The Book of Stanley

by Todd Babiak

  “There are maybe five of them left up there. Down here, we have plenty. But most moved on, back when we were permitted to move on.”

  “Moved where?”

  Mary Schäffer shook her head. “You are bloody infuriating.”

  They walked up the steps and entered the octagonal central chamber of the Taj Mahal. The translucent white marble was decorated with Arabic inscriptions in black. A giant brass lamp hung from the dome. As Stanley oriented himself among the crowds, the symmetry of the chamber made him dizzy.

  Mary Schäffer directed Stanley to a chair in the centre of the room, up on a riser. “Usually we’d have the cenotaphs here, but we needed a stage.”

  “Right,” said Stanley.

  There was a long table to his right, where a man and two women sat. The man and one of the women were aboriginals. The other woman, stunningly gorgeous, with a fierce look of concentration, was Chinese. Mary Schäffer sat in the remaining chair. In front of her, on the table, the nameplate said “Mayor.” She introduced Stanley to the three others. Neither of the aboriginals seemed to speak English and they weren’t particularly friendly.

  “Jin Ting Zhang,” said the Chinese woman. “Or Clara, whichever you prefer.”

  Stanley smiled. “Which do you prefer?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Yes, but I’m asking.”

  “Asking what, pray tell, Mr. Moss?”

  “Which name you–”

  “Stop talking to me. You’re filled with drivel.”

  They waited several minutes for the central chamber of the Taj Mahal to fill up. During this time, Jin Ting Zhang spoke merrily to the aboriginal couple in what could have been their language. Mary Schäffer signed some papers for a man with stiff posture, dressed like photographs of Benjamin Franklin.

  Quiet settled over the full room. The only times Stanley had seen this many people in one building were during Edmonton Oilers playoff games. Mary Schäffer stood up. “We all know why we’re here, so I won’t waste any time with introductory speeches.”

  “Good!” said someone in the crowd.

  “I’d like to formally present Stanley Moss. On your feet, Mr. Moss.”

  The crowd did not applaud. People below him, on all sides, simply stared in silence.

  “We have invited Stanley Moss here to answer our questions. I informed Mr. Moss, some days ago, that he was creating an unprecedented spiritual interruption. On your behalf, I politely asked him to explain himself. He refused.”

  “Why?” said someone in the audience below. This inspired an outburst of more and louder “Why?”s, shouts of disapproval, threats, and insults.

  Mary Schäffer stared at Stanley with a raised chin. Just below, on the floor of the Taj Mahal, Darlene appeared. “Speak up,” she said, over the chaos. “Say something.”

  Stanley waved the crowd silent. “I sincerely apologize if I’ve offended you in some way with my spiritual interruption. But I assure you, this was not my choice. To be honest, I don’t know why I have these powers or what they mean. I don’t know what I am, or who you are, or if there’s a God. Maybe you can help me. I have these followers. One had a heart attack and I’m quite worried about him.”

  “Liar!” said a man.

  “Leave us alone!” said a woman.

  “Chop that head off ASAP!”

  The aboriginal man onstage with Stanley denounced him and spat on the table. Once he’d finished this loud and clearly angry speech, the crowd roared in approval.

  “Let’s put it to a vote,” said Mary Schäffer. “How many of you wish Mr. Stanley Moss to be banished from the Bow Valley?”

  Nearly every arm in the Taj Mahal rose up. All but Darlene’s.

  “It’s decided, then,” said Mary Schäffer. “Take your people elsewhere, to Aspen, maybe, or Lake Tahoe, or Sharm El Sheikh.”

  That marked the end of the gathering. The citizens of Svarga shook one another’s hands, slapped each other on the back, and started out of the Taj Mahal. Mary Schäffer and the other leaders joined their constituents. Stanley waited until nearly everyone was gone. The shifting of his feet echoed in the great marble tomb.

  Darlene called out from below. “Are you all right?”

  “I’ve had better mornings.”

  “Let’s get you back to the surface.”

  Stanley hopped down from the stage and walked with Darlene to the entrance. He turned back, and the stage had already transformed back into the screened cenotaphs of Shah Jehan and his wife Arjuman Banu Begum.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  When the old man had been under the surface for a full minute, Kal got up from the mimosa-and-cake picnic and bounced across the rocks toward shore. He looked over the water, but couldn’t see Stanley. There were no footsteps or clouds of disturbed sand.

  “Is he there?” said Tanya, back at the rock.

  “No.”

  Swimming was not Kal’s chief talent but he had to try. He pulled off his shirt, shoes, and jeans and stepped into the clear green water. It was much colder than he had anticipated. But this was serious business, so Kal dove in and opened his eyes.

  The water was not just cold. Kal’s bones ached, and then he felt as if his skin were actually burning. Underwater, he found it nearly impossible to concentrate on his search for Stanley. Anyway, there was no sign of him. So Kal thrashed back to the rocky shore and, once he was fully out of the water, screamed involuntarily.

  Kal hugged himself and tears filled his eyes. If there were anything left of Stanley that was normal and human, he would already be dead. The ripples of Kal’s short swim lapped out into the lake and dissipated entirely.

  A large white boat approached the shore and moored itself, several hundred yards out, to a buoy Kal had not noticed. Several people stood up, dressed in black. Scuba divers. He called out to the scuba divers on the boat and waved, hoping they might poke around under the surface for Stanley, but they did not hear him.

  Kal called out, over and over, and jumped on the rocks. For a moment, he rested his voice and stared at the sun reflecting in crooked checkmarks on the surface of the lake. He had brought his hands to his mouth and was prepared to yell again when Stanley walked out of the water. There was hardly a ripple. Stanley was not there and then he was there, completely dry and smiling.

  “What’s going on?”

  Kal looked down at himself in his wet, drooping underwear and rushed in to hug Stanley. It reminded Kal of a recurring dream through his teen years, of his father walking unexpectedly through the door in Thunder Bay. Running to his father, both angry and ecstatic. The desire to hide his father away from death.

  “God damn it,” he said, and slapped Stanley’s back. “Don’t do that to us.”

  FIFTY-FIVE

  The Banff Community High School gymnasium and soccer field did not come cheap. Though Kal had given part of his loan to The Stan to cover the rental, Tanya never paid retail.

  “This is a non-profit organization, Mr. Thiessen, a religion.”

  The school principal, a tall, sunburned man in his summer uniform of red vinyl short-shorts and a white tank top advertising Mexican beer, smiled sardonically. “Right.”

  “You disagree?”

  Mr. Thiessen looked around the room. “I do.”

  “In what way?”

  “It’s all so transparent. The media circus you’ve created here. You’re certainly not in this for the spiritual reward, Ms. Gervais.”

  “What is that supposed to mean, sir?”

  They were standing in the centre of the gym, on top of a bear-head design. How inventive, thought Tanya. The Banff high school basketball team was called the Bears. She blamed this–the ugly banners on the wall, the motivational posters, and the anti-bullying propaganda in the hallway–on Mr. Thiessen.

  “Nothing.” Mr. Thiessen walked toward the doors. “Nothing at all.”

  “You’re not a believer?” said Tanya, as she followed him.

  “I’ve been a believer all my life
, Ms. Gervais.” He did not turn around as he spoke. He opened the door for her, however. “But I believe in an actual deity, a holy book, a tradition, a religion. Not a profitable hoax, if you’ll pardon my frankness.”

  Tanya stopped. “I will pardon your frankness, sir, but not your arrogance. Not your chauvinism. Why are your miraculous prophet and rich religion more worthy of respect than my prophet and poor religion?”

  “My prophet is the son of God.”

  Tanya knew, instinctively, that she should stop arguing with Mr. Thiessen. He would not be converted. And her goal at the Banff Community High School was not to discuss theological concerns. She was there to get a good price on an evening’s rental of the field.

  What would Stanley do? Tanya paused to wonder about this, and to her consternation she discovered that she did not know what Stanley would do. She made a note on the back of one of her Leap business cards: “Make guide for ethical living, and quick.”

  In the late 1980s, Tanya had worked as a production assistant for six months in Hollywood. She’d shared a tiny apartment in Studio City with two other women and briefly dated a young actor who was active in Scientology. The young actor was very secretive about his religion, but he did encourage Tanya to take a personality test. Usually when she took personality tests Tanya lied in order to make herself seem more attractive, powerful, and mysterious, but since she knew there would be no future with the young actor she answered honestly.

  To her great surprise, the test showed she was unhappy. Deeply unhappy, out of balance, and divided from her fellow human beings. For three days these results echoed in her mind until Tanya nearly made an appointment at the nearest Church of Scientology for a detailed assessment.

  Then, one night, just before sleep, the marketer in Tanya understood what was happening to her. She had been lured by fear: the great genius of missionary religion. Instead of signing up for an assessment, for improvement and reward, she broke up with the young actor, quit her job, moved to Toronto, and got seriously involved in cocaine for a year or two.

  Stunned by this memory in the hallway of the Banff Community High School, she smiled. Then laughed. Tanya slapped Mr. Thiessen on the back. “Amazing,” she said.

  “What’s amazing?”

  She decided not to explain, and excused herself. Tanya rushed down Banff Avenue to the High Country Inn. That morning she had opened the Cascade Conference Room at the inn as a media centre, and had booked a Q & A.

  When she arrived, thirty minutes early for the session, the room was already half full. Kal and Maha were distributing copies of The Testament, which Tanya now saw as an insufficient strategic expression of The Stan.

  Tanya pulled Maha and Kal to the back of the room.

  “What do you want?” she said.

  Maha and Kal looked at one another, and then back at Tanya. Neither of them, apparently, understood the question. Tanya wanted to knock their heads together and ask again, but instead she reframed it.

  “Search your hearts. If there was one thing you wanted for yourselves and the world, more than anything, what would it be?”

  Kal brightened. “It used to be an NHL career. Then it was accordion powers. I have that now. I suppose, more than anything, I want the love of a good woman. And a better relationship with my daughter.”

  “Maha?”

  “To serve the Lord to the utmost of my ability.”

  Maha and Kal were ripe to be plucked by a serious young actor who believed wholeheartedly in the rather expensive spiritual journey of Scientology. A religion for today had to be intensely personal. Stanley had to be a personal god, and the message had to be pliable enough to promise individual perfection.

  “Maha, you’re a princess.” Tanya placed her palms on Maha’s cheeks and kissed her on the mouth.

  “Thanks,” she said, “I guess.”

  “Now, get back to work.”

  At the appointed hour, Tanya stood behind the podium with her notes. “Many of you have been waiting to hear and see something substantial since the night at the Banff Centre. Well, I have good news.”

  FIFTY-SIX

  Though she knew it was naughty, Maha stood outside the Lord’s room in the house on Grizzly Street and listened to his conversation with Frieda. Maha knew they spoke on the phone every day, and that these calls were disappointing for the Lord. From the street came the usual chanting in a variety of languages. Maha leaned close to the keyhole.

  The Lord was attempting to convince Frieda that New York was ridiculously hot and humid at this time of year, to wait, to come back. To try, for a day or two. To please…. No, please. He tried to compromise with her, and to Maha it sounded as though his voice broke into weeping. But Frieda seemed to refuse, and the call ended without the Lord saying goodbye. Maha waited a few minutes and then knocked on his door.

  “Yes?”

  Maha opened it and stepped inside his bedroom. The Lord held the receiver aloft, as though he had forgotten it was in his hand. All at once he sat up straight and hung up the phone. Maha knew he had read her thoughts, and knew it would be redundant to apologize and articulate her sympathies. But she could not help herself. “That is the most difficult part of all this. Leaving what we’ve left behind.”

  “Yes,” said the Lord, very gently.

  “Not that my situation is anything like yours. I was happy to leave.” Maha picked at her cuticles. “But I miss the city at sunset, the sound of French, my parents and my brother, the falafel place on Saint-Laurent…” All this, compared to the Lord’s wife, seemed pathetic. So Maha nodded a couple of times and inspected the three pictures above the fireplace. “Have you been outside today?”

  “I looked out.”

  “The crowds.”

  “Yes.” The Lord smiled and gestured at the adjacent wicker chair. “You have come to discuss something. A problem?”

  “Not a problem, exactly.”

  “Tanya.”

  “Yes. Tanya.” Maha drew blood from the side of her index finger. There was a teapot on the table between them, and a couple of scones. A pile of religious books, from the Banff Public Library, lay on the floor in front of the Lord’s feet. Maha took a scone and bit into it, feeling like a snitch or a betrayer. “No.”

  “No?”

  Maha stood up and started for the door. “No. I won’t say what I had planned to say. It is premature and…malicious. I’m sorry to bother you.”

  “You’re not bothering me.” The Lord laughed. “Never think that way. This isn’t a corporation and I’m not a busy CEO. No matter what happens, we’re still who we came here to be.”

  “Thank you.”

  On her way out of the room, Maha felt a sense of withdrawal she associated with smokers and drug addicts. Being in the same space as the Lord, alone with him, filled her with an uneasy pleasure. It was almost too much, and invariably it became queer if it lasted too long. But as soon as she was away from the Lord, Maha wanted to be near him again.

  Maha put on a large pair of sunglasses. Still, outside the door, they recognized and swarmed her. There were growing vigils set up for the sick and desperate, and the men and women sitting on the Mexican blankets and in cheap plastic lawn furniture petitioned her for help. They held up photographs and shouted the names of children dying with horrible diseases. As usual, the demonstrators reminded Maha that she was bound for Hell. Thanks to Tanya’s agreement with the major media outlets, Maha went unharassed by reporters. However, pilgrims and protesters followed her, and a number of photographers snapped pictures as she started down Grizzly Street.

  There was an RCMP guard at the hospital stationed in front of Alok’s door, at the request of The Stan’s new lawyer, Tanya’s friend from Calgary. Inside the room, Alok sat on the edge of his bed staring out at a woman picking up the feces of her Great Dane.

  “Hey, good-looking.”

  Alok turned slowly. “Maha.”

  In truth, Alok was far from good-looking. There were dark bags under his eyes. He looked olde
r, thinner, and bluer than the man she had met. Maha sat in the chair. “Are you feeling better?”

  He smiled. “Absolutely.”

  “Can the Lord cure you? I mean, if you start to feel bad again?”

  “He tried yesterday and the day before. It’s upsetting to him, I can see that. But it’s completely unnecessary, sweetheart. I’m feeling terrific. Really terrific.”

  Maha sat in the chair at the foot of Alok’s bed. “Tanya is taking over.”

  “Taking over?”

  “Yesterday she held a press conference and said The Stan is about perfecting the self. Making your dreams come true. Pushing through that barrier. You know late at night, on TV, those commercials about becoming energetic and sexy and rich?”

  “If only you’ll buy the book and tapes.”

  “That’s what Tanya sounded like. The reporters seemed bored, actually. All they want is to see the Lord fly around and make birds talk.”

  Alok sat back and placed his hands together. There was a new peacefulness about him that Maha both admired and feared. “Having this distance from you all these past few days, I’ve realized something. I know why Stanley has been chosen–for his humility and his confusion. When we sit around and talk about the purpose of a religion, we’re killing it. We’ve strip-mined God. Spiritual matters are so literal and functional today, and political, that they’re abhorrent. There’s no mystery left, Maha, and that’s why we’re here. To restore wonder and fear and confusion. To allow science to be science, history to be history, rituals to be rituals, myths to be myths. Religions aren’t meant to answer the hard questions. Religion is the hard question. I’m so comforted by this.”

  A loud whoosh went through the room as a medical helicopter took off. A glass of water shook on the bedside table and Maha ducked, instinctively. But Alok didn’t move. Maha didn’t see how it could be comforting, what Alok had said.

  “I don’t think Tanya will agree with you.”