“You were lucky.”
He kept stroking my knuckles. “And then I remembered what she wrote about not running away from love, not saying no. That you can’t.” He glanced up at me. “Anyway, that’s why I had to tell you everything, so I can be open with you from here on out. And so you’d understand that I also have these other feelings, besides what I have for you, and if I’m not always there . . . well, you know.”
I could barely breathe. I whispered in the softest possible voice, “I understand. I do. Really, I do.” And then we both stood up and, without another word between us, walked out of the hills and back to my apartment.
What should have been one of the most romantic nights of my life was a nightmare for me. The whole time we made love I had the sense that Elza was watching us. I felt as if I were having sex during a funeral. I was afraid to make a sound. Yet Simon didn’t act bereaved or guilty at all. You wouldn’t have known he had just told me the saddest story I’d ever heard. He was like other lovers on first nights, eager to show me how versatile and experienced he was, worried he wasn’t pleasing me, soon ready for a second round.
Afterward, I lay in bed, sleepless, thinking about music by Chopin and Gershwin, what they could possibly have in common. I could picture Elza’s cherub-faced kneecaps, one of them with a beatific smile, and I wondered how a little baby could get a scar the shape and color of an earthworm. I thought about her eyes—what memories of hope and pain and violence had she inherited? Love moves you like the tide, she had said. I saw her floating on the wave of an avalanche.
By dawn, I could see Elza as Simon had. Her head was surrounded by a halo of light, her skin was as soft as a cherub’s wings. And her icy blue eyes could see everything, the past into the future. She would always be dangerously beautiful, as pristine and alluring as a slope of fresh, bottomless snow.
LOOKING BACK, I can see I was an idiot to continue with Simon. But I was young, I was stupid-in-love. I confused a pathetic situation with a romantic one, sympathy with a mandate to save Simon from sorrow. And I’ve always been a magnet for guilt. My father, then Kwan, now Elza. I felt guilty about every bad thought I’d ever had about Elza. As penance, I sought her approval. I became her conspirator. I helped resuscitate her.
I remember the time I suggested to Simon that we go backpacking in Yosemite. “You told me how much Elza loved nature,” I said. “I was thinking, if we went, well, she’d be there too.” Simon looked grateful that I understood, and for me that was enough, that this was the way our love would grow. I just had to wait a bit. That’s what I reminded myself later, when we were camped at a place called Rancheria Falls. Above us was a magnificent canopy of stars. It was so vast, so vivid, and my hope was the same. I struggled in my heart, then my brain to tell Simon this, but it all came out sounding trite. “Simon, look,” I said. “Do you realize they’re the same stars that the first lovers on earth saw?”
And Simon breathed in and exhaled deeply. I could tell he did this not with wonder but with informed sadness. So I was quiet, I understood, the way I said I would. I knew he was thinking about Elza again. Maybe he was thinking that she used to see these same stars. Or that she once expressed a similar thought, only more elegantly. Or that in the dark my voice was hers, with the same overly passionate tone, the one I used to express ordinary ideas, the one she would have used to save the whole damn world.
And then I felt myself becoming smaller yet denser, about to be crushed by the weight of my own heart, as if the laws of gravity and balance had changed and I was now violating them. I stared once again at those sharp little stars, twinkling like fireflies. Only now they were splotched and melting, and the night heaven was tilting and whirling, too immense to hold itself up any longer.
7
THE HUNDRED SECRET SENSES
The way I embraced Elza’s former life, you’d have thought she was once my dearest, closest friend. When Simon and I had to pick recipes for Thanksgiving, we chose Elza’s oyster-and-chestnut stuffing over my Chinese sticky-rice-and-sausage. We drank our coffee out of two-handled ceramic mugs Elza had made at a summer camp for musically gifted children. In the evenings and on weekends, we played Elza’s favorite tapes: songs by the Blues Project, Randy Newman, Carole King, as well as a rather bathetic symphony that Elza herself had composed, which her college orchestra had recently performed and recorded as a memorial to her. To Simon, I said the music was living proof of her beliefs. But secretly, I thought it sounded like alley cats yowling on garbage night, with a finale of cans crashing as a well-aimed shoe flew out the window.
Then December rolled around, and Simon asked me what special gift I wanted for Christmas. The radio was playing holiday songs, and I was trying to think what Simon would want for Elza—a donation in her name to the Sierra Club? a collection of Gershwin records? That’s when I heard Yogi Yorgesson singing “Yingle Bells.”
The last time I had heard that song I was twelve, when I thought sarcasm was the height of cool. That year, I gave Kwan a Ouija board for Christmas. While she stared in bafflement at the old-fashioned letters and numbers, I told her she could use the Ouija to ask American ghosts how to spell English words. She patted the board and said, “Wunnerful, so useful.” My stepfather threw a fit.
“Why do you feel you have to make fun of her?” Daddy Bob said to me sternly. Kwan examined the Ouija board, more puzzled than before.
“It was just a joke, okay?”
“Then it’s a mean joke and you have a mean heart to do it.” He grabbed my hand and jerked me up, saying, “Young lady, Christmas is over for you.”
Alone, in the bedroom, I turned on the radio. That’s when I heard “Yingle Bells” playing. The song was supposed to be a “yoke,” like Kwan’s present. I was crying bitterly: How was I being mean to Kwan if she didn’t even know it? Besides, I reasoned, if I was being mean, which I wasn’t, she deserved it, she was so wacko. She invited people to play funny jokes on her. And what was so wrong about having fun on Christmas? It was the holier-than-thou people who were mean. Well, if everyone thought I was bad, I’d show them what bad was.
I turned the radio way up. I imagined the volume knob was Daddy Bob’s big Italian nose, and I twisted it so hard it broke off, and now Yogi Yorgesson was singing “laughing all the way—ha-ha-ha!” at the top of his lungs while Daddy Bob was swearing, “Olivia, turn off that goddamn radio,” which was not a Christian thing to say, especially on Christmas. I pulled the plug with a vengeance. Later Kwan came into the bedroom and told me she liked my spelling gift “oh very-very much.”
“Stop acting so retarded,” I growled. And I kept my face looking as mean as I could, but it scared me to see how much I had hurt her.
Now here was Simon asking me what I wanted for Christmas. Once again I was listening to “Yingle Bells” on the radio. And I wanted to cry out that being understanding gets you nowhere. At that moment, I knew what I really wanted for Christmas. I wanted to pull the plug. I wanted Elza dead.
But after six months of acting like the noble runner-up, how could I suddenly tell Simon I wanted to kick Elza’s ghostly butt out of our bed? I imagined packing her photos, her records, her irritating kitsch into a box. “For safekeeping,” I’d tell Simon, “while I do some spring cleaning.” Then I’d load the box into the trunk of my car and late at night I’d drive to Lake Temescal. I’d weigh the box down with bleach bottles filled with sand, dump the whole mess into the dark moonless water, and watch the bubbles surface as my nemesis sank into liquid oblivion.
And later, what would I say to Simon, what explanation would I give him? “God, it’s terrible, but the box with all of Elza’s things?—it was stolen. I can’t believe it either. The burglars must have thought it was valuable. I mean, it is, but just to you and me. God, you’re right, I don’t know why they didn’t take the stereo.”
He’d notice my evasive eyes, the corners of my mouth turned up in an irrepressible smile. I’d have to confess what I’d done, what I really felt about Elza and he
r two-handled coffee mugs. He’d be pissed, and that would be the end of Simon and me. If that was the case, to hell with him. But after I had exhausted my imaginary self with variations of this pyrrhic victory, I was lost. I couldn’t let go of Simon any more than he could Elza.
It was in this wretched and murderous frame of mind that I sought an accomplice to do the dirty deed. I called Kwan.
I DISCREETLY OUTLINED the situation to my sister. I didn’t say I was in love with Simon. To Kwan? And suffer her sisterly chuckles, endless teasing, and crackpot advice? I said Simon was a friend.
“Ah! Boyfriend,” she guessed, all excited.
“No. Just a friend.”
“Close friend.”
“Just a friend.”
“Okay-okay, now I understand you meaning.”
I told her that one of Simon’s friends had died in an accident. I said that Simon was sad, that he couldn’t let go of this friend who was dead. He was obsessed, it was unhealthy. I said it might help him if he heard from this friend as a yin person. Knowing how suggestible Kwan was, also how eager she was to help me in any way, I made the requirements as clear as possible.
“Maybe,” I hinted, “Simon’s dead friend can tell him they must both start a new life. He must forget about her, never mention her name.”
“Ah! She was girlfriend.”
“No, just a friend.”
“Ah, like you, just friend.” She smiled, then asked, “Chinese too?”
“Polish, I think. Maybe also Jewish.”
“Tst! Tst!” Kwan shook her head. “Polish-Jewish, very hard to find, so many dead Polish-Jewish. Many dead Chinese people too, but I have many connection for Chinese—this yin person know that yin person, easier for me to find if Chinese. But Polish-Jewish—ah!—maybe she don’t even go to Yin World, maybe go someplace else.”
“The next world is segregated? You can go to the World of Yin only if you’re Chinese?”
“No-no! Miss Banner, she not Chinese, she go to Yin World. All depend what you love, what you believe. You love Jesus, go Jesus House. You love Allah, go Allah Land. You love sleep, go sleep.”
“What if you don’t believe in anything for sure before you die?”
“Then you go big place, like Disneyland, many places can go try— you like, you decide. No charge, of course.”
As Kwan continued to ramble, I imagined an amusement park filled with ex–insurance agents dressed in hand-me-down angel costumes, waving fake lightning bolts, exhorting passersby to take an introductory tour of Limbo, Purgatory, the Small World of Unbaptized Infants. Meanwhile, there’d be hordes of former Moonies and est followers signed up for rides called the Pandemonium, the Fire and Brimstone, the Eternal Torture Rack.
“So who goes to the World of Yin?”
“Lots people. Not just Chinese, also people have big regret. Or people think they miss big chance, or miss wife, miss husband, miss children, miss sister.” Kwan paused and smiled at me. “Also, people miss Chinese food, they go Yin World, wait there. Later can be born into other person.”
“Oh, you mean yin people are those who believe in reincarnation.”
“What mean recarnation?”
“Reincarnation. You know, after you die, your spirit or soul or whatever can be reborn as another human being.”
“Yes, maybe this same thing, something like that. You not too picky, can come back fast, forty-nine days. You want something special—born to this person, marry that person—sometimes must wait long time. Like big airport, can go many-many places. But you want first class, window seat, nonstop, or discount, maybe have long delay. Hundred year at least. Now I tell you something, secret, don’t tell anyone, ah. Many yin people, next life, guess who they want be. You guess.”
“President of the United States.”
“No.”
“The Who.”
“Who?”
“Never mind. Who do they want to be?”
“Chinese! I telling you true! Not French, not Japanese, not Swedish. Why? I think because Chinese food best, fresh and cheap, many-many flavors, every day different taste. Also, Chinese family very close, friends very loyal. You have Chinese friend or family one lifetime, stay with you ten thousand lifetime, good deal. That’s why so many Chinese people live in world now. Same with people from India. Very crowded there. India people believe many lifetime too. Also, I hear India food not too bad, lots spicy dishes, curry flavors too. Course, Chinese curry still best. What you think, Libby-ah? You like my curry dish? You like, I can make for you tonight, okay?”
I steered Kwan back to the matter of Elza. “So what’s the best way to go about finding Simon’s friend? Where do Polish Jews usually go?”
Kwan started muttering: “Polish-Jewish, Polish-Jewish. So many places can go. Some believe nothing after die. Some say go in-between place, like doctor waiting room. Others go Zion, like fancy resort, no one ever complaining, no need tip, good service anyway.” She shook her head, then asked, “How this person die?”
“A skiing accident in Utah. Avalanche. It’s like drowning.”
“Ah!—waterski affa lunch! Stomach too full, no wonder drown.”
“I didn’t say after lunch. I said—”
“No lunch? Then why she drown? Cannot swim?”
“She didn’t drown! She was buried in the snow.”
“Snow!” Kwan frowned. “Then why you say she drown?”
I sighed, about to go insane.
“She very young?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Tst! This too sad. Happen when?”
“About a year ago.”
Kwan clapped her hands. “How could I forgotten! My bachelor friend! Toby Lipski. Lipski, sound like ‘ski.’ Jewish too. Oh!—very funny yin person. Last year he die, liver cancer. He tell me, ‘Kwan, you right, too much drinking at disco club, bad for me, very-very bad. When I come back, no more drinking. Then I can have long life, long love, long penis.’ Last part, course he just joking. . . .” Kwan looked at me to make sure she’d made her point about the evils of alcohol. “Toby Lipski also tell me, ‘Kwan, you need yin favor, you ask for Toby Lipski.’ Okay. Maybe I ask Toby Lipski find this girl. What’s name?”
“Elza.”
“Yes-yes, Elza. First I must send Toby message, like write letter with my mind.” She squeezed her eyes shut and tapped the side of her head. Her eyes flew back open. “Send to Yin World. Everything with mind and heart together, use hundred secret sense.”
“What do you mean, secret sense?”
“Ah! I already tell you so many time! You don’t listen? Secret sense not really secret. We just call secret because everyone has, only forgotten. Same kind of sense like ant feet, elephant trunk, dog nose, cat whisker, whale ear, bat wing, clam shell, snake tongue, little hair on flower. Many things, but mix up together.”
“You mean instinct.”
“Stink? Maybe sometimes stinky—”
“Not stink, instinct. It’s a kind of knowledge you’re born with. Like . . . well, like Bubba, the way he digs in the dirt.”
“Yes! Why you let dog do that! This not sense, just nonsense, mess up you flower pot!”
“I was just making a—ah, forget it. What’s a secret sense?”
“How I can say? Memory, seeing, hearing, feeling, all come together, then you know something true in you heart. Like one sense, I don’t know how say, maybe sense of tingle. You know this: Tingly bones mean rain coming, refreshen mind. Tingly skin on arms, something scaring you, close you up, still pop out lots a goose bump. Tingly skin top a you brain, oh-oh, now you know something true, leak into you heart, still you don’t want believe it. Then you also have tingly hair in you nose. Tingly skin under you arm. Tingly spot in back of you brain—that one, you don’t watch out, you got a big disaster come, mm-hm. You use you secret sense, sometimes can get message back and forth fast between two people, living, dead, doesn’t matter, same sense.”
“Well, whatever you need to do,” I said. “But put a rus
h on it.”
“Wah!” Kwan snorted. “You think I work post office—shop late, mail Christmas Eve, deliver Christmas Day, everything rush-rush-rush? No such thing here, no such thing there either! Anyway, in Yin World, no need save time. Everything already too late! You want reach someone, must sense that person feeling, that person sense youself feeling. Then—pung!—like happy accident when two self run into each other.”
“Well, whatever. Just be sure to tell this Toby guy that the woman’s name is Elza Vandervort. That’s her adopted name. She doesn’t know who her real parents were. She thinks they were Polish Jews who had been in Auschwitz. And she may be thinking about Chopin, musical stuff.”
“Wah! You talking too fast.”
“Here, I’ll write it down for you.”
Only afterward did I consider the irony of the whole matter: that I was helping Kwan with her illusions so that she could help Simon let go of his.
Two weeks later, Kwan told me Toby had hit a jackpot. He had set a date with Elza for the night of the next full moon. Kwan said that people in the World of Yin were very bad about making appointments, because nobody used a calendar or a clock anymore. The best method was to watch the moon. That was why so many strange things happened when the moon was at its brightest, Kwan said: “Like porch light, telling you guests welcome-welcome, come inside.”
I STILL FEEL GUILTY over how easy it was to fool Simon. It went like this.
I mentioned to him we’d been invited to Kwan’s for dinner. He accepted. The moment we walked in her house, Kwan said, “Ohhhh, so good-looking.” As if he’d been prompted, Simon said to Kwan, “You’re kidding. You don’t look twelve years older than Olivia.” Then Kwan beamed and said, “Ohhhh, good manner too.”