Miss Buddha (45 page)

“That’s not what I meant.”

“But what I don’t understand,” said
Federico, and he actually meant this, “is what’s in it for you?
Really.”

“Nothing’s in it for me.”

“So why did you do it?”

“Why did we do what?”

“Put on this over-the-top elaborate spoof?
What would you possibly hope to gain by fake results? Did you
truthfully think you were going to get away with it?”

“Mr. Alvarez, do you honestly believe that
we faked the results?”

“Of course I do. You did.”

“And you have verified this, how?”

Ah, walking right into it. “For one, I think
we have established here that the institutions you so carefully
picked to verify your results are prone to fraudulent research, or
selling out as you put it. We also know that you avoided labs that
could disprove your experiment, like Fermilab and CERN. We also
possess a fair amount of common sense. You’re saying that things
only exist because we look. If we don’t look there is no-thing
there.”

“That is precisely what we are saying.”

“And then you top this lunacy off by calling
yourself Buddha. Who put you up to this craziness? Your mom? I know
she’s had her mental health issues in the past.”

“What?”

Federico consulted his notes again, “Not
long after you were born, she was committed to psychiatric care for
delusional behavior—having long, rambling conversations with you,
before you could even talk, believing that you talked back. At
least according to her ex-husband’s very illuminating account.”

Ruth Marten’s very blue eyes turned very
cold. In fact, they turned frightening. Federico wondered whether
he had gone too far here, but done was done. He had planned to use
his Charles Marten interview only if needed, but it had been, and
now he had.

“Have you no shame?” said Ruth, one word at
a time.

“Truth, my dear,” said Federico, and quite
condescendingly, “will always out.”

“How much did you pay Charles Marten for his
illuminating account?”

“Pay? We didn’t have to pay him anything. I
think his only concern was for the truth, and perhaps for your
safety.”

“My safety?”

“An unstable mother who most likely put you
up to this.”

Ruth looked long and hard at Federico, but
said nothing in return. Federico tried to hold her gaze, but found
he could not.

Then the young girl leaned back and closed
her eyes.

At that point someone in the audience, said
“No.” And quite loudly. Then once more, “No.” Federico strained to
see who was speaking. Then saw him. It was the old man sitting
beside Melissa Marten. Ananda Wolf, if he wasn’t mistaken. And then
he said for a third time, and as loudly, “No.”

Who was addressed, and concerning what, he
could not tell. But the “No” was definitely an appeal, if not an
injunction.

What happened next, however, he certainly
could tell. Even though he did not believe it, even though he had
no grounds to believe it, he could not help but tell for it was
actually happening.

Ever so gently his chair, with him in it,
stirred, then began to rise. Had he not been leaning back he would
have fallen off. But he was leaning back, and as his feet softly
parted with the floor, his surprise was so great that he let go a
brief, hysterical laugh—more like a giggle.

The chair continued its slow rise, a foot,
two, then three. At about four feet off the studio floor, it
stopped. And here it hovered in absolute stillness for a dozen or
so of his now violent heartbeats, then began a slow descent.

Someone in the audience screamed. The rest
were dead silent.

And equally gently, first his feet and then
the chair touched down.

This is when Federico Alvarez discovered
that he had wet himself. Warm and moist down there. He crossed his
legs to conceal the condition. He looked around, no one seemed to
have noticed. The he caught Ruth’s gaze. Steady and cold and
knowing. She was something out of some terrible movie, not real at
all. He was trying to wake up, trying so very hard to wake up, but
there was nowhere to wake up into, for he was already there. And
Ruth Marten would not stop looking at him like that.

“Go to commercial,” yelled the producer in
his ear, probably for the third or fourth time. But Federico
Alvarez did not register, nor was he entirely in control of his
tongue right then, so the producer skipped the segue and went to
commercial anyway.

The next few minutes can best be described
as chaos. Utter.

:

Yes, I did something miraculously dumb. And
I could hear, both internally and externally, Ananda trying to warn
me, for he saw what was coming.

I was prepared for, and could easily have
withstood and responded to any kind of verbal abuse or trick, but I
had not counted on this snake of a man going after Melissa. I
wanted those words coaxed back into his throat inch by rising inch,
and—yes, I should have considered the consequences—set out to do
precisely that.

And then I put him back just as gently.

Many of us can do this, it’s easy. But it is
also much frowned upon for it really does no one any good. Quite
the opposite. Whomever sees a feat like this will normally either
consider himself crazy, and that he, in fact, never did see what he
thought he saw; or he will accept what he saw, but make a god out
of you, which doesn’t help either. Miracles like these (and they
always think of them as miracles) are rocks thrown on the path, and
I knew that. Obstacles. I knew that. Of course I knew that.

But no one speaks about Melissa that way in
my presence.

And, what is done is done. I cannot undo
it.

I hear the word “trick” being handed to the
audience, and many of them hand it on in turn as they are ushered
out of the studio. That must be the official explanation.

But as for those who know this was no trick,
well that is another story.

Mr. Alvarez, for one. His producer for two.
The television crew, for three. And then, of course, Julian,
Melissa, and Ananda.

Ananda’s view, and I can’t say I blame him:
“That was an amazingly dumb thing to do. I thought you incapable of
such stupidity.”

Now what can you say to that? He is right.
It was an unbearably stupid thing to do.

Julian, on the other hand, on the way back
to the house, is more interested in how, exactly, had I gone about
this—circumventing gravity, as he put it. And Melissa, in two
minds: glad, I think, even a little proud, that I had so
drastically come to her defense, but plainly worried that I may
have bit off a lot more than I can chew. A lot more.

So is Ananda.

Time will tell.

::
93 :: (Pasadena)

The easiest and most effective way to contain
the fire storm that now swept the country and threatened emotional
damage would have been to clearly and unequivocally establish “the
rising” (as the incident was quickly labeled) as a hoax.

The only problem with that solution was that
too many people knew that it was not a hoax, and too many of those
people spoke up about it, gladly giving interviews—some even
seeking them out, and not only for money but to share what they saw
as an incredible event, a miracle even—disregarding KCAA’s
moratorium on anyone involved in the Federico Alvarez program as
much as whispering to the media.

As a result, much of the media frenzy of the
days following the rising speculated not on the nature of the
rising—it was a miracle, confirmed by many who were present, and
one that most of the country had observed on live television—but on
the true nature of Ruth Marten.

Was she a God? Was she a Witch? Was Satan
involved? The prevailing Bible Belt view was that God, somehow, did
have a finger in this, and the openly asked question was whether
this young girl heralded the imminent return of Jesus Christ, our
Lord and Savior. This view soon found broad sustenance and could
now be heard over many a small rural radio station.

Some outlets, especially in the less
gullible (which is how both New York and Los Angeles media
portrayed themselves) metropolitan areas, refused to accept the
miracle version of the rising, no matter how many voices offered or
supplied confirmation. The laws of physics were still alive and
well around the country they repeatedly pointed out, all was still
as it should be with gravity. Their conclusion: the rising was a
hoax. Elaborate and technically astute, to be sure, but a hoax
nonetheless. And also unforgivable.

Judging by the media, nothing else occurred
in the country for the few days following the rising. There was
only the rising and its fallout.

During the night following the rising, a
crowd of reporters, primarily from television but quite a few from
the print media as well, gathered outside Melissa’s Pasadena home.
The street was crammed with brightly colored vans donning satellite
transmission dishes on their roofs; some even double-parked, to the
escalating outrage of her neighbors.

Melissa, noticing the growing media horde,
called the police requesting protection and they arrived in force
at daybreak, cordoning off the entire house on all sides, and
keeping the clamoring reporters at bay.

Ananda had not slept much. Not that he slept
much anyway these days, but the interview, and Ruth’s rash antics,
prevented even a wink of sleep. Also, it seemed that the Melissa,
Ruth, and Julian (who was staying the night) had followed the
television coverage most of the night, perhaps in shifts. In fact,
as he made his way for the kitchen, the television set was still
on. He could hear some excited reporter or another holding forth to
an empty living room, for they were all gathered at the breakfast
table as he entered. None of them looked like they’d slept much
either.

Melissa served him up his customary orange,
nicely sliced. “We’ve got company,” she said, nodding in the
direction of the street outside.

“I saw,” he said, pouring himself some tea,
then giving Ruth a pointed glance as he replaced the teapot on the
coaster. “They have been gathering all night.”

“It
was
a stupid thing to do,” said Ruth.
“I know.”

“Yes it was,” confirmed Ananda.

“Yes it was,” confirmed Melissa.

“Amazing, though,” said Julian, helping
himself to another slice of toast.

“The question is,” said Ananda. “What do we
do now?”

“Wait it out,” suggested Ruth. “What else
can we do?”

“I don’t think this, or any of the reporters
outside, will go away anytime soon,” said Ananda, shaking his head.
“You’ve painted us into a very uncomfortable corner.”

“I know,” said Ruth.

“It really did happen, didn’t it?” said
Julian, who was not tracking with the damage-control mode of the
others; and not for the first time, “You really did it, didn’t
you?”

“Yes,” admitted Ruth. “I really did.”

“No one can really predict,” said Ananda,
“what happens when a human being sees something that by any stretch
of logic is impossible. He simply is not equipped to handle it. He
cannot compute, nor can he reconcile. He knows he’s seen it—first
his eyes, then his memory tells him so—but it’s not possible that
he could have, not within his framework of logic. There are usually
only two ways out of this dilemma, for it is a dilemma for him, and
always has been: go crazy—simply throw up your mental hands and
give up, or turn everything you have and are over to God, seeing
the impossible as proof of his existence.”

“That’s a bit grim,” suggested Julian.

“But nonetheless true,” said Ananda, Ruth
nodding her agreement, yes Ananda’s right.

“Well, in that case,” said Julian very
matter-of-factly. “We’ll have to tell them it was a hoax. Some
stations, especially here in LA and in New York believe that
already. Several Chicago stations as well.”

Ananda looked at Ruth and then at Julian.
“Will they believe us? Or, Ruth, rather.”

Ruth shrugged, “I don’t know.”

Julian said, “Many of the KCAA crew have
already told reporters that it was no hoax, that it actually did
happen. That’s the problem.”

Melissa finally sat down, and began peeling
her own orange. “Not unlike getting the toothpaste back into the
tube,” she said. “Not easily done.”

“If it
can
be done,” said Ananda. “It would
be the prudent, and most merciful, way to go.”

Ruth now nodded, “I agree.”

“What does Cal Tech have to say about all
this?” Ananda wondered.

Julian looked not a little uncomfortable at
this. “To be honest,” he said. “I don’t know. But I’m guessing they
don’t like the spectacle—sorry, Ruth—the spectacle of all this
detracting from the bona fide findings of the experiment, which
seems to be lost in all this. They don’t have a well-tended sense
of humor.”

Ruth pushed her chair back and rose, “Let’s
do it.” Then turned to leave.

“Do what?” Melissa said. Ruth stopped and
turned again.

“Let’s tell them it was a carefully planned
hoax,” said Ruth.

“Sit down, please,” said Ananda. “We have to
prepare a little. If we tell them that, they will have questions we
need to answer believably.” He paused and considered. “I can think
of several, the most obvious one being, why on earth would we pull
a hoax like this? What possible reason would we have? And why would
KCAA employees lie about it?”

Ruth returned to her seat. “Okay,” she said
after a moment’s reflection. “This was not our idea; this was
Alvarez’s stunt.”

“Why would he pull a stunt like this?” said
Melissa.

“Ratings,” suggested Julian.

“Ratings,” confirmed Ruth, looking from
Julian to Melissa.

“Why would you, the Awake One, go along with
this, making a mockery out of your experiment findings?” asked
Ananda.