For Love of Audrey Rose

by Frank De Felitta

  Remembering, almost dizzy with the remembrance, Hoover awakened to find himself standing in the brilliantly lit kitchen of the clinic. The water had filled over the sink and was cascading onto the floor, over his shoes, being sucked down into the drain. He turned off the tap. What had happened afterward? He remembered vaguely how he had trembled, gone off alone, to be safe, to sleep in the isolation at the edge of the tiled field. There he had prayed for deliverance, for strength, for even a portion of the purity once promised him by the master of his very first ashram. So the night had passed in prayer and in agony, in meditation and in hell, and somewhere in the blackness he had heard the sudden rumble of heavy hooves, the snorting of a bullock and a cow in the mud, locked in bestial, explosive copulation—or had that been a dream? Had it all been a transference of his own torment to the innocent night? There were sects, after all, which taught that the spirit may, in fact, infuse the spirit of an animal, to perform those acts which may not be performed by a religious pilgrim.

  Depressed, Hoover mopped the floor. He turned off the radio. His mind felt as though it had gone through a shredder. Sleep was something of a luxury now. Every time he lay down, Janice Templeton came close to him in the darkness, and her spirit tortured his, not to mock him, but to challenge him, for he knew now, that like him, she had not forgotten the pressure of their bodies that distant night.

  Hoover felt the need of prayer.

  He needed guidance. And it had come from outside the clinic. It was clear now that the destinies of them all—Bill, himself, Janice, even Jennie, for all he knew—were in some perplexing way intermingled, and would find fruit together. Hoover took off his apron and toweled the perspiration from his face. He walked out of the kitchen, through the corridor, listening to Jennie mumbling incoherently in her sleep, and fat Janeen beating heavily against the protective rails of her cot. The sounds soothed him in some obscure manner. As he walked to his office, the desire of his body, aroused by the strong memory of the South Indian night, receded, relaxed, leaving only a vibrant, trembling sensation through his wracked frame.

  He entered his office. The red carpet was now littered not only with cushions and a tea set, but with papers, photographs, dossiers, manuscripts, books, and correspondence. Perhaps the breeze through the window had upset the desk. Perhaps Henry had gotten into mischief during an unguarded moment. Hoover lit a small candle and brought it to the center of the room, set it on the floor, and made a clear circle in the midst of the envelopes and stationery there. There was no other light. He stuck two small sticks of incense into the quiet flame, and the ends of the incense stick sparkled, then glowed dully, and a smoke like jasmine circled lazily upward where the heated air from the candle flame issued toward the ceiling. He placed the incense sticks near him, between two fallen books, lowered his head slightly, and crossed his legs. As he sat, emptying himself of the days’ thoughts, slowly purging the weariness of the physical labor, the complexities of fighting the psychic defenses of the children, his awareness seemed to simplify. He found himself staring blissfully down at his own palms, outstretched, facing upward on his own knees.

  He opened his eyes. Slowly, all thoughts, all fatigue, all desires that fixated onto earthly objects began to dissolve. Specifically, he shut himself off from the open window where the curtains stirred in the fragrant, dusty breeze. Then he closed his eyes. In the dissolving, curious reddish atmosphere of the inner eye, behind closed lids, he felt the familiar, comforting atmosphere of meditation. The subtle sense of becoming less substantial and vastly more expanded, as the body withdrew from consciousness. He concentrated on the breathing, control of the diaphragm, breathing through one nostril only, one of the most difficult exercises.

  In the dreamy, sensuous atmosphere where there was no floor, no wall, no sound, but only sensations that intermixed freely, he felt a different kind of love. It was not the vague radiance that flowed from the interior of the spinal column, and translated itself into the gentle bliss. It was not the beneficence of the accumulated teachings of yogis through the countless generations, a softness and a melodious moral regeneration. It was more like an embrace. As though a love had come to restore him, to answer the love within him and make it whole. And the sensation terrified him.

  Perspiring, he opened his eyes. He was breathing hard with the effort. Calmly he rose, closed the window, lit two more sticks of incense, and then paced the room in agitation. He shuffled through a series of books on a low shelf behind the desk and pulled out a worn volume of Vedic poems, given to him by Mr. Radimanath’s son, printed on his own small printing press in Calcutta.

  Hoover read several poems. They seemed to exude a sweet peace, a consuming confidence that had become foreign to himself. Yet he needed them now as never before.

  The verses treated of the Supreme Personality, the Godhead that inhabited and formed all moving and nonmoving entities, which passed over and through all the obstacles of growth and decay.

  Though engaged in all kinds of activities, the pure devotee reaches the spiritual kingdom.

  Work, therefore, always under the consciousness of the Godhead, through all the trials of conditional life.

  The supreme Lord is situated in everyone’s heart O Arjuna, and directs the wandering of all living entities.

  The room was so quiet that Hoover was unaware of himself, unaware of the noises of the clinic. There seemed to be only the thoughts of ancient yogis, and within that thought he now existed in pure spirit. The words burgeoned in a radiant charisma, flooding into his ego, transforming it with confidence and love. With tears in his eyes, Hoover read:

  Under illusion you may decline to act according to the direction of the Godhead. But, compelled by your own nature, you will act all the same.

  He reread the passage. He closed the book, mumbled the passage by heart. There was a sensation of purification, of intense potentiality to act, but he did not know exactly where and how. The answer was in the room, in the low-hanging ribbons of incense smoke, in the mundane noises and water pipes, scratched paint, crayoned murals of the clinic. The answer lay in his memories, in his fantasies. Above all, it lay in his body, the body he had been afraid to admit to his thoughts.

  Compelled by your own nature, you will act all the same, he repeated to himself.

  A bit confused, feeling the warmth radiating from his own face, he sat cross-legged once again on the floor and began to meditate. This time there was no difficulty. In seconds he slipped into a slight trance, a falling away of minute perceptions. In a few more seconds he slipped further, and was unaware of the smell of incense, or any noise, or even of his location.

  A radiance spread out before him. A landscape of disintegrated form, bathed in a translucent glow. In it he recognized pieces of his ego, fragments of his past, his desires, his fears, actual experiences. The shards of himself were iridescent and floated rapidly, winking out of sight as he rose above and beyond them. He was without ego. Without pain. There was no turbulence or doubt, only a rich sense of trust, as though he had entered a destiny far larger than his own. He was not afraid. Several times he had ascended to these heights, but never with such a pulsating, relentless momentum.

  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 inhabi
ted 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

  Janice 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.