I could not have explained the grounds for my obsession, except to say that Rahul and I were fascinated by the possibility of the miraculous, committed to unearthing some spectacular truth from beneath the common soil of what appeared a masterless universe in which randomness and order were equally blended, holding one another in perfect yet accidental suspension. That fascination had been the glue of our friendship and I had abandoned it, while Rahul never strayed. Perhaps guilt relating to this abandonment spurred me on. That, at least, is what I would have told you. I understand now there was another reason underlying it, one I would have considered insane at the time; and I am certain that the nature of obsession itself was in play. We are all of us obsessed by things that magnify the facet of our capabilities we are least certain of and that allow us to fully inhabit a persona we wish to assume. I had fallen in love with the moment during which I scribbled down the idea that Rahul’s genius had fleshed out. Confronted with the Willowy Woman, the byproduct of that moment, I’d felt the same rush and I wanted it to continue. Searching for her was my only means of effecting this.
Obsession, however, offers no guarantees. For nearly five years I had no real news of her. I spent some of that time qualifying myself to be licensed as a private investigator—I presumed I was in for a long search and I believed that the training and perks attaching to the license might come in handy. I also managed to write a novel about the Willowy Woman, omitting all mention of Rahul’s project. I had no wish to incur the wrath of the NSC. The novel achieved a modest success, enough to demand a second book, and I was in the midst of researching it when I received a phone call from a devotee at the Hare Krishna center in Moundsvillle, West Virginia. The caller, one Ravinda, informed me that a woman who resembled the sketch on my posters had come to the temple fifteen months previously. She had been unable to read or write, barely able to speak, but had exhibited a remarkable ability to learn. Within a year she had acquired the skills necessary to enable her to leave. Ravinda had not had much conversation with her, but said he would be happy to introduce me to her mentor.
“How tall was she?” I asked.
“About average.” Ravinda paused. “She was very beautiful. Some of the women accused her of being wanton. Of course, they only accused her because Shivananda told them to.” He said this last in a conspiratorial tone, as if indulging in gossip.
“Wow,” I said. “Wanton, huh?”
“She angered many devotees…especially when she refused to accept her new name. She preferred her own.”
“What was it?”
“Guruja.”
“I mean the name she liked.”
“Ariel,” Ravinda said.
DRIVING FROM THE Mountain Dew Motel in Moundsville to meet Ravinda, my thoughts resonated with the similarity between the names: Ariel and Ahhh-ell. The Willowy Woman might be having trouble with her Rs, or perhaps Ahhh-ell was her universe’s equivalent of Ariel. If nothing else this ratified my belief that she had been telling me her name and I tried, as I had many times over the years, to understand why she had not treated me like she had Henley. The conclusion I previously had reached was that she mistook me for someone, but I could never buy this explanation. Looking as she did, where would she have met anyone who resembled me?
The Hare Krishnas are the Southern Baptists of Hinduism and like their American counterparts, they delight in opulent temples. The centerpiece of the Moundsville Krishna colony was Prahubada’s Palace of Gold, purportedly an example of the architecture of classical India. If this was, indeed, the case, classical India must have looked a lot like Las Vegas. The palace was gaudy, covered with gold leaf, and seemed very much a place where you could lose all your money. As I ascended the winding road toward the temple, the golden dome rising above a green hill had a surreal aspect—it might have been an art construction by Christo or some other conceptualist, a shiny yellow ball of immense proportions dropped in the middle of nowhere. Seen straight on, the building possessed a certain rococo delicacy, but its good qualities were diminished by the orange-robed lotus eaters flocking the grounds, all sporting Krishna-conscious smiles and offering repulsively cheerful greetings as I passed by.
Ravinda turned out to be a Jewish kid from Brooklyn Heights whose shaved head and monkish attire did little to disguise his heritage. He led me across the lawn to a shade tree beneath which a paunchy fiftyish man, also clad in orange robes, a smudge of red powder centering his brow, sat cross-legged on a prayer rug. His flesh was pasty, soft, and his brow was creased by the Three Sacred Wrinkles. His heavy-lidded eyes looked like walnut halves stuck in an unbaked cookie. His demeanor conveyed an oafish tranquility. This, Ravinda said, was Shivananda.
“What’s up?” I asked Shivananda, just on the chance he might know the answer.
With a forlorn look I attributed to his having been summoned back to the world from Fifth Dimension Avenue, he inclined his head and said, “You are welcome here.”
Ravinda withdrew to a discreet distance and Shivananda asked why I was interested in Guruja. I was fully prepared for the question. I offered my P.I. credentials and handed him a forged letter from imaginary parents asking one and all to cooperate with their agent, myself, in discovering what had happened to their little sweetheart, Ariel, missing now for lo these many years.
“She left us two months ago,” Shivananda said. “I advised against it, but she refused to listen.”
“Know where she went?”
“California. But where exactly…” He spread his hands in a helpless gesture, head tilted, eyebrows raised. “We have a box of her possessions. You are welcome to take them…for the parents. Ravinda will fetch them for you.”
“What can you tell me about her?”
“She was of God,” Shivananda said. “She came to us empty and we sought to fill her with blessings.”
There was an oiliness in his voice that led me to suspect the metaphor, to wonder what sort of blessing he had sought to fill her with. He shook his head ruefully and went on: “But her nature…she was not suitable. Not a seeker.”
“She was wanton?” I suggested.
He glanced sharply at me.
“She had some trouble along those lines before she ran away,” I said. “You know…boy-crazy.”
“She was a very sexual being.” Shivananda gave the word “sexual” a dainty presentation. “But I believe she has a special purpose in the world. One day she will return to us.”
In your dreams, Lardboy, I said to myself. I agreed with Henley—Ariel was a mover. I believed she was still trying to head toward the destination from which the project had diverted her, unaware of why she was going there.
I talked to Shivananda for half an hour. He had little salient to tell me; everything he said bore a taint of petulant regret. I had a sense that he had been more than a mentor, that he had been smitten by Ariel, hauled back into the world of illusion and desire. I pictured the novice Krishnas giggling and singing, “Shivananda and Guruja sittin’ in a tree…” The one bit of information that intrigued me was that Ariel had done some writing while she was at the center. I asked what sort of writing.
“Frivolous,” he said. “Worthless fantasies.” He pursed his lips as if able to taste their worthlessness.