by Susan Dunlap
“He’s taken six years of your life and tossed it away.”
“Yes. And no.” She let out a small laugh. “But isn’t that the Zen answer?”
It was clear that reminiscence was over. But there was still the final question. I knew the answer, but I needed her to put it into words. “What did you do after you found Aeneas’s body?”
“What? Oh. Nothing. Well, I just stood there. I mean, what could I do? I couldn’t ask Roshi. I was terrified of letting on I knew. I couldn’t just leave Aeneas’s body there and go see if I could find someone to tell, and I understand now that I was so horrified about Roshi that I couldn’t bear to admit what he’d done. But I didn’t understand that then. Then, well, I must have been working with a tenth of my brain. All I could think of was the Japanese roshis and the other guests here for the opening ceremony and how upset they’d all be. I know how irrational that was, but it’s what I thought.
“So I buried him, under the maple, just like you thought. He was still in Leo’s robe. The manila envelope was wedged under his body in the stream. I did open it, but the ink had already run in places. I couldn’t make out a single word. It was just a few sheets, handwritten, like a draft of a speech, or a long recipe—a recipe!—but it was signed, I could tell that. I dropped it in the hole, and then . . . then . . . I dropped Aeneas in. It was awful beyond words. I’m surprised no one ever made the connection. I wasn’t thinking linearly or I would have assumed people would miss Aeneas, figure he was dead and focus on the one fresh hole.”
“So you didn’t start the rumor of him going with the Japanese roshis?”
“No. The first time I heard it I nearly laughed. But I caught myself. Leo must have started it.”
“That would be a cruel thing to do to Rob.”
The words were out of my mouth before I saw their ludicrousness. Maureen merely shrugged, as if to say one among many. She stopped walking. She was in front of me, and she turned to me for the first time. I thought she was going to add something else but she simply held out her hands and I gave her the sleeping bag, which she wrapped around herself and then she slid down and sat on the floor. She looked like it was taking all her energy to keep from crumbling down head onto floor. She looked like . . . Leo. She needed to get back to her own room, to eat, and mostly to sleep in peace. But the ends had to be tied up here first.
“Maureen, in six years, didn’t you and Leo talk about this?”
“No. Oh god, I know how odd that sounds, but like I said, time takes on a sameness in an isolated place like this. Years don’t matter, only seasons. He came to my cabin that night to talk about it, but I couldn’t face it, not that soon. The sight of Leo terrified me. It was all I could do not to slam the door on him.”
No wonder she’d reacted that way. Had Leo really assumed she thought he was like the ballet director, that he was only there for sex? Or had he been lying to me, too?
“After that,” Maureen went on, “I waited for Leo to make an announcement. The next morning was the first morning zazen of just us residents and I assumed he would explain and ask forgiveness for bringing shame on us all. His guilt, of course, would be his own; no one can absolve someone else. But he didn’t. Then I thought he needed time to sober up. But he just drank more. I kept expecting him to at least say something to me, you know?”
I nodded.
“He folded in on himself. It wasn’t just that he didn’t talk to me about Aeneas; he didn’t talk to any of us about anything.”
“But didn’t you—”
“Didn’t I press him? Yes. We were alone. I said point blank, ‘Roshi, you killed Aeneas.’ He looked at me like I’d made an esoteric statement about transcendence that he didn’t quite understand. Then he changed the subject.”
“Didn’t you ask again?”
“I . . . I couldn’t. It was like with that response he’d pulled the rug out from under me. Then, when I could think straight again, I was filled with a weight of terror. Maybe he really didn’t remember killing Aeneas. Drunks forget. There was only my word he had killed him. I was the only witness. He could say I killed Aeneas. I was the one who buried him. If fingerprints on cloth last that long, mine where on his. My hairs, whatever. It was me Aeneas followed around. I spent a lot of time being wary.”
“And then?”
She shrugged. “Time passed.”
“But you couldn’t leave.”
“Initially, I couldn’t. I couldn’t have moved to Seattle and wondered every morning if this was the day someone would dig up the maple. Even so, I felt like I was just waiting for the end and there was nothing I could do about it. So I just did what I had to to get through each day. I got to living like there was no tomorrow, like I wanted to experience everything about this day that could be my last here. And then even that passed and I just lived here.”
“Until Leo announced that this was the last sesshin?”
“Yeah. We all knew something was coming, but nobody knew what.” She pulled the nylon bag tighter around her. It didn’t look to be making her any less cold. “It was like the whole thing started all over again. I thought when he gave that opening talk in the zendo that he was going to admit killing Aeneas. But he lied, outright lied; he said he had believed Aeneas went to Japan. Then he holed up in his room, and I was getting more and more panicked and he wouldn’t see me, and then you wouldn’t let me in, and—”
Her breath caught and then she just sobbed, great loud cries that shook her whole body and made the nylon slither against itself. I had to stop myself from going to her, pulling her close to the comfort of another body. Hers was a solitary sorrow and she needed to cry alone with it. I let her be till her breath was easier, then I moved down beside her, put my arm around her, and tucked the sleeping bag around her feet. I found myself reacting just as she had, not facing the question of Leo’s guilt—unable to face it—but rather dealing with the immediate problem of how to get her out of here, shaky as she was. Fortunately, Amber was sitting right outside.
I waited till Maureen stopped crying and said, “I’m getting help. I’ll be right back. Okay?”
She nodded absently, and I hesitated to leave her alone even that short a time. I was tempted to ask if she had a knife, to pretend I needed it, but in the end I decided not to bring the subject to her mind. I’d just be a second.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Barry yawned and guided the old yellow truck with both hands on the wheel. He wasn’t worried about veering off the road, the ruts were too deep; he might as well be driving a trolley. But those ruts were like great brown canals, the mud covering who knew what?
Great rain-soaked branches of redwood swayed in the wind. Water crashed on the windshield. He jumped, flung out his right arm to protect the stack of boxes on the seat next to him. All he needed now was the chocolate sailing into the dash, his perfect bars coming up scraped or gouged! Ah, Appearance, sub-standard, that prissy judge from L.A. would sneer. What was his name? Grummond? Gundersen? Whatever, all he’d need would be an excuse to score down someone like him, the peanut-adulterer.
Barry wanted to ponder every facet of the weekend, to transport himself to San Francisco now, not have to endure the six-hour drive. He could almost smell the first whiff of chocolate as he crossed the threshold of the Salle de Cacao, and the aromas as he walked along the aisle, the hint of wine, the touch of almond, maybe the stunning bouquet of a new crop of cacao beans never before processed. He ached to be down in the city, meeting Carlson from Seattle, Milchisi from Tucson, Tsunaka from L.A., deciding which hot new South of Market restaurants to try, to spend the meal not in silence, not spooning gruel, but forking ahi tartar with radicchio and taking apart the sauce, ordering pineapple tart with kirsch ice cream and grumbling about the over-sweet liqueur.
The truck hit something. He braced the wheel, braced the boxes of chocolate, and forced himself to focus back on the road. Had he slept at all since the beans arrived? He must have but he couldn’t remember when his eyes had closed�
��before now. He jerked himself awake and stared at the road.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I walked to the south end of the room, next to the cabinet and peered out the window ready to beckon the freezing Amber in.
Amber was gone.
I let out a great sigh. Of course, she got fed up. Maybe she was at the bottom of the steps waiting. Maybe pigs will fly in packs.
“Maureen,” I said, and waited until she looked up. “We have to go now.”
Outside, a crate on pulleys groaned in the wind. It must, I thought, have been what they used to get that one chair up here. I looked from Maureen’s slender body to the crate. She’d be an easy fit.
“Where does the pulley crate go down to?’
“The river, a bit beyond the fork that leads here.”
There had to be a means of controlling its descent; I’d choreographed stunts in way worse than that. If I tucked the sleeping bag around her . . .
“The carriage goes all the way at the bottom?”
Maureen pushed herself up. “I’m not going downhill in that thing! I’m fine; I can walk down.”
“But it’s—”
“Wait, you’re the one who freaks out in the woods, right? Okay, for you, the walk down’ll be hell, but I’m okay. I may have to help you!” She slapped the sleeping bag into folds and ignored it as it slithered out of them. “Okay, let’s go,” she said, and before I could answer she blew out the candle. We left the skull alone in its aerie.
I stepped outside, and a gust of wind knifed through the seams in my jacket. I could just imagine how easily it cut between the stitches in my heavy green sweater that Maureen was wearing. Suddenly the steps down from the tower seemed flimsy, the footing slippery, and the railing unsafe. I never would have okayed a stunt on them, not without checking every board and joint. The steps were wide enough for only one person. It went against my grain to expose Maureen, but in the end I decided it was safer for her to go first: if she slipped I could grab her, rather than her missing a step behind me and sending us both tobogganing into the river. When I suggested she lead, she smiled, and said, “You just keep your eyes on me and you won’t have to deal with the woods at all.”
“I’m okay.”
“Uh-huh,” she said sarcastically.
I felt such a burst of indignation—unreasonable, shaking outrage—that it was all I could do to clamp my teeth together to hold the words back. I had been afraid coming up here, but dammit I had managed it, and managed it for her! Likely, I’d be afraid again when we got down from here into the woods. It would have been annoying to be derided for that fear then. But right now, up here, I wasn’t worried about the woods, and it was exponentially more insulting to be scorned for a fear that I didn’t have. I rapped her shoulder and pointed down. Maureen flipped the switch, sending the empty carrier clanking down the hill. She took off at a distressingly fast clip. If I’d had any question about whether her emotional distress affected her balance or fortitude this romp down the stairs stuck the answer in my face—a face that was well behind hers. That made me madder yet.
Rage is encompassing. It focuses its full attention on sustaining itself, stoking its fires with replayed insults and expectations undeservedly denied. It aerates the blaze with speculation on the vile motives of the offender. If the fire dims, it rekindles with recalled offenses. It fosters sulking and shouting, allows no entry to kindness, comfort, or logic. In a well-nurtured rage, even an apology can be an affront. Rage lets nothing in.
It’s rare that anger benefits the one seething, but it did now. I was too furious to be afraid. I stoked and nurtured that fury. I’d made this long trek into the last place I wanted to be and what thanks did I get from Maureen? Zip. Less than zip. And more to the point, I had traveled across country to sit a sesshin with a master, and was I getting any teaching? Ha! I’d been replaced as his jisha and thrown out of his cabin. You got more teaching than anyone here, a voice reminded me. I shoved that thought away. I’d come here to face my fear—Well, you are in the woods, girl. What about sitting zazen? This is where I was supposed to learn to sit in meditation without escaping. I sure hadn’t done that.
But two out of three wasn’t enough; I could feel my rage slipping away and the trees closing in. One out of three.
Then, in a burst it came: If you look a man in the face and shove him off the bridge so he lands on his back, and go on, mouthing the dharma, sitting in the zendo hearing the sounds, feeling the air on your face, seeing your own thoughts for six years, what value is Zen practice, Leo? Can you fucking fake it that long? And what about the lessons you gave me with the cocoa, was that all fake, too? We trust you to show us how to open the lock and you can’t even recognize the door. What you did to Aeneas, you do to us all.
“Damn you!”
We were on the hillside, stopped. Maureen was standing in front of me, her face open with fright. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.
It took me a moment to realize she assumed I was still stewing about her condescension. “Wasn’t about you,” I said, lamely.
“Him?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” she said, and squeezed my hand, and I felt the odd, empty bond that joined us.
And I wondered how much stronger, how much deeper was her rage than mine. She had harbored Leo’s secret for six years and he’d rewarded her by tossing her aside, and tossing the secret aside. He’d undermined her practice and her being.
“Maureen, if you poisoned Roshi, I can understand.”
“Someone poisoned Roshi?” Even in the shadowy moonlight here in the woods I could see the horror and distress on Maureen’s face. “Is he—omigod—is he . . .” She didn’t even seem able to form the word.
“No, he’s not dead. He’s had spikes of fever and he’s weak.”
“Why didn’t he call me?” Her voice was almost a whisper but it held within it a wail she couldn’t completely suppress.
Above us the wind whipped the redwood and pine branches. Below, the stream smacked the rocks as if to make sure neither of us forgot how Aeneas died.
She wrapped her arms around her ribs. It was the only time I had seen her actually admit cold. Her eyes shut and her breath became shallow. She looked as if she was tightening smaller and smaller, becoming more and more compact till she reached a solid, lightless ball of energy. It exploded in one word.
“You!”
She grabbed my shoulders and gave one sudden shake that knocked me off my feet. The cold air shot under my arms and legs; I was wind-milling, grabbing, my hand on something round, abrasive, my feet hitting, slipping, wet. And then a thud and a yank on my arm socket, and I was down the bank, the water rushing over my feet. A wave of panic shot through me. I grabbed onto the tree trunk with my other hand and pulled my feet out of the water, scrambling for purchase on the steep bank.
“Darcy!”
Maureen was reaching down. There was a branch to her left and I took that and pulled myself halfway up. Her hand was still out, as if she hadn’t processed my move, but I wasn’t about to trust her. I bypassed the hand and grabbed her elbow. She let out a small gasp of surprise. She felt solidly braced and I locked on with the other hand, managed a couple quick steps on the slippery bank and was back on the path, shaking with cold, shock, and anger.
“What is the matter with you? You could have killed me!”
“Darcy, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what . . . I just lost it. Omigod. I’m so so sorry. I never meant to—I know you didn’t keep me away from Roshi on your own. He told you to, right? It’s just that after all those years . . .”
“Never mind,” I said and meant it. “I’m thinking of Aeneas and how easy it must have been to knock him off the bridge. Just a burst of anger . . . and wham!”
I wanted to tell her how bad I had felt when I’d blocked her from seeing Leo, but I couldn’t speak the words, not after her outburst here. I’d been sorry then, but more right than I’d realized. But I was also remembering sitting in the zendo
after Roshi first spilt the cocoa and how amazed I was at the fury he lit within me. How very dangerous was that trait? Maureen was the most volatile, but everyone was on edge now. And Leo’s door was unlocked!
“Come on. We need to move.”
Maureen nodded and moved fast. I raced after, my hands no longer on her shoulders. Maybe, I thought, the paramedics would already be at Leo’s cabin when we got there. I knew I was fooling myself but I clung to the hope as if it were real. I tried not to think about how bad the road was, how far Barry might have to go to find a phone, or if the paramedics would be on a call, or if they even came this far into the woods at night. I thought instead of Barry kneeling down by Leo’s side and Leo wishing him luck. And I wished with all my being that Barry was back here by Leo’s side giving that luck back to him.
Before I realized it we were at the end of the path, over the bridge, and half running up over the quad. The grounds were empty, the dark broken by the spots of light from the kitchen, the twinkling glow of the oil lamps through the high zendo windows. It had to be one of the evening zazen periods. I’d lost track of time. Ahead of me Maureen was panting, her feet hitting heavy against the macadam, pushing hard to thrust her forward. She’d was running on emotion alone. I was panting, too, but I passed Maureen as we rounded the bathhouse and veered onto the path to Roshi’s cabin.
The light coming through his open door was dim, but against the dark night it glowed like neon. Silhouetted by it was part of a standing figure, the part not hidden by the half open door. A leg from knee to boot.
“Boot,” I hissed back to Maureen.
Her breath caught. She understood the danger. No one coming to see his roshi enters his cabin with boots on. Socks, yes. Shoes, rarely. But muddy boots, never. Only someone who doesn’t care, or can’t stop himself would charge in there with boots on.