by Frank Deford
“Why is this different?”
“Because,” Nina said, leaning on the arms of his chair, staring into his face, “because never—never—have we had two people independently collaborate on a past life. Can’t you see? Jocelyn is right. That’s what sets this apart from even the most serious evidence of reincarnation, ever.”
He held up his hands, and she—well, she got out of his face. But Nina kept looming over him, arms akimbo. Finally Hugh replied—calmly, unmoved. “Look, Nina, maybe we can’t see it, but there’s a logical explanation.”
Nina shook her head—too deliberately. (Two could play this game of overacting.) “You know what, Hugh, if you’d been back there two thousand years ago, and Jesus came up to you after the crucifixion, and you stuck your fingers into his wounds, you’d have said, well, there must be a logical explanation. And you know what: it’d be Doubting Hugh now, not Doubting Thomas.”
Hugh rolled his eyes, infuriating her even more. “Come on, Nina, you profess to be a devout person. A faith is not a buffet where we just pick out what we want to. There must be a coherence to what we believe.”
“Our beliefs can’t grow like our knowledge?”
Hugh squirmed a bit. “I didn’t know this was going to be a theological discussion.”
“Hey, you won’t listen to what’s actually happened to me, so I have to move into your realm—faith.” Nina was getting very frustrated, both at his refusal to give her any credence, and his condescension. “And no matter how deeply you believe, or I believe, or millions of Hindus or Buddhists believe, no matter how much anybody believes, none of us know.” She leaned down then, and jabbed Hugh with her forefinger—right smack in his chest, right in Piglet’s Patch. “None of us know Jack shit.”
Well, that certainly took them both aback. Jack shit, Nina thought; for years I’ve wanted to say “Jack shit.” (Maybe this wasn’t quite the right moment.) She smiled weakly. “I mean, Hugh, when something new and inexplicable appears, who’s to say that we can’t believe that, too?”
“Maybe I’m just a hard sell, Nina. When a likeness of the Virgin Mary appears in a pepperoni pizza over in New Jersey, I don’t fall down and worship it right away.”
“Oh, that’s so easy, Hugh, so glib. But let’s forget the abstract. Let’s forget Virgin Mary pizzas and Bucky and Constance. What’s the explanation for us?”
“For us?”
“Yeah, that’s not so easy. But you know damn well that the only thing that accounts for us now is that somewhere, sometime we were lovers before.”
Hugh got up and walked away from her. “Oh, knock it off, Nina. People fall in love all the time, inconveniently, for the same reasons we did. Because we’re all very human. And because there’s a physical attraction, and because we share the same interests and humor and temperament, because of all that. It happens. And it doesn’t mean that we had to have been sweethearts back in the Ming Dynasty.”
“Oh no, Hugh, it’s not that simple. I know you saw it, just like I did. I know you saw it when you touched me, when we—”
“Oh God yes, Nina, it was wonderful. Every time.”
She shook her head at him. “Oh come on, Hugh. I’m not talking about the Earth moving beneath us. I’m not talking about orgasms. Orgasms are dime a dozen. Orgasms are on magazine covers. You can send away for orgasms in videos. I’m talking about the color, Hugh. Every time I kiss you. Every time you touch me. Every time we make love. It’s our color. It’s what identifies Double Ones. Right? And I know you’ve seen it, Hugh. I know.”
Hugh didn’t reply. He only stood there, looking at Nina with a certain bewilderment. Nina walked over and took the doorknob. “You know you saw it, and you always do see it with me, and that scares the holy hell out of you, doesn’t it?”
When he still didn’t answer, Nina made him react fast. Quickly, without warning, she snatched his engagement ring off her finger, and underhanded, lofted it to him. The flip was a little to his right, and since he still held his drink in that hand, he had to twist some to snare it across his body with his left hand. Even with just that brief an extra motion, though, Nina had time to open the door and depart before he could say anything else.
Instead, Hugh simply stood there, looking at the ring. Only softly then—but out loud—did he murmur: “Oh God, Nina, you’re right. Every time with you, every time it was always so silver.”
30
The bells, the bells. From the moment Jocelyn had arrived in Antwerp, it seemed to her that it was all bells, tolling all the time. The bells on high even made her instinctively look up. So, she studied Antwerp from the top down, starting with the magnificent gothic tower of the Cathedral of Our Lady, soaring above all of Antwerp, all of Flanders, all of Belgium.
Down some then, Jocelyn lowered her gaze to the familiar stepped roofs, their perpendicular lines so different from the slanted roofs of other houses the world over. And then, below them, her eyes fell upon the statues of Antwerp—the Madonnas especially. Everywhere. Is this a city or a convent? Jocelyn asked herself, laughing. But the answer came quickly enough as she dropped her sights to her own level, to the happy people milling everywhere about her, plunking themselves down at the cafés that spilled over into the sidewalks—snacking at chocolates, wolfing down mussels and pastry and pasta, quaffing beer upon beer, laughing and flirting, and altogether, being very, very secular.
How glorious is Antwerp, Jocelyn thought. Oh, to be a Double One here with the bells and the gaiety ringing in your ears. She took a seat near a strolling accordion player and when the waiter approached, Jocelyn Ridenhour, the first lady of coffees, slammed her fist down on the table and hollered out, “Gimme a beer!”
It was hardly that Jocelyn needed the special sparkle of Antwerp. On the contrary. Her visit with Sergei and Ludmilla had been exhilarating. For their part, too, the Mironovs had been absolutely thrilled by Jocelyn’s revelations about Bucky and Constance. “You must speak with them again,” Sergei had exclaimed. “Why, it may be centuries before we have such perfect Double Ones specimens again—until people start seeing their former selves in old photographs.”
Jocelyn winced a bit when the translator explained that Sergei had used the word “specimen.” That was a bit too scientific, even rather un-American. Still: “I’ll do my best,” Jocelyn promised. When she left on the train for St. Petersburg, laden down with the Mironovs’s blessings and with all the notes she had taken, Jocelyn was more determined than ever to publish their work.
For now, though, all she wanted was to immerse herself in Antwerp, to revel in the city where Bucky and Constance had cavorted with Rubens so many centuries ago. Jocelyn had, in fact, chosen to stay at the Alfa Theatre Hotel, precisely because it lay so near Rubenshuis. By the time she’d arrived in Antwerp, though, it had already been a long day from St. Petersburg: an SAS connection through Copenhagen, then a good hour’s bus ride from the airport at Brussels. So Jocelyn decided to put off visiting Rubenshuis immediately, saving it for tomorrow when she’d be more rested. Instead, that was when Jocelyn had ventured into the very heart of the old city to soak up the atmosphere. And she soaked up that beer, too. And another. With the bells ringing. Ah, the bells. Ah, Antwerpen!
Well, she thought, glancing at her watch, she could still manage visits to a couple of Rubens attractions before dinner. So, she wound around the twisty streets to the entrance to the Cathedral. It was thronged. “Is it always so crowded?” Jocelyn asked the ticket taker.
“But, of course, madam, tomorrow is August the fifteenth, Our Queen of Heaven’s own special day, when she was taken up to heaven.” Assumption Day was even, in fact, an official holiday in Antwerp. So, inside, Jocelyn moved directly to the altar to stand there before Rubens’s rendering of that very occasion. The Assumption of the Holy Virgin, perhaps his most acclaimed baroque work, had been finished in 1627. Jocelyn was no particular fan of religious art, and she surprised herself that s
he studied it for so long. But she was enthralled by the huge painting’s energy and movement, those glorious colors, the shades, the light—Mary, lifting off to heaven, convoyed by a bevy of cherubs—and she stood in front of it for several minutes before she went back outside again to the worldly chaos of Antwerp. There, Jocelyn brought an ice cream from a vendor and watched a mime posing as a clown before she pulled out her tourist map and decided to stop at the Plantin-Moretus House on the way back to her hotel.
So, down the Blomstraat she wandered, into the Groen Plaats—the Green Place—the great park that was dominated by the massive bronze statue of Rubens himself, looking out over his city. Of course, Jocelyn went out of her way to stand before the sculpture, and that diversion got her turned around (which is easy to do in old Antwerp) so that Jocelyn had gone the other way out of the Groen Plats, around the Hilton Hotel, before she got back on track and came down the Lombardenvest toward the Plantin-Moretus House.
Balthasar Moretus, one of Rubens’s closest friends, had been recognized on his own merit as perhaps the finest printer in all of Europe. And now, inside the huge, rambling house—a residence and shop alike—Jocelyn felt herself transported back even more to the time of Rubens—especially since the master’s work adorned the halls, his portraits there, it seemed, in every room that Jocelyn walked through. My God, she thought, if this house where Rubens was only a guest can affect me so, then surely Rubenshuis, where he actually lived, where he slept with Helena and painted Ollie and Margareta—surely, that will overwhelm me.
Yes, tomorrow she would go there, to Rubenshuis itself. And then to Saint James, Rubens’s parish church, where the guidebooks said he had married Helena, where their children were baptized, and where—under his own magnificent painting of The Madonna with the Christ Child and Saints—Rubens himself lay, bracketed forever between the bones of both his beloved wives, Isabella and Helena.
But now, finishing her tour of the Plantin-Moretus House, Jocelyn was through with her sightseeing for the day and she only paused at the souvenir stand, perusing the Rubensianna there. The clerk, noting her deep interest, said, “And surely tomorrow you will be visiting the Rubens Fair.”
“The what?”
“Ah, didn’t you know? Every August 15th, on Assumption Day, in the Grote Markt, everyone dresses as they did in Rubens’s time, and there is a wonderful fair all day long.”
How perfect, Jocelyn thought, how lucky that I have, by chance, come to Antwerp on this one most appropriate day of the year. She thanked the clerk, but then as she turned to leave, she noticed the guest book. Jocelyn picked up the pen, signing her name beneath the signatures of a visitor from Munich and a family from Turin. Idly, Jocelyn looked back through the signatures to find the name of a tourist from the United States. There was none on this page, so she had to flip the sheet back.
Three up from the bottom, she saw it. The name was in a feminine hand, standing out in a soft, blue ink that contrasted with the other thin, black signatures. Jocelyn could not believe it. Her mouth flew open. This is what she read:
8/14
Constance Rawlings
Lake Forest, Illinois
United States
So perfectly restored. I felt as if I had been here before!
31
At this same moment, Constance was lingering on Hopland Street, staring at the house which she had decided was the one where Ollie and Margareta had made love all those times. Then, she went round the corner to Wapperstraat, the old canal that was now a broad promenade. At first glance, Constance was put out, for Rubenshuis had been surrounded by modern buildings. She screwed up her face. Why, there was even a music store on one side, a café on the other, an ATM directly across. How could this be done to Mr. Rubens’s house?
Besides, most everything else in the vicinity seemed to have appropriated the master’s good name. The Rubens tavern, inn, café—God knows what. Only if you narrowed your vision to the house alone, did it stand as magnificent as ever it had. Constance walked by it, down toward The Meir, past where some huge shrubbery islands made of concrete had been constructed in the middle of Wapperstraat. She rested on one of the benches there, lost in reverie, drifting further and further back, before she arose and returned to the Rubenshuis before her.
She stepped inside, handing over her seventy-five Belgian francs. The ticket taker said, “We’ll be closing in less than an hour. Perhaps you’d prefer to come back tomorrow.”
Constance replied, “Thank you, but I just want to visit the garden now. I’ll return tomorrow to tour the house.”
“All right, but I’m afraid I still must charge you full tariff.”
“I understand, but I’ll be quite happy in the garden. I remember how beautiful it is.”
“Ah, you’ve been here before?”
Constance did not answer. Instead, she only stepped away, cutting through the main studio, then past the shop, out under the portico, and on to the garden. There, her knees almost buckled. It was all so incredibly familiar that Constance really wasn’t even cognizant of a whole covey of Japanese tourists. Rather, it was as if she was alone, wandering amidst the flowers, under the great fur tree, now looking at all the statues that adorned the rear of the mansion, then almost collapsing onto her favorite bench, the curved stone one at the northern end.
The arbor! The honeysuckle arbor was before her—just as always. God, how she remembered all this. Why, she remembered it even better than she remembered being Constance. But suddenly, then, as she looked out over the garden, it disappeared before her. Instead, all that flooded her vision were the red and black diamonds. That same old pattern. It was overwhelming—more vivid than ever. And now Constance was gone. It was only Ollie sitting on the stone bench. Ollie, alone, listening to the bells. How well Ollie remembered all the bells of Antwerp.
But then, a voice: “I’m sorry, madam, but it’s five o’clock. We’re closing for the day.”
Constance looked up blankly at this stranger. And all of a sudden, she was aware how cold she was. The sun was gone, behind black clouds, and here she was in her short-sleeved, teal blouse. “Oh, yes, of course,” Constance mumbled absently, fingering one of her Venus earrings. “But where are the peacocks? There were always peacocks here.”
“I don’t know, madam. I’ve been here fourteen years myself, and we’ve never had any peacocks in the garden.”
“Oh, they were here,” Constance persisted. “Mr. Rubens adored peacocks.”
“Did he?”
“Oh yes. He told me once—” Constance caught herself, nervously toyed with her earring again. The guard was looking at her curiously. “I mean, of course, I read that he wanted peacocks about for his wife, for peacocks were the emblem of Juno, the goddess, the guardian of domesticity.”
“Yes, well, I’m sorry, but we don’t have any here now.”
“Well, you should. If this is Mr. Rubens’s house, you should have peacocks.”
“Of course,” said the guard. It had been a long day. “And thank you for visiting us.”
“My pleasure.” The bells began again—even clearer, it seemed to Constance.
Jocelyn heard the bells, too, and even louder, because after encountering Constance’s name at the Plantin-Moretus House, she had to regroup. She found her way back near the cathedral, to another café at the Groen Plaats, another beer. There were so many beers to choose from in Antwerp. The waiter suggested a Kriek—a brew tinged red, with kind of a bitter cherry taste—and Jocelyn savored it as she pondered her next move.
Well, it must be obvious, she thought: Constance and Bucky had snuck off to Antwerp to be there on the city’s day of days—Assumption Day. How appropriate! But she would find them. There weren’t that many top hotels in Antwerp, and Jocelyn knew Bucky well enough to know that he wouldn’t be going downscale. Maybe Constance and Bucky were even staying at her own hotel, the Alfa Theatre. She’d ask there first, at t
he desk.
But then, after she tossed down the last of her red beer and started walking back, Jocelyn passed by the Hilton and decided she might as well inquire there. She went across the large lobby to the house phone. A Floyd Buckingham, please? Sorry, the operator told her, no one registered by that name. Jocelyn started to put the phone down, when she spoke up again. “Well then, perhaps a Constance Rawlings?”
“Oh yes, indeed, Mrs. Rawlings is here.” Excited, Jocelyn listened as the phone to her room rang. But: no answer. Should she call the operator back and leave a message? No, Jocelyn didn’t know Constance, and if the lady was traveling alone, she decided it’d be best to confront her directly.
So, Jocelyn headed out of the Hilton, and following her street map, she turned this way and that until just before she reached The Meir, she took a right on Huidevettersstraat. Too bad. Had Jocelyn gone the other way, up The Meir, she and Constance would all but have collided a block or so on.
Constance was walking so fast now that she wasn’t even chilly anymore. And without looking at her map, she knew exactly where she was going. Constance didn’t even slow up as she came to the Hilton. Strode right past it. Through the Groen Plaats, then around the little streets that took her to the Grote Markt where soon the stalls for the Rubens Fair would be set up. Above her, all around the square, the magnificent guild houses stood as sentinels, all with their stepped roofs and the shining figures on top that symbolized their patron saints.
And now, off this way, Constance strode toward the river, toward the Schelde. Instinctively, she was heading down the Zilversmidstraat toward Bloed Berg, Butchers Hill. On she hurried, even faster. And she thought: what a wonderfully modern city this Antwerp is. Why, all these fancy statues, abutting out from the buildings on every corner. And all the streets are paved, the gutters running down the middle. Not like that muddy sewer of a city, London. And Amsterdam wasn’t much better, was it?
