The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (7 page)

But he had the impression that this one, the car he had imagined in his fantasy, was much newer than these museum pieces. His curiosity started to gnaw at him. He couldn’t wait till the plane touched down at International Airport in Los Angeles.

He picked up his car and instead of driving home went straight to the campus. He parked his car and walked quickly past Bunche Hall, Haines Hall, and across Dickson Plaza. He felt impelled now, driven. His heart was beating hard, the excitement whipping his blood.

He entered the Powell Library, and went directly to the desk of the Reader’s Adviser. There were two students ahead of him. He waited impatiently. One wanted to know where she could find a book on the art of embroidery. The other wanted to know where he could find material on energy transfer processes in chemical kinetics. The boy was politely informed that he was in the wrong place, that what he wanted was the Research Library.

Finally it was Peter’s turn.

“Yes?”

“I’d like to find a book on old cars. Classic cars.”

“Oh, yes.” She thought a moment. “I believe we have several.”

She led him to one of the stacks. “You’ll find them on this shelf.”

There were several books on the subject. He began to go through them one by one. He quickly sorted out those which portrayed the very early cars and others which emphasized the ancient Model T’s, the Durants, and the Marmons.
His
car wasn’t that old.

He began to go through the others carefully, page by page.
Picture History of Motoring, Cars of the Early Thirties, Treasury of U.S
.
Cars, Sports and Classic Cars
. He studied illustration after illustration. Cars of the past, with familiar names: Cadillac, Lincoln, Chrysler. Vaguely familiar names: Pierce Arrow, Duisenberg, LaSalle, Daimler, Cord, and Stutz. And exotic and almost forgotten names: De Grand Lux, Hispano Suiza, Isotta-Fraschini, Marmon, Peerless, and Wills Sainte Claire.

Then he saw it. On page 158 of
The Great American Automobile. His
car.

It was an exact replica—beautifully photographed, both exterior and interior. He’d have known it anywhere.

He read the copy under the photographs.

He took the book to the Xerox machine, made a photocopy of page 158, and slipped it into his briefcase.

As he walked out of the library, he suddenly stopped dead still in the middle of Dickson Plaza.

He was dimly aware that he was the focus of some attention. Groups of passing students paused to stare at him curiously. One girl half turned, as though to ask him if he was all right, then changed her mind, shrugged, and went on.

He stood there for a long time.

It had suddenly occurred to him that he was born in 1946. October 10, 1946, to be exact. About the same time that that car had been in style.

He began to walk toward Parking Structure Number Three. He no longer had any doubt about it. He had lived in some previous life as the man he thought of as X. He wondered what kind of man X was, what he thought about, what he did, what other people thought of him. It struck him suddenly, and with shock, that perhaps X was evil. Perhaps he had committed an unpardonable sin as far as this woman Marcia was concerned. Otherwise, why had she wielded that murder weapon so viciously, with such obvious hatred? Why had she cut him off in the prime of his life?

And before X? Reincarnation meant that you lived many previous lives. That you were born and died and were born again. The soul remained the same, but it inhabited one body after another. Who had he been before X? What kind of man had he been? Good or evil? He considered himself a civilized and decent person now. But for all he knew, back in some previous life he could have been a rapist or a murderer. The thought wasn’t pleasant. But of course he would never really know.

That night, he decided that he could not keep Nora in ignorance any longer. He told her everything, from the beginning right up to his discovery in the library.

“I must have had another life before this one.
Before
October 10, 1946. I
know
I was the man playing tennis, and swimming that lake, and driving that car. And this woman Marcia must have been something to me. Wife, lover,
something
.”

“I see. So you’ve been reincarnated. You died and you were born again. But you don’t know your name, rank, or serial number.”

“No.”

“Well,” she sighed, “you’re worse off than all those people in the institutions. At least
they
know they’re Napoleon, or Joan of Arc, or General Grant.”

“Damn it, I’m serious!”

“I know you are, Pete. But really—reincarnation?”

“A lot of people believe in reincarnation, Nora.”

“Oh, I know. Thousands, maybe millions. They believe in astrology charts, and tarot cards, and witchcraft, and gurus who’ll read your fortune for twenty-five dollars an hour. Most of them are kooks, or just plain simple-minded. I know the kids are going for the reincarnation thing in a big way. But they’ll go for anything that gives them an out, a chance to escape reality. They’re looking for miracles to make them feel better. Anyway, it’s just a fad with them, the way so many of these things are.”

Pete’s eyes wandered down to Nora’s left wrist, on which she was wearing two big copper bracelets. They were supposed to protect
you from arthritis, rheumatism, tennis elbow, and sciatica. He had noticed any number of women wearing them, and a few men.

Nora saw his grin. Her face turned red.

“Oh, look,” She said. “I just wear these for fun. It’s just a—well, it’s a gag.
You
know.”

“Sure,” he said. “I know.”

“Oh, go to hell!” She laughed, then grew serious.

“But really, Pete, think about it, and you’ll see how ridiculous it is. You die, but you don’t
really
die. Your soul doesn’t go to heaven or to hell, like the fire and brimstone preachers said it would, but floats around until it finds a home in another body. Maybe that new body was born ten years later, or a hundred years later. And so on and so on. Life is just one big karma trip. Now—can you really buy that?
Really?
”

“I don’t know,”

“When you’re dead, you’re dead. When they bury you in the ground, or cremate you, you’ve had it. You’re just a bunch of chemicals turned into ash. And there isn’t any more. Period.”

He thought a moment. “Nora, there’s something I want to try.”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to set up a tape recorder next to my bed. If that voice you heard ever comes out of me again, maybe you could record it for me. I want to hear it.”

“What’s the point of that?”

“I just want to hear it. Or
him
.”

“Pete,” She said. “Listen to me. Let it alone. Don’t make waves.”

“It’s something I’ve got to try.”

He felt Nora tugging at him furiously, shaking him out of sleep. He opened his eyes and saw that it was early in the morning. As before, she was pale and shaken.

“Listen,” she said.

She turned on the tape recorder. At first he heard what seemed to be someone breathing, then chuckling under his breath. Then it came—a long, piercing, blood-curdling scream. A kind of howl, like a war cry.

He listened transfixed, chilled to his marrow.

“My God,” he said softly. “Oh, my God.”

“Now there’ll be a pause,” said Nora. “Nothing happens for a little while.”

After a while he heard the Voice. For the first time.

“Look, Marcia. I didn’t mean what I said back there.”

He listened, stunned, feeling his flesh crawl. The Voice was that of a stranger, deeper than his, with a different timbre. There was a kind of coarseness to it, a slurred quality, and the suggestion of teeth chattering—from the cold of the lake, of course. It had a slight accent. New England?

“I’m sorry. I mean it. I’m sorry.”

The tone was apologetic, contrite. Yet a subtle insincerity underlay the words.

“I was drunk. I didn’t know what I was saying. I hate myself for what I did to you back there.”
A moment of silence. Then:
“I love you, Marcia. I always have.”

Cold. Disembodied. Coming out of the lake he remembered so well.

“There’s another long pause here,” said Nora.

He waited. Of course he knew what was corning next. He was ready for it, and yet
not
ready for it.

“No, Marcia. No. NO!”

The scream was pure agony. High-pitched, primal, eerie.

“Oh, my God,” said Peter again.

After that, nothing but silence. He felt sick. Sick to his soul. Nora turned off the machine.

He knew practically nothing about reincarnation. He was vaguely aware that in the East people believed in it as part of a religion. In the West it was considered nonsense. If you believed in it you were considered a crackpot. Many of the students were into it. They spoke glibly and knowingly of good and bad karma. What you did in some past life had a lot to do with who you were and what you did in this life. And the way you conducted yourself in this life definitely influenced your status and behavior in the next.

He had no instant guru to brief him on the subject, but all the student bulletin boards on the campus told him where to go.

The bookshop, called The Tree of Life, was located on Melrose Avenue. Peter expected to find some little psychedelic type of shop, a hole in the wall staffed by eccentrics in beards and robes. Instead, he found a big, well-lit and tastefully decorated bookshop swarming with customers. Apparently it was one of the occult centers of Southern California. There were three large rooms crammed with books, and a couple of lecture rooms where periodically mediums, astrologers, clairvoyants, tarot readers, healers, and witches scheduled lectures at modest fees. There was even a lecture scheduled by a self-styled Saucerian, for buffs who believed in flying saucers. Here you could get readings on your past lives at twenty-five dollars a session. Or get your aura read. Or learn to cure by the laying on of hands. Or learn about hypnotism, numerology, spiritualism, palmistry, ESP, psychokinetics, and of course yoga. Some of the mediums advertised special deals. A glass of champagne, discounts on certain books, and three readings, all for fifty dollars. At a long
table in the rear, the patrons could sample three exotic blends of tea, all on the house.

The bookstore was decorated with wicker screens, Hindu paintings, cabalistic symbols, and signs of the zodiac. It sold such exotic items as handmade Tibetan incense, Black Mesa High Altitude Indian Incense, red ginseng, handmade bamboo flutes and Tibetan prayer flags, natal charts and
malas
—sandalwood prayer beads, cedar and lavender meditation pillows and pads.

What surprised Peter was the fact that the customers were not all longhair. There was a liberal sprinkling of ordinary-looking people: men in business suits, housewives and matrons, well-groomed young girls who looked like stenographers or private secretaries to establishment bosses.

He went up to one of the clerks at the main counter. She was young and fresh looking and wore Benjamin Franklin glasses. She could have been a clerk at Brentano’s.

“What can I do for you?”

He felt embarrassed. “I’m interested in something on reincarnation.”

She smiled at him. “So is everybody else. Reincarnation’s very big these days. We just can’t get enough literature on it.”

She told him to go to the rear of the shop and then turn right, where he would find three shelves on reincarnation. As he did so, he passed one of the lecture rooms. The door was partly open, and he could see that a lecture was going on. The speaker was wearing black robes and a priest’s collar. He wore a pointed goatee, his eyes were penciled so that they looked slanted, and he was totally bald. His audience listened in awe as he declaimed:

“I am a disciple of the Black Pope. The absolute head of the Church of Satan. We believe in the powers of the devil.

“You know why people have all these hang-ups today? Because they’re denying themselves the pleasures of life they deserve. They’re guilt-ridden, man, repressed. But in the Church of Satan, there is no guilt. The only sin is
not
to sin. To sin is to act natural.
Virtue is bullshit. Love is a loser. The Black Pope issues encyclicals. He says man should enjoy himself now instead of waiting for his reward in heaven. The Black Church is a religion based on self-indulgence. Go on out. Eat, drink, be merry. Screw all the rules. Men, screw any girl you want, your mother, anybody. Girls, screw any man you want, including your father. Open up. Give your soul to Satan.
Live!
And don’t let anyone con you with this bullshit about Love. There has never been a great love movement in history that hasn’t wound up killing countless numbers of people to prove how much they loved them. Every hypocrite who ever walked the earth has had pockets
bulging
with love.”

The audience laughed. The speaker grinned at them. Then he saw that the door through which Peter was watching was open, and he ordered it shut.