The Reincarnationist Papers Read online

  "Here let me," I prompted as I slid my hand in next to his.

  "Alright. Apply the flame there," he said, pointing.

  I lit it and withdrew my hand as he closed and latched the small trap door.

  "Do not look at the light for it will surely blind you. Go to the railing and look at the sea," he said in a fatherly tone. I obeyed and turned back only slightly when he worked a large crank beside me, starting the same mechanical clatter as the night before. We were both bathed in warming white light as he placed his hands next to mine on the railing. A fresh beam cut at the dark and washed over us every ten seconds.

  "As much dim distance as a man perceive, from a high lookout o'er a winedark sea."

  "Is that yours?" I asked.

  "Oh no," he mumbled. "It predates me. It is from Homer's Iliad."

  I looked out to sea. "It's nice."

  "Yes it is," he said, starting down. The lantern he'd left at the bottom of the tower illuminated the nautilus-like spiral of stone stairs below us.

  "What's in there?" I asked pointing to the narrow wooden door opposite the one leading into the house.

  "Stored goods and supplies." He put a hand on my shoulder. "Come, let us eat."

  The hot days passed quickly. Clovis left me alone to my fishing and walks along the deserted beaches while he ceaselessly tended his garden, swept at the ever encroaching dust and practiced his calligraphy and swordplay. He spoke only at meals and in passing around the house. I felt he did so out of habit more than courtesy, either way I relished the solitude. Clovis came out to see me on the morning of the fifth day.

  He sat on the beach next to me. "Any luck?" The three tall thin poles of polished bamboo stood erect in the sand.

  "Not yet."

  "Do you mind if I try one?" he asked.

  "No. Please show me how it's done."

  He pulled up a pole and retreated back up the beach until the baited hook showed on the end of the clear line.

  "These poles look fairly new, where did you get them?"

  "They were a gift from Nusel's father. They are easier than using the nets." He drew the pole back over his head and cast it off to the right in a sharp whipping motion. "I always have better luck farther down," he said, settling onto the sand.

  "Clovis, I want to thank you for allowing me time to be alone these past days."

  "It is my way."

  "I'm glad you suggested this. Thank you for inviting me."

  He nodded curtly and readjusted the pole in his hands. My thanks somehow made him uncomfortable.

  "By the way, how are you coming with your demons?" he asked.

  I turned toward him, surprised by his direct question. His stone like profile remained locked on the spot where the fishing line disappeared into the swells. "I'm still wresting with them. How about yours?" I countered.

  "Mine?" he asked, the visible corner of his mouth curling into a wrinkled smile. "My demons," he mused. "I have spurned them all, 'nd held my demons close; lest I fall, and they lose their host." He turned and faced me. "That one is mine," he said with a wink.

  "Do you still feel that way?"

  "What way?"

  "That you must spurn them," I said, pointing across the sea as though the rest of the world lay in wait beyond it.

  He nodded slowly for several seconds. "Evan, ours is an inherently lonely existence, because of what we are."

  "And what's that?" I asked quickly.

  He turned toward me as though surprised at my question. "Why do you ask that question of me when you already possess the answer? We are the singers of goat songs. We are Zeus' Dioscuri sons[37]," he said, his voice rising with emotion.

  I narrowed my eyes at him, confused.

  He shook his head impatiently. "We are their victims, their hostages," he said, pointing beyond the sea as I had done. He faced straight ahead and took a deep breath to collect himself. "It is all so different now Evan, at times it is difficult to know where one stands in the larger picture. Yes, quite difficult.

  "The Greeks and Egyptians of my youth believed in the transmigration of the soul, they believed in us, or at least the possibility of us. But those days are gone, the tragedy is that their beliefs, which served us so well, failed them so miserably. The problem was the standards of those beliefs were too low, too tangible. You see, if the goals are not high enough then the common man can stand on tipped toes and touch the top of the portico, dwarfing all gods within. At that point the system becomes valueless and without hope. In the end, those men who, through courage, had stood as tall as their own gods eventually showed cowardice and slinked away from the mirror, not in fear, but in loathing, for the once lofty gods now showed the same tangible flaws as their aspiring worshipers.

  "It is a stroke of ever amusing genius that they are able, quite ignorantly, to reinvent themselves in the image of their invented gods. If you read the hierology of any religion you find the same contrived virgin mother of invention at its core.

  "Common men decry that their world, having strayed from the path of righteousness, brought about the necessity for a prophet to arise. He comes to save the common man and right the listing ship of his jilted hopes. This prophet is followed for a while, until he becomes familiar to his followers and is thus sapped of his revolutionary zeal. The common men, disillusioned, revert back to their own paths, which inevitably lead to yet another virgin of invention, pregnant with prophet and hope.

  "The problem with our view of divinity is that they see it as too modest a goal. Lately I find myself wondering if they are not right."

  I lay back on the warm sand and looked up into the endless blue. "Indifference seems to be the way most of us deal with it, barring the doors of our ivory towers against them."

  "Held hostage in those towers, of stone or ivory," he said, nodding toward the lighthouse.

  "If a hostage in a tower, why not of ivory?" I asked.

  "Why not indeed, why not of gold?" he shouted. "Are you still not within the confines of a tower? This cuts to the heart of your quandary does it not?"

  "Looking at it simply, I suppose it does. I have the opportunity to choose the material of my cell, so why not?" I wanted to tell him that the conditions of his exile, though beautiful, were as unacceptable, long term, as those of the Ohio Hotel but I checked myself and continued. "I simply want to live as comfortably as possible."

  "And who should blame you? If your quandary is as rudimentary as that then you toil for naught." His tired eyes met my questioning glance. "Did not Auda give you the gift of wealth?"

  "Yes, but--"

  "But what?" he challenged. "Why put yourself at peril? Surely that is the only thing that has deterred you up till now."

  "Yes, but the risks do not apply to me--"

  "And the rewards great and immediate," he said finishing my sentence.

  "Yes," I conceded.

  He sat up and adjusted his pole a few inches. "It is true that bodily peril holds only a limited terror for us, but there are other hazards best left untried. I know your youthful blood runs hot with want, but keep in mind that Samas knows that too. Why chance it Evan when all that is required of you is patience." He stood up slowly, looking at his twitching line. "Yes patience."

  He pulled his pole just as the line jumped. The top of the polished cane arched toward the water in quick jerking motions. He fought his way back up the sloping beach until a red and yellow fish the size of my thigh emerged from the sea.

  "Grab it!" he shouted.

  "It's big enough to feed a dozen of us," I said as I pinned it down with my knee.

  Clovis ran up to remove the hook. "This is a rare treat my friend. These fish are delicious. This is the largest one I have brought to land in a long time," he said, beaming with childlike excitement.

  "It looks like my services won't be needed for a while," I joked.

  He grabbed the fish under the gills and hefted it up. "You can prepare it if you like."

  "Sure," I said, pulling in the other two
lines. "What do I do?"

  He held the gasping fish toward me. "Here take him. Scale and clean him, then rub salt inside the body cavity. The salt is in the store room. We will roast him later tonight."

  I took the catch from him and started back up the sand. "What are you going to do?" I shouted back. He was already naked and waist deep in the water.

  "Swim!" he called back before diving underneath an approaching wave.

  The fish stopped twitching halfway up to the house. The horse tied off to the post sniffed us both as I passed. The head and tail of the fish draped over the ends of Clovis' short kitchen table. The curved blade of the dagger effortlessly laid open the pink flesh. Flies materialized as if from nowhere as soon as the first handful of fish entrails hit the bottom of the bucket. The sound of their frenzied buzzing filled the house. I brushed them off the fish as I worked, then hurried through the door to the tower toward the storage room for the salt. The dry hinges squealed in protest as I forced the door open.

  Rows of warped wooden shelving lined the walls to the back and bent around the corner out of sight. Open top burlap sacks sat on the floor holding stores of various grains and seeds. Tethered, browning plants hung down from the ceiling, drying. One could have easily thought they grew down naturally from errant seeds that had taken hold in the accumulated sediment on the rafters.

  I stepped in and began checking the clay jars resting nearest the door. Tilting the empty vessels over one by one, I noticed a short bottle hanging precariously on the shelf above and caught it just as it tumbled over the edge. It was clear glass streaked with black on the inside. The black smudged cap over its wide mouth read 'India Ink' in English inside the Arabic script running around the perimeter. It looked much the same as the squat jar I'd seen Clovis using.

  I noticed my fingertips were blackened as I stepped up onto a grain sack to put it back. My eyes crested the top shelf to find a row of similar empty bottles close to the edge, each smudged and streaked in the same manner. I reached back to place the bottle behind them only to find more. On my toes, I could see them. The two rows of bottles beyond the first were shorter and blown from cobalt blue glass with narrow fluted necks. The three rows beyond those were small crude clay vessels, thick dust cloaked the stained black around their long desiccated cork stoppers. All the rows stretched down around the corner.

  I stepped down off my perch and navigated through the sacks and boxes farther back into the room. Several small wooden crates lay close to the wall on the floor and bottom shelves. Halfway to the corner, I found one open. Scattered pages lie on top of its contents. As I picked it up, the obscuring dust rolled off the page in tiny avalanches to reveal Clovis' Japanese calligraphy. I couldn't help but smile as I thought of him, both a prisoner of the past and fugitive from the future. He seemed the picture of patience and perfection, writing stanza after stanza of his epic, each day taking only a page length measure.

  I fanned through the pages beneath in bewilderment, unable to break away. I could not interpret the Japanese characters filling each sheet, but did notice they seemed unnaturally similar to one another. An uneasy feeling came over me as I inspected them, like shuffling through a deck of cards expecting to find a normal variety of suit and rank, only to find the two of spades following the two of spades following the two of spades. The margins were the same on each page and identical characters appeared in exactly the same place as though they had been copied from a template instead of from memory. 'From memory,' I thought as I stood up and stepped around the corner.

  Empty ink bottles ran down another ten feet of shelves to the back. I reached down and raised the dust covered lid of another short crate. The brittle yellowing edges of the pages cracked as I thumbed through them, again each one the same. He didn't put down a single page from the poem each day but instead stroked the same stanza every day, for countless days, each done with patience and perfection.

  My head began to swim with the realization as I counted dozens of identical crates filling the shelves around the corner. My eyes darted from clasp to clasp, wanting but unable to open them. I sat the bottle down, stooped to close the open lid and folded the page gently into my pocket. The door creaked again as I pulled it closed.

  I walked back to the kitchen, each successive stride lengthening and quickening as I tried to outpace the anxiety that followed me out of the store room. Without warning, I veered off to the right for the bedroom and immediately packed my possessions. I had no thoughts except leaving. The bag landed in the back of the wagon with a thump that startled the grazing horse. My breath seemed to compress in my chest as soon as I stepped back into the house. The noonday sun glowed through the thatched roofing. I grabbed the dagger next to the lifeless fish and placed it snugly in my waistband. Cane in hand, I stood in the open doorway looking for anything that I'd forgotten. I forget nothing.

  I slipped the bridle and yoke onto the horse in the same fashion Nusel had. The beast instinctively walked to the wagon and backed up to the hitch. I strapped him in, climbed onto the seat and cracked the reins, sending us both into the hottest part of the day.

  I saw Clovis as I turned the wagon onto the road toward Mocha. He stood naked on the beach, knee deep in a wave that ebbed away from him. I opened my mouth, but had nothing to say. I faced forward, aligned my head with that of the horse and snapped us both to a gallop.

  I didn't look back, but I could sense the lighthouse getting smaller behind me. The sun was intense and sapped the energy from me like a giant leech. After several hours, the heat began to induce in me a strange feeling of communion with myself, not unlike that I had so often artificially induced through arson. The vast lifeless expanses of sand and sea on either side seemed an appropriate metaphor for the road I was on.

  I slumped back on the bench seat, letting the reins go slack in my hands as the blazing sun and constant vibration from the road lulled me into a strange trance of acute, yet passive lucidity. After several idly staring miles, my mind wandered into that of the laboring beast before me.

  It was a shock at first but I had no choice but to marvel at the bounty of fresh new sensations. Four strong legs pounded out a rhythm beneath me. I felt the blinders on my eyes, narrowing my normally wide field of vision to only the open road ahead. My heart thumped deep in my chest, coursing hot blood to hungry, fatiguing muscles. I felt the burden of the hard leather yoke as it dug into the flesh of my shoulders, the weight of the wagon attached to it, slowing me, making me work harder than I should have to. The cold steel bit between my teeth served a constant reminder of my lowly station. I could feel sticky sweat lathering under the leather straps. I strode on despite the heat and despite the bridle being put on incorrectly so that the brass rivets chaffed at my jaws. Placing my thick tongue against the bit in an attempt to ease it, I was able to lower the blinders just enough. Turned my long head slowly from side to side, I took in the fresh scenes and possibilities that had laid beyond the unknown edges lo those many trips before. I shortened my stride enough for me to turn my head around and finally look back up the reins to him that executed providence over me.

  He rocked back and forth on the bench with listless uncertainty, his blue eyes open and glazed over, sweat beading on his reddening brow. The long leather straps cross my back, now mercifully slackened, ended in his idle hands. I turned back without a second thought, put my head down and took from him the rein that I needed. I understood everything, and it was then, that I endeavored to become myself.

  I snapped to when the wagon lurched to a stop in front of the livery stable. Both brothers came out to tend the laboring animal. After five long minutes of gesturing I managed to have Drusel take me to an operating telephone . Half an hour later, Samas' voice crackled weakly through the line in a warm, full bodied hello.

  "I'm ready," I shouted into the receiver. "Let's do this."

  22

  Obtaining the exit visa necessary for the daily flight to Tunis would have seemed difficult had I not done it after a harro
wing overnight bus ride through the mountainous highlands ringing the Yemeni capital of S'ana. I arrived well before sunrise and hailed a taxi to the airport at dawn.

  Of the 3500 dollars I had, only 600 remained after buying a ticket and the favors of the immigration official at the airport. But the money seemed unimportant compared to the task ahead. I stepped onto the plane, half expecting each passenger to have a screaming child and two flapping chickens as was the case on the bus. Settling into the threadbare seat, I looked out the window toward the future, my outstretched hand eager to grasp.

  The bark of the tires against the Tunisian runway broke the shield of determined concentration I had donned when I left in the wagon. I had not thought about Clovis since then.

  I assumed that Drusel would take the wagon back to him, but what would I say when I saw him again, what could I say?

  I walked out of the airport straight into the back of another dingy taxicab. I unfolded the note in my pocket and read aloud the name of the hotel Samas had given me over the phone. "Hotel Majeet."

  The young smiling cabbie turned in his seat to face me. "I know the place." He pushed out his lower lip in disapproval. "I take you to much much better place. Very nice, many foreigners like you."

  I looked at the note and read the name aloud again.

  "Okay, okay, but I think you like the other place better."

  I remained silent and stared out the open window as he pulled out into traffic. He navigated his tiny car through the narrow unmarked streets like an experienced ship captain who knew his maps by heart. The passing buildings of simple brick construction with their brightly hand painted signs would have been at home in Istanbul. A fresh breeze blew in off the ocean as we drove, revitalizing the old streets.

  He stopped in front of an anonymous brown building with a simple Arabic inscription scrawled over the arched doorway. He looked up in the mirror and repeated the name I had read to him. "Hotel Majeet."