by Jerramy Fine
Why was my heart so cruel? Why did it demand so much of me? Why wasn’t I allowed to have normal dreams and normal ambitions like everyone else? Why wasn’t I allowed to be happy in my own country? Why wasn’t I allowed to fall in love with nice, normal American guys?
Just look at what following this stupid heart of mine has brought me. Just look at how my blind obedience has been repaid! Right then and there, I methodically forced myself to go over the facts: I was nearly two hundred thousand dollars in debt and yet I couldn’t even afford third-world living conditions. In ten days, I would be jobless and unable to legally work without becoming lawfully bound to a homosexual. I had a résumé that most American companies would laugh at. I was an ocean away from my closest friends and an ocean away from my family. I was boyfriend-less, most definitely prince-less, and now I was homeless.
Maybe I should call up my mom and admit that a homeless man was actually an ideal match for me! Maybe I should call her up and congratulate her on knowing me so well!
I was nearly hysterical now. The afternoon sunshine swirled madly around me. The river sparkled, the rowers rowed by, and the herons watched me intently—but the tears kept on coming.
I thought back to the night I had wept endlessly in front of Buckingham Palace and I laughed bitterly. Yet again it had come to this: sitting in a public park and bawling my eyes out. Exactly like last year. Who was I kidding? Nothing had changed since that night. How many more years could I go on like this? Fooling myself that everything was just fine? How much longer could I go on convincing myself that all of this heartache was simply part of my so-called destiny? Deluding myself that I lived in some kind of Disney fairytale and that I would live happily ever after if only I persevered for that little bit longer?
My whole life people have told me that I was crazy—and I always ignored them. But you know what? Maybe they were right. Maybe I was crazy. Maybe the real world truly was as good as it gets. Maybe it was time to give up on my stupid English obsession and move back to America. Maybe it was time to give up my ridiculous royal dream and become a nice, drama-free house wife in some nice, drama-free place like Omaha.
Passersby glanced at my swollen red eyes and tear-stained cheeks—and then looked away. I didn’t blame them. There was nothing new to see. I was just another maniacal crazy person sitting on another park bench. I wasn’t special. London was full of people like me.
Twenty-seven
“How long ’til my soul gets it right?”
—INDIGO GIRLS
Because Adam was one of England’s youngest and fastest rising political stars, he had been invited to attend the Queen’s annual Garden Party. I nearly kissed him when he told me.
Held every summer on the grounds of Buckingham Palace, these elite social events were infamous. Just imagine a glorious afternoon filled with military bands, massive tea tents, and hundreds of specially chosen guests (wearing morning suits and cravats, military uniforms, or pretty hats and day dresses) milling around the enormous Palace lawn hoping to be spoken to by Her Majesty.
I’d waited years for someone I knew to invite me along as his guest! And with Adam’s bottomless luck and infallible charm, he was bound to be selected by the Queen for a personal chat! At long last, I was going to be introduced to Peter’s grandmother! Finally!
Then Adam confessed that he was taking his mum to the party instead of me.
I was still quite angry at this treacherous snub, but that night (approximately six hours post-nervous-breakdown) I called him up anyway. I desperately needed someone’s shoulder to cry on. (Even if this someone refused to introduce me to Elizabeth II.)
Curled up in the bedroom that I was soon to be evicted from, I sobbed to Adam over the phone, filling him in on the tragic turn my life had taken at the hands of Duncan and the Home Office.
Adam listened patiently until I was finished.
“It’s so weird,” he said sympathetically. “I feel like you experience the same problems over and over again.”
“I know,” I whimpered, still sniffling.
“Jerramy, maybe you should look at all these events as some kind of sign.”
“Sign pointing to what?”
Adam proceeded with caution. “Jerramy, don’t kill me for saying this, but maybe all of this means you’re supposed to go back to the U.S. for a while. Perhaps something else, a new job for example, will bring you back to England.”
My tears turned to anger. “Adam! How can you say such a thing! You of all people know the power of dreams! How can you possibly suggest that I surrender?”
“Jerramy,” Adam said gently, “don’t be cross with me. I just don’t know what else to say. I feel awful for you, really. But I don’t have the answers. Relying on me to produce a magical solution to all of this is about as useful as relying on your horoscope.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” I said quietly.
“What?”
“My horoscope.” For the first time, I saw a glimmer of hope. “Adam, you’re a genius! That’s just what I need! Some kind of spiritual guidance!”
“Jerramy,” Adam said sternly, “we’ve talked about this before. You know how I feel about those crazy clairvoyants. How can you pretend for a single second that you’re not in charge of your own destiny?”
“Well, Adam, as my bank manager told me only last week—it’s quite clear that I’m no longer in the driver’s seat.”
Adam laughed. “Did he really say that to you?”
“Yes! He also took away my checkbook and threatened to cut my debit card into eight pieces if I didn’t start conforming to some sort of completely impractical bud get.”
“Christ! I thought mine was bad when she asked if I wanted to move in with her to save money on rent. Talk about sexual harassment.”
“Adam, we are getting off the subject.”
He sighed. “Jerramy, the answer is no. I don’t know any tarot card readers that I can recommend to sort out your life.”
“What about that guy Dimitri you were dating? He loved that paranormal stuff! Can you ask him if he knows anyone reputable I can go see? Please? You don’t want me to end up calling some random psychic in the back of a magazine, do you?”
Adam was quiet. “Okay,” he said finally. “I’ll give Dimitri a ring.”
A few hours later, Adam called me back and grudgingly recited the contact details of an elderly woman in east London named Estella.
I called her immediately.
“Most clients book three months in advance,” she said sweetly, “but as luck would have it, I’ve just had a cancellation. Can you come to see me tomorrow at 3 P.M.?”
“Yes,” I exclaimed, “that would be perfect.”
“And I assume you know that I charge forty pounds per sixty-minute session?”
I hesitated. I barely had that amount to get me through to (quite possibly my last ever) payday.
Estella sensed my reservations. “If you are having financial difficulties,” she said kindly, “I’m happy to take what ever you can afford to pay me tomorrow—and you can give me the rest when you have it.”
I gratefully agreed to her offer.
“And one last thing,” she continued. “I’m not a fortune teller. I’m a channeler. The master that speaks through me can offer you spiritual counseling, but please keep in mind that he can’t predict your future.”
“That’s not a problem,” I told her. I have to say that I found Estella’s specific psychic skill set to be somewhat irrelevant. Let’s face it: With my world crashing down around me on almost every level, I could hardly afford to be choosy when it came to divine guidance.
And so the very next day I boarded an eastbound train to her house. At least my emergency spiritual outing gave me something to do. It was either that or spend another day sobbing on a park bench.
Estella’s modest house was located in one of the grittier London suburbs. She answered the door wearing a bright raspberry pink sweater and I saw that her nails were neatly pa
inted in exactly the same shade. She had white hair, rosy cheeks, and a kind twinkle in her eye that instantly put me at ease. Still, I was careful not to reveal anything about myself.
She led me through her back garden and into a little shed that her husband had built for her. (“He doesn’t like to be disturbed by my work,” she explained.) The shed was warm and bright and filled with comfy pink chairs and dozens of pink candles. Needlepoint pictures of Jesus and the Star of David covered the walls. It was just like a room you might find in your religious grandmother’s house. A bit cutesy—but not spooky in the slightest.
While Estella tottered around the shed preparing her things, she babbled cheerfully to me about her husband. “They were out of grapefruit juice at the local shop this morning. It’s Simon’s favorite, you see, so I walked all the way to the large supermarket to buy it for him.”
I sat down in a pink overstuffed chair and she sat down in one across from me. Until then, I’d only ever had my fortune told at fancy London nightclubs by women dressed as gypsies who sat in elaborate Moorish tents, looked intently at my palm for a few seconds, and then told me something barely discernible through the blaring house music. That said, I wasn’t entirely clear as to what a channeling session actually involved so I politely asked Estella to explain to me what I might expect.
“I have been channeling the spirit of Joseph of Arimathea for the last thirty years,” Estella replied. (I had no idea who Joseph of Arimathea was—but I made a mental note to look it up when I got back home.107)
“When I am channeling,” she continued, “I am aware of the fact that I am speaking, but I can’t actually make out what is being said—it kind of sounds like background radio noise to me—so everything discussed during the session is strictly between you and the master.”
I nodded as if I had the faintest clue what she was talking about.
“Some people become frightened because the sound of my voice changes and so do some of my movements. But I guess that’s understandable,” she smiled. “After all, it is a man taking over my body.”
It was around this time that I started to freak out. I mean, seriously, what kind of creepy thing had I gotten myself into? A man taking over her body? Was this going to be like The Exorcist or something? My stomach began to knot. I was suddenly really nervous. And really quite genuinely frightened.
“Make sure you interrupt him a few minutes before the hour is up,” Estella told me, “otherwise he will go on talking all day.”
I nodded again, too petrified to speak.
She pressed play on her small tape recorder (the whole session was being recorded and yes, I still have the tape), and then, cradling a large white crystal in her hands, Estella closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. For the next hour, her eyes stayed closed. She did not blink once. And to be honest, I found this enormously comforting, because I don’t think I could have handled another soul peering out at me through her body.
Her breathing slowed tremendously and almost a full minute of silence passed before Estella’s elderly body softly jolted in her chair, and then spoke: “Shalom, my child.”
And in that unearthly moment, all my fears subsided.
Those first three words were deep and resonant and steeped with an overpowering love. All at once, the small wooden shed was bursting with a new energy—strong, calming, and unbelievably wise. And as it surrounded me, and as it humbled me, I knew—in my heart, in my head, and in my gut—that what ever was happening was real. And that it was going to be nothing like The Exorcist.
Estella’s voice did change, but it wasn’t scary or demonic or fake. And I know this sounds crazy, but the sound of it was so echoey and so ethereal, that it was almost like it was coming from some other plane. Or some other astral dimension. I don’t know how else to describe it.
But even more noticeable than her slowed breathing and ghostlike voice was the drastic change in Estella’s lexicon—she now spoke in a curiously succinct, almost poetic manner. And her subtle movements had become so unmistakably masculine that for the entire duration of our session, I completely forgot that there was a petite woman sitting in front of me rather than an extremely wise and kind-hearted old man.
“I do not see your fleshly self,” Joseph began, “only your aura. And it is a deep indigo blue. The color of intellect and intuition.”
That’s because I’m an Indigo Child, I thought to myself. Wouldn’t my mom be happy to know that someone else besides her realized this about me!
I felt so comfortable in Joseph’s presence that I wanted to jump right in and tell him my whole harrowing story—my inexplicable love for England, my quest to find Peter, my work permit, my eviction, and how I had to leave the U.K. in less than ten days and what on earth I was meant to do about it all. But a small part of me was still wary of this psychic phenomenon and didn’t want to give too much away. So I decided to keep my questions as vague as possible at first.
“Can you tell me about soulmates?” I ventured shyly. “I mean, do they actually exist? And will I ever get to meet mine?”
Joseph answered patiently, his words deliberate and unrehearsed. “Yes, my child. They do exist. But you do not meet these souls in every lifetime. You must remember that there are other kinds of love that can be just as fulfilling. You are so young, so desperate to rush into love, so desperate to find, as you put it, your soulmate. Do not forget that it can take several lifetimes to find this soulmate. Learn from all relationships, my child. There are very specific lessons to be learned from every individual you encounter. And you will continue to encounter the same lesson in different forms until it is learned.”
Hmm. I sensed some hidden truths in there but it wasn’t exactly what I was hoping to hear.
“Then what about my career?” I asked, already cringing at the banality of my question. “Can you tell me where I’m headed on that front? Is there a specific job I should be pursuing?”
“I cannot make a judgment on that, my child,” Joseph replied. “You have free will. You control what you will do next.”
I have to say that I was getting ever so slightly impatient with this wise spiritual master. What was with these ambiguous answers? They were practically as vague as my questions! I sat silent for a moment, trying to think of something to say that might bring a more detailed response.
“All souls are like genetic codes,” Joseph started telling me, his powerful voice filling the room. “Your character and your nature stays constant and carries over into all of your lives.”
I was still confused. Was this information supposed to help me?
Joseph continued talking: “You are an advanced soul, my child. You have had many, many lives in the physical state. But there is one in particular that is bothering you in this life. I have access to your Akashic Record108 so I can tell you about it if you would like.”
I perked up instantly.
“I would like that very much,” I said.
Joseph nodded and continued. “Despite the fact that your soul chose to be born elsewhere, you have had a longing since birth to return to Britain. Yet you are confused as to why you are here. And feel deeply unfulfilled for reasons you do not understand.”
I felt like the air had been knocked out of me. And confronted with such startling accuracy, my eyes filled with tears.
I reached for a pink tissue from the box beside me and proceeded to listen in excited awe as the story of my past life was recounted to me in one continuous stream of thought. There were no pauses, no ums, and no ers; nor was there the slightest trace of storytelling bravado. Events were simply recited to me, as if they were truly nothing more than a matter of complete fact.
“The past life that is affecting you now did take place in Britain. You lived as a female, five hundred years ago. You were born under the reign of Henry VIII and died soon after Elizabeth I came into power. Queen Mary reigned in the interim after the young king109 died and you were unusual in that you lived through four reigning monarchs. Your fa
mily were considered nobility and were highly respected members of the royal court….”
My entire body was covered with goosebumps. Strange, disjointed visions flashed before my eyes and tears trickled quietly down my face.
“You were the eldest daughter, just as you are now. Your parents were nonconformists, just as they are now…”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. How could this man, this being, know so much about me? My hands were trembling so hard I had to clasp them tightly in my lap to keep them still.
“Your parents were Protestant, but under the strict Catholic reign this was forbidden and therefore they were forced to practice their faith in the privacy of your family home. As a young girl, you watched your parents’ constant struggle with hypocrisy for the sake of keeping their elite position in court. Although you were unreligious yourself, you were unusually academic for a woman of those times, and very much aware that being a woman held you back. Still, you read all you could on religion, politics, and history and by the time you reached your twentieth year you had become fascinated with Eastern religions. During this time, Britain was just beginning to navigate the spice routes of India. Your father was a merchant trader and knowing you were unhappy in the stifling environment of court life, he arranged for you to travel to India where you could stay with a wealthy family and continue your studies at your leisure.”
My heart was pounding and my mind was spinning. So many uncanny parallels! My political science degrees, my recent trip to India…I really wished that my parents could have been in the room to hear all of this with me. They always suspected a past life was the reason for my odd behavior—they would be so pleased to see their long-held theory being validated, and so proud of me for seeking it out on my own accord.
Joseph’s ancient, raspy voice continued to stream from Estella’s mouth and I remained completely transfixed.
“You met a young Indian man who you liked and eventually convinced him to return to England with you. Upon your return, you were horrified at the racism he encountered despite his wealth and position. Furthermore you were unmarried, and both were the cause of much gossip. Your family convinced you to marry, to lessen the scandal. Finally, Queen Mary, who had been one of the most judgmental about your choice of husband, asked to be introduced to him. She was instantly charmed by his intelligence and his worldliness and took a liking to him herself. At that time, the monarch could take anyone they liked as a lover. To refuse meant banishment to the Tower and quite often death…”