The Empty Chair (31 page)

He turned on his heel, marched to the cave and disappeared within. I was intensely curious and absolutely parched—both water bottles were finished, which of course he had thoughtfully noted. I got up but Kura didn't budge. He just sat there like a robot on the fritz and mopped his brow, a move that never failed to trigger heart attack head-riffs. What if he keeled over right
then
,
without getting closure?

He lifted himself off the stump and shuffled toward the cave. The American's sandals were at the door. I took mine off and Kura clumsily did the same.

In an ashram, arrogance arrives in bare feet . . .

Pitch-dark. We stood stock-still inside the entrance while our eyes adjusted. The sadhu gestured for us to sit at the bench of a small wooden table. I led Kura over, afraid he might stumble. Glasses of water and cups of tea were already waiting.

“In my seventh year, something shifted,” said the American. He came and sat across from us. “I began plotting my escape. I was stunned it had never occurred to me. Some part of me believed that if I took definitive action—if I left Mogul Lane behind and threw myself on the mercy of the Source—all crimes would be forgiven. Very
Catholic
, no? My demeanor brightened with the knowledge I'd begun tunneling beneath the barbed wire. The Great Escape! Can you recall my sunny mood in the months before I departed? Even my enemies—a camp that was steadily growing—noted a jauntiness in my step. I meditated each day for hours, something I hadn't done in years. My course of action, my
destiny
became clear. I likened myself to the prisoner who finishes lunch and straightens his cell before leaping from the top tier. Liberation was at hand . . . all was well with the world at last.

“I plotted that escape as carefully as a murder. The possibility that I might be apprehended by those whose open hearts I had betrayed with my ‘teachings' was unacceptable. I would not have it! Nothing would be left to chance. In the years I made book I'd become well acquainted with a host of shady characters. I see now why I cultivated those gamblers and thieves—I envied the integrity of their one-pointed purpose. What a brazen, wondrous thing it is to dream of winning
by a nose
, to stake
everything
on winning by a nose! However they might be judged, those men could never be robbed of the dignity conferred by that inviolate enterprise, for it came to be my opinion it wasn't the horse they were straining toward but God
Himself. It is said that this is how some escape the Wheel of Dharma—
by a nose.
With the help of my rogue's gallery, I made a clean getaway. I loved them all the more for never asking
Why?
though of course I had a ready answer:
Why not!
A report on the details of my flight would be superfluous. Suffice to say I was like one of those merchants in
1,001 Nights
, snatched by
djinns
and deposited far away from home. Only a few moments seemed to pass before I found myself hundreds of miles to the north.

“You may not believe this but I had no plan beyond achieving my freedom. I was alone and deliriously without purpose. One day, during charnel ground
sadhana
13
, my nostrils quivered at a whiff of perfume—the intoxicating, unmistakable odor of my teacher! The Great Guru spoke through a cloud of roses and sandalwood. He said the more directionless I became the stronger his scent would grow, until one day I
became the scent itself.
With that, I began my travels to that place called Nowhere.

“After a decade of wandering, on awakening from an afternoon nap beneath a Tamarisk tree, the pungent smells of my guru at last returned to overwhelm my senses. As I went begging, roadside Samaritans were stunned by my exhalations, redolent with botanical Attar: the field of roses now resided within. I heard his voice a final time, so loud and clear tears gushed from my eyes—tears of essential oils! He told me of a sacred place in Uttar Pradesh, on the apron of Nepal.

“It took months to make my way here. As I ascended the trail, I imagined Father leading me by the hand to my union with the Divine. Halfway up, a man with a thick black moustache (it's whiter now) appeared on the path. His smile was auspicious. The village elder—you've already met, no? I'd hardly spoken in ten years but now the words poured forth. I told him I was an itinerant priest who wished to end his days in solitude and meditation. Without second thought he said, ‘I know just the place.' He led me through the meadow to this cave, the home of a leper who had passed away a few months before. A vacancy sign was blinking! I've spent every day since racing toward
emptiness
full-gallop, bent on winning by a nose! Only recently did I catch sight of my beloved again. I redoubled my speed and now my guru and I ride together, side by side.”

“Do you mean to say you've achieved enlightenment?” said Kura, shaken and wild-eyed. “That you're an
enlightened man
?”
The American smiled obscurely, agitating Kura even more. “I asked you a question, sir!
Did
you? Did you or did you not achieve enlightenment!”

There was something so utterly sad and ludicrous about the ultimatum.

“What I am saying,” said the
rishi
,
“
is that now I am empty.” He was quiet for some moments, allowing the echo of profundity to die away. “But the important thing to recognize is that I should never have seen the rays of
chiti
,
nor would the veil have lifted . . .
shakti
could not have awakened and the words ‘I am that' would have remained a mere riddle had I not acquired a
second guru
. Of course, the teacher is always there—it is the
seeker
who is in the way. What they say is true: When you are ready, the guru will find you. I'll tell you a
concept
that is almost impossible to grasp: at the moment one finds one's guru, one becomes
truly
lost . . . until one finds another! For it is only the second guru that allows you to make sense of the first.”

I will never be able to adequately describe what I saw when I glanced at Kura's face. An immemorial darkness, something primeval . . . his features dissolved before me, one set replacing another, from the fragile fear of a neurotic city dweller to the monolithic indifference of an Easter Island
moai
. I blinked hard until Kura reverted to his angry, nonplussed self. That the man who had conned him now dared to blithely lecture on the supreme importance of finding a
follow-up bullshitter
added insult to injury.

“This guru of yours, this
Guru Number 2
,” he spat venomously. “I suppose he's long dead . . .”

“Why, no!” said the American. “He's very much alive.”

“Then where is he?” he demanded, more tantrum than query. “Where is he!
And tell me who is he!
”

“Would you like to meet him? He's in festive spirits,
I
can assure.”

“He's here?—”

“O yes! In this very room.”

Kura fussed in his seat, wary of being played for sport.

“Is that right?” he said, with noxious disdain. “Well,
I
don't see him
.”

Kura stood. He slowly moved in the direction pointed by our host, squinting into the habitat's dim recesses. I think he was in the throes of some sort of hysteria.

“I say I see
nothing
!”

“My old friend, that you see nothing is not my affair. He's right in front of your face.”

“There's nothing but a chair.”

“Correct,”
said the American. “Nothing—and everything! Allow me to be more clear. The chair does not contain the
emanations
of the guru, nor does it aspire to:
It is the guru himself.
”

The Hermit sank to his knees in front of the simple throne, prostrating himself. Now cross-legged, he looked up at the chair. “It took my entire life to find what was never missing . . .” He turned to Kura with
such love
—I know it's corny, Bruce, but to this day I swear the fragrance of roses blew straight through me. “And it is all because of you.”

He wasn't done speaking though stopped short, as if knowing his guest's next move. The American's heart was open, his smile benevolent.

But I could not have predicted what happened next.

Kura bolted from the cave in a silent scream.

Mountaineers say the descent is more dangerous than the climb, which definitely applied to our return trip. We suffered four-legged and four-speeded calamities; when night fell, the driver announced it was unsafe to continue. We stayed over at an inn. Any thoughts I might have previously entertained of Kura whisking me to Paris for a little post–egg hunt R and R were pretty much dashed by the impenetrable pall that had settled over him. He went incommunicado. I knew better than to try to draw him out.

Thirty-six hours later, I was greatly relieved to be ensconced in the First Lady—Maharanee?—wing of the Presidential Suite. I called to ask if he wanted supper, suggesting we do a little recap over room service. (I already knew the answer.) After a long soak I made notes in my trusty Smythson, expanding on them when I got back to New York.

I was nodding off when the phone rang. Someone in the posse said to be packed and ready at 10 a.m. I'd never
unpacked
so when morning came there wasn't much to do but order up a carafe of lattes and chocolate croissants for extra protein. I took a constitutional around the perimeter of the hotel in the forlorn hope that my bowels might want to start a conversation; they were quiet as a grave.

I was in the lobby uncharacteristically early, befitting a depressed person in a faraway place waiting to go home to die. My eye fell on the elevator just as Kura and his retinue emerged. My main man wore a blue serge suit and a heartbreakingly sportive pompadour. He'd paid scrupulous attention to his toilet—his way, I suppose, of ending the sentence or at least dotting the “i” in Delhi. We chitchatted on the drive to the airport and I even wrung a few smiles out of him. I actually started to wonder if he
would
whisk me away, to destinations unknown.

The convoy rolled onto the tarmac but none of the posse approached the Bentley when it parked, as if knowing in advance to allow us our privacy. We stayed in the car.

“Queenie, I cannot tell you what your being here has meant. And I know I shan't be able to process it—any of it—for some time. I was going to ask you to come to Paris . . . what a time we would have had! But now that's impossible. This has been a strenuous trip and I hardly wish to send you back in worse shape than you arrived. So I've opened up my
appartements
in the Marais; my staff awaits you. An itinerary has already been customized
for your pleasure, with an emphasis on the off-the-beaten-track and
taboo.
You shall want for nothing. If the idea of Paris—without your Kura!—does not appeal, the plane will take you anywhere you wish: Kyoto, Patagonia, Lindos . . . but you must promise to forgive my heavy-handed mood. You know how it pains me to be a terrible host.”

“You're going back to see him?”

“Yes. I'm going back.”

Had he asked me to accompany him I would have without hesitation but I knew Kura well enough to understand his speech was a farewell. I was honored to have served my purpose. He was on his own now, just as he wished.

I returned to New York and my griffin friends straightaway.

On the plane, I dawdled with completing the crossword of his plan. (He hadn't shared, I hadn't asked.) I was never good at puzzles but
was
good at tossing them aside, unfinished. Which is what I did . . . After a few months, my depression lifted, or at least became manageable. I went on about my life with the necessary delusion most of us share that we're captains of our destinies, when truth be told we have no more power over our fates than falling leaves do over a tree.

I'm not exactly sure why Kura wasn't in my head much after that strange sojourn, not substantially anyway—and I didn't feel guilty about it, either. Maybe Delhi was
my
second guru, because it helped make sense of that long-ago time in Bombay.
I'm not sure exactly how
I felt. Though I do remember I didn't cry when I learned he was dead.