Miss Buddha (17 page)

“Then why am I beginning to?”

Ananda didn’t answer. Instead he sat down
opposite Melissa, barely a foot away, and folded his legs in a near
half lotus. He studied her face, her eyes, then her hands, which
still had not found a comfortable resting place.

“What?” she said.

“Things are not always what they appear to
be,” began Ananda.

“What do you mean?”

“You thought Ruth had died,” he said.

“Yes,” said Melissa. “That is precisely what
I thought.”

Ananda could tell that realizing that he
knew this brought her relief.

“But she wasn’t dead.”

“No,” said Melissa. “She wasn’t.”

“She’s sorry she scared you,” said
Ananda.

“Now you
are
scaring me,” said
Melissa.

Ananda held out his hands, inviting
Melissa’s to finally find their rest. She placed hers in his. They
were so very smooth, those lovely young mother’s hands, like doves
in his darker, treelike ones.

“I have lied to you,” said Ananda.

Melissa jolted a little, and by reflex tried
to bring her hands back. Ananda held them, warmly, firmly, and
would not relinquish them.

“I am not writing a book,” he said.

She tried to answer, but it seemed like too
many thoughts competed for air, and no two or three words would
gather long enough to carry meaning.

“But that is the only lie I told, or will
ever tell you,” he said.

“Why?” she said—unclear, it seemed, even to
herself what she wondered.

“You believe in God,” he said. It was part
question, part statement.

She nodded, a quick up and down. Her words
still had too many jumbling takers, no one thought won rights to
them.

“Have you prayed to him?” asked Ananda.

She nodded again.

“Has he answered you?”

She shook her head.

“Would it scare you if he did?”

That earned him a long glance, more curious
than afraid now. Then she said, realizing as she said it that it
was quite true:

“Yes, it would.”

Ananda’s turn to nod. “I thought so.” Then
he asked:

“Have you heard of the Buddha?”

“Yes.”

“What do you know about him?”

“He lived in India.”

“What else do you know about him?”

“Not much. Nothing. A long time ago.”

“Do you believe in reincarnation,
Melissa?”

“What are you talking about, Ananda?”

“Do you believe the soul lives on?”

“I believe it goes to heaven, or hell.”

“But not that it may live on in another
body, in a new life?”

She hesitated. “I haven’t really thought
about it,” she began. Then corrected herself, “No, that’s not true.
I thought about it in college, now and then. I guess it could.”

Ananda increased his soft grip upon
Melissa’s hands. Then said:

“It does.”

“Live on?”

“Yes.”

“What are you telling me, Ananda?”

“I am telling you that Ruth has lived
before. And that he, who Ruth was then, now lives on.”

Ananda’s words seemed to enter one by one,
and slowly at that. As if Melissa were reading them on the air,
with difficulty.

“How can that be?” she finally said.

“How can water be?” said Ananda.

When Melissa said nothing in return, and
continued to say nothing, Ananda said, “Ruth is the Buddha. The
Buddha is Ruth. The Buddha has returned, and you are now his, or
her, mother.”

Ananda fanned these words with all the
sincerity he could muster. He had to reach her. He had no other
choice. He had to impress this truth upon her and she had to
receive it. So he watched her closely as she digested their
meaning, battling.

Then she laughed, though not happily, and a
little too loudly— bewilderment ripping the air in search of an
outlet. “You are serious, aren’t you?” Then, when Ananda did not
respond right away, and with an edge to it, “You really believe
that, don’t you?”

“It is not a matter of belief, Melissa.”

Melissa, looking directly at Ananda now,
said nothing.

“And yes,” Ananda finally releasing her
hands, placing them, first one, then the other, on the floor
between them, each one softly, gently, lovingly. “And, yes,” he
repeated. “I am very serious.”

“How could you be?”

“That is why you thought her dead,” he
said.

After several breaths: “I don’t
understand.”

“Have you heard about meditation?”

“Yes.”

“He, she, Ruth, was meditating. She reached
a state where she could not hear you, a state where you’d barely
detect her breath.” Then he added, “Isn’t that what happened?”

“Yes,” she said. Then, after a pause that
seemed to harbor her return to that moment, “Yes, that is what
happened.”

“And she is sorry to have scared you.”

“How do you know that?”

“She told me.”

“She told you? How did she tell you? How
could she possibly tell you, Ananda?”

“Like this,” thought Ruth. Clearly to
Ananda. Indistinctly—but nonetheless perceivably—to Melissa.

For a set of heartbeats much hung in the
balance. Melissa paled, and seemed to stop breathing, perhaps she
did. She looked at Ananda with wider eyes, as if shouting the
question inaudibly.

“Did you hear?” said Ananda.

Melissa said nothing, but instead looked
past Ananda to the cot where Ruth still slept peacefully.

“That was Ruth,” he said. “That was your
daughter talking to us.”

Still, Ananda felt as if Melissa could
topple either way: into the abyss, madly bewildered, or onto the
shore, certain, and none the worse for the crossing.

“How?” she managed.

“Like this,” thought Ruth.

“Like this?” thought Melissa, hardly
believing her own thought.

“Yes,” thought Ananda and Ruth both.

Not sure why, Melissa began to cry.

:

After a while, Ananda helped Melissa to her
feet. She smiled a thank you and dried her eyes with the sleeve of
her shirt. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Don’t know what came over
me.”

“Not at all,” said Ananda.

Melissa turned at the door and looked back a
Ruth, who was still sleeping. She drew breath to say something,
then changed her mind. Then, as if suddenly waking, she turned to
Ananda. “Are you hungry?” she asked.

“Tea would be nice,” he said.

Over two cups of steaming green tea, she
said, addressing first her cup, then Ananda. “That, what happened
back there, was real, wasn’t it? Her voice?”

“Yes,” said Ananda.

Then she reached for and lifted her cup,
blew on the surface to cool it, and sipped it skillfully. Replaced
it.

The house was very still. Few sounds outside
as well, as if the world was somehow holding its breath, curious
now to see what would happen next. “How could she not hear me?” she
said.

“You’ve heard of meditation. You said
so.”

“I have.”

“What have you heard?”

“Honestly, not much. I know how to spell the
word. I know that very thin, serious, people in India practice it
while sitting very still. Some people here in California do, too.
It’s calming. I’ve heard that. On television. That’s about it.”

“Well, it is a long story,” he said. “But
one that I will tell you soon, or she will.” Then added, “In
meditation there are states where your concentration is so strong
that you only perceive what you focus on, and nothing else.”

Melissa took another sip of tea. Then looked
out through the window, at the April sky, as if for corroboration.
Then back at Ananda. “For real?”

Ananda nodded. “Sure.”

“But she’s so young.”

“She is not young, Melissa. She is ancient.
As am I. As are you.”

She looked out the window again. “I don’t
know about that.”

“Well, that’s just the thing, Melissa. In
your heart, you do.”

“I don’t know about that.” This time
directly to Ananda.

Ananda smiled. Then it seemed the world
outside suddenly released its breath. A car went by. Then another.
Farther down the street a garbage truck now growled and grumbled.
Birds were heard. Bickering, singing. The distant freeway returned
as river. Ananda drank his tea, and regarded Melissa.

Who suddenly asked, “Why me?”

“That, you would have to ask her,” he
answered.

After a pregnant silence she smiled. Then
said, “I will.”

::
39 :: (Pasadena)

Then she asked, “Why me?”

“That, you would have to ask her,” said her
guest.

The suggestion was, of course, more than
just a little crazy, but Melissa surprised herself by not
dismissing it. Things, impossible only yesterday, were no longer
undoubtedly so, and this possibly one of those things. Though, of
course, it was impossible. Borderline crazy in fact. Across the
border and well into la-la land crazy.

Or not.

For she had heard, or not really heard. It
wasn’t hearing, had not been sound. But a voice nonetheless. A
living presence, as if one of her own thoughts, suddenly declaring
independence, had spoken out. But not with her voice, not with her
familiar risings and fallings of internal inflection, but with a
brightness that shone but didn’t shine, that colored and animated
that other thought, the one that had not been hers. Which had been
Ruth’s?

Ananda had no doubts. And, on some
terrifying level—though less scary than she would, or should, have
expected—she found she could not really doubt either. That thought,
“Like this” it had said, twice. And she had said it, too. Thought
it, too. And had not both Ananda and Ruth said “Yes” in some
very—or not so very—comforting unison.

Either she had long since crossed the line
of crazy herself, and she was now completely mad, or—and she smiled
at this, for it felt the truer of the two options, and now quite
comforting and not terrifying at all—this was really happening.

“I will,” she said.

Then she watched him closely, as if she’d
never seen him before. Ancient? Yes, she could believe that.

Her next question escaped from a place that
took all this in stride, now curious. “Why did you lie?”

“To get to know you.”

“You knew about Ruth already? Then?”

“Of course.”

“Of course,” she repeated, not quite
trusting her ears. “She was barely conceived.”

“It helps,” said Ananda, “to think of the
body and the person as being quite separate from each other. Ruth
had not arrived yet, but she knew that she would.”

“She picked me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Again, I don’t know. You’d have to ask
her.”

There were still two major portions to her.
One, fading but still battling for survival, screamed its warning:
this was insane. Utterly, totally, completely insane. Unbelievable.
Ungraspable. Terrifying, really. Or certainly should be.

The other, sheltered by direct experience
which—no matter how many warnings her other part raised—could not
be denied, accepted this for what it seemed, for what it undeniably
was: true. For, really, she was not crazy. She was in fact quite
lucid, as clear of mind as she had ever felt, and this, she knew,
was no sign of madness, quite the opposite, no matter how unlikely.
No matter what—and she shuddered a little at this new thought,
which had arrived uninvited—no matter what Charles might say.

“How could this be?” she asked again. More
curious now than anything. Yes, she really wanted to know.
Somewhere deep within her a wellspring seemed to have erupted, and
now cascaded her in she-didn’t-know-which direction, but it was
quite wonderful. So wonderful, in fact, that she needed something
to anchor herself, something more concrete than this rushing
joy—yes, it was joy, wasn’t it? That was the word. Her joy, she
thought, had sprung a leak. Gushing here and there. In need of
gathering.

“How can water be?” said Ananda.

::
40 :: (Pasadena)

“How can water be?” Ananda said, knowing no
better, nor truer, answer.

Melissa looked at him for a long while, then
said something quite unexpected:

“God made a song when the world was new.
Water’s laughter sings it through. Oh, Wizard of Changes, teach me
the lesson of flowing.”

“What?” said Ananda.

She said it again.

He said it again.

“It’s a song,” said Melissa.

“It sounded like a poem,” said Ananda.

“I guess it is a poem, too.”

“Tell me again.”

Melissa repeated the lines for a third time,
almost sang them.

“Who wrote them?” Ananda wanted to know.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “My mother
used to play this song on the stereo when I was a little girl. She
would sing along with it, especially if Dad wasn’t home to tease
her about it.”

“It’s beautiful,” said Ananda.

Melissa nodded. “Yes, it really is.”

“Maybe you could ask your mother.”

“She wouldn’t remember.”

“Why?”

“Ever since her stroke,” said Melissa.

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry,” said Ananda,
remembering. Melissa had told him about her mother, not yet sixty
and yet a victim of a severe stroke. By no means bedridden, she
nonetheless could not remember much past the last few hours, if
that.

“Tell me again,” Ananda asked.

“God made a song when the world was new.
Water’s laughter sings it through. Wizard of Changes, teach me the
lesson of flowing.”

“Like the mystery of water,” said Ananda.
“So is the mystery of life never-ending.”

“Is that also a poem?” asked Melissa.

“No. But nonetheless true.”

“So how can this be?” she asked again. “I
heard her speak. In my head. She spoke in my head. And I recognized
her, without sound.”

“I know,” said Ananda. “I’ve heard her many
times. She’s very good at that.”