by Ulf Wolf
“Sure. That’s fine by me.”
“Has it arrived yet?”
“No.”
“It should be there any day. Once you’ve signed it, I wonder, could you give it to Doctor Ross.”
“Sure.”
“Thanks, Melissa.” Then said, not sure why, “Be sure to eat lots of fruit.”
“I’ll do that,” said Melissa, and Ananda could picture her smiling.
Then he remembered, “The other papers. Our agreement?”
“Yes, I meant to tell you, Charles wanted to look them over.”
“Oh, okay.”
“They look just fine with me.”
“Pretty standard stuff,” said Ananda. And he was not lying, he had pulled the agreement, word for word, from an online standard contracts library. Fifty dollars’ worth of standard, nothing-out-of-the-ordinary agreement.
“That’s what I thought.”
“Well, when you get a chance to sign them, just return them to me. Or if you—Charles—has any questions, call me.”
“Will do.”
As Ananda said goodbye he quietly congratulated himself for remembering to nudge her for the agreement as well, keeping things authentic. That was the whole idea right now, keeping things authentic.
:
“Oh, yes,” said Melissa, “I almost forgot.”
She rummaged through her handbag and found the release. “Mister Wolf wanted me to give you this.
“That writer?”
“Yes.”
Doctor Ross took the release form, and looked it over.
“So you can let him know how I’m doing,” said Melissa.
The doctor nodded while looking it over. It seemed to be in order.
:
This time she picked up right away. But something was wrong. There was an edge to her voice he had not heard before, or a bruise.
“How are you, Melissa?” he said.
She didn’t answer right away.
“Are you all right?”
After another short silence, she asked, “Have you ever been married, Mister Wolf?”
“Yes.”
“Happily?”
“Initially.”
“You are not married now, are you?”
“No.”
“So not so happily in the end?”
“Civilized enough,” he said, not at all sure where this was leading. When she said nothing else, he said, “Why do you ask?”
“He won’t sign the agreement,” she said.
“He doesn’t have to.”
“He says he has to.”
“No, the agreement is between you and me, Melissa.”
“He, to quote him, begs to differ.”
“Well,” said Ananda after scrambling through a string of thoughts, none leading a precise where. “That doesn’t alter the fact.” The best he could do.
“Could it be that he would have to agree?”
“No, Melissa. He doesn’t have to agree.”
But was he really sure about that? From research he had done such agreements were between the writer and an individual, not between writer and a married couple.
“Are you sure?”
Here Ananda pressed as much certainty into his answer as he could, “Yes, Melissa. I am sure.”
“Well, good. Because I signed it and sent it to you.”
“Thanks, Melissa.”
“Charles was furious.”
“What did he say?”
“He threatened to tear the agreement up and to sue you for invasion of privacy.”
“What?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“But you signed it?”
“Yes. I told him this was none of his business, and then he stormed out.”
“Oh, Melissa. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”
He could picture her shake her head. “No, Mister Wolf. No. This is not your doing. You just brought things to a point. If it hadn’t been this, it would have been something else.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No need to be.”
Then, after a silence in which Ananda could almost hear her put the question together, then wonder whether she should ask it, she said, “What do you do when you just can’t talk?”
“You and Charles?”
“Yes. When you realize that what you meant to say just isn’t getting across.” She paused, then said, “And when you realize that it probably never will.”
Ananda said nothing, but he had listened so well that Melissa felt heard. “It doesn’t matter what I say,” she said. “I can tell that while he looks at me, and seems to be hearing, he is not listening. Or listening from such a distance that no real meaning can cross such a gap.”
“Perhaps he was upset about the agreement?” suggested Ananda.
“Oh, no. This is nothing new. I have wondered about this since before I was pregnant.” She fell silent again, putting things together. “To be honest,” she said. “I had hoped that the baby would heal this rift, bring us closer.”
“Did you ever,” began Ananda, then wasn’t sure how to finish the question.
But Melissa must have heard the unspoken intent. “I really don’t know,” she said. “When you first fall in love, everything glitters. You believe you understand each other, all of each other.”
“I know,” said Ananda. “I know that feeling.”
“So how do you tell whether that was real understanding or whether it was just being in love, infatuation?”
“I know that hindsight is twenty-twenty,” he said, “but in my experience we tend to see the other as we wish him or her to be. Especially when things start out.” Ananda was indeed speaking from experience.
“Precisely.” She said that as if Ananda had hit upon the deepest of truths. “That’s precisely it. You see who you want to see, and I wanted very much to see the Charles I really thought I loved.”
“And he wanted to see the you that he loved?”
“I guess.”
“And then,” said Ananda. “Once the glitter settled, was there real understanding?”
Ananda could almost hear Melissa scour memory for instances of this. Finally, she said, “I’m not sure. I don’t know.”
“Do you love him now?”
After another short silence she answered, “I don’t know.”
Then it was as if Melissa roused herself, grasping familiar bearings again. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “What am I doing telling you all this?”
“Oh, don’t be,” said Ananda. “Please.”
“This has nothing to do with your project.”
“Melissa,” said Ananda. “I don’t see you as a project. I see you as a friend. And believe me when I say that I am your friend as well.”
“You really mean that.”
“I really mean that.”
“You’re a kind man, Mister Wolf.”
“Ananda. Please.”
“You’re a kind man, Ananda.”
“Perhaps so.”
“Thanks for listening.”
“Not at all. And please know that if ever you want to talk, just call me. Any time of day or night.”
“You mean that, too, don’t you?”
“Yes, I mean that.”
“Just like a good friend.”
“Just like a good friend.”
:
That same evening, as Ananda was preparing his evening meal, chopping four cloves of garlic into very fine slivers, Gotama’s timbreless but unmistakable voice rose again.
“You have met my mother?” he said.
“Yes, I have.”
“You have come to know her?”
“Yes, I have.”
“She has come to trust you?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“I am pleased, Ananda.”
“So am I, friend. You have chosen well. She will be a fine mother. She is a good person.”
“Yes, she is.”
“But I worry about the fa
ther.”
“So do I, Ananda.”
:: 18 :: (Tusita Heaven)
I had meant to wait.
I had meant to let a full five thousand terrestrial years go by before returning. I had meant to leave the Dhamma time to take root and sprout and grow exponentially to touch all beings on Earth before returning. But even through the bliss of Tusita Heaven I could sense that all was not well. The Dhamma had not taken proper root, and it was not spreading as I had planned and hoped, especially not into the West.
One man, a carpenter’s son from Nazareth in Judea, had ventured East seeking the Dhamma, and although he found much of it, what he brought back was only a fraction, only its surface. The still and fruitful waters beneath he left behind in India and Tibet, thinking them perhaps too profound for his fellow countrymen. As a result, what he did teach—and how those teachings were interpreted: often to suit political rather than religious ends—seems to have brought about more misery and violence than any treatise on the virtues of war could ever have done.
Another man, Mohammed of Mecca, further shallowed the Dhamma to a point where his followers finally invaded India to destroy any trace of it.
And destroy it they did, burn every library and monastery they did, until every single charcoaled trace was gone, except for that one copy preserved by farseeing monks who, sensing the threat, some years earlier had fled south and across water to Ceylon. This far Mohammed’s minions did not rage, and so, to this day, the Dhamma is preserved; but, alas, only used by a few, and by almost no one in the West.
All, indeed, was not well.
That is why I returned as Bruno. I had to see for myself, I had to verify my misgivings.
And this is what I saw:
I saw men using red-hot irons to burn faith into limbed and tortured souls.
I saw stakes firmly rooted amidst flames, compelling what only has meaning if freely chosen.
I saw gluttonous and priestly bellies lined with bribes and gifts extorted by empty promises of eternal heavenly bliss, by meaningless threats of forever fires in hells worse than anything previously imagined by the sickest of Indian Brahmans.
I saw the teachings of this man Jesus—my teachings stunted and crippled—gone terribly and sickeningly wrong.
Offended beyond tolerance, I, as Bruno, could not hold my tongue.
And so, I paid the price as I, too, came to know the flames before I shed the smoldering Bruno—suspended to the post by his iron necklace—to once again return here.
Thinking all this over—spending a Tusita day and a night in deep meditation about the fading Sangha, the Christian Church, the many wars, the colossal suffering, the continued and intensified agony of these poor, poor souls—I saw this, and I saw it clearly:
I would return.
My name would be Ruth Marten.
My mother’s name would be Melissa Marten. She shone with a light mostly hidden, but her understanding ran deep, and she could, yes she could accept me.
Charles Marten, my father, would never understand. But then, that was not a requirement.
And now her water has broken, and they’re rushing her off to hospital. Melissa, my mother.
:: 19 :: (Pasadena)
The trick to this—and I wonder why they never catch on—is to not take possession until after the body is delivered.
If you want to learn all about true headache—and apparently most do—then, go ahead, take possession pre-delivery. Take up fetus- or even embryo-residence. Firmly entrench yourself and wrap those sensory channels around you like you’d hug a blanket against the cold. Then go for that head-first (hopefully) slow slide down the birth canal and out: squeezed takes on a whole new meaning. Your head so vised it actually changes shape and exits pointed. Coned. And that, believe me, that hurts like, well, it really hurts. That’s probably why they all cry, coned head hurts. Suffering from the first.
I have learned this lesson. That is why I wait.
I see the car. Melissa is sprawled in the back, uncomfortable, a little scared, hurting, sweating, asking where they are. How far to go. How long to go. And please hurry. Then comes another contraction and she submerges again and suffers some more.
Charles, driving, does not answer. Nor does he turn around.
No, I realize, this is not Charles. Someone else is driving the car. A neighbor, perhaps, or a friend. Whoever is driving this car does not turn around, does not answer, but concentrates very hard on just driving, on just driving as fast as possible. Tries to keep the car on even keel, smoothly flowing, by will alone; as if a stash of nitroglycerin was loosely placed in the back, not Melissa Marten. A pothole, a sudden stop, and they’d explode. Still, they have to go fast, she knows that, the driver, for Melissa is really worked up back there and could erupt any moment.
The neighbor, or whoever does this driving, must have called ahead for as they pull in to the emergency entry, the hospital staff is waiting for her, gurney at the ready. The car eases to an explosion-free stop and many willing hands—well coordinated and full of “done-this-before”—ease Melissa out of the car and onto the rolling bed.
The car moves off to the parking lot, while I follow the birthday train in through the large sliding (electronically, photo-sensored) doors. Melissa screams now as a new contraction takes over. Nurses exchange words and one of them consults a clipboard. They decide upon a room.
A doctor appears. Most likely Doctor Ross. She takes a look at Melissa, takes her hand, touches her forehead, says things, comforts her. Ten minutes she says to her—while for some reason she holds up two fingers, for the nurse’s benefit—she’ll see her in ten minutes, she says. The nurse will get her ready.
Melissa does not answer, but she tries to smile.
And true to her word, ten minutes later she’s back, examining Melissa now, talking to herself or the nurse, saying six centimeters (holding up six fingers—getting the count right this time). It’ll be a little while yet, this to Melissa, who does not listen so well right now.
So the doctor comes forward, takes Melissa’s hand again and says, “You’re six centimeters dilated, honey, it’ll be another hour, my guess, or more, before you’re ready.”
Melissa, as another contraction surges through, almost screams, no, she does scream, “I am ready now.”
The doctor does not answer, but neither does she let go of her hand. Nice touch, I think.
Then the contraction recedes, and Melissa returns to a semi-sentient state. “I’ll be back soon,” says the doctor.
The nurse stays with her, asking her if she needs something. Water, a fruit perhaps?
Melissa looks at her as if the nurse had spoken some alien tongue, not sure what to make of the woman. And here—so soon?—comes a brand new contraction, trying to outdo all of its predecessors.
Melissa screams.
This goes on for a while.
Then the doctor returns, takes another look and says, “Oh, my,” to herself, and partially to Melissa, too. To the nurse she says, “Okay, we’re ready.”
Birth follows. Melissa, on the crest of another contraction (I can see my head now, crowned, as they say) asks where the hell is Charles, and gets no reply.
And then, there I am, Ruth Marten, weighing in at the national average of seven and a half healthy pounds and screaming her head off. I’m going to let the head pain subside a little before heading in (pardon the pun).
Which it does, and she no longer cries. Another nurse hands her to Melissa who cradles her to her breast, and Melissa looks as happy as I’ve ever seen a human being look.
Now, I take possession.
Now I am Ruth Marten.
:: 20 :: (Pasadena)
Melissa woke up from yet another brief slumber.
First into the soft hum of hospital equipment, and then—closer to the surface now—into the afterglow of having brought new life to the world, new life into the universe.
The hum, if the ear could see, would perhaps appear like a varicolored mist, expandin
g from all directions and of all sorts: rising from heart-monitors, ventilation systems, distant elevators racing (or laboring) up and down—their doors opening, some smoothly, some with little squeaks, and closing—to computer and other equipment fans, capped by the high-pitched—beyond hearing almost—frequency of various computer screens and like instruments. An ocean of sound, as pervasive as silence, rising and filling every crevice of her room, mixing with, and mixed by, the light of seeing her world anew.
In truth, Melissa heard none of these sounds—or truer still, she heard them but they did not touch her. They were of a different dimension, one that could only partially gain purchase in the light of her new knowing.
Her private dimension was one of expansive joy, threatening to drown her, but she didn’t mind. She didn’t mind one bit.
It had gone well; those were Doctor Ross’ words. Very, very well in fact, especially for a first baby. No tearing. Hard to believe, even, she said, after such a quick birth. The doctor was amazed, that’s the impression Melissa got, awed almost. But always on the run, soon off to see to some other event with a smile, a thumbs-up, and a “Good job” a turn, and then there was only the tail of her white coat, and then it was gone, too.
Job? thought Melissa. A miracle is what it was.
And, sleeping now against her breast, this miracle, Ruth. Her very own little life. Only the top of her head visible to her, nestled. Separate from her now, delivered from her, and she had a bit of trouble coming to grips with the mechanics of that, with the event, and how things had so suddenly changed. For when inside her, Ruth had not been separate, had been part of her—a kicking part of her, but part of her nonetheless. No distance between them. None.
The same ecosystem.
But no more. Not once the umbilical cord was cut, the miracle free to breathe on her own.
The umbilical cord, which Charles was supposed to have cut, that was how they had planned it. Talked about often enough even for Charles to not forget.
And with that, almost violently, the room returned, and a new mood settled heavily on her heart: They had talked about it at length, and he had promised. Promised, yes, absolutely, he said, promised there would be nothing stopping him, he said, not his work, not his parents—especially not his father, nothing. Of course, he would be there. They were in this together, holding her hand as he told her all this, a little preachy, actually.
