by Ross, Orna
"It said: 'Bow to what is'."
Again he looked at me. I didn't take my eyes away. I didn't laugh, or frown. I didn't. I kept my face straight. Straight, straight, straight.
"So," he went on, "I let myself go. I fell, a long way, then I felt my heart growing warmer and then it was as if it was opening, like a flower blooming on fast-motion film."
"Sounds like an acid trip."
He ignored that. "I felt peace and wellbeing washing over me. After that, I have no recollection. I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I remember is waking, what felt like hours later, with light, early light coming in through my curtains. Light as I'd never seen it before."
His face was alight just talking about it.
"I got up and walked around my bedroom, the bedroom I had lived in for years, picking things up, a pen, a tube of toothpaste, a T-shirt, staring at them in wonder. They were so alive. Alive now seemed the most startling miracle."
A third time he looked at me. "Mercy?"
I needed to answer now. I needed to say something, find words that went beyond the half-frightened, half-cynical sentences that were leaping around my head. Sentences I couldn't say. Let me out of here. Who are you? What a load of New Age mumbo-jumbo-nutty-freakery.
I couldn't say such things. I didn't know if I meant them. This was who Zach was, now. I needed to get beyond my own opinions, seek the heart of what he was saying. As soon as I had that thought, a new word rose unbidden in my mind, from a different source.
I was able to reach across and brush his cheek with understanding fingers and smile a gentle smile into his eyes.
"Rebirth," I said. "You had a rebirth."
"Yes. Oh, Mercy, you understand." He reached for me and pulled me tight against him. "You understand."
Zach's explanation of what happened to him that night was that his suffering was so intense that it forced his consciousness to withdraw from identification with the fearful self he'd become. As a result of which, unhappy and fearful Zach ("my false self") collapsed and he was left with consciousness in its pure state, consciousness that doesn't identify with form and therefore does not suffer ("my true self").
He'd had shifts in intensity of feeling but essentially had remained in the same state of bliss since his metamorphosis, he said. And metamorphosis it was. Out went the promising academic career: he no longer respected the work of the mind. Thinking, doing, getting, achieving: all these felt empty to him now. He mostly just wanted to be.
"But how can you be without doing?"
"Of course you're right. We have to eat and dress and so on. What I mean is that I want to change the emphasis, the balance. Less doing, less thinking, more being."
"Well we'd all like a bit of that," I said.
"I'm glad to hear you say it."
"I said 'a bit'." Now we were safe, I could tease him.
"Don't worry Mercy. I'm not going to ask you to join me on my park bench."
"Park bench?" My heart wobbled.
Yes, aside from some odd jobs, Zach had spent much of the past year on a park bench in L.A.
"Like a... hobo?"
"Not too many hobos are in a state of deep bliss. And only during the day. I had an apartment."
"I'm relieved to hear it." My right foot was sticking out from under the duvet and feeling cold. I tucked it under, wrapped my leg around his. "But how can you afford all this sitting around? Don't you have to work?"
"People ask me questions."
"Say again?"
"People ask me questions and some of them give me money for the answers. Or food. Or other stuff."
"What sort of questions?"
"All sorts -- Is there life after death? Why is love so difficult? How can I be free? Do I matter? Anything."
"And you've got the answers to all that?"
"It isn't about the questions, really. They are leading to the same answer."
"Which is?"
"My job, my purpose, now is to enable others to find their way out of the suffering created by too much thinking."
"You're a guru?" I laugh.
This made him sit forward off the pillows and turn to face me. "No, positively, absolutely not a guru. A signpost, maybe. A pointer."
It frightened me, the awesome responsibility (the damn cheek) of answering such questions. "Don't you ever worry you might be getting it wrong?"
"It's not me; it just comes through me."
That one would never stand up in a law court. And I didn't like this business of taking money from strangers.
"They need to give me something," he said. "I never ask. I don't care whether they do or don't. I just accept what comes along."
He sits up, takes my face in his hands thirstily again, for my understanding. "I operate from a different place now, Merce. I take my cues from the inner, not the outer world."
He fixes me with his eyes until I feel I'm falling into them, down a tunnel, like Alice, where the things of what he calls the outer world (what the rest of us call life) are floating free of gravity. Light and loose as the snow-grey flecks in his eyes.
"Anyway," he says, taking down his hands. "It looks like I'll be doing it more formally now. A group of philosophy student here have set me in various venues and are charging a small entry fee."
Word had gone around these students that he was a modern mystic. That's not how he put it but that's what was going on. "You should come along to the next one. See for yourself, Mercy. Put your anxieties to rest."
The event was in Sports Hall Two on campus and sold out, with a queue at the door hoping for cancellations. It was a strange experience, seeing so many people avid to see Zach, not just students but men and women -- mainly women -- of all types and ages and colors. He had no props or special lighting or any concession to stage management: just him and his words and his calm and radiant presence. He spoke slowly and carefully, in an intimate manner that made each person in the packed hall feel he was addressing them directly, and he had no problem connecting with the questions and finding answers that made sense. Nothing groundbreaking, just the concepts at the heart of all religion, stripped clean and put into clear, simple, modern words.
I was proud of him, agnostic as I was. Affected too. In that large hall, encased inside a silence so intense you could touch it, and a stillness so deep you could hear it, I sensed, rather than understood, what he was talking about. Peace was mine for those two hours, was there for all of us in that room.
They loved him -- yes, especially the women -- but only I was allowed into the back room, to wait with him while they cleared the building.
We were back in love but all was different. He was no longer the awestruck boy. He told me a little about other women he had been with, only one of them special. A "beautiful person", but demanding, with a "sparky soul, a warrior spirit".
"What happened?" I asked, hating her, this unknown rival.
"'She looked in my heart one day and saw your image was there.'"
He is quoting Yeats, what he said about Olivia Shakespear when she realised he was still in love with Maud Gonne.
"Really?"
He nods and for a moment looks sad. Jealousy spikes. I'd had nobody significant since he left and I thought for a moment to invent someone, or upgrade one of the guys who had served some time, but then I decided no. I owed him that much. This girl was no threat to us and he loved hearing that there had been noone since him. He was still the romantic who wanted what we had to be absolute, still uncomfortable with edges and compromise.
With the specter of past relationships slain, we now had only one problem to face: Star. I told him about her inability to find a boyfriend, her jealousy of other people's love affairs.
"Meeting you couldn't have come at a worse time," I explained. "She's heartsore from a break up."
"I guess we could wait a week or two," he said, reluctantly, "Though I --"
"A week or two won't make any difference. It ended months ago."
"Then it has to be now."
"You're right."
He looked at me, softly sceptical.
"Zach, I've moved on. I can see my own behavior. I know it's never going to be easy -- so best done straight away."
He nodded, barely able to believe.
"Just be warned," I say. "She's going to take you as a personal insult to herself."
"For a while, maybe. But she'll get over it."
"She'll be back for Thanksgiving weekend in three weeks' time," I said, really meaning it. 'I'll tell her then."
"Maybe," he said, "she'll take it better than you expect?"
And I, so happy to have him back, so proud of my newfound determination, agreed that maybe she just might.
A dance. Star, Zach and I all at the same table at Marsha's AIDS Charity Ball. Was I crazy? I didn't know how else to do it.
The day Star came home I told her, with quavering voice and shaky hands, that I had met someone. Someone important. She made it as hard as I expected she would. A shrug first (why should I care?), followed by a tantrum, supposedly about her bedroom, (I don't care, I don't care!), followed by a slam of her door (see if I care!).
Not to be indulged, Zach said, keeping up the pressure from the other side. Now that she knew, they must meet, and soon...
I'd considered having him across for dinner, but the thought of the three of us, trapped in my small dining room for an entire evening, felt way too intense. The dance was a better option. We would be at a mixed table, some solos, some couples, some groups, so Star need not feel conspicuously single. She'd have to dance with him, and they would be able to talk without me listening, and he would be charming and everybody else would love him, and she'd be unable to resist.
By the time Saturday came round, the relaxation breath that Zach had taught me was letting me down. I left the café early, with a nest of nerves in my stomach. It's just a hurdle, I soothed myself, as I drove up West Cliff hill. Just a hurdle that needs to be jumped so that life can go on. Once Star got used to the idea of me seeing someone, she would take Zach for granted, not see him as a comment on her inability to attract love. Wallpaper on the background of her life. That's where we had to get to and this dance was the first step.
She was late home, of course. Zach was coming at eight to drive us to the hotel and I'd asked her to be back by six. By seven, there was still no sign. I carried on, had my shower, dried my hair, put on my make-up, growing more and more anxious. My mother's jade-blue dress was laid out on the bed, waiting for me. I stepped into it, zipped it up. I'd had it adjusted so it fitted perfectly and I loved everything about it. I loved how the color flattered my skin and the intricacy of the jewelled detail across the bodice and down my back. I loved the way it bared my shoulders and supported my breasts, showing just the right amount of cleavage and cinched my waist, but not too tight, then flared into fabulous folds all the way to the floor. I loved how it made me look and feel, and knew Zach would love it too.
The door downstairs slammed.
"Star? Is that you?"
"No, it's the tooth fairy."
I went out onto the landing, looked down over the bannisters. One look at her face and I knew what I was in for. I weighed it up in my head. Which would be quicker: to go through the motions of sympathy and smooth her down, or to be brisk and try to speed her along? I plumped for sympathy. "How was your day, darling?"
"Shit."
"Oh, dear. Sorry to hear that."
"I nearly punched this idiot woman in the library. She's trying to say I owe $32 in book fines because her stupid system didn't record that I brought her stupid books back months ago. Then there was a traffic jam. It took me fifty minutes -- that would be, yes, 5-0 minutes -- to get over here."
"That's awful, honey. There's some chicken salad there if you'd like a snack."
"No thanks. I had lunch with Suzy. What was I thinking of, agreeing to have lentil bake just because she's going on some stupid health kick? It's sitting in my stomach like a football since, I think it might come back up..."
"Star, you haven't forgotten the dance? Don't you think it's time you...?"
"Is that what you're wearing?"
"Yes, don't you like it?"
"It's lovely. Mine's rotten."
"You liked it a couple of days ago. I love it. It's dead funky."
"Funky? Jeez, Mom, where do you get the words?"
"Anyway," I say lightly. "Too late to change it now. Will you pick up those shoes and things and bring them up to your room on your way?"
Mistake. The chink her disdain was seeking. "Don't you think you're being a bit pathetic, Mom? Do you really need to try so hard to impress this guy? If he... ahem ...loves you, he's not going to care whether there's a pair of shoes on the floor, is he? As usual, you're making a mountain out of --"
"Okay, Star, don't pick up. I'll do it."
"Oh great, now the long-suffering-Mom routine. God, Mom, what about me? I've told you I feel sick. That I've had the most horrible day. Don't you care about that at all? No, only precious Zach. Zach. What sort of a name is that, anyway?"
I did everything for you, Star, went the drip-feed in my head, the self-talk I always pretend not to hear. But you can't do this one thing for me. You know exactly how important this is, but -- no, not but, so -- you can't let me have it.
I sighed. What was the use in looking for understanding that she wasn't able to give? Self-pity served no purpose; it only made me feel worse. Wipe the ticker tape. Do Zach's trick again. Breathe in goodness and light, breathe out toxic thought. We had the jitters, both of us, that was all.
She went up and I came down and started fixing my hair, piling it on top my head. It took a long time to get it, and my make-up, right and I was only just finished when the doorbell rang.
Ding-dong.
My heart started to thud-thud-thud, so hard it hurt.
"I'll get it," I called.
Cooler air swept in as I opened the door. Zach looked gorgeous, spruced in a crisp, white shirt, the hair he was growing back still a little damp from the shower. He held two orchids, one for each of us. A nice touch.
"Oh wow," he said, as he looked me up and down.
I did a little twirl so he could admire.
"Wow, wow, wow."
"Shhh," I said, thinking of Star, but he pulled me in close, crushing the orchids between us to kiss me. A long, sumptuous kiss. I had never been with anyone -- even the younger him -- who made me feel the way I now felt. We were developing new, slow-going ways of being together that were connected to a deeper place: a channelling, rather than a dissipating of, desire. Sometime, sometime soon, I felt I might be able to --
Footsteps behind us on the stairs stopped my thoughts and I pulled away from him, fast. I turned and started to say, "Star, this is --", but again, I was stopped.
Something was wrong. Horribly wrong. Zach's smile was contorting.
Star was looking at him like somebody had struck her. "Shando?" she said, her voice thick with shock.
"Maria?" he said, in the same tone.
The two of them -- mouths and eyes wide, aghast -- turned to me, as if I held all the answers. Then Star began to scream. "Mom, Mom, Mom! What the hell, what the hell, what the hell is going on?"
UNLESS |ƏNˈLES; ˌƏN-| [CONJUNCTION]
except if (used to introduce a case in which a statement being made is not true or valid).
*
After Zach left, I was in shock. Clammy sweats, flying pulse, shot breathing, everything. For three days afterwards, I couldn't go to work, or eat, or sleep properly. I didn't know how to proceed.
My lover, my daughter, me, my daughter, my lover: a frenzied drum beat round my head. She was the "beautiful person, troubled and demanding" he had told me about. He had even told me her name was Maria but there were a hundred thousand Marias in California and I never thought -- how could I ever have thought -- that Zach's Maria was my Star? He never mentioned her weight or a single physical detail. Her (warrior) soul, oh yes, and her (sparky) spirit, oh ye
s -- but not the color of her hair, her age, her family history or any single detail that might have intimated that his girl was my girl, except the name I never used for her.
As for him, Shando was his Buddhist name, taken when he briefly joined a Buddhist Center before he knew her. Some people knew him as Shando, yes, and he didn't mind what he was called. The same with the city he hailed from when she told him she was from Santa Paolo; he didn't do that thing that most people do: "Oh really? What part? Do you know so-and-so?" Any of the questions that might have led back to me.
Name, life story, country, gender, color: none of these badges of identity mean anything, he would say. "Let them go," he'd told me, more than once. "They are not who you are."
So, my Zach and Star's Shando were one and the same person. That's what my daughter and I had to grasp hold of. My lover, my daughter, me, my daughter, my lover...
Star coped in usual fashion -- by lashing out, storming and incoherent, like I had set it all up just to hurt her, slamming out the door to stay at Venom's. Zach begged her not to go -- to stay and talk it through -- but not a chance, and I was glad. I wasn't able to cope with both of them in the same room.
After she'd left, he sat in the armchair, his hands sunk between his knees.
"You do know," he said, "that this problem is not really between you and Star, but between you and The Source?"
"Oh, please, Zach, not now."
"However much it seems to be about others, it's always really between you and the Source."
"The source, the source... If you mean God, Zach, why don't you say so?"
"The word God has become empty. People, who have never come close to experiencing the realm of the sacred bandy the word around. Or argue against it. When they don't know what it is they're --"
"Zach, please. This is not the time."
He held his hands up, fingers spread wide. "I know. I'm sorry. Of course it isn't. I thought you asked."
He too was unmoored by what had happened and was turning to his "Source", knowing how it had saved him before. It was a good instinct for him, I could see that. It would save him again. But what about me? I had nothing now. No God, no lover, no daughter.
