by Susan Dunlap
“He could be destroyed.”
I stood frozen, hand still on the latch. The woman was Maureen. I recognized the timbre she’d had when she asked me if I was okay this afternoon, only now it was much lower, flowing up from the depths of dread. I leaned toward the edge of the door, desperate to hear the man contradict her. The floor creaked. I jolted back. But it was too late. Shoes slapped fast down the porch steps.
I yanked open the door, jammed my feet into my running shoes, and nearly skied down the steps. I did slide halfway across the mud-slicked path. But Maureen and the man were gone. The rain was coming thicker, turning people into dark blobs, drumming on my jacket, covering all other noise. I felt like I’d gotten up in the middle of the night in a strange room where I couldn’t find the light and my ears were plugged up. People passed by me like ghosts wafting toward the bathhouse, drawn by the pale yellow light. It was only by dint of flailing arms that I kept myself right end up long enough to make the turn outside the bathhouse toward Garson-roshi’s cabin. Was he thumbing his nose at the danger, or did he not even know?
I skidded past two tall men waiting under the overhang for the toothbrush and toilet crowd to thin. My foot caught on something, anchoring me.
“. . . snore,” one of them was saying.
“Yeah, and you’re not the only one. You can count on that,” the other guy whispered, with volume enhanced by irritation. “I went to a sesshin in San Diego. There they’ve got a snore room.”
“What?”
“Yeah, all the snorers are stuck in one room. And I’ll tell ya, when you wake up in the middle of the night it’s like you’re in the middle of a volcano.”
“Bet you didn’t tell that to your wife?” The first guy was laughing.
“You got that right. She’d be callin’ me Vesuvius Jack.”
I righted myself and hurried on over the path and up the roshi’s steps. I knocked on his door, hearing the thumps of my fists nearly drowned out by the drumming of the rain on his roof, the tinkling of a rivulet running off it somewhere, and my own panting.
The door did not open. I leaned closer, squinting my ears for sounds of thick-socked feet shuffling stiffly across the cold wood floor. All I could hear was the rain.
A spike of panic shot through me. Where was he? It wasn’t like he’d discovered he was out of fudge ripple ice cream and had run to the deli. I banged, waited half a second, and pushed open the door.
No one was in the cabin. Leo’s oil lamp stood in the middle of the floor, illuminating a sheet of paper. Darcy, it said, you’re sleeping in the cabin nearest here. Go back to the bathhouse and take the first path to the left. See you at 4:45 A.M.
Sleep? How could I even think about sleep?
I hurried outside, but in the minute I’d been in his cabin the paths had emptied. Wind snapped leaves, rain splatted against my face. Trees that had been distant earlier were closing in. I started toward the bathhouse.
Leo emerged from the men’s side, bracketed by two men whose names I didn’t know. When he spotted me, he pointed to a path to the left and kept going, as if there was no danger, no danger he had created.
“Leo,” I began as I came abreast of them.
“Tomorrow.”
“But—”
“Tomorrow,” he insisted as if teaching manners to a rude child.
“Fine,” I muttered to myself, my embarrassed, frustrated self, and headed in the direction he had pointed.
I hadn’t given a thought to where I was to sleep. Had I done so I would have guessed the dorm, the repository of last come last served. A wave of gratitude replaced my panic. And relief. A tsunami of relief. Leo did consider the results of his actions. At least sometimes.
My questions would keep till tomorrow. Four A.M. would be here all too soon.
I needed to get to bed, and before I could do that there was the cabin to find, toothbrush to unearth in my duffel, stuff to unpack, and clothes to lay out so I could leap into them in the morning.
I made a left at the bathhouse and hurried back across the slick path to my cabin. Rain licked my face but not as hard now; trees kept their distance. Still, I was glad to step inside.
The first thing that struck me was the stillness, protected as I was now from wind and rain and dripping cold. Next was the stench of wet wool, but even that seemed a welcome indoor smell. The cabin was the same size as the Roshi’s, but filled with two futons and multiple suitcases it seemed like a cell. Amber was kneeling on her futon and rooting in her suitcase, yanking out things like a golden retriever after a buried bone. Her clothes covered her futon, the floor between hers and mine, and had spilled over onto my suitcases, but I didn’t care. It was like I’d stepped off the set of a horror movie back into the lunch wagon.
“I’m glad it’s you, here,” I said, as I held my raincoat outside and gave it a final shake.
“Yeah, me, too. I’d hate to be bitching to a stranger.” But she stopped pawing a moment and looked up at me with a small smile that said more than she had put in words. She extricated a rust red sweater thick enough to have been petrified. “It’s fucking freezing in here. I didn’t bring enough stuff to wear to bed.”
“Couldn’t you put that sweater over your nightshirt?”
“No, listen, I know about layers, but I mean if I wear everything in my suitcase it’s not going be enough.”
I snickered.
“What?”
“I can picture you, in sweater over sweater over sweatshirt, and all the pants you own, and you in your sleeping bag like sausage stuffing so I’d have to squeeze you out of it in the morning.”
She grinned. We didn’t know each other well enough to share a giggle yet.
“There’s a basin over there and a pitcher. You know, so you don’t have to make a special trip to the bathhouse just for your teeth.”
I nodded, picturing a me holding my teeth in my hand as I ran to the bathhouse. That I didn’t bother to give voice to. I was so tired, so lightheaded from relief I almost lost it, though.
In the dim oil light Amber was blurry, as was my own suitcase and duffel. I set about positioning the bags in the two-foot space at the end of my futon. Normally, at a sesshin there’s a good bit of setting up the first night, but tonight I’d make do with the barest necessities. And even that wasn’t going to be any snap. I’d been so rushed in New York I had tossed in sweater on top of pillowcase on top of water bottle. I knelt and began to yank like Amber, pulling a deep-forest-green sweater with one hand and charcoal corduroy pants with the other, then a yellow towel, a brown shark cartilage bottle, a white flannel nightshirt, another shark cartilage bottle, another sweater, till Amber’s hooting caught me.
She was doubled up on her futon, amidst her pile of clothes, just as, I realized, I now was on mine. The room looked like a teenager’s dream. I started to laugh, too. And when we got ourselves under control, I thought maybe we were good enough friends to giggle together. She must have had the same thought. She sat up, pulling on pajama bottoms.
“Darcy, you said you were scared of the woods. How come?”
A gust of wind slashed the side of the cabin. In its wake the rain seemed to stop dead a moment, then let loose with an extra bucketful. I pulled a black wool turtleneck out of my duffel and lay it on top for morning. I reached for another garment and then stopped. I could feel the shadow of gooey orange panic, more a shame-filled memory of it, an almost dead panic smothered under layers of other stuff. I’d known the instant I opened my mouth about the fear thing to Amber that I’d be sorry; I just hadn’t realized how sorry and how soon. But, too late for regrets. I pulled the sweater around my shoulders and sat to face her. The truth?
I was sitting seiza, on my heels, as I had sat facing Yamana-roshi when he warned me against a reality I had made up. Against letting fiction pass for truth. I pulled the sweater tighter. The truth, but maybe not all of it.
“Amber, I don’t know why I’m afraid of the woods. When I was four my older brothers and sist
ers lost track of me in Muir Woods and no one found me for hours.”
Amber wriggled to face me. “That’s it?” she demanded, as if she’d paid for a double feature and seen only a trailer.
“You wanted rapists and cougars?”
“Well no, but jeez, Darcy, that’s like nothing.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said, but she missed my sarcasm.
“I mean, how can you have made such a big deal about it all these years when it was, like nothing?”
I was folding my green sweater to lay atop the black pants. I slammed it down. “The stupidity of a fear does not make it better. Don’t you think if I was going to be so jerked around by a fear I would rather have it caused by some dramatic, brave, interesting or at least not embarrassing reason?”
“More than an hour in the park? Well, yeah!”
“Thanks.”
This time there was no missing the sarcasm.
“Oh, sorry.” Then she giggled again. “I guess that was pretty bad. Justin says I’ve got a big mouth. Guess he’s right.”
She slumped and looked so chastised I felt worse for her than myself.
“It’s okay, really. My woods-thing, it’s just so, well, undignified.” I reached over and nudged her shoulder. “But don’t let this go to your head, roommate. I’m still planning to score your first cup of cocoa.”
She grinned and I grinned back.
I turned to my pile of sweaters and pants, and started folding, focusing on each item as if I’d be quizzed on the appearance of each stitch in every sweater. The cabin was cold, just as it had been in the woods that long-ago night, or so I assumed.
I wriggled down into the sleeping bag, and stared into the dark, worrying, not about the woods all those years ago but about words on the zendo porch: Leo has no idea what he’s opening up. He could destroy this place.
He could be destroyed.
CHAPTER NINE
Leo Garson-roshi blew across the top of the oil lamp globe and the flame died, leaving the cabin in darkness but for the candle on his small altar. He knelt in seiza, knees together, buttocks resting on feet and softly chanted the Maha Prajna Paramita Hridaya Heart Sutra, the sutra at the heart of Zen practice. At its end he surprised himself by going on to chant the eko which followed it in the morning service. His voice was a whisper, almost inaudible to himself. But he listened as he spoke, letting the words flow back into him, and seeing anew how strongly they applied to this sesshin.
“What we pray is . . . to save all sentient beings from the world of suffering and confusion;
“to encourage us to continue our practice even in adversity;
“to avert the destruction of fire, water and wind, and the calamities of war, epidemic and famine;
“and to keep forever turning the wheel of the Dharma.”
He bowed low, rocked back on his heels and stood in one movement.
No man controls the wheel of the Dharma, but he had given it a sharp turn when he forced the issue of Aeneas. The wheel didn’t stop till all the Dharma played out. Dharma, he reflected, is a term with multiple meanings: the cosmic law of the world, the teachings of the Buddha and Buddhism, the general state of affairs of normal life. Garson-roshi had considered the teachings when he decided to make this the last sesshin here. But now Leo wondered if he had given enough thought to the affairs of normal life, to cause and effect. The wheel of the Dharma was turning. No man controls the wheel of the Dharma, no man slows it down, turns it away from its path. Every hand is on that wheel, everyone spins it and is spun by it.
CHAPTER TEN
TUESDAY
Ten after four is a revolting time of morning. The best you can do is move before you think about it. Move and move fast. The room was icy. I slid into black wool slacks, black turtleneck, dark green sweater, and black raincoat. Outside, rain banged down, bounced up from the steps, off from the roof. There was no sound but the rain, because everyone else was still in bed. There was no light at all. The macadam path from my cabin to the bathhouse was a water channel and I almost skidded into the bathhouse wall before I grabbed the door and swung myself inside. I had been up at this hour on location sets, but there the second unit director and the entire stunt crew were discussing the first gag; conversations buzzed as the wardrobe, makeup, first unit director, the gaffers, and other crew guys worried over weather, timing, breakage. And the smell of coffee drew us all to the “lunch tent” with warmers of eggs, sausage, muffins, pancakes, and endless coffee.
Here, I poured myself coffee and stood in the silent empty kitchen.
By the time I got to Leo’s cabin with his cocoa, it was too late for questions. He poured a cup, inhaled that wonderful chocolate aroma and drank. There wasn’t even time for him to finish before he handed me the incense stick. Outside, the clappers had already given the warning three hits. Now the roll-down had begun.
I stashed the incense under my raincoat and walked behind him—past groggy students hurrying to the zendo porch—to the back door of the zendo, the teacher’s entrance. He must have guessed we’d be late. As soon as I took off my shoes he handed me a note and whispered, “Read it later.”
I was dying to pore over the note, but even if I’d had time the light was too dim, and I was already worried that the incense would be too damp to catch fire. Normally we would have lit the incense stick at the altar in his cabin and carried it to the zendo, marking the union of the teacher’s practice with the community’s practice. Now I hunched under the porch roof protecting the matches from the sluicing rain. When I had lit the incense, shaken out the flame, and watched the smoke curl uncertainly upward, Leo nodded and I opened the zendo door.
The zendo was in shadows but for the pearly glow of oil lamps on the altar and the sharp flame from the thick candle. Leo walked slowly across the wood floor, the balls of his feet touching first so that each step had the soft, full sound of intent. He stopped at the end of the mat before the altar and made a standing bow.
Later, I wished that I had savored that moment of him there, bowing in our stead, all of us assuming we were safe, our only worry the pain in our knees.
I walked behind him to the side of the altar, the floor so cold that my feet lost their traction and I had to concentrate on each step as if I was walking in roller skates. He moved around the mat until he was right in front of the altar, took the incense stick from my outstretched hand, and planted it in the small round bowl before the Buddha.
The smoke from it wafted past my nose, the pungent smell connecting this first full day of sesshin with so many others I had sat. Suddenly I thought of Aeneas. Had Aeneas felt this bond when he stood in this spot inhaling this incense, not knowing he was about to vanish like the smoke?
As I walked to my seat the note crackled in my pocket. But the chance to read it didn’t come till after three zazen periods, the service, and breakfast. As everyone else on the porch stuffed their feet into their shoes and hurried to their cabins for a precious hour of rest, I pulled out the paper and read. It was the last thing I wanted to see: “Get my newspaper during break.”
A mile through the woods! My stomach went to mush, my whole body was clammy. I stuffed the note in my pocket and strode toward Leo’s cabin, launching spray with every step. At 7:30 A.M., night had thinned to a sort of dawning, but the rain kept everything gray and was already spreading damp up under my sweater, icing my back. Leo’s thermos stood outside his door, on the steps. I knocked. No answer. The thermos stood by my feet. Was this Leo’s—Roshi’s—way of saying: Don’t argue with me? Or had he just stepped out and left his thermos?
I took a deep breath, grabbed the empty thermos and headed for the kitchen, my last stop before the woods. Every gag in every movie was wrapped in fear. Every time, I pulled off the wrapping and reached inside for what would make the stunt work. Some gags I tore into, some I approached by layers of research, others by days of practice, some by combinations. But I never balked. Except when it came to the woods. Already I could feel
my body tightening, my shoulders going hard, my neck turning into a choke collar.
When I pulled open the kitchen door the smell of cocoa struck me anew, but now it was tainted by Leo’s spilling incident, though not so much that I’d have refused a cup if Barry offered. The room had cooled, the heat replaced by the rattling of what looked like a long tin box large enough for a six-year-old to slide through. It was spitting beans into a bucket and Barry squatted next to the bucket staring into it like it held little brown nuggets of gold.
At the far end three or four people—the dishwashing crew—bustled around the sink, shifting great wooden serving bowls, running hot water. They were all in green aprons, but aprons can only do so much. By the end of the sesshin, sleeves and shirt shoulders would be dotted with Clorox stains.
I shook my head and again the rain pelted off my hair. My raincoat had been fine for New York, with cabs and umbrellas. There I hadn’t considered a hood; now I would have traded my chance of enlightenment for one. I stood a moment in the warmth, watching Barry watch the beans, wishing I could be as entranced with anything here as he was with those little brown pellets, putting off the trek through the wilderness.
I dribbled a bit of coffee into a cup and said, “How’s it going?”
Barry nodded thoughtfully. “I’m only doing a small batch, but I’m cutting it close, getting it done by Thursday. The roasting went fine. These beans only need forty-five minutes. And the winnowing—well, you can see I’ve got half a bucket of nibs already. The shells are over there. Maureen will be glad to get them for the garden. I’ll have the nibs into the melangeur this morning—”
“Melangeur?”
He pointed to what looked like a 1900s washing machine, the kind with two thick hand-operated wringers on the top. “They’ll be in there for twenty-four hours.”
“Washing?”
He jolted back and looked at me like I was an idiot, and I could see that a criollo and its melangeur were not suitable topics for levity.