Leave It to Me - Bharati Mukherjee [62]
Jess’s tormentor called twice before I got to the end of Yanofsky’s chapter “The Manifest and the Un-Manifest.” The tormentor wasn’t put off when I told him that Jess wasn’t in the office. “The message is her friend called, called again, that is. Tell her, please, that the call was local, which is to say that the friend is in the vicinity.” The voice was, strange to say, Frankie-like; I began to panic that it was meant for me. I mean, a filtered accent, something hugely foreign squeezed through the grate of English. The second time, I didn’t give the blackmailer a chance to speak. He started with a Peter Lorre laugh when he heard my “Hello, Leave It to Me.” I hung up before he’d brought that laugh to a sinister finish.
The MindWorks publicist, Mikki, faxed from New York to remind me that Ma Varuna would be traveling with her pet monkey and might need the services of a veterinarian, and then a second time notifying me of a change in M. V.’s flight schedule. Ma Varuna, formerly Bette Ann Krutch of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and her simian companion were originally scheduled to arrive on a morning flight from Portland. The second fax, addressed to me, not Jess, was handwritten on a sheet that had the elaborate Mind-Works Press logo—the serene face of Buddha with two Buddha-profiles sticking out of it in place of ears—but the fax ID at the top read Fax Central instead of MindWorks. Due to the generosity of her nature, MV has given of her aura unstintingly to her legion psycho-nutrient-deprived admirers. In order to restore the healthfulness of a senior citizens’ group in Multnomah County, she has decided to conduct an unscheduled lecture and levitation demonstration in the morning, and arrive in time for her first print interview in the Bay Area. I got the publicist’s message. Her author was exhausted, and wanted to sleep in. Portland was the eleventh city in her twelve-city promo tour. Get M. V. in and out of San Francisco before she has her collapse.
I faxed Mikki back. Our agency delivers what it promises. Leave it to us, and relax. I added a smiley face. Jess always personalized her faxes with smiley faces and exclamation points.
Then I looked up the names and phone numbers of three vets who specialized in exotic pets, wondered if, but didn’t verify that, Purina sold monkey chow and finally locked up at the office and headed home to Beulah Street, speculating all the way back on how I could get my own celebrity-making sound bite by snitching on Emad the closet terrorist. But to whom? To the FBI? The INS? The IRS? I wished I could share my insight on Emad with Larry … I missed Larry. I’d had no clue I’d miss him so much.
Questions I never wanted answered: Was Ma Varuna a person or a high concept? Does the supply of mystics create the demand for metaphysical healthfulness? Did Bette Ann Krutch of Delaware find true happiness when she changed her name to Ma Varuna (translated in the kit as “Mother Wind-Goddess”)? Do wind-goddesses give birth to typhoons, tornadoes and hurricanes?
I sat with a frozen yogurt and a sack of bananas in an uncrowded gate at SFO and went over the promo kit Mikki had couriered. Vitality!—Ma Varuna’s third hardcover—was a tough read for nonbelievers. Not that I count myself among them. Still, I’m not a believer. The believer is a different animal from the gullible. The gullible grabs at quick fixes, turns how-to books like Vitality! into national best-sellers. I buy on impulse, but I mail in the warranty. Yield to hope, contain the betrayal.
I gave the book a chance. It had a pretty cover. Cheetahs lunged at lotuses