by John Coyne
Jennifer waited for her to go on, to explain what she meant.
“I just decided I had been reincarnated.” Eileen shrugged. “I mean, reincarnation was the only thing that made sense about my life. Anyone’s life.” She waved her hand in the air. “None of our lives make any sense, unless there is some reason.”
“There is a reason,” said Jennifer. “Some people call it heaven and hell. Others call it evolution.” She could not yet accept what Eileen was telling her, but could she dismiss Eileen’s reasoning, either?
“Look, I don’t have your law degree,” Eileen said, leaning forward, “and I didn’t graduate from the University of Chicago like you did. I really haven’t studied at all, not since high school. But I’ve learned a lot on my own just from reading the New Age material. It’s incredible, really, once you see the connections, the links between lives. The plan of what we are doing here on earth.”
Jennifer raised her eyebrows.
“Listen, there’s something about me I never told you. You know I married that lifeguard, Tim Murphy. Well, we had a baby. A little premie. A girl. We called her Adara, and she lived just a week.”
“Eileen, I didn’t know.”
“Of course not. You were away at college.” Eileen continued, “It was a forceps delivery, and the poor little thing had these deep gashes on her forehead.”
“Oh, no,” Jennifer whispered.
“No, that didn’t kill her. She was just too young. Her lungs hadn’t developed. Perhaps today with all the advancements in medicine
but she didn’t live. And because of that, plus a lot of other things, naturally, Timmy and I just drifted apart. I mean, we really had nothing in common except Jones Beach.”
“I went a little wild after we split up,” she said with a grimace. “I got kind of heavy into drugs and playing around. Some mornings I woke up and didn’t know where I was, who I was with. It was that awful. I was trying to kill myself, I guess.” Eileen shrugged. “And I would have if I hadn’t met Todd. He was just getting over this terrible divorce, and we sort of found each other—saved each other.”
“Here he was, this big, successful New York City insurance executive, with this great house in Old Westbury. I mean, I couldn’t believe how lucky I was. And he loved me, too. I actually knelt down one night by the side of my bed and said my prayers, as if I was a little kid again, and thanked God for sending Todd into my life. But it wasn’t God who had given me Todd. I was simply fulfilling my karma.”
“Anyway, we were married on the fourteenth of September, and our son, Michael, was born the same day, two years later. It was exactly five years before that day that I had lost my little Adara.”
“Michael had a perfectly fine delivery, no forceps. Yet when I saw him, when the doctor laid him on my chest, he had two marks on each side of his forehead, just like Adara. And I knew. I knew.”
“Eileen, please.”
Eileen nodded. “Yes, I’m certain of it, Jennifer. Michael and Adara are the same soul. That’s not so strange, either. There’s a psychiatrist in Boston, Dr. Susan Zawalich, who has been collecting information on just such occurrences.”
“And I read about one case. It happened in Ireland. Two boys, eleven and six, were killed in an IRA bombing. Right after that, their mother got pregnant, but this time with twins. Two girls were born, and they had marks on their bodies that were exactly like the marks their older, dead brothers had had. The same kinds of marks, in the same places, the same color eyes, the same expressions, everything.”
“Eileen, you’re letting your imagination run away with you.”
“You mean my guilt?” Eileen suggested.
“Well, maybe,” Jennifer answered, caught short by Eileen’s self-awareness.
“I thought about that—that I might just be projecting onto Michael what Adara had looked like. So I did some checking. I went back into the drawer where we kept all her papers, all the hospital papers, and found that little first footprint they do of all newborns. I took Adara’s and I got Michael’s, and I gave them to a friend of Todd’s who is deputy sheriff over in Garden City, and asked him to compare the prints.” She paused dramatically. “They’re the same, Jennifer. My two children have identical footprints. They are the same soul.”
Jennifer looked away. She didn’t believe it, but perhaps Eileen needed to believe something like that. It would give her a way to justify what had happened to her firstborn.
“The unexplained, Jennifer, is just that. It is beyond our so-called rational thinking. We were brought up, taught, to have rational explanations for all actions. Well, the truth is that there are some phenomena that just don’t allow themselves to be easily explained. There is always a reason, but it is sometimes beyond our comprehension. And some people, like Kathy Dart and other channelers, they have a gift—a gift from God. There’s nothing satanic about any of this. Their gift is to show us that there’s a logic in the randomness of events, but it’s the logic of a superior power.”
“You sound like a TV evangelist,” Jennifer replied.
“I’m not religious, I told you that. We don’t attend church, Todd or I. But I believe in God, and I believe that we’re all part of a plan, a system of life. Here, let me give you one example.” She leaned on the table excitedly, ticking off the references on her fingers as she talked.
“Two of our presidents who were assassinated knew they were going to be killed. Lincoln had a dream where he saw himself wrapped in funeral vestments. This was only a day or two before he was killed. And Kennedy told Jackie that if someone wanted to shoot him from a window with a rifle, then no one could stop him. But there is more than just that. Both of them died on Friday. They were both shot in the back of the head while sitting next to their wives. Both of the killers had three-part names—John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald. The two killers were born exactly one hundred years apart, and both were murdered before they came to trial.”
“Booth shot Lincoln in a theater and fled into a warehouse. Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and ran into a theater. Kennedy had a secretary called Lincoln. Lincoln had one called Kennedy. Lincoln was in Ford’s Theater when he was shot. Kennedy was riding in a Lincoln, made by Ford. And both presidents were succeeded by southerners named Johnson.” Eileen sat back. “This isn’t just chance, Jennifer. There’s a plan. A divine plan. And I’m not alone in thinking that Lincoln and Kennedy were the same soul, reincarnated.”
For a moment they were both silent, tired from the long afternoon of talking. Jennifer could hear muffled traffic from the street, and the rattle of dishes and pans deep in the restaurant. It was past time to go back to the office. She glanced at her watch.
“I don’t believe in reincarnation,” Jennifer announced.
“I don’t see why not. All religions do, in one way or another. What’s life after death but reincarnation? All of nature is cyclical. The raindrop that falls from the sky into the ocean, first came from the ocean. It’s the same raindrop. It’s the same soul. We only come into existence once and are reborn throughout time. Our soul is the home of our good, our unselfish and noble aspirations. When we seek to aid the homeless, to stop suffering, to go to the aid of our neighbor, that is our soul at work.”
Jennifer thought of the man she had beaten to death. To stop herself from being overwhelmed with the image, she asked, “Well, where does this karma of yours come into it?”
“Karma is the law of consequences—of merit and demerit, as the Buddhists say. It is a sort of justice that is measured out to us—so much good, so much bad—in our next life in accordance with what we did in this lifetime. In a sense we’re condemned to pay for what we did in our past lives, to keep reliving our lives until all our bad karma has been replaced by good karma.”
“What happens then?”
“Then we gain what our souls came into life for in the first place: eternal peace and happiness. At least that’s what Kathy, or really, Habasha, tells us.”
Jennifer nodded. She
knew just enough about occult teaching and the paranormal to follow Eileen’s argument, but what had suddenly happened to her behind the museum? Why there? Why then?
“I have to get back to the office,” she announced, too weary to continue.
“All right, but, Jennifer, I’m at home, you know, whenever you need to talk.” She smiled, and Jennifer marveled again at the peacefulness of Eileen’s face. Jennifer saw none of the tension that stared back at her each morning from her own bathroom mirror. Perhaps she should buy the whole bag of nonsense just for that look of contentment. It would be worth it, she thought fervently, to get a good night’s sleep.
“It’s snowing,” Eileen said with surprise when they stepped outside the restaurant. Jennifer walked with Eileen to where she had parked her car.
“I’m sorry you drove into town, Eileen. The expressway home will be a nightmare.”
“I never worry about things like that, not anymore,” Eileen answered. “Before I got connected with Kathy and Habasha, little things like driving in snow, making dinner for guests, meeting new people, why I’d go half out of my mind with worrying. Not now!” She shook her head, smiling confidently.
“How? How do you stop worrying, driving yourself crazy?” Jennifer stopped walking and turned to Eileen. “I want to know,” Jennifer insisted. She was tired of all the general talk of love, of getting in touch with one’s feelings, of meditating and using a quartz crystal for guidance and wisdom. She wanted answers and results. “Tell me how to live in this city without losing your humanity, and then I’ll believe in your African man.”
“It’s not that simple, Jennifer. I mean, you have to be receptive.”
“I’m receptive. Believe me, I’m receptive.”
“Try, Jennifer. Try. Open yourself up.” Eileen smiled and her eyes glistened from the cold. “Here!” she said, pulling a quartz crystal from her pocket. “Take this, carry it with you. The crystal will take care of you until you’ve had a chance to talk to Kathy or some other channeler. Just think about it, about having it in your pocket.” She leaned forward and kissed Jennifer lightly on the cheek. “Be caring,” she whispered, and then added, “Tiru no.”
“What?” Jennifer pulled away, frowning.
“It’s Habasha’s saying, meaning, it is good. You are good. We are good.” She waved good-bye and went into the entrance of the parking lot to pick up her car.
Jennifer kept walking east toward her office. It was snowing harder, and ahead of her the traffic stalled as cars tried to negotiate the wet city streets. Eileen would never get home, she thought guiltily.
She crossed the street, making her way between gridlocked cars, and reached into the pocket of her fur coat to feel the quartz. It was warm in her pocket, like a small heater, and having it with her did, for some odd reason, make her feel better. She wondered why.
Once in the building, Jennifer took the elevator to her floor, and went toward the ladies’ room. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a woman waiting at the elevator, and when she unlocked the bathroom door, the woman turned abruptly and followed after her. Jennifer stopped at the entrance, suddenly apprehensive. It was a small thin white woman that she had never seen in the building, but then she realized she could take care of herself and continued into the bathroom.
There was a black maintenance woman cleaning the toilets. Jennifer stepped to the sinks, set her purse on the ledge below the mirror, and began to apply fresh makeup. She only glanced at the heavyset woman when she came out of the stall. She moved slowly, with the roll of a big ship anchored in a harbor.
“Snowing out there, ma’am?” she asked.
“Yes, it is, I’m afraid,” Jennifer answered, as she applied her lipstick.
“Oh, I hates the snow. Nothing but trouble, winter.” She stuck her mop in the bucket of soapy water and came toward Jennifer. Her bulk, Jennifer realized at once, had blocked her in the corner.
“Okay, honey,” the black woman said softly, almost as if she were whispering to a child, “why don’t you just dump that purse out on the counter?” Her melodic voice sang sweetly in the silent room.
Jennifer stepped away from the mirror and backed up against the tile wall. Now she realized what was happening and was unable to speak, to even think of what she might do to escape. When the door of the first stall opened, she thought at once, Thank God, it was the other woman who had followed her from the elevator, but then Jennifer saw the thin woman’s eyes fix on her leather bag.
“No!” Jennifer moved as the thin woman grabbed at the bag. “Please, don’t,” she begged.
“Get back, you white bitch!” The heavyset woman hit Jennifer on the shoulder, tossed her off balance, then seized the purse and dumped the contents into the wash basin. Her chubby short fingers sifted through the contents.
Jennifer saw herself react. She saw herself push off the gray tile wall and jump the big woman. She seized her by the throat. She held up the woman with one hand for a moment, as if she were a lioness in Africa showing off her prize. Then she banged open the metal stall door and, still with one hand, shoved the black woman’s face in the toilet bowl. The water splashed from the bowl as the heavy woman thrashed under her hands, but Jennifer leaned over, pressed her full weight on the woman’s shoulder, and flushed the toilet with her foot. She kept flushing until the woman stopped struggling. Then Jennifer wedged the woman’s bulky body against the back wall of the stall and left her facedown in the blue toilet water.
Jennifer backed off, calming herself with deep breaths, turned to the counter and picked up the contents of her purse, slipping them into her large leather bag. She looked up into the mirror and caught a glimpse of her flushed face and blazing eyes, but then she saw the other woman, the thin white woman, had not run. She had stayed and now was coming at Jennifer with a club in her hand.
Without pausing, without a rational thought, Jennifer lunged forward and hit the woman. She caught her squarely on the bridge of the nose. Jennifer felt the bone crumble beneath her hand and saw a flash of pain in the woman’s dull eyes before her blood spurted out of both nostrils in thick red jets. Jennifer tapped her on the forehead, and the dead woman slid silently to the wet tile of the bathroom floor.
Jennifer stepped over her, straightened her suit skirt, and walked out of the bathroom. She turned away from the conference room toward the bank of elevators and hit the down button. Fright swept through her, leaving her trembling. She leaned against the wall, praying for the elevator to come, praying that no one would discover that she had killed again.
She dug her hands deep into the pockets of her fur coat and felt Eileen’s crystal. Slipping her fingers around the quartz, she felt its strange warmth and at once felt better. Jennifer closed her eyes and concentrated on the quartz crystal, letting its strange calming vibrations smooth her troubled soul.
$100 REWARD
RAN AWAY from my plantation, in Calhoun County, Alabama, a Negro woman named Sarah, aged 17 years, 5 feet 3 or 4 inches high, copper colored, and very straight; her teeth are good and stand a little open; thin through the shoulders, good figure, tiny features. The girl has some scars on her back that show above her shoulder blades, caused by the whip; smart for a Negro, with a pleasing smile. She was pursued into Williamsburg County, South Carolina, and there fled, I will give the above reward for her confinement by a soul driver.
Charles B. Smythe
Norfolk Times
October 6,
He stood away from the dusty dock, away from the crowds, and watched the slave speculators loading the runaways. He stood out of the wind, on the wooden porch of a riverside bar, and watched for women, but there were few of them being shipped south, and those that he saw, he did not want. They were old and beaten down by age and hard labor. Still, he waited. He only wanted one; two would be more than a surprise. It would be a blessing, he thought, and smiled to himself.
On the cold December day, the few slave women he saw wore thin dresses, little underwear or petticoats, and a
ll were barefooted. Small ice balls hung from the hems of their clothes.
He took out a se-gar, struck a match against a post, and fit the corona while he kept scanning the busy river dock.
The slaves were already being led onto the steamer, so as to be safely in the holds before passengers like himself boarded. He watched a chain line of seventy Negroes, men, women, and children, each carrying a small bundle of their belongings, being whipped up the plank, the shouts of the soul drivers carrying clearly on the frosty morning. These slaves were runaways, being taken south to be sold at auction or returned for reward money.
The Negroes walked with their heads bent, making no protests as the whip cracked across their backs. Although he did notice in passing that several of the little ones were silently weeping, he guessed that was more from fatigue than fear. These little pickaninnies had no fear, he realized, because they did not know what waited for them in the Old South. Farther away, other slaves loading goods on the ferryboat began to sing, and their strong voices rose above the snap of whips and the shouts of the soul-drivers.
Poor Ros-y, poor gal,
Poor Ros-y, poor gal;
Ros-y broke my poor heart,
Heaven shall-a be my home.
He smiled, enjoying the spiritual. He had heard it before, sung by the slaves on Sea Island. There were no finer voices in the whole world, he guessed, than the simple voices of black people. God gives each of his creatures some meager gifts, he thought, even his blacks.
Then he saw the woman and he forgot about the spirituals. Standing up, he followed her progress as she approached the docked steamer. He had seen her once before, when he had spent a night at the major’s plantation, and then she had been no more than seventeen But it was her, he knew at once, and his heart quickened. She was in chains, and it appeared she was the sole possession of a slave driver. It was Sarah. She was headed for Calhoun County and Charles B. Smythe. But not, he told himself, if he could stop it.
