Free The Reincarnation of Peter Proud by Max Ehrlich Page B

somewhere beyond that. She lay absolutely still; not a muscle moved. It seemed to him that she hadeven stopped breathing. She looked like someone in rigor mortis. The red housecoat fell in symmetrical folds about her. It all looked as though both the body and the drape of the garment had been carefully arranged, for a certain theatrical effect, by a film director, or perhaps by a mortician.
    The room was in absolute silence. He stirred uneasily. He told himself that it was all very theatrical, part of the trade. All these people, had some kind of ritual, and Verna Bird was no different. Yet, he was disturbed. He wished she would stop staring at him with those unblinking blue eyes.
    Finally the lids began to droop over the eyes, and she started to breathe deeply. He could see that she had gone into her trance. He waited.
    For a minute there was nothing but total silence. He had to hand it to Verna Bird and her secretary. They knew how to prolong an effect. Candlelight, and shadows dancing in the room. The medium meditating. They were giving him a run for his seventy-five dollars. Another minute passed. He waited for something to happen. He glanced at Elva Carlsen. She was sitting to one side, straight and rigid in her chair, hands folded, watching the clairvoyant. He was about to say something to her, to ask her what happened next, but she shook her head before he could speak. Again, she put her finger to her lips in warning.
    Then, suddenly, Elva spoke to the clairvoyant.
    “We have a soul here.”
    “Yes,” said Verna Bird. “I see the soul.”
    “And we have a body which houses the soul.”
    “I see the body.”
    “Do you see others before this?”
    “I see others. The bodies are different, and they live at different times. They live and they die, according to God’s will. And the old soul passes from one to the other.”
    “Tell us about the bodies you see.”
    “I now address the body before me, which now possesses the soul. I speak of your past lives. I see you first over three thousand years ago. You live in the land of Egypt, and you are a Hittite slave. It is the time of the nineteenth dynasty. Your name is Chalaf.
    “You are a skilled worker in stone, and you labor in the hot sun on such temples as the Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak and the funerary temple called Ramesseum at Thebes. You are given barely enough to eat, and often you feel the whip of the overseer.
    “Then you, and hundreds of others, are put to work on a great statue of Rameses. It stands at Abu Simbel, overlooking the river of the Nile. It is a colossal figure, reaching high into the sky.
    “It is a hot day, just after the Nile has flooded, and the valley is green. On the river itself men glide by in reed boats, stopping to set snares in the thickets of papyrus so as to trap water birds for the fattening pens. But you, Chalaf, are not concerned with these. Your task is to labor on the colossus from dawn to sunset. You know only the whip, and the backbreaking weight of stone, and the hot hammer of the sun. The giant figure of Rameses is almost finished on this day. He sits on his throne, majestic and serene, his eyes closed in benediction. There are other carved figures beneath him, clustered at his feet. These are others of the royal family, and it is here that you are occupied—at the moment, polishing stone.
    “High above you, men are dragging stone blocks up the ramps by means of reed ropes. Suddenly, they lose control of one of the blocks. It topples off the ramp. It comes bouncing down directly at you. You try to leap out of the way, but it is too late. It does not crush you, but a corner of the stone block strikes you in the hip and knocks you down.
    “You lie face up in the sun. There is excruciating pain in your left hip. You try to get up. You cannot move. The chief overseer, known by the name of Bak, comes over to you. He shouts at you to rise. You try, but you cannot. You are faint with the pain in your side. He strikes you