Jacob Atabet

by Michael Murphy

  I said something about Ramakrishna, the Indian saint, that he and other mystics might have been locked up too.

  “That’s right,” she said. “He wasn’t acting out, or hurting anyone. It was just that he couldn’t get around very well. He was simply lost in ecstasy.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “Well, who can really tell? He says that it started much earlier—I don’t know when exactly. We had met the year before, in ’46. And fallen in love. God!”—suddenly there were tears in her eyes. “I don’t often tell the story. Forgive me.” She threw back her head. “Oh, I was madly in love at sixteen. We had gone up to the Sierras on a camping trip with some other kids when it happened. No warning. No hint to the rest of us. Just whoosh!” She spread her arms wide. “He was gone. There was nothing we could do but take care of him.”

  “Could he function at all?”

  “Not for the first couple of days. But by then we had him back in the city and of course his parents were frantic. Sweet people, but poor and uneducated—putting him in the hospital was the only thing they knew how to do. The only thing any of us knew how to do . . .” She paused. “So he was in there for a couple of months, until some shock treatments brought him out of it. Fortunately he came around fast, after the third or fourth one, I think.” She straightened her back and smiled as if the memory refreshed her. “He was shaky for several months, but full of a light. Even the doctors saw that. One of them—I’ve got to hand it to him—called him a genuine mystic. He knew what was happening, I think, somewhere down deep in his little psychiatrist’s head. After they let him out some other people saw it too. I certainly did. It meant the end of our romance, for one thing. At Lowell that year—Lowell High School—he was a pretty odd figure, but somehow he managed to get through it. He hardly ever studied. Just spent the day in some kind of reverie, they said. Then his parents sent him to live with their friends, the Echeverrias. Ever since, he’s lived right here.”

  “In this building?”

  “That’s right. He’s been here ever since. For twenty-three years I guess. Yes, twenty-three years. Then after high school he went to Berkeley for a year, and to the California School of Fine Arts. That’s where he learned how to paint. All the time having this incredible experience.”

  “Did he have any spiritual guidance at all? It’s amazing if he didn’t.”

  “Not really. There were the priests down the street at Sts. Peter and Paul’s—not Father Zimbardo or any of the ones there now—and some books, but no one else he’s ever told us about. He says the experience was simply given.”

  “But what was it like? How did he function?”

  “Well, for me—and I would see him just a few times a year after he went to Lowell—he was strange. And sometimes he would take my breath away. Sometimes he would sit here just looking out at the city and to be around him . . . those were unforgettable days.”

  “And you say this all started when he was twelve?”

  “That’s what he says. It was building up all those years, though he didn’t know what was happening. There were a lot of unusual things. Yes . . . but anyway, he seems to have been born with it. And I think his parents contributed to it. They didn’t have him in school regularly until he was nine or ten—they were moving around a lot—and that might’ve let his gifts develop. In any case, that summer—whoosh!” She made another spreading gesture to suggest his mind coming open.

  “Like the salt doll that drank in the ocean,” I recalled the famous Indian image.

  “Like the salt doll. But he learned to control it. After those shock treatments, he didn’t want to be put away again.”

  “And he didn’t have anyone to help him? I find that hard to believe. No guides or friends?”

  “No. In those first years his only help came from books and his own intuitive sense of things. Maybe the priests, though I doubt they did much. He was an acolyte for a while. And someone gave him St. Theresa’s autobiography and a collection of Meister Eckhart’s sermons. Of course, living here with the Echeverrias looking after him and his family giving him support helped enormously. He couldn’t’ve come through that period without them, because things were still breaking loose. For example, during that first year he started seeing everything as if it were inside him. Physical events even, and sometimes they left marks on his body.”

  “What kind of physical events?”

  “You’ve written about it in your book. Like Ramakrishna’s getting a welt on his back when he saw the boy being whipped. Or Bernardine Neri’s taking on the features of the icon she worshiped. It happened to him several times, with injuries he saw, with his parents’ illnesses. He was awfully suggestible, until he learned to control it. Or almost control it. In any case if he hadn’t had this protection here I wonder if he would have survived those first two years. That he got through it at all still amazes me. Eventually he found his way to the yoga literature and the Academy of Asian Studies, but it wasn’t until Kazi came along in the sixties that he got any personal guidance. Kazi has helped him handle these states more than anyone else. He’s a Rimpoche, one of the Tibetan orders sent here to start a meditation school, an extraordinary man. He’s been trained in the contemplative life from the time he was five or six years old, but strangely he’s a little in awe of Jacob. He says he might be a tulku—a reincarnated lama!” She shook her head with an ironic smile. “He says he never saw a tulku in Tibet with such gifts. The two of them have been close friends since ’62 . . . .”

  “Did he start a meditation school? I don’t think I’ve heard of it.”

  “No, he didn’t. He has a few students, that’s all. And this friendship with Jacob. He says he’s not the organization type. But let me go on with the story. It’ll help explain these last few days. When Jacob went to the Art Institute he found he had another . . . let’s call it an ‘opening.’ He started to put his visions on canvas, and as he did he felt his body changing. You might call it an experience of God translated into body language, the usual kind of interpretation, except that all of us could see him changing too. Actually changing his looks. There seemed to be a relaxation here.” She made a circular motion around her forehead and eyes. “More beauty, and a light. And changes in the texture of his skin. I wasn’t the only one who saw it. After all,” she tapped the floor with her foot, “physicists say that all this hard stuff is mainly fields of empty space. He seemed to be finding a way to alter its pattern slightly.”

  “And that was when he was twenty?”

  “Yes. About nineteen or twenty. Right after he started to paint. He thinks his painting helped quicken the process, that experimenting with the contours of space and human flesh revealed the body to an extraordinary depth. Like a new kind of x-ray. Because—and this is the most important thing— because all of this would help him discover the body’s deepest secret. That’s what all of it was saying—that spirit, the One, was waiting to emerge in the flesh. His work was beginning to show how it would happen.”

  For a moment we sat there in silence. To find the secret of embodiment was the central theme of all my research. My instinct about him had been right from the beginning. “So,” she said. “You can see why your book’s made such a hit around here!” As she said it, Kazi Dama opened the door and called for us both to come in. “We’ll continue this later,” she said, and I followed her into the bedroom. Crossing the studio, I seemed to move in a daze. This confirmation of my work and ideas seemed too perfect to be true.

  Atabet was sitting against the bedboard with the tray at his side. He raised a hand in greeting. “Cured now!” exclaimed Kazi. “Very quick recovery.” Corinne picked up his pajama top to look. Apparently the wound had partially healed.

  Kazi Dama stood with his arms folded across his chest. I guessed that he was proud of the cure he had helped bring about. Or proud of something—for no apparent reason he tilted his head back and laughed. Atabet turned to see me, but made no effort to speak. He held my gaze, his dark eyes sunk in
pools of peace. A wave of pleasure passed through me, and I remembered a picture of an Indian sage. Ramana Maharshi, I thought, had those eyes, swimming in the same kind of bliss.

  Corinne took the tray from the room, and Kazi Dama started humming. “Don’t mind us,” Atabet whispered. “It’s cheaper than penicillin.”

  The Tibetan inspected the wound, and nodded with approval. Then with a radiant smile, he left. “As good as the family doctor,” Atabet murmured. “And he doesn’t charge a cent.” But he winced as he said it. It was obvious his wounds were still hurting.

  He stared up at the ceiling, as if he were summoning invisible help. Did he want me to stand here or leave? Minutes passed. “Darwin?” he whispered at last. “Death is so near us. So near.” But as he said it, Corinne came into the room. From her look I could tell I should leave. He raised a hand. “Talk to her,” he whispered. “And I’ll see you tomorrow. I want you to take up a practice.”

  She followed me into the kitchen. “That thing about death?” I asked. “What does he mean?”

  “He’ll survive,” she said. “I promise you. But look—I’ll call you in a day or two. There’s a lot we have to discuss. With all these changes, there’s a lot of energy boiling.”

  “Don’t worry. I know what you mean.”

  She checked an impulse to say something more. “All right,” she whispered. “Remember that sometimes these things are contagious. All of us have to stay pretty centered. And we’d appreciate it if you were careful who you talked to. You know how stories get around.”

  7

  AS I WALKED DOWN the hill toward the Press I felt myself shaking. It would be good to sort out my feelings in silence. I slipped into my office, locked both doors, and turned off the telephone bell. But there were sounds near the door. “Darwin,” Casey called. “Are you there? There’s someone here to see you.” I didn’t answer and she called again, then I could hear her footsteps receding.

  The scene in Atabet’s place played itself over and over. His deathly look, the wounds on his chest, Corinne’s story, all came swimming in and out of focus. The episode had shaken me more than I thought.

  Casey was knocking again. “Darwin,” she said loudly. “Are you all right? I know you’re in there.”

  I opened the door and she came in with a worried expression. “What happened?” she asked. “How long’ve you been here?”

  It would be best to go slow. To tell her everything would only provoke her. “Sit down.” I motioned toward the couch. “Maybe you can help me sort out what’s happened.”

  I sat behind the desk and watched her light a cigarette. “You look pale.” She squinted through the smoke. “Is Atabet all right?”

  “Pale?” I said, affecting nonchalance. “I feel fine. Just fine. It was only a scratch on his face. His landlord thought he was hurt when he called me, but by the time I got there everything was back to normal. Some other friends were there . . .”

  “But why did they call you?” She eyed me through the curling smoke. “Isn’t that a little odd?”

  “I don’t think so. The landlord happened to see my number in Atabet’s apartment. I think he panicked.”

  “Well,” she frowned. “What is it that you need to sort out?”

  I felt divided. She would be skeptical of Atabet, but her good sense would help me get some perspective. “What happened?” she persisted. “What’s going on with you and him anyway? Is it just that he likes your book?”

  “Nothing’s going on between us, for God’s sake. He’s a very interesting guy, that’s all.”

  “Then what’s the problem? What’s shaken you up?”

  I thought of the wound on his chest. Telling her about that would not be a good way to start. “It’s funny,” I said. “What is my problem here? What is my problem?”

  She tapped her cigarette in an ashtray. “Is he gay?” she murmured.

  “No, he’s not gay. I wish it was that easy. I guess the problem is—well, to say it bluntly, I guess he’s living some of the things I’ve written about. That’s probably what’s shaken me up.”

  “Living it? Living it? You mean”—she made an impatient gesture. “Well, what do you mean?”

  “I mean that in some way he’s living the changes I’ve tried to envision.”

  “You mean the transformation of the body? I don’t think I understand you.”

  I would have to be careful. For every mystical revelation her husband and lovers had lived through, there had been a dozen psychic disasters. “Well, first, it’s something in his looks,” I said. “And some things his friends have told me. It’s not that he’s gone very far with it. It’s more the promise of what he’s been through.”

  “The promise of it?” She frowned. “That’s a phrase that Morris liked to use. The promise of his paintings. Remember? For a while he thought he’d found the vita elixir, the secret of immortal life.”

  I felt a sinking sensation. Like Atabet, her husband, Morris Sills had used painting to find an entrance to the body’s mysteries before he killed himself in 1956. “But Atabet doesn’t use drugs,” I protested. “He’s had a discipline for twenty-five years. He looks strong as an ox. I don’t think they’re exactly alike.”

  “How do you know?” She looked down at the ashtray. “You didn’t know Morris. You didn’t know him at all. Darwin, I’m sorry. But what do you expect? First Morris, then Walt.” Walter Storm, her lover for a while in the fifties, had been a mystic too, before he withdrew into his private visions in 1960. “I can’t help comparing. So you think Atabet’s different?”

  “As far as I can tell. Yes, I do. He seems solid as a rock.” But as I said it, I felt a doubt. Like Morris Sills, he had spent time in a mental hospital, and like Walter Storm, he had experienced stigmatic effects on his body. In some ways, the resemblances among the three men were uncanny.

  I got up and went to the window. In the year of his withdrawal, Walter Storm had frequented a place across the street. I thought of him sitting at a table there, oblivious to the people around him as he stared through some invisible window in space. “But Walt was so bitter,” I said. “And so run down physically. Atabet looks so healthy. But God, I don’t know. Maybe anyone who has these stigmata is fragile.”

  “Stigmata!” she exclaimed. “He has those too? God, he does sound like Morris and Walt!”

  “Oh Jesus,” I sighed. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. The whole thing is so fucking complex.”

  “But if he has some insight or gift, it doesn’t matter whether he’s put together right or not. As long as you don’t make him your guru. Or get involved in his paranoia.”

  “Goddamn it!” I hit the desk. “He’s not paranoid! Where do you get that idea?”

  She sat back with a startled expression. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. But what’s all this upset? What’s getting you down like this?”

  I turned and looked at the wall. Directly in front of me was the face of Sigmund Freud looking out at the world with pride and certainty. Then I thought of him fainting when he was challenged by Jung. Underneath that masterful look was a pervasive fear of contradiction . . .

  “Darwin,” she coaxed. “Let’s forget it. Can I get you a cup of coffee? Or a sandwich? They’re sending something up from the store.”

  I turned to see her. She was standing in front of the desk, making a little girl’s face of contrition. “Yes, a sandwich,” I said. “And something to drink. Have them send up a couple of beers.”

  She gave me a look that was both apology and good-natured reprimand, then turned and went into her office. I felt a sudden sadness. There was no denying it—in many ways Atabet resembled Walter Storm and Morris Sills. I wondered how many of their flaws he shared.

  All day I felt a sadness and doubt. Atabet might be a religious eccentric, full of weaknesses that would undermine his realization and gifts. It would be good to talk to someone who knew him. That night I phoned John Levy, but he had left the city for a trip to Europe. T
hat left Armen Cross. Reluctantly I decided to see him. In spite of his cynicism about religious types, he might give me the perspective I needed.

  8

  ARMEN CROSS CONCEIVED OF himself as New York’s man in California. Many of his essays were appraisals of West Coast fads and movements for eastern magazines.

  He was dark and slender and walked with a limp. His pale blue eyes, framed by heavy hornrimmed glasses, gave his face a cruel unearthly aspect. He crossed his studio and handed me a glass of scotch. “So, Jacob Atabet,” he sighed. “I don’t blame you for being puzzled. When I tried to do that story on him I felt the same way you do.” He flapped an elbow like a wing. “Have you seen him do that pantomime? What does he call it? The molecular pantomime? Has he shown you that?”

  I said that he hadn’t.

  “He did it once for a show at the Art Institute. It was a strange performance. I think he told me the idea came to him when he was in a mental hospital or during a vision or something. He’s a queer and difficult fellow. So attractive at first, so impressive looking—but what happened anyway? I want to hear about it.”

  He sat down and listened while I told him the story about Atabet’s attack and apparent stigmata.