The Hidden School

by Dan Millman

  Where is the key, anyway? I crawled back into the cave and searched the shelf and cave floor, but found nothing.

  Thinking the key to my own journal might unlock the old one, I sat down again at the cave’s mouth, reached into a side pocket, and retrieved it. My hand trembled with nerves as I tried the clasp. I pushed harder and twisted, which was when my hand slipped. I saw the key fall, bounce once on the stone floor, and sail over the edge. I nearly fell myself, reaching for the key as it disappeared with a sickening finality.

  I thought of Papa Joe’s words: “You have all the time you need until your time runs out.” Had my time run out? Did I make it this far only to end a few feet short of a future? I couldn’t believe that—I wouldn’t! Not with a possible key to eternal life in my hands. (The irony was inescapable—and so, it seemed, was the cave.) In a moment of panic, I began to breathe rapidly.

  The next moment I recalled what a navy scuba diver had once told me: In a lapse of good sense, he dove into an underwater cave alone, without affixing a roll of nylon twine outside to use to find his way out again. The dive had looked simple until he found himself in the small cave, having lost sight of the opening through which he could exit. He too began to panic as the cave morphed, in his imagination, into an underwater tomb. His training and a glance at the meter on his air tank calmed him: twenty minutes of air left. He took a slow, deep breath and noticed that his air bubbles were drifting straight down, which meant he was sitting on the ceiling of the cave. He shifted back to the floor, and then slowly swam around the perimeter until the entry/exit hole appeared. He found his way out with ten minutes of air left.

  I had plenty of air and abundant time. I only needed a solution. I recalled how a friend once teased me about believing in miracles. “I don’t believe in them,” I told him. “I rely on them.” I needed one now.

  So I asked myself a question I had repeated on several occasions over the past decade: What would Socrates do in this situation? Then I thought: Wait a minute—what did he do? How could a seventy-six-year-old feverish man have gotten into and out of this place?

  A possible solution appeared, once again, through the agency of a scorpion. I noticed it scuttling along the floor of the cave, marching off into the darkness. I followed, keeping a respectful distance, finding the cave much deeper than I’d first seen. Socrates couldn’t have climbed out! The cave must lead somewhere.

  Of course! The cave had another entrance. And exit. There had to be an easy way out.

  Now hopeful, if not giddy, I decided to repack. In the dim light, I carefully removed all of my belongings, and placed Soc’s thin journal securely in the pack, followed by assorted clothing, my own journal, the samurai, and the kachina doll. Shouldering the knapsack and holding my flashlight in one hand, I crawled deeper into the interior, moving forward and upward through a narrowing tunnel. Ever on the alert for arachnids.

  Cramped spaces were the one thing I enjoyed even less than scorpions and spiders. Now I felt the ceiling descending until the crawl space was so tight that I struggled to remove the knapsack, wrap the straps around my boot, and leave it dragging along behind me for a few yards until the ceiling lifted once more. Relief turned to elation when I saw a distinct pattern of sunlight ahead. Shutting off the flashlight, I scrambled forward.

  In one of the great letdowns of my life, I saw that where once a large opening had existed, a pile of boulders now lay. The sunlight I had seen came from a few rays penetrating cracks and crevices, through which I could glimpse an azure sky beyond. The scorpion appeared again, walking slowly past me, exiting through a small opening into the open air. Another opening near chest level allowed me to reach one arm out, but no more. A landslide or cave-in must have occurred in the years since Socrates had hidden the journal.

  In a burst of desperate, explosive effort, I tried to dislodge even one boulder, but they were jammed so tight I couldn’t begin to move it—even using the pick as leverage. So close and yet so impossibly far! Pounding the boulder, I screamed with frustration.

  Then, taking a few slow, deep breaths, I calmed myself, turned around, and returned the way I had come. There was nothing else to do.

  Back at the cave opening, I leaned out over the precipice and took another look up the cliff face to see if anything might give me a handhold. I saw nothing.

  I still had the pick. I leaned out and swung the pick, but I had little leverage and I could barely see what I was doing. After numerous attempts to chip out a handhold, I looked up and saw that I’d barely even made a mark in the solid stone, about midway to the overhang.

  That’s when I saw it: what had looked like a shadow about four feet above me in the rock face was an actual indentation that might give me a solid, one-handed grip. If I could pull myself to that point, I might be able to reach up the rest of the way with the pick. I put on the pack and prepared for my final ascent, one way or the other.

  Blindly I reached up with the pick again and again until it found the handhold. I pulled. It held. Ever so slowly, I stepped out of the cave and hauled myself upward, hand over hand, climbing the pick’s shaft until I was able to squeeze three fingers into the small cavity. Hanging by my left hand, I did a one-arm chin-up. With my right hand holding the very end of the pick handle, I reached up with the pick once again—

  The curved steel barely slid over the top of the overhang.

  I released my left hand and once again climbed the pick’s shaft—slowly, surely, straining every sinew, the weight of the pack pulling me downward. I got one hand over the edge. Now, hanging in space, I released the pick and grabbed the overhang with my right hand as well. I heard the pick clang below, then silence. Drawing on all my remaining strength, I pulled up, got one forearm over, then the other. Fighting for my life, I swung one boot over the edge and scrambled onto the overhang and away from the edge. Panting, I lay facedown on solid rock.

  TWELVE

  * * *

  A strange feeling of unreality overcame me. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever left the plateau where I now lay on my belly, hugging the ground.

  After my breath calmed, I removed the knapsack, clasped it to my chest, and lay on my back, gazing up into the brilliant azure sky. I closed my eyes, savoring another moment, feeling the sun on my face once again.

  Then a shadow blocked the sun. A stirring, the trace of a sigh, a nearby presence. With a shock, I opened my eyes and sat up. I turned around and smiled in surprise.

  “Pájaro! What in the world are you doing here? How did you—”

  “As it happens, I still have the five dollars you paid me, which I’m willing to return in exchange for the journal in your knapsack.”

  In an instant, it all came into focus: Pájaro was the other man Papa Joe had warned me about. Probably why he’d disappeared when I’d entered that café and found Papa Joe. My instincts weren’t wrong. Someone had indeed been watching me. And following me. Pájaro now wore dark, loose cotton pants and a dark, baggy, long-sleeved cotton shirt. And he casually held a pistol pointed in my general direction. The only thought that came to my mind was: How odd—the Bedouins also wear dark colors, even in the desert.

  Stepping forward, the gun held steady, Pájaro wrenched the bag from me. Without taking his eyes off me, he walked backward about ten feet. “On your stomach!” he said with authority. I lay prone, but kept my head up enough to watch him as he backed up about twenty feet more—to put distance between us, I presumed—before he knelt, turned slightly away from me, and upended my knapsack. I heard, rather than saw, my possessions spill out onto the earth. After looking inside to make sure the knapsack was empty, he tossed it aside. From where I lay I couldn’t see exactly what he was doing, but I guessed he was rooting through my clothing, pushing aside the samurai and the kachina doll.

  When I started to move, just to shift my weight, he spun back and aimed the pistol directly at me. “Don’t,” he said.

  I didn’t.

  If he was crazy or desperate enough to kill me, he prob
ably would have already done so. No need to provoke him, I told myself, he can always change his mind. It dawned on me how vulnerable I was up here atop this lonely mountain, thousands of feet above and miles away from civilization.

  My heart sank when Pájaro seemed to find what he was looking for and slipped it into a small pack. He stood, leaving my possessions scattered on the ground. I heard his breathing quicken in excitement.

  I would never see that journal again.

  He turned back to me. “Where’s the key?”

  “I don’t have it,” I said truthfully.

  He knelt down again and looked in the side pocket, finding my wallet and a few toiletries. He told me to stand and turn out all my pockets, which I did. Satisfied, he ordered me back to a prone position, then said, “I’m not here to rob you. I’m only taking what’s rightfully mine.” Then, with the expansive gesture of a victor and a strange air of intimacy, he added, “I’m taking this journal to read at the grave of my father.”

  The story Ama had told me flashed through my mind. So it’s true, I thought. He’s the gardener’s son! In a moment of compassion, I pleaded with him, for my sake and for his: “Don’t do this, Pájaro! It’s a mista—”

  As I started to lift up my head, I glimpsed a flash of motion. Then the world exploded into darkness.

  I awoke with a throbbing head and felt a large lump. Now alone, I crawled over to the spilled knapsack, hardly believing that he’d left it all—clothing, canteen, my wallet, even the five dollars he owed me. All but the journal.

  I still couldn’t quite bring myself to look. Not knowing, I still had hope. But I couldn’t delay any longer. I reached deep into the empty sack and gasped as I felt Soc’s thin journal through the tear in the lining. For safekeeping, I’d secured it behind the lining when repacking. I’d done so by instinct rather than forethought.

  When Pájaro turned the pack upside down, it had only lodged more securely behind the lining. He had expected, and seen, a heavier journal, locked with a clasp. The thin volume would have felt like little more than a cardboard reinforcement at the back of the pack.

  My hand emerged, holding the book in the desert, passed on to Socrates by Nada so many years before, now safe in my keeping.

  But not for long if I lingered there.

  Pájaro had taken my personal journal containing nothing but a few scattered notes of my travels. How long would it take him to reach his father’s gravesite? It might even be somewhere nearby. Or he might have pulled over, consumed by curiosity, and cut the strap.

  I had to move quickly. How would he react when he discovered that I had somehow deceived him?

  Still shaken, I shoved my belongings back into the pack, then managed to stand and then walk, breaking into a stumbling run down the mountain.

  On the chance that I might recover quickly and follow him, Pájaro had slashed two of the pickup’s tires. Abandoning the truck, I hiked down a thousand-foot grade to another road and waited for the longest thirty minutes of my life until a trucker heading west picked me up. Relieved, I told him that dinner was on me at the next truck stop, then slid down in the seat as if taking a nap. I was exhausted and my head still ached, but I was far too nervous to sleep. I stayed out of sight of any passing cars and focused on the road ahead.

  It was time to leave the country.

  THIRTEEN

  * * *

  At the next truck stop, I gave the driver money for his meal and a quick handshake, then excused myself. At a pay phone outside, I placed a call to the rental company, reporting the vandalism and the location of the pickup, and said I’d found other transportation. Then I called the airline and arranged to leave LAX for Japan the next day. I thought of calling my daughter, and then Ama, but decided that would have to wait. Right now I needed to catch a ride.

  I asked several people on their way to their cars if they were headed toward Los Angeles. After several head shakes, a hefty bearded guy opened the door of a late-model Chevy Camaro and nodded. I sighed with relief as we pulled out, but every time we passed a car, I slid a little lower in my seat, which seemed to amuse my driver. “Sticking it to the man?” he asked.

  “Something like that.”

  Like the Camaro, my mind went into overdrive as we sped out of desert country and approached Los Angeles County. I had to assume that Pájaro—the gardener’s son—would be seeking me by now, or soon.

  When my ride dropped me off a few miles from LAX the next morning, I walked to a nearby hotel entrance to catch a taxi. I found momentary satisfaction in paying the driver with the five-dollar bill Pájaro had left on the ground next to me after knocking me unconscious.

  After checking in and getting my boarding pass, I bought another folding knife, a new notebook, two pens, a baseball cap, a T-shirt, a small towel, and a few other small items. I put my wallet, my passport, Soc’s letter, and about $180 in remaining cash in a smaller pocket of the knapsack. I checked to make sure the journal was still safely tucked under the lining.

  In a nearby restroom I removed my sweat-soaked shirt and stuffed it into the trash. I pulled on a new pair of socks and washed the dirt from my hiking boots. After cleaning my face, chest, and underarms, I slipped into the tourist T-shirt, strung the sunglasses around my neck, and donned the baseball cap.

  Now less recognizable and with all my belongings repacked, I heard the boarding announcement for my flight. I rushed to the gate, abandoning plans to call my daughter or Ama for now. Vigilant, if not slightly paranoid, I kept looking over my shoulder and scanning the concourse and the crowd of other travelers at the gate.

  I boarded the flight, which would connect through Hong Kong and then continue, finally, to Japan. Finding my seat, I forced myself to stay awake until the airplane door closed and we started to taxi. Then with a sigh and a comforting thought—If I don’t know my next address, he can’t either—I fell down the rabbit hole of sleep.

  I awoke in darkness with a start. It took me a few moments to recall where I was. From the window seat, I glanced at the two passengers on my right. Both were asleep. I pulled my knapsack from under the seat. Carefully removing the journal, I stared at the metal clasp. It had a slot for an old-fashioned key. Socrates must have had the key. Why hadn’t he left it with the journal? I tried picking the clasp with my knife without success. I could cut the short strap, but something stopped me. It wasn’t like breaking into a pharaoh’s tomb, but it didn’t feel right. I pulled again at the clasp. It held fast.

  I slipped the journal back into my knapsack and was about to drift off again, trusting my subconscious to come up with a solution. Almost as soon as I closed my eyes, the kachina doll appeared in mind, along with Papa Joe’s words: “I’ve given you all that I can.” Then I thought, It’s a gift for my daughter, nothing more. Still, I reopened the knapsack and reached past shirts and underwear to retrieve the doll. I felt the round base of the doll and found a soft spot. I turned it over and pushed. The paper tore in a semicircle. I shook the doll, and an old key, wrapped in a strip of paper, fell into my hand. On the scrap of paper I could just make out one word, in a shaky script: ¡Exactamente! I retrieved the journal and fit the key into the lock. The clasp opened.

  Socrates must have given the key to Papa Joe for reasons of his own. Or Papa Joe had taken it. Either way, he had chosen to give the key to me. I felt a warm glow toward the old man. And toward Ama too. I’d call her soon and tell her what had happened.

  As the aircraft soared over the Arctic Circle, I opened the first page of the journal to see the text that Socrates had already shared in his letter. I read the story again, written in Nada’s hand, about the flight to Samarra. I wondered, Is Samarra a place or a reminder to us all?

  I turned the page, flipped through the slim book, and saw that Socrates had indeed written on about twenty pages, leaving nearly as many blank. But the fever had taken its toll: instead of the lucid text Soc’s letter had led me to hope for, I found broken phrases, insights, and notes. If a coherent thread had unsp
ooled from his subconscious, it wasn’t yet visible to me. What I found was more outline than polished thesis. It was almost as if Socrates had laid the groundwork for someone else to build upon. Someone like me.

  I felt a wave of adrenaline followed by a sinking feeling (or maybe it was the other way around), perhaps not unlike the feeling Soc had described having when he read Nada’s note encouraging him to fill in the blank pages.

  The torch had now been passed to me. A strange thrill snaked up my spine—a sense of déjà vu—as I realized that the ancient Greek Socrates was an oral teacher. It was his own student and colleague, Plato, who committed his teacher’s ideas to the written word. But I’m no Plato! I thought.

  I would need to study what Soc had written. I’d have to read it many times, memorize all of it, and then let it settle into me and shape itself. And then, just maybe—drawing on all my training with him—I could apply my own discernment to expand on his insights, filling in where necessary, interpreting, and finally writing something worthy of his wisdom. Now I knew the kind of responsibility that Socrates must have experienced in facing those empty pages. Then I fell into a deep sleep and didn’t wake again until the wheels touched down in Hong Kong.

  During our long taxi to the terminal, the captain announced, “Due to a maintenance issue, we’ll have a delay of around four hours. Feel free to deplane, but stay close to the boarding area.” That’s when it occurred to me: What if I don’t reboard? What if I stay here and explore the city? An unscheduled stop wouldn’t hurt. Besides, Hong Kong was well-known for practitioners of t’ai chi and other internal arts from China. I could visit some local teachers, inquire about schools off the beaten path. Another long shot, but I seemed to be depending on those lately. I might even drop the name Socrates, here and there. I notified the airline, cleared customs, and walked out of the airport.