“Looks like Eva Aris was really interested in yoga. I’m tempted to believe she also tried to practice certain exercises.”
Colin was just getting out of the bedroom.
“Look what I found,” he said, displaying the hand in which he held a massive silver bracelet.
Clara examined it carefully. It was beautifully made, in the shape of a serpent swallowing its tale. On the inner side there was an inscription: When the disciple is ready, the master will appear.
“Interesting,” she said. “Symbols and yoga proverbs... I was telling you I found a very wide selection of books about yoga.”
So saying, she gently extracted from the shelf Charles Kerneiz’s book and gave it to Colin, who began browsing through it, mindfully captivated.
“What a thing,” he whispered after reading a few excerpts here and there. “It says here repeatedly that some exercises have incredibly dangerous follow-ups for those who are not prepared or adequately trained.”
“That’s right,” she intervened.
“Then how did this book get published? Why does it describe in detail those exercises?
It’s like putting a weapon available for any profane!”
“It’s not quite like that,” she told him. “First of all, the one who experiments could only harm himself, because each one of those who aspire to obtain powers and abilities through yoga to harm another end up either destroying themselves, or are neutralized by other forces, superior and unknown, from this Universe.”
Seeing the bewilderment in his expression, she elaborated:
“You need a special psychological structure to reach a high level and to be able to do what people generally call miracles. I think Jesus was a great yoga practitioner... Walking on the water, which is a primary sort of levitation, the miraculous healings, resurrections of the dead and other things he did are clear proof. The biggest of all is his own resurrection and then his famous ascent to Heaven.
Colin was listening with his jaw dropped.
“If a priest could hear you, he would say your theory is a blasphemy!”
“Why?” she replied serenely. “Maybe narrow minds would believe that, but there isn’t anything blasphemous about it. Yoga isn’t explicitly or bindingly subjected to any religion, and these practices based on meditation and enhancing one’s mental and spiritual power have been existing for centuries and can be identified in any culture. Even though they have a different name, the essence is the same though.”
And, as an after-thought, she added, returning to the initial subject, “There are very few who have the time, patience and necessary tenacity to try at least a minimum of basic exercises, not to mention the advanced ones.”
“It appears Eva Aris was at least willing to try,” he said and, wanting to replace the book on the shelf, he noticed the white corner of a paper sheet between the pages. He extracted a piece of paper on which it was written with round, regular letters, several words: Lotus Street, No.7.
“I wonder what this could be?” she asked loudly.
“Obviously, it’s an address, but it doesn’t seem familiar.”
“Maybe it’s from another town,” she suggested.
“Let’s go. We’ll ask around. Perhaps we’ll find out.”
Clara tucked the paper in her bag and, after a small hesitation, also took the silver bracelet. Then, removing all traces of their clandestine presence, they left the apartment, and he quietly locked the door behind them.
After descending the stairs, Colin signaled Clara to stay behind him, and he glanced discreetly through the almost opaque pane of the building’s front door. Near the corner of an opposite building was a group of three young men with foredoomed faces of criminals, smoking and swearing copiously for a reason known only to them. The one who seemed to be the council’s leader was a big guy, rugged and bearded, dressed in dirty jeans, a greasy tank top and a few hundred square inches of tattoos, mostly illustrating obscene pictures and anatomically difficult positions.
“This one looks like another version of the bearded dude we met upstairs, some thirty years younger and thirty pounds lighter.”
“Yeah. It would be best to try and avoid them. I never enjoyed being alone against three, especially this sort of bullies”
Clara’s jaw went slack.
“Do you mean you’ve been in this kind of situation before?”
He grinned.
“Back in college, I had an entourage of friends... not very well-behaved. My mother used to call them hooligans. Let’s just say I had two choices: learning to deal efficiently with this kind of thugs or face my folks when I came home with bruises and broken ribs. I suppose you can imagine which choice was easier to put into practice.”
She smiled, but wasn’t at all amused, picturing her lover’s face covered with blood and bruises. She shuddered from head to toe.
“Let’s get out through the back,” she told Colin, grabbing his hand, and headed to a small door placed behind the stairs, which she had noticed only due to the cracks that let inside some sunlight. “I prefer to go around the whole neighborhood rather than have a confrontation with those guys.”
Twilight, with splendid tones of colors and chilly shadows, had descended over the city. Colin and Clara had stopped a few hurried passers-by, but none of them could give any information about the existence or location of said address.
Eventually, tired and discouraged, they decided to put an end to their detecting work for the day. Colin drove leisurely on a side street, where scattered lanterns formed abstract games of lights and shadows.
His painter’s eye and mind appreciated the artistic value of those images and, in different circumstances, he would have stopped to photograph certain segments of the street landscape, trying then to reproduce them with a brush.
But it was late and he didn’t have any photographic equipment, so he resignedly directed his attention to the roadway.
The only pedestrian strolling on the cracked pavement was an old lady who was walking slowly, leaning on a cane, bent under the weight of years.
Clara asked him without conviction:
“Shall we try again?”
Colin stopped the vehicle beside the old lady, and Clara got out.
“Excuse me,” she approached the woman who was watching her curiously, with kind eyes framed by a network of wrinkles. “Could you tell me if there is in this city a Lotus Street? We need to find number 7.”
The old woman creased her forehead in concentration then the wrinkled face cleared suddenly.
“Yes, Miss, of course I know where it is. I go there all the time. Number 7 is Saint Michael’s Church.”
***
Following the woman’s directions, they navigated in darkness through the labyrinth of streets until they reached their destination.
The church seemed impressive and imposing, not because of the building’s dimensions, but due to the inexpressible feeling flooding them when they looked up to the narrow, tall windows and the beautifully executed frescoes decorating the church’s exterior. On the roof tower, a Christ with his face contorted under the pain of a whole world was looking hopeless at the sky, immortalized in an endless waiting, nailed on the cross that, from an ancient torture instrument had become, through an abject irony, the symbol of Christianity.
Clara’s eyes dampened and her heart contracted thinking of this god with human body who had sacrificed his existence and his blood to save a world that was already lost in evil and cruelty.
Colin interrupted her reverie by taking her hand.
“Look, the door is still open,” he said. “Probably the evening service is long over. Let’s go inside,” he continued pushing gently the wooden gate leading into the yard.
Inside, a soft light emanated by the chandeliers hanging from the dome ceiling fell on the impassive features of saints that decorated the walls.
In front of the altar, a man dressed like a priest but with the figure and posture of a warrior, was extinguishing,
one by one, the candles placed in silver candlesticks. The smell of wax, mixed with that of old wood, chrism and a vague hint of basil created an evocative atmosphere and a feeling of peace, and the two young people had the impression they were in a truly sacred place, unblemished by the exterior world.
The priest turned around and headed towards them with an easy but determined step. He was tall, robust and at the same time, graceful, with short hair, grizzled here and there, and eyes of a very unusual shade, a grey-blue with metallic, almost sharp reflexes.
For a heartbeat, Clara felt they’ve known each other forever and that this man, whose age seemed impossible to determine, was looking straight into the essence of her being.
Wordless, she handed him Eva’s bracelet.
Keeping silent and watching her without blinking, the priest took the bracelet and for a moment his calloused fingers touched hers. Clara felt an incredible energy influx and a shudder like an electric current crossed through her from head to toe. In that fraction of a second, she had the feeling that all her thoughts, experiences and life were somehow reflected in the eyes of the man standing in front of her, who represented a power beyond her capacity of understanding and perception.
“Where did you find this?” the priest asked with a deep voice, marked with the strangely melodious inflexions of an accent neither of them recognized.
“In ... Eva’s apartment,” said Clara cautiously, not knowing yet what role played this man in Eva’s mysterious life and disappearance.
The priest studied the bracelet meditatively and once again lifted to her that penetrating gaze, littered with notes of enigmatic irony, then looked at Clara’s companion.
Colin had remained so far a quiet spectator. The skeptic amusement in his attitude was gone, replaced by a sharp attention with which his analytical mind tried to absorb all the strange things in this dizzying carousel of the unknown.
The only certainty he had was that the man facing them wasn’t an ordinary person and he was frustrated and intrigued by the depth of this ascertainment.
“What do you know about Eva Aris?” Colin asked. “Do you know what happened to her?”
The priest answered him with a question:
“Who are you and why are you here?”
After a few moments of inner debate, Clara related him the events that had taken place at the cottages and the chain of actions that had brought them there. She concluded by saying:
“We found in her apartment several books about yoga and I tend to believe she was a practitioner, probably pretty advanced. Do you know something about it?”
“There was a time when Eva considered me her guru,” the man answered. “I initiated her in yoga and gave her this,” he indicated the bracelet in his hand.
Colin was surprised by the fact that a priest was a yoga practitioner, but he stayed silent without interrupting. The priest continued:
“My personal definition is that yoga represents an ambivalent or bipolar way to the absolute. I say bipolar because, depending on the purpose and manner in which it is practiced, it could destroy or it could guide one to unimaginable dimensions. The word absolute is relative, it can mean both Heaven and Hell, talking in terms of Christianity. However, Eva searched for an escape in yoga.”
“Escape from what?” the young woman asked.
“Since she was a teenager, she started having... bizarre episodes, states of catalepsy, lasting from a few hours to several days.”
The two listeners kept an interrogative silence.
“Medical science catalogs catalepsy as a very rare disease, about which, frankly speaking, the doctors don’t know much,” he said with the trace of a smile. “My personal theory is that people predisposed to such states actually have some special abilities which they don’t know how to control. I shared this theory with Eva and suggested a few yoga exercises, and she was very excited with this idea. Unfortunately, she was a... indecisive, undisciplined person, with a weak and not well-defined personality. When I realized that, I told her she needed to limit herself to simple exercises, nothing more. But she refused to listen, she thought she had miraculous powers. You see, she had misinterpreted my advice and that idea got stuck in her mind.
She overstepped the mandatory stages any yoga practitioner is compelled to follow and tried meditation exercises and other procedures, which are strictly reserved only for the very advanced practitioners, with a particular mental structure. She wanted to achieve too much, too quickly, something that wasn’t for her and that finally destroyed her,” he added with a strange regret in his voice.
Stunned, Clara asked, almost whispering, “Do .... do you mean Eva is dead?”
The priest absently turned the bracelet between strong fingers.
“Death is another relative word... I believe the spirit, like plants, is bound in a permanent cycle of transformations. It ends an existence through death and starts another, in a different plane. It’s possible Eva is somehow trapped between two planes of existence. She cannot end her present existence, but neither can she pass into the next one.”
“Like the people lost in the Philadelphia Experiment, never to be seen again…” Colin remarked.
The couple remained silent for a time, deeply shaken by the man’s words and their significance. After a while, Clara asked:
“But why me? I mean... why did she try to contact me, precisely?”
The grey gaze fixed on her was hypnotic.
“Because you are very responsive. Telepathically. A yoga practitioner recognizes another,” he clarified.
“But I only do a minimum of exercises with the purpose of maintaining my health and psychological balance.”
“Yes, but you have a huge potential, don’t you feel it?” he told her. “Don’t you wonder why you sometimes know what other people think, what they intend to say even before they say it? Why certain persons can transmit to you feelings or powerful emotions and vice versa? You could reach a very high level if you’d want to.”
“But I don’t,” she replied. “Maybe it’s a simple, narrow-minded philosophy, but I don’t have aspirations above my own person. Namely, I’m satisfied with being physically and mentally healthy, calm and happy, as much as possible. I don’t have what it takes to become a force of nature and I don’t want to. I cannot understand why and how live fakirs or great masters, who devote their existence to gain powers generally known as 'supernatural'. I’m a simple woman and that’s how I want to stay. The reason we’re here is that we want to know if there’s something to be done for Eva. If it isn’t too late.”
The priest watched her for a silent moment with a humor sparkle in his eyes then said:
“You’re not at all narrow-minded, nor simple. The philosophy you follow is the wisest. Too bad Eva didn’t understand that. Although you might find it hard to believe,” he continued moving his gaze to Colin, “I myself am a quite simple man, but I have developed and disciplined some of the capacities with which God endows us all. I can’t make miracles happen, but I’ll try to help Eva. If our spirits are strong enough, I’ll help her pass beyond, free herself from the mistakes that keep her prisoner.”
The man handed Clara the bracelet.
“Keep it and go. I’ll find you when I’m ready.”
Without further explanations, he turned around and vanished behind the altar.
Thoughtfully, Colin and Clara got out into the dark street, each wondering if the entire experience hadn’t been just the fruit of their imagination. Silently, with the surreal feeling persisting and dozens of uncertainties gravitating in their minds without taking shape or voice, they covered the road to the cottages.
***
Clara was dreaming of a sort of temple, so high that the dome – decorated with abstract shapes and supported by dozens of enormous columns – seemed to dance through the clouds. Statues and sculptures of deities from unknown mythologies were staring impassively into space, frozen into eternity, with uncaring faces of marble.
She
advanced with ant steps, insignificant in all that grandeur, trying to reach what her mind considered the exit, a particularly bright sector, but which seemed to distance itself with every touch of her bare feet on the cold marble floor. Somewhere in a corner of her subconscious vaguely sprang a thought that the sound of her footsteps resembled the liquid, tireless echo of stalactites.
Suddenly, from the gigantic arch located at a dizzying height that defied imagination, huge pieces of marble began to detach and fall with a deafening noise and seismic vibration.
Instinctively, Clara began running to the exit, followed by the apocalyptic collapse of the dome. The dally of the white dress she wore was fluttering madly behind her, slowing her down, dust of marble and destruction was choking her. Black dots were aligning in front of her eyes and...
She awoke gasping, with a barely suppressed scream in her chest, where her heart was beating fast. Beside her, Colin was soundly asleep, breathing regularly. Clara took a few deep breaths, exhaling slowly and completely until the frequency of her pulse normalized and her conscious gradually transposed her into reality, blurring the effects of that terrifying dream.
She ran her fingers through her hair, gently massaging her scalp, with her forehead resting on her knees.
Did such dreams create the monsters from Goya’s sleep of reason? she wondered, remembering the bizarre marble faces, while she got out of bed, careful not to wake her lover. Then she descended the stairs in darkness, wincing at every creek made by the old wood.
Downstairs everything was motionless. Tony and Morris were probably spending the night outside. The air had a unique perfume, a harmonious amalgam of smells – the old waxed wood, the unmistakable whiff of ink and paper from the books on the shelves, the sweet aroma of the roses from a vase. All these were subtly taking shape on a background of night and silence, interrupted only by the wall clock that munched time with his monotonous ticking.
Clara thought of a possible title for an abstract painting she was sure Colin’s hands and imagination could masterfully create: Fantastic Journey in the Silent Night.
Rendezvous with Hymera Page 9