And there in the bed, tucked carefully under the covers like an E.T. doll, lay Sri Prabhakara. He was as dark skinned a person as I’d seen in India, and at least as old as Raymond. He had a silver shine where he’d once had hair, and a calm, vaguely amused expression. His head was much too big for his body, and his ears and nose were much too big for his face. What I could see of his chest was covered in white cotton; next to him on the bed sat a rusting silver bell. He’d been looking at the TV, but now he turned his eyes to me in a way that made me think of a long-suffering sea turtle.
“Alone, please,” he said. Or mouthed; his voice was just at the edge of what I could hear. “TV, off.” The nurse and doctor began to go and Raymond held the door for them.
“Shall I go too,” Raymond said, “or would you like me to stay, in case …”
“Go.”
“Of course.”
As soon as the door was closed, leaving just the two of us, I was filled with the same fluttery, empty-headed feeling I’ve had the few times I’ve been around celebrities. Waiting for popcorn behind Cal Ripken in a Cleveland Park movie theater, standing next to Diane Keaton at baggage claim in the Denver airport; it was that kind of feeling. Guruji gestured with a shaky hand for me to sit in the doctor’s chair. From up close I could smell a peppery balm and something like sage. “You are … nervous. Why?”
“Well, I don’t think I’m really nervous, just sort of, you know, sorry, it’s a little weird, I only came, I don’t know if Raymond told you, my friend Thomas? I think you might have known him—”
“Breathing … please.”
“Sorry. I’m just … Do you think I could maybe ask you a little bit about Thomas, because his parents actually—”
“First … the calm body. Beginning … to consider … hearing … sounds … the moving air … the birds outside …” (I didn’t hear any birds, but for the first time since coming to India, I could hear the ticking of my watch.) “One hundred … breaths. Feeling … feeling.” He let his eyes fall shut, and I worried he might have died. But then he said, “One? … One. Two? … Two.” With every breath a single crimped nose hair shook.
“Thirty-one? … Thirty-one. Thirty-two? … Thirty-two.” He counted as slowly and steadily as a roof leak. By the time we got to a hundred I’d passed through disbelief and outrage and arrived at something like acceptance, as if I were listening to one of my tutees mangling an interminable joke. I’m sitting at the bedside of an Indian guru who’s counting to a hundred with his eyes closed. This is in fact what’s happening.
“Now … calm?”
“Yes, much better, thank you.”
“You see? Is … available … always.”
“That’s very useful, thank you.”
“Now … question?”
I told him that I’d come here, all the way from America, because I was looking for my friend Thomas Pell. Did he know Thomas?
“Yes, I know Thomas-ji … very much.”
Good. Various people had told me that he was the person to talk to, and if he could shed any light on where Thomas might have gone, when he’d disappeared a few weeks ago, I’d be deeply grateful, and so would his parents, who are of course …
“Who tell you … has disappeared?” (Now I noticed that Guruji was missing most of his top teeth.)
Well, an old student of his named Cecilia had told me, most recently. And I’d actually been in touch with Thomas earlier in the summer, until he’d all of a sudden stopped writing. But if Thomas hadn’t disappeared, then by all means, he should please tell me where he was.
“You … do not … watch … the self. Suffer … very much. Thomas-ji say to me.”
“Thomas told you something about me?”
“Precept … seventeen. Before the mind … can be … clear … the guilt must be …” He made a gesture like someone pulling out a vegetable by the roots. “You act, but do not … understand.”
“If you could maybe just tell me whatever you—” I was having trouble, all of a sudden, distinguishing between the sound of my watch and the feeling of my heartbeat. I was like the crocodile in Peter Pan who swallows a clock.
“Thomas-ji … did … very bad. Very harmful … thing. Young woman … years ago. You know this, yes?”
“I … yes, I know this.” For some reason lying wasn’t a possibility.
“Before … can escape … must confess. Before … can confess … must purify … intention. Noida. You understand?”