Miss Buddha (16 page)

There was furniture to be put in storage,
and there was packing to be done. There was also a place to be
found in California, but Ananda decided to find an inexpensive
hotel first, and find suitable accommodations from there.

He felt not a little proud that he managed
to fit all that he needed to bring into Frugal, his little car, and
when he set out down the I-95 for California, he tingled with
anticipation and recollection both. The Buddha had called, and,
again, he was responding, coming to his aid.

Just across the Oregon-California border,
Ruth appeared again.

“Ananda.”

“Yes.”

“You are on your way.”

“Yes, Gotama.”

“All is well?”

“All is well.”

“I am glad.”

“I am too,” said Ananda.

“And not a moment too soon,” said Ruth, but
rather than explain, she disappeared again.

::
36 :: (Glendale)

Ananda found a hotel about 15 minutes’ drive
from Pasadena which announced “monthly rates” in disturbingly bold
letters readable from the freeway.

Truth be told, it was far from any ideal
Ananda might have harbored about temporary accommodations, but it
was close, it was clean, and it was reasonably priced, so he signed
up for a month, renewable month-to-month (just like his cabin, he
thought with a pang of loss, for he already missed it, and he hoped
his tenants were not too preoccupied to appreciate what he had
invited them to enjoy).

His room was on the sixth floor, with a
faraway view of downtown Los Angeles, thinned and darkened by haze
or fog or smog, Ananda wasn’t sure which. The huddled skyscrapers
gave him an odd impression of a castle keep, tall towers, held
together by ramparts (smaller scrapers), and rendered fairy tale by
intervening atmosphere.

To his right he could see the eastern slopes
of Griffith Park (said the map provided by the hotel to be found on
the small round table). A harassed slice of nature that struck him
as confused and uncertain, caged on all sides by freeway and
exhausts. He compared it to the proud trees protecting his cabin
and knew that he would never again come here by choice.

He sat down in one of the two chairs, closed
his eyes, and listened hard for any warning signs of noisy
neighbors. Ten minutes later he was satisfied that this was
probably as good a room as he was going to find—he had an option to
switch to other vacant rooms, should this one not be to his
liking—and began unpacking the few belongings he had brought
(clothes, mainly, and books).

Then he thought: “Okay, Ruth. You can come
out now.”

:

When I cast my mind back it seems there is
not a time when I did not know Ananda. I say “seems” for I’m sure
there was such a time, when the world was young—or at least much
younger—but the backward glance sees life after life after life
where he is either my brother, or sister, or mother, or father, or
as now, a best friend, a comrade. It is only since my return to
Tusita that we parted for any meaningful time, for once The Buddha
Gotama’s body faded, Ananda—along with other leaders of the
Sangha—focused all his attentions on remembering and establishing
the Dhamma, again putting others before himself; before he in the
end crossed the river, though not into Nibbana, which was his
destination by right and achievement, but—knowing I would
return—into Nimmanarati Heaven instead, where he, awaiting my word,
enjoyed his music for a while (which he’ll do at the drop of hat,
given five undisturbed minutes).

And now, here he is again, unpacking what
few things (mainly books) he brought from his far away Idaho to
again stand by me, protect me, help me with this so very
hard-to-help world.

He knows that I’m here, of course, and now,
all settled, he speaks the way we always speak, immediately and
directly, universe to universe: “Okay, Ruth,” he says, thinks,
intends, resonates, appears. “You can come out now.”

And so I do. I step into his universe as
brightly as he into mine, and it is as if we both wore saffron
robes again, on this common ground, under long ago calmer
skies.

“Welcome,” I say.

He touches my robe, one brief smoothing of a
crease at my shoulder, a gesture I know so well, a gesture so
Ananda, always making sure I look my best, un-creased and ready for
the day.

Then he smiles and says, “How are you,
Gotama?”

“I am worried,” I reply.

:

And I am worried.

Although I have not repeated my mistake of
entering the Jhanas so deeply as to let go my surroundings,
Melissa—though she has tried her very best—has not been able to
shake her memory of the one mistake I did make.

For that one brief, horrifying moment, she
knew Ruth had died. No deeper scar is ever carved upon a mother’s
heart, and memory gouges it deeper. She cannot let go of the still
body, unresponsive to even her hands and screams. It was so
terribly, terribly wrong.

She never told Charles about the episode,
and he only found out when the ambulance bill arrived a week or so
later asking for their deductible (a significant amount). Wanting
to know “what the hell this was all about,” Melissa told him. As if
Ruth had disappeared, is how she put it, knowing well that her
husband would not understand something she could not herself make
sense of.

“Disappeared,” he said. “What are you
talking about?”

“It didn’t matter what I did, I even shook
her; she would not respond.”

“What did the paramedics say?”

“By that time she was back.”

“By that time she
was
back
?” he
repeated, skeptically.

“Yes, she was back again.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he said.

“Of course I’m not bloody okay. I don’t
understand what happened to her. And now, you don’t even believe
me.”

“Of course I believe you.”

“Don’t lie, Charles.”

He was about to reassure her that he was not
lying, that of course he believed her, but he was lying, no denying
it. And Melissa saw that. And he saw that Melissa saw that.

What Melissa didn’t see, however, but which
I did, was his growing suspicion that his wife was losing it, as he
put it to himself. The baby too much of a stress perhaps. First she
wasn’t crying, and that was a big problem—as if that’s even a
problem—and now she disappears, while Melissa conveniently forgets
about ambulances. Something was if not already seriously wrong with
her, then certainly headed in that direction. He would have to talk
to someone about this, he decided, perhaps his mother. She would
know what to do. She was good at these things. Or, better yet, his
father. He knew good doctors.

All this while Melissa was still talking,
trying—by her hands and facial expressions—to explain things to
him, but none of the words reached him. This didn’t bother him for
they would hardly bear meaningful currency. Charles was quite apt
at tuning his wife out.

Melissa, noticing she was not getting
through, raised her voice and tried again, this time with eyes on
the brink of tears—whether from fear or frustration, Charles could
not say, but what he could tell was that her teary behavior
confirmed his, I wouldn’t say fears, but rather misgivings about
his wife.

“Melissa, please,” he interrupted her at
first opportunity, for he could not stand tears. “Calm down, for
heaven’s sake.” Then he said, “I’m sure there’s a rational
explanation for this. You could take her in. Have Doctor Fairfield
take a look at her.”

“I already did.”

“You did?”

“The paramedics suggested that.”

“And?”

“And, there is nothing wrong with her. She’s
perfectly healthy.”

“So, there is nothing wrong
with
her
,” said
Charles, regretting it the moment he saw Melissa’s reaction. He
didn’t want to show his hand.

“I am not crazy, Charles.”

“No one says you are, Melissa.”

“I didn’t imagine this. It happened.”

“No one says it didn’t.” As reassuringly as
possible.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Melissa. “Will
you stop being so bloody patronizing.”

When Charles, momentarily at loss for words,
didn’t reply, Melissa turned and left him standing in the kitchen,
watching her head for my bedroom.

This was a few weeks ago, and although she
has tried and tried, Melissa still cannot shake the dread or heal
the scar of my blunder. I am not at all happy about this.

Neither she nor Charles has brought up this
incident again, and she hopes he has put it behind him.

But he has not. He is in fact still working
up his courage to bring this problem up with his father—who was
never truly for this marriage in the first place and will most
likely sermonize about it.

Ananda says, “Tell me.”

So I do.

::
37 :: (Glendale)

“Tell me,” said Ananda.

The Buddha Gotama did.

Ananda listened attentively to the many
details that conspired to make his friend uneasy, envisioning as
they unfolded many paths, many tacks that might set the ship right
again, but none truly did.

But one.

When Gotama had finished his telling, Ananda
said, “We must tell her.”

Gotama hesitated, “You deem that wise?”

“Yes.”

Then ceased hesitating, “Then do so.”

::
38 :: (Pasadena)

Such a telling, however, is more easily
decided upon than done.

But Gotama had agreed, Melissa needed to
know the truth. It was either that or an approaching madness, for
no matter how she tried—and she kept trying—she could not shake the
knowledge: she had seen what she had seen, but the seen was
inexplicable, impossible—so much not making sense that perhaps she
had not seen it, and so the wheel turned again, for she knew what
she had seen, and Ruth had not woken up.

And there had also been the no crying. And
there had been her eyes that once that were far too old, but only
for the briefest of glimpses, so brief that perhaps she was wrong,
but that was just it: she wasn’t wrong, she had seen, but then
again, she could not have. And so the wheel turned again. There was
no way out.

It would be Ananda’s telling, they both knew
that.

The following morning, Ananda waited until
Charles left for work—Ruth keeping him posted. Then he drove to
Pasadena, wholly unsure how best to broach the subject and say what
must be said. He parked Frugal by her house, made sure she was
locked and walked the short path up to Melissa’s ornate front
door.

She was surprised to see him, mildly shocked
even, for she knew nothing of his coming. But in the next breath
her surprise gave way to delight, and she embraced him as she would
a rarely seen tough much loved sibling.

“Ananda.”

“In person.”

“I had no idea.”

“I have business in Los Angeles,” he
said.

“The book?” she asked.

“That, too,” he answered.

“Wow,” she said, just looking at him, her
smile wide, but uncertain, as if not quite reconciled yet to his
just appearing like this. “Well,” she said. “Don’t just stand
there. Come in.”

Ananda smiled, and complied. “How’s Ruth?”
he asked as she closed the door behind him.

“She’s fine,” she said. “She’s good.”

“Can I see her?”

“Sure.”

She led the way to Ruth’s bedroom. “She’s
asleep,” she explained as she pushed the door from ajar to
open.

And there she was, as tranquil as anything.
Ananda stepped up to the cot and looked down at the Buddha
Gotama—the Buddha Ruth—resting as with not a care in the world.

“Welcome,” thought Ruth.

Ananda nodded.

“Doctor Fairfield says she’s as healthy as
anything.”

When Ananda turned to her, she added, “Her
pediatrician.”

“She’s a picture of health,” said Ananda,
glancing back at Ruth.

“I just fed her,” Melissa said. “She’ll
sleep till noon now. That’s what she normally does these days.”

Ananda took a long look at Melissa, as proud
a mother as he’d ever seen or imagined. Melissa smiled back,
nodded, and seemed to look for somewhere to place her hands.
Shadows rippled in those so very blue eyes, shifted, they almost
pleaded for attention.

“Is everything all right?” said Ananda.

“Of course,” she answered, but a little too
quickly.

“Tell me about it,” said Ananda.

The smile faded and her eyes studied his for
several moments. “How do you know?” she asked. “Did Doctor
Fairfield tell you?”

“No.”

“Did Charles?” Unlikely, but the possibility
alarmed her.

“No.”

“So how then?”

And here Ananda simply said it. Whether this
was wisely done or not he wasn’t sure, but then again, any
broaching of the impossible may be as advisable as the next.

“Ruth,” he said.

Melissa did not hear that—or simply could
not assimilate the word, the name, with the question—for she
replied, “So how then?” as if Ananda had not spoken.

“Ruth,” he repeated. “Ruth told me.”

This was so obviously a joke (and not a very
good one at that) that Melissa should have laughed in dismissal—or
if not in dismissal, at least out of politeness—without a second
thought. But her brushes with the impossible had fissured her
protection, if only by a hairline, and this checked her.

She looked at Ruth and then at Ananda, then
at Ruth again. Then she slid down onto the floor, leaned against
the wall, and hugged her knees. What she said next—spoken as if
addressing the floor—surprised Ananda.

“Should I be afraid of you?”

“No, Melissa, you should not.”

“I shouldn’t?”

“No.”