The Secret Letters of the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari (14 page)

“She is taking it really seriously,” said Annisha. “I felt a lot better after I talked with her.”

Annisha and I chatted a little bit more about Adam and school and then I said goodnight.

T
HE DEPARTURE LOUNGE
was quite crowded now. Most of the seats were full. Men and women with briefcases and
laptops. A few parents with small children. And across from me, a teenage girl, earphones on her head, slumped in her seat, glaring at her mother who was offering her a piece of gum.

I thought of my surly teenage self. My parents’ patience with me. I felt a familiar ache beneath my ribs. I missed my father.

Sitting there in the Barcelona airport, thinking about my son being watched over by Ms. Vanderwees, remembering my dad and my own childhood, it struck me that my five-year-old self had got it right. My dad was a classroom genius, working in a truly noble profession. He had achieved the greatness Lluis aspired to. I had a lot of work to do if I wanted to come close to being the man he became.

W
HILE
I
WAS IN
S
PAIN
,
Julian had sent me some information about my next two destinations. The first one would land me back in North America, sending me to Cape Breton Island, on the east coast of Canada.

So, with a connection in London and one in Halifax, and more than sixteen hours after Lluis had left me at the airport in Barcelona, I landed in Sydney, in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. It was early evening. As Julian had promised, a rental car was waiting for me. I was relieved to find it had a GPS. I realized that I had no real idea about how to get from Sydney to St. Ann’s.

“It’ll take you about an hour,” said the fellow at the rental agency.

The safekeeper here was a woman named Mary McNeil. I sent her a message to tell her I was on my way.

As I pulled out of Sydney and hit the highway, I was reminded of what I had seen of the Yucatán Peninsula. Not the weather, or the houses, or the vegetation. No, here the air was crisp and cool; the firs and balsams and birches, thick and deep green. And water. There was water everywhere. The road twisted and turned—I could see from the GPS that my route was almost circuitous, but after every few miles of trees and woods, an expanse of water—some bay or lake—would flicker into view. What reminded me of the Yucatán was the sparseness of the population on Cape Breton. Like leaving Mérida, as soon as I exited Sydney I felt as if I had left people behind. I drove past vast stretches where hardly anyone lived. A house or two might pop up on the roadside only to slide into the rearview mirror, vanishing into a sea of trees. There was something, however, about traveling through this remote place to meet someone, even if that someone was a stranger, that was comforting. At the end of this journey, I thought, a person is waiting for me.

Mary McNeil and Angus Macdonald lived just off a scenic highway called the Cabot Trail, across the road from St. Ann’s Bay. In a message, Mary had said I would see a mailbox at the side of the road, and a post with a number, but I wouldn’t be able to see the house until I’d driven some distance down the lane. Luckily, the GPS did the work for me, and before long I was climbing up a gravel road, thick bush on either side, the pitch of a roof peeking above the trees ahead of me. She must have been looking out the window because as soon I pulled the car behind the two trucks at the side of the house, a tall woman with salt-and-pepper hair was on the front steps waving at me. That had to be Mary, I thought.

By the time I had stepped out of the car, Mary was by my side, as was a man who I assumed was her husband, Angus. He was slightly shorter than Mary, definitely rounder, and with a warm smile that matched her own. Neither grabbed me like Lluis had, but Angus patted me on the shoulder and Mary held my hand in both of hers as she introduced herself. They seemed happy to see me, but Mary’s eyes were pinched, as if with concern. “You must be so tired,” she said. “Angus, Angus,” she continued with some alarm, gesturing at the backseat of the car. In the next moment, Angus and I were wrestling over my baggage in what must have looked like a cartoon dust-up. I finally relented and let him carry everything into the house for me.

“I understand from Julian that you’ve been on quite a journey,” Mary said. “So we’ve got a little supper ready for you, and then you can disappear to bed if you’d like. I imagine it’s almost midnight Spain time.”

Mary and Angus led me into the living room. It was eclectically furnished, and there were a couple of enormous canvases on the wall. One looked like a vaguely aquatic scene—brilliant turquoise and green with dark shadows dancing across the color. The other was a pastiche of colored blocks that seemed to re arrange themselves before my eyes. Mary pointed me to a deep chair that faced a bank of windows. When I sat down, I immediately noticed the most spectacular thing in the room. A great wave of green swept before me and at its end a thin strip of dark blue—St. Ann’s Bay, and the waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

“Sit, sit,” said Angus. “I’ll just get things on the table and then call you both.”

Mary brought me a beer and then sat down next to me. She asked a few questions about my travels.

“It sounds as if you’ve been very busy. You may just want to rest tomorrow, but Angus and I were thinking of doing a few things with you.”

I was not surprised. Antoine in Paris was, so far, the only safekeeper who left me to my own devices. I had mixed feelings. After sitting on so many long flights, it was probably good to be busy. But I wasn’t sure if I felt like a lot of planned activity.

Mary said that if I was up to it, she was hoping to have a small dinner party in my honor the next night.

“Nothing fancy,” she assured me. “Just a few friends and relatives. And lobsters. It’s lobster season, so I thought you might enjoy that.”

I smiled and said that sounded delightful, but in my heart, I wasn’t so sure. Mary also said she was planning to spend the day getting ready for the party, while Angus drove me around the Cabot Trail—a loop of roadway that circled the mountains of the Cape Breton Highlands on the northern end of the island.

“It’s beautiful,” Mary said. “I’ve lived here almost my whole life, and I never tire of it.”

I said I hadn’t done that before and would love to see this part of the world. “I’ve heard it reminds people of the green hills of Ireland,” I said.

Mary nodded. “Yes, but somehow wilder. At least that’s how it strikes me.”

I had been traveling now for about two weeks, but in truth I had lost any real sense of time. I was tired and homesick, but my anxiety about work and all the urgency I felt about getting back to it were becoming strangely muted. I knew I should be worried, but it was as if I no longer had the energy. I might have insisted that I fly back out the next day, I might have tried to
hurry the trip along, but I no longer wanted to do that. A long drive might be just the thing.

It was only a few minutes later when Angus’s voice came from the kitchen.

“Time to chow down,” he called out. Mary picked up my glass and led the way.

The kitchen was huge, but not fancy. A pine harvest table stretched out on one side of the room—circled by eight high-back chairs. An old-fashioned sideboard was crammed with bits of antique china and bright, hand-blown glass bowls. There were some colorful prints on the walls around the table.

Angus placed a steaming pan of lasagna on a trivet in the center of the table. There was already a green salad there, and a basket of bread.

“I don’t know how hungry you are, Jonathan, so I’ll just let you help yourself,” he said.

I was not in the mood to talk about myself, and I knew the best way to deflect any demand for that was by asking the questions. Angus, I learned, was a dentist with a practice in Baddeck. He had grown up in Glace Bay, the son of a coal miner. In fact, all the men in his family had worked the mines, until his dad’s youngest brother headed out to Moncton in New Brunswick, where he eventually became an accountant. Angus had met Mary when the two of them were in university, but they hadn’t dated until they were in their thirties. Mary was an artist and worked in a studio up the hill, behind the house.

“It has the most beautiful light,” said Mary.

I asked them how they came to know Julian. Mary told me she had met him many, many years ago, when she was a young artist working in New York City.

“Julian bought a number of my pieces,” she said. “This was when he was a litigation lawyer and was spending money like a drunken sailor.” Mary laughed at that. “We lost touch for a while, and then after I’d moved back here, he found me.”

“He must have been a big fan of your work to track you here,” I said.

“No,” said Mary. “This was after he had returned from Sivana. He got in touch with me just to talk.”

I thought about my old high school friends, my college roommates, all the people I had inadvertently lost touch with over the years. And then there were the people I had deliberately ignored. I felt a twinge in my chest. Juan fell into that second category. After my lunch with David and Sven, Juan had come to see me a few times. He was confused. David and Sven had accosted him with an avalanche of demands. Set up nearly impossible goals with completely unrealistic deadlines. They asked for reports and accounting so frequently that it was almost a joke. Except Juan was not laughing. He became worried, anxious and stressed. Each time he talked with me, I claimed complete ignorance. When he asked me to intervene, to act as an unofficial liaison between the design department and upper management, I waffled. Eventually I began to avoid him.

Juan was not a stupid man. He could see that I had no desire to get involved. He stopped coming by my office. But I would see him in the hallways, looking troubled and gaunt, deep lines carved down his face, his eyes pouchy and sad. One of the last times I spoke with him, he had caught me by surprise in the company parking lot.

“Ah, Jonathan, I know you know what’s going on,” he said sadly. “And I know there is nothing anyone can do to help. But
I’m a fifty-five-year-old man. I can’t afford to retire yet, but if I quit… Well, who is going to hire an old guy like me?” Then he climbed into his car and pulled out of the lot.

It was only a month later when the news buzzed through the office. Juan’s car had flown off the road the previous evening on his way home from work. He was dead by the time the ambulance arrived.

T
HE LASAGNA WAS DELICIOUS
, but the combination of the rich food and the time difference was making my eyes heavy. Angus cleared the dishes from the table, but Mary stayed sitting.

“I know you need to get to bed now,” she said. “But I’d like to give you the talisman tonight. Actually, I was going to give it to you tomorrow just before the party. I decided to have the party because of the talisman. I thought it would be appropriate—the right kind of way to celebrate the hand-off. But I know me. I’ll be flying in all directions at once tomorrow, getting dinner ready, so now might be a better time.”

Mary took a small padded envelope from her pocket and put it in the center of the table. But she kept her hand over it.

“Before you open this,” said Mary, “may I see the other talismans?”

I was so used to the feel of the soft suede on my skin, the gentle weight against my chest. I was surprised by how reluctant I was to lose the comfort of the pouch, to take it off. But I drew it out from under my shirt and lifted it from my neck. I opened the top and very gently slid the talismans onto the table.

Mary looked carefully at the small assortment.

“Julian must think very highly of you, must care about you deeply, to entrust you with this task,” she said.

“Well, I don’t know,” I said. “He and my mother are close. But I don’t really know him.”

“But he clearly knows
you
,” said Mary. She was smiling softly.

She reached toward the center of the table and picked up the grinning skull.

“Embrace your fears,” she said. I nodded.

She put the skull down and reached for the crane.

“Kindness.” She placed the crane in front of her, next to the skull.

“Small daily improvements.” She was running her fingers over the little pyramid.

She put the red clay piece on the table and picked up the paintbrush. Like I had done when I first got it, she twirled the dark wood between her fingers.

“All work can be a means of creative self-expression,” she said.

“How do you know all this?” I asked her.

Mary looked up at me and tilted her head, as if trying to decide something.

“These talismans,” she eventually said, waving her hand over the small pile on the table, “there is only one of each of these things. But they are symbols, after all. Julian has talked about their wisdom for years. And I’ve been listening.”

Finally, Mary picked up the sun and moon amulet.

“Ah,” she said. “Live your authentic life. This is a very good one. This one is so important, but few people make use of this truth.”

She put the piece down on the table, and looked at me.

“Can I ask you something, Jonathan? Something personal?” I didn’t really feel I could say no.

“Do you think you are being true to yourself? Do you think you are leading the life you are meant to live—the one that most honors the real you, celebrates your deepest values and respects your highest dreams?”

I blanched, lifted my tea mug to my mouth to stall a little. Mary was looking at me intently. I couldn’t fathom why she would be so interested in me or the answer to that question. I took a sip of tea, and then put my cup back down.

“I … I don’t know,” I stammered. “I’ve been trying to figure that out during this trip.”

“I understand,” said Mary. “It’s a tough one.”

“I mean, I think maybe I’m not,” I offered. “But I’m just not sure what my authentic life would look like. I am beginning to rethink my work, but I’m not sure about the rest of it.”

Mary nodded.

“Since I’ve been prying into your life, maybe I should tell you a bit more about mine.”

“Sure,” I said. Anything not to have to talk more about myself.

Mary had told me earlier that she was a painter, but she said that her story wasn’t one about rebellion. She hadn’t become an artist because her family had wanted her to become an accountant. Nor had she had an epiphany one day while working at a nine-to-five job that her real passion was art. She had always known she wanted to be an artist, even as a child. It’s what made her happy. Drawing, painting, sculpting, making things, it’s all she ever wanted to do.

“Like Picasso,” I said. I was remembering what Lluis had told
me about his childhood. But Picasso’s father was an artist, too. He encouraged the young Picasso. I asked Mary if her parents were artists.

“Good grief no. My dad had a fishing boat; my mom worked part-time at a grocery store,” Mary said. “But they are amazing people, and they thought it was a great gift that I had something I loved so much. They just wanted me to keep doing it.”

“And they weren’t concerned about how you would make a living?” I asked.