"Didn’t I say you shouldn’t meddle with those milk cakes?" Anne began to laugh. "You heady mule!"
"Well, in case you’re not aware, there’s mutiny in the house. Sanctions no longer work anymore. You’re out of government – sacked in a new coup," Netu mocked between mouthfuls of the milk cakes. "How about crossing over to my party? You know you never win on the other side of government."
Anne stood with the ceramic plate in hand and regarded Netu. She saw a cryptic possibility in Netu’s remark, which gave it the quality of a joke with deeper meaning. Though wary she also felt a kind of rare amusement.
These ever flickering sparks of their bonding, the work of chemistry so hard to understand, enslaved her in the beautiful labyrinths of passion. And it was foolhardy for her to imagine she would ever have enough of Netu - his time, care and love.
"I decamp," she declared, whisking the unwrapped foil bundle from him and emptying the content on the plate. "But don’t imagine I won’t have my veto back someday. Governments are transient experiences, aren’t they?"
“That’ll be the day,” Netu challenged airily.
Prior to Anne’s visit, Netu had engaged himself in a grand reconstruction of the isolated events of distant times in which he had been a participant leading to the schemes of the historic present. As the information trickled in from different quarters, limited still by the facts yet known, he had seen recurring parterns and had begun to collapse the vast time denominators into a component of meaningful history.
His reconstruction, almost filled with facts, was now replete regarding his roles. Two essential bits were still missing in the history of his past. These tiny bits were Anne and Lina. Who were they in the treacherous games of Atlantis? And whom do they represent in the on-going reality?
The facts had emerged from his reconstruction: he was Tonka Manu in Atlantis. In the words of Pere Mejeli, she acted the part of the unfortunate Atlantean whose sacrilege led to the end of Atlantis and flung its huge landmass to its sad place at the bottom of the Deemen Sea. Implied somewhat in Pa Smand’s eulogies, even in Netu’s own personal experiences, or in Father Manu’s nudging, and the random ranting of numerous residents of the Brotherhood, his aura towered as the next in the line of Manus after the incumbent.
And by the strength of his calculations, if all the key participants in Atlantis twenty-five thousand years ago were now part of the new humanity in Riagena and marching on with Father Manu as he had noticed, Anne Ofino and Lina Phillip Uwa were as entwined with the past as they were with the present. Yet he was only aware of their past and present roles in his life in a vague sense.
A voice screamed on the inside of him, reckoning with their guile and pretensions. He would not compromise a half-picture of history. He would strive to complete history’s emerging picture or nothing at all. And Anne would provide the clue he needed.
Just as the moon began to illuminate the hideous shadows of OldHill’s alleys in the cool evening and its orange light cast its essence on the tapestry of tenement buildings and quaint high-rise facilities, Anne and Netu retired to his bedroom from the living room.
Sprawled on his bed, fussing in his mind the best way to unravel the mystery, Netu soon dozed off.
Anne sat next to him, her back inclined on the wall in yogi lotus, reading a paperback. The lingering silence perhaps caused Anne to stir, showing concern. She stared at his slumbering face and noticed a part frozen smile. She thought he might have been smiling for her before he drifted off in sleep. Her own dreams assailed her happy mood as she looked at him with affection in her eyes. Then she continued with her reading, banishing the effect of the dreams on her thought impulses.
He gasped awake about fifteen minutes later and spoke as if in deep stupor. “Wow! What a dream this was!” he intoned, eyes half open.
Anne lowered her paperback and peered with a hint of apprehension at him. "Speaking in your dreams again, ehn?"
“I’m quite awake,” he said, yawning. “I wasn’t speaking in any dream. I spoke after the dream.”
“0h." Anne felt reassured. She dropped the paperback on the bed and asked, “Was it an interesting dream?”
“It’s interesting,” Netu affirmed, nodding. He rolled to his right side and used his right palm as pillar for his raised head. He reckoned with the glint in her eyes, curious instead of being apprehensive. "It’s quite unique, stands out as one of the best dreams I’ve had in recent times."
Anne’s eyes glowed with anticipation. "Yes?"
Netu told her some aspects of the dream he had a moment earlier but not the real issues at stake in his chat with Father Manu.
The main slant of the dream he said was more of a routine camaraderie between two Manus - the younger one playing a prominent role in the enthronement of the older one who in turn was to prepare the grounds for the repeat performance of the younger one.
“I think I deserve to be congratulated,” Netu bragged after his story.
"It’s incredible. A rare one absolutely," Anne acquiesced. "But don’t blow your trumpet asking for accolades."
"What makes you say that?" Netu said, stunned by her evasive non-reckoning of the obvious.
“The stuff you just mentioned - your part in the plot and humanity’s destiny - are stale news for those who know."
"Do you know?"
Anne got up from the bed feeling unduly intimidated. Once her feet touched the floor she gave him a taunting, derisive glance. "Who doesn’t know who you are, Netu?"
"I....I....I’m at sea, Anne," he stammered. “You’re getting me confused.” Vistas of distant past replayed in his mind’s eye, reconciling all the hints about Atlantis.
Anne said with a contemptuous disposition, "You must be given to the belief that you are sacrosanct in this Manu business, don’t you? Let’s face it Netu, this soul saving venture wasn’t exclusively an affair of the Manus, there were other participants at the backstage."
"And I suppose you are bent on reasserting your place in the dispensation in question?"
Netu’s bland self-effacing took Anne to the edge of exasperation. She sat back on the bed by his feet with derision in her eyes.
"I was there in the era before Father Manu’s just as you were there. Well, you were the Manu, but don’t forget I was even closer to you then than I am now.”
"Hmnnn, I don’t contend that."
"It wasn’t our first meeting either."
"I’m confused over your assertion."
Bewildered by Netu’s lack of knowledge of their other incarnation in spite of several hints she had given him prior, she knelt down on the bed slack-jawed, disbelieving.
"Do I infer that you don’t know much about the other times we’ve met in this great journey of life? If you admit this, then I’ll be really stunned thinking you’re the next in the line of Manus."
"Sometimes I have nothing but hints. I come to absolute conclusions only when I act on those hints."
"Then let’s see how your hints work out. Tell me wise one just who I was in the dispensation before Father Manu’s?"
"My wife," Netu said in a shy tone. "And we had four kids."
"Hey, you got that right!" Anne echoed, renting the quiet night with an artful laugh. "But I dare say you wouldn’t know about the other three incarnations."
"No, I don’t recall any," he admitted frankly. "If I’m to proffer a guess, I’ll say Atlantis. I was the Manu then, you know."
Anne snorted and pushed him out of her way in mock contempt. She climbed back to bed and snuggled beside him.
"Don’t always talk of Atlantis as you would talk of your bedroom schemes," she said, staring into his eyes like a mischievous brat. "You weren’t the only one there mark you. As a matter of fact, our little scheming, you and I, started then and it has gone four incarnations so far."
Netu pulled himself to his haunches, happy that
his probe into the past was almost over with this revelation. The components of his reconstruction were almost complete.
“Tell me sweet little one about the three other incarnations!" he cajoled.
“Did I set a fly free under your pant?” Anne asked. “Why the sudden interest about the past? No, I’m not telling."
"I know you will," Netu said, cuddling her prostrate form.
"Alright, alright, I’ll tell you but in a nutshell. It’s a long story. But I’ll make it snappy."
"Whichever way you want to tell it, I’m ready."
Anne evaded Netu’s probing stare and rolled onto her back, fixing her gaze on the lifeless expanse of the ceiling boards. She reached into the vaults of time, prodding, recalling and reanimating events long buried.
"It all began in Atlantis," she said with a nostalgic tremor in her voice. "We were supposed to be the active participants in Tonka Manu’s ship of divinity. That includes all Atlanteans besides Tonka. And we lived our lives that way for a long time. But attitudes are prone to change when people experience the rigorous daily processes of living coupled with all forms of ego trips. It would be proper to admit that it was these weird ego trips, which Atlanteans embraced that engendered the kind of spiritual balance prevalent then.
"Different spiritual groups, with their secret modes of operation, started to work against the divine process. Their aim was to have some degree of credibility and to have the right to power brokering. The Locci to which I belonged was the most notorious of these subversive groups. The group itself wasn’t new in the era. It had survived the era of Manu Waadua and Tonka Manu inherited it so to say.
"But we never had as much peace as we had in Waadua’s period. Tonka saw the antecedents of our actions and worked against our schemes. And as you know by now, you as Tonka ended that era in a violent fashion and everybody went down with it. Whether there were survivors is one thing I don’t really know. Maybe you ought to tell me what it was like then," she smiled, prevaricating. "But as far as I know, none survived the terror and reign of lofty water over Atlantis. All the stalking, and all the ongoing schemes, rose out of the anger and loathing of that unfortunate end. The Locciens and the other groups, though washed off Atlantis, vowed in their varied levels of hibernation to hunt the Manus reincarnated from Atlantis and stifle their growth as painfully as our loss in Atlantis.
"I was among those pardoned after the deluge, and you and I met again in different bodies." She trailed off warily.
The glimmer of excitement flickered out of Anne’s eyes as a sordid scene loomed in her mind’s eye.
"I came into your life in a particular incarcantion and we got married. But the hatred in me for your role in Atlantis was a sensation that consumed me with one notion - vengeance," she went on.
Guilt spasms ran through Anne, jolting her away from her evasive upward gaze. She gazed forlornly at Netu. "I died in that incarnation because I wanted to hurt you so much – it boomeranged."
Shocked glared in Netu’s dark brown eyes. "You did what?" he demanded in a stammer.
"I died because I was a grudging soul whereas you were all loving and caring."
“Sad, isn’t it?”
“Really sad.”
“How did you recognize me even in that encounter when I wasn’t the Manu?”
Anne gave a throaty laugh. “You like cracking silly jokes at serious moments, Netu. I recognized you then the way I recognize you now. You brokers of divine power always manifest along with signs we can easily see and acknowledge. Your stars dazzle the sky each night we look up to the heavens. What we do next is to trace where the manifestation of the stars are. Simple."
"Is that how you traced me?"
"I’m not obliged to answer the question."
"Well, that was the initial incarnation in which you said you died. What happened in the second encounter?"
"I avenged my death in the first incarnation," Anne laughed chivalrously.
"How was that?" Netu, ill-at-ease with Anne’s revelation, deduced in those few words of hers the rationale for their third and fourth meeting. Vengeance.
"We met the second time and it looked real good between us. We hit it off on an inspiring note, but another woman lured you away from me. You succumbed to her whims and married her. So, both of you had to pay for your perfidy."
“Perfidy?”
“Yes. You strung my heart and threw it to the hounds. So the lady who masterminded that callous action of yours and yourself had to go.”
"Where?"
"Both of you went to blazes."
"We died you mean?"
"Died - like death."
"Oh, my God! You had the heart, the audacity to do that to me? To someone you said you loved?" Anger took over Netu’s presence of mind.
"It was provocation," Anne argued. "I had no choice - it just happened as a matter of natural consequence."
Netu distrusted her lame, unconvincing argument. The fragile wings of his longing heart were employed of a sudden in a swift intuitive caper away from an emergent ogress in the field of his vision. Anne Ofino.
Fear lept into the core of Netu’s heart and shaded the brilliance of his eyes with a dismal tint. "And the third incarnation witnessed a truce?" he prodded earnestly, wanting a reason not to feel intimidated by Anne’s pronouncements.
"Something close to that."
"Nothing bizarre presumably?"
"We were happily married in spite of side flings you had every so often. You always returned to me a penitent lover."
"So what is it going to be like this time?" It was the vital puzzle he wanted resolved. Whether it was true he died in another incarnation due to a woman’s anger did not worry him as much as the issue of her ongoing games.
“We have each other, not so?”
"Yes, but in what capacity? As an adversary or a lover?"
"Your cynicism is appalling, Netu. Don’t you ever think of anything else?"
"Our trail has been strewn with your own vengeful emotions yet you point fingers at..."
"Netu, stop," she cautioned impatiently, cutting short his wind of aspersions. "Being damn vindictive isn’t the issue here. The feelings we share now would determine the next trail of events. Period!"
"Just supposing this relationship hits the rocks - you can’t ignore that factor in any relationship - what would be your reaction? Won’t you attempt to pick up your old hatchet of vengeance and attempt to complete the age long ritual of the Locci?"
Anne frowned, rage upwelling within her. "Don’t insult my intelligence," she snapped. "My religion is love, and I’m vowed to it. I pay for love with love and..."
"And for hatred with hatred?"
"Anyone’s guess. I don’t have a choice than to attack if, and only if, I’m offended. Remember - only if I’m offended. But don’t get lily-livered because of my frankness. I’m not thinking of hurting you or anyone, not someone as dear as you anyway."
In truth Netu disbelieved her. He had learned over the years never to trust anyone no matter their intentions towards him. Though Lina Phillip Uwa’s hints bordering on Anne had been proven in Anne’s theory of vengeance, he knew Lina was not without her own schemes.
Now, he plunged back deep into the oceans of memory. Beyond good intentions, Lina and Anne flickered on his mind’s screen as products of the Locci. Without any haze of vision, he could see the Locci assembly now as he had seen in his trance flight before his exit from the Brotherhood at Danabi City.
He could recall seeing a crowd of men and women sitting under an expansive canopy in a splendor that defied his comprehension. Someone addressed the large crowd, and the person was himself. As the incensed orator, the brave and boisterous nature of his speech mellowed the crowd:
"I know you all – every one of you here," he recalled asserting to the crowd. "When I came as Tonka Manu, all
of you here were there trying hard to ensnare me. Now you are back in this dispensation with the old crazy mentality that you can enact the evil drama of Atlantis. You’ll surely fail like trampled flies just as you failed in Atlantis. If you think being smart is the key to your quest, I’ll tell you the Guardians of the Universe are the smartest of all beings and the Universe is our play."
Two unforgettable faces he remembered in that fretful crowd were Anne and Lina. He did not forget either the faces of a mélange of other colleagues, mostly men in the Brotherhood. But at the moment, Anne and Lina stood out as sore thumbs belonging to distinct hands of a cursed body. They were the indisputable avengers of the Atlantis drama where he had held sway.
Again, he could not explain in whole Lina’s conflict of motives. Her actions and utterances at protecting him seem to negate her avenging consciousness. Why would she agree to protect him when she had the right tool and opportunity to ruin him forever?
She might have been in a rival group of the Locci. He thought that Lina’s war with the woman referred to as Anne in her revelations, implied this. But there was a catch here too. She could not have meddled with the Guardians’ plans if she thought he would by his sleekness of character deny her the savoring of the meal on the table. And he knew her mentality - she often bragged like Anne that she had a firm hold on him - reasoning he needed her support to feel safe at all times.
Netu laughed at himself, startling Anne. Fools they all are to think they’ve got me where they wanted as their pawn.
"Anything the matter?" Anne pried.
A cunning smile glared on Netu’s face. "It’s personal."
For three years he had been with Anne. Yet in those three years she had never known the pleasures of uninhibited love making with him due to the depth of what he knew about her. He felt now the right time had come for him to gain Anne’s confidence and win the subtle war they had long embarked on. Of course, he had a clear mental picture that the only viable option he would use to win the war remained the weapon of passion.
He reckoned with Anne as a freak for spiritual energy. Anyone who would give it reined on her heartstrings as its master. He had plenty to give. In spite of her claim that she loved him, the basic thing she needed was his spiritual energy. With it she had access to infinite power. She craved for it. The same weakness, which Lina and other decoys of nefarious spiritual cliques had. And he needed a friend in the enemy’s camp, an asset of inestimable value in the schemes of subtle war. Without wasting time, he exploited the window of opportunity.
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