Bruce Wagner - I Met Someone

Tears hung in her eyes, and Jeremy thought he saw them in the boy’s as well; his own became wet by contagion.

“And we talked like that— I talked like that — for hours and hours and hours, until there was no more sorrow, rage, or yearning to be shown. Then one day, my Sir said — of course I didn’t yet know him as ‘my Sir,’ ‘my guru’—my Sir said, ‘It’s all over now’—said it under his breath, as if talking to himself — but I heard and I cringed because I thought he meant my poor Bella! It’s all over now —God, the agony when I heard that! (And he was right, about it being over for her, though, you see, he meant something entirely different . I’ll tell you what he really meant in just a little while.) ‘It’s all over,’ he said, louder this time, and looked me dead in the eye. ‘It’s over because now they know . I made certain of it — the “contract” is magnificently broken .’ I thought, What on earth could he be talking about? What contract? I hadn’t a clue. What strange words from a sidewalk saint, this rumpled, roly-poly, Rumpole-looking dervish who sent everything whirling! Before I could gather my wits and ask , he seized my arm and said with an urgency that thundered:

“‘Let’s see about your daughter now!’”

The flames in the pit suddenly brightened, letting loose a crack like gunfire — man and boy jumped from their skin, but the unsinkable Devi didn’t stir. She just sat there smiling, cool and inscrutable.

“On the way back to Children’s, we walked in silence— Silence . Did you know that Silence has a sound? One day you’ll hear it. I have no words to describe — there are no words — isn’t it funny that it even has a name? — ‘Silence’?—the closest I can come is that it’s like the sound of a single, extended heartbeat —within a… cathedral . Not a human heart… and we’re enshrouded by it, it belongs to the Source… and not that it can belong anywhere —I know I’m not making sense, that’s my fault, not yours, but one day you might have an inclination of what I’m trying to tell you.” She stared directly at Tristen, who appeared both unnerved and ennobled. “ You will understand, young man! You already do .” She brought her gaze to the other, so as not to neglect. “And you , my dear Jerome, are on your way! Well on your way!”

She refilled their wineglasses. The ocean roared and quieted, roared and quieted, as if it too were restive for more talk, more spirits. Devi leaned to stoke the fire, which had also grown ornery; at her nourishing touch, it regained equilibrium.

She had the full attention of the elements again.

“The quality of our reception at the hospital was, shall we say, guarded . Ha! My ‘friendly giant’ was wild and unkempt, carrying with him the ambrosia of the streets. Until we arrived, I hadn’t considered how we’d be greeted. When I saw the fearful look on their faces, I only hoped they wouldn’t be too rude — see, I didn’t want to offend them either , because those nurses had been Bella’s angels , and mine too. I think I debated whether or not to announce him as my child’s father or godfather or grand pa- pa —I remember being wary of doing anything to insult my big Sir. But he wouldn’t have cared at all! It wouldn’t have mattered who I said he was! He wasn’t of this world! You see it was all new to me, so I dared not presume… I suppose as well that I simply didn’t want to tell a lie —in the face of this formidable creature, any subterfuge, no matter how small or expedient, suddenly seemed like a sin. Of course, in his world, there is no such as sin —or a ‘lie’… nor is there ‘truth.’ Only Silence! I didn’t know that yet, any of it. It was all so completely new.

“The oncology ward is sacred ground. Pain, unutterable sorrow, and resurrection live there; it is a cradle, like an infant’s, of the Source. Bella was just awakening when we came in. By then, the man who would be my teacher, who already was though I didn’t yet know it … we had both donned the required surgical masks and gloves — shimmering raiments of Silence’s heart! — and my human heart broke when I saw her, and saw him —witnessed the care he lavished on my baby. ‘The divine interplay.’ He touched her head with his hand so softly , that bearish hand that had already spent a thousand lifetimes ringing the bells of this world and of worlds beyond — I couldn’t stand it. I was about to faint when a spate of bells clanged me to life. I was startled, for those clangorous sounds had abandoned me from that first moment I sat with him on his shaggy patch of sidewalk — remember? But now I heard them again, was jolted , just as that crack of fire jolted you —twelve times, they rang, a dozen percussive strokes, for it was high noon, and the tower, only blocks away, was tolling. My Sir kept his hand on Bella’s head while he turned to me, his eyes blurred by—… he once told me that tears of Silence are rare as an owl’s, and if one is very lucky, one may hitch a ride on such a raft of teardrops, all the way to the Source. With the most beautiful smile, he whispered, ‘The little one has now broken her contract as well. How magnificent! Come, Cathy, come! Take her in your arms!’ (I was Cathy before he named me Devi.) ‘She’s leaving now! Hold her while the bells ring out!’ And I held her and they kept ringing… later, one of the nurses said that a mechanism in the tower went awry, so the cycle of twelve kept repeating, ten times in all, a hundred and twenty tolls , ceasing only upon my daughter’s last breath.

“Sir made the funeral arrangements. He showed me a napkin sketch of a mausoleum, like an elegant confection, with a filigreed entryway and little benches inside where one could sit. Construction would begin the next day — but how? I never asked, never questioned the phantasmagoric speed with which he made everything possible. On the day of her burial, trucks delivered beds and beds of Million Bells. Do you know the flower? Calibrachoa. We have some in our garden — you walked through it on your way to the beach — I carry seeds around in my purse. Oh, it was a gorgeous celebration, not a funeral but a wedding! My Sir said that now I would hear bells no more — and the ringing would only resume when Bella and I were together again. He told me I’d see her soon, ‘soon enough,’ that’s what he said, and somehow I knew he wasn’t talking about the afterlife. I’d see her soon in this world, or something so much like it that I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference… she used to be here , he said — but there was where I’d find her. ‘We will go to the place she now finds herself.’ That’s how he put it. ‘I’ll take you.’ I believed him — and believe him still. That was where we were — are — traveling. We were on our way to the place of ‘a million bells’ when you interceded. When you came to sit on that bench… dear Jerome!

“ You are the reason we stopped, and now find ourselves here . That’s what my teacher told me tonight, just an hour before you came.”

—

The rest of the evening was spent shaking off the spell cast by her wrenching, cockeyed illuminations and they danced for their lives to a mixtape of one-hit wonders: “Come On Eileen,” A-ha, the Easybeats, “Spirit in the Sky.” With amazement, he watched Tristen become utterly transported (Jeremy was almost ashamed by his failure to believe the gyrating boy could have been capable of such elegantly frenzied interpretations ) before turning his eye to the house. There, a massive robed figure rummaged through the Sub-Zero like some burgling, Edwardian ringmaster. He left his friends to their ecstatic, giggly contortions and went to have a look.