long as you like. I'll just wait here in the car. I'm not the nature
type."
That was certainly the case.
I walked across the cobblestones to an arched entryway that had no
door. I wondered at this--most convents are like a fortress--and then I
realized the front door had been removed, leaving only its ancient
hinges still bolted into the stones. Perhaps it was intended to be a
symbol of openness, inviting you in.
There was no sign of anybody--the saccharine-voiced Ramala was not on
hand to greet me--so I just headed on down a wide hallway, past a table
of brochures. The place had been decorated with expensive good taste:
tapestries all over the stone walls, perfect Persian rugs, classic
church statuary--all of it calling forth powerful feelings from deep in
the psyche.
Then I entered a vast interior courtyard, where a central fountain
splashed cheerily in the midday light. The courtyard was circled with a
picturesque gallery of cells, all with massive wooden doors, most
likely rooms once inhabited by chaste sisters.
The place did seem to be a clinic-commune now, just as Paula had said.
Not nuns this time around, but rather New Age acolytes whose tastes ran
more to secular music than to religious chants, as witness the
cacophony of sounds that wafted out from several of the cells. Only it
wasn't any kind of conventional music; it seemed a mixture of Japanese
flute, North Indian ragas, African drumming. I liked the ragas, even
recognized my favorite, "Bhairavi."
Then I spotted something that riveted my attention. At the back of the
courtyard, just past a final wooden door, stood a huge South Indian
bronze statue, about five feet high, of the Dancing Shiva. It appeared
to be presiding over the arch way that led out into a dense natural
garden behind the building.
I walked across the cobblestones to examine and admire it. It seemed an
odd item to find here in the courtyard of a once-cloistered convent. I
was so enthralled I failed to hear the door behind me open.
"Do you find my Shiva interesting, Ms. James?" said a soothing voice,
just barely audible above the chirps of birds. I think I caught a
breath in my phlegm-locked chest, but then I turned to see a tall man
dressed in casual chinos and a dark sweater. He was trim, looked to be
in his early sixties, with a mane of salt-and-pepper hair and lean
features more craggy than handsome. But his eyes were everything,
telling you he owned the space around him, owned in fact, the air he
breathed. It had to be Alex Goddard.
"Yes," I answered almost before I thought. "It just seems to be a
little out of place here."
I wondered if he was going to introduce himself. Then I realized that
when you're used to being the master of a private domain, you probably
never think to bother with such trivial formalities. Everybody knows
who you are.
"Well," he said, his voice disarmingly benign, "I suppose I must beg to
differ. May I suggest you consider this Shiva for a moment and try to
imagine he's a real god?"
"He is a real god" I said immediately feeling patronized. Nothing makes
me angry faster. "In India, he's--"
"Yes," he said "I know you did a film about India--which I found quite
extraordinary, by the way--but why wouldn't the Shiva fit right in
here? You see, he's a very modern, universal figure. He incorporates
everything that exists in the contemporary world. Space, time, matter,
and energy. As well as all of human psychology and wisdom."
"I'm aware of that," I said sensing my pique increase. We were not
getting off to a great start.
"Yes, well." He seemed not to hear me. Instead he started putting on
the leather jacket he'd had slung over his shoulder. "Notice that Shiva
has four arms, and he's dancing with one foot raised. He's also
standing inside that great circle of flame, a sort of halo encompassing
his whole body. That circle stands for the great, all-embracing
material universe, all of it. Dark and light, good and evil. He knows
and controls everything."
Hey, I realized, this guy's got some kind of identity thing going with
this ancient Indian god.