At the Bottom of Everything(37)

But of course I couldn’t mention reassurance to the Pells. My dispatches, which I usually sent from an Internet café on the second floor of a coffee shop around the corner from the barsati, must have read like the journal entries Scott wrote as he was dying in the South Pole.

Another day of sweating and frustratingly little news about Thomas. I seem to be getting sick, so may try to get an appointment with a doctor. Electricity broken in the apartment.





Walked around Old Delhi today, where Thomas apparently did one of his “retreats.” One of the most insane and overwhelming places I’ve ever been. Very steamy tonight. Electricity still spotty. No word on if/when I’ll be able to see Sri P.

I never knew how much to say to them; they’d known bits about Thomas and his guru beforehand, from their own calls to people who’d lived in the apartment, but they hadn’t known the details of his being homeless, or anything about the retreats. Out of Lost Boys solidarity, or maybe just out of cowardice, no one in the apartment had wanted to tell his parents much about what he’d been doing, and it turned out that I didn’t either.

But for myself, for the purposes of my own search, I’d been spending most of my time trying to meet Guruji. If I was going to say that I’d made a real effort to find Thomas—if I was going to go back to D.C. feeling any less ashamed of myself than when I’d left—then I needed to at least talk to him. But apparently meeting Guruji wasn’t going to be any easier than anything else; he’d been sick now for a month. Something with his heart, apparently, that people kept explaining by using a word that sounded like bicuspid. (At the barsati they’d been burning joss sticks and taking turns reading his old talks out loud.)

But Guruji was definitely still in Delhi, Cecilia said; he’d never left the city in his life, and he’d never been to a hospital. He also didn’t use a phone or computer, so if you wanted to reach him, you had to write to Raymond, the man who handled all his worldly affairs.

From: <Adam Sanecki>

To: <RBrough132@aol.com>

Hi Raymond —





I’m a friend of Thomas Pell’s, and I was wondering if it might be possible for me to meet with Sri Prabhakara sometime in the next few days.





Thanks in advance for your help,





Adam Sanecki

From: <RBrough132@aol.com>

To: <Adam Sanecki>

Vnerabl SP’s time v limtd, apol, mtng not poss. [stat: UNCONFIRMED.]

From: <Adam Sanecki>

To: <RBrough132@aol.com>

Hi Raymond —





I’m not sure I understood your email. I realize Sri Prabhakara must have lots of people tugging at his sleeve, but I’d hugely appreciate it if you would give some more thought to whether it would be possible for me to meet with him, even just for a few minutes. I’m not hoping for a spiritual consultation; I’m interested in talking with him about Thomas Pell, who I have good reason to think may be in some sort of trouble.





Thanks,





Adam Sanecki

From: <RBrough132@aol.com>

To: <Adam Sanecki>

Pls snd q’s IN WRITING- VSP v busy, face-to-f mtng not poss- stndrd proc re all official inq’s- [stat, pending frther rev: UNCONFIRMED]

From: <Adam Sanecki>

To: <RBrough132@aol.com>

Hi Raymond—





I don’t have a list of questions (I’m not any sort of official), so I think this would be a lot easier in person. I’m not a reporter or detective or anything else—my interest is purely personal.





Thanks again for your help,





Adam Sanecki

From: <RBrough132@aol.com>

To: <Adam Sanecki>

VSP hlth v poor- intvw (WRITTEN/SPKEN) at pres imposs-[stat: UNCONFIRMED]

This went on for days, like a meander through the circles of customer service hell, until finally, just an hour after he’d written to me for a third time to say that no meeting would be possible, Raymond sent an email with the subject line “URGENT”:

From: <RBrough132@aol.com>

To: <Adam Sanecki>

VSP requests mtng- mo 3/8 14:30 - Cont Hotel sw side-V IMP: NO CAMERA- NO REC EQUIP- CLEAN SHOES-OFFRING OF VALRH 85% DRK CHOC- [20oz]- car to wait [stat: CONF. PENDING]

So, just before two p.m. on my seventh day in India, after hours of auto-rickshaws and traffic cones, I stood alone outside what I was fairly sure was the southwest entrance of the Continental Hotel, wearing Rory’s basically clean size-nine penny loafers. In a plastic bag I had a worrisomely softening Valrhona chocolate bar, the procuring of which had been a morning’s work. I kept mistaking the tickle of sweat on my nose for a bug. Just when I was getting ready to go back into the lobby to see if I could convince the woman at the front desk to let me use the business center, an auto-rickshaw pulled to a stop and a disheveled, white-haired stork of a man unfolded himself from the passenger’s seat.