Addicted to the Light

by S. E. Amadis

  Eli was Romeo’s father. We’d met at the Holy Blossom Temple, the Reform Shul I used to frequent.

  Lindsay nodded again in understanding.

  “Anyway... It was just me, and Romeo. And then I started seeing a bunch of non-Jewish guys. And I realized, we didn’t need religion. Not at all. On the contrary, religion divides people. People kill in the name of religion and their own petty, selfish gods. And religion kept me from meeting some real cool guys. If I’d been religious I would’ve never gone out with Calvin.”

  Lindsay rammed the last of her quail into her mouth, then searched about her plate with longing eyes.

  “Well, that’s fine for you,” she declared. “But I do feel like I’m missing out on something. I do feel... well, bereft.” She scowled. “Modern life is just so... well, so devoid of spirituality, and a sense of the sacredness in things.”

  She dragged her napkin across her face, then waved about for the young girl.

  “I want dessert,” she exclaimed uncouthly.

  I nudged her with my foot. She burped and giggled.

  The girl laid the merrily-decorated menu down before us.

  “I couldn’t help overhearing,” she began all of a sudden, embarrassed. “But I caught on about that part where you’re searching for a community of spiritually-minded people. Maybe you’d be interested in checking us out? We’re not exactly a church, but we are a group that shares a series of values and interests in common, and...” She smiled shyly. “And we always stand up for each other and help each other out, too. Our philosophy is simple: help whenever we can, hurt no one and take good care of Mother Earth.”

  Lindsay’s jaw dropped open. I waved my hand before her eyes.

  “Well, sounds like a typical ecovillage to me,” I remarked. “They’re very interesting, and I’m sure you do a lot of good for the earth,” I added, smiling at the girl. “But Lindsay, it’s not like she just said she lives in Shangri-La or something, you know.” I flashed a smile at the girl. “No offence meant. It’s just that my friend is going through a tough time, and I’d kind of like her to think things through before—”

  “No need to get so protective of me,” Lindsay shot out. “I’m perfectly capable of making up my own mind about things. And I’m interested.” She turned to the girl. “How can I find out more about you?”

  The girl nodded graciously and slipped a business card under Lindsay’s placemat.

  “That’s our address,” she said. “You can visit us whenever you like. We hold open house banquets every Friday, if you’d like to come.”

  “Would I like to come? Whoo whee! You bet.”

  She leaned back suddenly and started fanning herself with her open palm.

  “Look at what you’ve gone and done to me. All you’ve done is you’ve just made my heart beat at about two hundred.”

  Smirking, she tucked the card into her pocket.

  “It’s like, like this light just went on inside my head all of a sudden or something. Bing! Maybe this is what I’ve been searching for all my life, Ansie.” She turned to the girl. “Thanks for the invite. What’s your name, by the way? And I’d like a cherry crumble,” she added.

  The girl’s smile lit up the whole room.

  “Tikvah.”

  Lindsay nodded, thoughtful.

  “Tikvah. Cool name. Whoo whee. Well, this is like fate and all, man. Well, Tikvah. Who knows? Maybe we’ll even become good friends one day.”

  Chapter 7

  When we’d finished high school, like the strait-laced, straight-A student I’d always been, I’d taken myself off to university. The children of immigrants were used to behaving this way. Ever since our most tender infancy we’d had the lessons of humility and gratitude ground into us dripping with mounds of guilt.

  “When I was your age, I used to have to walk about the damp, snowy streets of Paris in bedroom slippers because my parents didn’t have money to buy me proper shoes,” my mother used to lecture me as her eyes shone with weariness and her skin drooped in premature wrinkles about her jawline. “We couldn’t afford heating either, and I used to spend the winters shivering in thread-bare sweaters. But worst of all,” she continued, shaking her head in sorrow, “I wasn’t able to continue my education.”

  She held up her calloused hands dripping with dishwater.

  “And here you have me, slaving away in the kitchen instead of working out there in the world, earning good money like any other decent citizen.”

  So I shlumpfed myself off to university, not daring to entertain even the possibility of doing anything different.

  However, Lindsay decided she wanted to go off on a “vision quest”. A spiritual journey, her idea of a GAP year, back in those days when GAP years didn’t exist yet.

  So she packed her backpack and spirited herself away to Europe. Occasional postcards depicting craggy mountains and windswept plains enlightened me to the fact that she’d traipsed through Lourdes and Montserrat. Trudged the toes off her running shoes along St. James’s Way and marvelled over the blues of Chartres Cathedral.

  “But the most fascinating experience,” she confided to me as we lay in the park on a cloudless day after her return, “was the week I spent in cloistered meditation in a monastery in Spain. For one whole week, all I did was meditate, pray and observe the stained glass and statues. I had no one to talk to, so I had plenty of time to sit around and think about the meaning of life, and where I was going.”

  She grinned.

  “Unfortunately, the week passed by in a blur, and then I had to clear out so other pilgrims could take my place.”

  She sighed.

  “Ever since then, it seems the only thing I dream of is to regain that sense of complete and utter peace. That stillness. That sensation of time standing in limbo, and me posed in the middle of it in the vacuum of all eternity.”

  I stared at her in amazement.

  “Lindsay Johnson, I never knew you had it in you. So much mysticism and reflexion. So why didn’t you join a religious order or something?”

  Lindsay batted at me.

  “Me? You kidding me or what? Normally I can’t sit still for five minutes. What was I going to do, spend the rest of my life in motionless meditation?”

  I gasped. “But you just said...”

  She waved her hand in the air as if dismissing something.

  “Ach, don’t mind me, Annie. For one week it was great. Incredible. But for the rest of my life? Bah. Too ridiculous to even contemplate.”

  *

  Now we stumbled towards Lindsay’s car, tripping over our high heels and giggling like schoolchildren at a circus.

  “What was that all about?” I exclaimed. “What’s the matter? I’m not a good enough friend for you or something? So now you’re going to become bosom buddies with a girl you just met? That you’ll probably never see again? And forget all about me?”

  I couldn’t help but ogle at Lindsay like she’d just lost her mind.

  “Or do you say this sort of thing to everyone that you just met?”

  “Cool off, Annie.” Lindsay pushed me on the shoulder in one of her usual affectionate gestures. “Don’t you go turning into some sort of jealous freak or something. I was just trying to be friendly.”

  I shrugged.

  “Well, I got the impression she was trying to lure you in or something like that.”

  Lindsay graced me with her characteristic wide-eyed dolly look.

  “Lure me in? Lure me in where?”

  I waved my hands in the air.

  “Well, into their ecovillage, or whatever. Maybe they’re recruiting more members. Maybe they’re trying to overrun the world. Maybe they want everyone to go back to the land.”

  “Or maybe she was just trying to be friendly.”

  We reached Lindsay’s car and she snatched at the door handle.

  “Jeez, Annie. Do you have to be so paranoid? Ever since that thing with Hugh and Ursula...”

  “Yeah, so now I’m a basket case.�
�

  Lindsay shrugged.

  “Well, don’t want to sound blunt but maybe you are a bit more traumatized than you imagined. Are you still seeing that shrink?”

  I swiped angrily at the door handle on my side of the car.

  “She’s not a shrink. She’s a therapist.”

  “Well, are you still seeing that therapist, then?” She slid into her car seat appearing cool and unruffled, then patted the seat next to her. “Come on, Annie, get in. What’re you waiting for?”

  I fumed for a minute, then slipped in next to her. She fiddled with her radio dial and put on something mellow.

  “I hate this chill-out rubbish,” I said.

  “Yeah, shows.”

  Lindsay shoved her car key into the ignition with verve.

  “That’s why you’re always so strung-up and stressed-out, I’m sure. Now, I’m not saying those are bad qualities for an aggressive, go-out-and-get-it entrepreneur, mind you.”

  She started up the car and pulled away from the kerb, idling a slow path back towards the Queen Elizabeth Way.

  “But maybe in your personal life, you should just... well, you know, chill out more. Relax a bit. Be more trusting.”

  All the same, I was relieved to arrive at home and hug Calvin and Romeo close to me. I didn’t think anything more would come out of our illicit, slightly-naughty schoolgirl escapade to Niagara Falls.

  But then again, I’d never made it as a successful fortune teller either.

  *

  The next month was a whirlwind of activity and Lindsay almost never crossed my mind. I finally signed on my first two clients. I would’ve gone all out and celebrated, but I was too busy scrambling to prepare convincing portfolios for them. I didn’t want to let on that they were my very first clients in the whole wide world and I had never done this before. Although I didn’t doubt I was more than qualified for the task.

  My main responsibility consisted of striding through my clients’ offices in my two-inch stilettos, trying to look and sound like a pro, and making lists of everything that was going wrong in the installations. After years of slaving away in the most misery-inducing office environments you could imagine, that task proved to be a cinch.

  From too-cool, too-blue fluorescent lighting to an awkward office furniture arrangement that, in one instance, had the receptionist sitting with her back turned towards the main office, so that all personnel approaching her always caught her by surprise and made her jump. These undesired interruptions caused her to forget what she was up to, which made her come across as scatter-brained and disorganized when, in fact, the truth was simply that her nerves were shattered. We turned her desk so that she had a partial view of the main office at all times and voilà! Problem solved.

  I was so busy racking up triumphant testimonials on my website and posting them to my walls that I didn’t realize at first that it had been days since Lindsay had answered her phone.

  *

  So caught up was I with my exhilarating new life that before I realized it, I found I’d missed my weekly outings with Lindsay for almost a month. At last, one Friday evening after work, I jumped onto the Queen Street streetcar — a bit contritely, I had to admit — and dove eastwards down to Lindsay’s neck of the woods in the East End.

  Her brand new Honda wasn’t sitting, as I’d expected, in the parking space of her building. I wondered how come she’d go off on an adventure without telling me.

  Or perhaps she was just using it to show a house to a client.

  Dashing up the stairs to her second-floor apartment, I rang at her doorbell. Instead of Lindsay, a strange youth, barely out of his teens and looking very much like a gawky university student, opened up.

  I stared at him, mystified.

  I had met her new boyfriend, Grant, a few times, and I knew that like her, he was in his early thirties. No way would Lindsay be sleeping around behind his back with a guy ten years her junior. They just weren’t her type.

  “Where’s Lindsay?” I said.

  The university student gaped at me.

  “Huh?” He rubbed at his coke-bottle, horn-rimmed glasses that made him look like an overgrown Harry Potter.

  “Lindsay. The girl who lives here. Where is she?”

  The boy yawned. “I live here.”

  I shook my head. “You can’t live here. This is Lindsay’s apartment.”

  The boy slipped behind his door and eased it almost shut. “Not since yesterday it isn’t.”

  He slammed the door in my face. I rang again, but he ignored me.

  “Hey, wait!” I cried. “Can you at least tell me, do you know Lindsay?”

  A howl went up behind the door. A howl of exasperation.

  “Leave a hard-working guy alone, will ya? Never heard of her before.”

  I stormed from the building. I had no idea what to do now. Lindsay was my best friend. She’d saved my life, not once but twice.

  I couldn’t live without her. There was no way she’d just take off without letting me know. I had to find her.

  Chapter 8

  The first, obvious thing I did, of course, was dial her cell phone again. It kept going to voice mail. I dialled her landline as well. It had been years since she’d used her landline, but I knew the number. Almost immediately a tinny, robotic voice informed me that her number no longer existed.

  I was about to head home. But then I remembered her mother.

  I didn’t think showing up on her mother’s doorstep unexpectedly and uninvited at ten o’clock on a Friday night was the best action to take, but I was desperate enough to take it. So I caught a bus out to the suburban town where her mother lived. I couldn’t remember the address, but I remembered the house.

  Debbie Johnson was so surprised to see me she stepped backwards and grasped at her throat. But then the well-cultivated manners of a suburbanite stepped in, and she ushered me into her living-room with the graciousness of a natural-born hostess. She indicated the sofa and refused to let me utter a single word until she’d laid a tray of tea and biscuits on the table in front of us.

  “So, Annasuya, what can I do for you?” She adjusted her reading glasses on her nose delicately, then took them off and laid them on the table. “It is Annasuya, isn’t it? The mother of that most delightful little birthday boy?”

  “Mrs Johnson, it’s Lindsay,” I blurted out bluntly. “I can’t find her. Do you know where she is?”

  Debbie leaned backwards, a blush of pleasure suddenly spreading itself across her cheeks.

  “Of course I do.” She beamed at me. “I am her mother, after all. Oh, don’t worry about it, dearie,” she hastened to add, waving her hand at me. “Here, have a pastry.”

  She shoved a mug of tea into my hands and nudged the plate of pastries beneath my nose.

  “I always bake pastries for my sisters, since they come to visit quite often.”

  I opened my mouth to speak again, but she reached over and pressed a finger against my lips, discreetly.

  “Not another word, dearie, until you’ve tried my home baking. So. What do you think?”

  I was raring to get on with it. But I realized I wouldn’t peel a single word more out of her if I didn’t do as she said. Reluctantly, I nibbled at a pale-coloured half-moon. The exquisite flavour of melt-in-your-mouth creamy butteriness surprised me.

  “You’re an amazing cook, Mrs Johnson,” I exclaimed. “But could we—”

  Mrs Johnson smirked and raised her hand. “It’s Debbie, not Mrs Johnson. You do remember, don’t you?”

  I nodded, bouncing up and down on the sofa. “You were going to tell me about Lindsay?”

  Debbie placed her glasses on her nose with exasperating slowness and peered at me over the frames.

  “Why, Lindsay’s met the most delightful people and gone to live with them, of course,” she explained at last. “Turned her life around completely. An ecological community, I think she said. Back to the land and all that ideology. I’m glad she’s finally found something worthw
hile to support.”

  The blood drained from my face and I felt myself grow cold all over.

  “She can’t! She didn’t even say a thing to me. She wouldn’t do this,” I murmured.

  Debbie fanned at herself with her hands and laid a reassuring hand over mine.

  “Well, you know. Maybe you weren’t as close as you thought you were.”

  Noticing what was probably a stunned, stricken look in my eyes, she stroked the back of my hand consolingly.

  “Yes, they definitely struck me as pure, God-fearing folk. Nothing to worry about. At last I’m glad Lindsay’s finally decided to embrace our lord Jesus Christ and take him into her heart. Even if it isn’t with my folk. But the Lord is the Lord and God is God no matter what form he takes, right? So I don’t mind if he comes to us through his Witnesses or through this group... now what was their name? I can’t quite remember... Something evangelistic, I do believe.”

  She sauntered over to a side table and began flipping through papers in a drawer.

  “Ah, yes. Here they are. The Heart of Christ. They try to live the way people used to live during biblical times. They wear homemade dresses, use as few electrical appliances as possible, shun technology and telephones and computers, that sort of thing.”

  Debbie beamed at me.

  “But I’m glad she’s finally found the right path for her. A path filled with the lord Jesus Christ at its head.”

  I gulped, feeling weak and lightheaded.

  “Are... are you at least in contact with her, Mrs Johnson... Debbie?” I tried to appear calm although deep inside I was crying.

  I loved Lindsay with all my heart. She was like a sister to me. I couldn’t lose her, just like that. How could she turn her back on me so easily? Suddenly I noticed Debbie flipping through more papers.