“I thought you might be in rough shape this morning, so I instructed Antonio to fix an appropriate breakfast: scrambled eggs, toast, and tomato juice.” She placed the tray in front of me and began peeling an orange for herself as she sat in the chair next to the bed again.
I took the fork, swallowed the excess saliva gathering in my mouth again, and began to eat. I felt better in minutes and ate everything on the plate as she peeled, segmented, and ate the orange.
“Thank you for breakfast, for letting me stay here, for everything. You were right about the drinking. I must have been really drunk, I don’t recall how I got out of my clothes. I don’t even remember your name.”
She looked at me as she chewed. There was something unnerving about the way she eyed me. Usually, when someone stares, you can see the determination and effort in their expression. Hers was one of total relaxed confidence. She swallowed and cleared her throat. “My friends call me Poppy.”
“What do your patients call you?” I countered.
She smiled and held her small hand out to me. “Hello, my name is Poppy.”
I leaned over, placed my right hand in hers. “Evan Michaels.”
“Yes, I know. I took your clothes off last night after you went unconscious. Your wallet fell open on the floor when I folded your pants. I hope you don’t mind, you had a lot of blood on your clothes, and I didn’t want to ruin the bedding.”
I nodded. “Thanks. You don’t look like a nun,” I said, still confused.
“Thank you, I think. Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
“This is a church, isn’t it?”
She smiled. “Ah, it used to be, a long time ago. It is my home,” she said, looking at the old wooden walls. “I’ll show you the place when you’re up and around.”
I wondered if she intended to let me stay until I’d healed. The charity I had received so far seemed out of place, even from a church. And now, knowing that it came from a stranger, I felt wary.
“How much do you remember from last night?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. I remember the gun, I remember the tub, and I remember the stitches. What did I miss?”
“Nothing really,” she said, then fell into a confident silence.
“Do you live here alone?”
“No, Antonio lives here as well.”
“But it’s just the two of you.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you help me last night? Why didn’t you call the police?”
She looked up at the ceiling as if looking for an answer. “I don’t like the police, I’ve never had much use for them. And you, I helped you because you looked like you needed it, and you remind me of someone I used to know.”
“Lucky for me. Say, do you have another one of those Lendts?” She pulled out the orange-and-white pack, handed me one, and lit it. “How many stitches did it take?”
“Twelve, it should close up nicely. I don’t think you should have any problem with it healing properly.”
“How long should I leave the stitches in?”
“Five days or so, we’ll change the dressing soon. If we keep it changed, it will heal quicker.”
“Good,” I said, wondering how soon the change would be and how soon I’d be gone. I was just happy to stay off my foot as long as I could. “You said last night that you used to be a doctor, where?”
She pulled out a cigarette for herself as she spoke. “Lots of places, but I don’t want to talk about me, I want to talk about you, Evan. Where are you from?”
“A farm in Minnesota.”
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“Nope.”
“And why exactly did you come to Los Angeles, Evan Michaels?”
I liked the way she said my name. “I traveled around a bit after I left Minnesota, I just liked it here, I guess. It felt comfortable.”
She smiled. “Yes, it has that effect, doesn’t it? It’s the anonymity.”
I nodded. I felt strangely comfortable talking with her about myself, like I could trust her, even though, out of habit, I wouldn’t allow myself to. “What else would you like to know?”
“What do you do for money?” she asked.
“Just about anything.”
She laughed. “I like that answer. Where do you live?”
“In a hotel near Slauson and Crenshaw.”
She cocked her head toward me. “That’s a fairly rough neighborhood, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is, but it’s cheap. This area doesn’t seem that safe either.”
“Well, it’s not what it used to be. Time can do that to a place. What were you doing here last night?”
I took a long drag on the Lendts and began thinking up a story.
She spoke first and interrupted my train of thought. “Before you tell me a lie, remember that I didn’t call the police last night and I’m not inclined to do so now. Last night when I undressed you, I noticed the hair on the back of your head is singed, and the skin on your neck looks scorched.”
I almost swallowed my tongue at her warning. Her unnerving stare looked right through me. “What if I don’t feel comfortable telling you?”
She thought for a second before she answered. “That wouldn’t reflect well on my hospitality, now would it?”
She had me cornered. She was good. “Could I have another cigarette?” I asked, crushing out the old one in the ashtray on the nightstand. I took a long draw off the fresh one and leaned back against the headboard. “I was at a fire last night.”
“Yes, I thought so. I heard the fire brigades go by last night. It looked like the old Lynnman Warehouse over on Marion.”
“It was,” I conceded. I couldn’t believe that confession had come from my mouth.
“Hmm,” she murmured. “Do you have a wife or any children?”
“No,” I answered quickly, relieved that she’d changed the subject. “I have to go to the bathroom,” I said, changing it again.
She smiled warmly. “I hadn’t thought of how to handle that. Let me see if I can find a pair of crutches for you to use,” she said, leaving the room.
I sat up carefully after she’d gone and moved my legs sideways over the edge of the bed. My foot began to throb as soon as I lowered it to the floor. I scooted sideways toward the low footboard and looked over the edge at the chest she had glanced at periodically during the conversation. On it lay a pair of underwear, a different pair than the ones I’d worn the day before, my leather jacket, wallet, and the hundred and fifty dollars I had carried.
I leaned over, grabbed the underwear, and slipped them over my legs, being careful not to touch the bandage. I put the money and wallet in the jacket before moving back to the head of the bed.
She returned with a single crutch that looked like it had just been taken from a Civil War soldier. The top part that fit under the armpit was a large, roughly carved block of wood, and the lower part was nothing more than a polished and partially twisted tree branch. It didn’t have a hand grip, and I assumed that you just gripped the branch at wherever your hand landed.
She looked down at the underwear I’d donned then back up to my eyes. “Good for you. Are you ready to try it?”
“Oh, yes, I’m ready.” I had to urinate badly.
“I’m sorry, but I could only find one.” She presented it to me, and I stood up, putting some weight on it. I realized immediately that it wouldn’t take much usage for the discomfort in my armpit to make me forget about my foot. My hand fit nicely into a worn twist in the branch about halfway down.
“This is an antique, isn’t it?” I asked, taking a tentative step as I braced myself on her shoulder.
She looked at it for a moment before she answered. “Yes, I suppose it has gotten old, hasn’t it?”
Her words echoed in my head as I took the next step. I gue
ss it has gotten old, hasn’t it? It sounded like something I might say if I wasn’t paying attention. It sounded hauntingly familiar. A funny thing happened to me after I’d completely assimilated Vasili’s and Bobby’s memories, I lost almost all perspective of time. It happened so subtly that I didn’t realize it for the first few years, and I sometimes still misplace things in my own history. I would remember important events in history that happened during Vasili’s lifetime, like the opening of the Panama Canal or the first flight of the Wright Brothers, then would pick up a newspaper to see that it was the fiftieth or seventy-fifth anniversary of the event. Only then would I realize, hey, that was a long time ago. Vasili’s and Bobby’s memories are as clear to me as my own, and though I can always tell who the memories belong to, they appear to me as an uninterrupted timeline. Events that happened during their lives happened to me as well, and quietly got older while I wasn’t paying attention. I guess it has gotten old. I kept thinking about how familiar it sounded and how strange it felt coming from someone else. She probably misspoke.
The door to my room opened into the nave of the church. The room I had traversed in the drugged darkness before was enormous in the light. The long sides of the room were covered in rich wooden panels that rose a full fifteen feet before slanting inward to meet the ones of the other side in a high vaulted ceiling. The vast hardwood floor was devoid of the original pews, except for two lonely ones directly in front of a short stage where the pulpit had once been. The back wall of the room was the exterior stone wall I had seen the night before. The rough-cut stones held three tall stained glass windows ending in Gothic arches at the top. The colors of the glass shone through softly, but I couldn’t make out the scenes in the dim twilight. I turned to look at Poppy. “What time is it?”
She looked up and pointed to a clock on the wall above me. “Eight thirty p.m.”
The unexplained time loss made me feel even more disoriented. “Wow, what was that you shot me with?”
“Laudanum.4 It can knock you out for a while if you’re not used to it.”
She obviously was. The crutch clicked against the wooden floor with every step I took, echoing throughout the large room.
“It’s the last door on the right, it’s the same bathroom you were in last night. I’ll wait for you out here,” she said, walking over to the near church pew.
I reemerged in minutes, and she helped me back to the bedroom. I was unable to walk without putting some weight on my foot and by the time we’d reached the bedroom, it was hurting again.
“Are you in pain?” she asked.
“Is it that obvious?”
“I can tell you’re favoring it more than when you first got up.”
“Yes, it’s sore. I’d like to lie down again.” I hovered in the doorway and looked around the main room. I sat down on the bed and eased my legs up, sighing heavily. Poppy stopped in the doorway.
“I hope you’ll forgive me, but I must leave. I have some business to attend to. I’ll have Antonio bring down some fruit and a few selections from my library. Get some rest, I’ll see you in the morning. Call for Antonio if you desire anything.”
“Thank you. Good night,” I trailed off as she left. I hadn’t trusted anyone in a long time, but I felt the strange and unfamiliar stirrings of trust when near her. Despite this, I couldn’t ignore the question of why she would go out of her way to help a total stranger that had just been shot by the police. It wasn’t normal. I would like to meet the person I reminded her of, I thought, looking at the white plaster ceiling.
It’s pathetic to think that suspicion would be the first reaction I should have to any kindness shown me. I don’t think Vasili would have had the same reaction in his day. If altruism still exists in the world, I’ve never seen it in this town.
Poppy’s use of “laudanum” described here is more likely morphine or heroin. Laudanum, a type of opiate diluted with alcohol into a tincture, was popular in the nineteenth century as an analgesic. Her usage of the term here might be euphemistic.
6
Raindrops resonated on the roof and echoed throughout the nave of the church and each flash of lightning exploded into brilliant hues through the stained glass. Antonio was warmer to me when he brought in the fruit and books. He handed me three aged volumes: The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant, The Collected Poems of John Donne, and Some Dogmas of Religion by J. M. E. McTaggart.5
I remembered most of Kant’s work from Vasili, who had taken an interest in philosophy in the latter years of his life. I picked up John Donne and read several poems as the approaching thunderclaps punctuated the mood of his poetry.
The third book, Some Dogmas of Religion, was the newest. It looked like a fifties-era college textbook and the title suggested it would be dry enough to put me to sleep. I hadn’t heard of Dr. McTaggart, but by the time I was a hundred and twenty pages into the text, I was already searching the bibliography for related titles.
The first sections on religion and dogma were as dry as I’d expected. The next section on human immortality reawakened me, but the following section on human preexistence blew me away. McTaggart was a metaphysician and lecturer at Cambridge around the turn of the last century. He was also a believer in reincarnation.
I had read many books about reincarnation since I’d realized I was unique, but everything I found was written in the context of Eastern Philosophy. Some parts of Hinduism and Buddhism made sense and were very appealing, but I could never embrace them fully because of my inability to accept their major tenet of karma. Nothing in my experience through three lives has ever supported the idea of karmic debt.
McTaggart was different. He argued,
But even the best of men are not, when they die, in such a state of intellectual and moral perfection as would fit them to enter heaven immediately…This is generally recognized, and one of two alternatives is commonly adopted to meet it. The first is that some tremendous improvement—an improvement out of all proportion to any which can ever be observed in life—takes place at the moment of death…The other and more probable alternative is that the process of gradual improvement can go on in each of us after the death of our present bodies.
I thought if this second, more probable of McTaggart’s alternatives were true, then we have to contend with a plurality of lives instead of a single one. And a plurality of lives must mean at least three; the present one, the one before it, and the one after it, though it is more likely that there would be a series of past lives.
He supported his plurality of lives and preexistence argument by explaining innate skills or propensities as skills known or practiced in an earlier life, and that a man’s character is directly shaped by the unremembered experiences of these previous lives.
I laid back on the bed, held the book close to me, and relished the vindication in its pages. The storm had eased, but by the time I’d finished, I was too excited to sleep.
It felt claustrophobic in my room and I decided to continue reading in the main nave. I hobbled silently to the pew and carefully settled in to read. The type on the pages was barely visible in the poor light. Dawn was breaking outside. I had read all night.
I sat bathed in the faint, multicolored twilight that filtered through the three tall windows, wondering why she had chosen those three volumes for me to read, especially the McTaggart. She could have scanned a library of tens of thousands of books and not found one as perfectly suited as that one. It seemed to me it would hold little interest to anyone normal, and certainly not enough interest to merit selecting it for a guest. I made a mental note to ask her if I could keep it.
The light outside grew brighter, and I began to make out different shapes and scenes in the colored glass in front of me. There were nine different panels set into the three windows. I sat and studied each in detail as they took shape in the morning silence. One after another, they burst into vivid reds, blues, yellows, gr
eens, and whites and took on a life of their own. I studied their beauty, a bit bewildered, for half an hour or so until I recognized the pattern. There wasn’t any. None of the panels, as near as I could tell, had anything to do with the Bible. I was very familiar with Vasili’s Eastern Orthodoxy, somewhat familiar with Protestantism, and I found it hard to believe that Catholic icons could be so different, if this had even been a Catholic church.
The first two panels shared the same character, a young American Indian man. He was slim with medium-length, straight, black hair. In the first scene, he sat at a workbench admiring a piece of jewelry. The middle panel on the left window showed the same young man sitting on a cliff above a southwestern pueblo, kissing a young girl.
The third and fourth panels at the bottom of the left window and the top of the center one featured a different character, a young, tall black boy. In the third, he was riding a white horse through open country, and in the fourth, he was dancing around a fire as part of a ceremony in a Pueblo village similar to the one in the second scene.
A Middle Eastern woman was set into the center panel. She stood alone, clothed in a red dress and adorned with gold necklaces and headbands that held down a patchwork of crimson scarves. She had eyes that looked out of the glass right into your soul. Below her was a white man in a rowboat sculling away from what looked like a burning island. The same man was in the top panel of the last window, only here he looked a little older and was being pursued through an old European city at night by a cloaked figure holding a dagger. The deep blues, purples, and grays of this nocturnal panel gave it a particularly rich feel.
The next panel was my favorite—it showed a pale, thin man in royal French costume, complete with powdered wig and painted mole. He looked straight ahead and clutched a flintlock pistol in his right hand. The pistol, pointed up, was held next to his head in position for a duel. Behind him, in a blossoming cherry orchard, I could make out the outline of his opponent. The artwork was incredible. I could see the urgency in his face and sense his emotion. There was no doubt that this man was fighting for his life. His face showed confidence, but not an ounce of fear, and if you looked at him long enough, he almost seemed to be suppressing a smile. The last panel showed the same duelist blowing and shaping an orange glass ball in a workshop.
The Reincarnationist Papers Page 6
