by Blair Hurley
“Why did you give up at the end?” Mel asked. And then, her voice too loud in the small room: “Why did you abandon him?”
“I didn’t—our parents came and got us. We had an accident. Our other friend . . .”
“Your other friend?” asked Mark, and the room was silent.
She understood now. She asked to use the bathroom; Mel pointed down the hall. She stood a long while before the sink, looking at the array of creamy purple and pink soaps cut in the shape of lotus flowers, the bottles of lotion in deep blue bottles. The towels were so soft she had trouble drying her hands. She could hear the voices rising and falling outside. They wouldn’t miss her for another moment.
She went quietly across the hall into a bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. This looked like the master bedroom, judging by the hand cream and contact lens solution on one night table. She looked at her own hands; cracked and peeling, as always.
Eddie found her there. He closed the door and stood facing her in the dark. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I never thought I’d see you again. It was just a story to tell.”
“And you erased Jules from it.” She felt almost envious of him.
“Come on,” said Eddie, angry now. “He was no saint. I hope you don’t think of him that way. He was a bully. An asshole. He never quit pushing me around, and he treated you like crap.” He stopped and looked her in the eyes. “It killed me, seeing the way he treated you.”
I know. But I liked it.
“We’d better get back,” she said. “Mel will think you’re still in love with me.” She knew it to be true only as she said it. Of course: Eddie had loved her. Why else had he gone, had he put up with Jules, had he been so angry when she’d refused to see Jules’s flaws.
He laughed. “She thinks so already. You wouldn’t believe the flak I’ve gotten this week since I said I was going to see you.” He sat down beside her. “I’ve changed. But you haven’t.”
“That’s the problem.”
He touched her cheek, and she didn’t flinch. “You know that I miss him, too,” Eddie said. They had this built-in intimacy already, this closeness that comes from living through something together. Eddie knew her past, and with one confident stroke he had exorcised it for himself. But now he moved away. “I don’t think Mel has anything to worry about,” he added.
“Oh?” For a moment, she was pleading. Why not? Couldn’t we? Couldn’t you make Jules disappear, for me, too?
He got up, straightened his tie. “I don’t think you’d fit in. To my life now, I mean.”
“Right.” She stood up. She could give him this gift, and let him be a shit. She owed him one, after all. She’d played the part often enough. “Shall we?”
They rejoined the party.
She walked home, crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. It was late, and the footpath was empty, the great soaring arches barely visible in the darkness above her. The burly suspension cables were strung with lights, joining the two shores in luminescent constellations.
When she was across, she felt her cell phone vibrate on her hip. It was the Master. She heard his voice roaring before she had even brought the phone to her ear.
“You have betrayed me,” he bellowed. “You have lied to me.”
“What are you—”
“I know what you’ve done. You’ve found another teacher. And teaching by yourself, without my consent? You have betrayed me. Snake. Traitor. Deserter.”
She sank onto a bench. Hearing his voice berating her, so close in her ear—it was like he was beside her, leaning in close, full of wounded fury. “How—how do you know? How did you find out?”
“It doesn’t matter. I know. I know.” And he went on; there was no escape from the assault. “Traitor. Turncoat. Judas.”
She gulped down a sob, but she could not turn away from his voice. “I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I’m sorry. I had to—”
“You had to do nothing except listen to me, your Master. You filthy snake.” There was an imploring note in his voice, the thing she could not bear. “After all we have shared. All we have done together. And for you to secretly find another to trust—and then to pretend you were some kind of teacher—you have damaged those fools who think they are your students.”
“I’m sorry, Master. Please, forgive me. Please. I’m yours to instruct.” She was desperate. Seeing Eddie had shown her that she couldn’t be like everyone else; she needed him, she needed his steady guidance.
His voice was quiet now, as he regained control of it, returned behind his wall of unflappable calm. “I think, sometimes, about the things we have shared. We’re both refugees, you know. From another life. Our bodies touch, our minds fit. You are devoted. You want things so badly.”
She bowed her head. “What do you want me to do, Master?”
A police car went by with its siren wailing. He asked, “Where are you?”
“On First Ave. I’m walking home.”
“I will give you a lesson. Walk to the river.”
Beyond Thirty-fourth and First, the road opened into a snarl of on-ramps for the overpass. Navigating it in the dark left her nearly breathless; but beyond it was a thin strip of park with shrubs and trees, and a waist-high iron railing looking out over the water. Beyond that, the shapes and lights of Brooklyn glimmered.
“All right,” she said, leaning on the rail to catch her breath. “I’m at the river.”
“What do you see?”
“Brooklyn. The bridge. The river.”
“Is anyone around?”
She cast a look backward; aside from the rapid whine of traffic, she was alone. It was really so easy to be alone in this city. Take one step out of the busy stream of living, and you were suddenly in a deserted world of rotting piers, narrow alleys, buildings with FOR LEASE signs. “I’m alone.”
“Good. Now climb over the railing.”
“What?”
“Don’t make me repeat myself.”
On the other side was a slim concrete ledge littered with cigarette butts, then a short drop to the black moving water. Nicole slipped the phone into her jacket pocket, hiked up her skirt, and straddled the railing. She sucked in a breath when an icy bar brushed her bare leg, but she managed to swing the other leg over and drop to the concrete. “I’m over.” Somewhere far away a boat chugged by; the water swelled and lapped the narrow ledge.
“Now dip your legs in the water.”
“I won’t—”
“I told you not to make me repeat myself. I am your Master. If you want a taste of nirvana, you’ll get it from my lips.”
She pushed off her boots and socks, beginning to shiver. It was still spring, and a cold breeze whipped off the surface of the water. The lights of Brooklyn winked at her, hopelessly far away. She could feel the creep of terror now, metallic and chemical on her tongue. But she could not stop. She was far from anything that might pull her back. If someone were to see her here, some night runner or lonely smoker, he would think she was a jumper. He would not understand; no one would. She slipped one leg into the water and gasped.
“How does it feel?” The voice, close and harsh in her ear, rough with short breath.
“Cold! Very, very cold.”
“What would it feel like to slip and fall into the water?”
“So cold—like death!”
“Get in.”
“Please—”
“Get in, and hold on to the side.”
She put the phone on the ledge and squatted, lowering herself into the water. Each new high mark felt like ice creeping up her skin. Her feet swayed in the black groundless void. She clung to the ledge, just her head above water, her clothes heavy on her body, pulling her down, and put the phone to her ear again. “I’m in,” she gasped.
“What would happen if you let go?” The voice, soft now, purring in her ear.
“It’s so cold. I—I would drown.”
“Remember the Buddha’s instruction to look upon a corpse and imagine it as yourself, so that you m
ight truly understand impermanence. You must experience dukkha: the anguish we feel when we glimpse our nonbeing. Now make yourself the corpse. Describe it to me. Tell me of your death.”
Her teeth were chattering so much she could barely talk, but something inside her numbly obeyed. “First—first the cold would make it hard to swim. My muscles would seize up. I’d go under. Everything would be black. I wouldn’t know which way was up. I’d thrash, but it would be too late; I’d breathe water. I would choke. My brain would begin to shut down.”
“Yes, yes, yes. Don’t stop.”
“I’d lose consciousness. My body would go cold, and sink. I’d go far down. Nothing would stop me.”
“Don’t stop now!”
“If I wasn’t found, fish and flies would eat me on the top and the bottom. I’d rot. It would take a long time. Eventually there would only be bones left.”
The cold stabbed at her legs. Inside her head was a dull primordial chant: I would die. I would die. I would die.
“Good,” said the Master. “Very good. That was good. For now I release you. You understand another koan.”
She hung up the phone. The lights of the city jiggled and waved around her head, as distant as stars. She tried to climb out of the water but she was so stiff, she couldn’t make it. She fumbled, grasped a concrete edge that cut her hands; it took several tries. All this death-feeling was not for her, not tonight; all the longing to become nothing, to become spirit rather than matter, was so childish—her body was hers to keep for such a short while. Finally she was back on the narrow concrete ledge, drenched and exhausted, shivering uselessly.
There was just one thought in her mind; it was a memory, the only thing that could make her feel again, the memory she’d been saving for a moment like this, when terror and loneliness seemed inescapable.
It was from the last night she’d spent at Sean’s place, the weekend before she was due to leave. One cold day they sat upstairs by the window and saw rain move in silver bolts across the marsh. It was very quiet, and for a long time they sat on the couch watching. Sean’s lips were in her hair.
At night they crept down to the old furniture in the basement and made love on little old canopied beds too short for their twined feet. His body was very soft, pudgy and dark with downy hair. “You’ll write me letters, won’t you,” he asked. “I want something to hold when I think of you. I want to open a letter and see you tell me your story.” She promised she would.
Very early, Nicole awoke. He was beside her, his limbs loose with sleep, but she couldn’t see this; she knew only because of the heavy warmth of him on her.
She knew it was almost morning. She knew she had to leave. Soon Paul would be at her apartment, waiting to move her away, to succor her into her new life.
But for now, the darkness surrounded them sweetly. The only light came from the false dawn in a high basement window. This gray square floated without context in the blackness like a funny little moon. For a moment, she felt herself float loose like that lonely window. She was not herself, dense with ruin, but an effect of many causes, a body of intimate demands, a brief wonderful moment in time. Made moving by its approaching end. In another minute she would rise, pushing his leg gently off hers; another minute and she would be gone.
Here in New York, the memory quivered like the reverberation of a bell. Not happy or sad, not unhappy or unsad. Just real, and hers. In the next slip of time, she’d eased out of bed with Sean. It was still dark, and he hadn’t stirred. It was just as she’d promised: she was getting away without a good-bye. She pressed her hand to the warm space in the bed that she was leaving. Then raised her hand and it felt cool, the warmth already fading.
Then she slipped away.
Someone was leaning on her buzzer. The noise was loud and insistent, but she’d managed to ignore it the previous times it had rung in the last few days. The time for her meditation class had come and gone; her students had called many times before giving up. She pulled the blankets back over her head, waiting out the grating sound.
Now someone was pounding on her door. This was a closer and more intimate sound. It could be a fire marshal because someone had called Social Services. It could be her brother, who she had staved off for a while with phone calls. She’d told him she was sick, which wasn’t untrue. Now she struggled out of the tangle of sheets, tripping over them on her way. She barely remembered to check that she was decent—T-shirt, yoga pants—before turning the knob.
Jocelyn backed her way into the apartment the moment Nicole cracked the door, wrestling Emmeline’s stroller in with her. “You missed two coffees with me. And you just don’t seem like the hooky type.” She paused to take in Nicole, sweeping her gaze up and down the sweat-stained T-shirt, the rumpled pants, the bowls and glasses accumulating on the counter. “Girl, I was right to come,” she said. “Wasn’t I?”
“I’d rather you didn’t—”
Jocelyn was already putting plates in the sink. “What’s up? Are you okay?”
It was such a difficult question to answer. And Jocelyn was so kind; it was above and beyond their fragile acquaintanceship, coming here to check on her. She had a baby, she had the problems of a real family, and yet here she was. Nicole wanted to tell her, I’m fine. I just need time to recover. And I can never enter a meditation hall, a Zendo, or a temple or a roadside shrine, ever again. I can’t teach. I don’t know how, but he would know. And he would refuse to save me, I would be unredeemed forever.
“Thank you for coming, but really, I’m fine,” she said. “Just a little—under the weather.”
Jocelyn looked around the apartment, at her, at Kukai sitting by his empty bowl. When had Nicole last fed him? She poured him some kibble, then sank back to the couch.
“I don’t believe you,” Jocelyn said quietly. “I want you to understand. I’m like you. I had this person I worshipped, someone I couldn’t escape from. I’m still not fully free of him, I think.” She delivered this calmly, staring straight ahead. Nicole wondered how many years had passed, how hard-won this composure was in the telling. “I see you, getting quiet and dropping away,” Jocelyn continued. “I can’t leave you alone. I just can’t.”
Suddenly Nicole was angry. “You can’t put that on me. You’ve got your life, and I’ve got mine.”
Jocelyn didn’t say anything. She just waited, her gaze direct and patient. She already held so much of the story in her hands. But wasn’t it all playing out again, the running away, the finding out that she’d taken all her old sins with her? Nicole said helplessly, “My Master found out I was teaching. I don’t know how. But he’s like that. He has ways.”
Jocelyn nodded. Other people would ask why she could not leave her Master; but Jocelyn seemed to know. “The master-student relationship—in Zen, it’s a sacred bond,” Nicole went on. “It’s for life. You can’t ever break it.” And suddenly her mother’s words from so many years ago were in her mind: You have to understand. You don’t always feel happy. Sometimes you have to say to yourself, “I’m needed here.” When it stops being fun, still, you stay.
“How did you meet him?” Jocelyn asked finally. “Why is he your Master?”
THE PEACEFUL HEALING ZEN CENTER
Her ankle was held together by seven steel pins, and she needed crutches to walk. Her rucksack, covered in mud, held Jules’s notebooks, some condoms, some filthy underwear, a piss-soaked newspaper, the book she’d stolen from a library somewhere in Nebraska. (Or was it Illinois?) All that was left of the quest.
In the morning she was in her old bed; her clothes, her stuffed animals were still there, the school reports pinned to the walls. Her father was at work, Paul at the job selling medical supplies in Boston he’d gotten out of business school. The light slanted across her face in the old manner.
She sat up and lifted one slat of the blinds with two fingers, looking out into the backyard. Snow was on the ground, but the day was sunny. She watched her mother step outside and shake a white sheet, whipping it hard
in the light, her movements precise. Then her mother stopped; she folded the sheet, draped it over her shoulder, and crossed herself.
Nicole crept downstairs and prowled the house, looking at paintings, at china dolls, at sea-captain lamps and vases of pressed paper flowers. They hadn’t moved an inch; there was still the air of a museum, places where the dust had settled and would not stir. Only the family photos on the mantel had been shuffled: a photo of Paul with Marion had taken prominence, flanked by images of her parents. The only picture of her, an awkward school portrait, had slid off into a corner.
After a week at home, she found her rucksack in the trash. She tried to salvage the notebooks. All throughout her trip she had seen Jules writing in them at odd hours, frowning in concentration, crossing things out. She was certain they would contain something important, some final message for her. She’d take anything: a blessing, a curse, an explanation. She hugged them to herself and limped up to her room, closed the door, lowered the shades. The house was quiet enough that she could hear the occasional rasp of a turned page downstairs. The silence of a changed house—changed by her, made empty.
She opened the first book, then began to turn the pages with increasing dismay. All of them were a snarl of shapes, spirals, interlocking triangles, one word or two (“my hand my hand my hand”) filling pages. Many had been entirely blacked out by ballpoint pen and were crispy with ink. That was it—just the scribbles of someone on drugs. Meaningless. No story for her to tell, no absolution. She cried for a long time that afternoon, and her mother did not come. She understood then that her mother was not going to come, not now, not ever.
It was her father who stood in the doorway, looking away until she sat up, wiping her eyes. He waited until she straightened her hair, made herself presentable. “Come on now,” he said, in a pained way.
“What do you want?” Her nose was running; she spoke sullenly.
“We’re going,” he said, and gathered up her crutches. “We’ve got things to do.”
