The Stolen Karma Of Nathaniel Valentine (The Books Of Balance Book 1)

by Justin Bloch

  Chapter XXVI

  A light drizzle fell, damp and chilly, hissing through the air with a ceaseless, droning white noise. Shamrock Park was empty; the playground stood solemn and quiet. There was a gentle, steady breeze, and a pair of swings arced back and forth almost imperceptibly, as if they longed to fulfill the purpose of their creation. Twin puddles sat forlornly beneath them in the hollows made by thousands of young feet. The squat trees seemed put out by the rain, rustling their leaves indignantly, and birds chirruped quietly and fluttered among their dark branches, trying to find shelter. There was a child-sized water fountain made in the shape of a lion, the paint faded, chipped, and dull. On the other side of the small park sat a bandstand, a looming, ugly construction of off-white cinder blocks and gray concrete. Across the street was a church; the stained glass windows were all dark, but the colors of the panes could still be made out. No cars moved on the midday streets.

  A lone figure sat at one of the picnic tables. He watched the abandoned playground, never moving, oblivious to the falling rain. Beads of water ran down his neck and beneath the collar of his shirt. His long, dark jacket was soaked. His breath steamed out of him in slow, faint plumes. He had been sitting there for nearly a week.

  “Your sister is worried sick about you,” a voice said suddenly from the sitting figure’s right hand side.

  “She sent you to find me, then?” he answered, his eyes remaining fixed on the slowly rocking swings.

  “No, no, I’m just saying. She is worried, and she wants you to come home, Sol.”

  The karma policeman turned and looked up at the speaker. He was dressed impeccably in a hand-tailored, navy blue suit with a matching overcoat, unbuttoned. His hat was pulled low against the rain. Despite the enormous antique umbrella he carried, droplets of rain sparkled in his beard and mustache.

  “And you, Richard?” asked Sol. “What is it that you want?”

  History thought about this, looking toward the bandstand as a gust of wind buffeted him. “Me? I just want you to come out of the rain.”

  The karma policeman sighed as the big man wiped the seat dry with one handkerchief and then laid out another on which to sit. “Does Nova know where I am?”

  “No. She cannot find you, just as you cannot find her when she is in her secret spot.” History considered for a moment. “Both of you chose parks, by the way. Interesting.”

  Sol said nothing.

  “What are you doing out here, Sol? What do you hope will happen?”

  The karma policeman remained silent, and the two men sat without speaking for several minutes, raindrops falling periodically from the spindles of History’s umbrella, which now sheltered both of them. A car rolled slowly by, shushing along the wet road, and turned at the corner.

  “I like it here,” responded Sol. “It’s quiet.”

  “Dead is more like it. Even at the best of times there’s only a handful of people here. I understand why Nova chose the park she did: there is laughter, children. But this park? Why would you pick here of all places? There is nothing here of any worth.”

  The karma policeman ran a hand up over his face and through his wet, white-blond hair. “Something happened here once, a long time ago.” He paused, dropped his eyes to the ground and returned them to the playground. “A boy and a girl met here, right where we’re sitting. They fell in love. I was here when it happened. I don’t even remember why anymore, but I witnessed their beginning.” He was quiet for a moment, folding his hands neatly in his lap. His eyes were far off, distant with the memory. “Love is a subject that has long plagued me. To see the birth of theirs, the birth of a true, strong love…it made this place special to me. That is why I chose it.”

  History nodded, understanding. “Do you know what became of them?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you want to?”

  The karma policeman shook his head. “No. I prefer them as they were in that moment.”

  They fell once more into the casual silence of friends, watching the rain and listening to the rush of the breeze. The sky stretched infinite and dull above them. At the far side of the park a woman walked her dog, a small terrier on a bright red leash. Sol watched them idly.

  “Why have you been out here for so long?” History asked. He brushed a raindrop from the knee of his pants, shifted the umbrella to provide better coverage.

  Sol sighed. “There are many reasons.”

  “Out with them, then. The first step in your healing process.”

  The karma policeman shook his head. “No. I do not want to heal.”

  History turned to him, surprised. “What?”

  “I murdered my wife, Richard. I do not deserve to heal.”

  “That is perhaps the most idiotic thing I have ever heard anyone say, and I have heard a lot of people say a lot of things. You were justified by the laws of your profession. And after what she did, no one blames you for what you did.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Sol replied. His voice was hushed and low, and he spoke the words with some effort. “I blame myself.”

  History sat back and scratched his beard, thinking. “What do you intend to do? Just sit here forever?”

  The karma policeman turned and met his friend’s gaze. There was fire in his eyes, but it was low, no more than coals, as if the rain had nearly drowned it. “What else can I do? There is nothing for me now, nowhere for me to go.”

  “And what about those? You intend to keep them?”

  Sol touched a hand to his cheek, ran his fingertips over the twisted white scar tissue where Bertha had gouged him, and did not reply.

  A sudden gust of wind and cold rain slammed against them, and History turned the umbrella into its path to act as a windbreak. When it had passed, he righted the umbrella and rested his chin on his hand. He closed his eyes.

  “Do you want to hear a story, Sol?”

  The karma policeman sighed again and frowned. They seemed to be the only two things he could do. “Not really, no.”

  “Well, I’m going to tell it anyway.”

  Sol crossed his arms over his chest and looked resolutely out into the rain and said nothing.

  History gathered his thoughts, then began to speak in his rich, deep voice. “Once upon a time, there was a young Jewish woman named Abigail. If seen among a group of women, she would perhaps not be the most beautiful, or charming, or seductive, but she was a good woman, a true woman. She was petite, with dark eyes like fertile soil, and she could dance, had taken ballet for years when she was younger and still danced alone sometimes, in her room when it was late. One day she met a man named Daniel, who had full, soft lips, and she fell in love with those lips the moment she met him, and it was not long before she fell in love with the rest of the man as well. He loved her in return, and treated her like she was the most beautiful, charming, and seductive of all women, which was exactly what he thought she was. He took her dancing, though he was much taller than her, and was awkward and rhythmless and stepped on her feet. She loved him for it. They were to be married.

  “But Daniel was mugged on his way home one night. He fought back and was stabbed, and the men left him in a deep crevasse of shadow behind a dumpster. He was not found until the morning, and by then it was too late. The thieves were arrested, jailed, but this offered no consolation to the heartbroken Abigail. She did not know how to go on without Daniel; she wept for weeks, until her dark eyes had gone muddy, until her body had no more moisture to give, and then she simply shuddered with tearless sobs. Her family supported her, stood by her, tried to help her move beyond Daniel’s death, but she would not. She spent all her waking hours replaying their many moments together, began to live her life in memory. She could not face the future.

  “This was only so successful however, and at last she could bear Daniel’s absence no longer. Her father was a rabbi interested in Jewish mysticism, and she snuck into his home one day, went to his library and sought out a tale she remembered from her childhood, the story o
f the golem, a creature made from earth to resemble a man. She took the book with her when she went to the cemetery that rainy night, and she heaped fresh dirt and clay upon Daniel’s grave, shaped it, sculpted her love’s face upon it, and inscribed a word of creation onto its right hand. The rain poured down, and where it struck the golem, it melted away the earth, revealed smooth, pale skin beneath. Abigail fled, returned to her home, for the magic of life is not meant for human eyes.

  “The next morning, there came a knock at her front door, and she dashed downstairs to find the golem there, waiting on the porch. It looked just like Daniel, and she flung her arms around its neck and kissed its skin. Her lips came away dirty, but she did not notice, and she hurried the golem inside. She told herself that Daniel had never died, that they had been married, that everything was fine. And for awhile, that was enough. Abigail lived the life she should have had; she lived a false future that had been stolen away from her.

  “But a golem is not a man. Abigail could pretend for only so long that Daniel had been returned to her. His skin dried and puffed away like dust. He moved only when she told him to, would stand in place for hours on end, staring at a wall, staring at nothing, until she tugged on his hand and led him away. He did not eat, he could not speak. Kissing him was like kissing a clay bust, and his lips, the lips she had fallen in love with, were chapped and gray. The golem was not Daniel. Daniel was gone, and Abigail wept as the illusion seeped out of her like water through a crack in a ceramic mug.

  “One morning she woke and knew that she could not continue the ruse. She dressed, and dressed the golem that was not her husband, bundling him up tightly, for it was storming. They left her house and made their way to the cemetery, and there they stood above Daniel’s grave. She put her palm against the wet headstone and lowered her head as rain soaked her hair, ran down her cheeks. She sank to her knees, fell to her side and curled up, shivered and cried on the damp earth until she could bear it no more, and she pulled the golem down so that it lay on top of her. It had no warmth to offer her, and the rain falling from its face was heavy, dirty. She pressed her face to its chest, and she took its left hand and inscribed a second word onto its skin like drawing in wet clay, and the golem became a weight atop her, for such is the power of words, that they can both create and destroy. She lay beneath the earth that she had given life, and she thought of her poor, lost Daniel, and she hoped that she might see him soon.”

  History fell silent. For several moments the only sound was the gentle drum of the rain upon the umbrella.

  Sol was the first to speak. “It was a beautiful story.”

  “Did you understand what it meant?”

  The karma policeman hesitated, then spoke haltingly. “That I cannot let my past overwhelm my future. But I am tormented by it, Richard. I want to move beyond what happened with Stella and Bertha. Beyond what I did to my wife. I feel as if I am chained to ghosts.”

  “There are many who care about you, Sol. Many who want you to recover, who want to see you whole again. Nova and Nathaniel are only two of them.”

  The karma policeman shook his head slowly. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to, Richard. As hard as I try, I am unable to dream of the days to come. The ghosts won’t fade. I’ve been sitting here for a week, away from the flow of karma, trying to deal with these things, and I haven’t gotten any closer. I don’t know how to make them disappear. I don’t even know where to begin.”

  History put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “On the subject of beginnings, I may be able to help.”

  Epilogue

  The path was long and seemed in no hurry to reach its end, winding back and forth through the forest and up the mountain with no regard to ease of terrain. On either side of the path, bamboo swayed and whispered in the wind.

  The sun twinkled through the dense bamboo branches, bathing the forest floor in soft, green light. This was a still and silent place, a hallowed place. The only sound was the quiet susurrus of the bamboo leaves brushing against each other high above, where their color changed from pale yellow-green to vibrant lime. Earlier, there had been a stream with water so clear it was difficult to convince the eye that it was actually there. It had babbled its way beside the path for awhile before pooling beneath a rushing waterfall. The water cascaded down over a series of brown, river-rounded stones and dropped five feet into a small pond where koi flitted and lazed their way through the water, flashing their prismatic scales in the sparkling light. The white noise of the waterfall seemed to murmur delicate poetry. The path veered away from the stream after that; the whisper of the water passed out of hearing. Now, only the bamboo spoke.

  None of them was sure how much time had passed since they began in the foothills, where the bamboo was only seven feet high instead of thirty. Time had nearly ceased to exist for them. If anything, it felt like they were passing backward through it. The air had grown hazy as they’d climbed, as if they were ascending through a cloud, and thousands of dandelion pappi drifted around them, swirled in the currents of their passage.

  They traveled with their eyes closed now, moving like sleepwalkers. The forest murmured directions to them, guided them safely up the path. Two of them held hands, though neither was aware of it. Their minds were empty and untroubled; they were at peace, a fragile peace born of enchantment.

  The forest gave them serenity, their destination offered solace.

  The path curved suddenly and the seraphim and the Cipher, emerging from their pleasant daze, found themselves in a circular clearing. Nathaniel’s and Nova’s hands unlocked and fell to their sides, with neither knowing how they had shared the climb. The clearing was surrounded on all sides by tall, thick bamboo which bent inward toward the center, forming a dome overhead. The path continued along between two rows of cherry blossom trees in full bloom, and petals floated lazily through the air, spinning about like delicate helicopters. The old, familiar, stubborn part of Nathaniel’s mind mentioned that it was entirely the wrong season for the cherry trees to display their colors. He ignored it.

  At the end of the path, just past the trees, was a small hut. It was made of wood, soft and brown in color, and the door stood open, as if the travelers were expected. The roof was thatch and pink flowers were sprinkled over it like stars across a map of the heavens. On the right side of the path, just before the hut, there was a stone bench, dark gray and mossy with age. The bench faced the left side of the path, where there was a large rock garden.

  They had come to the heart of one of the thin places, where the line between the worlds and their realities blurred and became indistinct. This was a place of marvel and magic. This was a place of enlightenment.

  When they reached the hut, Sol stepped onto a woven reed mat and removed his shoes, then stepped inside the tiny building. Nova followed her brother’s example. When she bent to slip her shoes off, Nathaniel noticed a cherry blossom that had lit in her white-blonde hair. He stepped forward and reached for it just as she stood up, and his fingertips brushed the curve of her neck just behind her ear. She smiled warmly at him, looked up into his eyes as a blush the color of dusty roses bloomed in her cheeks. He returned her smile and plucked the flower from her hair, holding it out for her to see. They stayed like that for a moment, linked together in the quiet, hazy air as the bamboo swayed and murmured around them. Nova stepped inside the hut after her brother, and Nathaniel lingered a moment more, his eyes tracing the curves and colors of the rock garden, arranged to resemble rolling waves across a beach. He stepped onto the mat to remove his shoes and followed the seraphim inside.

  The interior of the hut was lit softly by paper lanterns hung along the ceiling. Sol and Nova both faced away from him on tatami mats, kneeling and sitting on the heels of their feet. There was a low, jet black table in front of them, and Nathaniel took his place beside Nova, trying his best to sit as she was. The tops of his feet began to hurt immediately as they were pushed against the weave of the mats, and he fidgeted awkwardly. Nova turned to him an
d grinned, then placed a gentle hand on his knee.

  “This is a place of comfort, Nathaniel,” she whispered. “Sit however you’d like.”

  He sighed in relief and withdrew his feet from beneath him, sat with his legs crossed. He looked around the small room, admiring the art. On each wall hung a few watercolor paintings done in the traditional Japanese style, with strong, curving black lines, backgrounds that swelled up as if from a mist, and delicate, soft colors. Each was beautiful, and Nathaniel was only able to pull his attention away from them when the paper screen door on the other side of the table slid aside and a woman entered the room.

  She was a geisha, her face painted pure, pristine white. Her full lips were bright red, and there was a bit of red at the corner of each of her dark, beautiful eyes. Her hair was obsidian black, elaborately styled with a large gold comb and two kanzashi sticks decorating it. She wore a brilliant kimono, the color of the silk deepening from the sky blue collar to the sapphire bottom edge, where green ribbons of mist snaked upwards. Her obi was the pink of cherry blossoms and patterned with thin red geometric lines. She closed the screen, then placed a tea set on the table before them and sat in the same manner as the seraphim. To each of the travelers she gave a jade cup, ornately carved with images of dragons, and each cup she filled with tea. When she had done this, she bowed to them.

  “I am Sakurako, of the flower and willow world,” she said, her voice soft and lovely.

  The karma policeman bowed to her. “I am Sol, of the world above this one,” he whispered.

  When he was finished, his sister bowed. “I am Nova, of the world above this one.”

  Nathaniel waited for his turn, slightly worried. He was no longer of any world, not since his death. Sol had told him that he was now neither a Resident nor an Inhabitant, but some blend of the two. Sakurako turned her deep eyes to him, and he bowed. “I am Nathaniel,” he said, feeling the heat of embarrassment in his cheeks. “I’m kind of between worlds right now.”