“That’s beside the point! He is a guru! And this Lor Lu introduced himself to me as a ‘holy man extraordinary’! Ye gods, Ben! And he knew you were in the basement . . .”
“Doing laundry. Right.”
“How could he have known that?”
He laughed. “Maybe it’s the kind of thing holy men know.”
“Dammit, Ben, it’s not funny!”
He nodded. “You’re right, it’s not. It’s about you making sixty-five hundred, and me another thirty-five hundred, which total ten thousand. A month. With the possibility of employment that could last us through the depression.”
“He wants us to move out west!”
“We have to move at the end of the month anyway. We’re being evicted, remember? Without enough money to move our stuff or store it. And you’ve already told me you couldn’t stand to move in with your folks. Especially with the girls.”
Lee cringed at the thought of Becca and Raquel exposed to the judgements and sarcasms of her parents. “But—there’s a mob of hippies there, probably smoking dope and screwing one another all over the place.”
“I’m sure we won’t have to join in.”
She glared.
“He didn’t invite them, he doesn’t cater to them. And their camp is miles from Millennium headquarters. The ranch is a big place.” He shifted the conversation. “You’ve read about Iiúoo, the Ladder. It was featured in the Sunday Times a few years ago. Among other places.”
She did remember, vaguely. Ladder was a program providing free counseling on Indian reservations, and supposedly had had impressive success. She’d never put much stock in psychological counseling, or in free anything.
“Then you know who started it,” he said.
“Ngunda Aran. Your goo-roo.” She exaggerated the syllables.
“He’s not my guru, sweetheart,” Ben answered gently. “I simply read his columns. He’s a licensed psychotherapist who had a highly successful clinical practice and did pro bono Life Healing in the Colorado penitentiary. Then he spent two summers on the Crow Reservation in Montana, dealing with alcoholism, drugs, and futility.”
Her husband, she thought, was sounding like a Millennium flack. “What’s that got to do with hippies flocking to him?” she asked.
“I suspect they’re like a lot of other people; they’ve lost faith in a system that screws over certain groups and then punishes them for not fitting in. But the hippies’ main interest isn’t therapy. They’re looking for a spiritual fix, and they like what he says in his columns and talks.”
For a minute she didn’t say anything. She was thinking of $10,000 a month. Finally she gazed thoughtfully at her husband. “Is that why you’re attracted to him? Because you’re looking for a spiritual fix?”
“I’m attracted to Ngunda because he’s been effective. And because to me he makes sense.” He paused. “Let me ask a question now. It’s my turn.”
She nodded.
“How much faith do you have in the system?”
She examined the question. “It’s never worked terribly well. Socioeconomic systems are composed of human beings, and we know what they’re like.”
“What are they like?”
“Let’s say we’re—imperfect. Irrational and perverse, not to mention greedy and dishonest.” She paused. “Not everyone, but enough. What was your original question again?”
“Have you lost faith in the system? Do you think it will get us out of the current depression? Heal the pessimism? Reverse the fifteen percent unemployment? Workers getting by on twenty-hour workweeks so executives and stockholders can make bigger profits by avoiding worker benefits? Professionals working twelve-hour days to keep their jobs, like you did? The anger and cynicism? The violence and vandalism? Mortar shells dropping on gated enclaves for the wealthy?”
Lee had wilted at his listing, especially the mortar attacks. “I’m—not sure,” she answered softly. “I really hope it can. Times have been bad before and the country’s come out of it.”
Ben thought of saying that people often survived a first major heart attack, sometimes a second, even a third. But if they kept having them . . . Instead he put an arm around her. “I hope it can too. But people will have to change in the process. More greed and more government won’t work.” He smiled, barely. “End of sermon.”
Lee’s sigh was gusty. “What’ll we tell—what’s his name again?”