Silence met this statement. Clara scrambled for something to replace the repulsive image that had sprung to her mind and was grateful when Gabri picked up a book from the stack under the coffee table and waved it around.
‘Speaking of crap, isn’t this CC’s book? Em must have bought it at your launch, Ruth.’
‘She probably sold as many as I did. You’re all traitors,’ said Ruth.
‘Listen to this.’ Gabri opened Be Calm, Clara noticed that Mother shifted in her seat as though to get up but Kaye laid a claw on her arm, stopping her there.
‘Therefore,’ Gabri was reading, ‘it stands to reason that colors, like emotions, are harmful. It’s not a coincidence that negative emotions are given colors, red for rage, green for envy, blue for depression. But, if you put all the colors together, what do you get? White. White is the color of divinity, of balance. The goal is balance. And the only way to achieve it is to keep the emotions inside, preferably beneath a layer of white. This is Li Bien, an ancient and venerable teaching. In this book you’ll learn how to hide your true feelings, to keep them safe from an unkind and judgmental world. Li Bien is the ancient Chinese art of painting from the inside. Keeping the colors, the emotions, in. That is the only way to achieve peace, harmony, and calm. If we all kept our emotions to ourselves there would be no strife, no harm, no violence, no war. In this book I am offering you, and this world, peace.’ Gabri snapped the book shut. ‘She didn’t exactly have Li Bien coming out the yin-yang tonight.’
Peter laughed with the others but was careful not to catch anyone’s eye. Privately, beneath his layer of white skin, Peter agreed with CC. Emotions were dangerous. Emotions were best hidden away beneath a calm and peaceful veneer.
‘But this doesn’t make sense,’ Clara said, flipping through the book and puzzling over a particular passage.
‘And that other stuff did?’ asked Myrna.
‘Well, no, but here she says she got her philosophy of life in India. But didn’t she just say Li Bien was Chinese?’
‘You’re actually looking for sense in there?’ Myrna asked. Clara had buried her face back in the book and slowly her shoulders started heaving, then her back, and finally she raised her face to the circle of concerned friends.
‘What is it?’ Myrna reached out to Clara, who was crying.
‘The names of her gurus,’ said Clara between sobs. Myrna was no longer sure whether she was crying or laughing.
‘Krishnamurti Das, Ravi Shankar Das, Gandhi Das. Ramen Das. Khalil Das. Gibran Das. They even call her CC Das.’ By now Clara was roaring with laughter as were most of the others.