For Love of Audrey Rose (37 page)

The elements of his religious training flew past, as though he were riding onward in an incomprehensibly rapid freight train. Faces of his first Episcopalian minister, in Harrisburg, and of the choir master at his church in Pittsburgh. And a rapid series of faces, long-haired, some bearded, some clean-shaven, the faces softened by a lifetime away from manual labor, eyes closed in the depths of inward seeking. These were the gurus, the masters of the
ashrams,
each with a subtle variant of the doctrine, each contesting for disciples, each in his own way saintly and indifferent to the life of the earth. They flew by, more pure form than individual faces, and each bore the unmistakable stamp of radiance, a light which spread out from the center of the being.

But now Elliot Hoover was in a peculiar nonspace. He recognized none of the signs. A vast array of twinkling specks inhabited his awareness like dancing diamond dust. Vague clouds appeared on the far edges—holes which led toward the pure annihilation of Non-Being Itself, and he became frightened. He felt that he needed his ego, his personality, to survive the journey toward Non-Being, but the myriad essences of his previous spiritual master accompanied him, flowing with him, without his own essence, and Elliot Hoover ceased to be, except in pure form.

The great veil—
Maya,
the iridescent and irresistible curtain of phenomena—was rendered. Behind all that which was known and seen, smelled and tasted and touched, was the oblivion of Non-Being. It was like looking into the great death of the cosmos, the overwhelming magnitude of the universe’s hostility to living forms. And all that protected Elliot Hoover was the thin screen of deception. Deception of the forms of the earth. Beyond that was only a dim sense of a voice, like the deep bass voice of his first guru in Benares, still offering guidance and instruction, still speaking within the conscience of Elliot Hoover after seven years. The words were not spoken. They did not come to the ears. They rose from the most interior core of Hoover’s being, and he sensed this at the far reaches of the curtain of
Maya.

The voice said that
the deception shall not be the deception, and the frightening shall not be frightening.

There an image formed of bright leaves, yellowed where a mystical sunlight penetrated the
ashram
roof of vines, and beyond was busy Benares, full of dusty buses, oxen pulling carts of feces and straw, and the temple bells ringing furiously in the fetid air.

The deception shall not be the deception,
said the guru, looking away from Hoover.
The frightening shall not be frightening.
The guru’s palms, upturned on the white-clothed knee, caught the bright sunshine, and twin auras of blinding white light shone upward through the heavens. And Hoover was more certainly in Benares, listening to his first religious teacher, than he had ever been in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

It all went black, a cloudy black, and Elliot Hoover fell a thousand miles, growing fuller and heavier, until he heard his own breathing and tasted his own salt tears on his lips.

Opening his eyes, he did not move. He was surprised to find himself in a cluttered office, littered with books and strange-looking folders and papers. Was this a form of teleportation mentioned in the
Vedas
? Gradually he realized that he had been crying, and he rubbed his eyes with his sleeve. His breathing grew calmer, and his glance caught the open book of the
Bhagavad Gita,
still on his desk.

With a sigh, Hoover leaned forward, remembering everything now. He felt limp with exhaustion. That he had been elsewhere he did not doubt. He still had no sense of time. He could not focus on whether it was December or July, early evening or before dawn. He was conscious of the damp perspiration that stained his clothes, of the oppressive heat in his red office. Dimly he tried to recall the words beyond hearing, the revelation of his most difficult trance.

The deception shall not be the deception. The frightening shall not be frightening.

He did not understand. With great difficulty he uncrossed his legs. He remembered that the long meditation of the Gautama Buddha had so sapped the man’s strength that Buddha had to learn to walk all over again. Hoover pulled himself up by the edge of the desk. He massaged his calves and then walked slowly around the room, breathing in deeply, exhaling regularly, to reenter the normal rhythms of life.

Before him were all the complexities of application forms, bills, letters of inquiry on the desk and on the floor, charts on the wall, play-therapy schedules, cafeteria diets, medical dosages for several of the children—all grim reminders of the work at hand.

On the wall was Mr. Radimanath’s vocabulary sheet. Jennie’s numbers, five of which had been associated with specific commands. Hoover smiled. The little leprechaun.
The little deception.

He bent over a cracked burner, lit the stove, and warmed some tea. Jennie was the small deception, the personality behind a facade of deafness and retardation. The great veil of
Maya
was the large deception, the delusion that things of the earth were real. Suppose they were both, in fact, not delusions? Hoover drank his tea and stared out at the darkness of the autumn through his window.

Well, if Jennie was not a deception, what did that mean? That she was real. What did that mean? Jennie could really love him, trust him as a daughter? That she really
was
his daughter? But that was impossible. Jennie was born a good six months before Ivy Templeton died. Besides, it had never been Hoover’s earnest desire that Jennie actually be his daughter. That was the kind of thought that obsessed Bill Templeton.

Pursuing onward, Hoover trained his thoughts on Bill. The man hovered between lucidity and madness, Hoover realized. All his thoughts fixated on needing a cornerstone on which to assuage his guilt. Bill Templeton needed to believe his daughter was alive and well, could be embraced and spoken to. Therefore, if Jennie were Bill’s daughter…

Of course she was not. But if Hoover could make it
appear
so… Then the deception would not be a deception— to Bill. Bill would find his fulcrum again. Jennie would be the therapeutic instrument of his cure, and more important to the orphaned child, the beneficiary of his love.

Hoover laughed out loud. Life had broken all the circles, and the destinies had crossed, a labyrinth of shattered illusions, destroyed hopes, and forbidden desires. It made his head swim. Nothing made sense. Everything made sense. It was all a mad whirl in which he was no longer frightened. Through Jennie they would cure Bill. It was all so fantastic that Hoover sat down abruptly, spun around in the leather chair, and stopped with his feet against the wall.

The frightening shall not be frightening.

He reached for the telephone. He called the all-night Western Union number. A telegram, he instructed. With his name, address, his telephone number. The message? One single word.

Hoover repeated. One word. That was all. He hung up. The night had grown cold. He shivered in his shirt and trousers, the damp of the perspiration grown chill. He knew he had best go upstairs, shower, and sleep. But it seemed a long way from where he sat. He, who had transcended all time and all space, who had flown inwardly ten thousand miles and ten years, found it impossible to go the fifty yards up the steps to bed.

He fell asleep in the leather chair, drifting into the more common bliss, the normal relaxation and rest, which had been denied him so long.

22

J
anice was tired. She was tired of the long journeys thrice weekly into the precincts of the hospital. She was weary of the dark, dusty halls that echoed with the voices of unseen patients, mocking reminders of deformed human discourse. It was all she could do to force herself, again and yet again, into the tiny ward where the man who was legally her husband sat with his back to the wall, hearing nothing.

Bill nestled against the corner of the room, seated on his bed. It was warm, the windows closed against the chill outside. Dr. Geddes was also tired. It was as though he had run down. He sat slumped in a chair beside the bed, smiled wearily, and put a gentle hand on Bill’s shoulder.

“All right,” he conceded. “Maybe that’s enough for today. Have you anything to say, Mrs. Templeton?”

“No.”

Dr. Geddes was not surprised.

“Very well. Let’s go to my office.”

But even as he closed the door, locking it from the outside, their eyes sought each other’s, and a grim understanding flowed from one to the other.

“Have you given up?” she asked softly, but not without bitterness.

He shrugged. “One never gives up on a patient. Many times I’ve—”

“Don’t give me a pep talk, Dr. Geddes. Tell me the truth.”

“All right. Let’s look at this objectively. My feeling, Mrs. Templeton, is that we can expect very little change for a long, long time.”

She listened. In a small sense it was a relief to hear there was no hope. Hope had been the cruel illusion that kept her in agony. Now that there was none, life was suddenly simpler, reduced to cold practical problems.

“I think he should be moved,” Dr. Geddes continued, reaching for cigarettes in his pocket, finding none, “to a smaller place. It would be like a long-term sanitarium. Much less expensive. Kind of a nursing home.”

Janice paled. “Is that what it’s come to?”

“Yes,” he said, emotions violent and mixed, all savagely repressed so his voice remained smooth and professional. “That is what it has come to.”

“All right. I suppose you know of a good sanitarium?”

“I’ll make inquiries.”

After several minutes, several platitudes, nonsequiturs that hid accusations, apologies, and unspoken griefs, Janice said good-bye and walked to the main glass doors. She heard his footsteps coming rapidly behind her. She turned. Dr. Geddes’s face was all red, as though he had been crying.

“I’m so very sorry,” he blurted, “that it turned out like this.”

“We did what we could, Dr. Geddes.”

“But I had always thought…If we could only produce the key, open him up…”

“Nobody is blaming you. You’ve been extraordinarily kind and generous. Maybe it all boils down to a bit of bad luck.”

Suddenly overcome by emotion, she turned on her heels and walked rapidly through the parking lot. It was a dry, windblown day, and the husks of dead plants, whiskers of vines, stems, and twigs, tumbled over the cracked asphalt. The clouds were lead gray against the bright sky. Everything had gone sterile. If there was a way to be dead while still living, Janice had found it.

The taxi spun around, lurched violently away from the Goodland Sanitarium. For once she did not think of Elliot Hoover’s departure the night that Bill had shattered like a flimsy piece of glass. In fact, she barely saw any of the concrete, the dried mud along the sound, the towering gray and blue steel of the bridges. In her mind everything was abstract. Financial arrangements. A future that stretched out like a white sheet covering a corpse.

It did not help that a single telegram lay on the floor, shoved under by Mario. She opened it, eyes closed, and then stared at it. There was but one word, in Western Union’s square-cut, pasty typography. So bizarre, like a ransom note from Mars. It frightened her. One single word stared back at her.

COME
.

Suddenly adrenaline flowed into her heart. A warmth, like a soft heat, pumped outward through her breast and she became dizzy.

“Elliot Hoover.

3546 South Tanner Street.

Pittsburgh, Penna.”

A telephone number was embedded within Western Union’s code numbers. That was all. She shook her head violently as though to clear the confusion from it, then stared at the single word again. The warmth now passed along her legs, through her arms, within her entire body. So he was alive, she thought. That meant that she was also alive. She went to the telephone.

Her hands trembled so much she sat down again, braced herself on the small table by the foot of the couch. There were clicks, strange whistles, as though she were underwater and the dolphins were speaking, and suddenly there was a loud click and a woman answered.

Janice was so distraught at hearing a woman’s voice that she did not hear the words.

“Is Mr. Hoover there?”

“He is with the State Board of Medical Review this afternoon. May I take a message?”

“No….I…He wrote to me. He
is
there, isn’t he?”

There was a slight pause.

“Mr. Hoover is the director of the Tanner Street Clinic,” said the voice calmly.

This time there was a long pause. Patiently the voice tried again.

“Mr. Hoover will return this evening. May I take your name and number?”

“Yes. No. I’ll call back. Thank you very much.”

Janice hung up. She walked quickly across the living room, rubbing her hands through her hair furiously, trying to calm down. She poured herself a brandy, left it on the end table, and went upstairs to her bedroom. She threw two skirts, two blouses, and a change of underwear onto the bed. Then she went downstairs, sipped the brandy, and looked in vain for a small suitcase in the hall closet. She suddenly remembered that her suitcase was still in South India. But there was Ivy’s in the closet upstairs. She ran back up the stairs into Ivy’s room, stood on a chair and carefully lowered a still-new brown leather bag.

The whirlwind of thoughts accelerated. She sat down on the windowsill, Ivy’s bag in her arms. Though the room had been converted to a small work studio, it was still Ivy’s room. With a shudder of horror, Janice realized the grim irony of combing Ivy’s closet for an overnight bag, to meet Elliot Hoover. Ivy’s presence, like an obtrusive emptiness, filled the room with accusations.

Do you understand, Ivy? she thought to herself, almost hearing the words dangle on the air like dust motes. Do you understand that I am still alive and hungry for life?

She threw her clothes and cosmetics, hairbrush and a pair of Delman shoes into the overnight bag and carried it downstairs.