The Bridge Across Forever: A True Love Story (37 page)

"Other times," she said, "we couldn't have started farther apart ... I was a war-resister, Richard was an Air Force pilot; one man at a time for me, Richard's only woman was many women. He was wrong both times, and so of course he changed.

"But at the last it doesn't matter whether we agree or not, or who's right. What matters is what goes on between the two of us ... are we always changing, are we growing and loving each other more? That's what matters."

"May I add a word," I said.

"Of course."

"Things around us-houses, jobs, cars-they're props, they're settings for our love. The things we own, the places we live, the events of our lives: empty settings. How easy to chase after settings, and forget diamonds! The only thing that matters, at the end of a stay on earth, is how well did we love, what was the quality of our love?"

At the first break, most of the people stood and stretched, some came to the front with books needing autographs.

Others met and talked, without formal introduction, at the place near the stage that we had set aside for them.

While the people were getting back to their seats for the fifth hour of the talk, I touched Leslie's shoulder. "How are you doing, little wook? Are you all right?"

"Just fine," she said. "It's nothing like before! This is wonderful!"

"You are so smart!" I said. "So wise and lovely you are. You could have your pick of any man out there."

She squeezed my arm. "I choose this one, thank you. Time to start again?"

I nodded, switched on my microphone. "Here we go," I said. "Let us continue. Any question ever asked since the dawn-of humankind, we promise you, we can answer it to our complete satisfaction!"

So much of what we said sounded crazy, yet none of it was false ... as if two theoretical physicists stood on stage to say that when we travel near lightspeed, we get younger than nontravellers; that a mile of space next to the sun is different from a mile of space next to the earth because the sun-mile space is curved more than the earth-mile.

Silly ideas, worth the admission price in smiles, but they're true. Is high-energy physics interesting because it's true or because it's crazy?

"Ma'am," I said, nodding to a woman standing mid-audience, wondered where she'd take us next.

"Do you intend to die?"

Easy question; an answer to split between us.

We sailed that day with the wind of knowing that had changed and taught us, through a sea of questions:

Why do we have problems?

Can death separate us? Since you're going to say it can't, how do we talk to friends who have died?

Is there no such thing as evil?

What's it like, married to an actress?

Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your own Personal Saviour?

What's a nation for?

Do you ever get sick?

Who's in the UFOs?

Is your love different now from a year ago?

How much money do you have?

Is Hollywood really glamorous?

If I've lived before, why have I forgotten?

Is she as wonderful as you say? What don't you like about each other?

Are you done changing?

Can you see your own future?

What difference does it make, anything.you say?

How do you get to be a movie-star?

Have you ever changed your past?

Why does music affect us the way it does?

Do something psychic, please.

What makes you so sure we're immortal?

How do you tell when a marriage is over?

How many other people see this world the way you do?

Where can we go to meet someone to love?

We sailed through a day lasted a moment long, as though we ourselves were lightspeed travellers.

Swiftly came the hour we shut our hotel-room door behind us, fell on the bed together.

"Not bad," I said. "Not a bad day. Tired?"

"No!" she said. "There's so much power, so much love in the air, at one of these things. The joy comes and hugs us all!"

"Let's practice seeing auras, next time," I said. "They say that at a good stage event, there's golden light over the audience, over the stage. Everybody's electrified."

I looked at her blouse. "Permission to touch?"

She considered me sideways. "What does that mean?"

"It's an aviation-cadet custom. Never touch another person without permission."

"You hardly need permission, Mister Bach."

"I just thought, before I tear your clothes off, I ought to be courteous, and ask."

"Beast," she said. "When the man asked if there were dragons left, I should have pointed to you."

I rolled on my back, looked at the featureless ceiling, closed my eyes. "I'm a dragon. I'm an angel, too, don't forget. We each have our mystery, our adventure, don't we, going our million ways together across time, all at once? What are we doing, in those other times? I don't know. But I'll bet you a strange thing, sweetie," I said, "I'll bet that what we're doing now ..."

". . . is tied with ribbons of light," she said, "to what we're doing then!"

I shocked awake as she finished my sentence.

She lay on her side on the bed, seablue eyes locked with mine, knowing me, knowing so much more.

I spoke as gently as I could to the life that sparkled and danced behind those eyes.

"Hello, mystery," I whispered.

"Hello, adventure."

"Where shall we go from here?" I said, full of the power of us. "How shall we change the world?"

"I saw our house, today," she said. "When the lady asked do we know our future. Remember our dream? That house. I saw the forest on the island, and the meadow. I saw where we're going to build the house we went to in the dream."

One corner of her mouth curved in a tiny smile. "Do you think they'd mind, all those hundreds of other usses everywhere at once beyond time and space? Considering what we've been through," she said, "do you think they'd mind if we built our house first, and then changed the world?"

forty-nine

THE LITTLE earth-mover roared over the hill, saw me by the meadow, rolled down to meet me, its steel bucket half-full of topsoil for the garden.

"Hi, sweetie!" Leslie called, over the roar of the engine. Workdays, she wore heavy white coveralls, her hair swirled up under a yellow tractor-cap; hands disappeared in heavy leather gloves on the steering-handles of the machine.

She was master of the earth-mover, these days, glad to work at last on the house she had built for so long hi her mind.

She shut the engine down. "How's my darling word-smith?"

"Doing fine," I said. "Don't know what people are going to make of this book. They're going to say it's too long and too sexy for the likes of me to write. But I love it. And I found the title today!"

She pushed her cap up, touched her forehead with the back of a glove. "At last! What's the title?"

"It's already there, it's been there all along. If you find it, too, that's what we'll call the book, OK?"

"Time for me to read it now, the whole manuscript straight through?"

"Yep. Just one chapter to go, and it's done."

"One more chapter," she said. "Congratulations!"

I looked down the slope past the meadow, out over the water to the islands floating on the horizon. "This is a pretty place, isn't it?"

"Paradise! And you ought to see the house," she said. "The first of the photovoltaics went in, today. Hop aboard, I'll ride you up and show you!"

I stepped onto the bucket with the topsoil. She pressed the starter.

The engine roared to life, and for a moment, I could have sworn the sudden rumbling blast was the sound of my old biplane, started in the meadow.

If I half-closed my eyes, I could see ...

... a mirage, a ghost from years gone by, moving in the meadow. Richard the barnstormer, started the engine of the Fleet for the last time and settled down in his cockpit, touching the throttle, about to take off in search of his soulmate.

The biplane crept forward.

What would I do if I saw her now, he thought, if I saw her walking through the hay, telling me wait?

On silly impulse, he turned and looked.

There was a sunlight blur in the field. Through the hay to the airplane, long golden hair flashing behind her,

ran a woman, ran the most beautiful . . . Leslie Parrish! How did she. . . ?

He stopped the engine at once, dazzled to see her.

"Leslie! Is that you?"

"Richard!" she called, "Going up?" She stopped breathless at the edge of the cockpit. "Richard . . . would you have time to fly with me?"

"Would you . . ."he said, all at once out of breath himself, ". . . would you want to?"

I turned to my wife, as startled as the pilot by what I'd seen.

Dirt-streaked, glorious, she smiled at me, tear-bright radiance. "Richie, they're going to try for it!" she said. "Wish them love!"