The Reincarnationist Papers

by Eric Maikranz

  "But sir, sir," he called out behind me as I walked down the hall toward the stairs. I looked back when I placed the cane on the first step. His impotent, tuxedoed figure stood in the middle of the corridor. He stammered uncontrollably as though he wrestled with words he couldn't bring himself to utter and seemed completely unlike the man I'd come to know in the past three days.

  I turned away from him and walked up the stairs, eager to see what the rest of this new home looked like. The stairs opened perpendicular to a corridor that ran the length of the hotel. A long narrow Persian rug covered the floor to each end of the hall and small crystal chandeliers hung above every set of opposing doors. The faint sound of classical music drifted from down the hall to my right. I walked toward the music, looking for her room as I went. The silver plated roman numerals were affixed above each door had no order about them; 11, 20, 4, 15, 26, 2. The music came from 26 at the very end of the hall. I found 17 halfway down the other end. I stood in front of the wooden door for a moment, then knocked lightly. The lingering music seemed to intermingle with low voices. My heart quickened when the door knob turned, then sank as the door swung open.

  A well built, dark haired man wearing a red soccer jersey opened the door. He was naked from the waist down and his hairy legs were covered in random scars, scabs and abrasions. I looked away from his erection and eyed the room beyond. It was different than mine. A large square bed dominated the room. The dark red felt wall paper matched the luxurious bedspread. The headboard was a large carved wooden half sun that looked as if it rose out of the crimson bed. At least a dozen red and black pillows propped up Poppy's naked body as she lay on the bed. Another man, dressed only in a similar red jersey had his head buried between her thighs as two more kneeled on either side of her on the bed stroking themselves. She looked up at me as she zipped the brown syringe case closed. Her almond eyes were completely calm.

  "I wondered when you would show up. Come in, we're just getting started," she said breaking into a sly smile.

  I felt the blood drain from my face. I thought I might collapse and probably would have if not for the rigid cane under me. My hand was shaking when I reached for the knob to pull the door closed in front of me. I closed my eyes tight and kept a firm grip on the door handle for some time, not wanting to take the chance that it might open again.

  "Can I buy you a drink?" asked a deep voice behind me in the hall. I opened my eyes and turned toward him. Classical music still floated through the air. It was the rotund man from the gallery that I'd met. "I said, can I buy you a drink friend? You look like you could use one."

  I nodded slowly not letting go of the door knob.

  "Come with me. I know just the place," he said putting his large arm around me, escorting me away from the door.

  "Red wine please," he said to the waitress standing by our booth. "And you?" he asked me.

  "A bourbon and a beer." She walked off without speaking. The Fraumunster Tavern looked much the same as it had two nights ago. She brought the drinks back and took the ten franc note he'd laid on the table.

  "Thank you," I said raising my glass. "You were right. I needed this."

  "To us," he said, clinking glasses with me.

  I smiled.

  "We haven't been properly introduced. My name is Samas," he said offering his hand.

  "And at the end of the Ascension you will tell me your real name right?" I said sarcastically.

  "No. Samas is my real name, my name within the Cognomina."

  I cocked my head and looked at him. "Why are you sharing it with me. I was lead to believe the names were secretive and that I would know them only after I was accepted."

  He waved off my comment. "That's the normal procedure but I look at that as a formality. I know what you are, and I know you belong here with us. It's obvious after the session last night."

  His candor and openness were a refreshing surprise. His disarming personality was a welcome change. "Evan Michaels," I said taking his hand.

  "Nice to meet you." he said.

  "And you, Samas. How did you come by that name? If you don't mind me asking?"

  "It was my fathers name."

  "Your father?"

  He nodded. "Samas was my father in my first incarnation."

  "When was that?"

  "1026."

  My amazement must have shown on my face.

  "Yes I know, I'm an old man," he said smiling. "But I feel I'm just entering my prime."

  "Do you mind talking about yourself?"

  He laughed heartily, his voice booming through the tavern. "On the contrary, it's my favorite subject. And after all it's only fair. I'll end up knowing everything about you by the time this is over."

  The more I spoke with him the less I thought about Poppy. I was feeling better. "Good. I feel like talking."

  "Me too," he said, signaling the waitress for another round of drinks.

  "Where do you live?"

  "I live in the most beautiful place in the world, Morocco, by the sea. My home is right on the beach."

  "Sounds nice. I'd like to see it sometime."

  "You are welcome as my guest anytime you like, for as long as you like. Do you like Moroccan cuisine?"

  "I've never tried it."

  His eyes lit up. "Ah, my wife is an excellent cook. Her specialty is the native cuisine."

  "You're married?" I asked surprised. I never thought anyone as abnormal as I would ever enter into something so normal and everyday as marriage.

  "Yes, I've been married to Zohra for 13 years."

  "Does she know?"

  "That we're married? I hope so," he said laughing. He looked at his tattoo after his laughter had eased. "Of course she knows. I told her. How can you be close to someone, love someone, and they not know. It's impossible."

  "What was her reaction when you told her?"

  "I told her after we were married, so her options were somewhat limited," he chuckled. "She had most of it figured out by that time though, besides she loves me and accepts me. Love is wonderful that way."

  "Have you been married in your other trips?"

  "I have."

  "That's fascinating."

  "Why?" he asked.

  "It's just so different. I've told no one since my parents. I guess I've never had the courage to open up and be close to someone."

  He shook his head. "It's not courage so much as it is comfort. You have to be comfortable with what you are before you can share yourself. I was the same as you early on. Just keep in mind that time is on your side." he smiled.

  "Do you and your wife have any children?"

  A strange look came over his face. "No, of course not. How could I?"

  I was confused by his answer.

  He looked at me puzzled. "You don't know do you?" he asked.

  "Know what?"

  "We're born sterile each time, all of us."

  My eyes narrowed. "You mean I can't...I can never..."

  He shook his head.

  "Why?" I asked.

  He shrugged his shoulders. "It's the nature of being a hybrid I suppose. It's just always been that way. I thought you knew or at least that Poppy would have told you."

  "I get the feeling Poppy didn't tell me a lot of things."

  Samas looked at me. "That condition may seem like a shock now, but it's no great loss when you look at it in relation to what is gained. Almost everyone else on the planet would trade places with you right now. Besides, you can't miss something you've never had."

  He was right. The reality sunk in immediately, as if I'd subconsciously known all along and I felt no loss or longing in receiving that knowledge. He was also right about the envy, as right as Antonio had been.

  "I'm curious as to what the relationship between you and I can become," I said.

  "I don't understand."

  "I met Ramsay the afternoon before my Ascension started. She told me I could have no contact with her after it had started, and there were certain things she was
unable to discuss even then because she was to be on the panel. I understand why it's that way, but when you couple that with the way Poppy has handled my advocacy, namely keeping me in ignorance, it becomes frustrating. The only person I can talk to is Mr. Diltz."

  "He's a good man, his father too. I understand your position. I am not bound by any restrictions. I am here merely as a spectator. I have no official capacity at the Ascension. I came because I wanted to meet you. Each time someone new like you is found and confirmed, it's like gaining a new family member. It's a joyous and rare occasion. I wanted to see it. So as it stands, I am available to you. I am your kindred spirit, you may ask me anything you like. I've no secrets from you Evan."

  "I feel like I have a lifetime’s worth of questions."

  "Unfortunately the tavern won't stay open that long," he chuckled.

  "Foremost of my concerns is that I have only a general idea about what I'm supposed to do throughout the Ascension."

  "You couldn't have convinced me of that last night. I think you're doing well," he said.

  "It's not that. I'm comfortable talking about myself, I enjoy it actually. It's the first time I've been able to tell the stories to anyone other than myself. My concern is more a feeling of uncertainty due to the fact that she keeps me in the dark about what's going to happen next."

  "Your concern seems justified. I can't understand why she wouldn't tell you."

  "She tells me, but it always seems to come as a description of what just happened. I want to know what's going to happen next."

  "So would anyone else in your place. I think you have a right to know," he said.

  "Alright then," I said, looking into his brown eyes. "What's going to happen next?"

  He smiled. "What's going to happen next is that agents will begin looking up obscure pieces of information. A judge in Texas will check to see if you were issued a speeding ticket in 1985. A clerk in Georgia will check Bobby's mothers drivers license application to see if she really had brown hair and blue eyes. A party bureaucrat in Bulgaria will look up military records to see if a Vasili Blagavich Arda was with the 138th under Captain Hoxa in the fall of 1918."

  "Who are these agents?"

  "Anonymous individuals who we keep under retainer, for lack of a better term, for this exact purpose. There's no telling what or who we might need to know about."

  "What happens after that?"

  "Well, it's due to continue tomorrow night. There will be more questions, one more session's worth maybe two, then there will be a break for a few days until the verifications filter back in from our sources. You and your advocate will be summoned, perhaps for more questions, then the panel will deliberate in private and render it's decision. At that point all the palingenesists will be assembled and the judgment will be read. When you are confirmed there will be a large festival at which you will choose a name and be introduced, formally."

  "What happens if I'm not confirmed?"

  "No neophyte has failed in over two hundred years," he said, dismissing my comment.

  "What happened to that candidate?"

  He took a long drink of wine, finishing the glass. "We killed her," he said equably. "But she never came back so our conclusion about her must have been correct."

  "Sounds reminiscent of the Salem witch trials. If you survive submersion, you are possessed; if you don't, you are pure, though none the less dead."

  He laughed. "Yes I can see how one could make that comparison." He offered no other explanations.

  "Would I be killed if I fail?"

  "Yes," he said, signaling for more drinks. "But if you believe in what you are, that shouldn't be a concern for you."

  "What do you mean?"

  "If you know that you have lived before and, more importantly, have faith that you will live again, then the annihilation of death would hold no horror for you. Correct?"

  "Poppy said to me, once you come back you always will. If that's an immutable fact then your assertion is correct."

  He leaned over the table close to me, so close I could smell the alcohol on his breath and could make out intricate patterns in the light brown irises of his eyes. "It's true," he whispered in a low voice. "I've come back 16 times. That makes 17 lives all told, and I remember the slightest detail from every one, as if it happened yesterday. You will come back again and again, like the rest of us, each time stepping up onto your own shoulders, standing a little higher, able to look out a little farther on the horizon and able to look back a little farther in time."

  "Logically, I can't argue with you. I just don't know that my faith is there quite yet, but time is on my side right?"

  "Rrrrright," he said in one long low tone. He raised his glass. "To faith."

  "To faith," I toasted. "Tell me something else. How does a candidate change advocates?"

  He was silent for several seconds. "You're pretty angry with her aren't you?"

  "I'm not sure what I feel."

  "Were you lovers?" he asked.

  I nodded.

  "I see. She'll be quite put off if you choose someone else."

  "Her feelings are not of primary importance to me, succeeding is."

  "Well," he said in a sigh. "You can do one of two things; you can ask the panel to choose a new advocate for you, or you can choose your own, provided they accept."

  I looked up into his consoling eyes. "Would you accept?"

  "Are you asking me?"

  "Yes Samas, I'm asking you. Would you be my advocate?"

  He thought for a moment. "I will. But I will not tell her that there has been a change. That's your responsibility, agreed?"

  "It's a deal." I shook his hand, but began to question my decision as soon as I pulled my hand away. He was right about the Ascension going well and that was as much to her credit as it was to mine. I've just never liked being in the dark, that's how I've managed to stay ahead as I have. Most of the surprises that hit you in life affect you for the worse. I've conditioned myself to be fearful that way. That's what I feared most about her, justifiably so.

  The entire ride home I thought about how to tell her, and how she would take it. Vengeance was a handy vehicle, but unnecessary. I wanted her and despised her. I loved her for what she was and hated her for who she was. But perhaps more importantly, I understood her, and realized then that I didn't want to.

  I awoke the next morning with a headache and an overwhelming sense of anxiety about confronting Poppy. Samas was sitting at the dining room table with Mr. Diltz and two others I recognized from the gallery when I walked in.

  "Good day Herr Michaels. Some coffee?" Mr. Diltz asked.

  "I'm hungry actually."

  "I'll have some fresh rolls brought out," he said getting up.

  I smiled at the three and sat down. A thin, hard looking middle-aged woman smoked next to Samas. Her black hair was pulled into a bun so tight it seemed to smooth some of the wrinkles around her small bloodshot eyes. The young woman next to her looked no older that 18 or 19. She wore an expensive men's two-piece business suit obviously re-cut to her figure.

  "Did you really watch that fire develop in the back of a police car?" the bun woman asked.

  "Yep."

  "I can picture that in my head. That must have been something."

  "Very," I said. Samas was paying attention, but the woman in the suit looked bored and distracted as if I'd interrupted a conversation about me. Diltz brought a basket of rolls in and sat them on the table when I heard a door slide open behind me. Samas' facial reaction told me it was Poppy.

  "Hello Bando," Samas said.

  "Hello Juan," she replied snidely. The sound of her voice drained me of what little courage I had mustered.

  "Can I get you anything Madame?" Diltz asked her.

  "Coffee and croissant."

  "Right away," he said, exiting to the kitchen. I still hadn't turned around.

  "I have to go," Samas said. "I've an appointment across town."

  "I'll join you," the other women chi
med in at the same time. In a matter of seconds I was alone with her. She walked around the table and sat in the chair opposite mine.

  She stuffed a cigarette into the silver tipped holder. "Why didn't you stay last night?" she asked nonchalantly.

  "I didn't feel li-- I ah-- It wasn't what I was expecting," I said averting my eyes to the basket of rolls.

  "They weren't what I was expecting when I met them yesterday but it doesn't mean you can't enjoy yourself. You should have joined us."

  "Well it ah, just wasn't what I was expecting."

  "And just what were you expecting?"

  "It doesn't matter now."

  "Then why the long face love? Don't tell me your feelings are h--."

  "Stop it!" I interrupted angrily. "You can keep your condescending attitude alright! Here's the deal. I'm very grateful for what you've done for me. I don't know if I can ever repay that debt, but I can't do this with you any longer. I've asked for a new advocate."

  She showed no reaction. "I see," she said coolly. "May I ask who is to be your new advocate?"

  I lit a cigarette and drew in deeply. "Samas."

  "They appointed you Samas?" she asked, astonished.

  "No. I chose him."

  She stood up and leaned over the table. "You be careful with him." she said.

  I looked up at her, thinking of Henry. "You know that's funny, I had the same warning about you."

  I didn't turn my head to follow her as she walked around the table to the door. "I'll see you after the Ascension, if you make it," she said behind me, sliding the door closed.

  Diltz came in seconds after she had left. "Where is she?" he asked holding a tray.

  "She's gone."

  He raised his eyebrows and sighed. "I heard about what happened," he said, setting the tray down. "How are you sir?"

  "I'm getting better," I said, still staring at her empty chair.

  Samas walked into Diltz's side dining room carrying two full plates of food. A lifeless lobster claw hung over the edge of the right plate and swayed with each step he took. "I thought I'd join you." he said.

  "It's always a pleasure sir." Diltz replied.

  I was genuinely glad to see him. His mere presence was becoming a comfort to me. I smiled broadly at him. "It's good to see you."