Jacob Atabet (23 page)

September 28

Letter today from Prague. It was unsigned, but must be from one of Magyar’s groups. He needs money. Someone arranging his arrest. Is it Kirov?

September 29

J. this morning: “The world is a conspiracy against any foreclosure on the human spirit. The double helix is a form that is said to unzip easily. This body flickers at the edge of the sensible world.” Big dream last night of running from Kirov. That letter yesterday from Prague, with its hints of Magyar’s arrest and new discoveries, must have triggered it. Magyar is a pathetic, marvelous man. Could boil merrily in the vats of hell. Why does he risk so much by staying there? I suppose it is his mad scheme to dig under the cathedral for the alchemical secrets.

J.: “Painting would be a relief now, in this recuperation. The body was stretched more than I thought.” He had a bloody nose this afternoon. The beginnings of bleeding on both thumbs, racking pain for an hour.

Thurston’s
The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism
has some good descriptions of J.’s condition now. E.g., he can hold his hands over the gas flames of the stove and not feel a thing or see any effect from the fire. There is also a luminescence on his skin. “. . . the radiant power of (her) blood is three times the normal . . . .” (Thurston, page 163.)

Alchemy, too, is rich in allusion for us. Looked at
Alchemy
by Titus Burckhardt this afternoon. And Jung’s
Mysterium Coniunctionis
. Is the body the philosopher’s stone? And Kirov Mercurius? Turn the evil urge toward God.

October 5

Fasting analogous to the psychic state of self-sufficiency (
swabhava
): it exemplifies the One-Existent. One reason perhaps that it provides a chemical doorway to altered states—a new physiological alignment. Mind and body pattern one another.

A conscious practice is analogous to the body’s ordinary growth in several ways, e.g. in the destruction and reformation of physical and psychological structures, in the subsumption of old forms by new. Just as the ear, with its enormous complexity and refinement, is built upon the gill, so the
animan siddhi
as it develops in me incorporates the vagrant imaging ability (and sometimes mental hemorrhaging) that comes with the genes of Charles Fall. Or the sense of boundlessness I feel on days like this (and practice almost every night) replaces the dissolving panics of last summer.

Paraphrasing Aurobindo and Hegel: “Nature fell from the source of grace. Grace builds on nature. Nature-in-grace will evolve for the next billion years.” The redesign of our bodies will come in this, the third age of the spirit.

Judging from the contagion of Atabet’s changes I have to say that these things could spread pretty fast. After St. Francis came hundreds of devotees with signs of the crucifixion on their bodies. But such contagions can be destructive. Today he said that if these changes go a certain way, we will have “to separate ourselves from the world for a while,” maybe move out of the city.

He began to paint today. Art as lightning rod. Thought of Turner. And Pavel Tchelitchev’s
Hide and Seek
(a glimpse of the
animan siddhi
). Ramakrishna’s artwork was the group of disciples. A vehicle of expression draws the inspiration; the dordje, the sceptre, the
vajra.

His painting makes a shield though. Both enabler and protector. A strong focus patterns the psychic field, creates a filter for what might be pressing through. The style of attention conditions the outcome.

Great art captures living entities, fixes them. Then the viewer brings them back to life. To release these forces in a thousand people: the flashpoint that starts an underground fire of the mind. No wonder so many artists suffer inflation.

The recoil of creative acts like J.’s can only be absorbed in the One.

T
HE GATHERED INTENSITY
of recent weeks had dissolved into gaiety and laughter. “Darwin sees another monster,” said Corinne, nodding toward the painting. “Do you think it’s dangerous?”

“Watch your step, everybody!” he exclaimed. “This is no laughing matter.” Then with a flourish he added another speck of red and ducked away from the incoming forces.

And yet I had seen something moving. “Two-thirty,” I said, glancing at my watch. “If more lights blow out you’ll know I’m right.” Four days before, during one of his exercises here on the deck, the lights had blown out in the building. All three of them laughed while he finished speckling the vista of water with bright little sails. The watercolor’s innocent vista of white hulls and brightly colored spinnakers seemed an unlikely place for lurking entities.

This clearly wasn’t the time for monsters. “Go get Carlos,” he said to Corinne. “Maybe he’ll bring up that bottle he promised. And Kazi! Let’s bring the table and eat out here.”

Carlos brought up the bottle, and Mrs. Echeverria appeared to ask if we all wanted lunch. It was obvious they welcomed this sudden holiday spirit.

A half hour later the table was covered with cold roast beef, a salad, French bread and three more bottles of wine made by their friends in Sonoma. There was little to suggest the intensity of these last two weeks.

“Maria,” said Jacob. “Oh Maria. What do you think of all this?”

In her youth she must have been a beauty. She seemed young even now in spite of her gray hair and wrinkles. “I think it’s better than the graveyard up here,” she said. “What’ve you been doing all week?”

“Working hard,” he said. “Darwin and I are making a book of my paintings.” He nodded at me to say I should go along with the story.

“Well, at last!” she exclaimed. “Papa, did you hear it? Jacob’s publishing a book.” The old man nodded back, but I could tell he sensed there was more to our recent silence than bookwork. “To the book!” she held up a glass. “Jacob, your mother will be proud. I think you should phone her.”

“They don’t have a phone at the ranch,” he said. His mother was living in Nevada with cousins who had come over from France. “But don’t worry, I’ll write her. I’m dedicating it to her and papa.”

“Well, Carlos,” said the animated lady. “Let’s get out the flag.” The old man looked at Jacob. Should he go down and get it?

“Yes, the flag!” said Corinne. “We have to raise the flag!”

A few moments later Carlos appeared with the flag of Euzkadi, and all of us stood while he ran it up the pole. The banner of the seven Basque states tentatively rose in the breeze, then straightened out proudly while we cheered and saluted the book.

“Which paintings’ll be in it?” Maria asked. “Not the one with the blood.”

“You don’t like it?” I said. “It’s his all-time money maker.”

“Jacob, you’re not nice to do that to some innocent person.” She made a scolding gesture. “Is there any chance they’ll return it?”

“No,” he said. “And besides, I’ve spent the money already.”

It was a sunny afternoon and our picnic turned to songs and raucous laughter. Then some of the neighbors came up. By two o’clock there were ten or twelve people drinking wine in the sunshine and singing.

“Has this ever happened before?” I asked Corinne.

“Not for a couple of years,” she said. “But it’s just what he needs. I think the Echeverrias sense it.”

“Do you think they have any idea what’s been happening?

“At some level they must. After twenty-four years they have to.” She was watching Atabet talking to an old Italian couple who lived across the street.

“But he’s never really told them much about it, has he? I still can’t get over the fact that they’ve put up with it all of these years.”

“He’s the perfect boarder,” she shrugged. “And what a blessing all this presence must bring. I think it preserves the life of the building. Oh, they have to feel it. Everyone does. That’s the beauty of living this life—you don’t have to preach it.”

“All right, you two,” he said. “What are you conspiring about?”

We said we were drunk.

“Do you know what I’ve been thinking though?” he murmured. “For the first time in years I’ve been feeling bad about some of those paintings. I wonder if they
are
upsetting people.”

“You feel guilty?” I asked, somewhat startled.

“A little,” he said. “Yes, a little.”

“Think of them as a form of dither. You ever heard of dither?”

He shook his head.

“It’s an old British term for shaking wires and machines to get them working. Like kicking a heater that’s stuck. Maybe your paintings do that for plugged-up minds.”

“I wonder,” he mused. “Let’s hope. But they’re such a partial transformation, such a fragment . . . .” He broke off in mid-sentence. “From now on it’ll be paintings like that seascape. From now on I’m keeping it light.” He went into the kitchen and started stacking dishes in the sink. Corinne and I went in to help him. It was clear that his spirits were sagging.

“Darwin,” Kazi said from the door. “There’s someone here to see you.”

“For me!” I exclaimed. “How could anyone know I’m here?”

I met the man on the deck. “Darwin Fall,’” he said. “I’m a friend of Stefan Magyar’s. He wanted me to deliver this message.”

He handed me an envelope, and I asked him how he had met the Czechoslovakian scientist.

“On a trip to study his work,” he said. “I’m trying to replicate some of his results.”

I had met Magyar on a trip to Prague several years before. A letter from one of his group had come that week, asking for money. “This is a bad place to talk,” I said. “Could we meet tomorrow at my office?”

“No, I’m leaving tonight,” he smiled. “And this message is important. Your people at the Greenwich Press gave me this address.”

He was a man in his forties, with a pale epicene face and fine blue veins around his eyes. “Let’s go downstairs then,” I said. “It’s too crowded here.” I went into the kitchen and told Jacob I was taking the man down to the street.

“What is it?” he asked, watching the stranger through the window. “I don’t like his looks.”

“He says he has a message from a scientist I met three years ago in Prague, Stefan Magyar. I showed you that book he sent me—remember? The one with the levels of will and psychotronic devices? I better find out what it’s all about.”

I went back to the stranger and led him down the stairs. He asked if we were having a meeting. “Just some friends for lunch. But I’m surprised they gave you the address at the office. This must be something important.” We had come out on the alley at the foot of the stairs and found a seat on a doorstep. “Sit here,” I said. “Let’s see what Stefan says.”

I opened the envelope and read the note. It introduced the bearer, Harold Corvin, and asked that I listen to the message he had. Then there were greetings from people I had met in Prague. “So
you
have the message,” I said. “What is it?”

“Kirov,” he lowered his voice. “Stefan thinks his organization has made a breakthrough onto the other side.”

”How does he know?” I asked, masking my sense of alarm.

“In various ways. Like dreams. One of the group in Prague died of a stroke in his sleep. He was afflicted by nightmares full of Kirov’s image.”

I felt a sinking sensation. The presence in sleep I had felt—was it a psychic arm of Kirov’s group? “So what does he want me to do?” I whispered. “And when did it start?”

“He just wants you to know. There’s nothing anyone can do except to spread an awareness of what’s happening.”

“And you. How are you involved?”

“We have a research project back east, a private group. It’s not a group you’ve heard of. Do you have something to write my address on?” He fumbled in his pockets. “I don’t have a card. It doesn’t matter though. I’ll send it to you. But let’s not talk here. Can we continue this upstairs?”

He stood and started toward the stairwell. “My friends are leaving,” I said, reaching out for his arm. “It’s too late to talk there. Is there something more you need to tell me?”

But he wouldn’t turn back.

“Is there something else?” I insisted. Atabet, I guessed, would not want him looking around.

“This will just take a moment.” He pulled his arm loose. “I don’t like it down here. Someone might hear us.”

“But look!” I gestured down the alley. “There’s no one in sight.”

“What’s wrong with the roof?” he asked with a quizzical smile. “Maybe your friends should hear this.”

His insistence was alarming. It was quieter here than it would be upstairs with six or seven people. “Why do you think they should hear it?” Again I tried to stop him. “They’re not involved in this at all.”

But he kept on climbing the stairs. When we got to the roof it was quiet. The guests had left or had gone down to the Echeverrias’ apartment. Kazi came up to greet us. “Darwin,” he exclaimed. “On guard!” He came at me playfully with a mock judo attack, brushing Corvin aside in the tussle. As we wrestled he drew me away. “Atabet’s gone, understand?” he whispered. “This man is bad news.”

“Excuse us,” I said, straightening my sweater. “We keep in shape this way. Let’s talk out here where it’s quiet.”

Corvin was watching with quiet amusement. “But your other friends?” he asked. “Maybe they should hear this too.”

“They’re gone,” Kazi smiled. “Everyone’s gone now.” He stood in front of the stranger, bouncing lightly on his toes.

Corvin scanned the deck and kitchen windows. “Well then,” he said. “Magyar said that you and your friends are known to Kirov. I think this is the group he means.”

Kazi looked confused. “Magyar?” he asked. “Who is Magyar?”

“No one else knows Magyar,” I said. “No one here knows anything about this kind of thing. Mr. Corvin, this is something between you and me.”

He smiled winsomely. “In that case then, excuse us.” He nodded at Kazi and led me to the stairs. “I’m not sure what Stefan meant,” he whispered. “Only that Kirov’s group is running experiments on you and some of your friends. Maybe it’s his paranoia. You will have to judge. But he
is
alarmed. There’s nothing else to say. I must admit, this thing has gone over my head.” He bowed slightly, nodded at Kazi, and started down the stairs. “I will send you my address,” he said and disappeared.