Leaving Kura’s physical concerns by the wayside, I focused on his mental health. It suddenly occurred to me that my dear companion might not be right in the head — that the whole business, this obsession with the American might be part of a bigger picture, you know, an encroaching madness, even something hereditary finally come home to roost. Maybe he was losing his mind due to some fixable but as yet undetected anomaly such as Lyme disease or scurvy… early dementia? I knew I was being a little dramatic but only as a way of throwing light on what deep down seemed to have a ring of truth. Let’s say Kura had found the American (evidence to the contrary, I was beginning to have my doubts) and was about to come face-to-face. Well, what then? What was the point? Was he still trying to get back those seven freakin’ years? The last twenty? Or was it simply revenge he was seeking? Could it be that the blow to his pride inflicted by the Hermit of the Cave — the Missing Link, the Grand Poobah, the whomever — had been fatal to the ego, poisoning and distorting it over the years as surely as by lead or mercury?
I was tired. When I get tired I tend to go to that “Hello darkness, my old friend” place. It took everything I had to put one foot in front of the other, trudging along in a fog of mutant hormones and garage sale neurochemistry. In that moment, I thought how wonderful it would be to transform into a burro, a sari, a rock, an ottoman, even smoke from one of the hundred trash fires burning just over the horizon. Because in the end, self-awareness has spectacularly diminishing returns (in fact, it’s downright masochistic). All I knew was the responsibility had fallen squarely on my shoulders… after the aneurysm I’d be the one in charge of medevacing him out of some Himalayan fuckzone. And oh my God, Bruce, I so did not give a shit about the American! I kicked my ass with every step, not only for accepting Kura’s invitation to this sucky toad ride but for ever having gone to Bombay with him in the first place.
Now it was the boy who was whistling. He pointed to a clearing, then without further ado dashed back down the mountain as if carried by the wind.
The moment was nigh.
Kura put on his coat and ran his fingers through sticky hair like a bum about to step into church. Standing a bit straighter, he walked to his destiny as I followed — the dutiful wife I never was. After a few minutes here’s what we saw:
An old man in a bright white kurta, raking grass. Tall, wiry, stooped, baked by the sun. As we drew closer, he looked up and smiled before returning to his chore. He was so poised it could easily be believed someone had tipped him off (which wasn’t the case). If it’s possible for a human being to “grind to a halt,” that’s what Kura did. The shock of recognition gummed up his machinery.
A nervous clearing of the throat. Then, “It is I — Kura!”
The stilted delivery was heartrendingly comic.
“Of course,” he said informally. “I know who you are.”
I recognized the voice but not much else. Scarred, ravished and beatified by nomadic years of exodus, the American was still intensely charismatic. His bearing was light yet commanding. The few teeth he possessed were jagged and betel-stained. Some sort of chronic affliction — ringworm? — swelled his ankles. His hair was mostly white and gray with inexplicably random sunspots of too-bright blond.
Kura gestured toward me. “This is Cassiopeia…”
(I was touched by the introduction.)
“Lovely!” exclaimed the old man.
“She came from New York to be with me.”
The American stared into my eyes and I shivered at the enormity of what was taking place — for the first time, I understood.12 Without looking away, the guru said, “That’s a wonderful friend.” I knew he didn’t remember me, and was glad. I was freer to sit back and enjoy the play from my front-row seat.
“I’ve brewed some tea,” he said. “You must be thirsty.” With that, he turned toward home, its “front door” the congenial mouth of a most welcoming cave.
“No, we are not,” said Kura, blood up. “We are not thirsty, and we’ve brought water of our own!”
The old man bore a look of unsurprised surprise. “As you wish.”
I thought Kura had been rude, then called myself out for being prim. The occasion hardly demanded politesse. Besides, I had a funny feeling the guru was pleased by his ex-student’s brio—the manifestation of ch’i was always welcome.
“Since you are a man,” began the siddha, “who enjoys cutting to the heart of things — a quality about you that I always admired — I shall do the same. It has been a long while since our paths crossed, but the Source has magnanimously collapsed time to arrange our rendezvous… twas predetermined, my dear old friend. Wowee zowee, this is no joking matter!
“I am one who long ago forsook living in the past or future, which seem to me vastly overrated. Even the ‘now’ is overrated!” He laughed at the small quip — really very charming. “I never bothered to consider the consequences of my sudden departure on those who called me teacher, and I’ll tell you why: I was fighting for my life. When a mortal man, a man without knowledge, already burned to the third degree, is in the midst of escaping an inferno, can he be forgiven for being oblivious to others left behind?
“But if I am to properly acquit myself, I’ll need to provide some history. In the weeks that followed the death of the Great Guru, I found myself in a bit of a quandary. A ‘pickle.’ The widow — a very aggressive woman, as well you may remember! — had virtually nominated me as ‘next in line.’ But why did she feel the need for ‘the lineage’ to carry on? (There was no lineage.) Certainly, it couldn’t have been for Father’s sake, to ‘honor his wishes,’ for he had none. No wishes and no desires! Why, then? The answer is simple: the ape’s need for figureheads is profound and enduring. But the trouble begins — and it always does! — when one confounds figurehead with Godhead. A symbol can never be the real thing, isn’t it true? Don’t you agree? A symbol covers Truth as a narcotic masks pain. Do you see my point?
“I’m going to tell you something now that to this day makes me shudder.” He mimicked a swan shaking off water. “When I met the magical being who was to alter the course of my life and my death — I refer of course to my father, the Great Guru — one of the first things he did was to casually inform me of my Achilles’ heel. He said this inherent weakness had been dictated by the stars and was so powerful it would stop at nothing short of my total annihilation. That was the pithy phrase he used. He said I was fortunate to have two choices: I could face the demon in battle — or I could run. He strongly suggested the latter! I begged him to elaborate on this fatal flaw; I was on the edge of my chair. He teased and tantalized, talking in circles before coming clean. He said the hound from Hell that was on my heels was pride. Pride — and arrogance, its handmaiden. I think that because he was so queerly blithe about it (such were the sadhu’s deceptive methods of delivery), I took his warning with a grain of salt.