The Philosopher's Apprentice by James Morrow Page B

angry red welt was blooming beneath the nail.
    â€œChrist, Londa, I think it’s infected !”
    â€œIt hurts like hell.” She sounded pleased. “Later today I’m going to sit in the conservatory and push a sewing needle through my tongue and open my heart to the divine matrix.”
    I clasped Londa’s shoulders and shook her, rhythmically, emphatically, as if I might dislodge her fantasies as I would a quarter stolen by a vending machine. “You will not push a needle through your tongue! Not today or any other day! You have to promise me that!”
    â€œThis is really important to you, isn’t it, Mason?”
    â€œ Promise me.”
    â€œAll right, if that’s what you want, I promise.” She approached the world-eating iguana and gently stroked his tail feathers. “But I don’t see how I’m supposed to get cured if I can’t take my lessons seriously.”
    Â 
    WE PASSED THE REST OF THE MORNING in a heated and unhappy conversation, during which I tried convincing Londa that a person could comprehend a moral principle without becoming obligated to act on it. After a two-hour debate, she finally conceded that self-mutilation was not essential to the pursuit of ethics, buther words sprang more from acquiescence than assent. Before our next meeting, I told her, she must reread chapter four, searching for the nuances she’d missed the first time around, the better to benefit from our upcoming Stoicism role-playing exercise.
    I did not so much leave Faustino that afternoon as flee it, seeking the buoyant company of Donya and the Edenic serenity of her tree house. Jogging frantically along the beach, I vowed to begin Friday’s lesson by inspecting Londa’s tongue and every other part of her that lent itself to scrutiny. If I saw the slightest evidence of violence, I would probably conclude that I was out of my depth, return to Boston, and send Edwina an e-mail advising her to replace me with some fuck-the-Enlightenment Lyotard disciple from Vassar.
    By the time I reached the concrete wall, a storm had broken over Blood Island, not quite a Gulf hurricane but still fearsome, with lashing winds and sheets of rain, and I was not surprised, after scaling the rampart and surveying the banyan tree, to find Donya’s little elevated cottage empty. I proceeded to the villa. The doorknocker was a brass quoit fixed in the jaws of the same Aztec god who decorated the portal to Faustino. I banged the ring forcefully, thereby setting Donya’s Doberman to barking.
    â€œOmar, be quiet!” came a man’s voice, chirping through the loudspeaker above my head.
    â€œIt’s Mason Ambrose. I’m a friend of Donya’s.”
    â€œYour reputation precedes you.”
    Omar kept on barking. The door swung back to reveal the frantic dog, bouncing up and down, bellowing madly, not far from canine hysterics. Holding Omar’s collar was a portly middle-aged man who introduced himself as Henry Cushing. His beard was white, his brow sunburned, his manner genial: a Santa Claus for adults, I mused, bringing tax refunds and nonaddictive hallucinogens to good grown-ups everywhere. Whatever explanation this fellow might offer for Edwina’s schizoid approach to parenthood, I would take it at face value.
    At last recognizing my scent, Omar grew calm.
    â€œWhen I saw Donya escorting you to the tree house, my impulse was to run over and check you out,” Henry said. “But she and Omar had obviously found you acceptable”—he released the dog’s collar—“and they’re both excellent judges of character, so I decided not to intrude.”
    â€œShe charmed me off my feet.” I staggered into the foyer, carrying with me a condensed edition of the outside storm, the rain spouting from the sleeves of my anorak to form puddles on the stone floor.
    â€œPreschool children,” Henry said, “they’re one of the better