Frank De Felitta - For Love of Audrey Rose

Bill paused, savoring the recollection of what he had read. He imagined the picture, the metaphors of what he now repeated. Bill waited for a response.

“All right, Bill,” Janice said. “The light.”

“Yes. The light. Now that doesn’t help us much with Ivy, does it? So I kept reading. And the prophets, after two thousand years, went deeper into death. And they put it differently.”

Bill stared dreamily out of the window.

“The departed soul,” he continued softly, “rises to the moon. If it passes on, it goes to the world of fire, and wind, and sky, and the gods. And it is dressed in exquisite robes and garlands, and perfumed with soft ointments. It goes to a lake and an ageless river, and crosses, and shakes off evil deeds. And it comes to a celestial city, Janice. A kind of palace with a long hall. A shining throne. Bathed in light. You see? The light! And when it sees the light, the body is truly dead, and the Creator God asks — he asks: ‘Who are you?’”

Bill’s voice trailed away. The dripping eaves made a steady sound behind him. Janice watched as his silhouette rubbed his eyes, but whether in fatigue or for tears, she could not tell.

“And you say something like — something that translates like—‘I am real,’” Bill concluded. “It’s like that, Janice. Are you listening?”

“I am. Of course I am.”

“Good. Because if you don’t pass on to that light, that shining light, you falter. You fumble. You find yourself back on the earth. And like a caterpillar that goes from one blade of grass to the next, you live all over again, trying to become a beautiful form. So you can pass into the light. The light of oblivion.”

Bill slumped wearily, sitting against the windowsill. He breathed heavily, then smoothed his hair down with his right hand. He looked at Janice, his own face reduced to the two pinpoints of his eyes, gleaming softly at her.

“Well, that could help,” he said gently. “That could lead us somewhere. I mean, if you’re really trying to understand what happened. Maybe somehow Ivy — I mean the earlier child, Audrey — There was a false continuation, but it doesn’t quite make sense. Does it?”

“I–I don’t know, Bill.”

“I mean, you accepted all that. What do you think now?”

“I’m prepared to believe that something like that might have happened,” Janice said sincerely, faltering. “But the details—”

“Exactly, Janice. The details. The details will never make sense to people like us, will they? I mean, we believe in reason, in analyzing, as best we can, and then — but that’s what I thought until — now listen closely, Janice. Follow what I’m saying.”

Bill began pacing again, talking to the storm, yet listening, trying to sense Janice’s responses. Then he picked up a long, heavy book from the floor and began slowly paging through it, looking for something, even while he spoke.

“Two things stuck in my mind,” he said quietly. “First, Hoover said that Audrey Rose came back and there was only one reason. Why did she come back? She came back because her death was untimely. Isn’t that it? What else was going on, it all happened because she was caught in that car. Dead before her time. And of all the books I read, all the incomprehensible poems and prayers and voodoo and parables and Christ knows what, nobody ever mentioned an untimely death. All the Hindus cared about, all the Jains cared about, all anybody cared about was what happened at the end of a long quiet life.”

Bill licked his lips. Evidently he had found his place. He peered down at the book, squinted, then backed against the window to catch some light from the low floodlights outside.

“So I had to keep looking. And then I found the Clear Light of Death,” he whispered. “I found it in the bardo t’ odro, the Book of Death.”

“What are you talking about, Bill?”

“Those books you gave me about Tibet. Things that Borofsky got for me. Did you know that for thousands of years the Tibetans were isolated from the rest of the world? That they perfected the science of death? I’ve read these verses over and over again, Janice, until I can recite them by heart! And I have to explain them to you because they make sense. They make sense the way nothing else in this evil-infested world ever did!”

Bill whipped the book upward to his chest, looking feverishly for his place. Janice found herself shivering. She unconsciously pulled the blanket from the top of the bed and gathered it around her.

“You see,” he whispered, “the great fear of the Tibetans was an untimely death ! So they analyzed the death process. They found that there is a point of no return, a sinking down past recovery. There is a feeling of being unable to maintain one’s human form. A person panics. He feels as though he is falling. Dissolving. His bodily strength has slipped away. His cognition grows clouded.”

Bill read directly from the volume in his hands. As he moved into the light from the driveway, Janice read the title: The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

“All right,” Bill continued. “The next step. The warmth of the body fades. The eyes turn inward. The limbs tremble.”

“Bill, please! I don’t want to listen!”

“It’s what happened to Ivy, isn’t it? Listen, Janice. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Afterward, the cognition inverts, turns into miragelike flashes, and things come unreal, just the reverse of being born: the blood slows; this is called ‘the black path’ because the heart is dying. It’s the point of the worst panic. Vision is cut off. Memory dies. Breath is cut off. Now listen. ‘The mind that rides upon the wind leaves the central channel.’”

Bill looked up, triumphant.

“Do you understand that? ‘The mind that rides upon the wind’—the soul, Janice—‘leaves the channel of the body.’ Now follow what happens next!”

Janice, in spite of herself, was hypnotized by the rhythmic voice in front of her. Bill weaved slowly back and forth, his finger picking out phrases in the light of the rain and sleet behind him.

“‘Awareness,’” he read very slowly, “‘passes into the Clear Light of Death’!”

He looked up at her, frightened, yet gaining confidence when she offered no objection. He laughed hideously, uncertainly.

“‘The Clear Light of Death’! There it is! It’s mentioned everywhere, but here it is ! Analyzed! And if the soul can pass into the light of emptiness, without fear, if it reaches a firm communion with the emptiness — that is, Nirvana — then it has embraced bliss! There is no return, no more return. It’s all oblivion… and peace…”

Slowly, as he spoke, Bill calmed down. The fire left his eyes. He became aware of the cold and shivered. The mania was gone.

“But if there is panic,” he said with a dull finality, glazed, “if there is no acceptance, then there must be a return, another life… who knows, a hundred more lives…”

Bill came forward, sat at the edge of the bed, and put his arm on Janice’s shoulder. He was sweating, his shirt damp, his hair moist over his brows. He looked into her face.

“In an untimely death,” he said simply, “there can be no acceptance.”

Janice moved slightly back, but his hand firmly held her shoulder.

“Even for somebody trained all his life like a priest, it’s almost impossibly difficult. But for somebody like Ivy—”

A hand went slowly to Janice’s mouth. “Or like Audrey Rose !” she whispered hoarsely.

He nodded slowly. “Did Ivy have a chance to prepare for death?” he asked simply. “No! It was too sudden. You saw what I saw, Janice. She was in a state of panic!”

Bill wearily stood. He seemed not to have the strength to move anymore. Dismally he watched the lessening rain, dripping with monotonous regularity in thin silver streaks at the window.