Phantom Read online

Chapter 4

 

  Two months later we are in Whittier, a suburb of Los Angeles, where the late President Nixon attended college. The city is largely middle class, completely nondescript, a perfect place, in Ray's opinion, to disappear. Certainly I have never been to Whittier before, nor harbored any secret desires to go there. We rent a plain three-bedroom house not far from a boring mall. Ray picked it out. There is a large backyard and an olive tree in the front yard. We buy a second-hand car and purchase our groceries at a Vons down the street I have lived five thousand years to do all these things.

  Yet my happiness has not faded with the passage of the eight weeks. Sleeping beside Ray, walking with him in the morning, sitting beside him in a movie--these simple acts mean more to me than all the earth-shattering deeds I have accomplished since I was conceived beneath Yaksha's bloody bite. It is all because I am human, I know, and in love. How young love makes me feel. How lovely are all humans. Shopping at the mall, in the grocery store, I often find myself stopping to stare at people. For too long I admired them, despised them, and envied them, and now I am one of them. The hard walls of my universe have collapsed. Now I see the sun rise and feel the space beyond it, not just the emptiness. The pain in my heart, caused by the burning stake, has finally healed. The void in my chest has been filled.

  Especially when I discover that I am pregnant.

  It happens the early morning of the full moon, two months after the nuclear bomb detonated in the desert beneath a previous full moon. A fifteen-dollar early pregnancy kit tells me the good news. I shake the blue test tube in the bathroom and Ray comes running when I let out a loud cry. What is the matter, he wants to know? I am shaking--there must be something wrong. I don't even get a chance to show him my blue urine because I accidentally spill it all over him. He gets the picture and laughs with me, and at me.

  I am at the bookstore later the same day, browsing through the baby books, when I meet Paula Ramirez. A pretty young woman of twenty-five, she has long black hair as shiny as her smooth complexion and a belly larger than her enchanting brown eyes. Obvi?ously she is expecting, much sooner than I am. I smile at her as she juggles six different baby books in one arm, white reaching for another with her free hand.

  "You know," I say. "Women were having kids long before there were books, it's a natural process. " I put my own book back on the shelf. "Anyway, I don't think any of these authors know what the hell they're talking about"

  She nods at my remark. "Are you pregnant?"

  "Yes. And so are you, unless I'm bond. " I offer my hand, and because I like her, without even knowing her, I tell her one of my more real names. Even as a human, I often trust my intuition. "I'm Alisa. "

  She shakes my hand. "Paula. How far along are you?"

  "I don't know. I haven't even been to the doctor. It can't be more than two months, though, unless God is the father. "

  For some reason, Paula loses her smile. "Do you live around here?"

  "Yes. Close enough to walk to the mall. How about you?"

  "I'm on Grove," Paula says. "You know where that is?"

  "Just around the block from us. "

  Paula hesitates. "Forgive me for asking, but are you married?"

  It is a curious question, but I'm not offended. "No. But I live with my boyfriend. Are you married?"

  Sorrow touches her face. "No. " She pats her big belly. "I have to take care of this one alone. " She adds, "I work at St. Andrews. It's just down the block from where you live. "

  "I have seen the crucifix. What do you do at St. Andrews?"

  "I am supposed to be an assistant to the Mother Superior but I end up doing whatever's necessary. That includes scrubbing the bathroom floors, if no one's gotten to them. The church and the high school operate on a tight budget. " She adds, almost by way of apology, "But I take frequent breaks. I pray a lot. "

  For some reason this girl interests me. She has special qualities--a gentleness of manner, a kindness in her voice. She is not a big girl but she seems to take up a lot of space. What I mean is there is a presence about her. Yet she acts anything but powerful, and that I also like.

  "What do you pray for?" I ask.

  Paula smiles shyly and lowers her head. "I shouldn't say. "

  I pat her on the back. "That's all right, you don't have to tell me. Who knows? Prayers could be like wishes. Maybe they lose their magic if you talk about them. "

  Paula studies me. "Where are you from, Alisa?"

  "Up north. Why?"

  "I could swear I've seen you before. "

  Her remark touches me deeply. Because in that exact moment, I feel the same way. There is something familiar in her eyes, in the soft light of their dark depths. They remind me of, well, the past, and I still have much of that, even if I grow older with each day.

  Yet I intend to brush her comment aside, as I brush aside thoughts of my own mortality that come in the middle of night, when Ray is asleep beside me, and sleep is hard to find. My insomnia is the only obvious curse of my transformation. I must still be used to hunting in the middle of the night. Prowling the streets in a black leather miniskirt. Death with a sexy smile and an endless thirst. Now, instead, I get up from bed and have a glass of warm milk and say my prayers--to Krishna, of course, whom I believe was God. I still remember him best during the darkest hours.

  Krishna was once asked what was the most miracu?lous thing in all of creation, and he replied, "That a man should wake each morning and believe deep in his heart that he will live forever, even though he knows that he is doomed to die. " Despite my many human weaknesses, a part of me still feels as if I will never die. And that part has never felt so alive as when I stare at Paula, a simple pregnant young woman that I have met by chance in a mall bookstore.

  "I just have one of those faces," I reply.

  We have lunch, and I get to know Paula better, and I let her know a few censored facts about myself. By the time our food is finished, we are fast friends, and this I see as a positive step on my road to becoming truly human. We exchange numbers and promise to stay in touch, and I know we will. I like Paula--really; it is almost as if I have a crush on her, though I have had few female lovers during my fifty centuries, and certainly Ray now takes care of all my sexual needs. It is just that as I say goodbye to her, I am already thinking of the next time we will meet, and how nice it will be.

  Paula is the rarest of human beings. Someone with intelligence and humility. It has been my observation that the more intelligent a man or woman is, the more dishonest he or she is. Modern psychologists, I know, would not agree with me, but they are often dishonest themselves. Psychology has never impressed me as a science. Who has ever really defined the mind, much less the heart? Paula has a quick mind that has not destroyed her innocence. As we part for the first time, she insists on paying for our meal even when it is clear she has little money. But I let her pay since it seems to mean a lot to her.