The Reincarnation of Peter Proud

by Max Ehrlich

  Maybe it was better, he reflected, not to know who you had been in some previous life. The reincarnationists claimed that this knowledge would give you insights into how to conduct yourself in the present.

  Yet it could be that you were better off not having any prenatal memory whatever. You might find that you had been a pretty sordid character. You might have been a thief or a murderer or a procurer. There would be a certain amount of shock or trauma in this, some damage to your present ego.

  For example, his discovery that he had once been somebody named Jeff Chapin. He did not like himself as Chapin. Probably you were better off living your life as it came. It would be enough to know you would live a new life after you died, and forget about the details. Maybe the ancient Greeks had the right idea. The gods, they said, traditionally dip all souls who are about to be born into the River of Forgetfulness, in order to make them forget everything about their previous lives. When you thought of all the agonies of body and mind that most of us endure in one lifetime, why look for all the headaches and frustrations of other lifetimes?

  Marcia Chapin stirred a little. She opened her eyes for a moment, staring straight up at him. They were glassy, vacant. She did not recognize him. She closed her eyes again.

  Ann came down with Ola. Her black face was heavy with sleep. She did not seem surprised. Together, she and Ann got Marcia to her feet.

  “Look,” he said to Ann, “I’ll say goodnight.”

  “No,” she said. “Please stay. Please. I’ll be down in a little while.”

  Later, after she came downstairs, she made coffee. She seemed tired and anxious to talk.

  “I suppose Mother’s drinking all began after my father drowned,” she said. “I don’t know for sure, of course; I was a baby then. But I remember that when I was just a child in school she was drinking then. Steadily. She’d drink all day long, and she’d be helpless at night. I’d call my Aunt Helen, and she’d come over and spend the night. When Mother was sober again, her remorse was awful. Sometimes it scared me. I was afraid she might kill herself.

  “I stopped bringing my school friends to the house. All this went on for years, through high school and college. After a while, she simply let herself go. She stopped taking care of her face, her hair, her clothing, everything. She’d sit in that den for hours and stare at those photographs of my father, and drink. Finally, we had her institutionalized for a long time. The psychiatrists talked to her and gave us the usual story—stresses and strains, the problems of the female alcoholic in today’s society. But I knew that her problem was a lot simpler. She just kept conjuring up this ghost, and the only way she could drown him was to put him in a bottle. I don’t know why it happened this way. Other women lose their husbands, but they recover; they go on living. They remarry. But somehow my mother couldn’t. It was a pretty morbid situation. It still is….”

  She went on to explain that when they brought Marcia back from the institution the first time, she seemed docile, quiet. She didn’t seem to care. Ann or Ola cooked for her. For months she did not take a drink. Then, one day, she disappeared.

  “l was in New York then,” Ann continued. “I came right home. They found her in a cheap hotel in Boston. She was filthy, half starving, half out of her mind. And stone broke. She didn’t remember where she’d been, or what she had done in all that time. After that, I left New York and came home for good. We put her in an institution again, a different one this time. They tried everything: psychiatry, drugs—nothing helped. When she came out again, she went into AA. For six months it worked. She didn’t touch a drop. We began to hope that she was out of it. Then one night I came home and found her. She had fallen down the steps, dead drunk, and was bleeding from the head. They had to take I don’t know how many stitches. Finally, we—Uncle Ralph, Aunt Helen, other relatives—decided it was no use. We figured we might as well make it available to her and stop playing games. In the past few years she’s been pretty good, would actually go on the wagon for a few weeks at a time. But of course it’s just going to go on. So you see why I have to be here to take care of her. She really doesn’t have anyone else.”

  When he got back to his hotel, there were two telephone messages from Hall Bentley asking him to call back.

  He crumpled the messages in his fist and threw them into the wastebasket. He still wasn’t ready to talk to Bentley, not yet. Not until he was very clear in his mind as to what he had to say.

  Chapter 29

  The Civic Center was located near the center of the city. It was very new, a tribute to Riverside’s cultural progress. It had been designed as a kind of minor league Lincoln Center. It had a theater, a forum, and a symphony hall, surrounded by plazas and fountains.

  Peter parked the car deep in the layered labyrinth of garages under the complex. Then he, Ann, and Marcia Chapin rode up a series of small escalators to the esplanade.

  Peter was startled by Marcia’s appearance. She wore a long green satin dress and several strings of pearls. She seemed rested and relaxed, animated by the crowd and the occasion. Her eyes sparkled. She was really a striking woman for her age when she got dressed up, he thought. Regal. Now and then they ran into people they knew, who greeted Marcia effusively and seemed genuinely glad to see her.

  “Good Lord,” she said. “I haven’t seen some of these people in years”

  “Well, it’s your fault, not theirs,” said Ann. “You ought to get out more often.”

  “Yes. I suppose you’re right.”

  He took them both by the arms and shepherded them through the dense crowd in the great chandeliered foyer. Tonight, he thought Ann particularly attractive. She was wearing a long black dress, sleek and tight fitting at the hips, and scoop-necked, so that the top of her white breasts swelled provocatively. It was set off by gold loop earrings set with sapphires, and two long antique gold chains around her neck, also set with sapphires. There was a special aura about her, sensuous and very feminine. He noticed that men turned to look at her. He appreciated their interest—and resented it a little.

  They were ushered down the side of the hall. Every seat was taken. There was the usual anticipatory buzz. The musicians were already on stage, fiddling with their instruments. He checked his program and liked what he saw. Aaron Copland’s Short Symphony, then Mozart’s Concerto No. 3 in G for Violin, and finally, Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 in C Sharp Minor.

  The conductor raised his baton, and the orchestra began the Short Symphony. He was not a Copland buff, but he enjoyed this particular work. He was a man who took his concert-going seriously. He liked to concentrate from the beginning, unlike the usual audience pests who took this time to settle down. He identified them as the Fanners, people who created their own little climate by waving their programs in front of their faces. He noted the other species nearby: the Head-Nodders, the Foot-Tappers, the Seat-Shifters, the Coughers, and the Whisperers.

  Then Sergei Pavlik came on for the Mozart, and the applause was tremendous.

  Peter sat back and closed his eyes. He let the music wash over him like a warm sea. His mind began to drift effortlessly. He was tired. He had not slept well the night before. It was delicious to sit here and just relax….

  Images floated before him. Names, faces. Hall Bentley’s, and Verna Bird’s, and Elva Carlsen’s. “We have a soul here.” “Yes, I see the soul.” “And we have a body which houses the soul?” “I see the body.” The face of Sam Goodman. The face of Dr. Ludwig Staub, thick glasses, heavy accent, blue polka-dotted bow tie. “If it is of any comfort to you, they are not schizoid in character. The dreams of the schizophrenic are often flat. Unevocative.” Sam Goodman’s Sleep Lab, and the obscene jangling of the arousal bell. “I have a dream, Doctor.” The red candle is Evil, the white candle is Good. Good and Evil, Good and Evil. I am a man of many lives. Chalaf, and Makoto Asata, and Red Horse. Standing in the moonlight, looking at the cold, cold lake …

  He saw the moon and felt the sharp cut of the wind, and he laughed aloud, thinking, Hey
, hey, look at me, Big Chief Two Moons, with my war club flopping in the wind, and here I am in the forest primeval, by the shining waters, on the shores of Gitche Gumee. Nobody here but me. Chief Two Moons. The last of the Mohicans,

  Far off, across the lake, the sign beckoned to him. Puritan, Puritan. Then he slid off the dock and into the water and started to swim. After that he got tired, and Marcia came along in the boat, and she hit him on the head with the paddle, and …

  He heard someone calling a name from far off. A woman’s voice calling a name, but not his name. It sounded something like Pete, Pete. It came nearer and nearer, across the lake, and he wondered who the hell this could be, and why Pete?

  “Pete, for God’s sake. Wake up!”

  He opened his eyes. Ann Chapin, in the seat next to him, was tugging at his arm. Her face was pale, her eyes wide in horror.

  “What is it?”

  “You were talking in your sleep just now. Yelling.”

  He looked around, bewildered. He caught a glimpse of Marcia, who had left her seat and was running up the aisle toward the exit. Her face was chalk white. The hall was in an uproar. People were on their feet all around him, their faces shocked, trying to get a glimpse of the shouter. On the stage, a few of the musicians bravely tried to carry on in a ragged fashion, but the result was pitiful, Most of them were standing blinking in the light, trying to see who owned the voice. Sergei Pavlik stood, still holding the violin under his chin, the hand holding the bow still held high, frozen into place. There was a look of amazement on his face.

  “All right, you. Come out of there.”

  He turned to see two ushers, who motioned angrily for him to come out into the aisle. He rose and, with Ann, bumped past the knees in the row. He heard a man swear under his breath as he passed. When they. finally got into the aisle, the two young ushers grabbed him roughly,

  “Let’s go, mister.”

  They pinioned his arms and hustled him up the aisle toward the nearest exit. Ann followed. Necks craned; a sea of heads turned to look at him. The conductor turned back to his musicians and tried to rally them back into the Mozart. They fumbled valiantly to find a new starting point in the middle of the concerto.

  In the foyer, Ann inquired about her mother. An usher said a lady in green had come running out of the concert hall, hysterical. She had hailed a taxi and left. People surrounded Ann and him—an official of the Civic Center, a newspaper reporter, a uniformed policeman. Dazed, he heard them talking. Something about preferring charges. Disorderly conduct. Disturbing the peace in a public place. He heard Ann trying to argue with them. Something about having this problem, talking in his sleep. No, he was not drunk.

  He began to emerge from his daze. He told them he was terribly sorry, that he had been having some kind of nightmare. He had simply dozed off, and he was completely unaware of what had happened. He apologized again, profusely. And suddenly he was outside with Ann. They sat on a rail near one of the fountains.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Pete, what came over you?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”

  She shuddered. “It wasn’t your voice at all. It was somebody else’s, some other man’s entirely. It was horrible. You started to mumble these words … something about being sorry for what you’d done or said … and then you suddenly called Mother’s name.”

  “I did?”

  “You said something about being sorry for what you’d said and done, and then you said something about loving her, and then all of a sudden you yelled out, ‘Don’t, Marcia, don’t, don’t …’ Right in front of God and the Boston Symphony and everybody. In this crazy, wild voice …”

  “I did that?”

  “And that wasn’t all. Mother was looking at you as though you were some kind of ghost. Then she started to scream, ‘Jeff, Jeff!’ ” Ann stared at him. “Why would she do that?”

  “I don’t know,” he lied. “I just don’t know,”

  “I tell you, it made my blood curdle. The look on her face. Do you often talk in your sleep?”

  He lied again. “No.”

  “Well, whatever you call it, it was sensational. It’ll probably be in the newspapers tomorrow.” Suddenly she smiled faintly. “Poor Sergei Pavlik. You should have seen the look on his face. And, of course, we missed the Mahler.”

  “I’m sorry about that too,”

  “We’d better go right home. I’m worried about Mother.”

  They went down into the garage and got into the car. He was still shaking. He raced the car out of the garage and into the street, forgetting the stop sign at the exit. There was the scream of brakes. A big Buick on the road stopped inches away from the side of his Pontiac.

  “You’d better let me drive,” Ann said quietly. On the way home, he thought it through. He knew what he had to do next. And it had to be done immediately.

  The next morning he drove out to Lake Nipmuck. He found a real estate office dealing in lakeshore cottage rentals.

  It was easy enough for the agent to identify the cottage, knowing that Jeffrey Chapin was the original builder. The agent said, “Some people named Swanson own it now. But it’s never been on our master list for summer rentals. The Swansons always spend the summer there themselves.” Then the man brightened. “The lake’s pretty full up this year. This is the first of June, and practically everything’s been rented. However, I do have one or two left you might be interested in …”

  “No,” insisted Peter. “I want this one. And I don’t need it for the summer. What about the next two weeks?”

  “I could try. But people here usually rent by the month.”

  “All right. Make it for a month.”

  The agent studied him. “The going rate’s about a thousand a month.”

  “Okay. But I’d like to know right away.”

  The agent looked up a number, got on the phone. He talked briefly with the owner. Then he held his hand over the mouthpiece and said to Peter, “They’re not interested. They expect to use the cottage in June themselves.”

  “Tell you what to do,” said Peter. “Offer them two thousand.”

  The agent stared at him. His mouth dropped open a little. “Mr. Proud, you must be kidding! For that kind of money I could get you …”

  “Go ahead. Tell them two thousand.”

  The agent quoted the new price. He put his hand over the mouthpiece again and grinned. “This time you’ve made them an offer they can’t refuse. When do you want to move in?”

  “Tonight,” said Peter.

  “Tonight?”

  “Better than that. I’d like to go over and take a look at the place now.”

  The agent talked to Swanson again. The owner of the cottage relayed the information that there was a key hidden in a loose brick under the porch stairs. If Peter wanted immediate possession, he could use the key.

  The agent located the cottage for him on a lakefront map.

  In the dream, he had seen the cottage only at night. He had no idea how it would look in the daytime. Or what changes it might have undergone in over thirty years. Yet, when he got there, he recognized it immediately, Surprisingly, there was hardly any change at all. There was a bigger and more elaborate dock. Some of the trees he remembered had been cut down, and now there were cottages, on each side of it that had not been there before. The cottage was freshly painted and trimmed in green. Across the lake he saw the same grove of pines, but now the tall sign above it read: Holiday Inn.

  He found the key and went in. Here, everything was unfamiliar. The furniture was cheap maple. The place had a chintzy look, a musty smell. He threw open the curtains to air it out. The telephone was still connected. The Swansons must use the place on weekends.

  He telephoned Ann and told her what he had done. It was his idea, he said, to finish the book there, away from all distractions. She was astonished to find he had rented the same cottage that her father had built years ago. He said he’d had no idea it used to be the Chapin’s
cottage. It was simply a remarkable coincidence; the agent he had spoken to had it listed, and he had taken it.

  “Pete, sometimes I don’t understand you. Why did you do a crazy thing like this, all of a sudden?”

  “Just an impulse.”

  “But the same cottage my father used to own. The place where—well you know. Where it happened. Of all the cottages out there …”

  “I told you, it was just a coincidence.”

  “I know. But just the thought makes me shiver.”

  “Look,” he said. “I decided I’d like a place by the lake, and so I rented one. I thought we’d both enjoy it out there during the summer. But if it bothers you that much, I’ll get rid of it.”

  “I’m sorry, darling,” she said. I guess I’m just being silly.”

  “I’m moving some things out there from town tonight. How about joining me? It looks as though it’s going to be a beautiful weekend.”

  “All right,” she said. “But I can’t get there before eleven o’clock. I’ve got a board meeting at the store. After that, I want to stop in and look at Mother before I come out. She’s been in a terrible state ever since the concert.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Then I’ll expect you late. You know where it is?”

  She sounded surprised. “I ought to. Mother’s pointed it out to me often enough.” Then softly: “You know what, darling?”

  “What?”