Miss Buddha

by Ulf Wolf

  She makes a brave attempt to dispel the episode as some momentary aberration that probably didn’t even take place, but she is too aware to succeed at this. She knows what she saw, there is no denying it. Either that, or she is losing her mind, is her exact thought. And what worries me is that she gives her loss of mind a small, but nonetheless actual, possibility.

  And what troubles me more is that this is my doing.

  And what with Charles being, if not an immediate threat, still a towering cloud on the horizon, I realize I need some help, and that I must ask Ananda to come back to California, sooner rather than later.

  I will need him.

  Melissa will need him.

  :: 35 :: (Still River)

  Ananda Wolf views the Buddha Gotama’s return into existence, word by word. It is as if his life has gathered into closer and closer focus to finally alight upon this story, the one that needs telling more than any other story.

  His cabin, so near the cliff face as to be perched, overlooks the now agitated lake, and Ananda’s awareness moves from the steel-gray water to the concerned Gotama.

  “Ananda.” The thought not so much arrives as appears amid his alternating contemplations.

  “Yes.”

  “I worry about her.”

  “I know.”

  “I need you here.”

  “I can come.”

  “Can you come to stay?”

  At that Ananda pauses. He had expected this request, of course. But not now, not for at least a year or two.

  “Will that be necessary?”

  “Yes, I believe it will.”

  “Something has happened,” Ananda knew as he said it.

  “Yes,” Ruth admitted.

  “Tell me.”

  “I meditated,” she said. “I entered the fourth Jhana, the better to see things, and I forgot about her, her motherly concerns.”

  “She tried to wake you,” said Ananda, the picture quite vivid.

  “Yes.”

  “And she failed.”

  “Yes.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She called the ambulance.”

  “They came?”

  “They came.”

  “I see.”

  “She cannot forget this,” said Ruth. “And she must not doubt her own perception.”

  “Which she may well do,” said Ananda.

  “Which she tries to do,” said Ruth.

  “It will take some time.”

  “The sooner the better.”

  Then she left. Though evaporated might be a better word. The sensation of an awareness shifting away is an odd one. It is the removal of potential, a nothing which nonetheless is a something. The perception is acute, though nearly impossible to describe. Returning to the keyboard, Ananda tried, but was not all that happy with the result.

  :

  It took Ananda three weeks to arrange things. At first he thought of selling his cabin, but changed his mind. It might be needed later. Besides, he loved the place, it had grown a part of him, as much as a leg or an arm.

  He advertised it for rent, and within a week had settled on a young couple, both professionals, but both pinching pennies to pay off their student loans (they said), a rental was precisely what they needed, and this one was perfect—if a bit snug. It was understood that the arrangement was to be month-to-month, though nothing was put in writing. Ananda knew people by seeing them, and he knew this young couple to be honorable and reliable simply by perceiving their private universes.

  There was furniture to be put in storage, and there was packing to be done. There was also a place to be found in California, but Ananda decided to find an inexpensive hotel first, and find suitable accommodations from there.

  He felt not a little proud that he managed to fit all that he needed to bring into Frugal, his little car, and when he set out down the I-95 for California, he tingled with anticipation and recollection both. The Buddha had called, and, again, he was responding, coming to his aid.

  Just across the Oregon-California border, Ruth appeared again.

  “Ananda.”

  “Yes.”

  “You are on your way.”

  “Yes, Gotama.”

  “All is well?”

  “All is well.”

  “I am glad.”

  “I am too,” said Ananda.

  “And not a moment too soon,” said Ruth, but rather than explain, she disappeared again.

  :: 36 :: (Glendale)

  Ananda found a hotel about 15 minutes’ drive from Pasadena which announced “monthly rates” in disturbingly bold letters readable from the freeway.

  Truth be told, it was far from any ideal Ananda might have harbored about temporary accommodations, but it was close, it was clean, and it was reasonably priced, so he signed up for a month, renewable month-to-month (just like his cabin, he thought with a pang of loss, for he already missed it, and he hoped his tenants were not too preoccupied to appreciate what he had invited them to enjoy).

  His room was on the sixth floor, with a faraway view of downtown Los Angeles, thinned and darkened by haze or fog or smog, Ananda wasn’t sure which. The huddled skyscrapers gave him an odd impression of a castle keep, tall towers, held together by ramparts (smaller scrapers), and rendered fairy tale by intervening atmosphere.

  To his right he could see the eastern slopes of Griffith Park (said the map provided by the hotel to be found on the small round table). A harassed slice of nature that struck him as confused and uncertain, caged on all sides by freeway and exhausts. He compared it to the proud trees protecting his cabin and knew that he would never again come here by choice.

  He sat down in one of the two chairs, closed his eyes, and listened hard for any warning signs of noisy neighbors. Ten minutes later he was satisfied that this was probably as good a room as he was going to find—he had an option to switch to other vacant rooms, should this one not be to his liking—and began unpacking the few belongings he had brought (clothes, mainly, and books).

  Then he thought: “Okay, Ruth. You can come out now.”

  :

  When I cast my mind back it seems there is not a time when I did not know Ananda. I say “seems” for I’m sure there was such a time, when the world was young—or at least much younger—but the backward glance sees life after life after life where he is either my brother, or sister, or mother, or father, or as now, a best friend, a comrade. It is only since my return to Tusita that we parted for any meaningful time, for once The Buddha Gotama’s body faded, Ananda—along with other leaders of the Sangha—focused all his attentions on remembering and establishing the Dhamma, again putting others before himself; before he in the end crossed the river, though not into Nibbana, which was his destination by right and achievement, but—knowing I would return—into Nimmanarati Heaven instead, where he, awaiting my word, enjoyed his music for a while (which he’ll do at the drop of hat, given five undisturbed minutes).

  And now, here he is again, unpacking what few things (mainly books) he brought from his far away Idaho to again stand by me, protect me, help me with this so very hard-to-help world.

  He knows that I’m here, of course, and now, all settled, he speaks the way we always speak, immediately and directly, universe to universe: “Okay, Ruth,” he says, thinks, intends, resonates, appears. “You can come out now.”

  And so I do. I step into his universe as brightly as he into mine, and it is as if we both wore saffron robes again, on this common ground, under long ago calmer skies.

  “Welcome,” I say.

  He touches my robe, one brief smoothing of a crease at my shoulder, a gesture I know so well, a gesture so Ananda, always making sure I look my best, un-creased and ready for the day.

  Then he smiles and says, “How are you, Gotama?”

  “I am worried,” I reply.

  :

  And I am worried.

  Although I have not repeated my mistake of entering the Jhanas so deeply as to let go my surroundi
ngs, Melissa—though she has tried her very best—has not been able to shake her memory of the one mistake I did make.

  For that one brief, horrifying moment, she knew Ruth had died. No deeper scar is ever carved upon a mother’s heart, and memory gouges it deeper. She cannot let go of the still body, unresponsive to even her hands and screams. It was so terribly, terribly wrong.

  She never told Charles about the episode, and he only found out when the ambulance bill arrived a week or so later asking for their deductible (a significant amount). Wanting to know “what the hell this was all about,” Melissa told him. As if Ruth had disappeared, is how she put it, knowing well that her husband would not understand something she could not herself make sense of.

  “Disappeared,” he said. “What are you talking about?”

  “It didn’t matter what I did, I even shook her; she would not respond.”

  “What did the paramedics say?”

  “By that time she was back.”

  “By that time she was back?” he repeated, skeptically.

  “Yes, she was back again.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” he said.

  “Of course I’m not bloody okay. I don’t understand what happened to her. And now, you don’t even believe me.”

  “Of course I believe you.”

  “Don’t lie, Charles.”

  He was about to reassure her that he was not lying, that of course he believed her, but he was lying, no denying it. And Melissa saw that. And he saw that Melissa saw that.

  What Melissa didn’t see, however, but which I did, was his growing suspicion that his wife was losing it, as he put it to himself. The baby too much of a stress perhaps. First she wasn’t crying, and that was a big problem—as if that’s even a problem—and now she disappears, while Melissa conveniently forgets about ambulances. Something was if not already seriously wrong with her, then certainly headed in that direction. He would have to talk to someone about this, he decided, perhaps his mother. She would know what to do. She was good at these things. Or, better yet, his father. He knew good doctors.

  All this while Melissa was still talking, trying—by her hands and facial expressions—to explain things to him, but none of the words reached him. This didn’t bother him for they would hardly bear meaningful currency. Charles was quite apt at tuning his wife out.

  Melissa, noticing she was not getting through, raised her voice and tried again, this time with eyes on the brink of tears—whether from fear or frustration, Charles could not say, but what he could tell was that her teary behavior confirmed his, I wouldn’t say fears, but rather misgivings about his wife.

  “Melissa, please,” he interrupted her at first opportunity, for he could not stand tears. “Calm down, for heaven’s sake.” Then he said, “I’m sure there’s a rational explanation for this. You could take her in. Have Doctor Fairfield take a look at her.”

  “I already did.”

  “You did?”

  “The paramedics suggested that.”

  “And?”

  “And, there is nothing wrong with her. She’s perfectly healthy.”

  “So, there is nothing wrong with her,” said Charles, regretting it the moment he saw Melissa’s reaction. He didn’t want to show his hand.

  “I am not crazy, Charles.”

  “No one says you are, Melissa.”

  “I didn’t imagine this. It happened.”

  “No one says it didn’t.” As reassuringly as possible.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Melissa. “Will you stop being so bloody patronizing.”

  When Charles, momentarily at loss for words, didn’t reply, Melissa turned and left him standing in the kitchen, watching her head for my bedroom.

  This was a few weeks ago, and although she has tried and tried, Melissa still cannot shake the dread or heal the scar of my blunder. I am not at all happy about this.

  Neither she nor Charles has brought up this incident again, and she hopes he has put it behind him.

  But he has not. He is in fact still working up his courage to bring this problem up with his father—who was never truly for this marriage in the first place and will most likely sermonize about it.

  Ananda says, “Tell me.”

  So I do.

  :: 37 :: (Glendale)

  “Tell me,” said Ananda.

  The Buddha Gotama did.

  Ananda listened attentively to the many details that conspired to make his friend uneasy, envisioning as they unfolded many paths, many tacks that might set the ship right again, but none truly did.

  But one.

  When Gotama had finished his telling, Ananda said, “We must tell her.”

  Gotama hesitated, “You deem that wise?”

  “Yes.”

  Then ceased hesitating, “Then do so.”

  :: 38 :: (Pasadena)

  Such a telling, however, is more easily decided upon than done.

  But Gotama had agreed, Melissa needed to know the truth. It was either that or an approaching madness, for no matter how she tried—and she kept trying—she could not shake the knowledge: she had seen what she had seen, but the seen was inexplicable, impossible—so much not making sense that perhaps she had not seen it, and so the wheel turned again, for she knew what she had seen, and Ruth had not woken up.

  And there had also been the no crying. And there had been her eyes that once that were far too old, but only for the briefest of glimpses, so brief that perhaps she was wrong, but that was just it: she wasn’t wrong, she had seen, but then again, she could not have. And so the wheel turned again. There was no way out.

  It would be Ananda’s telling, they both knew that.

  The following morning, Ananda waited until Charles left for work—Ruth keeping him posted. Then he drove to Pasadena, wholly unsure how best to broach the subject and say what must be said. He parked Frugal by her house, made sure she was locked and walked the short path up to Melissa’s ornate front door.

  She was surprised to see him, mildly shocked even, for she knew nothing of his coming. But in the next breath her surprise gave way to delight, and she embraced him as she would a rarely seen tough much loved sibling.

  “Ananda.”

  “In person.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “I have business in Los Angeles,” he said.

  “The book?” she asked.

  “That, too,” he answered.

  “Wow,” she said, just looking at him, her smile wide, but uncertain, as if not quite reconciled yet to his just appearing like this. “Well,” she said. “Don’t just stand there. Come in.”

  Ananda smiled, and complied. “How’s Ruth?” he asked as she closed the door behind him.

  “She’s fine,” she said. “She’s good.”

  “Can I see her?”

  “Sure.”

  She led the way to Ruth’s bedroom. “She’s asleep,” she explained as she pushed the door from ajar to open.

  And there she was, as tranquil as anything. Ananda stepped up to the cot and looked down at the Buddha Gotama—the Buddha Ruth—resting as with not a care in the world.

  “Welcome,” thought Ruth.

  Ananda nodded.

  “Doctor Fairfield says she’s as healthy as anything.”

  When Ananda turned to her, she added, “Her pediatrician.”

  “She’s a picture of health,” said Ananda, glancing back at Ruth.

  “I just fed her,” Melissa said. “She’ll sleep till noon now. That’s what she normally does these days.”

  Ananda took a long look at Melissa, as proud a mother as he’d ever seen or imagined. Melissa smiled back, nodded, and seemed to look for somewhere to place her hands. Shadows rippled in those so very blue eyes, shifted, they almost pleaded for attention.

  “Is everything all right?” said Ananda.

  “Of course,” she answered, but a little too quickly.

  “Tell me about it,” said Ananda.

  The smile faded and her eye
s studied his for several moments. “How do you know?” she asked. “Did Doctor Fairfield tell you?”

  “No.”

  “Did Charles?” Unlikely, but the possibility alarmed her.

  “No.”

  “So how then?”

  And here Ananda simply said it. Whether this was wisely done or not he wasn’t sure, but then again, any broaching of the impossible may be as advisable as the next.

  “Ruth,” he said.

  Melissa did not hear that—or simply could not assimilate the word, the name, with the question—for she replied, “So how then?” as if Ananda had not spoken.

  “Ruth,” he repeated. “Ruth told me.”

  This was so obviously a joke (and not a very good one at that) that Melissa should have laughed in dismissal—or if not in dismissal, at least out of politeness—without a second thought. But her brushes with the impossible had fissured her protection, if only by a hairline, and this checked her.

  She looked at Ruth and then at Ananda, then at Ruth again. Then she slid down onto the floor, leaned against the wall, and hugged her knees. What she said next—spoken as if addressing the floor—surprised Ananda.

  “Should I be afraid of you?”

  “No, Melissa, you should not.”

  “I shouldn’t?”

  “No.”

  “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.