I wondered if she ever encountered souls from other planets. And if so, in what language they communicated. I was not too surprised when she said of course they met souls from other planets ‑ even from other universes. They weren’t so very different from earthlings‑perhaps the eyes were more brilliant and the mind sharper. But though the people from outer space could understand the people here, the latter could not understand the people from outer space.
(I forgot to say the people here understood all earth languages though they might not speak them. It was as if they had received the gift of tongues.)
From what little I could gather about the people of outer space it would seem there was nothing so very mysterious about the universe; the mystery was Man, wherever he might be. That made a great impression on me. So then possibly there was something to the Biblical saying, that man was made in the image of the Creator! And consequently an enigma to himself!
After hearing so much from her lips that made sense to me I decided to ask her outright why she had always been so cold to me. I particularly wanted to know why she never had a word of comfort for me when she knew my heart was breaking. Couldn’t she help me locate Cora now, I wondered. No, the only way to find someone here was to think hard, wish [or them and they would appear. She thought it quite possible that Cora had already returned to earth.
“She was a good girl,” she said, “only I didn’t see very much in her. I knew you were suffering but I felt that you had to work it out yourself. I always believed in letting people do as they wish, even if they wanted to kill themselves.”
I decided to say no more about Cora but to try to find her on my own.
My mother, however, ventured to add a few more words. “The real place to look for her,” she said, “is on earth. That’s the whole purpose of love ‑ to find your other half. Sometimes the search goes on for a thousand years.”
These observations bowled me over. “Why mother,” I exclaimed, “you sound as if you had read Marie Corelli.”
“Marie Corelli … Marie Corelli . . .,” she repeated a few ‘times. “Why yes, son, that name strikes a familiar chord. I did read her when I was in my teens. I remember one book especially “A Romance of Two Worlds”. Everybody was reading it then. She was all the rage.” She paused a moment. “Why do you ask me about her? Have you read her too?”
“Indeed I have, I rediscovered her towards the end of my life. She meant a great deal to me. Mother, do you think she might be here? She only died about fifty years ago.”
“I have no idea,” mother replied. “But I told you how to find the ones you are looking for.”
Her words made me jubilant. How lucky I was, I thought, to be here where so many of my favorite writers were. Maybe they had a club or formed a community of their own. I would look not only for Marie Corelli, but for Dostoievsky, Knut Hamsun, Herman Hesse. In this realm I had more chance of meeting those I wanted to meet than on earth.
But I was not through questioning my mother about the things which had estranged us in life. I realized, of course, from the moment I encountered her that she was an entirely different person here. How good it was to exchange thoughts with her. Below we hardly spoke to one another.
“Mother,” I began, “do you remember a woman I wanted to marry who was considerably older than myself? Do you recall the day I told you about her ‑ we were sitting in the kitchen ‑ and you took a big carving knife and threatened to plunge it into me if I said another word about marriage? If, as you said a moment ago, you believed in letting people do as they wish, why did you become so furious, so violent?”
“Because,” she replied, “you were out of your mind. It was only an infatuation, not true love.”
“However,” she added, “you did go and live with her a few years, even if you didn’t marry her. And they were years of torment and distress, weren’t they?”
I shook my head affirmatively. “But mother, no matter if it were an infatuation, she was a good woman. You should have felt a little compassion for her.”
For answer she replied, “Sometimes one runs out of compassion. The world below was so full of misery that if one felt sorry for everyone who was in distress one could shed rivers of tears. When I return to earth this time I am sure I shall have more courage and strength than before.”
Having endured much suffering, misery, humiliation, I could appreciate her words. I had one more vital question to put to her.
“Mother,” I began, “I have never been able to believe that you preferred to see me become a tailor rather than a writer. Was that true or did you have some other reason?”
“I’m only too glad you asked me that question. Of course I never meant to imply a tailor was more important than a writer. (Though I must confess that since being here I have arrived at the conclusion that one thing is no better than another. I have met some very wonderful souls here, and they were people of no account on earth.) But I am wandering afield. I wanted
you to be with your father, to guide him and protect him. I couldn’t bear to see him go to the dogs. That’s the real reason I wanted you to be a tailor.”
“I suspected as much,” I answered. “But mother, why did you refuse to read anything I had written?”