In England, after I had returned from my visit with my father to Scotland, he and my sisters took me to Hampton Court, the palace of the Hanoverian kings. In this beautifully preserved palace, we entered the bedroom that had once belonged to Prince William Duke of Cumberland.
“Ah, you son of a bitch...” I thought to myself, while I was in the bedroom that had once been his, “If I’d had the opportunity to enter this room in those days, I would have slit your throat...”
A strange thought. Even stranger was the fact that, while I was there, I began to wonder as to where his soul or spirit might be nowadays. “Suffering in hell, I hope...” I can remember thinking.
When I returned from my trip to Britain, I phoned to make an appointment for a consultation with Aunt Rita; and when I sat myself down in front of her, I gave her a small piece of stone and mortar which I had picked up from the ground of the ruins of Linlithgow Palace.
“What is this?” she asked.
"It is a piece from the ruin of a palace in Scotland.” I told her, “I brought it for you as a gift...”
“Oh really?” she exclaimed, feeling it with her fingers and then putting it on the palm of her hand. “But why is this stone so hot, Charles?”
“Hot?” I exclaimed, “how come?”
“This stone is hot, Charles. Look, it has even scorched my hand...” She showed me the palm of her hand, where indeed there was what seemed like a red mark where a hot object had been.
“What does this mean?” I asked her, at a total loss as to what she was getting at.
“You tell me...” she said.
A thought suddenly occurred to me. “This palace was burned down...” I told her.
“Oh, so that’s why this stone is so hot then...” she said, smiling. Then, placing the small piece from the palace ruin upon her table at the top of the circle of beads, she picked up the Búzios shells, again reciting the words to her prayers in Yoruba, and these were followed by the sound of the shells as they hit the table. I could see that they had formed an arch - an arch that reminded me of the arches at Linlithgow Palace.
“Ohshallah wishes it that you should cross through these arches...” she said, and, after again picking up the shells and shaking them between the palms of her hands, she dropped them upon the table once again. Pointing at four of the shells that had fallen close to each other, with their openings turned upwards, she continued.
“Four is the cabalistic number for Yemanjah, the Queen of the Sea. What I can see here is that your current wife was also associated to you in this past lifetime of yours. It is as if she was extending her hand to you in order to help you, and there is something related to the sea...”
Another thought instantly came to me. “Oh, my goodness...” I exclaimed.
From my briefcase, which was beside me, I took out a magazine I had bought while I was in Edinburgh which had a picture of a painting of Bonnie Prince Charlie meeting Flora MacDonald. In this painting, he was holding her hand and was about to kiss it. Above it, there was a picture of Flora. “Is this her?” I asked anxiously.
Aunt Rita took the magazine and looked intently at the picture.
“Well,” she said, smiling and taking a puff from her pipe, “don’t you think it looks like her?”
There was definitely a strong resemblance, but what amazed me most was the fact that I remembered I had always called my wife “Minha flor” - “My flower”, in Portuguese. Had I done so by subconsciously associating her to Flora? I was fascinated. Could my second wife have been someone who saved my life in a previous one?
“There is more...” she continued, “The Duke who was pursuing you in that lifetime is now one of your sons...”
I was stunned. “The eldest?” I asked.
“No, the youngest...” she replied, “It was necessary that you and your wife should get together in order to bring him back again...”
“Victor...” I exclaimed, in complete awe.
When I arrived home that night, my second wife and our three children were already asleep. After changing into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, I went to the kitchen for a glass of water. As I was walking back through the living room, my youngest son Victor came walking into the room in his pyjamas, rubbing his sleepy eyes. Then just three or four years of age, he stopped when he saw me, looked up at me fixedly and, in his childish sleepiness, said:
“Dad, I love you very, very much...”
Somewhat taken back, I replied with a smile, “I know, son I love you too...” I said to him.
“Dad,” he went on, “I am your friend...”
“I know, son,” I said to him, getting down on my knees so that I could be closer to his height, “come here and give me a hug...”
When he did, he came up close to my ear and said, almost in a whisper, “I promise I will never misbehave again...”
My eyes instantly filled with tears. He had done nothing wrong that day as far as I could remember. Down on my knees, hugging him, the thought as to why I had given him his name crossed my mind, could it have been “Victor” for “Victorious”? But the main thought that came to me was of what a beautiful lesson I had been given - that an enemy from the past could now be my son in a present life, for the purpose of our spiritual reconciliation and settlement. For what can a father feel for a son, and a son for his father, if not the most unconditional love?
I picked him up in my arms, while the tears still kept pouring out, and carried him to his bed, where I also lay down beside him. Passing my hand through his blond hair, I spent some time looking at his angelical sleeping face until I too fell asleep, and when I awoke the next morning, still lying in his bed, his arms were still wrapped around me in a sound and comforting embrace.
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