Sacha—The Way Back

by Stan I. S. Law

  Sacha recalled his father telling him about Stephen Hawking, regarded by many of his peers as the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Einstein. Hawking, after being confined to a wheel-chair for over twenty years by the Lou Gehrig’s disease, in the Acknowledgments to one of his books had written: “Apart from being unlucky enough to get ALS, or motor neuron disease, I have been fortunate in almost every other respect.” Sacha thought that Deborah would have made Hawking proud. They both exhibited indomitable spirit that refused to dwell on the dark side of life. In addition, although Sacha had traveled the world, Deborah seemed to know as much about human nature as he did. More, in some respects.

  “How much would you do for a friend?” he asked after recovering from her answer.

  “Name it!” Freshness returned to her eyes. He knew that he could ask for virtually anything. Anything that would not impinge on the remnants of dignity she still retained.

  “Come with me to Los Angeles.”

  “But why? I don’t know Los Angeles. I don’t know if I can make my way there...”

  Her last sentence followed the path of what the musicians call decrescendo. To extend the metaphor, it also registered a pronounced diminuendo. Her tone of voice lost something of its assurance and volume.

  “There are some people there I want you to meet.”

  “But...”

  “It’s important to me,” he said more sternly than he’d intended. And when she still didn’t react he added––this time softly: “For a friend?”

  She leaned her head on the back of the sofa and closed her eyes. Even now, in full daylight she looked two or three years younger than her age. It’s a wonder she hadn’t been arrested for underage soliciting. Assuming there is a good age for prostitution. So far she’d survived the tribulations of her imposed profession. Imposed, not chosen. Sacha knew that this time he had caught her in time. There was no way he would let her slip through his fingers again.

  “Is it a deal then?” he asked hopefully.

  “You must find me things to do. I don’t know if there is anything that I know how to do. I’ve never really done anything. I mean...”

  “I know,” he cut her off sharply.

  He took her face in his palms. Slowly, still smiling, he raised her head and looked intensely into her eyes. She saw the infinite potential swirling within her being. She saw the countless possibilities waiting to be explored. Not any particular ones. It was like hearing whole symphonies compressed into a single chord.

  “The world is there for you to conquer. I can’t do it for you, Deborah. But I know that you have it in you to do whatever you want.”

  She remained motionless, breathing deeply. Finally she looked away from his eyes and let her lids protect them from further invasion.

  “No one ever told me that,” she said, as though in a dream.

  No one ever did. Nor could anyone––except for Sacha.

  And then, as though coming awake for the first time in her life, she whispered in disbelief: “Who are you...?”

  Three days later they left for LA.

  There was another reason why Sacha thought it wise to leave town. It would allow things to cool down a little. The last thing he needed was the reputation of an avenging Zorro. And the paparazzi tended to hang on like well-trained fleas. Or pit bulls. Once they bit they wouldn’t let go. He’d decided to remove himself from the biting scene for a while.

  Sacha telephoned ahead. He said that he’d met a friend who needed looking after. Could she stay with Alicia for a few days?

  “It would mean a great deal to me,” he told her.

  Alicia agreed at once. There was very little she wouldn’t do for Sacha. Anyway, since Desmond had died, she had time on her hands. All her life she’d been looking after someone. It was what made her happy.

  In LA Sacha took Deborah directly to Alicia’s apartment. Grandma drove back from Solana Beach just to pick them up. Eventually, he would take Deborah to meet the rest of the family, but for now Sacha entrusted her to his grandmother’s care. They arrived late and Alicia suggested they both stay the night. Sacha excused himself under some lame pretext. He lied.

  “Must go to parents condo. Things to do…” he lied cryptically. He was very bad at lying. Of course, he always had things to do. It’s just that this was not his underlying motive. What he found hard to admit to Grandma was that, somehow, he was embarrassed to sleep with Deborah in his grandmother’s house. Together, that is. He was even more embarrassed not to.

  His parents had just left on one of his father’s lecture tours. Finally they could travel together. He was glad that he would be able to tell them about Deborah in his own good time.

  “You’re not going to leave me here for ever, are you?” There was a mixture of fear and plea in Deborah’s voice. She felt at home among the cutthroats of St-Laurent, but felt quite ill at ease in Alicia’s apartment.

  “I’ll be back before you know it,” he assured her. “Now have a good rest and don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

  “You have bugs here?” Deborah’s eye grew larger.

  Alicia shook her head. “Only when Sacha’s around. Once he goes we shall both be all right,” she assured her young visitor with a grave face.

  It was at this moment that Deborah decided that she was going to like Alicia after all.

  There was another reason why Sacha had chosen Alicia to look after Deborah. His grandmother had an incredible affinity for dealing with, for the want of a better word, difficult children. Deborah was hardly a child. But she qualified in the difficult department. Not for the usual reasons. But her set of values, her whole ethos, while fundamentally sound, was not adapted to the so-called civilized society. Even though the civilization we all admire and cherish left a lot to be desired. In LA alone, last year, more than 550 people had been murdered—so much for freedom and democracy. Sacha felt that Alicia could look after this disparity in Deborah’s education. The rest would come later. He soon learned that he’d made the right choice.

  The following day, over breakfast, Deborah told Alicia about her past. Having confided in Sacha, she regarded her early life with a strange detachment. As though she’d been freed from a tremendous burden. Alicia wasn’t shocked. At her age it would take a great deal to shock her. And she half-expected Sacha to come up with something ‘unusual’. But she advised Deborah not to advertise the story of her last few years.

  “Promise me, little one, that you’ll never, never, tell that to anyone. Never again.”

  Deborah agreed. She wasn’t quite sure why. After all she didn’t steal, or cheat, or lie. She’d earned an honest living. That couldn’t have been wrong. But Sacha told her—no—he’d asked her, to listen to Grandma. And she promised she would. And Deborah had not learned yet how to break promises.

  As with the children in her art classes Alicia, for reasons she’d never quite understood herself, accepted Deborah, Debbie, just as she was. There was neither judgment nor displeasure in her admonition. She thought it best for Debbie. Alicia sneaked in surreptitious—sneaky would be a better word—questions over dinner and during breakfast, and came to some conclusions. Even after just a few hours, Deborah seemed to her the most innocent girl she’d ever met. Certainly more so than she’d been at seventeen herself. At that age she’s been preoccupied with boys like every good, healthy, vital seventeen-year-old. For Debbie, boys seemed furthest from her mind.

  Alicia thought she knew why.

  Sacha visited them daily. They talked, joked, went for long walks. After dinner, he left. He needed his nights for himself. His parents were still away. But, once again, Sacha was beginning to feel the strain of a double life. He convinced Alicia and Deborah to go to Solana Beach.

  “I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

  “I’ve never seen the Pacific,” Deborah confessed, her eyes shining. Their walks had not taken them as far as the waterfront.

  Deborah was gradually losing her feeling of being ‘a kept woman’. It was
easier with another woman. Sacha had known that. And anyway, Alicia was halfway to convincing Deborah that without her she simply wouldn’t be able to cope.

  “I am not as old as I look,” she lied. Alicia looked a lot younger than she was. “But it’s all getting to be a bit much for me. I wish I had someone to help me.”

  “Couldn’t I help you?” Deborah’s smile lit the whole room.

  The impasse worked. Alicia worked hard not to show a smile of victory.

  “Are you sure it’s not too much for you?”

  Deborah had absolutely no idea what Alicia had in mind, but she was determined to help her in whatever it might be. Alicia spent hours trying to make up all sort of chores. And then she hit the jackpot.

  “You know, my eyes are not as good as they once were. Do you thing you might read aloud to me?”

  She could relax. The chores took a second place, while Deborah’s reading skills improved on a daily basis. Alicia was a very sneaky woman. Both her husbands had known that. Deborah was yet to discover just how sneaky Alicia could be when she put her mind to it.

  Three days later the LA press discovered that Sacha was back in town. Someone who had nothing better to do, must have looked him up on the Internet and discovered that he was Alexander Baldwin Ph.D., a Member of the Royal Society. All new members had their pictures published and one could look them up. Assuming one would want to sift through the vast electronic files. They had to dig back over five years to sate their appetite.

  Unlike the doctorate of his father, Sacha’s degrees were in philosophy, sociology and political science. But this was not what put the paparazzi on Sacha’s trail. Nor was it because of his reputation of an avenging angel de Montréal. This time the sin he’d committed had been that of having saved a child involved in a car crash. An army of reporters, headed by cameramen from the local TV station, immortalized his ministrations. Had Sacha been unsuccessful, no one would have bothered. Unfortunately, Sacha knew exactly what he was doing.

  In Sacha’s reality there was nothing wrong with children dying. Not as such. It only meant that their karma had been very easy to discharge. But when a child dies before she is aware of her conscious mental processes, it simply postpones the resolutions she’d assumed for that particular embodiment to the next one. It seemed like a waste. There was, of course, the aspect of parents, both emerging from the accident unscathed, fulfilling their karmic obligations. But this time they were both convinced that they’d already lost their little girl. Their debt had been paid. Sacha never attempted to interfere with someone’s karma before examining his or her subconscious.

  Sacha did not accept that there was good and evil in the world. There were only different perceptions of reality. The universal ones were incorporated into the fabric of the Whole, the parochial––recycled. Like garbage that could be reused again, perhaps, in a better form. That’s all. No great mystery.

  Yet there was seldom a black and white situation. His philosophy of life was relatively simple: we all must make our own decisions based on our knowledge, and act on them. After all, we are the sole creators of reality. We perceive whatever we perceive. It cannot be otherwise. Yet, Sacha would not have been able to live with himself if he didn’t try to help whenever he could.

  Perhaps he was becoming all too human.

  But the attention of the press was unfortunate. Sacha spent his nights continuing the work he’d started in Montreal. He helped only those who had sunk to the bottom of society. Who’d already been rejected by all. Only here, in LA, he didn’t restrict himself to the Red Light District. He’d gone back to the work of his early days in Montreal: the derelicts, the drug addicts, and those who had given up. It did not matter what their physical needs might have been. Financial, health, self-image, it was all the same. He scanned a prospective vagrant, he did what he did by opening his eyes to his potential, and he withdrew. Sometimes, only sometimes, he also healed his or her body. The way he always did. By preparing the ground for them to heal themselves. After all, we all are just what we imagine ourselves to be. Again, it cannot be otherwise. Or as his dad used to quote his personal idol, God does not play dice with the universe.

  And now, thanks to the omnipresent ladies and gentlemen of the media, it was time to leave town again. Also, Suzy called Grandma Alicia. He parents would be back in LA in two days. He still found it hard to tell them about Deborah. Particularly his mother. And he still had no idea why.

  He’d once read a book many talk about but few have read. He’d read a book that said that birds had their nests... and foxes––their holes. He wondered if he would ever again find his hole. His lair. A place he could rest. He took the flight back to Montreal by a circuitous route to mislead the paparazzi. For a while he succeeded. But to those who had taken the trouble to find out, Sacha’s curriculum vita was impressive. His parents’ address was already swamped with requests for Sacha to speak at a number of university campuses. Even two or three evangelical churches offered him their pulpits.

  Sacha hated publicity.

  What the paparazzi dug up about him was radically different from that which the American audience had heard before. This included the theses he’d written way back when. At that time, they had all been published. Locally. Now, his views were being published again. In the process they were enlarged, popularized and generally made more marketable.

  Suddenly, Sacha became the talk of the town. All because he had saved one baby who’d been pronounced dead by two inept physicians. No matter that the physicians were wrong. The paparazzi wouldn’t let go. Like pit bulls.

  His dad asked him, by phone, if he intended to honor any of the invitations. Or even answer them.

  “Do you think I should, Dad?” He badly needed advise.

  “I’m afraid son, you are the only one who can answer that question. It’s your life.”

  And it might prove a good way to lose it, thought Sacha. They were already twisting his words. Only he could straighten them out. Would they understand him then?

  That night he wrote in his notebook.

  SACHA 23+253 days

  I am not a man. Nor a woman. Nor am I a child with a vague awareness of an immortal soul. I don’t have a soul. Not one of us has a soul. I am soul. You are soul. Or at least an individualization of the Whole. Of the universal mind. More than a mind. You are an individualization of the infinite potential. Am I to give lectures and tell them that? Is this what people want to hear? Will anyone listen? Should I tell them that many of the principle religions of the world have been lying to their people for thousands of years?

  How long would I survive?

  Would it matter?

  The following two months, in Montreal, had been trying. Sacha worked around the clock, ignoring sleep, seldom eating. He felt and acted like a driven man, as though his time were running out. His feelings were entirely irrational. He had an arsenal of powers––he thought of them as abilities––which would offer him ample protection in virtually any imaginable circumstances. Yet there was that nagging feeling that he was approaching a point of no return; that everything he did was sweeping him towards an irrevocable fulfillment of his destiny.

  “But if so, then why am I not filled with joy?” he wondered. “Why is there anxiety in my heart as if danger was lurking at me from every corner, day and night?”

  The dark street corners offered no answers.

  Three times he had to change his lodgings, but this was not enough to explain his sense of foreboding. Each time he’d moved to a new place, a rooming house, where they would ask fewer questions. Where rental payments were made in advance. Where people didn’t talk about their problems, didn’t invite conversation. In a most inexplicable way he felt a strange kinship with those furtive shadows of men. For that was what they were. Shadows of their former selves. Sacha had managed to salvage a few of them. Their bodies recovered some of their aura. Yet there were so many of them, so very many. He was becoming constantly tired... so tired, and there was so much t
o do.

  There was so much to do...

  Is this really what I’ve been sent down here for? Is this my own dream?

  Chapter 18

  The Danger Signs

  Sacha had to go back to LA. It didn’t really matter where he practiced his peculiar mode of mental and emotional medicine, and in LA he was needed for other reasons. He was also becoming convinced that whatever he did, wherever the succession of events took him, there he would find the next chapter of his destiny. It was unfolding with such consequence, such inexorable determination that he’d given up attempting to reason out its contrivances, and allowed himself to be swept by its tide.

  During the last month in Montreal Sacha had acquired a new ability.

  It had been thrust upon him by necessity. For the first time in his life Sacha discovered that he could sense not one or even three or four states of consciousness at a time, but that he could ‘read’ a whole crowd of people simultaneously. Not their individual thoughts or emotions, but the ethos, the common vibrations of a whole bunch of them. It was as if, in addition to each individual karma, they also shared a common reaction to their previous embodiments. As if people who shared certain karmic aspects joined hands, or rather minds and emotions, rather like men and women who choose to become engineers, or teachers, physicians, or picked music to give substance and expression to their lives.

  There was an intangible cognitive connection between them, and Sacha could sense it. Armed with this perception, he could, to a degree, influence their common behaviour. Not in any magical or miraculous fashion, but he could both sense and impose certain ambiance towards which a particular group of people reacted in a predictable fashion. He imagined what a marvelous card it would be for a politician. Some leaders and actors behaved as though they shared this ability. They called it charisma, or charm, or just a superb ability to “read the crowd”. No doubt it was a field to be exploited, if not abused, by anyone seeking power.