The room was lit by just one dim lamp. It was nearly midnight and the nursing home had been overcome by sleep, disturbed only by the occasional shriek of terror that sounded like a small animal being attacked.
Her grandfather was dying of old age, Bertie thought. Worn out. Not cancer or a heart attack or an accident or a catastrophe. Old age seemed like a hard way to go. There were long gaps between each rasping breath now. Sometimes he seemed to panic and say something and Bertie squeezed his hand and stroked his cheek and murmured to him about the bluebell wood she had never seen and the people she had never met who would be waiting for him. Hugh and Sylvie, Nancy and Ursula. Of the dogs, of the long sunny days. Was that where he was bound? To long sunlit days at Fox Corner? Or eternal darkness? Or just nothing, for even darkness had a quality to it whereas nothing was truly nothing. Were Spenser’s bright squadrons of angels waiting to welcome him? Were all the mysteries about to be revealed? They were questions that no one had ever answered and no one ever would.
She fed him scraps from her ragbag because words were all that were left now. Perhaps he could use them to pay the ferryman. Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold. The world is charged with the grandeur of God. Full fathom five thy father lies. Little lamb, who made thee? Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie. On that best portion of a good man’s life, his little nameless unremembered acts of kindness and of love. Farther and farther, all the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
The air rippled and shimmered. Time narrowed to a pinpoint. It was about to happen. Because the Holy Ghost over the bent world broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Moments left, Teddy thought. A handful of heartbeats. That was what life was. A heartbeat followed by a heartbeat. A breath followed by a breath. One moment followed by another moment and then there was a last moment. Life was as fragile as a bird’s heartbeat, fleeting as the bluebells in the wood. It didn’t matter, he realized, he didn’t mind, he was going where millions had gone before and where millions would follow after. He shared his fate with the many.
And now. This moment. This moment was infinite. He was part of the infinite. The tree and the rock and the water. The rising of the sun and the running of the deer. Now.
The trumpets sound the end of the revels. The baseless fabric begins to disintegrate. The stuff that dreams are made of starts to rend and tear and the walls of a cloud-capped tower tremble. Little showers of dust begin to fall. Birds rise in the air and fly away.
Sunny is sitting on the veranda of the room he rents, meditating in the dark before dawn. He is moving out soon. His Australian girlfriend, also a yoga teacher, is six months pregnant and has already gone back to Sydney. Sunny is going to join her there in a few weeks. He’s going to accompany Viola to the airport later this morning and see her on the plane and before he says goodbye to her he will give her the gift of this knowledge to take home with her. His other gift to her will be the little silver hare that he has kept all these years. Against the odds. “For luck. For protection.” His Australian girlfriend is the Buddha. She is carrying the Buddha inside her.
He takes in a sudden breath as if he has been asleep and has woken suddenly.
An alarming crack appears in the gorgeous palace. The first wall shivers and crumbles. The second wall buckles and falls, stones tumble to the ground.
Viola is drinking her coffee, waiting for the dawn, waiting for the mist to lift from the river and the birds to start calling. She’s thinking about her mother. She’s thinking about her children. She’s thinking about her father. She is overcome by the pain of love. The birds commence their dawn chorus. Something is happening. Something is changing. For a moment she is gripped by panic. Don’t be afraid, she thinks. And she isn’t.
The third wall comes down with a great crash, sending up a cloud of dust and debris.
Bertie is holding her grandfather’s hand, willing him to feel her love because isn’t that what everyone would want to be the last thing that they feel? She leans over and kisses his hollow cheek. Something tremendous is happening, something catastrophic. She is going to be a witness of it. Time starts to tilt. Now, she thinks.
The fourth wall of the solemn temple falls as quietly as feathers.