Maya (21 page)

She emerged from the bathroom, bladder emptied, hands washed, and paced over to the vanity, where she sat down on the stool and plunked the candle at her side, letting the saucer fall the last half inch so that it rapped against the wood.

I looked at her through the net, sitting there in silence. “You still don't get it, do you?”

“I guess not.”

“Look. He was pushed into a corner with no way out. No exit. But much worse than anything Sartre could imagine.”

“If what you say is true then I feel sorry for the poor man,” she said.

“Well I don't. That's exactly what it means to follow a spiritual path. Or to receive some kind of vision. That's the real significance of fortune telling, astrology, and all the rest of it—to show us that the feeling of choosing is an illusion. An ego game. I suppose you could call it the ‘esoteric significance.' But the gift of prophecy is only one kind of spiritual vision. The most debased kind, so far as that goes, because almost no one appreciates its real power. In other words, for most people it just doesn't work. They're only interested in using it to make money or get laid. Or maybe to become a better person.”

“And what's so bad about wanting to be a better person?”

“Nothing. Except that it doesn't have anything to do with spiritual vision. How can improving yourself solve the problem when your self
is
the problem? There's no more disgusting vice than believing you're a ‘good person.' The whole preoccupation with self-improvement is just another stupid mental game, another distraction for the ego. Obsessing over its so-called ‘virtues' and ‘sins,' forever swinging between pride and guilt. But you're right. It's probably just as well most people don't see how terrifying all that stuff really is, or astrologers and fortune tellers would be out of business overnight.”

“Okay, Stanley.” She looked toward the net, straining to see inside. “You're obviously the expert here. So tell me what you mean by ‘spiritual vision,' since that's what we seem to be talking about.”

“What do I mean by spiritual vision.” I hesitated. “Do you really want to know?”

“Don't be patronizing. I asked, didn't I?”

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and let my head sink back against the pillow. “For starters, you see something. Something you don't want to see. Something about the world, something about yourself. About the way you live. It's like seeing everything you normally take for granted from some new perspective, and this new perspective—or whatever you want to call it—sort of begins to take over your whole life. It's like you were always sick but you somehow never noticed before. That's the meaning of the first noble truth of Buddhism. For a person who sees clearly, the life of the ego is nothing but a kind of sickness. Seeing this is where spiritual vision begins. Everything—not just the sad stuff, but all your pleasures and joys, too—you see it all for what it actually is: a sick, self-centered delusion.”

There was a long silence while I waited for her reaction.

“That's all?” She sounded perplexed. “That's it?”

“Should I keep going? I mean, I could definitely keep going, but maybe you've had enough.”

“Not at all. I'm learning something about you.”

“About
me
?”

“Just go on, okay? This is interesting.”

“Well, all right then. Where was I?”

“You were talking about the ego being a kind of sickness or something. A delusion.”

“Right. Okay. So you may have some sort of warning with all of this. Or then again, maybe you get no warning at all, like with Ramesh. Either way,
however it happens, the really important part is that once you see things from this perspective, it's as if you're suddenly conscious of being infected with an incurable disease. At that point you give up on the whole project of self-improvement. It's like that old Zen metaphor: you can polish a brick forever, but it will never become a mirror. The big
me
—the ego, with its pride and jealousy and petty ambitions and all the rest of it—is the center of all experience. Everything—I mean not just your personality, but your whole world—takes shape around the ego, in its image. And the ego is nothing but a fucking brick. It just sits there. You can't get rid of it, and you sure as hell can't make a self-centered delusion into anything other than what it is. Once you see this—I mean really see it—all bets are off. You just give up. Let it all go. It's like someone sticks a knife into your stomach and then gives the blade a sharp twist. You need that twist to make sure the wound is lethal. All interest in the ego has to die. For Ramesh, the twist was not only that he knew exactly what was going to happen but that he himself had to do it. If anyone else had stepped on the baby, it could have been called an accident. Then Ramesh the accountant might have felt anger, or even compassion. That would be the saintly response. Right? Saints are good people. Holy people. But because of the particular way his son died, none of the usual reactions were possible. He had to see for himself that the ego is nothing but an imposter. A liar.
A baby killer.

“So anyway, that's what I mean by the ‘twist.' It can come in an infinite number of ways, but it's got to be there. That way, once the knife goes in you are completely, totally fucked. You become a desperate person. A haunted person. You can't go back to the way things were before. You're good for nothing to yourself or anyone else. So far as other people are concerned, you're clinically deranged, because you're already disconnected from the world of shared reality. If the spiritual path, or whatever you want to call it, didn't work this way—by trapping you like this—then no one would go through with it. No one would give a shit. Why should they?”

I didn't wait for an answer.

“Look at most people. I mean
normal
people.
Reasonable
people. People like that always imagine they have a choice—that they can somehow or another intervene in events and influence the outcome by choosing to do the right thing. And what do they do? Go to church or temple or fiddle around with lofty ideals of universal peace and brotherly love. Work in a soup kitchen, maybe, or go for therapy. The truth is, of course, we
don't really
choose
anything, no matter how much we like to think we do. What we call ‘making a choice' is just something that happens, like the weather—like rain or wind, like the movement of the breath or the beating of your heart. Like thoughts arising and passing away. Nobody
makes
this stuff happen. Let's face it: you never actually know what you're
going
to choose, since you can always change your mind at the last second; you only know what was
chosen
—after the fact. So all the pride and guilt is for nothing. We're all every bit as trapped as Ramesh was. Every one of us. But like I said a minute ago, the difference is that almost no one actually
sees
how utterly hopeless the situation really is. So far as I can figure it, this is the gift of spiritual vision that Kali gave Ramesh. Unlike most of us, he knows that he is up against the fucking wall.
The house is on fire and the doors are locked
. What kills me is Ramesh is actually cultivating that way of seeing things. I don't feel sorry for him at all. I envy him. It takes enormous courage to actually give up—to just let go of the whole project of being somebody. I don't even know how to
try
.”

For the past several minutes Penny had been sitting there filing her nails, waiting for me to finish. When I finally stopped talking she glanced up.

“Is that it now? Are you through?” She looked at me out of the corner of one eye while examining a minor hangnail with the other.

I let out a sigh. “Yes, that's it.”

“So if I get this right, what you're saying is that you envy a lonely, tormented old man who killed his infant son. And you envy him because he's trapped in his shitty life.”

I didn't respond.

“Stanley,” she said, “you're sick. You know that, don't you? I mean, you
really are
sick.”

She got up from the stool, her hands slipped around back again, and off came the bra. Once free, her breasts seemed to swell in the fluttering light of the candle. Bending low she stepped out of her petticoat one leg at a time. Stark naked now, she leaned over to blow out the candle. Her body appeared to me flawless, perfect—a divine vision sprung from my own desire. The flame was just about to go when I asked her to wait, to stay where she was for a minute longer. She stood up and turned slowly around, looking at me as though I had finally gone over the edge.

“Do you mind all that much?” I said, a bit sheepishly. “This is sort of interesting.”

“Oh for God's sake, Stanley. Can't we continue the conversation with me in bed?”

“I'm not concerned with the conversation. I mean you. Out there naked, bent over the table like that.”

“And what about Kalidas? Spiritual vision, Stanley. The twist!” She snapped her fingers. “Remember?”

“What can I say? My attention was distracted.”

“I still can't see you under there,” she said, lowering her head and straining to make out my form where I reclined inside the net.

“I can see you fine. Can you just stay where you are for a little while longer.
Please?
” I was honestly pleading with her now, and she knew it.

“What am I supposed to do out here?” She folded her arms indignantly under her breasts; they stood at attention, pointing directly at me where I lay. If this is righteous anger, I thought, then please Lord, give me more.

Out loud I said, “Be a sport! I'm living out a fantasy. Would it hurt so much to cooperate just a little?” She remained standing as before, staring at the net. “Are you cold?” I asked.

“Not yet,” she replied, with a disgust that was half serious, half feigned.

I could tell from her tone she was already coming around.

“All I would like for you to do,” I said, “if you don't mind, is to cup your breasts from underneath and hold them up for me. What do you say?”

Grudgingly she uncrossed her arms and her fingers glided up over the bare skin. She raised her breasts tentatively, a bit higher than they had been already.

“Very nice. Could you sort of massage them a little?”

She gave both a gentle squeeze and continued holding them aloft. The nipples were stiff in the cool air. Everything about Penny's body was delicate—you could almost say innocent—except for her nipples. They were unusually prominent, and with the slightest provocation they swelled up into dark, hard nubs of flesh that jutted out like thick pencil erasers. I found them unbearably erotic.

“How's this?” she said, her voice softer. She had a nipple between the forefinger and thumb of each hand and was twirling them back and forth. Her lips were parted, head tipped slightly back. “Now what do you want me to do?”

“That's good.” I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Turn around and bend over the vanity in front of the mirror, the way you were a minute ago.” I spoke rather abruptly, aware that I was no longer asking. I decided
the time had come to go for broke. We were gathering momentum with every second.

She did as I asked, showing me her back and the full length of her hair cascading down over her shoulders. Leaning low, she pressed her chest flat against the vanity. One arm up over her head, her fingers splayed against the mirror. She spread her legs, and with the other hand reached down between them and began rubbing with an easy motion.

“Just like our first night together in Delhi,” I said. “I love to watch you play with yourself.”

Her hips were rotating now in slow circles.

“Come out here,” she said. “Please.” Now she was the one doing the begging.

I wasted little time crawling out from under the net. Once out, I stripped off my shorts, grasped her waist from behind, and pushed myself against her. She had both arms up now, hands gripping the edge of the vanity. In front of us the big hermeneutical mirror reflected the whole sordid scene. There I was, the young Fulbright scholar from the University of Chicago, making the most out of my opportunity to study abroad.
The clown is happy tonight.

“My, my,” I said. “Look what happens when we come to the jungle on holiday. You've become a little animal.” I reached down and around her stomach, cupping my hand under her, and slipped a finger up inside. She was drenched. “What do you see in front of you?” I asked.

She lifted her head and looked into the glass. “Two nasty people.” Her eyes met mine in the mirror. “Don't play around, Stanley. Not tonight.”

“How about something special then? A jungle fuck.”

She began to writhe up against me.

“Do it,” she moaned, more a low growl than language.

I hesitated at the tiny flower of her anus, felt the resistance and the urge to give way. I made sure it was wet and then entered her slowly, pushing in and down, watching each sensation with total attention. I buried myself in her, taking my time, feeling every tiny spasm. Down I went, all the way down to that same incomprehensible turning point, beyond fear and desire, beyond death, beyond nothing and nobody to the same empty space that I found between inhalation and exhalation, the same impossible joining of opposites where in becomes out, meeting and merging with its hidden partner, vice becoming virtue, motion turning back on itself, crossing over, and starting up again out of the void, upward toward
goodness and beauty, back to light and life, but always moving toward another turning point—another miraculous void that would be reached just when the head of my cock was about to escape through the taut ring of her muscle. There at the apex I paused, the outward pull slacking off and transforming, somehow, into its opposite, once again descending into darkness. I clamped on with one hand, the flesh hot and slick with sweat under my fingers. With the other I reached underneath and massaged her, giving myself over to every shiver of her flesh, her body telling me what to do, when to ease off, when to press harder or more quickly. I could feel her climax building, an earthquake beginning to rumble, the tremors of pleasure rolling up from deep inside.