Karma
A Jill Smith Mystery
Susan Dunlap
Chapter 1
“T
HAT’S THE
M
ANI
Lakhang over there, Jill.” Ginny Daly pointed to a rectangular, one-story, stucco-and-shingle building.
“The Mani Lakhang?” Even in the Telegraph Avenue area of Berkeley, where once stately Victorians had been carved into apartments for students of the nearby University of California—where the antiwar demonstrations and drugs of the sixties had given way to the cults and drugs of the seventies—this building stood out for its neglect. Inspired by the rising value of real estate, owners of surrounding houses had begun refurbishing. But on a corner lot large enough for three of those houses, the Mani Lakhang slumped behind a high stucco wall and a yellowed lawn of weeds.
“Temple. In Bhutanese that means temple.”
“Oh.” I pulled the car over and began backing into a parking spot. According to Ginny, the temple was occupied by a Buddhist holy man from Bhutan, a man named Padmasvana. Bhutan was a small Himalayan country located between India and Tibet. Already it was more than I wanted to know.
When I’d called Ginny, I’d had in mind going out for a movie or a drink, certainly not attending a blessing ceremony by a Bhutanese lama.
But I had to make an effort. I had to get out, renew friendships, do new things. I wasn’t married anymore. When I had been married I hadn’t thought that marriage or my husband, Nat, took much of my time. But now that we were separated I found that his presence—or the promise of it and, finally, the threat of it—had influenced my hours much more than I cared to admit.
I shut off the car’s engine and stared at the temple, trying to recall what I had heard about it. “There was an overdose here,” I said slowly. “A year ago August, when I was on vacation. Some boy died of an overdose.”
Ginny sighed.
“And they do something in the morning that gives off a lot of smoke. The neighbors complained.”
“Honest to God, Jill, you’ve been a cop too long. Even when you’re off duty, you sound like a cop.”
“Nat used to say that.”
“Well, he was right.” Ginny opened the car door and stepped out. “Are you coming?”
“Uh-huh.” I locked the car and together we walked across the street to the temple. Some officers avoided their beats when they were off duty, but I liked the area around Telegraph Avenue, with its sidewalk craftsmen, its funky shops, the University Museum and the coffee houses. For me, avoiding Telegraph would have meant doing without a big part of Berkeley.
Inside the temple—after we had given our donations to a red-robed boy at the door—the first thing that struck me was the pungent smell of incense. The smoke drifted from burners along the walls and on the altar, and formed a haze beneath the ceiling.
At a glance the room looked like any makeshift church, with a stage at the front and a center aisle dividing two rows of wooden folding chairs. But there the simplicity stopped. The room was ablaze with color. Crimson walls were crowded with larger-than-life pictures of Oriental holy men. On small altars beneath the pictures were brass bowls filled with shiny red apples, crystal vases holding white carnations and the ubiquitous incense burners. As they pushed toward their seats, a number of people paused to bow before the pictures.
Ginny hurried me along down the center aisle and into an empty seat. “We’re lucky to get such good seats. I mean, a lot of times they have to turn people away.”
“Mmm.”
The stage was about ten rows in front of us. Around the periphery of the stage was a foot-high lattice. The altar, slightly right of center stage as we looked at it, was draped in a brocade of gold, electric blue and orange. On either side of the altar were six spinning, four-foot-high cloth cylinders—rather like huge gaudy lamp shades.
Behind the altar was a giant picture of a young Oriental—Padmasvana, presumably. His face was rectangular, his cheekbones high; his eyes, large and dark, caught the light in a way that gave the impression he was looking directly at me.
It was his smile, though, that stood out. All the lines around his mouth seemed relaxed, as if this were his normal expression. And behind that smile lurked an invitation to join his happiness.
I was surprised at how much the man’s picture affected me.
I looked away, turning my attention to the rest of the stage. On either side of the altar was a chair upholstered in satin brocade. And in a row at the rear of the stage were more of those gaudy cloth cylinders.
“What are those?” I pointed.
Ginny smiled. It was a smile that seemed to cover a growing irritation. “Prayer wheels,” she said.
“Prayer wheels?”
“Prayer wheels are found all through the Himalayas. You spin them to send off a prayer.”
At the moment, however, the wheels were not being spun manually. A forced-air duct at one side of the stage was responsible for their continuing supplications.
In the few minutes since we had arrived the room had almost filled. The audience was a cross section of Berkeley: the usual assortment of people in embroidered shirts and jeans, older women in muslin blouses, younger ones in leather skirts, men in cords, men in suits and rumpled teenage boys who looked as though they had walked nonstop from Bhutan. And there were the guru’s followers—“Penlops,” Ginny called them. They stood wearily at the door, their hands tucked in the pouches of their coarse red monk’s robes.
The crash of a gong reverberated through the room. The house lights went off, leaving only the stage illuminated.
A middle-aged, rather portly Caucasian man strode to center stage. His white silk shirt and slacks fit snugly. Against the cacophonous colors behind him, he stood out like a plump cloud.
The stage lights dimmed. A spotlight surrounded him.
“Welcome. Welcome.” His deep voice cut through the rumbles of conversation. “I am Rexford Braga. Some of you already know me.”
From the audience rose hesitant laughter at this show of modesty.
Braga smiled. “I want to thank you for coming and to assure you that the blessing Padmasvana will bestow on you will enrich your karma in this incarnation and in future incarnations.”
“What’s his connection with all this?” I whispered.
“Shh. He brought Padma to this country.”
I wanted to ask Ginny more, but she was pointedly ignoring me to focus on Braga, so I settled back to watch. Standing before the altar, rocking slightly on his heels, Braga began recounting his contacts with the guru: how they had sparked his potential, how he had become more attuned to his inner consciousness—less involved with the material world. “That is why Padmasvana came halfway around the world to live with us. And to give us all his blessing.”
A murmur of approval went up.
“This is a great compliment to you.”
The murmur was louder.
“It is the higher consciousness that you here in Berkeley, and in the San Francisco Bay area, have shown that brought Padmasvana.”
Applause.
“It is for
you
that he established his temple here.”
More applause.
“Because
you
had the wisdom, the insight, to come here,
you
showed yourselves to be worthy of his blessing.”
More applause.
“This is a great tribute to
you.
”
Cheers.
“Tonight you will grow. You will expand your consciousness. You will realize!”
The cheers were wild. I looked at Ginny. She was clapping and yelling, her face alight.
Perhaps Braga was right. I had already realized something, though perhaps not what Braga intended. I had realized that there were worse things than spending an evening alone. But still, I had to admit an interest in seeing the guru.
It was several minutes before the cheers subsided. Braga made a few procedural comments and departed, to more cheers.
The incense grew thicker. The audience became silent in expectation. The stage lights became brighter.
Padmasvana—recognizable from his picture—appeared. He was tall for an Oriental, dressed in a loose gold robe that hung open from his shoulders. Underneath it he wore what appeared to be a thin T-shirt and pants, also gold. Around his waist was a crimson sash. Behind him came another man: shorter, older, but very similar in dress, coloring and features.
Padmasvana bowed to the audience. He smiled, the same warm, personal smile as in the picture. Then he bent over the lattice at the edge of the stage to clasp the upstretched hands of the people in the first row, holding each hand between his own for a few seconds.
“It’s like he’s touched us all,” Ginny whispered. As the guru moved back to center stage, the whir of the forced air was louder, the prayer wheels spun faster. The room seemed warmer, the incense heavier. He bowed to the audience and sat in the chair to the right of the altar. The other man sat in the remaining chair.
The stage lights dimmed, leaving only two spotlights on the men.
The guru said something in what I assumed to be Bhutanese.
“Who’s he, Ginny?” I asked, indicating the shorter man.
“Chupa-da. He’s Padma’s assistant.”
“… welcomes you to the Ceremony of Dissolution of Hate,” Chupa-da said, pronouncing each syllable carefully in an accent more guttural than Chinese but with the same singsong rhythm.
The guru spoke again. In spite of my skepticism I felt drawn to the man.
“The blessing you receive,” the assistant translated, “is handed down through twenty-two incarnations. Padmasvana is the twenty-second incarnation. The blessing will take hate from your life. Hate will be no longer.” He stopped and the younger man spoke again.
“When hate is gone,” the assistant went on, “you are free from a shackle. You have the freedom to live. You move higher.” He looked toward the guru as if expecting him to continue.
Padmasvana stared silently at the audience, his expression now one of sadness. The sudden disappearance of his usual warmth must have shocked the audience, for uneasy murmurs came from all parts of the room.
The guru spoke, but his words were too soft to make out.
The assistant jerked toward him.
The guru sat forward. He said, “I will go.”
A gasp filled the room.
“I thought he didn’t speak English,” I whispered.
“Not till two weeks ago.”
“Soon,” Padmasvana said, “I will go.”
Cries of
“No!”
rose from the audience. From the front row a gray-haired woman in the red robe of a Penlop jumped up sobbing.
The guru put out his hands for silence. Immediately all human sounds ceased. Only the whir of forced air was audible. Looking at the audience, he spoke slowly. “I carry the guilt of the young Penlop. I…”
The assistant jumped up from his chair into the dimly lit space beyond the spotlights. He circled behind his master, then moved in front of him, bowing and nodding.
Padmasvana stood up and adjusted his shoulders in a movement that, had he been a Westerner, I would have called a shrug. He bowed to the altar and walked to the far right of the stage, stopping in front of the farthest prayer wheel. He bowed, spun it, moved to the next, bowed and spun it, and so on until all twelve had received his touch.
The room was silent. I glanced at Ginny. Her eyes were wide, her attention riveted. I wanted to cough but swallowed instead.
The guru nodded to his assistant. The assistant bowed, paused and backed from the stage, through a door at the audience’s left. His spotlight went out, leaving the stage lighted by the single circle on Padmasvana.