The swami continues in his smooth clear voice:
“The wicked man in prosperity may, all unknown to himself, be darkened and corroded with inward rust, while the good man under afflictions may be locked in a struggle of spiritual growth. No, God is not mocked; but also, let us always remember, He is not understood.”
Then a pretty dark-haired young woman glides onstage from behind Mahajad. She wears a crimson robe like the swami’s, and carries a sitar. It’s a gleaming, intricately detailed, burnished thing, and large. She positions herself near the swami and gracefully lowers herself, resting the rounded body of the instrument on the rug.
The notes sound reluctant at first, ringing and lonely. Then the woman’s fingers are traveling the neck in long strokes and the notes fall from the air like rain. The music is mysterious but inviting, and Matt gives himself over to its droning, twinkling energy.
When the music trails off, the swami speaks:
“Through evolution we become the stones that are born and reborn toward purity. Through enlightenment we become the water. Through ecstasy we become the waves that move through the water. We welcome you, new stones. You are the Evolved. You are on the path to seeing the world in a new way. Yours is a new reality.”
Music again, then Matt hears the door clunk open behind him and turns to watch six young actors from today’s Thousand Steps performance trailing up the aisle toward the stage. They’re still in their beachwear. Three girls and three boys, one of them Sara, with her thick hair pulled back and spilling out of big plastic claw clips.
The veteran orange Vortexers stand and clap, quickly joined by Matt and the others. Swami Mahajad Om watches, still as a statue, his eyes wide and gleaming. The Evolvers line up in front of the stage, facing the audience, palms together at heart level, their expressions serious. They bow once, then head back out the way they’ve come in. Matt waves at Sara but she doesn’t acknowledge him. The music continues and when Matt looks back, Swami Mahajad turns and small-steps his way offstage and out of sight.
Matt heads straight for the food.
15
Good thing he sat near the chow, because a lot of hungry young Vortex of Purity visitors are already having at it.
He puts the utensils in his shorts pocket, loads a plate, and heads outside. Sitting on one of the concrete benches, he remembers being here once with Kyle as they checked out a king snake they’d caught one spring day.
Now he watches the guests and followers mingling in the lobby and outside, where the night is cool. Two sharp-faced older men — in their forties, Matt guesses, and dressed in white suits over black T-shirts, their hands clasped in front of them — watch over the people like security guards. Matt catches glimpses of Sara, surrounded. The food is pretty good but it tastes a little funny, too.
When most of the audience has left, he goes back for seconds. It’s picked over but there’re still some noodles and vegetables. He wants to walk the grounds as he eats, see what the Vortex of Purity has done with the old campus.
Matt’s ninth-grade history teacher said that the original seminary architecture is Spanish Revival. Its central feature is the bell tower adjacent to the chancellor’s big residence. The tower is domed with cobalt blue tiles and often lit at night.
The buildings have their white plaster walls, rounded doors, and terra-cotta roof tiles. There are ornamental iron grates on many of the campus windows, and many painted tiles. The chapel looks like a small mission and sits in a grass meadow between the grand chancellor’s quarters and the auditorium.
Matt looks out at the rolling grounds. Considers the former chancellor’s residence and the blue-domed belfry on a rise at the far boundary of the property. He remembers the plywood that once covered all the vandalized windows and doors, the weeds that grew dense as ivy.
Now the central quad bustles with young men and women, most of them in street clothes but some in white, yellow, and orange pantsuits, and sandals. Some smile at him. The two serious looking men in the white suits stride by with alert expressions.
Matt walks past the former classrooms and small lecture halls, along a garden of paloverde, cacti, and happy looking succulents. He continues between two facing arcades of small apartments where he and Kyle used to chase and throw rocks at each other through the pane-less windows.
There are lights on within the arcades, and Matt wonders if the Vortex has many full-time students, or members, or worshippers, or whatever they’re called. And what’s the purpose of all this hospitality, he wonders. Camera Man directs his models here and Mahajad throws a banquet. Why? Recruitment? How much does the Vortex charge students who enroll? He remembers his mother’s comment about how expensive the Vortex of Purity is.
Most important, would Jazz come here?
The Jazz who Matt knows, or thinks he knows, probably wouldn’t have come here more than once. She is a seeker, yes, as her interest in the Bible, mysticism, and spirituality proves. An artist, too. But not a joiner. Not a follower. She’s the opposite of that. Jazz the skeptical, the questioning, the unconvinced. She writes songs for herself and her ukulele, not for a band, because, as she once told him, “other people would stink them up.”
But Matt knows from Laurel Kalina that Jazz has participated in at least one Thousand Steps shoot — on Tuesday of last week, two days before her first night gone.
Jasmine looked a little bummed by the whole scene. You know, bummed out but above it all, like she is.
Matt ponders why she did the photography thing at Thousand Steps. To show off? For the trip of doing something sexy in front of other people? To be a celebrity?
Which leads him to the Sapphire Cove parties of Jordan Cavore. No, Matt still can’t picture her there. She would have fled, in spite of the curiosity that might have led her on, of which she has tons. In spite of what she said or didn’t say to Austin Overton’s friend Dana. She would have fled in superior disgust.
He continues past the arcades, sneakers crunching on the gravel walkway, the coastal mist tingling his skin and cooling his scabs. The old gym building actually looks good now, he thinks, with windows instead of plywood and no trash and weeds in the parking lot. The lap pool is full and lit, the surface a wobbling mirror. Bums used to make campfires and sleep there. He’s never seen the place looking anything like this. Mahajad must make a lot of money.
Looking at the flat blue pool, Matt wonders where Jasmine is exactly right now. What, exactly, is she doing?
He stops at a trash can to toss his paper plate and utensils but wonders if there’s any food left. Those veggies have a way of not sticking with you, and thirds would be nice.
The main parking lot is empty except for his mother’s little van. But the auditorium door stands open and he sees light in the lobby.
Inside, Mahajad Om stands before a food table in his crimson robe, eating snow peas from a paper plate. A wheeled cart stands nearby, onto which the bowls and pots and the crockpots are being piled by two women, and apparently, by the swami himself. The women look Indian and to Matt’s eye must be mother and daughter.
Mahajad looks at Matt, his eyes lively and his expression amused. “I am always hungry after an Evolution Ceremony. Did you enjoy it?”
“Yes, sir, I did.”
The swami takes another bite then steps away and gestures to the table with his free hand. “Please to eat all you want.”