I examined several of the pieces as he poured. Each one had a small brass name plate set into the bottom of the frame giving the title, artist and date.
"This is the collection. We are standing in my favorite place in all the world." Samas held out a wine glass to me. "This is the best of the best. Centuries of culture and art. Dozens of lives, some tortured, some satisfied, but all fulfilled and all right here in this room with us."
I wandered about as he spoke, looking at the paintings and their tags: Cezanne, Bassano, Baugin, Caravaggio, David, Van Dyck, Manet were only some of the names I saw. "How much is this collection worth?"
"Whew. There's no way to know without putting it up for sale, but I'd guess any of these pieces would sell at auction for several hundred million pounds. I've had most of these pieces so long that most art historians consider them lost. That in itself would make them even more valuable. To my knowledge, this is the only privately owned collection of its kind in the world."
"Which piece is your favorite?"
He pointed over my shoulder to a 2 x 3 foot bare spot on the wall. "The one I can't have of course."
"Is there a piece that fits there?"
"Yes, but that's another story all together. Let's talk about you."
"Alright."
"I'll be frank. I can see a potential problem with your Ascension."
"Yes," I said, moving forward in my chair.
"You only have two trips worth of information, one and a half really when you think about it. That's where the trouble lies. The facts from your first incarnation are in Bulgaria. There are many places in the world where information flows freely, but your old homeland is not one of them. What records that do survive will be hard to get. But the real dilemma is with your second trip. The United States is the place in the world where information flows freest. All the records will have survived and could have theoretically been available to you beforehand."
"What are you getting at?"
"I'm just playing the part of the Devil's advocate. This is how they think. I know, I've sat on the panel and this is how I thought. What I'm getting at is that all the information you've given is suspect in their eyes. With that in mind, I think your cause is helped greatly if you give them something that can't be refuted."
"What do you have in mind?"
"They can't refute or invalidate emotions, specifically your emotions on what this life is like for you. They can't argue with the way you feel, hence they must accept it and in doing so, accept you. It may seem like a small point but I think it could make a difference in how they look at you."
I contemplated his idea as I let my eyes wander over the many millions of dollars on these walls. Any one of them would provide enough wealth to last several lifetimes. His idea made sense and more importantly made me realize how far I had yet to go.
"Don't take this the wrong way," he continued. "I think your situation is good, especially with how you've handled yourself. I'm just trying to come up with ways to improve it even further."
"You know this is exactly what I was talking about when I mentioned how Poppy was handling this. She never would have suggested something like that. I'm not sure she would have even thought of it."
"Well, she's a little different. I'm not saying that's good or bad, it's just different. This type of life obviously means different things to different individuals."
"I believe that,” I said, refilling our glasses. "This is good wine. Where do you get it?"
"I buy it in Zurich, oddly enough. You can only buy wine in Morocco in special shops for foreigners that are ill stocked. It's Islamic law. I love this vintage, but I have to be careful with it around my wife. She is very devout. She won't even sit in the same room with me if I drink. It's barely tolerated in the house."
"You two seem an odd couple," I said laughing. "How did you meet?"
"I was living in Rome at the time, that's a great place to be in the art business. She was touring with the London Philharmonic. I went to the symphonic hall with some Japanese clients in hopes of closing a six piece deal. I saw her on stage in the string section and was captivated immediately. I arranged to be introduced to her at the reception afterwards. She was cool at first, then went cold when she realized I knew nothing about music. But by the end of the night I had gotten her to agree to a tour of some of the city’s most exclusive galleries the next day."
"And you swept her off her feet with your art knowledge and charm. Something like that?" I asked smiling.
He laughed. "It was nothing like that my friend. Her contemporary art knowledge was almost as complete as my own. She was as cool and collected as a judge at the end of the day. That's when I knew I had to have her, whatever the cost in money, time and emotion. I was already in love with her. In that sense you could say she swept me off my feet.
"I found a touring schedule for the London Philharmonic and took in two shows in Florence the next week. I went only to see her play, watching from the anonymity of the crowd. I could hear her notes above everyone else's. It felt like she was playing for me alone with all the others as mere accompaniment. I had gone to Florence to see if she still stirred me and I found myself saying yes to the same question in Trieste, in Belgrade and in Athens.
"I met her backstage for the second time after a performance in Cairo. We spoke for about an hour and agreed to establish a correspondence. Five years, two dozen meetings and one hundred and one letters later she was my wife. I had offered, as a grandiose measure, to marry her in the Grand Mosque of Cordova, and she held me to it. It cost me a fortune and about a dozen political favors to pull it off. But it was worth every peseta."
"You really didn't tell her about yourself until after you were married?"
"Well," he hesitated, "not entirely. She knew about me, I told her I was different." He leaned back in his chair, looked at the ceiling, and smiled as though remembering gave him great pleasure. "I used to tell her stories about myself; nations I'd visited that no longer exist, events hundreds of years ago that I was witness to, descriptions of people I'd known. She thought they were fantasy at first, that I made them up as I told them or thought them out elaborately days before a scheduled rendezvous. She figured it out in the end. What I didn't tell her was that there was a society of us. She was angry at first, Moroccan women are renowned for their volatility, but when I explained the reason for the secrecy she understood, or at least accepted it."
I stood up to stretch my legs and examine more of the paintings. "Poppy mentioned something about what lead to the secrecy. She said there was a member who got everyone killed."
"Yes," he nodded. "Brevicepts was her name. And that's exactly what happened. She got herself and the other four killed and caused the treasury to be looted, but more importantly she threatened to do it again after they all came back. Brevicepts wanted to sack the villages that had turned on them. She felt it was our divine right as palingenesists to rule over humanity, she thought we were endowed as we are with that purpose in mind. The Cognomina had lost everything because of her megalomaniacal fantasies. The others beseeched her to moderate and live in comfort and anonymity like before, but it was no use. The other four had attributed her conduct to madness. And that madness had attached itself to the part of us that transcends, and it returned to her as soon as she began to remember. In the end the other four decided that excommunication was the only option. The decision, they agreed, had to be unanimous. The old man, who sits in the center of the panel during your Ascension, do you remember him?"
"Yes?" I said, turning around to face him.
"He had to cast the final vote in favor."
"What happened to her?"
"What do you think happened to her? She left and died eventually, and was reborn like us and died again and again and again. She's out there somewhere tonight, alone probably." There was no mistaking the remorse in his voice.
"Then you think the decision was unjust?"
"I think it was either unjust or there is more to
the affair than the original four are telling. Think about it Evan, could you think of anything more punitive than to be permanently spurned by the only family you can ever truly have. They doomed her to wander alone. Imagine a thousand years living as you lived before you were found, only she doesn't have the bliss of ignorance that you had. She knows about us, what we are and where we are. I can't even contemplate the torture and horror that an existence like that would mean, if the term existence can even be used. I don't know. These days, the whole affair, as a rule, is not discussed."
I couldn't imagine an estrangement like that either. I've often wondered how I survived my own to make it this far. Every day for those eight years I felt like a man wandering lost in the wilderness that is his own identity. The idea of being forced back into that dread wilderness, not lost, knowing all the landmarks and having to wander anyway, was too horrid a thought to hold.
"When do they expect us back in Zurich?" I asked changing the subject.
"Two days."
"Two days off sounds good."
"That episode with Poppy rattled you didn't it?"
It had rattled me, but pride wouldn't allow me to admit it to him. "It was a surprise. I certainly wasn't expecting it."
"Well, it's certainly to be expected with her."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know how to explain it other than to say that I know her."
"I noticed you called her Bando. Have you known her long?"
"Since the beginning. I found her, much the same as she found you, by accident."
"No kidding. Tell me about it," I said, pouring more wine.
He took the glass and leaned back. "That's a long story, but a good one. I," he said loudly, followed by a dramatic pause, "was a Conquistador. Juan de Victoria was my name then[26]. I remember the young messenger was almost out of breath when he reached the door...
16
The messenger was out of breath when he reached the steps that lead up to the house of Obregon in the Spanish city of Borgos. The lean teenager had run all the way from the Alcaldes, he had run because the letter in his hand carried the seal of Don Antonio de Mendoza, Viceroy of New Spain[27]. A handsome young green-eyed Spaniard opened the door.
"Señor Victoria?" asked the messenger, still gasping.
"No, Please come in. My name is Diego, how can I help you?"
Still out of breath the youth held out the letter and said simply, "For Señor Victoria."
Diego motioned for the messenger to follow him. They passed through a receiving room, made a left and headed toward the open inner courtyard in the center of the house. The walkway around the square was lined on the outside by a stuccoed wall with several doors and on the inside by columns that supported the overhanging second floor walkway. They walked through the columns past the dry fountain in the center of the courtyard. There, seated at a large oak desk, writing head down with a quill, was the letter's recipient.
"Maestro" said Diego softly, trying not to start his master out of his concentration, "a messenger is here to see you"
"Yes," said the writer without looking up from his work.
"Señor Juan De Victoria?" asked the messenger.
"Yes what is it?" the writer retorted, irritated at having to look up from his work.
"Yes Señor." He handed the letter to him, still shaking from the run.
Juan studied the letter carefully, noticing the quality of the paper, the smudges from handling, and the seal.
It had been almost a year since he had written to Don Antonio in search of a Commission in New Spain. A year of anticipation, stagnation, and sloth. A year wasted.
"Send him away Diego," Juan said calmly, trying not to betray his excitement. He rose, letter in hand, and began to walk along the columns at the perimeter of the courtyard.
It was the first thing he had seen from the 'New World'. Ironic, he thought, it was not the plentiful gold or gems he'd heard of, but a common letter. Still, he thought of the journey it had made, and the gold and gems it could bring. His fingers ran over the pristine red wax seal. He exhaled as he broke it and began to read.
Nineteenth of August the year of our Lord 1539
By the Authority of Antonio de Mendoza, Viceroy of New Spain, the services of Juan de Victoria are requested in Compostela, New Spain. You are to be commissioned as a lieutenant under the command of Melchor Diaz in the expeditionary force of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. Officers are expected to be fully equipped at the muster roll. This letter will allow you to gain passage on any of the King's ships to the New Spanish port of Veracruz.
Don Antonio De Mendoza Viceroy of New Spain for His Majesty King Ferdinand
"Diego!" Juan shouted joyfully. "Diego, ready the mare, ready my possessions, and bring me more parchment. I'm leaving at midday!" Returning to the desk, Juan discarded the half finished page he had been working on and began anew.
The sun cast no shadow off his seal when he pressed it into the wax of the last letter. "Is everything prepared Diego?"
"Yes maestro."
"Good, I have three letters for you." Juan held the letters in his hand and placed one on the desk. "This one is for Señor Obregon upon his return, and you will give him my personal thanks for making his home available to me." He placed the second letter in Diego's hand. "This one is to be hand delivered by you to Monsieur Hazard in Versailles." Juan held the last letter in front of his servant. "And this, this letter is for you, dearest Diego. You will open this letter tomorrow at first light. Do you understand?"
"Yes maestro," said Diego, a slight tremor in his voice. "Will you come back?"
A smile opened in his thick black goatee. "I always come back."
The Maria de la Luz wasn't much of a ship but it was the only one leaving the port of Cadiz for New Spain in the next month. She was loaded with barrels of pickles and wine, bibles, rosaries, mail and a crew of twelve. It departed the next morning for Veracruz, and Juan was leaving with her. He had reluctantly been granted passage from the ship's Captain, Miguel de la Garza.
De la Garza looked to be in his mid twenties like Juan. He had a full black beard cropped neatly, as was the fashion of His Majesty's naval officers. The wrinkled skin around the corners of his eyes reported to his years aboard ship, squinting against unfettered sunrise and sunset. His fine black hair was shoulder length in back and began in a widow’s peak in the front. He had granted Juan passage because of the letter, but had done so nonchalantly as though he saw them everyday. Juan may have been under the commission of a viceroy, but it was understood from the beginning that they were going there on the Captain's boat.
The weather worsened on the fourth day out of Cadiz and it was on that day that Juan saw him for the first time. He first noticed him behind a pickle barrel at the front of the hold. The belly of the ship held the crew’s quarters along with leftover barrels and crates that wouldn't fit in the forecastle and main hold. Juan's bunk was at the rear of the crew's quarters and across the stairwell from the first mates. The hold had a single oil lamp suspended from a crossbeam above the nailed down table and chairs in the center of the compartment. The lamp swayed wildly and sent light chasing shadow around table, chair, bunk and barrel as the ship groaned through twenty foot swells.
Juan placed a folded pillow under his head allowing him to see over the foot of the bunk. "I can see you quite clearly," he said. They were alone.
The figure retreated from Juan's words, scampering farther behind the pickle barrel.
There was no response.
Juan knew every member of the crew was on deck wrestling with the wind whipped rigging. "Do you know what the punishment is for stowing away under the Spanish flag?"
Still no response.
Juan sat up in bed to get a better look at him, his eyes strained against the shifting shadows. "Can you not speak?" he asked.
No response.
Juan stood up and walked slowly toward him. He could see the boy was a Negro. "Are you Moorish?" he asked in one
hundred fifty year old Arabic.
No response.
Juan slowly approached until he could see that the young Negro was not Moorish, but from south of the desert. He had seen others like him on caravans. Juan sat down cross-legged on the floor of the hold in front of him. The stowaway was shaking visibly. They sat silent, studying one another for several minutes. He straightened and looked at the cowering figure.
"Juan," he said, placing his hand on his chest.
The young African looked at him for some time and replied simply "Bando."
Two hours later Juan had discerned that Bando spoke a bit of Portuguese and had eaten nothing but pickles for the past 3 days. When Juan offered bread to him it was devoured immediately. Juan watched the boy eat with delight. Bando was 16. He was average height and lean. Young taut muscles rippled under his dark skin. His thick wiry black hair was uneven in length and lighter in color at the ends. He had no shoes and no shirt, only a pair of breeches that were tattered up to the knees. Bando's strongest feature by far was his teeth. There among the strong Negroid features and black skin were perfect teeth, larger looking than normal, white and straight. When he smiled it looked like a row of new piano keys, untouched by oily fingers. He smiled at Juan after eating the loaf and Juan couldn't help but return it. Bando had learned Portuguese from the sailors he met when he traveled to the West African port city of Accra and practiced with the Portuguese sailors aboard ship on the way to Cadiz. Juan couldn't help but wonder why this haggard boy had ventured so far at great peril.
"Bando, why did you leave your village and your family?" asked Juan in Portuguese.
"I left to find my first family," answered the African, nodding his head as if to coax the Portuguese words out of his mouth.
"First family?" asked Juan as he leaned forward.
"Yes, First family".
"What family did you leave?"
The Reincarnationist Papers Page 24