85
In all the many books that I have read, there exists much truth and wisdom, but in not a single volume has the truth of lovemaking been revealed. When I lie in the arms of Gwyneth, in ecstasy, it is essentially not about sensation but about passion, and passion is not of the flesh but of the mind and heart. No writer ever told me that there is no self in the act, that the desire to give drives out all thought of receiving, that lovers become one, transported, that I am her and she is me, that we find ourselves not engaged in seduction and surrender but in the throes of creation, not consumed by desire but by astonishment, given for a moment the very power that brought into existence the universe, so that we, too, can create life. She carries now a child.
86
On the Steinway are photographs in handmade frames. Among them is the one I retrieved from my windowless rooms on the night when Gwyneth told me that I would never be returning there. It is a snapshot of my mother on a day when she didn’t drink too much and smiled more readily than usual. She is lovely, and you can see in her eyes and in her graceful pose the promise that was never fulfilled. I found it in a zippered compartment of the backpack that she gave to me when she turned me out.
There is, too, a photo of Gwyneth’s father, who is the very picture of kindness, whose eyes are deep with intelligence. Now and then I find myself staring at him for long periods, and sometimes when I sit alone on the porch or am hiking in the woods, I talk to him and tell him what we have been doing and reading and thinking lately, and I thank him not just then but every day, for I would have no life if he had not lived his.
Father and I never took photographs of each other. We had no camera and we felt no need to preserve memories when we were always together and were certain to keep them fresh by recalling them in conversation. But the envelope given to me by Father Hanlon in the basement of his rectory contained a photograph of Father. The priest had taken it as Father sat in an armchair, lamplit and shadowed like those artful portraits of famous individuals taken by the great photographer Steichen. He greatly resembled an actor who was once very famous, Denzel Washington: milk-chocolate skin, a crisp tight cap of hair, a broad and pleasant face, a smile that angels might envy, and dark eyes that seem to be the still points around which the universe turns eternally.
I have also framed the index card on both sides of which Father had written for me what he said was the one thing I must never forget after he was no longer there to remind me. He willed me these words: But with one exception, all things pass from this world and time erases not just memories but entire civilizations, reducing everyone and every monument to dust. The only thing that survives is love, for it is an energy as enduring as light, which travels outward from its source toward the ever-expanding boundaries of the universe, the very energy of which all things were conceived and with which all things will be sustained in a world beyond this world of time and dust and forgetting.
I have written this account for the benefit of my children and their children and their children’s children, so that they might know how the world once was and how it came to be as it is. Not only is there no killing now of man by man or even beast by beast, but there seems to be no death except of grasses and flowers and other plants with the changing of the seasons, until spring revitalizes. If death should be forgotten, that might not be as good a thing as it at first seems to be. We must remember death and the temptation of power that it represents. We must remember that by claiming the power of death and using it to control others, we lost a world and in fact more than a world.
Since the day that we arrived here, we have not seen either Fogs or Clears. We believe the former no longer have visitation privileges to the Earth, and perhaps the latter are not needed here anymore. If ever I should glimpse a serpentine form of congealed smoke weaving through the forest or see a shining form wearing hospital scrubs, in snow descending, I will know that somewhere the compact has been broken and onto the stage of the world has come again the tragedy. Until then, there is joy, which by the way does not, as was once thought, require contrast with fear and pain to keep its zing.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to Harry Recard for being a friend, for teaching me pinochle in college and thereby nearly ruining my academic career. And to Diane Recard for taking such good care of Harry all these years, an exhausting task.
Nothing pleases a writer more than mail from readers who claim that one of his books was life-changing or inspired perseverance in difficult times. But as I finished Innocence, a letter that I received from Elizabeth Waters in the state of Washington, regarding my novel From the Corner of His Eye, moved me more profoundly than most. Beth, your courage humbles me. The hope that you found in my book is matched by the hope that you have given me with your kind correspondence. You shine.
About the Author
DEAN KOONTZ, the author of many #1 New York Times bestsellers, lives in Southern California with his wife, Gerda, their golden retriever, Anna, and the enduring spirit of their golden, Trixie.