Authors: Gita Nazareth
“You could have been killed, Karen!”
“Yeah, I know. The bullets went through the metal of the console but didn’t disable anything or hurt anybody. And they didn’t cause Sam or Brian to move either. They stayed at their launch consoles under fire; their commanders would have been proud. At ten seconds, a new siren sounded, signaling the final phase of the countdown. We all realized now it wasn’t a false alarm or drill. They were about to launch their missiles. We were ten seconds away from Armageddon.”
“Unbelievable,” I said. “What did you do?”
Karen smiled. “I put my gun down.”
“What? You put it down?”
Karen looked past me and her face became blissful, like the face of a monk meditating. “I could see it all so clearly in that moment,” she said. “Everything became perfectly calm and still. I suddenly understood what Jesus had been trying to teach us by not resisting his executioners and forgiving them. To reunite with God, we must be like God, and we must love like God. Even God wasn’t going to come down from the sky and shoot Sam and Brian. He had already forgiven them for launching the missiles and destroying the world, just as Jesus had already forgiven his executioners. A great God loves without condition—even when we murder millions of people, even when we attempt to murder God Himself. In that instant, I was standing in the Garden of Eden, Brek, right there inside that nuclear missile silo.” Karen’s eyes glistened. “I had come home. It was the most sacred moment of my life. I got down on my knees and laid the gun on the floor as an offering. I touched the face of God.”
For a moment, I thought I could almost feel what Karen was feeling, that I could almost sense her ecstasy; but suddenly some inmates started shouting at each other in the hallway and I snapped out of it. We were talking about nuclear warheads here, not beautiful sunsets. I was worried Karen might be forced to spend years in a prison or a psychiatric ward for the sake of her spiritual epiphany.
She smiled at me. “You think I’m crazy.”
“I’m worried about you.”
“Don’t be. This was a gift from God.”
“So, what happened next? They obviously didn’t launch the missiles.”
“At six seconds, a new mechanical voice came on telling them to abort the launch and stand down. Sam and Brian folded their launch consoles and put the launch keys away. The SPs arrested me. Five FBI agents were waiting when they brought me to the surface. They flew me here to Leavenworth that night. Two FBI agents, and a CIA agent, have been interrogating me ever since. Can you believe it? They actually think I’m a spy! They keep reminding me that treason carries the death penalty. It’s ridiculous. I was set up. It was all a charade.”
“Set up? What do you mean you were set up? You tried to stop them from launching the missiles and you fired a gun. I’m not saying I can’t get you out of this, but I’d say they’ve got a pretty good case.”
“They told me they’d been watching me for months. Apparently some of the missileers who I’d been meeting with and counseling that launching nuclear missiles is morally wrong reported me. No surprise there; I knew it wouldn’t last long. But, like you said, they could have simply discharged or transferred me if they didn’t like what I was saying. Instead, they let me keep my clearance...and go down into a missile silo knowing all along I’m morally against it? There was never any North Korean ICBM launch, mistaken or otherwise; they set it all up to see what I’d do. I’m not a lawyer, but that sounds like entrapment. I’ll bet Sam and Brian will admit it if you ask them. I don’t think they really believe I’m a spy. I think they want to make an example out of me to deter others. The only thing they didn’t anticipate was me taking an SP’s gun and shooting a launch console; but that just makes their case stronger, doesn’t it? And you know what? I don’t care. They can do whatever they want to me. Something happened to me in that silo, Brek. I’ll never be afraid of the government or anybody else again. Let them fry me if they want. This case is going to draw more attention to the danger and immorality of nuclear weapons than a lifetime of protests.”
All this came back to me while sitting in Luas’ office, waiting for the new postulant to arrive. Luas said nothing more. He had accomplished his goal of immersing me in the miasma of my own past so that I could not become lost in the past of another soul. He struck a match to light his pipe, adding a third flame to the darkened room. There was a soft knock at the door and the faceless gray robed creature from the Urartu Chamber entered. In a subservient voice, it asked whether we were ready.
“Yes, Legna,” Luas said, exhaling a cloud of smoke from his pipe. “I believe Ms. Cuttler is now ready. Please send in the next postulant.”
A
mina Rabun’s hard life passed before my eyes, ending sixty-seven years after it began in the quiet dawn of a day that looked like any other day.
I saw nothing of her soul coming or going from Luas’ office. She had no shape or size like Nana, Luas, or Haissem. Rather, I saw Amina Rabun only as she had once seen herself: reflected in mirrors brushing her long, brown hair; in the reactions of those for whom she cared, and those for whom she thought she should care; in the memories and fantasies of who she had been and who she might have been; in the photographs that could not be trusted because they were always at odds with mirror and mind. She was a woman both ugly and beautiful, as she had accepted and rejected those qualities in herself from time to time; and so, at the end of her life, when she passed on from one world to another, the
she
that passed was, as we all are, a collection of thoughts and ideas—bits of data transferred from one realm to another, like moving computer files to a new machine that can open and read them again.
Our interview of Amina Rabun consisted of sitting in her presence and receiving the record of her life. No questions were asked, no conversation took place, and none was needed. The memories of Amina Rabun came to us whole and complete unto themselves, an entire human life copied from one storage device to another. I felt full after meeting her the way one feels after reading an epic novel: having entered another world and become part of it heart and soul. Like such a reader, at first I found no difficulty in separating my life from hers. When I closed the book of Amina Rabun’s life—the most wonderful book I had ever read because it contained a full and complete life with all its nuances, far more than any human author could ever hope to achieve—Legna, the meek librarian of Shemaya, reappeared to return the volume to the great hall of the train shed where it would wait on the shelf with the many others until Amina Rabun’s case was called in the Urartu Chamber.
“Who are you?” Luas asked me in the flickering candlelight after Legna left.
“Brek Abigail Cuttler,” I said proudly. “That wasn’t so hard after all.”
“Good. Very good,” Luas said, standing up behind the desk and blowing out the candles. “But I want you to stay with your great-grandmother until we’re certain you’ve adjusted fully to the burden of having another life resident inside your own.”
“Okay,” I replied, having nowhere else to be anyway. This was one of the many advantages of Shemaya: no plans, no appointments.
Walking back through the impossibly long corridor of offices, one of the doors opened midway down the hall and a handsome young man appeared. Unlike Amina Rabun and the other postulants inside the train shed, he had both shape and size and was the first soul I had seen in Shemaya besides Nana, Luas, and Haissem. He wore a dark suit and white shirt with a blue and gold striped tie loosened at the neck, as though he had just finished his workday, and round wire rim glasses that required constant attention to keep from sliding down the steep slope of his nose. He didn’t notice us and nearly backed into Luas while closing the door behind him.
“Careful there,” Luas said, stepping wide to avoid a collision and coming to a stop. “Ah, Tim Shelly, meet Brek Cuttler.”
Tim extended his right hand and, seeing I had no right hand to return the gesture, sheepishly retracted it, stepping with me the same awkward dance I had stepped with countless others during my life. I broke the tension the same way: “My left hand’s got a better grip than my right,” I said. He laughed uneasily, as they all did, and shook my left hand. He stared uneasily at my empty right sleeve, visibly unsettled. I, on the other hand, was excited to have found someone in Shemaya closer to my own age . . . and, I admit, a bit smitten by his good looks.
“Brek here is our newest recruit,” Luas said. “She just met her first postulant.” Luas turned to me. “Tim hasn’t been with us much longer than you, Brek. He’s had a more difficult start of it though: poor fellow came away from his first meeting with a postulant convinced he was a waitress at a diner. Wouldn’t stop taking my breakfast order—poached eggs and toast, no butter mind you, Tim. Miserable wretch brought me biscuits slathered in butter every time; and when I threatened to dock his tip, he’d grumble, take the biscuits back, scrape them clean, and return them to me stone cold. For a little fun I started ordering dishes that weren’t even on the menu; he’d become irate with me and storm off to his imaginary kitchen. When I refused to order altogether, he threatened to throw me out for loitering! As I recall, Tim, it wasn’t until you made a pass at me that we achieved a full separation of personalities. No offense, but you’re just not my type.”
Tim seemed embarrassed, but I found the story hysterical. It felt so good to laugh again; it had been such a long time.
“You’d make a good catch, Luas,” Tim shot back gamely.
“Now, now,” Luas said, “you mustn’t tease me so. You were interested in me only because your boyfriend made conversation with a pretty woman at the other end of the counter and you were trying to make him jealous.”
“I think Tim is right, Luas,” I said, joining in the fun. “You’d make a fine catch.”
“You do seem to have adjusted better than me,” Tim said, plainly impressed. “I really was as lost as Luas says.”
“Well,” I, said nodding at my empty right sleeve, “Luas had plenty of material to prepare me with. He made me so preoccupied with my own past I couldn’t possibly mistake it for anyone else’s.”
“I have something of a confession to make, Tim,” Luas said. “Unlike Brek here, I dropped you in cold with your first postulant as part of a little experiment I was conducting. I couldn’t tell you in advance for fear of tainting the results.”
“What kind of experiment?” Tim asked.
“Well, as you know,” Luas explained, “the object of every presentation is to project an accurate and unbiased representation of the postulant. I wanted to test whether this could be improved upon by removing any trace of personality of the presenter.”
Tim seemed unamused. “You mean you subjected me to the memories of my first postulant without preparing me at all?”
“You, among others,” Luas said. “I also maintained a control group for comparison.”
“What if I wasn’t able to handle it?” Tim said. “What if I’d lost who I am?”
“I knew you would do well,” Luas replied. “And I was obviously correct. Besides, I kept a cache of your most important memories handy to bring you back in case of emergency.”
“I guess,” Tim said, resigned, but still annoyed. “Well, did you learn anything useful?”
“Yes. There’s no difference among well-trained presenters—and you were well trained.” Luas smiled slyly. “I also discovered that you care for me far more than I could have imagined.”
I laughed uneasily. Tim stood frozen-faced.
“Well,” Luas said, “I thank both of you for your flattery and would very much enjoy hearing more, but I must attend to some administrative matters. Tim knows the way out. Would you be so kind as to escort Ms. Cuttler?”
“Sure,” Tim said.
“Splendid. She’ll still need the blindfold before entering the hall.”
“Understood.”
“I’ll check in with you periodically, Brek, to see how you’re doing. Sophia knows how to reach me if there are difficulties. Make no effort to evaluate Ms. Rabun’s case; there’ll be opportunity for that later. Just get accustomed to her memories and emotions, both of which are quite powerful, as you well know. You should spend most of your time relaxing. Sophia will be with you. You’re okay?”
“Yes...yes, I’m fine.”
“If she starts taking breakfast orders, we’ll know who to blame,” Tim said, getting in the last jab and letting Luas know he was no longer angry.
“Guilty as charged,” Luas said, bowing in mock apology. “I must be off.”
We watched him walk to the end of the corridor, disappearing through a set of locked doors.
“How long have you been here?” I asked, eager to learn about Tim’s experience and everything he knew about Shemaya.
“I’m not sure exactly,” he said.
“I know what you mean,” I replied. “Where are all the clocks and calendars? That’s been one of the most difficult parts of the transition for me.”
We started walking toward the great hall.
“Have you done any presentations on your own yet?” I asked.
“No, I’ve only watched,” Tim answered. “Luas says the next one’s on my own though.”
“Me too...after Amina Rabun. Are these all presenters’ offices? There must be thousands.”
“Yeah, I just got mine. There are a bunch of empties down at this end. Where are you staying?”
“With my great-grandmother, at her house—or what used to be her house.”
“I stayed in a tent with my dad when I first arrived. He and I used to go hunting in Canada, just the two of us. He died a couple of months before I got here.”
“Sorry— Or not...you’ve got him back now.”
“I guess. It was great seeing him at first, and he really helped me adjust, but he’s gone again.”
“Gone? Where? I didn’t know you could leave here.”
“I don’t know where he went. One day he said I was ready to live here on my own, but that we’d see each other again someday. You can live anywhere you want when you’re ready.”
“What do you mean, anywhere?”
“Well, anywhere...let’s see, I’ve lived at Eagle’s Nest and Hitler’s bunker in Berlin—I’m really into Nazi history—let’s see, the White House, Graceland. If you can imagine it, you can go there.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s amazing. I thought you could only go to the places you’ve visited during your life. That’s all I’ve been doing.”
“No, anywhere you want. I’ll show you when we get outside. You can’t do it in here.”
When we reached the train shed, Tim opened a bin near the doors, removed a blindfold, and tied the thick felt cloth over my eyes. I peeked again as we passed through the great hall, sampling paragraphs from the thousands of autobiographies cramming the room, each authored by a different hand but, like all autobiographies, revealing the same truths, pains, and joys. I closed their covers when we reached the vestibule on the other side, neither confused nor weakened as I had been before.
For the first time since arriving at Shemaya, I felt a flicker of hope rather than apprehension, the way a visit from a friend brightens the darkness of an extended illness. I flipped off the blindfold and Tim and I literally raced outside like two kids let out of school. The entrance to the train shed somehow bordered the western boundary of Nana’s property; it was little more than a disturbance in the air between two maple trees that had been there all along, since before I was a child, diaphanous, like a faint patch of fog.
Could the entrance to heaven have been so near all along?
I wondered. But, of course, we were nowhere near Delaware or her home; it was all being made up spontaneously, conjured from...I had no idea if there was even air. In any case, I could see the roof of Nana’s house through the trees, however it emerged, and hear the sound of light traffic along the road.
“Nice place,” Tim said, looking around. “Okay, so where do you want to go?”
“Um....”
“Just pick any place, you can see them all.”
“Well, okay...Tara,” I blurted, of all possible things.
“I’ve never been there,” Tim said. “What would it look like?”
All at once we were there, standing on the wine colored carpet sweeping through the foyer and up the grand staircase of the fictional plantation mansion. Crystal chandeliers tinkled softly in a gentle spring breeze that stroked the plush green velvet curtains of the parlor, carrying the sweet afternoon scents of magnolia, apple blossom, and fresh-cut lawn. With our heads turning, we walked out to the portico with its whitewashed columns and made our way to the rail fence over which Gerald O’Hara leaped but never returned, then under a giant sycamore, through the gardens and back onto the sun-drenched veranda. We examined the dining room, with its sparkling tea service and glassware, and the study lined with
Farmer’s Almanacs
, English poetry, and some French volumes. It didn’t matter that Tara had been only a description in a novel or a set in a movie any more than it mattered to readers of the book or audiences in the theaters. Nor did it matter that I could not remember the details as they appeared in the book or on the film: my mind instantly provided what I expected to see, feel, and smell, extrapolating outward from memory. I was panting when we reached the top of the stairs, and felt a very real stab of pain when I banged my shin into the corner of a dry sink, proving that we were not wandering through a mere illusion. Everything was in its place, except Rhett and Scarlet. I bounced on her bed, giggling uncontrollably, intoxicated by the dream turned reality. Tim had never read the book nor seen the movie and did not share my enthusiasm, but I dragged him through each room anyway like a star-struck movie studio guide: “And this is where she shot that Union scoundrel,” I squealed. “And this is where Rhett left her.”
We went back into the parlor; Tim sat down on the formal sofa, bored and unimpressed with the mansion, but amused by my first giddy moments at the controls of such magical powers to re-create it. I admired the porcelain figurines on the shelves and stopped to examine a miniature ship in a bottle on the fireplace mantel. As quickly as my mind recognized the ship, my thoughts replaced the plantation with ocean, and the mansion with masts and hull. Suddenly, we were deposited onto the deck of a sixteenth-century caravel on the high seas, and Tim was all enthusiasm. She was leaning-to in rough weather off the coast of a Caribbean island; there we were, dressed in our business attire like a pair of farcical bare-boat charterers. The caravel rolled sharply to port, forcing us to claw our way on hands and knees toward the starboard rail through a drenching saltwater spray; we kicked off our shoes to gain better hold of the slimy oak decking. With the next wave the ship listed heavily starboard, sending us scrambling back across the deck for the port rail. Despite the battering, the ship carried full sails on the foremast, main, and missen, and the tattered red and gold stripes of Spain. The deck was deserted. I made my way to the wheel to bring the ship under control and Tim went for the rigging to bring in the sails. He found a hatchet and cut loose the yards, sending the beams, ropes, and sails plummeting to the deck with a tremendous thud. With the reduction in wind power, the rudder responded and I was able to steer a course directly into the waves, stabilizing the ship. Tim made his way back to the transom over the heaps of canvas and rope littering the deck. He was dripping wet by the time I saw him, the long locks of his dark brown hair matted to his forehead in jagged inky stripes, his shirt, pants, and suspenders torn almost to tatters and his round glasses lost to the sea.