"The Five People You Meet in Heaven" - читать интересную книгу автора (Albom Mitch)

The Second Lesson

“Aw, Jesus,” Eddie said, closing his eyes, dropping his head backward. ‘Aw, God. Aw, God! I had no idea, sir. It’s sick. It’s awful!”

The Captain nodded and looked away. The hills had returned to their barren state, the animal bones and the broken cart and the smoldering remains of the village. Eddie realized this was the Captain’s burial ground. No funeral. No coffin. Just his shattered skeleton and the muddy earth.

“You’ve been waiting here all this time?” Eddie whispered.

“Time,” the Captain said, “is not what you think.” He sat down next to Eddie. “Dying? Not the end of everything. We think it is. But what happens on earth is only the beginning.”

Eddie looked lost.

“I figure it’s like in the Bible, the Adam and Eve deal?” the Captain said. “Adam’s first night on earth? When he lays down to sleep? He thinks it’s all over, right? He doesn’t know what sleep is. His eyes are closing and he thinks he’s leaving this world, right?

“Only he isn’t. He wakes up the next morning and he has a fresh new world to work with, but he has something else, too. He has his yesterday.”

The Captain grinned. “The way I see it, that’s what we’re getting here, soldier. That’s what heaven is. You get to make sense of your yesterdays.”

He took out his plastic cigarette pack and tapped it with his finger. “You followin’ this? I was never all that hot at teaching.”

Eddie watched the Captain closely. He had always thought of him as so much older. But now, with some of the coal ash rubbed from his face, Eddie noticed the scant lines on his skin and the full head of dark hair. He must have only been in his 30s.

“You been here since you died,” Eddie said, “but that’s twice as long as you lived.”

The Captain nodded.

“I’ve been waitin’ for you.”

Eddie looked down.

“That’s what the Blue Man said.”

“Well, he was too. He was part of your life, part of why you lived and how you lived, part of the story you needed to know, but he told you and he’s beyond here now, and in a short bit, I’m gonna be as well. So listen up. Because here’s what you need to know from me.” Eddie felt his back straighten.

“Sacrifice,” the Captain said. “You made one. I made one. We all make them. But you were angry over yours. You kept thinking about what you lost.

“You didn’t get it. Sacrifice is a part of life. It’s supposed to be. It’s not something to regret. It’s something to aspire to. Little sacrifices. Big sacrifices. A mother works so her son can go to school. A daughter moves home to take care of her sick father.

“A man goes to war…”

He stopped for a moment and looked off into the cloudy gray sky.

“Rabozzo didn’t die for nothing, you know. He sacrificed for his country, and his family knew it, and his kid brother went on to be a good soldier and a great man because he was inspired by it.

“I didn’t die for nothing, either. That night, we might have all driven over that land mine. Then the four of us would have been gone.”

Eddie shook his head. “But you …” He lowered his voice. “You lost your life.”

The Captain smacked his tongue on his teeth.

“That’s the thing. Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you’re not really losing it. You’re just passing it on to someone else.”

The Captain walked over to the helmet, rifle, and dog tags, the symbolic grave, still stuck in the ground. He placed the helmet and tags under one arm, then plucked the rifle from the mud and threw it like a javelin. It never landed. Just soared into the sky and disappeared. The Captain turned.

“I shot you, all right,” he said, “and you lost something, but you gained something as well. You just don’t know it yet. I gained something, too.”

“What?”

“I got to keep my promise. I didn’t leave you behind.”

He held out his palm.

“Forgive me about the leg?”

Eddie thought for a moment. He thought about the bitterness after his wounding, his anger at all he had given up. Then he thought of what the Captain had given up and he felt ashamed. He offered his hand. The Captain gripped it tightly.

“That’s what I’ve been waiting for.”

Suddenly, the thick vines dropped off the banyan branches and melted with a hiss into the ground. New, healthy branches emerged in a yawning spread, covered in smooth, leathery leaves and pouches of figs. The Captain only glanced up, as if he’d been expecting it. Then, using his open palms, he wiped the remaining ash from his face.

“Captain?” Eddie said.

“Yeah?”

“Why here? You can pick anywhere to wait, right? That’s what the Blue Man said. So why this place?”

The Captain smiled. “Because I died in battle. I was killed in these hills. I left the world having known almost nothing but war—war talk, war plans, a war family.

“My wish was to see what the world looked like without a war. Before we started killing each other.”

Eddie looked around. “But this is war.”

“To you. But our eyes are different,” the Captain said. “What you see ain’t what I see.”

He lifted a hand and the smoldering landscape transformed. The rubble melted, trees grew and spread, the ground turned from mud to lush, green grass. The murky clouds pulled apart like curtains, revealing a sapphire sky. A light, white mist fell in above the treetops, and a peach-colored sun hung brilliantly above the horizon, reflected in the sparkling oceans that now surrounded the island. It was pure, unspoiled, untouched beauty.

Eddie looked up at his old commanding officer, whose face was clean and whose uniform was suddenly pressed.

“This,” the Captain said, raising his arms, “is what I see.”

He stood for a moment, taking it in.

“By the way, I don’t smoke anymore. That was all in your eyes, too.” He chuckled. “Why would I smoke in heaven?”

He began to walk off.

“Wait,” Eddie yelled. “I gotta know something. My death. At the pier. Did I save that girl? I felt her hands, but I can’t remember—“

The Captain turned and Eddie swallowed his words, embarrassed to even be asking, given the horrible way the Captain had died.

“I just want to know, that’s all,” he mumbled.

The Captain scratched behind his ear. He looked at Eddie sympathetically. “I can’t tell you, soldier.”

Eddie dropped his head.

“But someone can.”

He tossed the helmet and tags. “Yours.”

Eddie looked down. Inside the helmet flap was a crumpled photo of a woman that made his heart ache all over again. When he looked up, the Captain was gone.

Monday, 7:30 A.M.

The morning after the accident, Dominguez came to the shop early, skipping his routine of picking up a bagel and a soft drink for breakfast. The park was closed, but he came in anyhow, and he turned on the water at the sink. He ran his hands under the flow, thinking he would clean some of the ride parts. Then he shut off the water and abandoned the idea. It seemed twice as quiet as it had a minute ago.

“What’s up?”

Willie was at the shop door. He wore a green tank top and baggy jeans. He held a newspaper. The headline read “Amusement Park Tragedy.”

“Hard time sleeping,” Dominguez said.

“Yeah.” Willie slumped onto a metal stool. “Me, too.”

He spun a half circle on the stool, looking blankly at the paper. “When you think they’ll open us up again?”

Dominguez shrugged. “Ask the police.”

They sat quietly for a while, shifting their postures as if taking turns. Dominguez sighed. Willie reached inside his shirt pocket, fishing for a stick of gum. It was Monday. It was morning. They were waiting for the old man to come in and get the workday started.