The Fourth Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (A Tenzing Norbu Mystery series Book 4) (11 page)

“I shouldn’t do this,” I said, removing the container of liver bits from the refrigerator. Usually he only gets liver every few days. A pair of sharp cat paws scaled my leg as I chopped the raw meat into bite-size pieces. “Ouch! Stop!” I moved him aside with one foot. “Guess who’s back in L.A.?”

Tank rolled onto his back and aimed all four legs skyward, his feline salute of approval.

“That’s right. Julie.” I set the bowl on the floor and Tank flipped upright and raced to his dish before I could change my mind. “Eat up. I’m going to meditate. We both need to build our inner strength for whatever’s coming next, buddy.”

I stepped around the screen and offered a small bow of acknowledgment to my personal shrine. The battered suitcase, now topped with two planks of redwood, was repurposed into a meditation altar, covered by the discarded maroon robe from my earlier incarnation as a novice Tibetan lama. Though the small statue of the Buddha still occupied the center, my collection of offerings had multiplied over time and now included two photographs I had brought back from India following my father’s death. I’d discovered the picture of my mother while clearing out my father’s things. Valerie was maybe 19. She smiled into the camera, her gaze direct, unclouded as yet by alcohol or pills. Light-brown hair fell in waves to her waist, and her tall figure was graceful, as if designed for the sari draping her slender curves. But it was the light around her that entranced the camera’s lens. She glowed as if illuminated from within; she was transcendently beautiful. No wonder my father had fallen so hard.

The other photograph was of Appa and me, more than a decade later. His outstretched arms looped a white silk
khata
around my ten-year-old neck, the reward for completing my ordination as a novice monk. My head was bowed, my father’s expression stern. If I squinted my eyes, he almost looked proud.

I scanned the rest of my mementos. The red-tailed hawk feather from my first hike in Topanga Park, a shell from Zuma. A tiny jade carving of the Goddess Tara, also from my father’s things, now sat in serene silence next to the mangled bullet that had grazed my right temple and changed my life. I enjoyed the irony of the juxtaposed symbols.

A kind, grizzled face caught my eye. I picked up the program from John D’s memorial service two months ago and studied his features, smiling in the photo printed on the back. My heart caught as I remembered his final 24 hours of life. I’d spent most of them at his side, holding his papery, mottled hands in mine as I matched the reedy ebb and flow of his breath. John D was my first paying client and would probably always be my favorite. During one of our long, epic talks about life and death, he’d “allowed as how” he wouldn’t mind having someone like me by his side when his time came. I never forgot.

As a young monk, I’d sat with more than one dying elder, but the moment of John D’s passing was uniquely his. And mine. Uniquely ours. His breathing became so shallow his chest barely moved, and I knew death was close. I hummed passages from the
Bardo Thodol,
gentle reminders to my friend to let go of any remaining attachment to his singular bodily form, and to dissolve consciously into the eternal oneness of space.

I’d closed my eyes, and felt into his breathing with my senses, until I could barely discern any breath at all. I repeated the sutras more and more softly, as I was taught, until the sounds were more vibration than vocalization. Then this: radiant light, illuminating my inner field of vision, and a heart-based surge of joy. Waves of bittersweet bliss merged with parallel waves that seemed to come from John D’s still form. The joy amplified—he was loving me, I was loving him, and a flowing, growing synergy connected and coursed between us.

A barely audible
Ahhhhhhh
escaped from John D’s throat, a long, slow out-breath. The in-breath never arrived. Only a hallowed silence, marked by my own pained smile of recognition. For John D’s final utterance was no death rattle, but rather a sigh of pleasure, the same exact sound he’d always made after lowering into his beloved Barcalounger at the end of a long day.

I set the program back on my shrine. I no longer wanted to meditate. I wanted to talk to Yeshe and Lobsang. To connect with two living, breathing hearts, in real time. I needed my friends.

I crossed the living room to my desk, fired up the computer, and opened Skype. A tiny Yeshe-image beamed from my screen, no bigger than the postage stamps I’d used for all those years when I’d communicated with my friends by letter. The Internet had made such things obsolete, but sometimes I still missed the sense of calm that came when I put pen to paper.

I connected, and typed into the message bar:
You there?

Seconds later, a reply popped up:
Yes. I’ll go get Lobsang.

Soon their two wavering faces filled the desktop, grinning from a monastery office thousands of miles away. Yeshe sipped from a teacup. Lobsang toasted me with his, and 8,000 miles couldn’t hide the twinkle of mischief.

“
Tashi delek!
We’re just now enjoying that tea you love so much,” Lobsang said. “Our sister monastery sent us a special offering from their yaks!”

Yak butter tea was the staple beverage of Tibetan monasteries, and still considered a treat in India. As a young lama, I’d barely tolerated the pungent brew, at times the only hot drink to be had on cold Dharamshala mornings. The greasy swill was a far, far cry from the rich, sweet
chocolat chaud
of Parisian cafés, warm nectar I inhaled like a deprived bee whenever I was returned to my mother.

Lobsang slurped a large mouthful and followed with a contented belch. “Care to join?”

“Very funny,” I said, smiling.

“
Tashi delek,
Tenzing!” As usual, Yeshe’s voice was louder than necessary. He didn’t trust the new technology. His face moved closer, tipped to one side. “You look tired!”

“I am.” They waited, happy to allow the silent connection between us to simply be. “I miss you,” I said.

Yeshe touched his forehead, his smile shy.

“It is always a happy day when we see our dharma-brother’s face,” Lobsang said, “but especially today.”

Something in Lobsang’s voice suggested their morning had not been entirely untroubled either. “Is there unrest in the
Sangha?
”

“No more than the usual,” Lobsang said, “but sometimes these young monks can be infuriating. Much more infuriating than we were at their age.”

“I’m sure.”

“This morning, they handed us a petition,” Yeshe broke in. “A petition! Can you imagine? They say they need new equipment! You remember how, when we were boys, we worked with worn-down little pencil stubs? Now all the novices want to read the scriptures on iPads.”

“Huh,” I said. “I seem to remember the Buddha saying something about change being inevitable, Mr. and Mr. Skype. Better watch out. Next thing you know, you’ll be on Facebook.”

My friends exchanged an embarrassed glance.

“Don’t tell me.”

“The Dorje Yidam page goes
live
next week,” Yeshe admitted. “Twitter, too.”

“Apparently we need to build our platform, whatever that is, if we want to generate enough donations to finance the new roof.” Lobsang frowned.

“Not to mention all those new iPads,” I said, and Lobsang’s scowl deepened. I laughed at his familiar expression of outrage. I’m pretty sure he was born with it.

The conversation had taken a very different direction than I’d imagined, to great effect: I’d forgotten why I felt the need to talk to them in the first place. But like a reverse blessing, the realization of the absence of pain brought the pain right back, and the Bohannons’ struggles, Julie’s return, even Roland’s unearthed skeleton of shame triggered a fresh flood of unease. I shuddered, as if aftershocks from long-ago fault lines had shifted under my feet. Yeshe and Lobsang had been the only stabilizing factors during the hardest, most vulnerable years of my life.

They still were.

“Let me tell you what’s been going on,” I said. I sketched out the Bill situation and his ill-founded decision to go to Bosnia. I added in the human trafficking angle, and touched on Martha’s pain, and my own fears around the situation.

“Also, uh, Julie’s in town. You remember Julie, Martha’s sister? Anyway, she’s here to, you know, to help Martha. Her sister.”

“Ahh,” Yeshe said, “and so we reach the core. Your heart is attached and therefore expectant, and with that comes unease.”

“What core?” I said. “There’s no core. I’m pretty much over her.”

They said nothing.

“It’s been more than two years,” I added, irritated for some reason. “Anyway, a lot’s been going on. And so, yes, I’m tired, but not the kind of tired sitting with my eyes closed will cure.”

Yeshe bowed his head, deep in thought. He raised his eyes to meet mine. “You once told us that you live near a park, a place where you can be in nature, yes?”

“Good memory. Yes, Topanga State Park.” I hadn’t been there in a few years.

“I think you would benefit from getting your feet off city streets.”

Lobsang’s face broke into a grin, as if cheered by his own thought. “
Hon, hon—
yes, yes! Take a hike! Isn’t that how Americans say it?”

They had zeroed in on something, for sure. Suddenly, I couldn’t wait to get outside. “Thank you.” I touched my forehead. “
Chagpo nang,
take care, my brothers. As always, you bring clarity to my muddled state.”

“Chagpo nang.”

Fifteen minutes later my feet were pressing against Topanga Park’s crumbled earth, baked by the summer sun, yet somehow fragrant with life. The sun was low in the sky, and a golden wash painted the woods with an air of warm mystery. Rather than running, I had driven the short distance to the park and left my car at the Trippet Ranch lot.

I stepped onto Musch Trail, and into a swarm of memories as thick as mosquitoes. At first, I tried to outpace the pesky thoughts. Walking briskly, I wound in and out of the sun and shade, my path dappled with subtle shifts of light. Two miles in, I hit Eagle Junction and hiked up the looping trail toward Eagle Rock. I longed to soothe my eyes with the sweeping panoramic view looming over the canyon.

I stood, panting, at the high outcrop of boulders, the park bathed in a golden sheen below me, when a thought swooped, hawk-like, into my consciousness: I had stopped coming here because I associated this place with Barbara Maxey, the catalyst for my first case as a private investigator. My first failure of a case, I should say.

I scanned the landscape below, orienting myself, and finally found the narrow streambed that led to the campsite, the one where Barbara had spent the last moments of her mortal existence. I hiked back down the trail and searched my way through trees and underbrush until I was standing by the little brook where she had slept, peacefully I hoped, until her past overtook her. I leaned against a tree she, too, might have leaned against, near the spot where her sleeping bag was discovered, her strangled body still half-zipped inside.

Finally, I was ready to meditate. I lowered to a sitting position, my back against the peeling bark of a eucalyptus tree. I closed my eyes, each breath slower and deeper than the one before, and went on a second search, this one inside.

What was this guilt about? Why hadn’t I been able to put it aside? Light played over my eyelids as answers began to float up: I had failed her, failed to see her essence, to understand who she really was and what she really wanted. We had shared only a brief moment in time, but I could not wade past my expectations and judgments and actually connect with her, heart-to-heart. Instead I had remained trapped inside my head and oblivious to her needs. A day later, she was dead.

If I had connected with her—really seen her—would it have altered her destiny? Would she still be alive?

I breathed deeply, down, down, through the squirmy sensation of guilt and into its hot, tight core. The sensation began to shimmer and change with my breathing. A memory floated up, something my latest ex, Heather, had told me she’d learned during her psych rotation, while training to be a pathologist: guilt has only one positive use, as motivation for change. Only when remorse for past actions leads to constructive deeds in the present can balance be reestablished, or, as the Buddha might say, karma restored.

But what exactly was the positive action I might take? What would demonstrate I’d learned something from Barbara’s case? I let the question dance in my head, light as a dust mote.

Nothing.

I started to chase the mote—tried to capture it in my fist. And then Yeshe’s warm, quiet voice gave me the answer, the same one he’d given since we were both children:
The answer will come in time. Let go.

So I did. I let go of my thoughts and let the awareness return to my bodily sensations. A faint feeling of guilt was still there, but like shattered glass, it had broken up into smaller components. Fear, anger, and a kernel of something else I couldn’t quite put a name to. Something hot and hard and less easy to dissolve.

Shame. I felt ashamed.

Memories flickered, almost like a slide show, situations where my father had shamed me, especially about my feelings toward girls, well, toward one girl in particular. Pema, my first love. Her face glowed in my memory, standing in a pool of light by the monastery kitchen. Her face was radiant with an inner glow, just like …

… my mother’s luminous features replaced Pema’s.

I had never understood my father’s seemingly automatic need to humiliate me. Now I did. The shame, the humiliation, was his! My very existence had brought disgrace on him, and was a constant reminder of his own wrongdoing. I had a sudden urge to laugh, sitting alone in the woods. Appa’s shame around me wasn’t even my business! It had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with him.

My problem was that I had taken it personally. Easy to see why—it was beamed at me from the earliest moments of my existence. But there was no need for me to keep taking it personally anymore. As I sat, eyes closed, I tossed the small, hot kernel back across time and space to my father. That was his problem, not mine.