The Ten Incarnations of Adam Avatar (60 page)

‘You have made me great with your love, though I am but one among the many,

Drifting in the common tide, rocking in the fluctuant favour of the world.

You have given me a seat where poets of all time bring their tribute,

And lovers with deathless names greet one another across the ages;

My body has grown precious with your caress, I carry your kiss within,

As the sun carries in its orb the fire of the divine touch and shines for ever.'

Always,

Krishna

p.s. Believe me, my love, I can prove all I say. Follow the directions to the hills of Belmont that I have enclosed. What you find is for you and Adaku.

September 25, 1942

Dearest Krishna,

I have only received two of your letters, but I have replied to both. The last one came quickly – perhaps they are improving their mail service. (But I bet it's only the coloured battalions that are having problems!)

Kris, I must tell you that your letter has me EXTREMELY concerned. Were it anyone else, I would be sure they had gone insane. And, forgive me, I am not sure you haven't. Your letters are lucid and, remembering your rational character, I cannot believe that you are having such hallucinations. But then I think that I do not know what trials men go through in war. Perhaps this is your way of assuring yourself you will survive. I can only hope that you do, both physically and mentally. I want you to know that I love you and I hope you do not take stupid risks because of this power you say you have.

But wait - a brilliant thought just occurred to me. Maybe you wrote all those things hoping the censors would read it, assume that you are
non compos mentis
, and give you a discharge! That must be it. Wonderful! But can't you just quit? You did volunteer.

If I am wrong in my assumption, I just hope this war ends soon. I would like to see you as soon as it does. But I must tell you that, if you are planning what I think you are planning, it seems a cruel thing to do to your wife and family. (Do you write Vashti at all?) On the other hand, if you wrote that letter to make the Army think you are insane, it was a cruel thing to do to me. Unless, I guess, you thought I was clever enough to figure it out.

Yours,

Em

p.s. I have not had chance to go up to Belmont yet. I'll do so as soon as possible – despite my concern and my doubts, I do have faith in you.

p.p.s. I am schooling Adaku at home. She is such a bright, sweet child. I never forget how blessed I am to have her. She knows you are in the war and she prays for you every night.

October 12, 1942

Dear Krish,

I found the rings. And the diary. I went up the hill as your map directed, past all the little wooden houses (getting some very curious stares, I can tell you!) The little hollow was exactly where you indicated, but there was no mango tree. But I found the stump where it had been cut down. The leather bag was about three feet down, as you said.

I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do! It is true Adaku and I could use the money. I think I will ask Mr. Edelman to handle this for me – I trust him and he likes me. He has been converting much of his assets into gold, jewellery, rare stamps, even small paintings. He worries constantly that the Nazis will invade Trinidad – a U-boat was actually sighted in the Gulf of Paria some months ago. But the Americans are here. They have been very busy clearing acres of forest in the east, building a road to connect Port of Spain to Maracas beach, even building a highway between the northern and southern parts of the island! Very energetic people.

Did you bury these rings yourself? If not you, whose rings are they and how did you know they were there?

I am almost afraid to see your answer. I have not read the diary.

Yours,

Emily

p.s. Cedric and I are no longer together. I'll have to wait till after the war to get a divorce, though. WHY am I so unlucky with men?

January 3, 1943

Dearest Em,

I am neither insane nor pretending to be. It was a clever idea, though. But, even had I thought of it, I would not pretend to be insane in order to be discharged. You forget my original purpose in fighting this war. That has not changed. It would be wrong, having the gift that I have, not to do my part. Not that this particular gift is, of itself, so much use. I could do far more if I were, say, a brilliant scientist or military tactician. But a man can do only what his talent allows, and God has given me a most unique one. (Although it occurs to me that there must be others like me – perhaps even on the enemy's side. I only hope that Hitler isn't one.)

I am sorry to upset you. But I HAD to tell you. Once you believe the truth of what I say, you will know you need not worry about me. (I CAN be killed, but not easily, and I have always reincarnated.) The explanation for the rings is, in this context, a very simple one: I lived in Trinidad in a previous incarnation, one hundred years ago. I was a planter named Adam Chardonbois. And I was a mulatto – a quadroon, really. The rings are wedding rings, bought for a slave girl with whom I fell in love. They were never given to her because, as soon as Emancipation was announced, she ran away. I spent my considerable fortune trying to find her, and I always kept the rings in case I did one day.

On your comment about my plan being cruel – believe me, Em, when I say it is not. But I know you may find that harder to believe than even the story about my past incarnations. But I have done very cruel things in my past lives, and I have much to atone for. (Even the slave girl whom I so loved ran away because of my mistreatment of her, as you will see when you read the diary.)

What I plan is far kinder to Vashti than the truth. I have told you that I do not love her, and I do not think she loves me, either. For, though I have always treated her well, surely she must know in her heart of hearts that I am indifferent to her. How could she not, when we are so different? No, I don't write her – she cannot read, remember? And remember what I said about the Indian family – if I left Vashti (especially if I left her for a ‘Creole' woman) the shame would be far more cruel than her thinking that I am dead. Moreover, my death gives her the option to remarry a man more suitable for her – there is still a shortage of Indian women in Guiana and she has no children. (I had thought it was because she was barren, but I now know that the fault is with me.)

So you see it is far better for her and for us if I do it this way. Yes, my family may miss me. But it is better they miss me than hate me for marrying a Negro. I will miss them a little, but the truth is, I have no true family. Because of my gift, I am set apart. Perhaps more importantly, because I cannot now empathise with their limited lives and limited perspectives, there can no longer be any true communication between them and me. Even if I rejoined them after the war, I have already departed in my heart. That is the simple fact.

Yours,

Krishna

p.s. Tell Adaku I said her prayers have been working. Can you send me a photograph of you both? She must be so big now!

p.p.s. You are not unlucky with men. It is only that there is only one man for you. Guess who? I do not believe in Fate, not any more, but I do believe that some people are meant for each other and, if they are lucky, they meet. But, as Shakespeare put it, ‘The path of true love never did run smooth.' Maybe that is what makes it true. If love came easily, the lovers would not appreciate it as they ought.

May 4, 1943

Dear Em,

How are you? I hope you got a good deal from Mr. Edelman and things are now a little easier for you and Adaku. Do you tell her I write and that I ask for her?

My memories of my past lives grow clearer every month. I have been fatally wounded several times now – it seems to act as a catalyst. I will not give you details – you would think them too fantastical. I will say that I only remember up to about 450 years ago, when I was an Amerindian named Guiakan. But I feel that I must have lived before that, because every incarnation has been born in the West Indies. And surely I must have been an Indian in some past lives. After all, it is because I am Indian now that, for the first time, I understand who and what I am. The Hindu religion, the Hindu philosophy, explains all that has happened to me. Before, when I began remembering the past, the effects were almost always traumatic. Now I can accept what I am with tranquillity. In the
Bhagavad Gita
, it is written: ‘
Vasarmsi jirnani yatha vihaya navani grhnati naro parani tatha sarirani vihaya jirnany anyani 
samyati navani dehi
– As a person puts on new clothes, giving up old ones, the soul accepts new bodies, giving up old ones.' Even the Shadowman, as I call him, seems to be an incarnation of Shiva or Kali, who represent the destructive aspects of God. My name, Krishna, represents the creative aspect and, though the Shadowman has tried to destroy me many times – he even uses a weapon that is a symbol of the shiva lingum – I am always renewed by the grace of Bhagavan. He is my cosmic opponent but not, as I have always thought, my enemy. The
Vedas
teach us that the world is
maya
(illusion) so what we think is evil is not truly real. Even the atrocities of this war can therefore be understood in that context. I feel as though I finally have true knowledge – God-knowledge. I hope I can share some of this to you when we are together, as we soon will be.

Always (and there is such meaning to this word now)

Krishna

September 28, 1943

Dear Krishna,

I cannot say I believe you yet. But you have made me suspend my judgment. There is the evidence of the rings but, most of all, there is your own assurance that what you are remembering, and what has happened to you, is real. I confess there seems to be new wisdom in you, but along with that, there's a new arrogance that I really don't find too appealing.

How can a man of your intelligence, of your moral concern, dismiss evil as an illusion? If, as you say, this world is
maya
, then isn't good also an illusion? And if we live in an amoral world, what is the point of doing good? By your own lights, you shouldn't even be over there, wherever ‘over there' is, at all. It seems to me that regaining the memories of your previous incarnations has left you confused. ‘God-knowledge' indeed! The God you describe seems entirely arbitrary.

I realize I cannot hope to understand what is happening with you. But I know the man who I fell in love with. That man was sweet, witty, smart – and, yes, arrogant and insecure and irritable. But if that man is lost to me, then I also am lost to him. Because, Krish, our relationship grew out of what we both were. I am sorry to be so blunt, but we both know that, for people like us, a true relationship can only be built on a foundation of truth.

Yours (still),

Em

December 25, 1943

Dearest Em,

Belated Merry Christmas! Such hollow words, in these dark times. But I have a present for you: I am leaving the war.

There are many reasons for my decision. First, the killing. I am sick of it. Sick and oh so weary. I had not expected this reaction in myself. After all I have seen, after all I have experienced, I thought I would have in some sense been inured to man's savagery to his fellow man. But nothing in my past lives has prepared me for this. I have in the past two years killed hundreds of men. The slaughter has begun to take its toll on my spirit. The German soldiers are not evil, in the sense that their leadership is. They are merely sheep, as most human beings tend to be. The British soldiers are no different – it is only that their leaders are more civilized. But, in the field, the men on both sides kill, rape and pillage with an equal and awful glee. I think I am more sickened, more in despair, because of my past. To know that humanity has come from wattle huts to flying metal craft, from children's rhymes to Shakespeare's verse, from trial by fire to trial by jury – to have lived through all this and now to see, at the end, that all this art, all this science, has served only to make mankind more determined and more efficient in his barbarousness – it has become too much, even for an immortal.

That is my first reason. The other, just as compelling, is my need to be with you. I am now 42 years old, and time has grown short. Strange thing for an immortal to say? Yet I have never lived beyond my fiftieth year – the Shadowman, time and time again, has seen to that. This time, this life, I think can be different. Because, in four and a half centuries, I have never truly been in love. I believe I can defeat him. But, if not, I cannot waste the few years we may have together.

There are other, practical reasons. I have been wounded too many times, too badly, recovered too fast. People are beginning to notice. And it's not to say there are so many coloured battalions I can serve with. In former times, all I would have had to worry about would be them burning me as a wizard. Now, they would probably cart me off for experiments. (Not too vast a difference, as far as I'm concerned.) So it is time I make my exit gracefully, with a full 21-gun salute and plenty flowers. If you can come to the funeral, weep copiously and tell everybody what a fantastic lover I was.

I want to reassure you, Em, that I have not changed. Not basically. I am only more what I always was. The knowledge, the memories, of my past selves have always been buried there in my subconscious, shaping who I am. I have not changed in any fundamental way, though I admit I do have to come to terms with the conscious knowledge of what I am, what I have been, and what I have done. Yes, there is an arrogance – difficult to avoid when you know you are immortal. Yet, as I have said before, this war has shown me what an ineffectual thing even immortality can be. And I learn from my culture: a mantra plays in my head from Tulsidas's
Ramacaritamanasa
(which means
The Holy Lake of the Acts of Rama
): ‘
Moha na amdha kinha kehi kehi/Ko jaga kama necava ke jehi/Trshna kehi kinha bauraha/Kehi kara hrdaya krodha nahi daha
. – Who has not been blinded by false loves? Who is there in the world who lust has not made a puppet of? Whom has craving not driven mad? Whose heart has anger not inflamed?'