Tim Parks - The Server

Simple. Her grief was so simple. She lost a child. OK. But she still has her rich husband. Still has herself . She hasn’t betrayed anyone, or been betrayed. She wasn’t responsible for her child’s death. Now she can give him a proper funeral. An expensive funeral. Fantastic. Now she can go back to Siddhartha and he will teach her Dhamma, he will show her the Eightfold Path to Enlightenment. Where’s the problem?

I’M IN INTENSIVE CARE.

WITH YOUR MOBILE, BETH?

DON’T YOU BELIEVE ME, JONNIE?

TEXT ME THE NAME OF THE HOSPITAL AND I’LL CALL.

YOU DON’T BELIEVE ME. YOU WON’T COME.

BETH, I’M SUPPOSED TO BE DOING A MURAL HERE. I CAN’T FLY BACK AT THE DROP OF A HAT.

I NEARLY DROWNED. I’M NOT OUT OF DANGER. I’VE GOT THE MOST VIOLENT HEADACHE.

BUT YOU’RE TEXTING EVERY TEN MINUTES.

THEY WILL HAVE TO PUT ME IN A PHARMACOLOGICAL COMA. NURSE SAYS I SHOULD INFORM MY LOVED ONES.

CHRIST, BETH. ISN’T CARL THERE? AND YOUR PARENTS? IF THEY ARE, THEY WON’T WANT TO SEE ME. THEY WON’T UNDERSTAND.

I HATE CARL. I HATE MY PARENTS.

No reply. hours.

JONATHAN, THEY’RE GOING TO PUT ME UNDER NOW. I’M GIVING THE NURSE MY PHONE. SO SHE CAN TEXT YOU. IN CASE THINGS GO WRONG.

No reply.

No reply.

No reply.

IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE ME, MR ARTIST PLAYBOY, READ SOMETHING ABOUT DROWNING ACCIDENTS. MY BRAIN IS SWELLING! CONTROLLED COMA IS THE ONLY WAY.

No reply.

I WAS UNCONSCIOUS FOR TEN MINURES. IN THE SEA. IT WAS WILD. THE PERSON WITH ME DIED. HE’S DEAD! FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!

BETH, I LOVE YOU.

BUT YOU WON’T COME. WHAT KIND OF LOVE IS THAT?

GIVE ME THE NAME OF THE HOSPITAL, BETH.

SAY YOU’LL COME BEFORE I DIE. I WANT TO KISS YOU.

I NEED TO KNOW WHERE I’M SUPPOSED TO BE COMING, DON’T I?

Compassion is not some wishy-washy sentiment, Dasgupta is saying. It requires skill and intuition to understand what the person before you needs and how they can be approached. ‘The Buddha always adapted his words to the person who was appealing to him.’

How does that square with using the same video talk for years?

Your diarist is not Jonathan. My back is aching. Go to meet the pain. You are not in love with him. My thumbs are tense with texting. I haven’t touched a phone in months. My messages and his, back and forth, over and over, from the hospital bed, from the meditation cushion. Old shit, hidden behind pots and pans on a bottom shelf.

YOU’RE WITH YOUR WIFE, AREN’T YOU? WHY DON’T YOU JUST TELL ME?

I’M NOT WITH MY WIFE, BETH, NO.

Dasgupta is not my father. Ralph is not Carl. I owe him nothing nothing nothing. Don’t drink so much, Beth. Don’t smoke so much. You’ll kill yourself. The surf is wild. I went into the sea to wash it all away. To purify myself. Mi Nu will have the skill that is real compassion. I open my eyes and watch her. When things get chaotic inside, open your eyes, Beth. Watch Mi Nu. Beneath the bright screen she is pale and erect like cool wax. She is perfect.

An hour later, after the discourse was over, after the servers’ metta was over, I said, I’m in trouble. I’m in such deep trouble. I can’t serve. I need help need help need help.

Mi Nu sat on the dais with her head bowed, eyes closed. Cool, pale, erect. Like a candle burning with silence.

STTARTT-TAGAIN. EIGHT O’CLOCK. And again. Two thirty. And again. Six o’clock. The guided sessions. The hours of Strong Determination. Day four. Day five. Day six. Dasgupta’s disembodied voice invites us to explore our bodies. ‘From the top of the head to the tips of the toes and from the tips of the toes to the top of the head. Indifferent to pleasure. Indifferent to pain. Work diligently, diligently. You are bound to succeed. Bound to succeed.’

I eat in silence, staring at the wall. I should skip a meal or two. My body screams for food. I should ignore it. Indifferent to appetite, indifferent to hunger. I cover up with baggy T-shirts. Tracksuit pants. I don’t want to see myself. The weather has been mild and between sessions people walk round the field beyond the Metta Hall. Round and round, without speaking, without looking each other in the eye. If it’s dry enough to lie down, I lie down. I miss the kitchen. I miss washing the rice and the beans. I miss peeling the potatoes, chopping the carrots. I miss spraying the crap from the dishes. I don’t miss doggy Ralph. I don’t miss Meredith, or Paul, or Rob, or Ines. I don’t miss the chatter. The chatter was dragging me back to old ways. You came to the Dasgupta to forget; you thought you had forgotten. You thought you were cured. Then suddenly you were digging it all up again. Perhaps you needed to check what it was you’d forgotten. You weren’t ready. You just wanted to sniff at it, but what you dug up crashed over you like a wave. You were sucked down and slammed on the sand and stones. Carl’s voice calling, ‘Beth Beth Beth!’ Remember the tiniest bit of what you have to forget and at once you’re hearing your name. Someone’s calling your name. Loud. ‘Beth! BETH! ’ He knows he’s lost me. But he’d lost me long before. The French boys too, calling across the dunes. ‘Beth! Come swimming!’ The fly sheet of the tent flapping in the wind. The guy ropes humming. Tell me it didn’t happen. Please, tell me it didn’t happen.

The mind isn’t strong enough.

I’m back to the first days again, that’s the truth, I’m back to my very first days at the Dasgupta Institute. Except this time I know the technique. Thank God. I know where to find the breath on my lips. I know how to sit still, how to still myself, how to kill a thought quick. The tide is strong and the surf high, but my cushion is a rock. I can sit above it in stillness. My time at the Dasgupta hasn’t been wasted. ‘Work diligently, diligently. You are bound to succeed.’ Oh, I believe so. I really do. I must have faith. Dasgupta’s right. Diligently, I observe my breathing; diligently, I observe my body. Inch by inch, pore by pore. You are bound to succeed. You must. My scalp, my forehead, my temples, my ears, my nose, my lips, my teeth, my tongue, my cheeks, my jaw, my neck, my shoulders, my arms, my hands, my hands.

Move on, Beth. Don’t get stuck with pleasure. Don’t get stuck with pain. I understand now why Mi Nu wouldn’t speak to me. We must not express our passions in the Metta Hall. We mustn’t play the drama queen. Like the girl sobbing on vipassana day. Who does she think she is? To sob in the Metta Hall. We mustn’t disturb others with our suffering, our specialness, our angst . There is no such thing as specialness. Follow my example, Mi Nu was saying. Watch me. I burn in silence. I don’t need to speak to teach you. Head bowed. Darkness and silence. Mi Nu is a pale candle burning with darkness. These strange words, never spoken, help me more than Dasgupta’s voice. Burning with silence and darkness. Burning nothingness. ‘Move your attention through your whole body,’ he says. ‘If you are experiencing pleasant, fluid, subtle sensations, don’t grow attached to them. Make an objective note, pleasant subtle sensations, and move on. If you find gross, intensified, solidified sensations, stay a while and observe them. Do not judge them. Do not develop even the slightest trace of aversion. These are the deep and painful sankhara s of the past that are emerging. When they are gone, you will be purified, purified, purified.’

I follow his instructions. My attention descends the stairs from neck to lungs, from lungs to stomach, from stomach to hips, from hips to thighs. Then it slips. I’ve lost it. I’m off, moving through the pitch dark. Not walking, floating, blown along. No effort of mine, no decision of mine. Litter in the breeze. Now I’m brushing against a wall, scratching my face on twigs and thorns. Where am I? I’m trapped against a rock. I’m caught. The surface is rough, hard. Am I under water? Am I still breathing? It doesn’t seem so. I’m not afraid. Fascinated, but not afraid. Beyond fear. Very calm. Very vigilant. Surrender, Beth, let yourself go, let yourself go into the darkness. Let it happen to you now , the thing that should have happened then. Whatever it is, let it happen. Oh, I understand why Mi Nu didn’t speak to me. Come and talk when your question is ready, she was saying. You are still too confused to know what to ask. You are too upset. Meantime you must wash away your impurities. Wash yourself with darkness, scrub yourself with silence. A stream of darkness, a pumice of silence.