He shook his head. "What it's like right after. What the experience of death is. I know we come back, there's no question of that, but where do we go in between?"
"Venasque, was that girl we saw today really the red woman in my dream?"
He smiled and signaled for the check. "No. I said that to see your reaction. But you will bump into that red woman sometime in your life. That's a guarantee."
"But why'd you say it today? What reaction was I supposed to have?"
"Exactly what you did. You were interested and intrigued. I said it because you've got to start thinking differently about certain things now. You've got to start thinking different ways, too. A man who flies has to believe he has wings. Or that he can have wings. You know what I mean?"
"Okay, I accept that, but there's something else I want to ask you about, too."
He looked at his watch. "Is it a short question? It's time we got back to the animals. They get nervous when I'm gone a long time."
"You don't have to answer now, but I have to say it now: Do you know how often you're loud and impatient with me? A lot. And bossy? I admit I don't know anything, Venasque. Whenever you use that tone of voice, it either makes me nervous or afraid of you. Teachers aren't supposed to scare their students."
He got up from the table very quickly and threw some bills down next to his plate. I thought I'd really offended him. He looked at me and rubbed his hand over his mouth. "Ah, you're right. I'm sorry. Since I got old, I don't have so much patience anymore. No matter how much you learn over the years, you can't always use it yourself when you need it most. Eine Schande, huh? Big irony. You can be the best teacher in the world, but still you get scared when it's your turn, and you know you don't have so much time left."
"Why not? Are you ill?" I stood there feeling helpless and wrong for having opened this can of worms.
"Ill? Ha, no, I'm just old! When you get my age, the only things that happen to you are more hair grows out of your ears and you get more and more alone. The night comes everyday to my window. The serious night, promising, as always, age and moderation. And I am frightened . . .' That's what it's like. Not so great. You read poetry? You should.
"That's why I got those two animals with me. They're my last company."
"What about your students?"
"Very nice people, but they can't help when I have to die. That's why I'm trying to discover what it's like now. Maybe if I do, I won't be so uncomfortable. I'm good at some things, but I still haven't gotten past wondering what'll happen to me when THE END comes. You think too much about "The Serious Night' when you're my age. It's natural, but it's a sickness, too. You get nervous. You want everybody else to hurry up as much as you, and if they don't, you get angry.
"Something else, too: I spent most of my life teaching people, or trying to teach them important things. But I get to certain points and can't take them any further. That's not a nice thing to know about yourself. Especially when you're too damned old to do anything about it. Nobody likes to fail, huh?
"Come on, we can talk more back at the motel."
Again that uncomfortable, thin orange light lay over the restaurant parking lot. Standing by the car, I looked up at it.
"This light looks like a UFO is about to land here."
Unlocking his side, Venasque looked up. "It's a safety light. They say it gives a wider arc and covers more ground. Lights up the dark corners better."
I was about to comment, when lines out of nowhere pushed their way to the front of my mind and tongue.
"The night comes every day to my window.
The serious night, promising as always,
age and moderation. And I am frightened
dutifully, as always until I find
in the bed my three hearts and the cat-
in-my-stomach talking as always now,
of Gianna. And I am happy through the dark
with my feet singing of how she lies
warm and alone in her dark room
over Umbria where the brief and only
Paradise flowers white by white.
I turn all night with the thought of her mouth
a little open, and hunger to walk
quiet in the Italy of her head, strange
but no tourist on the streets of her childhood."
I finished out of breath and shaken, as if coming down from an epiphany. I knew some poetry, but nothing like that, and not by heart. I also knew I'd never read or heard that poem before tonight, when Venasque had quoted the first three lines in an entirely different context.
When I was finished reciting, we stood there on opposite sides of the Jeep and looked at each other. I no longer needed to be told that part of my education was to accept miracles, to try and leave myself open to whatever wonders Venasque had.
Bending down to get in, he said, "'The Night Comes Every Day to My Window' by Jack Gilbert. I've always liked his poetry. Let's go."
Back at the motel, both animals barely raised their heads when we came in. Big Top had managed to climb his thick bulk onto Venasque's bed and was resting his ass on his master's pillow. Connie lay directly below him, leaning up against the side of the bed.
Venasque walked over and gently moved the dog off the pillow. Adjusted, the bullterrier slapped its tail twice.
"I don't blame him. Better to have your fanny on a pillow than the floor.
"Listen, Walker. I want to do one more thing with you tonight before we go to sleep. I'm going to help you go back one more time to another of your lives. But it's going to be one of the earlier ones. Maybe even the first. I want you to feel what it was like then. That'll give you something important to think about when we get to the mountains."
"I've got enough to think about!"
"True, but not your beginnings. You saw some of your last life, and maybe a glimpse of the one right before that in Russia. But to start getting the whole thing in good focus, you gotta have at least a little look at what it was like for you way back when. Get ready for bed and you'll do that before going to sleep."
I reached down for my bag. Opening it, I realized that no matter what was about to happen (in the hands of this flawed but remarkable man), I was excited. My insides were fluttering and squawking like a box of birds that's just been shaken, but I was on my way to discovery, and that was what I had come to him for.
"Venasque, that Jack Gilbert poem is a love poem. Why did you quote it to me before? You made it sound like something sad."
His head was so deep in his suitcase that I almost didn't hear when he spoke. "For you it's a love poem. I don't have any Gianna lying in my bed. Only Big Top and the night at the window."
Two boys were playing catch with a white ball. Holding my father's hand, I stood and watched enviously as they threw it back and forth, calling each other names when one or the other dropped it. It fell regularly, and I couldn't understand that because both of them were good catchers.
It was raining hard, so few people were around to buy father's potatoes. Together we watched the boys, but unlike me, father snickered every time they dropped it.
A man mostly hidden under a cloak, but sweet-stinking of the plague, crept up to our table. He was about to say something when father shook his wooden staff and told him to get away.
The man's eyes were glassy and exhausted by the disease, but held enough energy to flash hatred deep as a rich man's grave.
"I have to eat too!"
"Then eat the dead. Get used to the taste!"
"I have money. I can pay." A long white arm emerged from the folds of the dark cloak and held out several coins.
"Do you really think I'd touch a sweet man's money and get sick too? Go away! You shouldn't even be out on the street."