The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (29 page)

They let down the top of the car. They drove through some neighborhood streets, and then, at her direction, they turned the car up a long hill lined with tall, stately trees. He stole a glance at Ann. She had her head back against the seat. Her eyes were closed, her hair was flying in the wind, and she was singing an aimless little tune.

It was all very familiar. The road, the tall trees. Only this time the car was not a 1941 Packard Clipper but a 1974 Jaguar. And the girl beside him was not a redhead but a blonde. He wondered who that redhead was of long ago.

But this was Ann Chapin, and he was still confused about her. Sometimes he saw her as his daughter, and sometimes as a stranger. Because he had been all mixed up about her, he had left her alone. He hadn’t even touched her. He knew she was puzzled by this, but how in God’s name could he explain?
Ann, I’ve never made a pass at you because once I was your father
.

Yet he wanted her so badly it hurt. He remembered something Freud had said or written.
A father always harbors incestuous feelings toward his daughter
. But again, he argued to himself, Ann Chapin was created by someone else, some other body—Jeff Chapin’s. And that body is now rotting in the grave at Hillside Cemetery. This was his body, and it was very much alive at twenty-seven, in the year 1974. It was a whole new deal, a whole different life.

Or was it?

They had been riding uphill for a long time. Suddenly they burst out into a grassy slope dotted with trees. The slope ran to the edge of a high cliff, and far below was a panoramic view of the valley, with the lights of Riverside a great blazing carpet and the river a shining ribbon cutting through the middle of it.

He had been here before, too.

They got out of the car and walked to the edge of the cliff. They sat down on a slab of rock, and for a time they studied the view, saying nothing. Then she asked, “Like it?”

“It’s beautiful.”

“They call this Granite Mountain. I guess you’d say it’s the lovers’ lane of Riverside. You know, Mother told me that my father used to bring her here often before they were married. I’m not sure, but I think he proposed to her here.”

They were sitting close together on the slab of rock, and suddenly she turned her face toward him. Her mouth was red and glistening and half-open. He kissed it, and then he kissed it again, hard, and then he pushed her back, and his hand was under her sweater, cupping the soft, curved mound of her breast. Her hand
dropped to his groin, and at its first touch he grew stiff and hard, and he exulted in this because he had been afraid that, under the circumstances, he might not be able to perform.

He heard himself say, “Let’s go back to my place.”

“No,” she said. “Here.
Now
.”

Then she rose and took him by the hand, and they walked out of the moonlight and into the shadow of the trees nearby. After it was over, they lay quietly for a while. Then she turned her head toward him.

“You know, I was beginning to wonder about you.”

“Any further questions?”

“My God, no.” She smiled. “Not anymore.”

He took her home, and she invited him in for coffee. When they came into the living room, they saw Marcia Chapin.

She was sprawled in a grotesque position on the couch, dead drunk.

Her head hung down over the edge of the couch so that her hair almost touched the floor. Her legs were flung wide, sprawled upward over the arm of the couch. The robe she was wearing had fallen apart, so that she was almost completely exposed. Peter saw the long white legs, the thick black patch of her pubic hair, and just above that, the diamond-shaped blue birthmark he remembered so well. On the rug, within arm’s reach, were two vodka bottles and a glass. One of the bottles was empty. The other had been tipped over and lay on its side, spilling its contents on the rug.

He averted his eyes. It was obscene. Ann went to her mother and covered her nakedness with the robe. Then she turned to him, her face taut, a little pale.

“I’m sorry you had to see her like this. Still, you were bound to, sooner or later.” Then quietly, bitterly: “My mother’s an incurable alcoholic. And she has been for a long time.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No need to be. We’re used to it.”

She went to her mother and started to shake her. “Wake up. Wake up, Mother. It’s Ann.”

Marcia Chapin’s eyes opened. She stared up at her daughter blearily. She mumbled something, tried to raise herself from the couch, but she couldn’t make it, and fell back. Peter came over.

“I’ll help you get her upstairs.”

“No,” said Ann. “Please, I’d rather you wouldn’t. I’ll get Ola. She’s upstairs in her room.”

She ran upstairs. He stood there looking down at the sleeping woman. His disgust had vanished; now he felt only pity and a certain emptiness. Again he reminded himself, this is the woman who killed me in my other incarnation, cut off my life before it had fairly begun. But now he no longer cared. He was happy with his new incarnation. Jeff Chapin was dead. In a curious kind of way, he and Marcia Chapin were even. She had taken his old life away, but she had given him something priceless in his new life—Ann. Why she had done what she had done no longer mattered. He could make a pretty good guess as it was, putting two and two together. He was willing to forget it, let it be, He was finished in Riverside now; his stay was over. He wanted to forget all about Jeff Chapin and resume his identity as Peter Proud.

Maybe it was better, he reflected, not to know who you had been in some previous life. The reincarnationists claimed that this knowledge would give you insights into how to conduct yourself in the present.

Yet it could be that you were better off not having any prenatal memory whatever. You might find that you had been a pretty sordid character. You might have been a thief or a murderer or a procurer. There would be a certain amount of shock or trauma in this, some damage to your present ego.

For example, his discovery that he had once been somebody named Jeff Chapin. He did not like himself as Chapin. Probably you were better off living your life as it came. It would be enough
to know you would live a new life after you died, and forget about the details. Maybe the ancient Greeks had the right idea. The gods, they said, traditionally dip all souls who are about to be born into the River of Forgetfulness, in order to make them forget everything about their previous lives. When you thought of all the agonies of body and mind that most of us endure in one lifetime, why look for all the headaches and frustrations of other lifetimes?

Marcia Chapin stirred a little. She opened her eyes for a moment, staring straight up at him. They were glassy, vacant. She did not recognize him. She closed her eyes again.

Ann came down with Ola. Her black face was heavy with sleep. She did not seem surprised. Together, she and Ann got Marcia to her feet.

“Look,” he said to Ann, “I’ll say goodnight.”

“No,” she said. “Please stay. Please. I’ll be down in a little while.”

Later, after she came downstairs, she made coffee. She seemed tired and anxious to talk.

“I suppose Mother’s drinking all began after my father drowned,” she said. “I don’t know for sure, of course; I was a baby then. But I remember that when I was just a child in school she was drinking then. Steadily. She’d drink all day long, and she’d be helpless at night. I’d call my Aunt Helen, and she’d come over and spend the night. When Mother was sober again, her remorse was awful. Sometimes it scared me. I was afraid she might kill herself.

“I stopped bringing my school friends to the house. All this went on for years, through high school and college. After a while, she simply let herself go. She stopped taking care of her face, her hair, her clothing, everything. She’d sit in that den for hours and stare at those photographs of my father, and drink. Finally, we had her institutionalized for a long time. The psychiatrists talked to her and gave us the usual story—stresses and strains, the problems of the female alcoholic in today’s society. But
I
knew that her problem was a lot simpler. She just kept conjuring up this ghost, and the only way
she could drown him was to put him in a bottle. I don’t know why it happened this way. Other women lose their husbands, but they recover; they go on living. They remarry. But somehow my mother couldn’t. It was a pretty morbid situation. It still is….”

She went on to explain that when they brought Marcia back from the institution the first time, she seemed docile, quiet. She didn’t seem to care. Ann or Ola cooked for her. For months she did not take a drink. Then, one day, she disappeared.

“l was in New York then,” Ann continued. “I came right home. They found her in a cheap hotel in Boston. She was filthy, half starving, half out of her mind. And stone broke. She didn’t remember where she’d been, or what she had done in all that time. After that, I left New York and came home for good. We put her in an institution again, a different one this time. They tried everything: psychiatry, drugs—nothing helped. When she came out again, she went into AA. For six months it worked. She didn’t touch a drop. We began to hope that she was out of it. Then one night I came home and found her. She had fallen down the steps, dead drunk, and was bleeding from the head. They had to take I don’t know how many stitches. Finally, we—Uncle Ralph, Aunt Helen, other relatives—decided it was no use. We figured we might as well make it available to her and stop playing games. In the past few years she’s been pretty good, would actually go on the wagon for a few weeks at a time. But of course it’s just going to go on. So you see why I have to be here to take care of her. She really doesn’t have anyone else.”

When he got back to his hotel, there were two telephone messages from Hall Bentley asking him to call back.

He crumpled the messages in his fist and threw them into the wastebasket. He still wasn’t ready to talk to Bentley, not yet. Not until he was very clear in his mind as to what he had to say.

The Civic Center was located near the center of the city. It was very new, a tribute to Riverside’s cultural progress. It had been designed as a kind of minor league Lincoln Center. It had a theater, a forum, and a symphony hall, surrounded by plazas and fountains.

Peter parked the car deep in the layered labyrinth of garages under the complex. Then he, Ann, and Marcia Chapin rode up a series of small escalators to the esplanade.

Peter was startled by Marcia’s appearance. She wore a long green satin dress and several strings of pearls. She seemed rested and relaxed, animated by the crowd and the occasion. Her eyes sparkled. She was really a striking woman for her age when she got dressed up, he thought. Regal. Now and then they ran into people they knew, who greeted Marcia effusively and seemed genuinely glad to see her.

“Good Lord,” she said. “I haven’t seen some of these people in years”

“Well, it’s your fault, not theirs,” said Ann. “You ought to get out more often.”

“Yes. I suppose you’re right.”

He took them both by the arms and shepherded them through the dense crowd in the great chandeliered foyer. Tonight, he thought Ann particularly attractive. She was wearing a long black dress, sleek and tight fitting at the hips, and scoop-necked, so that the top of her white breasts swelled provocatively. It was set off by gold loop earrings set with sapphires, and two long antique gold chains around her neck, also set with sapphires. There was a special
aura about her, sensuous and very feminine. He noticed that men turned to look at her. He appreciated their interest—and resented it a little.

They were ushered down the side of the hall. Every seat was taken. There was the usual anticipatory buzz. The musicians were already on stage, fiddling with their instruments. He checked his program and liked what he saw. Aaron Copland’s
Short Symphony
, then Mozart’s
Concerto No. 3 in G for Violin
, and finally, Mahler’s
Symphony No. 5 in C Sharp Minor
.

The conductor raised his baton, and the orchestra began the
Short Symphony
. He was not a Copland buff, but he enjoyed this particular work. He was a man who took his concert-going seriously. He liked to concentrate from the beginning, unlike the usual audience pests who took this time to settle down. He identified them as the Fanners, people who created their own little climate by waving their programs in front of their faces. He noted the other species nearby: the Head-Nodders, the Foot-Tappers, the Seat-Shifters, the Coughers, and the Whisperers.

Then Sergei Pavlik came on for the Mozart, and the applause was tremendous.

Peter sat back and closed his eyes. He let the music wash over him like a warm sea. His mind began to drift effortlessly. He was tired. He had not slept well the night before. It was delicious to sit here and just relax….

Images floated before him. Names, faces. Hall Bentley’s, and Verna Bird’s, and Elva Carlsen’s.
“We have a soul here.” “Yes, I see the soul.” “And we have a body which houses the soul?” “I see the body.”
The face of Sam Goodman. The face of Dr. Ludwig Staub, thick glasses, heavy accent, blue polka-dotted bow tie.
“If it is of any comfort to you, they are not schizoid in character. The dreams of the schizophrenic are often flat. Unevocative.”
Sam Goodman’s Sleep Lab, and the obscene jangling of the arousal bell.
“I have a dream, Doctor.”
The red candle is Evil, the white candle is Good. Good and Evil,
Good and Evil. I am a man of many lives. Chalaf, and Makoto Asata, and Red Horse. Standing in the moonlight, looking at the cold, cold lake …

He saw the moon and felt the sharp cut of the wind, and he laughed aloud, thinking, Hey, hey, look at me, Big Chief Two Moons, with my war club flopping in the wind, and here I am in the forest primeval, by the shining waters, on the shores of Gitche Gumee. Nobody here but me. Chief Two Moons. The last of the Mohicans,

Far off, across the lake, the sign beckoned to him. Puritan, Puritan. Then he slid off the dock and into the water and started to swim. After that he got tired, and Marcia came along in the boat, and she hit him on the head with the paddle, and …