Switchback

by Susan Dunlap

  ‘But then,’ I prompted, ‘you walked out of the hospital …’

  ‘How could I lie around there? This is my temple, my people. I had to get back here and … and see. I guess I assumed—’ He flashed a knowing smile as if to say, How often have Zen masters insisted: Don’t assume!

  ‘I couldn’t just let the attacker wander around deciding what to do next. I had to figure this out – no one else was in any position to. I had a suspicion, but just that. I couldn’t accuse Nezer. What if I was wrong? He’d already lost his license. Plus I had no proof. None.’

  I raised my tea cup and took a sip before setting the issue between us. ‘You suspected him and yet you insisted he come here.’

  He put down his cup and looked not at but toward me in the openness of the space that connected us. ‘He had to face me.’

  ‘You did that for him?’

  ‘I hoped for him. But I needed to be sure he was the one.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Right before he jabbed a needle in my arm and dragged me out of here.’ Then he shot me a grin. ‘Maybe that wasn’t the best time to confront him, huh?’

  I reached for another slice of pizza. ‘The police know who he is; it’s only a matter of time till they find him. But if Deutsch does try something here we’ve got John’s guard sitting in the courtyard. I got him a chair.’ I leaned back against the wall and ate.

  But Leo didn’t move. ‘I’ve had a lot of time to think, Darcy, to look at my own Buddhas, things as I want them to be, not as they are.

  ‘It’s a hard question: how do you balance security with freedom, with assumptions and reality, men and women. How do you balance compassion and safety? How far do you extend yourself for strangers? Who are strangers?’

  ‘Yeah. And then there are members and regulars like Lila. We knew her but not really. I just hope she’s OK. At least Sendar didn’t get to follow her. He was too busy beating me up.’

  Later, I would ask my teacher: where is our responsibility? Do we take sides? We who are told: do not judge by any standards? Now, though, I took a breath and broached the question I hadn’t been able to ask. ‘You said once you were sure you were right, and you were wrong. Was that about Aurelia?’

  He nodded.

  ‘You had to choose?’

  He nodded again, slowly. ‘A monastery up in marijuana country. I was desperate to be above suspicion. I was sure … I knew … I was wrong.’

  ‘But she’d have gone to jail no matter what you did. She doesn’t resent you turning her away. She adores you.’

  A little smile he couldn’t seem to restrain sneaked onto his face. ‘Aurelia, yes. But Nezer, no. He blamed me then, he blames me now. If I had taken her in, maybe she wouldn’t have been caught. Definitely she wouldn’t have shown up at his door begging him to hide her. Then he wouldn’t have believed she wanted to be with him, that she wasn’t just looking for a place to hide. Definitely he would not have been harboring a fugitive and he wouldn’t have lost his license.’

  ‘He blames you so he doesn’t have to blame her? Like you said, “When you indulge your delusions, you create your own Buddha.”’

  Footsteps tapped up the stairs. I just about levitated off my cushion and spun toward the door. How could I have left the front door open? Today of all days?

  THIRTY

  ‘Aurelia!’ Leo said. ‘Come on in.’ He smiled that sweet smile he had when Mom came to visit. Except this one was a little different.

  Aurelia stood outside the doorjamb as if fearful of entering. For a moment I thought she was wary of me, guilty at abandoning me. But her gaze was on Leo, and the look of yearning disbelief and wonder was the same one I’d seen on Mom’s face and felt on my own the day that my brother Mike came back from the missing.

  ‘Give us a few minutes,’ Leo said to me.

  ‘You sure?’ I couldn’t keep myself from asking.

  He was smiling too. ‘I can handle her. Right, A?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’ll be back in half an hour,’ I said, but I doubt either of them was listening.

  It shouldn’t have been a shock. Zen priests are not celibate. They have spouses, families, jobs, mortgages. Some priests live in Zen centers like Leo, but others could be the woman next door.

  I walked down the stairs and out through the courtyard. The fog had never cleared and now at five p.m. it gave a rough charcoal coating to the sky and dripped that familiar wet somewhere between mist and drizzle. I should have grabbed a jacket. I didn’t. I just walked.

  Leo and I were never lovers. I’d never considered it. I felt sure he hadn’t. He was like a brother, I’d told him, only without the eccentricities. With different ones, he’d corrected. And I’d had to agree. John might think nothing of planting a rent-a-cop in our courtyard, and Gary had threatened to take our landlord to the Supreme Court, but Leo had once been so deep into a dharma question he’d forgotten three meals in a row.

  As I crossed Broadway the street seemed an out-of-focus backdrop of itself. The half-dark sky sucked up the strip club lights; the sidewalks were empty. It was ‘before’ time. Too early for dinner in North Beach, much too early for anything on Broadway.

  They couldn’t have been lovers before. But now? If Nezer Deutsch saw the look on her face he’d have no doubt.

  Lovers? Or close, caring friends? I should have been happy for Aurelia. I was, I assured myself. And for Leo. Especially Leo, my friend. But for myself I felt hollow. ‘I chose you! Over my career!’ I muttered. A woman coming from the other direction moved away.

  A cafe was opening. I slid in, ordered a glass of house red and sat, shivering a bit, sipping and feeling guilty for even having that thought. And foolish. And still empty.

  I wanted to call someone for comfort, to assure me I hadn’t lost both my career and the life I’d made at the zendo. To give me the illusion of comfort. Maybe that was the Buddha I should kill.

  If you meet the Buddha in the road, kill the Buddha.

  So I sat there with my loss. Life as it is, life as I didn’t want it. And I felt a sudden pang of sorrow for Nezer Deutsch who had wanted Aurelia and lost his license.

  I was overreacting, I knew. But sometimes you just need to do it. When I got back to the zendo I’d sit zazen and feel what I felt. Now, I finished my wine.

  A while later I dialed the zendo phone where calls that automatically go to a voicemail were checked right away if we’re there. ‘Leo, if Aurelia’d like to stay tonight, it’s fine with me.’

  Leo was asleep when I got back, Aurelia in our ‘guest’ sleeping bag on my floor. She shook her head to wake herself, like a dog. ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘You don’t snore?’

  ‘Nope. It made me a super desirable roommate in camp. You know, Camp Bars-all-around?’ She sat up, pulling the bag with her and clutching it under her arms. I had the sense she wanted to look away but it was almost impossible in this tiny room. ‘I’m, uh, going to do the gag in the morning. Your gag.’

  ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Sure as possible. I’ve gotten an appalling number of gigs when my predecessors broke limbs or ate bad fish. Stuff happens in stunt life. Nothing’s the end. Dainen’s furious, but in a while he’ll forget. And then, AA, I’ll have a buddy on the inside, right?’

  ‘Of course. Of course,’ she repeated, as if suddenly realizing she would truly be on the inside.

  I was crawling into my own bedding when she told me Leo was going to lead zazen in the morning. ‘It’s supposed to be secret, but Renzo’s going to be there. His niece called.’

  ‘He’s recovered enough?’

  ‘Enough so the niece can’t restrain him. Anyway, Leo said you should sleep in. You deserve it. He’ll be fine.’

  THIRTY-ONE

  Sleep in? With Aurelia Abernathy squeaking across the hall floor, banging the bathroom door as she tried to slip quietly inside in the four a.m. dark?
Not hardly.

  I padded downstairs and made strong tea for three, poured two servings into travel cups and slipped the third into Leo’s room.

  ‘You OK?’ I asked him.

  ‘Sterling.’

  I hesitated. ‘I’m worried—’

  ‘Will I be safe? That’s what you’re asking?’ He pushed up onto an elbow and shot me that grin that made me think: Yeah, he’s all right. He said, ‘You won’t guess who else is coming here this morning. Quentin Snell.’

  ‘Who? Oh, wait, you mean Officer Snell?’

  ‘Correct. He said to tell you that you may have wondered why he seemed “cop out of water” – his term—’

  ‘It was like he happened to wander up and stumble on a crime scene.’

  ‘And so he did. Just back to work after a bad stretch, but off duty that day. He wasn’t coming to a crime scene at all. He was hoping to learn to meditate.’

  I must have looked skeptical. Leo added, ‘And didn’t your brother station an associate in the courtyard? I’ll be doubly safe.’

  By twenty after four, Aurelia and I stepped outside. The courtyard was damp and cold. The sky looked like it hadn’t decided between fog and rain. I pulled up my hood, wrapped my scarf around my neck and, with a pang, passed John’s buddy the cup of tea I’d made for myself. Aurelia was bouncing in place when I scooped up the Chronicle and slipped it in my pack.

  ‘We’re shooting from the top, up by Hyde, the first switch,’ she said, taking long fast strides, drinking tea, the wind rustling her short, curly hair. ‘Like you set up. First switch. Fourth switch. Dolly on ropes so it’s barely moving.’

  I nodded, not that she noticed as we hurried north on Columbus. Just as well. I had spent hours pondering how to create the illusion of movement, of going from balance to near loss of control while the dolly was moving slowly enough so the grips could keep it under control. In the end I’d gone with the low-tech motion management method. ‘Are you using two ropes?’

  ‘Right. I practiced. It’ll work great. They’re going to use only one rope for the last switch, so they can swing the dolly more. Cool, huh?’

  My gag, the one I created, that I had assumed I would be doing. I could almost feel the dolly under me just thinking about the gags.

  If you meet the Buddha on the way, kill the Buddha. My ticket to success; my Buddha? I swallowed and said, ‘After the first two switches, you’ll be an old pro. You can give that last one a shimmy.’

  By the time we climbed the stair-step sidewalk to the top of Lombard, things had shifted for me. Maybe it was the hour, the all-out walk, the prospect of coffee, but I was anxious just to see the gags be a go.

  ‘I’ve been up all night, thanks to you!’ the wardrobe mistress grumbled at one or both of us. ‘Had to take in every outfit.’

  The head of the grounds crew, who’d had to remind Aurelia about the hydrangeas in the outcroppings, wasn’t pleased with me, on general principles, it seemed. And when I spotted one guy I’d worked with on lighting, I made it my business to grab a coffee and ease back into the shadows. When you create angst on the set, no one’s your friend.

  The narrow sidewalks were packed, as if every onlooker who had endured the mornings of wait and watch and see next to nothing had gotten out here for the payoff and invited ten of their friends. They lined the steps, some in slickers, some bare-headed in zipped-up jackets. Even in the pre-dawn light the green, red and yellow slickers covering heads and shoulders had a festive look.

  It surprised me how few of the gaffers and grips I actually knew. I’d thought I’d talked to everyone. The actress, whose body was more similar to mine than Aurelia’s, showed up just before the first take, and I avoided her.

  The dolly was four foot square, fourteen inches high. Grips looped ropes, the same red as the brick roadway, over the back two wheels. They were burly guys, and squatting, holding, almost sitting on the curbs, they seemed to have no problem guiding and shifting the dolly as smoothly as if it was on a track. After it had gone two feet, Aurelia leapt on, braced, knees bent, back rounded, arms out. She looked, for all the world, like she was flying down the steep switchback, just in slow mo.

  When she jumped off, everyone applauded. Softly. No matter how good she was, this was still seven-thirty on a Monday morning.

  She beamed.

  For her, I thought, there would never be another moment as good as this.

  I was wrong. She was even better on the second switchback. She managed a quaver to her arms, fingers taut and clawed out as if grabbing air. When she leapt off no one worried about being noisy. Crew and cast, cops and neighbors, everyone cheered. Dainen Beretski all but hoisted her on his shoulders.

  ‘You’re a natural!’ I called out to her.

  ‘Hey you did the set-up. I just went along for the ride!’

  Not true, but nevertheless nice.

  Some of the gaffers and grips were already carrying the camera-dolly tracks downhill. The lighting crew was checking near the bottom of the street, and Margo, the continuity woman, was all but jumping out of her skin urging them to hurry before the sun came out. As if, I thought with a glance at the sky. The wardrobe mistress was close-eyeing Aurelia’s dress for specks and tears, pulled threads, any marks that might magnify on film.

  It was all I could do not to rush down to oversee the angles of the banks of lights, double-check the pitch of the switchback elbows. Extras clumped on the sidewalks. Dainen had planned to use them another day, but now everything had to be a wrap this morning. There’d be clean-up shots after Aurelia’s third gag. Then it would be pack the trucks and bye bye.

  I slipped back into the lunch wagon, pushing between extras and neighbors, snagged another coffee, ate half a croissant, told myself the sensible thing would be to go back to the zendo and make sure Leo was all right on his first morning leading zazen, as opposed to standing around here for the eternity it would take to set up this last shot. But, of course, I didn’t. I sipped the coffee, pulled the Chronicle out of my pack and opened it with the air of someone doing exactly what she’d planned for her morning.

  ‘Wow!’ I said aloud. There, below the fold on page one was a picture of Lila Suranaman. Next to it was a headline: Human Trafficking, an Insider’s Tale. Byline: Roman Westcoff. Lila was pictured so clearly it made me sure she was somewhere safe.

  I’d read it later – maybe take it to Renzo’s after zazen.

  Unable to restrain myself, I walked down to the bottom of the street. Lombard switches back and forth eight times and shoots south onto Leavenworth. This final part of the gag would take in the last two curves. The dolly was already in place at the top of the two, the rope holding it attached to a hook nestled under the center back. I had considered hooking it at a corner but decided against that – not enough control. Still I – they – had two big guys on the holding end.

  Aurelia trotted down the street, not on a sidewalk but taking the middle of the bricked roadway, as close to running as she could without flying head over heels. She eyed the dolly.

  Then she spotted me and veered over.

  ‘If you grin any wider, you’ll break your ears,’ I said.

  ‘Worth it!’ She lowered her voice. ‘I dreamed of this every day I was inside, but, you know, I couldn’t have imagined this! I—’ Her voice caught.

  ‘Hey, make-up! Don’t run your mascara!’

  She laughed at the stunt woman in-joke – the face that’s never seen – slapped my shoulder and bounced into the roadway.

  It was already eight-thirty a.m. There was no way they’d get the fill shots done. But that wasn’t my problem.

  Aurelia leapt onto the dolly. The guys jiggled it and she balanced. Dainen called for silence and the crowd noise turned off. Everyone was holding his breath.

  ‘Action!’

  They eased the dolly slowly, jerkily now with only the one rope holding it, down the incline toward the first of these two elbows. Aurelia bent left, leaning far over the edge of the dolly as it started right
into the curve.

  She’s good! Really good! When they sped up the film in post-production she’d look like she was doing fifty miles per hour. When she saw the dailies she’d be proud.

  The dolly rounded the steeply banked elbow. Aurelia was squatting so low her head almost touched the wood. She’d been holding the pose forever. Her thighs had to be burning. She’d be sore tonight. The soreness of triumph.

  Slowly, the dolly came into the straight roadway between the two elbows and she eased back up, arms flinging slowly up toward the sky. The dolly was shaking; her legs were shaking; she was smiling as the dolly eased toward us, into the last elbow and she leaned forward toward the cross street, the end.

  He came out of nowhere. Rammed her in the back.

  She flew off the dolly, above the roadway, onto the pavement on Leavenworth.

  Onto her head.

  The crowd was dead silent.

  She made no sound.

  The only voice was his, Nezer Deutsch’s as he ran to her, bent beside her dead and broken body. ‘I’m a doctor! I’ll take care of her. She’s mine. Mine!’

  If you meet your Buddha in the road …