by Marc Laidlaw
Reting sat huddled over the slate, clinging to the window frame so that he would not be tossed from the jeep as it sped over uneven roads into a fold of hills below the town. How many minutes had passed? How accurate was the Bardo Thodol, the Book of the Dead? Tashi had made more precise predictions about the grace period, but they escaped Reting. Tashi would have known exactly what to do, exactly how much time they had.
Poor Tashi!
The doors of the Institute open ahead of him. He rushed down the bright halls, past startled guards. In the distance he could hear a siren, softer than the chanting of monks at a monastery deeper in the valley.
At last, Tashi’s laboratory.
It had never seemed so cold, so clinical. The Bardo device loomed at the far end of the room like a gray metal altar. The control console was dominated by a large holovision screen. The housing of the device rose all the way to the high ceiling, but most of it was featureless metal scored by access panels and ventilation grills. To the right of the station, in a detached booth, was a translucent moonwhite disk, two meters in diameter. A constellation of scanning lenses glimmered in the hood of darkness above this, the containment stage. He shuddered to think of the times he’d wondered if they would ever have a chance to prove the device.
He threw himself down at the console, switching on the system and letting it warm while he scanned Tashi’s slate for the most recent data.
Here was the equation of emptiness Tashi had mentioned. Reting didn’t have time to examine the work, but it seemed incomplete—no more than a sketch of Tashi’s whole thought. His teacher had often assumed that his unspoken intuitions were the most obvious part of any
solution. The equation was useless in such a state. He couldn’t begin to enter it into the computer.
The parent document, however, showed a complete—even polished—proof. This was the Chenrezi formula that Tashi had shown him. As he loaded the information into the main computer, he heard shouting in the hallway and the sound of squeaking wheels. The Bardo device accepted the information without complaint, but there was no time to see if the recalibration made any difference.
Medics hurried into the lab, pushing a cart ahead of them. Reting shivered.
“Over there,” he said. “On the disk. Take him off the cart.”
The medics worked hastily, leaving the body shrouded as they laid it out on the platform. The covering blanket was soaked with blood; he was grateful that they did not unveil the wound.
“Ready, Dr. Norbu,” said the Bardo device. Its voice was a gentle creation of Tashi’s, the voice of a bodhisattva.
When he switched on the ray the shape was bathed in red light; for a moment it was possible to believe that there was no blood. Then the light turned blue and the stain took on a ghastly purple hue, like a fatal bruise. Again the light changed—to white this time—and the bloodstains sprang out in total clarity, seeming to detach from the body and float toward him in a spreading mist.
He turned away, fighting dizziness. He must not faint.
“Leave me,” he said.
The medics hurried out, closing the door behind them.
He was alone with Tashi. Alone with the Bardo device.
“I think we’re in time,” he whispered, turning his eyes to the screen.
The scanner had already begun to plumb the body’s secrets, penetrating flesh, blood, and bone and sketching them out in translucent layers in the tanklike holovision screen. The image resembled a dying fire. Spots of blackness sparked and throbbed, spreading through the clouds of colored light that represented Tashi’s body.
“Begin containment,” he said.
“Containment procedure initiated,” the device replied.
Glancing to the side, he saw the lenses flicker, projecting red rays at intervals along the circumference of the moondisk. Where the rays touched the disk, they seemed to smoulder. Tiny holograms appeared, red syllables the size of candle flames: each one was a Sanskrit HRI.
Onscreen, the body was also ringed in red HRIs. They began to move, half running clockwise, half counterclockwise, weaving past one another to form a red chain. At the center of the circle, a single crimson HRI condensed in Tashi’s ruined heart.
The pale colors that had begun to seep away from Tashi’s head, feet, and fingertips now solidified at their edges and began to rush back into the body, gathering in the central HRI. The syllable brightened, bathing the screen in red light. For an instant the corpse flared like a blue flame at the heart of a scarlet inferno.
The body vanished from the screen. All that remained were slender filaments of color, fine channels of red, blue, white, green, and yellow light which pulsed like arteries of fire.
At the edge of his eye, Reting saw that the moondisk was a storm of light and color. He didn’t dare risk a glance at it.
Recalibration had put a fine edge on the device’s operation. He had never dreamed it could work with such accuracy. These visions were being generated by the Bardo device according to the patterns of energy which it encountered as it followed the process of Tashi’s death.
“Containment completed, Dr. Norbu,” whispered the bodhisattva.
“Already?” He looked over at the dais and saw nothing but a thin white beam shining down at the navel of the corpse, like an umbilicus tying it to the device.
“Tag it,” he said.
“The skandha-hologram has been recorded; the mind itself is tagged. It is now time for the first descent.”
“You—you can’t hold him back for a moment?”
“Impossible. My interference quickens the Bardo process. I can only follow and provide illuminadon at preordained points.”
“Will you be able to hold his soul when the dissolution is complete? Can you hold onto it indefinitely, until we find another body?”
“That is unknown at this time, Dr. Norbu.”
He sank back into his seat.
Onscreen, the shimmering network of five-colored light began to waver, fading away. A silver haze spread through the screen like smoke filling an aquarium. The device could follow the soul but Dr. Norbu could not. The computer could scarcely generate images for what was to come. No three-dimensional screen could hold an image of the Clear Light.
“Dr. Norbu, may I ask the name of the deceased?”
He swallowed, putting a hand on the console as if to offer reassurance.
“I . . . I thought you knew. It is Tashi Drogon, your creator.”
“I am sorry,” said the device.
He put his head in his hands and finally allowed himself to weep. He was almost sorry to have the time free to think, So much time lay ahead of him, so much loneliness.
The Bardo device, for his benefit as well as that of the dead soul, began to speak:
“O nobly born Tashi Drogon, the time has come to set foot once again on the Path known to all men.
“Your breathing has ceased. You have had done with the beating of a heart for now. You have had enough of flesh, enough of life.
“Know that you have faced the Clear Light before, between countless incarnations. Your spirit has risen and fallen numberless times between the hells and heavens, the world of animals and the world of men.
“Once again you must face the void. Even now you are sinking into it, as earth sinks into water.
“The terrifying visions have not yet dawned. The Lords of Death restrain themselves until you have crossed the first abyss. Should you lose yourself utterly in the Clear Light, they will never find you.
“Therefore, concentrate on my voice. Look on me as your Lama and your lamp. I will shed light for you when you find yourself in the dark places. I will offer what advice I can. You will hear me wherever you are—for the mind is limitless, luminous, and infinitely aware. Listen for my guidance as you go to meet the Clear Light.
“Do not fear any visions of hell and torment. They are nothing but the vapors of decay, released by the decomposition of the skandhas. Do not attach yourself to dull colors or sed
uctive images.
“In life you may have seen truth, but you saw it only through the veil of flesh. Now that veil has fallen away. You go to meet the Mother and not her Child. In a shining body you fly to her, passing beyond appearance into emptiness.
“Do not cling to life. Do not fear the abyss.
“All that you will see is a reflection of your consciousness. The Peaceful and Wrathful Deities alike are your own creations.
“Therefore, have no fear of death.
“Neither should you fear life, for birth and death alike are great returnings.
“And if you are shut out of the Clear Light by vast black doors, if you flee out of terror and become snared in the Death Bardo—which leads to the Bardo of Life—even then do not lose hope.
“For the doors of the womb also lead into light. And if you travel cautiously through the realms of horror and confusion, the womb may open to you. You will hear once again the pounding of a heart; you will taste once again the breath of life.
“If you are not blown out utterly at this time, you will live again.
“If you fall not into hell or an animal existence, perhaps you will have a human birth. I will guide you on that path. And truly, it is better to be a man than a god; for men may achieve enlightenment, while even gods must fall from their lofty temples, die in great pain, and take up human form once again if they wish to escape the wheel.
“So do not despair. I will show you the way to avoid hell, the hungry ghosts, and the animal realm. Perhaps you will even find your way into Dawachen, the land of bliss, where you will be born from a lotus instead of a womb.
“So go now, calling on Chenrezi the Thousand-Armed.
“Just ahead of you, the Clear Light is dawning.”
Dr. Norbu looked over the dais. The blood had begun to dry on the blanket.
Where are you, Tashi? he wondered. Can you hear our device? Can you hear my thoughts, as the dead are supposed to? I wish you luck, my friend. The device works, it seems; it’s tagged your soul with no difficulty. Now let’s see if it can guide you through the storm and hold you safely until we can think what to do with you. If it can, Tashi, then nothing is lost. We will find you a womb, a new body. I will be your teacher, as you were mine. Your assassin will have harmed no one but himself. We will show the world that violence accomplishes nothing, that even death cannot stop us.
He looked over at Tashi’s electronic slate and sighed. Here his mentor had proved the equality of emptiness and appearance. Something was missing from the equation, but he had no idea what. Tashi had left him floating in an ever-widening wake. Who knew what the device might have accomplished, had Tashi brought the work to completion?
He set down the slate, stared again into the silvery eye of the Bardo device, and then sat back to wait.
For you, Tashi, I will wait for years.
***
Kate lay shivering in Peter’s arms, wide awake, feeling the first touch of dawn on her eyelids. She had slept no more than a few hours in the wake of their lovemaking. Their passion had swept her into a warm, peaceful sea—a sea of dreams. But soon those dark waters had turned threatening. She had been awakened by nightmares of gunfire, explosions, severed hands, voices screaming in languages she did not know. Peter had slept on through the night, warm as embers in a hearth. She had clung to him without disturbing him, but wishing all the same that he were awake to reassure her.
The chaos of the previous night had continued long past the death of the three-eyed man. The Dharamsala police had called his demise suicide; a poison capsule had been discovered crushed between his molars. The police had grilled Peter and Kate in broken English on their involvement in the capture. After hours of sitting in the hotel manager’s office being asked the same questions again and again, she had begun to believe that she and Peter were suspects. But eventually the officers had made heartfelt apologies and let them go.
No explanations had been offered, however. She still had no idea who had been shot, or why. The body of the three-eyed man had been removed by the time they returned to their room, and their friends had gone to sleep.
“I want to leave,” she had told Peter, as soon as they were inside.
“Leave? Why? It’s over, Kate. We have a week in Dharamsala. You’ll forget about it.”
She had begun to cry then, burying her face in the hollow of his neck. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“Mm.” His arms went around her. “There’s nothing else we can do.”
She kept thinking of the man with the bony face. It was the pain in his eyes, more than anything else, that hurt her.
“Hold me,” she’d said.
“I am holding you.”
“Closer. I need . . . ”
“What?”
She hadn’t been able to say. It was nothing she could put into words. But Peter had understood. They had let their bodies speak, reaffirming that they were together and alive despite the frailty of muscle, blood, and bone. She began to wonder if she had been in India too long, if she were becoming a nihilist. Life was cheap here. You saw it expended everywhere: corpses on the roadside, pyres burning on the ghats.
In silence, their bodies argued. No, Peter seemed to say. It’s not only that. There is also this.
Pleasure had worked its way through her muffled senses until the night air pierced her lungs. Their bodies came together, gasping, of one mind, violence and sorrow forgotten for the moment.
Now she opened her eyes and stared at the mountains above the hotel. The sky was brilliant blue, bottomless. She felt as if she were falling into it.
Peter stirred. Fearing that her shivering would wake him, she slipped out of the bag and drew on her clothes.
“Where are you going?”
She turned, hopping on one stockinged foot as she struggled to get a hiking sneaker onto the other.
“I didn’t want to wake you,” she said.
He sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “I don’t want you to go.”
She smiled. “I’m just going to the bathroom.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean, I don’t want you to go back to California.”
She stopped hopping and put down her foot.
“Come back to Geneva with me.”
“Peter . . . ”
“Kate, I love you. ”
She kicked off the shoe and knelt beside him, drew his blond-bearded face to her breast. “Oh, Peter. I love you, too.”
He murmured into her sweater, “Will you come with me?”
“Why can’t you come to California?”
“If that’s what it takes, I will.”
She felt tears starting from her eyes. She wasn’t sure what to think.
“Is this too sudden?” he asked. “Because I don’t feel that it is. We’ve gotten to know each other gradually, you must admit—considering we’ve been together continuously for . . . ”
“A month.”
“Will you think about it?”
She kissed him. “I’ve already thought about it. I do want to stay with you, Peter, but I don’t know that I want to live in Geneva—no more than I want to go home and pick up where I left off. But you know, there’s another place we could go.”
“Where’s that?”
“The Fellowship needs volunteers. We could travel together, couldn’t we? There are projects in Europe and America, even in Asia if we—”
“Not Asia. This place has opened my eyes a bit too wide. I need to see something familiar again.”
She remembered the man in white rolling over when she pushed him. Three eyes.
“I know what you mean,” she said.
He drew her down to him.
***
Reting awoke from a nightmare of violence. A storm had broken over his head, trapping him in a land of jagged crystals and broken glass. Every step and stumble was torment, slicing him to ribbons. The rain was red; it had the stink of old blood. He knew it was his own.
He had been wandering forever,
perpetually in flight, a fugitive.
The dream had begun in darkness, but then a great light had arisen like a sun vaster than infinity. As the merest edge of its circumference had dawned on the horizon of his dreams, he had fled in terror, fearing that he would burst into flames,
Then lightning crashed at his feet. The sky pulled itself up into peaks crested by foaming clouds, arching above like a wave that would drown him utterly.
As the wave began to break, he heard a soothing voice say, “Nobly born, you have passed beyond the Clear Light. It is out of reach. But do not lose hope. Do not lose hope.”
He jerked himself awake and found that he had fallen asleep upon the console of the Bardo device.
The silver vapor had passed from the screen. Green light filled the tank, a watery turmoil—
Yes, it was a breaking wave.
As the foam came crashing down, he flinched as if it were falling on his own head. He saw a shadow, black as a hole into nothingness, cowering beneath the wave. He watched as it was swept away. The Bardo device tracked it through rushing tides. Surely it would be destroyed. . . .
But no. It was Tashi s soul. It was indestructible.
Or was it still Tashi? Could he give it such a name? What relation did it bear to his old friend?
He remembered the feeling of being a fugitive, nameless, without identity, no more than a shadow in a dream of shadows. He remembered the howl of wind and the sound of thunder, the agony slashing at every raw nerve.
He had seen it all in his dream, as if somehow sharing the experience with Tashi.
More likely, he had been gazing into the screen with his dreaming eyes half open.
The flood left the black soul-shadow stranded on a rocky shore. Fierce winds peeled it from the momentary purchase and swept it like a scrap of inky paper into the midst of an inferno that could not consume it. The images were silent but Reting Norbu could easily imagine the roar of an infinite forest in flames.