“What have you there?”
The frightened boy held his ground.
“I said, what do you have there?”
In high dudgeon, Kura brutally spun the child around. Recognizing the cargo at once, he was stung afresh — it was the chair from the cave.
“What do you mean to do with that?”
“My grandfather told me to bring it to the school.”
“Give it to me!” he commanded.
“But my grandfather said that the Hermit—”
“Devil take the Hermit!” Kura shouted. “I said give it here! Your grandfather promised it to me!” He puffed up with righteous temerity — the lie felt good and right and true. He undid the rope and pathetically wrenched the chair from the boy’s back in a brief tug-of-war. “I’ve earned this damned chair,” said Kura, drawing it to his chest in full possession then handing it off to the closest sherpa. “Now that’s the end of it!”
The chair’s unlikely journey ended in the Paris office, where Kura took a few mugshots with his old Land Camera.
Then he wrapped it in a mover’s blanket, flung it in the closet and resolved never to see it again.
In the ensuing year, he went through the motions. He became depressed, with fleeting thoughts of suicide. They put him on lithium and Prozac — this, that and the other. Sometimes he slept on the office couch. He dreamed of the chair on the other side of the wall.
One day an unusual-looking envelope arrived in the company pouch addressed to “Sri. B. Moncrieff,” in an immodest calligraphic hand. No return address. The letter was included in the box of diaries I received a few months after he passed away. I’ll give us both a break and read from it directly…
Queenie took the correspondence from her coat pocket with pseudo-dramatic flair. Someone poured more wine. She sniffed the glass then tasted, nodding approvingly to the server.
Dusk had fallen. She read to me by the light of a beautiful lantern; the inky message bled through the rice paper, dancing among the woven threads.
“My Dearest Kind Sir/SRI Bela Moncrieff,
“I am earnest in hoping this note does most indeed find you most well! I meant to put pen to pencil many months ago and do ask your kind forgiveness as to complete failure on my behalf in that regard. While my village is a modest one and my duties toward it simple, various pressing concerns have the habit of being horses on the runway. Hereby (and ‘thereby’ too for good measure) not long after your leavetaking didst we villagers became unlucky recipients of a mighty monsoon that caused a great deal of mischief — you may be saddened to hear me declare the Dashir Cave is now no more. The threat of the Dengue, which arrived not long after the waters seceded, thankfully turned out false in its alarum. Yet in my heart I must confess to terrible remorse for the delay of this most serious missive. As months passed, the greater became my understanding of the crowning importance its enquoted words would hold for you; as they were uttered by the Hermit himself, who instructed they be conveyed forthwith and straightaway, at all cost. So you see I have no excuse nor have I defence. Again, I humbly ask your forgiveness, dear Sri, adding that sometimes a procrastinated man becomes a means unto himself.
“By the way, if you are wondering how I captured your address (which would mean in fact that you are reading this, and thus providing me with the most supreme of blessings and lasting unction!), it was from the direct intercession of that most loyal and most jolly fellow Quasimodo, who arrived not long after the jnani’s sky burial bearing the generous gifts that completed your contract with our village, a largess which has continued to make the aggregations of All Souls exceedingly grateful.
“I believe my wife did admit that after your departure I was privileged to spend a few hours in the company of the blesséd Hermit — may his memory forever be sanctified! — a time in which he shared many things pertinent to your life that have remained unbeknownst (a circumstance this note shall attempt to rectify); in fact, he discussed the very things he had planned to share with you in person, if you and your lady friend had not run off. But, all-being mukta that he is, the Hermit of Dashir Cave even knew you would return just as you did, to miss his death by mere hours! Alack: such was overwrought and writ by the stars. When you appeared at our door for the second time, unaware of his passing, you were most fired up and in no state to listen to anything a person might tell — nor was I in any mood to impart what I had so carefully been entrusted to pass on. (In that stage of the game, I had not even told my wife.) My plan was to relay every single one of the intimate profundities the Hermit had donated (to the best of my shabby abilities) over dinner, immediately after attending the details of his inhumation. When I came home to find you’d again taken a powder, I said to the Missus, ‘This man is like a horse on fire!’ I was deflated though not surprised, for the Hermit had just gotten through highlighting his erstwhile student’s penchant for the trigger-hair — relayed with a twinkle in his eye, to be sure! — so that I became enamored of your willfulness Johnny-on-the-spot as well, which lessened the sting. But barely.
“If you’ve read this far, I assume you shall read the rest, and with great care. For the love of God, I urge you with every fiber of my being to continue!
“The jnani conjured an in-depth précis of your histories together — such was his art (and his heart) that within the shortest while I knew more than was possible and felt too like I’d been along on your journeys! Then he told me something which really shocked me to Hell. Guruji said that only two weeks prior to your appearance at the cave, he had been ready to depart this Earth. And please, sir, do understand God saw fit that the village idiot — myself! — was at least blesséd with the awareness that before him stood a saint of all saints! I am certain that such a man as you — who sat vigil at the foot of this precious being for so many years — cannot be incognisant of the fact that an enlightened man has the ability to choose the date of his liberation from the Great Wheel… and just as he may summon death, so are the most powerful rishis able to postpone their departures as well. The Hermit averred that on the very morning he was poised to merge with that essence which is Silence — two weeks before you came to our village — a mystical Voice bade him delay. Now, the Hermit was always faithful to the commands of that Voice, as it belonged to his teacher, the Great Guru himself, and refused to manifest excepting upon occasions of categorical importance. Most charmingly, he added how there were many things he did not understand (this, I very much doubted), and what a privilege it was to still delight in the inscrutable.
“We sat in the cave not long after you had gone and he told me that when he saw you enter the glen, all was suddenly understood. ‘The final veil had lifted.’ Perhaps it seemed to you as if he’d been expecting your arrival, for in a sense he was. The Hermit said he went back to raking the leaves of destiny and gratefully rejoiced, praising anew the wondrous Universe and everything unimaginable Mother dared conceive. He told me his life had come full circle and the beautiful dance was nothing more nor less than doings choreographed by the Source. He said that years ago you freed him from that awful business of being a false sage — though I can never believe he could be such a thing! — that you alone were the catalyst of his enlightenment… and now you had come to free him one last time! Do you remember what his feet looked like? When you saw him raking? The edema? Did you know they swelled up just hours before you arrived? Guruji said it happened spontaneously, in ‘energetic’ memory of your ashram touch…