She lit up. “That’ll work! It will help to frame my story as a toast!”

  TJ nodded, caught the attention of his cohorts, waved his spoon like a symphony conductor his baton, and his orchestra began tinking their half dozen wineglasses. The crowd of perhaps sixty grew surprisingly quiet.

  Othello stood, tall and imposing. “This night,” he declaimed in his operatic bass, “is the last of Risa McKeig’s bartending career, and TJ has invited her to share some parting words. Let us show our gratitude for her graciousness and God knows how many perfectly poured drinks by giving her ten minutes of our attention.”

  The applause and cheering surprised her. The crowd, for the moment, was truly hers. She wasted no time: “I’m going to propose a toast that needs an introduction. Fifty years ago today, January 30th, 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated in Delhi, India.”

  Raising his glass high, Will Battle called out, “How fun! Cheers, everybody!”

  Othello waited out the laughter, then said, “Will, my friend. If that’s your idea of giving Risa your attention I’ll call you a cab. A better option: Keep still till she’s finished and your next two drinks are on me.”

  Will pinched his lips shut with the fingers of both hands, creating a sort of duck bill that got more laughs.

  Inner solitude, Risa thought, then forged on: “Today is also the four-month anniversary of my father’s death. He was a great teller of tales. Two days before he died he told me a true and uncanny story I’d like to share as my parting gift to this wonderful bar and all of you. The story of Gandhi’s last moment alive.”

  “Go Risa!” shouted a man in the back, but his encouragement sounded terribly forced.

  Inner solitude. “As the nonviolent hero of India achieving independence,” Risa said, “Gandhi was the most beloved man in India, if not the world, at the time. But as the British government packed up to leave, India’s outnumbered Muslim populace grew so afraid of an all-Hindu government that their leaders chose to split India in two. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims set out for what is now Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands of Pakistani Hindus set out for India. The double migration became a bloodbath. Riots broke out all over the country. When Calcutta was set ablaze, Gandhi moved to a house in the Muslim quarter and protested the violence by fasting to the verge of death. The riots raged on even so.”

  “Oh, excellent barkeep!” Theo Bollingsworth called out. “I celebrate every drink you’ve so charmingly poured us. But why must you pour us this?”

  “Gandhi kept a lifelong spiritual secret, Theo,” she said. “‘If that secret is not on my lips at the moment of my death, you should consider me a fraud,’ he told his close ones. Today is the fiftieth anniversary of a death that proved an emaciated, outrageously courageous mortal to be the extreme opposite of a fraud. If the act I describe disappoints you, Theo, feel free to rip into me in your next Dyspeptic’s Guide.”

  Though Theo made a show of pulling a pen and notebook out of his old tweed jacket, Risa had invited her father’s wasted “face of love” into her inner solitude. Her voice grew charged: “Gandhi kept preaching Hindu-Muslim unity, risking his life on both sides. He urged Hindus to bring Muslims to their temples to read from the Qur’an. He vowed to live with Muslims in Pakistan till the violence stopped. He went to the capital to make his case known to the world, and did—which should bring me to the heart of this story. But here in the West, that heart has been cut out. We know that a fundamentalist, Nathuram Godse, intercepted Gandhi on his way to public prayer and murdered him. And that is all we know. We’ve stripped his death of its incredible power. And I’m standing here because my dying father told me, ‘Americans need this story,’ and I promised him I would tell it.”

  “These are the voyages of the Starship Risa,” one of the philanderers intoned, “going where no barkeep has gone before!”

  Bollingsworth gazed skyward and groaned, “Beam me up, Scotty!” People cackled.

  Feeling the crowd slipping away, Risa surprised them by returning fire at Theo. “In Richard Attenborough’s movie Gandhi, Ben Kingsley’s portrayal of the Mahatma won an Oscar. A few armchair critics, our own Theo Bollingsworth among them, called it a travesty to cast the British-born Kingsley as India’s hero. This is unfair to the point of slander. Kingsley was born Krishna Pandit Bhanji, he’s half Gujarati, and it’s hard to imagine a more qualified actor giving a better performance. Who would damn a great performance of Hamlet because the Danes who played Claudius, Gertrude, and Hamlet weren’t from Denmark?”

  “Theo Bollingsworth!” one of his non-fans bellowed, and the laughter was raucous.

  But Risa’s reaction to the laughter was inspired: grabbing a highball glass, she poured an extremely generous Johnnie Walker Black on ice and said, “Will someone please deliver this to my friend Theo as my apology for singling him out?”

  Othello, amid uproarious glee, delivered the scotch with aplomb. Bollingsworth then had the grace to raise his glass to Risa and, with an expression some in his vicinity believe was an actual, cynicism-crippled attempt at a smile, gave her a little bow.

  Risa had the crowd back. “We’ve reached the deleted heart of the story,” she said. “In the evening light of Delhi, Gandhi set out walking to a public prayer, so weak from fasting that he was supported by two young women. Godse stepped into his path, smiled a smile of hatred, raised a pistol, and shot him three times. The first two bullets ripped into Gandhi’s chest. One bullet tore an exit wound out his back. His heart would get eight or ten more beats, his gushing lungs two or three failing breaths. Given the reverence so many Westerners feel for him, one would think Gandhi’s choice of words would interest us. He spoke only two, and what he said is well known in India. We also know he spoke eloquent English, and his dying words were not in English—a choice made with all the force of his life and faith behind it. Yet the West still insists on translating his two words into English!”

  Risa’s attention to detail lost some of her audience. When people began conversing amongst themselves, the quietest, most damaged-looking man in the room drained his shot glass, took his feet, and began loudly banging the glass on the bar. Reading Jervis’s intent, Othello bellowed, “SILENCE!” A startled silence fell. In his gentlest voice, Othello said, “Please give Risa three minutes to tell us what gave Gandhi’s two words their power. She offers this as a gift. Accepting it is so little to ask.”

  Attention returned.

  Risa said, “In India, Lord Rama and Lord Krishna are divine incarnations equal to what Jesus is to many in the West. The loving repetition of Ram’s name is a cherished act of devotion. Here’s the father of Indian poets, Valmiki: ‘Dear Rama, Lord of the Worlds! Nothing You do ever fails! Nothing is forever except Yourself! One glance from You and people again sing the ancient songs!’ Here’s the famed poet Kabir: ‘One Ram speaks through each individual mind. One Ram spreads throughout the whole Creation…Without Ram’s name, the worlds into dying worlds disappear.’ Having long since given himself to this secret practice, Gandhi, with his very last breath, spoke these two words and no others.” With more emotion than the crowd had ever seen from her, Risa gasped: “Hai Ram!”

  Most looked confused or uncomfortable. A few looked stunned.

  “Hearing him speak,” she continued, “Godse shot him a third time. Too late! Gandhi’s one Ram spread throughout Creation. He died into the arms of He who sets people singing the ancient songs. And hell yes my father’s dying made this story powerful to me in ways I can’t give you. But how dare we cram this miracle of courage into our silly little Western comfort zones! With no Ram tradition to aid them, English-speaking journalists, filmmakers, newscasters, biographers, have erased Gandhi’s taking of his beloved’s name by claiming he said, ‘Oh God!’ As Jervis likes to say, ‘The fuck! Oh God! is the title of a terminally cute Carl Reiner movie starring George Burns as God!’” (Othello later told TJ that Theo Bollingsworth literally writhed with dyspeptic delight at this line.) In a voice blending heartbreak and fury, Risa said, “The Attenborough crime my father couldn’t forgive? Trapping Kingsley’s Gandhi in a script that made him take the bullets, then groan in a voice falling off in despair,

  Ohhh-

  Gaa-

  aaa-

  aawd!

  “The difference between that sound and Gandhi’s ‘Hai Ram!’ is the difference between abject shock and diamond focus! Between a reflexive death-groan and an invincible love! Between a man shocked by his murder and a man hurling himself into his Lord’s arms! ‘How much more difference can there be?’ my father asked as his life too was giving out. ‘If you ever get even an awkward chance to tell this to a few of our countrymen,’ he gasped, ‘please, tell it true!’”

  At the moment many in the crowd felt Risa was about to break down, she astonished them by upending a Maker’s Mark bottle over a shot glass, righting it in an instant, and raising the quarter-shot she’d poured: “My parting toast to Valmiki, Kabir, Gandhi, and my father? May we never again imagine a despairing ‘Oh Gawd!’ Gandhi never spoke! Let’s raise a fiftieth anniversary glass to a last-breath ‘Hai Ram!’ that left three bullets nothing to enter but the imperishable name of a hero’s secret love and Lord!”

  Glasses were raised and drained, Othello let out a “HEAR, HEAR!” Jervis appeared to be attempting a dance step, TJ looked downright soul-shocked, and a few listeners were clearly moved. But most of the crowd looked nothing but relieved that Risa was done. Within seconds the philanderers were back to philandering, the sports nuts were parsing sports, and the gossips, casting glances at Risa, were whispering, “Pregnant, is what I hear. And no man in the picture. Big white shirt to hide the evidence. And did you see her down that whiskey? Her poor baby!”

  Then, from an alcove at the far end of the bar, there came a sound like a clipper ship’s sail being ripped in half by a mid-Atlantic gale. The entire crowd spun toward it. What the hell!?

  A man sitting alone, his back to everyone, gave himself away as his shoulders quaked, lungs heaved, and the storm within him shredded a second sail. Turning from the man, to Risa, back to the man, Will Battle declared, “They’re both bonkers!” But Jervis and TJ knew whose heart had been stormed, and smiled to see Risa abandon her pouring station and head straight for the wild sounds.

  Their source wasn’t hard to locate. Everyone near a tall man with a dark brown ponytail gawked briefly, then turned away from his awful failures to contain himself. “It’s that play actor!” a woman said. “I saw him in…oh, what was it? The Secret of Roan Inish?”

  “Well, Darby O’Gill’s losin’ his shit over somethin’!” Will Battle blored.

  “Risa’s Hindu blarney?” an incredulous hoop nut asked. “How? Why?”

  The man put his face in his hands and ripped a third sail.

  “Talk sports!” Will told his huddle. “It always bucks a fella up to hear the guys talkin’ sports.” Will cranked his volume: “How ’bout that Rasheed Wallace!? Looks like the Blazers finally got it goin’ on!”

  “Will!” Othello cut in, handing him a fresh whiskey. “We have a deal. Let them be.”

  THOUGH HE WAS facing away from her, Risa had recognized Jamey immediately. How could she forget a man who, not half a year ago, showed her a border collie hidden in a bass case he promised would be wearing “the face of love,” and Romeo had been? Could this same man be as moved by Gandhi’s kept promise to a secret love as she? Feeling so uncertain she trembled, she reached out and touched his shoulder.

  Jamey spun, stricken and tear-streaked, but smiled at once at the sight of her. Direct as an avalanche, as Lou Roy once described her, Risa said, “If all this emotion has anything to do with Gandhi taking Ram’s Name, you and I need to talk!”

  With a wild-eyed look of joy, Jamey said, “Oh, we do, Risa! We do.”

  When she took the chair across from him, she couldn’t help but see a crowd lining up at her pouring station, many of them looking her way. “Damn. Sorry, Jamey. I need ten minutes to pour the last calls. But don’t you dare leave! Promise?”

  He nodded, but just as Risa stood, TJ slid into her work station and caught her eye. I’ve got this! he mouthed, waving the back of his hand as if to shoo her and Jamey away.

  Risa blew him a kiss, sat back down, and said, “This should be good! TJ wants to cover for me. Sweet of him. But he’s famous for ridiculously heavy pours, so a crowd will swarm him. And he’s just as famous for getting drink recipes all screwed up.”

  Ten or more customers mobbed the station when TJ went into action, two of the first three he served were trying to return their drinks, and a laughing man holding a full martini glass was saying, “TJ! Fifty percent vermouth is a potion Godse would’ve served to Gandhi!”

  Jamey turned back to Risa. “Sorry to seem…obsessed, maybe. But your story slammed me so hard I’d like to touch on why.”

  “That’s why I’m here!” Risa said.

  “When you moaned that ‘Hai Ram!’” Jamey began, but paused as a tremor passed through him, “something impossible happened. Your two words brushed my unbelief away like a few crumbs off a table. Then, beautiful as you are, Risa, and much as I’ve hoped to see you again, you vanished into mere instrumentality as some kind of Presence flew me back to the day I first heard Gandhi’s name. My tenth birthday. And in an instant, that day and all thirty birthdays since were transformed! It overwhelmed me! I’d need quiet and time to tell the story and we’ve got neither. But may I show you one little relic to give you a faint idea of what you and the Presence just transformed?”

  When Risa nodded, Jamey fished out his wallet, unfolded it, slid a small card out of a leather slot, laid it in her palm—and she found herself staring at a rectangle of beige paper worn to the softness of cloth. Holding the table candle near, she recognized an ancient Multnomah County Library card. “Flip it over,” he said.

  She did, and read these words, block-printed in pencil by a ten-year-old’s hand:

  Jan 30, 1948, Gandhi shot dead

  Jan 30, 1958, Jamey VZ born

  Jan 30, 1963, Debbie VZ dies of leukemia

  Jan 30, 1968, Dead Debbie Dead Gandhi and

  Live Jamey meet in Woodstock Library

  “Good God!” Risa breathed. “These coincidences are brutal!”

  “So it has long seemed,” Jamey said. “Debbie was my mother, and her death on my fifth birthday took years to sink in. The deeper it sank, the more I hated any power or being that would unleash such hideous synchronicities. But now, Risa. Now…” He began trembling so hard he turned away for fear of ripping another sail. “I can’t speak of it yet. But my birthday-deathday story owes your Gandhi/Ram story a full telling. So please. Will you keep this little card as a promissory note until my debt is paid?”

  “But this is holy writ, Jamey! A Book of Job in haiku, written by a little boy!”

  Jamey shook his head in wonder. “That very description tells me, who better than you to safeguard the holy? Please, Risa. Keep it for me!”

  Slipping the card into her big white banker shirt pocket, she stroked the pocket as if soothing a living creature.

  A long pause followed in which they just sat smiling at each other, unsure where to go after such momentous contact. “I’ve never seen you here,” Risa ventured. “What brought you to Étouffée on this night of all nights?”

  Jamey brightened. “A new friend suggested I come. A man I met on a sidewalk when he suddenly veered in front of me, then stopped so fast I nearly flattened him. He’d veered on purpose, he said, because an invisible Ocean ‘strobed’ him to cause our collision.”

  “Jervis!” Risa cried.

  Jamey smiled. “What a wonderfully improbable man. When it came out that he knew you, I didn’t hide my admiration. And though he’d only just met me, he had instant advice for me. But not his own. This was Ocean’s advice, he whispered. Lunacy, I might have thought if the lunatic and Romeo hadn’t fallen instantly in love!”

  “Those two had nowhere to fall,” Risa said. “Pure love already fills both of them. But may I ask what advice Ocean and Jervis had for you?”

  “The strobe conveyed that my interest in you was fine, but my timing wasn’t. I had work to do first, related to my mother. ‘Heartwork,’ Jervis called it. Ocean then assigned me a walking prayer to recite on the streets in my mother’s honor. As the child victim of a berserker God, as you know from my Job haiku, I told Jervis no thanks on the prayer. His papery little voice then launched a soliloquy that obliterated me over the awful way I’ve treated my departed mother. But theatre prepares us for some things. Jervis’s words were so inarguably damning they were beautiful to me! I began reciting the Ocean-assigned prayer, and four months later hardly recognize myself. This morning, for instance, when my old birthday-deathday rage would have devoured me, I simply thought, What would I most enjoy doing on my fortieth? And since Jervis had told me tonight was your last at Étouffée, I thought I’d—”

  “I’m so dense!” Risa interrupted. “Your library card just told me but it didn’t register. Happy fortieth, Jamey!”

  He glanced at the 12:15 on his watch. “Thanks to you and Gandhi it was happy. But what an unhappiness looms now. Jervis tells me you’re moving to Montana, and that it’s a great move for you. I have no right to feel crushed by this, Risa, but I am. My connections, work, friends, old dad, old dog, all tie me to Portland, so the best I can offer is a very fond farewell. You’re truly remarkable, Risa. You possess a…what to call it?…forthrightness of soul like no one I ever met. From the bottom of a heart you’ve overwhelmed twice in two meetings, thank you for both overwhelms! I wish you every joy in Montana!”

  With that, Jamey stood, picked up his coat, and shocked Risa by extending his hand to shake hers and leave! Ignoring the hand, completely refusing to facilitate departure, she said, “Listen, Jamey! Before you exile me to Montana before I’m ready to leave, I need to tell you some things that are spectacularly awkward.”