Sleeping in Flame

by Jonathan Carroll

  The first inspiration struck. Perhaps if I dug down deep enough, the sand would be wetter and more formable there. I spent the first fifteen minutes digging like a neurotic cocker spaniel in the hot sand. To no avail, naturally. The more sand I pushed away, the more slid, slunk, slipped back into my futile hole. The more it slid and slunk, the more pissed off I got. The more pissed off I got, the more (and faster) I tried to shovel the stuff out. Good luck doing that! Talk about Sisyphus trying to push his rock up the hill. At least the gods let him move it a little before he lost.

  About the time my anger was beginning to redline, a man came up and stood there watching me work. I was too frustrated and hot to be embarrassed by what I was doing. All the same, I felt like telling him to mind his own business and take off.

  "Not having much luck with that hole, are you?"

  I wanted to hit him on the head. His voice carried the annoying tone of a dope who is sure he's on to something profound.

  "That's very true! I'm not!"

  "Are you doing it for fun, or what?"

  I stopped digging and, lips pursed, watched another mini-avalanche of sand slide slowly and sensuously back into my crater.

  "Look, can I help you, pal? I mean, is there anything I can do for you?"

  "Not a thing. I'm just standin' here watching."

  "I noticed."

  "But I don't think you're going to get anywhere, digging like that."

  "Thank you. Do you have any suggestions?"

  "Nope."

  A good way to feel stupid is to be doing something stupid and having someone watch you. He wouldn't go away, either. I turned my back on him and started my spaniel bit again. Then I turned so more of my rear end was facing him, and I started tossing huge spumes of sand at him.

  "Hey, watch it! Are you crazy?"

  I stopped and did nothing. Maybe he was Venasque in disguise, come back to try my patience. I turned and looked at him. He smiled triumphantly and crossed his arms.

  The last of my cool blew out to sea. "Get out of here, will you?"

  "I'll do what I want! This is a free country!"

  "I haven't heard that line since I was in fifth grade." I got up and walked away. I had to get out of his range or else.

  I walked down the beach awhile, then turned and went back. Luckily, my audience had taken off. I got back down on my knees and looked once again at my friend, the sand.

  And was still looking an hour later when Venasque returned with the animals, and the man, in tow.

  "How far did you get?"

  "I didn't." I shrugged.

  "I asked him what he was doing there and he threw sand in my face. He's crazy, you ask me."

  Venasque patted him on the back. "We two made a bet that he couldn't make a sand castle here."

  "Sand castle? You can't build no sand castle where the sand's dry like this! You gotta go down near the water where it's wet."

  "No ideas at all, Walker?"

  "I wanted to use spit or even piss to get it wet. But you'd have to get too much of both. I didn't drink enough at lunch."

  The other man made a face as if something smelled bad.

  Venasque thought it was funny. He laughed with his mouth wide open – HA-HA-HA.

  "That's good thinking, but you're not allowed to use them either. No water. Not the ocean or yours. HA-HA."

  "You used it!" It came out sounding like a bratty, whining child. How was I ever going to learn from him? How can you know magic when you can't even control your own voice or emotions?

  "I'm sorry for talking like that, Venasque. I want to do it, but I don't see how yet."

  "That's okay. Take more time and think it through. We don't have to be in the mountains for a while." He turned to the other man. "Come on, Leo, let's go get a Coke."

  I didn't see him again till later that night.

  Working all afternoon, I tried different approaches to the problem, but none of them worked. After a few hours I didn't think about Venasque or when he would return because I knew it would either be when I had figured things out or given up altogether.

  Sometimes people came by and said hello, but for the most part I was alone. It was better that way because I wasn't feeling very friendly.

  If you take the word "car" or "dog" and say it over and over a few hundred times, it no longer means or sounds like anything. The same was true with this puzzle. I thought about it so much, and poked at it from so many different angles, that by the time the sun was going down my brain was empty. The sunset was all smeared brown and orange, and punched-up thunderclouds that looked like pillows on a mussed-up bed.

  I watched it and waited for it to tell me something, but it didn't. If only God would speak to us at moments like that. Appear as a snow-white cockatoo on our shoulder and explain the correct way. Or take up the whole sky with a Ronald Colman face and a few choice, brilliant words that make everything resoundingly clear.

  I watched the sunset until the light was almost gone and the colors dried into evening. Unconsciously, I tapped the stick on the sand in front of me. When I became aware of doing it, the solution dawned on me. The moment was disconcerting because the answer was so simple.

  Jabbing the stick over my head, I started whistling the theme song to Zorba the Greek. "Teach me to dance . . . Venasque!" That made me laugh. It felt so good to figure things out. I danced and kicked up my feet, feeling a foot taller . . . or smarter.

  The stick touched the sand a sliding scratch. I drew it a long way to the left, then up and over. No real plan in mind, I let my hand do its own moving and design. It was eager to work. When I'd been at it awhile, I jumped when someone put his hand on my shoulder.

  "Walker, you got it! Good man. Let's see."

  I'd drawn a castle, but that was only part of it. It sat at the edge of a group of other buildings. It was so dark on the beach by then we could barely make out what else I'd drawn.

  "You did a whole town, huh?"

  "My hand did what it wanted. It sort of got carried away."

  "I'll say! I can't see everything, but it's terrific. You got a simple answer to a tough question. That's the right way to begin. Sand castles don't all have to be up in the air. Come on, let's get going."

  No more than that. I hesitated a moment, sad to be leaving my brainstorm so soon after having done it. Venasque was already a long way up the beach, walking toward the parking lot.

  Without turning, he yelled over his shoulder, "Leave it, Walker. That's nothing. Wait'll you see some of the other things you'll be able to do."

  "Will you teach me to dance, Venasque?"

  I didn't even know he'd heard me until he snapped his fingers over his head and spun around to face me. "'Will you teach me to dance, Zorba?' 'Dance? Did you say dance, Boss? Come on, my boy!' Zorba the Greek. Directed by Michael Cacoyannis. Starring Anthony Quinn, Alan Bates, and Lila Kedrova, who won the Oscar that year for her performance as Bouboulina. A great film. I saw it the other day on cable."

  "Walker, I miss you. Where are you?"

  "The Sleepy Arms Motel."

  "You're kidding. Where's that?"

  "Outside Santa Barbara. We spent most of the day at the beach."

  "That doesn't sound too magical."

  I leaned against the headboard of the bed and told Maris the story of my sand castle. Venasque was sitting on the other bed, looking at TV Guide and scratching Big Top with his foot. He leaned over and pointed out that a film called Nude Druids was playing on the porno cable channel. I rolled my eyes. He shrugged.

  "Have you had anything to eat?"

  "Yes, we had some sandwiches for lunch and we're going out later. There's supposed to be a pretty good restaurant near here."

  "Please eat, Walker. I don't want you coming back ten pounds lighter."

  "Okay. How're things there?"

  "I went to the radio station with Ingram today and listened to him do his show. There was a woman on who teaches people how to scream."

  "That sounds hard. She ch
arges for it?"

  Maris laughed. "She wore an army helmet, too. There was a bumper sticker on it that said 'Screaming has Meaning.'"

  "I'll try to remember that."

  "I'm going to stay at Ingram's place for a couple of days, so call me there, okay? I miss you like crazy."

  "Me, too! A thousand times."

  "Is Venasque there with you?"

  "Yes."

  "Tell him to take care of you."

  "I will."

  "And remember the man who ate all the cake."

  "And you remember the man who drank the coffee through the straw. I'll call you tomorrow, Maris. I love you."

  "Good night, mein Liebster."

  "Good night."

  I put the receiver down and sighed. It was the first time we'd been apart at night since arriving in California. I didn't look forward to spending it without her.

  "Were you ever married, Venasque?"

  "Twenty-seven years I was married."

  "What happened to her?"

  "She died. You ready to go out?" He stood up and straightened his pants.

  I took my sweatshirt off the bed and followed him out of the room. The parking lot was a pale coppery-orange from the lighting overhead.

  "Is it okay to leave the animals in the room?"

  "Sure. They'll sleep like rocks after running around all day. Sorry I snapped at you. It's hard talking about my wife. I'll tell you more about it at dinner, after we've gotten some food in us. I hear this restaurant's got great king crab, and it's my treat tonight. Our celebration for your sand castle."

  There was no reason for Maris to worry about my not eating. The two of us tucked into enough crab that night to make the waiter give us strange looks. We finished with hot fudge sundaes big as catchers' mitts.

  "I lived almost thirty years with a woman I loved, but could never figure out. We were happy, but there were too many times we'd look at each other and wonder 'Who's that? Do I know them?'

  "When she died, she died badly, Walker. Got a cancer that ate right through her. She died too long, and the only thing left at the end was an empty box of anger."

  "Couldn't you do anything for her? With your . . . powers?"

  "Nothing. Life and death do their own deciding."

  That shocked me. "Really? Nothing?"

  "Learn what life is, Walker. Dying comes anyway. I couldn't do anything for Nelia – that was my wife – because the war taught me to concentrate on life and how to make it better. That was something Nelia and I agreed on because both of us went through that war. Living was more important than dying."

  "But you just said she died badly."

  "She died badly because she didn't learn enough about life. She went back to her other lives again and again, as you're beginning to do, but all she did was look around in them like a tourist in a foreign country. She took snapshots of them so she could show her friends, but not think about them herself. That's why she died badly. The only thing we can really know is what we're experiencing, or what we've already lived. Then we've got to study it like crazy till we understand."

  "But you keep asking me after I go back to one of my lives if I felt myself die there. And what it was like."

  "Of course I do! Maybe you'll be the one to tell me what I've tried to find out all my life. I told you: I'm as much a student as you are."

  "What are you still trying to find out? Seems like you've pretty much found things."

  He shook his head. "What it's like right after. What the experience of death is. I know we come back, there's no question of that, but where do we go in between?"

  "Venasque, was that girl we saw today really the red woman in my dream?"

  He smiled and signaled for the check. "No. I said that to see your reaction. But you will bump into that red woman sometime in your life. That's a guarantee."

  "But why'd you say it today? What reaction was I supposed to have?"

  "Exactly what you did. You were interested and intrigued. I said it because you've got to start thinking differently about certain things now. You've got to start thinking different ways, too. A man who flies has to believe he has wings. Or that he can have wings. You know what I mean?"

  "Okay, I accept that, but there's something else I want to ask you about, too."

  He looked at his watch. "Is it a short question? It's time we got back to the animals. They get nervous when I'm gone a long time."

  "You don't have to answer now, but I have to say it now: Do you know how often you're loud and impatient with me? A lot. And bossy? I admit I don't know anything, Venasque. Whenever you use that tone of voice, it either makes me nervous or afraid of you. Teachers aren't supposed to scare their students."

  He got up from the table very quickly and threw some bills down next to his plate. I thought I'd really offended him. He looked at me and rubbed his hand over his mouth. "Ah, you're right. I'm sorry. Since I got old, I don't have so much patience anymore. No matter how much you learn over the years, you can't always use it yourself when you need it most. Eine Schande, huh? Big irony. You can be the best teacher in the world, but still you get scared when it's your turn, and you know you don't have so much time left."

  "Why not? Are you ill?" I stood there feeling helpless and wrong for having opened this can of worms.

  "Ill? Ha, no, I'm just old! When you get my age, the only things that happen to you are more hair grows out of your ears and you get more and more alone. The night comes everyday to my window. The serious night, promising, as always, age and moderation. And I am frightened . . .' That's what it's like. Not so great. You read poetry? You should.

  "That's why I got those two animals with me. They're my last company."

  "What about your students?"

  "Very nice people, but they can't help when I have to die. That's why I'm trying to discover what it's like now. Maybe if I do, I won't be so uncomfortable. I'm good at some things, but I still haven't gotten past wondering what'll happen to me when THE END comes. You think too much about "The Serious Night' when you're my age. It's natural, but it's a sickness, too. You get nervous. You want everybody else to hurry up as much as you, and if they don't, you get angry.

  "Something else, too: I spent most of my life teaching people, or trying to teach them important things. But I get to certain points and can't take them any further. That's not a nice thing to know about yourself. Especially when you're too damned old to do anything about it. Nobody likes to fail, huh?

  "Come on, we can talk more back at the motel."

  Again that uncomfortable, thin orange light lay over the restaurant parking lot. Standing by the car, I looked up at it.

  "This light looks like a UFO is about to land here."

  Unlocking his side, Venasque looked up. "It's a safety light. They say it gives a wider arc and covers more ground. Lights up the dark corners better."

  I was about to comment, when lines out of nowhere pushed their way to the front of my mind and tongue.

  "The night comes every day to my window.

  The serious night, promising as always,

  age and moderation. And I am frightened

  dutifully, as always until I find

  in the bed my three hearts and the cat-

  in-my-stomach talking as always now,

  of Gianna. And I am happy through the dark

  with my feet singing of how she lies

  warm and alone in her dark room

  over Umbria where the brief and only

  Paradise flowers white by white.

  I turn all night with the thought of her mouth

  a little open, and hunger to walk

  quiet in the Italy of her head, strange

  but no tourist on the streets of her childhood."

  I finished out of breath and shaken, as if coming down from an epiphany. I knew some poetry, but nothing like that, and not by heart. I also knew I'd never read or heard that poem before tonight, when Venasque had quoted the first three lines in an entirely different cont
ext.

  When I was finished reciting, we stood there on opposite sides of the Jeep and looked at each other. I no longer needed to be told that part of my education was to accept miracles, to try and leave myself open to whatever wonders Venasque had.

  Bending down to get in, he said, "'The Night Comes Every Day to My Window' by Jack Gilbert. I've always liked his poetry. Let's go."

  Back at the motel, both animals barely raised their heads when we came in. Big Top had managed to climb his thick bulk onto Venasque's bed and was resting his ass on his master's pillow. Connie lay directly below him, leaning up against the side of the bed.

  Venasque walked over and gently moved the dog off the pillow. Adjusted, the bullterrier slapped its tail twice.

  "I don't blame him. Better to have your fanny on a pillow than the floor.

  "Listen, Walker. I want to do one more thing with you tonight before we go to sleep. I'm going to help you go back one more time to another of your lives. But it's going to be one of the earlier ones. Maybe even the first. I want you to feel what it was like then. That'll give you something important to think about when we get to the mountains."

  "I've got enough to think about!"

  "True, but not your beginnings. You saw some of your last life, and maybe a glimpse of the one right before that in Russia. But to start getting the whole thing in good focus, you gotta have at least a little look at what it was like for you way back when. Get ready for bed and you'll do that before going to sleep."

  I reached down for my bag. Opening it, I realized that no matter what was about to happen (in the hands of this flawed but remarkable man), I was excited. My insides were fluttering and squawking like a box of birds that's just been shaken, but I was on my way to discovery, and that was what I had come to him for.

  "Venasque, that Jack Gilbert poem is a love poem. Why did you quote it to me before? You made it sound like something sad."