The Beginner's Guide to Living

by Lia Hills

  I slide the liner back, making sure it looks as if it’s never been touched. The closet’s open like a request—it’s easy to tell which her things are, they’re so much more colorful. I squat among the boxes and shoes, my head stuck in the hems and their scent. I slide my fingers under the door and drag it shut behind me. A strip of light bisects my knee. It is even quieter in here; all I can hear is my breath which sounds afraid of the dark, as if it’s aware of the limited air inside the closet, of the finite number of breaths. My mother didn’t get to breathe all of hers—somebody stole them from her. Somebody she’d never even met performed the ultimate theft, and yet he lives.

  I try to remember his name. Dad told me it—I don’t know how he knew, somehow he did that day at the hospital, the day they split her open to try and salvage her life. Connelly, maybe, or Conrad. I hope he’s in a shitload of pain. I hope his hurting outstrips mine by a thousand lashes. That he has some awareness of what he’s done, a tiny insight into the world he’s created, and the one he took away.

  * * *

  In my bedroom, on a card Mom kept for thank-you notes I write a quote from Macbeth:

  Taryn,

  The grief that does not speak whispers the o’erfraught heart and bids it break.

  Love,

  Will

  TWO

  THE DANCE

  FRIDAY NIGHT, we’re invited to Taryn’s again—I think she might have had something to do with it. We all go, even Adam, and both Taryn’s sisters are home, so we can hardly fit into the living room as Ray shows us in. “Samara’s just flown in from Pakistan.”

  “It was getting a bit dangerous, too many attacks,” Samara says, smiling, her dark hair drawing a straggly line across her back.

  “I’m Adam,” he says, checking her out.

  “We’re just glad to have you back in one piece, love. And this is Frida.” Frida reaches over and shakes our hands. Her hair is the same marmalade as Taryn’s. “Frida works for a recruitment firm.”

  “Which one?” asks Adam, as Taryn edges over to me.

  “Let’s go,” she whispers. Adam looks at us, at our linked fingers, but I don’t flinch, not a muscle, till Taryn leads me away. In the kitchen, her bangs caught in her eyelashes, she says, “Thanks for the card.”

  I brush the stray hair out of her eyes, imagine entering in through them. God, I’d like to know what I feel like to her.

  She smiles. “Give sorrow words.”

  “What?”

  “It’s the line before the quote you sent me, the one in the card about the overfraught heart. Give sorrow words.” She presses her hand to my chest, the heat of it drawing out and dispelling something dark. “You can tell me anything, you know, anything at all.”

  I trace a pattern of freckles down to her lips. Kiss them. Let the scent of her wash over me as I absorb the promise in what she’s said.

  “I had a dream about you last night, Will.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “You were all golden, like that night out at the mandala, and…”

  I want to touch the spot where the skin of her neck disappears into her dress.

  “It was as if you had a thousand hands.”

  “A thousand hands?”

  “Bit like Nataraja,” says Samara, breaking in. “Sorry, guys, they were starting to talk real estate. Not my thing.” She plonks down at the table.

  “Who?” I ask, my eyes forced away from Taryn’s neck.

  “The Hindu god of creation and destruction,” says Samara, an edge of pride in her voice. She’s wearing a white dress which is heavily embroidered on the front. She sees me looking at it, and smiles. “A friend in Pakistan gave it to me. Bought it for me in Rawalpindi market.”

  “Is that where you learned about Hindus? In Pakistan?”

  “No, most people there are Muslims, though I met some up in the mountains who believe in fairies.”

  “Fairies?”

  “Yeah. Life-sized ones that live on glaciers.” Samara twists the ring on her little finger around and around with her thumb. “Up there, there’s still a fair bit of animist belief.”

  “So what’s an animist when it’s at home?” asks Adam as he comes in, followed by Frida.

  So much for being alone.

  Adam takes a lingering look at Taryn as he sits down at the table, next to the groove.

  “An animist believes that everything has a soul. Rocks. Trees. Even people.” Samara smiles at her audience, stretches her arms above her head. “Anybody want some wine?”

  She fills five glasses from a bottle on the table while the rest of us sit down, Taryn and Samara on either side of me.

  “So, do they believe that wine has a soul?” asks Adam, raising his glass like he’s checking if one might be floating around in there. When he doesn’t get an answer he tries again. “Done a bit of traveling in Asia myself.”

  “Oh, yeah,” says Frida, smiling, sipping her wine. “Whereabouts?”

  “Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Bangkok. For business. Financing. Been doing it for three years now. Had enough of university, and Dad had this friend in Hong Kong who gave me a job.”

  “Lucky you,” says Samara. “So, what happened at school?”

  “Not good at sitting in a classroom, I guess.”

  Adam’s watching Samara over the top of his glass but she turns to me. “What about you, Will?”

  “Will’s the smart one,” says Adam. “When he was a kid he was more interested in world poverty than riding his bike.”

  “How about you let him answer for himself?”

  I wait for Adam to pitch something back at her, but all he does is unfurl his hand in my direction. “Will?”

  “I’m still studying,” I say.

  Taryn: “He’s into philosophy.”

  “What about Eastern philosophy?” asks Samara. “Are you interested in that?”

  “Don’t know much about it.”

  I can almost hear Adam thinking, Bunch of hippies. He empties the last of the bottle into Samara’s glass. “You girls sure can drink. Put me and Will to shame.”

  “Is he always such a prick?” Samara asks me with a grin, her shoulder touching mine. “Hey, remind me to give you something before you go, something I got in India.”

  She goes over to the wine rack on the bench and selects another bottle. Taryn’s fingers seek out the inside of my leg.

  “Christ, you wouldn’t believe how much I missed a good glass of Aussie red while I was overseas,” says Samara, looking at Adam, then back at me.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” he asks.

  * * *

  We’re getting ready to go home when Samara says, “Hey, you two, come with me.”

  Taryn and I follow her to her room—it’s next to Taryn’s and it’s like walking into a bazaar, purple and orange cloth suspended from the ceiling, strewn across the bed, embroidered cushions, statues, and incense, of course.

  Taryn shuffles some cards she takes from a gold box as Samara hands me a statue of a dancing figure with four arms. It’s heavy and made of brass. “This is Nataraja. I got him in Madurai, at a stall outside the temple. The temple’s like a city, it’s incredible. You should go there.”

  Madurai. Sounds like the kind of place where you could mislay yourself. Samara squats next to a shelf with books stacked in every direction. She’s wearing purple nail polish and rings on her toes. I turn the statue around in my hands—there’s a circle haloing the figure with brass flames flickering from its rim, a man squashed beneath Nataraja’s feet, skulls woven into his hair.

  “He’s dancing the dance of creation and destruction. Nataraja is one of the incarnations of Shiva,” says Samara, touching each book’s spine as she checks its title. “He’s the most powerful of the Hindu gods.”

  “How many have they got?”

  “An old guy on a train to Calcutta told me there are as many gods in India as there are people, because we are all aspects of God. Here it is.”

  I put the sta
tue back on top of the shelf, next to a pile of incense ash. She hands me a book. It has a green and orange cover and the title is in gold lettering, hard to read, so I hold it up to the light. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.

  “I thought it might be appropriate,” Samara says, “considering.”

  Before I can do anything, she puts her arms around my shoulders and gives me a hug. She’s warm against me, rounder than Taryn, a different scent, earthier, and she feels like … God, such a strong urge to cry, and then that creepy feeling all over again.

  Samara lets her hands slide down my arms as she pulls away. I grab Taryn’s hand and go, the taste of all that incense sticking in my throat.

  * * *

  Dad and Adam are already in the car, the moon slapped across the windshield.

  “She’s beautiful,” says Adam.

  Tempted as I am, I don’t ask him which one he means.

  * * *

  Will,

  Sorry about Samara. She can be a bit much.

  ♥ Taryn

  * * *

  When I come in from the study, Dad’s already gone to bed, but Adam’s watching the late news. On the screen are scuttling images of men in camouflage and UN tanks. His head’s tilted to the side as he watches, like Mom always did. She gave birth to us; we are the only two living creatures on this planet who can say that. We are united by her blood. Despite our age difference, he’s always been a different kind of presence from Mom or Dad. But since he’s been home, it’s as if he’s hovering somewhere in between—three generations living in this house of males.

  A woman is holding her head and screaming at a pile of dust. The reporter, microphone in hand, leans into the camera and says it used to be her son and I have a sudden need to throw my arms around Adam and squeeze him hard, wring him until the mockery has oozed out of him and in its place there is only a quiet, honest response. To death. To love. To blood.

  Adam grabs the remote and the TV goes dark.

  KISS THE JOY AS IT FLIES

  I KNOW NOTHING about Eastern philosophy, except that Buddha was a fat guy with a big grin. The book Samara gave me has words in it like karma and bardos and samsara, but I notice one thing straight off—the word love. In this book, everything has something to do with love. The man who wrote it, Sogyal Rinpoche, is a Buddhist master and was brought up by monks. They escaped from Tibet, went over the Himalayas into India. He’s got a lot to say about death: When I first came to the West … I learned that people today are taught to deny death, and taught that it means nothing but annihilation and loss … many people believe that simply mentioning death is to risk wishing it upon themselves.

  According to Sogyal Rinpoche, we love being busy so we don’t have to think about our own mortality, about what’s important, even what makes us happy. He calls it active laziness, which reminds me of what Seneca said about wasting your life.

  The house is quiet. Saturday morning, everyone’s sleeping in. I look at the pile on my bedside table—Seneca’s book’s still there, below a dictionary of philosophy I borrowed. The dictionary doesn’t have a section on dying, or love.

  I take another look at Rinpoche’s book. Modern society seems to me a celebration of all the things that lead away from the truth. I pick up my notebook:

  11. What if I don’t have the ability to recognize the truth?

  Dad’s in the laundry room, slouched against the washing machine. There’s a mass of dirty clothes on the floor like a pile of dismembered limbs. I’ve come in to find some socks—we haven’t quite got a handle on the washing thing yet. I squat down to pick through the pile, which is starting to fester.

  “You all right, Dad?”

  “We’ve run out of laundry detergent.”

  I point to the broom closet. “I think Mom kept it in there.”

  “I’ve tried to find it.”

  “Do you want me to have a look?”

  He sounds annoyed. “No, I mean, in the shops. I’ve been to three supermarkets, none of them have it.”

  “Really?”

  These two socks are close enough, nearly the same black. I pull them on but they don’t smell so good. Lucky I’m not seeing Taryn today.

  “I guess we’ll have to change brands then,” I say.

  “No, we can’t.”

  “What?”

  I half expect him to laugh, but he doesn’t, his forehead huddling down around his eyes. “If we use another detergent, we’ll smell different.”

  * * *

  I look the detergent up on the Internet and find a supplier. It’s some special biodegradable stuff. I order two boxes of it with Dad’s credit card.

  * * *

  The key to finding a happy balance in modern lives is simplicity.

  Sogyal Rinpoche

  * * *

  Maybe we should dump the computers and go live in a tent in the bush.

  T ♥

  * * *

  When do we leave?

  * * *

  “You serious?” Taryn asks, wrapping herself around me as we lie in the sun on the grass in her backyard on Monday afternoon.

  “About what?”

  “About taking off together.”

  “Sure.”

  She rolls up on top of me, nestles her hips into mine. “Imagine no one around to stop us when we want to have sex. Be nice, wouldn’t it, out here in the sun?”

  “Now?” I ask, slipping my hand up under her dress. Oh God, yes.

  “Yes, now.”

  “But I don’t have any condoms with me. And what if somebody sees us?”

  “Do you care?” She kisses my neck, her breath already deepening.

  The next-door house is higher than the fence and there are windows facing us. “Taryn?”

  Her body goes limp in my hands. “I know, I know. God, you’re so logical.”

  “Am I?”

  She rolls off me. “Sometimes a little too much.”

  It’s the first time she’s ever said anything to me that felt like a punch. “Nothing wrong with a little discipline of the mind.”

  “Jesus. You’ve been reading that book of Samara’s, haven’t you?”

  “So?”

  “Be careful, that’s all. If you read too much of that stuff it can warp your perception.”

  “Of what?”

  “Life. What’s important.”

  “I thought it was meant to help you focus on that kind of thing.”

  “I know, but it’s all about the mind.”

  I pull her thigh into me, my finger fumbling over a scab. “What’s this?”

  She lifts her dress to show me. “I scratched myself on the bathroom vanity the other day. Do you think it’ll scar?”

  “Probably not. You’d still be…” I circle a freckle next to it while the words work up the courage. “You’d still be beautiful if it did.”

  “Beautiful, you reckon?”

  “Sure, even with a huge scar.”

  Taryn whacks me on the arm and laughs. I stare up at the sky, at the day moon pale against it, my finger fascinated by her scab.

  “What are you thinking?” she asks.

  “About how we are constantly losing our skin, our hair, our blood. I mean, in forty years from now I won’t even be the same person, at least on a molecular level.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not all we are, is it?”

  “No, not only.”

  “Well, what else then?”

  “I was thinking that even our minds change constantly. The way I think has changed since…”

  “Since you met me?”

  “Yeah,” I say, although I was thinking since Mom died. “I mean, it’s weird. Why are we so afraid of dying, when we’re losing bits of ourselves all the time?”

  “Maybe it’s because it’s only when we lose something suddenly that we notice,” she says. “We don’t see the small deaths. Though, I believe some part of you never dies.”

  Moon behind her head, she smiles at me with the kind of certainty that eclipses
all doubt. I slide my hands under her dress and roll her over onto her back as our mouths converge.

  * * *

  When I get home, I find one of Taryn’s hairs, long and golden and straight, caught under my arm. I wind it into a spiral, put it in a piece of folded paper, and stow it in the box under my bed. A small piece of her.

  * * *

  In The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Rinpoche says that there are two layers to the mind—the first is like a candle by an open door and every time a breeze blows in, the flame moves, in the same way our thoughts are affected by what’s happening around us, someone pissing you off, falling in love. But deep down is our other mind, something far more constant, though we hardly ever notice that it exists. There are times when we get a glimpse of it, an inkling of how we could be.

  I remember sitting at the edge of a huge rock face up in the mountains, the day in the photos Mom took. I could see for miles, the wind fanning smells from below—eucalyptus, a distant bushfire—and I had this feeling, like belonging to everything, like truly seeing myself, and at that very moment, I swear, I felt happy to die. Not some wrist-slashing thing, more an intense longing to leap. And then it was gone, and I recoiled from the edge, my whole body caught in this kind of vertigo, except I’ve never been afraid of heights. Adam came up behind me as I staggered: You were a little close to the edge there, buddy. Thought for a minute you were going to jump. Lucky Mom didn’t see you, she would’ve freaked.

  Mom was there, somewhere farther back along the track. She looked like she’d live forever as she unpacked the ham sandwiches onto the picnic table, white bread for Dad and Adam, whole wheat for us. But she only had half a year to live.