Destined (48 page)

Construction plans for the addition to
the store were progressing. We planned to close for the month of June while the
remodeling was done. And during that time, I was going on a little vacation. To
China! The University had offered Tony a position as a guest lecturer to their
class on Chinese business practices, and he had accepted. In June, about twenty
of the students were going to follow up the classroom experience by visiting
several major Chinese cities. Tony had used his contacts to get the students
appointments to meet with top executives at a couple of multinational
corporations. Except for a trip from El Paso to Juarez one time when I visited
my cousin in Texas, I had never been out of the country before, and I was very
excited.

The timing was perfect for me, with
what was going on at work. I was planning to do some buying for the shop, too,
and Henry insisted I take a digital camera and laptop so I could keep in touch
with him via the Internet. He wanted me to email him photos of any interesting
pieces I came across.

We had just been talking about this on
the day I went back down to the basement to unpack the last few pieces of
porcelain in the bottom of the shipping carton under the stairs. I was
remembering the image of Henry as a young man on the docks in Hong Kong that
had once jumped into my head when I’d touched his hand. This time I envisioned
the young Chinese man opening the red door when Henry knocked, to shake the
young American’s hand and welcome him to the pottery, leading him inside.

I unwrapped two beautiful teapots and
put them on the tray I had brought downstairs for this purpose, then reached
into the crate for the next piece. When I touched it, I smelled a whiff of
sandlewood and caught a ripple of distant bells, then heard that soft giggle
again.

The ghostly presence was with me, I
could sense it. But I wasn’t afraid this time, for some reason. It wasn’t that
the intent of the spirit had changed, for my ghost had never expressed any
malevolence. It was that I had changed. I accepted what was happening and
didn’t fight it, giving myself permission to be in this moment and to have an
aptitude for unusual perceptions.

My heartbeat accelerated and I reached
for the covered jar under the excelsior. It was tightly wrapped in layers of
delicate yellowed paper covered with Chinese characters, written by hand with a
calligrapher’s brush. Inside the paper was a layer of sapphire silk, wrapped
around the piece and sealed on one side, with a wax lozenge stamped with some
design. This was nothing like the other porcelain we had found in the crate,
and I held it in my hands reverently, knowing I had finally come across the
piece my ghostly friend had wanted me to find. I felt a breath on the back of
my neck, like a gentle sigh of contentment, and a warm glow spread through me.

I called up the stairs to Siri, who
was working in the kitchen, and asked her to tell Henry he was needed. In a few
minutes they both came downstairs, curious and eager. I showed them the
silk-wrapped parcel. Henry did the honors and broke the seal then the three of
us carefully unwound the fabric until he was left holding a large blue and
white ginger jar, its lid lovingly sealed shut with wax and silk ribbons.
Another design-stamped lozenge dangled from the seal.

“What do you suppose is inside?”
Siri’s eyes were enormous.

“He wanted us to find this,” I said,
nodding at Henry. “You should open it, but carefully.”

Henry nodded, his eyes sad and solemn.
We both already knew what, or rather who, the jar contained. He broke the wax
seal and unwound the ribbons to remove the top, revealing the light gray ashes
within. We all stared for a moment. A small piece of bone lay on top of the
ashes, and if we’d had any doubts as to their origin this would have resolved
the question. Putting the top back on the jar, we silently climbed the stairs
up to the kitchen, where Henry deposited the urn on the table. Siri made tea
and we sat down together, waiting for Henry to speak. He had tears in his eyes
and cleared his throat several times.

“My dear friend Walter Chung
disappeared around the same time the Communists took Tibet and the Dalai Lama
was forced to escape. I always assumed that he went into hiding with the monks,
or that he was arrested and hauled off to jail somewhere.” Henry’s voice shook.
“We hoped for the best, of course.”

“And all along, he was here with you,
Henry.” I put my hand over his where it lay on the table.

“A lot of people were murdered or
arrested in those days. It was dangerous for their families to inquire.
Sometimes it was dangerous to admit you were a relative of someone who was
caught spying. Walter’s wife and children were all sent to the family’s country
retreat, to hide there until the situation improved. His father kept the
business going all alone, in those times.”

“Do you think Walter was wounded
somehow, or caught and tortured?” Siri asked. “Perhaps he escaped and died in
some secret place, hidden by his father.”

Henry and I exchanged glances. “The
pottery,” I guessed, knowing I was right.

“The large kiln where the porcelain
was fired might have helped his father to dispose of the body,” Henry nodded. “He
could have scattered the ashes anywhere afterwards, without danger of
discovery. Or…”

“He wanted to honor Walter,” I said
with certainty. “To send his ashes to a place where his spirit could be free.
Back to America, to his friend Henry Paradis.”

“Yes,” Henry nodded. “And since Mr.
Chung himself died soon afterwards, nobody ever knew what happened.”

“Until now.”

“Yes, until now.”

“When the circle can become complete,”
said Siri, looking at the two of us.

“When his journey home approaches.”
Henry agreed, smiling at me.

“His family will be so relieved to
find out what happened and to have him back, won’t they?” Siri said happily.

“Do you suppose they’ll give us any
trouble about taking human remains through customs?” I mused.

“If anyone can pull it off, my dear,
surely you can!” Henry laughed.

“No fear,” I said, “My ghostly friend
and I will take care of what ever comes up. I expect a personal tour of the
family pottery from him when we arrive in Hong Kong, too! And his brothers had
better give us a very good discount.”

“I’m sure they will, my dear, I’m sure
they will.”

We temporarily put the ginger jar in a
place of honor on the mantle above the fireplace in Henry’s study. From that
day on, even after Tony and I had delivered his ashes to his family in Hong
Kong that following summer, we would often catch the sound of ghostly bells
when passing by the basement door. It seemed that even with spirits, old habits
and old haunts are slow to disappear. Even when they have been laid to rest and
we’ve all progressed to the next turn around the spiral. The patterns, and the
energy, linger on forever.

Tony was happy about the arrangement
he had made with the University. He had a chance to try a little teaching,
without making a permanent full-time commitment. He was working from home, and
had an office set up in the study on the first floor. He did business by phone,
fax and email with his contacts around the world, and soon the Fed Ex truck was
stopping at our house every day, just like it did at Henry’s. Our basement was
filling up with boxes and crates.

Tony took me to New York a couple of
times to visit galleries there, and we went to the theater and the museums. I
started getting used to my new lifestyle, which was quite comfortable and a lot
of fun. My only worries now were things like whether to have wild salmon or
free-range chicken for dinner. I was never lonely, or depressed. The only thing
I ever got angry about was politics, not anything in my personal life. The
little lines between my eyebrows faded, and my doctor told me I was half an
inch taller, which I credited to Pilates and an overall feeling of lightness,
buoyancy. At night, I dreamed of sunlit sidewalks, happy voices, love and
kisses. When I awoke in the morning there was a sweet taste on my lips, like
honey. Life was very good, and I knew it.

Then one day, I realized that a whole
year had passed since I first knocked on the door of number 33, Market Street.
I went up to see Henry and told him it was our anniversary. He was sitting in
his reading chair, using his foot to gently rock the cradle where little Hope
slept. The
I Ching
lay face down on his lap, and the three brass coins were on the table next to
him.

“What did you mean, that first day we
met, when you said, ‘I knew I was right about you?’” I asked him. “Had you been
consulting the Oracle?”

“Of course,” Henry said. “And I knew
that help was on the way. I guessed when you telephoned that you were the one.
And a precious one you’ve turned out to be, my dear!” he added, with a fond
twinkle.

“And, did you know about me and Tony,
too?”

“Ah, that was more logic than
premonition, Emily.”

“It didn’t seem logical to me! I didn’t
like him at all when we first met. He seemed very stuck up and kind of dark,
and scary.”

“That was because you didn’t really
know him yet. You misinterpreted the signs.”

“I guess that’s always a danger, eh?”

“Oh yes,” said Henry earnestly, “People
carry the past with them. They wear it like a mask, and it colors both how they
look at the world, and how the world sees them.”

“So, how was it logical that Tony and
I would fall in love?” I persisted.

“Emily,” said Henry gently, “Life is
like a giant spiral, and the same form repeats, recycling over and over again.
Each time we turn around, the form expands and it’s just a bit different, an
echo of the same shape, but not the same exactly. You and Tony are like
Margaret and me, the next time around, the progressed form of us. I saw it
instantly, when we met. I emailed him immediately and told him he had to come
and meet you, didn’t he ever tell you that?”

“No, “ I said, “I thought he came to
see a special book you had found, or something like that.”

Henry smiled at me enigmatically.

“Thank you, Henry,” I said.

“And you too, my dear,” he said,
bowing his head to me.

We looked at each other wondering what
would happen on the next turn around the great spiral? What dreams would come
true next time? What would we learn? How would we evolve? Whatever was in store
for us, and I shivered in anticipation, it would be something that grew from
seeds we planted today and the energy we fed them to make them germinate and
thrive.

“
Carpe diem
,” I thought and pictured the future,
seeing a long brilliant flash of the road that stretched ahead into a world
filled with love, magic and light.

One of the most interesting aspects of the Tarot’s
view of life is the way it reconciles the apparently contradictory ideas of an
inescapable pre-destined fate, and freedom of choice or self-determination.
Picture the road to the future with periodic crossroads, major decision points,
where many different paths stretch out ahead and we have the option to choose
which one to take. Sometimes the choice is deliberate, more often it is totally
unconscious. Once the first tiny step is taken, a series of events are
inevitable, falling into place like a row of dominos, until we arrive at the
next crossroads, where a choice will be offered again.

This
idea has been called the “fan-shaped destiny.” It integrates the concept of
karma, where our past and current choices are thought to have a direct effect
on future events, and the concept of an inescapable fate, a cosmic master plan
that rules the future despite any attempt we might make to alter it.

The
Tarot believes that these opposite views about fate are both valid and
compatible. It also embraces the idea of synchronicity, which skeptics would
define as a random, meaningless coincidence of events or “dumb luck.” Random
factors may enter the destiny equation at any point, according to Tarot, and
not necessarily be significant in terms of influencing the future, though they
may appear to establish a startling pattern.

Looking
beneath this surface level of flashy anecdotal elements, all the distracting
razzle-dazzle of everyday life, reveals the larger truth. A gifted Tarot reader
must possess considerable psychic ability to apply the traditional
interpretation of each card to the seeker’s particular questions. Knowing the
meaning of the card or looking it up in a book is not enough to really
understand the implications, just like having a French-English dictionary does
not make one fluent in either language. A really good reader can intuit at a
glance what the cards are saying, usually describing the information as a
feeling, or the flash of a visual image, or sometimes a sound or scent. The
cards are signposts, but the heart tells the way.