Craving (32 page)

Chapter 21

I sat in the AMRTA parking lot as I had before, staring at the building, wondering how much I would never know about the Arhat. How did it happen? A phrase or two, specifically tailored to eat away at a person until the obsession drove them to such intense focus that they somehow managed to cheat death?

I had asked myself the question before, in moments of idle fancy: what would I do if I was immortal? With enough time, the world would run out of things to show me, surely. With enough time, art and evolution would be tainted by pessimism. Humans were all the same, in every era, they had to be, or history would cease to teach us valuable lessons. So with enough time, no matter how pacifistic the Arhat were, I could see them coming to loathe what they had been, even as they longed to be rid of their condition.

How much of what they did was forgivable?

If I walked in oozing hatred, then I would be as much in danger of their wrath as Unger. How had Arthur said it? Ignorance breeds incorrect behavior. Therefore, knowledge should lead to right behavior. Being one of them, I could surely understand their predicament.

I had never been the forgiving type. I held grudges like baseball bats and, knowing this, had done as much as possible to never involve myself in disputes. Howard had always called me an impossible nag, the kind of wife that could drive a man crazy with bickering, nitpicking, and constant correction. Now I had nothing left. My rage had gotten me nowhere, my cynicism had been useless, and I could see my flaws quite plainly.

This was the ultimate test of the person I had become. People could change, the mind could go back to an earlier state, the flaws or heights we’d achieved could be abandoned at any time. It had to be true, or I was on a long walk off a short pier.

I got out of my car and walked into the building where the security guard looked at me in mild shock. A few moments later, I was escorted by several men to Moksha’s office, where he sat in his antique chair with that smug look on his deceitful face.

“Ms. Blake, wasn’t it?” he said with a chuckle.

I thought back to the tenets of the Buddhist monks, to the principles of conservation. No matter how right I would be to call the man an unmitigated ass, I couldn’t. In this circumstance, it did absolutely no good and though he may not be diminished by it, I surely would be.

“It’s Pierce, actually,” I admitted.

His self-satisfied aura grew a little. “Yes, I know.”

“And I know what it is you’re doing. I’ll stay with you, go wherever you want, but let Unger go. Drop him off downtown.” He raised an eyebrow, but I ignored it, kept my expressions from going wild in spite of my shaky nerves, and held out my phone. “I want proof. He’ll call me after you release him. Don’t try anything else. I’ll know.”

The smile turned malicious. “You’re in no position to negotiate.”

“I’m not negotiating,” I said quietly. “I am asking you to do something kind for me. Put me in your debt. Do it, please.”

His brow fell and eyes narrowed. He looked at me as if confused and disgusted. While he examined my face, I mimicked Arthur’s calm, copied his benign way of commanding a room. Though I probably failed miserably, Moksha continued to stare.

“What will you do if I refuse?”

“Spend more time talking with you about the nature of generosity, I imagine.”

Something was churning behind his eyes, some kind of outrage or dissatisfaction. The longer I looked into his face, the angrier he seemed.

“If we let him go, how can we be sure we have your cooperation?”

A division was growing in me as I looked at him, the little scheming man in his great tower of glass. The two halves of me, old and new, were pulling apart. One side longed to point out, in a snide voice, that if I intended to be uncooperative, I would not be standing there with the flash drive around my neck. The other side of me knew a peculiar enjoyment, as if for the first time, I had stepped back and found the extremes of emotion to be amusing. In my state of assumed calm, I was helpless to hide my feelings.

“A man cannot conceal joy,” I said, though I wasn’t sure where it was coming from, “because joy undoes deceit. What I have, I will share, because I must. There is no other choice.”

While he marveled at me, I did the same. The two halves of me were looking at each other, sizing each other up, and the old was not sure what to make of the new. I looked down at my chest and saw the little charm around my neck.

I held it out. “This is everything I know, all the information Eva stole. I will give it to you. Now let Unger go, please.”

Moksha shook his head, not in answer to my question, but in disbelief. “I still fail to see how it would be in my best interests.”

“If you’re not going to let him go, then what was the point of bringing me here?” I asked. “If I am what you think, I would have come eventually. Doing this only pulls you farther from the path and makes you less able to hear what I have to say.”

He turned in his chair and got to his feet. With slow, contemplative strides, he found his way to me and folded his hands behind his back. His eyes were filled with malice. “What makes you think I care about what you have to say?”

I understood in that moment. I could see that whatever he
had
been, he was no longer a good, pacifistic individual. He liked what he had become, but then again, how could a person with no soul or conscience know what they were missing?

“How old are you?” I inquired, no emotion in my words. “You must be young.”

He leaned forward, so that his face was only a few inches from mine, trying to threaten me with his proximity, but I was done with being threatened.

“You don’t want a cure, do you?” I said, closing my eyes. “You like it here, in your castle, mucking about with other peoples’ lives. You’re not even one of the real First Sangha, are you? You’re just an Arhat, an n
th
level mutation. I bet I can guess what your
trishna
is, that little hurdle at the end of the race that you just couldn’t quite make it over. It was power, wasn’t it? Once you achieved your liberation, you fell in love with the power. What insight does it give you?” I opened my eyes to find him leaning back on his heels, stunned. “Can you see people’s weaknesses, I wonder? Is that why they chose you to do this?”

Eva wasn’t crazy. She wasn’t losing her mind because of some irresolvable equation, some unattainable grace. Sometimes when everyone but you was nuts,
they
were all just nuts.

The heart of Buddhist doctrine was to erase suffering, but in all their long lifetimes, the Arhat had not been able to do it, because it was impossible. Like Arthur had said, even if you managed to shrug off attachment, you still suffered on behalf of all the others who had not. To live
at all,
immortal or otherwise, was to suffer, and that was something Eva had loved most about life. It was what reminded her of her flaws, made her work harder, made her fight to stay alive and cherish those few moments of happiness. By embracing misery she had defied them all and, unafraid, crossed the river.

Moksha had been too good for his own good.

“You can see weaknesses, Moksha, but can you see mine?”

I looked him in the eye, completely composed, certain, for no obvious reason, that he would not be able to find a crack in my resolve, that his eyes, however sharp, would never chip away at me. I was an obsidian mirror and he would see only his darkest self.

He took a step back, his throat working in a swallow, his mouth twisting in an approximation of disgust that his eyes could not support. Eventually, he turned away and walked to his phone. He spoke quietly into the receiver and then hung up. I spent almost twenty minutes in silence, watching him avoid my gaze, make excuses not to look at me, actively pretend I was not standing there, seeing right through him.

In my hand, my cell vibrated, and the ID was a number I did not recognize.

“Yes?” I answered.

The person on the other end coughed and sounded out of breath. “It’s me.”

I sighed with relief. “Where are you?”

“The café. They dropped me off in the middle of the park. I ran here in case they followed me.”

“Prove it,” I said quietly.

He didn’t ask for a reason. The phone jiggled and I could hear him speaking to someone. Eventually a woman’s voice came on the line. I recognized it as the waitress who always tried to insist I have coffee. I asked her for her name, and though she was confused, she gave the right one. When he came back to the line, I was almost too choked to ask after his health.

“They hit me over the head, but I’m okay, I think.”

“You know what to do?”

“Yes.” He hesitated. “Lilith, where are you?”

“I have to go now, Matthew.”

“What? Tell me where you are!” His voice lifted in anxiety. I wondered what he must be feeling, sworn to protect the peace, but saved by a woman who didn’t even know how to load a pistol. “Tell me what’s going on!”

“I can’t,” I whispered. “Just stay safe, okay?”

I could almost feel his sickened realization. “Lilith . . .”

“Thanks for being there,” I said. “Thanks for having faith and for questioning the facts that got you here.”

I hung up before he could protest again and lifted my face to the mastermind of all the tragedies that had plagued my life.

“I’m satisfied.”

He had been watching me intently, but when I looked at him, his eyes shied away. He hit the intercom button. “She’s ready.”

The door opened and some men in dark suits entered. They were almost silent and seemed alert. Nothing was said as they surrounded me and tried to press me from the room, but something in me refused to move. I looked at Moksha, who was staring at my knees in wide-eyed confusion.

“Boredom will eventually set in,” I said to him, “and one day, you’ll be standing still on an island, with no idea where to go, because all your bridges will have burned.” His eyes flicked to me, and like Anna’s had, unfocused. “The smaller you are, the larger and more terrifying the world. You should not be trying to reduce yourself so thoroughly.”

One of the men reached out and pushed me with a glance. I left the room, but for some reason, with all the new things I was about to experience, Moksha’s face stayed with me as I walked down the stairs to the side entrance of the lobby. He had seemed so stunned and lost. I almost wanted to reassure him.

At the doors of the building, the guard asked me very kindly for my belongings. I handed over my phone, my keys, and my driver’s license. The man continued to stare at me, but when I saw his eyes flick to the flash drive, I shook my head.

“This stays on my body. I’ll release it when the time comes.”

I thought he might protest, but instead, he nodded to the door. Several black cars waited out front and I was directed into one of them. The door was opened for me, and to my surprise, only one man got in behind me.

As the cars pulled away and carried me toward the freeway, I locked the man in one of Arthur’s patented faraway, inescapable stares. He looked right back, unbothered, perhaps even curious, and took out the earpiece that connected him to his fellows. What he wanted, I could not guess, but if he was willing to be polite, then so was I.

“Where are you taking me?”

“To the compound.”

I nodded, though I had no idea what he meant. “And then?”

No answer.

“How far is it?”

“Several hours.”

I leaned back and released him. Looking out the window, I thought again of Eva’s brilliance and realized how unfair I had been with Arthur. Had my sister somehow infected me with a more sophisticated meme than the one she had experienced? It had taken years for the Arhat of the Sangha to achieve their right knowledge and liberation, but I was already able to force a vision, if I wanted to. Arthur had looked at me strangely when he’d realized that, and at the time, I had thought it was out of parental concern, but what if it had been shock? Perhaps the reason he had not tried to train me in healing myself, was because he believed it was already possible for me to do so.

I looked down at my wrist and the stained bandage. It always seemed to bleed, but it never seemed to hurt. Gingerly, I unwrapped the bandage and looked at it closely. Flexing my hand, I watched the stitches shift and move, but still felt no pain. An idea struck me. I held the injured limb out to my guard.

“Do you have a knife?”

He nodded, hesitantly.

“Cut these stitches,” I commanded, and though I expected him to say no, he reached under his jacket, drew a collapsible hunting knife, and brushed it against my injury. The sharp blade severed their ties easily, and as they split open, I plucked them out of my skin as if removing worms from the earth. It bled, but much less than I expected. After all of the threads had been removed, I leaned back in my seat, held the arm cautiously, and stared at the wound.

It could be unconscious, but if that was true, Jinx would have recovered in his coma. It had to be something I could control, just like the visions. Perhaps, at first, it was just despising the pain that sent it away; perhaps it was as simple as demanding that it heal for it to do so. I closed my eyes on the broken skin and focused. In my mind, I repeated the phrase over and over, insisting that the wound leave me, that the skin repair itself. I did as I had done in my vision, as Arthur had told me; I grounded myself in the physical, heightened my mind until it saw every beat of my heart or twitch of my nerves. I felt my body completely, and in that state, found the jagged gash across the otherwise smooth arm.

I lost touch with the world, with the car and its softly flowing air conditioner, leather seats, and smooth suspension. I was carried away, deeper into myself, and it wasn’t until the car stopped that I realized something had changed. I opened my eyes.

My guard was blinking from my face to my arm, laying limp on the armrest. I looked down and found the skin as unblemished as it had ever been. There was not even the trace of a scar.