Chapter 5: Legacy, Part 1.

"Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again."
Willa Cather
                          . . . .

                   Life. Death. Life. Truth. Dio(nysus). Orphics
Gold-leaf tablets found in graves from Thurii, Hipponium, Thessaly and Crete (4th century BC and after) give instructions to the dead. Although these thin tablets are often highly fragmentary, collectively they present a shared scenario of the passage into the afterlife. When the deceased arrives in the underworld, he is expected to confront obstacles. He must take care not to drink of Lethe ("Forgetfulness"), but of the pool of Mnemosyne ("Memory"). He is provided with formulaic expressions with which to present himself to the guardians of the afterlife.

I am a son of Earth and starry sky. I am parched with thirst and am dying; but quickly grant me cold water from the Lake of Memory to drink

                                                               

                                                             . . . .
Memories are hunting horns whose sound dies on the wind.
Guillaume Apollinaire
                        . . . .

I summon up remembrance of things past...
Shakespeare
                         . . . .


According to the writer Jorge Luis Borges, the idea of the Zahir comes from Islamic tradition and is thought to have arisen at some point in the 18th century. Zahir, in Arabic, means visible, present, incapable of going unnoticed. It is someone or something which, once we have come into contact with them or it, gradually occupies our every thought, until we can think of nothing else. This can be considered either a state of holiness or of madness.

Faubourg St.-Peres
Encyclopaedia of the Fantastic
                                                          

                                                          . . . .
 



'Josephina. You can hear me. Open your eyes.'

Emlyn heard something...

But, the dust, the incredible chaos...so thick she could barely see. Where...? And what was that in the sky?
  She had Armand draped around her shoulder as she staggered out of the ruins.


Then, the next thing she knew, she was lying on her back looking up at something or someone bending over her. What, or who was it? It looked to her like a great, black rectangular window.

'Josephina!' Raimundo shook her arm.

Em opened her eyes, gasping, she sat up looking wildly before her.
'Armand! Quelle, quelle...?'

'Josephina! You are here, with me, Raimundo. Remember? Come home now.' Raimundo held her shoulders, looking fixedly into her eyes. 'It's Raimundo. And Sebastiao. Athena is here.'
  'Em?' Athena appeared behind Raimundo.

Em was breathing hard; she shut her eyes, she could still see it...the whole picture...but that great black rectangle, was part of something, what was it?

'Em,' Raimundo touched her cheek, she jumped. 'You will remember all. Don't worry. But come back, oui? You are here with us now.'

'I must, I must...' She tried to move; swung her legs round, tried to stand...what was all this? Was she sitting in a tree? 'What...?'
  The boughs and herbs all fell to the floor.

'Help me get her to a chair. That coffee...'
Raimundo and Athena held onto Em as they helped her cross the room.
  'Drink a little. Just coffee, it's all right.' Athena
pulled up a chair beside her. 'You were gone quite some time.'

Emlyn leaned her head on her hand, sipped a bit of the cold strong brew. 'Ugsh...water. Please.'

She was slowly coming round to the here and now. She  remembered more. Can't lose it... 'May I have paper and pencil, there is something I must...'

Raimundo handed her a leather-bound journal and pencil.   She began to draw the long rectangle: adding a long vertical rectangle in the middle making a black T-shaped design. Around this, she then made a large half circle, extending the lines below the T-shape.
She truncated the bottom. And frowned at it.
  'This was the last thing I saw before my eyes. But what could it be?'

Athena leaned over it. 'It looks like Boba Fett.'

                                                        
  All eyes regarded her. 'Is this someone you know?' asked Raimundo.
  'Not as such. A...popular figure in my time.' Athena paused. 'But, you are not, Timewalkers?'

'Not as such.' Raimundo smiled, briefly. 'Josephina, what does it suggest to you?'

Em was trying to make sense out of her 'dream'; 'I don't know...I'm just the scout, reporting back to camp, aren't I?' She rubbed her eyes, willing comprehension.
  'I just see scenes, you know? As in a dream, or one of your moving pictures, Athena...' She glanced over at her friend, who seemed none the worse for her adventure.

'Is there a beginning? What do you recall first?' Sebastiao had returned with brandy, handing it to her as Athena poured more water.

'Hm. Obrigado. So dry...'She sipped the brandy, but set it aside. Emlyn felt like pouring the water over her head, but she drank of it deeply, licking parched lips. She closed her eyes...

 'It is a dry place, a desert region?' She frowned. 'I don't recognize it, it does not feel like Sonora. Dust, dust everywhere, so dry... I see, across from me,  someone emerging from a rubble heap carrying a person. I don't know who. I have Armand, and...I can't see. I don't remember.'
 
Em sipped at her brandy, eyes wide shut. 'Now I'm looking up at someone. It's odd, but it's just such a bizarre face; what is it?' She frowned in concentration, eyes scrunched.
  She sighed. 'I can only think that it looks... something like a kachina. A Hopi kachina dancer. Just the face, you know?'

'That's Boba Fett!' Athena smiled. 'He looks like a kachina, a little. Maybe the Eagle dancer.'                                                         

Meanwhile, Raimundo had disappeared.
'I'm sorry I can't remember more,' Emlyn said, 'Not of that particular dream...there were, others.'
  Em did not feel altogether 'here' quite yet. Where had she been? And, who?

Raimundo returned then with a book opened to a page which depicted a painting of a knight in silver mail wearing a helmet. Where his eyes should be was a black rectangle, with a short block cut out in the middle for breathing.
  'Is this anything like what you saw, Josephina?'

'--Oh.'

                                                           
Recognition came to her then. 'Oh, yes. I...'she sighed, 'it could be.' She paused.
'It was the last thing, I saw...'

 Raimundo and Sebastiao exchanged a pregnant look.
 'That explains Armand.'
Sebastiao nodded.


Raimundo shut the book.
  'Anything else?'

Emlyn returned to herself, hotly.
  'Yes, plenty!' She rounded upon them both. 'And I might ask the same of you! What is all this about, Al--'

'Ah, ah! "Em!"' Raimundo sat down, motioning Sebastiao to relax. He sat.
  'Athena and I have been talking. "Emlyn", is it?' He smiled slightly. 'My colleagues and I are very curious about your sudden interest in certain...antiques.'

Emlyn was sitting forward, elbows on knees in thought. 'What?' She was still somewhat OtherWhere. Or When.

Raimundo leaned back in his seat, arms crossed before him. 'The Cup. The Box. Don't pretend you don't know what I mean.'

'Ah. That.' She sat up. 'None of that is my doing. Nor this!' She waved at the dais and strewn branches, herbs all around.
   Raimundo sat forward and took her hand, fingering the emerald. 'And I suppose you had nothing to do with this, either? Do you realise where this stone came from, Josephina?'
                                                           

'From you, Raimundo. You, and Hy Brasil.' Em glared at him. 'We were friends once. All of us. I only came to see you to ask news of Alice, the Captain and Lev.'
  'And Frank?' Raimundo stood, began gathering tree boughs scattered about.
 
Em sighed, 'Of course.'

Raimundo tossed a few branches onto the fire, adding rosemary. He gazed into the flaring flames.
   'Things are...unsettled. But, Alice and Lev are both well enough. The Captain is in Canada, as you know. I see him seldom now.'

'You haven't mentioned Frank.'
   'No.' He tossed in more rosemary, for memory, and sighed. 'Frank is...missing.'

Not again, Em thought. Alice couldn't bear it. 'That's too much; Alice --'
  'Alice, asked him to go.' Raimundo looked at Em. 'It is complex. Sometime we may speak more of this. Not now, here.' His eyes flicked to Sebastiao and Athena.
   Alone, later then.

He returned to where Em was sitting and pulled a chair around before her. Taking her hands, he looked deeply into her eyes; matching her wonder with his intensity.
  'You know me, Josephina. Look at me now; do you not recognise me? You have seen me before.'
 
Em began to speak, but Raimundo put a gentle hand to her lips.
  'You know what I mean. We have known one another for lifetimes...'
                                                                  

                                                           
Emlyn let herself be drawn into the well of remembrance which lay deep within Raimundo's dark eyes. She felt herself falling into that well...

'I am ever a guardian and a shepherd. It is what I do.'
Raimundo's deep voice seemed to echo as within a cave.
  'A guide will at times be engaged to bring a seeker to the holy man on the mountain; where he will find him not. Despite his best efforts; his faithful guide, he now believes, has failed him.
  'For a lowly guide, a servant, was never the seeker's idea of an enlightened being.'

Athena spoke up, '"The Journey to the East,"' she commented, 'by Hesse. In the book, a supposed mystical, scholarly order, is actually headed by their servant; a fact of which they remain blithely ignorant.'

Raimundo still held Em's gaze, like a snake charmer.   'Indeed,' he murmured, 'humans are like pack animals. They're inclined to follow the herd; the path of least resistance.' He lay a certain accent upon the last word.

'"The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what's worth knowing."' Athena again. Ever the librarian. She sighed, 'Dear Oscar.'

Emlyn blinked and frowned. 'Myself, I have always been a lone wolf, far outside the pack. But, I do recognise you now. You WERE my guide! You, you were the one!   He who --'
  Raimundo put a finger to his lips, again. 'Yes. It was I. But we will speak of this later, also.'

'No, Raimundo. We will speak of it now.' Emlyn regarded him darkly. 'I would know more of this particular -- dream. I believe it was, perhaps, the one I most need to decipher. Is this not why I am here?'

Raimundo sat back, casually. 'Very well.' He frowned, crossing his arms again. 'It was very long ago. What do you recall?'

Emlyn closed her eyes. 'It seems to be in a high desert region. But no dust. We are away from all that... We are climbing a hill.' She paused and sighed, I think there is a pack animal with us... When we reach the top, there is a view of a great valley below...

  'I am gazing out over the valley at these very large...petroglyphs? Perhaps? --On the valley floor. I have never seen the like of these....'


Raimundo murmured: 'Tassili.' But no one heard.
                                                                       

'Where is that book?'
Emlyn reached for the notebook and began to sketch a sort of equilateral cross with circles on the ends.
  'That isn't it, I know.' Em frowned at it, frustrated. 'Already the memory is fading! There were others, quite large...'

Athena was watching over her shoulder. 'It looks like a crop circle.'

'Yes. That's probably the closest simile,' allowed Em.
'It was more involved, though, more intricate...oh, this is most vexing!' She sighed, and put down the book, closing her eyes once more. She took a deep breath and continued:

'Right. I am standing on top of the cliff, looking out over the valley... I see...reddish and gold tones in the cliff side.
                                                            

A sudden wind comes up and...'
   Em was suddenly silent. After some minutes then...


 'Oh!'

  Em's face relaxed, eyes closed. She leaned forward slowly as if trying to catch a scent, and inhaled deeply,  mouth slightly open. 'Ahh...' she whispered, 'It is here! It is...,' she paused, inhaling, '-- in...the wind...'

She sat entranced, completely taken by the dream, her face transformed by a fire within. She was far voyaging now,  adrift on seas unseen.
   'You,' she breathed, 'you begin to sing; chanting... something...I, I can't tell what it is -- Oh!'

    Em's head went back as she inhaled fully and her fingers seemed to open something before her, as though she unbuttoned a jacket and pulled it open; as if baring her soul to the wind...
   'Ah!' She gasped softly. 'It is...here...I am --Aahhh...' Em whispered, her voice a soft moan.
   'Oh...oh, god...!' she breathed, her voice yearning, ecstatic.
                                                             

Athena looked at Sebastiao, whose own eyes were wide with wonder. 'She is in
 trance, ' he whispered.
  Raimundo looked on intently, eyes fixed on Em. He leaned forward, focusing.

Emlyn looked down, eyes closed, gently nodding. Slowly she dropped her hands.
  'The wind...is going...' she whispered. 'And I, too, must go.' She swallowed, and sat up, eyes still pressed shut. A tear drifted slowly down one cheek.
  'For I know I must leave this place. It saddens me; I do not wish to leave, but I must. I want only to keep all this with me somehow; to take it with me, as I must go now...' Plaintive, yearning...

'"Your mother was from Libya."' Emlyn pronounced, opening her eyes. She blinked and regarded the others.
                                                                    

She swallowed. 'A voice told me this. Or maybe it simply came to me.' She frowned.
'That is odd; as she most certainly was not.' Em closed her eyes again. 'Not in this lifetime.' She slowly shook her head. 'Not in this world...'


                                                               
Em's head slumped to the side. 'Stay...I wish so to stay...it was, it...aah...' Her face slid into melancholy.



Raimundo touched her hand gently. 'It is not  time for your return there. In between, you will find her,' he told her softly.
                               

She opened her eyes, focusing. 'You were there. You know.'
  Raimundo nodded.
 'Oh...' Tears crowded her eyes then. 'Oh, how am I to live? Now? Here?' She felt the cage close round her.

Raimundo said nought; looking down, he took her hands in both of his. 'We must. Because, we must.'


 He turned to the others, catching Sebastiao's eye; who nodded and stood then, taking Athena's elbow. With a glance her way, he communicated their leave-taking. Quietly, they exited, returning to the common room of the inn.
Alone now, Raimundo/Alejandro considered Emlyn/Josephina.
Mendacious, duplicitous; she was not, he knew. And he now knew that he had found his old friend once more.
Bending low to her ear, he whispered:
  '"In this breath I drink a glass of eternity..."'


                                                          

Em looked up at him with tear-blooded eyes which spoke secret volumes. Raimundo held her gaze.
 
   '"Open your chest to the early morning breeze
     so death can come back to life"'

'Yes!' Emlyn whispered, and bit her lip, to hold back the tears. 'You KNOW, Raimundo,' she breathed...

Undaunted, he continued his litany:
    '"Before we met you,
      we really couldn't breathe,
      because time had choked us"'

He stood then, taking Em's hands and leading her to her
feet. He leaned in closely and whispered in her ear:
    
     '"When the lover breathes
       flames spread through the universe..."'

'Yes...'  Again, Em closed her eyes; leaning back, she inhaled deeply.
   When she opened her eyes, with great sadness she gazed at Raimundo. 'It was so beautiful...' She shook her head. The tears began again, and she turned away.

'No, no...' Raimundo smiled; a true smile and a rarity. He softly brushed away her tears.
  'Today is a day of celebration, Josephina. Sim? Think of this great gift you were just given!' His voice, his eyes, spoke earnestly to her.

        '"My beautiful moon is dancing
          Venus plays the tambourine

          I salute the brave
          who proclaimed their love
          through dance and music."'


                                                          

Em  smiled, and sniffed, fumbling in her pocket for a hanky. Raimundo headed her off with one of his.
  'That's Rumi, isn't it?' She murmured.


He smiled then. That real smile; one that reached from heart to eyes. Therein lay her answer.
  
Tucking her arm in his, Raimundo nodded. 'Come. Let us join the others, sim?
        "O fast-blowing morning breeze
         go and tell shams of Tebriz:
         tell me who you are
         and come dance with me."'


                                                           

'You told me who you are,' he nodded. 'And now...'
As they headed for the door, Emlyn could hear the music from another room and discerned the tread of rhythmic feet.
    She threw back her head and laughed... 
                                    . . . .
SANTANA: Singing Winds Crying Beasts
from the album: Abraxas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sti-MsPXS0A