Miss Buddha (28 page)

“She wants you tested,” she said loudly
enough to startle the little conference on the sofa to look up at
her.

“For what?” said Ruth, who always caught on
pretty much instantly.

“She thinks you’re a prodigy.” Then she
looked directly at Ruth, and not necessarily kindly. “What have you
told the woman? She mentioned Bruno.”

“We had an exchange about him.”

“What about him? What did you say?”

“Just that he was burned at the stake after
a short donkey ride.”

“She made a point of telling me that you
seem to know more about him than she does.”

“Well, that would stand to reason, wouldn’t
it?”

“This is not a joke, Ruth.”

“I know.”

“What did she say?” Ananda wondered, a
Mortimer in each hand, though each forgotten.

“She wanted to know how Ruth knew.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her she reads a lot.”

“I do,” said Ruth.

“She also called her precocious,” said
Melissa, still answering Ananda’s question. “Thinks we should have
her tested.”

Then she added, again
looking right at Ruth, though still addressing Ananda, “She strikes
her as
ancient
.
Yes, that was the word she used. Ruth strikes her as ancient.
Bright, she says, doesn’t even begin to do her justice.” Then
finally to Ruth, “We’ve been over this.”

Ruth, looking a little uncomfortable by this
point, nonetheless smiled. “The woman is perceptive,” she said.

“This is not a joke,” Melissa said
again.

“I know,” said Ruth. “I told you, I
know.”

The silence that fell upon the room was not
comfortable. Rifts in it where turbulence seeped through. Ananda
finally broke it, “Perhaps this is not so bad,” he said.

Melissa looked at him as if wondering where
the sound had come from. “What’s not so bad?”

Ruth turned to him as well.

“I think Ruth has done very well to keep a
lid on things for as long as she has.”

Ruth nodded in agreement. “It’s not easy,”
she said.

Melissa looked from one to the other, at
these two people on her living room sofa, who, as far apart as two
humans could be on the surface of it, yet were so familiar with
each other. For good reason, of course, but at times still very
hard to wrap your wits around.

“Have you told her anything else?” Melissa
asked Ruth.

“No, I haven’t.”

“Just about Bruno?”

Ruth pondered for a while. “I do answer
questions. And I do get them right.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Ananda told
Melissa.

“Always right?” inquired Melissa.

“Well, yes,” said Ruth.

“There might be something
wrong with
that
,”
said Melissa.

The silence threatened to return, as
uncomfortable as before. They had discussed this before, and never
quite resolved it: the question of when?

And the question of how?

Ruth was impatient, and who could blame her?
Ananda was a little impatient, too, getting on in years.
Seventy-two by now, if she had things added up right.

“Until we know how,” she said, “we cannot
know when.” This as much to herself as to Ruth and Ananda.

Ruth sighed. It was the same sigh of
resignation she had sighed the last time the subject came to a
boil. For they didn’t know how best to.

Ananda looked at Melissa, but said
nothing.

“You’re only ten, for heaven’s sake,” said
Melissa.

“I’m
ancient
,” corrected Ruth, not quite
joking.

“Yes, and that’s the problem,” said
Melissa.

Ananda still said nothing.

::
65 :: (Pasadena)

Although the subject had been raised before,
the first true discussion about it took place when Ruth was six
years old.

Melissa was still having a hard time
reconciling the adult, not to say ancient words often uttered by
her young daughter. To be sure, there were times they actually
struck her as faintly normal, but these time were still too few,
and too far between; the extraordinary still holding the upper
hand.

At six, Ruth was getting antsy, is how
Melissa put it. Restless, is how Ananda put it. Eager is how Ruth
put it.

She was here for a reason; Melissa was well
aware of that. But she was also well aware that no one, not in this
day and age (perhaps in India 2,500 years ago, yes, but not today)
would listen for more than two minutes, if that, to a six-year old
holding forth on suffering and the origin and end of suffering
before calling the police, a shrink, or both.

But Ruth did not want to hold her
horses—though she did like the expression, she said—very
Krishna.

After an afternoon, evening, and a night
that first serious discussion finally reached the consensus that
Ruth would only “go forth” as Ananda put it, by consensus. Unless
they all agreed on the how, and the when, she would, in fact, hold
those horses, restless thought they were.

Once Ruth (reluctantly) agreed, Melissa felt
a little calmer about having the Buddha in her house—the Tathagata,
her daughter.

:

The following summer, that of Ruth’s seventh
year, saw another attempt at resolution. It was during their 2017
Colorado summer vacation, where Ruth had almost, almost—she
stressed this—given the game away after overhearing two “new agers”
(as Ananda called them) discuss Dhamma within her hearing. Normally
possessed with a calm that saw her through most everything,
something in this exchange rubbed her so the wrong way that she
cast the bulk of caution to the wind and set out to correct them:
“Excuse me,” she said, looking up at the two disputing
know-it-alls, neither of whom heard her, or chose to hear her.
“Excuse me,” she repeated, almost a shout, which caught their
attention.

“What?” In a curious unison.

At which point Ruth finally managed to check
herself, as she later reported at the condo (leased for two
weeks).

“I can’t do this much longer,” she
complained. Primarily to Ananda, but to Melissa as well (washing up
in the kitchen at the time, but within earshot).

“Can’t do what?” she said, appearing in the
kitchen doorway, towel in hand.

Ruth told them what had happened. “They
haven’t a clue,” she said. “Just words, words, words, back and
forth. How could I stand by and listen to that?”

Melissa, more pragmatic than either of her
two charges (yes, at times she viewed Ananda as an impossibly older
sibling or an even more impossibly graying child that she was
responsible for—though this was neither accurate nor fair, for
Ananda took well care of himself and more besides; still, it was
just a feeling she occasionally had and didn’t particularly
dislike) said, “It’s not like you have a choice.”

“I do have a choice,” said Ruth.

“We have agreed,” Ananda pointed out,
referring to their still-in-force consensus.

“We have agreed,” confirmed Melissa,
referring to the same thing.

Ruth acknowledged this by her silence. Then
she took a deep breath, and said, “Do you have any idea what this
is like?”

“Yes,” said Ananda, who did.

“I can imagine,” said Melissa, who tried
to.

Ruth was about to say, “No, you can’t,” but
she did not. Instead she said, “I feel like a prisoner.”

“I know,” said Ananda.

“I can imagine,” said Melissa after a short
pause, and still very much meaning it. Then, swinging the towel
onto her left shoulder, she said, “You’re too young, Ruth. There is
no way. It would not work.”

Ruth did not look up, and looked every bit
her age, faced by relentless logic.

“I’m sorry,” said Melissa.

Ruth remained silent.

:

At eight, it was shortly after her birthday
and they were now on the promised trip to Catalina Island, things
again came to a head. Ruth had said nothing on their way to Long
Beach. Had said nothing on the boat to the island. Had sat quietly
by the window, turned away from Melissa and Ananda, looking out at
the gray and restless water. Had said nothing while they checked in
and settled at their hotel, and now—while looking out the sliding
glass doors at the still foggy ocean below—was still not
talking.

“Are you planning to keep this up the entire
weekend,” said Melissa, none too gently, still putting things away
in drawers.

To no answer.

Ananda looked at her, and shook his head
gently: leave her alone.

No, Melissa did not want to leave her alone.
Buddha or no Buddha, Ruth was her petulant daughter and she was not
behaving very well. “Ruth,” she said. “I’m talking to you.”

This earned her a daughterly shoulder shrug,
indicating she could not care much less.

“Ruth.”

Finally, “What?”

“What is the matter with you?”

No answer.

“You wanted to come, remember?”

“Yes.”

“So what on earth is going on?”

Ruth finally turned around and this changed
the room’s mood completely. Both Ananda and Melissa saw that she
was crying. Softly and sparingly, but crying nonetheless. Cheeks
glistening, eyes shiny but un-bright.

Melissa fought down the urge to run over and
take her daughter in her arms, but not for long; for she lost sight
of the Buddha and only saw the young girl, distraught, wrapped her
arms around her and asked softly, “What’s wrong?”

“Everything,” she said into her mother’s
dress.

Melissa hugged her even tighter, “Could you
be a little bit more specific,” she said, knowing Ruth would
actually appreciate the question.

“You have no idea,” said Ruth, still into
the embrace.

Melissa knew not how to respond, so didn’t.
Just held her daughter, as if trying to draw the despair out of her
and into herself.

“I have an idea,” said Ananda.

Ruth unburied her head and looked at him
with blurry eyes. “I know,” she said. “I know you do.”

“What is it Ruth?” said Melissa.

“I cannot wait,” she answered.

Of course, Melissa realized, of course this
is what it was about. And equally of course she had no answer to it
that would appease her daughter. “Ruth,” she said. “You are too
young.”

“I feel like a coiled spring,” she said.
“Bursting from not bursting.”

Melissa let go of her, and sat down on one
of the beds. “I am not going to pretend that I know how you feel,”
she said. “But I cannot lie to you either. Were you to go forth at
this point, nothing would be gained. Nothing. In fact,” she added,
“I would probably lose custody.”

That reached home. Ruth’s face, glistening
with unwiped tears, turned serious, intent on her mother. “What do
you mean?”

“They’ll think you’re crazy. And they’ll
think I’m to blame. Charles would be in court before you could snap
your fingers.”

“She’s got a point,” mumbled Ananda.

“I know,” said Ruth after a moment’s
reflection. “That’s the problem.”

“What’s the problem?” said Melissa.

“I’m the problem. The world’s the problem.
It’s a straitjacket, Melissa. This body. No, not this body, this
person.”

“What person?”

“Ruth.”

“You?”

“No.”

“But you are Ruth.”

“I am not Ruth, Melissa.”

“You are the Buddha.”

“I am not even him.”

Melissa looked to Ananda for support. For
clarification. She didn’t follow. He looked right back at her, but
if there was something to say, he gave none of it away.

“I am an ocean in a bottle,” said Ruth. “A
sky in a pearl.”

Melissa tried her hardest to comprehend, to
imagine, to empathize with her daughter’s containment, but she
couldn’t, and couldn’t, but then found that she could, as talons or
tendrils or arms or craggy shores rising to contain and restrain.
For several desperate heartbeats she could not find her breath.
Above her a hatch was slammed closed, and sealed, and now she ached
from the compression.

Smaller and smaller yet the same size,
crushing borders nearing, closing, the same amount of her, in far,
far less space, and less still. Was he doing this? Was her
daughter?

She slipped off the bed and hugged her
knees, twin apparitions of the faintly familiar. Shaking, she
forced her eyes open, then forced them to look at her, at her
daughter Ruth, who found the gaze and met it, steadily drinking her
space away.

“Stop, please,” she said.

Ruth stopped. Melissa unfurled.

“That’s how it feels,” she said. “Only,
there is no one to stop it for me.”

“How?” said Melissa after a while.

“I shouldn’t even be here,” said Ruth.

“Yes, you should,” said Ananda.

Ruth didn’t answer. Then said, “I’ll take
that as a no.”

Melissa shook her head slowly, “What are you
talking about?”

“Consensus. Not today.”

“Yes,” said Ananda. “That’s a no.”

:

Ruth held those horses for another year, did
not even broach the subject. Not once. What suffering there was she
suffered in silence. Whenever she thought of it, Melissa was
relieved. Whenever he thought of it, Ananda was concerned.

Then, on the evening of her ninth birthday,
just after opening her one present—a complete set of Beethoven’s
piano sonatas (she had come to adore, that was her word, the German
composer, and had hinted—and none too subtly—that she would like to
have “some of his piano music”), and now putting it aside, she
said, “I no longer agree.”

Melissa—as if expecting the subject to
surface (it was that time of year), even bracing for it—froze.
Ananda looked up from reading one of the CD sleeves. It was as if
the Catalina conversation had only been suspended, and was now set
free again. “We agreed, said Melissa. “You agreed.”