The Man Who Came to Dinner

  
   Eyes wide shut: Alain Naudé at my family's table, circa 1979.

(The story starts here)

The Man Who Would be Guru, Part 2
The Man Who Came to Dinner
San Francisco, California 1972-1981

" I...took responsibility for my own role in enabling a social dynamic in which someone wearing a $15,000 Patek Phillipe watch felt free to lecture my dinner guests on the evils of materialism while I dashed into the basement between courses to put his underpants in the dryer."

 The stake Alain claimed in the post-'60s guru-biz boom did not yield much return. Auditorium-scale audiences never materialized, nor did the sort of flush and fervent fans who could underwrite publications, sponsor retreats, and enable full-time spiritual teacher status. He earned his keep giving piano lessons, as he had before his five-year stint as personal secretary to Jiddu Krishnamurti. One evening a week, a group of young people would arrive at his apartment on Twin Peaks to sit at his feet and hear his thoughts on the spiritually superior life.

At least one attendee truly tried his best to bring in the sheaves: my husband Robert hectored old chums from the swami circuit about coming to Alain's talks, and a curious few did. None returned. The core group dwindled, and when the Thursday-night lectures fell away after a bit more than a year, what remained was a tiny, tight cadre of fiercely loyal followers, all about half Alain's age, who were in rapt attendance upon his opinions on matters great—“What is the meaning of life?”—and small: “Is it OK to wash my hair every day?”  Robert was deeply vested in moving to the front of this group, advancing his cause by leaving work early to spend afternoons hanging out at Alain’s apartment, then inviting him to our place to eat dinner.

Like his former employer Krishnamurti, Alain declined to identify as "guru" the role he played in the lives of those whose fealty he commanded. Unlike Krishnamurti, Alain issued—and displayed withering disapproval if one did not adhere to—an ambitious array of instructions and strictures covering virtually every aspect of daily life: what one could and could not eat, drink, and read; what music to listen to, films to watch, employment to seek, socks to wear; how to interpret one’s astrological chart and groom one’s hair. With whom one could socialize, of course. And sleep with: no one. Alain disapproved of sex, even between the duly wed, and monitored compliance with his Thou Shalt Not doctrine through direct questions that in a normal social milieu might have earned him a punch in the nose.

There were also non-negotiable directives on health care. An enthusiastic champion of the 18^th-century medical theory of homeopathy, Alain declared it the only acceptable response to all ailments. After finding every experienced practitioner in Northern California wanting, Alain, whose formal post-high school education had consisted of piano study, began prescribing homeopathic remedies on his own, first offering, then insisting upon treating members of the little group.

No one surrendered the right to choose his or her own socks—or cough medicine—at gunpoint. We weren't living in a compound. Most of us had jobs, some of us were in school, and Robert and I had a child. Alain had a few casual "civilian" relationships with people who shared his interests in music and homeopathy. But together, a middle-aged man with an incessantly-invoked connection to a spiritual superstar, and a handful of self-identified seekers in their 20s created an exclusive, inbred micro-cult of personality. Coalesced around a father figure, the collective endowed Alain with superhuman powers and was pleased to be at his beck and call. The return was a self-generating frisson of righteous satisfaction to be numbered among the elect. 

Being married to Alain's most ardent acolyte presented some steep challenges, among them a chronically bitten tongue. Unlikely to be mistaken for a true believer, I did try to mind my manners for my husband's sake, and got a pass on piety because of the complex bond between Robert and Alain. Subservience fosters dependency in its recipient, and Robert's deep deference to Alain might have been compromised by an alienated wife. And so Alain, who could muster a skim coat of charm, often did so for me, despite my being what he called “naughty,” which seemed to mean maintaining a private interior life. He played the culture card, hard, and I folded every time. I was wowed by his musicianship, his concierge-class travels with Krishnamurti, and the names he dropped. A conversational tidbit such as, “Michaelangelo Antonioni once told me during dinner at Signora Scaravelli's villa in Tuscany...” could make me literally turn the other cheek (Alain was in the habit of pinching mine, and those of other putative adults).

There was another reason why my polite apostasy was tolerated while others who questioned, however obliquely, Alain's absolute authority within the micro-cult were summarily cast out: I provided a domestic center of gravity. By the time Robert and I had our second child in 1978, Alain, a never-partnered man in his early 50s, was under our roof at least 3 evenings a week, enjoying regular home-cooked meals and a place at the head of the table for holiday celebrations. Laundry, mending, and secretarial services were also expected; in short, many of the comforts of a family hearth that traditionally accrued to the paterfamilias, only free of any sort of responsibility.

This family’s hearth included an intelligent and impressionable little boy. As my son grew, so did Alain's expressed interest in him—strikingly more so than in my daughter. Through Robert, Alain took to handing down a series of child-rearing edicts that illustrated irrefutable facts about his life: he was childless, had no adult experience living in a family, and had never spent an hour alone with a child.

This unfounded claim of expertise was consistent with Alain's ongoing assertions of authority over other matters in which he lacked experience, education, or aptitude. What set this one apart was that it concerned my children, who had thus far escaped his close attention. This new development got me to stop dancing around the Alain-Robert guru-disciple relationship and take a long look at how Alain's avid interest in the minutiae of my family's life was affecting my children, my marriage, and me. 

I considered what could motivate a grown man to insist that a little boy's toy be destroyed because he did not like the look of it. Why virtually no parental prerogative—decisions about my children's education, discipline, diet, health care, toys, Halloween costumes, gifts, activities, and friends—was exempt from Alain's increasingly aggressive interference. How anyone could, with a straight face, hand his hostess his dirty laundry before tucking into Christmas dinner.

I also took responsibility for my own role in enabling a social dynamic in which someone wearing a $15,000 Patek Phillipe watch felt free to lecture guests at my table on the evils of materialism while I dashed into the basement between courses to put his underpants in the dryer. I was pushing 30, sound of mind and body, the mother of two children. What was I thinking?

I was thinking that enough was enough: it was my responsibility to raise my children and live my life according to my principles. This simple truth was was made enormously complicated by Robert's capacity for being bossed about by prodigiously opinionated older man. Robert could/would not say no to Alain, who strenuously resisted my attempts to limit his involvement in my family's personal life. Robert refused outside mediation to help resolve the conflict this created in our marriage, quitting couples counseling after two sessions at Alain's insistence. Instead, we ripped into each other like wolverines, hissing and snarling late into the night during epic arguments that I later learned were reported verbatim to Alain. 

The conflict ended for me after Alain dosed my healthy little boy with something—he would not say what—that made the skin on his face peel off in sheets and crust over into huge scabs. My son's teachers and the parents of his friends called me, concerned. Within the micro-cult, my child's distress and my concern for him were literally laughed at. His disfigurement was declared a terrific success, a homeopathic "proving," or something.

It was proof enough for me: I took the kid to a real physician. Acquainted with Alain, Dr. Schmid—a European homeopath with decades of experience—was as horrified as everyone else outside the micro-cult. He asked, bluntly, why I would allow my child to be treated by "an amateur." Why indeed? I had not given permission, of course, but I was culpable nonetheless. I had allowed it to happen. It would not happen again.

I took my son home and drew a hard line around him and his sister: Hands Off. Then I stepped inside it to join them. Robert and I bellowed at each other from either side of the line, both of us aware that this boundary—any boundary—would be seen by his guru not as merely naughty, but truly seditious. There would be trouble. Quite sincerely, I did not fucking care. 

Go to Part 3 of The Man Who Would be Guru: The Outskirts of Crazytown

 

Comments

[cynthia]

Note to those inquiring about the potential biases of the doctor consulted: he was an M.D. with a well-regarded private practice, trained in Europe and licensed in the U.S., who had more than 40 years experience with homeopathy.
My child, thankfully, was not physically scarred.