by Earle Looker
‘Not the beginning but the end? After all, Celeste’s condition would be concealed from her.’ She had given him no more than an alternate idea of her father’s motives. It seemed a likely one, yet at the same time Allenby’s theory might still be true.
“My aunt has gone away, Daveed; it is only my father or the cat who could interrupt us.”
“Well, I think he’d be – tactful – I mean the cat.”
But even if it were the beginning, David saw it had against its success a set of too fortunate circumstances not unlike those in the field, appearing as free gifts of fate to the inexperienced, but which the veteran immediately discounted because they seemed just that.
Gain, it seemed, was almost always commensurate with the struggle to achieve it. If he had learned anything, he reflected, it was that little was really gained without struggle. He could not fail to realize Celeste had been perhaps gained too easily; the fire had perhaps blazed too quickly. If they were at a beginning, then it might well be the kind of a beginning that would be requite with misunderstandings out of their differences, differences he knew no better than he had known Gaspard, if Celeste’s view of him was clear. He asked himself the additional question whether or not, somewhere between the Place de l’Opera and the Place de la Concorde, had he entered a new state of mind to enable him to pass through any new difficulties?
At that moment, David came to a realization all was falling into place for him. He was energized, more alive than ever before it seemed. Yes, he was truly thankful, perhaps even grateful to the God of the chaplains and padres – and with a will to not just live but to live with passion and deep gratitude every day. Perhaps it was to all those Hindu Gods for whom he was thankful. He didn’t know and didn’t care. He felt an impending realization – of his potential – all that made him fully human – all he had come here to do – to be a scientist, writer, artist, lover, unrestrained. All his insights, skills, talent and experience could be brought to the front now to create a better world in some small way at least. He was convinced something extremely important and valuable had happened – an indefinable transformation of spirit.
“Daveed? But our marriage must also be in the Church. You are still with me, oui?”
“Yes … I am … I really am!” he replied as he lit a second Gauloises.
The next impulse came to him, the new mixed with the old and inextricably tangled, as clearly as if he had pleaded, “God help me to see the way clearly at least” and received an immediate and surprising answer. A sense of awe and wonder – feelings of limitless horizons – were coupled with feelings of being simultaneously more powerful yet more vulnerable than he had ever felt before. Opposite forces were no longer seen as being in conflict; there was a promise of durability within this peace he felt.
All David could think about in the moment was getting back to Virginia, settled in a new life with Celeste, making a home – hopefully, children, but ten?! – getting back to work, writing, putting the horrors of this war behind him – having learned from it. He was bursting with so many new creative ideas – to be of some authentic service to others – his notepad had nearly filled up.
He saw a quick scarlet flash of a cardinal, heard a dog’s welcoming bark, and could hear, almost smell, Stockton Creek, with its bordering Virginia Pines rustling in a soft, cool, scented, early autumn breeze. He saw himself as a boy again, with Alan, both knee-deep in the creek catching crayfish. He could even smell wood smoke and boxwood. Chicken hawks circled overhead. He was home. He was ready.
“The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people
when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers,
and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit,
and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”
~ Heȟáka Sápa (Black Elk), Oglala Lakota (Sioux) medicine man
About the Authors
Arthur Hayne Mitchell is a writer, senior environmental, biodiversity and natural resources specialist and conservation biologist with more than thirty years’ experience, including twenty-five working outside the United States in fifteen countries, primarily in Southeast and South Asia as well as East Africa and the Caribbean. Art Mitchell, a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and Yale University, lives in Fairfax, Virginia..
Reginald Earle Looker volunteered to serve in France, prior to the official entry of America into WWI, as an ambulance driver with the American Volunteer Motor Ambulance Corps (Norton-Harjes). During that time, he also worked as a freelance war correspondent for The Evening Post. After the war, Looker worked as an advertising executive, magazine editor, public relations consultant, ghost-writer and speech writer for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Looker was associate editor of Asia magazine and a contributing editor of Fortune magazine. In addition to The White House Gang, a 1929 ‘New York Times’ bestseller, he wrote This Man Roosevelt; Colonel Roosevelt, Private Citizen; The American Way: Franklin Roosevelt in Action; Looking Forward and Government – Not Politics (both ghost-written with Franklin Delano Roosevelt) and Revolt (with his second wife Antonina Hansell Looker). During WW II, Looker headed the Psychological Warfare division of the Military Intelligence Service (MIS), which was transferred under the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) at the end of 1942. MIS was tasked with collecting, analyzing and disseminating intelligence. The OSS later became the CIA. He also served as a Lt. Colonel in World War II, Pacific Theater. Earle Looker died in 1976 at Toccoa, Stephens County, Georgia.
End Notes
1Pyle, Howard (1905). Champions of the Round Table. Charles Scribner’s Sons.
2 “The French Revolution,” Thomas Carlyle, 1837
3 Falstaff, quoted from William Shakespeare’s Henry IV (V.i.129–139).
4 Robinson, William (1878). The Parks and Gardens of Paris Considered in Relation to the Wants of Other Cities and of Public and Private Gardens. MacMillan and Co., London.
5 Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300 – 1377), “Foy porter”
6 “King Henry IV,” Part I, Act V, Scene 1, Sir John Falstaff to Prince Henry. William Shakespeare, 1597
7“Every man who is in love, fights!”
8“Love conquers all!”
9“The innocent are not accustomed to blush!”
10“Marriage is like a besieged fortress; those who are outside want to get in and those inside out!”
11Paraphrased from quotes by Gary van Warmerdam, John-Roger Hinkins and Chogyam Trungpa
12 “A Farewell to a Friend” by Li Po (701 – 762), also known as Li Bai, Li Pai, Li T’ai-po and Li T’ai-pai
13 Adaptation from Wells, H.G. (1920). “The Outline of History.” Macmillan Company.