevent my escape, at least I never saw one. I didn’t know which freaked me out more: that I could leave anytime I wanted, or if other people could enter. What if my ex’s posse was hunting me down? (Not that anyone gave enough of a shit about my ex to avenge him — not to mention they would already have ascertained they were brutally outmatched.) In my worst moments, it boiled down to Kura not caring less. But now I know exactly why they—he—Kura — didn’t feel the need. Because it had to have been so obvious I wasn’t going anywhere, not as long as there was the slimmest chance of a rendezvous with the Big Boss. That was plain as the stumps on my hand… O, they must really have gotten a kick out of stringing me along! No, by the time I left, I was convinced I would just have to leave it all behind: my savior, the Samoan, the Norwegian nurse, the room service — ooh, that was going to hurt! — goodbye to all that. Everything but the mason jar of Darvons that Coat and Shabby had prescribed, to wean me from the heroin.

On the morning I left, I had all sorts of conflicting emotions. I was in way over my head but what else was new? I was weak and angry and weepy and paranoid. For a while, I thought Kura worked for my father! The Samoan probably disabused me of that notion somewhere along the line. But I couldn’t piece together why—how—Kura had been there to save me nor could I understand why I was being looked after—cared for — with such painstaking, tender deliberation. At check-out time, the futility of my serious convalescence crush, the intensity of yearning for my patron came home to roost. I longed for him in every fiber of my broken being. Estrogen and Electra coursed through my veins like lava. I fantasized us having a life together — preposterous. The greater my yearning, the more crazy-insecure I became. (I suppose I haven’t changed too much.) I decided to make an “overture” but was paralyzed by anxiety. What if I was rejected? Laughed at and humiliated? Another problem was — and there were moments when I flattered myself by thinking it was the only problem — that I was sure he knew by now that I was underage.

My mocha knight on a hijacked black tar horse…

All packed and dressed — it breaks my heart to see myself as that sad little girl, with her poor bandaged hand! — I held my nurse, utterly inconsolable. In the last week, I’d painstakingly composed a pitiful, “noble” letter of thanks to he who had rescued me. Lord, if only I’d kept that. I handed it to the Samoan as I prepared to go, eyes downcast, then hugged that great tree of a man while bursting into tears.

I had no idea that Kura had left the morning after the murder.

The Samoan patted the top of my head, then said, “He wants to see you.”

I don’t remember much about that trip to Paris (I was too happy, too stoned), other than being in possession of a passport that carried a name and DOB that weren’t my own. I traveled alone. The Samoan gave me a back-story — O! Now I know where that story about getting my fingers chopped by a propeller came from. That was part of the original script.

Saved again!

When I got to Kura’s I ran to his arms and kissed him on the mouth but he pushed me away. I was confused, embarrassed. Maybe he was working for my father! Or maybe he was my father, long lost, and we’d been reunited under the terms of a noir, a Nouvelle Vague. He actually asked if I wanted a tutor! You know — to be home-schooled, s’il te plaît. I wondered what I’d gotten myself into. I had a few tantrums and when the storm passed, we settled into a sunny life, très sympa. I grew up living in a mausoleum; one of my father’s estates had its own police force. But this… I’d never seen such casual opulence, such riches, such beauty. He had the most exquisite apartment in the Marais. Well, it wasn’t exactly an apartment, it was what they call an hôtel particulier. Effing spectacular. People came and went, all very respectful. To me, I mean. And Kura never discussed business. Ever.

I don’t think we slept together for at least six months. It was like he needed me to be quarantined, physically and emotionally, before we became intimate. I turned 17. I loved having my own bed, and sleeping in his without fooling around. (That was a new one.) It felt safe. Incestuous, romantic—très français! And while I may not have been capable at the time of admitting it, I’d been through some pretty profound changes. I wasn’t the girl I used to be… I should probably say we weren’t completely pure, maybe a little closer to Elvis and Lisa Marie when they were courting. You know, heavy petting optional. He was in love with me from the very beginning, but I didn’t know it. But that’s what I wanted to believe. I was so young and so vulnerable, especially after all that had happened. I probably hoped he was just biding his time, waiting to see if his feelings held. (They held for me.) I wanted to ask all about it when we met up in Delhi but never had to, because he confessed to everything before I had the chance.

He had his own plane back then and we struck out like pirates — Casablanca, Tunis, Istanbul, Corfu, Gstaad… we were bonnie companions and that was major because Kura always said if a man and woman couldn’t travel well together, there was no hope. I was a feral cat and incorrigibly ignorant, his punk Pygmalion. He read aloud to me and made charming little study plans. He was always interested in the… spiritual. I don’t know what kids aspire to these days but Kura knew his destiny early on. He’d make himself into a great criminal, the greatest of all, a dejamiento, a saint! (In that order.) The real turning point came in his early teens when he discovered Milarepa. The legend of the murderer who became a great siddha was irresistible. Kura was sold.

But he would have to become a killer first.

As his reputation for ruthlessness grew, so did his fixation on the mystics. His nightstand booklist reeked of incense, shamanism, esoterica: Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Jacob Boehme… Pico della Mirandola, Castaneda, Hermes Trismegistus.

And of course, The Book of Satsang—which the rest of my story is really about.

Hey, you know what? I’m tired.

I guess it was that homicidal trip down memory lane. Hadn’t thought about it in a while. Ugh.

I’m gonna take a nap.

Let’s take naps.

Then we’ll have a lovely dinner and begin again. K?

I took a long nap then availed myself of an offered massage. A few hours later, I was summoned back to the tent. Queenie looked radiant.

Over dinner, she told me about her current travels — her quest for the “Lost City.” Turkish coffee and sweets were served and we settled around a fire to resume.

Where was I?

Ah, yes: The Book of Satsang.

In Paris, I soon learned that a thick, well-riffled volume “written” by an Indian saint known far and wide as the Great Guru occupied prime real estate on his nightstand. It was Kura’s de facto bible, actually a collection of edited transcripts of what is called satsang, a gathering wherein a holy man imparts wisdom, not just to students and adepts but everyday people. Sat means “truth,” sanga means “company,” i.e., the company of a guru. (I Googled it today when I woke up.) The Book of Satsang was the best-known and most beloved of all the Great Guru’s bound teachings that had been released in the handful of years before — I think it was first published in ’65—Kura had copies of it stashed everywhere. And this is interesting: I later found out he was carrying it on the night he killed Douma—Douma! Whoa! The name just came back, isn’t that funny? The brain is such a strange thing… Lord Jesus. “Douma”—doomsday — could anything be more perfect? Okay. Deep breaths. Anyhow, the Great Guru’s public talks were simple and conversational, down to earth, free of the sunny dogma and endless scriptural name-dropping that clogs up so much of what’s out there. So the book gives you a real flavor of the man. The editor did an amazing job (more about him later — a lot more) because the text very subtly, very cogently reflects the Great Guru’s personal characteristics and peccadilloes. It leaves you with an eerie feeling of having been present in the room where the talks were held, a tobacco shop in Bombay that was kind of famous even then. The Master was a tobacconist by trade.

Each morning, from 9:30 to 11:30 (the shop opened at noon), he gave satsang to visitors from all over the world. Typically, about 30 people crammed into that neat, clean space, redolent with the aroma of cigars, cigarettes and all those other identifiable and unidentifiable smells of India—

Douma…

Hold on a minute. [She closed her eyes] I need to do a little voodoo here. [She took deep breaths then suddenly shook her head rather wildly, eyes still shut] Neutralize that fucker with a little spell. [She shook her head a final time, then opened her eyes. Lit a joint, took a deep hit, then smiled as she exhaled] Okay — the deed is done!

The copy of The Book of Satsang that Kura was carrying with him at the time of the murder — he had it on his person, in the large outside pocket of his peacoat — became, for him, infused with nearly supernatural qualities. Its pages were tea-stained by my blood and probably that of he who’d been executed on that freezing, starry nightclub night. Kura was always urging me to read the thing in its entirety, specifically that exact copy. (Which creeped me out.) He had the idea it was some kind of omen, that “the Source” had pointed out the Book’s life and death importance by spattering it with my “Four Humors.” I laughed when he uttered that archaic phrase, yet there really wasn’t anything funny about it. I’d examine the Book, weigh it in my hands, dip into it here and there, but only the leafs that were corroded by my humors finally, perversely held my interest. (But never for too long.) Back in the day I had a real block when it came to reading, just terrible A.D.D…. God! Kura tried everything to get me to sidle up to that book of The Great Guru’s Greatest Hits. He’d bribe me with Hermès and Chanel. I’d say, “Yes, please!” but never held up my side of the agreement. After reading a while, I always failed the pop quiz.

He was patient. I was audacious enough to believe I was the center of his universe. (I came to learn I was partially right.) But Kura had enough expertise with the suicidal character to know that, as much as I loved him, it would be risky to apply too much pressure. So he played it pianissimo. Sometimes he read to me from the Book in bed, before we made love — or after. Probably during! I think I was maybe a little jealous of that guru but I was also puzzled. If the holy tobacconist was alive and well (which he was), why hadn’t Kura made the trek to Bombay?

One day I blurted out as much, point-blank. He winced and made a funny-face, as if he’d been waiting for someone to ask the painfully obvious.

“Because I’m a fucking dilettante.”

Was he being serious?

“Do you think he’s going to judge you?” I asked.

He went rigid — I’d found a weak spot. Oh, I was haughty… a spoiled, haughty, entitled bitch on two wheels.

“Well, if he does, he’s an asshole, Kura. And not worthy of your time.”

I thought I’d get a medal for rushing to his defense.

“Don’t be a stupid girl!” he roared. “This man does not judge… this man is not even a man!” He literally foamed at the mouth. “And don’t ever use that word for the siddha, I won’t have it! Save it for your ridiculous friends — save it for the men who wish to take you off this earth, or the parents you dishonor with each breath, those who gave you life! Why don’t you look in the mirror and fling that word at what you see there, like a monkey throwing shit! But never in connection with the Great Guru… And learn not to speak of things you know nothing of.”

Well, I couldn’t — speak — for about five days.

I got truly frightened. Because as close as we’d become, his coruscating rage demonstrated for the first time that it was possible for him to say goodbye without looking back. That he had that in him. Which might sound naïve; but perhaps you know a little about the power that a young and beautiful girl can hold over a man. Or the power she sometimes thinks she has… On the last day of my silent retreat, I apologized. I don’t think I’d ever done that before, not to anyone. I remember stealing into the den where he was reading beside the fire and telling him how sorry I was. He didn’t look at me. Then I dropped to my knees and clutched his ankles, hair hanging down while my forehead brushed the floor. We’d been together about ten months and finally I thanked him for everything he’d done. (I wasn’t sure he’d ever seen the note I’d composed at the Drake but that couldn’t have been a proper thank-you.) I thanked him for all that he was and all he’d become to me. I thanked him for saving my life and looking after me while I healed, thanked him for daring to bring a crass, selfish, obstinate girl (underage!) to Paris at such great expense and even greater risk. I thanked him for protecting me, for teaching me—

I thanked him for loving me.

He bent down to lift me up. I was crying. We embraced and then he made tea. We drank it in silence; he’d learned how to make a perfect cup of English tea from his mum.

“Do you want to know why I haven’t visited the Great Guru?”

His voice was deep, with sparkly, dancing notes. A cognac voice. Something inside him went still, beyond my reach. His mood and tone were elegiac.

“The reason I’ve not gone to visit the Great Guru in Bombay is — would you like to hear the truth? The reason I’ve not gone is… because he is the only man I’ve ever been afraid of in my life. The instant he lays eyes on me, he will know. It shall all be over! And where will that leave me, darling Queen? Where! And what then?”

So of course I got on that plane when he called — to Delhi. I’m afraid that’s the best segue I can manage at the moment. It’s hard getting back into it after a break.

Tell me, Bruce, how badly am I fucking up? Have I “come a cropper,” as Kura used to say? I probably could be telling the story much better. But you can change things around later, no? With the editing? You can sand down the rough edges… I’ll pick up steam — you’ll see. I’ll try to be more articulate. You don’t know how much I’ve been reading [her old journals]! There’s so much freakin’ material. You know what I can do? I actually can try to — I’ll try to do a little more editing in my head. Edit the thoughts before they come out my mouth… O? You think that’s a mistake? I don’t mean edit-edit, I’m not too good at that. I just mean be a little more mindful.

Anyway, we’ll see. We shall see, said the blind man. To the deaf girl…

The Roller arrived at 7:30 with yours truly toddling out half-an-hour later, just as the sage predicted. Following Kura’s script, a chauffeur in full livery smoked a morning cigarette whilst leaning against that fleshy part between bonnet and withers. Once I came into view, he flicked his butt to the curb and snapped to attention. We barreled down 110th Street and the sheer movement coupled with the ineffable mystery of wholly unexpected adventure shot little sunbeams through the clouds of my depression. Travel has always been my drug. The stubborn gloominess shifted, like items in an overhead bin. In my experience, moroseness grows in direct correlation with the time spent gazing at one’s own navel — and shrinks upon fixing one’s gaze on another’s. I was already thinking about Kura and our imminent reunion, which further brought me out of myself.

We drove straight onto the field. It was a big plane, maybe too big. (I know my doctors and I know my jets.) Not gauche, but gosh! — pure Kura. Two pilots and a “hostess” waved from the top of the stairs. I felt like I was entering an old photograph of some starlet having her moment; I got butterflies climbing the airway.

I retired to my cocoon-ready cashmere bed straightaway, the cabin ringed with orchids. (I never did see that elusive doctor, until we landed.) She brought tea then left me alone. I nestled in to ruminate. Taking off, I thumbed the nubs of my two fingers and something about the whole situation made me laugh out loud… I never thought about the cause or effect of my mutilation anymore — I’d been running from those memories for 30 years. The ruined hand of a cowardly witch. I was closing in on my fiftieth year: twitchy, witchy, barren and bitchy, out of season and out of swords. I wondered how many flatfoots he put on my tail, anyway. They call that “intel,” don’t they? “Show intel”… show ’n’ tell. Well now I’m just getting silly. (I should cut back on the wine during these sessions.) Do you remember? That he said he knew something no one else did? That my heart had been broken by a woman? O Bruce, my heart has been breaking for 11 years! She thought I’d betrayed her — then vanished. But I didn’t. Betray her. Not even for a minute. Though I do believe I know how she got that deadly idea… a horrible, terrible misunderstanding. If I can just tell her the truth of what happened, maybe all can be forgiven. I’ve been searching for her ever since.5 I told you I was getting close. Every day, a little closer. I’m not on this bus for my health. I told you what I’m doing, you know what I’m searching for. I’m searching for her—

To be honest, I thought he died a long time ago.

It was obvious that Kura had done well for himself though I doubted he was still in the drug trade. At his level, careers lasted about as long as a star athlete’s. Someone younger, hungrier, crazier — someone luckier — always came along.

He was 62 now. The enormity of it — of everything—struck me like lightning as I hurtled toward him, an arrow shot through Time itself. Something he used to say popped into my head. “With your bow and my arrow, we could really go places.” I remember that I said that out loud and started to laugh. And before long I was bawling, keening, blubbering, exhorting the gods to do I don’t know what. I didn’t want the stewards to hear (there were three of them), even though I knew they’d been trained to ignore the random, spectacularly uncensored outbursts of the very rich and their hangerson. I didn’t want that doctor rushing in with a hypo, either.

I needed to get a grip…

I wasn’t hungry.

I didn’t feel like listening to music. That might make me cry even more. So I took a ferocious shit, crawled back to bed and swallowed a hundred milligrams of Seroquel.

Awaiting its effect, I tried to visualize what the contemporary Kura might look like. Softer, probably, like the best cotton gets. Maybe thirty pounds heavier. 20? 50? Twenty pounds lighter? Thinned down from a rare blood cancer or some sort of nonsense… Variations on a (Kura) Theme floated past in the jiggly aspic of my mind — still charismatic, that would be without question, in the Savile Row suits that gave him a rakish, pioneeringly shabby look. Being the equal opportunity masochist that I am, I climbed into his fantasy of how I would look, before realizing he must have already known. I’d always been camera-shy but whomever he sent on my trail would have provided him with a portfolio of telephoto headshots, surreptitiously taken in the streets by hired men. Not fair. Yet none of that mattered, of course, not really, because any current or even not-so-current images would be overruled by the nubile iconography of my 16-year-old self tenderly entombed in his own private amber. The Darwinian default — oy! Still, I prayed he wouldn’t find me too repellant. A depressed, childless, perimenopausal woman, unlucky in love, with a shelf life of self-esteem long past its expiration date, I presumed I would throw off a medley of scents: a potpourri of moribund pheromones, burnt adrenals and brokenheartedness.

But what if — what if he was attracted? What if when he saw me, what if we both—O!

And what if he’d already arranged a grand wedding in Jaipur at the Palace of the Winds?

Team Morpheus warmly invaded, with molecule-soldiers of Seroquel and that other (non-FDA-approved) drug called love… I pinched myself with a rhythmic no no no because I couldn’t afford to carry over the feelings I had for her—even in paler disguise — to my dear Kura, whose devotions I was in the midst of rediscovering. She was my cold case, not Kura, and nothing in me wanted to solve him. My love for her was real; my love for him was as one might feel toward a childhood curio found against staggering odds, at a yard sale. Perhaps it best remain in memory… I needed to convince myself this latest fantasia involving Kura, whatever its form, this so-called “romantic” (heavy quotes around that!) development was nothing more than the heart’s and body’s response to the fear, loneliness and isolation of depression — a trinity whose siren song banished all reason. I mustn’t surrender, because to decide to love another risked losing all I had left, the tattered, star-dusted remnants of that real love I still carried, would carry, forever — one I still fully expected—expect—still — to end in happy-ever-after. Yes it was fun to flirt with rekindling what Kura and I once had or at least some version of it. And yes, he’d lifted me up — saved me from myself — with the perfectly timed request to accompany him in the solving of an ancient riddle… but so what? Was I so weak that a call from a man I hadn’t seen in decades was all it took to set off a chain of fantasies ending in marriage? I admit that when I allowed myself to go down that road there was something about becoming Kura’s wife that was inexorable, almost too perfect. Another part of me knew, at least hoped, that this old-fashioned foolishness of mine would end at first hug — in Delhi.

I remember thinking: “Well, it better.”

Still, I loved him. God it felt wonderful to love. And feel loved again!

I can’t remember how long after Kura’s confession it was — when he confided his fear that the Great Guru would peer into his cupboards and find them bare — or how long it was after he’d raged and scared the bejesus out of me — but one day we were in Barcelona when he announced, “We’re going.”

“Going where?”

“To Bombay.”

I was thrilled.

Could not wait. See, I had a mission — to seduce the old swami and reveal him for the fraud he was. [sings] “He’s just a man… and I’ve had so many men before, in oh so many ways… he’s just one more!” I was determined to smash the false idol and destroy my lover’s illusions once and for all. Thus, Kura would be forced to admit that I was the Great Guru, I was his teacher — and nothing could compete with what I had between my legs. O, I am telling you, Bruce, I was the most awful girl!

I’m still awful. At least, I hope I am!

The hegira began as a straight-ish shot but our course kept deviating, for reasons unrecalled and unknown. I think we came in through Karachi — don’t ask. We arrived in Bombay about a month after leaving Spain. This was 1970. From the moment we landed, Kura was quite ill. I thought he’d acquired some legendary Indian malady but since we’d only been in the place a half-hour or so it wasn’t too likely. I forgot to add an important detail: for the first time, we were traveling alone. That was how Kura wanted it and his posse reluctantly agreed. Not that they had a choice.

No arrangements had been made for a car to pick us up at the airport. So there I was, plunged headlong into the middle of that amazing LSD trip called India — thank God I was acid-free at the moment! — with the padrone fading fast. My 17-year-old Great Mother instincts kicked in; finally, I got to take care of him. I have no memory of how we got to the Taj — our hotel. All I know is that for a few days I was a pint-sized Patton. A real rite of passage. Man. We were up half the night. Kura’s temperature was crowding 105° but he refused to see a doctor. I fell back on junkie survival skills and rang for ice. The bellboys brought up bucketsful — they were all in love with me. O Jesus, by the time I left Dodge, I had that hotel wired. I whined and wheedled and finally shoved Kura into the bath. He whinged and whinnied and threw mini-tantrums, fought me all the way. That did the trick though. His fever broke at last.

Satsang was at 9:30 in the morning. It was already dawn and neither of us had slept a wink. When I suggested we put it off till tomorrow, Kura had a hissy fit. I argued my point: the Great Guru did his “questions and answers” seven days a week, year-round. What was the rush? But he was adamant.

Our car never showed. (Of course it didn’t.) We hung around the lobby like resentful drunks, half-hypnotized by the remorseful staff’s honeyed apologies and assurances this grievous error would soon be rectified. The longer we waited, the deeper we sunk in the comic quicksand of penitent, sacred hospitality. To save us from being swallowed up completely, I demanded a cab.

I know madcap taxi rides through India are an awful cliché but that one I’ll never forget. On the other side of my window there was some kind of full-tilt Halloween/Carnaval goin’ on: a blurry burlesque of the undead, hands outstretched for flesh and candy. Whenever we stopped to make our way around some road-blocking cow — the latter apparently being the only living thing the municipality gave a shit about — the zombies pressed against the glass anew like bacteria multiplying in a Petri dish. Kura compulsively checked his Patek, the perfect way to remain oblivious to our motorized rampage. I’ll admit my mordant fascination with the hairs-breadth escapes of those on the street whom the driver seemed determined to kill caused me to drop the ball on consulting the map the concierge had painstakingly notated. In a short time, we were lost. Kura sat as if frozen to his seat, his forehead too-warm to the touch. Soon we ground to a complete halt, with nary a cow in sight. I couldn’t help but ask the driver why, knowing his answer would be as meaningless as my question.

“Accident,” he said, through a jubilant slash of a mouth. A chorus of bobble-headed Ganeshas on the dash shook in exuberant affirmation.

Without warning, Kura bolted out the door, through the protozoa and into the festive ooze. I threw sodden rupees at the driver and gave chase.

I yelled after him but the padrone didn’t respond. When by some small miracle I finally caught up, I shepherded him into a grimy cafe. The return of his fever rendered Kura somewhat docile. I begged him to stay put while I went for directions. I paid the harpy who ran the place for a Coke twenty times over, for which she expressed time-sensitive gratitude. It was like some fucked-up hockey game — I’d probably bought about 15 minutes of bench time for Kura before heading back to the ice to get my nose broken.

I lurched into the street. I had no intention to seek help from pedestrians (if that’s what one could call them) and decided my best chance was a soldier standing in the middle of the street. He wasn’t directing traffic; his main function, it seemed, was to sweat and scowl. He had a machine gun slung over his shoulder. I got in his face and pronounced the name of the Great Guru. His response wasn’t so much cantankerous as outright hostile, with the implicit threat of pending violence to my person. I wondered if he harbored ill feelings toward the siddha but concluded it more likely that I’d violated a cultural code with my pretty young Western thing’s pushiness. I wound up back on the sidewalk, where pleas for money crashed against me like insects on a windshield.

Hangdog and defeated, I rejoined my man. Kura was nursing a cup of tea our hostess had thoughtfully prepared — and why shouldn’t she have? She smelled a tip that might conceivably cover a few months’ rent. I was glad to see Kura hydrating and my only hope was she’d kept the kettle on long enough to evict the tap water’s microbial tenants. (Though I figured what Kura already had was probably enough to kill whatever was in the water anyway.) I was about to announce the plan: to call it a day and return to the Taj for a much needed rest. Tomorrow, we’d have a proper car and driver and bring a porter along to make sure we reached our destination.

Then he spoke, for the first time all morning.

“The proprietress knows how to find him.”

He looked at her and smiled. She smiled back, like they’d become engaged while I was gone.

“Apparently,” he said, “his shop is just round the corner.”

A freakish serenity overtook him as we ambled onto acrid Mogul Lane, for we’d entered a world of myth that belonged as much to Kura as it did to Bombay. His eyes dilated and the color returned to his skin. We strolled along the broken spine of a vendor-choked passage already so familiar from the photographs that graced Kura’s collection of books by and about the Great Guru. He walked stealthily, almost regally, to his destiny — toward the man he hoped against hope would consent to become his teacher. The man he was certain would see through him, then see him through…

In the years leading up to our sojourn, Kura spent countless hours in his library inhabiting the jostling panorama of Mogul Lane, memorizing—memorializing—all its parts, re-creating shadowy and sunlit corners, summoning smells aroused by the baked-on heat of the Indian sun, flipping back and forth from The Book of Satsang text to the tattered visual archive of the boulevard’s temples and buildings, loitering amongst the shapes and forms of his pictorial montage with enormous patience and intent, so when at last he found himself in the actuality of it (en route to the tobacconist’s) he was like an avid child dropped down to Narnia, in hot pursuit of Aslan’s lair.

And as in a fairy tale, there came that time when the road took one no further. For today, all of Maharashtra seemed congregated in that mangy Mogul corridor and the throngs blocked our passage. Kura was undeterred. I held on to his coattails while he employed that extraordinary assassin’s energy, feinting and dodging his way to nirvana. In just a short while, we’d cut to the head of the line of the shop with the TOBACCO sign (in English)… but we were still outside, VIPs without backstage passes. Two weaponless military men graced the door. While their presence seemed mostly ceremonial, entering the shop didn’t look feasible. It was so crowded in there, it may not have been humanly possible — I doubt we’d have been able to squeeze in, even if the guards themselves gave us a shove.

Something was wrong with this picture but we were just too frazzled and sick to notice. (My turn to be feverish.) The Great Guru gave satsang every day, which by anecdote and definition was a dignified, orderly affair. Then how to explain the unruly, chaotic scene that presented itself? Kura’s investigations had informed that no more than 30 to 35 devotees showed up on a given morning; the energetic integrity of a true Master saw to it there were never too few disciples, nor too many.

But this mob was off the hook.

I watched Kura intently. I’d seen that look of laser-like determination before. He espied a pole and sprang into action. He ascended about 10 feet before stopping short at the bottoms of the bare feet of a gaggle of men who clung at the top like monkeys on a swizzle stick. Like them, Kura could now peer over the heads of the storefront lookee-loos and straight into the shop itself. I read his lips: “His chair!” he said to himself, in transport. “His chair…” I wondered if the fever was returning and I suppose it was, in the form of obsessive devotion. He was utterly fixated on storming the sanctum sanctorum. I saw the algorithms of egress play across his face, rippling its features… when he signaled, I met him at the base of the pole and we exchanged places — and thank God, because all I wanted was to get to higher ground. In that moment I remember acquiring that itchy, creepy case of nerves one can catch in a faraway place on too little sleep. I shimmied up, found my footing on some sort of electrical box, then turned my eyes to the crush of spectators. They didn’t look very spiritual—au contraire. Not like seekers and disciples, anyway. The way they were decked out, they might as well have been auditioning for a Bollywood musical. In the photo montage Kura put together in Paris, the pilgrims of Mogul Lane wore a wide array of costumes but the emphasis was decidedly on the modest, the simple, the austere. Some were “dressed,” but we’re talking Sunday best, nothing glam. You didn’t need Emily Post to tell you satsang etiquette skewed toward less is more. (Bless is more?) But these folks… these folks were bejeweled, bedizened egos on parade. Of course the Great Guru never wore anything but a threadbare kurta — at least he didn’t wear a nappy, which definitely would not have been okay! [laughs] Not a big fan of the Gandhi look. What I’m saying is, to sit at his feet dressed to the tits was gauche. You’re in the man’s home, for crissake, not the parliament building. And even then. At the time, the discrepancy meant nothing to me. I was just a decadent trespasser, a cultural interloper, a wannabe seductress — a pole girl! — an American expat junkie runaway with three kinds of VD by the time she was 13. But I’m sure I found the fashion show enthralling. I must have interpreted all the finery as part of just another holiday. You know, Indian Holiday #6,342.

Below me, the untouchables were being pushed, whisked and twirled into the street by fresh packs of snappily dressed cops. I’d seen many soldiers in the short time since we’d arrived but now it seemed like whole dragoons were being summoned to Tobacco Road. Jostled from multiple directions past women in glittering saris, the disenfranchised surged to the sidewalks where they received further prods from handsome householders in gold-embroidered sherwanis, the goal being not just to herd them from the shop’s entrance but to whirl them out of existence. In the midst of my surveillance, I saw a figure improbably squeeze through the bottleneck at the door of Satsang Central. Kura! The bouncers missed him completely, as they were busy hassling with a clutch of urchins that delighted in a game whose main objective was to make a big show of rushing the door and then swiftly retreating just in time to elude the authorities, a maneuver which scored the most points if finessed without being kicked, grabbed, molested or otherwise apprehended. The most adroit of these mischief-makers found time to brazenly ape the look and mood of the policeman who had given chase or whatever fancy onlookers expressed disdain. To escape capture, the dirtball scalawags took impressive, flying leaps into a mosh pit of their peers that extended into the street, ruffling a few feathers and unraveling more than a few dhotis of the hydra-footed gorgon of perfumed devotees waiting peaceably on line.

I redirected my gaze. The sun no longer reflected on the glass. The inside of the shop, a-brim with those awaiting satsang, was totally visible. To my astonishment, Kura had already reached his goal: breathless and illumined, he stood before the Great Guru’s humble throne, beautifully surrendered. He brought the palms of his hands together in prayerful salutation, touched them to his forehead and crumpled into a lotus, neatly filling the spot that only seconds before barely contained the fidgety blob of an obese woman who, in a seizure of urgency, had decamped to answer nature’s karmically ill-timed call. Kura’s assured, brazen, somehow dignified arrival caused nary a stir. Befittingly, he now had the best seat in the house.

I will never forget that princely, boyish head swiveling, eyes trying to find my own. He squinted through the window, scanning at street level before remembering where he’d left me; his gaze lifted and caught me on my roost. A sunshine smile split open his face because he knew I’d bore affectionate witness to his mystic, acrobatic victory.

I still think now what I thought then — in spite of everything that was to happen, Kura had come home.

The next day, we ate a late lunch.

“Wasn’t that delicious? The chef’s from Morocco. Are you sure you had enough food?… I know it’s cold, Bruce, but I’d rather do this outside. They’ll bring heaters and it’ll get toasty right away, I promise — and some coffees and candies… Esme? Can you bring two cappuccinos? And a shitload of agave… some fruit and cheese? And those faboo little pastries? And more wine! Thank you, Es!”

After settling, I gave her a précis of where we left off. She excitedly dove in.

As it turned out, there would be no satsang, for…

… the Great Guru was dead.

Pretty dramatic, huh?

At the end of that first day, we learned he had shuffled off this earthly plane just a few weeks prior — around the same time that our earthly, private plane was being diverted to Algiers. Needless to say, word of his demise had never reached us. This was a century before the Internet, when news traveled at a more civilized pace… though I do believe that as renowned as he was, if the Great Guru died today it would still be likely that his death might slip through more than a handful of news cycles. His was the kind of passing that obits generally reserve for retired diplomats, African bishops and former child stars, i.e., ones that can be reported later than sooner. (Scratch former child stars — enquiring minds want to know!) That his life and teachings would eventually be widely written about and even popularized was never in doubt. Time has born that out.6

Adamant that at any moment the saint would take his rightful seat, Kura and I were oblivious to having stumbled upon what was essentially a vigil. Meanwhile, I watched from my maypole aerie; sitting before the Master’s empty chair, my lover’s childlike anticipation lent him a radioactive energy. Now you may think I’m setting the stage for a dais of eulogizers — after all, I’ve just told you the siddha was dead. I said “vigil” too but if it was, then what—whom—was everyone waiting for?

This is where the American comes in.

Kura’s belated words on the phone, some 30 years after we met—“I’ve found him”—are the basis of the story I’m telling you. Understood. But before I can properly introduce the American, I need to talk about the American’s teacher.

It was 1997—27 years since I last saw—left him — in Bombay. There I was in my zillion-dollar apartment, minding my own business, hangin’ with the gargoyles… remember? I get the call from Grandmaster Flash and suddenly I’m on my way to Delhi. Whoosh. While airborne in my cashmere cabin, rope-a-doped on Seroquel, I start to retrieve all this—data—everything I’m telling you now — I’m busy downloading because I haven’t thought about any of it in absolute ages. I mean not really, not deeply, maybe never. Strange or funny or bullshitty as that may sound. But it’s true. There I am on the jet, cramming for my exam — filling in the potholes of a life that sometimes, most of the time, didn’t feel like my own. Because in that chunk of years after I left him there in dear ol’ Mumbai—from 1970 to 1997—well, dysthymic depression, shitty chemicals and general lovelornness ruled the roost, and sealed off so many rooms — all the bric-a-brac and most of the furnishings were in the lost and found. So now I’m eight miles high, on my way to Delhi, freshening up my frontal lobe… bear with me, honey, because I want you to be as prepared as I can make you before we touch down — and we will, and soon, I promise! I promise we’re landing in Delhi soon! I just want you to be able to give Kura your full attention when you finally meet him. Because if I don’t talk about what I’m about to, it’d just be rude—like blowing off the first act of a play and just bringing you at intermission. [sings] “Eight miles high! When you touch down… you’ll find that — it’s stranger than known…” The Byrds! Roger McGuinn! O my God! Get my granny glasses!

All right, I herewith present: Queenie’s A Brief History of the Great Guru.

Are you with me, bubba?

By the late-’60s, the enlightened tobacconist had achieved a level of fame commensurate with Ramana Maharshi and was informally admitted into the League of Superheroes of Nondualism. His followers — or shall I say far-flung legions of the desperate, the curious and the dilettantish, not to mention the usual pastiche of pop stars, paupers and spiritual tourists — traveled at great expense to be in his presence. He was genuinely delighted to greet them (the rishi could be downright chatty) though to call him gregarious would be naïve. Still, the question remained: Why was he so relentless in his public teachings if his philosophy defined quote-unquote enlightenment as a state of being that was not only impossible to earn or solicit but one that could only “happen”? (Or not.) He was known to say that a fly was as likely to land on shit as it was on honey, meaning, the rara avis of satori found its way to the shoulders of vagrants and birdwatchers alike. It was his view (“My concept,” as he used to emphasize) that all the meditation, chanting and scripture studying in the world meant nothing, including a trek to Bombay to sit at the feet of the Master. Because all was predetermined.

At the end of the day, I suppose the Great Guru gave satsang simply because he enjoyed it. Such enjoyment was “already written,” and part of his nature. He was in full agreement with the Bhagavad Gita, which advised that action was the thing, not the fruit of one’s action. He was also fond of telling disciples he was busy “fishing.” “I am looking for that big fish,” he’d say, a waggish glint in his eye. “The one that swims faster and deeper than the rest.” This cryptic declaration never failed to make him giggle; if his dentures fell out, he laughed even harder with what he called his “beggar’s mouth.” By this remark, one could wrongly infer he was trolling for a successor, but a proper saint has no interest in the tropes of lineage and continuity. Indeed, it might be said that a common thread among enlightened men was a certitude that none of their students had ever understood a word they uttered.

The loneliness of the long-distance bodhisattva…

In 1963, the Great Guru’s fishing pole received an enormous tug on the line.

While visiting a dentist in Miami, a blond, middle-aged gentleman picked up a Reader’s Digest with a wealthy woman’s account of her passage to India to meet a renowned “tobacconist saint.” He was intrigued. Gossip had it that for one week the American ruminated intensely on the article before tragedy intervened. Apparently, he was in the middle of an ugly divorce when his wife murdered their two young children. She attempted suicide but survived. During the trial, he left the States for good.

He was 48 years old when he landed in Bombay.

The Great Guru immediately noticed something different about the new arrival, a quality transcending the cold anarchies of grief. He knew he’d found a true adept, one whose self-realization was foretold — satori a priori! — just as he, the Great Guru, was predestined to be his guide. But it would take some work. The American’s behavior was erratic. He’d vanish for days, sometimes weeks without notice, before reappearing to claim his usual spot at the foot of the sadhu’s chair. Sometimes after those mysterious layovers, he was disheveled and disoriented. The Great Guru would order the Kitchen Cabinet — those roly-poly sister-aunties — to bathe and feed the Big Fish, spruce up the aquarium if you will. Other times he alighted from his travels impeccably dressed in linen suit and tie, as if fresh from Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Genève. After months of obliviously submitting to his artful guru’s grooming, the American at last steadied his course.

In the year it took for the arriviste to settle, the Great Guru’s focus on him never wavered. The proprietary denizens of the inner circle dug in their heels, girding for the long haul, cynically reassuring themselves that teacher’s pets came and went and the newbie would be no exception. Others laid down odds the American was “next in line” and began kowtowing early. Through it all, the old sage cackled with delight. The idea of cultivating a favorite tickled his beggar’s mouth pink, because it was no longer possible for him to have a personal relationship with anyone he encountered along the journey. For he had ceased being a person.

None of which meant he wasn’t delighted upon learning his chela was a racetrack bookie on the side, nor that the two couldn’t regularly share a glass of whiskey in the cool, early evenings. Nor did it mean he wasn’t grateful for the acumen the American lent to the fledgling publishing enterprise on Mogul Lane. It was the expat who had suggested satsang be taped (it would have been reel-to-reel back then) and transcribed for wider dissemination. The Great Guru was enchanted by the idea and impishly rebuked his minions for not having thought of it first. How he enjoyed stirring the pot!

Sorry to interrupt myself but I probably haven’t said enough to set the scene. I know I’m all over the place… maybe you can clean it up when you — I really do think I should get a little into how things worked. Not that it was all that mysterious, it’s just that people really have no idea about what goes on in the life of an ashram. Mogul Lane wasn’t really an ashram, strictly speaking… I promise this won’t take too long.

You see, the Great Guru had been a householder and family man. Two of his five children died; his wife and him had 12 grandchildren and a ton of great-grandkids between them. She was a piece of work. Her three sisters — the “aunties”—did all the cooking (hence, the “Kitchen Cabinet”) and had final say over any controversies that arose among the extended family, which occupied the two floors above the shop. All the tenants had been with “Baba” in excess of 40 years, loosely comprising what I’ve been calling the inner circle. Mrs. Great Guru kept a firm hand on the finances, which were robust on account of the steady stream of rupees donated each satsang day from attendees and local merchants; sent through the post, and so forth. A second ring of the inner circle looked after Baba’s daily needs — laundry, grooming, medicines, that sort of thing. Last but not least was the outer ring of enthusiasts living in rooms scattered across the city, the typical patchwork of loners, zealots and malcontents who wash up on any rishi’s shore. Each ring was needy in its own way, the wife and aunties being the scrappiest, most demanding of the lot. The Great Guru took pleasure in every skirmish he secretly set in motion—

Hold on a second!

It just occurred to me you might be wondering how the fuck I know so much about the Great Guru—a man I never met.

Okay: it’s an informed pastiche. Isn’t that what life is anyway? And I’m really not being cute. Everything I’m telling you or am about to tell you was taken from notes of my conversations with the American himself. Because remember, I spent four rock’em sock’em months on Mogul Lane before I fled; the Great Guru had been dead only a short while and the American talked about him non-stop. Talked to me. The rest I’m filling in from things Kura said when we hooked up in Delhi — we are getting to Delhi, Bruce, I swear, don’t you worry! — you know, things Kura told me as we headed to our momentous destination. Just trust. That everything I’m telling you—everything—has been drawn from my diaries and Kura’s memory, and the so-called qualia too — remember “qualia,” from school? (Maybe you weren’t a philosophy freak) — sifted through contemporary consciousness with what I perceive to be minor embellishments, which in my opinion is a totally valid approach to telling a hopefully seamless tale, particularly one in which the narrator brings so much of her own life experience to bear. A story, by the way, that I’m uniquely qualified to share, taking into consideration not only my intimate knowledge of a key player but the quantity and quality of a lifetime of “meetings with remarkable men”… Liken me, if you will, to a gifted translator who couldn’t possibly give you the literal text (no one could) but can approximate the rhythm and flavor, the moods of the original, and the true or truest sense of what the poetry evoked. The mother tongue. I’m the mother tongue motherfuckah.

In other words, have faith. I have no doubt you will. I can’t imagine you’ve got a different strategy, doing this as long as you have.

Scheherazade sings for her supper.

Bathroom break, please?

We resumed three hours later.

Well, all rightie then.

Those satsang tapes were a brilliant success. The American had an entrepreneurial streak that was, well, very American. And the Great Guru loved American energy! The rookie was on a roll: from the tapes sprung the collected transcripts that comprised the golden calf of Mogul Lane Press, The Book of Satsang. (Up till then, I think there’d only been a few pamphlets and chapbooks.) An entire library rose, elucidating what the sadhu preferred to call his “concepts.” The compilations benefited enormously from the American’s elegant edits and translations. His fine ear was matched by a finer eye; he designed the book covers and even the typeface that was to become an MLP trademark. The ingeniously simple logic of it — satsang-to-tape (or cassette or whatever it was back then)-to-book — vaulted the Great Guru onto the world stage. The American was very shrewd when cutting distribution deals for his teacher’s catalogue of essays, Advaitic homilies, and whatnot. His prescience was uncanny when it came to discerning who would work with him, and who would work against. He knew that if he was to succeed he had to imagine business dealings as a game, albeit one with serious consequences. He was sagacious enough to know that if ever he acted out of greed, the jig would be up.

Naturally, the books found their way to the States, where they piqued the interest of artists, singers and poets. Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder made a pilgrimage and stayed a few months, maybe in ’63 or ’64… which actually might have been before the Book was published. (Peter Orlovsky was with them too.) Toward the end of my Bombay tour of duty, I remember being shown a photograph of the four of them — Ginsberg, Snyder, the American and the Great Guru — staring into the lens with “fierce grace.” By then I was already beginning to resent Mogul Lane and the dominion it held over Kura. Still, I looked at that group shot and felt a pang of envy that I hadn’t been there too… that funky old un-“be here now” feeling! And, oh: I can still see the framed page that hung on one of the grimier walls of the kitchen, torn from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: “There’s nothing that spoils the taste of good ordinary food so much as the memory of bad magic food.” No idea how it got there.

Now, back to that first day in Bombay.

1970. The Great Guru’s dead, but Kura and I don’t know it. Kura’s sitting on the floor in front of the Master’s chair, in excitation. Me? I’m halfway up a pole on my lookout, smugly surveying the scene, too green and/or discombobulated to ascribe any meaning to the fact that satsang was coming up on an hour-and-a-half late, a delay that would have been off the charts for a legendarily punctilious guru. And heedless of other signs too — the superabundance of flowers, the images of Baba glued to the paddles of hundreds of gyrating sticks held high in the air like bidders at an auction, the menagerie of musical instruments, their disparate songs in discordant competition amidst the general insanity. Nor did I take note of the ululating voices that rose and fell in an entangled, sometimes annoying ecstasy of mourning. Schooled in Western culture, it all seemed very rock star to me — weren’t gurus the rock stars of India? Besides, what for-real rock star was ever on time?

A sudden implosion of quiet engulfed the shop, its shock waves spreading to the street and beyond like a silent alarm. The aggressive stillness stopped the urchins in their tracks, which said a lot. I shiver just remembering. It was unearthly…

— then he appeared. Not from the upstairs rooms, as would have been the tradition of the pandit, but from a side door… stepping gingerly through the multitudes as they parted like the Red Sea — I never thought I’d use that horrible platitude but nothing else can describe it, Bruce! (And incidentally, making his way along the same path my intrepid Kura had blazed.) He was white, with blond, thinning hair and an aquiline nose. Tortoiseshell glasses. Early 50s? (He was actually 55.) I’m horrible with descriptions. Fairly bland though not unattractive. Very composed, very cool. Lithe. Had one of those lithe walks, a “supple gait,” like a jaguar. A slight smile. Simple white kurta. I remember thinking he must be some sort of staffer who “ran” satsang. Probably’d make a few announcements before introducing the Main Event. But when he turned to face everyone, he didn’t say a word. And oh! That otherworldly silence kept falling, the sound it made was deafening! Why was everyone so quiet? That sound… like flurries in a snow globe.

He was standing in front of the empty chair.

Kura watched, head arched back in a pose of tranquil curiosity. He too was expecting to hear preliminary — introductory remarks.

Then, the oddest thing happened:

The man sat down.

In the milliseconds that followed, I pegged him as a prankster, a rodeo clown using the sacred chair as a slapstick prop to keep the impatient crowd at bay, perhaps to soften the blow of the announcement that the star attraction was ill, and satsang would be postponed until tomorrow. A sonic boom interrupted my fantasia. A delirium of voices—like the reversed film of a building that was demolished, rising back up, a demolished cathedral—a great edifice of rising voices knocked my freakin’ socks off. Outrageous decibels shattered the snow globe, ruptured my eardrums with joyful noise, blistering and rapturous. My reptilian brain reflexively commanded me to join the uproarious Hosanna! and I did.

Only Kura’s throat remained still. I know, because I never took my eyes off him.

His song would come later.

I’ve searched my mind and can’t remember a single thing the American said during satsang on that historic morning. But here’s what I know about the death of his teacher:

Usually, the old man would awaken at 4 a.m. and retreat to the den to offer benedictions to the saints who came before him. Lost in prayer, he would bow to the Source itself and meditate until seven. But on the day he left this world, he forsook routine…

The American had a routine too. He arrived at the tobacco shop each morning around the time that his teacher was finishing up. He made tea and chitchatted with Baba about goings-on at the track — this, that and the other. After a while the American would excuse himself to go downstairs, where he effected the gentle transformation of the lobby into a room suitable for satsang. He fetched the daily flowers left gratis on the sidewalk by vendors, placed them in vases then carefully swept up. Pulled flat pillows from a closet for attendees to sit on. Put up the altar, arranging coils of incense and sepia portraits of the toweled and diapered Masters of Advaita. Lifted the Great Guru’s well-oiled oak chair from its berth behind a display case, placing it front and center. Positioned a small table within the sadhu’s reach. Set a glass on the table then filled the pitcher with water, covering it with a linen napkin.

On a counter near the entrance he laid out the beautiful Mogul Lane Press editions of the Great Guru’s books, plus tapes of prior satsang, for sale. (I remember the volumes had the faint smell of cigars.) One of the last things he did was to set up a tape recorder and mic and make sure they were functioning properly. In the time remaining, he meditated, his awareness focussed by street sounds and the quality of changing light. He took care to notice his breath and the soft, jostling shadows of wayfarers already gathering outside. Their heads merged and migrated, like elephants in a herd.

At around 8:30, he let them in. The American could be warm or distant, depending on his mood. There were always the needy ones with inane questions: What time does satsang start? What time does it end? Is there satsang on Sundays? and so on. He tried accommodating those who wished to buy books or tapes but most transactions happened after the Q&A.

Close to 9 o’clock, he would return to the mezzanine. The American always had oatmeal, prune juice, and toast with jam. Usually his teacher was already seated, dipping hunks of bread into a glass of hot chocolate. During breakfast the Great Guru rarely spoke though he wasn’t above ribbing his tablemate’s devotion to prunes by letting loose a cognoscente’s barrage of farts. The American would smile but always managed to suppress a laugh, inciting the saint to new heights of gaseous devilry. As this was the designated time for the disciple to bring him up to speed on sundry household matters, the Kitchen Cabinet’s attendance was compulsory. The ladies were loath to endure these noisome bull sessions but that was how Baba, in his infinite wisdom, had arranged it. While the oompah-pah of cosmic flatus grew more flagrant (not fragrant!), the Cabineteers clucked like chickens, kneading their brows and wringing their aprons in protest, looking generally miserable. At quarter-past, with exaggerated politeness, the Great Guru would excuse himself to make his toilet. When at last he emerged rejuvenated, two of the heftier cousins assisted him downstairs. By then, the American would have taken his customary place at the foot of the chair. After a few bows before the altar, the Great Guru lowered himself, and satsang began.

But on that fateful day, the American overslept. It was the first time this ever happened and he reasoned that his body must have needed rest. Lately, he’d been more tired than usual; maybe he was coming down with something. What with his bookmaking — which referred to the horse and publishing enterprises in equal measure — and all the other jobs and duties thrown his way, he was stretched thin. Then he realized something with a start: he only dreamt he overslept. It was actually four in the morning and he lay in a pool of sweat.

He closed his eyes again and pushed himself to remember fragments of a dream… they were running on a track — the American and the Great Guru. His beloved teacher was being kicked by horses. Turning toward his disciple, he wore a spooky smile that the American had trouble interpreting. Was it an expression of transcendent equanimity? Or a plea for help? If the latter, his hands were tied; intuitively, he knew any offer of rescue would be turned away. Still, he wanted at least to make a face-saving gesture — in the dream, he felt responsible for his teacher’s suffering — but didn’t know how. The feeling of impotence, and the collateral violence, was nauseating. The horses kept kicking and kicking. He heard the sound of the saint’s ribs snapping, breaking through the skin… He smothered any further recollections by promptly sitting up. It was just too mortifying, too painful to know such brutality swam in the shallow, primordial waters of his consciousness, that he could claim ownership of a dream scenario that sponsored such sadism toward the man he loved above all others, the only being he would have died for! Such sadness and remorse… unbearable.

He leapt from drenched sheets to make tea but there wasn’t any — he’d forgotten to buy. Which seemed like another bad dream. While riffling the drawers and cupboards, he resolved to visit an acquaintance for counsel, a venerated Sufi healer who lived on the street. The dream was of the type that aroused atavistic fears and superstitions and the American wanted to learn if it was an omen; perhaps there were steps he could take to counteract its unsettling, cryptic prophesy. He decided to have tea at the tobacco shop — a perfect antidote to his anxieties. The presence of Baba would be a comfort and help ameliorate the aftershocks of his vision. The siddha would just have begun morning prayers.

The American knew he was ill. His sweatless skin wanted nothing to do with the sweet, pre-dawn air. Yet the worse he felt, the greater his relief — at least sickness offered an explanation for those schizoid racetrack phantasms.

Just a fever dream…

By the time he reached Mogul Lane, he was winded. He made sure to softly close the door behind him (not that he ever closed it any other way), mindful not to startle his teacher’s attendants — those from the second ring of the inner circle whose duty was to stand at post in the kitchen should the Great Guru call out for hot water with honey. Stranger things have happened, but a break-in was nearly unthinkable. Throughout the years there had never been an incident, not even of tomfoolery, nor had a single stem of the thousands upon thousands of roses left at the shop’s door been absconded with.

In crept the American… to darkness, much darker than he imagined. His eyes stung from the inchoate virus. Immediately, he saw the furry outline of his Master’s chair.

That’s odd. Did I leave it there? Could I have?

A wave of nausea. He closed his eyes and steadied himself. He thought harder—no way would he have left it. The chair was his responsibility and his alone. At conclusion of satsang, there wasn’t any question he’d have moved it back behind the case, where it normally lived. But at this moment, the American was unwell and lacked the clarity to be certain. The easy, confident relationship to reality that we take for granted, the ability to observe and process simple sensory data, to parse memory, had begun to decay. His mind whirred. Was it possible that at the end of Q&A, distracted by a rush of book and tape sales, he’d somehow forgotten to return the chair to its recess? And that the Great Guru, amused by his student’s rare show of absent-mindedness, puckishly ordered it to remain in its derelict locale? The thought did seem a bit convoluted, farfetched… all that, just for another little something to laugh about at their gassy morning kitchen klatches. Strange hijinks… to keep the chair there — more peculiar, than funny—

He tried to recall yesterday’s events. He’d been at the track taking care of some bookie business… but had he returned to Mogul Lane? Had he come back at all? Because surely then he would have seen the chair and moved it — though he wouldn’t have left it there in the first place so what difference would it have made if he’d come back? Suddenly he questioned which came first, satsang or the visit to the track. Well, satsang, of course… but had he? Come back? (Now it was more about the sheer, arduous remembering.) Perhaps not — perhaps he’d gone straight home. Maybe he still was home! This morning, he dreamt he overslept; it would make things so much easier if he could still be dreaming. Still in bed, and deathly ill…

Something superseded his tumbling thoughts—

What’s this?

A pile of blankets on the chair—no! He startled and retreated, his wobbly investigations literally coming to a head. He skittered to flip the light switch, then heard a woman’s shriek: his own. The Great Guru sat upright in his chair, eyes closed in mid-sip of the elixir of Eternity, illuminated from within as if by a swallowed ceiling bulb. How bizarre! The chela drew closer to regard the face. Its dentureless mouth bore the inviolable smile of those who die in peace and struggle no more. (Of course, the Great Guru stopped struggling long ago.) The American grew calm. He listened — it occurred that no one heard him cry out. Strange… He sat in meditation with the body until the first rays of dawn penetrated the shop’s window. He lit incense and candles and draped a blanket across his teacher’s lap. Upstairs, bodies and voices began to shift.

Bedlam ensued, and wild disarray.