Last Call For Caviar

by Melissa Roen

  Local legends say the Madonna works miracles at Laghet. People have been going there for about four hundred years to be healed, to find solace and peace in her grace. I don’t know if it’s true. But some energy keeps drawing me back there. So often, in fact, some of the sisters of the Dominican order that tends the sanctuary—I think of them as nymphs of the evening in the Garden of Hesperidia—look on me as a likely convert, and coquettishly asked if I desire to have a deeper relationship with the Seigneur.

  As I once explained to Sister Marie-Timotee, I think there are many ways to the light. I’m not locked into one spiritual belief system, though I am quite drawn to the idea that through forgiveness we can find redemption. I admire the nuns’ generosity of spirit and sincere welcome to troubled souls, regardless of their faith. I don’t think it matters which path we take—whether it be Buddhism, Islam, Judeo-Christianity or any of the multitudes of the world’s faiths—as long as we are going towards the same source, the same light.

  Sister Marie-Timotee couldn’t really agree with my logic and made me say twenty Hail Mary’s to show I was playing in her house. But that exchange put to rest any ideas of measuring me for a habit and cowl.

  For some reason I can’t explain, here at Laghet is where I feel close to the ones who’ve passed over. I’ve lit a thousand candles so their souls can find peace, because here is where I thought they should rest. I promised to visit often, to hold them always in my heart.

  When all the old ghosts of my past were finally distracted, kicking back and enjoying the serenity of the sanctuary, I would steal away, jump in Jean Paul’s taxi and race back down the hill to my home, leaving behind those dearly departed where they belonged.

  But damned if those sneaky souls didn’t, one by one, find their way back. Within days of dropping them off, there they were, haunting my dreams again. I kept hauling their tired old asses up that hill, but they kept crowding back in. I guess it’s survivor’s guilt, but I’ve been carrying their weight for so long. Now, like an old mule who’s been their beast of burden, I just want them to leave me alone.

  It’s always during the last kilometer of the trek where I feel as if I’m struggling through a membrane of weird energy. Especially if I’ve come here in the last dying rays of a winter’s twilight, the barren branches stark against the sky, I imagine myself like Frodo and Sam, passing through the lands of Mordor. It’s not as though there are Orcs or Goblins to bar my way, but bleakness, a sort of sadness of the soul, lays heavy on the land.

  People and pets become more aggressive here; dogs lunge at their fences, snarling in fury; drivers pass each other recklessly. On several occasions, I’ve come within a hairsbreadth of being sideswiped by a car coming up fast from behind, a blast of car horns and shouted curses making me jump to the safety of the shoulder.

  The air always feels colder on the final approach to Laghet, the chill and dampness seeping into your bones. It feels like something old and malevolent must still curse the land.

  As soon as I step foot into the valley that shelters Laghet, the sunshine and peace come flooding in, dissipating the chill in my soul. Typically, I first visit the crypt in the shadowy grotto at the foot of the sanctuary’s walls to light my candles in front of the altar before the statue of the Madonna. Like so many other supplicants, I’ve taped up photographs of those I hold dear, on the rough-hewn stone walls, amidst the cast-off crutches and other mementoes attesting to healing experienced and blessings received.

  I place a white candle in front of the picture of Julian. In the flickering candlelight, his amber-flecked green eyes are lit by an inner glow. Against the smoothness of his golden skin, I trace the line of his nose, the curve of his sensuous lips, the light stubble that shadows his strong jaw line. Photographs are all I have left of this flesh-and-blood man, and one day I fear they will fade like the memories I still cherish of our moment in time.

  Lighting candles and praying are magical rituals, whether sanctioned by the Holy Church of Rome, or practiced by a priestess in a voodoo temple. There isn’t a whole lot of difference: supplicants pray before statues of saints and icons, burn incense to dispel or summon unholy spirits, and bargain with their gods.

  Today, I leave the grotto and climb the worn stone stairs that lead into the sanctuary walls, following the corridor to the chapel. I wish it were time for the evening service of Compline; the lilting voices of the Sisters lifted in harmonious praise of their lord always fills me with peace. It’s too dangerous to be out on these roads on foot at night, and even though it’s daylight on hallowed grounds, I’ve got my Glock hidden in my bag.

  I enter the dim interior of the chapel and dip my fingers in the holy water before making the sign of the cross. I take in the richly decorated walls and columns covered in an intricate trompe l’oeil of faux marble, paintings of saints, and other symbols of God and power. My eyes are drawn towards the statue of Notre Dame, and inevitably upward, following the line of the architectural sleight of hand, towards the soaring vault overhead.

  A faint trace of incense from the last Mass still lingers, and the air around the shadowed altar amid the flickering flames of the votive candles is thick with the rustling spirits of old. As always, I feel these spirits’ weight and my vision swims for an instant. There is a very ancient mystery here, housed within walls men have built. I stay for an hour in contemplation, laying down my burden of sorrow and confusion at the Seigneur’s feet, as the sisters taught me.

  Half an hour later, I climb out of the valley, following the trail along the ridge, looking for the switchback that ascends to the old observatory, the Astrarama.

  I don’t know what it was I felt at Laghet, but when I was troubled, I was drawn there. There is an ancient power in residence, healing to any who are enfolded in its embrace. The Sisters believe this healing light comes from the divine intervention of Notre Dame de Laghet.

  I think there are sacred sites like Laghet scattered across our globe, pulsing with the light and energy of the universe. Mankind has built temples on these sites and created religions to harness and channel this immense power.

  To me, God and the universe are one and the same. Everything under creation, whether sentient or non-sentient, comes from the same source, the same spark of light of creation and expansion that has existed since the dawn of time.

  I don’t need the walls of a church or the ritual of religion to feel connected to God, though at times, in places like Laghet, the walls and the rituals do bring comfort. I see the face of God across the skies. I feel Him when I swim in the clear waters of the sea, climb through these hills surrounded only by nature, or when I scan the heavens on a moonless night through the lens of a telescope.

  Then, I feel the world sing to me, and I hear and understand its song.

  CHAPTER 8

  THE HERALD

  The rutted lane that led to the Astrarama from the Grande Corniche was partially buried under a small landslide of dirt and stones that washed down the hillside after the winter storms. Even if you dared to explore, potholes and debris would be hell on tires and the undercarriage of anything less than a four-wheel drive.

  Built on high ground above the Grande Corniche, isolated from any habitation and the distortion of city lights, the Astrarama was the perfect spot to stargaze.

  I remember summer nights, the warm air caressing my skin and my hair streaming in the wind, as I rode behind Julian on his Ducati, my arms tight around his waist, my head resting on his broad shoulder as we leaned into the curves that led towards the sky. The echo of remembered laughter and shared bottles of sweet wine, while we peered through a telescope at nebulas and star clusters light years away; this place held the fading impressions of those memories still.

  Walking down the rutted lane towards the Astrarama, I remember that it was here last summer I saw Sawaka Sahur, the Herald, as it passed through our solar system. For months, the whole world watched in fascination as the luminous oval of Sawaka Sahur—a glowing blue comet extending twenty li
ght years in its wake—blazed across our skies. In the day, it burned almost as bright as the sun.

  The Hopi Prophecies foretell that when the Blue Star Kachina—Sawaka Sahur—appears in our skies, it heralds the imminent arrival of the Red Star Kachina, whom they call the Purifier. The Hopi Elders say that the Red Star has come to judge if we’ve been good custodians of the Earth and have kept to the sacred ways. The Purifier is the instrument that will bring about the destruction of the Fourth World—our present-day world.

  The Hopi Elders say the Purification will last seven years, and we will know the Purification has begun when one morning the whole world awakes to the Red Dawn. The sky will be the color of blood.

  I was fascinated by the histories of the North and Central American Indian tribes, ever since I first read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee in high school, when I was growing up in California. After that first class, I read extensively, intrigued by their history, mythology and beliefs. Many of these tribes, like the Olmecs, who built the pyramids of Teotihuacan in a mathematically precise model of our solar system, were master astronomers. The legends and belief systems of Mayan, Aztec, Hopi, Pueblo, Anasazi Indians, among others, spoke of visitors from the stars and their influence on the fate of mankind.

  Though I admit I’m also a bit of a science nerd. I often start my day checking out blogs dedicated to astronomy, physics and the question of alien life forms on other planets. (My favorite is “I Love Fucking Science.”)

  So after my first sighting of what might be the Blue Star Kachina from Hopi legend, I scoured the internet, reading anything I could find about this extraordinary astronomical event. Scientists worldwide studied this comet, and speculation was rampant on the consequences for earth and mankind.

  NASA scientists say that Sawaka Sahur had sailed forth from a dwarf galaxy located between the southern constellations of Dorado and Mensa in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The light, when the blue supergiant went supernova, left the galaxy about 160,000 years ago and finally reached Earth last summer.

  Some “experts” made mind-boggling claims, such as that the radiation from the intense blast of neutrinos was estimated at one hundred times the intensity of what our sun will radiate during its entire ten-billion-year existence. Other scientists upped the ante and speculated that the radiation released was as much as the combined radiation from all the stars and galaxies in the visible universe.

  The more esoteric articles I read argued that the staggering bombardment of cosmic energy released by the explosion of Sawaka Sahur—immense shockwaves of cosmic particles, infrared and ultraviolet radiation, gamma rays and x-rays—was affecting both the physical and metaphysical world, altering the electromagnetic matrix of our planetary grid, disturbing the delicate balance of earth’s vibratory center and vortexes and mutating on our DNA.

  Whether you believed there was any truth in the old legends of indigenous American tribes and their prediction of a giant, punishing celestial object in the sky—or that the appearance of the Blue Star confirmed the Hopi revelation—something was destabilizing our planet, and maybe it was, as the prophecies foretold, coming from the stars.

  I was first drawn to the mystery of the stars the summer when I was nineteen, two years before I came to France to study. I was going to the university in California, and I went over summer break to visit my big sis in Las Vegas.

  About ninety miles north of downtown Las Vegas is Dreamland, though no road signs indicate its location or its presence, shimmering like a mirage behind a veil of mystery and rumors atop the salt flats of Groom Lake.

  You may know Dreamland by its other names: Paradise Ranch, The Box, The Extraterrestrial Highway or simply—Area 51. Officially, it’s the test site for experimental aircraft and weapons systems developed by the highly classified military and defense program, innocuously called Special Access Program. Shrouded by such intense secrecy, the U.S. government did not even acknowledge its existence until July 2003, though they had been running research projects and developing military aircraft out of there since the fifties. The CIA considered no place on earth as sensitive as the area around Groom Lake.

  Lots of hinky stuff was said to happen here: disappearing landing strips, which appear only when chemicals are sprayed on their camouflaged surfaces; crashed and stranded alien space craft, whose survivors were probed and studied in underground laboratories; whispers of weird science and research into weather control, time-walking and worm holes. Star Wars weaponry and visitors from distant galaxies were said to be housed here. Indeed, Area 51 is purportedly the hub of a subterranean transcontinental railroad that connects a vast network of top-secret facilities devoted to reverse-engineering alien technologies.

  Stories of weird lights moving at unheard-of velocities, maneuvering at angles that defy the aerodynamics of conventional aircraft, only nourish the stories of alien “captives” and strange doings. All this myth and secrecy was too damned intriguing to resist. So one night, I went with a group of friends to see if we could get close and see for ourselves if any of these rumors were true.

  For the adventure, it seemed appropriate to enhance our wanderings along those dark desert roads with a few fat buds of Acapulco Gold. After a couple of tokes, we were definitely open to welcoming strangers to our strange land.

  I never knew that the night could feel so alive, like one vast organism, or that it could hold so many shades and textures—from the deep purple of shadows to hollows of indigo blue.

  The starlight etched the saguaro cactuses against the starry sky, and the faces of my friends seemed to be dusted by a fine iridescent powder. The Milky Way was a gauzy mist flung across a black velvet vault, as the stars winked on and off. Occasionally, a shooting star plummeted across the midnight sky like a fallen angel.

  Even though I was surrounded by friends, as I lay on the hood of the car, scanning the heavens above, I felt alone in that vast, ancient emptiness of desert and night sky. Experiencing their immensity and power, and recognizing how little we knew, anything seemed possible. I felt like I was falling upward into the infinite sky. In that moment, I wished more than anything for a telescope to explore the heavens that hung before my eyes; my love of stargazing was born.

  Needless to say, we never got very close to Area 51 or made the acquaintance of visitors from faraway worlds. But we did meet the private security personnel who patrolled the perimeters of Dreamland—shadowy figures who kept us pinned in the glare of spotlights while they called the Lincoln County Sheriffs to run off another group of spaced-out tourists looking for extraterrestrials.

  I shook off my memories of wandering on distant desert roads and moved cautiously down the path towards the Astrarama.

  Only the sigh of the wind broke the stillness as I approached the observatory; the sand-colored walls of the building, storage shed and garage blended into the vegetation and rock formations of the peak. I strode across the large viewing deck that seemed to hang suspended over the crags and scrub brush; the world spread out before me, endless sea merging into the sky.

  I checked to see if the key to the padlocked metal double doors was still hidden behind a loose brick in the low wall to the right of the small domed structure. The hinges were rusted and the doors looked slightly warped, but in a groan of protesting metal I heaved them open and let the sunlight pour into the domed interior. I flipped the light switch near the door and was surprised to find the electricity was still on. I heard the low hum of the back-up generators kick in.

  The building was about 150 square meters in size, and just inside the open doors of the main domed room stood the shrouded form of an older-model Celestron10 StarHopper Dobsonian telescope, ready to be wheeled outside. I don’t think they make this model anymore, but it remains a classic for its simplicity of design and ease of use.

  Dust mantled the tables and folding chairs stacked against the far wall; the bookshelves were crammed with charts of constellations, astronomy texts, UFO pamphlets, and science fiction novels. The two long sofas
stood at angles to each other, and an assortment of armchairs were arranged in a corner, the leather on one sofa cracked and smelling faintly of old cigarettes and mildew. With the lights dimmed, the concave ceiling of the dome overhead lit up in a map of our galaxy, the stars and constellations little pinpricks against a black background.

  I saw that the dust coating the tiled floor lay undisturbed, indicating that no one had been here in the last six months. If you weren’t a member of this amateur stargazing club, you wouldn’t know this building existed.

  Last year at the beginning of September, not long after we had seen the Blue Star blaze by, Arnaud, who owned the land and had built this small observatory twenty years before, had vanished. His phone and email went unanswered, and his cell phone was out of service. No one knew what happened or where he had gone. A crotchety old bachelor and a classic science nerd, no one had heard him speak of any family. The stars and the possibility of life flourishing on other worlds was all that mattered to him.

  Posters of The X-Files, featuring Agents Mulder and Scully, emblazoned with the legend “I believe,” hung over the sofa and attested to Arnaud’s interests and self-deprecating humor. Arnaud knew most people considered him odd, but he didn’t give a damn.

  At first, none of the members of the club were unduly concerned. We thought he’d gone to an astronomy convention for a few weeks, or was off on safari chasing UFOs. But when weeks stretched into months, it finally sank in that he wasn’t coming back. The group who met here disbanded near the end of last year.

  I checked the kitchen and the two small bedrooms and bath in the living quarters branching off the hall from the main room. The beds were made, sheets and towels folded on shelves. Clothes still hung in one of the closets.