Names for Nothingness (23 page)

She doesn't answer. She just reaches into her pocket and takes a note, not even aware that it is a twenty, and presses it into his hand as she hurries off in search of the platform before she changes her mind.

S
HARN HAD WAITED IN THE GARDEN
as Kalyani instructed. He would not be long, he told her, but she could not follow him.

‘We have our rules, you see,' and his smile was gentle, ‘the way in which we like to live, and I cannot just bring you into the house.' He looked down at his crisp white robes and then across at her damp and dirty clothing.

She sat on the grass and watched him retreat into the distance; brilliant, like a single summer cloud against the sharp blue sky.

This is where she lives, Sharn thought to herself. This is the place she has chosen, and she was so tired she could not even understand that one simple concept. All she wanted was to lie down and sleep, the morning sun soft against her face, the stillness of the day a balm against her skin. Lorikeets fluttered to the ground next to her, glossy reds, pinks, blues and greens,
and she watched them, their sharp beaks pecking at seeds in the grass. They came so close, she wondered whether they were tame, and she reached out to touch them but they scattered, a blur of colour, before settling again.

In the distance she could see others now, figures draped in white, and she did not know if they were aware of her presence. They gave no indication of this, but she felt so visible, bedraggled and alone on the lawn, that it seemed they must have known she was there. They were walking towards a garden at the side of the house, five or six of them, and although she was too far away to hear if they were talking or not, there appeared to be no communication between them. One or two carried garden tools, hoes, spades; the others carried baskets, and Sharn watched them disappear around the side of the house, out of sight, leaving her alone once again.

The house itself appeared to be empty, although she knew it wasn't. She looked up to the windows, hoping to catch a sign of life, a flash of white, a face, but there was nothing. And then it did seem that she saw someone, leaning out and looking down at her, but she could not be certain. The light danced, sharp and quick, and her eyes were tired, leaving her unable to trust what she saw.

She picked at blades of grass, pulling them up as close to the root as she could and sucking at the fleshy white sap, the juice fresh and sweet. She remembered Caitlin once asking her why people didn't eat grass, and she had told her that they just didn't.

‘But why?'

‘I don't know,' she had said.

All her questions. When she had finally started to talk she had so many questions, and Sharn had snapped at her once when she was tired, telling her that it had been easier when she was silent. ‘God, how I miss that peace,' she had said, and as
she remembered those words, she looked down at her sandals. They were covered in mud, blackened by the dirt. She looked at her hands. They were no better. She wondered what her face was like. She could feel the knots in her hair and she tried to comb it with her fingers, to straighten it out before tying it up with a piece of elastic she found in her pocket.

And so she waited, and it seemed that she waited for an interminable length of time, but she had no idea, really, how long it was that she sat there. She just did what he had asked her to do, without question, until gradually she began to wonder why she was simply obeying. Perhaps he had no intention of returning. He may have thought that she would eventually give up and leave, that she would grow tired of waiting, and walk away. Surely not.

It was getting hotter. The sun was climbing higher in the sky and the stillness was no longer calming, it was sticky and uncomfortable. She was thirsty and hungry. Ants crawled up and down her legs and she brushed at them angrily. Her skin was burning in the heat and she stood up, thinking that she would find some shade, but then she became anxious that if she moved he might come out to find her gone and she would only be left waiting, all day and all night.

It was ridiculous. She didn't know why it had taken her so long to realise how ridiculous it was. There was no reason she couldn't just walk up to the house. There was nothing to stop her, nothing but herself, and she turned to see if anyone was watching, if anyone would step forward and tell her to stay. But no one was in sight.

On the verandah her footsteps were loud, her sandals clattering against the boards. She coughed a couple of times, the sound grating in the silence, and then she knocked on the door. It swung open in front of her.

The hall was empty. A wide staircase ran up the middle
towards a landing, where it branched off into two, one half leading up the eastern side of the house, the other up the west. Light streamed in from a single northerly window, illuminating the entrance, and she stood beneath it, uncertain as to which direction she should take. As she tried to make up her mind, a woman appeared, also young, also beautiful and also dressed in white. She seemed to have no idea Sharn was there. Her head was bowed to the ground and she appeared lost in thought, absent, so far away that she did not even notice Sharn's presence until she had almost walked right into her. She looked up, startled. She stepped back. She looked down again. And she did not utter a word.

‘Wait,' Sharn said, and the woman glanced up quickly, furtively. ‘I'm looking for my daughter. For Caitlin. Can you tell me where she is?'

The woman did not respond, she just turned and walked away, and Sharn followed, almost chasing her down the corridor as she asked her to slow down, to tell her where she should go.

It was Kalyani who stopped her from clutching on to the woman's robes and pulling her to a halt. He stepped out from a side room and laid his hand across Sharn's arm.

‘Perhaps you should come with me,' he suggested, and she was surprised, once again, at how foolish she felt in his presence, as though she had been too hasty, too loud, too inopportune in her actions.

He led her to a seat by the window. Apart from the two chairs, the room was bare. An intricately patterned parquetry floor that shone like honey in the sunlight and elaborate plasterwork on the ceiling were the only adornments to what was otherwise a completely unembellished space.

‘You must understand,' Kalyani said, ‘that this is a community,' and he leant forward and smiled his beautiful smile. ‘We
have our own way of living. At the moment all our members are in meditation practice,' and he touched her hand gently with the tips of his fingers. ‘It is simply not possible for you to see your daughter today.'

‘When can I?' Sharn asked.

He looked out across the lawn. ‘We will talk when our practice comes to an end.'

He stood as though to indicate that he would take her to the door and she was about to follow, to once again do as he had instructed without question, when she, too, glanced out the window and saw them, the five she had seen earlier, returning from the garden.

She could not tell whether it was Caitlin, she really couldn't, but she felt her breath tighten, an acid panic rising in her throat as she followed her retreating back with her eyes, her name coming out of her mouth, low and sharp in the silence. As she leant forward to bang on the window, to rattle the glass loudly, he reached to stop her.

‘Come,' he said, but Sharn brushed his hand aside.

‘This is ridiculous. She is my daughter. I have driven for days. I want to know when I can see her. I want to see her,' and Sharn's voice was so loud in the vastness of the room that it seemed as if she were shouting at him, yelling with a force powerful enough to disturb his composure.

He stepped back, and it was the only indication he gave of any alarm, of any awareness that the situation may have slipped out of his control, but it was enough.

‘I will get the police,' she said. ‘I will tell them you are holding her against her will.'

His cool green eyes did not falter in their direct gaze. ‘On what grounds?' And he smiled as he continued to speak, giving her no chance to respond. ‘There is no need for this panic. There is no need for anxiety. Does it seem as though
anyone here is being held against their will? I am simply asking you to respect our way of life, to understand that this is a time of retreat for us, and during this time it is simply not possible for you to communicate with your daughter.'

‘Come,' he said, and he could see she was hesitating on the brink of doing as he asked, ‘I will get you a cup of tea, you look tired, something to eat, and then I will take you back to your car.'

As she sat, she told him her car would not start, and he asked for the keys. ‘Someone here can look at it for you.'

She handed them over to him.

‘You would be surprised at the range of skills we have.' He looked back at her from the doorway. ‘Lawyers, artists, mechanics, even merchant bankers,' and he headed down the corridor, his words floating out behind him as he disappeared from sight.

He was not gone for long this time, only a few moments.

‘What is this place?' she asked as he poured her a cup of herbal tea.

She let it rest on the floor at her feet, but she ate the bread he offered.

‘Our home. This is how we want to live our lives. In peace. Without desire.'

Sharn stood up and walked to the window, her back turned to him as she spoke. ‘Then why the padlock on the gate? Why no communication with friends or family?'

‘There is no one stopping us from contacting people in our past. It is a matter of individual choice.'

She did not move.

‘It is you who are threatened by us. You feel our way of life undermines the very structure of your own lives. You cannot withstand any questioning of the foundations on which you have built your existence. Because if these foundations
crumble, then what do you have? It is terrifying for you. We are terrifying for you,' and his voice was gentle, sweet, coaxing, but still she would not turn to look at him.

‘You know this, deep in your own heart. You think we have stolen your daughter, that she is here against her will, simply because you do not want to allow yourself to believe that she may actually have chosen this for herself. All you have struggled for, all you have fought for, has it really been worth it? Has it really brought you happiness? Do you really believe in what “the world” has to offer, and is it really so outrageous to turn your back on this, to say, “No, this is not for me, I refuse to participate”?

‘I think not. The outrage is outside these gates, not within. And I think you know this. Somewhere, deep inside, you know.'

Sharn turned slowly, her eyes taking a moment to adjust from the brightness of the light beyond the window to the room. When she finally spoke, she believed her voice would be calm, but there was a tightness to each of the words she uttered.

‘Caitlin is young. She couldn't know what she wants.' She picked up her tea from the floor and drank it quickly, hoping to quench the dryness in her throat.

‘That is your perception.'

She did not want to look at him. She did not want to see that smile.

Later, she would wonder at her actions, at the moment when she turned. Because she could have been seduced by him. She could have stayed by the window and drunk her tea and listened, his words cool and enticing, soothing her with a possibility of escape from life. And she wanted to. There was a part of her that wanted nothing more than to stop, to hand herself over to another and say, ‘I can't do this any longer. I can't go on. Just take me and I will do as you say.'

She dropped her cup as she stepped backwards. It was accidental. The china clattered as it fell against the boards, the last of the tea spilling out across the floor, a dark brown stain on the wood.

And as he bent to retrieve the shattered pieces, she called out her name in the emptiness of that room, and again in the hall: ‘Caitlin. Caitlin.' Her voice loud in the silence, shrill, piercing as she climbed the stairs, and there at the top of the landing she called out again and again, unwilling to stop until she saw Caitlin's face, right there in front of her.

‘She is out the back,' Kalyani said, and Sharn could see his panic. ‘I will take you to her.'

She followed him down the stairs and along a maze of corridors until they reached a room, and he gestured for her to wait at the door.

She could only presume it had once been a ballroom. Light streamed through the windows, illuminating all of them in its paleness, and they kneeled, about thirty young men and women, all in white, all with their heads bowed, all silent. Even if he had not asked her to stop, Sharn would have stayed where she was, stunned into immobility, each breath that she took loud and harsh in the quiet.

She watched him as he made his way down a central aisle, no one looking up, no one giving any indication that his presence had been noticed.

Caitlin.

As a child she had embraced silence, and deep in her heart Sharn had been grateful for the one less demand that this choice had placed on her.

With her hand holding the doorknob for support, Sharn watched her stand, tall, slight and pale. She did not even notice the child at Caitlin's feet, until she bent down and lifted it, the white muslin wrapped around its body blending
into the folds of her robes as she held it awkwardly, inches away from herself.

Caitlin. She did not even look at Sharn as Kalyani led her to the door, as he whispered in her ear that they should go outside, that it would be best if they went to the garden, away from the others.

‘Caitlin.' As Sharn said her name, Caitlin kept her eyes averted, her gaze fixed on the sweet green grass, that baby just lying there, too still, too quiet, tiny in the loose cloth that swathed her nakedness.

‘Is this your child?' Still she did not answer.

‘Is it?' and as Sharn reached to touch Caitlin's arm, she pulled away.

The baby cried, a small cry like a kitten mewing, weak in the silence, and Caitlin did not move towards it.