by Susan Dunlap
Yamana-Roshi raised his head, looked at me in a way I couldn’t assess. His hand, still poised above the bell, didn’t move. No sound broke the stillness. When he spoke, his voice, always soft, seemed like words in a dream. “This sesshin may not be for you. You—”
“Roshi, I have to go!”
“There could be difficulties—”
“You said this was a great chance for me. Garson is leaving. Roshi, this is my only chance!”
No reaction was evident on his face or in his body. He sat utterly still, eyes downward, face impassive. He wasn’t toting up pluses and minuses; I didn’t know what his process was. Nor could I understand his sudden balking about my going to the event he had urged me toward, in the place I would have to face my fears, with a teacher even he had said would be good for me. The only sound in the room was my own breath. I tried to sit as still as he and failed. My jacket rustled as I shifted, strands of my curly hair tickled my neck. A waft of incense—dry, acrid—passed over my face.
“The student at the monastery, Aeneas, disappeared,” he said.
“Disappeared?”
“No one reported seeing him since, since six years.”
“Do you think he’s . . . dead?”
“Could be dead. Could be in Paris. What is known is he disappeared,” he said, pulling me back from speculation. He lifted his hands and settled them back as they were. He started to speak and stopped. His pallid face colored in a way I had never seen in this self-possessed man. Finally, he said, “Garson is my dharma brother, student of my teacher. When he was in Japan I was his guide. With problems he telephoned me. He is wise, a man of deep compassion. But now . . .”
“Roshi, hearing my friend scream in agony, that was the worst. But this fear of mine is ruining my life. I have to deal with it now!” My hands clenched into fists, fingernails digging into palms. “I work in a field as macho as they come; I can’t be saying I’m scared. I live three thousand miles away from Hollywood, so I don’t keep having to make excuses to avoid a party in a producer’s house in a wooden canyon, a hike in the Sierras, an easy job in the mountains. I live in the city so I never have to see a forest. I can’t admit the truth, even to people who aren’t in the business, not even to my friends here in the zendo, because they might inadvertently say something to someone who knows someone in the business. My whole being is a lie. Roshi, I have to do this sesshin, in the woods. This is the right time; it won’t come again. I can take care of myself.” My heart was pounding. I inhaled as slowly, as long as I could manage. “But if you say not to, I won’t go.”
Yamana-roshi nodded almost imperceptibly, but I knew that with my willingness to trust him I had passed through a gate. The candle sputtered; the shadows turned his face dark, but he seemed not to notice. When he raised his head any softening of age was gone. He looked out through eyes ringed with sadness, but his voice brooked no dissent. “Go, but do this: tell Garson I know what he is planning and he must not do that. Tell Garson I am sending this message with you.”
“Why—”
He grasped the bell and lifted it with such balance it made no sound. “Darcy, keep an eye open.” “An eye open” was another of the quirky American expressions that amused him, the single eye saving half the ocular effort. But there was no humor in his voice now. “Be alert,” he said, and rang the bell.
Questions flooded my mind. But the interview was over. I bowed to him, fluffed the cushion for the next student, bowed to the Buddha, and opened the door and left. The next student, a pediatrician with an office down the block, stepped inside. I didn’t know what Yamana-Roshi had been thinking a minute ago, but now, he wasn’t thinking of me at all; his whole attention would be on the pediatrician.
Tell Garson I know what he is planning and he must not do that. What could that mean? A student disappeared six years ago. Why was that such a big deal? After gearing up to go to sesshin, students rarely leave, but it does happen that a guy can’t deal with sitting in front of a blank wall hour after hour, or a woman gets fed up and stalks off. People leave zendos; people leave Zen practice. No one hears from them again. They don’t get entire sesshins in their honor. And roshis a continent away don’t send desperate messages.
Tell Garson I know what he is planning and he must not do that.
I needed to talk to Yamana, but he had said all he would. And the redeye waits for no woman.
CHAPTER TWO
You can get a cab at any time of night in Manhattan, but hailing one at 3:30 A.M. and carrying a suitcase, a duffel bag, and a dog is like a reality show challenge. Duffy is a proper Scottish laird, but he’s still a small black dog with a big head, a loud bark, and teeth that would be at home in the mouth of a wolfhound. I had finally backed him into his carrier and given him my iPod. He’d either like the music or the taste.
When we got to LaGuardia, the iPod was intact and Duffy was a happy hound. I let him out and checked my bags at the curb. “And the dog?” the baggage handler said, readying another label.
“I’ll carry him on.”
“Dog’s too big for under the seat.”
“He’s fine.”
The clerk gave me a you’ll-be-back shrug.
But I was ready. If Duffy had been advertised on one of the used-dog Web sites his story would have read: “Previous owner moved to a place that doesn’t allow pets.” His owner had been his handler, who had departed a location shoot in the sheriff’s car. I had inherited Duffy.
Intelligence in a dog is a mixed blessing in apartment life, but in an airport crisis it can’t be beat. Duffy is smart, and he loves to be onstage. He even has a S.A.G. card.
I paused outside the automatic doors to ticketing, bent down toward him eye to eye, my long red curly hair to his cropped black, and said, “Go small, Duff.”
He backed into the carrier, wriggled and curled. By the time he finished he was half his usual size. He had even mastered a way of putting his paws over the end of his snout that gave him the look of a cropped-nosed dog in prayer. I credit his former handler, who must have made many quick departures with hardly enough time to check luggage. I breezed through check-in, and as soon as I settled him under the seat I unzipped the carrier. It’s against the rules, but, of course, I let him stick his head out; and, of course, he invited conversation as he eyed the aisle and the window-sitters’ carry-ons as if they were unexpected deliveries to Balmoral.
United Airlines Flight 733, La Guardia to O’Hare, Monday, Nov. 10, 6:00 A.M. EST.
“I’m going to a two-week meditation retreat,” I said in answer to the dental technician, who was heading to Chicago for his trade show. He was midtwenties, and larger than the seat that squeezed him. He had glanced at Duffy and moved his feet almost into the aisle.
“You mean ‘stare at the wall’ stuff?”
I nodded.
“All day long?”
I nodded.
“No C-SPAN, no MTV?”
I nodded.
“Not even radio? Or . . . or . . . even newspaper?”
“Nope.”
“Or . . .” he seemed to be grasping for a level of diversion even less entertaining.
I spared him. “Or talk. We don’t talk.”
“Not talk? How can you go all day without talking? I mean, like, suppose there’s something you’ve got to say?”
“You wait.”
“But two weeks? How can you—that’s crazy.” Immediately he saw he’d been rude, and he grinned in a manner that must have eased the late delivery of dentures and crowns. “I mean that in the nicest possible way.”
It wasn’t till we started the descent into O’Hare that the woman on my other side lost her restraint. “I’m sorry,” she said. She looked to be around my age; like me, she was wearing blue jeans and a sweater. “I couldn’t help overhearing when you were talking about the meditation place. Is that Zen Buddhism?”
“Yes.”
“Excuse me for asking, but, well, tell me this. Why? I mean what’s the point of all
that meditation? I mean, what do you get out of it?”
I swallowed and plowed ahead. The traditional Zen answer is: ‘Nothing. You don’t get anything because you already have everything; it’s just that you don’t realize it—yet.’”
“Oh,” she muttered and turned to the window.
My next seatmate was about ten years older than I—late forties. On the tray table, her laptop waited, nagging. She wedged her feet between briefcase and a bulging shopping bag. “Guilt gifts,” she said. “It’s so hard to leave Jake and the kids, even when I’m one of the speakers at the conference. What about you? Where are you headed?”
“A meditation retreat.”
“Can I come?” she asked, and laughed.
My oldest brother, John, met my plane. I was the youngest by far of us seven Lott children. I might be a grown-up with a successful career, but in the eyes of my family my job was still me just swinging from the roof and going to the movies instead of doing my homework. John wasn’t surprised about the meditation retreat. Buddhism is common in San Francisco, though not in our family. Like my middle brother’s cave-diving or my oldest sister’s collecting commemorative salt and pepper shakers, it was an odd enthusiasm the family had accepted. What he said was, “You’re doing it where?”
“At the Redwood Canyon Monastery a couple hours north of Santa Rosa. You don’t need to take me, John. You’ve got a job. The Greyhound will drop me.”
“Redwood Canyon, north of Santa Rosa. The woods?”
I took a deep breath. “Yes.”
“You’re going to the woods for weeks? The fear thing is that serious?”
“Yes,” I forced out.
John sat open-mouthed. He started to say something and then rejected it.
“What?” I demanded, knowing it couldn’t be the standard ‘woods’ comments; they had all been made many times over many years. My fear had been a joke in the family, but a gently handled one, as befits a failing of the baby. Mom had once referred to the older kids as her German shepherds, the policeman, the lawyer, the doctor, the journalist, and the teacher. Me she’d labeled a Labrador puppy.
“Well, Darcy, I guess Duffy’s the one with the sense. He’ll be halfway to China by the time you get back.”
“Starting his dig from San Francisco’ll be a real boon.”
“Mom’s fenced in the roses, had the butcher on the alert for a bone bigger than Duffy himself, and we’re putting up directions to the Sierras for all the raccoons.” John grinned, but there had been another hesitation before his comment and I could read behind his cop’s face to the unnerved brother. I wanted to say, “I’ll be fine in the woods, John. Why this sudden worry?” But somehow, I, too hesitated. Instead, I took his shift of topic as a statement of support, gave him a big hug, and hopped out in front of the Greyhound station. As I unloaded my bags, John pulled Duffy into the front seat. I stuck my head in the window and Duffy braced his stubby front paws on my shoulders, laid his head on my shoulder and moaned. It was trick he had learned for a B-movie role, but it never failed to make me tear up. I swallowed hard, nuzzled his snout, and then the car pulled into traffic and I was left covered in sweat and an inch from fainting.
Six hours later, the Greyhound slowed and I jerked awake. Outside were tall trees, lots of them. I shivered, then jumped out onto the macadam. Still thinking of John, I forced myself to stare into the spaces between the redwoods and pines.
The chill afternoon fog was gusting in, already blocking the sun. The back of the Greyhound bus was growing smaller. In moments, even that was gone. Woods loomed to the left of me, woods to the right of me, woods in front and in back of me. The briny air hinted that the ocean was beyond the line of cypresses across the blacktop, but I had no idea how far. I couldn’t believe I’d gotten myself into a situation where I was standing on Route One, “the coast road,” as the bus passengers had called the main road here, and it was a deserted two-laner. And this was the safe spot. From here I was heading into the woods, to a monastery where a student had disappeared. I was going there to tell a roshi I didn’t know not to do what he was dead set on doing.
I was crazy.
A rattling sounded in the distance. Another bus? I’d take it. Even if it was headed the wrong way, I’d leap aboard and the blacktop and the monastery and the woods would be a nothing but a bad memory. I grabbed my bag and turned just as not a bus but an old Ford pickup rattled to a stop beside me.
CHAPTER THREE
I’d been in vehicles far worse than this decrepit Ford pickup when I was doing car chase gags—cars with every door held by breakaway wire and seats set to eject, trucks on timers to ignite—but in those stunts I’d prepared for the dangers. Anything could be inside this old wreck. Doing gags, I never panicked; now I could barely beat back the fear. The trees or the stranger? I made myself stand still, and waited to see who sat behind the wheel.
The passenger door crackled open and I smelled the interior of the truck before I actually saw it—the stench of mud and wet wool, and—oddly—chocolate. Then I saw who was leaning toward me—a funny-looking old guy in a dark wool sailor’s cap, gray hooded sweatshirt and jeans. “You’re headed for the zendo, I assume?” he asked me, in a husky voice that matched the rich, chocolate smell. When I nodded yes, he grinned the way strangers had when I was a copper-haired child. And there was something about the old guy’s grin that made me grin back at him, albeit tentatively.
“Yeah. To the zendo.”
“Well,” he said, “it’s nine miles. If you slog on foot, you’ll get there in a few hours, depending on your hiking skills. If you ride with me, it’ll be forty minutes.”
There was no way I was going to make it nine miles into those woods by myself. Given a choice between a guy who could be a serial killer and the woods, I’d take my chance with the guy. On location shoots, I’d fended off way bigger than he, with way bigger egos. “Thanks,” I said, and climbed up into the cab—into the outer reaches of sesshin. The door clanked shut on New York, on my family in San Francisco, even on Duffy. Now reality was sesshin, the roshi here, and that student who had disappeared. With luck, this old guy in the cap would chat away, the news would be good, and the monastery would be on a hill so I could use my cell phone to call Yamana-roshi.
The engine groaned, shrieked, and gurgled all at once as the truck turned onto the dirt road. The cab was wide, the seat a bench upholstered in duct tape. In the bed, things rattled and thudded, and since the driver hadn’t offered me the option of stowing my luggage there, I had wedged my Rollaboard in the foot well and plunked the duffel on top like an already-sprung air bag. That left me with my back to the door and my legs dangling over the luggage, playing footsie with the gear stick. Still, I was safe behind a windshield. One of the tricks I’ve learned when riding past the woods is to focus only on the glass, blur my vision, and pretend I’m in the shower.
As the truck jolted eastward I leaned back and had a good look at the driver. He seemed to be bald under his wool cap, and his worn gray sweatshirt hung loose. He was probably a short man anyway, but it’s always hard to tell when a guy’s sitting down. In this big truck he looked like a doll—thin, angular, except for his calloused hands. But when he turned toward me, the whole doll image shifted ridiculously. Every one of his features was too big: his eyes were a light hazel—almost yellow—his brows brown and bushy, his cheekbones so high they seemed in danger of spiking those yellowy eyes, and his lips full and wide as if stretched from years of laughter. I liked that. The doll he reminded me of now was Mr. Potato Head. A narrow Idaho with all those big features.
The truck hit something, maybe a rock, and jolted to the side. The Rollaboard rattled.
He shot a friendly glance at it. “What’ve you got in there? You planning to dress for dinner at sesshin?”
Dinner at sesshin—retreat—is gruel, eaten in silence as you sit cross-legged on your cushion in the meditation hall. What would my airplane seatmates think of that? “That’s probably the sea cucumber l
otion—for knee pain.”
“You’ve got a lot of clanking there. How much knee pain are you planning on?”
I always packed enough salves and liniments to coat the bodies of every stunt double on the set. I’d been in the checkout line at the Rexall before I reminded myself I wasn’t in charge on this trip. “Just a precaution. But I figured you couldn’t buy it out here, so I got a few extra bottles in case anyone else needed them.”
He said something but the truck lurched and I didn’t catch his words.
I braced my knees against my duffel.
“Don’t worry. The ruts are so deep you’d need a crane to make it over the edge. I’m Leo, by the way.” He stuck a hand in my direction, eyeing me appraisingly, smiling again at my copper waves of hair.
I shook his hand quickly. “Darcy Lott.”
“You’re from New York, right?” His attention was back on the road now. “You’re the one who left on two days’ notice. How’d you pull that off?”
“Magic.”
“So that’s what you’ve got in that suitcase, rabbits.”
“And a top hat to wear to dinner in the zendo. Actually, I cleared my calendar so—”
“Calendar? You a therapist?”
I laughed. “Not hardly. Wrong side of the couch.” His head was cocked for the rest of my self-description. Everything about Leo screamed “trustworthy.” I did trust him—as much as I did anyone. But not enough to chance revealing my profession and my fear. I fell back on the generic, “I organize.”
“What is it you organize?”
“Anything.”
He grinned at me. “Anything, huh? Okay, then strut your stuff. Organize my truck.”
I’d doubled an actress playing professional organizer in a chick flick a few years back; I could fake it now. I glanced at the dashboard, a memoir-in-disposables of his last month or two. “Too easy. You find me a luggage rack for the back and let me throw out probably most of what you’ve got in the glove compartment, and get a container for your collection of plastic forks up here on the dash, and that’ll get us halfway there.”