The Other Hand Clapping

  The Other Hand Clapping

  The Vassi Collection: Volume XII

  Marco Vassi

  For Royce

  With thanks to my father who was right about the ending

  "While the wooden man is singing,

  The stone maiden starts to dance.

  This cannot be reached by our consciousness.

  Have you given any thought to this?"

  from the Bao-Jing San Mei

  1

  The morning sun glittered on the bathroom tiles. Larry squinted against the glare and drew the gleaming straightedge razor across his scalp, removing the last trace of foam. His skin shone.

  A bald head had nothing at all to do with the meaning of zen. Larry understood that. Yet, he found the effect pleasing. At first it had been ghastly, the skin that had never been exposed to air emerging grey and scaly. Now, after a year and a half, the flesh was the same shade as that of his face and felt silky to the touch.

  The resistance he'd received from his wife, his friends, and his own conditioning almost overcame his resolution to sport the classical style, but the first Spring day raindrops splashed on his skull he was filled with such innocent sensuality that no mere social disapproval could compete.

  Through the open window nature throbbed. Tall, silent, aspiring trees in the first flush of new leaves, birds on their flights of food and fancy, insects buzzing past, a sky of adamantine blue, and a scattering of slim clouds like underlinings in the void. It was impossible not to believe that all creation was alive on such a day, that each atom did not hum with consciousness. Green and blue and brown. Rhythms of a million sentient things. Unreflected awareness.

  Larry washed his face and scalp and toweled himself dry. He had already been up for more than two hours, having risen before dawn, as he did every day, to begin the ritual of sitting, settling cross-legged on his round black pillow, his spine straight, eyes lidded, to watch the movement of his breath and the shuttling of his thoughts, until his brain and body grew quiet and a different quality of perception insinuated itself. He now sat for six hours a day in eight sessions of forty-five minutes each. The sitting was interspersed with a slow walking exercise, both a complement to and a relief from the utter immobility. The other waking hours were spent in the routines of daily life, which included the singular relationship he now had with Eleanor.

  He and Eleanor had been married for four years when Larry first began to take the study of zen seriously, and in the two years since then something like a war had begun inside him, a series of battles that ultimately came to threaten the marriage itself. By the time he had shaved his head he had attended three sesshins, seven-day intensives in which no one spoke and everyone sat for from twelve to fourteen hours a day. Those experiences had given him a taste of the kind of power to be found in such awesome concentration and, although he tried not to, he couldn't help comparing it with what he got from his marriage.

  Larry examined his face in the mirror. "I know that I know," he thought, "My highest attainment and the greatest obstacle to enlightenment." He was discovering that zen was like a strong poison used to cure a virulent disease. Zen, the most austere of concepts, was the sword with which one had to cut through the web of conceptualization altogether, and the final trap was to be mired in zen itself.

  He was at that stage of involvement called "the great doubt," a psychological impasse which one school of zen insists must be raised in order to be transcended. In his case it took the form of a painful realization that he could no longer see anything directly, and he wondered if he ever had. The practice of zen often produced nothing but a deepening of his confusion, and it dawned on him that all the yogic discipline and all the teachings of the masters was little more than a distraction and consolation for the fact that he, and perhaps everyone, had lost his primal simplicity.

  He looked at the man in the mirror and for an instant superimposed the image of his conventional life on that of the peculiar person who stared back at him. He was thirty-seven years old, the owner of a bookstore in Manhattan, and married to an excessively beautiful and vibrantly intelligent woman who loved him to the point of exasperation. Their marriage was based on the vision they'd shared when they met, one of classical romance in which the very union was to provide all the spiritual and aesthetic context they'd ever need. They lived in a large apartment on Central Park West and had more than enough friends and acquaintances. All they lacked to complete the picture of success was a child.

  That was Eleanor's decision. She wanted a career as an actress and wouldn't consider having a baby until she'd either made some major breakthrough or become convinced that it was futile to pursue it further. She'd majored in drama at Sarah Lawrence, been praised highly by her teachers, and gone to New York to take the theatre by storm. After a few years, however, she found herself stalled in the wings and was practical enough to understand that it would be pointless to flutter like an excited moth indefinitely against the cold lights of the Great White Way. She decided to descend into the underground, in the mid 60s a network of small studios, cafe theatres, and off-off-Broadway productions. There she found a lively spirit of experimentation. She studied and worked and waitressed and had affairs and lived out the metatheatre which pervaded the structure of the formal theatre until she met Larry and, after a steamy courtship, married him.

  Six years later, at the age of thirty-five, she was still unwilling to give up the time to have a child, by which time Larry had found in zen what she had with the stage. He had encouraged her in her theatrical pursuits at first, but finally came to the conclusion that she would never make it to Broadway. She was an excellent actress, often brilliant, but the city was filled with talent. He went to see her in anything she did, and later on she accompanied him to the East Side zendo for sitting a few times, but their interest in one another's involvement was not enthusiastic.

  At times, they fought about it, Larry arguing that theatre was a narcissistic preoccupation and Eleanor countering that zen was a stodgy pastime. When he explained that his practice was actually very exciting, even terrifying in the way it squeezed every neurotic and psychotic element in the personality to the surface she retorted, "What do you think acting does? I know all about that kind of pressure. But I want to do something with it, not just sit on my ass and look at it."

  The conflict inevitably affected their sex life. Larry found himself becoming quietistic in bed. During their lovemaking he began comparing it to sitting. While they moved together he would watch his breath, monitor his thoughts. Many times he drifted away, putting his body on automatic pilot, and it appeared that Eleanor didn't notice the difference. Also, as his practice revealed his deeper tensions to him—the tight stomach, the clenched sphincter, the knotted mind—he began to lose his capacity for thrusting. And it was then that Eleanor did notice, and started to compensate for his growing passivity. She became more violent, using her nails and teeth, trying to arouse him with dirty talk, and even for a while buying cocaine to provide extra stimulation. Each attempt was successful for a while, spurring Larry into a spurt of excitement, but before long his basic course reasserted itself. He was drifting away from shared eroticism into solitary meditation.

  The marriage might have ended then, peacefully or explosively, had Eleanor not made the proposal that led to their living in the house outside of Woodstock where Larry was now shaving his head and reflecting on the nature of knowing. A man named Alec Moorman, legendary in certain theatrical circles for merging the principles of Gurdjieff with those of Stanislavski, was conducting a summer workshop in the town that had yet to be made famous by the rock festival which would define an entire generation. Eleanor wanted to study with him and suggested that she and Larry move there
for three months.

  "I can do my work," she said, "And you'll have all the peace and quiet you need for meditating."

  He was at first startled and then pleased by the idea. He had a manager who could run the store. And whatever else happened, a summer in the woods would undoubtedly be rejuvenating for him and Eleanor. But what she said next stunned him. "Maybe it would be better if we had separate bedrooms while we're there," she said, and added, "And not make love."

  Even though some part of him felt a sense of relief at her words, he was momentarily seized by panic, and he resisted the idea at first. Eleanor was sober and persuasive. "We've been married six years," she went on, "And you're all caught up in your zen thing and I'm at a point where I have to make a final decision about acting. After this workshop I want to know one way or another if I'm going to dedicate my life to it, success or no. And since you haven't been all there in bed for a while anyway, and we're both under pressure, why not give the sex thing a rest?"

  "And what do we do in the Fall?" he asked.

  "See if we still have a marriage we want to save. See if you want to go off to a monastery. See if I want to have a baby."

  It was now a little more than two months since Eleanor had made her suggestion, and a month since they'd rented the small house in the woods half a mile away from any neighbor. After the first week of setting up, laying in supplies, exploring the land, they fell into a regular routine. Larry was up at five each morning, sat for two hours and then went in to shave and wash. Eleanor woke at seven and joined him for breakfast. He then returned to his day's sitting and studying, breaking in the afternoon to go into town for mail and errands. Eleanor worked around the house or went for a dip in a nearby swimming hole, and at eleven took off for her Glasses. She returned at six, made dinner, and they ate at seven. For the rest of the evening they watched television, read, or went into their separate bedrooms to do private work. Larry was in bed by ten, Eleanor usually stayed up until midnight.

  Once they'd agreed upon the plan there had been no friction between them at all, except in the one instance of Eleanor's insisting that Larry bring his revolver with them. It was a gun he'd bought years earlier after his bookstore had been held up, but never had to use or even flourish since.

  "What do we need a gun for?" he said. "The most dangerous thing around there are brown bears and they only grow to be three feet high."

  "I don't care," she replied. "We'll be alone in the woods. What if some maniac comes by. I'll just feel safer having it, that's all."

  He judged that it wasn't worth making an issue over, and they took it with them when they moved. It now lay, unloaded, the bullets in a small box next to it, in a drawer of Eleanor's night table, "a most unbuddhist object," as he referred to it.

  Larry now sprinkled Witch Hazel on his scalp and washed out the bristle brush he'd used for lather. For a few moments he got lost in the scoured texture and whiteness of the sink and began to examine it minutely, the almost invisible network of cracks, the subtle shifts in curvature.

  "This is all there is," he said to himself. "All the visions and fantasies, the other realms and universes, are all irrelevant. Only this is real, this moment, this perception. A bathroom sink is as much a source of wonder as all the heavens ever created." He stood for a while, his shaved head gleaming in the mirror, his brown gym pants sagging, his breathing sinking deep into his belly. Then he straightened up, cracked his knuckles and turned to leave the room.

  But as he moved, his eyes picked up something that stopped him mid-stride. In the corner of the bathroom Eleanor had placed a laundry basket which was now, as usual, piled with rumpled clothing and sheets and towels. On top of the heap was a pair of Eleanor's panties. There was nothing odd about that, except that they were torn down one side, from the elastic strip around the waist halfway down to the bottom seam. Larry walked over and picked them up. He held them in his hands for a few seconds, a frown on his forehead, and examined them with the same purposeless precision with which he'd just looked at the sink.

  Then, suddenly, harshly, a searing image burned through his brain. It had the hyper real clarity of a snapshot taken with a flashbulb. He saw Eleanor's hips and belly and a man's hand grabbing the top of the panties. A second later, as though someone in his mind were showing a movie one frame at a time, he saw the hand tightened into a fist. And then movement, the hand yanking downward, the panties catching and, finally, tearing.

  He blinked several times to erase the images and found himself staring at the actual garment with crossed eyes. He turned it inside out. The crotch was caked with dried secretions. He brought it to his nose to smell it. It was acid, with a hint of fruitiness. He sniffed again. Was that the faint aroma of sperm? He could not be sure. But how could that be possible? He and Eleanor had not made love for a month.

  Larry felt something he hadn't experienced for years—the sharp clutch of jealousy twisting his stomach. In all the years they'd been together, he'd never doubted Eleanor's fidelity in the slightest. When they got married they decided to be sexually exclusive no matter what else happened. With her long hours at rehearsals and his days spent among hundreds of attractive women in his store, leaving back doors open would have been nerve-wracking for both of them. Especially since they were both exceptionally attractive people. Larry was a shade over six feet and before shaving his head had worn fine auburn hair to his shoulders. His body was slim, supple, and his blue eyes inevitably brought comparisons to Paul Newman. Eleanor was almost as tall, with skin that reminded one of pearls. With raven black hair, green eyes, a wide, thin mouth and large lustrous breasts, she continually commanded stares on the streets.

  Now Larry swayed slightly, throwing a peculiar shadow on the bathroom wall. His knees trembled. And then, abruptly, he stiffened and smiled.

  "Of course," he said out loud, "Makyo."

  Makyo was the term in zen given to those projections and hallucinations to which people become prone when they sit for long periods. Sitting develops an enormous reservoir of energy and when that energy gathers sufficient force it floods the body and mind. The result is a magnification and intensification of any distortions imbedded in the muscular memory or in the conditioned circuits of the brain. The point of sitting is to develop an imperturbable balance and ease in the face of whatever grotesque, violent or pathological images and feelings arise. In a zendo, people often weep and scream and laugh, making the place seem more like a hall for primal therapy than for meditation.

  "This is extraordinary," Larry thought. "Just because Eleanor tore her panties I was about to develop a whole melodrama in my head."

  He closed his eyes for a moment to center himself, but the instant he did that the images began appearing again. The fist pulled the panties all the way down Eleanor's legs. Then it opened, and its fingers moved insolently over her thighs, stroked the thick patch of pubic hair, and started to slide slowly into the slippery chute between the moist, parted lips.

  "Larry. Larry!"

  The sound of his name being called out loud sent a shudder down his spine. He opened his eyes wide, straightened his back, and made a tremendous effort to pull himself back into his habitual focus.

  "I'm coming," he said, his voice cracking slightly.

  He put the panties back on the pile of clothes. After a second's hesitation he picked up some of the other items and threw them on top. He stared down for a moment, and then pulled the panties out and left them as they had originally been. His actions embarrassed him and once again he had to make an effort to shake free of his suddenly troubled perceptions.

  "I'm coming," he repeated as he walked out of the sun-strafed bathroom.

  2

  Eleanor had already started water boiling. As Larry entered the kitchen she was standing at the stove, dressed in the jeans and t-shirt that had almost become a uniform since they moved to the country. As always, she wore no bra, something which Larry hadn't cared about one way or the other since his interest in eroticism had faded. But
this morning he was struck by the intense sexuality of her simple presence, the long full legs straining against the thin blue cloth, her breasts shifting provocatively under the flimsy shirt, nipples accurately outlined. He mumbled a "good morning" and sat down at the kitchen table.

  "I'm going in early today," Eleanor said as she poured water into the teapot in front of him. Eleanor drank coffee, and the aroma rising from the burbling percolator by the sink filled the room. After tea he would have yoghurt and fruit while Eleanor would eat nothing until lunch.

  "Alec wants to do an all-day session," she went on.

  Larry said nothing. He was still caught up in the fact that his feelings had almost gone out of control. His whole practice was geared to a single goal—attaining a still mind. And yet here he was, almost sullenly hunched over his morning tea, fearful of being dragged away by the wild horses of his imagination.

  "Why don't you just ask her about the damn thing?" he said to himself. And instantly, he answered himself. "Because the panties are not the point. The issue is maintaining equilibrium."

  "Voices and voices within," he thought. "Voices that ask and voices that answer, and thoughts that wear jackboots and throw other thoughts into conceptual concentration camps. And what about the master voice that observes the whole process and the sly awareness that observes even that voice? What about the idea that all ideas are incidental to understanding reality? And what makes me think that zen is anything more than one more relative viewpoint claiming to be absolute, except that a long line of masters have stated unequivocally that there is an absolute truth and that it can be known with as much certainty as knowing the difference between hot and cold water."

  "Your tea is getting cold," Eleanor said, pouring her coffee and sitting down across from him.

  Larry lifted his head. "Oh? Sorry."