THE MOMENT, BEFORE SLEEP - ERIC AND SUSANNA

Eric was approaching Africa.

He looked out the airplane window, at the reflective Indian Ocean contemplating the craggy outline of the continent.

He couldn't believe he was actually looking down at Africa. He had turned the globe in his fifth-grade classroom to Africa so many times! But now, he wasn't simply traveling the world with his hands. He was looking at the real thing. He hardly knew how he felt.

For he wasn't simply going to travel in Africa.

He was going to look for treasure in Africa.

He smiled to himself as he fingered an envelope in his hand. He opened it after a few minutes, his fingers nearly trembling.

He pulled out another envelope-worn, nearly torn. It still bore his father's clumsy handwriting: Eric Ashworth. Camp Minnetonka.

He carefully opened the inner envelope, and pulled out a charred piece of parchment. His father had blackened it on purpose to look like a treasure map gunslingers had been lingering over near a fire.

He remembered how excited he'd been to receive it at summer camp-a real treasure map! And how disappointed he'd been to read it. In fact he thought he'd thrown it away, but he must've stuck it in a suitcase pocket, not wanting to get in trouble with his dad.
For it wasn't a "treasure map". Well, it was, but it described a different kind of treasure. His father had entitled it A Map of Compassion. It was showed three separate locations:

	Whirlpool of Evil
	Island of Infinite Joy
River of Blessings	X	Reflecting Lake of Faith

Eric, being eleven, was really only interested in the Whirlpool of Evil.

His dad had written on the bottom: Find X and you'll find the most amazing wondrous treasure in the whole wide world. Hint: It's the source of the other three features on the map.

As soon as he'd gone home he'd let his father know how lame the map was. How bo-ring. His dad looked at him quietly, while he peeled a Fuji apple. Finally, he said, "Son, people love mysteries. They run around making and breaking every code they can think of. It's such a waste of time-and the only reason they do it is to kill time. Can you imagine? People have got all this precious time on their hands, and all they want to do is kill it."
He gave Eric a piece of the apple, and said, "Keep the map, Eric. One day, maybe years from now, you'll need it."

So Eric kept it, albeit reluctantly.

His father had recently died of cancer. Eric knew he didn't enjoy dying but he did feel his father looked upon the certain knowledge of his forthcoming death as a test of all he'd read in his books. He so much sought peace. And he achieved it. Eric missed him terribly even though it had already been two years. He wondered idly if his father had helped him arrange this trip from the other side? He'd been so close to his dad-an incredibly rare event for fathers and sons. Were such things possible?

Well, why not? So much lay beyond possibility. Eric's dad had been deeply interested in the spiritual traditions of the world-his den was filled with several versions of the Bible, two different translations of the Bhagavad-Gita, the Koran, the Dhammapada, the Tao Te Ching, the Kabbalah, among at least a couple of hundred other books. For a very ordinary farmer-turned-high-school-history-teacher in Iowa (who had never once left the country) his dad was dazzled by the diverse views on the divine.

"When we talk about God, none of us really know what we're talking about. It's all so much more than we can understand. So remember son, no matter what happens to you in your life--no matter if you curse God from dawn to dusk-just don't forget to be dazzled."

Eric heard this constantly as he grew up, and thought his dad a foggy old fogy. His dad's other two favorite maxims were: "The stupidest thing you can be is too smart," which always led into, 'Life keeps you from being arrogant." Did all men say such things after they became fathers? Eric smiled to himself, tracing his dad's handwriting with his index finger.

Now, nearing thirty-two, he found himself so grateful for the sense of wonder his dad had instilled in him. If his dad hadn't done that, what would've happened? Would Eric have turned out to be just another cynical young man imprisoned within his intellect whose views on life would be lit by a wicket wit? There were so many men like that who thought of themselves as terribly unique when in reality they were not simply copiously insecure but mere carbon copies of one another, treating irreverence with such fervent reverence. He couldn't imagine living a life unlit by faith in something greater than himself.

Why had he brought this map to Africa?

He must've needed to.

--


One day, Susanna met Eric.

He worked in a bookstore she visited regularly--they were wonderful escapes, these huge bookstores. A bit clinical as well--the ubiquitous giants all resembled one another, all smelled like one another--which particularly helped her feel safe. A secure haven in which she could let her mind follow a winding path through someone else's thoughts, until it discovered its own sheltered flagstone route through a forest, its own sandy trail to some hidden cove by the sea.

"You've got good taste." Susanna quickly looked up. A guy with a huge smile--it was the first thing she'd noticed about him--who'd been shelving pointed to her book. "Rilke. Beautiful stuff. Have you read 'Letters to a Young Poet'?" She shook her head.
"Well, if you get a chance, read it. There's a copy on the shelf"--he pulled the book off the shelf. "Oh-there's a customer. Gotta go. Oh, by the way, my name's Eric. If you need any help let me know." Susanna smiled and said "Thanks", watching him run to the cash register at the front of the store.

She completely forgot about him, and actually didn't see him for the next couple of weeks. But she bought Letters to a Young Poet, and she thought of it as a treasure, gleaming in its simplicity. She placed it on a little shelf above her bed, and read one chapter at a time. It was a pleasure to read after all her technical texts.

She was a physician. She'd always been rather quiet and serious growing up, the kind of girl everyone thought was so mature beyond her years. She'd always been attracted to the sciences, and since she was ten she had always told people she'd go to medical school. Everyone had been impressed, telling her she'd make a brilliant cardiovascular surgeon, or neurosurgeon.

She'd always smile shyly and say thank you.

Privately though, she didn't want any of that. What she really wanted to do was go out and help people in the countryside, or people in poorer countries. She needed the human contact in medicine, the human contact she felt was masked in brilliantly designed hospitals masquerading as hotels. After some time in medical school, however, she deadened herself to her dreams, it was as if her practical side completely took over. She had thousands of dollars in loans to pay off, her family, though kind and supportive, would never understand her flying off to Mozambique or some Caribbean isle where her skills were really needed. Practicality persisted, supported by a multitude of voices, and she shrunk into herself. She'd been mature in many ways, all of her life, she was certainly intelligent, but she'd never had the confidence to go with a dream.

And she dreamed all the time.

Eric was so different from anyone else she had met. Most of the men she knew were perfectly nice but so caught up in their professions or in making and breaking standards set by society that she found them strangely hollow. But, to be fair, many women in her circles seemed the same as well.

In any case she was used to being on her own; she had never had much interest in joining the games people played in search of romance. The pursuits seemed unsuited to love, never curing themselves of a fundamental insecurity. She certainly had days when she longed to have someone by her side. But then, those days passed.

Deep inside-she couldn't explain it better than this-she wanted to meet an individual.
And unbelievably, she had. One day, she'd met Eric. Someone shy behind his friendliness but who didn't try to hide the fact that he dreamed. She couldn't believe she'd already known him a year.

They had so much more to discover.

It could take a lifetime.

--

15. a cave of subterranean rain

Eric must've put her on the spot, because she looked surprised at this question, as if he were asking her to reveal a secret.

After a few seconds, while playing with a blade of grass, she began. Eric knew in that moment she'd only ever tell him her truth. He was touched. She smiled slowly, and began.

"Ok, Eric I'll tell you. This is why I decided to go into medicine."

"Go ahead, tell me why." Eric was lying on his back now, staring at the sky, fingering gingerly a tendril of grass.

"As I think I've told you, my grandfather grew up in Spain. And he told me that once when he was quite young he visited a monastery, in a little village in the north. The monastery was at least a thousand years old. Although most of the church attached to the monastery was in ruins, the monks' cells, their dining room, their kitchen, everything else was still standing."

"He told me this story when I was a little girl, so the monastery became alive for me, a magical place of all this old stone...anyway, what was more magical were the natural surroundings of the place."

"My grandfather said the hills surrounding it were beautiful, as was the river and its waterfalls. And the earth was red! But the most amazing part was this cave that was situated partly underneath a waterfall. Because of the geological composition of the earth there, it always rained inside the cave. Always. But my grandfather didn't mention the geological composition of the place-he just said it was magical. So can you imagine? A cave in which it always rains? I thought it was like a fairyland, and I started imagining there was a princess of this land which always rains, a princess whose dresses were made of rainwater...anyway, my grandfather had just started his story."

"He said he visited that cave alone, as a little boy would, slipping away from his father's hand. He was just staring at the little lake inside the cave, made from this eternal rain, when he heard something next to him."

"So he turned and looked, and saw a young girl. He didn't know where she came from. She had a big pot in her hands, and was crouched down by the lake, collecting water in it."

"He said he didn't want to bother her, but she seemed like a fairy to him-he was only ten years old or something at this time. So he wanted to say something, so he said hello. The girl was frightened at first, but when she saw he was just a little boy, she relaxed. And they started talking. And my grandfather asked her what she was doing with the water-was she going to drink it?"

"She replied that she wasn't going to drink it, but that she had to take it to her village. She said this water was special. My grandfather thought this water must be magical, if a girl was sent all the way to a cave to collect it. So he couldn't help but taste it."
"And he said it tasted normal. So he asked the girl why this was so special. And the girl must have liked my grandfather, so she told him the story behind this cave with the eternal rain."

"They said in the village that hundreds of years ago there was a monk who had taken his vows of silence. Although he was very devout, however, he couldn't bear not speaking. So every day he went to this cave, and spoke secretly-to himself, to the cave, to his god, no one knows. But he spoke and spoke and spoke, and lived to be a very old man."

"Then one day he died. The next day the monks in the abbey noticed that it began to rain in the cave. No one associated the monk's death with the rain, until some time later a little boy being trained in the monastery heard the monk's speech in the rain. No one believed him, of course, because no one heard anything in the cave but the rain, but that's how the legend began."

"Anyway, my grandfather said that no one believed the legend even when he was a little boy. But this young girl did. And whenever someone was sick in the village, not just physically, but if they were depressed or frightened, or whatever, she would surreptitiously give them this water to drink. And she swore it always helped them. But she never told anyone she was doing it."

"She made my grandfather swear never to tell anyone her story. So he never did, at least he said he never did, until he told me. "
"And that's how I knew I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to help people, but I really wanted to do it secretly. That's what I loved about the story-that the girl didn't tell anyone what she was doing."

"Maybe my grandfather really wanted me to be a doctor, and that's why he told me the story...I don't know."

Eric didn't say anything. He'd never heard her speak so much.

Susanna said lightly, as if to bring herself back to earth, "And there you go."

Eric remained quiet. She'd probably thought he was asleep. A few seconds later, he opened his eyes, and sat up. Looking at her directly, he asked, "So, tell me. Why did it start raining in the cave?"

Susanna looked surprised. It was clear she hadn't been expecting this question. "Well I always assumed that the cave was lonely for the monk's presence. I remember thinking that it was just magical, that a cave could cry, and because of that I thought the waters must be magical, and that's why they helped sick people. And I thought that they tasted normal to my grandfather because they only had magical effects when people were sick."
Susanna paused and continued, "Actually I took that part of the story for granted. I was only six or something when he told me the story, so it seemed plausible. I used to spend much more time thinking about the girl. I imagined her room in a little village hut, where on the windowsill she kept the magic water in colored bottles-dark blue and green..." Susanna's thoughts trailed off.

Eric's mind was wandering in dozens of directions. He had loved the tale, and was thrilled beyond even his own understanding that Susanna had chosen medicine as her career based upon a story.

Now and then he had stolen glances at her while she was speaking. She had pulled her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her knees. She stared at the prairie as she spoke, and for a second it seemed as if the prairie were actively listening to her, as he'd see strands of her hair fingered by a stray breeze.

And in that instant he wanted to finger her hair.

In that instant he wanted to kiss her.

He had shut his eyes immediately, and had forced himself back into the lines of her story. She was his friend, and had never given cause for him to think of her as anything else. She was sitting there on the platform, a person in her own right, and suddenly his impulse seemed impish.

So he quieted his desire, as he stole glances at her. The breezes had picked up, fluttering her hair at the top of her shoulders, and in a flash she looked to be in a painting, surrounded by the golden light of the prairie. In a flash he felt his old nervousness--he had never completely lost the shyness of his youth, which had helped his writing. In a society that viewed shyness as a disease while railing against the elegance of reticence, his shyness was what prompted him to write so much. Shyness wasn't equivalent to being lifeless; it might hobble impulsive action, but surely it engendered impulsive creation.

So he kept quiet, until she finished her story. More than anything else in the story he had been intrigued by the rain in the cave. And after Susanna gave him her thoughts on the rain, he offered his.

"I have two thoughts on the rain. The first is a verse from a poem about water written by Borges, whom I love. In reference to the holiness of the Ganges River in India he said, "as the seas work in their secret ways, and the planet is porous, it may still be true to claim all men have bathed in the Ganges." Water's always been magical. And by the way that's the only verse of his I memorized. My dad wanted me to, as he drummed into me the wonder of the whole world."

"Secondly," he continued, "It's hard to explain exactly, but I see the rain as being nothing more than his speech. The rain is just a physical manifestation of the years of the monk's secret thoughts and conversations with himself. Instead of speech in air it's speech in water. We just have to learn to listen to it differently."

"So why does the water heal?" Susanna asked.

"Well, that's harder." Eric replied. "Of course, you can say it's because it's speech from a monk-sacred speech. But he was breaking his vow at the time. But his words were uttered in complete sincerity, when he was alone. And unless he was a complete impostor in guise of a monk, his sincerity in dealing with his own faults, disappointments, desires, ...was so pure...because no one else was listening...maybe that's what did the trick. Can you imagine, a truth so pure? Distilled sincerity." Eric laughed, "It was good ole honesty Susanna."

Susanna smiled, saying, "Eric I can guarantee that I never would've thought of that. I don't understand it, but I can guarantee that that would never cross my mind."

"I don't know if that's good or bad." Eric sighed. Suddenly, he felt weighed down by his incessant dreams, enfeebled by their futility. In spite of his belief to never fear being seen as outlandish, he felt a bit foolish, and he didn't understand completely why.
He needed to walk. They'd gotten up, walked through the woods.

They'd even found a river.

COPYRIGHT 2006 NARTANA PREMACHANDRA