A Single Eye (40 page)

I nodded.

“Then I came here and embraced this place and Leo, and it all crumbled to nothing. And I hadn't the sense to see that coming at all.” She reached the north window and stopped, talking into the darkness. “So I stayed because I had nothing to take anywhere else.”

She turned and stood facing in my direction though not facing me. “You understand that, don't you?”

“Yes.”

Maureen walked to the altar, turned back, poised to begin her pace back toward me, her gaze downward. She still hadn't looked toward me, and I knew she wouldn't until she had said all she needed to. On the low cabinet to her right the candle flickered, winking one eye socket of the skull. And behind—oh, my god!—was something round. The top of a head! In the candlelight I could barely make out blond hair, but in another moment that became unnecessary. The rest of the head appeared—Amber! She stared wide-eyed at the skull and then at me. I shook my head. Amber didn't move. Maureen was still looking at the floor, still garroted by her past. I made a downward movement with my forefinger.
Sit down!

Amber plopped down with such a thud that even Maureen started, though she didn't turn around. Had she, she would have seen nothing, unless she stood at the window and looked down. I felt bad about Amber, who had fought her fear of heights in a climb that must have been stomach-churning. It was cold and miserable out there.

But . . . but Maureen had resumed and was saying, “‘That doesn't explain
six
years,' that's what you're thinking, isn't it? I suppose you're right,” she went on without checking to confirm her opinion, “but in a place like this time melds and this week is no more pressing than next year. The first winter, there was the excitement of building the zendo and the opening ceremony. After that, I might have left, but Leo fell apart. He had always drunk, but not noticeably. After he killed Aeneas he just drank and sat, though god knows what good sitting did him, except to keep him from stumbling off the bridge himself. No one but me understood the horror he was going through or trying to escape, or trying not to escape. Who knows? The one thing that was clear was that if I left he would have died, from a fall, from a gunshot if he'd managed to come up with a gun—that's not hard to do in these parts—or most likely from neglect.”

“So you felt you had to stay?”

“It took me years to admit, but I was glad of something necessary to do. And I loved him, but that took me years to realize, too.”

She was still walking, talking, but not looking at me. And now I appreciated the depth of anger and abandonment she must have felt when, at this key time of this last sesshin, the last one she would ever sit with him, Leo chose a stranger as his assistant. How she must have resented me. Must
still
resent me. And him.

“He's taken
six
years of your life and tossed it away.”

“Yes. And no.” She let out a small laugh. “But isn't that the Zen answer?”

It was clear that reminiscence was over. But there was still the final question. I knew the answer, but I needed her to put it into words. “What did you do after you found Aeneas's body?”

“What? Oh. Nothing. Well, I just stood there. I mean, what could I do? I couldn't ask Roshi. I was terrified of letting on I knew. I couldn't just leave Aeneas's body there and go see if I could find someone to tell, and I understand now that I was so horrified about Roshi that I couldn't bear to admit what he'd done. But I didn't understand that then. Then, well, I must have been working with a tenth of my brain. All I could think of was the Japanese roshis and the other guests here for the opening ceremony and how upset they'd all be. I know how irrational that was, but it's what I thought.

“So I buried him, under the maple, just like you thought. He was still in Leo's robe. The manila envelope was wedged under his body in the stream. I did open it, but the ink had already run in places. I couldn't make out a single word. It was just a few sheets, handwritten, like a draft of a speech, or a long recipe—a
recipe!
—but it was signed, I could tell that. I dropped it in the hole, and then . . . then . . . I dropped Aeneas in. It was awful beyond words. I'm surprised no one ever made the connection. I wasn't thinking linearly or I would have assumed people would miss Aeneas, figure he was dead and focus on the one fresh hole.”

“So you didn't start the rumor of him going with the Japanese roshis?”

“No. The first time I heard it I nearly laughed. But I caught myself. Leo must have started it.”

“That would be a cruel thing to do to Rob.”

The words were out of my mouth before I saw their ludicrousness. Maureen merely shrugged, as if to say one among many. She stopped walking. She was in front of me, and she turned to me for the first time. I thought she was going to add something else but she simply held out her hands and I gave her the sleeping bag, which she wrapped around herself and then she slid down and sat on the floor. She looked like it was taking all her energy to keep from crumbling down head onto floor. She looked like . . . Leo. She needed to get back to her own room, to eat, and mostly to sleep in peace. But the ends had to be tied up here first.

“Maureen, in six years, didn't you and Leo talk about this?”

“No. Oh god, I know how odd that sounds, but like I said, time takes on a sameness in an isolated place like this. Years don't matter, only seasons. He came to my cabin that night to talk about it, but I couldn't face it, not that soon. The sight of Leo terrified me. It was all I could do not to slam the door on him.”

No wonder she'd reacted that way. Had Leo really assumed she thought he was like the ballet director, that he was only there for sex? Or had he been lying to me, too?

“After that,” Maureen went on, “I waited for Leo to make an announcement. The next morning was the first morning zazen of just us residents and I assumed he would explain and ask forgiveness for bringing shame on us all. His guilt, of course, would be his own; no one can absolve someone else. But he didn't. Then I thought he needed time to sober up. But he just drank more. I kept expecting him to at least say something to me, you know?”

I nodded.

“He folded in on himself. It wasn't just that he didn't talk to me about Aeneas; he didn't talk to any of us about anything.”

“But didn't you—”

“Didn't I press him? Yes. We were alone. I said point blank, ‘Roshi, you killed Aeneas.' He looked at me like I'd made an esoteric statement about transcendence that he didn't quite understand. Then he changed the subject.”

“Didn't you ask again?”

“I . . . I couldn't. It was like with that response he'd pulled the rug out from under me. Then, when I could think straight again, I was filled with a weight of terror. Maybe he really didn't remember killing Aeneas. Drunks forget. There was only my word he had killed him. I was the only witness. He could say I killed Aeneas.
I
was the one who buried him. If fingerprints on cloth last that long, mine where on his. My hairs, whatever. It was me Aeneas followed around. I spent a lot of time being wary.”

“And then?”

She shrugged. “Time passed.”

“But you couldn't leave.”

“Initially, I couldn't. I couldn't have moved to Seattle and wondered every morning if this was the day someone would dig up the maple. Even so, I felt like I was just waiting for the end and there was nothing I could do about it. So I just did what I had to to get through each day. I got to living like there was no tomorrow, like I wanted to experience everything about this day that could be my last here. And then even that passed and I just lived here.”

“Until Leo announced that this was the last sesshin?”

“Yeah. We all knew something was coming, but nobody knew what.” She pulled the nylon bag tighter around her. It didn't look to be making her any less cold. “It was like the whole thing started all over again. I thought when he gave that opening talk in the zendo that he was going to admit killing Aeneas. But he lied, outright lied; he said he had believed Aeneas went to Japan. Then he holed up in his room, and I was getting more and more panicked and he wouldn't see me, and then you wouldn't let me in, and—”

Her breath caught and then she just sobbed, great loud cries that shook her whole body and made the nylon slither against itself. I had to stop myself from going to her, pulling her close to the comfort of another body. Hers was a solitary sorrow and she needed to cry alone with it. I let her be till her breath was easier, then I moved down beside her, put my arm around her, and tucked the sleeping bag around her feet. I found myself reacting just as she had, not facing the question of Leo's guilt—unable to face it—but rather dealing with the immediate problem of how to get her out of here, shaky as she was. Fortunately, Amber was sitting right outside.

I waited till Maureen stopped crying and said, “I'm getting help. I'll be right back. Okay?”

She nodded absently, and I hesitated to leave her alone even that short a time. I was tempted to ask if she had a knife, to pretend I needed it, but in the end I decided not to bring the subject to her mind. I'd just be a second.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-TWO

B
arry yawned and guided the old yellow truck with both hands on the wheel. He wasn't worried about veering off the road, the ruts were too deep; he might as well be driving a trolley. But those ruts were like great brown canals, the mud covering who knew what?

Great rain-soaked branches of redwood swayed in the wind. Water crashed on the windshield. He jumped, flung out his right arm to protect the stack of boxes on the seat next to him. All he needed now was the chocolate sailing into the dash, his perfect bars coming up scraped or gouged!
Ah, Appearance, sub-standard
, that prissy judge from L.A. would sneer. What was his name? Grummond? Gundersen? Whatever, all he'd need would be an excuse to score down someone like him, the peanut-adulterer.

Barry wanted to ponder every facet of the weekend, to transport himself to San Francisco now, not have to endure the six-hour drive. He could almost smell the first whiff of chocolate as he crossed the threshold of the Salle de Cacao, and the aromas as he walked along the aisle, the hint of wine, the touch of almond, maybe the stunning bouquet of a new crop of cacao beans never before processed. He ached to be down in the city, meeting Carlson from Seattle, Milchisi from Tucson, Tsunaka from L.A., deciding which hot new South of Market restaurants to try, to spend the meal not in silence, not spooning gruel, but forking ahi tartar with radicchio and taking apart the sauce, ordering pineapple tart with kirsch ice cream and grumbling about the over-sweet liqueur.

The truck hit something. He braced the wheel, braced the boxes of chocolate, and forced himself to focus back on the road. Had he slept at all since the beans arrived? He must have but he couldn't remember when his eyes had closed—before now. He jerked himself awake and stared at the road.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-THREE

I
walked to the south end of the room, next to the cabinet and peered out the window ready to beckon the freezing Amber in.

Amber was gone.

I let out a great sigh. Of course, she got fed up. Maybe she was at the bottom of the steps waiting. Maybe pigs will fly in packs.