The Crystal Child (21 page)

Julia knew there were philosophers who made much of this strange romance, an allegory of the soul’s tribulation in finding its way to union with god.  An overly convenient mingling of the sacred and profane, she thought.  In her books, the tale was illustrated with several pictures.  One was a sculpture from antiquity that showed Eros, his wings spread wide behind him, lifting Psyche away from the Earth — probably to live with him happily ever after on the heights of Olympus.  Would that be her reward, Julia wondered, when she presented herself to Aaron?  Did her lover have wings strong enough to lift her out of this wretched world?

***

The next day she used her phone card to place a call to San Lazaro from the pay phone just outside the front office of the motel.  “May I please speak to Peter DeLeon?”

“Dr. DeLeon is away,” a woman’s voice answered.  “Who is calling?”

“For how long?”

“Until the twenty-third.  Would you like to leave a message?”

The twenty-third.  That was more than ten days.  “Can I reach him at another number?”

“He is in Tokyo.  May I ask who is calling?”

Julia ignored the question.  She swallowed hard and asked, “May I speak to Aaron Lacey?”

There was a pause.  “Would that be a guest?”

“Yes … I suppose.  I don’t know.  He’s … a boy.  Twelve years old.”

Another pause, this time longer.  “There is nobody by that name here.  A boy, you say?  With his parents?”

“No.  He’s very striking.  Very … handsome, for a boy.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t help.  If you wish to leave your number …”

She hung up, her heart racing as if she had committed a crime.  Perhaps she had, simply by asking to speak to Aaron.

Later that day she called again.  A man answered, a voice with a pleasant Spanish accent.  “I have an invitation from Dr. DeLeon,” she explained, this time giving her name as Dr. Julia Stein.

“Yes, of course, Dr. Stein,” he replied at once, as if he had been expecting her call.

“I understand Dr. DeLeon is away.”

“Until the twenty-third.  But he has left instructions for your travel and accommodations.  Where are you calling from?”

“San Francisco.”

“Ah, yes. We can charter a plane for you from SFO.  How soon do you wish to leave?”

Immediately
, she wanted to say.  “Today?” she asked more than stated.

“Yes,” the man said, “we can arrange that.  Can you be at SFO by three PM?”

“Yes.  All right.”

“May I ask — if we page you at the airport — what name shall we use?”

She had not thought of that. But why had he?  “What name?”

“I ask because often our guests prefer to travel
incognito.”

“Oh, I see.  Clara Shapiro.  Yes, use that name.”

The last time Julia visited San Lazaro, the connection from San Diego airport was by bus, a tediously slow drive of many hours along the Baja coast through sprawling resort areas.  By air, the trip, in a small private plane owned by the DeLeon Institute took less than two hours.  There were seats for ten, but Julia was the only passenger.   Glancing down as the plane circled around to land, she could make out Peter DeLeon’s impressive enclave, several contemporary adobe buildings scattered among the trees.  Swimming pools, tennis courts, and at the far southern edge of the grounds an airstrip.

On the ground, though she was within walking distance of the main complex, a muscular young man dressed in white exercise togs pulled up in a jitney cab to take her to the door of her room.  He was a good-looking American, well-tanned, with a broad, movie-star smile.  “Enjoy your trip?” he asked.  She nodded.  “This is it?” he asked, picking up her one, scuffed suitcase.  She nodded again.

Seated beside him in the cab, she asked, “Can you tell me where I might find Aaron Lacey?”

“Lacey?  Would that be a guest?”

“A guest of Dr. DeLeon’s, yes.”

The driver shook his head.  “I don’t recall anybody by that name.”

“A boy, about twelve?  Very blonde, very … good-looking?”

That sparked his recollection.  “Oh, yeah.  The kid.  I never caught his name.  I don’t think he’s staying here.”

“Where then?”

“Don’t know.  I only saw him that once.”

“When?”

“Maybe six months back.  But you wouldn’t forget him.  What is he?  A movie star?”

“No, he isn’t.”

“Well, with looks like that … Ask at Reception.  They can put you in touch.”

Her cabin turned out to be a sumptuous three room suite, cool and immaculate.  The rooms were tastefully furnished with original oil paintings on the wall. On the shelves were what looked like authentic pre-Columbian antiquities: statues, masks, jars.  Apparently Dr. DeLeon’s clients were too rich to steal.   She found a bowl of fruit and a basket of freshly cut flowers on the dresser.  There was a card.  “Welcome,” it read.  “Dinner as soon as I return …?”  The initials below were P. D.

Two days earlier she had spent her last night at Stockton on a hard cot in a small, windowless prison cell. Now she was lying across a king-size bed dozing in air-conditioned elegance.  She felt unworthy of the comfort.  Would someone suddenly appear to snatch it all away?  From her window, she could see a sparkling blue pool surrounded by palms; at this distance the people relaxing around it looked nude.  She caught their occasional laughter on the breeze.  There were fruit trees and lush tropical flowers in the private patio outside her door.  Perched on the limb of a tree, a small many-colored bird was gazing in at her. Where was Aaron, she wondered.  There was a phone in her room.  But she felt inclined to keep her presence unannounced until someone called.

San Lazaro had clearly prospered since she had last visited.  There had been only the one main building then, well-kept but modest in its furnishings. Peter DeLeon may not have discovered the fountain of youth, but he had clearly found the fountain of worldly delights.  With so much to boast about, DeLeon would be an ordeal across the dinner table.  Bad enough to be in his company when they had gerontology in common.  Now that her career lay in ruins and he was obviously climbing the ladder from rich to richer, what would there be to talk about?  She, the earnest failure; he, the fraudulent success.

While she waited for DeLeon, Julia would have preferred to meet none of his guests.  But locking herself away day and night, even in a well-appointed suite, was too much like prison all over again.  She longed to enjoy the open air.  But did she have the right clothes to wear?  Her suitcase held a few frumpy, durable things so ill-suited to a swank resort that she would be bound to provoke more attention than she wanted.  Even the maids she saw in their bright sun dresses looked better dressed than she did.  San Lazaro offered the option of nude bathing, but she was hardly in the mood to issue so open an invitation.  In the closet of her room, she found basic swim wear and a robe — nothing as elegant as she saw other women wearing, but it would have to do. That first day, she took her meals in her room. But in the days that followed, she summoned up the courage to walk the grounds, trying always to remain as aloof as possible. That was not easy.  Wherever she loitered, people felt free to strike up conversations, offer drinks, propose a swim or a sauna.  That was, after all, the ambience.  If she responded elusively, she inspired the very curiosity she wished to avoid.

She found herself caught up in a comic charade.  The more private she tried to keep, the greater the air of mystery she assumed.  She was tempted to drive people away by telling the truth.  “I’ve just gotten out of prison.  I don’t feel much like talking.”  But that might draw even more interest.  Men especially wanted to know who this elusive female might be.  The single males who came to San Lazaro — outnumbered ten to one by unattached women — clearly felt licensed to be predatory.  She felt hungry eyes on her constantly.  A well-built, well-tanned older man in trunks fell into step along side her as she passed the pool one afternoon. “May I?” he asked as he linked his arm in hers. “I have a four-figure bet with my friends at the table over there.”  He gestured toward a group of grinning men at the pool-side cabana.  “I bet I can find out your name.  Please take pity.  I’d prefer to spend the money on us.”  He was good-looking, with an accent that might be middle-eastern.

Julia gave him a cold smile. “Greta Garbo,” she answered, walking on. “And you know what my most famous line is.”  It was the first time she had made anything remotely like a joke since her trial.  Well, maybe San Lazaro was having some good effect on her.

***

Music filled the night at San Lazaro.  There was a dance pavilion, there were wandering musicians.  Things did not quiet down until well after midnight.  Through the evenings, Julia kept to herself, reading until her eyes tired.  She was surprised to discover how many Greek poets there were who poked fun at the gods for their
amours
, most from a later, more cynical time, long after Homer and the great playwrights.  They wondered why Zeus bothered chasing nymphs when there were so many cheap prostitutes to be had.  He seduced Danae by transforming himself into a shower of gold and raining down on her.  Quite a price for balling a single virgin.  For that much gold, said one bawdy Greek lyricist, he could have bought all the whores in Alexandria.

By then, long after the heroic age, the myths had lost their charm.  But the need for them never vanished; they sprang back to life spontaneously.  They had a way of teasing the mind, making it look for hidden meaning.  They offered an elusiveness that commanded pursuit.
I am a riddle
, the myths said. 
Solve me, solve me.

She laid aside her copy of Bullfinch, her mind playing with words. 
Eros.  Arrows.
  Odd how the two words echoed.  She could recall occasions when she had mistaken the one word for the other.  At a lecture once she thought the speaker was discussing the role of “arrows” in the rise of civilization.  No doubt everybody made that mistake at one time or another.  Only myth could connect the two into a single overpowering experience.  But the coincidence was significant — at least for her.  Eros had entered her life, not gently, but as a weaponed child.  He came with dart, with arrow, intending to wound. Violence in the guise of passion.  Conquest disguised as love.  Two people making love could easily be mistaken for two people fighting.  She had seen Olympic wrestlers, their bodies locked together as if having sex.  Or cats caught up in sexual strife, the male holding the female by her neck. Aaron the lover, Aaron the destroyer.  He was in her thoughts every night, returning as the faun in the forest, leading her deeper into his realm.

***

Each morning, so the Lord of Longevity taught, those who followed the Immortalist Method must awaken to positive thoughts and good sex.  “After sound sleep,” so the teaching went, “the juices of rejuvenation must flow without obstruction. The love partner you keep at your side through the night is therefore as important as the nutrients you keep on your breakfast table in the morning.”  And if the woman one woke to find at one’s side was to be all that a love partner should be, she must never be the same woman for more than a few months at a time. The Lord of Longevity prescribed a therapeutic harem to fend off senility — and not only for males.  His discipline transcended masculine privilege.  The women who consulted him were instructed to treat themselves to the same bracing prescription.

All the rooms at San Lazaro were stocked with the collected works of Peter DeLeon, fifty or more expensively produced books and pamphlets on “the Method.”  Most were exaggerated promotional pitching for the panacea of the month, usually some exotic herb or obscure pharmaceutical that medical science had never heard of. 
The Miracle of Chronoforte, Life Everlasting with Organic Estrogen, Lactoferrin: The Ultimate Immunity.
  Running her eye over the titles, Julia was  instantly repelled.  How weary she was of the life-extension marketplace with its inane claims!  But there was one large, glossy coffee-table volume that caught her eye:
The Elixir of Eros: A Lover’s Guide to Youth Eternal.
  For no better reason than that it bore the god of love’s name, she turned to it in her boredom, only to find it crowded with photos of the Lord of Longevity and his many female admirers demonstrating the postures and practices that did most to enliven the powers of rejuvenation.  The well-oiled and minimally clad DeLeon appeared throughout, striking the sort of muscle-bulging, body-builder poses Julia always found ridiculously kinky.  Page after page featured the doctor (here identified as eighty-one years old) entwined with a selection of nude and ecstatically breathless beauties.  The final picture showed DeLeon in a highly graphic three-way. The caption read, “Life at San Lazaro is a dawn to dusk hymn to the liberated libido.”

It was a tawdry piece of work, pompous and self-indulgent. Yet, it brought Julia back to a question that had troubled her ever since she spent that fateful afternoon with Aaron.  What connected the divine innocence of the child Eros with so many tales of insatiable sexuality?  Precisely because Peter DeLeon’s little treatise was permeated with salacious imagery, it emphasized how paradoxical that association was.  Paradoxical … ?  Or simply mistaken?  Julia remembered Freud’s convenient assumption that children are endowed with a latent sexuality their parents would prefer to censor.  Freud believed this was an anticipation of puberty, when the libido would achieve its proper adult expression.  But what if the eroticism of children is nothing like adult sexuality, nothing like the tacky pornography of the DeLeon Method?  What if it is exactly the opposite, the anticipation of a pleasure that is displaced by the drive for reproduction and therefore beyond our understanding?  Of course, all those who are out to market life extension would make soaring promises of sexual potency.  They might even believe quite sincerely that sex was what eternal youth was all about, its main attraction. After all, sex sells  But how pitiful that promise became in the hands of a Peter DeLeon.  As bewildered as Julia still was by her liaison with Aaron, she knew better.  She remembered what Aaron had said soon after he emerged from his coma, when he was just beginning to become the
puer aeternus
.  It was something he had learned from Plato.  “It’s really backwards, saying life is just sex.  Sex is the way new bodies keep getting made. But that’s not the same as what people are living
for
.  Sex is what people have instead of immortality.”

***

“May I have the pleasure of your company for dinner tomorrow evening?”

Peter DeLeon’s voice descended out of the sky.  He was on his way back from his Asian tour, phoning ahead from a plane somewhere over the Pacific still several hours from landing.  Julia remembered the tone, commanding and orotund.  The accent too was the same, suavely continental with every trace of specific nationality smoothed away.  “Will Aaron be there?” she asked.

“I know how eager you are to see him.  But how about just the two of us tomorrow — to catch up on old times?  We can drive over to see Aaron on Wednesday.”

“Where is he?”

“He felt too exposed staying at the Institute, as you can imagine.  A rather spectacular child on his own, that left too much to explain.  He’s staying with one of my patrons just down the peninsula. An estate in the mountains.  Never fear.  He’s being well looked after.  You might say he’s in the lap of luxury.  But I’m sure he’s just as anxious to see you.”

Julia agreed to the dinner.  She had not seen Aaron in over a year now.  There were months to fill in, things she wanted to know before they met.  DeLeon would surely be able to help with that transition.  Setting down the telephone, she wondered exactly when she would cross the line into criminal territory.  Not yet.  Nobody had told her she could not leave the country — at least to visit Mexico.  And she had not yet seen or talked to Aaron.  If she were to scurry back to sister Ellen in Texas, she would still stay safely within the law.  She might even reclaim her career somewhere, somehow.  But she had no intention of returning.  Tomorrow she would see Aaron, and at that point violate her parole.  That would make her a fugitive with years of prison awaiting her if she tried to enter the United States again.  She felt giddy at the risk she was taking.  For the first time in her life, she had nothing to lose. She was in free fall.

The Lord of Longevity looked somewhat less lordly since Julia had last seen him.  Though his frame still hinted at remarkable muscularity for a man in his seventies — if in fact he was in his seventies (Julia had now come across three different ages for the man in his own literature) — he had thickened at the waist.  He now wore flowing robes to conceal his ample contours, but the bulge showed through.  Apparently DeLeon’s high-profile status in the jet set had licensed him to take on a markedly bloated physique.  It had also licensed him to pare his scientific pretensions to the minimum, just enough to maintain a facade for his clientele, enough to give them an excuse for the extravagance of a trip to Baja.  Julia also noticed he had taken to wearing dark glasses, even indoors.  Catching him for a moment with the glasses lowered, Julia saw why.  He had had his eyes tucked, something he probably knew Julia would notice.  It had once been an article of faith in the DeLeon creed to eschew plastic surgery, claiming that the Method made such superficial adjustments unnecessary.  But the master had yielded, weakening in the direction of the surgery Julia had seen in use among all but a few of his disciples.  The women Julia had seen at the spa showed all the signs of strenuous makeovers.  Beauty by the knife.