Nirvana Effect (15 page)

“Tien will be properly buried.  Dook will be dragged into the woods,” Mahanta said matter-of-factly as they entered the hut.  Edward feigned an interested glance.  The pain had started.  “The
after-effects
?” asked Mahanta.

“Not as bad as before,” answered Edward.

“You had him.  The trance ended as you were striking.”  It was not a question.  Edward nodded.  “That was stupid.”

Edward shrugged.

“Is that all you have to say, white man?” asked Mahanta.  He was downright hot.  His fists were in knots.  “I can understand your logic - you were the most likely to defeat Dook between you and me.

If Nockwe died, Dook might finish what he had started through Tien and have you killed…but still…”

“Actually, that thought never occurred to me,” said Edward.

Mahanta
glowered
. 
Edward was only inciting
the Onge’s rage.

“Nockwe spared my life that night at the coming-of-age.  I felt it was only right to help him.  I like him,”
explained
Edward.  He chuckled.

“You
like
him?!  You did that because you
like
him?!” shouted Mahanta.  He tugged at his hair, his voice filling up the temple.

Edward
felt
frustrated. 
Mahanta
had no right
to talk to him like that, Onge god or no
.  “You know, there is such a thing as honor,” said Edward.  “There is such a thing as doing the right thing.”

“The
right thing?” echoed Mahanta.  He sighed and looked at the ground.  He started laughing.  At first, it was just a chuckle, but soon the rage melted into mirth.  He lost his breath before finally settling down. 
Edward watched him incredulously. 

“You Christian martyr…” muttered Mahanta at length between chuckles.  “Well, it worked this time.  Maybe I should study your knight-like methods.”

Edward was disarmed by Mahanta’s change in mood.  “Maybe you shouldn’t,” said Edward.  “I almost got slaughtered.”

“You were certain, weren’t you, that yo
u could beat him,” said Mahanta
. 

Edward shook his head ‘no’, then reconsidered.  “Yeah, I guess I was.  And then I was very certain I was going to lose,” he said
.  “So I had to change the game
and re-take the advantage.  Then I was very
sure
I was going to beat him again.  Then the trance wore off,”
added
Edward. 

Mahanta nodded.  “I call it trance certainty.”

“Trance certainty?” Edward repeated.

“It’
s a phenomenon I’ve encountered. 
I’ve observed a great magnification in the emotion
s
of
certainty
and confidence
while I’ve been under trance.”

“Hmmm…” said Edward, thinking over his own experience.

“App
arently, since a mind under trance
has a great ability to
cause
the future, the mind tends to feel certainty about
any
course one decides to take.  Even minute probabilities can seem great certainties while in trance.”

“It’s a false certainty,” said Edward.

“Well, not necessarily false at all.  For example, let us say it was a little more right to you than wrong to jump into that fight.  Well, even this slight differential in rightness and wrongness becomes a dead certainty in trance,” said Mahanta.

Edward nodded.  “I see.”

“It’s key not to use one’s understanding in normal life to entirely evaluate data and conclusions while under trance.  Trance has a different feel and feedback than normal life.”

“Kind of like a blind man who gets his vision restored might react incorrectly to various sights for a while,” said Edward.

“Yes, kind of like that.  But don’t get me wrong.  It seems that certainty has a great value.  Certainty seems to me to be necessary for successful action.”

They talked all night, mulling over Edward’s experience with the substance, comparing notes.  They resisted the urge to philosophize, and stuck mainly to the facts and details of what Edward had learned while under trance and how Mahanta’s trances differed.  They agreed on working on reducing the after-pain as a primary research goal, and Edward threw out some of his ideas.

But when he finally
lay
down on his
pallet,
Edward could not stop mulling over Mahanta’s
initial rage and condescension.

There was another side to Mahanta that Mahanta did not want seen by the likes of Edward.
 
Edward decided to
protect himself from that side.
Mahanta had given good advice.  The only way he could trust Mahanta was to not trust him at all.

Before he finally slept, he ripped the back page out of his journal and wrote a note.  He rolled it into a tube.  He scratched the bottom of the wooden crucifix hanging from his hut.  He then carried the tube to the southernmost free-standing tree in the
village
and buried the tube three feet deep three feet south of the trunk.  He was sure he was not followed.  That was important, since it was his only “card in the hole,” literally and figuratively.

It was an old Jesuit trick.

Dr. James Seacrest was knocking on her door.  Callista was
watching him
through the peephole.  Behind him she could see a red, distorted blob that could only be the cherry apple ‘95 Corvette that he’d bottomed out repeatedly in an effort to gain a date with her. 

She made the mistake of pressing up against the door to get a better look out the peephole.  The deadbolt clicked against the jamb.

“Callista?” asked Seacrest.  “Are you there?”  He squinted a bit.

Oh, God, I don’t want to do this right now. 
After Friday night, she’d avoided him.  He’d called several times.  She didn’t answer or call back.  He’d showed up to the clinic twice.  She’d had Duiyon tell him that Dr. Knowles was still seeing patients. 

Watching that boy come back to life, watching that mother die and then resurrect all in the span of an eternal night, had touched a raw nerve.  I
t was a desperation, a rush, an
affinity that she hadn
’t felt since her college years
before med school.

She still missed the man she’d almost married eight years ago.  She had dated, of course, and tried to forget h
im.  She’d buried her regrets
in the middle of
a
nowhere called
Lisbaad
.

And yet it had resurfaced,
as it always did.  She shouldn’
t have expected anything else. 

Ridiculous
. 
She chose this one particular island so she might have a chance to relive her past.  And yet she tried to bury it. 
Ridiculous
. 

She was right to bury, to forget.  She had to assume he would never come; she had to get on with her life.
  The many voices of her friends, her family and herself all told her that.

She’d keep
things
going with Seacrest.  He was a handsome man, a doctor, older than her, but
still
in his prime. 
N
o reason to stop
.  It might come to something.  It might come to the new start she so hoped for.

She would ruin it, though, if she saw him before she got her head straight.

She couldn’t think of anything to answer him.  He’d heard her.  She couldn’t avoid him anymore.  She saw him pace a bit on the porch. 
He probably feels like a fool.
 

“Coming!” cried Callista, as though she’d just heard him.  “Just a minute!”

She sat down on the bench in her foyer and composed her thoughts.  She breathed and thought.  She wiped a tear off her face. 

You’re coming apart at the seams, Callista.  It’s just a boy out there.  You’re acting
like
a traumatized wacko.  You are Doctor Callista Knowles, not Cali, Oxford undergrad with a melting heart. Pull yourself together.

She saw
him
, though, in her mind’
s eye.  H
e wouldn’
t bury
, not
yet.  So she just tucked him in
to
a corner
of her mind
and stood up.  She opened the door.

Seacrest had flowers behind his back.  He showed them to her.  She smiled, but it took her too long to do so.  She
saw
him reset his stance.  It wasn’t a look she was used to from the
typically
over-confident Seacrest.

“Hello, Callista,” said Seacrest, gently passing her the flowers.

“Hello, James,” said Callista.  “And thank you.”

“No problem,” said James.  He examined her face, then fiddled with his pockets a bit.  He seemed to be deliberating on something - something he’d seen in her eyes.  He sighed quietly and smiled.  “Thank you for the lovely evening Friday night.  It was very good for my soul.”

She smiled back at him weakly.  “You have a soul?” she muttered.

“Occasionally.”  He smiled.  She could tell it was only for her benefit.  His body was a lot slacker than it had been just a second ago.  Excitement had been replaced by something almost fatherly.  “I want to let you know that whenever you’d like, I’d love to enjoy another dinner with you.  And if that’s never, I’ll understand.”

Her smile faltered. 
He knows!
  In that moment she felt
exposed, and yet safe.  She nodded unconsciously.  “Thank you, James.”

“Thank you,” he said.  He tilted his hat.  With his accent, it was almost ridiculous.  She didn’t laugh, though.  It was actually quite attractive.  He looked
at her
meaningfully
.
“Goodbye, Callista,” said James.  He turned to leave.

“Goodbye, James.”  She leaned against the door frame as he drove off.

Oh, Edward.

Lila had requested an audience with him three times.  Manassa
had
never granted it. 

When he walked into his quarters she was on his bed.

She studied his face to gauge his reaction.  He smiled.

“I’m not going to even ask you how you got in here,” he said. 
“Your secret exit is also a secret entrance.  You should guard it.”

“Then it wouldn’t be a secret,” he said.  He could not resist talking to her.  Or looking at her.  She wore a loincloth but she may as well have been completely naked on his bed.

“What is this I am laying on?” she asked.

“The English call it a ‘mattress’.  It’s a bed.”

She giggled.  “You did it.  You’r
e a god, and you sleep on a ‘mit
tress’.”

Manassa stifled a laugh at the mispronunciation. 
I wish. 

“You’ll need to leave,” he said.  “You’re married.”

“I don’t want to be married anymore.”

“That’s too bad,” said Manassa.  He walked to his desk.

“Can’t you do something?” she asked.

“It’s the laws of the tribe.”

“But they say you can do anything.  You’ve done miracles.  You appear out of the air…”

Manassa started working at his desk. 

“Mahanta…I miss you, Mahanta.  I’m sorry I married.  He’s so old and gross.  My family needed it.  I’m sorry.”  She was crying.  “I miss you.  Please, help me.  You don’t have to marry me.  I could just be your…”

“’Mattress’?” he asked without looking at her.

“What?” she asked.

He chuckled.  He turned around in his chair.  She was standing up pleading beside his bed.
He missed her, too.  And the idea of her in bed with her husband made his blood boil.

“I swore I’d marry you,” said Manassa.  “And you married another.  This was an unforgivable sin.”  She held her breath.  “But that was against Mahanta.  Mahanta is no more.  I am Manassa, and no Onge can sin unforgivably against me.”

She sighed.

“I will have you,” he said.  “But in order
for me to have
you, you must follow what I say exactly.  Understand?”

“I understand,” she said.

“It’s ham
and rice
in banana leaf,”
explained
Nockwe as he served Edward his wrap.  It felt warm in
Edward’s
hands, but not too warm.