The Forgetting Time(70)
“So he can’t go far.”
“Can’t he?” She turned to Anderson. “I never should have come here. I never should have taken part in your crazy experiment. What the hell was I thinking?”
“You were trying to help Noah.”
“Well, it was a mistake.”
“Look at me.” His eyes were clear. “We’ll find Noah.”
Noah. The word caused an avalanche of longing. What she wouldn’t give to have him in her arms again. His plump limbs and soft head. She’d never understood people calling their children delicious, but she got it now, she wanted to find him so she could eat him up, inhale him right back into her body so she would never lose him again.
Anderson stood up and poured her a glass of water.
“Here. Drink.”
She took the glass of water and gulped it down.
“What if he has an asthma attack while he’s out there? What if the man who took Tommy is still out there?”
Anderson filled the glass again and handed it to her and she drank it down.
“Now take a breath.”
“But—”
“Take a breath.”
She took a breath. The clock in Denise’s kitchen kept on ticking; it hadn’t stopped ticking all these years.
“I’m all right now. I can drive.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
He handed her the keys.
“Be careful, Janie.”
“Okay.” She clutched the keys in her hands and stood. At the kitchen door, she looked back at Anderson. He had filled a glass of water for himself as well and was sitting at the table, looking at it. He looked tired.
He hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. She felt sorry she’d been harsh with him before.
“How did you do it?” she said quietly.
“Do what?”
“Lose someone? How did you bear it?”
“You take a breath,” he said. He took a sip of water. “Then you take another.”
She stood there, the keys rattling in her hand.
The doorbell rang.
Anderson looked up. “The police are here.”
One case that involved several recognitions is the case of Nazih Al-Danaf in Lebanon. At a very early age, Nazih described a past life to his parents and his seven siblings, all of whom were available for interviews. Nazih described the life of a man that his family did not know. He said that the man carried pistols and grenades, that he had a pretty wife and young children, that he had a two-story house with trees around it and a cave nearby, that he had a mute friend, and that he had been shot by a group of men.
His father reported that Nazih demanded that his parents take him to his previous house in a small town ten miles away. They took him to that town, along with two of his sisters and a brother, when he was six years old. About a half mile from the town, Nazih asked them to stop at a dirt road running off the main road. He told them that the road came to a dead end where there was a cave, but they drove on without confirming this. When they got to the center of town, six roads converged, and Nazih’s father asked him which way to go. Nazih pointed to one of the roads and said to go on it until they came to a road that forked off upward, where they would see his house. When they got to the first fork that went up, the family got out and began asking about anyone who had died in the way that Nazih had described.
They quickly discovered that a man named Fuad, who had a house on that road before dying ten years prior to Nazih’s birth, seemed to fit Nazih’s statements. Fuad’s widow asked Nazih, “Who built the foundation of this gate at the entrance of the house?” and Nazih correctly answered, “A man from the Faraj family.” The group then went into the house, where Nazih correctly described how Fuad had kept his weapons in a cupboard. The widow asked him if she had had an accident at their previous home, and Nazih gave accurate details of her accident. She also asked if he remembered what had made their young daughter seriously ill, and Nazih correctly responded that she had accidentally taken some of her father’s pills. He also accurately described a couple of other incidents from the previous personality’s life. The widow and her five children were all very impressed with the knowledge that Nazih demonstrated, and they were all convinced that he was the rebirth of Fuad.
Soon after that meeting, Nazih visited Fuad’s brother, Sheikh Adeeb. When Nazih saw him, he ran up saying, “Here comes my brother Adeeb.” Sheikh Adeeb asked Nazih for proof that he was his brother, and Nazih said, “I gave you a Checki 16.” A Checki 16 is a type of pistol from Czechoslovakia that is not common in Lebanon, and Fuad had indeed given his brother one. Sheik Adeeb then asked Nazih where his original house was, and Nazih led him down the road until he said correctly, “This is the house of my father and this [the next house] is my first house.” They went in the latter house, where Fuad’s first wife still lived, and when Sheikh Adeeb later asked who she was, Nazih correctly gave her name.
JIM B. TUCKER, M.D., LIFE BEFORE LIFE
Twenty-Eight
Paul Clifford woke up slowly and took stock of himself. Another day and he was intact—more or less. Maybe his nose was broken; it was sore as hell and he could feel dried blood itching like crazy on his upper lip. Probably not, though. He’d always been lucky that way. He’d get into some kinda deeply fucked-up mess and black out and then he’d wake up and find himself still alive on this shithole of a planet. A disappointing development, as his old AA sponsor had said to him once, when he called him in the middle of a particularly epic binge. Today he was lying facedown on concrete, not dirt or carpet. That meant he was in his mother’s basement.