28
I wanted nothing to do with the sordid proceedings of the Urartu Chamber. I would have rather spent eternity alone than participate in them, and when Nana left Shemaya, so did I.
Although Tim Shelly had turned on me, he had done me a great favor by showing me that I had the power to go anywhere. I decided to do just that, embarking upon my own Grand Tour, seeing and doing things no person had ever done, or could ever do, in a single lifetime. I started off at a leisurely pace, recreating and sunbathing on the most exclusive beaches of Barbados, the French Riviera, the Greek Islands, Tahiti, Dubai, and Rio de Janeiro. I lived the lifestyle of the rich and famous, sleeping in the most exclusive villas and resorts, sailing aboard the most luxurious yachts, flying on private helicopters and jets, arriving in the most expensive limousines, dining at the finest restaurants, drinking the most expensive champagnes, shopping at the most exquisite jewelers and boutiques, and winning-and losing-millions of dollars at the most exclusive casinos. It was a dream life, a heaven, but eventually even the richest person in the world-which I was, hands down-grows weary of pampering and decadence. After what felt like a year of glorious, but ultimately dispiriting, self-indulgence-I was, after all, alone on the beaches, in the villas, on the planes, and in the casinos with nobody to share my good fortune or to envy me from afar-I was ready for some adventure and set out on a journey that would have made even the most intrepid explorer weep. Within a span of months, I scuba dived the coral reefs of the Galapagos, climbed the highest mountains of every continent on earth, including Mount Everest, trekked across the Sahara, sailed solo around the world, paddled a canoe the entire length of both the Amazon and the Nile, walked the Great Wall of China, visited the North and South Poles, went on safari across the game lands of Africa, made pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Varanasi, and Mecca, explored the deepest crevices of the ocean by submarine, piloted several fighter jets, drove race cars, and concluded my journey with a trip to the moon and Mars, as captain of the Space Shuttle, which I landed expertly on the surface and re-launched even though such a feat in the living world would have been impossible. After returning to earth exhausted but exhilarated, I craved another period of rest and relaxation and decided to make the great palaces of Europe and Asia my home for several months, followed by some long, meditative stays in the great monasteries and ashrams of India, Tibet, and Christendom.
Having explored and indulged in all the world I had known had to offer, I found myself bored yet again and decided to take a new journey, this time traversing both space and time. In an instant, I found myself wandering the great civilizations, from the kingdoms and dynasties of Egypt, China, Mesopotamia, and India, to the rise of the Semitic peoples, the Greek and Roman empires, the Inca civilizations of South America, the Aborigine villages of Australia, the fiefdoms of Europe, the colonization of North America, and the expansion and contraction of the British empire. This journey was a historian’s dream, but a tourist’s nightmare-can an uninhabited empire even be considered a civilization, aren’t people required for that? I discovered along the way that the nature of the universe itself is loneliness, that God is lonely. It isn’t like God has a family and friends to hang around with, or that there are resorts for God and God’s friends where they can dine together, share a bottle of wine, and talk about their day and their problems. In realizing this, I found a strange comfort in my own loneliness.
And then one day I realized that although the nature of the universe might be loneliness, even God can’t tolerate it for long. There is no greater sorrow in all the universe than having all of this and no one to share it with. As I traveled alone from one wonder of the world to another, from ocean to mountain to cosmos, I came to understand why God would have been willing to risk everything-even rejection, suffering, and war-for the joy of hearing just one breathless human being say, “Oh, my God…look at that!”
Yes, I had been able to avoid Tim Shelly, Mi Lau, Luas, Elymas, and what I considered the tragedy and injustice of the Urartu Chamber, but I needed to share my experience of the afterlife as much as I had needed to share my experience of life itself. Like God, perhaps, I grew increasingly desperate for something to create, a purpose for being, an objective to accomplish-a soul with which to share; and I understood now why the serpent had told Eve that it is the risk of failure and harm, the risk of evil itself, that makes life rich, and the experience of contentment and joy even possible. In short, I slowly began to realize that I had returned, in a way, to the Garden of Eden and found it as wanting as Eve had found it; I was ready, again, to be cast out of paradise, and to accept that risk-even the risk of being assaulted by Tim Shelly and being reminded of what I had lost: my husband, my daughter, my life, my world. I was even willing to accept the risk of souls being unjustly convicted and sentenced for all of eternity.
And so, as Gautama had said, I returned to the place of my journey’s beginning, seeing it again for the first time. I returned to Shemaya Station, ready now for my first client but secretly hoping, as I had hoped every day since I arrived in Shemaya, that this would be the day I would be told it had all been a very strange and terrifying dream, and it was time to wake up.
29
Luas didn’t answer when I knocked on his office door. Legna appeared in the hallway instead and informed me that the High Jurisconsult was occupied and would see me after I had met with my first client; I was to go to my office and wait.
I did as I was told, and soon Legna arrived with a postulant, closing the door behind on the way out and leaving us alone together in the darkness. I had decided not to light the candles. I wanted to postpone the exploration of my client’s past as long as possible and communicate first under present conditions, one fellow soul to another, lost from a common home, left to a common fate. I would not lightly rob my clients of their memories, or demand that they wait in the other room while I negotiated eternity with their Creator; they would be given the opportunity to participate in their own defense, to explain on their own terms what had happened during their lives and why.
So there we sat in the darkness, my first ecclesiastical client and I, together on the precipice of eternity. I reached out, across the unfathomable chasm separating us from each other, fearful not for myself or what I might find, but for the soul on the other side and what lay ahead. Then I hesitated: every lawyer has doubts, and what was at stake in the Urartu Chamber was far greater than what was at stake in any courtroom on earth. I wanted to leap back through the darkness into the familiar, dull light of my own misery. How could I bear another’s burdens when I could not even bear my own? How dare I attempt to reconcile another’s accounts when my own debts remained unpaid? Turn back, warned instinct, turn back.
I stumbled beneath the weight of these doubts, and I did begin to turn; but from my client came a sound: a small, barely audible plea for mercy that could not be left unanswered, no matter what demons haunted me. Not only did this plea from the darkness stir my compassion, but it made plain for me, as if there all along, that this was the call I had prepared all my life to answer, and the reason I had been chosen to defend souls at the Final Judgment. The mystery of my own life, and afterlife, had been revealed unexpectedly in the suffering of another soul. I would devote myself to rescuing my clients from the desolate pit of despair and injustice. I would redeem them before the throne of God.