They sat at a table in the corner. The restaurant was full of color. In London women wore so much black; in Johannesburg they were like fine birds of paradise, in turquoises, oranges, and reds. She sipped her wine and gazed at him across the candlelight.
He smiled at her from behind his glasses, his eyes full of affection. “Are you happy?”
She sighed with pleasure. “Very.”
“Because you’re living in the moment, at last.”
“I don’t want it to end.”
“That’s very female.”
“What? Wanting a moment to last forever? Don’t you?”
“Yes. I love life. I want to live forever. I have a very strong feminine side.”
“Yes. I remember now. A life without love is like a desert without flowers.”
“You have a good memory.”
“For things I consider important.”
“I’m flattered.”
“My happiness is always marred with sorrow. I anticipate the end of it, or the loss of it. I wish I could really enjoy the moment without that fear.”
“How about if you just let go of that fear? After all, what will happen will happen, and your negative thoughts won’t change that. You have a choice to enjoy dinner with me, or sit here worrying about leaving. The fact remains: you will have dinner with me. It will end. We will go home. The choice is yours as to whether you enjoy it or not.”
“But it’s very human to crave continuity and reassurance. If someone could tell me that my children will reach old age in good health, I could enjoy them without this terrible fear of losing them or of their getting sick.”
“Look, life deals you a set of cards. You don’t know what they are, but they determine what happens in your life: whether you get sick, knocked over by a car, face bereavement of some kind. Those things are here to teach us about ourselves, about love and compassion, and to test us so we grow into better human beings. So how do you maintain any control? By the way you choose to react. Think about it: a postman comes with a letter containing news. The fact is that the letter contains news. Whether it’s good or bad depends on how you look at it.”
“But if it says my mother is dead?”
“Then your reaction would be one of sorrow . . .”
“Depends on how I view my mother.” “You’ve answered your own question. It depends on how you feel about your mother. The news isn’t inherently good or bad, it just is. It’s your attachment to your mother that makes you happy or sad. The point is that the happiness of our lives depends on the happiness of our thoughts. Think positively, and life will be positive.”
“You should write a book on this. You’re much more of a philosopher than me. I am totally in the dark.” She drained her glass. “I thought I had life taped. But then I realized that life’s trappings, life’s luxuries, although they make living easier—and no one likes luxury more than me—they don’t create happiness in themselves. It’s the sunshine, the trees and flowers, beautiful scenes, music, the embrace of loved ones, that create happiness. They fill us up inside with something magical and intangible.”
“It’s loving yourself, Sage, and giving love.” He reached across the table and took her hand. “You ask a man who’s survived a brush with death, and he will tell you that happiness is just in loving life and appreciating living. But most people take life for granted and crave more and more material things in the hope that a smarter house or a better car will fulfill them. You ask a woman who has lost a child and she will tell you that the only thing in the world that will make her happy is to hug her child again. Of course, we can’t all live like that, but there are lessons to be learned from those people. Love is the only thing that can make us happy. Love is like a bright light that burns away resentment, fear, hate, and loneliness. Life is so precious. The tragedy is that people only realize that when they are on the point of losing it.”
He stared at her for a long moment, his face suddenly sad. She stared back, her stomach cramping with dread. He looked as if he was on the point of telling her something important but hesitated.
“Your fish, madam,” said the waiter, and the moment passed. Jack sat back to allow the waiter to place the dish in front of him, and to compose himself.
“That looks good,” he said, smiling. The sorrow had passed, like a rain cloud, leaving him sunny again. Angelica felt a sense of foreboding but couldn’t detect from where it came.
22
The bend in the road is not the end of the road, unless you fail to make the turn.
In Search of the Perfect Happiness