Pihkal

by Alexander Shulgin

  Shura didn't phone at all, the first week. I went to work and told my children what was going on - once - then didn't refer to it again, because there was nothing to say until the man I loved made up his mind what he was going to do with his life and with me.

  In the early part of the second week, he phoned to share the letter he'd just received from Ursula. He sounded fond and warm, with only the slightest hint of withholding, all of which I read as meaning he hadn't decided whatever he had to decide yet.

  He read the letter perfectly straight, from beginning to end, without comment..

  Dearest, dearest Shura,

  A window has widely opened to you, a soul-window, a love-window, of graceful being - being together. A common space of breathing, of light touch, of inner smile. I could let these hours pass without telling you, and then you would never know what I am feeling - you would have only your own experience.

  Or I could share this with you.

  That is what I am doing. A space we are in, you and I, a space beyond geographical location, beyond events, developments, desires, longings, doubts, griefs, it is a space of love. Love and the melting frontiers of self-protection. A touch of each others hands, eyes - a common aura that surrounds us.

  Yes, I feel it again, this aura. A total yes to whatever is and will be.

  I feel light in this benign space. I have let go of what we were, you and I, and I have experienced, over and over again, what we truly are, forever and ever.

  I do not always succeed in letting go, and my heavy dreams of the last weeks and nights are revealing to me how much I am still attached - to your personality, to our plans, to the farm.

  That specific place on this globe must have penetrated into deep levels in me; I am bound to each hill, tree, grass, to each corner in the rooms, each view, to everything existing there. It is all strongly integrated into my awareness and memory. I have lived there and, at least in extensive dreams, I am still there. I have visions of the changes made around you, in materialistic things as well as in spirits. I see it for hours and hours. If only I could paint well enough, I could show you what I see!

  Your lab especially appears very often, but now so sterile! Everything stored away, well ordered/ no flair anymore. This certainly cannot be true. Ah/ the strange realms of the mind!

  Let me tell you openly what I had only wanted to tell you in a very private moment. This moment is private enough and it flows out of me:

  In a past life, about 2,000 years ago, you took a long knife and cut my throat, took my life, murdered me, in the desert! You were the chief of our tribe, and I was a young girl, and you killed me! The why's are irrelevant. I have seen this over and over, and others who lived with us in that time have come to me in this life and warned me to be aware of this old karmic connection.

  We were, I think, of a nomad people, in North Afrika, when this happened so long ago.

  Search into our individual past is only meaningful because it brings light into our present problems, constellations, traumas, etc. I do not see any merit to dig deeper. Either it reveals by itself, or it does not. Therefore, my only reason for mentioning these "shadows of the past"

  to you is to help us understand the present situation.

  In this moment of open love, you might be able to believe what I say to you, that I do not have any misgiving or second thoughts about emotional involvements with you because of this vision of what happened so long ago.

  No, my only concern is, and this is very real to me, to free myself and to give you the possibility of freeing yourself, from these old/ old bonds of emotional slavery which must not be repeated in this life. In this life, through our deep love, we have the real chance of changing this by bringing it out into the open. We have broken a karmic consequence and do no longer have to blindly bear the burdens of the past life and tragedy.

  I am leaving Dolph and I will go to a place to begin a new life with myself. I do not think I will marry again. I must seek alone my true path of the soul.

  I love you very deeply and I go to live my own life, of which you are a wonderful spiritual part.

  Maybe it will come that you will be a material part as well. But now you must live the present as completely as you can.

  Shura, my dearest one, I want you to be free as a bird. Unfold your wings and leave all pain behind you, all possible accumulated guilt, all disquietness, all sorrows. Be free, and newly born, and walk into sunrise!!!!

  Fly and be! Ursula

  Shura added, "By the way, in the margin was a little note in red ink which said 'Please read only when you are alone!'"

  I laughed and laughed and kept on laughing. It was so good, that tumbling release of pent-up feelings; I hadn't laughed like that in a long time. For the moment, I didn't care whether Shura liked it or not, I just let it take me. When I had control again, I said weakly into the phone, "I'm sorry. That may not have been the most appropriate response, but it was genuine. I hope I didn't hurt your feelings."

  "Noooo," came his voice, elaborately sarcastic, "Do go ahead, don't mind me. Feel free to express yourself!"

  I burst into laughter again, and my ear, squeezed to the phone, picked up what might have been an aborted chuckle.

  "Okay, okay. I'll behave," I said, finally.

  "I just thought you'd want to know," said Shura, "As soon as I heard from the lady."

  "Yes, thank you very much, very much."

  "How are you?" The tone was not as warm as I might have wished; he was still withdrawn.

  "I'm fine, thank you. As fine as can be expected, considering all the strange things that are going on in my life, like waiting to hear what Dr. Alexander Borodin has decided he's going to do with his future, if that's what you're busy deciding, and trying to take care of my wonderful children - who most of the time are probably taking better care of me than I am of them - and keeping my mind on medical reports eight hours a day; you know - all that sort of thing."

  "How are the children?"

  "They're fine, except for Brian, who's still getting over a nasty head-cold."

  "Please say hello to them from me?" A shade more warmth, this time.

  I replied that I certainly would, and we said goodnight.

  All right. He had already closed off Ursula; he's been going through separation and grieving, and now this letter from her completes it. She loves him in spirit and will always love 1-iim in spirit - that's her message. The old murder in the desert may be a genuine memory of a past life - who knows? -1 don't think she could have written all that, the way she did, unless she were convinced it was true. And now, when she's faced with having to make a final decision, that so-called memory becomes the basis of the resolve to stay apart from him, in body, while still, of course, being tied to him on the soul level. If it weren't so ironic, so hilariously funny, it would be - what? -almost sweet, like a child creating her own fairy tale to help explain to herself what's going on and what she should do.

  Shura guessed, and he's probably right, that she completely believes what she says when she says it; she probably believed, when she was with him on the Farm, that she was his true love and he was hers, and that she was really going to leave Dolph and come to live here happily ever after. Then, when she got home, she was back to the other reality of being Dolph's wife, and the Farm and Shura faded, became unreal. What incredible unconsciousness! And what damage a person like that can do without ever intending it.

  I remembered the remark about Shura's laboratory - her vision of it being orderly, neat, all sterile. What had she said? "No flair anymore?" Of course. She meant, "Without my presence, there will be no magic in your life. Whoever this other woman is, she will undoubtedly bring organization and neatness, and she will suppress your genius, your sparkle, your imagination, your sense of excitement and wonder. Only in your thoughts of me, only in your soul-tie to me, will you keep your sense of the fantastic."

  I laughed again, thinking of the lab under the trees, old leaves and spiderwebs rampant within its
walls, the very air full of energy. Magic in every dusty corner.

  No, lady. If he asks me to come back into his life, it certainly won't be because I bring order and neatness. It'll be because I bring love - the kind that stays and puts down roots - and because I share the adventuring and the excitement.

  I remembered the words about her soul being connected to everything, every little place, on the Farm. What she was saying, of course, was, " will always be there, I will always be with you. No other woman can take my place."

  I told the kids about Ursula's letter. Ann said, "Well, I guess your Voice from Outer Space knew what it was talking about!"

  I said, "Yeah, certainly looks that way! But it doesn't change the fact that Shura's still got a decision to make about the rest of his life, right now, and there's no guarantee that he'll want to be with me."

  Their faces showed confusion and something like embarrassment. I realized they didn't know how to deal with the possibility that their mother might be unwanted or rejected by a person she loved, now that the rival had withdrawn from the field.

  I tried to put it in perspective, "Sometimes when you go through a miserable thing like this, you can sort of get allergic to everyone connected with it; you don't want to be around people who remind you of what you went through - at least for a while. Besides, as I told you, Shura and I can't go back to the way things were before, and I don't know how it's going to come out. It's up to him. I can't do anything but wait 'til he works it through. But," I concluded with a grin for all of them, "At least The Lady from Germany is out of the picture, thank heaven!"

  They cheered and Wendy danced around the couch to celebrate. Ursula - as we all discovered much later - had not gone into either a monastery or a nunnery, and she didn't leave Dolph.

  Shura received a happy announcement, about a year later, of the birth of their first child, a girl, who weighed exactly seven pounds and looked just like her mother.

  CHAPTER 33. RESOLUTION

  By the end of the second week, Shura hadn't called and I was feeling grim. I kept my emotions repressed, on hold, but underneath I was sometimes aware of terror, a certainty that I was not worthy, not good enough, not sufficient in this or adequate in that. It was my old program, and the silence from Shura triggered the worst of the familiar recording, and it played quietly underneath everything I consciously felt and thought. And, to make matters worse, in response to the negativity, some part of me that was concerned only with my own survival was getting seriously angry. When I took a chance and looked deep inside, I saw a dark canvas like a Clyfford Still painting, split halfway down from the top by a thin sliver of red hate. I recognized the feelings and the images as defensive and self-protective and maintained my silence and my dignity.

  I took the children to a movie once, and talked to them in the evenings about what was happening at school, spending more time on details than I usually did, immersing myself in what they could tell me of their worlds. They were kind to me and cooperated, telling me stories and describing incidents.

  When they went across the street for the weekend, I dressed up and packed my portable magnetic chessboard and went to a Mensa party, intending to get reasonably potted on my own vodka in cranberry juice, but couldn't bring myself to drink very much. After listening for an hour to a long story of misery from a recently divorced man, I managed to get a chess game going, but my opponent was too drunk to keep his mind on the game. Finally, I gave up and drove home, too tired to think or care about anything but sleep.

  At work, I typed automatically and began to seriously consider looking for another job, because I knew that if I had to face life and work without Shura - if that's the way things were going to turn out -1 had better find a job which threatened me with a somewhat less early death than this one did.

  By the time the phone call came, on Thursday of the third week, I had stopped letting myself feel very much at all. I could be affectionate with the children, and only my interactions with them convinced me that I hadn't completely turned to granite. I had become very silent at work, keeping to myself at coffee-breaks and lunch because I couldn't find the energy necessary to maintain the appearance of ease and normalcy.

  Underneath, the anger was no longer in hiding. It was an old friend, by now, a quiet bed of hot coals waiting beneath the dark crust of numbness and non-responsiveness that had formed during the past weeks.

  Now, on the phone, Shura's voice was carefully casual as he asked me how I would feel about coming out the following weekend.

  I cleared my throat against a choking mass of conflicting feelings and thoughts, and said, "That's a nice idea. When would be a good time for me to be there?"

  "Oh, how about Friday after work? Would that be all right for you?"

  "Fine," I said, aware that my voice was a bit dull and not knowing how to bring life into it without letting the furies break through; dull it would have to stay, for the moment.

  "I need to ask you," I said, carefully, "How long are you inviting me for? Since this is a new chapter, I gather, one doesn't want to - ah - take anything for granted." It was meant to be funny, but somehow it didn't sound funny at all. What I heard in my own voice, with a tinge of helpless fear, was sarcasm. I desperately hoped Shura wouldn't catch it.

  "How about staying through Sunday? Does that appeal to you?"

  This time I forced lightness, "It does, indeed, thank you. I'll see you Friday evening."

  When I had hung up the phone, I sat and cried, grateful that the children were already in bed.

  I cried rage and love and relief and fear and murder and love again. Then I went to bed.

  It was during the drive out to the Farm, Friday evening, that I began to understand the possible reason for the silence, the coolness, all the signs of distancing, which had resulted in the flaring hurt and humiliation I'd been suppressing during the past endless days.

  He's being a bastard, putting me through a mini-version of what Ursula put him through, all the lack of contact, dangling me on a string, and it's all because he believes - whether he's aware of it or not - that being with me is inevitable. He's feeling trapped in the inevitability of it, at this point, instead of taking pleasure in what it could mean. That's why the silence, letting me wonder if he considers me worth any more of his bloody time. He's feeling he really has no choice, and he's angry. Maybe it's a kind of "Either I replace Ursula with Alice, or I go the hermit route and shut out everyone." Is that what he's fighting? And if it is, what the hell can I do about it? I'm through being the blasted saint and martyr. I'm not going to make it easy for him.

  I was still numb, and my Observer said that was okay. Numbness is quite understandable at the moment, it said, and probably safer than the alternatives.

  Shura met me at my car, as he usually did. He stood there, as I got out with my shopping bag full of clothes and other things I needed for a weekend. Neither of us made much of an attempt to smile, and when he greeted me it was without the usual enveloping hug and kiss on the mouth. His hands went to my face and he touched his forehead to mine, and I thought briefly that the gesture was more one of commiseration than anything else, and that it seemed quite appropriate.

  When I was inside and had dumped my bag on the floor next to the couch, I looked around at the familiar books and fireplace and the hazy bulk of Diablo through the windows. It was all so much a part of me, by now - this room, this whole house - so permeated with memories of the two of us; yet, in that moment, it looked alien, strange. It took me a few minutes to realize that the strangeness was my own fear reflected back to me from everything I looked at. As I was maintaining distance from my own emotions, so I perceived myself as distant from the piano, the rugs, the couch, all the old friends - or what had been old friends. I was keeping locked up the pain, the bewilderment, the profound anger, and while all of it was wrapped safely and stored deep inside, I could not touch anything with my feelings.

  Everything I saw around me spoke of memories, of the past, and I was
stuck now in a place which was not the past, and not anywhere else either. I could not believe in a future with Shura, I dared not believe in it because such a belief would make me vulnerable to a degree I just couldn't risk. So I must not believe in a future with his house, his furniture, his cactus plants, or anything else I saw here. All of it might have to belong only to my past, and I dared not expect it to be otherwise.

  He had invited me here, this weekend, and that could mean he wanted us to continue, but it could perfectly well be that his idea of the conditions under which we could continue - well, they might be conditions I could not agree to, conditions which would break what was left of my spirit and heart and belief in myself.

  Ifyou won't put up with second-best, you may have to put up with nuthin at all, kid, because he may not have anything but second-best to give you.

  We sat at the dining room table, looking at each other without letting ourselves see deeper than the surface. I could sense his wall as I knew my own.

  This is going to be one fun weekend, yeah.

  "I would like to make a suggestion which might help both of us," he said, leaning back in his chair, focusing his gaze on the edge of the carpet, "If you're willing to go along with it, I'd like to do something with you that we haven't done before; I'd like to share with you about 100

  micrograms of LSD. Most people have a lot of anxiety about LSD because of all the wild stuff in the papers they read in the '60's, and all the negative propaganda since then. I thought you might want to explore it yourself and make up your own mind. Unless you'd rather postpone it, which I would certainly understand?"

  I looked at him and wondered for a moment if he had the slightest idea what kind of state I was in, and what a cauldron was simmering close to the surface. I looked at his body, leaning casually in the chair, and saw that the casualness was not real. When I let myself pick up his feelings, I knew that he too was tightened up and afraid, and that he didn't know how to let anything out without risking saying something wrong, or in the wrong way.