I shrugged as I motioned toward the door. “You are mistaken.”
“Am I wrong in saying I was a lamb once and have turned into a wolf?”
“No, you got that right. I can see that you have become a wolf indeed. But you are wrong in calling what you are doing ‘justice.’ ”
“Wait, I haven’t finished with you!” the innkeeper shouted behind my back. “You owe me. In return for food and bed, you were going to interpret my dreams.”
“I’ll do something better,” I suggested. “I’ll read your palm.”
I turned back and walked toward him, looking hard into his burning eyes. Instinctively, distrustfully, he flinched. Still, when I grabbed his right hand and turned his palm up, he didn’t push me away. I inspected the lines and found them deep, cracked, marking uneven paths. Bit by bit, the colors in his aura appeared to me: a rusty brown and a blue so pale as to be almost gray. His spiritual energy was hollowed out and thinned around the edges, as if it had no more strength to defend itself against the outside world. Deep inside, the man was no more alive than a wilting plant. To make up for the loss of his spiritual energy, he had doubled up his physical energy, which he used in excess.
My heart beat faster, for I had started seeing something. At first dimly, as if behind a veil, then with increasing clarity, a scene appeared in front of my eyes.
A young woman with chestnut hair, bare feet with black tattoos, and an embroidered red shawl draped over her shoulders.
“You have lost a loved one,” I said, and took his left palm in my hand.
Her breasts swollen with milk and her belly so huge it looks as if it could rip apart. She is stuck in a hut on fire. There are warriors around the house, riding horses with silver-gilded saddles. The thick smell of burning hay and human flesh. Mongol riders, their noses flat and wide, necks thick and short, and hearts as hard as rocks. The mighty army of Genghis Khan.
“You have lost two loved ones,” I corrected myself. “Your wife was pregnant with your first child.”
His eyebrows clamped down, his eyes fixed on his leather boots, and his lips tightly pursed, the innkeeper’s face creased into an unreadable map. Suddenly he looked old beyond his years.
“I realize that it’s no consolation to you, but I think there is something you should know,” I said. “It wasn’t the fire or the smoke that killed her. It was a wooden plank in the ceiling that collapsed on her head. She died instantly, without any pain. You always assumed she had suffered terribly, but in reality she did not suffer at all.”
The innkeeper furrowed his brow, bowed under a pressure only he could understand. His voice turned raspy as he asked, “How do you know all that?”
I ignored the question. “You have been blaming yourself for not giving her a proper funeral. You still see her in your dreams, crawling out of the pit she was buried in. But your mind is playing games with you. In truth, your wife and son are both fine, traveling in infinity, as free as a speck of light.”
I then added, measuring each word, “You can become a lamb again, because you still have it in you.”
Upon hearing this the innkeeper pulled his hand away, as if he had just touched a sizzling pan. “I don’t like you, dervish,” he said. “I’ll let you stay here tonight. But make sure you are gone early in the morning. I don’t want to see your face around here again.”
It was always like this. When you spoke the truth, they hated you. The more you talked about love, the more they hated you.
Ella
NORTHAMPTON, MAY 18, 2008
Bested by the tension that followed the argument with David and Jeannette, Ella was so drained she had to stop reading Sweet Blasphemy for a while. She felt as though the lid of a boiling cauldron had suddenly been lifted, emitting old conflicts and new resentments in the rising steam. Unfortunately, it was no one other than she who had lifted that lid. And she had done it by dialing Scott’s number and asking him not to marry her daughter.
Later in her life, she would deeply regret everything she’d uttered during this phone conversation. But on this day in May, she was so sure of herself and the ground beneath her feet that she could not for the life of her fathom any dire consequences from her intrusion.
“Hi, Scott. This is Jeannette’s mom, Ella,” she said, trying to sound jovial, as if calling her daughter’s boyfriend were something she did all the time. “Do you have a minute to talk?”
“Mrs. Rubinstein, how may I help you?” Scott stammered, surprised but ever so civilized.
And in a no-less-civilized tone, Ella told him that although she had nothing against him personally, he was too young and inexperienced to marry her daughter. Upset as he might be to receive this call now, she added, someday in the not-so-distant future he would understand and even thank her for warning him in time. Until then she asked him to kindly drop the subject of marriage and to keep this phone conversation between the two of them.