by Bruce Wagner
LXXXVIII.
Chester
arrive at 10 PM, hair-raising cab ride hilariously perilous, zillions of lamps and lanterns, and it wasn’t until they reached the hostel, which took 2 whole hours from the airport (Laxmi’s dad, Mr Reliable, said it would take only 30 minutes), in that entire time never abeyance or cessation of the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of thousands of lights and people, Chester realized this was India, its heart and spirit and energy, India multitudinous and hydraheaded, he would never have the luxury of space again, or at least not the kinky bad faith luxury of American space, space one could buy, all space had its price, even the air above Manhattan buildings was for sale, not that space was something he’d had his fill of, but rather he’d had his fill of everything American, all things America, the trademarked quality of such space was no longer necessary for his well-being—it wasn’t until they reached the hostel that they learned about Diwali, how the lights were a celebratory manifestation of Rama’s return, and her namesake the goddess Laxmi! a delirious festival of lights and firefly phosphorescence. The pair thought that of great portent.
Laxmi consulted a slew of printed out Web pages. Their boardinghouse was in a district called Breach Candy—how cool was that?—near a famous temple called Mahalaxmi. A fancy hospital and private “swim club” were within view. Tomorrow they would travel to Cumballa Hill, where, at his apartments, Ramesh Balsekar gave darshan or satsang (Chess didn’t have the lexicon down), they would sit at the feet of the retired bank president and one-time student/translator of Maharaj Nisargadatta in the morning, if they managed to awaken. Chess was determined. Laxmi was certain they would, but it didn’t matter, how could it, nothing mattered now. Don’t sweat the big or small stuff. Because what they had was uncorrupted time, sheer time, to become nonattached adherents, students of Father/Mother/Mentor Time, scholars and undergrads of Time and its birthchild Space, they could wash and soak and worship then wring their rags and follow its banks, wormholes, and bends; merge with tributaries, coalescing ghats and Godspeed, time would be their luxury, an even greater luxury than space, Time was Space, time was She the Great Mother, and space, Her imperial guards. The “little ones” had shown him that when Time was mastered, timespace could be entered as bride/groom would a hushed cathedral.
American Time and Space!
(Fell away like dead cells.)
His old life was already a dream.
He wanted a new name.
Maybe Ramesh would give him one.
The instant expats were delusional with fatigue but made comic, cosmic sex from their discomfiture, dislocation, and psychedelic discombobulation. It was a suffocating night and Chess had an apprehension of Indian heat, unlike that of the desert but full, watery, gravid; not the heat of a scavenger’s sandbox but of a banquet hall strung with incense and the incest of wilting roses. Still he fell asleep with a preternatural, childish excitement the headlamps of childhood knowing that tomorrow he would awaken in Mumbai morning light, in
LXXXIX.
Joan
the final signing of executorship. She would manage her mother’s estate and “affairs.” (Legal word.)
She told Barbet she wouldn’t be coming back to ARK but would stay on as consultant. (Which was understood, but they formalized it. Her life had become all about formalizing and witnessing. Joan Hennison Herlihy was formalizing, princess in a prefecture, she was sealing and waxing, embossing and imprimaturing, and felt like a mature woman for the 1st time in her earthy, earthly life.) She was now in charge of some $93,000,000—excluding the 20 soon to be given her by Lew for the care and feeding of the bastard out of (North) California. There were foundations to be tilled, hedges and charities to be pruned and seeded, tax havens to be harvested, analysts and planners to be planted and yanked like weeds. More than anything, she wanted to buy land, thousands of acres of open space, with rivers running through. She would build little, fabulous sepulchral follies, her own fucking Marfa loop, and name it Barfa (Barbet laughed at what he thought was an homage to himself) yet make it a serious venture. Spicey Zorritos, Rimjob K, and Thom Pain would all sit up and take notice—even Lew.
Especially Lew.
SHE phoned her brother, knowing it was time to tell him everything. Joan was at once melancholy yet winsome because of the baby, that almost abstract unwhisperable wildflower tendril of hope which only visited itself upon the unexpectedly expectant, those blessed and trashed and terrified mothers-to-be, the ones who were older or damaged in whatever way the leaves of the world had rustled No to their numb, unmeaning or sometimes superdeliberate bid to create, the Year of the Horse she was, now having the ride of her life, Joan felt an obscene bounty of sanguineous spirit—she would make the call, to the brother she’d so ruthlessly judged since they were kids, her little (that’s how she thought of him) Chess, Mama’s Chesapeake, Daddy’s Chesterfield, fucked-up 1st born who afterall did the best he could, as had everyone—St Joan the Exemplar! She wanted to give him 2,000,000, just like that, drop it right down, to snap him out of whatever place he was in or drive him further into darkness, that wasn’t up to her, only the impulse was, the urge was the only thing she could rightfully own, she would see what it would do, if it could dislodge him from what she knew hadn’t been the best of places, he was worn out, injured, and embarrassed, it was a motherfucker being a man in America, Joan imagined the look on his face when she told him, he’d be able to take care of shit he’d never dared even mention, he would probably throw away the 1st million, what did she expect, none of her business, maybe for that reason she’d give it in 2 hunks of a mil each, let him throw it away, if that’s what it took, she’d put governors on the 2nd installment, contractually lay it out like that, up front and open, she could even invest the 2nd part, buy Chess a ranch in Thousand Oaks or Agoura, there were a hundred ways she and her advisers could go, but all good, fucking supreme, she had no control over the results and could only hope he didn’t nut out and get paranoid and chase after her for the rest of the money, challenging her right to manage the estate, but maybe it’d go the best way, and he could settle down and have a kid or kids of his own. From the legal end, she’d pretty much covered the this-is-Mother’s-money-not-ours-and-I’m-the-caretaker angle, and made it ironclad. But you never knew. She didn’t want her brother going ballistic and eating up a bunch of the trust by challenging her theodicy, she did what she’d had to, using Lew’s very expensive lawyers to make certain: she wouldn’t tell Chess about that until it was necessary, wouldn’t bring out the big guns about his drug abuse and doctor shopping and priors having to do with stealing from their mom—in the last 6 months, he’d forged Marj’s name to checks totaling 35-hundred dollars. No big thing. She wouldn’t go there unless he forced her. There was always the chance he’d use whatever money she gave him to somehow find out about her and Lew, to pester the surrogate paperworked geekdad decoy, maybe causing major/minor problems, but that was unlikely. She caught herself being paranoid and didn’t like the feeling.
Maybe she wouldn’t give him shit.
No, I will…
Joan had been nothing if not thorough, that was her nature—attorneys had made stipulations in case of death, hers, Joan’s, because she knew Chess could get wayward and she never fully trusted him or his buddies, like that Maurie Levin character, or the Squeaky Fromme masseuse, not because her brother was malicious, only because he was weak and exorbitant and pettily grandiose, disorganized and on the dumb side, but that wasn’t a crime, it was just him, nothing to be judged or punished for, they were old now, or older anyway, how many decades did they have left between them? She had of course designed a simple airtight proviso in the event of her mother’s but mostly Joan’s demise that would seed the Freiberg monies to Trust so her baby would be taken care of in perpetua, not that Chess could ever even remotely get his hands on that, and Joan had her own ideas of what to do with Mom’s fortune, how it could best be used to benefit others (excluding her bro), how Marjorie Herlihy’s n
ame would live on in the form of the Herlihy Giving Foundation. Still, she wanted to find Chess, Chesapeake, Chesterfield, wanted to tell him everything and present the no-strings cash award, she would say that was part of a gift allowed legally, for tax purposes, from the estate, a gift in equal parts to both of them that stemmed from the lotto windfall, she wanted to find him and sit with him and tell him everything, the wanting with almost urgent maternal longing. Joan tugged toward Family now, the little one growing inside her an advanced scout, a runner’s torch that spurred her into the arms of her imperfect flesh and blood. She felt a sea change, literal and spiritual, in the family fortune.
His home and cellphones were disconnected and that worried her (she would get the PI on it if she had to) so she stopped by his WeHo rental. She’d never even been there, and that fact alone made her feel derelict as a sibling, the desire to help him redoubling. The landlord, a warm and welcoming girl who Joan suddenly remembered was the daughter of Don Knotts, told her Chester had moved out, her tenant said his mother had been sick—“Is she OK?” Karen asked dolefully, with big brown empathic eyes—Yes, said Joan, doing much, much better—and that Chester said he was moving back to the family place to take care of her.
Joan thanked her and fibbed: Yes, her brother was coming home, and Karen said something about him going on a scout, a 2 week scout in the Rockies. How stupid of me, said Joan. Now I remember. It’s just—we’ve been so overwhelmed. I know you understand. She touched Joan’s arm, inviting her in for coffee. Joan politely declined. What a sweet, sweet woman.
She probably did more for Chess than I ever did.
Joan called the PI and told him what was happening—her brother was gone. He said he would find him. This is the guy they shoulda sicced on Osama.
SHE drove to the City of Industry. This time she didn’t need the Woman to lead her. This time she didn’t go to the liquor store for Diet Coke, cigarettes, and chips. This time she didn’t wait outside but went straight upstairs to knock at the door but no one answered. Then her heart seized as the dog jumped from nowhere and barked, he leapt on the couch and butted against the window its snot and wild eyes, the television was on but
XC.
Ray
the cousins made a terrible scene.
Ray sat insensate.
All the dreams she had were true, but true for her and the baby—not for her Bapu, not for her Raj.
The night his daughter had come visiting, the night Joan came and went (he knew because she’d left a note), Big Gulp felt what she thought to be pangs of labor: towels of blood and clotted cousinpanic ensued and the paramedics took her away. An hour later the doctor said the baby was dead but she would have to wait for it to come, they would give her drugs to break it apart but could not open her up without endangering her life, none of it made sense to the old man but he was no doctor, he even tried to call Detective Lake to see if it sounded sensible but couldn’t find him, the medics said Big Gulp might even have contractions—in an hour, in a day, a week or a month—a month!—forcing lumpen drowned nacreous soul into the hands of surgical-gowned death-maidens and the fresh mocking air, failed goddess who could not sculpt life from Her offal.
His Ghulpa could not fathom stillbirth, it wasn’t easy for Raymond either to think of such a beautifully wrapped package, the gift they’d been waiting an eternity for, already dead, on top of it now they wanted her to hang fire! Was this Purgatory? He had always heard that Purgatory was a waiting room, yes, why not, they wanted them to wait for the delivery of something dead and broke apart by drugs. God knows what it would look like when it was delivered.
Ghulpa said Durga killed her baby. This is what she said over and over and over again, that Durga was astride her now and would take her soon as well. Ghulpa said she was the buffalo and the drops of blood in the field, she could smell the monsoon sharp in her nostrils and she told Raymond (it seemed with some relief) that never, ever would she leave this hospital, Raj, I am returning to Calcutta for the rains, he was surprised to hear her entertain that, even in febrile delirium, wet rag upon broiling head, cooing and softly urging her not to talk, useless, his Ghulpa said she was going to the Hooghly on a flatbed and could smell the ruthless ovarian force of monsoon, hush my darling, don’t fear my darling, but the beast hadn’t yet snatched their baby! it was the waters, tiny lungs had aspirated sacred waters—his Lionel! already drowned and fallen into the City of God’s treacherous manhole, tradition bade them keep the lids off to help drain the floods, BG told him that, when they 1st met at the pier, of the place she was born where the lids came off during monsoon but the waters rose and crossing the street you couldn’t see the holes that concealed deadly currents beneath and people fell in while wading across the shambolic, fecal-billeted roads of West Bengal, electrocuted in shantytowns, 50 inches of rain in 2 hours’ time, down down down they disappeared, 30,000 goats and sheep and buffalo too, all their poor child—Chesterfield!—had ever known was water, life-sustaining purveyor of death (and Ray with his excess fluids congestive arrhythmias and pulmonary edemas), here now his Ghulpa taking in water, death-sustaining eddies, manholes and womanholes too. You’re cruel, she Tagore-sang—remedial Calcuttan memory keen now, Krnsa disguised as a ferryman (while the cousins wept)—Lord of the lonely dark, so far away in Mathura. In whose bed do you sleep? Who slakes your thirst upon waking?—the cousins grew inconsolable—Where are your sun-colored clothes—lost among the trees? And your crooked smile? Whose necklace gleams on your neck? Where have you thrown my wildflower chain?—cousins hysterical wailing—my golden love for whom I bloom unseen, you rule my emptiness, my endless nights. For shame, black-hearted one—you’re coming with me.
That girl is suffering.
The cousins yowled and tore their hair—
Raymond backs away as she calls him to
XCI.
Chester
morning and they go outside, alarmcocked rousing in Time to smells and chaotic embracing stunned-light of Mumbai but the mellow people gathered at the coffeeshop near Mahalaxmi Temple—seekers and pilgrims from Australia and Brazil and England and Italy and Finland and Russia—most call it “Bombay” so that’s what Chess starts saying too. (Easier than moom-bye—Bye, Mom!) Some of the old hands tell the American couple the most important thing: look both ways before crossing the street because the cars will kill you. And make sure bottled water caps are not subtly broken cause they fill em for resale and you’ll get sick. (He decides to stick with Coke in a can.) The Breach Candy Swim Club has a pool in the shape of India and that you must see. It’s private but if you want to have lunch there we can get you in.
They sat with their tea and Chester felt new-specie’d gladness sauntering past Mahalaxmi, hundreds in line at the temple, women so beautiful, spectacular saris, even the homeliest of the homely, cops and colonial buildings saturated with a bliss he could not fully absorb or recognize, no syntax, everything degraded and dustily decayed/wedding cake layered edible, if you looked hard enough you could find—thrust against skyline—as mathematically complex as anything cubenses had shown him—structures of enormous imagination and wealth, private homes like found objects, puzzlepiece jewels within holy impoverishment grid, the entire city like that, a living archaeological dig concealing walk-in walk-out tombs of prosperity, don’t be fooled by cliché and nonsense, that obsessive, corny, corrupt Western dream of destitution, yes there was disease/disfigurement, though this too: the ancient sacerdotal sussultorial seat of the imperial armies who guard Her, She, and those lucky enough to see they are Her students.
Soon the sweetly bedraggled troop trudged excitedly up a hill (looking both ways before they crossed), then loitered outside a tall apartment house with benevolent guard standing sentry. After 15 minutes, he smilingly gave a sign and the procession began, congregants racing up spiral staircase, shoppers at a spiritual fire sale, seeking enlightenment is like crying fire in an empty theater, Chess Herlihy shed his old self with each step, became enraptured on the ascent,
the floors—2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th—old and beautiful and wood-oiled, woodclean well-kept, each more ornate than that which preceded, at the same time simpler too this is what the ascent to heaven must be like doors and moldings of residences on each level, made of teak—whoa! the guru owned the whole well why not, why always emphasis on poverty-enlightenment, why not a wealthy guru, without Western-style cynicism attached. Any idiot knew an enlightened man need not walk in rags. Why must it always be cartoonish, stupidly familiar? Why must our gurus live in caves? Why could we not—Chess was now a student of Time—there was so much noise outside, like an orchestra, chanting and hornblowing and shouting everpresent (another thing that for some reason comforted). He was now a student of Time and Her daughter, Space. At penthouse floor the couple removed sandals, placing them in trafficked rack of sole searchers before entering humble spacious suite, someone gently ushered them to a small but airy room inside rooms where they plunked down on cushions, 30 or so guests, shiny distraught obsequious eccentric crazy-vain grateful beings from all over the merciful Lonely blue Planet who had somehow converged on this coordinate, this very Space and this Time, and after a while the old silver-haired man, handsome and fit, came and sat down.
