"What are you doing?"
Popcorn sprayed across the floor when the man jumped up. He looked all around him but clearly didn't know where I was.
"Walter, are you here?"
"What the fuck are you doing? Where did you get those films?"
"Where are you?"
"I'm here. Here! Looking right at you!"
He smiled, but there was only dark in his mouth.
"You still have your magic. I can't see you but you can see me. That's wonderful. You can still do it if you want."
"I don't want anything."
He kept looking around, as if he'd spy me in a corner sooner or later. Giving up, he spread his arms like a minister in front of a congregation. "You're really not here. That makes me so happy. My son still has his magic. What's my name? Tell me my name, Walter."
I was about to say something but stopped. "Tell me why you're here. Then I'll tell you."
"I've always been here. Every time you come back, I'm here. Every life you live, I'm here to see if you're ready to come home to me. The biggest mistake I ever made was letting you grow up. I should have kept you little. When you were little you loved me so much. You didn't think about girls then; you only wanted to be with your Papa. Why did I ever let that happen?"
"The dreams are real? I lived those lives?"
He clapped his hands. "Yes! Yes! Do you know how happy I am to hear you ask that question? This is the thirty-first life you've lived. Never once in any of them have you realized what's been going on. This is the first time! It means you're so close. What's my name, Walter? Tell Papa his name."
"No, not yet. Why have I had to live all these lives? What's the purpose?"
"The purpose? You don't remember? You don't remember betraying your own father? You're doing it now with that bitch in the hospital! Only this time it's going to be different if you keep it up, my boy. Oh, yes, this time you're not going to have another chance. Even a father loses his patience after this long. Every life you get more and more like your mother. Both of you promise and both of you lie.
"Maybe it's just in your blood. Maybe I was wrong to think if I taught you, if I raised you right, you'd be different and see how much better it is to be like me. Like your father!"
I spoke as coolly as I could. "My father is in Atlanta."
His answer was cooler. "Oh, really? Watch the television. See for yourself, Walker."
In an instant I knew the place. I'd been there so many times since my parents told me where I'd really come from. The alley behind Conroy's Restaurant in Atlanta. The only things different were a 1956 Chevrolet parked there, and the area looked much cleaner than I remembered. At the far end of it, a midget appeared holding something in his arms. Something large and wrapped in a white blanket. He went straight over to one of the garbage cans behind the restaurant, and after first kissing the thing inside the blanket, laid it down carefully inside one of them.
He hovered over the can and whispered, "This time. Come home this time, Walter." The sound of someone approaching made him pull back fast. After one last tender look, the little man scurried away.
From the other end of the alley a bum slunk in, looking into every garbage can along the way. When he reached this one he looked once, twice, and suddenly his face said everything. He lifted the white bundle gingerly out of the can, and for the first time I saw that there was a note pinned to the blanket. The bum saw it too, his drunken eyes trying to focus.
"Holy shit, a baby! Wait, what does it say? 'His name is . . . Walker? Please take care of him.' Well, holy shit, Walker. Looks like someone doesn't want you." Cradling the baby to his chest, he staggered away. Along the way, the note fell off without his seeing it.
Shortly after he left, a motorcycle roared through the alley and ran over the note. Somehow or other it stuck to the wheel.
"Now tell me my name, son."
Without my touching it, the monitor rose off Maris's table and exploded in midair.
"Fuck you, Papa."
"How are you?"
"Okay."
"You don't look okay. You look very un-okay."
"Worry. It gives you wrinkles."
"Come here."
"I can't move."
"Come here anyway."
I got up and walked over to her bed. She looked both pale and radiant.
"We're going to have a baby. What do you think of that?"
"I think I love you and I'm very happy."
She frowned. "You don't sound excited."
"Maris, I don't know what you're supposed to say when you find out you're going to be a father. I guess I'm in shock."
"That's better. I think I am too, but it's nice, isn't it? I was so scared last night. I thought this is really it, folks. My time has come. Crazy how twelve hours later you can be glad for all that blood."
"What did the doctor say?"
"That it'd be best if I stayed here flat on my back for a couple of weeks. That part I don't like – it means we can't get married till I'm Out of here."
"That can wait. Neither of us is going anywhere."
She took my hand and squeezed it. "What shall we name it? I've been thinking ever since they told me. I hope you don't mind, but I don't want to call it either Walker or Maris. I don't like it when people name their kids after themselves."
"I agree. How about Walter?"
"Walter? Where'd you get that name?"
"Nowhere. It's a joke."
"'Walter Easterling' sounds like a fat banker." She squeezed my hand again. "They've given me every test in this hospital. They're very nice about it, but every time someone new comes into the room they want to give me another test."
"Maris, I'm sorry if I'm not good company. I'm sort of stoned right now. You're the one who went through all the pain, but I'm woozy from sleeping in the waiting room, I guess."
"I can see. When they told me you did that I wanted to run out and kiss you. That wasn't necessary, but I'm secretly glad you did it."
Although she'd been through hell the night before, the news of the child had so buoyed her that she chatted away until she was exhausted. It showed in her eyes first – I literally saw something leave them before they dropped closed for a long second.
"I think I have to sleep now, my friend."
"Okay, sure. But you feel better?"
"I feel terrible, but I don't care. We're going to have a child, Walker. You know how much I want that. I never told you before, but once when I was with Luc I missed my period for a couple of weeks and thought I was pregnant. I've never felt so torn in my life. When my period came I was so happy I cried. I've always been ashamed of that, the being happy, but now I know I was right. Now the whole thing is right and I feel like the best is about to begin for us. It's the truth."
"That's a great compliment, you know?"
"It's going to be a good baby. You deserve the compliment."
I called from a phone booth near her building.
"Hello?"
"Mrs. Benedikt? This is Walker Easterling. Mrs. Benedikt, would it be at all possible for you to talk to me for a few minutes? It's really extremely important."
"No. I don't know. I don't want you coming up here again after what happened last time with Lillis. You understand."
"I do, I understand completely. But we can meet in a cafй. Mrs. Benedikt –"
"Why do you want to talk? I told you everything."
"It's about Kaspar Benedikt. I have to tell you something that I found out about him."
"Like what?"
"Please come and meet me. I'm five minutes from your place. We can go to the cafй across the street."
"All right, but only for a few minutes. I'll get Herr Lachner to sit with Lillis."
She came into the cafй wearing an orange housedress and pink bedroom slippers. The waitress knew her and brought over a glass of white wine without being asked.
While she drank I looked closely at Elisabeth's face, trying to find the woman of my forty-year-old dream.
Some people keep their looks all their lives. Whether they get fat or thin, the face stays with them, like their fingerprints. Moritz's wife was from the other group. In my dream she was thin and drawn from the war. Since then, she'd traded her face for potatoes and bread, and white wine at eleven in the morning.
"What do you want today?"
"You said you believed Kaspar Benedikt had special powers. Did you mean that?"
She drank and nodded at the same time. Her glass was already three-quarters empty and she signaled for another. "I told you, I come from Greece, so I've seen some people with powers, mister. Believe it or not, I've seen ghosts, and a woman told my future exactly by reading lamb bones."
"Yes, I remember that. If you do believe, Mrs. Benedikt, then I want to tell you a dream I had. It might scare you, but it's necessary that you hear it."
"When you've lived with a midget, then a war, then Lillis, not much scares you. Tell me."
"Okay. In the dream I'm coming into the Westbahnhof on a troop train from France. The train cars are all green brown and they're filled with soldiers coming back after the war. I'm looking out the window of our car but I can't see you or Papa." Elisabeth's mouth tightened when she heard that word. I expected her to say something, but she only closed her eyes and shook her head. "Should I go on?"
"Yes."
"I'm trying to think of what I'm going to say to you if you're there, but my mind is blank. Tonight, or whenever I get you into bed, I'm going to tell you that. I'm going to tell you I'm so excited to see and . . . touch you that I don't know what to say."
"What else?"
"Are you all right?"
"Yes. What else?" The waitress brought her second glass, but she only put her hand around it.
"I get off the train carrying two big duffle bags with me. In one of them are two pairs of red silk underpants I got for you when I was in Paris. As the train comes to a squeaking stop, I see you and Papa standing maybe twenty meters down the platform. You wave to me and start to run, but he holds you back."
Her eyes still closed, she spat out, "The little shit. I'll remember that the rest of my life. What nerve! He grabbed my arm and said so loudly that everyone around us could hear, 'I go first. You think he wants to see you before he sees his father?' I was so embarrassed to be there with him anyway. People would think we were related or something."
"The end of the dream is looking over his shoulder as I hugged him. I wanted to see where you were. You were the first one I wanted to see."
She gave one hard laugh, almost a grunt. "I know. That's what you told me that night." She opened her eyes. "You dreamed that?"
"You're not surprised?"
"Why? I believe in reincarnation. I thought something was strange about your wanting to come and talk to me. After I saw your face I was sure something else was going on inside you."
"Then I want to tell you some other things."
We were there an hour. In between she made a phone call to the man watching Lillis and said she would be back soon.
I told her everything but what had happened with the computer and the fairy tale. The dreams, the prophetic visions, the deaths of my friends. Unlike the first time we'd met, she was quiet, but when she did speak, it was to ask an interesting or perceptive question. I began to understand why her husband had cared so much for her. When I was almost finished I described my experiences with the man on the bicycle and how he'd welcomed me "back" as Rednaxela.
"I'm cold."
"Would you like to put on my jacket?" I started to take it off.
"That won't help. I'm cold inside. There's nothing you can do about that. My friend Herr Lachner has met his sister from their last incarnation. She lives in Perchtoldsdorf. Now I've met my husband. Looking at you, I'm not surprised."
She was suspiciously calm. Had I gotten through?
"Mrs. Benedikt, let's say it's true. Let's say I am your late husband and Kaspar Benedikt has returned too, as the man on the bicycle."
"That's why I'm cold. I think it's true. I want to know what he'll do to us this time. You've seen Lillis. What more could he do?"
"Do you know why he hurt your son?"
"He was also Moritz's son. Have you ever seen a man with no Spatzy?"
"Spatzy? What's that?"
"A penis. Prick. Pee-pee."
"No."
"I have: Kaspar Benedikt. A midget with no prick. Can you think of a worse combination? I always wondered how he made Moritz. Once, I went into the store to meet Moritz for lunch. The old man didn't know I was there and walked out of the back room with only a shirt on. No pants or underpants. I couldn't help looking, you know? I saw it for only a second or two, but there was nothing there, or it was smaller than the eye could see. It was only red down there and, I don't know, shiny. Like a scar from a burn."
"Rumpelstiltskin."
"What?"
"Nothing. What did you do when you saw it?"
"Choked. Made some shocked noise because that's when he saw me."
I sat forward. "What did he do?"
"The pig! He pulled up his pants fast but then asked me if I wanted to lick him there. That's when we really started hating each other. I don't let anyone talk to me like that. Nobody."
Almost to myself I said,. "He isn't human."
"Whatever he is, or whatever he was, wasn't very human. You don't know how the man treated me, even before we knew Lillis was coming. I tell you, he hated me because he knew how much his son loved me. In the beginning he only ignored me. But when he knew how much love there was between us, he got a million times worse.
"I hate to think he might be back. I was so happy when I heard he'd hung himself. The worst night of my life there I was, laughing and crying because they'd found him with a rope around his neck down on the Graben.
"You know what I did with the body?"
"Yes. Why aren't you more . . . shocked that you might be sitting across the table from Moritz?"
"Because you're not Moritz. You look like him and you remember things about me, but I don't feel anything for you. It's like bumping into an old friend forty years later. Maybe the face is familiar and maybe there are some good memories, but it's not the person you gave your soul to. The only thing that would make me jump or faint now would be to see him walk into this room. I'd know it was him just as I know you're not. He'd come over here and say things only the two of us knew."
"I know some of those things, Mrs. Benedikt."
"So what? You don't know them all. That's the difference between you and Moritz. Scattered little pieces don't make a person. It's all the pieces put together that does."
A week later I made a huge mistake. Maris had been doing well in the hospital and they were talking about letting her go home early if she continued to progress.
On the other side of town, I was regressing. One night I dreamed I was a young male prostitute in Vienna at the turn of the century. None of it made sense to me, but on waking I remembered what "Papa" had said about my thirty-one lives and knew this had to be one of them. It was a violent, sensual dream full of homosexual opera singers, barons in drag, and a brothel straight out of a Jean Genet play.
"Come here, little boy. I've bought your breath."
For the first time in those other worlds I'd traveled (lived?) in, I felt thoroughly trapped and afraid. I have never been to a whore, but if their world is anything like that, they have my full sympathy. All that mattered there were orgasms and fantasy. But the orgasms came too quickly (or not at all) and the fantasies were like bad stage sets. I didn't even know my name because the men called me different things. It was not a degrading experience because I felt so distant from what was done to me. No, the fear came from feeling this is it, I'll never leave here. This will be where I end my life.
The morning after, I got out of bed and immediately began looking through Maris's boxes for her tarot cards. After an hour I realized she often carried them in her purse, so there was a good chance she had them at the hospital.
From the first card she turned, I knew it was wrong to ask. The Tower. The Eight of Swords, the Nine of Swords, Death . . . Any good card was upside down, the bad cards in every important place. I know nothing about the tarot, but I could read her face and that told me enough. By the time she turned the last one, her hand was shaking.
"Forget it." I started to sweep the cards up in my hand.
She grabbed it. "Don't do that! Don't touch my cards! I have to do it again. Give them to me, Walker. Now!"
"Forget it."
"Give them!"
"It doesn't matter, Maris!"
"It does. I have to do it for me too. Don't you understand?"
I handed them back. After shuffling many times, she laid down exactly the same hand.
"Oh, God. Walker, call the doctor. I think I'm bleeding again."
She was, and this time there was a rush of doctors and hurried talk.
Luckily, Doctor Scheer was on duty and explained what was happening.
"It's not good, Mr. Easterling. Everything was going well until now, but this indicates serious problems. We're going to have to keep much closer watch now, especially with that baby inside her. Doctor Lauringer said he's very concerned she might lose it if the bleeding continues."
"Could it have been stress?"
"That is as good a reason as any."
I stood in the parking lot outside, looking up at the sky.
"Help her, for God's sake. Use whatever you have to help her. She's your life, Walker. She's in there and she's sick and you're not helping at all. Think about Maris first. Think about the baby. Save them and you save yourself. Save them and you've saved yourself."
Dave Buck looked like a refugee from Woodstock. He wore a full-length beard, American army fatigues, and combat boots. I'd been to his apartment once and the only picture in the whole place was a psychedelic poster of Moby Grape.
Sleeping in Flame Page 21
