Reincarnation (23 page)

us!" she cried.

230

"What are you talking about?" Bert replied angrily. He turned to Del. "Yvette said to meet you on the roof. You weren't here so I was about to leave but the door got locked from the

inside."

"How can you lie like that?" Yvette accused him. "You brought me up here so we could be alone. That's what you told me."

"Why are
you
lying?" Bert shot back. "You told me Del was up here."

With darting eyes, Del saw the briefcase in his hand. With an almost imperceptible glance at

her, he confirmed that he was the one she had to contact.

Whatever was going on, the important thing was that she get that case and give him the

plans. This other business could be sorted out later. She was sure it was some sort of trick.

Lenny had probably put Yvette up to it. He was jealous as anything these days.

"It's all right," Del said coolly. "Bert and I just met. It's not like he owes me an explanation.

He can fool around with you all he wants, for all I care."

Turning to go back inside, she came face to face with a man stepping through the rooftop

door. Another man came through the door behind the first man and he had a gun in his

hands.

"What's this?" Yvette yelled at the men. "Put that gun away."

231

With a deafening explosion of sound, he shot her in the shoulder, throwing her back against

a smoke stack. Sobbing in pain, she clutched her shoulder and passed out. Del couldn't tell

if she was dead or alive.

The first man spoke in a heavy German accent. "We've intercepted the traitors who gave you

the plans. They are dead now. Unless you want to be dead also, please give me the plans."

He aimed his gun at Del as she hopped onto the wall surrounding the roof. She knew there

was a fire escape right below them.

The man fired at her.

Lenny leaped at the man as the shot was fired, shielding Del with his body. The bullet threw

him back before dropping him hard onto the black tar roof.

The German agent fired again. He missed Del but her ankle turned beneath her. She was

going over.

Flailing wildly, she fell backward, and the world swirled around her as she tumbled off the

roof. Reaching out desperately, she grabbed hold of the outside railing of the fire escape,

screaming as her arm wrenched in its socket and her head snapped back. Her high heels

clattered down, bouncing off the metal stairs as her legs kicked out, dangling in the air.

Looking up, she saw Bert coming over the roof toward her.

232

Another shot rang out and he sailed off the roof wall, his briefcase opening midair, money

swirling around him, whirling through the night.

Two more shots.

OhGodOhGod!
He flew past her. She swung out and nearly caught hold of his sleeve but he

slipped past her fingers.

NoNoNoNoNo!!!!
Turning her head away, she heard him hit the ground.

"Help!" she shouted, swinging there by one arm. "Somebody help him! HELP!"

No one came. She had to help him.

Her heart pounding wildly, Del managed to get her second hand positioned on one of the

railings. Kicking hard, she tried to get a foothold on the fire escape, but couldn't manage it.

Someone was clanging down the metal stairs toward her. Terrified, she glanced up sharply.

"Hang on." Lenny grabbed her by her wrists and lifted her onto the staircase. His white shirt was covered in blood.

"We have to help Bert," she sobbed, starting to climb down.

"I don't think it will matter," Lenny replied.

233

I stand in the alley and look down at my money-covered body. Blood is making an ever-

widening pool under my head. Nasty. I turn away but then must look back, fascinated by my

own shattered self.

Del is climbing down to me, and Lenny follows her. Then she is sitting in the alley beside my

lifeless body, shaking me. "Bert! Wake up! Wake up!" she screams. "Bert!" She's in hysterics.

Lenny kneels beside her, puts his arm around her consolingly.

The next thing I see is hard to watch. She leans her head on his chest and sobs -- cries and

cries like her heart has cracked open and every sorrow is spilling out.

I had known she loved me. Now I realize how much.

I have to give Lenny credit; although blood was gushing out of his shoulder, he just sat

there rubbing her back. That's one of the crazy things about people: They keep fooling you.

Nobody shoots down at us or comes over the wall. I guess Lenny has shot the enemy

agents. His gun is holstered at his side. Rising again, I decide to go to the roof and see what

happened.

234

Sure enough, the two Germans lie dead. The velvet bag with the plans is not there and

neither is Yvette. It isn't hard to trace her, though, because there is a trail of blood going

down the stairs.

Down in the club, no one seems to know what has happened yet, but the stage manager is

looking for Del because she is supposed to go on soon. I find Yvette in a dark corner

leaning heavily on the man from British Intelligence. She is handing him the plans for the

rocket.

Well, what do you know -- scrappy, cunning, self-serving Yvette is working for British

Intelligence. I follow them outside and watch while the Intelligence guy gets into a cab with

her. Together, they drive off. I hope he's taking her to a hospital.

Okay, she did try to seduce me and possibly get me killed, but I have to admire her spunk.

When you're already dead, these things don't seem to matter as much. You can take the

larger view.

And I am dead.

At that moment, it really hits me.

D-E-A-D ... as a doornail, an expression that never made any sense to me.

This gives me a unique perspective. I could write a song about being dead from the stance

of someone who really knows.

235

But I guess that's the point of being dead -- one of them, anyway. You can't... write a song

or anything else. Because you're dead.

I go back down to the alley. Del is still there, draped over my body. Sobbing.

Lenny has moved against the wall. He's pale. I guess the blood loss is getting to him.

"Hey, Del," I say gently. "Don't cry. I'm right here. I'll stay with you."

She looks up as though she's heard me and she reaches out like a kid groping in the dark

for a light switch. Her hand passes right through me.

"Bert," she whispers. "Bert?"

I try to take her hand. Now it's my hand that passes through.

I'm no help to her this way. What good will it do if I stay with her? It will only keep her from

loving someone who is alive. It wouldn't be fair. She's already had such a tough life. She

doesn't deserve to be alone.

"Good-bye, Del," I say, trying to brush back some hair that's fallen in front of her eyes. "I love you."

"I love you, Bert," she whispers, as though somehow she's heard me.

I'm not sure where to go after that. Then, like an answer to that question, a gigantic white

angel appears at the far end of the alley.

236

It reaches out a hand and beckons for me to come toward it.

And then in the next second I wonder if it is an angel. It might be a column of light.

Either way, I know what it wants.

I shake my head and back away. Not me. I'm not leaving.

I'm too attached to this life to think of going into that light.

I turn my back and walk away.

It's official,
I think.
I'm a ghost.

In the next weeks, months, years -- it's very hard to keep track when you're a ghost -- I roam

around. The things I see would fill a book. For a while, I narrate some of what I see to a

writer. He thinks the ideas are his, of course. His books sell well. I even manage to write

some more songs, sitting beside a well-known lyricist as he struggles, whispering inspiration

into his ear.

I want to stay because the world is too beautiful to abandon. What I am seeing, though, is

less and less beautiful by the day. War and more war, death, starvation. Misery of every

description.

I see Jews and others rounded up and taken to the obscene camps, crammed into cattle

cars without food or water for days. I stay on the trains. I try to be comforting; sing to the

children; recite poetry to the old people.

237

I see other ghosts doing the same thing. I see angels. Many angels.

One day in 1942, Yvette is herded onto a train headed for the Dancy Deportation Center just

north of Paris. From there, she and the others will be transported to one of the larger

camps: Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka.

She is older but still pretty. Her red curls are cut to her chin. She wears a beret and a navy

blue coat with the collar turned high. I sit beside her. "Don't be frightened. I'll stay with you,"

I say. She is someone I knew, after all.

She looks up sharply. She's heard me. "Are you an angel?" she whispers.

"Yes," I lie. It seems a more comforting reply; my being a ghost might frighten her.

Yvette sits on the floor, her arms wrapped around her knees. I sit beside her. As she speaks

in a soft whisper, people glance at her as though she is insane. It seems that no one else can

hear me. She notices the glances but doesn't care. Besides, under the circumstances, who

would blame her if she's become unstrung?

"Have you seen Del?" I can't resist asking. Through all my ghostly roaming I never forget our love, though I resist the urge to check up on her. Thinking of what might have been is

too painful.

"I saw her once in a while. We both spied for the French Underground."

238

"You're a hero," I comment, recalling how she had turned the rocket plans over to the

British.

"Not really. You know," she says, "in many ways I have always been a treacherous girl. It seemed stupid to care about anyone other than myself. Taking care of me was such a huge

job as it was. I have never thought of myself as a good person. But this situation is too

atrocious for even me to bear. I've helped some people these last few years. If I die now, I

can go knowing my life hasn't been wasted. I've never felt that before."

She is not the same Yvette I took to dinner. The war has changed her -- for the better.

I squeeze her hand. I don't know if she feels it. "We're all on a journey," I say, realizing for the first time that this is true.

Before Dancy, the train stops in a field. I look at all the victims of the Nazi Gestapo, all

doomed to unthinkable fates.

I am seized with a burning desire to do something for these people. I am a ghost, a rebel

defying the laws of the universe. I can intervene, change destiny.

Why have I never realized it before?

With that thought, I pass through the train wall, unlock the door, and try to throw it open. It

stays shut. I lack the physical solidity for the task.

Then, later that night, the train strikes something and comes undone. The door is rattled

right off its hinges

239

and the people inside push. What a satisfying thud as it crashes, falling out onto the field.

The people pour from the train, scrambling down the sloped field.

"Go!" I shout to Yvette but she isn't paying attention. A boy of about four is afraid to jump from the train. His mother is frantically waiting below while Yvette passes him

down.

A Gestapo agent runs into the car, pistol raised. Yvette is the only one standing in the

doorway and he shoots her immediately.

She leaps from her body before she even hits the ground.

"Bert! What are you doing here? I thought you were dead," she cries.

"I am, and so are you."

"No, I'm not. Come on." She tries to hurry children along, putting their hands into the hands of their fleeing parents. She tries to trip the Gestapo agents as they fire on the people in the

field.

"That bullet went right through me. Did you see it?" she asks me, gleefully looking at her slim waist in shock. "I should be dead."

"You are dead."

"You're crazy. How could I be dead? That was lucky."

Many dead are appearing -- more and more of them

240

by the moment. They are helping Yvette try to assist the fleeing people. She is getting

almost giddy with her newfound invulnerability as bullet after bullet passes through her.

"They must be shooting blanks," she decides.

The dead suddenly stand stock still in the field. A towering column of light appears. Its hum

is the dark call of a reverberating violin string. They begin moving toward the calling

column.

"Look. The Eiffel Tower," Yvette says to me, pointing.

"Yvette, it's not the Eiffel Tower. Co toward it," I tell her urgently. "Don't waste time."

The world that is to come might be a horrendous thing. Most likely it will be. I don't want to

think of her as a ghost roaming within the torture chambers of this new world.

Fear clouds her face and she backs away. "No, I'm frightened. No."

I don't want to be in this world any longer, either.

I take her hand. "We'll go together. Trust me. It will be better."

"All right. I trust you," she says, nodding. Together we step into the column of light. And the blessed process of forgetting begins.

241

Mike Rogers came to a three-way crossroads and stopped the car. One of the three girls in

the backseat leaned forward to push down the lock button next to him. "Roll up your

window," she reminded him.