Time travel

Claudine Frederik

Dede blinked her eyes. The burning sensation in her eyeballs reminded her of the time. It should have been long enough.

Mme. Sophie told her that five minutes of concentrating on the candle flame would suffice. To her surprise her desk clock showed that she still had another minute to go.

The candle flame before her had not moved since she started the meditation exercises recommended by the fortune teller.

The air hung heavy and motionless in the room where the first shadows of the evening had quietly slipped their way in.

Through the bedroom door the sound of the telephone ringing could be heard clearly.

A rap on the door was followed by her son's voice.

"Phone for you, Mom."

"Who is it?" Dede said.

"Its the shop down the road. They want to know when you will settle last month's bill."

Her account was nearly empty and she was in desperate need of help. She furiously wished for a miracle to happen.

It was then that Dede had turned her mind to getting advice from the popular astrologer Mme. Sophie. She was quite reasonable and almost always accurate, her friend, Marcia, told her. Follow her instructions, even if they strike you as unthinkable, Marcia had said.

Involuntarily, a small sigh escaped from her lips. She had to tell another lie again. Opening the bedroom door, she said: "Tell Mr. Tan that I will come and pay him sometime next week, Ed."

"He also wants you to know that he cannot give us credit for the time being."

Dede nodded quietly. Deep down she could not blame Mr. Tan, for the bill had been accumulating over the last three months. And no one in the family was earning an income now. First, her sons were dismissed from their companies. She followed soon after. That was over a year ago.

"It is so far," she thought. "The wolf is at the door, now."

They had gone through what little money they had saved then. She needed to find work soon.

At Mme. Sophie's, she was asked for her birth date and her birth hour.

After half an hour, the astrologer straightened her head and looked Dede right in the eye.

"You haven't had much luck in life, right, dear?"

"It shows, huh?" Dede said listlessly. "But, do you know that it could have been changed."

"If only you had come for help much earlier," the astrologer said. "Can one change one's fate?"

"Yes and no," Mme. Sophie said again.

"Some people are born under an unfortunate stellar system. Yours is a different case. Luck was on your side when you came into this world. It changed under evil influence after a mishap befell you when you were still a child."

Dede listened attentively to the astrologer and noticed then the extraordinary color of her eyes. They were a grayish green, which appeared the only striking feature in her face. A mop of thick light brown hair accentuated her pale complexion.

"Can you remember what nasty event took place then."

Dede tried to remember, but with some difficulty.

"I cannot think of anything bad that could have happened to me then."

The memory of her father dominated most of the childhood scenes. And he was far from evil, she reminisced.

"I am sure that something did happen to you and the memory of this traumatic incident has grown into a big stumbling block that is barring your way to luck and happiness. It is not too late to do something about it."

Dede stared in disbelief at the petite figure before her.

"Can one really change fate?"

"In your case, you can change it with my help. I am fully convinced that you will become a much happier woman after meditation under my supervision. If luck is still ignoring you one month after meditation, I will reimburse your fee. What do you say?"

Dede nodded approvingly. Why not, she thought. There is no risk involved, anyway.

Mme. Sophie told her to be ready in two days, at the time of full moon. She should have a green candle and a box of matches ready for the important evening. The meditations, consisting of concentrating on the candle flame and her childhood, went smoothly during most of the week. But nothing spectacular happened.

"Not to worry," Mme. Sophie reassured her. "Soon you will relive whatever it was that is causing you so much unhappiness and has brought so much suffering in your life."

Dede did not really believe the words of the astrologer. Her friend, Marcia, called near the end of meditation week.

"How's it going?"

"Nothing happened yet," she replied mockingly.

"Well, something will happen, you'll see. Sophie's words always come true," Marcia said convincingly.

On the seventh and last day of the meditation session, Dede withdrew to her room at about eight in the evening.

"I am not to be disturbed for half an hour," she told her sons before closing the bedroom door. Then, she placed the green candle in the center of the table and put a match to the wick. She switched off the light and lowered herself on the stool before the dressing table. She steadied her gaze on the flame and directed her mind toward childhood days.

Soon a relaxed feeling and peace took hold of her body gradually changing into a slightly drowsy condition.

The darkened room, only lit by the bright flame of the candle, seemed to hold her in a warm embrace. Dede kept her eyes on the candle flame while long forgotten experiences raced through her mind.

She recognized the young couple before her mind's eye as her father and mother as they cuddled a little fat girl. She smiled -- the girl was her.

Other pictures kept flashing before her. This time she recognized the beach of Banda Neira, a tiny island in the Maluku islands.

There was the house in which she spent one of the happiest periods of her life, and which once belonged to a Dutch nutmeg planter. It was an old house, built in a bygone age that knew of no independence, let alone expressions like "Old Order" and "Reform".

Suddenly, she became aware of a subtle change in the room.

The warm, secure feeling had made way for an overpowering embrace that stealthily transformed into a suffocating grasp. Dede gasped for air, the candle flame flickered wildly as if it was caught in a strong wind.

On the wall, a weird shadow swayed left to right on the rhythm of the flickering candlelight. She also felt a presence in the room now. Dede screamed when rough hands began to knead and squeeze her small breasts. She was back in Banda again and Saleh, the houseboy , was fondling her as before. She remembered that she reported the incident to her mother and that her parents had promptly sent Saleh packing. The fearful intermezzo abruptly disappeared in the same way as it started.

The candle flame stopped flickering, and she knew that she was alone once more in the room. Dede wiped the tears from her face. She remembered the feelings of fear and embarrassment.

"What did I tell you?" Mme. Sophie said the next day, jubilantly. "The incident in the past made you an unhappy and unlucky woman. It will be different from now on. You have uprooted the evil tree that was planted in the past by a mean- spirited person. You have destroyed the stumbling block and Luck will soon come your way now.

"All it took to recapture luck, love and success was taking a voyage back in time."

A few days later, a letter arrived at her home, telling her she was accepted for the position of personal assistant to the CEO of an international firm. Luck had finally come her way.