Confessions of a Librarian

by Barbara Foster

  Chloe sobbed and mascara ran down her face until she looked like Robespierre, black and white. Marilyn, insisting that she stretch out on the couch, stroked Chloe’s forehead. After two cups of rose hips tea, Chloe sat up and smiled. Confessing her unhappiness to sympathetic friends had lifted an albatross of pain off her chest.

  “You think you had a bad time with a younger man!” My outburst captured everyone’s attention. “The poem I read earlier only hinted at what would unfold as a horror occult tale worthy of Poe. Want to hear the gruesome particulars?”

  A unanimous “yes” resounded from the Club. Even shy Miss Mops perked up and sniffed. Encouraged, I read “Rats in my Belfry.”

  SIXTEEN: RATS IN MY BELFRY: LOVE IS A WRIGGLY RODENT SHY OF THE TRAP

  There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt. Hamlet

  Last night, while I walked through Washington Square, a rat scooted across my path. Since there are more rats than people living in the Big Apple, occasionally one bites a child in an infested tenement. That sort of calamity is unheard of in my gentrified West Village neighborhood. But rat-sightings occurred with an eerie frequency during my strange relationship with Malcolm. Heading home sunk in thought, about to exit the Square at Waverly Place, a second rat and I almost collided. A female NYU student carrying heavy books dropped one, quickly recovered it, then sped toward the comforting throb of Sixth Avenue. Wobbling after her, I paused to lean against the facade of the Washington Square Hotel. A bellhop, who had stepped outside for a smoke, asked if I were ill and offered to call a doctor.

  Had Malcolm sent furry confreres to deliver his message? Around a corner would I find that blonde Pied Piper again enticing me to dance? The latest rodent had shot past me like a bullet. Had it given me a taunting stare?

  At home I checked my phone messages. None from Malcolm, thank the goddess. Having heard nothing from him for a year, complacency had set in. Gradually, I healed enough to face the banalities of dating, but with one caveat: No more younger men! This time I vowed to find a suitor my age or older.

  Seeing that rat in Washington Square reminded me of a recurrent nightmare: In it I fled from rat-like demons with poisoned teeth that chased me, ready to take a juicy bite. Other macabre incidents that I’d repressed crowded to the forefront of my memory. What a contrast to my first meeting with Malcolm at the Free Life Center in Tribeca! Little did I know that my spiritual quest would test my survival skills.

  For ages my girlfriend Beverly, knowledgeable about eastern religions, had promoted the Center, which was run by a female teacher from San Francisco. Beverly raved about her as “a cross between Buddha and Socrates.” Another incentive was that the entire operation, run by women, encompassed a potpourri of philosophies rather than promoting one authoritarian doctrine. Curious, I agreed to join Beverly at a meeting, held the first Wednesday of every month.

  Entering the dimly lit main hall, I felt the eyes of gilded female deities, statues displayed in elevated niches, observing my every move. The perfume of jasmine incense filled the air. A crowd of prosperous looking young men in suits and women in casually chic clothes sat on chairs or in the lotus posture on the floor. Obviously, from the exchange of kisses and hugs, they were regulars. The devotees meditated while awaiting their teacher’s arrival. An aura of anticipation made the room hum with psychic energy.

  Eventually, Mamaji floated in with colorful silk streaming behind her grey hair, which was tied in a bun. A jeweled bird of paradise ornament clipped to the top of her head appeared ready to spread its gossamer wings. At least six feet tall with pearl-like skin, Mamaji approached a platform gaily decorated with hanging saffron and purple draperies. Banners embroidered with blessings in several languages contributed to the ecumenical flavor. Joining palms in an age-old gesture of respect and welcome, a barefoot Mamaji walked among her adoring students to strew flower petals on them.

  A silver filigree altar, with a large picture of Mamaji at the center, occupied most of the platform. Against the wall photos of Joan Baez, Patti Smith and Janis Joplin, alongside celibate spiritual masters, startled me. Mamaji’s lecture stressed the need to find joy during this incarnation, not waste energy fretting about past or future lives.

  Three male musicians in long cotton shirts and love beads joined Mamaji by clicking finger cymbals and humming notes to prepare for the sacred sound meditation. She explained how chanting holy names silenced the “monkey mind,” while one of the young musicians, an ethereal blonde, played inspired music on his harmonium. How I yearned to be that instrument, to have his long hands press my eager flesh with such fervent devotion.

  The sound meditation escalated until the intoxicated throng danced and bobbed up and down, shouting blessings to their chosen deity. Eyes closed, a pierced and tattooed young woman, outfitted head to toe in black leather, intoned the divine name of John Lennon. My monkey mind, swinging from tree to tree, kept returning to the musician, who seemed at one with his instrument. If I had known his name I would have shouted it at the top of my voice. My gaze fastened on his powerful chest, which was covered with curly fair hairs peeping through his V-necked shirt. Resisting the impulse to dash over and lay my head on the downy carpet, I drifted into a tranquil state where my mind ceased spinning from thought to thought.

  “Hey, Bella, wake up! They’re breaking up into groups for meditation and study. Beginners over there.” Beverly nudged me in the direction of ten people who were being herded into a smaller room. When the instructor turned out to be my fantasy musician, I knew that the Free Life Center would become my home away from home.

  Since the groups were under the auspices of women, I decided that any male permitted to teach must be a spiritual heavyweight. As the charmer with a slight Southern accent discussed the value of ritual, I stared at wall hangings of couples wrapped in tangled erotic poses—legs and arms draped around each other. Those images transported me back many years before when I had sat among a roomful of tantric adepts in Bombay’s Taj Hilton. Then, I had run from Rhadu’s embrace. Now, as the teacher with golden ringlets discussed “cleansing dust accumulated on the mirror of the heart over many lifetimes,” I yearned for another chance at the esoteric sexual road to enlightenment.

  While the beautiful being elaborated on Mamaji’s philosophical points, I imagined that his third eye winked at me. Profane thoughts, one more outrageous than the next, bubbled in my mind as in a witch’s caldron. Was I so love-starved that this cherubic face could make me tremble with desire?

  The meditation session wasted, I moved toward the door hoping to return the following week for another try. Stationing himself at the exit, the object of my fantasies offered a few auspicious words to each departing student. I overheard a cute little blonde girl who looked like his sister call him Malcolm. I expected the same brief treatment from him that he gave the others. Instead, Malcolm held my hand in a lingering way that felt like a silk sari rippling up and down my arm.

  “Are you going downtown or uptown? What’s your name?”

  “Bella, I’m heading uptown.” Once Malcolm joined me, I felt too intimidated to look at his bright face, lit up with what must be spiritual illumination. Malcolm’s voice, which resonated like ancient chants, mesmerized me. He seemed to inhabit a universe of pure air. I felt like a vulnerable girl again with my years of experience stripped away.

  “Tonight I’m reminded of walking along Pondicherry’s promenade, but with special company. Have you studied with other teachers beside Mamaji?” inquired Malcolm. I hesitated to reveal my “guru hopping,” a fruitless search for spiritual clarity. As we walked uptown beside the West Side Highway, the clock struck ten P.M. New York seemed so quiet we could almost hear each other’s heartbeat. Glancing across the Hudson River to New Jersey, I imagined we were travelers in an exotic port of call returning to our hotel for all-night lovemaking. A soft spring wind hinted of buds bursting into bloom, an end to winter doldrums.

  We strolled along, neither holding hands nor touching, but
savoring our psychic connection. Our bodies walked in perfect rhythm, our feet gracefully in tune like dancers moving across a stage. Even blindfolded, I could have followed Malcolm without a misstep. For three weeks this pas de deux was repeated: An inspiring lecture by Mamaji was followed by a meditation class conducted by Malcolm. Mischievous thoughts about the taste of Malcolm’s tongue in my mouth tormented me. My spiritual practice advanced not a jot, and if anything, I was jerked backwards to a girlish lust. Each week Malcolm escorted me to Christopher Street. As I turned west, he walked towards the East Village.

  The fourth week he asked: “Do you need to be up early tomorrow?”

  “No, I’m free most of the day.”

  Flashing a cinematic smile, Malcolm took my hand and guided me several blocks onto a pier jutting into the Hudson River at Christopher Street. We walked to the end, past kissing couples seated on benches. Staring across at New Jersey, two triangles of light atop tall buildings burnished the clear sky. Other than the toot of a tugboat, no sounds disturbed our isolation. Water flowing under the pier made me feel like a mariner setting out on a voyage of discovery.

  As Malcolm bent his head towards mine, I raised my lips for a kiss. Instead, he placed something around my neck. “Green Tara brings good luck, Bella. The goddess of female wisdom, sometimes called ‘mother of all Buddhas.’ Blessings will rain down on you for the rest of this incarnation. Wear it and remember tonight.”

  Ceremonially, Malcolm adjusted Tara to a central position between my breasts. My lips waited in vain for his kiss. Hugging Tara tightly, I thanked the benevolent deity for sending me two priceless treasures: Malcolm and Herself. Then, involuntarily, a nagging question popped out of my mouth. “How old are you?”

  “Thirty five,” he responded without looking at me.

  I had been reluctant to ask. In our lofty spiritual connection, age was irrelevant, or so I had assured myself. Mentally, I counted the years between us. Perhaps, in another life, I had been his mother. I was just old enough! Break off this foolishness before you come to grief, I silently lectured myself.

  “May I escort you and Tara home tonight?” asked Malcolm in a honeyed voice, his breath on my neck.

  “Sure,” I responded, certain that Tara would protect me. Walking home, I saw a creature with a long tail wriggle into a garbage can. A rat? My eyes were so full of stars, I would not have seen a lion poised to attack. At my door Malcolm gave me a chaste kiss on the forehead, then went on his way. Inside, I fretted. How could I move our relationship beyond the platonic stage? I longed to fondle his angelic blondness, to express my bottled-up emotions that were distracting me from daily chores. Was Malcolm impotent, gay, not attracted to mature women, or to me?

  Two weeks later, Malcolm concluded the meeting early. After everyone departed, I helped him pack up the ritual objects—scarves, meditation cushions, and small drums. As I stayed behind, expecting to be escorted home as usual, Malcolm latched onto my arm. Then he seated me on his lap under a wall hanging of a couple in the throes of tantric intercourse.

  “Like this, very slowly,” he instructed. Gathering my long skirt, he wriggled my underpants downwards to slither his cock inside me like a serpent entering the Garden of Eden. His movements were so subtle, such languid strokes, that I hardly noticed whether he had slipped on a condom. I worried that Malcolm found me dry inside, that my body was not limber enough to accomplish the serpentine movements. That I was older than most of the devotees bothered me.

  “Observe your breathing, Bella. Relax,” Malcolm whispered. Meanwhile he massaged my lower back, kissed my eyes, throat and cupped my breasts. Shifting my weight, he rocked my haunches like a boat undulating on sea waves. With each rhythmic thrust, the elixir of his youthful vitality flowed into my spirit.

  Seated on top of Malcolm’s thighs, I recalled Bombay’s tantric adepts engaged in similar movements. In New York, as our bodies blissfully sought a cosmic connection, I strived to attain their ecstasy. Malcolm made love as though he communicated with a higher consciousness through me. Being his vehicle was so exhilarating that my honey dripped nonstop. I had become the harmonium played by the divine musician’s hands. Inside me musical notes slowly ascended the scale, then built to a crescendo until my every cell vibrated with song.

  No heavy breathing, no boiler room heat; ours was no frenzied passion that culminated in a brief explosion followed by post-coital letdown. A votary at the Temple of Priapus, I had sought shapely batons to pleasure me, hoping that a deeper connection would become a corollary. If the former happened now and then, the latter had been woefully absent. Now Malcolm’s sacred phallus had opened my heart to joy. My body was a prayer wheel on a mountaintop caressed by winds.

  Thus began what Malcolm called our “spiritual marriage.” Cuddled on his couch, we read texts by and about spiritual seekers. I regarded him as my enlightened guru who, via sacred ceremonies, guided me to a higher awareness. Generously, he shared his knowledge of eastern and western esoteric traditions. That Malcolm came from an Appalachian family made his accomplishments all the more remarkable.

  Before our rapturous couplings, Malcolm intoned mystical chants, massaged me top to toe with aromatic sandalwood oil, and fed me ripe persimmons, which he swore had aphrodisiac properties. The music from his harmonium soared to the spheres and beyond. He stared into my eyes with such force that I feared going blind. I became the beneficiary of erotic arts learned in India at the feet of a tantric guru. He had taught Malcolm that “emission of semen is a sign of defeat rather than triumph.” Even without the usual liquid evidence, Malcolm appeared to experience profound orgasmic pleasure. Our lovemaking lasted for hours, sometimes all night.

  A plague could have struck, the sky fallen, I would have showed up at the Free Life Center. Painfully sitting with my legs crossed, I pondered ways to improve my spirituality. A couple of times, Malcolm conducted intense conversations with the same twenty-something blonde girl named Maya—the name for illusion—who I recognized from my first night at the Center. Were they having an affair? Preposterous, not Malcolm, I reassured myself.

  Malcolm informed me of divisive political maneuvers that had caused rifts at the Center. He also complained that the administration made unsound expenditures. Mamaji’s dictatorial ways and temper tantrums were making it difficult for him to teach. Refusing to elaborate, he started to attend late night meetings, he said, to “straighten things out.”

  One afternoon, at the local supermarket, I ran into my friend Beverly. When I quizzed her about the Center’s problems, she feigned ignorance. Grasping my arm, she insisted we discuss Malcolm. Something in her voice alarmed me. I neglected to tell her about Malcolm’s importance in my life. Leaving her standing in the checkout line, I avoided her thereafter. My tantric union, which denied the force of gravity and sent me reeling to the heavens, must be protected at any cost.

  Being at one with the universe, and understood by Malcolm on a profound level, I believed that nothing could shatter my trust in him. Whatever trials he threw my way, I swore to pass them. Such dedication would prove that my spiritual aspirations were not merely from the teeth out. In our second year, Malcolm’s conflicts with Mamaji intensified, which made him irritable. Black clouds replaced the sunlight in his eyes.

  One morning I awoke to find Malcolm staring at me—frowzy without my usual carefully applied makeup. He recoiled as though confronted by the Loch Ness monster. “Is that your face or are you breaking it in for a friend?” he quipped. Suggestions that I see a dermatologist about handfuls of my hair that fell into the sink convinced me I would become bald before long. My lack of eyebrows provided an endless source of amusement for him. Years ago I’d had them plucked professionally at Bergdorf’s in order to draw pencil-thin sexier brows. Malcolm thought I looked like an alien.

  While listening to classical music with Malcolm, a commercial I had never noticed played on the radio. “Bella, hear that ad?” he inquired in a jolly tone. “A pendant, you know, they put round your wr
ist and you press the button if you need help, if you have a stroke or something. You should buy one. After all, you never know at your time of life.” When I looked devastated, he hooted high-pitched laughter.

  “Can’t take a joke? Stop acting like a sourpuss.” Smiling impishly, he gave my arm a playful poke.

  Another timer, a crescent smile on his face, Malcolm showed up unannounced at my apartment. He ran from room to room, hooted like an owl, told silly jokes, and played hide and seek. Wearing a kitchen apron, he washed dishes stacked in the sink and cleaned the bathtub. Pointing to a spot on the bathroom wall, he shrieked: “Black mold, you’re in trouble. Think about moving out of this place!”

  Was Malcolm mischievous like the blue god Krishna? I became expert at inventing rationalizations for his jabs. The situation at the Center was reaching crisis proportions. Any day he might have to leave. His digs embedded in harmless comments evaporated into the ether. My ears of love, rather than the ears of reason, filtered his words through a rainbow-colored mandala.

  One day while strolling on Christopher Street, we spotted a rat scuttle by. Malcolm’s announcement that he too was part rat made me chortle. But soon the laughter would curdle like sour milk in my throat. Rats skinny and fat, with long, rope-like tails, danced through my nightmares. Making faces, Malcolm would stick his top teeth out to emulate the creature he claimed as his familiar. “Got to gnaw constantly,” he cackled in bed, a silly grin on his face. “Otherwise these teeth grow like the Dickens.” Then he bit me all over. Had my dignified teacher undergone a Kafkaesque transformation?

  Here a rat, there a rat, everywhere a rat: I saw a veritable jamboree of rats, but mostly in my imagination. Occasionally, I saw a real rat scampering around, and oddly enough in this lunar year of the rat I imagined a hearty rat stew. When I talked to Malcolm about my imaginings, he called my bushy hair a “rat’s nest” and threatened to hide cheese inside it.