Chapter 6

Suddenly the sounds of an oboe played by Mimi and a viola played by Nina were heard, along with a clacking board like in Kabuki, played by Yoshi, a Japanese male friend of Carol's from Vancouver. Cameras controlled by Anita and Carl were taken in hand and Bella, a tall Jewish brunette, another friend of Justin's from San Francisco took hold of the portable tape machine and the carefully controlled boom mic. In the middle of the gathering, Jordan and Caleb sang a duet of love, stripping each other naked and touching, but they were bored, though beautifully bored.

"We need to talk," said Joseph to Natty as he petted his daughter.

"I know. Go ahead." She began the narration of the piece in a strong mellifluous voice.

"You can split your focus!" exclaimed Joseph quietly. "You're too sexy!"

"I know. I had to keep Karen and Linda between Andy and me a couple of times, though Karen loved what I was doing to her backside." She returned to the narration of the story.

"I can't help thinking how little we see each other, and how important Karen has become in your life and Devi's. I love you beyond words, Natalia. You and Devi are my soul."

"No you can't," said Natty.

"Can't what?"

Natty finished the narration and the gathering was guided to the large foyer. Natty remained behind.

"Can't leave me."

"But your life is perfect without me. You are in love, you've got your theater group, and you're making good money getting grants. What can I do except be in the way."

"Follow me. SHE's in love now too."

"Really?'

"Guess." Standing at the edge of the gathering behind the action where four young women danced in front of the large tapestry as Justin and Caleb looked on bored, still singing their boredom, Natty narrated.

"Sarah," said Joseph, amused by her subtle well disguised shock. "They've always been in love, just had to stoke the flames."

"Of course," said Natty, running off into the dining room, where soon a thudding bass was heard from speakers, recorded music rattling the floors. The performers, startled, slowly and exquisitely danced their reticent approach, the audience following. Flinging the doors open, Natty stepped out of the way for the performers and audience to enter the dark, menacing space. On the table was a large egg cracking open and Karen emerged, draped in brown gauze but otherwise naked. In the cramped space she danced beautifully, Natty narrating. Karen began singing, her voice rough and seductive, a long solo before Caleb, Jordan and the young women sang at her, slowly transforming their aggression into attraction.

"I need to be something beyond what I've been and less than I've been" said Joseph.

"What are you saying?"

"I want to be something, do something not in my head but practical."

"Did your coma give you any ideas?"

"Just memory images, watching my friends being creative, always watching and never contributing, except as some sort of freak of nature."

"Are you crazy? What about all this?" She began narrating again, then was the guide back through the gathering room into the outdoor garden where the three musicians were separated, playing as if they were talking to each other from a long distance, sparse, waiting for one to finish, pausing and playing solo to the others.

"Yes, but I need to be trained, to be skilled, to learn a craft, to be independent. Even with my success with the Order, it's been raw material edited into clarity by Sarah and Carol"

When the performers entered from various sides of the garden, they performed a ritual of birth, bringing flowers from the earth, bringing insects from the flowers, coming together to copulate, a symbolic copulation between the four maidens and the two men to conceive life on earth.

Because no words were spoken, Natty tugged Joseph into the gathering room to not distract the audience, though she kept the outside door opened to watch the performance.

"But Andy is right. You need to be supported so you can think and expand your mind and create new exercises."

"No he's not. I don't want to live forever beholden to a rich benefactor or even loving friends. I want to be a man, like any man, and have skills, a profession. I can always expand my philosophy. I created it while going to school and working full time."

"So what is it you want to do?"

"That's the problem. I want to do too much. I want to be an electrician but be creative with it like Kevin. I want to be a healer, but not a prescriber of medicine or a cutter of flesh or massage therapist or a chiropractor, and at the same time all of them, but without the dogma or, in terms of becoming a doctor, the years of learning and training to do less than can be done to heal. I want to do research into the mind like Dr. Schneider, but not again spend years learning and writing papers and getting tenure to do it. I want it all, but I want it too fast, or if not too fast, I want it on my terms."

"I don't know. What I do know is I love you and need you for my soul to be whole. Even with seeing you less than half of this past year and having Karen and Devi to love and to be loved by, you are my soul, Joseph, you and Devi. I am incomplete without you. You can join me on the tour Sarah organized for my performance group with performances and workshops over the next few months, and you can travel and meet new initiates and spread the word while we're busy performing and teaching. And when it's done, we'll go back home, back to Minneapolis and study the possibilities, enroll you in a trade school so you can fix things and make things and in some kind of physical therapy classes at night and keep in contact with Raul, have him tell you what to study because I know you can do it on your own and he'll be there to answer questions. We can do it together, darling. We can make a man of you yet, but always together, okay?"