A Glittering Chaos

by de Nikolits, Lisa

  “You haven’t lost your wife, Hans. You manifested her affair with this man because it’s what you needed right now. You can’t blame her. You brought this situation into your life.”

  This makes Hans angry. “I did not make this affair happen,” he says and his mouth is grim. “Don’t be stupid. That’s just a stupid thing to say.” He does not care that he is being rude to her.

  She is unmoved by his anger. “Every action in life, every encounter, every person, every single thing; all of it is manifested by our soul-selves because the soul wants to evolve and develop and grow. Your soul, which is you, makes these things happen in order for growth to occur. But the ego fears this evolution and does everything it can to stop the healing.

  “For example, take your situation with your wife. You wanted to come on this trip alone. You couldn’t accommodate her needs. Also, perhaps you wanted to see how you would feel if she had an affair. Perhaps you’ve felt unworthy of her love all along and you wanted to prove this to be true. I can’t know exactly why your soul called out for this lesson but it did. And now, you are torn. One the one hand your ego is calling for hatred, vengeance, and bitterness. But the soul, which is love, wants to forgive. You feel that you failed your wife and that’s why she’s having the affair, don’t you? And you hate yourself.”

  “Yes!” Hans cries out.

  “Forgive yourself, Hans. Say ‘I forgive myself for my wife’s affair. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t my fault, I wish to learn compassion and tolerance with this lesson’.”

  Hans puts down his teacup and opens his mouth but the words won’t come out. “I can’t.” A sense of great weariness fills him, along with a great rage that drains him. “Listen Juditha, thank you but I can see this isn’t for me. All these things you’re talking about, I’m sorry but they’re just not me, and I can’t do it.” He puts on his shoes and stands up and she also rises to her feet.

  “Hans, I understand that all of this feels wrong and new and very frightening. I do know. If, tomorrow, you wish to continue, you know where I am and I’d very much like to help you, please, know that. You’re a good man, a man in a tremendous amount of pain and I’m here for you if you’ll let me be.”

  He nods. He cannot look at her. All he wants is to be away from her.

  He is more tired than he can ever remember being.

  “Before you go,” she says, “one more thing. A world of love does exist, Hans. And it’s waiting for you and it will wait as long as you need it to. It’s not going anywhere.”

  “Yes, good,” he says and he rushes towards the door and out into the hallway.

  He feels so foolish, so stupid, so incredibly vulnerable. He feels ashamed, as if he has some dirty secret to hide and he just wants to pretend that the meeting with Juditha never happened.

  He goes back down to the bar and then changes his mind. He does not want to go where they met. He heads out into the night; the Fremont’s in full swing and Hans goes into the nearest bar and orders a bottle of red wine, mindless of the vintage. He settles down to drink, watching the passersby. He does not think about Melusine; his mind is spinning with his conversation with Juditha.

  He is disappointed. He does not want to lie on a couch and talk about his childhood. God knows there’s enough crap there to keep a convention of analysts in business for decades but he isn’t interested in that. He is a ghost in the stage production of his own life and he has no interest in playing a lead role; he has already accepted that. But even his ghost-self needs some release from all the chains that bind him.

  He laughs silently. Ghosts and chains. He is thinking like a crazy person.

  He drinks the bottle of wine steadily, and soon it’s gone. He switches to brandy and, to his surprise, he finds that he is missing Juditha. He is sorry he rushed out of her room. She was kind and soothing and he enjoyed being around her, even if she was making no sense to him and asking him to do impossible things.

  Forgive himself. What a cliché. Be at one with his soul. He laughs out loud. What a crock of shit that is. Dismantle the ego. Couldn’t she think of anything more original?

  He decides to go back to his room and carry on drinking there.

  He is unsteady on his feet and he picks his way slowly back to his hotel.

  Once he is inside his room, he sheds his clothes and opens the second bottle of wine that he bought from the bar before he left. He stands in front of the mirror, naked, drinking from the bottle. “What a piece of work is a man,” he says, “how pathetic, how fundamentally useless.”

  He sits down on the bed with a thump. He suddenly, bird’s eye view, sees himself in the car with his family; he is a small boy in his red bomber jacket, snuggling next to Kateri and he is worrying, under those passing lights, about the colours being unreliable. Where has the red gone?

  He feels the full weight of his childish anxiety and he feels a rush of love and sadness for the boy that he was and he wants to tell the boy that everything will be fine.

  But it will not be fine. It never was and it never will be.

  He reaches for his ligature and fumbles for his penis. But he falls asleep before he can do anything and he wakes the next morning feeling hungover and alone. He is deserted; there’s no one who can help him, no one who can understand.

  He looks at himself in the mirror, his eyes are bloodshot and his thinning hair is sticking up in all directions. He drags himself up to the swimming pool so he does not have to be alone. He falls into a doze and when he wakes, he knows he is going back to see Juditha.

  He goes back to the room, has a shower and puts on a suit. He wants to look in control.

  He passes the man with the crystal bowls in the convention centre and the man gives him another leaflet for a different show.

  “Come tonight,” the man urges him and Hans says he’ll try.

  Juditha is standing outside her tent. She senses his approach and smiles, clearly glad to see him. He’s gratified that she cares, and a warmth fills his belly.

  She is with a client who is talking non-stop and she signals for Hans to wait.

  He sits down outside her tent and watches the surrounding vendors. One of them lights a stick of incense and the smell wafts close to Hans, making his nose feel itchy.

  The talkative woman finally leaves and Juditha motions Hans to come inside the tent with her. She closes the tent opening and as soon as they are seated, she takes his hands in hers.

  “I’m so very glad to see you,” she says, “you have no idea.”

  He smiles at her. “Can we start over again?”

  She nods. “I’m free now for half an hour.”

  “Hans,” she says, “I’m sorry I rushed you last night. I overwhelmed you.”

  “No. I was wrong. I can’t expect results unless I do some work too and help you. I was just hoping it would be easier.”

  They both laugh. “Yes,” Juditha agrees, “easier is always nicer. But not realistic. So tell me about her, Hans. Tell me about Kateri. Every single thing you can remember, leave nothing out and also, tell me as much as you can about the day she disappeared.”

  “I don’t remember much about that day. It’s all such a blur. But I’ll tell you everything I can.”

  He tells her the truth about Kateri; how he loved her, not as a brother but as a lover. How he wanted to be with Kateri all of his life, and have adventures with her and there would be no world beyond the two of them. He describes Kateri’s beauty and her ethereal poetic nature. He tells Juditha everything he can remember, about Kateri’s clothes, the books she read, and the way her room was decorated.

  And the tree house, the precious tree house.

  He describes their hometown in detail, the school that he and Kateri attended, the playing fields, the stores where they bought their groceries, the movie theatre and the skating rink. He describes how he left the town as soon as he could and never returned except once, online, for a class reunion that showed him how far he had fallen into the abyss of addiction an
d loneliness.

  And then he backtracks and tells her about the day Kateri vanished but the details are sketchy. “I just can’t remember,” he slaps his knee with frustration. “I could never remember. It drives me crazy.”

  He tells her about the police investigation and the departure of his father, and how he had not so much suspected his father as been out of his mind with grief and rage.

  “I never saw my father again. I never wanted to. That thing about him marrying my mother when she was fourteen turned my stomach, and I could never look at him again. Which was hypocritical of me if you think about how I felt about Kateri. Maybe I hated him for being able to do what I couldn’t. Anyway, I never spoke to him again and my mother died while I was at university and so I don’t have any family left, unless you count Melusine and Jonas.”

  “And you can’t recall what you did or where you were, the day Kateri vanished?”

  He shakes his head.

  Juditha looks at her watch. “I’ve got an idea that might help. But I have to go now, to luncheon with a friend but are you keen to continue tonight?”

  “Yes. The more we do the better. Juditha, we need to discuss money, that old thing.”

  She names an hourly figure which, in another time and place, he would have found exorbitant but he happily agrees.

  “We’re going to need to talk every day, once you get back to Germany. We’re going to work together on this, Hans and I’m going to help you. No matter how long it takes, and Hans, you need to know, it won’t be a quick thing. Because as you’ve gathered, I can’t simply look into a crystal ball or read some tea leaves and tell you where Kateri is or how she’s doing and anybody here who claims to be able to do that is a charlatan, believe me.”

  He agrees with enthusiasm. “You wouldn’t believe some of the people I’ve spoken to here,” he says and is about to elaborate when she interrupts him.

  “Be that as it may,” she says, and Hans feels reprimanded, as if he’d been caught in school, passing a crude drawing of the teacher.

  “The idea I had for later is this but you may find it alarming.”

  He sits up straighter.

  “I’d like to hypnotize you tonight. I’ll record the entire session so you can hear everything. I believe there may be things that you do recall but they’re hidden so deep that you don’t even know they’re there.”

  He readily agrees. He had considered this option before but he had had no idea how to find a reputable hypnotherapist and it had gone no further.

  He leaves the tent, feeling calm and centred. He goes over to chat to the crystal bowl man and buys a copy of the Celestial Sound Vibrations CD.

  Then he has lunch and returns to the pool to soak up the sunshine, eager to see Juditha again. He feels excited and hopeful.

  14.

  LATER THAT NIGHT, he is once again lying on her sofa with his shoes off and his eyes closed. The air is filled with the fragrance of flower essences.

  She hypnotizes him and he wakes an hour later.

  “So,” he says, sitting up, keen to hear good news, “did I say anything new?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m sorry Hans. I thought it would work but there wasn’t anything.”

  He is very disappointed. “I’m sorry too,” he says.

  “We’ll just keep trying with one thing and another. We’ll pursue every avenue we can.” She thinks for a moment. “Hans, do you have any items of Kateri’s clothing with you? I know it’s most unlikely that you would, but even just a picture of her? Or of your family perhaps?”

  He swallows his disappointment and nods. “Yes, I brought lots of things. I can go and get them now.”

  “No hurry. We’ve done enough work for one night. Let’s resume tomorrow, how does that sound?”

  “But I have to leave in the morning. I’ll get them for you now.”

  He rushes up to his room and retrieves a treasured lock of Kateri’s hair, a picture of the family when Hans was about fourteen, and a blouse that Kateri had loved.

  He gets back to Juditha and gives her the items and she handles them with reverence.

  “Don’t worry, Hans,” she says, “I’ll look after these with great care. They might be the key that will help us open the door to her whereabouts.”

  “Juditha, you have no idea how grateful I am that we’ve met. And I’ll try to do the things you need me to. I can’t do all that love and forgiveness stuff but I’ll do my best to do whatever you need.”

  “You may find,” she takes his hands in hers, “that love, peace and forgiveness follow as a consequence of our work. You don’t have to do anything, Hans, you just have to be. This may be the hardest thing for you to believe but every single thing is exactly as it should be right now.”

  And he believes her because at that moment, it feels that way to him too. They make arrangements to begin their daily sessions when he returns to Germany and Juditha hugs Hans lightly.

  She is very slender under her loose clothing, almost bony and he wants to stay within her embrace for longer but she pulls away. “Juditha,” he says, “I’ve never asked you. Where do you live?”

  She laughs. “Cleveland, Ohio. Not the most glamorous place in the world.”

  “And do you have family?”

  “I’ve got a sister. And funnily enough Hans, I have family in Germany too. But they live in Berlin.”

  “You could come to Germany and see them and visit me,” Hans speaks like a child, filled with enthusiasm. He cannot bear to think that he might never see her again.

  “That’s a wonderful idea. Who knows, it may even happen.”

  “I’m worried that when I leave this room, you’ll vanish. I’m afraid that all of this has been a magical trick, just like the red of my jacket that disappeared under the yellow light.”

  “But the red was always there,” she reminds him, “it only looked different for a little while. And when you leave here, your world will look lonely for a bit too but we’ll soon be talking again and it’ll be just like it is now, with you and me together.”

  He smiles.

  “Oh, and Hans, before you go, I wanted to say this. Try to forgive your wife. Remember, like it or not, you were responsible for her infidelity too. Try to see her as a woman who needed love and it came to her at a time when you could not be there for her.”

  “If she is still my wife…” He is bitter. “Who knows? Maybe she ran off with that fellow.”

  “Of course, she’s still your wife, Hans. She’s like the red coat too; her being with that other man was an impermanent change. You and she have a life, a real life. Vegas isn’t real life.”

  He shrugs. “I’ll try. But right now, I don’t care about her at all. I don’t care if I never see her again.”

  “That’s your hurt ego talking, Hans. Try to reach out from a place of love and compassion for her actions. I know you can. Losing her would cause you a great deal of pain. Go now, sleep and rest. You’ve done a lot of work tonight and you’re very tired. It’s hard to think straight when you’re tired. All I’m saying is be careful, don’t throw away your jacket because a passing light caused you to doubt it.”

  “I’m getting sick of that jacket,” he grumbles, “let’s stop talking about it, okay?”

  But he does see what she is trying to tell him. “I’ll do my best,” he assures her and he makes to leave.

  “I’m always here for you, Hans,” she says, knowing what he is thinking; that she too will vanish. “You have my word.”

  He tries to smile and he leaves.

  He feels utterly spent. It is as if the past few days were a hallucination or a troubled dream. He has difficulty making sense of anything.

  He has a hot shower when he gets back to his room and falls into bed. His sleep is filled with strange visions and he tosses and turns, waking and lying there, thinking. He finally falls into a restless doze and when he wakes, he is ravenous.

  He eats a generous breakfast and has a swim in the pool. He begins to thi
nk about Melusine and he suddenly worries that she will not be at the hotel upon his return.

  He had thought that he no longer cared about her and he is surprised to find that he does.

  He does not believe Juditha when she says they will keep in touch; he feels as if she is lost to him and he cannot imagine losing Melusine too.

  He rushes back to his room, packs and checks out. Then he takes a cab to the Desert Rose Resort. She is not there and he has no way of knowing where she is. She has been shopping, and there are bags of trinkets and souvenirs everywhere. He is glad to see these signs of normalcy and he settles down to wait for her.

  15.

  MELUSINE OPENS THE DOOR and sees Hans sitting on the sofa. He has his feet up on the table and is flicking through the TV channels. While she tries to sort through her emotions, she thinks, with some surprise, that he is still a good-looking man. And even though it has only been a couple of days since she has seen him, he has gained a little weight, enough to have filled him out somewhat and his colour looks healthier. There is an awkward silence.

  “Hello,” Melusine says, and her voice sounds strained. “So the conference went well in the end?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Hans is formal. “It was fine. A lot of work but we managed to have a few outdoor lunches and such. As you can see, I, like you, got a bit of a tan.”

  “I’m glad it went well,” she says and they look at each other.

  Hans knows the ball is in his court to make things right. He cannot lose her. And while he cannot view her with the tolerance and forgiveness that Juditha thinks he can and should, he can smooth out the surface tensions and get things back to some kind of normal. “I’m sorry I left you alone so much,” he says. “I got caught up in things. I was busier than I thought I’d be. I’m sorry.”

  They both know this is a lie.

  You were gone for two nights. No one is that busy.

  She also knows it is a lie that he is sorry. He has never been sorry for anything.

  She looks down at the floor. “Don’t worry,” she says, “I kept myself entertained.”