"Danny gives me peace. It's not a dull peace, either. We balance each other. Isn't that what we should be doing – looking for balance?"
"How do you know all this without even trying?"
"Because I'm afraid I'd like living with you too much, and then I'd find out way too late it was a terrible mistake ever to try."
"That sounds cowardly."
"Being safe and being loved is not cowardice. We'd love each other, but there's no safety between us, Weber. We'd be flinging each other across trapezes without a net. That's all right when you're young and have nothing to lose but your heart, but when you're older and know your heart is only a piece of the whole, then you pull back and say I'd rather have a family than the air. I'd rather lie on my back on the earth and look up at the stars than try to fly to them with little chance of getting there."
"You think we'd have a chance of that?"
"Of course. But only a small one, and I don't want to gamble anymore. I have a good man, a baby, and a pretty charmed life right now. What am I supposed to do, put all those chips on the table in hopes of winning a jackpot? How many jackpots are won? How many people walk away from the table rich?"
That conversation isn't in her book, but the reason I remember it so clearly is because that night I had my first Rondua dream.
What was Rondua? Take a child's perception and experience in a toy store at six or seven years old. Where the stuffed animals are as big and all-encompassing as skyscrapers; where you want to see and touch everything, even when it frightens or repels. That was Rondua. A place where dreams you once had, creatures and situations that knew you (yes, situations knew you in Rondua) all returned to visit, instruct, astonish. But those were only part. It wasn't only things you knew but a world where new wonder and surprise were common currency and certainty had no place.
People dream of strange lands all the time, but the difference here was Cullen James and I dreamed the same view, saw the same wondrous landscapes and creatures, and could thus compare notes and draw maps the next day.
What did it mean and why did it happen? Nervously, I asked a number of people, but the explanation that sounded truest came from Venasque, Phil's shaman and our one-time neighbor with the pig. The only proof I knew of the old man's power was Strayhorn's unequivocal belief in him, which didn't remove my skepticism, however. But when the Rondua dreams came more and more frequently, I thought it could do no harm to ask him.
"You know the joke about the thermos bottle? A bunch of researchers are interviewing people to hear what they think is man's greatest invention. Someone naturally says the wheel, another the airplane, the alphabet . . . then one guy says, The thermos bottle.'
"Thermos bottle? What are you talking about?
"The guy says, 'Look, in the winter when it's ten below out, I fill my thermos bottle with hot soup and go to a football game. Two hours later it's still cold as hell out, but when I open up the bottle there's hot soup in there. Right?
"'Okay. Then in the middle of summer, when it's ninety out, I fill that same bottle with ice-cold lemonade. Two hours later when I'm dying of the heat, I open it up and there's still ice-cold lemonade in there. I got one question for you: How does it know?'"
Venasque took a handful of M&M's and handed them to the pig.
"I don't understand your analogy."
"Love is the greatest invention of human beings, Weber. It's such a great invention that man made it and brought it to life, but then it got so strong and smart it took itself out of our hands and now runs its own affairs. It's like that thermos bottle – It knows. How it knows can be applied all over the place.
"You want this woman and you know she's the right one for you, but it just can't be. So love takes over. If you can't have her, you can know her better than any other person on earth does, including her nice-guy husband. You can't sleep together, but you can 'know' her better than any hundred nights together would ever teach you.
"What's the place called? Rondua? Enjoy it, Weber. Even the bad parts. Love's giving you a present. The two of you."
As suddenly as they came, the dreams left. According to her book, Cullen thought I stopped dreaming because she put her hand on my forehead and said a secret word. I think they stopped because, like some kind of deep alpine tunnel that goes on for ten or twelve miles, I'd gone into and through my improvident love for her and finally come out the other side. By the time she touched my head and said that word, 'Koukounaries,' I'd gotten through this tunnel and emerged, blinking and disoriented but safe in another country.
I would always love her, but not with the same unhealthy need and hope as before. That was suicidal. If Venasque was right and Love had given us Rondua, losing it as I did meant a loss too of the damaging obsession I had for Cullen James, which had badly affected whole months of my life.
A couple of hours after Wyatt mentioned Rondua, Danny James called to see how things were going. I wanted to talk about the videotapes and the tattoo moving off my back, but Sasha was home and I didn't want her to hear any of this yet. Wyatt was the only one who knew the whole story, and we'd agreed not to tell her anything until we were more sure ourselves. What if Strayhorn was alive? Or Pinsleepe really was an angel come to earth to right his wrongs? Sasha was pregnant and full of cancer. When I said Wyatt had cancer too, he blithely brushed it off, saying, yes, but he wasn't pregnant. What's more, he did believe in impossibilities like angels and atoning for a dead man's sins. Sasha didn't, which made it difficult in case other queer things would have to be done to resolve these matters.
"Danny, you never told me why Phil went to New York the last week before he died. Would you now? I think it's important."
"He was with a little girl named Pinsleepe. About eight or nine. Said she was his niece, but I don't know. That was the first thing that worried me. The two of them were in and out of town a lot, because every time I called I had to leave a message. When I saw them they'd just come back from New Jersey."
"Do you remember where in New Jersey?"
"No, but Phil said he'd spent a summer there when he was a kid."
"Not Browns Mills?"
"Yes, Browns Mills. That was the name."
"What was he like when you saw him?"
"Very up, like he was on dexedrine. He kept telling jokes so the little girl would laugh. Almost as if he were babysitting and felt compelled to entertain her the whole time. It was odd. I felt uncomfortable."
"Why didn't you bring Cullen?"
"Because he specifically asked me not to. No Cullen and no Mae. Which was strange too, because you know how much he liked both of them.
"We spent a few hours together and then I had an appointment. As we were saying goodbye, he told me to tell you he'd be sending you some very important videotapes soon."
"How come you didn't tell me?"
"Because he was dead a few days later."