Mihir seemed in earnest and no more open to talk of escape or insurrection than a freshman at Harvard. I tried catching Warren’s eye to see if by a wink or glance he might acknowledge that we were on the other side of the looking glass, but, however heretical Mihir considered him, he had a serene expression, as though internecine squabbles at the Center—and PASE itself—were great fun and in no way a sign of the religion’s inanity.
When a Brazilian man named Caetano, sitting to Tyrone’s left, launched into a description of how his former girlfriend had wanted him to do “unspeakable” things to her, which at first he had done willingly, thereby eclipsing his best self behind a “grunting, squealing” animal self, and which set in motion a sense of defilement that “spread like a cancer” and made part of him feel relieved when her death the previous December in a car crash released both of them from their sick physical entente—although she, dying without any contact with PASE, was suffering the agonies of nonbeing—a bizarre declaration that ought to have repelled everyone at the table but instead brought out their warmest sympathy, I concentrated on my pizza.
After lunch came the class period. While walking together to Celestial Commons, where all classes were held on the third floor, Mihir told me that I was in Introductory Level A with Mr. Ortega, who focused on the mechanics of the PASE hierarchy and simple exegeses of The Prescription, things that were self-evident and not challenging to intelligent persons such as ourselves. Luckily, it lasted for only five days and then I would move on to Introductory Level B, helmed by the inspiring, ethereally beautiful Ms. Webley, to whom I, like all guests, would form an intense nonsexual attachment that might show up in my dreams.
When I got to class, Mr. Ortega, a potbellied man with oversized hands and head, rolled up his sleeves and crossed his bandy legs and took no notice of me. Instead of sitting around an oblong table, we—all four guests from my orientation, a freckled and too-muscular Englishman named Alastair, a slender black woman with tight cornrows named Tonya, a skinny Italian woman named Suzanne, and a zaftig blonde named Emma—sat in fold-out chairs arranged in a semicircle, with Mr. Ortega at the opening. If the seating arrangement was meant to satisfy our need for variety, it failed, but I was determined to treat this class like a work seminar, an occupational hazard to be endured quiescently, signifying nothing in itself. I may have been tumbling down a mountain but I would not worry anymore about the ground below. I was collecting my bearings.
“Today,” Mr. Ortega said, tugging on his thick forearm hair—for this and his sloping forehead, rounded shoulders, and other simian qualities I felt a kinship with him—“we’re going to talk about the six Paser stages. Can anyone begin by describing the difference between a declared Paser and a savant?”
Everyone looked at their hands or laps uncomfortably until Alastair, in the posh accent that Americans affect to tell British jokes, said, “Isn’t a savant basically like a more advanced declared Paser, in that he professes faith in UR God but takes it a step further by giving up sex? He walks the walk, in other words.”
“Correct,” said Mr. Ortega, “if sex is his or her favorite activity. It’s important to note that you become a savant by giving up whatever you most love to do, which isn’t always sex. Many people live happily without that and therefore renounce nothing by renouncing sex. They need to look elsewhere in order to achieve savant status, such as to chocolate or gambling or cocaine or shoe shopping. The essence of being a savant is self-control; it demonstrates the beginning of your independence from the false joys of this world and shows your affinity with UR God.”
This was all very boring and I remembered counseling wistfully and with a new fondness. I thought about Rema’s various exploits, their audacity and imaginativeness, which, now that she’d joined PASE, would cease, and I grieved for their passing. Then, despite my earlier conclusion that half of what had gone wrong in my life was externally unchangeable and the other half internally so, and that I should not worry about where I was going—the bottom of the mountain toward which I was barreling—the tetrahedron of my problems rose up in my mind’s landscape like a terrible portentous obelisk. It eclipsed everything else in my line of sight, so that I barely saw Shang-lee sitting next to me, his hands folded in his lap in bodhisattva fashion, and feared that I might pass out from terror at any minute. I badly wanted—I needed—a sedative and drink and cigarette and pornography and coffee and chocolate and lasagna and assurance that I would not languish here forever, that my absence meant something in the world at large.
Shang-lee asked me if I was all right and I nodded.
Mr. Ortega opened his hands questioningly at us, cocked an eyebrow, and then continued, “After you’re a savant you become a functioning savant. In this stage you branch out beyond desire in its most active sense to work on curtailing your vanity and self-focus, the two biggest impediments to improvement. As a functioning savant you will think less about yourself and how others perceive you. To do this requires reducing the time and money you spend on clothes, cosmetics, hair care, entertainment, etc., and at the same time increasing your charitable contributions and your study of The Prescription. Both your reductions and your increases need to be substantial. For example, you can’t buy four lipsticks instead of five and call that cutting back, nor can you spend eight hundred instead of nine hundred dollars on a new season’s wardrobe. You must feel the deprivation of having less than you used to.”
“How long does it take to go from being a savant to a functioning savant?” asked Tonya. Midway through Mr. Ortega’s speech she had put down the emery board with which she’d been filing her nails, as though even this act of grooming might be unPASElike.
“The Rubins must have told you in orientation,” said Mr. Ortega, “that everyone advances at their own speed, but I’ll warn you that it’s possible to go too slowly or too quickly. You can’t become a functioning savant overnight, nor can you drag it out over ten years. The good news is that when you reenter the outside world you’ll be able to consult with advanced Pasers at any PASE Station to come up with an appropriate timeline. Just remember that your improvement has to be real and consistent. You can’t take breaks to do things you’re not supposed to.”
“Do you get a badge or a certificate when you move up a level?” Tonya asked.
“No.”
“Then how’s anyone supposed to know you’re a functioning savant and not some starting-out type?”
“UR God will know and you will know. Nothing else matters.”
“But it wouldn’t be bad—you wouldn’t get in trouble, right—if you wore a shirt that said ‘functioning savant’ on it or a button or a belt buckle.”
“That would be fine. Now, after the functioning savant stage you will graduate to the master savant stage, which is defined by fewer desires, smaller meal portions, a commitment to buying only used clothes and no-brand hygienic items, further engagement with The Prescription, taking a leadership role in a local Paser study group, and active volunteering with the PASE Process, such as at one of its soup kitchens or homeless shelters or hospital terminal wards.”
“I’d like to do something with the blind,” said Alastair. “I’d like to read to them or take them to a museum.”
Mr. Ortega made a displeased face and said, “Next you’ll become an actuated savant. I, for example, got to this stage a year ago by memorizing large sections of The Prescription, whittling down my desire, eating modest meals without appetizers or desserts or alcohol, dressing mainly in my tunic, and making large contributions to the PASE Process.”
“Does everyone have to be an actuated type to get a job here?” asked Tonya.
“It’s a necessary prerequisite, yes, for becoming a facilitator, along with taking a test and undergoing an apprenticeship training program. The whole process takes about two months, and only a third of the applicants are then hired to be on staff.”
“Are