“The important thing to realize is that this isn’t grass, Jared. This is deer and bison and sheep and cicadas and moles and rabbits. Reach down and grab a handful. Go ahead—at least mentally. Have you got it? That’s a mouse. And the mouse, the ox, the gazelle, the goat, and the beetle all burn with the fire of grass, Jared. Grass is their mother and father, and their young are grass.
“One thing: grass and grasshopper. One thing: grasshopper and sparrow. One thing: sparrow and fox. One thing: fox and vulture. One thing, Jared, and its name is fire, burning today as a stalk in the field, tomorrow as a rabbit in its burrow, and the next day as an eleven-year-old girl named Shirin.
“The vulture is fox; the fox, grasshopper; the grasshopper, rabbit; the rabbit, girl; the girl, grass. All together, we’re the life of this place, indistinguishable from one another, intermingling in the flow of fire, and the fire is god—not God with a capital G, but rather one of the gods with a little g. Not the creator of the universe but the animator of this single place. To each of us is given its moment in the blaze, Jared, its spark to be surrendered to another when it’s sent, so that the blaze may go on. None may deny its spark to the general blaze and live forever—not any at all. Certainly not me, for all my giant intellect. Each—each!—is sent to another someday. You are sent, Jared—Louis. You’re on your way, both of you. I too am sent. To the wolf or the cougar or the vulture or the beetles or the grasses, I am sent. I’m sent and I thank you all, grasses in all your forms—fire in all your forms—sparrows and rabbits and mosquitoes and butterflies and salmon and rattlesnakes, for sharing yourselves with me for this time, and I’m bringing it all back, every last atom, paid in full, and I appreciate the loan.
“My death will be the life of another, Jared—I swear that to you. And you watch, you come find me, because I’ll be standing again in these grasses and you’ll see me looking through the eyes of the fox and taking the air with the eagle and running in the track of the deer.”
The secrets
“These are our secret teachings, Jared. I know Charles told you that secret teachings are ones that teachers have a hard time giving away. Do you see now why this is so?”
“Yes.”
“The Leaver peoples of the world have been trying to tell you these things for centuries, but they still remain secrets. Certainly we haven’t hidden them—far from it. We’re not like high-degree members of the Freemasons or the Templars or the Ku Klux Klan, whispering secrets in locked rooms and exacting promises of silence from those who hear them. Wherever people behave that way, you can be sure they’re guarding either very paltry secrets or simple matters of fact, like where the Allies planned to invade Europe at the end of World War Two. Real secrets can be kept by publishing them on billboards.”
By this time we were walking back to the car.
B said, “When we began this process, you offered this as the Taker vision: The world was made for Man, and Man was made to conquer and rule it. Have I given you enough to articulate the Leaver, or animist, vision?”
“I think so.”
We walked on, and, thankfully, she didn’t prompt me. Finally, as the street came in sight I paused and said, “This is the best I can do. It doesn’t seem very elegant to me.”
“It won’t cause the ground to tremble.”
“No. Nor will the stones weep or the heavens open up.”
“I know what you mean, Jared, I really do.”
“The world is a sacred place and a sacred process,” I told her, “and we’re part of it.”
“That’s excellent, Jared, simple and to the point. This is what was understood—and is still understood among Leaver peoples. Wherever you went in the world, you found people who took it for granted that the world is a sacred place, and that we belong in that sacred place as much as any other creature in the world.” Smiling, she looked around the park, as if giving it a silent farewell. Then she included me in the smile as she said, “Maybe someday someone will find a way to say it that makes the ground tremble.”
The fossil
About halfway back to the hotel, I said, “You were going to tell me what Charles had in mind with the ammonite fossil he gave me.”
“Oh yes.” She drove on for a couple of blocks, then pulled over and parked. “Charles was much better than I am with this aspect of things. He would have sat you down and made you see how past, present, and future were woven together at that little patch of ground. He would have shown you that you really could read the future from the signs you saw there. Nothing magical. As I said myself, we’re all involved in reading the future all the time. He was fond of pointing out that our fascination with the hunt hasn’t disappeared in modern times, it’s just found a new object—the mystery story, where all the classic talents come into play: observation, deduction, forecasting, cunning, stealth, and alertness.”
“What does this have to do with the fossil?”
“Where is it?”
I dug it out and handed it to her.
“I suspect he planned to ask you the future of this fossil, which is at least sixty million years older than the human race. That’s an awful lot of its past that you know. What do you know of its future?”
“Nothing at all.”
She laughed and shook her head. “I’m sure he could have predicted that answer without any difficulty.”
“I’m sure he could,” I said, a bit miffed.
“Come on,” she said, getting out and going round to the trunk, where she took out a tire iron and handed it to me.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
She walked over to the curb, sat down, and, when I joined her, she set the fossil between us and told me to smash it to bits.
“I won’t,” I told her.
“No, go ahead.”
“I won’t,” I told her again. “Why do you want me to do that?”
“I want to show you how to read the future,” she said—half laughing, it seemed to me.
I picked up the fossil, returned the tire iron to the trunk, and got back in the car.
“Charles would have done it better,” she said as we drove off. “The point of the exercise needs to be more fully developed.”
I snorted contemptuously.
“Charles would have got you to smash it.”
“Bah,” I said, unable to think of anything better.
B laughed—to me, in my besotted state, a sweeter sound than birdsong.
At the hotel
I told B not to expect me at the theater tonight, which is just as well, since it took me till eleven o’clock to finish the foregoing.
I’m now going to go down to the bar, have a couple of drinks, and think about absolutely nothing for an hour. Then, for a very great change, I’m going to have a normal night’s sleep. Tomorrow night Shirin addresses the public as B for the first time. I’m frankly fascinated to know how it’ll turn out.
Date unknown
They tell me I’m in a hospital.
They tell me I’ve been here three days.
They tell me I have a concussion.
They tell me bruised ribs hurt more than broken ribs.
They tell me I was in an explosion.
They tell me the theater exploded.
They tell me the reason for the explosion is unknown.
They tell me it’s buried under a zillion tons of rubble.
They tell me it was probably a gas explosion.
They tell me it happened around six in the evening.
They tell me the theater was empty at the time.
They tell me no one ever lived there.
They tell me this is a ridiculous idea.
They tell me they won’t dig up a zillion tons of rubble.
They tell me no bodies would be found.
They tell me no one has been reported missing.
They tell me no one has tried to visit me.
They tell me no one has called except Fr. Lulfre.
They tell me I talked to him t
he day after the explosion.
They tell me I forgot this because I have a concussion.
They tell me I talked to him yesterday.
They tell me I forgot this because I have a concussion.
They tell me this condition will “almost certainly” pass.
They tell me I may someday remember the explosion.
They tell me I may never remember the explosion.
They tell me I’ll fly home as soon as I’m strong enough.
They tell me I may be strong enough day after tomorrow.
They tell me all my belongings are in the closet.
They tell me they brought them from my hotel room.
They tell me all my notebooks are intact.
They tell me I shouldn’t be looking at them now.
They tell me I shouldn’t be writing in them now.
They tell me I shouldn’t be getting excited now.
They tell me I shouldn’t be worrying now.
They tell me I shouldn’t be thinking now.
They tell me I should be resting now.
They tell me I should be taking it easy now.
They tell me it’s time for an injection.
I tell them I need to keep my notebook.
They tell me my notebook will not get lost.
I tell them I need to remember what I’ve written here.
They tell me it’ll be right here when I wake up.
They give me the injection.
I start taking it easy.
Date unknown
It appears that this was actually written by me.
Date unknown
I, Jared Osborne, write this down for Jared Osborne for when you wake up in the middle of the night, as you seem to do, and you don’t know where the hell you are. The preceding pages, beginning “They tell me I’m in a hospital,” were also written by me for when you wake up in the middle of the night—but I don’t remember writing them any more than I will remember writing this the next time I wake up in the middle of the night and find it sitting on the table beside the bed.
Date unknown
This is a concussion. That’s what you have to get fixed firmly in your head. You have a concussion and for the time being your long-term memory is out to lunch. We hope it’s “for the time being”—all of us Jareds who read and write in this notebook. The doctors who patiently tell us their names every day and that we regularly forget every day, assure us that very probably this is a temporary condition.
May 31
Apparently I sleep a great deal. I have no idea whether it’s for hours or for days. Now, when I wake up, I reach automatically for this notebook. I don’t remember what’s in it, but I do remember that it has the answers.
I think the idea is, even if my long-term memory never returns, this notebook can serve as a kind of cumulative record. I’ve collected a lot of information in the last hour, which I should put down here.
To begin with, I’m back in the United States. (I keep wanting to say we, meaning the Jared who is writing this entry and all the Jareds who will read it in days to come.) I’m at what seminarians used to call “the Company Farm,” which is where you go when you “need a little rest”—or a little vacation from booze—or the whispers about you and the altar boys are beginning to get a bit noisy. All the big orders have them, of course, some of them have several, thoughtfully specialized. Naturally they’re not called penitentiaries anymore; nowadays they’re called retreat centers. This one is located in the rolling countryside about a hundred miles south of St. Jerome’s.
I found this out by picking up the phone on my bedside table. Apparently I always do this. Tim, the young man who answered (I don’t know that he’s young, but he sounds young), told me to read the entries in my notebook, and I told him I’d already done that. Then he told me where I was, that I’d been here for two days, that it was two o’clock in the morning (evidently my favorite time for calling), May 31.
What he calls “the accident” happened “about a week ago.” If he’s right, then the explosion must have occurred Saturday, the day Shirin was scheduled to speak at the theater. But Saturday seems impossible in light of what I recorded that “they” first told me, probably in Radenau. If it happened on Friday I wouldn’t have been there, since I was planning on a good night’s sleep after spending the day in the park with B. Therefore I conclude that it probably happened on Sunday.
Tim knows nothing whatever about the explosion except that I was pulled out of the rubble and reportedly was deemed lucky to be alive.
I asked him how to get an outside line and was told I’d have to talk to Dr. Emerson about that. I told him I just wanted to call my mother and let her know I’m all right, but he said I’d have to talk to Dr. Emerson about that. I asked him what other kinds of patients are in this ward, and he said I’d have to ask Dr. Emerson a question like that. I asked him if he could send someone in to talk to me, and he said it was the middle of the night and he’d come himself but he had to stay at the desk. I asked him if I could come find him, and he said this would not be a good idea at this time of night but he’d be glad to talk to me as long as I wanted, on the phone.
I asked him if this is like a regular hospital, and he said no, not really, because there’s no one here with, like, you know, diseases, like cancer or pneumonia or appendicitis. This is more like a nursing home, he said.
I asked him if he could make a call for me, and he said only if Dr. Emerson okayed it. I asked him if I’d had any visitors and he said he was pretty sure I hadn’t. I asked if any visitors were expected, and he said there might be but he wouldn’t necessarily know about it very far in advance. I asked if anyone was asking about me, and he said oh, sure, they call every day to see how you’re doing. I asked who that was, and he said he doesn’t know.
I said I was surprised they’d moved me from Germany.
He said, “Well, you don’t have any problem functioning, you know. You just forget you’ve done it. Like now. Everything you’re saying makes sense, but when you wake up in the morning, you probably won’t remember saying it. You’re not unconscious or anything, you just forget. Like, you’ve forgotten that we’ve already had this conversation three times.”
“We’ve already talked about all this three times before?”
“Twice last night and this is the third time.”
“I don’t think I’ll forget this time.”
“Good, I hope not. That’s what you said the last time, though.”
I told him I’d tie a string around my finger, and he laughed.
He laughed, but he doesn’t know the really funny part, which is that there is already a string tied around it.
Saturday, June 1
Morning
All the same, when I woke up, I remembered that conversation with Tim. I’ve lost a week almost to the hour.
I had to wait till noon to get in to see Dr. Emerson, who was pretty much what I’d pictured him to be and pretty much what I suppose he has to be to run a joint like this: old enough to be authoritative but not a senior citizen, unflappable, unimpressible, unsnowable, unmovable—but perfectly friendly and willing to hear you out.
I said I wanted to talk to Fr. Lulfre, and was surprised to learn that Fr. Lulfre was expected to arrive at the center today in time for dinner.
Like Tim, Dr. Emerson knew nothing about the “accident.” When I asked for permission to call Germany, he asked who I wanted to talk to. I was prepared for the question, and offered him a piece of paper with three names on it. The incredible truth is, I don’t know Shirin’s last name. We were never formally introduced and there was never a moment when it would have been appropriate to ask. I know Michael’s last name—to hear it—but it could just as easily be spelled Dzerjinski or Dyurzhinsky as the way I heard it, Dershinsky. Without a first name, Frau Doktor Hartmann was unfindable. So the three people named on the list were Monika and Heinz Teitel and Gustl Meyer, the owner of the “leftovers” shop, Uberbleibselen.
Dr. Emerson glanced at the names and observed that it must be the middle of the night in Germany.
“No, actually, it’s just midevening—the best time to call.”
“Do you speak enough German to deal with an operator?”
When I said no, he did something that impressed the hell out of me. Without a moment’s hesitation, he picked up the phone and started punching buttons. Within sixty seconds he had the German country code, the Radenau city code, and had exerted enough force of will to get himself an operator who spoke English. When he had the numbers, the operator asked him if he wanted to be connected, and he said yes, try Gustl Meyer. When there was no answer there, the operator tried the Teitels’ number. When the phone was answered, Dr. Emerson asked if this was Monika Teitel. Evidently the answer was yes, because he shoved the phone at me.
I said, “Monika, is that you? This is Fr. Jared Osborne. We met in the basement of the theater …?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “What do you want?”
It was just as uncordial as it looks. I said, “I’m calling from the United States. You know I was in the explosion….”