Dinner Party

by Michael Brent Jones

  Chapter 5

  Jshel smiled. There is such a beauty in confidence and sincerity. The way she looked into my eyes, as if it was not her looking at me, or me at her, but us seeing ourselves. It was something I had felt with the other guests, but I think her beautiful dark hair and her radiant smile that provoked the epiphany.

  I took a deep breath to focus my attention at the conversation. “I am very eager to hear from one of my first lady guests. I didn’t recognize your name, but you said something about you being from the Indus river civilization.”

  She looked as if thinking where to start. “Well to answer your last question first I’m sure the only way you could have known about me is a statue known as the dancing girl.”

  “From Mojenjo-daro?” I said, with a little too much pride of my own knowledge.

  “Yes, I’m impressed you knew.”

  “Well I figured of the time period and places; that was the only city I had heard of.”

  “To start with my story I wasn’t actually from what is now known as Mojenjo-daro. I was from a city a whole day’s walk north. My story in some ways is probably a little different than the rest of us here, me being a woman, but I think in many ways it is a lot the same.

  Between my city Darol, and Moje there had been a long time conflict. There was no active strife between the two, but there was no contact either. Each one would speak horribly of the other. Every joke would start something like, ‘What’s worth less than a Moje?’ the other would answer that they didn’t know, then they would laugh. I didn’t enjoy it. They always said the most horrible things about them, but each thing seemed to be contradictory. How could they be so lazy they let their children starve, and be encroaching on our pastoring land? I decided to go see for myself.

  I made a cloak that covered my face and tried to make it look like I had heard Moje described. I made the day journey there and when I got to the outskirts of the city I realized that my disguise was ridiculous. They all dressed and looked very similar to our people. I slept on a hill under a tree and made the journey back.

  A day after arriving home, I gathered all of my bangles and the next morning went back. I arrived just as the sun was beginning to set. Being so scared I decided not to think and just do.

  I walked straight into the city, right up and into the palace. Not even the guards stopped me, they just looked puzzled. The king was talking with a few people. I stood right in the center of the room with a hand on my hip until they all stopped talking and looked my direction.

  When I had their attention I began to dance, and I mean dance. Stomping and tapping my feet, and slapping my hands on my leg and bouncing the bangles on my arms, created a rhythm that resonated in the room.

  It was a very driving beat. They seemed to be in a trance, with their head slightly moving forward and back with the beat. I ended with a loud stomp of my feet, looked the king in the eye, and walked out of the palace, and straight out of the city.

  My heart was pounding and so many thoughts were rushing through my head. I found my spot under the same tree I had previously on the hill outside the city, and tried to fall asleep. I couldn’t sleep till very late in the night. I didn’t know what was going on, and I bet the king and the rest there felt even more bewildered than me.

  I spend most of that night in an almost hysterical ebb of emotion; I would laugh as I remembered the looks on their faces, and then suddenly be so terrified. There are so many possible dangers for girl, and more so a girl alone in a foreign country.

  I tried to ease my anxiety telling myself that I would feel safe in a similar circumstance in my own country, but I knew that wasn’t entirely true. In fact, I had been harassed quite terribly more than once back in my own city.

  I did somehow fall asleep eventually. I woke up not as tired as I would have expected. I made the journey home the next day and told my mother. She couldn’t believe it, but she said that good things would probably come from it.

  The next moon I went again just as the first time. This time the king and his court were waiting as if they had just been notified by their century. I left just as the first time. I went the third time at the same day of the moon. Children followed me up to the palace where I found it newly adorned with flowers and of the colors of my bangles.

  This happened several more times and the parade and the adorns were better each moon I came. Then one moon on my visit, the king came running down before I could turn to leave and bayed me to stay the night. He said that wherever I was from, had to be a distant place, and that I was welcome to rest the night. I was quite amazed that the king would come, bowing, bidding me to stay.

  In my kingdom, only the servant of a king’s servant, would convey the message of the king to a stranger, especially a stranger who was a common person. My king wouldn’t bow to anyone.

  His court did look quite shocked, and so I knew it was this young king’s humility, and not the tradition of the city. I had planned to leave again as before, but the genuinity of the king captured me, so I stayed and exchanged a few words with him. I told him I was from Darol, and that because of the conflict if I didn’t return they might think something went wrong and war could start. I thanked him for his offer and turned and left the city.

  Later I found out that he knew I did not return to my city that night. He knew that I slept under the tree on the hill. What’s more, not only did he have guards keep watch for my safety all night, but on each hour he would come himself.

  The week before each next visit, not missing a single one after that for a year, the king of Moje sent gifts to my city. I was impressed that he delivered them not only to my king, but small gifts to the children and people of my city.

  I stayed to talk a little on another visit. The King who told me his name was Hara. He then asked if I could stay now. I told him that the conflict was not over. I knew hearts were not healed.

  So Hara sent emissaries to speak with the king, they thanked him for sending his daughter to dance for them. My king said he only had a son and had no knowledge of me. That was true; I was no one of importance in the city.

  The next month he sent gifts and emissaries and many girls to dance and entertain, every month.

  My king was a good king, but not knowing of me, he had reason to be suspicious. The king then told my king that anything he wanted from his city he could have as long as there was peace. My king still didn’t want to trade or to deal in any way. He was in many ways a good king and did this mostly out of protection for his people.

  I still came every month. In the anniversary of the third year of my first visit, King Hara came and offered my king his whole kingdom. This was a big surprise.

  The next day, hesitantly my king visited Moje. The whole kingdom welcomed him warmly.

  Before it was night my king left Moje, but some of his people stayed, and one of his men was assigned to be ruler of Moje under the command of the king of Darol.

  Hara who now was no longer king of Moje, came to me in private. He asked if I would marry him. I agreed. I knew he was a just man. I knew he loved me and both my and his people. And that he had done a great thing in healing the hearts of the two kingdoms.

  We lived as common people of his city and enjoyed together the peace and happiness of the two cities. The two kingdoms prospered and had peace for over a hundred years.”

  “Then what happened?” I asked.

  “Sadly enough, after the first ruler who my king had sent to govern Moje, the second ruler, started to tax more the Moje more than my people. He was also very cruel to them.

  A small group from Moje went to the King and pleaded that the ruler be changed. There was also a new king in Darol, and that new king himself, was also not a good man. To silence them he threw them in prison.

  One of the men the king of Darol had imprisoned escaped. He then started a revolution. Like all revolutions it was a bloody one.

  The revolutionists took back Moje overnight.

&n
bsp; When word of this got back to the king he said he would kill the prisoners if they didn’t relinquish the city. They didn’t, the king had the prisoners killed, and so the Moje came and destroyed the whole city of Darol, killed every man and stayed until every building was stubble. They returned to Moje with the women and children. My city was forgotten about. Now the city is known as Moje defeater of Darol, Mojenjo-daro.”

  A solemn sort of serious filled the room.

  After a minute or two eyes settled back on Jshel. “Only on a personal level can we truly be saved from our selves; there have been both great and weak men in utopian or corrupt civilizations.”

  “I agree. I still wonder what I would have done had I known the outcome.”

  “You never can know,” she replied.

  “Would you have done it the same way again if you had known?” I asked.

  “That’s hard to say.” Jshel answered, “They all did learn how to live in peace… at least for a while. They probably might have killed each other either way. What I do know, is I did what I felt was right in the moment I felt it.

  I didn’t think how it would all work out; I saw a problem and tried to fix it. Was it my problem to fix? I’ll never know. I wouldn’t know any more now if I hadn’t tried.”

  Looking around the table all seemed to agree.

  It took me a few moments to realize that I agreed. I think they knew the realization was coming, not as a ‘told you so’ sort of moment, but an excitement, like a parent watching their child open a present on Christmas. What a good thing, that sharing the secrets of happiness, is what they enjoy the most. This of course was more of a feeling I had than a conscious realization, it wasn’t until I was writing this down that I understood.

  I shared, “The times I suppressed a good intention I have regretted the most, and the reasons why I did now seem unimportant. My wife once replied to the kids when they pestered her about why she had run off a producer that wanted them to be in a movie, ‘I love you and I did it! The boys didn’t bother her about it again after that. I think it was one of those things they thought about in different ways as they grew up, I know I did.”

  “How old were the boys then?” Eurydice asked.

  “David was probably eight and Roy was ten. They started wrestling over a coin they found outside the soda shop. A producer saw it and said that was exactly what he was looking for in movie they were going to shoot. He promised the kids all kinds of things. They came begging Mom to do it. I saw the man just as I was leaving, I was glad Ann told him not to waste his time. She didn’t even wait for his sales pitch. She didn’t let the boys make her feel guilty for it, but boy did they try. Finally about a week later they brought it up and that was the last time.

  “That’s quite the story!” Eurydice remarked.

  “Thanks. I’m really glad the boys didn’t do it, they would have been good, but our lives would have been really different. They did think it was the end of the world though.”

  Imhotep spoke, “You know, one time the same sort of situation arose. I did not want to risk my daughter being angry with me, and both she I suffered for it. I did learn a couple very important things though.

  One, that it is important that there be suffering, because only through suffering can we see the impurities our fear taints into our love, and only then can we strive to purify it.

  And two, though suffering is important, it is not important that any one of us be the ones to be it’s cause; it’s not our place. Really it’s no one’s place, but since all of us are imperfect, it is inevitable that we will be cause some suffering.”

  “I find it interesting that you said fear taints love, I feel that is a topic that should be expanded, if you would?” I asked Imhotep.

  “Hmmmm fear. Well, there are only two driving forces I would say: fear and love. Fear is easier to explain. Pure and simple - fear begets selfishness, pride and hopelessness. Every vice is a combination of different amounts of each of the three. Love is the harder one to explain, I feel I am only beginning to truly understand it. I still feel inadequate to fully expound, but I’ll give it a try. There are no words pure enough or deep enough to paint a picture of love. I would say in the ‘deepest’ sense of the word ‘Love,’ it is that which begets hope.

  What that means to us: love is the degree to which we are willing to sacrifice to encourage and inspire hope. This hope instills a sense of duty and vision, which in turn begets charity and affection, which is love. Love is the beginning, the means, and the end”

  It was quiet for a few moments while my mind tried to organize what I had just heard. I had always imagined love being different between friends, family and a spouse. It started to make sense that in every sense of the word love, there was charity, but also there was affection, just affection shown in different ways, whether through letters, hugs or kisses, it was all the same.

  “True affection stems from gratitude.” Imhotep continued as if reading my mind. “And so there should be affection between friends, family and one’s spouse, the bounds of how affection should be shown between friends and a spouse are different, and for good reason.” He said with a chuckle.

  The conversation continued and it wasn’t until the next day when I was writing about what happened that I realized that I didn’t actually say out loud what I was thinking, everyone just knew. I made it a point to ask how that worked in the next dinner party; but more on that later.

  The last main conversation was ignited as I found it interesting that Eurydice and her husband Orpheus were both at the party. I asked them their story and it was very interesting to watch Orpheus as Eurydice spoke. Almost the whole time she spoke she was praising Orpheus, but no one at the table acted as if the situation was flattery. At first I was expecting Orpheus to blush and try to say something to defend himself from looking self-righteous, but he didn’t. I wish I would have paid more attention to the details of the story, but this was really the only time I had ever seem this happen. Usually there is always an ‘oh please, I was just merely trying to… you’re making me blush’, as if there were only two options, try to accept the praise with pride, or trying to add into the praise a dash of humility, but not in this case.

  There was a third option; don’t even think about your pride or humility. It seems that all too often the one way direction of our thoughts towards ourselves, narrows our vision and our possibilities. That must be one of the biggest changes from here into the afterlife.

  Even after she finished someone else spoke up, the conversation carried on and it didn’t seem that Orpheus owed any praise back to Eurydice. I guess no one questioned his love for her; that is probably the best way to live; live so that no matter what anyone hears, they never question who you are.

  What a good example of love they were to me. What Eurydice spoke about, is how it is not only possible, but immensely important to love someone before you meet them. Orpheus was from a different tribe, and her and his cultures couldn’t be much more different than they were. Nevertheless they both fell madly in love with each other, because they had both loved each other before they met.

  Orpheus, Eurydice recounted, had a dream that he was on the ocean shore and saw the most beautiful woman standing confident and majestic on the back of a large sea turtle. He swam out there through the crashing waves till he was in the water right in front of her. He knew she was the one, that she was the girl of his dreams. He looked up and smiled at her only to see that she was looking far off at the shore, as if expecting something or someone to appear. In desperation he beseeched her, ‘what are you waiting for? I’m right here. Her gaze didn’t change and his countenance fell. His heart broke as he treaded water in front of her.

  Then the turtle’s head popped out of the water and he asked, ‘What is she supposed to see in you? What have you done to catch her attention? You can see what she has done in her smile and in her countenance. What makes you think you deserve her? You’re not a bad person and well done for that, but
you are not an especially good person either. What do you have to show for yourself?’

  ‘I don’t know what she wants.’ Orpheus retorted in desperation.

  ‘Would she want someone with integrity or a fraudulent? An honorable or disgraceful man? A hard-working or a lazy creature? Knowledgeable or ignorant? Charitable or heartless? Humble or arrogant? Sensitive or void of emotion? A romantic or a prosaic?

  Orpheus was paralyzed and sank into the ocean. He then awoke from his dream and his life was changed. He was only a lad at that time, but it seemed that he matured twenty years in that one night alone. It was seven years before Orpheus met Eurydice, but by that time he was ready… and she was too.

  “A real love that surpasses circumstance and condition can spread around the whole world,” was one line I distinctively remember Eurydice saying.

  Even before they met, their love inspired all those around them. Another story she related was about how while Orpheus was sailing with the Argonauts, they were passing an island where barbarians had set women singing known as sirens on the shore to lure the ships who passed. The sirens would run into the forest when the sailors landed, and as they followed them they would be attacked.

  The Argonauts, tempted by the sirens changed course for the island. Orpheus then started to play his lire and sing a song he had written to the future mother of his children; praising her virtue and beauty. Thanking her for saving her whole heart for him, and loving him by respecting herself. He sang of his promises to do the same for her and the happiness they would one day share. His music drowned out the sirens and moved the hearts of his fellow sailors. They turned and set course away from the sirens back to their journey, saving their lives.

  I’m not sure if I had slipped off into a dream, but during each story, I could imagine them unfolding, I guess I was more carried away because of the music I imagined as Eurydice recounted Orpheus’s story.

  All I know is the next thing I remember is hearing someone use the words law and human nature in the same sentence. I thought I heard it come from the far left corner so I asked Perue, “Pardon, I must have been a little distracted, but I thought I heard you say something about the law or laws of human nature; what are or are there any?”

  “If you mean just as in the laws of physics, what a physical thing actually does, and not what they are compelled to do, well, either way yes there are laws, but they are more like patterns.” Perue said.

  “Are they laws over or above our agency?” I asked.

  “It’s not that we don’t have agency over them, just that we have all built them up so strong in our habits, that they are deeply rooted in our subconscious.

  The best example is the law that states, ‘every person will eventually in some instance treat all people how they treat in any instance any person.’ A spouse first is always treated as royalty, sometimes more casually as a lover, then in difficult moments only as family, and a friend or even a stranger in the hardest times.” Perue commented solemnly.

  “That sounds horrible. I feel guilty, although specific instances don’t come to mind, I know there must have been times I treated an as a friend or stranger.”

  “I wouldn’t feel guilty about it. I think more than trying to remember the damage we may have done, a better question to ask ourselves is: Is our ability to love strengthened or weakened with every time we have the opportunity to love and do or do not?” Perue asked seemingly rhetorical, but I guess that is just how it seemed to me being merely mortal.

  “Well yes oh course,” I answered. “But why is that the important question to ask?”

  “I’ll answer that one.” Jshel spoke up breaking the silence. “Before talking with someone, if we have the habit of lying, we have to decide in each case, how thought-out of a lie we have to tell. Depending on how gullible we think some else is, or how much we care that they don’t discover the lie. The convenience of telling lies can lead us to hoping everyone is either dumb or unimportant to us, and that they will remain that way.

  A lie is quite the opposite of love. We want habits where we are always hoping the best of and for everyone. We don’t want the habit of letting our moral interactions be conditional, because there will be times when, hurt or disappointment will slip someone we love briefly into the acquaintance category. If we are not careful, we might find ourselves in difficult moments hoping people are either dumb or will soon be unimportant.”

  “Like the ocean swells, waves can erupt in our emotion and intellect so great that if our boat is not build sure, it will not weather the storm.” Perue added.

  “I think I will have to give this idea a lot of thought, I’m not sure I really get it, but I think I will.”

  The guests watched as I scrambled to write down in my notebook the thought and my initial considerations about it. I finished and then spoke, “Not to change the topic but I just realized I don’t know your story, where are you from?” I asked Perue.

  “I grew up in what is known as Machu Picchu, you could say back in the day.”

  It really surprised me how they all for the most part spoke the same way, sometimes using words and phrases from way back in their time, and other times saying things from now and possibly even in the future. I think it’s funny to them, the extra pauses and the subtle smiles that spread around the room when they speak, shows that there is a lot not only that can be perceived from language, but also enjoyed.

  “Were there any big changing points in your life?” I asked.

  “There is an effect as one goes through life with more time on their hands. I always said I wished I had more time for a lot of things, astrology, art and just to think about our place in the universe. It seems as time and technology go on, most people still only use small portions of their day to ‘Invest in themselves’ and ‘life’.

  Find time to invest in life, because what else is there to invest in? I have seen that as time goes on, people have the luxury of having more time on their hands, but they always find ways to fill it up with unimportant things, social norms and cultural rituals. We waste time in places we don’t want to be, with people we care little about, only because we think someone else cares that we do so. I found myself trying to impress imaginary people; not that they were invisible, but being lower in the hierarchy I found it very hard not to do what I thought would impress those socially above me.

  I remember one day when I spent most of the morning readying my clothes and myself, to go to the center of the city to place bets on the games. My son asked me to show him how to catch fish in the river. I told him I couldn’t, and he asked me why. I started a response, but all at once I felt so gross and ashamed. I tried to fight the opposition in my mind by saying that I was obligated by society to go, but that didn’t hold water. I had the urge to just run and leave no response, but I felt as if something inside me, everything inside of me in fact, was going to tear if I moved.

  Looking back, I know that something would have torn if I would have. In the body there are two creatures, and they are both in enmity with each other. For one creature to do anything, the other has to be subjected to it. One has a mind and the other only has an appetite. The more the mind gets the more it is satisfied, but the more the appetite gets, the more its hunger grows; its appetite is for imaginary things, it dreams that it is eating but when it wakes, which it dreads to do, it is empty and pangs.

  The praise the appetite seeks is from people who have ceased to think for themselves, and so in the true sense of the word ‘praise,’ cannot do so. The admiration they seek is from those who cannot see beyond themselves, nor can they even truly see themselves, so neither can they give admiration. At all times one creature is dying as it is subjected to the other.

  I am glad to say in that moment, that though I struggled, I did not tear that mind out of the central part of me that chooses. We went fishing that day, and I am grateful that we did. The words of my son resounded in my soul the rest of my life. With every action I did, I could hear
his voice, ‘Why dad?’

  Looking back I wouldn’t have traded that day fishing with my boy for anything. He must have retold the story about the big one that almost got away a hundred times. Every time he did, it made me so happy knowing how happy it made him,” Perue concluded.

  “Why, and for what, are the magical words if there ever existed any,” Gudea added.

  As far as I know that’s pretty much how the night ended. Again I’m not sure how I ended up in my bed all nice and tucked in.

  Though I spend the whole night up with the guests, I didn’t want to let Jenny down so I woke up at daybreak and went to her room, she was still fast asleep. I fell asleep in the armchair in her room waiting for her to wake up. It wasn’t until late in the morning when I awoke to her tugging on my sleeve.

  “Why did you fall asleep here Grandpa?” Jenny asked puzzled.

  “I was waiting for you to wake up so we could go to the zoo.”

  “The zoo! I forgot. Are we still going to go?” She said clapping her hands together.

  “Of course.” I responded.

  Just then the phone rang and it was David. Plans had changed and he wanted to pick Jenny up early, messing up our plans for the zoo.

  Though I was really looking forward to enjoying the zoo with her, I also had a lot of writing to do. It was still a success, I enjoyed time cooking and talking with Jenny, and still pulled off the dinner party.

  After she left, excitedly and maybe a little frantic, I began writing the recap of the previous night. When I got to the part where I had realized that I hadn’t asked Perue’s story, I realized that Orpheus didn’t tell his wife’s story. He also didn’t say what he had learned. I think it was worse that I had made a point to apologize for forgetting Perue, and still completely forgot to ask anything from Orpheus.

  The next few days I thought about it a lot, and came to the conclusion that if somehow I had a little control over who came that night to dinner, then maybe he could come again in the upcoming dinner party.

  He was very delightful and I could even prepare some questions just for him. Then Tuesday morning rolled around and I checked my mail…

  Chapter 6