Space Between the Stars (26 page)

Music streamed from radios and cassette players in different corners of the office—mixing drums, screaming guitars, and bass. Every inch of every wall was covered: photos and posters of the Rolling Stones hung alongside Led Zeppelin; Peter Frampton; Bob Dylan; Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young; James Brown; Joan Baez. A huge photo of Santana onstage at Woodstock with Bill playing cowbell in the wings was suspended outside Bill's office door. Dried flowers were strung over windows. A framed wheel of tickets was displayed, one from every venue in each city played on the Who's tour—a Plexiglas window box with photos of Pete Townshend and the band in performance. The office was a rock-and-roll museum. I sat on a leather couch outside Bill's office, waiting for Carlos
while he met with Barry and Bill, and I made small talk with Bill's personal secretary. My eyes took in a lectern outside Bill's door; it had a microphone perched in the center and lights strung in an arc over the top. I asked her what it was.

“His soapbox. If Bill wants to make an announcement or yell at someone, he turns on the mike and the lights and we all hear his message—loud and clear.”

I had not forgotten Bill's voice yelling at me across the Win-terland lobby, and I hoped Carlos would come out before Bill felt a need to get on his soapbox today.

As I watched Carlos prepare to leave on tour, the blues descended on me. I listened to Miles play “Concerto de Aranjuez” and felt miserable. I had grown addicted to Carlos's arms around me, his lips on my neck, his soft voice in my ear. Our last night together, I followed him downstairs to the studio, a large square room void of natural light, its walls lined with mocha-stained cork panels to absorb sound. A jumble of conga drums, bongos, B-3 organ, guitars, tambourines, maracas, and trap drums filled the space. An end table held a pile of music magazines. Tops of amplifiers were crowded with samba whistles and ceramic angels, candles, and incense holders. Carlos sat on a small stool, fingering notes on his guitar while listening to Wes Montgomery.

I sat down across from him. He looked up, smiled, and blew me a kiss. I leaned against the six-foot-tall, carved-wooden mermaid that stood in the center of his music room, feeling her smoothly chiseled hardness along my back. I was jealous of her when Carlos first brought me to Mill Valley: She was powerful, physically perfect, her bell-shaped breasts pro-
truding so sensuously, like fine instruments to play. She towered over me—she was a goddess he could have anytime he wanted, like real women I could not measure up to with my skinny legs and small breasts. But I was not jealous now. He was leaving her, too, for the road. I felt a bond with the nymph, who, like me, was abandoned for Carlos's insatiable true love: music.

Clouds hung over the bay billowy and dark the day I drove Carlos to the airport for the flight to San Diego. “I'm not leaving you,” he said as we stood in the breeze outside. “You are in my heart. Wherever I go, you go with me.”

I tried to smile, but tears fell just the same. I pushed my body close to his, wrapping my arms around him so I could squeeze myself inside of him. We walked to the gate, and the band boarded. Loneliness was sitting in the pit of my stomach. I drove back, crying, to the Mill Valley house. The little black Volvo was my consolation. I could drive Carlos's car, inhale his peppermint tea scent, and feel as though I were inside of him. The house, so cozy when the two of us were together, felt isolated in the dark night. I got into bed, curled my knees to my chest, and picked up my book, trying to ignore the sounds of raccoon feet on the deck.

Kitsaun finally came to a meditation with me. Sevika and Saumitra could not believe how alike we looked and acted. Kitsaun was a smidgen taller than me, her face angular like Mom's—the same high cheekbones—my face rounder—like a chipmunk, I always said—like Dad's. Twenty-two months older, she was my guide as well as the tester of waters I would be wading through after her. We had always shared friends, read
the same books, and, when younger, taken the bus together to civil rights rallies. We were different, too. Kitsaun had worn a 'fro that rivaled Kathleen Cleaver's, and I'd worn a long scarf flattening my hair. Kitsaun's eye for assessing a situation was clear—like an eagle's. She stuck with projects, whether sewing my orchestra outfit in junior high, finishing a term paper, or telling the raw truth. I was a hummingbird who flitted from interest to interest. People thought she was hard because she was fiercely vocal about her beliefs. I knew she was compassionate and hurt easily. I appeared soft and gentle because I smiled when speaking and served compliantly. But inside, I was strong—a composite of Mom's color-blind passion and Dad's staunch wariness. Kitsaun and I wore an invisible link of sisterhood that allowed us to forgive each other when we made mistakes. Mom had repeated throughout our lives, “Don't let anyone or anything come between you and your sister.”

After the meditation, Kitsaun turned to me as we walked to our cars. “The disciples are so homogeneous. And why do you have to wear saris?”

“Sri Chinmoy says they help our purity.”

Kitsaun gave me a sideways cut of her eyes and pulled her lower eyelid down with her index finger, which meant in our silent sister-speak, “Get real.” But she had felt something, too, and said, “I like the quiet. Maybe I'll come back.”

I used all my wiles to convince her that meditation with Guru was the answer to our inner search and that we could continue to work for civil rights by creating peace within. There were few experiences we had not shared, and I did not want to be on the spiritual path without her. I was working to
absolve myself from my past sins. Although we did not talk about her time with Jake, or the drugs, I knew she could stand to do the same.

Sevika said that Kitsaun could send a photograph of her face to Sri Chinmoy with a letter asking to become a disciple. “Many seekers can't see Sri Chinmoy in person before they become disciples, so he meditates on their soul through their eyes in the photograph. His heart knows immediately if someone is meant for his meditation path.”

Kitsaun mailed a letter telling a little about her life with the photo. A few days later, she called me. “I'm accepted,” she said, sounding pleased. Sevika had called Kitsaun to say that Sri Chinmoy had meditated on the essence of her soul and she was now a member of the San Francisco Centre. She was on the path with me!

he theme of our discipleship became “surrender.” As I worked next to Sevika, the term came up daily: Surrender all that you are, all that you think, all that you envision for yourself—to the will of the guru. Every time a message came from Sri Chinmoy, it seemed there was something we had to relinquish. Carlos had touched on this when he named his recording with Mahavishnu “Love, Devotion and Surrender,” but neither of us had foreseen how intrinsic this would be to the meditation path.

Sri Chinmoy asked disciples to do things the Supreme told him in meditation. Carlos and I had been together seven months when Sri Chinmoy invited us to New York and asked to speak privately with Carlos. Ranjana greeted us at Guru's front door and sent Carlos upstairs to talk with Guru. I followed her into the kitchen, where she was making a curried potato and pea dish for Guru and asked me to help.

I washed my hands and started pushing the stainless-steel peeler across russet potatoes while Ranjana clicked on a tape
recording of Guru singing in Bengali. Her chestnut brown hair was pulled into a ponytail high on her head. Her eggshell-thin skin was powdery pale with the flush of winter-red cheeks. My heart was racing, wondering what Guru was talking to Carlos about.

My head was bent over a handful of peas when I heard Carlos's soft voice calling me. I looked up and he motioned for me to follow him. I washed my hands and walked with him into the meditation room. Guru was sitting comfortably on his throne, leaning to the side on his elbow.

“So, good girl, Carlos and I have had a heart-to-heart talk. He will tell you all about it. Now let's meditate.”

I sat next to Carlos watching Sri Chinmoy's face. The room disappeared in a wash of golden light. I folded my hands in front of my chest, showing my devotion to the light that was coming into my soul. When Sri Chinmoy bowed, Carlos and I bowed, gathered our shoes and coats, and walked outside. I turned to Carlos. “What kind of heart-to-heart talk?” I asked anxiously.

We descended the stairs to the sidewalk and turned left, heading back to the Mahas'. Carlos took my hand, but walked in silence. At the corner, he pulled me to him. “He asked me if I loved you.”

“What?” I couldn't believe they had been talking about us! I felt embarrassed. “What did you say?”

Carlos looked into my eyes. “I told him I love you with all my heart.”

Why did Sri Chinmoy want to know if Carlos loved me?
“Then what did he say?” The pitch of my voice was getting higher in my ears.

“He asked me what's keeping us from getting married.”
“Married?” My heart was pounding. I was deeply in love with Carlos, but marriage had not entered my mind. I was only twenty-two; Carlos twenty-five. My freewheeling, no-bra-wearing spirit of the 1960s did not need the institution of marriage to define my relationship with Carlos.

“Yes, married.” Carlos's penetrating eyes searched my face. He held my soul in his gaze.

“What else did he say?” I asked, resisting the urge to pace.

“He said that you are the one who can help me make the fastest spiritual progress.”

“Do you want to marry me for me, or because Guru said you should?” I asked him, now staring into his honey-colored eyes, a flash of anger rising.

“I love you, Deborah. I want to marry you because I want to be with you always.” We started walking. “What about you?” He pulled my hand, forcing me to turn and face him. “Do you want to marry me for me, or because Guru thinks we'll make fast spiritual progress together?”

I looked into his amber-hued mestizo face, his chiseled cheekbones, his fragile smile, trying to see the truth. “I would like to marry you because you have a heart of gold and I love you.” My arms reached out around his winter coat, wondering if he knew how afraid I was. I had been crushed by Sly. My heart was like a car that had been in a very bad accident. Carlos's loving had repaired it, made it look almost new, but inside I was still shaken and dented.

His arms circled my back, rubbing up and down, igniting a flow of energy. I buried my face in his chest, and then we kissed beneath the bare limbs of the sycamore tree.
We surrendered to the meditation teacher; but, unconventional to the core, we did not want a traditional ceremony, bridesmaids and groomsmen, a reception in an elegant hotel, or fancy invitations. We asked my uncle U.S. to marry us. When he asked “Where?” I asked him if we could come to his house. He said he and Aunt Bitsy would be thrilled to have us married in their home in Oakland. Uncle U.S. was Dad's older brother, and the only one who had followed their parents into the ministry. Not quite as tall as Dad, who elegantly stretched to five feet eleven inches, Uncle U.S. was a joyous man with a round belly, whose glasses sat low on his nose, giving him a professorial air.

We would have to fit the ceremony in between tours, so I coordinated Carlos's schedule with Uncle U.S.'s. First we needed a marriage license, which I had no idea how to obtain. I called the Marin County Hall of Justice to find out how to get married, and then Mom to ask if we could come over. Sitting in their living room, Carlos asked Dad, “I'd like to have your daughter's hand in marriage.”

I squirmed in my chair across the room, watching Dad's reaction.

He didn't flinch or answer quickly, but beside me, I saw Mom's face light up with a big smile. Dad sat up straighter, then cleared his throat. “If Deborah is sure this is what she wants, you have my permission.”

I was mortified at the old-fashioned ritual I was taking part in, but glad it was over. Later that evening, Mom, Dad, and I went out to dinner together. “You know, Carlos is from a different culture than you are, Dobs.”
“You mean because his family's from Mexico?” I asked.

“Yes. Their ways are different,” Dad said.

“Carlos has been here twelve or thirteen years. I think he's pretty American now.”