"Was it a whole pillow case?" Carol asked.
"Oh, would you shut up," Jean said this time.
Darlene glared at Jean. "I thought you were more than a chicken bitch. I guess I was wrong."
Jean turned to Lenny, her boyfriend, the father of her unborn child. He still hadn't answered her original question. Earlier she had been right to think of him as a stranger. Looking at his dark, cold masklike face, she hardly recognized him. And to think, she had made love to him only two days before on this very couch. No, she had had sex with him—there was a difference.
"How can you let her talk to me that way?" she asked. "This is your house. Kick her out. You know she's talking crap. You know this whole meeting is insane."
Lenny took his time answering. Something on the floor between his legs had him fascinated. It must have been the dirt because that was all that was there.
The heavy burdens on his attention—the filth and her request. Finally he spoke, his head still down. "You just didn't care about him the way we did. You can't understand." He shrugged, adding, "We can't let Juan get away with it."
Jean jumped up from the sofa, feeling the blood suffuse her face. "I cared about him more than any of you know! I knew him before any of you knew him! But he's dead, and it's really sad, but why do we have to die with him? Why do we even have to talk about killing people?" Her throat choked with emotion; her voice came out cracked. "Why do we even have to live like this?"
Jean didn't wait for an answer to her painful questions. She ran from the living room, into the bedroom, and out onto Lenny's balcony.
The platform was a haphazard affair, a collection of splintered planks thrown on top of a randomly spaced group of termite-zapped wooden stilts. Yet the drop to the ground was substantial: thirty feet straight down. Jean heard the boards of the railing creak as she leaned against them. The view was pretty at least, if you liked smelly oil wells and rundown houses that doubled as fear-infested fortresses. The downtown skyscrapers were visible, far in the distance; dark towers with dots of light in a bleary haze of pollutants. Really, Jean thought, it was all the same no matter which direction she turned. It wasn't a city, it was a dying monster. She wanted it to die. She wanted the big bombs to fall, the red mushroom clouds to form. She didn't know why she had argued so passionately for life when she felt so little life in her heart.
It was ironic that ever since the seed of a new human being had started growing in her body she had felt more and more like ending it all. Not suicide, no, but something close to it. Something like a contract that could be entered into without serious penalties. Not a devil's contract certainly, more like a person-to-person handshake and a pat on the back and an understanding that it was OK. That it would be all right. I did the best I could, God, but it wasn't good enough. But I don't hate you and I don't hate myself. I just don't know what the hell I'm doing. Help, please, help me.
Standing on the creaky balcony, time passed for Jean Rodrigues. How much time, she didn't know. But somewhere in the sand at the bottom of Jean Rodrigues's fallen hourglass, the colors of the nighttime city altered. The dull yellows turned to blues and the sober reds to fresh greens. The intensity of the light grew as well, as one after another tiny candles were lit in dark corners above homes that had never been built and atop skyscrapers that would never fall.
The shift was subtle at first, and she didn't know it was even happening to her until she suddenly found herself staring out upon a landscape bathed in pulsing light. It was only then that she realized she was back in her dream, being given the chance again to lift up her arms and fly, over the wall and into the land where the wishes and the wisher were one. It was a chance she was not going to pass up twice. There, she thought eagerly, there, make me immortal. Happy at last, still leaning against the railing, she lifted her arms.
But Jean did not fly, the human body could not. The floor of the balcony abruptly vanished from beneath her feet and she fell instead. Headfirst toward a ground that took forever to reach. Yet the plunge was not terrifying, as Shari Cooper's fall from a balcony one year earlier had been. The contract was signed and sealed. It wasn't suicide but an accident. Or at the very least someone else's fault. There would be no penalty for Jean Rodrigues. There would be no more pain.
CHAPTER III
FLOATING DOWNSTREAM in a boat on a river, you can see only a little way in front of you, a little way behind, the nearby shore, and if you're lucky and the river isn't lined with trees, maybe a far-off field or house. But if you go up in a plane and look down at the river, you can see the entire course of the waterway. You can see where it began, and you know where it will end. In a sense, the aerial view is like being given a vision of the future, at least as far as the life of the river is concerned.
Death is a vision that never dies. I am supposed to be dead, but I experience the entirety of my life as if it were all happening at once. I float above the river of personality that was once Shari Ann Cooper. I know her, I am her, but I am something else now as well, something blissful. Even as I poke into the dark corners of my life, my joy does not leave me. It is separate from personalities and events. My joy is what I am and has no name.
I did many things in my eighteen years on planet Earth. I was born. I learned to walk, to talk, to laugh, and to sing. I learned to cry as well, and I chased boys. I even got laid once. I was popular. My junior year, mine was voted the best smile in the whole high school. But few of the things that I considered important on Earth interest me now.
As I view the whole of my life, a seemingly insignificant event holds my attention. I was sixteen years old. There was a girl in my biology class who was deaf, not a crime in itself, but she was homely as well. Those were two big strikes against her with my friends, and two strikes were completely unforgivable in those days. No one ever talked to her—I didn't either—or even thought about her, except occasionally to wonder why she wasn't in a special school. It never occurred to me that she might be a brave soul trying to live a normal life despite her handicap.
There was one day, though, as I was leaving biology class after the bell had rung, that I noticed the girl was having trouble finding her glasses. On top of everything else she couldn't see well and I knew that she would sometimes remove her glasses while the teacher talked and just sit with her eyes closed, trying, so it seemed to me, to absorb the lesson by osmosis. I didn't know at the time that someone had swiped her glasses, but I did know she was going to have a hard time making it to her next class without them. I walked over and gently tapped her on the shoulder. I scared her, made her jump, and immediately felt bad about it. But she smiled quickly at me after she'd recovered and squinted. I wasn't sure how much of me she could see.
"Hi," I said. "Can I help you?"
She leaned forward, closer to my mouth, and gestured for me to repeat myself.
I realized she was reading my lips. I put my face right in front of hers and asked my question again. This time she nodded vigorously. She gestured that she couldn't find her glasses and if I would help her look for them. I didn't have to look long to realize someone must have taken them. I mean, it wasn't like there were a lot of hiding places on a school desk. I placed my face in front of hers again.
"Lost," I said. "Gone. Stolen. I will help you."
The news seemed to take her aback, but only for a moment. She nodded, collected her books, and stood up. She offered me her arm; clearly I would have to touch her to help lead her to her next class. I didn't mind, although at that time—that week I think it was—it was something of a taboo to touch anyone of the same sex. In fact, I was happy to help her. Very happy I had finally stopped to speak to her. Her name was Candice, but she said to call her Candy in her uninflected, flat speech. I helped her around for the next two days while she waited for new glasses to arrive. We never did find out what happened to the original pair. During that time I learned to sign quite a few words. We became friends, and I learned something else as well—that life was good even when it wa
s hard. That hidden beauty was much greater than physical beauty. Candy could not hear our teachers, she could hardly see them. But she taught me more than any of them had. I was sad the day I heard she would be coming to school no more. She had ended up returning to a special school for deaf kids, after all. I missed her.
But what I didn't know at the time was that from the moment the thought occurred to me to help Candy, and all the time I was with her, tidal waves of light and energy rolled from me and spread out over the entire universe, to the farthest planet circling the loneliest star in the most distant galaxy. I touched that much. But I could only see these waves as I reviewed my life when my life was over. My good grades, my good looks—none of that had mattered. None of it had affected the creation, but my simple act of service and kindness had been like a miracle. And the strange thing was that I had helped Candy only because I wanted to. Because, for once, I had stopped thinking of myself and thought only of someone else.
As I watched the beginning and the middle and the end of the river of Shari Cooper, I could see then the answer to one of our age-old riddles. Does love survive? Yes, I thought, somewhere in some place it is saved and made sacred.
I had not known how much love Candy had given to me, and how much I had given to her. I had known nothing.
"Good," a voice said.
I opened my eyes and found myself sitting on a grassy bank on a sunny day beside a gently flowing stream. The still air was warm, fragrant, radiant with light and good feelings. In the distance were trees, snow-capped mountains, but no houses, no roads. I was in paradise but I wasn't alone. Beside me sat an extraordinary man.
He appeared to be thirty years old. He had an austere face, hollow cheeks, deepset blue eyes, a soft smile. It was difficult to specify his race. His skin was a deep coppery color, he could have been an ancient Egyptian priest come to life before me. Perhaps he was, I thought. He wore a blue silk robe. I had on the same clothes I had died in: green pants and a yellow blouse. I was going to have to change one of these days, I thought. My surroundings were pervaded by peace, but the man's aura was even more tranquil. I had no memory of seeing him before, yet I felt as if I had known him a long time. His smile widened at my thought.
"Very good, Shari," he said. Like his smile, his voice was soft, yet it carried great authority behind it.
He was not someone with whom I would have argued.
I smiled. "Can you read my mind?"
"Yes. Do you want me to stop?"
"It doesn't matter. You were with me as I reviewed my life. I felt you."
"Yes. How do you feel about how you did?"
"Like a fool."
"That's a good way to feel. Only a fool can get into heaven."
"Is that where we are? Did I make it?"
"I joke with you. All this you see is just a thought. You created this place because you still feel the need to occupy a certain space and time. People usually carry that habit with them when they cross over. It is to be expected; it is fine. But you don't need to talk to me with a body. When you feel comfortable, you may drop it."
I rubbed my legs with my open palms. They felt the same as they had on Earth.
"I'm still sort of used to this body." I paused, troubled. "But I suppose it's really back on Earth rotting in a grave somewhere."
"Is that real, Shari? After all you have experienced, would you say that any part of you could rot?"
I frowned. "I'm not sure I understand. I do know I have a soul and that it survived death. I learned that the hard way. But my body died. It's still on Earth. I saw them bury it. I went to my own funeral."
"I was there."
"Really? You should have introduced yourself. What is your name? Do you have one?"
"You may call me by a name." He considered. "Call me the Rishi. Rishi means
'seer.' When I was in a physical body, people often called me that."
"So you've been on Earth?"
"Yes. We're on Earth now, Shari."
I was amazed. I looked around. "Are we in Switzerland?"
He laughed softly. "We are in another dimension of Earth. But these concepts—
distance, space, time they have no meaning for you now, unless you give them meaning. You're free of those limitations. You can be on any world in the universe just by wishing it."
His words made me smile. "How is Peter? Where is he?"
"Not far. You'll see him soon."
"Good. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like being here with you, but I want to know why you're here with me. What our relationship is." I stopped. "Am I asking too many questions?"
"I'm here to take your questions. When people first cross over, they often go through a question-and answer period like this. But understand that not all your questions can be answered with words. Our relationship is a beautiful thing. We are, ultimately, the same person, the same being. But if that is too abstract a concept for you, then think of a huge oversoul made up of many souls. Throughout many lives on many worlds, these different souls learn and grow. Each life is like a day in class, and as you know, some people do better in class than others, but all will graduate if they keep going." He paused. "We are a part of the same oversoul, Shari."
"But you've already graduated?" I asked.
"Yes."
"To where? To what?"
He gestured around him. "To all that is. To God if you like. I see your surprise, but it is so. Yes, I am with God now as I speak to you. I see you as my Goddess." He reached over and touched my hand, his fingers warm, soothing.
"You are very dear to me, Shari."
I felt so loved then I began to cry. He was like my big brother Jimmy. Or my father even, my real father, whom I had never known. I realized then that even when I had been alive he had been with me, just out of sight, helping me, guiding me. It meant so much to me to be able to see him again with my eyes. I felt as if finally I had come home. I clasped his hand in mine.
"Will you stay with me?" I asked.
"Yes. Always I am with you."
I laughed, I felt so foolish for weeping. "Wow. Who would have thought it would be like this?"
"That you would die and end up in Switzerland with an ancient Egyptian priest?" he asked with a twinkle in his eye. "I was in Egypt a long time ago as people on Earth measure time. I am there now. I teach beside the pyramids.
People call me Master."
I was fascinated that he could be in many places at the same time, even as he lived outside of time. "What do you teach?" I asked.
"Hmm. Big question. I will give a short answer." He considered for a moment.
"The teachings of a Master appear different in different times. The needs of the time and the place vary. When you were alive few would have said the words of Buddha matched those of Krishna or Jesus. But in essence they all said the same thing—that there is one God and that we are all part of him. That it is important to realize this great truth while we are on Earth. But over time the message becomes distorted. People take God out of man and put him up in an imaginary heaven, where he is of no use to anyone. Or else they found a religion based on the worship of a particular Master. Yet Buddha never founded Buddhism. Christ never founded Christianity. Krishna hardly spoke about religion at all. He was too busy dancing and playing his flute. He was too ecstatic to be dogmatic. I am very happy now as I speak to my followers in ancient Egypt. But I know a short time after I vanish from their view they will begin to squabble over what I really said and what I really meant. Even now they quarrel amongst themselves. I have to laugh—it is natural that a Master should speak from his level of consciousness but that his followers should hear the words at their level. A long time ago, as mortals are fond of saying, the Rishi was also worshiped as the only son of God. But we all deserve that title, don't you think?"
I nodded. "How about saying 'the daughter of God'?"
"Very good. You understand, I am not saying religion is bad. Where it turns men and women inward and helps them realize that they are as gr
eat as the creator who created them, that there is an ocean of love and silence deep within the heart, then it is useful. But where it divides people against one another, where one person is led to believe he is saved and another is damned, or where it leads a person to think that true happiness will be found only in an afterlife, then it is harmful. Each life on Earth is very precious. I called each one a day in class, but if you are wise, if you go deep inside, you can go all the way to the goal in just one life." He paused. "It's a wonderful thing to be alive."
I sat up with a start. "That's a line from the story that I wrote before I left."
"I know."
"Did you help me write that story?"
"Yes. And it has not been lost. Your brother saved it. He read it and believes it to be true. It means much to him. He keeps it safe."
There were tears in my eyes again. "That was my last wish before I left. To be remembered. How is Jimmy?"
"He's fine. He thinks about you often."
I dabbed at my eyes. "What I wouldn't give to see him again, to tell him I'm all right." I stopped and shook my head. "Here I am in paradise with you and I'm still complaining. I guess I'll never learn. I can't see him until he dies and I don't want him to die until he's an old man. I guess I'll have to wait."
The Rishi took his hand back. He stared at me with his beautiful eyes—the color of limitless sky. I sensed the joy behind them, but also the power of eternity. I knew I was safe in his company, yet something in his expression made me shiver. He was as gentle as an angel, but I sensed he could also be as firm as a king. I was still in class, I realized. He was the teacher. It was wise to listen to him.
"You don't have to wait," he said.
"What do you mean? I thought you said Jimmy was fine?"
"He is. But you can go back."
"To Earth? To a physical body? So soon? Will I be born as a baby?"
"No. You can, if you want, become what we call a Wanderer. You can enter the body of an eighteen-yearold girl."