But there was no one there when I returned.
Suzama's last prediction to me was wrong.
I call to James and he returns to the basement quickly.
"There are people outside on the street pointing at the center," he says. "I think the police will be here any minute."
"We will go then. Gather up what is left of the scripture and take it to your father."
"Aren't you going with me?"he asks.
"No. I need some time alone to think. Do you have an extra car?"
He grimaces. "We have plenty of extra cars now. You can take any one you want. Should I go to your house?"
"Yes. I will join you there shortly. Go out the back way so you won't be stopped."
He is dying to ask the question.
"Did you find out anything useful?"he asks.
I give a wan smile. "Only time will tell."
12
On the spot where Paula's child was conceived, on the sandy bluff in Joshua Tree National Monument, I lie in the shade of a tall Joshua tree and stare up at the sky. It strikes me as a small miracle how the sky has not changed in five thousand years. Why, I could be lying on my back in ancient Egypt, beside the Nile, and there would be no difference in the sky.
But it is not easy for me to remember.
Suzama took me in, into her home, her heart. She shared a small shack with her parents. It is ironic that the greatest seer of all time should be born to a blind mother and a blind father. Neither of them ever knew what I looked like, yet they treated me withgreat kindness. They even tolerated the strange hours I kept. For in those days I needed to drink blood almost every night to quench my thirst. It was still difficult for me to feed myself and keep my victim alive. I lacked the control that was to come with age. Yet many people naturally died in those days during the night,especially the old, and I tried to confine my feeding to them so as to raise fewer suspicions.
When I returned home from one nightly sojourn,I found Suzama awake. At that time I had been in Egypt a month. There was pain in Suzama's large soulful eyes. She sat outside beneath a blanket of stars. I sat beside her.
"What's the matter?"I asked.
She would not look at me. "I followed you tonight."
I drew in a sharp breath. "What did you see?"
"What you do to people." She had tears. "Why do you do it?"
I took a while to answer her. "I have to do it to survive."
It was true. She of almost perfect clairvoyance could not see what her friend really was. When she had first met me, she had only suspected.
She was horrified. "Why?"
"Because I am not a human being.I am a vampire."
Even in those days they had a word for creatures like me. Suzama understood what I meant. Yet she did not flee from me, but instead held my hand.
"Tell me how it happened," she said.
I told her the entire story of my life,which even though it had just begun, seemed awfullyl ong to me. Suzama heard of Yaksha and Rama andL alita and Krishna.I told her every word Krishna had said to me, of the vow he had placed me under to make no more vampires, and of the vow he had made Yaksha take to destroy all vampires. Suzama listened as if in a dream. When I was finished she whispered aloud.
"I have seen this Krishna in many visions," she said.
"Tell me what you see?"
She spoke in a distant voice. "He has the whole universe in his eyes. The sun we see in the sky is only one of many. All these starsmore than can be countedshine inside the crown of his head." She paused. "You must be a very special kind of monster to receive his grace." I was able to relax.
Suzama was telling me she was still my friend. It was shortly after that night that she began to heal others.
The cures started innocently enough. Suzama was fond of collecting herbs. Even as a child she had had a knack for knowing which ones to prescribe for which illnesses. It was normal for a handful of ailing people to stop by each day for medical advice. Sometimes Suzama would have the sick person stay. She would have the person lie on his or her back and take long,slow deep breaths while she held her left hand above the forehead and her right hand over the heart. Invariably the person leftbetter afterward, or at least they said they did. Then came a crippled man. He had not walked since a massive stone had fallen across his hips five years earlier. He had no feeling from the waist down. At first she prescribed some herbs and was about to send him away when the man begged her to bless him. Reluctantly, as if she knew this act would forever change the course of her life, Suzama put him down on the floor and had him take deep breaths.Her hands shook as she held them over the man, and there was sweat on her face. I couldn't take my eyes off her. A milky white radiance had begun to shine above her head. Even when the man's lower legs began to twitch, I couldn't stop staring at her angelic face. For the uncountable stars were shining through her now. The man was able to walk home. After that there was always a line outside Suzama's house. She continued to perform manyhealings, although only a few matched her healingof the crippled man. For many seriously ill peopleshe was unable to do anything. It is their karma tobe ill,she would say. They had the wordkarma inthat part of the world at that time, and theyunderstood its meaning.
More than healing,Suzama preferred to foretell the future and to teach meditation. A series of special meditation techniques had come to her in visions and each of them was related to the worship of the GoddessI sis, the White Goddess, who shone in each soul above the head. Suzama taught mantra and breathing techniques, and sometimes she mixed the two together. I was her first student,as well as her last. While doing the practices she showed me, I began to experience peace of mind. She was my guru as well as my friend, and I always felt deeply indebted to her.
A time came when Suzama's exploits reached the ears of the rulers of the land. The king at that time was named Namok, and his queen wasD elar. Namok was forty years older than his wife, and their beliefs, so the rumors said, were contrary to each other. Namok was firmly behind the powerful priest caste at the time, the fabled Setians, who supposedly gained divine insight from the ancient past,as well as from beings in the sky. The Setians worshipped a number of angry-looking deities, all of which were reptilian. I was curious, at the time, why Isis was supposed to be married to Osiris, who was Set's brother. The deities couldn't have been more different. The Setians did not approve of Isis worship, and went out of their way to destroy it. That is why Suzama always conducted her initiations in secret.