“I rented a room above a garage belonging to a former teacher of mine who pitied me. She thought I could have my child, come to my senses, and return to my studies. Because, you see, I was ‘filled with promise.’ In that tiny space above the carport, with Bella at my breast, I was so happy, Jerome! Time stopped, and with it, all worry. I took a job as a waitress. The teacher’s mother lived in the main house and was delighted to look after the little one while I worked.
“I won’t talk about what went wrong with Bella’s body, in her fourth year. The details. Please forgive that omission… it’s too painful. Though my Sir has said that one day I shall be able. It won’t hurt at all, he said, the time will come when I’ll be eager to remember those awful, terrible things — though I admit I have trouble imagining such a time, so do forgive my faithlessness! — but my Sir says they won’t be awful anymore, they’ll be as beautiful as the memory, the truth, of her eyes, her hair, her skin — that I’ll wish to remember it all, the closer I come to seeing her again. For that is where we are going, my guru and I: to that place where she resides, that place where my Sir will see those dear to him, whom he once lost as well. The wife and son that he loved, and loves still…
“While she was at Children’s, I took long walks. I was there, of course, for all treatments and procedures, holding her hand, kissing and fussing over her, taking on her pain as best I could, never leaving her at night. They kept a cot for me right beside her. But when she napped (often with the help of medicine) I took walks because I was starting to hear the bells again; walks were the only thing that muffled the noise. You see, if one is not in the proper frame of mind, if one isn’t ready, the sound of the bells can be very unpleasant. For they’re not the sound of bells as you know them… On those meanderings, I’d pass a homeless man, surrounded by heaps of rags and discarded things, who begged for coins from his carpet of cardboard. I wouldn’t go by him all the time — it depended on which route I took. But when I did, he searched my eyes in such a way that eventually I chose to force the encounter. Each time I grew near, I slowed on the approach, until one day I broke through my shyness and spoke to him. I’m telling you, I was in a horrible, shambling state! Yet the moment I was in his presence, something strange occurred… I didn’t realize until half an hour later that the bells had stopped entirely. He cleared an edge of cardboard and asked me to sit on some shag he had requisitioned from a dumpster. I felt no shame. Pedestrians walked by, hardly giving notice. No shame! You see, I’d come home. So I poured my heart to him and told everything. About the fire and the bells — and my Bella. Jerome, never in my life had I been listened to like that! The tenderness! Had his tenderness stood of itself, without my anguish to balance it, I think it would have been too much to bear. I’d have died from such kindness.”
Tears hung in her eyes, and Jeremy thought he saw them in the boy’s as well; his own became wet by contagion.
“And we talked like that—I talked like that — for hours and hours and hours, until there was no more sorrow, rage, or yearning to be shown. Then one day, my Sir said — of course I didn’t yet know him as ‘my Sir,’ ‘my guru’—my Sir said, ‘It’s all over now’—said it under his breath, as if talking to himself — but I heard and I cringed because I thought he meant my poor Bella! It’s all over now—God, the agony when I heard that! (And he was right, about it being over for her, though, you see, he meant something entirely different. I’ll tell you what he really meant in just a little while.) ‘It’s all over,’ he said, louder this time, and looked me dead in the eye. ‘It’s over because now they know. I made certain of it — the “contract” is magnificently broken.’ I thought, What on earth could he be talking about? What contract? I hadn’t a clue. What strange words from a sidewalk saint, this rumpled, roly-poly, Rumpole-looking dervish who sent everything whirling! Before I could gather my wits and ask, he seized my arm and said with an urgency that thundered:
“‘Let’s see about your daughter now!’”
The flames in the pit suddenly brightened, letting loose a crack like gunfire — man and boy jumped from their skin, but the unsinkable Devi didn’t stir. She just sat there smiling, cool and inscrutable.
“On the way back to Children’s, we walked in silence—Silence. Did you know that Silence has a sound? One day you’ll hear it. I have no words to describe — there are no words — isn’t it funny that it even has a name? — ‘Silence’?—the closest I can come is that it’s like the sound of a single, extended heartbeat—within a… cathedral. Not a human heart… and we’re enshrouded by it, it belongs to the Source… and not that it can belong anywhere—I know I’m not making sense, that’s my fault, not yours, but one day you might have an inclination of what I’m trying to tell you.” She stared directly at Tristen, who appeared both unnerved and ennobled. “You will understand, young man! You already do.” She brought her gaze to the other, so as not to neglect. “And you, my dear Jerome, are on your way! Well on your way!”
She refilled their wineglasses. The ocean roared and quieted, roared and quieted, as if it too were restive for more talk, more spirits. Devi leaned to stoke the fire, which had also grown ornery; at her nourishing touch, it regained equilibrium.
She had the full attention of the elements again.
“The quality of our reception at the hospital was, shall we say, guarded. Ha! My ‘friendly giant’ was wild and unkempt, carrying with him the ambrosia of the streets. Until we arrived, I hadn’t considered how we’d be greeted. When I saw the fearful look on their faces, I only hoped they wouldn’t be too rude — see, I didn’t want to offend them either, because those nurses had been Bella’s angels, and mine too. I think I debated whether or not to announce him as my child’s father or godfather or grand pa-pa—I remember being wary of doing anything to insult my big Sir. But he wouldn’t have cared at all! It wouldn’t have mattered who I said he was! He wasn’t of this world! You see it was all new to me, so I dared not presume… I suppose as well that I simply didn’t want to tell a lie—in the face of this formidable creature, any subterfuge, no matter how small or expedient, suddenly seemed like a sin. Of course, in his world, there is no such as sin—or a ‘lie’… nor is there ‘truth.’ Only Silence! I didn’t know that yet, any of it. It was all so completely new.