by Susan Dunlap
Her voice did not drop to indicate the end of her sentence. She merely ceased speaking, leaving her words dangling, and to those of us who knew, dangling from the pronouncement was: no investment, of time or all Rob’s money, would get him Leo’s job when Leo was gone. You’re the rejected poem, don’t you get it? What do you have to say about that? she was tacitly demanding.
Still looking at Maureen, Rob stiffened. He opened his mouth, but Amber cut him off.
“But the whole point is that it’s the pot scrubber who gets it, right? He, like, sees. He’s the one the old roshi chose to take his place. Because he gets it. Like Aeneas, right?”
The room had seemed silent before, but now it was dead quiet. No swish of fabric, no hiss of breath; even the wind outside was silent. Amber’s demand hung as in a void.
“Aeneas was an exceptional student,” Rob said, in a dismissive monotone.
I shot a glance at Amber, expecting to see shoulders hunched in fury. But she didn’t look angry at all; her whole expression was eager, expectant.
“Rob,” Gabe said, in a languid tone that was so out of character I did a double take. “Was there a reason—?”
But Rob must have realized he was about to be sandbagged. He signaled the bell-ringer that the question period was over. The woman struck the gong while Gabe was still speaking, and the post-lecture chant cut off Gabe’s final word midway.
Gabe raised his voice, but only those of us straining could have made out the rest of his question: “Was there a reason you left off the end of the tale of the Sixth Patriarch?”
The end of the tale was: After the Fifth Patriarch read the pot-scrubber’s poem, he called the lowly monk to him in secret, and anointed him his successor. But he warned the pot scrubber not to mention his succession. In fact, he sent the pot scrubber away that very night, to travel in distant lands for twenty years, because had he stayed in their monastery the other monks would have killed him.
Now I remembered why the Sixth Patriarch had been on my mind yesterday. The book was open to it on Roshi’s floor. As he began this sesshin dedicated to Aeneas, this was what Roshi had been pondering.
I followed Rob out of the zendo, onto the tiny porch through which the roshi enters and leaves, as was my job. Rob slid his feet into his boots, and kept moving. I couldn’t bring myself to follow. Like Maureen said, there were a lot of interpretations of the tale of the Sixth Patriarch, but one struck home: the old Fifth Patriarch sent the Aeneas-like monk away, and he kept the senior student in the monastery where he could guide him, and, to make sure he didn’t kill his rival when he returned.
The rain had almost stopped. Pale slits of blue sliced the sky and were squeezed away by big-momma clouds. Buddhist precepts of nonviolence aside, if Shen-hsui realized he was merely a placeholder for the anointed one, wouldn’t he have been wise to kill the old roshi and take over before the upstart returned? To protect traditional Buddhism from upstarts, he would have said.
I pulled on my shoes, but still didn’t leave the tiny porch. Had Rob heard of the postcards Aeneas sent his family? Had Leo? Was it possible Aeneas was coming back?
I stayed put another minute, then walked around the side of the zendo to move my shoes to the shoe rack in front. Inside, the zendo students were walking in kinhin, but on the porch three tall dark-parkaed men and two shorter young women formed a half circle around Rob. Despite their height he towered above them like the tallest steeple in a Russian Orthodox cathedral. As Rob spoke—whispered—he glanced at each of the five and lastly at the zendo door, perhaps to remind them the bell was about to ring for the next sitting. They all nodded but were clearly reluctant to leave this new inner circle. A man in a dark green slicker, the guy I remembered from the first night, who had rushed desperately back to his cabin as if he’d forgotten the single thing he couldn’t survive without, eased closer to Rob.
“You’re set on preserving the monastery, aren’t you? Leaving the road like it is, right? Keeping out hoards of casual students? Keeping this as a traditional teaching monastery, not making it soft, right?”
Rob nodded agreement.
Shen-hsui . . . But we were Zen students here, not killers. What was I thinking?
And yet, someone had poisoned Leo.
Shen-hsui.
More than ever I was relieved that the doctor would be here soon, and Leo would be safe, and everything would be all right. Otherwise, I would have agonized about Leo, worried about Amber poking at Rob, colluding with Gabe, about everyone discovering she was Aeneas’s sister. There was no way I could protect her.
Moving past Rob’s group on the porch I headed to Leo’s cabin. He was asleep. I stoked the fire and was back in the zendo when the bell rang.
But the instant the service that ended the mid-morning sittings was over, I was out of the zendo, ear to the wind. It was ten to noon now, ten minutes to my arbitrary time of arrival! Four servers were carrying huge pots onto the porch, preparing to take them inside and begin the formally choreographed meal—oriyoki. There was no chance of hearing the truck over their clatter. I slipped into shoes and hurried down the steps toward the kitchen for Roshi’s lunch.
I was almost to the kitchen when Barry burst out the door, robes flying, apron untied and sailing out to one side. The man was clearly in a panic and he was looking for me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“The truck’s gone!” Barry hissed, grabbing both my arms. He loomed over me, the wind whipping his black monk’s robe and snapping the strings of his untied apron against my arms.
“It’ll be back soon.”
“No one told me!”
He was shaking me.
“Barry! It’ll be back any time now.”
“Who took it?”
“Justin.”
“Justin?” he said blankly. He’d been so caught up in his cacao beans, it was no wonder he didn’t know people’s names. “This Justin, does he know anything about trucks?”
Then I realized the cause of his panic.
“Barry, the truck will be back in plenty of time for you to get your chocolate to San Francisco. Justin’s a car guy. When he first drove up here he owned a vehicle older than this truck. The next year he had a Jaguar. Relax.”
Relax! Has that advice ever worked? Certainly it was useless now, to a man with his oeuvre in chocolate to deliver.
“Do you want me to tell you when it gets here?”
“Nah,” he said, backpedaling from his frenzy and offering me a smile of apology. With his shaved head, big round body and flapping robes, he reminded me of Pu-tai, the Laughing Buddha good luck charm sold in bazaars, the figure on the window of the Big Buddha Bakery. “I can hear the truck from the kitchen,” he added.
“Good,” I said. “I’ll wait there with you.” And, pulling myself together to make use of this opportunity, I added, “You can tell me about the Big Buddha Bakery.”
I hurried into the kitchen after Barry. The servers were still running in and out of the sesshin half of the kitchen, hauling big silvery serving pots by handles held with potholders. The food had to leave the kitchen steaming if there was any chance of it being near-warm by the time the servers carted it across the paths to the zendo, served it to all twenty students two at a time, and those students chanted the meal verses prior to taking their first bites. Thus had congealed oatmeal and cold rice become staples of the Zen diet. Now the servers were returning the empty rice pots and readying the kettles of boiling water to take to the zendo and pour into students’ bowls for cleaning.
I glanced out the tiny window under the staircase, hoping in vain for a first glimpse of the truck. The window was so shaded by brambles and bushes I hadn’t realized it was there before.
I moved into the arena of chocolate. The chocolate scent here was not what you’d find in a chocolate shop, even a fine establishment. It was a dryer, duskier aroma, and not quite mouth-watering. Barry stood over the conche, which resembled a giant washing machine. He had apparently finished loading the
chocolate and was now hoisting a bag of vanilla beans.
“Barry,” I said as he started to pour, “what happened at the Big Buddha Bakery?”
“Shh!” he muttered, his focus never leaving the bag. “Conching can take three days. I’ve got just one. Less than one, and I’ve still got to add the rest of these beans, and the lecithin and the sugar.”
“White sugar?”
“White, yes. But large grain. There’s less ash and moisture content that way and the taste is more natural.”
He emptied both bags, the vanilla beans and the sugar, but he might have been distributing the contents bean by bean and crystal by crystal, and I had the ludicrous feeling that had I asked he could have accounted for the position of each bean and crystal when it joined the paste at the bottom of the conche. By the time he put down the last bag, the servers were gone and the green-aproned dishwashers were clanking big spoons against pots, shifting excess food to containers, drying utensils and serving bowls, and only one was scrubbing away at the bottom of the huge rice pot. Brillo pad scraped on metal as if scratching off the thin layer of civility between Barry and me.
Barry looked up from the conche.
“The Big Buddha Bakery?” I prompted.
He sighed. “I’ve been at this nonstop since Monday. I need to sit down. Come on upstairs.”
He walked to the far corner of the kitchen and started up the staircase by the window. Half-hidden behind piled cardboard boxes, it was a narrow necessity, clearly a later add-in. There was room for only one person to climb, and no railing. I followed him to an attic room that covered the entire kitchen. The walls sloped in on both sides, leaving a narrow passage for anyone, but one that had to be a balance test for a man his size. At the far end—over the zendo kitchen sink where the dishwashing crew was still sweating—was a bed, not like the futons Roshi and I had but an actual, extra-long bed with box springs and mattress, and two extra-thick pillows and a French blue quilted bedspread. The head of the bed touched one wall, the foot the other. The floorboards were polished; the eaves held built-in bookcases, a desk with a laptop computer, and a boom box. And, I realized with a start, there was a lamp. A lamp in this monastery that had no electricity or phone!
“Wow!”
“Yeah, Rob’s a generous guy.”
“Rob remodeled this loft for you? How come?”
“He had the money. I think he felt wealth was unbefitting a Zen student who plans to be the abbot some day. So he spent it on the monastery. He paid for the flush system in the bathhouse and the generator for the kitchen.”
“And the big stuffed chairs in the common room, too?”
“Oh, yeah.” He gave a grudging nod, similar to the one Maureen had given in the office yesterday. Again it struck me that it’s not only more blessed to give than to receive, but a whole lot more satisfying. But condescending beneficence can buy a load of resentment.
Barry motioned me to sit on the bed beside him, but the sloping walls would have forced us shoulder to shoulder. I chose an old black canvas chair by the stairs.
“Barry, about the Big Buddha Bakery—?”
He shook his head. “I really hoped never to hear about it again.”
“Did you work there?”
He tapped his fingers on one knee, his head hanging, gaze down.
This was worse than I’d thought. “Okay, you did work there. Cooking, right?”
He stared down, shoulders tightening.
Much worse. “Oh, jeez, you didn’t just work there, did you, you were the baker.”
He stood abruptly, as if shot up by nerves, and began walking toward me, slowly, stiffly, as if fighting for control. His hands were clasped over his stomach; his feet dragged with each step. The floorboards under his feet were worn down from pacing. When he moved past me, his hips were level with my shoulders and I knew one swat of one of those solid arms could send me slamming headfirst down the stairs. At the far wall he turned and started back. Before I could order “Sit,” he pulled the desk chair in front of me and sat.
“The food at the bakery—”
“—was fine,” he snapped.
“But?”
He took a deep breath and squeezed both hands into fists. He looked at me, his face quivering. Then he cried.
I was up with my arms around his shoulders before I realized it. He was the Barry of Monday, the big kid so excited about his criollo beans arriving. He bent his head down to his knees and wiped his eyes on his robe.
“I didn’t do anything at the bakery, but I was their confection chef and I disgraced them. I left, but even that didn’t help. No one wants to buy food from a place that hired a poisoner.”
“But you said—”
“It wasn’t there. It was at the Cacao Royale, like the one I’m going to this weekend. It’s the chocolate contest here; only comes every seven years. I was so excited about being accepted there, so nervous. I never intended to endanger anyone. Everyone knew that. I was so ambitious. I just had to win. I couldn’t see anything but winning. And then, all of a sudden in the ‘without’ competition there’s this guy from Virginia making a vanilla tart that was the buzz of the whole place. There’s no excuse for what I did. I didn’t intend to harm him, not physically, just professionally. But that’s no excuse.”
I nodded, waiting.
“Vanilla is a subtle taste. When he turned his back on his pan, I squirted in a dropper full of peanut oil. I distracted him just long enough for it to settle beneath the surface. I thought all it would do would be to adulterate the taste, but . . .”
“Someone was allergic?” I was sorry as soon as I’d said it. And when Barry nodded, I watched him closely to make sure there was no surprise in his reaction, that I hadn’t given him an easy out. “What happened?”
“One of the judges; anaphylactic shock; paramedics. He was okay the next day. I don’t know if he would have sued me, or the guy from Virginia would have, but before that came up, I realized what I had done, what I had become. I gave the Virginian all my recipes—he’s won a few contests with some of them since then. I don’t pretend I’m glad for him, but it’s what I deserve.”
“But no police or—”
“No. Know why?”
I shook my head.
“Because Roshi stood up for me. The chocolate world is a small community. The police don’t patrol confection competitions. Someone would have had to press charges. The newspapers were bad enough. But when Roshi trusted me enough to make me his cook up here, even they backed off.” He leaned back, sighed deeply and then focused on me anew. “You know, Darcy, I thought you were my friend. But this is a hell of a time to hit me with questions about this. I haven’t slept in days, I’m just going to make it to San Francisco. And you broadside me like this.”
He looked so drained, so confused and so very disappointed . . . in me. There was no reason not to tell him, not with the doctor almost here.
“Barry, I had to ask. Someone poisoned Leo. He’s okay,” I added immediately. The sudden horror on Barry’s face lessened, but only momentarily.
Then he demanded, “Poisoned? You think I poisoned him, don’t you? I’m a known poisoner. You think I did this, don’t you?”
I wanted to scream, No, of course not! It took all my control to keep eye contact and say, “Did you?”
“NO!” His shout was so loud it must have echoed all over the grounds. I was amazed the dishwashing crew didn’t come running. Now it was Barry keeping our eye contact. “No!” he insisted, but in a normal voice. “Roshi took me in when I was at rock bottom. He didn’t ask questions. He stuck by me; he didn’t toss me out when I wandered off for weeks at a time. He didn’t turn me away when I banged on his cabin door at three A.M. and needed to talk. He gave me space and he gave me guidance, and most of all he gave me time to get to this point where I can go back to the Cacao Royale and get some notice in the extra fine specialty chocolate field. Six years ago I thought my life was over. Without Roshi it would have been. But those year
s were just retooling. I would give my life for Roshi.” He slumped back shaking his head. “Why would anyone—?”
“You’ve been here way longer than I have. I was hoping you’d—”
“How could anyone poison him? We all eat out of the same pot and—” He stopped, mouth open. “Oh no, was it in—” He swallowed hard. “—in my cocoa? The special blend I make for him!”
I nodded.
“How could anyone—?” He took a deep breath and another, as if trying to control his emotions enough to think straight. “I made you a cup of cocoa from his special batch, that first day. It wasn’t poisoned then. But doesn’t matter. The cannister’s right out on the counter, labeled, like an invitation. Anyone could have adulterated it.”
“You live here; you know people, so who would poison Leo? Why? Did it have something to do with the opening of the monastery?” When he shook his head in bewilderment, I tried “Or with Aeneas?”
“You’re sure it’s poison, not flu? Nobody would hurt Leo—okay, listen, let me think.” His gaze fell on his watch. He jumped up. “I’ve got to get back to the conche.” Then he sat back down, as if realizing for the first time the danger to Leo. “Listen, Darcy, I’m so exhausted I’m barely computing. I’m terrified I’ll make some careless mistake with the chocolate and—But that’s beside the point. Poisoning Roshi—it’s beyond sense; I can’t imagine. I can’t deal with it. But I’m going to tell you what I know; I can do that much for Roshi. This is how things are with him. Roshi’s gift is that he opens possibilities for people; then he steps back. He lets them swim or sink. He’s a great teacher and he can show them how to swim, but he doesn’t force anyone. And, Darcy, some people want to sink.”
“How did that play out with the people who were here at the opening?”
It was a moment before Barry nodded in comprehension. “Rob? Well, Rob’s an ambitious guy. He’s used to winning. Roshi lets him cherish his ambitions. Maybe he’ll learn from that, but if he has he sure hasn’t shown any signs of letting go. See, Darcy, to you this place looks like a hump of dirt in the woods, but the residents here have a lot invested in it. Their lives.”