The Twelve Read online

  Max still felt sick and was somewhat dazed from the experience of dying. He remained in the medical center another two hours under observation, and Jane stayed with him.

  “Mom, you have no idea how beautiful it was to be out of my body,” he told her. “There were these light-beings, and they were full of love.”

  “I can only imagine what you experienced,” Jane replied, and she hugged him close. “It sounds a little like what I feel when I gaze at ocean waves, where I imagine each wave as a force of love and life.

  “But tell me more about these twelve names you saw,” she asked.

  “Well, they were names I had never seen before, and some seemed to be in foreign languages. The only name I remember is the last one, which was a strange one—Running Bear.

  “Each name had its own specific color and vibration,” he continued. “And when they combined there was a full rainbow of colors and a symphony of vibrations. It was all so magical and wonderful.

  “Do you think I was supposed to remember the names?” Max asked, suddenly concerned that he may have missed a grand opportunity for knowledge.

  Jane reassured him.

  “They may have no importance whatsoever, and even if they do, there’s no sense in allowing it to cause you pain. Just live your life, and see what unfolds.” She paused and looked into his eyes. “The world is wide and vast and strange, and you will never understand all that occurs.”

  With that she gave Max a kiss on the forehead, then a hug, and waited until Dr. Gray felt it safe for him to return home.

  ***

  Once the doctor was convinced that there wouldn’t be a repeat of his untimely demise, Max was released from the clinic.

  He took his mother’s advice to heart and got on with his life, continuing to shine in sports at school, gaining outstanding leadership skills in all activities and excelling academically, particularly in mathematics.

  However, his achievements came so effortlessly that he began to look for additional challenges, and with this in mind he applied for the School Year Abroad program to study in Spain. That country had long fascinated him, in part due to the influence of his Spanish teacher, Fernando Iglesias.

  Señor Iglesias, as he asked his students to address him, was the most unlikely man to become a teacher, let alone inspire students the way he did. He was the youngest son of the fifth wealthiest family in Cuba. Along with the other four clans, the Iglesias family controlled the politics, owned the sugar mills, the railroads, the casinos, and everything else worth owning. Fernando had hot and cold running servants who attended to his every need. He excelled at partying in a way he said only a real Cuban would understand—a variation on the Brazilian Carnival with outrageous enthusiasm and intensity, a love of beauty, and an appreciation for great art.

  Though he did not need to do so, Fernando went to law school because it was considered a dignified career for him to pursue while waiting to inherit his fortune. However, he was an idealist and wanted to see reform—in particular the removal of Fulgencio Batista, Cuba’s dictatorial and repressive ruler. As a student, he provided significant funding for a young idealist named Fidel Castro. It was only after Castro came to power that Fernando realized he had backed an equally totalitarian dictator.

  By the time Fernando was ready to flee Cuba, he was only permitted to take $5.00 and the clothing on his back.

  He landed in Miami and got a job as a soda jerk in a Howard Johnson’s restaurant. He spoke eloquent English, and with his cultural background, he applied for the position of Spanish teacher at various private schools on the East Coast. His upper-class upbringing suited the requirements of the Hackley School in Tarrytown, New York, so in 1964 he found himself teaching ninth-grade Spanish at this private, boys-only, day and boarding school.

  ***

  Señor Iglesias had no experience as a teacher, but he possessed a rich knowledge of life in his Latin culture. Consequently, Max found his teaching methods were rather unorthodox but always dramatic, exciting, and magical. His philosophy was that nothing was impossible. He took his students to New York City to attend parties with other Cuban exiles where the wide-eyed young men were exposed to exotic foods, exciting music, and beautiful women.

  When the Spanish Pavilion at the 1964 World’s Fair opened in Queens, New York, Señor Iglesias organized a trip for the entire class, including backstage passes to meet the gypsy flamenco dancers. Max was amazed that this simple teacher, who had virtually no money, could find such joy and excitement in everyday life.

  Fernando’s love of his native culture was thoroughly contagious, and Max soon adopted a deep affection for all things Hispanic, including stories about the Incan and Mayan civilizations and how the Spanish conquistadores had vanquished those highly evolved civilizations so quickly and seemingly effortlessly. And thus, on September 9, 1966, at the age of 16 and full of enthusiasm and wonder, Max set sail with a student group on the USS Aurelia for Southhampton, England, en route to Barcelona, determined to learn more about the culture that had spawned Cortes and Pizarro.

  Upon his arrival he was assigned to the Segovia family, which consisted of the matriarch, the widow of Segovia, her three children, and their maid and cook, Julieta, who had been with the family since the birth of the eldest son, Alejandro.

  Alejandro was an extraordinarily handsome twenty-eight-year-old party boy who hobnobbed with models and artists, including Salvador Dali. He was an architect but not very successful and constantly fought with his mother about money and his less-than-stellar career accomplishments.

  Roberto, the second son, was twenty-four and also studying architecture. He did not have Alejandro’s fabulous good looks but had a pleasant face, although he was somewhat on the chubby side. He became engaged to his high-school sweetheart while Max lived with the family. Her name was Cristina, and she was much taller and thinner than Roberto. They made an amusing couple, but both were sweet, intelligent, and kind.

  Max spent a good deal of time with Roberto, playing cards and discussing food, music, and architecture. Since Roberto loved to eat, he introduced Max to a great variety of Spanish, Catalan, and Basque delicacies.

  However, Max spent most of his time with the youngest child, Emilia, who was twenty years old and thus closer to his age. She was studying literature at the University of Barcelona, so they talked for hours about the great authors and poets of the world and ventured deeply into philosophical subjects. Emilia was a true sister to Max, and the idea of a romantic relationship never entered the picture. Indeed, she had a very wealthy boyfriend, Quitano, who lived in Madrid but visited every weekend and treated Emilia and Max to the theater, ballet, fine restaurants, and concerts.

  But la señora, the widow of Segovia, was the real showstopper.

  Her husband had created a highly successful medical insurance business but had died prematurely, leaving her with three small children ranging in age from four to eight. In 1956 Spain did not grant equal rights to women, and few—if any—owned businesses. Since Spanish law prohibited single women from owning businesses at all, la señora kept her formal name as the widow of Segovia.

  She was a natural entrepreneur, and in addition to running the insurance company, she had purchased a laundromat, several small general stores, and a weekend beach home on the Costa Brava—the Spanish coast north of Barcelona. She believed in hard work and had inculcated this work ethic in Roberto and Emilia, but not in Alejandro, who was more attracted to glamour and the world of art.

  In every way that Max’s own mother, Jane, had been weak, the widow of Segovia was strong. She was not beautiful but had endless energy and excellent aesthetic taste.

  Julieta, who served as the family’s maid and cook, was almost a second mother to the children. From a poor family in a small village in rural Aragon, she had started working for the family when she was only 16 and was in her late forties when Max came to live with them. She frequently took Max shopping at the open-air market, teaching him how to choose fresh vegetables an
d pointing out which of the live chickens would make the best meal.

  “Este chico es mas listo que el diablo,” she would say to all who would listen. “This boy living with the señora is more clever than the devil!” She said it with such pride, clearly enjoying having this young American boy as her charge, and it made Max smile.

  ***

  In his nine months in Barcelona, Max learned to speak Spanish with an accent as pure as that of any Castilian. He felt a heart-

  to-heart connection with the Spanish people in a way he never could when speaking English—which for him always remained

  a language of logic and mental gymnastics, but not of deep

  emotions.

  He traveled throughout Spain to every major city, became an expert on the Barcelona architect Antoni Gaudi, visited the birthplace of El Greco, marveled at the creation of La Alhambra in Granada, ate goose barnacles in Galicia, walked the ancient streets of Unamuno’s Salamanca, and became even more enamored with the Spanish culture and its love of life, its intensity, and its passion. It all seemed very familiar to him. He felt at home.

  He believed this was where he belonged. In Spain, Max learned to live without fear. He could walk anywhere in the city at any hour of the day or night in complete safety. Franco ruled with an iron hand, and even the red light district had no crime other than prostitution, which was semi-regulated, with condom shops on every corner and cheap hotel rooms above every bar.

  Although Max turned seventeen that winter, he still looked fourteen, and even the prostitutes thought he was too young to touch. One night he and three of his friends decided it was time to lose their virginity. His friends were all successful, and, despite their condoms, they took away infections to prove it. Because of his appearance, Max was turned down by the prostitutes, and he was happy that he’d been rejected.

  Max slept well in the house of the widow of Segovia and had pleasant dreams, except for one night when he drank far too much cognac following a baseball game. After two years of a losing streak and aided by Max’s prowess, his Spanish team won a game against their archrivals. Every member of the ten-man team insisted on buying a round of cognac for the entire team, leading to ten cognacs each in the space of two hours.

  That night Max dreamed he was fighting a stream of fire-breathing, green dragons. He had a sword, and he was able to kill each dragon as it approached him, but there was an inexhaustible stream of the creatures.

  After killing what seemed like hundreds—if not thousands—of dragons, Max looked to the sky and saw a godlike presence, which bellowed at him.

  “Do you want to stop fighting the dragons?” it asked.

  “Yes. It’s tiring, and I’m somewhat exhausted already,” Max admitted.

  “Well, you can just stop whenever you want.”

  “But if I stop, the dragons will just keep coming and destroy the world.”

  “Your thinking is correct,” the godlike presence acknowledged, speaking in Spanish. “But you will never be able to defeat all the dragons. They are infinite in number.

  “Are you sure you want to continue?” it asked.

  Max just shrugged and returned to killing dragons.

  Then he woke up.

  Max had been told that he would know that he was proficient in Spanish when his dreams would be in Spanish, too. Since Max never remembered his dreams, this was an unusual and pleasant experience.

  It also signaled that he had achieved his primary goal of learning Spanish before heading back to conquer whatever dragons might await him as he prepared to complete his education and ready himself for college and adult life.

  Chapter Four

  “Understanding Understanding”

  1968

  MAX ATTENDED PHILLIPS ANDOVER ACADEMY FOR HIS SENIOR year, and he achieved but did not stand out—particularly in terms of his extracurricular activities. Instead he focused on his studies, college applications, and learning about sex and love.

  He had little difficulty getting into any college he chose, and after receiving a number of acceptance letters, he decided to attend Yale.

  Meanwhile, Max developed a sweet and wordless relationship with fifteen-year-old Lizzie, whom he met at a dance at an exclusive country club in Sleepy Hollow. Max danced with many of the vivacious and brightly dressed young girls that evening, but Lizzie was different. When he asked her what her favorite book was, she said Candy—a rather outrageous, almost pornographic novel that was on bestseller lists at the time.

  Max was intrigued that such a young girl would be so bold with him and found himself attracted to her mystical eyes, gentle, feminine body, and alluring smile. Before the evening was done, he decided to pursue her.

  She lived within walking distance of Max’s home but since he was away at Andover most of the time, their meetings were restricted to school vacations. Nonetheless, the romance bloomed.

  They would take long walks or go to Max’s bedroom, which was above the garage, boasted a separate entrance, and offered complete privacy.

  He considered their relationship “wordless,” because he and Lizzie rarely spoke when they were alone. They would kiss and stare into each other’s eyes for up to five hours at a time. But they were both virgins and neither of them was quite ready to explore too quickly the next level of intimacy.

  This long-distance courtship lasted Max’s entire senior year at Andover. Then the summer before Max went to Yale, the two of them enjoyed a weekend visit to New York City, staying in his father’s empty apartment on 18th Street and Irving Place across from Pete’s Tavern. That was when Max and Lizzie mutually decided to explore the ultimate physical intimacy of what was already an intense and emotionally charged love.

  Once they began making love, they never stopped. The Beatles’ song of the day was “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” and, of course, Lizzie and Max did so—there and almost everywhere else.

  When Max entered Yale the following September, it became harder to arrange to see Lizzie, but he wrote to her regularly. She wasn’t as diligent in her responses, so he was blissfully unaware when it became apparent that she was no longer interested in him.

  She was still only sixteen and in high school, and having a college boyfriend made no sense to her. She wrote Max a goodbye letter, which he received on December 12, 1968, his nineteenth birthday.

  Max was devastated when he received this letter. He fell into a state of utter despondency.

  His depression was exacerbated by the fact that he hadn’t taken well to Yale—hadn’t enjoyed being in a dorm that bordered College Avenue, with trucks changing gears all night long, waking him up or keeping him from falling asleep altogether. He hadn’t enjoyed having a girlfriend who was far away and unavailable. He hadn’t enjoyed classes with as many as six hundred students and professors who didn’t even know their names.

  As a math major, he didn’t appreciate going to math classes where his Australian math professor used mathematical notations that were different from the ones he had learned in high school. In a world that was turned upside down by the Vietnam War and the proliferation of recreational drugs among his fellow students and even the professors, he questioned the relevance of being a math major altogether.

  His other studies offered little solace. He studied Piaget and learned that according to Piaget’s stages of development it was impossible for a young child to hold and examine abstract concepts. This left him baffled, for he could not dismiss the reality of his own childhood visions and experiences.

  Then there was the political unrest—the assassination of the Kennedys, Kent State, Abbie Hoffman, and finally the assassination of Martin Luther King. Amid such chaos, his one significant emotional anchor had been removed, and he had no way to cope.

  ***

  That fall Herbert and Jane moved from Scarsdale, New York, to Greenwich, Connecticut, so they were actually closer to Max—only a forty-five-minute drive from Yale.

  Consolidation was the buzz word of the day, and Herbert had
been courted by Litton Industries, one of the large companies that had decided to incorporate publishing into a broader media business model. Litton began buying up smaller publishers, and Herbert received one offer . . . and then another.

  Competing offers followed from other companies. The prices were high. Finally, one of the buyers found a way to break down Herbert’s resistance. Perfect Film, an instant photo company, promised to appoint Herbert the head of the publishing division. He would be able to use Perfect Film money to buy other publishing companies.

  Herbert had no desire to actually sell his own publishing company, but he very much liked the idea of running a larger organization, so he began to make preparations. These included moving out of New York State and into Connecticut where—in 1968—there was a much lower capital gains tax and no state income tax.

  ***

  Consequently, Max no longer had his room above the garage, or any real base, emotional or otherwise, when he returned “home” for Christmas. Jane was often inebriated or asleep, and because of his focus on the possible sale of his company, Herbert was rarely available to Max either.

  Max was forlorn.

  It was an unsettling time, and many young men were afraid of being drafted and sent to the constantly deteriorating situation in Vietnam. Since Max’s draft number was 321, he wasn’t concerned with the military, but he also didn’t see much reason to stay at Yale.

  “Mom, I really don’t see any point to it. The teachers aren’t as good as those I studied with at Andover, School Year Abroad, or even Hackley,” he complained. “I mostly just go to three or four films a night at the film societies, and the rest of the time I’m pretty much bored with my classes.”

  “Put a little more effort into connecting with your teachers and the other students, and I’m sure you’ll have a better experience,” Jane advised. “The important thing is not to give up—your education is too important.”