With expressionless looks at Matt, the two women recede.
“Thank you, sir. I read ‘The Waste Land’ just a few weeks ago at school. So I know what ‘shantih’ means.”
“It took me forty years to learn what ‘shantih’ means. Don’t forget the snow peas. They are cooked in bacon fat left over from breakfast.”
Matt fills his third plate while the swami stands and watches, bringing small forkfuls to his mouth. The women watch from a corner.
“You look familiar to me,” says Mahajad. “Do you meditate at the Mystic Arts World?”
“No, but I help run the art gallery,” Matt answers, suddenly very proud — in the presence of this man — to have a position other than paperboy.
“Maybe there is where I’ve seen you.”
“Christian Clay is my boss. I don’t get paid, though.”
“There is greater pay than money.”
“I get to read the art books and help hang the paintings.”
Matt’s thirds don’t last long. The swami points to the table with his plastic fork, but his expression doesn’t change. Deep in the thicket of hair and beard, his eyes really do seem to be laughing.
One more little plate can’t hurt. They eat together standing and facing each other, Mahajad half a head taller and almost a body heavier than the hungry sixteen-year-old.
The two white-suited, black-shirted men come briskly in from outside, see that Mahajad is talking, assess Matt, and pass into the auditorium proper.
“Why did you come here tonight?” asks the swami.
“I got invited to see Sara evolve.”
Matt senses that Mahajad approves his stated motive. The man says nothing for a long moment, just patiently eats with small bites, poking the fork with what looks like bemused concentration.
“But, like, actually,” says Matt. “I was at the beach today, looking for my sister, Jasmine Anthony. She did the photo shoot last Tuesday at Thousand Steps. And we haven’t seen her since Thursday evening. So, Mom filed a report. And I wanted to see if she might be there, again today. She wasn’t. But I got an invitation to tonight. I have this...”
Matt puts his plate on the table and works the new Jasmine sketch from his pocket. Unfolds and holds it up for Mahajad to see.
Again, the happy eyes and expression of amusement on his dark face. Matt waits, hears the far-off generators through the night. They drone like the sitar. It’s almost peaceful.
“No. I have not seen Jasmine here. My memory is very good. But I feel your love in the way you say her name. Tell me about her.”
Matt isn’t surprised that his sister is not a Vortex follower. Maybe Sara the Skateboard Girl got Jasmine mixed up with someone else here. He’s relieved. It’s okay to take a wrong trail, he thinks. It’s how you find the right trail.
He describes his sister to the swami, trying to be accurate and objective, not like a brother but like Walter Cronkite on TV. He tells Mahajad Om that he doesn’t think his sister ran away.
“You love her very much,” says Mahajad. “You will find her soon and your family will be together as one again. I have something for you.”
He puts his plate on the table beside Matt’s, gets a clean one from the stack and heaps it with the last of the food. From the wheeled cart he takes up a long skinny box of tin foil, swings out a good length of it and wraps it around the heavy paper plate, twice.
“I never learned to drive a car, but one of my women can give you a ride home.”
“I have a van. Thank you, swami.”
“Shantih.”
“Thank you, your... holiness?”
“Just swami.”
“This is for you.”
Matt has already written his phone number on the back of his new Jasmine sketch.
The swami looks at the sketch again. His black eyes are wet.
“There are many missing souls. Even in beautiful places. Bonnie, the girl from the flyers in town, evolved here. I wish I had spoken to her. Maybe I could have intervened, even if only spirit-to-spirit. One of the reasons I created the Vortex of Purity is to fill the emptiness that leads people into unhappiness and wrong behavior. To fill the soul with the enlightenment that leads to ecstasy, which is the conqueror of emptiness. And I always feed the hungry, because I am one of them. Go in peace, Matt.”
16
Laurel’s sixteenth birthday party at Brooks Street beach: a warm summer afternoon, twenty bouncy girls and skinny boys sunning, surfing, skim-boarding, sneaking beers from coolers and disguising them with plastic Coke and 7Up sleeves.
Over hot dogs and potato salad, Laurel opens Matt’s gift box, which he has wrapped in Sunday’s Register color comics page. She pulls the small framed oil painting of herself in the Gauguin tableau from the box, and smiles. His heart seems to expand. He bought new paints and worked hard to get it halfway decent.
Next, the bottle of Heaven Sent perfume he knows she likes, purchased at Bushard’s Pharmacy downtown. Laurel smiles again, blows him a kiss across the loose circle of young people — some reclining in canvas beach chairs, some sitting on towels, some sprawled directly on the warm sand — all slathered in Coppertone or Piz Buin or baby oil right out of the bottle to amplify the tanning power of the sun. The blown kiss makes the teenagers cheer loudly with fake surprise. Laurel, Matt sees, doesn’t look embarrassed at all.
Other gifts: a stereo LP — The Songs of Leonard Cohen — which is left in a bag and stashed in one of the coolers so it won’t melt in the sun, a book of poems by Rod McKuen, 45s from the Beatles and Aretha, a packet of patchouli incense, a tie-dye scarf, a glass bead necklace and earrings, an anklet of small pearls — Laurel’s birthstone — given to her by an obviously admiring Lance Gentry. Even as a sophomore, Lance is a varsity tennis star and a renowned surfer. He’s popular and has long hair and a good complexion. He kneels before Laurel to attach the anklet, unleashing a storm of envy in Matt.
Who sits cross-legged in the sand, blanket over his legs to hide the ugly knee scabs. Furlong and his partner march six handcuffed hippies toward Pacific Coast Highway and Moby Cop. Furlong is smiling and talking to them, apparently happy with his catch.
Matt watches Laurel as closely and often as he can without her knowing. She catches him twice, which, if he’s figuring right, means she could be doing the same to him. Matt’s heart seems to expand, again. He’s had this feeling before, in connection with Laurel Kalina. And sometimes in connection with other people, or animals. Daisy, the family puppy. Calypso, a fluffy calico kitten he found downtown on Forest Ave. one rainy Saturday. Kyle, standing in the batter’s box at the high school playoffs. Jazz, playing her ukulele at the beach that night. He’s pretty sure this feeling is love. It’s much stronger now, the older he gets.
Toward sunset they’re alone, walking the low-tide beach. He has taken Laurel’s hand, which is warm and strong. Her half-Hawaiian skin is already dark, and summer doesn’t even start until next week. Her shoulders are round and her arms are sleek and her breasts are all movement and intrigue within her black and yellow hibiscus print bikini. She’s got her beach towel around her waist, reminding Matt of Gauguin’s native islanders.
“I made those calls I told you about,” she says. “To my friends, about Jasmine. I just got the call I didn’t want to get. I can’t tell you how I know this. There are people I have to protect, good people. But she was at Jordan Cavore’s Sapphire Cove party last Friday night.”
“How do you know?”
“I just told you I can’t say how.”
“But it’s true?”
“One hundred percent. Don’t ask me any more questions about it. She was there.”