Page 2 of And Still Her Voice
“Anna?” Her sound raised a few notes on the second syllable of my name.
“Shut up!” I slid my guitar off my back and across my chest. Except for church, I didn’t go anywhere without my guitar. My thinking was that it was my best defense against that stupid voice in my head. I twanged the strings and sang out loud as I ran, hoping the noise would make her go away.I want to skip naked through thepark!I sang until I reached the tunnel cutting underneath the street. I stopped to rest on a nest of leaves and branches that had gotten snagged up on the higher ground. Cold all the time, as if the furnace in my soul had stopped burning due to lack of food fuel, now I froze. I pulled my knees into my chest and waited for my galloping heart to slow to more of a trot. In between each beat and breath, I knew. Grandma didn’t have a plan.I’ve. Been. Betrayed.
I pulled out the little book of matches I always carried in my pocket in case of an emergency. As a little kid, besides liking the sulfury smell; I also liked to believe it scared away the bad stuff and now I thought I might burn leaves for warmth, but the box was empty. The night loomed, long and scary. Darkness absorbed the sound of my breathing. I’d told Grandma to shut up, but now I needed to hear her voice. Strange, as a kid I’d never imagined living without her voice to calm me, so much like one of Brahms’s lullabies. But sadly, there in the dead of night, what I did know was that she was the root cause of all of my turmoil. I knew that even though she said she’d only been trying to help, to make up for the sins of her past, she’d been the source of my family’s chaos.
***
Grandma believed she knew best for everyone. Even though my Mexican mother—a former migrant worker who picked grapes and lettuce up and down the California farmlands—had taken home economics as she finished up her GED during night school, Grandma, like one of those Pilgrim colonists from theold country, thought it was her job to educate me on such things as “please” and “thank you,” on how to write a thank-you card and which fork to use at a dinner party—as if we were invited to such shindigs—how to be polite and pleasant even though most of the time, I thought my life pretty much sucked. In her day, she’d been a refined classical musician and part of the Los Angeles Bluebook Society as am I because of my auspicious birth. I became her second chance. She’d pretty much fucked up with my father in that department. She wanted to teach me how to act civilized, how to play the piano and sing pretty so as to fit into her society; all things Dad had obviously rebelled against. There was plenty wrong with Dad, i.e., his Navy medical discharge, for one thing, or his drinking problem, for another. Rather than getting knifed, wouldn’t it have been better to eat him when he was young like some members of the animal kingdom did to remove their inferior offspring?
The stabbing incident wasn’t the first time Grandma had used my voice box and gotten us into trouble. And to be clear, not only did she talk to me all day long, but she also spoke through me in a smoker’s voice an octave lower than mine. She’d died, rather, she’d left her body before my birth then took up residence inside my head by transferring her consciousness before I ever took my first breath. It’s part of an Eastern religious thing she learned in India, sort of a shortcut toward enlightenment. Anyway, she moved in non grata, then started to decorate my headspace, filling it with so much crap, I could’ve had a huge junkyard sale.
But while Grandma and I’d shared a consciousness, we didn’t exactly share a conscience. And while there’d certainly been justification and plenty of motivation for the stabbing, besides the fact that I was so tired of Dad and Mom fighting day and night and me getting stuck in the middle of the three-ring circus—well, four-ring, since I happened to share head space with Grandma—and even as angry as I got, I wasn’t vengeful. I didn’t think I had itin me to squish an ant much less stab my father. But I began to wonder about Dad’s mother, Grandma Phoebe, who’d hijacked my body in order to “protect me,” she’d say, and while she was at it, rewrite some history, re-right some wrongs, and carry out her warped sense of what she deemed appropriate or not, justifiable or not. Now, it was she I wanted to kill.
CHAPTER 2
I Am a Consciousness
In death, there is no concept of present, past, or future, so as Anna tumbles into sleep, allow me this opportunity to step in and give some background about the little-known practice of transferring one’s consciousness, Phowa. I will also endeavor to clarify how, even living with the consequences of a transfer gone bad with her father, my son, who quite honestly might have been a bad seed (and Anna does have a point about the animal kingdom eating their young, but we humans do have other choices), I still chose to move into my granddaughter’s space at her birth.
It hadn’t been my plan to leave this realm yet, for I still had so much music in me that the world needed to hear, but then as my lung disease got worse, I realized my life had not been as pure as it should have been in order to gain entrance into the pure realm of Amitabha, so I summoned my lifelong opera friend, Marie, from Mills College, to help me prepare for my transfer. But then I took a turn and as I lay dying, I learned that Charley would be a new father. I could not help but think I had made so many mistakes raising him and saw this as my last chance to try and square things with my conscience. As it would turn out, Anna, truly a gifted musician, and quite a prodigy, rekindled my soul, and so protecting her would become a priority.
Quickly, before she wakes, I can tell you that years prior, in 1908, so distraught over the death of my dear daddy, a kind and gentle soul, inimitable, I prayed he’d find a better place. Devilishly handsome, too, I might add, I was his princess. I’d never known nor would I ever be with a man who lived up to his virtuosity; none of my beaus, neither of my husbands, and certainly not my Charley. And so, I traveled to India, chaperoned by sweet Marie, to learn how to stay connected with my father. I learned about death as a continuum of the spirit. While visiting the Theosophy headquarters in Adyar, I had the opportunity to study many religions, including the ancient Eastern religious practice of Phowa. Still, not too many people know about conscious dying, much less mindstream transference. The belief is that at the time of one’s death and even after, with proper assistance, one can live on by transferring his consciousness over to a pure realm. I prayed for my father to find his pure happy place. As for me, babies are pure at birth, hence my own transfer to my granddaughter.
As I lay dying, Marie came up to my bedroom and put a recording of my music on the Victrola. Ah, those were the special moments. Music had been my connection to everything—the balance that had always set the scales.
I remember how my sweet Marie, a true love until the end, leaned over me and pierced the crown of my head with a needle. As a droplet of blood dripped into my ear, I heard the music trickle in as I drifted in and out of consciousness, or might I be remembering as I picture the sky, a golden light of the Holy Spirit—the wisdom, and compassion of all the enlightened beings—my thoughts scattering like startled birds darting through a dark forest as I fly over. “Open your heart to their presence and trust they are there,” Marie whispers, as I sink like a dead weight, entering a dreamlike state and yet this process of death gives me a certain diaphanous clarity.
“Through your guidance and blessing, through the power of the light streaming from you,” Marie sings the prayers lovingly. “May all the negative karma, destructive emotions, obscurations, and blockages be purified and removed . . .” A joy so intense washes over me, filling my heart. “May she know the time has come to let go into the process of taking a new rebirth. May she know this life is over and whatever mistakes may have made have been forgiven and cleansed. May she know her family and friends love and appreciate her and want her to move on without regret, and with confidence and ease . . .”I hope this is true. “May Phoebe be guided towards a new and beneficial birth in a place where she can accomplish all of her virtuous aspirations.”
A silence falls over me as I soak it all in. I feel Marie’s warm breath on my face. “Phoebe, can you see the rainbow light from the heart of all wisdom?” And the light pulsates. She takes my cooling hands. “The light is streaming into your heart. Pray with me, Phoebe. Oh, Magnificent King of boundless light, I lay down before you. I take refuge in you. Please bestow upon me your countless blessings.”
And I envision the process of transferring my consciousness up through the tiny pinhole in my skull, into the pure realm and down through the fontanel of my grandchild.
Unfortunately, there would be a problem with the transfer. Accordingly, one must first prepare by letting go of earthly possessions; one must die with a pure, clean mind in order to die a happy, joyful death. In other words, I should have lived a better life, been a better person, spent more time with my son. But, as a human, I’d made some mistakes. My son would have preferred that I had died. I should not have resorted to this shortcut toward enlightenment.
While dying, there is no concept of time, no separation of moments, but what seems like only moments later, I hear a favoriteconcert finale of mine: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. I’m at my piano in the chamber room built for me by Anna’s grandfather, my husband Dr. Wesley LeMar. The audience, all the movers and shakers of Los Angeles, is so moved by my performance, I soak in the energy of their applause and am lifted higher.
As the dawn of a new century warbles, I sense the bones in her soft skull vibrating, and then from somewhere even deeper, the music becomes more critical. A vast spectrum of sound pulsates all around. The pounding of a heart, like a summer thunderstorm, blood coursing through veins and arteries, the sloshing of fluids. Lightning strikes again and the sound of skin stretching, and then more lightning and the zapping of electricity somewhere out there jolting us and . . .
Things speed up like a menuetto,a pace so lively, lightning and rain coming faster and heavier until . . . Adagio.I hear a suctioning, and a peal of thunder so fierce startling me out of my quiescence, jolting me from my serenity. The violins vibrate beginning in the key of G. Gradually more notes and more instruments are added and suddenly . . . from somewhere deep within a warm, dark place, as if under water, I strain to hear the low sounds of a man, e enfine,he shouts, “Push, Teresa, push!” But Anna doesn’t want to be born and the poor dear tries to crawl back up into the womb. She is breech.
Allegro molto e vivace.Yanked by her feet, she recoils. She doesn’t want to leave her warm world, but as the music finally enters her, she flips, allowing the melody to lure her out of the comfortable, wet darkness and carry her out toward the light, to the blinding cold surface. She can’t open her eyes, but I can hear, “It’s a girl!” And together we scream in the key of C major.
Andwewould continue to sing a beautiful duet until that fateful Easter night.
But again, this is Anna’s story and I promised to let her tell it using her own voice. Unfortunately, it will prove to be quitedifficult since I am a consciousness who doesn’t sleep. I share thoughts, ideas, and memories with my granddaughter. Except, you see, a child doesn’t form a memory until around age three, but retains a different, more mysterious sort of memory—in Anna’s case two sets of memories—that will last a lifetime. I only want to step in to fill the gaps when and where necessary; for instance, when she is too young to remember or when she’s asleep, or when she needs clarification for some of my memories, or sadly, when she is passed out. And when it comes to my son’s stabbing, I want to assure her that it had to be done. She thinks she has thick skin, but under the surface, she has an elastic heart that stretches until it bleeds, and on this journey which we are about to embark, she’ll need to believe she has the courage of a lioness in order to defend herself as she takes on the world. After all, there are two of us with souls at risk.
Shhh!She is waking.
CHAPTER 3
She
Growing drowsy, I hid inside that dark, womb-like tunnel in Verdugo Park, resting my head on my knees, but then for a moment, I wondered if La Llorona might come find me to drown me in the creek. I hugged myself, crying now like the weeping woman of Mexican folklore and sounding like some sort of wild animal.
The howling music of coyotes sounded a little too close for comfort inside the park, so chilly, damp, and dark. Hidden deep in the pit of the burrow, I felt a lump underneath where I sat and I rolled onto one butt cheek to reach down and pick up something small, smooth, and roundish. Wiping my eyes that had finally made peace with the dark, I held the object up to the tiny globe of light seeping in from one end of the tunnel—a foil-wrapped Easter egg from yesterday’s hunt. What parent would let their kid wander into this scary, dark place all alone to look for Easter eggs? Mine, obviously. I shoved the egg into my pocket.
I shivered. How long can I stay away? Forever? I’d miss my dog, Bella. I should’ve brought her with me, if not for company, then to keep me warm. She’d been a puppy when Dad rescued her and brought her home—the day after he’d accidentally broken my arm—something that had slipped my mind until now, something else I didn’t want to think about and tried to push back down,something never talked about because really he didn’t mean for my arm to break when he yanked me, or was it Grandma he’d wrenched off the piano during a rendition of “Ode to Joy”? He’d been drinking and the song reminded him of bad stuff, like the mysterious deaths of his own father and a stepbrother, he told me after I came home from the hospital in a cast. But then he gave me Bella, a short-haired beagle mutt who barked too much, especially when anyone got too close to me. I loved her. Bella couldn’t stand Dad. Maybe that’s why he got her for me, for protection around him. She’d been my best friend and because I was homeschooled, she was my only companion except, of course, for Grandma. Dad said every kid needed a dog.Son ofa bitch.Oh Dad!Please don’t die, but if you do, please don’t rise again. I sobbed for my dog and buried my head like I wanted to bury the past.
