What Dreams May Come (7 page)

“The two of you must have a great affinity,” he said. “Did she show it to your wife?”

“No,” I shook my head. “But I could try again.”

“You’re beyond that now,” he said.

“But I have to let her know.”

He put a hand on my shoulder. “She’ll be with you soon enough,” he told me gently.

I had no idea what else to say. The thought that there was no way left to let Ann know I was all right was terribly depressing. “What about someone like Perry?” I asked, remembering suddenly. I told Albert about him.

“Remember that you and he were on the same level then,” Albert said. “He wouldn’t be aware of you now.”

Seeing my expression, Albert put an arm around my shoulder. “She’ll be here, Chris,” he said. “I guarantee it.” He smiled. “I can understand your feeling. She’s a lovely person.”

“You know about her?” I asked, surprised.

“About her, your children, Katie, your office, everything,” he said. “I’ve been with you for more than twenty years. Earth time, that is.”

“Been with me?”

“People on earth are never alone,” he explained. “There’s always someone as a guide for each individual.”

“You mean you were my—guardian angel?” The phrase sounded trite but I could think of no other.

“Guide is a better word,” Albert said. “Guardian angel is a concept derived by ancient man. He sensed the truth about guides but misinterpreted their identity because of his religious beliefs.”

“Ann has one too?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“Then can’t her guide let her know about me?”

“If she were open to it, yes, easily,” he answered and I knew there was no answer there. She was insulated by her skepticism.

Another thought; this one brought about by the discovery that Albert had been near me for decades: a sense of shame as I realized that he’d been witness to many less than admirable acts on my part.

“You were all right, Chris,” he said.

“Are you reading my mind?” I asked.

“Something like that,” he answered. “Don’t feel too badly about your life. Your flaws have been duplicated in the lives of millions of men and women who are, basically, good.”

“My flaws were mostly to do with Ann,” I said. “I always loved her but, too often, failed her.”

“Mostly when you were young,” he told me. “The young are too involved with themselves to really understand their mates. The making of a career alone is enough to subvert the capacity to understand. It was the same way in my life. I never got a chance to marry because I came across too young. But I failed to properly understand my mother, my father, my sisters. What’s the phrase from that play? It goes with the territory, Chris.”

It occurred to me that he had died before that play was written. I made no mention of it though, still concerned about Ann. “There’s really no way at all I can get through to her?” I asked.

“Perhaps something will develop in time,” he said. “At the moment, her disbelief is an impassable barrier.” He removed his arm from my shoulder and patted my back reassuringly. “She will be with you though,” he said. “Count on it.”

“She won’t have to go through what I did, will she?” I asked, uneasily.

“It isn’t likely,” he answered. “The circumstances are bound to be different.” He smiled. “And we’ll keep an eye on her.”

I nodded. “All right.” I wasn’t actually reassured by his words but forced my thoughts away from the problem for then. Looking around, I told him that he must be quite a gardener.

He smiled. “There are gardeners, of course,” he said. “But not for tending gardens. They require no tending.”

“None?” I was amazed again.

“There’s no lack of moisture,” he told me. “No extremes of heat or cold, no storms or winds, snow or sleet. No random growth.”

“Doesn’t the grass even have to be mowed?” I asked, remembering our lawns in Hidden Hills and how often Richard, then Ian had to mow them.

“It never grows beyond this height,” Albert said.

“You say there are no storms,” I went on, making myself concentrate on other things besides my concern for Ann. “No snow or sleet. What about people who like snow? This wouldn’t be heaven to them. What about the colors of autumn? I love them. So does Ann.”

“And there are places were you can see them,” he said. “We have all the seasons in their own locations.”

I asked about the flow of energy I’d felt from the tree trunk, grass blade, flowers and water.

“Everything here emits a beneficial energy,” he answered.

The sight of Kate sitting contentedly beside me made me smile and kneel to pet her again. “Has she been here with you?” I asked.

Albert nodded, smiling.

I was about to say something about how much Ann missed her but held it back. Katie had been her inseparable companion. She adored Ann.

“But you haven’t seen my home yet,” Albert said. I stood and, as we strolled toward the house, I commented on its lack of windows and door.

“There’s no need for them,” he said. “No one would intrude though everyone is welcome.” “Does everyone live in houses like this?” “They live as they did on earth,” he answered. “Or as they wished they had lived. I never had a home like this, as you know. I always dreamed about it though.” “Ann and I did too.” “Then you’ll have one like it.” “Will we build it?” I asked.

“Not with tools,” he said. “I built this house with my life.” He gestured toward it. “Not that it was like this when I first arrived,” he said. “Like the rooms of my mind, the rooms of the house were not all that attractive. Some were dark and messy and the air in them was heavy. And, in this garden, mixed among the flowers and bushes were weeds I’d grown in life.

“It took a while to reconstruct,” he said, smiling at the memory. “I had to revise the image of it—the image of myself, that is—detail by detail. A section of wall here, a floor there, a doorway, a furnishing.” “How did you do it?” I asked. “With mind,” he said. “Does everyone have a house waiting for them when they arrive?”

“No, most build their houses afterward,” he said. “With help, of course.”

“Help?”

“There are building circles,” he told me. “Groups of people skilled in construction.”

“By using their minds?”

“Always with mind,” he said. “All things start in thought.”

I stopped and looked up at the house which loomed above us. “It’s so … earthlike,” I said.

He nodded, smiling. “We’re not so distant from our memories of earth that we desire anything too novel in the way of dwelling places.” He made a welcoming gesture. “But come inside, Chris.”

We walked into Albert’s home.

Thoughts are very real

MY FIRST IMPRESSION, as I entered, was one of absolute reality.

The room was immense, beamed and paneled, furnished with impeccable taste—and filled with light.

“We don’t have to worry about ‘catching’ the morning or afternoon sun,” Albert told me. “All rooms get the same amount of light at all times.”

I looked around the room. No fireplace, I thought. The room seemed made for one.

“I could have one if I wished,” Albert said as though I’d voiced the thought. “Some people do.”

I had to smile at the ease with which he read my mind. We’d have a fireplace, I thought. Like the pair of fieldstone fireplaces we had in our home. For atmosphere mostly; they provided little heat. But Ann and I liked nothing better than to lie in front of a crackling fire, listening to music.

I moved to a superbly crafted table and examined it. “Did you make this?” I asked, impressed.

“Oh, no,” he said. “Only an expert could create such a beautiful piece.”

Without thinking, I ran a finger over its surface, then tried to hide the movement. Albert laughed. “You won’t find any dust here,” he said, “since there’s no disintegration.”

“Ann would certainly like that,” I told him. She always liked our house to be immaculate and California being what it is, she always had to do a lot of dusting to keep the furniture polished.

Standing on the table was a vase of flowers—brilliant shades of red, orange, purple and yellow. I’d never seen such flowers. Albert smiled at them. “They weren’t here before,” he said. “Someone left them as a gift.”

“Won’t they die now that they’ve been picked?” I asked.

“No, they’ll stay fresh until I lose interest in them,” Albert said. “Then they’ll vanish.” He smiled at my expression. “For that matter, the entire house would, eventually, vanish if I lost interest in it and left.”

“Where would it go?” I asked.

“Into the matrix.”

“Matrix?”

“Back to its source to be reused,” he explained. “Nothing is lost here, everything recycled.”

“If mind creates it and loss of interest can un-create it,” I said, “does it have any reality of its own?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “It’s just that its reality is always subject to mind.”

I was going to ask more but it all seemed too confusing and I let it go as I followed Albert through his house. Every room was large, bright and airy with massive window openings which overlooked the luxuriant scenery.

“I don’t see any other houses,” I told him.

“They’re out there,” Albert said. “It’s just that we have lots of room here.”

I was going to comment on the absence of a kitchen and bathrooms when the reason became obvious. Clearly, the bodies we possessed did not require food. And, since there was neither dirt nor disposal, bathrooms would be superfluous.

The room I liked best was Albert’s study. Each wall had a floor-to-ceiling bookcase packed with finely bound volumes and there were large chairs, tables and a sofa on the polished wood floor.

To my surprise, I saw a line of bound scripts on one of the shelves and recognized the titles as my own. My reaction came in layers—surprise first, as I’ve said, then pleasure at seeing them in Albert’s home, then disappointment that I’d never had my own scripts bound while I was on earth.

My last reaction was one of shame as I realized how many of the scripts dealt with subjects either violent or horrific.

“I’m sorry,” Albert said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“It’s not your fault,” I told him. “I’m the one who wrote them.”

“You’ll have lots of time to write other things now,” he reassured me. Kindness, I know, kept him from saying “better” things.

He gestured toward the sofa and I sank down on it as he sat on one of the chairs. Katie sat beside my right leg and I stroked her head as Albert and I continued talking.

“You called this place Harvest,” I said. “Why?”

“Because the seeds a man plants in life create the harvest he reaps here,” he answered. “Actually, the most authentic name—if one wants to be a purist—is the third sphere.”

“Why?”

“It’s somewhat complicated,” Albert said. “Why don’t we wait until you’ve rested first?”

Odd, I thought. How could he know that I was starting to feel weary? I’d only become aware of it that very moment. “How can that be?” I asked, knowing he would understand the question.

“You’ve been through a traumatic experience,” he told me. “And rest between periods of activity is nature’s way; here as on earth.”

“You get tired too?” I asked in surprise.

“Well, perhaps not tired,” Albert said. “You’ll soon find that there’s little actual fatigue here. To refresh oneself, however, there are periods of mental rest.” He gestured toward the sofa. “Why don’t you lie down?” he told me.

I did and looked up at the beamed ceiling, then, after several moments, at my hands. I made a soft, incredulous sound. “They look so real,” I said.

“They are,” he replied. “Your body may not have fiber but it isn’t vapor either. It’s simply finer grained than the body you left behind. It still has a heart and lungs to breathe air with and purify your blood. Hair still grows on your head, you still have teeth and finger- and toenails.”

I felt my eyelids getting heavy. “Do nails stop growing at the right length like the grass?” I asked.

Albert laughed. “I’ll have to check that out,” he said.

“What about my clothes?” I asked. My eyes closed momentarily, then opened again.

“They’re as real as your body,” Albert told me. “Everybody—except certain natives, of course—has, in their mind, the conviction that clothes are indispensable. The conviction garbs them after death.”

I closed my eyes again. “It’s hard to comprehend it all,” I said.

“You still think it’s a dream?” he asked.

I opened my eyes and looked at him. “You know- about that too?”

He smiled.

I looked around the room. “No, I can hardly believe that,” I said. I looked at him sleepily. “What would you do if I did though?”

“There are ways,” he said. “Close your eyes while we talk.” He smiled as I hesitated. “Don’t worry, you’ll wake up again. And Katie will stay with you, won’t you Kate?”

I looked at her. She wagged her tail, then lay down with a sigh beside the sofa. Albert rose to put a pillow underneath my head. “There,” he said. “Close your eyes now.”

I did. I actually yawned. “What ways?” I murmured.

“Well—” I heard him sit back on his chair. “I might ask you to recall some relative who died, then show the relative to you. I might bring, to your recollection, the details of what happened just before your passing. In an extreme case, I might take you back to earth and show you your environment without you.”

Despite the mounting grogginess I felt, I reopened my eyes to look at him. “You said I couldn’t go back,” I said. “You couldn’t, alone.” “Then—“

“We could only go as observers, Chris,” he said. “Which would only plunge you back into that terrible frustration. You couldn’t help your wife, only watch her distress again.”

I sighed unhappily. “Will she be all right, Albert?” I asked. “I’m so worried about her.”

“I know you are,” he said, “but it’s out of your hands now, you can see that. Close your eyes.”

I closed them again and, for an instant, thought I saw her lovely face in front of me: those childlike features, her dark brown eyes.

“When I met her, all I could see were those eyes,” I thought aloud. “They seemed enormous to me.” “You met her on a beach, didn’t you?” he asked. “In Santa Monica, 1949,” I said. “I’d come to California from Brooklyn. I was working at Douglas Aircraft from four to midnight. After I finished writing every morning, I went to the beach for an hour or two.

“I can still see the bathing suit she wore that day. It was pale blue, one piece. I watched her but didn’t know how to speak to her; I’d never done that sort of thing before. Finally, I resorted to the age-old ‘Have you got the time?’ ” I smiled, remembering her reaction. “She fooled me by pointing to a building in Santa Monica with a clock on it. So I had to think of something else.”

I stirred restlessly. “Albert, is there nothing I can do to help her?” I asked.

“Send her loving thoughts,” he told me. “That’s all?”

“That’s quite a lot, Chris,” he said. “Thoughts are very real.”

Look at where you are

“AMEN TO THAT,” I said. “I’ve seen my own in action.”

I must have looked grim when I said it for Albert’s expression became one of sympathy. “It’s a painful thing to learn, I know,” he said, “that every thought we have takes on a form we must, eventually, confront.”

“You went through the same thing?”

He nodded. “Everyone does.”

“Your life flashed before you?” I asked. “From the end to the beginning?”

“Not as rapidly as yours did because I died of a lingering illness,” he answered. “And yours was not as quick as that of, say, a drowning man. His removal from life would be so rapid that his subconscious memory would flood out its contents in a few seconds—every impression in his mind released almost simultaneously.”

“What about the second time it happened?” I asked. “The first time wasn’t bad; I just observed. The second time, I relived each moment.”

“Only in your mind,” he said. “You didn’t actually relive them.”

“It seemed as though I did.”

“Yes, it seems very real,” he agreed.

“And painful.”

“More so than it did originally,” he said, “because you had no physical body to dull the pain of your re-experienced life. It’s a time when men and women come to know what they truly are. A time of purging.”

I’d been looking at the ceiling as he spoke. At his final words, I turned to face him in surprise. “Is that what the Catholics mean by purgatory?”

“In essence.” He nodded. “A period during which each soul is cleansed by a self-imposed recognition of past deeds—and misdeeds.”

“Self imposed,” I repeated. “There really is no outside judgment then?”

“What condemnation could possibly be more harsh than one’s own when self-pretense is no longer possible?” he asked.

I turned my face away from him and looked out at the countryside. Its beauty seemed to make the memories of my shortcomings all the more acute; especially those concerning Ann. “Is anyone ever happy with what they reexperience?” I asked.

“I doubt it,” he said. “No matter who they are, I’m sure they all find fault in themselves.”

I reached down and began to stroke Katie’s head. If it hadn’t been for my memories, it would have been a lovely moment: the beautiful house, the exquisite landscape, Albert sitting across from me, Katie’s warm head under my fingers.

There were the memories though.

“If only I’d done more for Ann,” I said. “For my children, my family, my friends.”

“That’s true of almost everyone, Chris,” he said. “We all could have done more.”

“And now it’s too late.”

“It isn’t quite that bad,” he said. “Part of what you’re feeling is a sense of incompletion because you didn’t get to appraise your life as fully as you should have.”

I looked at him again. “I’m not sure I understand that,” I said.

“Your wife’s grief and your concern for her kept you from it,” he said. His smile was understanding. “Take comfort from what you’re feeling, Chris. It means you really are concerned about her welfare. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t feel as you do.”

“I wish I could do something about it,” I told him.

Albert stood. “We’ll talk about it later,” he said. “Sleep now—and, until you know what you want to do, plan on staying here with me. There’s plenty of room and you’re more than welcome.”

I thanked him as he came over and squeezed my shoulder. “I’m going now,” he said. “Katie will keep you company. Think of me when you wake and I’ll be here.”

Without another word, he turned and walked from the study. I stared at the doorway he’d gone through. Albert, I thought. Cousin Buddy. Dead since 1940. Heart attack. Living in this house. I couldn’t seem to get it through my head that all of it was real.

I looked at Katie lying on the floor beside the sofa. “Kate, old Kate,” I said. Her tail thumped twice. I remembered the blinding tears that afternoon we’d left her at the vet’s. Now here she was, alive, looking at me once more with that bright expression.

I sighed and looked around the room. It, too, looked completely real. I smiled, recalling the French Provincial room in Kubrick’s 2001. Was I being held captive by some alien being? I had to chuckle at the thought.

I noticed, then, there was no mirror in the room and realized that I had not seen a mirror in the entire house. Shades of Dracula, I thought, amused again. Vampires here? I had to chuckle again. How did one locate the separating line between imagination and reality?

For instance, was I imagining it or was the light in the room really becoming more subdued?

Ann and I were in Sequoia National Forest. Hand in hand, we moved beneath the giant redwood trees. I could feel her fingers linked with mine, hear the crunching of our shoes across the carpet of dry needles on the ground, smell the warm, aromatic odor of the tree bark. We didn’t speak. We walked side by side, surrounded by the beauty of nature, taking a stroll before dinner.

We’d walked about twenty minutes before we reached a fallen tree and sat on it. Ann released a weary sigh. I put an arm around her and she leaned against me. “Tired?” I asked. “A little.” She smiled. “I’ll be fine.” It had been a strenuous if pleasant experience for us. We’d pulled a rental trailer up the steep hill to Sequoia, our Rambler wagon overheating twice. We’d set up a tent with six cots inside, stored all our supplies in a wooden chest so the bears couldn’t get them. We had a Coleman lantern but not a stove so had to maintain a fire under the grate provided by the campground. Most difficult, we had to heat washing water once each day for lan’s diapers; he was only one and a half at the time. The camp looked like a laundry, diapers and baby clothes hanging on lines in all directions.

“We’d better not leave them too long,” Ann said after we’d rested a while. The woman in the campsite next to us had offered to keep an eye on the children but we didn’t want to over-do the imposition since Louise, the oldest, was only 9, Richard 6 1/2, Marie not quite 4, and even our “watch dog,” Katie, less than a year old.

“We’ll go back soon,” I said. I kissed her slightly damp temple and squeezed her. “Just rest a few more minutes.” I smiled at her. “It’s pretty here, isn’t it?”

“Beautiful.” She nodded. “I sleep here better than at home.”

“I know you do.” Ann’s nervous breakdown had come two years earlier; she’d been in analysis a year and a half now. This was the first major trip we’d made since her breakdown; at the insistence of her analyst.

“How’s your stomach doing?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s—better.” She answered unconvincingly. She’d had stomach problems ever since I’d met her; how incredibly unaware I’d been not to realize it meant something serious. Since her breakdown, the condition had improved but still disturbed her. As her analyst had told her: the deeper buried the distress, the further into the body it went. The digestive system was about as far as it could go to hide.

“Maybe we can buy a camper one of these days,” I said; she’d suggested it that morning. “It would make preparing meals a lot easier. Make the whole experience easier.”

“I know, but they’re so expensive,” she said. “And I’m costing so much already.”

“I should start making more now that I’m writing for television,” I told her.

She squeezed my hand. “I know you will.” She lifted the hand to her lips and kissed it. “The tent is fine,” she said. “I don’t mind it at all.”

She sighed and looked up at the redwood foliage high above, bars of sunlight slanting through it. “I could stay here forever,” she murmured.

“You could be a forest ranger,” I said.

“I wanted to be one,” she told me. “When I was a little girl.”

“Did you?” The idea made me smile. “Ranger Annie.”

“It seemed like a wonderful way to escape,” she said.

Poor love. I held her tightly against myself. She’d had so much to escape from too.

“Well.” She stood. “We’d better mosey on back, Chief.”

“Right.” I nodded, standing. “The path curves around, we don’t have to go back the same way.”

“Good.” She smiled and took my hand. “Here we go then.”

We started to walk again. “Are you glad you came?” she asked.

“Yeah; it’s beautiful here,” I said. I’d been dubious about taking four young children camping; but then I’d never gone camping as a child so I had nothing to judge by. “I think

it’s working out great,” I said. I didn’t know it then but Ann’s desire to camp—notwithstanding her anxiety about trying anything new at a time of such mental stress—was to open up a world of lovely experience not only for me but for the children as well.

Continuing on, we reached a spot where the path divided. At the head of the right path was a sign that warned hikers not to go that way.

Ann looked at me with her “wicked little girl” expression. “Let’s go that way,” she said, drawing me toward the path on the right.