This story is based on an excerpt from the novel Sandcastles. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim electronic copies of this novel for non-commercial purposes provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. This novel has not yet been published in paper form. You can contact the author directly: Richard Seltzer, 33 Gould St., West Roxbury, MA 02132. seltzer@samizdat.com
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My Uncle Charlie is a classicist -- imposing form and order on any material. A modern-day Alexander Pope, he can turn anything and everything into art. Pope did it with words in heroic couplets. Charlie does it with visual images on film and videotape. But the impulse was the same in both cases -- the brilliant individual imposing his will on a disorderly world. He believes in the creative power of his wit and reason.
His wife, Irene, is a romantic, with faith in "natural process". She believes that everyone, at some level, is godlike, and shares in the spark of God and shines with it. Meaning is to be found within, not created artificially from without.
I believe both of them and neither of them. I believe the Eastern mystic is just as wrong in rejecting the external world, as the Western businessman is in rejecting the inner world. Truth lies not in some average or balance of notions such as these, but in their active interplay. So I try to understand not just Charlie, but Irene and myself, trying to sort out what meaning there is or was or could be in our lives.
It was the night after my grandparents' Sixtieth Anniversary that I first learned about Irene's "background" and beliefs.
Most of my family was gathered in the livingroom playing their instruments or singing songs. I was upstairs, reading. (My grandparents had a great collection of turn-of-the-century adventure stories.)
I heard a noise in the hall and found Irene stretched out on her back on the bed in the guest room. With her dress awry, the upper part of one thigh was exposed. I stopped and stared. Then she suddenly sat up, looked at me, and smiled.
"Was denkst du?" she asked. Sometimes she spoke German to me, since I was studying it at school. When I didn't answer right away, she asked again in English, "What are you thinking about?"
Out of the blue I asked, "How did you get your name? Irene isn't a German name, is it?"
"I chose it," she said. "My parents called me Helga. Ich heisse Helga, Helga Heinz."
"Then Helga's your real name," I concluded.
"No, my real name is Irene. Helga is just what they called me. They didn't know who I was. That's how they made the mistake. It's perfectly natural."
"And what does Irene mean?"
"Peace. And before I was Irene, I was Iris."
"Iris?"
"The rainbow -- messenger of the gods. Rather ... presumptuous of me, nicht wahr?"
"Why change your name twice? Were you trying to hide something?" I asked, uncomfortable.
"When you change, your name should change. Names should be in harmony with the world."
"What?"
"Have you ever felt the presence of God?" she asked, gesturing for me to sit beside her on the bed.
From downstairs, the volume of the music increased as the family reached the refrain of "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God."
The room was filled with conflicting shadows -- shadows of antique furniture from the light in the hall and from the moon outside the window. There were two single beds in the room. Dad and Uncle Fred had slept there as boys. Later the room had been Charlie's. Charlie's college pennants still adorned the walls -- pennants of colleges where he had dreamed of going.
"Probably got some girl in trouble," Dad had concluded when he first heard Charlie had run off and joined the Army without finishing his senior year of high school.
"No, I think he's just afraid of being rejected," said Mom.
As it was, despite mediocre grades, Charlie had been accepted at the University of Maryland and the University of North Carolina -- his top two choices. But he was already at boot camp by then, and he never did get to college.
Charlie's old wrestling trophies still filled a couple of bookshelves in the corner. Granny had added little glass elephants and giraffes on the other bookshelves and on the bureaus and windowsills. She had hung a brass crucifix between the windows. Over one bed, the one that had been Charlie's and that Irene and I were on now, hung a framed reproduction of a painting with a determined-looking young man, very much like Charlie, holding the steering wheel of a ship and looking up and ahead, while Christ stood behind him with a hand on his shoulder.
"You think I'm some sort of religious nut, nicht wahr? Isn't that what your mother calls me? But you should have seen me back in Heidelburg. Then I was Iris -- the messenger. Now I'm Irene -- just seeking peace, inner peace."
She put her hand on my shoulder.
I looked up at the painting of Christ and the ship's pilot and felt a twinge of guilt. Irene seemed so sensuous and wanton. She aroused feelings in me that I couldn't do anything about. I half-expected the miracle of a caress. Instead, she spoke of God.
"Have you ever felt that God was right beside you, in the flesh, living and breathing?"
I just stared at her, finding it unbelievable that I was alone on a bed with her, lost in her deep blue eyes. Only later, remembering that scene, did her words mean anything to me.
"Imagine that Christ returned, and you were somehow responsible for his coming," she said. "But you didn't realize what you had done, and you ended up betraying him.
"Or imagine that each of us is Christ or God. There is a spark within us all that is God. And, sometimes, that spark can become a flame and burn brightly.
"You think I'm silly. Sehr gut. Perhaps I am. Perhaps there is no truth to what I say, to the way I remember what happened. But true or not, the thought gives me comfort and joy and warmth, and so I hold it dear -- for what more is there to life than the living of it in comfort and joy, in peace and love?
"Let me tell you a story. The story of Der Heilige Schmidt. His name was Heinrich Schmidt, Hank Smith, Saint Smith you'd call him.
"I was like Charlie is now -- all Sturm und Drang, storm and stress, all struggle and push. I'd make my mark on the world or die trying. If Charlie had known me then, he'd have called me a 'clever little bitch.' I was very proud of my cleverness.
"You see, I was a student of drama and literature at the University of Heidelberg. I was going to write great literature. I'd be another Goethe. But to study wasn't enough. To me all the world was a stage, and I must be a star at once.
"At the beer keller, my friends and I showed off to one another by spinning wild plots and arranging practical jokes.
"Heinrich joined us sometimes, but not often. He was shy, self-conscious, more comfortable with books than with people. We mocked him for it. 'To understand great literature you must understand life,' we told him.
"The tricks we played on him weren't really meant to help him, or to coax him out of his shell. No, we just wanted to have fun and show off our cleverness. And he was the perfect victim -- gullible and superstitious.
"First we spooked him with 'ghost bags.'"
"What are those?" I asked.
"They're home-made hot-air balloons. Maybe you use another name, but surely you know how to make them, nicht wahr?"
"No," he admitted.
"Ach! Then you must learn. First, you make a cross with two three-foot long pieces of stiff but light wire. You take a dozen birthday candles and melt them so they stick to the spot where the wires cross and so they hold the wires together. Then you take one of those plastic bags that dry cleaners use to cover dresses and suits. You use tape to attach the crossed wires to the opening at the bottom of the bag, so the wire holds the bag open, and the bag can support the weight of the wires and candles.
"Then, at night, you go up on the roof of a tall building. You light the candles and hold the plastic of the bag away from the flame until the bag fills with hot air and begins to rise and float. If you are careful, and the candles don't melt the bag and the wind is light, it will fly for a quarter of an hour and go many miles. The light bouncing off the smoke trapped in the bag shines bright and ghostlike.
"One night, we flew ghost bags from the roof of Heinrich's building. One of our friends in Heinrich's room made sure Heinrich saw them through his window -- eery bundles of light floating through the city. To our delight, Heinrich went running through the halls and streets shouting, 'Flying saucers! They're landing! They're landing!' After we showed him how it was done, he was so embarrassed he didn't show up at class for a week.
"Another time, we rigged his phone. You must know that prank -- all college kids do."
I shook my head.
"So I must give you lessons on how to be a devil at college? It's so simple this prank. The metal clip on a ballpoint pen has a round, ring-like part that wraps around the barrel of the pen. You break that ring part off two pens. Then you slip those rings over the buttons that go down when you hang up the receiver. With those rings in place, the receiver won't go all the way down, and a call won't be disconnected.
"Once we went to Heinrich's room to visit; and when he wasn't looking, we rigged the phone and replaced the receiver. Then, with the receiver on the hook, I played with the dial, as if idly fooling around. I actually dialed my own number. When I went back to my room, my phone was still ringing. When I picked it up, I was connected to Heinrich's room, without Heinrich knowing it. So his phone became what you call a 'bug.'
"We all gathered in my friend's room and took turns listening in by phone, as Heinrich paced up and down reciting lines for the part of Faust, and talked to himself, coaxing himself along when he made mistakes. Then we grew bored with just listening. We started making sounds -- spooky noises and sexy breathing. And we heard him at the other end, chasing around his room, trying to figure out where the sounds came from.
"He thought someone was hiding in his room -- in the closet, under the bed. After he had looked everywhere, he sounded like he thought the room was haunted. Finally, we had mercy on him, burst out laughing and told him to pick up the phone.
"Those jokes were thought up by others. The last one was mine.
"I was writing a little play. 'All God's Children,' I called it. It opened with Satan complaining to God. 'Why should you go down to Earth and take on human flesh in the person of Your Son? What need is there for such tricks? It's beneath Your dignity. Haven't You said that all people are Your children? If that is so, why not simply pick one or more at random and wake them up to the fact that they are in truth at one with You?'
"In my play, God agreed, 'You are right, my son. For you, too, are my son. But you are right for reasons you do not understand. It was for Myself, not for them, that I wished to take the shape of man -- that I might better understand the weaknesses and strengths of these marvelous creatures that have so far exceeded My expectations in their capacity for both good and evil. How selfish of Me that was. Better that I should, as you suggest, awaken one of the most humble among them and have him serve as an inspiration and example for this generation. And then I should choose another and another, throughout all time -- men and women of different races and different stations in life, showing again and again that all are indeed My children.'
"So God chose the son of a humble carpenter in Gallilee. And to awaken him, He used not angels nor burning bushes, but rather the child's brothers and friends. He inspired them with the idea of playing a joke.
"Jesus was 12 at the time -- old enough to tend to the shop and watch the rest of the children while his parents were away at market. His brothers considered him proud and pompous. 'Little God' they called him among themselves.
"One night, after he was asleep, one of his brothers waved a bright torch in front of his face, then ran away while others outside the window bellowed, 'I am the Light!' Much to their surprise, he didn't wake up. The next night, they tried the same prank and again he slept through it. They did it again on the third night, and again he slept through it.
"But the morning after the third night, Jesus started acting like a new person. Suddenly, he could sense a man's true needs, and he wanted to listen to understand and comfort everyone. He was selfless and humble, eloquent in kindness, if not in words.
"Forever after that, he said very little, but those who met him learned much about themselves and others and God from his every gesture. He indeed became a 'light unto the world.'
"I was very proud of my idea. But the others in our group mocked it, saying that real people would never act that way. So to prove my genius, I played a modern version of that joke -- this time with Heinrich as the victim.
"I planted a tape recorder and the flash attachment from a camera near his bed, and rigged them up to a timer. In the middle of the night, the bulb would flash in his eyes and the recorder would boom, "I am the light!"
"I just wanted to get a rise out of him. I wanted him to wake up with the sense that something special had happened or to tell us that he had had an extraordinary dream. But nothing happened. So I tried it a second night and a third, as in the play. Even then, Heinrich acted as if nothing had happened. The joke was on me. Mein Gott, I felt foolish.
"Then a week later, Heinrich changed. He seemed to glow with warmth, concern, and tenderness toward everyone. His deep blue eyes forced you to look at him, to pay attention to everything he said and did. He began to attract dozens of devoted friends. With these friends, he would roam the streets of Heidelberg at night, spreading cheer and good will. He helped where help was needed -- with the drunk or the poor and homeless. But he never imposed where he was unwanted, and he never preached.
"At this time, Heinrich never mentioned the word 'God.' He simply did what felt natural to him and inspired others to do the same.
"Our whole group -- we who had believed in nothing -- got caught up with enthusiasm for Der Heilige Heinrich, Der Heilige Schmidt, Saint Smith. That was when my friends started calling me 'Iris,' crediting me, my play, my joke for this miracle. The name implied that, despite myself, I had acted as a 'messenger of the gods;' I was a sort of Virgin Mary to this new cult.
"Only Heinrich didn't know. No one had told him about my trick. He had no idea that something so silly had triggered this change in him.
"So my friends treated me with new respect. But my conscience troubled me. There was a falseness behind all of this fervor. I felt I had to set the record straight. I had to confess to him what I had done.
"So I did.
"He was constantly surrounded by friends and followers. So I told him in public. I knelt before him and told him all about my 'joke.'
"He heard me out.
"When I was done, I looked up. His eyes were blank and cold. I screamed. I grabbed him. I hugged him. I shook him. But it was gone. Everyone could see as clearly as I that the magic that had inspired us was gone. He who had been so heilige, so holy, was now just another self-centered student.
"Only then did I see how much I had loved him. I had loved him not as a man, but as God-in-man. I needed him to be God-in-man for me to feel that my life or any life had meaning.
"The cult ended abruptly. Those who had been close to him blamed me, called me 'Fraulein Judas.'
"After it was over, I stayed with him. I became his lover. But there was no magic between us. We were just two pieces of flesh rubbing against one another.
"I became pregnant. I had an abortion. I left Heinrich. I left the University, and went to Munich, where I changed my name to Irene."
As she paused -- I became aware of the music from downstairs, the chorus of "Gloria In Excelsis Deo." My muscles were stiff. I hadn't moved at all during her narration. My right leg had gone asleep, but I didn't dare shake it. I didn't want to disturb her concentration. I wanted her to continue. I wanted this moment never to end. But in her silence, I was becoming painfully self-conscious and uncomfortable.
She had described Heinrich's eyes as "deep blue." I wondered if they were the same shade as hers -- the blue of deep water and twilight sky.
"You stare at my eyes," she noted, "not in them but at them. Yes. They are blue, like Heinrich's. But his eyes were deep -- they drew you out of yourself and into him. I tell it poorly. Forgive my awkward words. If once you could see, there would be no need to tell.
"Sometimes Charlie has that look. He had that look when we first met in Munich. He, a GI with a movie camera, stopped me on the street in Munich. In broken German, he told me I had just the 'face' he was looking for. I suspected he was interested in more than the face. He wanted to hire me as a model, he said. I told him to try the red light district and walked on. He followed me up the street, shooting me with his movie camera. At the corner, I stopped, turned, and smiled. 'Okay,' I told him in English, 'let's talk about your pictures.'
"We went to a beer keller. It reminded me of Heidelberg. Somehow I ended up telling him the story of Der Heilige Schmidt. I told it like a plot I had just made up. He loved the idea. His eyes took on that deep look, like Heinrich's. We talked on and on about how such a movie should be made. It would be his masterpiece, he insisted. But he would only try it once he had mastered his craft.
"He got that look at our wedding. And he gets it, too, sometimes when I make him want me so much he doesn't need to be in control.
"That's his biggest problem, you know. He needs to control. If he could just let go..."
"Frankie!" Mom bellowed from downstairs. With a start, I reawakened to the world in which I, soon to be a college junior, was treated as if I were still in junior high. I hated being called Frankie. "Frankie!" she bellowed again.
"Yes, Mom?" I called back automatically.
"Get down here this instant. Are you deaf? If I told you once, I told you a dozen times, it's time to go home."
With my right leg still painfully asleep, I stumbled and hobbled to the door. Irene didn't notice. She kept looking in the same direction and with the same expression, as if she didn't even notice that I was leaving. I didn't want to disturb her, and besides, I had to hurry. But I wondered if she continued to talk, even after I left. She was troubled, and needed to hear her own words to sort out her thoughts.
Irene saw a potential in Charlie that I never saw. She saw similarities between Charlie and Saint Smith. I saw the differences.
Charlie shone light, like a stage technician and bore witness to surface realities and differences. He manipulated. He controlled. He imposed order from the outside.
Saint Smith discovered order behind apparent chaos. He was uniquely sensitive and receptive. He saw the light of God shining in everyone. He bore witness to the spark of God in each of us, our oneness. Irene kept looking for that light, too, and sometimes, but not as often as she might wish, caught glimpses of it, even in Charlie.
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