Death Trance

by Graham Masterton

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll be lucky if Don Prescott agrees to even speak to you, Mr Clare. He was almost as sore over the cattlecake contract as the Cottonseed Association was over Sun-Taste.’

  Randolph wearily rubbed his cheek. ‘The high cost of independence, huh? Very well.

  Thanks for calling, but keep on top of Orbus Greene, won’t you? I don’t want him stringing us along until the Sun-Taste contract goes into default.’

  ‘No, sir. You bet, sir.’

  Randolph was still sitting in the library when Charles came in with a whisky for him.

  ‘Everything all right, Mr Clare?’

  ‘Yes, Charles, everything’s fine.’

  ‘Have you decided when you’re going to Indonesia, Mr Clare?’

  ‘Directly after the funeral Tuesday afternoon. That’s if Dr Ambara can get away. I shall be calling him tomorrow to find out if he’s managed to arrange his schedule.’

  ‘All right, sir. I’ll start to pack just as soon as I know for sure.’

  Randolph sipped his whisky, then looked up at Charles and said, ‘Give me your honest opinion about something.’

  ‘If I can, sir.’

  Tell me, do you think I’m going crazy? Do I act like I’m going crazy?’

  Charles smiled and shook his head. ‘No more crazy than anybody would expect, Mr Clare, given what you had and given what you lost.’

  Randolph thought about that and nodded. ‘I guess crazi-ness is relative, like everything else.’

  ‘That’s for sure, Mr Clare. Even life and death, they’re relative too.’

  Randolph looked at Charles acutely and wondered if the valet knew more about his plans than he was letting on. Maybe Charles had already guessed that on Tuesday afternoon he was going to bury his dead and then go in search of their immortal souls. For an hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs shall hear His voice, and shall come forth.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The funeral was held in ninety-degree heat under a heavy, clouded sky. The bodies were laid to rest in the Clare family plot at Forest Hill Cemetery next to the white marble angels who for four years had kept sad and sightless watch over the graves of Randolph’s father and mother.

  Randolph stayed close to Ella, the only Clare daughter who now remained single.

  Ella worked for Century Realty and was always smart, brisk and very well organized.

  She had arrived in Memphis the day after the caskets arrived, having closed up the cabin on Lac aux Ecorces and made sure that it was properly protected against casual vandals and ghoulish sightseers. One of the popular scandal sheets had offered her twenty thousand dollars for permission to photograph the inside of the cabin, complete with models to simulate the bodies of Randolph’s slaughtered family.

  Ella had spent the weekend completing the funeral arrangements but today she devoted her energy to taking care of Randolph. He was more grateful than he could have explained. He had expected the funeral to be melancholy. He had not realized how agonizingly final it would be - for all that he was trying to believe that their spirits were still alive - to watch the shining black caskets containing his family as they were lowered into the earth. He cast a handful of soil on each of them, tears running freely down his cheeks. Then Ella helped him away, her gloved hand tightly holding his.

  The funeral guests left Clare Castle at two o’clock: cars scrunching away across the gravel one after the other; black-veiled sisters and black-suited brothers kissing and shaking hands and promising not to make it so long until they met again; all of them stunned by the violence of what had happened and uncomfortably conscious of their own mortality.

  Randolph’s suitcases were packed and standing in the hallway. He was flying from Memphis to Los Angeles and from there on to Djakarta, stopping at Honolulu and Manila. Dr Ambara had arranged to meet him at the airport, and Randolph had arranged to collect Wanda along the way.

  Ella came out into the garden where Randolph was having a last whisky and looking out over the flower beds. The heavy clouds were beginning to break a little towards the west and the evening promised to be fine.

  Ella said, ‘You’re sure you’re doing the right thing, flying off like this?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he told her, and he really didn’t.

  She took his hand. ‘You know that you have people who love you, people who want to look after you.’

  ‘Yes, and I appreciate it. I don’t know what I would have done today without you.’

  ‘You’ve done enough for me in the past. Besides, we all loved your family. We loved Marmie and we loved the children. Nothing can ever replace them.’

  Randolph nodded. A bee swung past, heading towards the hibiscus. Somewhere off to the south, thunder rumbled like God’s anger.

  Charles came out into the garden accompanied by Mrs Wallace. ‘I believe it’s time that you left now, Mr Clare. Your airplane leaves at three-thirty.’

  Mrs Wallace was weeping unashamedly. Every now and then she took out her balled-up handkerchief and loudly blew her nose. ‘You will take care of yourself, Mr Clare?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Randolph smiled, touching her shoulder. ‘I won’t do anything rash.’

  Herbert brought the limousine around to the door and Randolph kissed Ella goodbye. Then he was driven off to collect Wanda and he did not look back at the house nor did he look out the windows at the streets of Memphis passing by. His attention now was focused exclusively on the future, on finding his family again. This was a time for hope and faith, not for reminiscences and grief.

  Wanda was ready for him, waiting outside her apartment building on Kyle Street.

  She wore a crisp white linen suit and a white straw skimmer. Herbert stored her bags in the limousine’s trunk and then they drove off towards the airport.

  ‘You look as if you’re going on safari,’ Randolph smiled.

  ‘On this trip, I think I’d better be prepared for almost anything,’ she told him, smiling.

  Dr Ambara was waiting for them by the American Airlines counter. He was wearing a dishevelled seersucker sports coat in pastel plaid and carrying two cameras, a carry-on suit bag and a huge, untidy folder crammed with magazines and newspapers.

  Randolph introduced him to Wanda and they checked their baggage and walked through to the departure gate.

  Herbert said, This time I’ll make sure that I’m waiting for you when you get back.’

  Randolph lifted a hand in acknowledgment. ‘Look after yourself, Herbert.’

  Dr Ambara said in a matter-of-fact way, ‘I was speaking this morning to an old friend of mine who works in the Indonesian economic department. I called him two days ago but he did not reply until today. He said that if we are truly serious about locating a death-trance adept and if we have enough money to pay the necessary bribes, it would be worth our while to meet a man in Djakarta called I.M. Wartawa. Apparently I.M. Wartawa is the man who arranged for the death trance in which they were searching for the will of Howard Hughes, and also for a death trance to talk to Jimmy Hoffa.’

  Randolph tried not to look sceptical but he glanced at Wanda, who in turn glanced away. Dr Ambara said, ‘Miss Wanda here … you have told her the purpose of this expedition, I presume?’

  ‘Yes,’ Wanda interjected. ‘She’s not sure that she approves. She’s not sure that she understands. But she’s willing to come along to give moral support and any emotional Curads that might be required.’

  Dr Ambara seemed to find Wanda’s presence discomfiting. However, he nodded acceptance of her words and inclined his head courteously to the airport security guard as she took his suit bag and laid it out flat on the endless belt that would take it through the X-ray machine. Randolph found the hint of anatagonism between Wanda and Dr Ambara somewhat amusing. He had always found that his staff worked better when its members were in competition with each other, and he had no doubt but that Wanda and Dr Ambara would outdo themselves to look after him. Without being patronizing and without being weak, he
had accepted that he needed looking after, at least for a while.

  During the flight to Los Angeles, Wanda gradually began to break down Dr Ambara’s reserve until she was talking to him about his career in America, about his beliefs in reincarnation and, most sensitive of all, about his dead wife and his hope of seeing her again.

  ‘I still don’t understand why the Indonesian government is so down on death trances,’ she said. ‘Surely they could make a fortune in foreign currency if they allowed adepts to offer their services freely. I mean, if it really works, who wouldn’t want to talk to his dead mother and father, even to his grandparents?’

  Dr Ambara stirred his vodka and tonic with a plastic airlines swizzle stick. ‘It is dangerous, that is why the government forbids it. Many adepts have been killed in the death trance, even though they were experienced priests. Perhaps other people have been killed as well but the government does what it can to keep the statistics quiet. They won’t even officially admit that there is such a thing as a death trance.’

  Wanda said gently, ‘Your wife, if you were to see her again … what would you say to her?’

  Dr Ambara looked thoughtful. Then he said, ‘I would tell her that I loved her and that I will always love her. And then I would ask her to forgive me.’

  ‘You didn’t kill her. Why should you ask her to forgive you?’

  ‘No, but I am still alive and she is dead, and I have always felt that it is the responsibility of every human being to do everything he can to protect his loved ones. I know that what happened was an accident. There was nothing I could have done to save her. And yet I still feel responsible. I still feel that it was my fault. If I can hear her say that she forgives me, perhaps I will be able to continue my life without the burden of guilt I have been carrying.’

  Wanda put her hand on Dr Ambara’s wrist. They were approaching Los Angeles now and the seat-belt warning had chimed. Below, in the sunny haze of mid-afternoon, traffic sparkled along the freeways, and turquoise swimming pools dotted the suburbs like unstrung necklaces. Wanda said, ‘If you do ever get to see her, do you know what I think she will say? I think she will tell you that she always loved you and that she never blamed you for one single minute.’

  Dr Ambara stared at her and then mumbled, ‘I hope so, Miss Wanda. I hope your intuition is proven to be right. In fact, I pray so.’

  The flight from Los Angeles to Djakarta was delayed for two hours. They sat in the airport lounge drinking cocktails and talking desultorily. There was little need for them to talk. This journey was beyond their experience, , beyond the experience of human life itself. There was nothing they could say about it until they had lived through it. Passengers jostled and pushed their way around them, en route to London, Chicago, New York, St Louis, keeping their appointments with the living.

  Only Randolph and Wanda and Dr Ambara knew that they, by contrast, were keeping an appointment with the dead.

  At last they were called to the gate. Standing behind them in the line to board were four tall, hard-faced men. One of them, who looked to be the leader of the group, impressed Randolph by his withdrawn silence, stonily maintained even when the other three were talking. His head looked as if it had been sculptured in granite: angular, uncompromising and scarred. One ear had been crumpled, either by fire or by a punishing beating, and there was a white mark running upwards from his left jaw into his close-cropped hairline. His eyes were as grey and cold as the ocean on a cloudy day. He chewed gum incessantly and seemed disinterested in what went on around him. More than disinterested, contemptuous.

  ‘Veterans, I should think,’ Dr Ambara remarked as the men walked past. ‘Probably travelling to Vietnam to commemorate the fall of Saigon. It is interesting to compare their pilgrimage with ours. It seems as if human beings have a burning urge to revisit the past, to try to understand its meaning. We are hopeless revisionists, I suppose.

  We forget that the future is unfolding with every minute that goes by and that in time we shall want to correct what we are doing today.’

  They flew out from Los Angeles into the grainy orange of a Pacific sunset. They would stop over at Honolulu, then at Manila, where they would change to the Indonesian airline, Merpati, for the last leg to Djakarta. Randolph did his best to sleep although every time he did, he had vivid dreams of Marmie’s casket as it was lowered into the ground. Once he woke up to find Wanda holding his hand tightly and saying, ‘Sssh, sssh, it’s all right. It’s all over.’

  ‘Was I talking in my sleep?’ he asked. He touched his eyes and discovered they were wet with tears.

  ‘You were calling out, that’s all. Don’t worry about it. You can’t keep it bottled up inside you all the time.’

  He wiped his eyes. ‘I’m sorry. Maybe I should take some sleeping pills.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Wanda reassured him. ‘Don’t worry.’

  The flight attendant came up and asked him if he wanted a drink. ‘A large whisky,’ he told her. Wanda signalled her disapproval with her eyes but Randolph said, ‘I buried my family today. I think I qualify for a drink.’

  Randolph and Wanda and Dr Ambara were flying first class. It was only when Randolph went to the rest room that he saw the four men who had been standing behind them in the line at the Los Angeles airport. They were sitting in business class, smoking cigarettes and playing cards. As Randolph waited for a vacant toilet, the man with the scarred face uncoiled himself from his seat and came up to stand close beside him. The man wore army fatigues with a khaki canvas belt and a badge from the First Airborne Cavalry with the name tag ‘Ecker.’

  Randolph nodded an acknowledgment to him but the man remained impassive, unsmiling, unmoving, although he kept his eyes steadily fixed on Randolph.

  Randolph turned away but every time he glanced back, the man was still staring at him. After a while, irritated by this constant attention, Randolph said, ‘Was there something you wanted? I mean, can I help you with something?’

  The man smiled to himself and turned away without answering. Randolph concluded that he was probably shell-shocked, one of those Vietnam veterans who had brought back his body but not his mind. When Randolph had spoken, the other three men had raised their heads from the card game and stared at him with equal coldness, but Randolph ignored them. It was no good reading anything into their apparent hostility. If Randolph had served in Vietnam, he would probably have finished up just as gratuitously hostile as they.

  After he had used the rest room and combed his hair, he returned to his seat. Wanda was asleep, a blanket drawn up to her neck. Dr Ambara was reading Cardiology Today and studiously ignoring the in-flight movie, which starred Elliott Gould and Joanne Woodward, one of those movies that seemed to have been specially made for showing on long-distance flights. Randolph finished his whisky and stared at his reflection in the darkened window. The film flickered silently: Elliott Gould running, Elliott Gould standing still, a car driving through a cold street.

  Randolph plugged in his earphones and as he was changing channels, he was sure that he caught a woman’s voice saying,’- dolph, please, Ran -‘ He flicked the control back through seven, eight and nine but the voice was gone. There was folk music now, and canned laughter, both of them half-drowned by the endless roaring of the plane’s engines.

  The flight attendant came up, smiled and said, ‘Would you care for another cocktail, Mr Clare?’

  Randolph shook his head. ‘No, thanks, no. I think I’ll try to get some sleep.’

  He reclined his seat and tried to relax, but the steady thundering of the 747’s progress across the Pacific kept him awake, apart from the fact that he was afraid of the nightmarish visions that sleep might bring: Marmie and the children running away from him, always running away, through cities and corridors and winding mazes; glimpsed but never caught. And then the sudden strangulation of barbed wire twisted tightly around the neck. Eyes distended, tongue protruding, lacerated fingers clawing at the barbs in a hopeless struggle to breathe. He had seen the
fingernail scratches on Marmie’s neck in the photographs Inspector Dulac had shown him. Her own fingernail scratches, inflicted as she had helplessly torn at the wire.

  He lowered his head to his chest. He could not imagine the pain that Marmie must have suffered. He could only hope that those who died in pain were beatified, that their agony bought them eternal peace. Where and how, he was not sure. By believing in Dr Ambara and by flying to Indonesia, he had denied his own religion, such as it was, and Marmie’s religion too. He hoped that Dr Ambara’s heaven was the same as Marmie’s heaven and that Dr Ambara’s god was the same God in whom Marmie had always believed.

  They stayed for four hours in Honolulu and ate breakfast as Wednesday morning gradually lightened the eastern horizon. The flight for Manila left at seven-fifteen and they walked to their plane under a sky that was pale and high and streaked with cirrus clouds. Randolph saw the man called Ecker shuffling down the aisle towards his seat, and for a second their eyes made curious and antagonistic contact. As soon as he had settled in his own seat, Randolph beckoned the flight director over and said, ‘I hope this isn’t the kind of question a fellow passenger shouldn’t ask, but do you have any idea of who those four men in combat fatigues might be?’

  The flight director smiled and shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Clare. I really don’t.’

  On a sudden impulse, Randolph reached clumsily into his wallet and dislodged a hundred-dollar bill. He folded it and offered it to the man between two stiffened fingers. ‘Do you think that now you might be able to remember?’

  The flight director stared at the bill impassively. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Clare, they’re nothing more than names on the passenger roster. I haven’t had any special advisories on them. You know, sometimes - between you and me - I do if there’s a recently bailed felon on board, or a woman of particular wealth, or even somebody quite innocent who didn’t do anything more than attract the attention of the security guards back at the airport. Some people act very strange when they fly. It’s mostly fear.’