VACANCY & ARIEL

An owl hooted twice, a hollow trill that seemed to cause a general stirring of the leaves, and the moon hovered in the crotch of a forked branch, like a misshapen silver stone held in the thong of a slingshot, aimed at my face.

“I doubt twice will do it for me,” I said.

I SHEPHERDED HENLEY to the highway, where we hitched a ride back to Durbin, and then I returned to the water oak, where I waited almost a week. The woman did not reappear and I realized Henley had been correct in his impression—she was gone and would not return to the area. I hired a sketch artist and worked with him until he produced an accurate likeness of the woman, and had the sketch made into posters and distributed them throughout the western part of the state, offering a reward for information regarding her whereabouts and listing a phone number in Green Bank, where I’d rented a house. I received a number of responses, none helpful, and I expanded my search area to include other parts of the state. I resigned my teaching position and moved full-time into a larger house, spending most of my time tracking down leads.

I could not have explained the grounds for my obsession, except to say that Rahul and I were fascinated by the possibility of the miraculous, committed to unearthing some spectacular truth from beneath the common soil of what appeared a masterless universe in which randomness and order were equally blended, holding one another in perfect yet accidental suspension. That fascination had been the glue of our friendship and I had abandoned it, while Rahul never strayed. Perhaps guilt relating to this abandonment spurred me on. That, at least, is what I would have told you. I understand now there was another reason underlying it, one I would have considered insane at the time; and I am certain that the nature of obsession itself was in play. We are all of us obsessed by things that magnify the facet of our capabilities we are least certain of and that allow us to fully inhabit a persona we wish to assume. I had fallen in love with the moment during which I scribbled down the idea that Rahul’s genius had fleshed out. Confronted with the Willowy Woman, the byproduct of that moment, I’d felt the same rush and I wanted it to continue. Searching for her was my only means of effecting this.

Obsession, however, offers no guarantees. For nearly five years I had no real news of her. I spent some of that time qualifying myself to be licensed as a private investigator—I presumed I was in for a long search and I believed that the training and perks attaching to the license might come in handy. I also managed to write a novel about the Willowy Woman, omitting all mention of Rahul’s project. I had no wish to incur the wrath of the NSC. The novel achieved a modest success, enough to demand a second book, and I was in the midst of researching it when I received a phone call from a devotee at the Hare Krishna center in Moundsvillle, West Virginia. The caller, one Ravinda, informed me that a woman who resembled the sketch on my posters had come to the temple fifteen months previously. She had been unable to read or write, barely able to speak, but had exhibited a remarkable ability to learn. Within a year she had acquired the skills necessary to enable her to leave. Ravinda had not had much conversation with her, but said he would be happy to introduce me to her mentor.

“How tall was she?” I asked.

“About average.” Ravinda paused. “She was very beautiful. Some of the women accused her of being wanton. Of course, they only accused her because Shivananda told them to.” He said this last in a conspiratorial tone, as if indulging in gossip.

“Wow,” I said. “Wanton, huh?”

“She angered many devotees…especially when she refused to accept her new name. She preferred her own.”

“What was it?”

“Guruja.”

“I mean the name she liked.”

“Ariel,” Ravinda said.

DRIVING FROM THE Mountain Dew Motel in Moundsville to meet Ravinda, my thoughts resonated with the similarity between the names: Ariel and Ahhh-ell. The Willowy Woman might be having trouble with her Rs, or perhaps Ahhh-ell was her universe’s equivalent of Ariel. If nothing else this ratified my belief that she had been telling me her name and I tried, as I had many times over the years, to understand why she had not treated me like she had Henley. The conclusion I previously had reached was that she mistook me for someone, but I could never buy this explanation. Looking as she did, where would she have met anyone who resembled me?