Twelve Days

by Steven Barnes

  Please. Any sign in the gray fog of her life. The smallest sign.

  Before all of her tomorrows became another endless today.

  For seven more years she worked in the bleak, dark basement office. The company had taken on some government contracts, and from time to time, they proved of minor interest, small bright spots in the gloom. Her supervisor’s name was Gladys. Only a year previously, Gladys had been her assistant.

  “Here, Indra,” she said, bringing her a file and a videotape. “These have been declassified.”

  “What are they?” the girl asked.

  Gladys grimaced. “Originally, American CIA and NSA files. They sat on them for a while, then began to share with other agencies. Our MI6 wasn’t very interested, and farmed out the films and some academic analysis to lower-clearance instruments.”

  “And now us.” The plump Afro-Indian data analyst sighed. It didn’t sound promising at all.

  Indra Gupta looked at the video. At first she was bored. This was something from an American television series, perhaps. It looked like a man free-running through traffic, tossing people every which way. The man’s name was said to be Adam Ludlum. The name meant nothing to her.

  She was interested, but not engaged. She looked at the data. And finally something tweaked her interest, caught her attention. This … was real, not stunt work or special effects.

  This was real. She was transfixed.

  Indra stayed up late that night, studying the documents. And there was a name in the documents that she knew.

  The name Savagi. Adam Ludlum had been his student.

  Her interest intensified. There were descriptions in the notes. Apparently, Ludlum had been trying to find a central theme to all the world’s most powerful meditation techniques, and had naturally drifted to her great-grandfather’s teachings.

  For the first time in memory she felt excited. Began to cross-reference the documents in bound black journals, working until late in the night without the slightest sense of fatigue.

  One day she went to 96 Euston Road in London, the home of the British Library. She gawked as she entered the massive brown brick building, nineteenth-century architecture housing the largest library of the twentieth. Standing in the presence of over 150 million books, journals, newspapers, manuscripts, and sound and video recordings … the collected knowledge of humanity stretching back four thousand years was a bit overwhelming.

  She stood in line to speak to one of the assistant librarians in the metaphysics and esoterica section, still gawking at the endless row-mazes of files and books twisting off along unimagined corridors representing the life work of countless hives of scholars and artists.

  Indra felt as if the elephant god, Ganesh, lord of wisdom, was standing on her chest.

  “Excuse me?” the slight woman behind the desk said. “Can I help you?”

  Indra managed to focus. “I understand that in your rare book section you have some material on a man named Savagi.”

  The librarian brushed a strand of pale hair from her face. “Savagi? I don’t believe I’ve heard that name.”

  “He was a mystic,” Indra said, almost apologetically. “Died in 1967, I believe.”

  The librarian’s mouth twisted as if Indra had asked entrance to their pornography collection. She rose and consulted a microfiche. “Well, now … let me see. The central library apparently has a copy of a book of his entitled Transformations, but it isn’t available for circulation. Are you affiliated with a university?”

  “No,” Gupta admitted.

  “Well … hmm.” The librarian paused. “There is a commentary on Transformations that might be of interest. Would you care to examine it?”

  She nodded her head, barely able to speak, and was led back to the stacks, where she read all day, even seeing a few photos of the man who was her great-grandfather, a wise and powerful man. His books were unavailable, but along with the commentary there were a few other articles and pamphlets written by his students, as well as chapters in books that mentioned him and spoke of his work … often in cautionary tones and with phrases like “blasphemous commentary on Ahmara Rishi’a Yama Sutra” and “moral jeopardy” and “darkly controversial.”

  She began to create her own notes. Those original films of the mysteriousAdam Ludlum were linked to files and scanned photocopies of notebooks attributed to the same man. This “Ludlum” had studied Savagi’s work on the far reaches of human consciousness, cross-referencing meditation systems—chiefly visualization and breathing—with martial arts techniques, constantly using Savagi as a reference, and seeking … what?

  According to the notes, Ludlum sought physical and emotional control, and judging from the video, he had succeeded. What had this Ludlum been? A computer nerd, a geek, much like herself. Overweight, a smoker, one of the marginal people crammed into cubicles all over the modern world. And he had transformed himself into some kind of Olympic-level athlete in what … a year?

  Impossible.

  But if it was true, if it could be true, then this was her heritage. A gift from the great-grandfather who had never held her, never loved her, never cherished her. Had apparently driven her mother into the streets. But his spirit still lived, she was certain. And if she could make that spirit proud, she would have made a connection with him, one that might sustain her.

  And she desperately needed to be proud of something in her life.

  * * *

  In the months that followed, Indra Gupta devoted an average of three hours a day to staring at geometric patterns, breathing slowly enough to risk hypoxia, and chanting phrases gleaned from the articles … and remembered from her mother’s nursery songs. Something within her blossomed. Following her great-grandfather’s instructions and Ludlum’s notes she learned to control her mind’s interpretation of external data, to separate complex sounds into layers and manipulate them mentally. To burn away elements of her visual field, so that she fell helplessly into a field of white.

  And there, she saw her father … so handsome and smiling, white teeth brilliant against his black skin. And her mother, brown and lovely, and fierce. Both dead and gone and in some strange way … hungry. And expecting something terribly wonderful of her.

  “The world is chaos,” her mother had said. “Our minds desperately seek order, and sacrifice their power thereby.” Was that another maternal aphorism? Or was that Savagi’s? She was no longer certain. “When you learn to step beyond the illusions that hold back chaos, you have found the doorway.”

  But that doorway was not self-sustaining. It required energetically aligned intent to keep it open. And when at last fatigue overcame focus her parents disappeared, the blank white walls and halls dissolved, and she was back in her tiny apartment with its grimy walls and windows open to streets filled with the hopeless and homeless.

  All was as it had been … except for one thing. She saw, and was uncertain of what she had seen. A smudge smeared the wall, in the precise location where her visual field had begun to peel away reality. Indra rose from her chair and reached out, afraid to touch it, afraid not to.

  And when she did, the spot on the wall was warm. Almost hot. At least ten degrees warmer than the surrounding paint.

  And at that moment, she felt something awaken within her, and smile.

  Why, Shakti. Wherever have you been?

  * * *

  The very next day she sought out a yoga school on Felsham Road, in fashionable Putney, sandwiched between brown brick buildings. The room was rimmed with fifteen-centimeter-square wooden cubicles within which pairs of shoes and sandals, and neatly folded bundles of clothing were tucked away, awaiting their owners. The walls were covered with posters of improbably flexible, waifish women and muscular smiling men balancing like acrobats or twisting their lean bodies into curlicues while maintaining beatific expressions.

  She greeted the woman at the front desk, a white lady in a beautiful black leotard that displayed broad shoulders and a flat stomach. In her forties, perhaps, b
ut admirably well preserved. “Hello,” Indra said, smiling as warmly as she could. “My name is Indra Gupta. I request instruction.”

  “My pleasure,” the instructor said. “I’m Sarah. Do you have experience?”

  “Not in physical exercises, no. Some of the mental principles.”

  Lean and severe as a prima ballerina, Sarah looked at Gupta’s dumpling-shaped body, and sniffed. “You are African?”

  “Indian.”

  She looked at Indra’s skin with disbelief. “Where do you come from?”

  “Mysore. Other places.”

  “Isn’t that interesting?” the woman said, as if she found it the opposite. “There is a great yoga school in Mysore, taught by a man named K. Pattabhi Jois. Ashtanga. One of the very most difficult forms of yoga.”

  “Of Hatha yoga.” The physical gymnastics were not the highest form, but they were the aspect with the clearest feedback as to accomplishment. The least room for hallucination.

  “Of course. It might be better to begin with something simpler. Easier.”

  “No. I would like you to begin with the end,” Gupta said.

  For the first time, the teacher displayed puzzlement. “The end?”

  “What is the highest level of Ashtanga?”

  Sarah’s otherwise smooth brow wrinkled. “I … don’t know. I think there are five or six levels. I never learned more than the first. And … I’m afraid even that might be inappropriate for you.”

  Gupta concealed her irritation. “I wish to join your class.”

  The instructor bit her lip. “Well … did you bring workout leotards?”

  “Yes,” Indra said, and extracted her newly purchased pair from her bag.

  “Oh. Danskin. Charming. I didn’t know they made them in your size.”

  Anger flared, but Indra Gupta kept her face immobile.

  She changed in the locker room, and some of the other students concealed polite disbelief.

  The students were distributed across the mat: standing, stretching, and talking in hushed voices as Indra entered. A garden of beautiful, toned, muscular bodies. Gupta felt like a sack of wet meal in a field of flowers.

  The teacher appeared, slipped a headset over her tightly braided hair, and stepped up onto a raised, carpeted platform at the front of the class. “All right. We have a new student today. Her name is Indra, and I’d like to welcome her.”

  They responded with polite applause. Some congratulations and words of encouragement. The teacher began class, moving them through poses with names like Surya Namaskara and Utthita Trikonasana. Indra struggled. And then …

  She began to visualize, looking at the instructor and the other students. Following her breathing. Her heartbeat. She found the little girl image within her, and linked it to her adult self. And found her elder, the old woman she might one day be upon her deathbed, withered and worn with experience sweet and bitter, who spoke in gravelly tones she imagined similar to Savagi’s. “The body is our greatest snare. It is created by our minds, but its hungers are so primary that it convinces us that it is the reality, our souls the illusion. The truth is just the opposite. Let your spirit guide the mind, and the mind then guide the body.”

  She grasped the line of light within her darkness. Tied it into a knot, in the shape of a woman performing a sun salutation.

  Her back was stiff. She could not touch her toes.

  “Every muscle in your body is controlled by either your conscious or unconscious mind. The doorway between them is the breath, the only process that is both voluntary and autonomic.”

  Indra lay in a humiliated heap. Ignoring the mocking voices in her head, she picked herself up again. The instructor approached her, lean face compassionate at last. “Really, dear, this class might not be for you.”

  Sweat beaded on Indra’s skin as if the walls were covered with heat coils. “No … I can continue.”

  The instructor was worried. Both for Indra and herself. “Our insurance…”

  Gupta managed a smile. “I’m fine. Fine. Please.”

  She got up. Centered her breathing. Visualized, and focused again. The class continued. Whorls of energy, like glowing fingerprints, coiled from the students around her and danced.

  The echoing waves of respiration, the endless eternal rhythm of inhalation and exhalation from the sweating, straining students enveloped her.

  Forget your body, her great-grandfather said within her. Form the shape of the motion in your mind. Where the mind goes, the body follows.

  She wove her thoughts into a tunnel as narrow as a pencil.

  Gupta struggled back to her feet. The sweat was rolling off her body. Sarah glanced back at her time and again, incredulous and then fascinated.

  Indra wobbled … and then righted herself. Her body began to blossom like a Morning Glory. Her eyes were focused through the wall.

  The instructor droned. “Feel your heels sink into the ground, feel the alignment of your skeleton, the air traveling through the empty places…”

  Gupta finally managed to catch her balance. It felt as if her feet were anchored into the mat, and now she was bending and twisting with remarkable ease.

  Savagi’s voice again: Your body is tight and stiff for one reason: it holds fear and grief. The body is a black bag holding the emotions you have yet to own. It tightens like armor, thinking it protects you, but if you release the pain, you return to the potentials of youth.

  “Release…” Gupta groaned, feeling that she might collapse into the hollows of her own bones.

  Images flashed to mind, thoughts that she could not summon consciously. She saw images of being burned out of her home. Crying, running. Fear. Sanctuary.

  Hell, masquerading as heaven.

  Transform your fear, which paralyzes. Transform it … into anger. Into rage. Destroy the object of your pain. Set yourself free.

  The little girl screamed. The entire crowd disappeared. She stood alone, in an abandoned world of stained walls and shattered houses.

  Then, the buildings crumbled to the ground. And then began to grow, sparkling like gemstones. Beautiful. A crystal kingdom through which she walked, alone.

  Then … children came running out of the doorways, the alleys, laughter and song, holding her hand, covering her with kisses …

  * * *

  Discipline in the class had begun to break down. The measured focus of the advanced students was giving way to astonishment at the chubby, awkward-looking girl whose flesh seemed to possess an ancient and uncanny memory. Sarah was gawking openly by now.

  “The advanced version of that pose is generally considered one beyond the ability of…” Words failed her. She stepped down off the raised platform. “Try this.”

  Not realizing it, she had begun to compete with the little round brown woman. But Indra was oblivious, an empty vessel of total concentration.

  Sarah performed a standing bow pose, Dandayamana Dhanurasana, balancing on one leg, the other pulled up behind her, curving far enough for the sole of her foot to touch the top of her head. Indra reflected it as through a mirror that miraculously removed distortion. Her body sagged, but within the extra meat her legs and arms and spine described a perfection of motion that belied the flesh. Murmuring, the students began to follow her lead.

  Like a field of flowers they were, all aligning with the sun … and Indra was that sun. The instructor was physically beautiful, an athlete. An artist.

  But … Indra Gupta was the source of all light. The air about her shimmered in the humid room. When she moved, they moved.

  Other students peered through the door. Finally the lights dimmed.

  “Sarah? It is time for our class.” They looked from the lean woman to she who by all rights should have been ungainly, and marveled. “Is … is this your teacher?”

  Sarah emerged from her yoga trance, and stared at the clock. Three hours had passed. The students shook themselves out of it.

  Some seemed almost afraid, and made their excuses, streaming out t
he door.

  The instructor hurried the others away, and locked the door. She and a dozen others remained. Sweat and condensation streaked the window as if a tropical storm had raged within.

  Sarah folded her legs lotus style and sat before the plump and shining girl, face shining. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Indra Gupta.”

  “Why did you come?”

  A pause. Indra felt something within her, a swelling of great purpose.

  Then she said: “I came to teach you.”

  CHAPTER 38

  Olympia lay shivering on the living room couch of her faux condominium, tamping down the daymares, focusing on everything she had learned and done in the last hours, trying not to fall into panic or depression. So far as she knew, she was all Hannibal had, and if they were to survive this, she had to find calm within the storm. She thought deeply, constructing a model of the entire grounds in her mind. Wishing that she could commit it to paper. Hannibal had screeched, pointing up in the corners of the room, where tiny glass lenses poked through the plaster, if you looked closely enough. Then he had stopped shrieking. What had that been? Intuition told her that something had hurt his ears. Perhaps surveillance equipment? And did his silence mean that the surveillance had terminated? She suspected so, but dared not take the chance.

  Not now. Later perhaps.

  She had long been frustrated by Hannibal’s inflexibility in certain arenas, but one of the doctors had clarified things for her: autistic children make rules, and insist on playing by them. If you can learn his rules, you can enter his world.

  She had tried, and Hannibal had responded by teaching her a memory game. He would walk with her through a canvas of his imagining, and challenge her to remember where they were and the bits he had told her of their surroundings. And in her desperation to communicate with him, she had learned. Just a bit, but she had learned.

  She imagined the Salvation Sanctuary’s grounds, a clock-dial surrounding the maze garden and inner fountain. The library and the castle at six and nine o’clock. What she could remember of the underground laboratories, stretching from the castle around to the library and main building.