Read A Single Eye for Free Online

consciousness. But it didn’t translate well to this country.”
    Leo hesitated, tapping his teeth softly, as if weighing whether to give me the full explanation. He inhaled shallowly, and before he spoke, I knew I’d be getting no more.
    â€œSo when this piece of land was given for a monastery, and when people realized how far out into nowhere it was, they were only too glad to exile the roshi here. Other than burning down the forest there wasn’t much damage he could do.”
    Zen in American isn’t organized like the major Christian sects; no one could force him to go anywhere. But I could imagine the abbots of his lineage making an argument he couldn’t sensibly refuse.
    â€œAnd that all happened before the student disappeared, right?”
    He slowed the truck and turned toward me, his shaggy eyebrows scrunched in surprise, or maybe distress.
    â€œDarcy, I don’t . . .”
    I felt terrible. This sweet man! But I had to know. I looked pointedly at Leo and waited.
    â€œOkay. Thumbnail. The student, Aeneas, was here almost from the beginning. He was meticulous in his work; he was a mimic with perfect pitch, memorized all the chants in Japanese, and could sit zazen without moving for longer than I have seen anyone sit. Abbots and teachers from Japan came for the opening ceremonies. When they left Aeneas was gone. We assumed he went with them. Recently we learned he didn’t. No one has heard from him.”
    â€œWhat do you think happened? Is he dead?”
    Leo looked straight ahead, but he wasn’t concentrating on the road. “What I know is there’s been no word from him since the opening.”
    â€œSo he could still be here. His body, I mean, if—”
    He clutched my shoulder again. “Darcy, this is wild country. A man could stumble into a ravine and never be found. He could get a ride to the coast road and hitch to Canada. He could get in a fight with a friend and be dead.”
    I gasped.
    â€œI’m not saying that to shock you, or because I know the answer. The last time I saw Aeneas was the day of the opening and as far as I know no one has heard from him since.”
    The admission had deflated him. I wanted to reach over and touch his arm to comfort him. “It must have made being out here the next years all the harder.”
    He nodded.
    I took a breath and asked the question I needed answered, the one Yamana must already have asked. “And Garson-roshi, what did he do?”
    His smile faded, replaced by a tight mouth and sharply drawn cheeks. I had the feeling I had posed the kind of question a nice man couldn’t answer honestly. He seemed to be considering each word.
    â€œThe roshi did nothing. The roshi was too involved in his own regimen of Samurai sitting—zazen hour after hour, day after day, in a desperate attempt to deal with his personal disgrace and disappointment. He was under the illusion he was really practicing , aiming for a concentration that blocked out everything, when what he was really doing was isolating himself and shirking his responsibilities.” Leo started, as if he heard the disgust in his voice and was shocked by it, or more likely by the fact of having revealed so much to a newcomer. “So, to answer your question, Darcy, he chose to ignore any questions about the Japanese abbots taking Aeneas with them. But this was his monastery; he should never have put himself in a position where he could be uninvolved.”
    The bitterness of his condemnation shocked me. “Do you really despise him that much?”
    Leo winced. “No. There was a time, a long period of time, I would have said yes. But now, no. Everyone is doing the best he can. A lot of times that best doesn’t seem very good, but it’s their best under the circumstances. Look at you, for instance. Here you are, heading to a monastery you know nothing about, right? Run by a roshi you wish you knew nothing about, right?