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To me the entire evening felt like a replay of our first days together of more than a dozen years earlier; a time that I had cherished in memory; a I time that I thought would never come again.
She spoke unreserved, now. All the tensions between us were gone.
"What's happening? What's in the air?" I asked her.
"That's not a hard question to answer," she said, smiling. "For twelve years I have tested the waters now and then, hoping to see a sign that the old generosity is filling your heart again. That goes for Ross too. For some reason, the light had gone out in both of you. Still, I kept on hoping that this light would shine again. Do you remember how brightly your generosity shone? Do you remember the day we met, the day when you stopped for me on the highway? You had to repack your entire car to make room for me. I had never experienced such generosity before. I was overwhelmed by it, but you thought nothing of it. Then you stopped for Tony a short way down the road. You seemed to sense that I felt uncomfortable being alone in a car with a married man. You seemed relieved when you saw that clean cut Air-Force officer thumbing a ride. You stopped for him, even though you had to repack your entire car once more to make room for him and his luggage bag. From that day on, every day was filled with the same generosity. When you spoke about the carriage and the coachman by the pool, the coachman being Life, I felt so rich for being enveloped in your generosity.
"It all stopped one day when you appointed yourself to be the coachman, although you knew nothing about horses and much less about where to go. Your generosity suddenly faded like an overstretched balloon. A tiny rift appeared and the whole wonderful world fell apart into a growing chaos of poverty.
"Ross met me with the same kid of wide open generosity. He rearranged his entire house, just for me. Except, when this was done, I became a fixture in it, polished with care, but a fixture nevertheless. He became my teacher, but I didn't want to be taught by a poverty stricken man. Then you came onto the scene again. I opened myself up to you, hoping to feel the old generosity reemerging, but every time I tested the waters, all that I found was a growing emptiness. The only bit of generosity that remained was in your taking from me whatever you wanted, with little flowing back. Still, I kept on testing the waters, hoping against hope, that the good that I had seen would not be lost forever."
"Is that why you stayed with us?" I asked.
She nodded. "What else could I do? There was no point in running away again. Where would I go? I couldn't see any generosity anywhere else in the world, only a general commitment to stealing. You guys at least were struggling to uplift yourself, even if you didn't do a good job at it. I was hoping that one day you would make a breakthrough, and you did. That happened last Christmas. When Ross discovered in Mary's books the principle of the universal marriage of all mankind, that meant something to both of you. After that you went to India to build on that principle something real and concrete, and enduring. Somehow Fred knew that this would work. He must have realized that the light of generosity that you had found again, regardless of how dim it still was, would be seen as a great light in India. And he was right. To someone contemplating suicide out of despair, the smallest light would appear like a sun."
"It really was like that," I interrupted.
"It was like that for you too," Heather added. "You came back richer, and that trend hadn't stopped from that day on. After you came back, I saw the old look in your face again, now and then, and in Ross' face too. With it, a new generosity unfolded, towards the world. You may have noticed, I became caught up in it too, in a big way. Life felt something like a fresh breeze; the first in a dozen years. And then we came here. You guys have changed so much in Caracas. It's really like in the old times again. The kaleidoscope just keeps turning once again. Who would have thought that such a thing could unfold from a girl watching speech? I bet it was really you who put your finger onto this girl watching thing, maybe both you and Ross!"
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