“I paced those empty rented rooms, plotting my revenge. I would find ‘the American’ and dispatch him to nirvana myself! My Queen, I assure you I was back to true form. I gathered my wits and my Dopp kit and took a train north, the direction my very best detective said our quarry had been last seen heading. I started out as John Wayne but ended like Shelley Winters — pushy and hysterical, all over the place. I ransacked my memory for clues the impostor may have provided, anything to impossibly, magically pull it all together. Looking for a needle in a haystack is one thing, looking for a guru in India quite another; I grew to covet those who sought only needles. I was proud. My anger had nowhere to express but inward. I became depressed. I concluded I’d wasted seven years of my life and could never win them back. Not only was the time gone but the potentialities it held, the way energy hides in a bomb… my bomb turned out to be a dud. A special agony, my Queen, awaits those who treat the Source like currency on the exchange! Regret spread like cancer. Its skeletal hands clutched at many things—even you—yet held on to nothing.
“I wadded up that whole continent, vanishing guru included, and tossed it in the dustbin. I returned to Paris to lick my wounds. Took up a few long-forgotten habits and felt better for a while, reacquainted myself with old habitués and cultivated new ones. But the thrill was gone — that’s what a wrong turn’ll get you! I threw myself into business… not the enterprise you think. No, I’d lost the stomach for that kind of risk. I wanted ‘stress-free,’ so everything was aboveboard. Assembled most of the old team and did extremely well. I always did extremely well, except in the business of gurus! Ha! And I must say that I rarely thought of ‘the American.’
“I said ‘dustbin’ but if I’m to expand the metaphor, I’d say I stuffed the whole experience into a trunk that was promptly sealed and stored away. It lay in the attic a long, long time, Queenie — about 15 years, in fact. Then one day I found myself wandering up to the belfry. Went in and paced a while. Sat and stared at the trunk. Eventually walked over and broke the seal. Took two steps back. Warily circled. Lifted the lid to let some air out and left, closing the door behind me. A year later, I went up again. Paced, circled, sat. It felt familiar to spend time there. Opened the trunk and poked around with a stick. Walked out, shut the door.
“I had a heart attack in ’92 that changed my lifestyle. I hired a vegan chef and started exercising. Though I must tell you, Queenie, the whole time I lay in hospital I was sorely preoccupied. I would close my eyes and roam around that attic… For you see, I opened that trunk for the same reason the surgeons opened my chest: to heal. And to my surprise, I found it held things of great beauty… books—I helped publish — smelling of incense, cigars and tuberoses… raiments of gold-threaded silk… glittering gems. Even the ‘necklace’ was there, the garland of my guru’s words! The drought of rage and heartbreak lifted at last and in its place was a bright green stem coursing with life that broke through the skylight and reached for the sun.
“Over the next few months of convalescence, I revisited where it all began: The Book of Satsang. The Great Guru still spoke to me yet within its pages I saw the genius of his favorite student, ‘the American,’ writ large. I had not been mistaken! Still, I knew it was important to remain cautious. My conduct needed to be measured. I waited to see if my jubilance was artificial, manufactured—‘post-cardiac.’ I wished to do nothing on impulse; I recalled with disgust how quickly I had turned on the one who was so precious to me. I needed to be absolutely certain this latest turning toward him wasn’t arbitrary as well.
“I was still in possession of all the books I midwifed during my time as editor and putative translator of Mogul Lane Press. Some were collections of my guru’s morning Q&As; others slim, elegant hardbacks filled with apothegms and parables reflecting his simple abstractions and direct truths. I unpacked the boxes and leafed through them at leisure. I had a nagging fear they’d be nothing more than ‘cosmic candy’ though I needn’t have worried — they were awfully compelling. The beautiful little volumes held many epiphanies for the careful reader… there did seem to be a lot of them out there (careful readers). Even after he skedaddled — my guru taught me that word! — his book sales grew steadily each year. The unsolved mystery of his leave-taking certainly didn’t hurt; hagiographies sprung up like mushrooms after a rain. Scoundrels debunked, seekers martyred, and scholars wangled over who should be authorized to be custodian of his legacy. Controversies notwithstanding, the radical breadth of my guru’s concepts proved he was more than just a shooting star in the cosmology of Advaita. His place in the firmament was secure.
“A year passed. I was distracted by the profitability of my business enterprises. But at the end of each day, my fancies drifted to the missing saint… Along with the health of my heart, my affections had returned. Very quietly I began to lay the groundwork for a project as subterranean as it was quixotic. I carefully tricked my mind into believing the adventure I was about to embark upon was mere sport. I couldn’t afford to be emotionally invested, which wasn’t too difficult in that the chance of success was practically nil. We are speaking of a muni who disappeared from Bombay 15 years prior without a trace! He could be anywhere in the world, if indeed he was still alive. But you know how I am, Queenie, when I get a bee in my bonnet. The dream team assembled this time bore no resemblance to the farm club cobbled together in that frantic time after we lost him. The uniqueness of his features — tall, Caucasian — might help our cause, but only if he’d remained in India. So you see, I couldn’t really get too excited about the little numbers game I was running on the side and that was a good thing. With nearly a billion souls walking the Continent, the whole treasure hunt notion was really a joke, a folly.
“I set a ceiling on this hobby of mine at five years and three million euros. (A portion went toward baksheesh, from “man on the street” beggars and shopkeepers to the highest in government.) I gave my people free rein, never asking for reports on their progress. The lot were grossly overpaid yet did not lack for further incentive: a seven-figure bonus awaited whoever cracked the code, dead or alive. (Irrefutable proof was required in order to collect.) I left them to their own vices, while stupidly pursuing mine. It’s embarrassing to admit but during this period I reverted yet again to my dissolute ways. I exchanged veggies for red meat, took up pot smoking again, and used ‘medicinal’ amounts of pharmaceutical cocaine — which as you can guess, did wonders for my bypassed heart — and spent a fortune on my beloved ladies of the night. Do not judge me, my Queen. How far I had fallen from a romance with the Spirit! I hated what I’d become: an old roué, a fallen ‘spiritualist’ with a bad ticker and a Viagra-dependent schmeckel.