Sacha—The Way Back Read online

  Ten years ago she wouldn’t have picked up anything that had remotely to do with religion. Now, she was curious. It was with a sort of ‘know thy enemy’ gesture that she picked up one pamphlet. She was stunned. The list wasn’t long but still, it was impressive. The churches, or sects, were listed in vaguely alphabetical order:

  Baha’i, Baptist Church, Buddhism, Confucianism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Church of Christ, Church of Christian Science or Christ the Scientist, Church of England, Episcopal Church, Lutheran Church, Mennonite Church, Methodist Church, Moravian Church of America, Orthodox Eastern Church, Pentecostal Church, Presbyterian Church, Seventh Day Adventists, United Church of Christ, The Mormons also known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...

  On the other side of the circular the list continued with notes on Celtic Revivalists, Druids, International Society of Krishna Consciousness, Jainism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Quakers, Unitarian Universalist Association, Rosicruicianists, Shamanism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism, even on Wicca and Witchcraft. Each church or organization has been listed in neat columns and was followed by a few descriptive words, an approximate number of members, and their nearest point of contact.

  Suzy was sure that this wasn’t the complete list of churches. For a start, all the New Age groups were missing, and she knew they were plentiful. And what of the followers of the great Lao Tsu philosophy? And those who believed in the teaching of the prophet Zarathustra better known as Zoroaster? What of the various Islamic sects, like the Sunnites? The Shiites? What of the Sufis? And the many religions of the African continent? Of the Amazonian jungle? In fact of the Tribal, Aboriginal and Paleo-Pagan Religions? Surely, the Big Churches did not manage to destroy them all. Not yet? Anyway, these were the older, well established churches. Churches that boosted upwards of a few million members.

  It’s been a long time since Suzy had anything to do with any particular religion. When younger, she’d read avidly on various myths. In fact, she’d been fascinated by them. What she could never accept was what happened to those beautiful legends when they became adopted, or perhaps adapted, by the many religious organizations.

  A fleeting memory made her smile.

  She recalled a TV program in which a comic-strip hero, Homer Simpson, attempted to explain to his wife why he does not want to go to church on Sunday: “What,” he asked, “what if we picked the wrong religion? We’d make God madder and madder!”

  It would be almost impossible for an honest person to be a member of any particular church without offending so many others. Oh, she wished them all well, but...

  What was it that people expected?

  People who attended regular services were one thing, but so many others seemed preoccupied with pointing out what was wrong with all the other religious groups, sects, cults and churches. The Hindus criticized the Christians and the Moslem. The Moslem tried to reduced the Hindu ranks by derailing as many trains in India as they could. In turn, the Hindus were becoming more and more militant. They even dangled an atomic bomb over the Pakistan borders. The Christians were busy asserting urbi et orbi that they were the only true religion. The rest, they said, would go to hell.

  Suzy glanced at the cross towering over the altar.

  “And it’s all in your name?” she whispered. There was no mirth in her smile.

  Others enjoyed different predilections. The Sikhs seemed preoccupied with their headgear, and other symbols arranged surreptitiously under their clothing. Evidently, they no longer carried those symbols in their hearts. And the Jews? The Jews were so busy asserting their right to the land, which God had given them by a personal, immovable, unchangeable, eternal and inflexible Covenant that they were too busy to criticize anybody else. As long as the ‘anybodies’ stayed a goodly distance from the exclusive Holy Land.

  Unless they were tourists, of course.

  And finally there were the various Christian sects, or churches, although what they had to do with Christ’s teaching she had no idea. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another,” she mused: or was it “for one another?” She recalled the phrase vaguely. From what she’d seen, the various groups disliked each other as water dislikes fire. Many of them thought nothing of murdering hundreds of thousands of people; others would shoot, on sight, any woman who might want to abort a one-day-old fetus––thousands of which are aborted, daily, by nature itself.

  There were so many names on the pamphlets. So many churches in whose name you could kill.

  There was also a brochure issued by the Church of Seven Planes, which offered everyone the opportunity to become an ordained minister, at absolutely no cost, without any need to believe in anything. Once ordained, however, you would be free to start your own church. All expenses tax deductible no doubt. Not bad work if you can get it, she mused. All you had to do was to get rid of your conscience and bingo, you were a big religious Banana. You could even wear a funny hat to impress people.

  But this was the least of the world’s problems.

  Lately it became fashionable for everyone to accuse everyone else of being a terrorist. Mostly on religious grounds. Only she knew that the only grounds that fueled the ‘religious grounds’ were economic, yet people who practiced various religions seemed the most gullible, and they were the vast majority. They believed anything you threw at them, providing you did it in the name of God. Any God. Of any religion. Not that the so-called believers practiced the tenets their faith. They hardly knew what they were. But they certainly practiced pointing out the iniquities of all the others.

  With trembling fingers Suzy replaced the leaflet on the table. The next moment, for no apparent reason, her knees gave way. She leaned against the nearest pew. A sudden pain shot through her, as though a sharp rod of fire had pierced her heart. Then it was gone.

  When she got home everyone was out except for Sacha. He was lying on the bed, his legs bent at right angles, swaying gently as though to some strange music. He was reading. As she drew closer her heart missed a beat. Sacha had a dozen books on the bed with him. He was flipping the pages like a windmill in a gusty wind. All the books were on the same subject. She kept these books hidden in an old suitcase under her bed. She’d hidden them purposely.

  She’d hidden them to protect her son.

  Sacha was thumbing through the old, worn copies of her esoteric library. Once her passion, she hadn’t touched them since Sacha was born. She kept them under the bed, here, to minimize the danger of Sacha finding them at home, in LA. By the time she opened her mouth, Sacha put the last book down. His face registered a mixture of amusement and disbelief.

  “Hello, Mom. Do people really believe all this stuff?”

  There was genuine concern in his voice. For some inexplicable reason Suzy thought she saw, in his eyes, concern for the human race. She shrugged. What nonsense, she thought. He’s just a little boy.

  Chapter 2

  Grandma ‘Licia

  There were the Baldwins: Suzy, Alexander and Sacha. There was also Alicia, Alec’s mother, who married Desmond, a little over a year after Alec’s father died of a heart attack. They were the McBrides. Originally, Dr. Desmond McBride, himself a widower, had two sons from a previous marriage. One emigrated to Australia. The other, well, the other was dead. The father and the surviving son hardly kept in touch. It wasn’t really the son’s fault. Many years ago their father made it very plain that his sons had been directly responsible for their mother’s death. No one knew the details, and Desmond wasn’t offering any explanations. As for Alicia, since Suzy’s parents still lived in Kingston, Ontario, way up in Canada, she took on the job of being the family matriarch. A job, she thought, she performed rather well. At least, no one complained.

  Her proximity to Suzy drew the two women together, as though mother and daughter, but what was even more important, as really good, trusting friends.

  As for living together, it only happened during summer recesses and, more often than not, dur
ing weekends. The protracted family reunions took place at the McBrides’ home, in Solana Beach, some 20 miles North of San Diego, fairly close to the Mexican border. The rest of the year the Baldwins stayed in their third-floor condo across the park from Caltech, and the McBrides enjoyed an even better view from the twenty-fourth floor of their rented apartment, only a stone’s throw away from the Baldwins. Dr. McBride did not want to own two residences.

  “The morre you own the more you’rre tied down. And you do want to travel, don’t you, lassie?”

  He hardly rolled the ‘r’s when he was serious. He only pretended at being very serious about taking things a little easier and enjoying life with his ‘young bride’. He would enjoy the company of his bride wherever they were. Traveling or not.

  The young bride was a grandmother in her middle fifties but she really did look young. In his eyes she still was, and would probably remain, a young lassie, forever.

  And thus Alicia regarded Sacha through Grandma’s eyes. To her, he was a miniature Alec. His father’s nose, eyes, forehead, even the mop of hair... But she also saw Suzy in him. She saw in Sacha his father on the outside and his mother on the inside. There was one fundamental difference. To make Sacha truly his father’s son, one would have to die the boy’s hair. For while they both, father and son, sported what, in the late sixties, people called an ‘afro’, Alec’s mop was jet black. His son, however, took after his mother. The mop, equal in size and prominence, was resplendent in pure gold. When the sun hit his hair it seemed to glow with an unearthly aura, as though radiating its own light.

  Alicia soon discovered that Sacha was so very, very capable in all fields of art. He exhibited, even at such an absurdly young age, an uncanny maturity in the way he viewed art. He liked or disliked certain colour combinations. At first he lacked the vocabulary to explain his preferences, later he talked fluently about the balance, harmony, and visual resonance. If an adult said the same things he would have sounded stilted, or perhaps as though making an effort to impress the listener. But there was no presumptuous buffoonery in Sacha’s opinions. He stated his preferences as simply as if he talked about his beloved Strato Set. He treated colours as toys. One had to arrange them in a certain relationships to each other, or they would collapse. In fact exactly like in his Strato Set.

  The Strato was a successful marriage of the simplicity of a Lego set with the complexity of Buvös Kocka––the Magic Cube, also known as Rubik’s Cube––only on a much larger scale. There was a right way and a wrong way, and only the right way pleased him. The strange thing was that, when Alicia listened to Sacha, the relationships of colours he proposed also pleased her. Only she wasn’t quite sure why.

  Alicia discovered this affinity for colour in Sacha a little after his seventh birthday, but it took another two years before he could vocalize his preferences. As for harmony and resonance, Sacha could whistle or hum the more melodic themes from symphonies after hearing them only once. Sacha definitely displayed a great artistic sensitivity. It was as though he, himself, resonated with music and with colours.

  Alicia loved looking after Sacha—though her precocious grandson hardly needed much supervision. She loved looking after him because he was such good company, even for a fifty-year-old.

  It wasn’t as though Alicia was lonely.

  She had Suzy and Alec and of course Desmond. But Sacha was quite different. And it wasn’t just his age. Sacha never tried to convince her about anything. He expressed his own views, and rejoiced in the diversity of the opinions of others. From the time he was eight or nine, she talked to him as though he were an adult. He was certainly knowledgeable enough though, admittedly, his knowledge was derived almost exclusively from books. It was theoretical—untarnished by the compromises which adults imposed on life in general. Listening to him Alicia noticed what an enormous act we put on, particularly when talking to others. Unwittingly, or purposefully, we all try to impress others with our best side. Be it with our real or imagined talents, with our knowledge of certain subjects, or just some contrived sense of importance. Some do so more than others, but we all do it.

  And Sacha never insisted on being right.

  “No one is ever right or wrong,” he once said. “We just look at reality from different points of view.” He was eight when he’d said that.

  A year later, she and Sacha were sitting on the terrace, Alicia doing a watercolour, Sacha’s eyes following the convoluted activities of the seagulls. He touched on related subject.

  “You know, Grandma, the seagulls drop whatever they have in their beaks to attack another bird, who might have a bigger piece. Why do you think they do that?”

  “I suppose they are more hungry, they want a bigger piece?” Alicia tried lamely.

  Sacha did not appear to have heard her. For a while he continued to follow the birds’ movements with great attention.

  “They just don’t understand,” he said after a minute or two.

  “Who doesn’t understand what?” Alicia asked, her mind back on her watercolour.

  “The birds. They don’t understand that there is exactly enough for every one of them. And they could conserve their energy if they were satisfied with their portion.”

  For a moment Alicia was lost.

  “Enough food, you mean?”

  “Yes, Grandma. There is exactly enough of everything for everybody. It cannot be otherwise. There would be no harmony in the world if it were otherwise.”

  And with this Sacha went back to his Strato. In Strato things had to be just right, or the structure would collapse.

  Alicia stopped painting and thought about the youngster’s words. Enough for everyone of everything. If only we stopped running around. Had Sacha read something like this somewhere? Did he regard the world as a well-oiled machine set on automatic? Or did he mean that we are all looked after by some Higher Source. ‘...the fowls of the air, they sow not, neither do they reap...’ Alicia didn’t remember the exact quotation. She’d known it once. Or it could have been some parson preaching at a Sunday Service. ‘Be like birds, carefree...’ That’s what Sacha seemed to be saying.

  Only the seagulls weren’t carefree. They fought for every scrap, as if some other bird were shortchanging them. How stupid. How very much like the human race.

  Some time later Sacha answered her question as though he’d read her thoughts and stored them for future reference. Sacha often did that—or seemed to. His concept of time was very different from anyone she’d ever met.

  “The world is set on automatic,” he’d said. “But the results of the setting are not always predictable. There is the element of free will. Not to deny our destiny, only in the individuality we breathe into it.”

  Over the years, Alicia heard a number of such, hard to explain, statements. Most of them she kept to herself. Talking about them would be silly, not knowing if what she’d heard was really so profound, or if she just assigned extra weight to them because they came from her own grandson.

  Or, on occasion, because she had just a drop too much of her favourite Chardonnay.

  From the time Sacha started to move around, Alicia developed a passion for painting her one and only grandson. She had no idea why Alec and Sue didn’t have more children. It might have had something to do with close to seven billion people polluting the world with their insipid presence. Or it may have been because someone once told her that each American child, by the time he dies, will have polluted the Earth with the equivalent of some fifty Hindu or African children. We were the world’s greatest contaminators. We were slowly drowning in our own offal, our excrement. And pulling the rest of the world into the latrine on top of us.

  At moments of such reflection, she was glad that Alec was her only son.

  She painted Sacha in watercolour, oil and acrylic. She drew him with pastel, crayon, ink applied with a split bamboo stick, and even using an ordinary ball-pen. All her attempts to immortalize Sacha were imbued with a single characteristic. She was depicting Sacha in cons
tant motion, as though he were in more than one place at any one time; as if Sacha were moving and Alicia was snapping rapid-fire photos of him. At first, the reason was fairly obvious. First, his palms and knees, later his feet, were in constant motion. Only when he got his first Strato Set had she managed to do some parts of him while he was actually sitting down.

  Even before Sacha had shown his prodigious affinity for colour, he’d already become Alicia’s favourite critic. Not with childish comments, but often with quite fascinating insights. Such insights might well have been reasonably natural from a knowledgeable adult, but had been always surprising from a young boy. Comments like... “why don’t you pretend, Grandma, that I am not really here. Why don’t you just paint the light reflected from my body...” Or, on another occasion: “...It’s not really me, Grandma. You can’t really paint me.”

  “And just why wouldn’t I be able to paint just you, darling?” she’d asked.

  “Because I am not really here.”

  “And may I ask where exactly are you, dear?”

  “I’m... I am...”

  But it wouldn’t come out. It was good to see that even the most precocious child she’d ever met was occasionally at a loss for words. But the silence only lasted seconds. Then, the words would come at a flood.