GAIA

by Morton Chalfy

  Over lunch Diane quizzed her about Gaia and Moms. She had only the vaguest idea about the movement but showed more and more interest as Helene filled in the blanks. She ended by leaving a copy of the Manifesto with her and a promise to send more material on their work. They also traded private numbers.

  "I'm sure I'll have a thousand questions for you," said Helene.

  "Call me anytime," offered Diane warmly.

  "Same here," responded Helene.

  From the Convention Center they boarded a robocopter to the ranch. Flying over the desert Helene often checked the passage of time and finally muttered, "This is no place for an International Headquarters."

  "What?" asked Harrison over the whap of the rotors.

  Helene repeated herself. "New York would be much more convenient."

  "But we've sunk tons of money and effort into the ranch. It's secure, it's highly technological and it's identified as the spiritual center of Gaia. And I wouldn't want to have to keep Moms safe in New York."

  "Moms could stay here. This whole operation could stay here, but there's no way to handle the stream of visitors that will want to satisfy their curiosity with this paucity of transport modes."

  Harrison nodded in a sort of agreement. Helene was constructing a global enterprise in her mind and if it meant they would continue their urban lifestyle he was not against it. If he was going to be marginalized in the operation of Gaia he'd be happier in the cube.

  "I can see your point," he said but Helene was deep into concentration, entering her notes into her pad. Harrison leaned back in his seat and looked out the window at the ground slipping by beneath the aircraft.

  "Whirlybird taking us to whirlwind changes," he thought.

  Helene was tugging at his sleeve, "What do you think of this?" she asked, showing him the screen on her tablet. She had listed the order of events for the Fall Festival and began to run through them with him. Harrison tried to focus on what she was saying and what he was seeing but Helene was essentially carrying on a monologue in the presence of a viewer. She kept making changes and muttering asides and Harrison just let her keep at it.

  When she reached the end of her list she looked at him and realized how inward she had been and smiled sheepishly. "I'm sorry," she said, "I just got caught up in my thoughts."

  "That's all right, I like to see you concentrated and intense. It's very sexy."

  The remark took Helene by surprise, as though she suddenly realized that while Harrison was a colleague, he was also her lover. She quickly put her tools away and sat in his lap. He was strapped into the safety harness and she snuggled into his embrace.

  "I'll try not to forget who you are anymore. And tonight I'll concentrate fully on you and your pleasure."

  "Our pleasure or all bets are off," he emphasized.

  "Yes, indeed," said Helene delightedly. "Our pleasure."

  She wriggled in his lap, awakening his desires.

  "I can't wait," he said.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Moms' image from the convention, flamboyantly vibrant, dramatically clad in her High Priestess robe and with arms out-flung to embrace the world, proved to have real star power. It had flown around the world of social media, provoked endless talk shows and had become an entertainment staple. Gaia was recognized as a force to be contended with by some, a ray of hope for the future by many, and a suitable voice for conservation of the world and its life forms by a committed corps of volunteers and supporters.

  Her sermon the next Saturday went far to cement their allegiance. Moms delivered her talk dressed in a somber black gown. Her hair was a blazing halo around her head and her manner was matter-of-fact to the extreme.

  "To the question 'What does Gaia promise in an afterlife?' I say, 'Nothing'. Gaia is life in the here and now. Gaia lives in the moment and its concerns are the concerns of reality. To build a better life for all requires that we deal with the present, the living present. Let the afterlife take care of itself. Our job is to take care of the living world. The Gaian policy is to strive to clean the air of pollutants, to de-acidify the seas and to make as much space for the other life forms with which we share the world as we possibly can. Our life processes require that we Breathe, Eat and Excrete. Clean air, clean food and resource reclamation keep the human biosphere healthy and consequently, makes Gaia happy."

  Her homily was delivered in a strong, impassioned voice and when she was done the traffic at the website leaped sharply upward and the social media messages flew around the globe. When the lights and camera were turned off Harrison stared at Moms so intently that Helene asked, "What's wrong?"

  "I've seen that look before," he said, "and I don't like it."

  "What look?"

  Harrison indicated Moms with a nod. To Helene she looked about as she always did after a sermon, a little tired, a little pale and in need of a stiff drink. She saw that Harrison's face was set in hard lines and that tears were hovering in his eyes. He took her hand and led her through the departing cadre to Moms' side where he took her hand in his and just held it. After a minute she rose from her seat and led him into her private room with Helene following along.

  When the door closed behind them Harrison asked "How long have you known?"

  Moms smiled wearily at him, "Long enough. It got bad enough last year to seek confirmation and unfortunately I got it."

  "Confirmation of what?" asked Helene.

  Moms and Harrison looked at each other. "You might as well tell her," Moms said. "She needs to know."

  She lay back in the corner of her couch and closed her eyes wearily. Helene looked at Harrison expectantly and he studied Moms' face in repose. At last he turned to Helene and said, "Barnes' bane. An auto-immune condition that afflicts our family. Incurable, fatal and intensely painful at times."

  Helene's eyes were wide with horror. "What are you saying?" she cried.

  "That just like our mother my dear sister here is going through the agonies of hell on the way to her death." Harrison's voice expressed the equal parts of anger, fear and hurt that he was feeling.

  "Don't be so dramatic," Moms' said weakly.

  The tears were flowing from Harrison's eyes.

  "And stop crying. Tell her Mama and Papa's story but don't cry so I can get some rest."

  To Helene, Harrison appeared to be in shock and she took his hand to try to keep him focused. "Tell me," she said.

  Wiping his eyes Harrison took a seat and leaned back for a moment.

  "It's too hard to bear," he muttered but Moms whispered, "If I can, you have to."

  Harrison shook his head but since he wanted to share his grief he began to talk. "Mama and Papa met at school, she was in the Fine Arts program and he was in the School of Engineering. She played cello in the Philharmonic and he, after completing his studies, went to work in Wall St.

  Mama was Irish through and through. Red hair, green eyes, lovely smile, quick temper and very, very spiritual. Full of fun as well. Papa was Jewish, or as much Jewish as a boy born to third generation atheists who had intermarried could be. He was studious, intense when working, and very private. He rarely shared his thoughts yet was always a benign presence.

  He did very well at his work. So well that we had no idea until after his death. He became the foremost expert on trading stocks in the tech fields and amassed mountains of money that we never knew about. We lived a sort of basic middle class life, though we did go on super vacations, and we just thought we were well off.

  Mama continued to play at the symphony, we went to public schools and Papa went to work on public transport. When we were in high school Mama had her first attack, the first of many episodes. You can be sure that Papa had the best doctors examine her, but to no avail. When your body turns against you science still has no good answer.

  Mama was not going to die immediately was the medical consensus, so Papa set out to make her as comfortable as possible. She loved this area so he bought it. He had the ranch house built to her specificati
ons and it was here she learned to somewhat control her pain.

  It was that look, the look Mama had when the pain struck and the look she had when she was wrestling the pain for control of her being. That's the look Moms had. Has." he corrected, glancing at Moms.

  "Tell her Mama's mantra."

  Harrison knitted his brow trying to remember. His face suddenly cleared and he said, "All one!" A weak smile moved Moms' lips.

  "That's right," he said, "All one. She would sit on the porch, wrapped in a warm blanket, staring at the stars and feeling what she described as the Oneness of Creation. She said that when she was able to achieve that feeling - the Reality of the Oneness she called it - that then she was relieved of her pain. She was able to disassociate from the pain. She would often fall asleep out on the porch and Papa would sit with her, through the night if necessary, so she would have help when she awoke."

  Harrison stopped and wiped his eyes again and said to Moms, "That was the beginning of Gaia, wasn't it?"

  "Sort of, I guess," she was almost whispering. "The calmness she would get from that feeling of being one with the universe made a real impression on me."

  Harrison continued, "Papa began to turn the ranch into a retreat for Mama complete with full time nurses and household staff. He would work from here as much as possible, fly to New York or L.A. or wherever, and then fly back as soon as he could. He always said he didn't want to miss a minute of life with Mama. We would spend summers and holidays here with her as much as we could but she kept shooing us away. 'Live your own lives,' she would say, 'instead of watching me die.' At the end it became very hard to watch. She was in acute pain and wouldn't take any drugs that clouded her mind. Some palliatives gave her a little relief but her meditation sessions gave her the most peace."

  Harrison paused to study Moms' face. Helene was biting her lower lip and looked stricken by the news that she was perhaps watching Moms die.

  "Mama died right after I graduated and Papa became a different person. We hadn't realized how deeply their connection to each other went until then. Papa set about winding up his affairs and putting his wealth into a trust for us with the proviso that a shrine to Mama be kept up at all times. He moved to the ranch and spent his last year pretty much sitting on the porch where she had sat and contemplating the heavens as she had done. One morning the servants found him there, dead. The coroner said heart failure, we always thought overdose. Moms had finished school before me of course and she spent the last year here with him."

  "That's when Gaia began," said Moms. "During that year."

  Chapter Sixty

  Moms was sitting up a little straighter and the lines on her face had softened. Harrison had gotten himself mostly under control but was still teetering on the edge of an emotional storm. Helene took his hand and held it tightly to give him an armature to lean on when he felt the tears and fears rising in him. By way of diversion she asked Moms, "How did Gaia start that year?"

  "That was the year the seed was planted, and it was planted by Papa. We often talked, out there on the porch, about Mama's being so in touch with the feeling that the universe is all one, one event playing out across time and space. He was too practical minded to ever think he was experiencing it but he could see that I resonated to Mama's sensibilities. Because of that he set up a separate foundation in Mama's name and memory, put me in charge, and directed that I fulfill Mama's wishes as best I could."

  Moms paused to breathe deeply and sip some tea. Tightening around her mouth was the only sign of the return of pain and for a moment all three of them waited until the spasm had passed.

  "What exactly were Mama's wishes? That was left to me as well. Then, months after Papa's death, after my anger and despair had calmed, after I could accept that he loved her so much he didn't want to live without her and had gone in the hopes of seeing her again, after I had forgiven them both for leaving us, Mama came to me in a dream."

  Harrison's expression grew wary and Helene's more interested.

  "I know," said Moms, "it sounds crazy and cries out for psychological evaluation, but there it is. Mama came into my dream wearing a robe just as I now do, smiled and said, "Gaia". That was it but it was so vivid and so powerful that when I awoke life was different. My life now had a purpose and I've been pursuing it ever since." Moms leaned back on her divan and closed her eyes. "I need to rest now," she said.

  After a moment Harrison and Helene left the room and secluded themselves to talk over the situation. Helene opened the conversation with "How bad is it? How long can she live like this?"

  Harrison shook his head. "Mama lived for nearly four years after we could tell when the pain started. It's hard to say. Moms obviously thinks she'll be here for the Fall Festival but not much more than that."

  "I can't believe there's no medical advance in treatment since your mother's day."

  "There has been but it requires that treatment starts before symptoms show up. Too late now."

  They spent half an hour discussing health options and palliative measures and then Helene said, "The only important question is how we will organize to advance Gaia after Moms goes." She paused to look at Harrison's expression and then said, "and how to use her leaving to the advantage of her vision."

  Harrison stiffened and looked angry before relaxing his features. "That's certainly what she would want, and she'd be upset if we didn't make the most of it we could, something dramatic and memorable."

  Helene nodded. "I'm sure she has something planned," she said, "we just have to find out what it is and implement it."

  Harrison was leaning back with his eyes closed. "I don't know how long I can be around her at a time. When I see her in pain I feel painful twinges of my own in sympathy. It's a lot to bear."

  "Do you have the syndrome?" asked Helene, suddenly worried.

  "No. It seems to be a female thing. The men in our family die of sudden heart attacks."

  He saw how his flippancy wasn't well received on the subject of his death so he reached for Helene's hand. "I'm okay. I get checked often and my heart is sound. You'll have to put up with me for a good long while, yet."

  She was only slightly mollified. "Good," she said at last. "We have a lot of work to do."

  Chapter Sixty-One

  The work began with a conference with Moms. She had not meant to reveal her illness until she spoke at the Fall Festival but Harrison had made that plan moot. Pressed by Helene she outlined her script for the Festival and how she planned to dramatize her exit.

  "When did you plan on telling Maeve?" asked Harrison.

  Moms suddenly looked sad and contrite. "I don't know," she said mournfully. "I dread having to tell her."

  "You are intending that she take over as High Priestess, aren't you?" asked Helene gently.

  "Yes, but..."

  "Then we have to tell her as soon as possible. She needs to be prepared beforehand so she can take on the role seamlessly, and so the worst part of her grieving can be over with."

  "Sam and Lucas and Cindy and Mai Ling have to be told as well," said Harrison, "out of respect if for no other reason."

  "I think Cindy knows, or suspects," said Moms, "which means Sam probably does as well."

  They decided to put the meeting with the cadre off until Monday afternoon. "Let Maeve have one more carefree weekend," said Moms. "Once she knows I doubt she'll take many more trips to the Sky Cabin."

  Helene cleared her throat, "I think we need to establish a major center in New York," she began tentatively, and then in a rush she added, "The spiritual center would remain here, of course, but the international scene is heating up and that can best be handled from the city and the merchandising can best be done from there and it's close to D.C. for lobbying..." her voice ran down as Moms held up her hand.

  "I quite agree. You and Harry can set it up when you return there. We'll need to get with our lawyers to make sure you have all the tools you'll need - money, power of attorney, official investiture as President of the Foun
dation...we can get that done quickly, I'm sure."

  Helene looked pleased. Moms glanced at Harrison and asked, "Is that okay with you, Harry?"

  "Huh? Oh sure, whatever you say."

  "What are you thinking about?" asked his sister.

  Harrison paused, gathering his thoughts. "I'm thinking that we need a History of the Gaia Movement and that I'm the only one who can write it."

  "What a good idea," said Helene.

  "How can I help?" asked Moms.

  "I'm glad you agree," said Harrison. "I'll need anything you can give me. Letters, pix, anecdotes, Papa's will, whatever you find. I have a lot of stuff myself and I can get to Papa's papers. I'll have to rely on you for anything Mama left behind."

  "Are you thinking a book in two months or ten years?" asked Moms archly.

  Harrison stopped short. "I have no idea," he said at last. "I'll start right away and maybe in a month I'll be able to gauge it better. It's going to open many doors inside me that have been closed for a long time. There's no telling what emotions may be lurking behind them."

  "Plus, you still have to help me and help us all get ready for the Festival," added Helene.

  "Right. Two months is too soon but six months might not be. We'll see."

  Moms was visibly flagging and before she was forced to say, "I need to rest," they ended the meeting and left.

  "How do you feel about New York?" Helene asked when they were alone.

  "I love it. We don't have to move, I can continue my happy urban lifestyle, you can operate much more freely. It's fine."

  Helene nodded, "Good. I have to get behind Moms' executive desk right now and take care of business. Want to help?"

  Harrison shook his head. "No. Now that I've thought of writing the History I want to sit quietly and think about it. Prepare my mind, so to speak."