Brother, Mine (6)
From the moment I step through the doorway I am unable to take in the room because I can't drag my eyes, or my senses, away from the black figure that dominates the spare, brightly lit chamber as powerfully as his shadow has dominated my thoughts and feelings for so many years. He is physically massive, an impression that is amplified by his enormous presence in the Force. He stands in the center of a space that I briefly judge to be some kind of an empty cargo receiving area and waits for me to approach him. I do, until I reach an invisible barrier that says no closer, and I stop. Then I wait, because it would be impossible for me to speak first. The only sound in the chamber is the steady, rhythmic cycle of Vader's breathing.
There is nothing familiar about him. Nothing.
The chamber door clangs shut behind me, and at last Vader addresses me in a voice that resonates down into my bones.
"What possessed you to seek me out?"
What indeed?
Possession is as good an explanation as any of what had brought me here. Now that I actually am standing face to face with Darth Vader, I can't imagine what had 'possessed' me. Perhaps it truly was some kind of evil spirit. An ancient specter that hasn't been laid to rest. Something dark, and selfish, and hopelessly lost.
Master Kenobi knew this, of course. For the first time I am willing to entertain the possibility that his earnest efforts to dissuade me from my obsession with Vader had as much to do with concern about me as with his own plans. I just hadn't seen it.
"I wanted to see you for myself," I finally say. My voice sounds small and flat in the large, bare space.
"You have seen me."
He doesn't ask why. He doesn't give the slightest indication that he is curious about my existence, my life, or the reasons that have brought me here.
It is an extraordinary lesson in humility. I, who thought that I lived the humblest existence possible, actually have carried with me the arrogance – the false pride – of believing that I am something so special, so extraordinary, that I had to hide from him. That if Darth Vader found me, it would matter.
But it finally is clear. I am nothing. No more than a speck of dust between the stars.
"It was a mistake. I see that now." Since I already have gambled everything on achieving this audience with him, it no longer matters whether I held my tongue. My tongue seems to know this, and stumbles on without much conscious intent on my part. "I just thought… I mean, I wondered…"
Now that I am here, actually speaking what is in my heart is more difficult than I ever could have imagined. Weary of the inner battle to remain rational, I give up trying to make sense.
"I wondered whether you had missed me," I finish dryly, openly mocking myself for my stupidity.
My absurd comment is met by a deep, seemingly endless silence, although in Vader's presence, silence happens in between the measured strokes of his mechanical breathing. But it is a silence nevertheless – a cavernous silence of the soul.
I tell myself it could be worse. He could just kill me on the spot. But somehow that prospect doesn't seem as bad as waiting in this...emptiness.
"I never took you for a fool," Vader says finally. If such a distorted voice could ever growl, it just has. And I am suddenly, insanely, hopeful. I never took you for a fool. To my starved heart the words are a ringing acknowledgement that we shared a past. I barely can believe it.
"I am a fool," I admit eagerly. Too eagerly. "The worst kind. The kind who can't seem to let go of the past."
And then I learn the depths of that foolishness.
Vader takes a single menacing step toward me, and demands coldly, "What other Jedi survived? Whom do you know?"
Oh. I see.
It is I, in my desperate need to personify him, to make him into a mask with a man behind it, who imagines that he said it coldly. In fact, every word he says sounds much like the last. He is not cold. He is indifferent.
In bitter resignation I realign my inner defenses. I am at Vader's mercy now, certainly, but the years of fleeing from him have taught me one thing, and taught it well. I know how to hide. It is my greatest skill, and I owe it to the dark creature that now wishes to know my secrets. Well, he won't. I bury my knowledge of Obi-Wan's existence so completely that even Vader won't find it. No matter what he does.
"No one," I say. "No one at all. The Force is a dark and bleak place now. I follow the light wherever I can, moving from one glimmer to the next. But I never have found another Jedi, as much as I longed to."
A decision rises up in me like a nudge from the Force. I pause and take a deep breath, and then jump off the precipice. This is why I'm here.
"But there was... someone. I stumbled across a presence in the Force that was blinding in its beauty. It made me weep for all that has been lost."
"What other?" Vader demands, impervious to my descent into melodrama. "Where?"
"On Tatooine."
"What?" It is the sound that a suddenly loosened valve makes – a hiss .
"Three years ago I was in the marketplace in Moss Eisley, minding my own business, when I sensed a kind of light that took my breath away." For someone who doesn't talk much, I'm practically babbling. Also, curiously enough, I'm not stammering. "It was noon – you remember how bright, how blinding the glare of the suns is at noon in Moss Eisley, don't you?"
My inquisitor doesn't answer, but I get a very dark and uncomfortable feeling – a feeling of such acute danger that the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I press on anyway.
"Well, I became aware of a light in the Force that outshone both those suns. I hadn't felt anything like it since…since…"
I stop. I am surprised to find that I can't speak directly about the past after all. Not yet. Not to him. Not without breaking my heart once and for all.
"Who was it?" he prompts after a considerable wait.
So. At last I have Darth Vader's undivided attention. It is an extraordinarily disturbing feeling. It also means that it is no longer my decision whether to go on. He will decide that for me now. All I can hope to do is to control the amount of information I give him.
This is what I wanted.
Isn't it?
"I went searching for the individual who shone so brightly through the Force. How could I not? It was what I had been looking for all these years … some sense that I wasn't alone…"
The dangerous, prickling silence grows deeper, punctuated only by the metronome of Vader's breaths. I count four – two in and two out – before I plunge on again. My own nervous breaths skitter between his.
"… and all I found was a boy. A native of Tatooine, I gather."
It strikes me how absolutely still Vader is. I can't tell whether he is studying me, or getting ready to spring.
"A boy," he repeats succinctly.
"Yes, well, a young man of about 17 or so. The age I was when you last saw me."
"What …boy?" Again, he ignores my feeble attempt to make a personal connection.
"A boy who helped a complete stranger without thought for himself. A boy so beloved of the Force that his presence shines like a sun. A boy who reminded me overpoweringly of someone I once knew… a friend."
There is another long, black pause.
"You are trying my patience. Why do you imagine that I would be interested in this information?"
"I thought you might have a personal interest."Silence. Dark and oppressive.
I go on. "If you had seen him … if you had felt his presence in the Force… it was so bight. So beautiful. So familiar…"
The continuing silence begins to morph into something sharp, and pointed, and threatening. My stomach tries to rear up in fear, and I fight it.
"His eyes are blue," I say desperately.
The silence stretches as long and thin as my nerves. Again, I am the one to break it.
"They're so blue. I've seen eyes like that before."
There is nothing between us – nothing – but that endless and implacable silence. I begin to wonder whether the air has been sucked out of the room.
"He must be twenty years old by now. Don't you see?" And then I forget myself. "Anakin, I …"
Suddenly I find myself being slammed against the wall of the cabin with enough force that I collapse to the floor like a broken puppet. There is a searing pain in my shoulder. Gingerly I reach up to touch it, and feel a jagged edge of my collarbone pushing against the skin from the inside. I go inward for a moment, to deal with the pain and nausea and shock. When I come back to my normal awareness, a pair of black boots and the bottom edge of a cape fills my blurred vision. Painfully, I look up. A long way up.
Vader is looming over me with his hands on his hips. I assume he is glaring at me. It's impossible to tell, of course.
"The boy's name is Luke," I gasp, trying hard to regain my breath through the stabs of pain.
Vader makes an impatient movement. I flinch. The resulting pain from my shoulder is blinding.
As is the latest silence.
"Luke Skywalker."
And all at once his silence ends. Vader's voice orders, "Stop this."
"Or what?"I defy him."Or else you'll kill me? You're going to anyway." I laugh, feebly. It sounds more like a whimper.
"If necessary."
"Luke," I wheeze stubbornly. "It means light."
The black giant continues to loom mercilessly in front of me. My intermittent pained coughing provides an odd counterpoint to his steady, precisely programmed breaths. When he speaks again, his smooth, precise voice contains less feeling than a droid's.
"There are many who believe they are not afraid to die. In time, even they begin to care how long it takes for that death to come."
I try to stop, I really do. But I can't. It is as though a dam has broken. The pain is becoming very difficult to fight, and I find myself drifting a little. Besides, since at any moment he is likely to finish me off or at least, render me incapable of thought and speech, the compulsion to say what I need to is overwhelming. A last stand in a failed life. A last attempt to do something meaningful.
"The Force is strong with him, Anakin. He's strong, and he's pure, and he's so good…"
"ENOUGH!!!"
I'm choking. I can't breathe any more. Thank the Force. I thought he was going to toy with me, to torture me… but there is one last thing I need to say.
"You would be so proud of him…" I don't know whether I thought the words or whether I managed to gasp them out, but suddenly the pressure on my throat subsides. I collapse, coughing, trying to pull in a few desperately needed gasps of air.
Vader turns away from me and all around me the closed chamber reverberates with a terrifying, heart-stopping noise. I only slowly understand, with the aid of the Force, that it is a human cry of pain and rage, so distorted is it by the machinery that permits it to be made.
And then he says one word. It does not sound unfeeling, or indifferent. Even through the mask, it sounds like a word that has been dredged up from the depths of the Sullustian Hells.
"Kenobi."
He doesn't say it to me. So I just keep trying to breathe. Little by little, it seems to be working.
Then I could swear I hear him say, "I killed you too quickly."
Killed? Killed whom? I puzzle about it. Then it hits me with another wave of nausea. Master Kenobi. He killed Master Kenobi. Kenobi is gone… Was I that wrong? Will Vader now kill his son, too? Would he do that? Am I the blind, stupid instrument of the boy's demise after all?
Suddenly Vader whirls around to face me again. He has moved so close to me that the corner of his cloak whips across my eyes. This time I remember not to flinch.
"Were you responsible for hiding the boy from me?"
"No. I only encountered him that day. I only knew … I knew when I heard his name."
"Then why are you here now?"
"Because … because he disappeared from Tatooine. He's gone. I don't know where. But I worry that he won't be safe… his presence shines so brightly in the Force."
The droid's voice breaks in again. Precise. Measured.
"It was I he was hidden from. He was being kept safe from me."
"Yes," I admit freely. It is too late to take back what I have done.
(A Jedi trusts in the wisdom of the Force.)
"But I don't believe that he is in danger from you. I thought… I knew… once you knew… you would want to keep him safe." I swallow. "From the Emperor …" I close my burning eyes, expecting to be hit again, or worse. It is more terrifying when nothing happens.
Then Vader roars, "How dare you! How dare you risk my son's life in this way!"
Lord Darth Vader seems to agree with Obi-Wan Kenobi on this subject. Under other circumstances, I might have been amused.
"You knew?" I wheeze. "You knew your son survived?"
"No!" The single syllable reverberates in the cabin. There is a distinct pause until it dies away. And then, more quietly … "No."
"But now you do. And if anyone can keep him safe, it's you."
Silence.
Then, "I, keep him safe?" the metronome repeats precisely.
"Don't you see?" I gasp doggedly. "That is why I needed to see you …to tell you … so you can watch over him." Now that Obi-Wan is gone. I bury that thought, and the pain that accompanies it, in my deepest heart.
There is another silence, during which I dare not think about anything but my breaths. I am dimly surprised that they keep coming, one after another.
"You not understand whom you are dealing with. I am no longer who I was!" He is no longer indifferent, that's for certain. A dark wave of feeling washes over me in the Force.
"So I have been told. But I don't believe it. I never have." I squint up at him through a haze of pain.
"You delude yourself." His voice sounds like distant thunder.
I look up into the mask that hides him.
"I know what you are."
He hits me across the face so hard that I think I pass out for a few moments. When I come to, the scene hasn't changed at all. I am still collapsed on the floor, barely propped up by the wall, only more helpless than ever. Vader still is standing over me, hands on hips. Watching me, but not killing me. It confuses me no end.
"The fact… you're angry …I endangered him… proves …" I pause, exhausted. I want to explain to him that if he intends to continue this conversation, he has to stop hurting me, but it is beyond my feeble powers to come up with that many coherent words.
Perhaps he thinks the same thing, or perhaps he just needs to get away from me, because Vader abruptly turns around and strides to the other side of the chamber. He stands with his back to me, a sure sign how little a threat I pose.
Or is he turning away from my unexpected faith in him? Is that the greatest threat of all?
Either way, it is out of my hands. Everything is. I close my eyes and draw the comforting cloak of the Force around me.
(Luminous beings, are we.)
Instantly reassured, I work at releasing everything that troubles me into the wise, loving embrace of that which is greater than us all. I let go of the fear that I have done the wrong thing, and of the sorrow that my efforts to re-establish some kind of links to the past have been futile, and even worse, selfish. I let go of any expectations I might have hidden deep down in my heart; even the expectation that Anakin was still there… somewhere. Finally, I let go of my oldest and dearest companion – the hope that I am not alone.
The pain in my body begins to ease – just enough that when I open my eyes once again, I can see and understand my surroundings clearly.
Vader still is standing quietly across the chamber from me. He has turned around to face me. It seems he is watching me. It seems he is waiting for me to finish what I am doing.
Gingerly I shift my posture and find I can straighten it. Standing up seems to be too great an ambition, but at least I can sit up straight as I once again face Vader.
"There is increased Imperial activity on and around Tatooine," I say, after taking a deep breath. Now that I can speak clearly once again, I don't waste any more time. "He has been safe so far. But given his name, and the… extraordinary… nature of his presence in the Force, I became worried that the Emperor might have found him."
Darth Vader stands looking at me, and doesn't make a move.
"I don't know how he came to be on Tatooine," I lie with conviction. "I don't know how he has survived thus far." This is less of a lie. "But even my single, very brief encounter with him made me want to protect him at all costs." That is the shining, radiant truth.
"You don't know what you have done."
My imagination must be working overtime in this bizarre situation. To me, his chilling voice sounds hopeless.
"I may not know. But the Force does," I say decidedly. "I have dreamed of him, and of you, many times." Even I can't count how many. "The Force directed me here. To you. With this news." And then, from somewhere deep inside of me where it has lain dormant all these years, the Jedi creed rises up again and slips off my tongue as though it never had been otherwise. "I serve the Force."
I didn't realize until I spoke those words how true they are. How they have been true all my life, even that long, dark part of it when I had thought I no longer was a Jedi.
But I always was. I still am. I always will be.
(A Jedi serves the Force.)
I serve the Force.
It is such a relief to acknowledge that truth. I barely notice the tears of liberation that began to trickle down my face.
"The Force has many faces," Vader's hollow voice rumbles.
"We stand together before the face of the sun, even as the black thread and the white thread are woven together," I murmur, quoting a dimly remembered ancient text. I realize, with a pang, how long it has been since I gave up my studies. And how much I miss them.
A great many mechanically calibrated breaths tick off the ensuing silence between us while I wait, without fear, for Darth Vader to decide my fate. And the boy's.
The boy's.
My fate doesn't matter. The boy's does. At the sudden thought, fear again scrabbles to find a foothold in me.
(Fear leads to the Dark Side.)
Anakin must have been full of fear. Perhaps Vader is, too. I would be, if I had to carry the weight of his deeds.
(A Jedi trusts the Force.)
It wasn't possession by an evil impulse or even selfishness that drew me here. I simply followed the will of the Force. I'm sure of it now. I have to trust that the Force brought me here for the right reasons.
Fear slips away again.
"Do what you want with me. Just protect the boy."
"He is not in Imperial custody," Vader finally says, as though we are having an ordinary conversation.
"Where else would he be?" I wonder aloud.
Vader doesn't answer for a long time. Then he rumbles something like, "I have felt a presence…"
(Each destiny is woven from an infinite number of individual strands.)
This time the silence is mine. I own it. I know without question that I have done what I was supposed to do. The rest is out of my hands, and so there is no need for more words. At last, at last, I give myself over entirely to the patient and radiant light of the Force, and I let Vader be.
He raises his hand in an unfamiliar gesture, and my awareness begins to dim. From a great distance I think I hear him say, "Your light shines too brightly." After that there is …nothing…
(to be continued....)