A Single Eye (34 page)

THURSDAY

R
oshi was already awake when I arrived with his tea at 4:20 Thursday morning. I helped him outside, trying to judge his state of health by his walk, his stance, his gargle. Yesterday, when I had thought I could save him, my judgment seemed crucial; today, with no choices to make, it was just opinion. He sipped the tea, shifting the hot little mug from stiff hand to stiff hand, his breath steaming in the icy room. When the fire caught, he said, “Get yourself coffee, Darcy. Go on to the zendo. Hold the incense for Rob. And then leave me to sleep. Don't come back till after breakfast. You sleep till then; you need it. Leave my door unlocked.”

“No.” The word had just popped it. But it was the right one. “I can't.”

“I
said
, leave it unlocked.” He had swallowed the last of the tea but was still holding the mug, drinking in the warmth. The steam from the cup meshed with the his breath, and blended into the cold air. “I have put a great burden on my students. I have to keep my door open for them. This is what I do.”

A jisha does not contradict the Roshi. I looked down at his sweet gray face and said, “No. Not in the dark. After breakfast.”

I was out the door and had it locked before he could object, and hurried to the kitchen to obey him, at least about my coffee. Barry was peering into the cooler where trays of shiny brown rectangles lay waiting for their trip south. Behind him were piled four white boxes the size of center desk drawers. Barry stared into the cooler, out and at the boxes, and back to the cooler. His movements were jerky and he looked like a man too exhausted to make simple decisions about transferring. It was already Thursday and he was cutting things close, but if he blamed me for taking the truck yesterday, he was too polite or too tired to mention it.

Foregoing preliminaries I asked the question that had woken me up at 2:45
A.M.
I needed him to confirm it. “When the Japanese roshis were here there were no buildings, were there? You were all sleeping in tents, and the zendo half finished, right?”

He nodded, too tired to question my question.

“Yes. Even the kitchen was a tent. The bathhouse was a shell.”

I took the coffee outside and drank it in the safety of the darkness. If Aeneas never left here six years ago, if he had been buried here, there was no building to bury him under. Six years ago there was only one convenient, camouflaged place to bury anything.

When the clappers sounded I went to Rob's cabin, lit incense, and followed him in silence to the zendo. I held out the incense for him at the altar, bowed, and walked right past my seat and out the front door.

Which meant I had to go splashing through the cold mud around the zendo to the back door where I had followed Rob in. Where my shoes still were. And then, because my socks were covered in mud, I couldn't put them in my shoes, and I couldn't sit there on the back porch fiddling with my shoes, reminding everyone in the zendo that I was outside, so I ended up socking it back around the zendo to the bathhouse, shoes in hand, which made no sense whatsoever, and only highlighted my exhaustion.

I yanked off one soggy sock, grabbed some paper towels, wrapped them around my foot, and stuffed my foot into my boot.

“Oh, good. I found you.”

Maureen stood panting at the door. I was wrapping paper towels around my second foot. I was too cold to stop.

“Uh-huh?”

“I have to see him.”

“Roshi?”

“Yes! Roshi.”

“Why?”

“Wha—?”

The wad of paper towels was keeping me from getting my foot all the way into my boot. I stood, trying to cram my foot down enough to walk. The towels stuck, creating enough of a lift under that heel that I'd be hobbling, but it would have to do.

I stood up, and realized Maureen was still there. It took me a moment to remember what she was asking.

“Oh . . . Roshi. He's not seeing anyone now.”

“But I have to.”

For the first time I really looked at her. The circles under her eyes were so dark they looked like theatrical makeup. She was twisting the opening of her sleeve. All I could think of was the abusive ballet master, and Leo at her cabin door. She looked so strung out that I hated to tell her no.

I hedged, and asked again, “Why do you need to see him? What about?”

“About? About, uh, uh, the garden.”

That wasn't the issue. I wished I could have wrapped an arm around her, or gotten her old boyfriend Barry to do it. She needed someone calm. And she needed sleep as much as I did. Maybe more. There was a wild look about her; she really did need to see Roshi. But sick as he was I couldn't expose him to someone in this bad a shape.

I felt terrible, but I said, “Not now. He can't see anyone till later.”

“But I need—”

“Maureen, you of all people know he wouldn't keep you out without a good reas—”

She slammed out of the bathhouse.

Another time I would have gone after her, but exhaustion brings down the final curtain fast. She could pound on Roshi's door, but she couldn't get in. And she wasn't likely to carry on about her “garden” through the door. Still, I veered past his cabin to make sure it okay, and before I stumbled into my own cabin. My feet were icy. I thought they would keep me awake. Life is illusion!

I didn't wake up till Amber poked me after breakfast break, three luscious hours later. Her poke had been no gentle nudge, more like her skiing into me, but even with that I could have turned over and gone back to sleep for a day or two.

“Get up! Zazen's in fifteen minutes!”

“Roshi told me—”

“Shh!” she hissed, bending over me and looking ridiculously righteous about the whole thing.

It wasn't till I kneaded my eyes and sat up that I remembered this was the time I had agreed to leave Roshi's door unlocked. Too soon! Way too soon. I couldn't stand the idea of Roshi lying in his room at the mercy of whoever tromped in, whoever murdered Aeneas. If Roshi didn't mention the lock, I was set to forget it.

I peeked in on Roshi—sleeping—and almost smacked into Rob as I hurried across the path from Roshi's cabin to the zendo.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

I stopped where I was, surprised that he would break stride for that minor courtesy—to me, yet.

“Roshi wants me to follow the same schedule as yesterday?”

I nodded, even more surprised. I had told him that yesterday; there was no reason for him to expect change.

“If the weather holds we can do outdoor kinhin,” he went on, I realized, talking to let off steam. “That'll take up the slack.”

“Slack?”

“Maureen!” he said, with a show of exasperation. “She can't be bothered to plan. She isn't even a good gardener if it requires planning. Look at that red maple!”

My stomach quivered with guilt. My nap had erased all thought of Maureen and how unstrung she had looked in the bathhouse.

“She caught me before breakfast. She hasn't prepared her talk. No notes, no sources, nothing. I told her yesterday, but she did nothing. Now she's going to ramble. Still, it's going to run short.”

I sighed.

“That'll be fine. People always get something from learning about senior students' practices. Hearing that she's screwed up will be a comfort to most of the new people. ‘If the work leader can mess up her talk, then maybe there's hope for me.' This should be the worst thing that happens to any of us,” I said, and actually patted him on the arm as I headed for the zendo.

Each block of sitting periods has its own feel. There's a dark, mysterious cozy feel of promise when you enter the zendo for the first time at dawn. In the afternoon, there's an ease, a re-quieting from the diversion of work period, and often it includes feeling your reactions to some illicitly spoken comment during that period, some hurt hugely magnified in the silence. The last block before bed when your knees ache from being bent, your spine has a dull pain and yearns for a chair with a back, is just endurance. But the mid-morning sitting, the one starting now, feels fresh, professional in its way. The
jikido
, assigned to straighten the cushions and do a quick sweep of the floor during the break, has given the zendo itself a fresh look. You've been fed, had a break in which to nap, had two or three cups of coffee, and you are as alert as you're ever likely to be. There's only one sitting before the lecture, and you're ready to make the most of it.

At the end of the zazen period, we did kinhin outdoors, at a good clip. But when we got back in the zendo and settled on our cushions, this time facing into the room, the front seat was empty. We waited, eyeing the door. It didn't open. Five minutes passed. Rob announced, “We will stay as we are, and just sit zazen.”

I knew the present zazen period was no longer than the previous one, but this was a glimpse of eternity. Since I was facing into the room, I managed, without moving my head, to eye Roshi's door, and the front door alternatively, as if that would draw Maureen in here.

When the bell finally rang, she still hadn't come. I hurried out of the zendo, put on my boots, and thought I was heading for her cabin, till I realized my feet were carrying me to the place I was most worried about, to Roshi's cabin.

“Roshi,” I said, bursting through his doorway, “Are you okay?”

“Was, till you woke me,” he grumbled, smiling at me.

“Maureen's missing. Rob was looking for her; and then she didn't show up for her lecture.”

“Pour me some tea.”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes.”

He pushed himself onto his side and tried to sit up. I grabbed and hoisted him. My hands were shaking. As soon as he was up, he attacked his unshaven face with both hands, shaking the skin under his fingers as if he was massaging the bones beneath. He nodded toward the teapot.

“It'll be cold,” I said.

“Still tea.”

“Right.”

I reached for the pot, annoyed. There was a point when this roshi business went too far. Had he missed what I was saying entirely?

“Roshi, Maureen was desperate to see you this morning.”

His gaze rested on the door. He meant that if I had left it open as he'd wanted she could have walked in, talked to him, and this crisis could have been averted.

“But then she ran into Rob and told him about not preparing for her talk,” I countered, trying to control my voice so the high pitch didn't let him know how pissed off I was getting with him.

“Interchangeable?” he said, holding his hand out for the teacup.

“I didn't mean you were!”

He made no response, verbal or otherwise. I turned my back to him to fuss with the tea, to get myself under control. I squeezed my hands into fists. Maureen was gone and he was blaming me. Dammit, what was I supposed to do?

“Was I supposed to let her in here to have another go at you?”

I had spun to face him and I was shouting. His hand was still out. I grabbed the teacup and poured, and it was all I could do to keep from slamming it into his hand. I took a deep breath, then another, and handed it to him exceedingly carefully.

He jostled the cup. I started to grab, but he shook his head.

“If I spilled it, it could be a mess.”

Then, in perfect control, he lifted the cup to his mouth and drank. But in my mind the room was morning dark, the day was Tuesday, and I was scrubbing up the cocoa off the floor. Now the room was light, the day was Thursday, the liquid was tea, and it wasn't on the floor. The only thing the same was my fury. It burst through me, smashing at my skin from the inside. My hands shook, my head ached. I wanted to scream—again. I wanted to—

I glared back at him. I knew this was a lesson, like the cocoa. I knew if I let go of my anger I would see his point and learn something. But I didn't care. I was too furious.

“If she'd walked in, you could be dead. Would that make things better? Not for you; not for her.”