The Reincarnationist Papers Page 11

  "What happens if I fail, I mean what happens if you fail the first time?"

  "Don't worry Evan, you'll do fine. Besides I'll be your advocate."

  "What does that mean?"

  "I'll tell them about how I found you."

  I couldn't help but think about what these others would be like. Twenty eight people who would know what this type of life is like. Twenty eight people that I wouldn't have to lie to in order to be close. Twenty eight people to know now, and in the future. "Poppy, tell me about this society. Tell me as much as you can."

  "Alright," she said, taking some wine. "This society, the Cognomina, was established by the first six of us in 839 in the then small Swiss confederation village of Zurich, but the tradition of the first of us coming back in successive lives and meeting one another dates back to the fourth century A.D. The first two that found each other started meeting each year on the summer solstice at the pyramids of Giza in Egypt. They met this way every year so that if one died, the other knew he would eventually return to the same spot in a new body and greet his friend. After a few lives they began to mark themselves with the symbol of their assigned meeting place to make identification easier when meeting each other in fresh incarnations. That's what this symbol evolved from," she traced the outline of the tattoo with her finger, "the three peaks of the pyramids"

  I nodded.

  "One Egyptian summer, on that longest day of the year, one of them came back as a fresh young man after a sixteen year absence and met his old friend only to find two others with the same embe symbol on their hands standing next to him. The first one had discovered a new one who already knew another. This is how we began, at least that's how the story goes. I entered in 1649."

  "Are they still alive?" I asked, trying to fathom what it must be like to be that old.

  "Yes they are still around. Like I said, if you come back once you always will. It's the same for all of us, it always has been," she said in a voice that sounded almost sad.

  I thought about them, hundreds even thousands of years old, the memories, loves, skills, and torments piled up on them unwillingly like an odd assortment of bricks put up shabbily on some ramshackle house in the middle of nowhere. I had lived in that house for eight years, alone. The idea of living in it alone for one day longer seemed too much to bear. I looked over at her as she unwrapped the roast beef and it all began to make perfect sense. They had to stay together, for sanity's sake if nothing else.

  "It sounds like they were already well rooted in Egypt, so why move to Zurich and reestablish there?"

  "Well, this condition we share has always afforded us the one luxury of practical immortality, though I've always thought the term Immemorial more appropriate for us than Immortal, for we all die, we just remember having died. I say practical because we were able to bequeath wisdom and experience to ourselves in each successive life but we were never able to reap the benefit of any wealth or lands that we acquired because we could never pass it on to ourselves.

  "When there were five, the odds were very high that there would always be at least one of them alive, alive in the sense that they were old enough to be aware of their nature and aware of the others. Since then, there has always been one designate who keeps the holdings of the ones who have died and returns them to the new incarnates upon their reemergence. The Ascension became the way of verifying identity. If the designate died, all of his assets and the assets of the others were passed on to an alternate or second designate that was alive. It still works that way today. The fact that we have to depend on and trust one another makes us a very close family in some ways. The home you've stayed in, the car you rode in, my other homes around the world, my twenty percent stake in one of the largest glass manufacturers in the world, were all left to me by my benefactor," she said, motioning to the plaques, "by me, the same person. Here, have a sandwich." She handed me a small sandwich of roast beef and cheese between two crackers.

  I took it without speaking and thought about family as I ate. I thought about what the word meant to me. Its meaning had changed forever when I changed. Since then there had been three families, mine, Vasili's, and Bobby's. Before I left, when I spoke to my parents about this, the memories of the older families drove my current one apart, changing it into a memory as well. It wasn't until that moment in the vault with her, that I realized what I had been unknowingly yearning for, a family, but not an ordinary family. I yearned for one that wasn't transitory, fragile, or misunderstanding like the ones I'd known, but one in which I could be accepted as I am. "What would this Ascension be like for a newcomer like me?"

  "I'm not sure I understand what you're asking."

  "What would I be required to do? Are there initiation ceremonies? You said you would be my advocate, is there a trial?" I stopped to take a breath and soften my tone. "Poppy, what you are telling me, this society, these people, is beyond my wildest fantasies. For years I've wondered why I was different and what made me this way. I've battled with myself daily about whether or not to tell the people around me. I've held all night conversations in my room with imaginary people who understand what this is like and now I find these people and they're real. I want to know what I have to do in order to meet them."

  I fought back tears as she took my hand. "I know what you're feeling Evan. I am the one who found you. It is my responsibility to introduce you to the Cognomina and I will tell you everything that I am allowed to tell." She stroked the back of my head fondly.

  "The Ascension could best be described as a trial," she continued. "There will be a panel of five members that will have the final say on your status and you will have an advocate to help you through the process. You will be asked to recount your life histories first. Then you must answer questions from the panel about those histories. There will be an emphasis on dates, places, people, anything that can be verified to corroborate your claim. This process can go on for days, even weeks. There is often a break in the proceedings while certain facts are verified. After all the questions are answered and names and dates verified, the five members of the panel confer and give their decision. That's when the fun starts," she said breaking into a warm smile. "There is a huge celebration after a confirmation, where the newcomer, as you put it, takes a name for himself that is known only by the other members and is never spoken to anyone outside the society. All the members that are alive are summoned to a new confirmation party, and after you take a name you will be introduced to all in attendance, one by one."

  "You speak with such confidence about how I'll do."

  "Of course I do, I'll be your advocate."

  "Really?" I asked, feeling the excitement rising inside me.

  "Yes it's normal for the one who finds you to be your advocate." She stopped and looked at me seriously. "It would be my honor Evan."

  "Great, how many have you done?" I asked, squeezing her hand again.

  "I've never been an advocate, but it's not that difficult. I'm basically there to help you with the procedures, all the answers are yours."

  "Where is it located in Zurich? Is there a permanent building?"

  "Again, that is something I cannot tell you yet. I've told you too much as it is. But I can tell you that I told some of the others about you and I took the liberty of reserving seats on the Sunday flight to Zurich, so you won't have to wait too long for the answers to your questions. I assume you do want to go?" she asked, looking at me for a response.

  I didn't have to think very hard about it. One simple answer now could answer a thousand other questions. "Yes, I want to go."

  "Good. I'll let them know so preparations can begin."

  "What do I need to bring?"

  "Nothing special, just normal travel gear. Do you have any suits?"

  "No, do I need one?"

  She emptied the last of the second bottle into my glass. "As your advocate, I'd recommend you get two or three. Do you have enough money to buy them?"

  "I think so. I should after tomorrow. Oh, by the way,
I need to use a telephone sometime tonight."

  "No problem, I just bought one of these new portable ones," she said taking it out of her purse. "You can use it now."

  I shook my head. "It's too early, he doesn't get in until nine."

  "What's going on tomorrow?" she asked.

  "This guy I know owes me some money and I have an appointment to meet him at a club tomorrow night to collect. Would you like to come?"

  "I'll think about it. We should go, it's getting late. Are you ready?"

  I nodded as I finished the last of the wine. She turned on the slim phone, punched in a number and looked at me as she spoke into the receiver, "Listos Antonio."

  I left and walked ahead as she locked the doors to the vault. Antonio was waiting with the car doors open by the time we had made our way to the road. The sun sank behind orange, red, and purple clouds. I listened to the birds chirping and thought about what my life would be like from now on. I'd always felt like a modern day Robinson Crusoe, walking alone on my island, but now instead of finding one strange set of footprints in the sand I found twenty eight.

  Antonio looked at me differently as I walked up to the car. He knew or knew that I knew and acted as submissive to me as I'd seen him act with Poppy. He held some mysterious reverence toward her that hadn't made sense until now. She got in the car and Antonio slowly started the Cadillac on the narrow winding road out of the cemetery.

  "Hey, there's something I just thought of. You have another name besides Poppy."

  "I think you'll know that name very soon. Poppy is just a nickname anyway. I was named Yuko Fujimori as a child, but I prefer Poppy."

  "Your secret name, how did you choose it?"

  I could tell she was tiring of my questions. "First of all our names aren't secret, they're private. There's a difference. Secondly, how I chose mine isn't important. Each one chooses his name for his own reasons. Just remember one thing, not many people get to name themselves, so think carefully before you choose. You'll have that name for a long time."

  She would know. "Is it common to use the name of the first person you were?"

  "It's not common but not unheard of either. I suppose it depends on if you think you are still that person."

  "You said you are the same person in different bodies, is that how you chose your name?"

  Irritation began to show on her face. "I am the same person through these many trips but I cannot talk about my name until you are one of us. I'm sorry."

  "No it's okay, I understand. I'm just curious. Can you tell me why everything about this Cognomina is so secretive?"

  She took a moment to answer. "There are two reasons. One is practical and the other historical. You see all of us have been around long enough to know that we have little in common with normal humans. The only people we can relate to are each other. We are all so old with so many memories and experiences from our lives that outsiders could never fathom what our existence is like. There seems little purpose in sharing something that can never be understood or appreciated. Surely you already know that."

  There was no longer any doubt in my mind, she was like me. "Yes you're right," I conceded.

  "The second reason goes back to tradition. It all started shortly after everything was relocated to what is now Switzerland, around the turn of the first millennium. The seven members at that time had already amassed a fortune that rivaled many nearby kingdoms. One of the oldest members, upon becoming the trustee decided, without permission from the others, to tell all the villages within several days ride about the Cognomina. He later claimed he did this in an attempt to establish a new kingdom with the seven members acting as a royal family that could rule in successive incarnations. Word of the tattooed ‘devils’ spread across the land like wildfire and within a fortnight, the villagers killed all the members and looted the treasury of everything. Since then it's been a tradition to maintain secrecy about ourselves."

  Antonio stopped in front of the church. I got out and started up the stairs. My foot was sore from walking in the cemetery.

  "I have to go upstairs and take care of some business. I'll be back down in a while," she said

  I watched her calf muscles flex as she walked up the stairs before going straight to the guest room for the pain killers. They started to work in minutes and I felt much better as I walked to the bathroom. Antonio was reading on the pew next to the bathroom when I passed. I came out and sat down beside him. "Is she still busy?"

  He nodded and closed his book, an English language bible. "She is on the telephone."

  "You read English?"

  "I try to practice, but I don't understand too much," he said, looking at the book. "She took you out to the vault today. That means you are the same as her, yes?" He spoke softly and kept his eyes cast down. I wondered if this was some kind of test she had put him up to.

  "What do you mean?"

  He drew in a deep breath. "I knew her before. Graciela Cruz hired me 45 years ago. I have lived in this church since 1944, and in all that time she has never taken anyone else there. She always goes alone. I think you are special to her." I could tell something was burning inside him. His eyes never wavered from the bible. "She hasn't even taken the other ones like her that have visited."

  "You've met others?" I asked in an excited whisper.

  "Three have come here to visit since I've been here. Two of them come back every few years."

  "How did you know they were like her?"

  "The tattoo," he said plainly. I felt like an idiot for asking such an obvious question. "But I would know anyway," he continued. "There is something about them that is unmistakable. I think I would know one anywhere now, even without the tattoo."

  "What is it?"

  Antonio looked up at me. "Power. They hold power over you, especially with their eyes."

  He was right about the eyes, at least I thought so from what I'd seen of Poppy. She probed you with them and knew exactly what you were thinking or let you know exactly what she was thinking. "Why are you telling me this Antonio? I'm sure you're aware of how secretive she is about this."

  "She is secretive with the rest of the world, not with her own kind. You are lucky," he said getting up. "I wish I was like her.”

  I didn't speak as he left. His words seemed to hang in the air until I digested them one by one. I had never thought of being lucky. I never saw anything particularly lucky in being alone, but the more I thought about it on that pew, the luckier I seemed. I would live beyond the annihilation of death. I would eventually be able to live in the same style Poppy did, and I would never lose this identity, this self that I have, that I am now. Like Poppy said, it was the closest thing to immortality anyone could ever find. I realized then that I always knew I would come back again and again, and that I'd lived in fear of it, like a rollercoaster that never stops so you can get off. Until today I had been on that rollercoaster alone. I was lucky not because I would come back, but because I would come back to someone, something, someplace that was home.

  The images of Nez-Lah, Bando, Marco, and Louis grew dim and faded to black as I sat alone. I eagerly looked forward for the first time in years. The answers were finally finding their questions.

  Poppy called out for Antonio, who was already halfway up the stairs to the loft before her last Spanish syllable was spoken. He came back down the stairs in less than a minute, turned right and walked out the front door without a word.

  "Is he gone?" she asked from above.

  "Yes."

  "I'm finished with my business. Come up if you want to use the telephone." I could see her now. She was dressed in the black robe again with her hair pinned up like before. "Do you think you can navigate the stairs?"

  I nodded. I could only see her from the chest up because of the rail but it looked like her robe was open.

  "Consider it physical therapy. Doctor’s orders."

  I smiled as I got up. There was no light in the stairwell except for the dim colored rays that passed through a
large round stained glass window high above in the exterior stone wall on the left. She peeked around the corner at the top when I was halfway up. Her robe was closed.

  "Can you see?"

  "Not really, but I'm going slow enough that I'll be okay."

  "I don't have electricity up here. There wasn't any when I bought the place and it just seemed natural to keep it that way."

  I could see there was some form of soft light in the room behind her. "What do you use, candles?"

  "Sometimes. Here come inside," she said, taking my left hand, helping me up. I looked back down the stairwell as I followed her in. The steps at the bottom were barely visible and reminded me of the stairs in the warehouse two nights earlier. "You can sit on the bed. The phone cord reaches that far," she said, motioning to the black, bed spread covered king sized bed.

  The high head board and low foot board were a maze of vines and leaves reproduced in black wrought iron. A red, white, and black Persian rug blanketed most of the hardwood floor. Two old brass oil lanterns lit the room from their perch on the large ornately carved wooden bureau across from the bed. A life sized, carved stone bust stood next to the mirror in the center of the bureau. It was a woman smiling. Her hair flowed wildly down onto her shoulders as though a strong breeze had just overtaken her. A crudely made necklace of hammered silver plates and leather straps hung around her delicate stone neck. I walked around and sat on the far edge of the bed nearest to the railing where I had seen her standing.

  "Here we go." She brought out a 1940's style chrome plated rotary phone. "Help yourself," she said, placing it on the bed, "I'd let you use the portable phone but it doesn't work inside these stone walls. I'm going to ready a fresh dressing for your foot. I'll be back up in a bit."