The Empty Chair

~ ~ ~

Everyone went out of their minds. The inner circle was confounded by anguish, waylaid by grief. The widow was the first to stabilize and the others raggedly followed suit. In misery, it remained vital to eat. Hence, engines were stoked — the Kitchen Cabinet was in full throttle, adhering to an ancient tradition mandating all mouths be fed from the ovens of the house of the holy man who had merged with the Godhead. Vast amounts of foods delivered round the clock were ceremonially recycled, simmering long enough on the stove to be stirred by the Great Guru’s ladle; the neighborhood’s potluck and covered plates revolved with speedy, solemn ritual through the upper apartments’ quarters, their turnaround point being the den, the room said to be the most heavily imbued with the perfumed breath of the departed. (Even his bathroom was mined for hairs he’d shed, nails he’d clipped, for ambergris of earwax.) A host of activities, sacred and banal, carried forth amidst unthinkable, unmendable loss. When agonies reached a fatal pitch the brain intervened, reflexively enforcing time-outs, moratoriums on weeping and wailing, impromptu cease-fires — after all, tears needed to be replenished — caesuras in the song of suffering that allowed shattered devotees time to sleep, to eat, to bathe. The grief-stricken looked forward to such stupefaction the way workers do a holiday.

The stone of such a catastrophic loss makes ripples in the water like rings in the trunk of a mighty redwood. (Sorry for the fucked-up simile.) Mortality’s clock ticks so slowly — then so quickly — that every hour of each successive day circling the ground zero of his death seemed to form a generation; so that within the week, when the body was burned on the Ganga, decades had already passed since the event. By the time Kura and I were finally informed, whole epochs had come and gone, civilizations fallen and risen again.

The American was well equipped to deal with postmortem concerns. He knew his logistics but more importantly was able to mask his turmoil of emotions with an assuaging air of almost sunny indifference. In his years with Baba, he’d become deeply enmeshed in the ashram’s business and the widow trusted him implicitly. Normally, details of the funeral and other attendant decisions would redound to her; those responsibilities were summarily dropped in his lap. To the larger community, a number of arguments supported this wisdom. Many believed the unseen forces that awakened the American from his fever (and cleared his cupboard of tea) were the same ones that had guided him with invisible hand to Mogul Lane — in essence, he had been “summoned.” How otherwise to explain his teacher’s baffling behavior? Why else would he have been downstairs at 4 a.m., instead of singing supplications in the den? Why would he have pulled out his chair and sat waiting, on this morning, if it was not because he had chosen to die? It was obvious: the Great Guru carefully set the stage before invoking his favorite student to see him off. A final satsang for an audience of one! Any way you cut it, to discover the body of a saint is a fateful honor of inescapable import. And that he chose to meditate beside his beloved teacher was universally thought of as a magnificent gesture, which undoubtedly eased the Great Guru’s passage through the bardo of death. To say the American’s status rose higher each day would be an understatement.

But the most “auspicious” sign of all was the nightmare he had of the rishi pursued by demons yet lightheartedly impervious to assault. He’d instantly regretted recounting his dream to the widow, an indiscretion he blamed on fatigue and the vulnerability of the moment. Too late… she took it as a further sign of providence.

The guru was out of the bottle and would soon be hell-bent on granting a wish — whether it be the American’s or not.

After the cremation, after the flowers and feasts and gutted candles, after the bitter herbs of death metamorphosized into the nectar of gratitude to God for having graced all of them with the privilege of having known and loved such a saint, after the frozen river of tears thawed enough to restore hearts and minds to the modest homes they’d decamped, after everything, came The Question, that hung in the air like a fiery harvest moon obscured by clouds. A storm of a question, whose distant rhetorical rumblings would soon be exchanged for lightning, hail and thundered demands: Who would sit in the Great Guru’s chair?

The American slept little in the weeks following the death.

He no longer went home at night, preferring to lie on a straw mat on the floor of the shop. He felt beyond exhaustion.

And what about the chair? The widow ordered it to be left exactly where it was found. The American would stare at it before drifting off, almost against his will, his imagination at play in the shifting chiaroscuro. If he squinted just right, he could trick himself into seeing a seated figure; with another sleight of eye, the chair vanished altogether…

Though sometimes a chair was just a chair — the saddest realization of all.

During this in-between time he thought about the future but the farthest he got was trying to envision a life without his teacher. The prospect took the wind out of him.

Not long after, the widow invited him into the den where her husband used to meditate and sing morning devotionals. She got right down to troubling business.

“You must take the chair!7 It is your time. God willed it — even you cannot challenge the events of that morning. They were preordained. And who is there better than you for the job? If you know, do tell. You must listen. Twas you who sat at Baba’s feet for years. Twas you who helped spread his teachings wide and far — you know them cold! Your body is knowing them too, not just your mind. This you cannot challenge! What I am saying, you have an obligation. You have a duty. That is what I am saying. He that is immortal loved you. He invited you to the far corners of his heart, and other places, where no one has traveled, not even myself! I beg you to consider! There are many good reasons to take the chair other than those I enumerated. The ones I am giving you now are the best reasons, the most obvious, for they are rooted in simplicity and common sense. But I contest there are many others, and some among them which are more than quite pressing. Surely, you are naïve to what I’m referring? I am telling you first to consider—then reconsider. You must take the chair! Now, good. Go! We shall talk again.”

That night the American slept at home.

You must take the chair!

He wanted to talk back, but what could he say?

You must take the chair!

It was like being warned by a gypsy or getting advice from a consigliere in a cheap mob drama… she made him feel like a hoodlum. And in that room, no less, that room of prayer, his father’s room! He found himself fantasizing about leaving Bombay, something that never crossed his mind until now. He hadn’t yet visited Benares; it was said all men must go to Benares at least once in their lives. To die in Benares meant to escape the cycle of suffering and rebirth and gain direct admittance to nirvana. A vision of himself in that ancient city grabbed hold.

For the next few days, the American went about his business on Mogul Lane. Millions of rupees had rained down since the Great Guru’s death. All dana needed to be carefully logged and accounted for; such scrupulousness seemed more important now than ever. He was glad the “books” were in order, no small thanks to his past efforts. The Kitchen Cabinet toadies continued to unnerve, sneakily lobbying for his surrender to promotion to chairman—though he knew they were simply doing the widow’s bidding. The American cauterized the wounds in his heart with his contempt for her sleazy proposition. He knew it was only a matter of time before she cornered him again yet whenever he mentally composed a vicious response to her entreaties, he pulled up short. “What am I doing? After all, this is the woman my beloved teacher chose to marry. The union the Source smiled upon!”

Soon he was back in the den. And this time, the widow wasn’t fucking around.

“The situation grows very dire. I think you do not have a full understanding of what is at stake! As you Americans say, let me lay it out for you. Through intermediaries, the member of a very powerful family has expressed keen interest in buying the shop—lock, stock and kaboom—for a sum even you would not believe if I told it to you straight to your face. It seems this family member, who shall remain nameless, was a devotee who did not emerge from the closet as a devotee until after Baba’s death… for this, I was given no reason. So be it. This family member is, at the current moment, working through the most arcane of municipal channels — apparently, the family to which he belongs has a raft of local politicians firmly in pocket. The intermediaries of whom I speak have roundly expressed this family member’s wish, should he succeed in his efforts to become said property’s owner, to transform the entire block into a spiritual amusement park—your guru’s tobacco shop being the tour’s crowning terminus! But I was told by the intermediary not to worry. You see, the intermediary has virtually guaranteed that the family member has given his word: my husband’s ‘boutique’ shall be strictly maintained up to ‘current museum standards.’ Why, the intermediary even suggested the siddha’s chair be placed on display behind bulletproof glass!

“My American friend, I won’t say the money isn’t tempting. No. I am not so foolish to make such a proclamation. As you know, Baba did not care a whit about it, money’s merely a tool. The princely sum—kingly! — offered by this intermediary person would allow me to set up house very nicely, in a neighborhood even more pleasant than this. Because here there are no trees and I have been missing them since I was a girl. I am no martyr. I refuse to cling to appearances! — ‘Guru Ma, widow of the Great Guru,’ and so forth. If I accept his monies, quite a bit would be left over to service the impoverished. More than quite a bit, so more’s the pity. Make no mistake: I am your guru’s widow but rest insured I have no qualms standing upon the neck of ceremony! Because when I am naughty, it does occur that an ‘Advaita Museum’ might even cause Baba a few grand guffaws! But herein lies the problem, my American friend: this arguably grotesque proposal only stands up for limited engagement — I am hearing the political bosses are already working hard for the intermediary’s money. And if they succeed, there is a distinct chance I shall have but no choice in the matter. The offer shall expire… and I shall be forced to sell for a song!

“An interesting alternative reared its hind legs not just three hours ago—I tell you, things are flying fast and furious! It seems a man of shady origin expressed the desire to buy us out for the sole purpose of providing a place for his harlot daughter to bed down. The pair came to see me. The air is not yet clear of their stink; not even the fattest of Baba’s cigars could conceal the rank smell of flesh and greed left in their trail. This seedy character had the amazing gall to say he was not merely an acolyte of Baba but an Advaita scholar to boot! He took me aside to confess it was his sincere hope that whichever ‘essences’ of the venerable saint remained — the hissing pronunciation of the word was revolting! — that whichever essences were left behind might have a ‘salutary effect’ upon the disease-ridden prostitute he calls his daughter. ‘Dear sir, spend your money in buying a clinic instead! One with a good supply of penicillin!’ I held my tongue. Meanwhile, the mini-skirted rodent paced the room as we spoke, looking this way and that, like a decorator who stepped in shite. To put an end to our whispering, which she didn’t like at all, the strumpet sashayed over — hardly dressed at all, my friend! — and began prattling on about Oxford and Cambridge! Sheer lunacy! She spoke more nonsense than her father. And how she turned on the slutty charm. As if I was her next conquest!

“You might ask my motive for inviting them in. And I’ll tell you… I agreed to rendezvous for one reason, and one reason only: I was intensely curious to lay an eye on the man who had doubled the offer made by the aforementioned intermediary, which in itself was a king’s ransom! To make things even more interesting, no one at the banks or newspapers had ever heard of him!

“But these stories amuse. I’m quite certain these fools can be handled. What I am next going to tell you is an animal of a different stripe. It is far more pertinent, as it involves your personal welfare. So you must listen very carefully…

“You are aware you’ve always been envied, true? From the beginning! O yes… I know this sort of question makes you uncomfortable, you must not answer, there is no need. It’s rhetoric. You see, the personal trait of yours Baba admired most was that you made no investment in the spiritual world. He extolled very much that part of you which would not feel betrayed if one day he were to close up shop… that would not feel fleeced or cheated of his rightful profits. O he used to tell me this about you with a gleaming eye — yours is an attitude not the norm, I insure! Because in the end, all seekers desire for a profitable enterprise, a pay-off, a dividend! They want to be in the black… You yourself have seen the type of person who is attracted to Baba and his teachings. Cast-offs of the Earth — as it should be. You were one too, no? A somewhat broken man when first you arrived, I recall… ashrams are filled with the miserable, the tragic, the befuddled. But let me say: the courage that gets them here, and watches over them on their long journeys, the dogged single-mindedness of purpose is also the very thing that makes them available for nobler pursuits. Other than saving their own hides, which of course is a natural inclination. Do you know what I’m saying, sir? Here’s what I’m saying. There are certain amongst them — amongst the so-called advanced echelon who’ve been here a while — there are certain amongst them who have their eye — have had their eye, for years now! — on the guru’s chair. O you would be surprised at who fancies himself a candidate. Sergei, of course… he’s always been outgunning for you. And Ludmilla! Ludmilla from Romania! Barely with Baba for three years, but who knows… lady siddhas are suddenly in vogue. She might just be voted into that chair by popular demand.

“The plotting is worthy of Shakespeare! And you, my American friend, have been spared—for the moment. Because you are top seed! It’s all sport, I liken it to tennis that way — did you know Baba and me used to travel to Wimbledon? We did, oh yes, when Baba taught at Oxford. There are many elimination matches before sudden death… but this should not concern you, not unduly. Like my ‘window shoppers,’ pretenders to the throne may be handled.

“You have other problems, friend, believe in me!

“I know you are a worldly man. You have guts, and would never have gotten so close to Baba if that weren’t the case, he simply would not have allowed it. The stars would not have let it happen. Yet I must tell you: about some things, you are stunningly naïve. You spent years under the protectorship of your munificent guru. You stared only into his light — precisely as it should have been — which made you blind to other influences at work. But you have that protection no more! Bombay is a metropolis of saints and sadhus, my friend, but it is also a city of rogues, of thuggees… many so-called holy men are one and the same! They are indistinguishable! There are networks of gurus in rule of whole sectors, each with the iron hand of a warlord! Swami mafiosi… and these are dangerous men, not simply because of the counterfeit nature of their teachings. Many have followers who know nothing of their greed and violent ways and hold them in their hearts with the innocence of children! With the same loving regard as did you your precious guru… These criminals give satsang, sit cross-legged on great stages groaning with flowers. It is not manna one smells in the air, but manure! They hold forth to the limpets, the lampreys and the sheep in stolen words pried from Baba’s mouth — cribbed from his books—your books! — rolling the pirated phrases ’round in shit like pigs in mud till the sentences fit their mercenary temperament or whatever the mood of the morning.

“Let me get to the point: there are two who need watching out for. They wish to collect Baba’s legacy as if it were some sort of payment due. There is a longhaired thuggee, a murderer, who is chauffeured here and there in a Rolls-Royce wearing silken pajamas. He actually believes he is our long-lost son! His attorney forced me to give a sample of my blood, it was of course no match but still he persists—such are the delusions! I am telling you, American friend, this is all very serious! The thuggee believes in all his diseased heart that I am Mommy and Baba was Daddy, the man has his flock of sheep believing it too! A murderer and a fool! As long as your guru was alive, they never came near. Naturally, these men had nothing to fear from Baba, but fear him they did. And let me inform you of something you seem not to know: they are now ready to take what they are most certain is theirs! Only a single thing still prevents them from storming the palace — a slender thread — because what ecstasy to at last be moguls of Mogul Lane, you better know it! It is the jewel in their crown! The only single thing that still prevents them from staking their claim is the very real hesitation in the face of those loyal masses who did rightfully worship our Baba. They are keenly aware those devoted masses are a sleeping giant best not awakened! Do you know what these cads fear most? Humiliation! Defeat! Loss of face. It would not bode well for their reputations, to be chased out on a rail! That would be a terrible misstep, serious enough to threaten their entire operation! General besmirchment and bloody turf wars would ensue.

“I have one more thing to add. I know you are worldly enough to understand there is always a corker—a mad one, more barbaric than his brethren — there is always a lunatic looking to make his mark. The corker’s advantage — in tennis, this is called ‘add’—is recklessness. And I, my friend, through a skein of intelligence maintained by Baba loyalists, am now privy to the identity of our greatest threat…

“This is the longest and shortest of what I am saying: You must sit in that chair. Swallow your stubborn pride and muddle through a month of satsang until you have sea legs! Accept the momentous responsibility of that which has fallen upon your shoulders by divine plan! If you continue to give weight to cautious indecision — which as you know has its roots in that distinctive American trait called neurosis—if you continue to fly in the face of your guru himself, you shall find there is a terrible price to pay. I tell you the guru-thuggees are out for blood! When your fanny hits that seat and not before shall you be safe and under new protectorship: that of the masses. Already, the guru-thuggees know who you are — oh yes! They have been boning you up for some time. Have you not seen them, hanging ’round outside your apartment? Of course you haven’t, why would you be looking? You’re blissfully unaware. Not a care in the world! A little baba in the woods… well they are not interested in your autograph, sir. We’ve all been looking, all but you! They know you were Baba’s favorite; they used to fear you. But each day they fear you less and less!

“Let me be frank. We’re both well aware Baba had no fixed ideas on the topic of successorship per se; he was of a mind the whole business was poppycock. But it is imperative you approach any ideas you have about what your guru would have ‘wished’—you must approach any such fantasies of ‘knowing’ what actions he may or may not have taken if he were still with us — you must destroy this notion that something about you is so special that it is actually possible for you to apprehend his philosophies enough to speak for him — you must consider this entire line of thought to be purely chimerical. The certitude that accompanies, sponsors and endorses any thought, no matter how trivial that thought might be, must always be thoroughly examined and approached with great caution. And then that certitude must be vanquished. For the mind is the enemy, my American friend! Guard against arrogance! If a person ever imagines it possible to know the mind of his guru, that person has set himself on a course to Hell! To believe oneself privy to a pandit’s thoughts — if one may even call them ‘thoughts’—it seems to me that to call them anything is another presumption — to believe one can truly know the ‘mind’ of a living master, let alone a dead one, providing of course that the guru is authentic… that, my friend, is to enter perdition. A triumph of Mind and nothing else. This is not to say one can never have a feeling or energetic inkling… but to suddenly be in prideful possession of such inklings or feelings is as delusional as the belief one has full knowledge, for the mind interprets them in the same way. To have inklings about one’s guru’s intention is a meaningless obscenity! Far better to admit to knowing nothing! At least with the latter, one lays claim to an ethical morality. The guru is not your friend! To presume intimacy is the sheerest of vanity. This is not America! The guru is not your Daddy nor is he your bro’. He ain’t your ‘buddy’ either… You — all of us — are simply unfit to interpret the concepts of the Great Guru, who lived in Silence, who was—is—unknowable! Dare to indulge such presumptions and you are no better than the guru-thuggees! True, one feels an aching closeness to his teacher and misses him grievously when he is gone… that cannot nor should be denied. Yet in the shortest time, the mind transforms sorrow into the Cyclops of narcissism. You believe your hesitance to sit in the chair is indicative of humility, to ‘refuse the mantle,’ but the opposite is true! You’re wearing your obstinance like a peacock!

“You hesitate to sit because you have the notion that somehow your guru would not approve. But there is a fly in the anointment of your logic. My husband was neither politician nor strategist so how would it be possible for him to get lathered over this figment now causing you such distress? He is no Dear Abby in the sky. Because I know what you’re thinking, I know the beggar’s mind, you have the idea he would not approve of you taking the chair, or worse, that you’re not worthy. I say ‘worse’ because of the monstrous egotism involved in such a sentiment. Need I remind you what intrigued Father most was energy itself and how it manifests, which is precisely why the Source ‘arranged the dance,’ and why he was so tickled by your presence. And don’t forget! It is the same Source that designed the predicament you are in today! That is the cosmic joke, my American friend! Baba delighted in your energy, plain and simple. He knew that if your energy could be disciplined, contained and manipulated, you just might have what he called ‘the chance of a chance’… to be liberated from the Wheel!

“Look. There is no question you’re a charming fellow. You’ve been a careful, obedient student. You are a practical man as well, and know how to make yourself useful. But surely you cannot have thought he kept you around for your skills! Do you believe he considered you indispensable? The Wizard of Oz behind the drapes of the tobacco shop, riding in on his horse to save the hi-yo-silver day? That he wrung his hands and cried to the gods, ‘What would I do without him?’ No! He did not give a whit and a hoot about the books you made, the ponies you played, the women you consorted with, or anything else! Surely, you know this — and if you do not, I shall be quite surprised and disappointed. Though I’ve been surprised and disappointed before… but I am telling you now. Baba had no need of friends, favorites, cohorts. If you don’t know this, then you know less than nothing! He was no longer human that way. He certainly didn’t need followers… Your guru gave satsang out of filial piety to the Source whence he came. In weaker moments — human ones! — he allowed himself a small, trembling excitation upon encountering those whose energy delighted him — such as you — with whom he might brush against the bodhisattva’s dream: to free all sentient beings from their cage of suffering. Usually the ones he felt an affinity toward never stayed too long on Mogul Lane. He never thought you’d stay but you did, and that was a bonus, a very unusual occurrence! That was why he kept you close, because your energy was familiar. Fraternal. Unrefined yet similar to his. And it tickled him that you never had a clue what was ‘in your wallet’!”

The widow stood, signaling she was nearly done.

“Each time you pressed Baba’s feet at satsang’s end, it was confirmed in the most captivating way. He would tell me your touch never failed to convey the ‘congeniality’ of your energetic configuration…

“I warn you, dear friend, do not make this more complicated than it is! Take your place in the chair! Do not be bothered that most of them will have need to declare you were appointed by royal decree! Six puffs of smoke from the roof, from Baba’s favorite cigar! They shall see it through the crudest lens, they always do! Your challenge will be not to believe it, any of it! Making you feel special is not the devil’s work, it’s the mind’s. The mind will summon you to its bloody battlefield… a clarion call not easy to resist. To hell with how it will look. In time all will come ’round, I can assure—

“Think it over, my American friend, I urge you! Carefully consider why you flee from your destiny. Your life is in certain danger! There isn’t much time and I shan’t come begging again. For all is predetermined! But mark my words, soon enough all will shout: ‘The Great Guru is dead, long live the Great Guru!’”

I’ve been telling this story as straightforward as I can but it’s convoluted by nature. Shall we do a timeline?

That last scene (hope you enjoyed) occurred roughly a month after the Great Guru’s death and some 48 hours before Kura found his place at the foot of the chair — a position, by the way, he would occupy for seven years. (As it happened, his apprenticeship to the American lasted precisely as long as the latter’s under the Great Guru.) Now we circle back to a question: When Kura and I first arrived at Mogul Lane just what the hell was going on? With that insane and glittering mob?

You see, mornings had become especially difficult since Baba’s death. As the hubbub of bereavement began to recede, the void once filled by satsang became a continuous reminder of the Great Guru’s absence. By unspoken rule, the lobby was off-limits between 9:30 and 11 when he would have held forth; its use as a walk-through vestibule or nostalgic loitering place felt disrespectful. There was a new wrinkle — devotees still gathered outside as they used to, only much earlier. Occasionally the satsang-less queue outgrew the sidewalk, snaking into the street with dangerous nonchalance. The police delicately brought this “hazard” to the attention of a Cabineteer, who brought it to the widow, who brought it to the American, who was only annoyed by the bureaucrats’ bogus distress. As far as he was concerned, the whole of India was a hazard. That was when he made a brilliant decision to open the doors to the Master’s house for what he privately referred to as “ghost satsang.”

They filed in like it was a cathedral, festive young voices abruptly stilled by the humble oratorium. Attendees, lost in prayer and self-reflection, were so quiet the unexpected sight of them invariably startled this or that auntie passing through on official business. The American was touched by their earnestness. Now and then he found himself discreetly joining the throng near the shop’s entrance. It was more séance than satsang but if he shut his eyes the presence of his beloved teacher could most definitely be felt. At a few minutes before eleven, when the Great Guru would have begun closing hymns, the voices began to whisper, a chorus of throats gargling with sutras before joining in song as one. It gave him gooseflesh. Naturally, they asked after the Great Guru’s books and tapes. The American put a disciple in charge, a solitary Norwegian woman who moved to Bombay fourteen years earlier so she might give her life to the saint. Each morning she laid everything out.

And so it happened that all appeared unchanged, except for the absence of he who once presided — though it must be said that the empty chair, dramatically indifferent in its thing-in-itself-ness, proved a worthy stand-in for its vanished occupant.

Word of ghost satsang spread. In time, the early morning pilgrims (whom the American wryly dubbed tobacconistas) were joined by the simply curious. The shop began to groan under the weight of lurid mythology. Pop-up folklore had it that the Great Guru’s emanations radiated from the chair but were only visible to those of strongest faith. Another claim promised visitors to the shrine a spectacular rise in income, if not an outright windfall within the year. It wasn’t long before the infirm of body (there were already plenty infirm of mind!) hobbled and rolled onto Tobacco Road. The rich sent servants to keep their places in the queue in order to secure a coveted spot near the empty chair. The widow took the American aside, pointing out the pony-tailed thuggee she’d warned him about. By the time the dangerous guru reached the door, the shop was filled to capacity. He implored to be let in but was sent gloomily packing. “Good riddance!” she said, adding that he’d merely come “to case the job.”

A command performance limned by an understudy (the chair) nonetheless became the hottest ticket in Bombay. In lieu of demanding VIP treatment, local politicians made a great convivial show of waiting on line. As elections loomed it was important to demonstrate they were men of the people, if not for the people. Once inside, the burdens of municipal business fell away, allowing a pause for prayer not less than three minutes nor more than five. These enterprising gentlemen made the most of their time, shedding tears for “our Baba” and receiving imaginary blessings. On taking leave, they cavalierly waved away constituents’ offerings of handkerchiefs to wipe wet eyes blinking above wetter cheeks. The same politicos soon found themselves on the horns of a dilemma. Three aficionados — one Canadian and two Englishwomen — were fatally struck by cabs in as many weeks. Even worse, a cow was hit, and perished. (Not a good omen.) Pickpockets were rife as rats. Initially thrilled by the Great Guru’s promisingly lucrative afterlife, vendors began to fight amongst themselves over choice sidewalk billets, the closer to the tobacconist’s the better. Mogul Lane became the up-and-coming destination for tourists led by irreligious guides. These scruffy docents spoke into microphones as they drove, delivering nonsensical lectures about the concepts of the Great Guru, his rumored wealth, the speculation he’d been poisoned and whatnot. They delved into the spiritual, in cocksure possession of an hermetic knowledge of the liminal, subliminal and sublime. Meanwhile, the governor was harassing the mayor to bust things up — to restore the neighborhood to relative sanity and let sleeping gurus lie.

Election time — a sticky wicket!

What, then, finally pushed the American into the widow’s camp and the chair itself? I think it was attrition as much as fate. Because it was my impression he was bully-proof. And I never thought him capable of abrogating his integrity by servicing a brand name legacy — nor could I envision the American plotting against those who might wish him harm. He was tired, he was grieving, he was noble, and had no fight in him. He just wanted to be left in peace. But instead of his teacher’s death providing a reflective respite, he suddenly found himself absurdly challenged. Aggressively so. It was a bitch of a conundrum… the whole business was wildly inconvenient. He kept reviewing the widow’s words. Whatever her flaws, stupidity wasn’t one of them. It was true that the American’s concept of his guru’s opposition to so-called successorship had hardened into dogma. The widow’s assertion that her husband had spent his life battling the perceptual policies and prejudices of man neatly overturned the American’s reasoning. She was right and he knew it. The old siddha wasn’t for or against anything, including someone taking out the chair for a spin. To see it any other way would mean that he’d wasted years at his guru’s feet. To sit or not to sit? became the burning question that his egotism, laziness and outright terror threatened to ignite into a conflagration. To answer it would take everything he had, everything he’d learned in the last seven years and more.

On just such a day, in the midst of a lot of Hindi hoopla, did Kura and I make our famous entrance — duly orchestrated by the Source. May the trickster gods rejoice!

Graduation Day for us all…

I can’t recall a word of the American’s first Q&A. (Though squawk boxes strung on the outside of the shop gave broadcast.) I think I already told you that, didn’t I? You know, I might be getting a little punchy — let’s stop soon and have supper?

O… there’s something I do remember that’s important not to forget.

When any satsang ends, not just the Great Guru’s, one “presses” the teacher’s feet in respect. An ancient gesture. Devotees jockey to get there first. You know, “If I touch the feet before all others, that makes me special.” The human being is stark raving mad, don’t you think? Absolutely wired for hierarchy, we do hierarchy in our sleep. Kura was in the catbird’s seat, or in front of it anyway. So he was the first. I had a perfect view from my pole… He prostrated himself then pressed his forehead to the floor. Remaining thus, he extended his arms for their short, deferential journey, that gentle, timeless laying on of hands. What happened next was as horrifying as it was baffling. The moment contact was made between Kura’s hands and the American’s feet, well, the man in the chair went rigid. I swear, his eyes shone with something that looked like apocalyptic dread. His mouth hung slack like an idiot’s and the rest of him — I’m not sure I can properly convey! He looked so startled and confused, like he’d jumped from his skin… then came that weird silence again, remember how I was saying that in the moments before he sat down there was this eerie silence? Well there it came, no one breathed, not a soul, that behind-the-snow-globe silence I thought I’d never hear again in my life. The collective breath hung in suspension as I went about my lightning lucubrations to explain the reaction: Had Kura pressed too hard? Was there something wrong with the man in the chair’s feet? (I say “man in the chair” and not “the American” because at this time you see we really had no idea who this simulacrum was or what was the meaning of it.) Was he about to have some sort of fit? A flurry of colorful thoughts followed: What the fuck am I doing in India? Kura doesn’t love me anymore, he never did… I want to go home now, how can I get home? But where is home?

Just then, a coquettishly simian grin bloomed on the fellow’s face as he sat bolt upright. He looked gemütlich and hyper-alert. This time though, the effect was radiantly comedic, his countenance Chaplinesque. He began to mime a convict sizzling in an electric chair, not scary but delightful, his ticcing, twitching face pelted by the most wonderful hailstorm of expressions that morphed from an obsequious smile to the rictus of a silent scream (and everything in-between) as if to deftly convey a mission statement to the tribe: “I am not the Great Guru! He cannot be replaced… Yet I ask you to fear nothing, you are still in his hands! Have patience, I beseech you! I beseech you to trust! It is impossible for energy to err, of that you can be certain! Mysterious forces have brought me to this chair! All is predetermined…”

Thus, at the tail end of his inauguration, as a fillip to the substantive, wittily learned, deeply satisfying nature of his responses to the audience’s questions, did the vaudevillian Vedic scrum swing from the sublime to the ridiculous then back again, celebrated by a communal roar of approbation. The American had gambled with antic play, the same his teacher had usually confined to the kitchen table. It was a brilliant stroke. The maneuver forced skeptical seekers to challenge their reactionary resistance to change. He was their saint now (at least in this moment, for mobs are notoriously fickle) and had gained more than a toehold on their ardor and respect, perhaps even on their fear… Many pairs of hands followed Kura’s. The American’s face became inscrutable while he received further benedictions, which seemed befitting. For he was the American no more.

He was the Great Guru.

As I said — this I know I did tell you — Kura remained on Mogul Lane and environs for seven years. During satsang he could always be found in the exact spot he alit upon that first morning. He became fluent in the same duties the American had been entrusted by his own teacher.

Me? I lasted about four months, four very long months — I was young, and bored with the company. The ashram diehards and devotees were either putzes or major dicks and that last category included women. I did some fooling around (I was an equal gender employer) but Kura didn’t seem to give a shit. He’d lost the urge. I tried not to take it personally. After the head-rush of Bombay wore off, I grew restive. He had enough sense to give me a long leash. He was too caught up in the annihilation of the Self to be bothered.

I went through a manic month of buying rare fabrics. I became addicted to the markets that sold them, whole cities unto themselves where transactions were conducted over dreamily aromatic tea in hidden rooms looking out on acres of silk, linen, cotton, muslin. I made day trips in search of obscure ayurvedic treatments, though what I really wanted was a massage that would never end — I wanted to massage my way to nirvana. The longer I stayed, the stranger my pursuits. I uncovered an infamous cult of sacred prostitutes who taught me their bittersweet songs. (That’s another story.) Day trips became overnights, overnights turned into weekends, weekends into extended stays. I actually loved India but discovered I didn’t enjoy traveling by myself, which was a new one because I so cherished and protected my autonomy. Now I see what I couldn’t see then: I was furious at the American for stealing my man. I could handle the abstinence part but not having him in bed with me was a bear. He insisted on sleeping alone, something having to do with his “subtle body.” I think I was probably going through withdrawal because sex with us was definitely a drug. I kept our suite at the Taj and Kura rented a disgusting little room much closer to Mogul Lane. Each time I returned from one of my forays, I fantasized he’d appear at the hotel to apologize for his behavior, and come to his senses by announcing we were leaving for Paris at once—or Morocco, Ibiza, Timbuktu—if I’d have him. (At this point in the fantasy, he was still down on his knees.) In reality, he was sullen and displeased. Which was immensely disconcerting to a wild child like myself who was accustomed to a man’s affections compounding in ratio to the amount of time I’d blown him off. I’d always heard that gurus were notorious for taking their students to bed, but my efforts to seduce the American were a dismal failure. Finally, I worked up the courage to tell Kura I wanted to go home. Wherever that was… the Marais I suppose. I didn’t get the reaction I’d hoped.

One day, he showed up at the pool while I was doing my club sandwich thing. (I always order triple-deckers at hotel pools, it’s a Queenie tradition.) I was on a chaise longue fooling around with a rich kid whose parents had taken the train to Goa without him. Out of nowhere Kura grabbed my arm. The boy hightailed it — so blind was Kura’s anger I don’t even think he noticed. He began to shout about how he’d made a mistake bringing me there, how I was an albatross around his neck, that at long last he found what he’d been searching for and was hereby firing himself from the job of nanny… I kept a stiff upper lip, not easy under the circumstances. I said I was happy for him and didn’t need a nanny, thank you very much. I must have been talking through my tears but it wouldn’t have mattered. He wasn’t listening. He said he wasn’t going to waste his time on a spoiled little cunt doomed to perpetual adolescence and that I was “spitting at God,” flushing my only chance at self-liberation like so much shite down the toilet. In mid-tirade, he grabbed my hand by the wrist and raised it up as if to present its amputated fingers to the jury as Exhibit A. I recall a jolly waiter striding triumphantly toward us with my club, fries and sundae held high on a tray. When he saw what was going down, he neatly swiveled and departed. I was still seated and Kura was standing; he held my wrist so high that my shoulder flirted with dislocation. As hurtful as it was, and as poorly handled, I understood where Kura was coming from. His life had been dislocated too, in the most gorgeous way, and he’d generously wanted me to have the same experience. I had my doubts about his new relationship. At the time, I felt he was determined to meet a guru, any guru, it just turned out that the American was the handiest, with the best provenance. I never thought it would last — and believe me, when he crawled back to me I wasn’t planning on being there to pick up the karma. So I pretty much handled his rage-out, until he said something that wounded me to my core.

“Why didn’t I just let you die?”

O, Bruce! I think I did die — right then — died again—as I searched the eyes of my killer — my killer by default, or do I mean omission? — the killer I loved before knowing what love is — searched his eyes for a sign of mercy…

I held his gaze but none was forthcoming.

He came to my room while I was packing. I thought he was going to hit me. That’s how far from love we had come. He gave me $25,000 worth of francs and enough damp, stinky rupees to buy myself a soda at the airport. I went back to Paris and stayed at the George V for a month. I was not in good shape. Had a wicked parasite too, not to mention a few stowaway demons of lower caste.

That was the last I saw or heard of him until that day he called my apartment in New York, seven years ago. There are so many “sevens,” do you notice? Sevens and elevens… they really do seem to come up more than other numbers. O! Now I remember his last words to me in Bombay:

He said, “I shan’t be saving you again.”

I was dreaming of New York, in quiet conversation with a gargoyle, when the voice of a stewardess whispered, “We’re beginning our descent.”

I nudged the drape aside to look out the window.

The great orange dust cloud of Delhi lay before me.

We resumed the following day.

What happened next is a blur.

I debarked into those rioting molecules of shit, perfume, death and rebirth that belong not just to Delhi but every Indian necropolis. Two golf carts raced toward us on the tarmac, holding porters and customs officials — and Kura with two bodyguards! He hugged me and I almost fainted dead away. How my old lover looked! And my tear-streaked self watching him watch me, seeing how I looked! We took each other in, sizing up like tailors for our three-piece eternity suits — that magnificent ache that embraced all coming-togethers and coming-aparts, and touched the exquisite sorrow that is the shadow of existence itself.

His smile was big as a catcher’s mitt.

He looked strikingly presidential in his Muga silk threads. Arms intertwined, our whole beings clutched, fussed and melded as we rode to the hotel in the small motorcade. We hardly said a word. Kura had a flair for the grandiose; the other cars were carrying “muscle.” (And the elusive doctor.) I was tongue-tied except for the powerful, almost jokey urge to ask how the hell he made a living these days. But I didn’t, discretion being the better part of valor. However the saying goes.

We had dinner in one of those dark, gaudy, empty restaurants that tend to live on the ground floor of 5-star Indian hotels. Wait a while though… did we go to a private club? Why am I thinking of this particular club? Maybe that was Bangalore… or Bangkok. Or Chicago! Memory’s failing me… a club? I actually don’t think so — no, probably not. Though he kept the details mysterious, Kura implied we had quite a journey ahead and I doubt he’d have wanted to trek off-campus on the eve of our departure, because we were slated to leave the next day. Though it is possible, more than possible that we took our meal in his room. Or should I say rooms, in that they occupied the entire penthouse. The Presidential Suite, indeed.

I told you this part was blurry. Starting the next morning, everything sharpens.

We had breakfast at a corner table in the coffee shop off the lobby. We’d slept well and allowed ourselves the exquisite luxury of enjoying each other’s company in the moment, unencumbered by the odd circumstances of our reunion. We were brighter than the day that was about to enfold us, we threw off sparks and made spunky prayers of thanks to the gods of Whatever for arranging things thus. Kura had gained a bit of weight but not too much — some whiteness and thinning of hair — a slight tremor when he lifted his glass. Yes, he still had the hôtel particulier in the Marais on the Rue Vieille-du-Temple. (Glory be!) Yes, he was single. (Hmm.) His father was dead coming up on twenty years but his mother had just celebrated her 100th. When British citizens reach their centennial, the Queen mails them a congratulatory card; an anti-royalist all her life, Mum secretly ate it up. As for his current line of work, he knew I’d be curious and threw me a bone—“I am in the recycling business.” I almost laughed, because it sounded so mafia.

We spoke in shallow generalities, packaging the broader strokes of our lives and exchanging them as gifts. At the end of the preliminaries, something shifted in him. He looked positively ancient — more battered pharaoh than beleaguered king.

“I remember everything about the day you left Bombay… a horrible, terrible day. A day that hurt me — as they say — more than it hurt you. I flogged myself for treating you so shabbily. Please accept my belated amends. ‘It’s been a long time coming, it’s going to be a long time gone.’ Do you remember how we used to sing that song?

“After you departed, I realized something I had been unable to voice or admit, even to myself. I was in love with you. There! I said it. O, how I suffered, Queenie! How I grieved. And all the while, I told myself such torment was unavoidable, that it was the anguish of the old, attached Self, an unhealthy aspect of the ‘me’ I was struggling to snuff out for good. After all, I had just begun my love affair with the renunciate’s way, my foolhardy fling with enlightenment. Ah, but enlightenment turned out to be a bigger tease than you ever were!

“As soon as you returned to Paris, I became very, very ill. Do you remember how sick I was when we first arrived, the night before going to Mogul Lane? That was merely a foreshadowing, the appetizer if you will. The entree came after you’d gone. Looking back, it’s clear I’d acquired that sickness unto death diagnosed by a certain melancholy Dane, the fear and trembling that accompany the realization the Self must die — this walking, talking collection of vanities, addictions and absurdities calling itself ‘Kura’ must die. As you may well know, my love, one has never been truly ill unless one has been ill in India! You lay in your sweaty bed of nails, riveted by the ceiling stains, scanning them like tea leaves for meaning — and none of the outcomes are good. One’s mood becomes quite dire. The American sent two ladies of a certain age to take care of me. The fever raged for two weeks. I hallucinated freely — mad dogs and midday sun but alas, no Englishmen. I was certain I would die, which in effect I did. Between visions I thought, What fatal idiocy to have journeyed all this way! I’d traveled thousands of miles to reach here—you traveled with me — to finally meet the Great Guru, the man I dreamed would consent to be my teacher. Astonishingly, I’d failed to give any credence to the rather ominous detail that I’d pinned the tail of my spiritual aspirations on a corpse! The aunties sponged me down with cold rags while my troubled mind wandered this way and that, like an imbecile in top hat and tails on a serious errand… and all of it came to nothing. In the end, I stood before pride’s funhouse mirrors and took my full measure. What reflected back was my obsession with the goal not the journey — ergo, finding my guru — and in that febrile moment, it became painfully obvious the adventure had been doomed to failure. My fate was sealed! How could I have been so blind? So you see I couldn’t very well run away and follow you, not after all the metaphysical ruckus I’d raised. I was like a mountain climber so close to summiting that he defies that inner voice telling him the weather has turned and he must descend if he is to live — the devil take it, he summits anyway! Now it was too late. I was near the summit, freezing, without oxygen… dying in a cheap room in Bombay, far from Paris, far from anyplace called home, far — oh so far, my Queen! — from the realm of Pure Land Rebirth. The fever raged, scorching the earth of the American, when I had no reason to fault him — not as yet. Fire and brimstone! I surmised that it was not a mountain I had tried to summit but a mountebank—and an American one, to boot! My descent would not be to the foothills but down, down, to the hell of Hungry Ghosts! And to make things worse, if that were possible, I’d chased off my lady. Whilst casting about for false gods I had excommunicated the real one, the yogini in front of my very nose! I tell you, Queenie, those were miserable times!

“When the fever receded, I lay seared in my bed, a shell-shocked soldier after furious battle. Weak but clear-headed. I don’t think I’ve ever been that lucid in my life — I no longer pined, nor did I mourn you, but celebrated your existence without remorse. I thanked the Heavens that our lives had intersected for the brief and beautiful time that they did. Upadana8 left my body. Like dye entering water, my gratitude extended to everyone I’d ever loved and to everyone I’d ever hated too. My anger, fear and consternation, my seizures of longing became those of the world and the world gave them back; and somewhere in that process, gold was spun. My guru—‘the American’ as you like to call him — later said I’d experienced metta, an instantaneous if temporary bodhicitta.9

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

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

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

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

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

“I tell you, Madame Q, I became unrecognizable to myself in the best sense! I channeled my sexual energies into the yogas11 and yearning for God. There were no rules against sex—‘the American’ didn’t give a rat’s ass — but I wanted to see what might arise after subtracting — then transmuting — the predatory obsessions of the flesh. I hadn’t anything to lose; in a word, I’d already fucked myself to death. The game had gotten very old. Nothing to prove anymore on that particular front. It was difficult at first but in time became second nature.

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

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

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

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

After a dramatic pause, Kura said:

“My guru vanished into thin air.”

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

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

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

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

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

“That horrible woman! No matter that she was his earliest champion, urging him to take the chair. Something hardened her toward him those last few years. She was getting on in age, and became careless in dress and tongue. A few days after ‘the American’ went missing, she invited me into the very den that my guru — and his — once used as a sanctuary to meditate and sing psalms. I thought surely she was going to ask me to step into his shoes! She talked my ear off for the better part of an hour, anxious to promote the theory he’d been ‘done in’ by an enigmatic consortium of power-hungry thuggees, the same men, she said, who once plotted to kidnap and murder her husband. Another possibility lay in the realm of the supernatural. She spoke of flying yogins, skilled in the dark art of ‘translating’ themselves through the ether… then went in for the kill. ‘Have you considered what I believe to be the very real probability that your American guru may simply have had enough? That he decided to return home, to find fame and fortune? He would not be the first of his countrymen to capitalize on the Source!’ O, she cast her meretricious net far and wide, tarnishing all the fishies in the sea! So base, and thoroughly contagious as well — the same cheap, haughty mannerisms and grating inflection cropped up in those dastardly aunties who were under her stern sponsorship.

“It came to me in a sickening flash: No one had understood a single word of my guru’s teachings! And Queenie, let me tell you, that terrifying insight gave me comfort. I sat with the damnable conclusion a while until I swear I caught a glimpse of the form of mankind’s ignorance itself. Diabolical! Could it possibly be true that I was the only one who understood that a saint had walked among us? I’ll admit he had many strikes against him. After all, he was American, which cost him the lion’s share of his followers from the git-go. I watched him assiduously win that share back, not through contrivance or campaign but sheer valence. The naysayers came to deeply respect him. Still, there were many, shall we say, opposing camps — it would have been naïve not to have noticed. I’m convinced the widow kept the conspirators’ fires burning… the Janus-faced ones who clambered to press his feet had for a while now worked most avidly against him, whispering that his seat was a fraud and a heresy. A blasphemy…

“The colder went the trail, the more determined, the more invigorated was I to solve the invidious riddle. And I had considerable resources — don’t forget those numbered accounts in Switzerland. I set up shop in a building a few miles from Tobacco Road. I employed a crew of ten — half a dozen locals with the rest flown in, individuals I absolutely trusted and had worked with before. Gaetano did a brilliant job of organizing the entire operation. I’ll spare you the innovative details… you already know how creative I can be when an important project is at hand, no? Suffice to say I went to great lengths, some not entirely legal, to find him.

“Weeks went by and my team made no progress. I grew distant from Mogul Lane. A strange time, to say the least… My guru, a bright sun that once shone down on me, underwent a disturbing eclipse. Something began to gnaw. I felt like a private investigator in one of those European novels that reviewers call ‘philosophical detective stories.’ A portrait of him over my desk seemed to leer. I wondered if the widow was right — she so often was! — and considered expanding my search to the States.

“Approximately eight weeks after the nightmare began, I awakened from a nap to find the screw had completed its turn. Try as I may — and try I did, my Queen! — I could do nothing to alter the belief that I’d been ‘had.’ This new poison burned my throat, seared my eyes and became a wildfire in my soul… Dear heart, the fickleness of the human race is a wonder to behold. One by one my troops returned empty-handed, and one by one I relieved them of their services until finally I was alone in a suite of empty rooms, with only his photograph’s sinister eyes following me ’round. I shambled about, trying to stave off what was coming — the heartbreaking realization I’d been administered a coup de grâce. His final teaching! O Lord. Lord… I’m ashamed to say I declared to myself and the world that the feet I’d washed, worshipped and worried over were made of clay. The doubts and paranoia I harbored while ill no longer seemed the stuff of fever dreams. I set fire to the portrait, burning in effigy he who once held an unimpeachable place in my heart, whose insights, energy and brilliance had sustained and transformed me. I stripped him of all laurels and medals, tarred, feathered and court-martialed him, pissed on his counterfeit spirit for eternity! I was in the grips of a kind of mania… deranged. A bucket of delighted, perverse fantasies watered the petals of my resentments that opened like a corpse flower in bloom: perhaps he had been abducted — kidnapped, tortured, killed! O be careful, my Queen, when the beast inside is unleashed! I hasten to add that a small part of me still remained true and watched the torch-bearing mob of Self with helpless amazement.

“But it gets worse, Queenie — far worse!

“In madness, I saw only monsters. Years of rigorous tutelage reared up like diseased horses running wild through remorseful, desolate fields. Remarks my guru had made during intimate conversation — moments I treasured, his words forming a garland I’d hoped to wear around my neck whilst crossing the final threshold of Silence — became nothing more than dirty jokes, the larcenous pitch of an obscene grifter. My guru knew the mystery of the pyramids… Ponzi’s! O, how foolish I felt! I mention Mr. Ponzi only in a figurative sense, as no fiscal malfeasance ever came to light. Just hours after ‘the American’ took a powder, I knew that embezzlement needed to be ruled out. A thorough forensic examination of house finances found them intact (if anything, there was more in the treasure chest than I initially thought). My first hope — of course, this was before I renounced him as my guru — was to discover a theft then ‘follow the money,’ a process that might lead me to a suspect or suspects, the working theory being ‘the American’ had stumbled across irregularities that certain parties feared he might soon reveal. I’d be lying if I didn’t say the widow was at the top of my list… Did I tell you about the ransoms? O my! The notes came fast and furious. Some claimed he was being held hostage, and demanded all manner of absurdities. Some were thrown right over the transom… All were deemed inauthentic.

“I paced those empty rented rooms, plotting my revenge. I would find ‘the American’ and dispatch him to nirvana myself! My Queen, I assure you I was back to true form. I gathered my wits and my Dopp kit and took a train north, the direction my very best detective said our quarry had been last seen heading. I started out as John Wayne but ended like Shelley Winters — pushy and hysterical, all over the place. I ransacked my memory for clues the impostor may have provided, anything to impossibly, magically pull it all together. Looking for a needle in a haystack is one thing, looking for a guru in India quite another; I grew to covet those who sought only needles. I was proud. My anger had nowhere to express but inward. I became depressed. I concluded I’d wasted seven years of my life and could never win them back. Not only was the time gone but the potentialities it held, the way energy hides in a bomb… my bomb turned out to be a dud. A special agony, my Queen, awaits those who treat the Source like currency on the exchange! Regret spread like cancer. Its skeletal hands clutched at many things—even you—yet held on to nothing.

“I wadded up that whole continent, vanishing guru included, and tossed it in the dustbin. I returned to Paris to lick my wounds. Took up a few long-forgotten habits and felt better for a while, reacquainted myself with old habitués and cultivated new ones. But the thrill was gone — that’s what a wrong turn’ll get you! I threw myself into business… not the enterprise you think. No, I’d lost the stomach for that kind of risk. I wanted ‘stress-free,’ so everything was aboveboard. Assembled most of the old team and did extremely well. I always did extremely well, except in the business of gurus! Ha! And I must say that I rarely thought of ‘the American.’

“I said ‘dustbin’ but if I’m to expand the metaphor, I’d say I stuffed the whole experience into a trunk that was promptly sealed and stored away. It lay in the attic a long, long time, Queenie — about 15 years, in fact. Then one day I found myself wandering up to the belfry. Went in and paced a while. Sat and stared at the trunk. Eventually walked over and broke the seal. Took two steps back. Warily circled. Lifted the lid to let some air out and left, closing the door behind me. A year later, I went up again. Paced, circled, sat. It felt familiar to spend time there. Opened the trunk and poked around with a stick. Walked out, shut the door.

“I had a heart attack in ’92 that changed my lifestyle. I hired a vegan chef and started exercising. Though I must tell you, Queenie, the whole time I lay in hospital I was sorely preoccupied. I would close my eyes and roam around that attic… For you see, I opened that trunk for the same reason the surgeons opened my chest: to heal. And to my surprise, I found it held things of great beauty… books—I helped publish — smelling of incense, cigars and tuberoses… raiments of gold-threaded silk… glittering gems. Even the ‘necklace’ was there, the garland of my guru’s words! The drought of rage and heartbreak lifted at last and in its place was a bright green stem coursing with life that broke through the skylight and reached for the sun.

“Over the next few months of convalescence, I revisited where it all began: The Book of Satsang. The Great Guru still spoke to me yet within its pages I saw the genius of his favorite student, ‘the American,’ writ large. I had not been mistaken! Still, I knew it was important to remain cautious. My conduct needed to be measured. I waited to see if my jubilance was artificial, manufactured—‘post-cardiac.’ I wished to do nothing on impulse; I recalled with disgust how quickly I had turned on the one who was so precious to me. I needed to be absolutely certain this latest turning toward him wasn’t arbitrary as well.

“I was still in possession of all the books I midwifed during my time as editor and putative translator of Mogul Lane Press. Some were collections of my guru’s morning Q&As; others slim, elegant hardbacks filled with apothegms and parables reflecting his simple abstractions and direct truths. I unpacked the boxes and leafed through them at leisure. I had a nagging fear they’d be nothing more than ‘cosmic candy’ though I needn’t have worried — they were awfully compelling. The beautiful little volumes held many epiphanies for the careful reader… there did seem to be a lot of them out there (careful readers). Even after he skedaddled — my guru taught me that word! — his book sales grew steadily each year. The unsolved mystery of his leave-taking certainly didn’t hurt; hagiographies sprung up like mushrooms after a rain. Scoundrels debunked, seekers martyred, and scholars wangled over who should be authorized to be custodian of his legacy. Controversies notwithstanding, the radical breadth of my guru’s concepts proved he was more than just a shooting star in the cosmology of Advaita. His place in the firmament was secure.

“A year passed. I was distracted by the profitability of my business enterprises. But at the end of each day, my fancies drifted to the missing saint… Along with the health of my heart, my affections had returned. Very quietly I began to lay the groundwork for a project as subterranean as it was quixotic. I carefully tricked my mind into believing the adventure I was about to embark upon was mere sport. I couldn’t afford to be emotionally invested, which wasn’t too difficult in that the chance of success was practically nil. We are speaking of a muni who disappeared from Bombay 15 years prior without a trace! He could be anywhere in the world, if indeed he was still alive. But you know how I am, Queenie, when I get a bee in my bonnet. The dream team assembled this time bore no resemblance to the farm club cobbled together in that frantic time after we lost him. The uniqueness of his features — tall, Caucasian — might help our cause, but only if he’d remained in India. So you see, I couldn’t really get too excited about the little numbers game I was running on the side and that was a good thing. With nearly a billion souls walking the Continent, the whole treasure hunt notion was really a joke, a folly.

“I set a ceiling on this hobby of mine at five years and three million euros. (A portion went toward baksheesh, from “man on the street” beggars and shopkeepers to the highest in government.) I gave my people free rein, never asking for reports on their progress. The lot were grossly overpaid yet did not lack for further incentive: a seven-figure bonus awaited whoever cracked the code, dead or alive. (Irrefutable proof was required in order to collect.) I left them to their own vices, while stupidly pursuing mine. It’s embarrassing to admit but during this period I reverted yet again to my dissolute ways. I exchanged veggies for red meat, took up pot smoking again, and used ‘medicinal’ amounts of pharmaceutical cocaine — which as you can guess, did wonders for my bypassed heart — and spent a fortune on my beloved ladies of the night. Do not judge me, my Queen. How far I had fallen from a romance with the Spirit! I hated what I’d become: an old roué, a fallen ‘spiritualist’ with a bad ticker and a Viagra-dependent schmeckel.

“It was 4 a.m. I was in Morocco. I’d been asleep just half-an-hour when the phone rang off its hook. Aside from Gaetano and Justine (my secretary), the gumshoes were the only ones who could reach me. They had explicit instructions to phone immediately if in receipt of important news — damn the torpedoes and perish the time zone. A man called Quasimodo was on the other end. Funnily, he was the only one whose skill I had doubted. I was this close to firing him.

“‘Sir,’ he said, ‘I believe I found him.’

“I saw stars. I asked him to go on, slowly.

“‘A village 400 kilometers from Delhi. He’s tall, white. 82 years old. He lives in a cave.’

“‘A cave?’

“‘I spoke to the elder — the village chief. A very friendly fellow. He said “the Hermit” showed up about 10 years ago. That’s what he calls him, “the Hermit.” Or “Guruji” or jnani…’

“‘And?’

“‘I hiked up to the cave. Very nice set-up! I had both sets of pictures with me — from the ashram in the ’70s, and the ones generated from the forensic model. He didn’t seem to look like either but I’m not very good at that, you know. I’m face-blind.’

“‘Now you tell me. You took a photo?’

“‘No, and I’m sorry about it. He wasn’t too keen on having his picture taken.’

“‘Jesus! Well, if he didn’t look—and you say he showed up ten years ago, but he’s been gone for twenty… What makes you think—’

“‘I didn’t want to tip him — I said I was looking for a shrine. I thought he’d be standoffish but the old guy had a sense of humor. He said he didn’t know of any shrines in that area, which just went to show that all roads don’t lead to Mecca.’”

After too many hours and too few stops, we reached the foot of the village fingered by the hunchback with a hunch. A pair of armed men stood waiting beside a train of burros. Apparently, it was the end of the line for anything with an engine. As we mounted our steeds, one of the guards suggested he accompany us on the trail or at least partly up the hill, but was politely refused.

It felt good to have an ass massage after such a long ride. A thousand trivial things flitted through my logy, travel-loopy head. I wondered if my gargoyles missed me, and even wondered what happened to Quasimodo. Fat and sassy no doubt, shacked up somewhere on Easy Street with his seven figures (though I doubt he’d collected just yet)… We loped along uphill — six sherpas in front, four in back — and not a one spoke the King’s (or the Queenie’s) English. Kura rode ahead in a trance of monomania, eyes fixated on the dubious prize before him. I became rather fixated myself, abruptly seized by the hair-raising fear that a massive coronary would topple him from his burro before we reached the finish line. (Why couldn’t we have brought the elusive doctor along?) I think what spurred that particular fantasy was a general agita about the man, a turmoil, a nervosity. Anyone would have been excited about the prospect of reuniting with a person who had played such an important role in one’s life, that was understood, but I think Kura was fundamentally vexed, and not in a good way. One thing I noticed was that his reminiscences toggled back and forth between the warm, intimate “my guru” and the cooler, detached “the American,” the latter even further removed by an ironic inflection of quote marks, as if borrowing not just my but the Great Guru’s widow’s description. What I mean to say is, his conflicted feelings were so obvious. I believe that the closer we got—he got — to that damnable cave, the more unresolved and bewildered he became.

I had no idea how much time had passed. We dipped then rose up the side of yet another barren ravine, crossing a cool meadow the size of a soccer field before beginning the perilous ascent of Hillock Number 17 (or so it seemed). There was no comfort to be drawn from the dearth of hints that any of these traversals were bringing us closer to our destination — then suddenly, we were there.

The sherpas helped us dismount. A few ran off, returning a few minutes later with a smartly dressed, silver-haired chap in tow. The village elder wore a silvery Groucho moustache above a crazy rack of ultra-whitened teeth.

“Mr. Bela Moncrieff!” he shouted. The elusive Quasimodo had no doubt provided the gentleman with one of Kura’s aliases. At least he hadn’t called him Lucky Pierre. “Please! Come.”

We were led to a modest home, where a lovely middle-aged woman with a bindi and a delicate ring through her nostril greeted us with a tray bearing cups of tea. She was the elder’s wife. A handful of sweet morsels had been laid out as well and I wolfed two down without ceremony — I was famished. When offered, Kura waved them away.

Our host spoke perfect English. After a few rounds of social niceties, he got down to brass tacks.

“Ah… the Hermit!” he said with a grin. “You are his friend?”

“In a manner of speaking,” said Kura, solemnly. “But before we go any further, I need your assurance.”

“I am at your service, Sir Moncrieff, sir!”

“My man told you not to speak with anyone in the village about my pending arrival. Can you assure me that yo—”

“Quasimodo! Hell of a guy! Gave me a Macintosh computer! And Frito-Lays! And Sir Alfred Dunhill cigarettes!”

“You were warned, weren’t you? Not to let the man in the cave know he might be having visitors? Did he tell you that?”

“It’s true! But I can assure it is was a warning most easily ignored.”

The remark got Kura’s attention. “I don’t follow you.”

“If for a single moment I believed there was one nefarious thing behind the whole gambit that might possibly result in harm to the Hermit, I would not have hesitated to warn him, i.e., sound the alarum throughout the entire village. He is after all an irreproachable member of our community — the Hermit has quite a special status, to say the least! The village feeds and clothes him, and thanks God for the privilege. I shall reserve to make further explanations regarding my meaning at a different time, for I know you are in a very big rush. As said: I would certainly not have hung fire to tip off the jnani of any goings-on should I have suspected something shady. In fact, it would have been my distinct pleasure and honor! But when Quasimodo — one hell of a guy, I assure! — informed me the Hermit was your guru, whom you wished to make reunion after so many years and planned to come such a great distance to worship… my heart became full and it was a facile thing for me to then agree. So may I say: I rejoice with you, and for you!”

“Just tell me. Have you kept your word? Or broken it?”

To which the elder replied, “Sir! All that I have — apart from this village and its souls, who are my consummate children — is my word. I gave it to your hell of a man in complete and utter seriousness… and now give it to you in the very same spirit. Sir! Mister Bela Moncrieff! I will now settle it again so that each and every one of us are free to go about the pressing duties of our individual day. You have my solemn assurance that I breached nothing. The only personage who knows of your agenda other than myself is my dear wife.”

He threw her a glance. After meeting it she flirtily averted her gaze, turning back to look after the soup on the stove.

“Only my wife was — is — aware that certain guests may or may not be — are — dropping in. Have. I hasten to add that in telling this woman I did not break my word. Not at all! For after half a century of matrimony, we are no longer separate people! We are one and the same.”

I applauded the elder, who’d managed to put my old friend at ease, which was no mean feat. Kura rested his hands on his thighs in a posture of relaxed, fraternal fidelity. His face got ruddy and his eyes were bright.

“Your village shall receive a handsome dowry in addition to that which my man has already seen to. Such endowment is to be dispersed solely at your discretion. Now, does that meet with your approval?”

“O, eminently, sir! Eminently so!”

“Good.”

The wife motioned for us to sit on two ottomans covered in ornately woven patterns. We did as she commanded. There were smiles all around. This time Kura sampled the confections. After a swallow, he faced the elder and said, “Tell me what you know.”

“The Hermit arrived in the autumn of ’87,” he began. “He came to us as a mendicant, a sannyasi, a wandering monk. It is the ancient tradition of our village, as it is in all villages, to be most hospitable to visitors. With a holy man, such largess takes on a new dimension… He spoke our dialect to perfection. We provided him food and shelter — twas our honor and duty before God! His looks, of course, were striking; tall and blue-eyed. The sun had baked him but it was obvious he was fair-skinned. We knew not where he hailed from nor was it our business to ask. After a few months, he said he was American—a testimonial to the linguistic prowess of the man, for when he spoke to us in our mother tongue there simply was no accent at all. An American rishi—this really threw us for a loop! The very idea of it… but I’ve taken too much of your time. I presume you’ll stay for supper? We’ll catch up on everything later… My wife, as you can see, has been hard at work. Her soup is among the jnani’s favorites! Delicacies will be served tonight: American-style chips and ‘dip’! Ha ha! I shall now suspend any more talk of the life that your guru has spent not among us but within our hearts, divinely so. For I am a poor biographer and hew closely to the maxim ‘Wise is the man who knows that the line between tidings and gossip is thin.’”

“But you have an accent,” said Kura. “I can’t place it. Where is it from?”

“Ah ha! You can’t see the forest through the trees. It is nothing more nor less than an American accent! I wished after one since I was a boy… and though he lacked one himself, I owe it all to the Hermit, a patient tutor, and as gifted a linguist as he is a Master of soham, the self-realized knowledge ‘That, I Am.’”

His wife approached with plates of appetizers, to hold us over until dinner. Kura declined. Weeks of anticipation had bollixed him up; his stomach was sour. No matter — a food basket had already been prepared. When she handed me a small canvas bag with two bottled waters, the woman forever won my heart.

The hour of reckoning was upon us and Kura was coming apart at the seams. “Is he — is he there?” asked Kura. “At home? Now? Is he in his cave?”

“Most certainly! A hermit wouldn’t be a hermit if he wasn’t at home in his cave, true? The muni has no desires — no need to seek out that which was never lost. And whatever his body needs for sustenance, the village provides… believe me, it is the barest of essentials!”

A young boy tumbled in from outside, pantomiming guffaws while pretending to outrun the delicious torment of a phantom tickler. Then, with theatrical flourish, he stopped abruptly, stood ramrod straight and dusted himself off before extending a hand in welcome.

“Ah,” said the elder, beaming with love. “You must end your foolishness long enough to carry out a very important errand.” He turned to us and said, “My grandson!” Back to the boy: “You are to escort our guests to Dashir Cave without delay.” To us: “My grandson also took lessons from you know who!” To the boy: “Now, without any nonsense! And if, while on your way, a busybody should inquire after where you are going, you are simply to tell them, ‘Grandpa has asked me to show his guests the Tamarisk tree.’ Now go. Vamoose!”

He went to his grandmother instead and clung to her waist. She dispensed a handful of wrapped toffees; he undressed one and placed it in her hand before leaning over to nibble as a horse would its sugar cube. A most expressive, talented boy.

“Vamoose,” said the elder. “Funny word, don’t you think? It is my understanding it also has the meaning of ‘skedaddle’—and perhaps, scram.” He erupted in peals of laughter as his grandson grandly bade us to follow.

And off we went.

After only a few minutes, he shouted at the boy to shorten his stride.

“Far? How far? Is it far?” Kura asked, out of breath.

Our mischievous guide turned and stared past us like a dullard, his mouth gone lax and cretinous. He briskly “came to,” flashing a smile that was positively debonair. “Not far,” he said, self-amused. He resumed the hike before pulling himself short with a staccato burst of unprovoked hilarity. Each crazed uproar sent him closer to the ground, like a cartoon mallet was pounding on his head — Sammy Davis Jr. by way of Wile E. Coyote. We followed along at his mercy.

“Do you know what surprised me?” I thought a little conversation might provide a distraction. “That Quasimodo apparently blew the mission’s cover — I mean, by telling the gentleman what you were up to. I found that rather strange, no?”

“Not at all! He went strictly by the playbook. You see, as outsiders we knew the locals might be somewhat chary. Indeed, the village at first disavowed any knowledge of ‘the American’ though evidence strongly suggested he was in their midst. So we fell back upon Plan B — that I was searching for a long-lost teacher, which happened to be the truth. It was a scenario they could understand and respect.”

In no time at all we found ourselves on a steady incline, a winding trail that left any reminders of the village far behind. As usual I brought up the rear, affording yet another opportunity to brood over my darling’s health. It was chilly but he’d removed his coat; while he compulsively swabbed his head with a handkerchief, I watched the vertical ellipse of perspiration between his shoulder blades ruthlessly colonize the shirt’s remaining dry land. We kept stopping — rather, I kept stopping and calling out to the boy, under pretext of having to catch my breath — so Mr. Moncrieff could catch his. My entreaties had no effect. Kura whistled at him to slow the pace but our guide grew fond of the reedy warnings and played a game of speeding up, just to trigger the alert.

Leaving Kura’s physical concerns by the wayside, I focused on his mental health. It suddenly occurred to me that my dear companion might not be right in the head — that the whole business, this obsession with the American might be part of a bigger picture, you know, an encroaching madness, even something hereditary finally come home to roost. Maybe he was losing his mind due to some fixable but as yet undetected anomaly such as Lyme disease or scurvy… early dementia? I knew I was being a little dramatic but only as a way of throwing light on what deep down seemed to have a ring of truth. Let’s say Kura had found the American (evidence to the contrary, I was beginning to have my doubts) and was about to come face-to-face. Well, what then? What was the point? Was he still trying to get back those seven freakin’ years? The last twenty? Or was it simply revenge he was seeking? Could it be that the blow to his pride inflicted by the Hermit of the Cave — the Missing Link, the Grand Poobah, the whomever — had been fatal to the ego, poisoning and distorting it over the years as surely as by lead or mercury?

I was tired. When I get tired I tend to go to that “Hello darkness, my old friend” place. It took everything I had to put one foot in front of the other, trudging along in a fog of mutant hormones and garage sale neurochemistry. In that moment, I thought how wonderful it would be to transform into a burro, a sari, a rock, an ottoman, even smoke from one of the hundred trash fires burning just over the horizon. Because in the end, self-awareness has spectacularly diminishing returns (in fact, it’s downright masochistic). All I knew was the responsibility had fallen squarely on my shoulders… after the aneurysm I’d be the one in charge of medevacing him out of some Himalayan fuckzone. And oh my God, Bruce, I so did not give a shit about the American! I kicked my ass with every step, not only for accepting Kura’s invitation to this sucky toad ride but for ever having gone to Bombay with him in the first place.

Now it was the boy who was whistling. He pointed to a clearing, then without further ado dashed back down the mountain as if carried by the wind.

The moment was nigh.

Kura put on his coat and ran his fingers through sticky hair like a bum about to step into church. Standing a bit straighter, he walked to his destiny as I followed — the dutiful wife I never was. After a few minutes here’s what we saw:

An old man in a bright white kurta, raking grass. Tall, wiry, stooped, baked by the sun. As we drew closer, he looked up and smiled before returning to his chore. He was so poised it could easily be believed someone had tipped him off (which wasn’t the case). If it’s possible for a human being to “grind to a halt,” that’s what Kura did. The shock of recognition gummed up his machinery.

A nervous clearing of the throat. Then, “It is I — Kura!”

The stilted delivery was heartrendingly comic.

“Of course,” he said informally. “I know who you are.”

I recognized the voice but not much else. Scarred, ravished and beatified by nomadic years of exodus, the American was still intensely charismatic. His bearing was light yet commanding. The few teeth he possessed were jagged and betel-stained. Some sort of chronic affliction — ringworm? — swelled his ankles. His hair was mostly white and gray with inexplicably random sunspots of too-bright blond.

Kura gestured toward me. “This is Cassiopeia…”

(I was touched by the introduction.)

“Lovely!” exclaimed the old man.

“She came from New York to be with me.”

The American stared into my eyes and I shivered at the enormity of what was taking place — for the first time, I understood.12 Without looking away, the guru said, “That’s a wonderful friend.” I knew he didn’t remember me, and was glad. I was freer to sit back and enjoy the play from my front-row seat.

“I’ve brewed some tea,” he said. “You must be thirsty.” With that, he turned toward home, its “front door” the congenial mouth of a most welcoming cave.

“No, we are not,” said Kura, blood up. “We are not thirsty, and we’ve brought water of our own!”

The old man bore a look of unsurprised surprise. “As you wish.”

I thought Kura had been rude, then called myself out for being prim. The occasion hardly demanded politesse. Besides, I had a funny feeling the guru was pleased by his ex-student’s brio—the manifestation of ch’i was always welcome.

“Since you are a man,” began the siddha, “who enjoys cutting to the heart of things — a quality about you that I always admired — I shall do the same. It has been a long while since our paths crossed, but the Source has magnanimously collapsed time to arrange our rendezvous… twas predetermined, my dear old friend. Wowee zowee, this is no joking matter!

“I am one who long ago forsook living in the past or future, which seem to me vastly overrated. Even the ‘now’ is overrated!” He laughed at the small quip — really very charming. “I never bothered to consider the consequences of my sudden departure on those who called me teacher, and I’ll tell you why: I was fighting for my life. When a mortal man, a man without knowledge, already burned to the third degree, is in the midst of escaping an inferno, can he be forgiven for being oblivious to others left behind?

“But if I am to properly acquit myself, I’ll need to provide some history. In the weeks that followed the death of the Great Guru, I found myself in a bit of a quandary. A ‘pickle.’ The widow — a very aggressive woman, as well you may remember! — had virtually nominated me as ‘next in line.’ But why did she feel the need for ‘the lineage’ to carry on? (There was no lineage.) Certainly, it couldn’t have been for Father’s sake, to ‘honor his wishes,’ for he had none. No wishes and no desires! Why, then? The answer is simple: the ape’s need for figureheads is profound and enduring. But the trouble begins — and it always does! — when one confounds figurehead with Godhead. A symbol can never be the real thing, isn’t it true? Don’t you agree? A symbol covers Truth as a narcotic masks pain. Do you see my point?

“I’m going to tell you something now that to this day makes me shudder.” He mimicked a swan shaking off water. “When I met the magical being who was to alter the course of my life and my death — I refer of course to my father, the Great Guru — one of the first things he did was to casually inform me of my Achilles’ heel. He said this inherent weakness had been dictated by the stars and was so powerful it would stop at nothing short of my total annihilation. That was the pithy phrase he used. He said I was fortunate to have two choices: I could face the demon in battle — or I could run. He strongly suggested the latter! I begged him to elaborate on this fatal flaw; I was on the edge of my chair. He teased and tantalized, talking in circles before coming clean. He said the hound from Hell that was on my heels was pride. Pride — and arrogance, its handmaiden. I think that because he was so queerly blithe about it (such were the sadhu’s deceptive methods of delivery), I took his warning with a grain of salt.

“Perhaps now you’ll see more clearly the fix I was in when my guru — Guru among gurus! — left this world. And I am speaking apart from having lost the light of my life. I spent seven years pruning the garden of Self (does that sound familiar?), watched over by that holiest of horticulturists. He stood behind me, steadfast, demonstrating how to yank the very weeds that were destined to choke me. There is no doubt I was his most careful student, which made matters worse. To my guru, I was a lamb he was shepherding home; to the others, I was the ‘golden boy’—quite literally, with my yellow hair! Which didn’t help at all! — but tarnished gold. The ugly American who like a parasite had wormed his way into Father’s heart. Because of me, there were whispers he’d gone senile. As the years passed, the rancor toward me softened and eventually, I came to be treated as Mogul Lane’s favorite son. But I knew better, for in the Great Guru’s world there can be no favorites. Mindful of his warning, I took this whole teacher’s pet business as a challenge. One more prideful weed to be pulled out by the root…

“I never took the Great Guru for granted. The more I drank from his cup, the deeper came my understanding that the man was truly empty. He had achieved an optimal state of insuperable focus and discipline of purpose. In those difficult weeks that followed the cremation, a comment of his came back to haunt me. ‘The Universe always tests a man with that which he fears most.’ At the time, it was just a casual remark over breakfast; only later did I realize he spoke directly to me. For years, I’d fought to expunge all vestiges of self-importance, that labor in the garden nonsense I spoke of. And just when I thought I was ‘getting somewhere’ (a phrase of ill portent, to be sure), they offered to make me pope. I would be the ‘next’ Great Guru, no strings attached! At first, the decision was easy. Because I’d already vanquished my ego, remember? O yes! Or so I thought. My humility was a source of great pride, something to inwardly boast about. I was resolute. No amount of logic or flattery could tempt me to assume the post. In fact, my refusal was proof in the pudding of my advanced state… do you see my point? After a while, I gained enough awareness to view the conundrum for what it was: Father’s brilliant parting shot, a teaching that hadn’t been possible to imbue until he drew his final breath… and created a vacancy! Really quite wondrous, an exquisite maneuver, don’t you think? In the end, the most formidable lesson of all. The irony was that while my impulse had been to flee — hadn’t he told me to run? — an invisible force kept me tethered. Was it ego? Or was it my guru’s alternate voice, urging me ‘to face the demon in battle’? The dilemma drove me half-mad. Monday I resolved to leave, Tuesday to stay, and so forth. The Universe always tests a man with that which he fears most. My very essence was caught in a Chinese finger trap. The more I squirmed, the tighter the tourniquet!

“Almost a month passed. I lost 30 pounds. I kept no food down; my hair fell out; I was always cross. Everyone thought I’d become ill, can you recall? Acute ambivalence was killing me. Then I dreamt I was at the foot of my guru’s chair, in agony. I longed for commiseration but no words came. The question Why? hung telepathically in the air. He answered, out loud: Why not? He told me that by impersonating a guru, I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. ‘After all,’ he said, ‘the worst that can happen is the realization that you’re a shitty guru. And so what? Then you can run.’

“The vision came just hours before my first satsang — your first too, no? Your first in Bombay? Father always admired the bold stroke and I knew it was time… the weeks of struggle were over. He once said that it was best to live this life with the threat of a sword hanging over one’s head. My task would be to keep the sword of egotism suspended by serving all sentient beings. His retort—‘Why not?’—was the only mantra that made sense. Perhaps this dream bookended the other, the one where my guru ran alongside those murderous horses. The latter, a vision of my teacher’s death; the former, a rebirth on Mogul Lane. My own…

“I summoned all my courage and entered the shop to the awaiting crowd. It was packed to the gills, no? I carefully picked my way through. I was no longer in my body — it felt like something had seized control and was walking me toward my beloved’s chair. To this day, I have no idea what anyone could have possibly been thinking when I turned to face them… My own mind could not have been emptier. And so it all began.

“At the end of satsang, I fought to remember who and where I was. I was like Kipling’s Kim, disoriented from fever at the end of that great novel. ‘I am Kim. I am Kim. But what is “Kim”?’ I did have a small sense of relief from a vague feeling it hadn’t been a complete disaster. Then I was shaken from my reverie by 100,000 volts! A yogi can experience his death quite distinctly during advanced meditation. It is instructive to watch one’s soul depart one’s body… which is precisely what occurred, but because I was no yogi as yet, it was the most painful and disturbing sensation! I heard a great death rattle from my very bones. An earthquake opened up a void, a bottomless pit into which I tumbled for seven torturous years. And you, dear Kura — dear teacher—were the instrument that destroyed me, yet allowed me to live!”

I didn’t think it possible for Kura to pay the American any more attention than he’d been giving but with this last remark, that was what happened. As if to break the tension, the guru gestured to some shaded tree stumps whose surfaces had been made suitable for guests. To my relief, Kura sat. The American remained standing. He had 20 years on his former student though looked younger and less fragile by the minute. The telling of his story energized him.

“Do you remember the moment you touched my feet, that very first time? Think back! Meditate on the moment and you just might capture my face, enshrined in the fossilized resin of memory. At the exact moment of their tender caress, the weight of your hands stung like all the hornets of the world! Those hands, oh my teacher, kindled a fire that became a holocaust. In that instant, I knew: I had made a grievous mistake. Instead of sitting in Father’s chair, I should have run, run, run! For at the touch of your hand, the merciful earth did unmercifully break asunder…

“In an ashram, arrogance arrives in bare feet. One hardly notices; it leaves its shoes at the door and insidiously walks in. Allow me to expand upon the theme. A fundamental method of a siddha is repetition. A true guru knows it is impossible to be understood by language alone; he finds ways around it, patiently working with what he has. A sadguru brings the word from the tip of the tongue to the throat, from the throat to the heart, from the heart to the navel. That is how he escorts you to Silence. During satsang, he may expound upon his own answer until the question is forgotten. He will repeat himself again and again but don’t be fooled! These redundancies are mantras, an extension of Silence itself — what is called ‘mantra yoga’—though to the ignorant it appears to be nothing more than a lack of imagination or even a functional dementia that must be patronized and indulged. The fact of the matter is, the endless reiterations of a siddha are painstakingly deliberate. The guru knows full well he must drill the seeker of truth with mantra like a woodpecker drills a dying tree! The guru watches over his students as the sergeant who supervises blindfolded troops while they practice breaking down and reassembling rifles. And so it is with the student learning the ABCs of Infinity. Anyone who has had the privilege of sitting with a most venerable Master for a week, a day, an hour — a minute! — will naturally be exposed to the repetition I speak of. God is the repetition; sound and language, the mantra; the mantra is the guru; the guru is God. The Great Guru, like a strong, kind father, demanded a soldier’s homework be done, for the war against the ego is no mere battle but a massacre. Just ask Krishna!

“When I was a boy, I was quicksilver in body and mind. I lorded my speed over fellow students, and family too. I was shameless! I wished to show my parents how dumb they were, how much better off they’d be if they looked to their son for the answers. My father was a poor reader so I read the newspaper aloud to him in a faster than normal tempo, to throw it in his face. My mother was bad with figures so I pored over her accounts and showed her all the places her calculations had been wrong. We have a lot in common, dear Kura, dear teacher. When I first arrived at Mogul Lane, like you I could find nowhere to sit other than at my guru’s feet. (The Source had arranged it thus.) After I’d been with him a few years, I grew restless during satsang. I became bored by those periods of repetition I spoke of. I’d heard it all before! I couldn’t discreetly take my leave because my position at his chair was too prominent. Instead, I played a little mental game to keep myself from falling asleep… a child’s game. Whenever a seeker asked a question, one I’d heard a thousand times before — the guru is not the only one who repeats himself! — I formulated a response, awarding myself points for varying degrees of accuracy. I made up little rules to keep it lively, but soon even the game was in danger of incurring my boredom and contempt.

“The compulsion continued for years, too petty and intermittent to take myself to task yet too consistent to ignore. I never spoke to my guru about it though wish I had, for only now do I know he could have arrested it as easily as a case of hiccups. It was nothing more than a neurotic figment of ‘the Fifth Column,’ hence unworthy of any attention that might validate it. To focus on the Mind was to feed it… this is what I told myself. If you can’t beat it, revel in it! I had platitudes and justifications galore. How smug! What hubris! It was my distorted belief that self-awareness alone provided amnesty. I basked in my advanced knowingness, rationalizing the game away as a juvenile travesty, a tool with which I might ‘hone’ myself.

“Year after year, I spent part of satsang predicting Father’s response to myriad questions. And I was often ‘in the ballpark,’ as they say… Now, I don’t want to give the impression I was completely out to lunch for his talks, not at all. I listened quite closely. Still, there was always that moment as we neared the end — around 10:30 or quarter to 11—when I grew bored: with the game, with India, with myself. My thoughts flew elsewhere, the guru and his acolytes a drone in my ear. I’d return to my body in the nick of time to fabricate an answer to some stupid query, by rote… but invariably, the moment came when my beloved’s response would be so far afield from the one I concocted, so wrenchingly poetic and outlandishly simple, so onionskin-unknowable, beautiful and direct that my body stiffened with shame like a boy caught stabbing snails with a butter knife. The game would quickly be retired. For a few days, anyway!

“Here is what happened on that fatal, fateful morning. During satsang, though disembodied, I somehow glanced down to take you in throughout. You were like a small anchor attached to the chair that kept me from floating away… and there was something else. Your initial disappointment was easy to read on your face. (For good reason — I later learned you had traveled a long distance to sit before the Great Guru and got me instead!) With your desperate eyes, in your hard-won spot at Father’s feet, I saw myself, from another time. Then, slowly but surely, my extemporaneous efforts seemed to win you over — floating near the roof, incognizant of my own words, guided by arrogance cunningly dressed in a humble kurta, I was still able to acknowledge your purity, your innocence, your yearning for Truth. I watched your hard features soften… and it mattered, you mattered. I actually believe you carried me through that abominable, terrifying hour — Sri Kura! Mahatma! Baba! — and that your attention formed the cornerstone of the edifice of illusion I built for myself — and others — on Mogul Lane. You gave me your heart. On that morning, everyone did. It was the Great Guru who was carrying us both… us all.

“When I finally peeled myself off the ceiling, I remembered the game I played during my teacher’s satsang. I looked at you and thought, What if he stays? What if the one who sits where I once sat stays? And begins to play the game, just as I did? The corollary of that supposition hit me like a gust of foul air, for I could never be expected to surprise, to humble the seekers as the rishi had done. Eventually you would be able to mimic my recycled trove of responses — anyone with half a mind could! — my personalized plagiarisms of the Great Guru’s words — and win the game. Every time. Because it simply wasn’t possible for me to usher you or anyone into Silence. The Great Guru had already spoken to me from a dream and told me the worst possibility — discovering the ‘shitty guru within.’ But there was something worse: to know it and stay on! To remain in the chair with full knowledge of the fraud, spreading the vile gospel of Self. Because you see I liked the chair — that was the flaw — the kid with all the answers — all the marbles — sat in the chair and fell in love. It was love at first seat!

“That insight (to know and yet remain) lit the fuse, and the bomb detonated in the exact instant your hands touched my feet. Because that was the moment I realized I would never run — nor would I ever have the courage to ‘face the demon in battle.’ Nothing would stop me from wallowing in guru shittiness, no! The rewards were too amenable. That moment — the laying on of hands—your hands, Kuraji! — destroyed and healed me, sealing my Faustian pact with the Mind. Flesh touching flesh was key… if I was still capable of staying on at Mogul Lane under such grotesque circumstances, what else might I be capable of? In an instant, I became no more than a guru-thuggee — my worst imagined enemy, my assassin… Do you see my point? When you touched my feet, how it burned! Remember my reaction? Think! Think back! Can you? Turn back the page. Perhaps your friend Cassiopeia remembers — yes, she’s nodding her head. She sees. Return to that time with your mind’s eye, old friend, and you might catch me in a petit mal seizure of the eschatological variety. I recovered quickly; I told you that little boy was fast as quicksilver, especially when it came to saving his butt. I have always been a ‘trooper’—I pick myself up, dust myself off, start all over again—one of the qualities I share with my former countrymen. But at the moment I speak of I was like the actor who goes up on his lines then improvises with such alacrity that he earns a thunderous ovation. I covered over my torment with an elegant soft-shoe. And they lapped it up! Didn’t they, Cassiopeia?

“Perhaps I’ve been telling my tale with more cynicism than intended. I don’t mean to — I wasn’t so much cynical as lost. I should have been found with the touch of your hands, which after all represented the touch of all seekers, all hearts. Instead, I literally died… and was born: for such brutally one-pointed bhakti was the very thing that, under the loving eyes of the zodiac, arranged — ordained — our extraordinary assembly today.

“For seven years, it was hell. No one could have known; such was my art. Like any good counterfeiter, practice makes perfect… While each successive day grew more agonizing than the last, an evolving expertise made it virtually impossible for even a close observer to distinguish false notes from true. What a connoisseur I became! After awhile, even I managed to fool myself. I was a cross between a chimpanzee and a parrot, without the integrity of either. Mind you, I was never contemptuous of the teachings I had retained enough of to pervert and drew comfort from making use of the dirty dishwater that soaked round my teacher’s pots. As time went on, my respect for Father compounded — my awe—as did my self-hatred for having betrayed a sacred trust. The only respite from anguish came in dreamless sleep, but even then—! At night, before losing consciousness, I ruminated that there must be some purpose to it all and if only I persevered I might be pardoned… perhaps even emerge enlightened, worthy of the chair at last. Upon awakening, such fantasies were totally expunged. Again I dove headlong into the daily routine, flogging myself for the guilt I carried and for what I had become. Would you mind very much if we went inside?”

Kura blinked, flustered by a comment outside the narrative.

“I’m mindful of the sun,” said the American. “I’m used to it — but it may sneak up on you.” He gestured amicably toward the cave. “I assure you it’s geologically sound. And Cassiopeia looks as if she’d enjoy some cool water.”

He turned on his heel, marched to the cave and disappeared within. I was intensely curious and absolutely parched — both water bottles were finished, which of course he had thoughtfully noted. I got up but Kura didn’t budge. He just sat there like a robot on the fritz and mopped his brow, a move that never failed to trigger heart attack head-riffs. What if he keeled over right then, without getting closure?

He lifted himself off the stump and shuffled toward the cave. The American’s sandals were at the door. I took mine off and Kura clumsily did the same.

In an ashram, arrogance arrives in bare feet…

Pitch-dark. We stood stock-still inside the entrance while our eyes adjusted. The sadhu gestured for us to sit at the bench of a small wooden table. I led Kura over, afraid he might stumble. Glasses of water and cups of tea were already waiting.

“In my seventh year, something shifted,” said the American. He came and sat across from us. “I began plotting my escape. I was stunned it had never occurred to me. Some part of me believed that if I took definitive action — if I left Mogul Lane behind and threw myself on the mercy of the Source — all crimes would be forgiven. Very Catholic, no? My demeanor brightened with the knowledge I’d begun tunneling beneath the barbed wire. The Great Escape! Can you recall my sunny mood in the months before I departed? Even my enemies — a camp that was steadily growing — noted a jauntiness in my step. I meditated each day for hours, something I hadn’t done in years. My course of action, my destiny became clear. I likened myself to the prisoner who finishes lunch and straightens his cell before leaping from the top tier. Liberation was at hand… all was well with the world at last.

“I plotted that escape as carefully as a murder. The possibility that I might be apprehended by those whose open hearts I had betrayed with my ‘teachings’ was unacceptable. I would not have it! Nothing would be left to chance. In the years I made book I’d become well acquainted with a host of shady characters. I see now why I cultivated those gamblers and thieves — I envied the integrity of their one-pointed purpose. What a brazen, wondrous thing it is to dream of winning by a nose, to stake everything on winning by a nose! However they might be judged, those men could never be robbed of the dignity conferred by that inviolate enterprise, for it came to be my opinion it wasn’t the horse they were straining toward but God Himself. It is said that this is how some escape the Wheel of Dharma—by a nose. With the help of my rogue’s gallery, I made a clean getaway. I loved them all the more for never asking Why? though of course I had a ready answer: Why not! A report on the details of my flight would be superfluous. Suffice to say I was like one of those merchants in 1,001 Nights, snatched by djinns and deposited far away from home. Only a few moments seemed to pass before I found myself hundreds of miles to the north.

“You may not believe this but I had no plan beyond achieving my freedom. I was alone and deliriously without purpose. One day, during charnel ground sadhana13, my nostrils quivered at a whiff of perfume — the intoxicating, unmistakable odor of my teacher! The Great Guru spoke through a cloud of roses and sandalwood. He said the more directionless I became the stronger his scent would grow, until one day I became the scent itself. With that, I began my travels to that place called Nowhere.

“After a decade of wandering, on awakening from an afternoon nap beneath a Tamarisk tree, the pungent smells of my guru at last returned to overwhelm my senses. As I went begging, roadside Samaritans were stunned by my exhalations, redolent with botanical Attar: the field of roses now resided within. I heard his voice a final time, so loud and clear tears gushed from my eyes — tears of essential oils! He told me of a sacred place in Uttar Pradesh, on the apron of Nepal.

“It took months to make my way here. As I ascended the trail, I imagined Father leading me by the hand to my union with the Divine. Halfway up, a man with a thick black moustache (it’s whiter now) appeared on the path. His smile was auspicious. The village elder — you’ve already met, no? I’d hardly spoken in ten years but now the words poured forth. I told him I was an itinerant priest who wished to end his days in solitude and meditation. Without second thought he said, ‘I know just the place.’ He led me through the meadow to this cave, the home of a leper who had passed away a few months before. A vacancy sign was blinking! I’ve spent every day since racing toward emptiness full-gallop, bent on winning by a nose! Only recently did I catch sight of my beloved again. I redoubled my speed and now my guru and I ride together, side by side.”

“Do you mean to say you’ve achieved enlightenment?” said Kura, shaken and wild-eyed. “That you’re an enlightened man?” The American smiled obscurely, agitating Kura even more. “I asked you a question, sir! Did you? Did you or did you not achieve enlightenment!”

There was something so utterly sad and ludicrous about the ultimatum.

“What I am saying,” said the rishi, “is that now I am empty.” He was quiet for some moments, allowing the echo of profundity to die away. “But the important thing to recognize is that I should never have seen the rays of chiti, nor would the veil have lifted… shakti could not have awakened and the words ‘I am that’ would have remained a mere riddle had I not acquired a second guru. Of course, the teacher is always there — it is the seeker who is in the way. What they say is true: When you are ready, the guru will find you. I’ll tell you a concept that is almost impossible to grasp: at the moment one finds one’s guru, one becomes truly lost… until one finds another! For it is only the second guru that allows you to make sense of the first.”

I will never be able to adequately describe what I saw when I glanced at Kura’s face. An immemorial darkness, something primeval… his features dissolved before me, one set replacing another, from the fragile fear of a neurotic city dweller to the monolithic indifference of an Easter Island moai. I blinked hard until Kura reverted to his angry, nonplussed self. That the man who had conned him now dared to blithely lecture on the supreme importance of finding a follow-up bullshitter added insult to injury.

“This guru of yours, this Guru Number 2,” he spat venomously. “I suppose he’s long dead…”

“Why, no!” said the American. “He’s very much alive.”

“Then where is he?” he demanded, more tantrum than query. “Where is he! And tell me who is he!”

“Would you like to meet him? He’s in festive spirits, I can assure.”

“He’s here?—”

“O yes! In this very room.”

Kura fussed in his seat, wary of being played for sport.

“Is that right?” he said, with noxious disdain. “Well, I don’t see him.”

Kura stood. He slowly moved in the direction pointed by our host, squinting into the habitat’s dim recesses. I think he was in the throes of some sort of hysteria.

“I say I see nothing!”

“My old friend, that you see nothing is not my affair. He’s right in front of your face.”

“There’s nothing but a chair.”

“Correct,” said the American. “Nothing — and everything! Allow me to be more clear. The chair does not contain the emanations of the guru, nor does it aspire to: It is the guru himself.”

The Hermit sank to his knees in front of the simple throne, prostrating himself. Now cross-legged, he looked up at the chair. “It took my entire life to find what was never missing…” He turned to Kura with such love—I know it’s corny, Bruce, but to this day I swear the fragrance of roses blew straight through me. “And it is all because of you.”

He wasn’t done speaking though stopped short, as if knowing his guest’s next move. The American’s heart was open, his smile benevolent.

But I could not have predicted what happened next.

Kura bolted from the cave in a silent scream.

Mountaineers say the descent is more dangerous than the climb, which definitely applied to our return trip. We suffered four-legged and four-speeded calamities; when night fell, the driver announced it was unsafe to continue. We stayed over at an inn. Any thoughts I might have previously entertained of Kura whisking me to Paris for a little post — egg hunt R and R were pretty much dashed by the impenetrable pall that had settled over him. He went incommunicado. I knew better than to try to draw him out.

Thirty-six hours later, I was greatly relieved to be ensconced in the First Lady — Maharanee? — wing of the Presidential Suite. I called to ask if he wanted supper, suggesting we do a little recap over room service. (I already knew the answer.) After a long soak I made notes in my trusty Smythson, expanding on them when I got back to New York.

I was nodding off when the phone rang. Someone in the posse said to be packed and ready at 10 a.m. I’d never unpacked so when morning came there wasn’t much to do but order up a carafe of lattes and chocolate croissants for extra protein. I took a constitutional around the perimeter of the hotel in the forlorn hope that my bowels might want to start a conversation; they were quiet as a grave.

I was in the lobby uncharacteristically early, befitting a depressed person in a faraway place waiting to go home to die. My eye fell on the elevator just as Kura and his retinue emerged. My main man wore a blue serge suit and a heartbreakingly sportive pompadour. He’d paid scrupulous attention to his toilet — his way, I suppose, of ending the sentence or at least dotting the “i” in Delhi. We chitchatted on the drive to the airport and I even wrung a few smiles out of him. I actually started to wonder if he would whisk me away, to destinations unknown.

The convoy rolled onto the tarmac but none of the posse approached the Bentley when it parked, as if knowing in advance to allow us our privacy. We stayed in the car.

“Queenie, I cannot tell you what your being here has meant. And I know I shan’t be able to process it — any of it — for some time. I was going to ask you to come to Paris… what a time we would have had! But now that’s impossible. This has been a strenuous trip and I hardly wish to send you back in worse shape than you arrived. So I’ve opened up my appartements in the Marais; my staff awaits you. An itinerary has already been customized for your pleasure, with an emphasis on the off-the-beaten-track and taboo. You shall want for nothing. If the idea of Paris — without your Kura! — does not appeal, the plane will take you anywhere you wish: Kyoto, Patagonia, Lindos… but you must promise to forgive my heavy-handed mood. You know how it pains me to be a terrible host.”

“You’re going back to see him?”

“Yes. I’m going back.”

Had he asked me to accompany him I would have without hesitation but I knew Kura well enough to understand his speech was a farewell. I was honored to have served my purpose. He was on his own now, just as he wished.

I returned to New York and my griffin friends straightaway.

On the plane, I dawdled with completing the crossword of his plan. (He hadn’t shared, I hadn’t asked.) I was never good at puzzles but was good at tossing them aside, unfinished. Which is what I did… After a few months, my depression lifted, or at least became manageable. I went on about my life with the necessary delusion most of us share that we’re captains of our destinies, when truth be told we have no more power over our fates than falling leaves do over a tree.

I’m not exactly sure why Kura wasn’t in my head much after that strange sojourn, not substantially anyway — and I didn’t feel guilty about it, either. Maybe Delhi was my second guru, because it helped make sense of that long-ago time in Bombay. I’m not sure exactly how I felt. Though I do remember I didn’t cry when I learned he was dead.

Wow — we’re nearly at the end. I think all in all it’s been a good experience. (I hope it has, for you!) Just to puke everything out… that doesn’t sound so wonderful though, huh? But you know I think it really does help put things in order. I mean, not that there was a dire need. At least I don’t think there was. Who knows. So often these tremendous—things happen in one’s life, and one never stops to take their measure or look at patterns — you know, ‘the figure in the carpet.’ Anyway, I just wanted to thank you, Bruce, for being such a good listener and for being so patient with my silly tangents…

Now of course I wasn’t there for this last part I’m going to tell you so when I speak of things only Kura could have been privy to — his direct experience — I’ll be channeling from his diaries. He bequeathed me the lot; I’ve been cribbing from them for much of what we’ve already covered. Details were taken from a notebook he kept in the last six months of his life so I guess I’ll be paraphrasing more than usual.

In the moment he ran from the cave, Kura was convinced that his former teacher was stark raving mad. And yet by the time we arrived at the plush sanctuary of our Delhi hotel, he found himself in the grip of a converse idée fixe: What if the American was sober as a judge? Could it be that he was in the exaltedly cockamamie tradition of those legendary sadhus who attained “crazy wisdom”? Like the saints of Mahamudra who appeared as drunks and village idiots, so might the Hermit prance about his cave talking to enlightened furniture. It was a sliver in Kura’s foot that had to come out.

The entourage began its return to the village immediately after leaving me at the airport. There was no mention in his journal of any sherpa-led procession up the foothills. Still, I laughed (and my heart broke for the 4,000th time) as I pictured him with deflated hair in his fancy suit, creased and soiled by flop sweat, balancing atop a burro — stubborn mules all! — an exhausted Quixote tilting against Eternity.

As they reached the meadow, he became seized by that awful ambivalence endemic to those wounded by love. One moment, he was enthralled by the possibility that the American had annihilated the Self and ascended Mount Sumeru; the next, he gloated bitterly at the prospect of the man having lost his mind.

By the time he approached the cave he was numb…

He called out and received no answer. He walked to the entrance and raised his voice in greeting. He paused before moving a few feet inside the doorless door.

And there he stood, letting his eyes adjust, as before.

The elder greeted him with undimmed ardor, though his easy smile was at odds with what he soon disclosed.

“You must tell me something,” Kura beseeched, without so much as a hello. “You must tell me now.”

“Certainly! Yes! Of course!” he replied. The haunted look in the eye of his importunate visitor was plain to see.

“The Hermit — the American—that man who’s lived in the cave all these years… you know him well, is that correct? He said that when he came here, you were the first person he met, and you showed him — what I mean is, that you must know him rather well…”

The smile on the elder’s face was stuck; his jaw made involuntary movements, as if words were being roughly incubated.

“I went to see him just now at the cave but he wasn’t there! Look: I need you to — I want you… I’d be very appreciative if you’d give me your opinion about something. If you’d clear something up. It’s rather urgent… or seems to have become so, anyway. [This last said more to himself.] You must weigh your words carefully! I say this, because… because my life may depend on it.” He looked warily toward the ground, as if the abyss his teacher once described was soon to crack open the earth where they stood. “Is this man—this American saint, as you call him — is he — well, is he in his right mind? The question being: do you have any reason whatsoever to believe he is a lunatic? Senile? Sir! You strike me as a man with a level head, and a fair judge of others… so much so, I’d think twice before asking you for a similar ruling on myself! But sir, if you will—I beg of you to answer my question with as much honesty and forthrightness as you can bring to bear.” A pause. “I have come to ask: Is he insane?”

“Yes, yes, yes!” shouted the elder in jubilation. “Without equivocation!” His smile became most natural again as it gave birth to a litter of words, the entire face assuming an expression of “all-consuming love.” (Kura’s written phrase, not mine.) “The Hermit of Dashir Cave was the purest, most formidable of all the rishis God in His unfathomable grace has ever privileged me to honor with prayer. My friend, I have brushed up against holy men for some 50-odd years! You ask if he was in his right mind. The simplest answer I can give is that he was beyond all notion of sanity or madness, and exists14 far outside Time. When he came to our modest village to ask for a place he might lay his head, I could do nothing but rejoice! In my greed, I took his arrival as an augur of great tidings — which it was! — a celestial sign that our humble community might benefit from his presence. And we did, greatly so. Many miracles happened while he was among us, miracles I shall never attempt to describe, at the risk of becoming conceited or even idolatrous. (There is also the fear that by giving them voice, they may come undone.) Kind friend and guest, your question has flooded me with memories… and unspeakable sadness as well. But I cannot afford those luxuries at this time. For now I must oversee his burial in the sky.”

The husband and wife seesawed — as he rose to leave (without adieu), she gently fell, proffering lentils. But the soliloquy rendered Kura dumb; famished as he was, he couldn’t touch the bowl. “Burial in the sky” had been plainly spoken, yet eluded comprehension. When Kura finally gathered enough wits to ask, the wife confirmed that indeed the Hermit was dead.

A whole set of new emotions washed over him, if they were emotions at all. He felt surreal, bungling, disjointed.

“My husband was the last to see him. He stopped by the cave with a basket of food I’d prepared for the three of you — we had no idea your visit would be so short! You and your wife had only just left; the Hermit invited him in and began to speak… not at all the norm. Rarely did the holy man chatterbox. He preferred to meditate while his guests, mostly villagers of course, shared their hopes and loves, dreams and fears. He never gave advice nor was it solicited. Talking to him was its own reward, often resulting in great benefit. When my husband returned, he informed me of your departure and said that he’d spent a long time with the guru, just listening. I asked what was discussed but he was reticent to divulge, which wasn’t like him at all. You’ve seen how garrulous he can be — my husband positively delights in chatterboxing! The only thing he divulged was that the Hermit spoke of you in a most affectionate and animated way, almost breathless, as if ‘running out of time’—those were the precise words my husband used. And that he gave no indication whatsoever of feeling ill, to the contrary! My husband said that his spirit blazed brighter than ever.”

At first blush, the news was more than Kura could bear. He’d been left behind by the American before, and now it had happened all over again! This time, though, came the cruelest twist. This time, the old man tweaked Kura’s nose before rubbing it in shit. He sprung to his feet, ignoring her attempts to restrain him. No! He would not stay for the freakin’ burial in the sky, whatever that was — he just wanted out, to put as many miles between him and that ogre as humanly possible. As he power-walked down those wretched foothills — those glorified mounds of dirt he’d grown to fear and detest — a raw anger displaced the spurious optimism of the last handful of hours. In his fury, a hundred yards or so down the path, he almost knocked a small boy off the road. It was the elder’s grandson, bent under the weight of the burden that was strapped to his back.

“What have you there?”

The frightened boy held his ground.

“I said, what do you have there?”

In high dudgeon, Kura brutally spun the child around. Recognizing the cargo at once, he was stung afresh — it was the chair from the cave.

“What do you mean to do with that?”

“My grandfather told me to bring it to the school.”

“Give it to me!” he commanded.

“But my grandfather said that the Hermit—”

“Devil take the Hermit!” Kura shouted. “I said give it here! Your grandfather promised it to me!” He puffed up with righteous temerity — the lie felt good and right and true. He undid the rope and pathetically wrenched the chair from the boy’s back in a brief tug-of-war. “I’ve earned this damned chair,” said Kura, drawing it to his chest in full possession then handing it off to the closest sherpa. “Now that’s the end of it!”

The chair’s unlikely journey ended in the Paris office, where Kura took a few mugshots with his old Land Camera.

Then he wrapped it in a mover’s blanket, flung it in the closet and resolved never to see it again.

In the ensuing year, he went through the motions. He became depressed, with fleeting thoughts of suicide. They put him on lithium and Prozac — this, that and the other. Sometimes he slept on the office couch. He dreamed of the chair on the other side of the wall.

One day an unusual-looking envelope arrived in the company pouch addressed to “Sri. B. Moncrieff,” in an immodest calligraphic hand. No return address. The letter was included in the box of diaries I received a few months after he passed away. I’ll give us both a break and read from it directly…

Queenie took the correspondence from her coat pocket with pseudo-dramatic flair. Someone poured more wine. She sniffed the glass then tasted, nodding approvingly to the server.

Dusk had fallen. She read to me by the light of a beautiful lantern; the inky message bled through the rice paper, dancing among the woven threads.

“My Dearest Kind Sir/SRI Bela Moncrieff,

“I am earnest in hoping this note does most indeed find you most well! I meant to put pen to pencil many months ago and do ask your kind forgiveness as to complete failure on my behalf in that regard. While my village is a modest one and my duties toward it simple, various pressing concerns have the habit of being horses on the runway. Hereby (and ‘thereby’ too for good measure) not long after your leavetaking didst we villagers became unlucky recipients of a mighty monsoon that caused a great deal of mischief — you may be saddened to hear me declare the Dashir Cave is now no more. The threat of the Dengue, which arrived not long after the waters seceded, thankfully turned out false in its alarum. Yet in my heart I must confess to terrible remorse for the delay of this most serious missive. As months passed, the greater became my understanding of the crowning importance its enquoted words would hold for you; as they were uttered by the Hermit himself, who instructed they be conveyed forthwith and straightaway, at all cost. So you see I have no excuse nor have I defence. Again, I humbly ask your forgiveness, dear Sri, adding that sometimes a procrastinated man becomes a means unto himself.

“By the way, if you are wondering how I captured your address (which would mean in fact that you are reading this, and thus providing me with the most supreme of blessings and lasting unction!), it was from the direct intercession of that most loyal and most jolly fellow Quasimodo, who arrived not long after the jnani’s sky burial bearing the generous gifts that completed your contract with our village, a largess which has continued to make the aggregations of All Souls exceedingly grateful.

“I believe my wife did admit that after your departure I was privileged to spend a few hours in the company of the blesséd Hermit — may his memory forever be sanctified! — a time in which he shared many things pertinent to your life that have remained unbeknownst (a circumstance this note shall attempt to rectify); in fact, he discussed the very things he had planned to share with you in person, if you and your lady friend had not run off. But, all-being mukta that he is, the Hermit of Dashir Cave even knew you would return just as you did, to miss his death by mere hours! Alack: such was overwrought and writ by the stars. When you appeared at our door for the second time, unaware of his passing, you were most fired up and in no state to listen to anything a person might tell — nor was I in any mood to impart what I had so carefully been entrusted to pass on. (In that stage of the game, I had not even told my wife.) My plan was to relay every single one of the intimate profundities the Hermit had donated (to the best of my shabby abilities) over dinner, immediately after attending the details of his inhumation. When I came home to find you’d again taken a powder, I said to the Missus, ‘This man is like a horse on fire!’ I was deflated though not surprised, for the Hermit had just gotten through highlighting his erstwhile student’s penchant for the trigger-hair — relayed with a twinkle in his eye, to be sure! — so that I became enamored of your willfulness Johnny-on-the-spot as well, which lessened the sting. But barely.

“If you’ve read this far, I assume you shall read the rest, and with great care. For the love of God, I urge you with every fiber of my being to continue!

“The jnani conjured an in-depth précis of your histories together — such was his art (and his heart) that within the shortest while I knew more than was possible and felt too like I’d been along on your journeys! Then he told me something which really shocked me to Hell. Guruji said that only two weeks prior to your appearance at the cave, he had been ready to depart this Earth. And please, sir, do understand God saw fit that the village idiot — myself! — was at least blesséd with the awareness that before him stood a saint of all saints! I am certain that such a man as you — who sat vigil at the foot of this precious being for so many years — cannot be incognisant of the fact that an enlightened man has the ability to choose the date of his liberation from the Great Wheel… and just as he may summon death, so are the most powerful rishis able to postpone their departures as well. The Hermit averred that on the very morning he was poised to merge with that essence which is Silence — two weeks before you came to our village — a mystical Voice bade him delay. Now, the Hermit was always faithful to the commands of that Voice, as it belonged to his teacher, the Great Guru himself, and refused to manifest excepting upon occasions of categorical importance. Most charmingly, he added how there were many things he did not understand (this, I very much doubted), and what a privilege it was to still delight in the inscrutable.

“We sat in the cave not long after you had gone and he told me that when he saw you enter the glen, all was suddenly understood. ‘The final veil had lifted.’ Perhaps it seemed to you as if he’d been expecting your arrival, for in a sense he was. The Hermit said he went back to raking the leaves of destiny and gratefully rejoiced, praising anew the wondrous Universe and everything unimaginable Mother dared conceive. He told me his life had come full circle and the beautiful dance was nothing more nor less than doings choreographed by the Source. He said that years ago you freed him from that awful business of being a false sage — though I can never believe he could be such a thing! — that you alone were the catalyst of his enlightenment… and now you had come to free him one last time! Do you remember what his feet looked like? When you saw him raking? The edema? Did you know they swelled up just hours before you arrived? Guruji said it happened spontaneously, in ‘energetic’ memory of your ashram touch…

“In our tête-à-tête, the Hermit spoke of that fateful day he recoiled whilst you pressed his feet in tribute, each finger like the sting of ‘10,000 hornets.’ He told me it was your touch that raised the curtain — then lowered the boom! And how it took seven anguished years after that to leave the damnable chair behind… Guruji instructed me to recount these words to you at once, upon your anticipated return, so you too could be set free. He said it pained him to see you suffer needlessly and that he would have waited for you but could no longer delay his journey. I repeat myself when I say I was prepared to share with you over dinner all that he had commanded me to, but you’d already vamoosed—again! — and one thing led to another… over weeks and months… the flooding and all… not that I’m looking to make excuses for my own dereliction… even though it might be most charitably understood, as I have written so very few letters in my lifetime… in fact, have never put pen to pencil without my Guruji making the gentlest of hints and corrections over my shoulder so to speak, for he used to guide my hand in the occasional personal missive or official proclamation… such are the reasons — not excuses nor defence! (Nor not meant to be, really)… as to my paralysis for more than half a year. I was in abject misery at the impossibility of distilling the words of a jnani and panicked that his message would be so garbled as to lose its irrelevance entirely. My hesitation only worked to compound my dread. Now, I feel only shame at my careless delinquency, and pray you forgive!

“Do you know how the body of the saintly Hermit was discovered? In the cave, on its knees before the chair, in eternal obeisance. My grandson was thus honored to discover the Beloved One poised in the bardo between this life and the Pure Land, and came running in a lather. We went back together; and that was where I saw him, his elegant, attenuated fingers frozen in a caress upon the approximate metatarsals of his unseen master! For Ramana Maharshi did say, ‘The real feet of Bhagavan exist only in the heart of the devotee’… During the extraordinary conference I keep referring to, the Hermit poignantly avouched — it was the first time I ever saw the tears of a saint! — that he had been the first to descry the body of his teacher, in Bombay, the difference being that unlike the posture of the American in death, the Great Guru had taken full possession of the chair, like the pilot of a ‘great vehicle’ come home. Twas the Great Guru’s fate to launch himself into the Unknowable from the chair, that prosaic cynosure whose indifferent ‘thereness’ (the exacting word used by the Hermit), analogous to Infinity itself, had been polished by thousands of satsang sittings as a stone smoothed by the sea, transformed into psalm and song. The Hermit was unbashful to inform that while it was his teacher’s destiny to be carried to Silence in a golden throne, it was his own to be liberated by traveling alongside the Great Guru in the guise of supplicant, a pilgrim forever ‘at his feet’ in service and surrender. He said that in the end, whether one sat in the chair or kneeled before it, was a thing governed by stars and individual temperament, and one was not better than the other.

“The Hermit insisted your arrival was an omen that his Earthly cycle had ended. I’m afraid I’m being clumsy… he said it so much simpler! But hear me out — for this next is of ultimate importance. When Guruji told you his cave chair was the ‘second guru,’ it was naught but an impish lie that he couldn’t resist in the moment, because you were so incensed — like a charging bull! He knew you weren’t ready to hear the Truth. So he made that impish remark to defuse, but (as things turned out) had no time to rectify it — until now — through me. What he did not have the chance to impart was… the second guru was you! You were that teacher who comes along (if one is so blesséd) to make sense of the first—you were the one who illuminated all that the Great Guru had tried to show him, which he never fully understood. This knowledge only came to him in the final weeks of his life…

“How magnificent, he said, is God and his workings!

“He asked me to convey his words as best I could and to thank you by proxy. I hope to Krishna you will deign to send a reply through Mister Quasimodo, one hell of a guy, so at least I may know the letter found its mark! All of my life I have adapted to failure but could not go quietly to my grave knowing this memo had never been delivered…”

Shit — I’m getting a headache! Probably not a good idea to read by candlelight, huh?

Queenie set the pages down and closed her eyes, looking within. She rubbed the bridge of her nose then used both hands to rub her temples. Someone brought a pill and she swallowed it with a gulp of wine. She lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, closing her eyes again.

Can I paraphrase the rest? The letter closed with a heartfelt apology to “Sri Bela” for not having treated him as justly deserved. The elder regretted he’d been unable to comprehend earlier that Kura was “also a saint who walked amongst us. For who else but a saint might have the power to mean so much—everything! — to one as glorious as the jnani? To have been the catalyst to freedom… and to top it off, to meet him at journey’s end so he might properly return to Mother’s arms! Who else but a fellow traveler could effect this?” He even asked (in the diffident way one asks of a soothsayer) if there was any meaning to his grandson finding the body in the cave — was it a sign the boy himself might become a saint? He proclaimed he’d been twice-blessed by God for arranging the divine intersection of his meager life with that of Kura and the Hermit’s, then wrapped things up by extending a “standing room invitation.” “The Dashir Cave shall be up to snuff within the month, jewel-hearted one! It awaits you, as do we all! We are forever in your debt and at your service!”

O — I almost forgot. And this is pretty good. He wrote that the theft of the chair — he didn’t quite use that word but something thereabouts — ah yes, “purloined”! He used purloined—he said, “After my talk with the Hermit, your action made eminent sense.” Or something like that. I’ll read it to you tomorrow when I can see straight… the gist of it being, he drew enormous comfort knowing the chair was back in Kura’s possession, “restored to its rightful place in the lineage of Kings.” What he couldn’t have imagined was that having that chair felt like a curse; that’s how Kura described it in his diary. So he set about what was to become a final chore.

He retrieved the curiosity from the closet, unpacked it, and set it opposite his desk, as if awaiting a visitor. He decided that the only way to make things right — to lift the curse, I suppose — was to return that which did not belong to him. The sole person fit for the assignment was Quasimodo, who not only was well familiar with the village and its obscure location but more importantly had a warm relationship with the elder. His wishes were to be taped to the chair in the form of two notes; one addressed to “Mr. Q,” and a second to Justine, Kura’s secretary, informing her that the courier was to receive a $25,000 bonus upon verification the deed was done.

After outlining the plan in his journal, Kura collapsed and died.

I make it a habit never to go to funerals.

Our long goodbye ended in Delhi — Lordy, he looked so fine in his blue serge suit! Besides, I had no desire to be in Paris on a rainy Thursday, stranded and bereft. Do you know the Vallejo poem?

I will die in Paris, on a rainy day,

on some day I already remember…

Isn’t that lovely?

And that’s the end of my story.

— O! Good question. The answer is, my name and address had literally been glued to one of the diaries, along with a proviso that all volumes be forwarded to me upon his death. I suppose he must have had a presentiment. I guess there wasn’t anyone in his life he felt closer to… and I feel really honored by that.

I’ve only recently begun to dip into the journals from the late ’70s/early ’80s, after Kura returned from Bombay to Paris. O man, he was completely at sea. He was using, heavily. Coke and heroin — his health was really going to shit. (He had the heart attack in ’92.) As always, he had an amazing network of friends. Jodorowsky, of course. Karl Lagerfeld, Olivia de Havilland. And there was Genet… That surprised me — I didn’t think anyone knew Genet. And I don’t know how it happened, but he met Carlos Castaneda. In Paris. Castaneda was one of his heroes. They had lunches and dinners over a month’s time. And there was this rather astonishing conversation Kura transcribed that foreshadowed the American’s remarks at Dashir Cave. Evidently, Castaneda told him the same thing: that it was imperative to have a second teacher! Castaneda said that his second teacher was Death; that Death helped him untangle everything he’d been taught by the Yaqui Indian sorcerer Don Juan Matus. It interested me that Kura wrote about Castaneda kind of upbraiding him. Castaneda admonished that Death had been Kura’s first teacher — I’m not sure exactly what Kura had divulged about his violent past — and seemed to chastise him for never having understood “a single word Death was saying.” Can you imagine? He wrote that Castaneda said something like, “Death taught you everything and you understood nothing! When you find that second teacher, be sure to give him your full attention. The second teacher will tell you—show you — what was on Death’s mind.” When I read the passage, I wondered if Kura had completely forgotten about it, even after the American had said as much.

Anyway, are you hungry? Did anything I say make sense to you, Bruce? Let’s walk for just a bit—[We did, circumnavigating the tent in ever-expanding circles in the cold night air until we were far enough away from the fire to be enveloped in the off-putting, syrupy darkness] I’ve spoken in so many people’s voices over the last few days that I’m hoping you’ll indulge me a few remarks that are wholly my own. What a concept, huh? [Queenie went quiet — I presumed to gather her thoughts. There wasn’t enough moonlight to see her face let alone its expression. She walked farther away, huddling into her cape and scarves. Slowly and unobtrusively, I moved toward her to catch up. She was crying] Whoa. O! — no — I’m okay. I am. It’s just that… I don’t know — suddenly I got so sad. O Jesus. It just kind of hit me! I guess I’ve been holding it in. I guess I’ve been — whoa! Sorry! I’m crying like a freakin’ baby over here… I guess there’s something so—beautiful about it. The whole deal… “The figure in the carpet.” I know Kura must have seen it too, I mean, the beauty. Had to have, in the end. At the end… ’cause he wasn’t a dummy. He was no dummy, not my Kura! It’s just so… it’s all so compelling, don’t you think, Bruce? No? “The gangster and the guru”—ha! Call Hollywood, somebody! But oh my god, such anguish in the last half of his life. The last third. Especially that last year or so… boy oh boy oh boy. And all because he thought his teacher had betrayed him! That’s a hell of a resentment to carry… thirty years, that’s how long it took, it took thirty years for the mouth of the snake to clamp on its tail and complete the circle. [looks up] You know, I’ve always loved the stars. Loved, loved, loved. I was intrigued by the constellations early on because of my name. That’s ego for ya. Learned everything about them — when they were visible, when not, what part of the sky — knew all the myths behind them. So that’s what I did with those three, from the penthouse. When I got back from Delhi… on one of those freezing, crystal clear New York nights when the sky looks like — a painted Jesus on black velour. Looked up and figured out who would go where. I conjured the Great Guru— “The Teacher”—sitting on his galactic throne; the American—“The Supplicant”—kneeling at his guru’s feet. And there was Kura—“The Guide”—completing the trinity. No Catholic reference intended.

I was going to miss her, not just for the surreal opulence of the experience she provided but for her passion and intelligence, and capaciousness of Spirit. She truly was unforgettable.

I had planned to leave the next day, though when morning came, one of the staff delivered a string of characteristically charming, seductive, handwritten notes to my tent. (From the inside, one would never have known it to be a tent, such was its luxurious construction and design.) Queenie forbade my departure, insisting she still had vital information to impart. What followed came the next evening over dinner. The detail she subsequently provided — that “single, religious detail” alluded to in the foreword of this book — rocked my world, as Queenie might have said.

I have never recovered, nor hope I ever will.

I got curious about something. A few months after Kura died, I rang the Paris office to speak to his secretary. I was already in possession of the diaries; we just never had any real reason to talk until now. Justine was hired around the time he returned from Bombay so she’d worked for him about 20 years. I gleaned from his pages that they were devoted to each other. Maybe they used to fuck or maybe she just loved him. If she did, that would have gone unrequited, ’cause I was certain he didn’t have any love left to give. Not that kind anyway.

After expressing belated mutual sympathies, I casually asked if the chair had ever found its way back to the village. She was perplexed. “What chair?” she asked. I flashed that Kura may have written down his plan without ever having had time to implement it before he died… though if that were true, wouldn’t Justine have read about it in the diaries? She had all of the volumes at hand too because I insisted she make copies before sending (I was afraid the originals might be lost in the mail en route. I was always paranoid about that sort of thing). Maybe she wasn’t the kind of gal to read her deceased boss’s true confessions, but feminine instincts told me otherwise. Another possibility was that she had read them but was playing dumb because she thought I’d judge her as a snoop.

So I gave her a leg up by tactfully mentioning the very last page of the journal, in which her employer expressed an urgent desire to have a certain courier return a certain chair to a certain province wherein lay nestled a certain village, and so forth. Her voice quavered; she admitted to being so busy with legalities in the wake of his passing that she hadn’t been able to “properly” read the facsimile, at least “not all the way through.” I suppose I’d embarrassed her (not my intent), as there were only two options ultimately to be taken — at least committed to — i.e., to read the damned thing or not. But I’d caught her off-guard and now she risked looking like she didn’t really give a shit about his posthumous memoirs. The more I downplayed my question, the more lugubrious she became. It got worse by the moment — I could hear her barely suppressed panic at having maybe taken a giant dump on her loved one’s final request. Now I was committed, and walked her through. “Did there happen to be a wooden chair near Kura’s desk when they found him?” Again, she was stymied. (The when-they-found-him actually provoked a cough.) I bullet-pointed that he wrote in his diary that a chair had been removed or at least a chair had been intended to be removed from the office closet, and so on and so forth. After a long pause, Justine said “Ah, oui!” a bit too stagily but unmistakably thrilled to be in the affirmative mode. There was a chair, she said, a very odd little chair… Was anything taped to it? No, she said tentatively, “nothing to my knowledge.” The footfalls of panic returned. Well, I said, maybe it might be good to have a look? Long pause. She said the closet had been “cleaned out” and I knew she regretted the words as soon as they came from her mouth. One of Kura’s pet peeves was giving too much information, a lesson she must have learned well but had forgotten in the heat of the moment. She said she’d look into it “thoroughly” as soon as we hung up.

Justine called back three days later, sounding truly distraught. She feared the chair was aboard a ship, on its way to America! She added to my confusion by saying, “It was in the closet… and that fact alone should have made it exempt. It should never have been touched. O, it’s my fault, Cassiopeia, all my fault!” When I asked what the hell she was talking about, I got pitched into a primer on Kura’s recycled goods empire, one of whose entities shipped donated clothes and furniture to needy countries that paid by the pound. (Yawn.) Apparently, back when it was politically unpopular, Kura had a brainstorm that the U.S. would eventually be a bigger importer than exporter. As usual, he was ahead of the curve; by the time his theory bore out he had already laid the groundwork. He’d cultivated high-level relationships in Washington for years, delivering full containers to the States at no cost (to his great tax advantage)… which was more than I cared to know. But what could I do? Justine was like the proverbial dog on the pant leg. She ended the conversation by swearing that she would not rest until she learned the exact whereabouts of that freakin’, fucking chair.

Cut to: TEN WEEKS LATER.

There she was on the phone again, unbearably chipper, unconscionably French. (It was starting to feel like we’d once had a fling that ended badly.) She began by telling me that she’d at last been able to read the diaries straight through. “There was so much about religion that was hard for a layperson to understand, but it was such a moving experience! Incroyable.” Her voice cracked. I’m not sure what it was about her that made me want to shoot myself in the head. “It just brought him right back… in such an amazing way. Like he was in the very room …” She told me the diaries should be published one day, “though of course this cannot happen, for obvious reasons.” Then, almost as an afterthought, Justine said she’d managed to track down the chair. “As it turns out, Cassie, there is an amazing symmetry to what happened.” By way of explaining her jubilance, she recapped the last part of the diary — his wish to return the chair to the village school, its destination before being wrested from the boy. While she knew the chair had belonged to Kura’s guru, she still couldn’t seem to grasp the significance of that final gesture. What she did know was that the chair had ended up in a school after all, albeit one in America. Hence, her pleasure that her boss’s decree had been fulfilled “in a roundabout way.”

Justine declared that she would never have learned of the chair’s Stateside migration without the “creative investigations” of “a very interesting man called Quasimodo.” (It was as though she’d forgotten I’d accompanied Kura to Delhi and most likely would have been privy to the name.) She wound up flying him to California, where he reported that the item was indeed part of a shipment of five containers to arrive at the Port of Oakland. Four left the harbor on trains, but the fifth — the only one that held furniture — languished outside a warehouse for six weeks before its contents were trucked to a sorting facility. Records indicated the items remained there another month and were then dispersed to needy schools in the Bay Area. The resourceful Monsieur Q had diligently visited every institution on the list, to no avail. He’d even come armed with a Polaroid — Justine found the Land Camera mugshot tucked in the pages of The Book of Satsang—but never had the opportunity to compare and contrast. In the end, there wasn’t any real proof the chair had been adopted by any school at all, but it was close enough to ease Justine’s guilt. For that, I was genuinely glad. Sometime later I received an envelope with a final, eerie souvenir. Justine had thoughtfully framed Kura’s photo of the chair, believing it would make a nice memento.

I’d only seen it from a relative distance, swaddled in the darkness of Dashir Cave, but in Paris, Kura had taken a picture under harsh fluorescent lights. Now that I had a closer look, I was surprised by what I saw. Justine was right, it was an odd little chair. Its shabby state couldn’t hide its provenance — turn-of-the-century Edwardian. (I happen to know a bit about these things.) The armrests were high; they call them elbow chairs. I used to see them on weekend treks with the love that I lost. (She adored antiquing.) I wondered how a chair like that would have found its way to the foothills of the Himalayas, though I’m sure they’re not uncommon in India… probably belonged to some Brit, a bureaucrat who sold it or gave it away, then wound up at a flea market or something — oh look, I’m already coming up with a backstory! Still, it’s likely that the explanation was pretty prosaic. But isn’t it always — don’t you find, Bruce, that just when you think it’s simple, the truth reveals itself to be so crazy-complicated? Somewhat of a riddle, I suppose… though not exactly Hemingway’s snow leopard, is it? I’ll bet somebody has that story. Good luck finding him.

There are mysteries upon mysteries, no?

I never asked if I could examine any of her artifacts, including Kura’s diaries, but for some reason I did inquire about the “mugshot” of the chair. She excitedly summoned a helper to fetch a 19th-century Japanese puzzle box made of exotic wood. She moved a series of slats until the top slid open. There were papers inside; underneath them, a photo framed in mother-of-pearl. Actually, three photos: a large “portrait” of the chair, flanked on both sides by smaller, detailed images. The first was that of its cabriole-style leg, ending in a finely ornamented foot; the second, of an engraved copper identifier affixed to the undercarriage.

The letters were well-worn but you could just make them out — the name of a shop, with a phone number: “Ballendine’s Second Penny.” With a shock that hasn’t diminished an iota to this day, I came to realize the American guru’s chair was the very same that Ryder used to hang himself.

In 2010, Charley gave me the account of his son’s death. I heard Queenie’s story five years earlier, and had been haunted by it ever since; my mind had ready access to its many details. So the moment Charley mentioned the name of his wife’s parents’ shop — Ballendine’s Second Penny — everything started to click. We can presume that the cheap-looking, provisional dog tag featuring the merchant’s name fell off somewhere between Paris and Berkeley; after all, it was fastened to the cane, most of which had already disappeared by the time Kelly came across it. (God knows how it held on during its life in India.) Otherwise, I would most assuredly have heard about it from Charley. It would have been a very big deal indeed that an item from the “Second Penny” would have reappeared in such a way — like the proverbial dog traveling thousands of miles to come home… and an even bigger deal that Ryder would have jumped from it.15

As earlier explained, the chronology of narratives was reversed for dramatic considerations; in a sense, Queenie’s story was the “second guru” in that (for me) it truly did make sense of the first, in ways both figurative and literal. And I suppose I naturally resisted the linear approach, not only because it goes against my grain but because some key plot points — the dog tag; the chair winding up in Berkeley — might have interfered with the reader’s absorption in Charley’s moving chronicle, even telegraphing what was to come. The last thing I wanted was to rob anyone of a hoped-for frisson.

I often find myself musing along the same lines as Queenie. We know how the chair journeyed from India to Berkeley yet the story behind its voyage to Dashir Cave from a defunct antiques shop in Syracuse that occasionally bore a “Gone Fishin’” sign will never be known.

But as the lady said, there are mysteries upon mysteries.

These were among Queenie’s last words, on the night before I left. We haven’t spoken since, nor do I know her whereabouts. All efforts to contact her have failed.

She was very stoned.

Okay, that’s enough.

E-nough.

I’m finished—famished. Let’s go kill ’n eat somethin’. Then it’ll be your turn, bub. Tha’s right, bubba, I’ve decided I can’t let you leave… just yet. Right on. No way. ’Cause you’re blessed. An’ I’m too blessed to stress. Aw, just teasin’! You are hereby free to go. You’re probably a better listener than you are a talker, anyway. Am I right? Course I am. On second thought, you ain’t completely off the hook yet so don’t fall to pieces on me… O come on now. I ain’ gonna make you sing for your supper. But I cain’t just let you skate. I mean how would it look? To the ladies and gentlemen in our audience? Well you know maybe I could but that just wouldn’t do, not after what-all you put me through. Just wouldn’t be right. What are friends for. Blah. Man, I am drunk. Guess that’ll happen when you have a 72-hour nip or however long the fuck it was — heh heh heh — was that the long goodbye or the long hello? But enough about me, let’s talk about me. Okay now really. Listen up. I’m gonna ask you to perform an activity, I’ll tell you what it is. In a minute. No cause for alarm. Nothing illegal or compromising. Well maybe just a little. But I swear it won’t hurt—though maybe it kinda sorta will. What are friends for. Have some wine, we need to soften you up for the kill. Ease the ol’ performance anxiety… Hey-oh! I’ll bet you’re the type who needs loosening up. O shit, I’m not going to have to seduce you, am I? [calls out to staff] Esme? Ez? Es-me! — where is that girl? O there you are. Don’t mind me, I’m drunk off my ass. I’m so drunk I’m drunk off his ass. And yours too. Must be the celebratory oxy. Things go better with ox. And the celebratory weed. And the and-the and the and-the. You know: job well done. I told the whole story! Whoa. Kinda honored my baby, my Kura, something maybe I never did so well in life. Though that isn’t really true. He didn’t honor me. No, that ain’t true either, he was awesome. Sorry, Kura. Devil made me do it. Ez-honey? Do you think we can get a fire going? Ya do, ya do, ya do? O goody. Then can you get that together? To get a fire going? Could Miguel — can you tell Miguel? That we want a fire? Maybe over by the tent? Yes. Well, dig a pit then. Go for it, Esmeralda… do what you gosta do… Say what?… Yup. Exactamente. Thank you, Esme! Man, I have been wanting me a fire all day long. If we don’t get one going pretty soon I’m like to shoot somebody, and I shoot pretty good too. From the hip! Right. Ha! Hey-oh. But seriously, Broozer, you’ve talked to what, thousands of people? Okay, maybe not thousands but hundreds, right? I mean, at least. So don’t get all modest. However you slice it, it’s a shitload and a halfa people. Right? And not everybody has the gift of blab, comme ça. I mean, comme moi. Non? Mais non? Mais oui? May we? Well, pardon my French. Bet you’ve had your fair share of folks baring their souls in under an hour, brevity being the soul of wit and all. Speed storytelling. Oops! Then what does that say about moi. Enough about toi, let’s talk about moi. I talk a lot but I’m funny, right? Aren’t I, Brewster McCloud? Does being funny make me look fat? Don’t answer that. Allow me to continue. Some of the folks who told you their stories — some of ’em probably blew lunch in an hour, maybe less, am I right? Course I am. So here’s my little request. Queenie’s gonna lay it all out for you, put all her cards on the table. K? I want you to think of a story somebody told you, a single, solitary story. Like a beautiful one. It can be short, but hell, it don’t have to be. It can be long-ass. But the deal is it has to have stayed with you, plus you have to need to want to tell it, because — because there’s something about it you just couldn’t shake. K? Beautiful or haunting or crazy-funny or whatever. Do a really short one, or a long one, I only offered training wheels as a simple courtesy. Didn’t want to jam you up. But if you’re pressed for time, it can really be short, you can tell it, like, in a New Mexico minute. Ha. Hey-o! Y’all remember those “60-second fairy tales”? Edward Everett Horton. Horton Hears a Who. Horton hears a whodunit… Weren’t they a hoot? Or should I say weren’t they a Who. And why is it that whenever I get drunk, I start with the y’alls and the — the Southern shit. I don’t know why, but it’s been that way since when-evuh… Love will keep us togethuh. Remember “Fractured Fairy Tales”? From Rocky and Bullwinkle, right? Boris and Natasha! You could just tell us a fractured fairy tale, Bruiser. But enough about me… but I’m serious, I want to hear a story you really liked, one for the road, or at least one you think I would like. One for the roadies. Something memorable. So c’n you think on one? While I go freshen up? I guess the story’s on the other foot now, huh babe — ha! Come on. Just think on it. And we’ll just sit here in suspense waiting for the other story to drop. Ho ho ho. Heh heh heh. I know you can do it, babe. I know you can make it! I know damn well… yes we can can I know we can can yes we can can uh why can’t we if we wanted to we can can—tell ya what. To be fair. If that big brainuh yours rolls snake eyes, then you can just make something up! Hell, ain’ nobody gonna hold you to it, no one’ll ever even know the difference. ’Cause nobody’s even fucking listening but me, bubba. Man, you have got to understand, Bruce — right now I am so fucking tired I don’t even know my name… I know I’m drunk but I am freaking serious about this! Get your freak on, Mother Jones… get your free gun. So you’ll — do we have an affirmative, sir? I mean, you can wait, you can wait to tell us over dessert. Crackling fire, starry night, blah. Or you can not wait, you know, tell us whenever. Blah. Pull up a chair and stay a while. [sings] “Don’t be shy meet a guy pull up a chair. The air is humming… please don’t be long please don’t you be very long please don’t be long or I may be asleep—”… Tell you why — I’ll tell you why I’m harping. Why I’m being so importunate over here, is because — because it’s — it’s so weird that this thing just came over me like BLAM—right when we finished. It is too fucking strange… because you would think that after three days I’d had enough. Nope! It just sort of dropped down on me, this crazy urge, this need—do you know what I’m saying? Sounds sexual huh. Wull mebbe it is. I just had a thought… know what it might be? It might be I’m still in my own stuff, you know, stuck in my head, and maybe I just want to get out of my head. Because these last few days we went to some very heavy places, my friend, I am telling you. And you know it. You little devil. ’Cause you took me there. Dark, heavy places — beautiful but heavy. So maybe now I just want to cleanse the palate. Does that make sense? What are friends for. Don’t answer that. Why fucking analyze. Where’s Esme… Esme? Ez! Ezzy? Esme! Never can find that girl. [sings] “Never can say goodbye, no no no no… Then you try to say you’re leaving me and I always have to say no, tell me why… is it so… don’t wanna let you go”—bubba, go have some wine and start Googling that big brain o’ yours while I freshen up. I am just so effing tired of hearing my own story — for three effing days! — and it’s such a trip, I am telling you it was like whoosh right you know exactly when we finished like this voice was saying “No!”—this need, this fucking need washed over me, this primal thing, and it’s not even a full moon! — like an actual physical craving. So Bruce you have got to fucking think — because I don’t want — it’s like it’s too soon, I’m not ready—I hear this voice—you know I’m just not you know quite ready to—apparently, anyway — this voice is saying like come on come on just let me hear one more—blam blam blam—’cause I’m just not ready yet, Bruce — it’s like a drug, like I’m still coming onto the drug—goddammit Bruce all I’m saying is I want to hear one more story! So just come on, man! — and I fucking know you understand — come on! Come on come on come on come on come on—tell me a fucking story!

END