“Do you remember when we worked on that series of sporting outfits for pre-teens? You drew those very well. In fact, I pointed that out, and you made some joke about an artist’s eyes being different from a mother’s. Do you remember?”
Janice said nothing. She turned away from Elaine and listened to the subterranean rumble of the city that never died, not even at 2:30 in the morning.
“Her name was Ivy,” Janice said softly. “She died eight months ago. It was an accident.”
There was a long space of silence. Then Elaine said softly, “I’m so very sorry to know that.”
“I should have told you long ago,” Janice said. “That’s why Bill isn’t home. It was Ivy’s death that caused his breakdown.”
“It’s been difficult for you. I can tell.”
Janice inhaled deeply.
“It was,” Janice said slowly. “I’ve never told anybody just how horrible it really was.”
In a slow, even voice, as though she had rehearsed it for months, Janice began to tell Elaine about what it was like when she first realized that a man was shadowing Ivy. What it was like watching Ivy bend and twist, scream, and suffocate with fear, not once, not twice, but many times, until there was no remembering when it all began. It was so hard to explain what it was like, seeing a presence— Hoover’s—gradually insinuate itself into your apartment, your life, your child—into your own soul.
For hours she spoke, until the dawn spread its frigid, pale glow through the slatted blinds, and Janice, hoarse from the ordeal, groped for her coffee cup.
Elaine, divining her need, pushed it across to her. “Of course. I remember it all. The papers were full of it.” Then, in a small, amazed voice: “So you’re that Templeton.”
Janice’s eyes lowered. “Yes, I’m that Templeton.”
Elaine looked away, in a seeming quandary.
“All this Buddhist stuff, or Hindu,” she said. “Did you actually believe it?”
“I believed one thing. My daughter was in serious trouble and Elliot Hoover was the only person who could get her out of it.”
“It must have been painful testifying against your own husband, like that.”
Janice smiled bitterly.
“I had no choice. I would have signed a pact with the devil.”
“And now?”
“Now? Now, I try not to think about it. It’s actually a lot of hard work sometimes, not thinking about it.”
“That’s why Bill just stopped thinking at all?”
Janice stood up. She looked out at the gray, cold dawn on the stone streets. For a long time, she just looked out.
“Elaine,” she said slowly, “Bill has started to read Hindu tracts. Buddhist texts.”
Elaine stared at her in surprise. Janice turned to look at her. “I don’t know what to make of it. He’s become so damned obsessive about it. I can’t stand to be with him when he talks about it. But what can I do? Shut him up? Only a few weeks ago, he wasn’t even speaking. I can’t very well reject him now!”
“Maybe he needs to—to understand,” Elaine offered. “Just wants to review what happened.”
Janice raised her voice.
“But I don’t want to hear about it!” she said. “I don’t want to go through it again! It’s like a madhouse, a thousand crooked mirrors screaming at you, each one of them saying Buddha, and Karma, and transmigration, making you hear it all over again, and I don’t want to listen!”
Janice paused and lowered her voice.
“I can’t go through it again, Elaine. To feel myself slipping into it like quicksand—astral planes and holy cycles—getting closer and closer to believing it. It’s like going insane. Slowly, but surely. Just like going insane.”
6
Janice skipped lunch that day. Instead, she lay down on the couch, closed her eyes, and sank into the oblivion of total fatigue. Just as dream images began to form, Elaine tapped her on the shoulder.
“Telephone,” Elaine said. “Sounds official.”
Janice rose quickly, swayed, caught herself, then walked calmly to her work desk. She picked up the receiver and pressed her exchange button.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Templeton, Dr. Geddes here.”
“Is everything all right?”
“I tried calling you at home, but there was no answer.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Let me say first that Bill’s all right. Just a few scratches. There was a kind of altercation.”
Janice sat down slowly. Elaine came in, saw the look on her face, and discreetly left again, closing the door.
“Altercation? Bill?”
“Yes, with another patient, named Borofsky. Apparently, Bill had inveigled him into doing some kind of research. Borofsky was connected to the bookstore at Gimbels, or something like that. They had a falling out, Borofsky came to his room, and Bill thought he was trying to steal his notes.”
“Notes? What notes?”
Dr. Geddes started over again, more slowly.
“Bill’s been studying. Studying a lot more than we’d guessed. Newspaper clippings. Old lectures he conned out of a library in Albany. Books—you name it. And I guess he was possessive about it, and when Borofsky came down, Bill hit him with an old brass lamp from the library. Borofsky seems to be all right. He’s been X-rayed and there’s no fracture.”
“I can’t believe Bill would do something like that.”
“Mrs. Templeton, can you come to the clinic today?”
“Today? It would be very difficult.”
“It’s quite important. Bill’s a bit delirious. He thinks we sent Borofsky to spy on him. You have to come and help us reestablish his trust. Before his attitude hardens.”
“All right. I’ll try.”
When Janice explained things to Elaine, a visible disappointment surfaced on Elaine’s face.
“You don’t really have a choice, do you?”
“Believe me, I’d rather not, but—”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll manage.”
Janice caught the 12:45 northbound to Ossining. She slept the entire trip.
She stumbled wearily through the cascading rain, caught in the cone of the taxi headlights, entered the clinic, and found Bill in the infirmary. Three long red scratches trailed vividly down his face and he gazed blankly at the door where she stood.
“He’s a bit sedated,” Dr. Geddes whispered behind her, closing the door.
Janice walked quickly to the bed. Bill’s face turned to follow her, but it was not his face. Something had taken over. His forehead was damp with perspiration and he looked warily around the room.
“Bill?” she whispered, “can you hear me?”
“Of course I can hear you, Janice,” he said quickly. “Do I look dead?”
“But, darling…I don’t understand. What happened?”
Bill laughed derisively. Dr. Geddes sauntered closer to the bed. It was a small infirmary, and the other two beds were still freshly made.
Bill turned away.
“Nobody knew you were taking those notes,” Dr. Geddes said, as kindly as he could, “so how could we be spying on you?”
“The old man told you, of course.”
“You know there’s no covert supervision here, Bill.”
“That’s what you say, Geddes. I saw him in my room. I didn’t invite him.”
“But I don’t understand,” Janice persisted. “Why did you hit him?”
Bill whirled around, glaring at her, his eyes a lurid deep black, pinpoints of brightness flashing in the depths of the pupils.
“Because he had no business there!” he hissed.
“But what’s so important about—”
“That’s for me to say! Not you! Not Geddes! Just me!”
Dr. Geddes exchanged glances with Janice. Bill saw them looking at one another and withdrew into his pillow. One of the long scratches reopened and a thin trail of crim son dripped down onto the collar of his pajamas.
&nb
sp; “Is he all right?” Bill asked, softer.
“Just a bad headache. No fracture.”
“Well, he shouldn’t have done it. It’s his own god-damn fault.”
“Bill, I want you to listen to Janice,” Dr. Geddes said. “You know when she lies and when she tells the truth. Will you do that for me? Just listen to somebody besides yourself for two minutes.”
After staring at Bill, who lowered his eyes, Dr. Geddes walked slowly out of the infirmary. A nurse tried to come in, but Dr. Geddes blocked her way with an arm and closed the door firmly behind him. Janice gently tried to touch the bleeding line down Bill’s cheek but he drew her hand away.
“What’s gotten into you, Bill?” she asked heatedly.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? You practically killed an old man last night! Is that normal?”
“I just tapped him.”
“Bill, listen to me. You do that again and they’ll— they’ll start giving you medicine, drugs. They’ll give you electric shock.”
Bill laughed.
“There’s no shock machine here.”
“Then they’ll ship you someplace where there is! What do you think you’re playing around with?”
Worried, Bill raised himself higher against his pillows. Janice leaned closer, her face nearly white with worry.
“Bill, listen to me,” she whispered. “Whatever’s going through your head now, throw it out, because if they transfer you to some other place, some place where they’re used to violent cases—Jesus, Bill, you’ll never see the light of day!”
She broke down crying, leaned against his chest. Over and over she said, “Don’t you understand that, Bill? Never… Never… Never…”
Bill swallowed hard, and his hand gently held her around her shoulder. He squeezed softly.
“Okay, Janice,” he whispered hoarsely. “I got the message.”
Clumsily, he moved away from under her, struggled to the other edge of the bed, and sat up. He slipped into his trousers and pulled on a green checkered shirt.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Give me a hand, will you, honey? They shot me full of shit.”
Janice ran to his side, lifted his arm over her shoulder, and eased him to a standing position.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m okay now. I can walk.”
Gradually, he shuffled his way to the door. He paused and, with a gesture of his head, beckoned for her to open it.
“Come on,” he whispered, “I’ve got something to show you.”
Stumbling, Bill led her as quickly as he could, swaying into the side walls, holding his hands out as though feeling for invisible barriers, toward his room. Inside, it looked as though the fight had broken apart the bedroom walls. The edge of the desk tilted at a crazy angle. Books, chairs, pillows, and blankets were strewn violently over the floor, and everywhere were handfuls of paper, note cards, spiralbound notebooks.
Janice stumbled forward, her shoes stepping on the paper. She bent down, picked up several sheets and tried to discern them in the dark. Bill’s tight handwriting was illegible. But at the sides of the sheets were diagrams. The human body with dotted triangles emanating from the head, thorax, and groin.
“Bill, what is all this?”
“I’ve discovered things, Janice,” he said. “It’s time I told you about them.”
“What kind of things?”
“Sit down. I have to go through these things in order. So you understand.”
Janice felt for the bed, sat down slowly, still watching Bill. He was moving restlessly, and outside the rain now turned to sleet, growing so violent that it smashed into splinters around his head behind the glass, like a tortured halo.
“I’ve been studying for a long time, Janice,” he said in that chilling, moody tone that sent shivers into her back. “I played dumb. But I was studying. Now I know too much.”
He rubbed his mouth nervously and jumped at the sound of a truck passing slowly over the hill.
“I have to explain these things,” he said quickly, “because then I have to ask you some things, Janice. So just listen.”
“All right,” she said gently. “I’m listening.”
Bill licked his lips, then removed himself as far from her as he could, to the broken desk near the windows. His voice trailed coldly from him.
“It’s because of Ivy, you know,” he said, “that I started reading. Well, I found that this idea you and Hoover had— you know what I’m talking about—well, it all started before there were any Hindus. All of Hoover’s ideas about the yogis and the river Ganges and reincarnation were half-baked. I know that now. That much is plain. Hoover was right about some things. But he was confused. He didn’t get it all right!”
Bill began pacing and turning, back and forth, in front of the window.
“Now, if you look at this analytically,” he said, “if you really pore over it day and night for as long as I have, you begin to discover a few things.”
Bill paused, then straightened his back, as though in pain. His hand kneaded the back of his neck.
“Before there were any writings,” he said softly, his voice oddly in rhythm with the swaying plants and undulating grass outside. “Before there were any temples and all that. There was a belief, by the people of the plains, that when you died, you passed into a heaven. But if you were really good, if you were successful, you could go up to the chief of the heavens, and there you could be with the father of all the gods, who was Yama. Now listen to me, Janice. It was called going up to the world of light. Light. You got to remember that. And if you passed upward into that light, you could unite in some way with Yama, and drink with the gods under leafy trees, and there was constant singing all around, and lutes played, and your body was young and vigorous, without imperfection or weakness. If you passed into the light.”
Bill paused, savoring the recollection of what he had read. He imagined the picture, the metaphors of what he now repeated. Bill waited for a response.
“All right, Bill,” Janice said. “The light.”
“Yes. The light. Now that doesn’t help us much with Ivy, does it? So I kept reading. And the prophets, after two thousand years, went deeper into death. And they put it differently.”
Bill stared dreamily out of the window.
“The departed soul,” he continued softly, “rises to the moon. If it passes on, it goes to the world of fire, and wind, and sky, and the gods. And it is dressed in exquisite robes and garlands, and perfumed with soft ointments. It goes to a lake and an ageless river, and crosses, and shakes off evil deeds. And it comes to a celestial city, Janice. A kind of palace with a long hall. A shining throne. Bathed in light. You see? The light! And when it sees the light, the body is truly dead, and the Creator God asks—he asks: ‘Who are you?’”
Bill’s voice trailed away. The dripping eaves made a steady sound behind him. Janice watched as his silhouette rubbed his eyes, but whether in fatigue or for tears, she could not tell.
“And you say something like—something that translates like—‘I am real,’” Bill concluded. “It’s like that, Janice. Are you listening?”
“I am. Of course I am.”
“Good. Because if you don’t pass on to that light, that shining light, you falter. You fumble. You find yourself back on the earth. And like a caterpillar that goes from one blade of grass to the next, you live all over again, trying to become a beautiful form. So you can pass into the light. The light of oblivion.”
Bill slumped wearily, sitting against the windowsill. He breathed heavily, then smoothed his hair down with his right hand. He looked at Janice, his own face reduced to the two pinpoints of his eyes, gleaming softly at her.
“Well, that could help,” he said gently. “That could lead us somewhere. I mean, if you’re really trying to understand what happened. Maybe somehow Ivy—I mean the earlier child, Audrey—There was a false continuation, but it doesn’t quite make sense. Does it?”
�
�I—I don’t know, Bill.”
“I mean, you accepted all that. What do you think now?”
“I’m prepared to believe that something like that might have happened,” Janice said sincerely, faltering. “But the details—”
“Exactly, Janice. The details. The details will never make sense to people like us, will they? I mean, we believe in reason, in analyzing, as best we can, and then—but that’s what I thought until—now listen closely, Janice. Follow what I’m saying.”
Bill began pacing again, talking to the storm, yet listening, trying to sense Janice’s responses. Then he picked up a long, heavy book from the floor and began slowly paging through it, looking for something, even while he spoke.
“Two things stuck in my mind,” he said quietly. “First, Hoover said that Audrey Rose came back and there was only one reason. Why did she come back? She came back because her death was untimely. Isn’t that it? What else was going on, it all happened because she was caught in that car. Dead before her time. And of all the books I read, all the incomprehensible poems and prayers and voodoo and parables and Christ knows what, nobody ever mentioned an untimely death. All the Hindus cared about, all the Jains cared about, all anybody cared about was what happened at the end of a long quiet life.”
Bill licked his lips. Evidently he had found his place. He peered down at the book, squinted, then backed against the window to catch some light from the low floodlights outside.
“So I had to keep looking. And then I found the Clear Light of Death,” he whispered. “I found it in the bardo t’ odro, the Book of Death.”
“What are you talking about, Bill?”
“Those books you gave me about Tibet. Things that Borofsky got for me. Did you know that for thousands of years the Tibetans were isolated from the rest of the world? That they perfected the science of death? I’ve read these verses over and over again, Janice, until I can recite them by heart! And I have to explain them to you because they make sense. They make sense the way nothing else in this evil-infested world ever did!”
Bill whipped the book upward to his chest, looking feverishly for his place. Janice found herself shivering. She unconsciously pulled the blanket from the top of the bed and gathered it around her.
For Love of Audrey Rose Page 9
