Bee Season (35 page)

“Is she going to go to jail?” Eliza asks, and Saul begins to wish he had waited for Aaron to get home before doing this, doesn’t want to go through this a second time.

“I’m not sure yet, but I don’t think so. We’ve got a really good lawyer who is going to explain all this to the judge and I’m pretty sure the judge is going to allow her to stay out of jail as long as she promises not to steal anymore and to get therapy.”

“How long is she going to be in the hospital?”

Saul wishes he could tell someone about the way Miriam backed away from him in the hospital day room, about the beauty of the world she is being told to abandon.

“I don’t know, honey. That’s pretty much up to the doctors and your mom.”

“Dad?” Eliza says after the two of them have sat silently not looking at each other for a while. “Can we keep on being the way we are? Can we keep on studying? Maybe if she knows that I’m still working hard it will help her, because then she’ll want to get better so she can watch me spell again. Maybe this year we can all go to the nationals together.”

Eliza doesn’t say the second half of her idea because she’s pretty sure her father wouldn’t approve. Eliza can think of no better way of helping her mother than if she has God’s ear. If what she realized in her bedroom last night is true, if she has heard a voice, then it’s time to move on to the next book on her father’s shelf, the last rung on Abulafia’s ladder to
shefa.

They are both relieved to adjourn to the study, to close the door behind everything that has been said, and to bury themselves in words. Saul warns Eliza that when Aaron gets home he is going to let her study alone so that he can talk to him about all that has happened, but as the hours pass they grow more and more willfully absorbed. Saul forgets he is waiting for the sound of the front door, forgets it should have come by now. So that when the phone interrupts them, Saul is shocked to see that it’s eight o’clock, that they worked straight through dinner, and that the house is still empty.

“Dad?”

“Aaron, is that you? Thank God. Where are you? Are you all right? We’ve been so worried.”

“Dad, I told you last night. I’m at Charlie’s. I tried to call you again, but you weren’t home.”

“Son, I’m sorry about that. It’s your mother. She’s been having some problems … mentally … and she’s in the hospital. I was with her last night until very late.”

“… .”

“Aaron?”

“Is she okay?”

“I’ll tell you all about it when you get home.”

“… .”

“Aaron? Are you there? Your mother is going to be okay, son. Just come on home.”

“We kind of need to talk about that. I don’t really want to come home.”

“Aaron, what do you mean? I understand last night, and even why you weren’t in school today. It must have been scary for you — Eliza was here, but she was asleep so she didn’t hear you when you called — ”

“Dad? Please just listen, okay? My friend Charlie is actually named Chali. It’s a spiritual name, Dad. He lives at the
ISKCON
temple. I’ve been spending a lot of time here and what they’re doing is something — well, I mean, it’s basically something I think I’ve been looking for all my life. I mean, now that I’ve found it I don’t want to give it up, you know?”

“Aaron, tell me where you are. Whatever it is you’re talking about we can talk about at home. There’s a lot we need to discuss, including your mother, but also my own preoccupation lately. You deserve an apology, son, but I’d like to do it in person, here at home. You’re obviously too upset to drive, so just tell me where you are and I’ll come get you.”

“… .”

“Aaron? Are you crying?”

“I don’t want to tell you where I am, Dad. I want to stay here.”

“Aaron, are they making you say these things? Are they holding you against your will? Aaron, son, if they’re not letting you — ”

“No, Dad, that’s not it at all. It’s completely opposite.”

“Aaron, I’m going to call the police.”

“No! Dad, it’s not like that, I swear. Okay, I’ll tell you where I am and you can come get me, and we can talk. Okay? But keep an open mind, okay? Because it’s really important that you listen to what I’m going to tell you with an open mind.”

“Just give me the address.”

He sends Eliza to bed before leaving to pick Aaron up, but she easily stays awake until their return. She tries to guess where they will talk. She has a feeling it will be in the study where Saul thinks he can close the door and not be heard. He doesn’t know about the vents and the way they carry sound.

They come into the house talking about Miriam and how long she may be away. Aaron sounds calmer than Eliza remembers being, but she knows it’s hard to tell that kind of thing just from someone’s voice.

There’s a brief silence. Elly thinks she hears the door close. Then, suddenly, there’s her father’s voice very loud, completely different from a moment ago, and Eliza knows that, if it startled her a whole floor away, Aaron must be terrified.

“My God, Aaron, what have they done to you?”

Eliza wishes she knew what her father was talking about because from up here Aaron seems the same. That her brother is able to talk at all with Saul so upset impresses Eliza immensely.

She isn’t able to follow everything Aaron says, but it has to do with something he saw from an airplane. Then she hears Saul say the words “cult” and “brainwashed” and Aaron say something back about India and Eastern religion. Then they both get loud enough for her to hear everything.

“You’re not going to live there.”

“Dad, I’m almost an adult. Soon what you think won’t matter. You can make me wait, but you can’t make me stop.”

It gets really quiet. When they start talking again, it is too low for Eliza to make anything out. She desperately wants to sneak downstairs and put her ear to the door, but the prospect of being caught is too terrible to consider. She keeps herself awake by spelling in her head until she hears them both climbing the stairs. Once she stops hearing sounds from her father’s room, she creeps into the hallway. Aaron’s door is closed.

She knocks softly.

“Aaron?”

She knocks a little harder.

“Go away, Elly.”

“Aaron, what happened? Please can I come in?”

In the silence that follows, Eliza stands obstinately still beside the door.

“Are you still there?” he asks after a few minutes that could have been a few hours, as far as Elly is concerned, because she was prepared to stand there all night. “Well, you might as well come in then.” The door is unlocked.

He is playing his guitar very softly, nothing identifiable, just a series of wandering chords. He doesn’t look at her as she sits across from him on the floor.

He’s wearing an orange robe that reminds her of the togas they used to make with their bath towels when they were little. Around his neck is a strange cloth pouch.

“What is that?” she says, pointing to his neck.

“It’s where I keep my
japa
beads,” he says, continuing to strum.

“What are
japa
beads?”

“They’re what I use to chant.”

“Is that what I heard you doing that night?”

“So you
were
at my door.”

“Yeah, but only because I heard you when I was in my room.”

Eliza listens to the guitar chords rise and fall.

“So I guess you know about Mom.”

Aaron nods, continues to play.

“You know,” he says, “according to theƒ
Vedas,
we die only to be reborn, over and over again. How well we lived the last life determines what we get reborn as next. At some point you and I were both living animal lives, but we’ve managed to progress to human ones. Once we’re good enough humans, we can progress to the Heavenly Planets and then to Godhead itself.”

She thinks he’s kidding at first, but his face is completely serious. Eliza looks at her brother more closely. Except for the orange robe, he seems the same. “Do you actually believe that?” she asks.

“I’m not sure,” he says with a slight grin, “but if it’s true it means that our parents are only two of the countless parents we’ve had or ever will have. Kind of changes your perspective.”

Eliza shakes her head. “What difference does it make? They’re our parents now, right? If we’re supposed to live good lives, doesn’t that mean helping them? I mean, if there was something I could do that would help everyone — Mom and Dad and you — don’t you think I should do it?”

Aaron stops playing. “Elly, what is Dad trying to get you to do?”

“Nothing,” Eliza says, vehemently shaking her head. “It’s just the opposite. He doesn’t know I want to do it. I mean, he knows it, but he thinks I won’t be doing it for a while. But I’m pretty sure I’m ready to do it now.”

“Hey, Elly?” Aaron’s voice is different now, more gentle. “Do you remember when we were kids and I would teach you things?”

“Like the secret moves of the Jedi ninja?”

Aaron smiles. “Yeah, like that.”

And suddenly Eliza is incredibly angry. She has no idea where this anger has come from or how it could have filled her so fast, but she finds herself practically hissing at her brother, her voice pure venom. “You made it all up. You couldn’t really fight. You just lay there on the ground like a beat-up old
dog
— ” She can picture it for the first time since it happened, her brother so pale and still, his eyes so filled with expectation, as if saving him was
her
job instead of the other way around. Then, just as quickly, the vision is gone and the anger gone with it, leaving Eliza feeling reduced and slightly ashamed.

“Aaron, I’m sorry,” she whispers.

He’s still holding the guitar but he isn’t playing it now, just staring at it as if it reminds him of something else.

“It’s okay, Elly. It doesn’t matter. And it’s okay if you think I look stupid in this robe — ”

“I didn’t
say
that.”

“ — and if you think the idea of being reborn is really strange — ”

“I didn’t say that either.” Eliza is pissed off again, he can tell, because her face is turning red and, unlike him, she never blushes.

“I know you didn’t say those things, Elly, but it would be okay if you did and this is part of what I’m trying to tell you. I’m trying to teach you something I really know. I didn’t make this up, okay? I know you’re into this spelling stuff, but be careful. Make sure it’s what you want and not what Dad wants. Because he can be pretty convincing sometimes. Okay?”

“Okay,” Eliza says even though she’s pretty sure he’s got it all wrong.

Saul calls the number he has always thought of as Miriam’s work number.
You have reached the desk of Miriam Naumann. I’m out of the office right now but …
It is the same message he has always gotten, the one he never doubted because she always called him back.

He calls the number listed for the law firm in the phone book and is told that Miriam Naumann hasn’t been in their employ for over ten years. He calls the hospital, but she is not accepting visitors. He talks briefly to a doctor who says he will receive weekly progress reports by phone and mail and passes along a message from Miriam to contact her lawyer. Miriam’s lawyer informs Saul that his name was added to a trust left to Miriam by her parents’ estate and that this trust has been paying the bills Saul assumed were being paid by Miriam’s pay check for the past ten years. Saul asks the lawyer if he knows anything about cults, but the lawyer says no and asks him why. Saul does not tell him.

According to Aaron, it is an ancient Indian religion that Americans call a cult because they are frightened of what they don’t know. Aaron has given Saul books to read. Saul does not want to read them. Saul wants to go back six months in time and notice how little his son is around the house. He wants to ask his son questions about his new friend. He wants to let Eliza study on her own a little while he and Aaron play guitar.

Now that these things are no longer possible, Saul wants to insure that history does not repeat itself. He does not want him and Aaron to become the strangers he and his own father became half a lifetime ago. He does not want his own grandchildren to meet him for the first time at his funeral. While Saul has helped lead Aaron to this point, he may still be able to lead him back. He will read. He will allow Aaron to spend time with these people. And every night that Aaron is home, they will talk. Saul has a little more than a year to make Aaron change his mind. After that Aaron will become legally empowered to make decisions for himself. Saul comforts himself with the notion that Aaron’s visits to the Hare Krishnas will become less exciting now that they are neither secret nor forbidden. He assures himself that this, like anything else, is a stage to be outgrown.

Despite the fact that it is not Sunday, Saul makes French toast, has it waiting by the time Aaron and Eliza arrive downstairs for breakfast. At the sight of the food and their resolutely smiling father, both sit down without a word and begin to eat. Eliza darts several glances in her brother’s direction, but he is mechanically intent upon his plate. Saul talks about everything that has nothing to do with Aaron or Miriam. He tells himself he is fostering needed normalcy in the face of difficult circumstances, can believe it because he doesn’t notice how tightly his children are gripping their forks.

“What time do you think you’ll be home?” he asks Aaron, his forcible nonchalance straining against the tightness of his throat. “I’m going to try to have the first chapters of that book read by the end of this afternoon so we can discuss them after school.”

Even Eliza, doing her best not to listen, can hear the command embedded in her father’s words:
After school you are to come directly home to me.

“I’m not sure,” Aaron replies, and Eliza is amazed at how relaxed he seems, as if he doesn’t hear the thinly veiled message they have both been so well trained to detect. “I’ve got to go grocery shopping after school if you want me to eat my meals here, and then it’s going to take awhile to prepare my food.”

“I’m happy to cook you extra vegetables, Aaron.”

Aaron smiles at his father as though Saul is a young child. “That’s very nice of you, but it’s not that simple. There are special foods that have to be cooked in special ways. I don’t have my own shrine yet, so I won’t be able to eat
prasadam
here, but I want to get as close as I can.”