For Love of Audrey Rose (27 page)

“I didn’t want to see you,” he said softly.

She watched him, sitting on the windowsill, feet on the floor, and he looked exhausted, more exhausted than it seemed possible for any man to be. His words came tonelessly.

“But when they told me you had crossed the river,” he said, “I knew I had to get you out of there. The monks don’t understand warfare. To them it’s all a temporal part of life.”

“So you followed my footsteps to the outpost. And all the time I thought I was following you.”

He continued to ignore her, as though he were deaf or trying to obliterate her, to make certain that it was he who dominated the house. He began to look worried, and his voice grew louder but less certain of itself.

“To them your death would have been accepted quite philosophically. Like an insect’s.”

Janice said nothing. India had changed Elliot Hoover from what he had been in Manhattan.

Something had altered him forever.

“Anyway, what does it matter?” he said. “We’re both still alive.”

He slumped further against the sill, looking tired enough to sleep standing up.

“I didn’t want to see you,” he repeated. “But I was afraid of what the soldiers might do. You don’t understand this country. Down in the south, what happens during even a small war…”

“I can only thank you, however feeble that must sound.”

“Forget it. When you feel better you’ll tell me why you came to India. Now you should sleep.”

She drifted into a haze of heat, a reddish cloud of slumber that was draining. Hoover slept on the floor, his soft snores rising and falling rhythmically. Janice thought she saw the two boys remove his muddy coat, push a pillow under his head, but then she fell asleep again. When she awoke, many hours later, the boys were outside, and it was late afternoon, and the ox was stamping its foot into the earth while it munched long yellow stems of grass.

“We have to go down into the valley,” Hoover said quickly.

“What? Why?”

“The soldiers are moving this way. But now they’re only a bunch of bandits.”

Dizzily Janice saw Hoover load the cart, and the boys climb inside; then he came back into the house, took her by the arm, and led her into the warm sunshine. She walked slowly, leaning against his side. She followed his glance and saw, far off on the slope, a cluster of dark dots in a ragged movement coming down the road toward them.

“Once we get into the valley we’ll be safe,” he confided. His eyes shifted to her eyes and discerned the fear in them. “The
Tejo Lingam
is sacred. They won’t bother us.”

Janice put a foot onto the cart, but stumbled, and Hoover lifted her bodily like a sack of stones and set her onto the dirty wooden back of the wagon. He got quickly into the front, slapped the ox with a thin sapling, and the cart rumbled downhill, away from the mountain house, away from the soldiers five miles behind them.

The cart jostled down toward the south. As they descended the air grew humid again, but not as oppressive and suffocating as it had been before the monsoon struck. This was a delicate moisture, and it brought the fragrance of crushed ferns and palm fronds.

The two boys now watched, their eyes wide, as the new landscape rolled past. They were twins. Orphans, Janice was certain. To them, life had just revealed its most brutal realities, and they were still in a daze. Instinctively they trusted Hoover. To them death was not new. It had just come closer to them this time instead of to their elders or to the animals of the field. Janice toyed with them, tickling their small bellies until laughter came and their happy cries rose like bird melodies over the sad, death-infested forest.

Hoover stopped the cart where two tiny streams buckled into a small rapids. A thatched hut stood in a small muddy clearing, and enormous bougainvilleas stormed upward on vines and branches around the conical roof. Crimson-robed men stopped, amazed, frozen in their tracks.

Hoover approached, put his palms together in greeting, and the men returned his bow. One of the men, overcome, suddenly embraced him. The sound of Hoover’s weeping was extraordinary. A sweet, harmonious sound, like the lifting of a death curse. It seemed to release something deep inside him, unfreeze something horrible, and make him live again. He wiped his eyes, and the monks came with him to the cart.

As the monks carried the twin boys toward a series of smaller conical-roofed huts, Hoover helped Janice down to the ground. She still found it difficult to keep her balance, as she was light-headed. The brilliance of the sunlight dazzled her. The yellow butterflies among the red flowers were like a profusion of sensory impressions too strong to absorb. It was warm, and she made her way slowly toward a small hut.

“These are my friends,” Hoover said.

“Yes, I know. One of the monks here told me where to find you.”

Hoover looked at her, surprised. “Usually they do not speak to strangers.”

“Perhaps I looked desperate.”

“Probably. At any rate, they thought I was dead. We are not indifferent to one another down here.”

They entered a small hut. The earthen floor was hard, swept clean, and a simple white basin and pitcher stood on a flat rock that was worn smooth by a thousand human hands.

“This
ashram
has functioned for a thousand years,” Hoover said. “It’s for pilgrims going to the big temples on the coast. There are several different sects that use the shrine.” Hoover smiled. “You are the first woman in a long series of pilgrims,” he said kindly.

Her head rolled pleasantly against a wicker mat rolled into a tube and used as a pillow. He still seemed to waver in front of her, as rays of bright sunshine outlined his shoulders and his fair hair.

“Elliot,” she said, not wishing him to go, “we must talk.”

“Later.”

“No. It can’t wait. I have to leave soon for New York.”

He laughed. “Do you know how long it would take you to get to Bombay, much less New York? Do you even know where you are? Listen to me, Janice. You have illusions of health. It’s going to take days before you can walk more than twenty yards without help.”

Janice felt the awful fever coming again. It was the helplessness that she dreaded. At bottom, there was the fear that she would wake and Hoover would be gone.

“Elliot, I…”

“Go to sleep, Janice. When you wake, we’ll talk.”

Janice saw his face darken, the jaws lightly clench. She knew he did not want to know why she had come to India. She became afraid that he was going to ride out of the
ashram
, out of her life forever.

“You won’t leave me?” she begged weakly. “Not before I’ve explained—oh Christ, I feel like such a helpless child. I can’t lift my own arms. I can’t keep my eyes open. Elliot, I need your help.”

“I know,” he said, confused, both angry and yet softening to her obvious desperation. “I know you do. But…”

“But what?”

“Things are different, Janice. They’ve changed.”

“Don’t frighten me. You sound so dead.”

“Reality is not what I thought it was, Janice. I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What do you think I’m talking about?” he said almost angrily.

He suddenly knelt down closer to her. She drew back. His eyes blazed, and his feet kicked up a small cloud of brown dust that caught the shaft of sunlight and drifted toward the door.

“I’m talking about Ivy,” he said, his voice taut with the difficulty of saying the name. “Your daughter, Ivy, and Audrey, my Audrey Rose.”

His voice choked and he retreated to the wall. The small earthen hut had become an arena. It was as though he were fighting her to the death, yet Janice did not understand why. His passion took hold of him, animating his slender arms, blazing out of his steel blue eyes. He crouched in her direction for emphasis, as though he were ready to pounce on her.

“I had thought,” he fumbled, “I had thought that there would be peace, that Ivy’s death had ended the struggle, the struggle of a soul in torment.” He rubbed at his eyes as though trying to gouge out the sight of Ivy broken by shattered glass, lying on the hard tile floor of the Darien hospital. “I should never have gone to New York,” he whispered darkly, gutturally, a strange voice that must have been bottled up for nearly a year. “Never, never, never. My being near the Audrey that was in her, called up this struggle. I started it, Janice. I started it and I kept it up. I wouldn’t let go of her. I pursued her until I killed her.”

He stared blankly at her, blinking away tears. Furiously he wiped his eyes. He was not the man she remembered, not the man she had come ten thousand miles to get help from.

“I should have gone away once I realized that
I
was causing her nightmares. And I
did
know it. But I rationalized, temporized. I couldn’t go away. Not when I was so close again.”

Janice struggled to a sitting position. Though the room was undulating due to her fever, she followed the words carefully, as though a revelation were unfolding in the hot shaft of sunlight.

“Because of me,” he said simply, “the soul of Audrey and Ivy was filled with fear and confusion. Therefore there was no tranquility when death claimed Ivy. There was no peace for her soul. Though I believed it at the time, I know better now.”

Janice watched him pour a small stream of water into an earthen mug. He brought it to her. She drank, the water was cool, and then he dipped his hands into a basin and began to wash her hot face. The spinning stopped slowly. She focused on his sorrowful eyes.

“Her terrible death prevented a peaceful transition,” he said quietly. “There must be a rebirth. No doubt it has already taken place.” His voice cracked. “Somewhere, a child lives with a soul that continues to cry out in terror….”

He could not continue. For a long time he stood there, drained by his own confession. He looked at her.

“Have you understood what I’ve said?” he asked gently.

“More than you know.”

“Really?” he said, surprised. “What does that mean?”

“It’s why I’ve come to India. It’s why I’ve had to find you.”

“I don’t understand.”

He looked as though her words fulfilled his worst fears.

“Bill needs your help, Elliot.”

Hoover watched her, studying her face suspiciously. “I don’t believe that could be possible,” he said simply.

“Then I had better explain. After Ivy died—immediately after—Bill had a nervous breakdown. He began to study—to study all kinds of things. Religious things. He became fixated, fascinated, utterly absorbed in it.”

“Bill Templeton? Involved in religious studies? That would have been funny once.”

“And not just religion, Elliot. Eastern religion.” Janice took a deep breath. “He’s become convinced, just as you are, that Ivy’s been reborn.
And that he’s found her.
”

Hoover’s face dropped. He stared at her, blinking rapidly.

“And you?” he asked in a choked voice. “What do you think?”

Janice faltered. She found herself dizzy in front of him. She gathered her courage and looked him in the eyes.

“I think it may very well be true,” she said. “But I don’t know. That’s why I came to India. To ask for your help. To beg you to return with me.”

Hoover laughed, a disdainful laugh; but underneath there was acute anxiety.

“Do not even suggest the possibility,” he said, trembling.

Janice leaned forward but he visibly retreated as though she might contaminate him.

“Elliot,” she whispered urgently, “Bill and I are lost without you.”

“It’s taken me a year to find even a small amount of peace.”

His booming voice dropped into an abrupt silence. He paced the room, his face hideous in confusion. His arms waved wildly as though protecting himself from visible thoughts.

“It’s punishment,” he whispered. “That’s why you’ve come.”

“Elliot, if you loved Audrey Rose… listen to me…”

He stopped dead in his tracks and glared at her. “For love of Audrey Rose I ruined the soul’s progress,” he said quietly. “I won’t do it again.”

His face clouded with the memories of New York. He found it impossible to maintain his composure. He sat down on the edge of a chair.

“What do you expect me to do, Janice?” he asked desperately.

She rose and walked slowly to his side. “You admit to having made a terrible mistake with Ivy. Can you allow Bill to make the same mistake? You must come to New York, Elliot. You must speak to him. Reason with him.”

Hoover laughed hideously.

“New York?” he hooted. “Why don’t I just go down into hell? What are you asking of me?”

“Elliot, only you can reach him. Only you can break through to him. You must explain to him…”

“What? That I did the equivalent of killing his daughter? Caused her to be reborn in misery? Is that what Bill needs to hear?”

Hoover calmed himself by a violent exertion of will, like wrestling against his own body. Slowly his face and breathing returned to normal.

“Bill has to learn to live,” Janice said, pleading. “He has to give up this obsession.”

Hoover softened. He was wavering.

“Yes,” he whispered sadly. “He must give up the obsession. I’d give my right arm if someone could have prevented me.”

Outside the monks chanted, a rock-steady chorus, attuned to each change in the timbre of their voices. The sound of them restored Hoover’s self-discipline.

“But I can’t do it, Janice,” he said, rising again. “Don’t even ask.”

Slowly Janice stood up to face him.

“Bill escaped from the sanitarium last February. He went searching for his daughter.”

Hoover’s face became even more drawn.

“I pity your husband,” he mumbled. “I pray for his soul. But you must leave me alone. You don’t know what your being here has done to me.”

“He kidnapped a little girl, Elliot. He went to Spanish Harlem and stole her from her mother’s arms.”

“Dear God,” he whispered.

“They shot him, Elliot, to get the girl back. I had to betray him so they could shoot him on a rooftop—”

His large rough hand sealed her lips.

“Please stop,” he whispered stridently. “You’re crucifying me. Isn’t one soul burden enough? Am I to bear Bill’s too?”