"AMEN TO THAT," I said. "I've seen my own in action.''
I must have looked grim when I said it for Albert's expression became one of sympathy. "It's a painful thing to learn, I know," he said, "that every thought we have takes on a form we must, eventually, confront." "You went through the same thing?"
He nodded. "Everyone does."
"Your life flashed before you?" I asked. "From the end to the beginning?''
"Not as rapidly as yours did because I died of a lingering illness," he answered. "And yours was not as quick as that of, say, a drowning man. His removal from life would be so rapid that his subconscious memory would flood out its contents in a few seconds-- every impression in his mind released almost simultaneously."
"What about the second time it happened?" I asked. "The first time wasn't bad; I just observed. The second time, I relived each moment."
"Only in your mind," he said. "You didn't actually relive them."
"It seemed as though I did."
"Yes, it seems very real," he agreed.
"And painful."
"More so than it did originally," he said, "because you had no physical body to dull the pain of your re-experienced life. It's a time when men and women come to know what they truly are. A time of purging."
I'd been looking at the ceiling as he spoke. At his final words, I turned to face him in surprise. "Is that what the Catholics mean by purgatory?"
"In essence." He nodded. "A period during which each soul is cleansed by a self- imposed recognition of past deeds--and misdeeds."
"Self imposed," I repeated. "There really is no outside judgment then?"
"What condemnation could possibly be more harsh than one's own when self-pretense is no longer possible?" he asked.
I turned my face away from him and looked out at the countryside. Its beauty seemed to make the memories of my shortcomings all the more acute; especially those concerning Ann. "Is anyone ever happy with what they reexperience?" I asked.
"I doubt it," he said. "No matter who they are, I'm sure they all find fault in themselves." I reached down and began to stroke Katie's head. If it hadn't been for my memories, it would have been a lovely moment: the beautiful house, the exquisite landscape, Albert sitting across from me, Katie's warm head under my fingers.
There were the memories though.
"If only I'd done more for Ann," I said. "For my children, my family, my friends."
"That's true of almost everyone, Chris," he said. "We all could have done more."
"And now it's too late."
"It isn't quite that bad," he said. "Part of what you're feeling is a sense of incompletion because you didn't get to appraise your life as fully as you should have."
I looked at him again. "I'm not sure I understand that," I said.
"Your wife's grief and your concern for her kept you from it," he said. His smile was understanding. "Take comfort from what you're feeling, Chris. It means you really are concerned about her welfare. If you weren't, you wouldn't feel as you do."
"I wish I could do something about it," I told him.
Albert stood. "We'll talk about it later," he said. "Sleep now--and, until you know what you want to do, plan on staying here with me. There's plenty of room and you're more than welcome."
I thanked him as he came over and squeezed my shoulder. "I'm going now," he said. "Katie will keep you company. Think of me when you wake and I'll be here."
Without another word, he turned and walked from the study. I stared at the doorway he'd gone through. Albert, I thought. Cousin Buddy. Dead since 1940. Heart attack. Living in this house. I couldn't seem to get it through my head that all of it was real.
I looked at Katie lying on the floor beside the sofa. "Kate, old Kate," I said. Her tail thumped twice. I remembered the blinding tears that afternoon we'd left her at the vet's. Now here she was, alive, looking at me once more with that bright expression.
I sighed and looked around the room. It, too, looked completely real. I smiled, recalling the French Provincial room in Kubrick's 2001. Was I being held captive by some alien being? I had to chuckle at the thought. I noticed, then, there was no mirror in the room and realized that I had not seen a mirror in the entire house. Shades of Dracula, I thought, amused again. Vampires here? I had to chuckle again. How did one locate the separating line between imagination and reality?
For instance, was I imagining it or was the light in the room really becoming more subdued?
Ann and I were in Sequoia National Forest. Hand in hand, we moved beneath the giant redwood trees. I could feel her fingers linked with mine, hear the crunching of our shoes across the carpet of dry needles on the ground, smell the warm, aromatic odor of the tree bark. We didn't speak. We walked side by side, surrounded by the beauty of nature, taking a stroll before dinner.
We'd walked about twenty minutes before we reached a fallen tree and sat on it. Ann released a weary sigh. I put an arm around her and she leaned against me. "Tired?" I asked. "A little." She smiled. "I'll be fine." It had been a strenuous if pleasant experience for us. We'd pulled a rental trailer up the steep hill to Sequoia, our Rambler wagon overheating twice. We'd set up a tent with six cots inside, stored all our supplies in a wooden chest so the bears couldn't get them. We had a Coleman lantern but not a stove so had to maintain a fire under the grate provided by the campground. Most difficult, we had to heat washing water once each day for lan's diapers; he was only one and a half at the time. The camp looked like a laundry, diapers and baby clothes hanging on lines in all directions.
"We'd better not leave them too long," Ann said after we'd rested a while. The woman in the campsite next to us had offered to keep an eye on the children but we didn't want to over-do the imposition since Louise, the oldest, was only 9, Richard 6 1/2, Marie not quite 4, and even our "watch dog," Katie, less than a year old.
"We'll go back soon," I said. I kissed her slightly damp temple and squeezed her. "Just rest a few more minutes." I smiled at her. "It's pretty here, isn't it?"
"Beautiful." She nodded. "I sleep here better than at home."
"I know you do." Ann's nervous breakdown had come two years earlier; she'd been in analysis a year and a half now. This was the first major trip we'd made since her breakdown; at the insistence of her analyst. "How's your stomach doing?" I asked.
"Oh, it's--better." She answered unconvincingly. She'd had stomach problems ever since I'd met her; how incredibly unaware I'd been not to realize it meant something serious. Since her breakdown, the condition had improved but still disturbed her. As her analyst had told her: the deeper buried the distress, the further into the body it went. The digestive system was about as far as it could go to hide.
"Maybe we can buy a camper one of these days," I said; she'd suggested it that morning. "It would make preparing meals a lot easier. Make the whole experience easier."
"I know, but they're so expensive," she said. "And I'm costing so much already."
"I should start making more now that I'm writing for television," I told her.
She squeezed my hand. "I know you will." She lifted the hand to her lips and kissed it. "The tent is fine," she said. "I don't mind it at all."
She sighed and looked up at the redwood foliage high above, bars of sunlight slanting through it. "I could stay here forever," she murmured.
"You could be a forest ranger," I said.
"I wanted to be one," she told me. "When I was a little girl."
"Did you?" The idea made me smile. "Ranger Annie."
"It seemed like a wonderful way to escape," she said.
Poor love. I held her tightly against myself. She'd had so much to escape from too.
"Well." She stood. "We'd better mosey on back, Chief."
"Right." I nodded, standing. "The path curves around, we don't have to go back the same way."
"Good." She smiled and took my hand. "Here we go then."
We started to walk again. "Are you glad you came?" she asked.
"Yeah; it's beautiful here," I said. I'd been dubious about taking four young children camping; but then I'd never gone camping as a child so I had nothing to judge by. "I think
it's working out great," I said. I didn't know it then but Ann's desire to camp-- notwithstanding her anxiety about trying anything new at a time of such mental stress-- was to open up a world of lovely experience not only for me but for the children as well.
Continuing on, we reached a spot where the path divided. At the head of the right path was a sign that warned hikers not to go that way.
Ann looked at me with her "wicked little girl" expression. "Let's go that way," she said, drawing me toward the path on the right.
"But it says not to go that way," I told her. Playing the game.
"C'mon," she urged.
"You want a dying redwood tree to land on our heads?" I asked.
"We'll run if one starts to fall," she said. "Oh..." I clucked and shook my head. "Miz Annie, you-is-bad," I said, doing my Hattie McDaniel from Gone With the Wind.
"Uh-huh." She nodded in agreement, pulling me toward the right hand path.
"You're a poor excuse for a forest ranger," I told her. Moments later, we reached a rock slope which declined to the edge of a cliff some fifteen yards away. "See?" I told her, trying not to smile.
"Okay, we'll go back now," she said. She repressed a smile. "At least we know why we weren't supposed to come here."
I gazed at her with mock severity. "You're always taking me where I'm not supposed to go," I said.
She nodded in pleased agreement. "That's my job; to bring adventure into your life."
We started across the top of the slope, heading back toward the other path. The surface of the rock was slick with a layer of dry needles so we walked in single file, me behind. Ann had only gone a few yards when she lost her footing and fell on her left side. I started toward her and slipped myself, tried to get up but couldn't. I began to laugh.
"Chris." Her urgent tone made me look toward her quickly. She was starting to slide down the decline, each movement she made to stop herself making her slide further.
"Don't move," I said. My heart was pounding suddenly. "Spread your arms and legs out wide."
"Chris ..." Her voice trembled as she tried to do what I said and slipped even further. "Oh, my God," she murmured, frightenedly.
"Don't move at all,'' I told her.
She did as I said and her backward slide was almost checked. I struggled clumsily to my feet. I couldn't reach her with my hand. And if I tried to crawl where she was, both of us would slide toward the edge.
I slipped and fell to one knee, hissing at the pain. Then, carefully, I crawled to the top of the slope, speaking as I went. "Don't move now, just don't move," I said. "It's going to be all right. Don't be afraid now."
Suddenly, it all came back. This had already happened. I felt a rush of intense relief. I'd find a fallen branch, extend it down to her and pull her to safety. I'd hold her in my arms and kiss her and she'd be--
"Chris!"
Her cry made me whirl. Aghast, I watched her sliding toward the edge.
Forgetting everything in panic, I dived down the slope, skidding toward her, looking at her dread-whitened face as she slid backward. "Chris, save me," she pleaded. "Save me. Please. Chris!"
I cried out in horror as she disappeared across the edge and vanished from sight. Her shriek was terrible. "Ann!" I screamed.
I jolted awake, my heartbeat racing; sat up quickly and looked around.
Katie was standing beside the sofa, wagging her tail and looking at me in a way which I could only interpret as concerned. I put my hand on her head. "Okay, okay," I murmured. "A dream. I had a dream."
Somehow, I felt she understood what I was saying. I put my right palm to my chest and felt the heavy pulsing of my heart. Why had I had that dream? I wondered. And why had it ended so differently from what had really happened? The question harrowed me and I sat up, looking around, then called Albert's name.
I started with surprise as instantly--and, Robert, I mean instantly--he walked into the room. He smiled at my reaction, then, looking closer, saw I was disturbed and asked what was wrong.
I told him about the dream and asked what it meant.
"It was probably some symbolic 'leftover,' " he said.
"I hope I don't have any more," I told him, shuddering.
"They'll pass," he reassured me.
Remembering Katie standing by me when I woke, I mentioned it to Albert. "I have the strangest impression that she understands what I say and feel," I said.
"There's understanding there," he replied, bending over to stroke her head. "Isn't there, Katie?"
She wagged her tail, looking into his eyes.
I forced a smile. "When you said think of you and you'd be here, you weren't kidding."
He smiled as he straightened up. "That's how it is here," he told me. "When you want to see someone, you have only to think about them and they're with you. If they wish to be, of course; as I wished to be with you. We always did have a kinship. Even though we were years apart, we were on the same wave length, so to speak."
I blinked in startlement. "Say that again?" I asked.
He did and I'm sure my mouth fell open. ''Your lips aren't moving,'' I said.
He laughed at my expression.
"How come I didn't notice that before?"
"I wasn't doing it before," he told me. Lips unmoving. I stared at him, dumbfounded. "How can I hear your voice when you're not talking?" I asked.
"The same way I hear yours."
"My lips aren't moving either?"
"We're conversing with our minds," he answered.
"That's incredible," I said. I thought I said.
"Actually, to speak aloud is rather difficult here," he told me. "But most newcomers don't realize, for quite a while, that they aren't using their voices."
"Incredible," I repeated.
"Yet how efficient," he said. "Language is more a barrier to understanding than an aid. Also, we're able, through thought, to communicate in any language without the need of an interpreter. Moreover, we're not confined to words and sentences. Communication can be enhanced by flashes of pure thought.
"Now," he continued, "I've been wearing this outfit so you wouldn't be taken back by my appearance. If you don't object, I'll return to my natural garb."
I had no idea what he meant.
"All right?" he asked.
"Sure," I said, "I don't know what--"
It had to have happened while I blinked. Albert wasn't wearing the white shirt and trousers any longer. Instead, he wore a robe the color of which matched the radiation around him. It was full-length, hanging in graceful folds, a gold sash at its waist. I noted that his feet were bare.
"There," he said. "I feel more comfortable." I stared at him--a little impolitely, I'm afraid. "Do I have to wear one too?" I asked.
"Not at all," he said. I don't know what my expression was but it obviously amused him. "The choice is yours. Whatever you prefer."
I looked down at myself. It was a little odd, I had to admit, to see the same clothes I'd been wearing the night of the accident. Still, I couldn't see myself in a robe. It seemed a bit too "spiritual"- for me.
"And now," Albert said, "perhaps you'd like to take a more extensive look at where you are."