‘I usually take questions at the end of the reading,’ said Mazu coolly. ‘Were you going to ask what the “bubble world” is?’
‘Yeah,’ said Amandeep.
‘That’s about to be explained,’ said Mazu, with a tight, cold smile. Looking back at her book, she continued reading.
‘“We sometimes call the materialist world the ‘bubble world’ because its inhabitants live inside a consumer-driven, status-obsessed and ego-saturated bubble. Possession is key to the bubble world: possession of things and possessiveness of other human beings, who are reduced to flesh objects. Those who can see beyond the gaudy, multicoloured walls of the bubble are deemed strange, deluded – even mad. Yet the bubble world’s walls are fragile. It takes just one glimpse of Truth for them to burst, and so it was with Margaret Cathcart-Bryce.
‘“She was a rich woman, vain and selfish. She had doctors operate upon her body, the better to ape the youth so venerated within the bubble world, which lives in terror of death and decay. She had no children by choice, for fear that it would spoil her perfect figure, and she amassed great wealth without giving away a penny, content to live a life of material ease that other bubble-dwellers envied for its trappings.”’
Robin was carefully folding the hollow straws under Lin’s silent direction. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the pregnant Wan massaging one side of her swollen belly.
‘“Margaret’s sickness was one of false self,”’ read Mazu. ‘“This is the self that craves external validation. Her spiritual self had been untended and neglected for a very long time. Her awakening came after her husband’s death by what the world calls chance, but which the Universal Humanitarian Church recognises as part of the eternal design.
‘“Margaret came to hear one of my talks. She told me, later, that she’d attended because she had nothing better to do. Of course, I was well aware that people often attended my meetings purely to have something new to talk about at fashionable dinner parties. Yet I’ve never scorned the company of the rich. That in itself is a form of prejudice. All judgement based on a person’s wealth is bubble thinking.
‘“So I spoke at the dinner and the attendees nodded and smiled. I didn’t doubt that some would write me cheques to support our charitable work at the end of the evening. It would cost them little and perhaps give them a sense of their own goodness.
‘“But when I saw Margaret’s eyes fixed upon me, I knew that she was what I sometimes call a sleepwalker: one who has great unawakened spiritual capacity. I hurried through my talk, eager to speak to this woman. I approached her at the conclusion of our talk and with a few short sentences, I’d fallen as deeply in love as I’d ever done in my life.”’
Robin wasn’t the only person who glanced up at Mazu at these words.
‘“Some will be shocked to hear me talk of love. Margaret was seventy-two years old, but when two sympathetic spirits meet, so-called physical reality dissolves into irrelevance. I loved Margaret instantly, because her true self called to me from behind the masklike face, pleading for liberation. I had already undertaken sufficient spiritual training to see with a clarity physical eyes cannot. Beauty that is of the flesh will always wither, whereas beauty of the spirit is eternal and unchange—”’
The door of the workshop opened. Mazu looked up. Jiang Wace entered, squat and sullen in his orange tracksuit. At the sight of Mazu, his right eye began to flicker and he hastily covered it.
‘Doctor Zhou wants to see Rowena Ellis,’ he muttered.
‘That’s me,’ said Robin, holding up her hand.
‘All right,’ said Mazu, ‘go with Jiang, Rowena. I thank you for your service.’
‘And I for yours,’ said Robin, putting her hands together and bowing her head towards Mazu, which earned her another cold, tight smile.
‘You catch on quick,’ said Jiang, as he and Robin walked back past the chicken coop.
‘What d’you mean?’ asked Robin.
‘Knowing the right responses,’ said Jiang, again rubbing the eye with the tic, and Robin thought she detected a hint of resentment. ‘Already.’
To their left lay the open fields. Marion Huxley and Penny Brown were staggering over the deeply rutted earth, leading the Shire horses in their endless ploughing, a pointless exercise, given that the field was already ploughed.
‘Metal Group,’ said Jiang with a snigger. Confirmed in her impression that this morning’s group reconfiguration had been a ranking exercise, Robin merely asked,
‘Why does Dr Zhou want to see me?’
‘Medical,’ said Jiang. ‘Check you’re ready to fast.’
They passed the laundry and dining hall, and then the older barns, one of which had a cobwebbed padlock on the door.
‘What do you keep in there?’ Robin asked.
‘Junk,’ said Jiang. Then, making Robin jump, he bellowed,
‘Oi!’
