The Paradox of Paradise

By T. K. Rouse

As a child, Katia Barnes has a recurring nightmare. In the dream, she is a young Victorian woman, alone in a dark house at twilight, desperately searching for something. She is caught by surprise by a man with a pistol. A chase ensues, and she is killed. Katia wakes up in terror, knowing she has just experienced this woman´s death. The dream eventually fades away, but always remains in the back of her mind.

Katia becomes a romance novelist, and after churning out the same book thirty times over, becomes disenchanted with her chosen genre. Her father dies, leaving her an unexpected legacy; an old Rosedale mansion left to him by a mysterious, unknown aunt. Immediately upon seeing the house, Katia recognizes it as the same one from her childhood dream.

The Victorian house is named Eden. Inspired by its sense of mystery, Katia moves in, and starts renovations, planning to open a Bed and Breakfast. Soon, she finds out what she has in fact inherited is a former Victorian brothel. Katia also finds a trunk full of diaries, written by a woman named Adela, who lived in the house from 1899 to 1912. Katia starts reading the diaries, becoming obsessed with them.

Adela was born in Cairo, Egypt, the illegitimate daughter of a British newspaper correspondent, and an Egyptian bellydancer. Her mother dies when she is a small child, and she and her brother are taken to England by their father. Victorian London is not kind to Adela, she is considered "half-African", and shunned. As a young woman, Adela journeys to Canada to start a new life. On board the ship, she meets Doctor Anthony Maxwell, a wealthy Canadian businessman, who has a unique philosophy based upon ancient Egypt. They fall in love, deciding to marry upon their arrival in Montréal. However, Adela gets more than she bargained for. Not only is Maxwell bisexual, he also has a sideline providing "courtesans" for Toronto´s elite.

Katia is engrossed by the diaries, and discovers many unusual features in the house; a secret passageway, for one. Strange paranormal experiences begin to happen. Katia calls upon her friend Raine, who is a psychic. Raine advises Katia that it is her "Karma" to clean up a mess from the past, and in doing so, she will find her own life will be changed for the better. The diaries lead Katia on a mystical journey of discovery, unveiling her family´s hidden past.

Adela´s story reveals many "dirty secrets" of Victorian/Edwardian Toronto; a world of extremes in both wealth and poverty, widespread narcotics use, racism, and the many problems and struggles faced by women. The Paradox of Paradise is rich in substance, covering a spectrum of life topics; history, philosophy, love, heartache, sexuality, and the paranormal.

Through a strange journey, the two heroines´ lives become intertwined. Katia solves most of the mystery, except for the most important part; who killed Adela, and why? The answer comes in an ending with a twist, which does indeed change Katia´s life. Katia discovers the meaning of "The Paradox of Paradise".

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 1, 2002
• ISBN: 9781477163078

T. K. Rouse

Stanley Rouse was born and raised in Malvern, Worcestershire, England. He has successively been a printer, baker, soldier, police officer, salesman, interior designer, factory supervisor, bookshop owner, and businessman. He has three daughters, two sons, and seven grandchildren. After living in Canada for a number of years, he and his wife now live on the Isle of Wight, England.

Book preview

The Paradox of Paradise

________________________________________

T. K. Rouse

Copyright © 2001 by T. K. Rouse.

Cover Illustration: Kalene Dunsmoor

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or

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and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the

copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents

either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used

fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or

dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Contents

Katía

Adela

The Hidden Passageway

Anthony

The Honeymoon

Footprints

Toronto the Good

Deucie’s Turkish Delight

The Party

Sebastian

Writing Adela

Sebastian’s Fate

Baby Making

Dancing

The Lover

Gil’s Secrets

The Future

Marcus

Dawn

Changes

Death and the Aftermath

Going Back to Move Ahead

FOR MY PARENTS

TO A.S.A & D.D.,

WHO LIVE ON IN MY MEMORY,

FOREVER YOUNG

IN APPRECIATION TO

J. & J. HARKONEN, A. ROMANUTTI,

D. HARDONK, D. FEIL, Y. MORENCY,

K. & B. DUNSMOOR, C. GOOD,

J. ALVES & D. REHAK

Every act of creation is an act of destruction

—Pablo Picasso

Katía

As a child, Katia Barnes was haunted by a recurring nightmare. The dream came to her for years, from as far back in her childhood as she could remember. Always it was the same. In it, she was a young woman who lived a very long time ago. She did not know what her name was, nor did she know exactly what she looked like.

As an adult, thinking about the dream brought back a misty memory; an old black and white photographic portrait, showing three people. It was not a true memory, for she could not recall ever having actually seen such a picture, nor where she might have seen it. And yet, even as the years passed, the image drifted back into her mind from time to time.

Seated in a dark wing chair is a distinguished older gentleman. He is well dressed, perhaps a banker, or a successful businessman. His hair is gray, thinning to baldness at the dome of his round scalp. He wears a fine dark suit, complete with waistcoat,and the chain of a fob watch drapes like a w from his ample waist. Katia felt some affection toward him, but his face in the photo is stern, and his temperament seems questionable. Standing to the man’s right, slightly hidden behind the chair, is a younger man, who is perhaps in his thirties. His hair is slicked back from a sunken, high cheekboned face. He wears wire framed glasses with thick, circular lenses; the type Katia used to call granny glasses. His eyes are sharp as jagged ice, and although impossible to tell from the sepia tones of the picture, Katia somehow knows those eyes were steely blue. Standing to the left, behind the seated older man, is a woman Katia imagines is herself, wearing a long dress with leg-of-mutton sleeves and a high collar. She has one hand resting lightly on the nearest wing of the chair. She’s younger than both of the men, although it is difficult to tell her age. Her curly dark hair is pinned up loosely, in the fashion of a Gibson Girl. Is the time Victorian or Edwardian? Katia could not tell.

In the dream, Katia is this woman, and she is alone in a house at twilight. It is a massive old place with an abundance of carved dark wood; she especially notices the thick, ornate banister she clutches as she mounts the stairs. At the top of the stairs is a rotunda that connects the three wings of the house. She moves to her left, around the circular railing, toward a long hallway. A runner carpet, swirled in a paisley of burgundy, green, and gold, lays along its length. She turns completely to the left, and begins walking down toward the end of the hall. Her head is down, and she sees her feet, clad in high-ankled brown boots, laced in a typical crisscross manner. Her feet are walking purposefully and quietly forward along this paisley path.

Katia/the woman comes to the end of the passage, and enters a room decorated with striped wallpaper. Whether this is a bedroom or a study, Katia does not know. What she does know is that the house belongs to the woman in the dream, and she is familiar with every corner. The woman does not need to note what room she is in, because her exclusive focus is a piece of furniture within that room. A wide set of filing drawers sits to one side of a tall window. Through the stained glass of the top window pane glows the final softness of daylight. In her right hand, she holds a brass candle holder with a tall, lighted candle. Perhaps she fears she will not find what she is looking for before darkness falls, and the candle can be quickly extinguished should someone think they see the light of it, but this is all merely Katia’s own assumption.

The woman sets the candle on top of the cabinet, and opens the drawers one by one, starting from the bottom and moving upward. They have not been locked. She is rummaging through the topmost drawer when her hands freeze. A flash of fear rips throughout her bones. She does not have to look to know he is there behind her, the shadowy male figure who has already passed through the doorway and is heading towards her. In his hand is a long barreled pistol.

He manages to grab her left forearm. The man is cursing at her, but she does not hear a word. Her only thought is that he cannot do this to her, he has no right. She has waited so long to be happy, and he is not going to take it away from her. In her fear, she has strength, and wrests herself free from his grasp.

She runs down the hall, but her feet have conspired against her; she passed by the rotunda and the main stairway in her panic. She is tired, and she knows she cannot outrun him, and no room would be safe from him. Hearing his feet pounding against the carpet immediately behind her, she is nearly overcome with terror. She must get out of the house. The door to the back stairway, the one leading down to the kitchen, that is her only hope for escape. She is almost there, but before she can reach the doorknob, fire rips through the left side of her chest, and she falls. She is dead as she hits the floor, her heart stopped cold.

At this point, Katia Barnes always awoke safe in her little suburban bedroom with its pink ballerina wallpaper and matching bed linen. She is a scared little girl, bathed in sweat. Her heart is pounding with sheer terror. She does not cry out for her mother. She does not even think of doing so, because she knows instinctively that the force that caused this dream and its paralyzing fear was something far beyond the reach of her mother’s comfort. This was something Katia had to face on her own.

The dream faded away around the time Katia hit puberty. As the years passed, she thought of it every once in a while, if she happened to come across an old picture, or saw a movie or a TV show set in the same era. She imagined it was the recurrent nature of the dream that made it stay with her, forever etched into her memory, even though it never invaded her sleep anymore. Katia reasoned the dream had come so often, and had frightened her so that she would pay attention to a lesson in it; keep your fingers out of other people’s stuff, that sort of thing. She was a private person, and in turn, always respected the privacy of others.

Katia knew a little bit about reincarnation. She often wondered if the dream from her childhood was some kind of leftover memory from a past life. The trauma of this death had been so great, it had remained with her into the next lifetime. She had in fact, been born with a slight heart murmur. This made her wonder if her soul, having remembered its heart being shattered by a bullet, could not quite believe it now possessed a perfectly healthy, functioning heart, and had taken a while to accept the fact.

Katia had gone to a reincarnation seminar once. Much to her dismay, several other people who had volunteered stories had been taken seriously, while her own story had been completely dismissed. Right away, it made her suspicious of the couple who had been running the seminar. She was a skeptic, and often people who claimed to be psychics, or specialists in the paranormal, would pick up on her intelligence, and would ask her right off the bat if she was an undercover police officer. This reaction told her they were not exactly on the level. At the end of the seminar, the audience was filed out past a table full of books, instructional tapes, and people selling workshops, and club memberships for spiritual enlightenment. Obviously, the whole thing was a money-making scam. Katia was glad they had not offered her an explanation for her dream, because any meaning they might have offered her probably would not have helped.

Whenever the opportunity came up to discuss such things, Katia would tell people about the dream and her suspicions. People always found the story interesting, but no one had ever been able to shed any further light upon it. In university, she had a friend named Raine, who proved time and again thatshe was more than a little psychic. Raine would amaze people at parties by going up to complete strangers and pulling names out of their past, or making comments about their lives; things that she could not have possibly known about. Unfortunately, Raine had not been any help to Katia either, saying only that she had a strong feeling that one day everything would make sense, and when that happened, Katia’s life would be forever changed for the better. Katia always remembered Raine’s words, and they gave her hope.

Katia assumed that one day she would meet someone who would be able to explain the phenomenon as some kind of common childhood experience. The explanation would be amazingly simple, a light would come on in her head, and some kind of psychological barrier would fall, relieving her of some mysterious burden. Never once, however, did Katia imagine that at the age of thirty-six, she would find herself gazing in wonder at an actual photograph of those very same three people she had seen in her head, and learning they had been real human beings who had lived over a hundred years before. To her amazement, Katia would find herself living in the very same house that had haunted her dreams as a child. A house named Eden.

*********

Katia put the old diary aside and lit a cigarette. She had started smoking again recently. Perhaps it was due to how relaxed she felt in her new home; there was something about the atmosphere thatmade one want to indulge in life’s pleasures. Every once in a while, usually after she had one of her mental time-travel experiences, the house would have a faint smell of tobacco and cigars. Not the unpleasant, lingering odors of stale smoke, but instead, the rich aromas of fresh tobacco, and the flavorful smell of a good pipe. Katia realized smoking was a dangerous vice, and remembered very well how hard it had been for her to quit. But all she wanted to do was drift away. She was taking a vacation from everything right now; a break she richly deserved.

Just before moving in, Katia had finished writing her last romance novel. She was determined that it would indeed be her last. Tapping out those formula romances for over ten years had finally got to her. Katia always enjoyed researching a new story, but more and more, she discovered she enjoyed learning new things better than she liked arranging the information into love stories. There was always something fascinating to be learned during a research session, and she would end up branching off into various aspects of a new subject, until she found herself spending days and weeks simply reading through a pile of books and articles.

Katia’s love for writing about romance had simply ended. She used to be able to escape into each new fantasy with all of her being; sort of like falling in love over and over again every few months with a new and exciting partner. Her method was quite simple; she would pick up travel brochures whenever she came across an agent or an airline ticket office. She would pick a place and start researching. Once she was into it, an idea or an angle would come to her, or a fantasy would simply start to float into her mind. She would sit down at her computer and she was off and running. Katia was, of course, always the heroine. Her appearance would be different each time she started a new journey. She would enter this strange body, and the heroine would take over, telling Katia what she (they) did for a living, and their whole background life story. Then, along would come this masculine presence who was just dying to rock their world. The setting, the plot, the couple, all the surrounding secondary characters, everything just fell right into place like magic. This was a job she seemed born to do; it all came so easily to her. Katia could not tell how it all started to fall off. She suspected that she had simply grown tired of the fantasies. These relationships and exciting plots had nothing whatsoever to do with the reality of her own life, nor any of her own experiences. No man had ever magically entered Katia’s life with the objective of turning it upside down. The few men with whom she had been involved had caused her nothing but pain and grief. So eventually, she just lost faith in romance. Perhaps, Katia thought, I just grew up.

Since coming to Eden, she had decided to become a rebel. She was not very attentive to the matters of her own every day life. Once upon a time, life seemed to have a very good balance, rather like a monthly schedule. Certain days were set aside to take care of the finances and various errands, other days were for straight writing. Once in a while, something or other would have to be juggled, but for the most part, her life was very well disciplined and predictable. But now, Katia did not always remember the bills that she tossed into a pile on her desk. Sometimes, she even stopped paying attention to what day it was.

I’m afraid this world I’ve slipped inside has crossed over with my own, she thought to herself in moments such as when she suddenly discovered there was no food in the fridge. There were days when she got out of bed determined not to read those old diaries; sometimes she succeeded and had quite a productive day. And yet, those fascinating, handwritten books with their long-looped brown script, they seemed to call out to her, and she would respond with gusto. Empty fridge and cupboards be damned.

The first time Katia had ventured up the spiral staircase from the enigmatic Round Room, and into the old cob-webbed tower attic, she had found a mahogany wardrobe and an old steamer trunk. She wondered how anyone could have got these heavy items up there in the first place. Obviously, they had been placed there for safe-keeping. Inside the wardrobe was a treasure of old clothes, pictures, postcards, and souvenirs. It was there that she found the sepia-toned portrait, framed in lacy tarnished silver, inside a cedar box, and carefully wrapped in tissue paper so ancient it disintegrated in her fingers. Katia had stared at the picture for a very long time, barely able to breathe.

The travel trunk was locked. Heavy and unmovable, it was plain that something substantial lay within. Determined, Katia managed to break the lock with simple tools. Inside, there lay a collection of leather-bound books, all different colors, some of them embossed with the initials A.M.M. on the cover. Diaries! Inside, each one of the entries began with a date, and on the inside cover of each book was written the name Adelaide Margaret Maxwell. Over the course of a day, she hauled the treasures downstairs. She wanted to move the wardrobe and trunk into her bedroom, but she could wait until she had some help navigating the spiral staircase. Katia looked at the date of the first entry in each book, then arranged all of the books in date order on the bookcase in her office. Since she had started reading, they had obsessed her, and she had not written a single word.

Katia discovered that the diaries were written by a woman who called herself Adela, and she had lived in the house from 1899 to 1912. From the vast number of books and their dates, it seemed she had written at least a page about every single day of her life over the course of about twelve years, and the whole thing was utterly fascinating. The words sent Katia back to the turn of the last century, to a slower, quieter world, where the sounds of horses’ hooves and carriage wheels meant someone was coming down the road. Katia could not resist the books, and once started, she would read them for hours on end. Chain-smoking, sipping on sherry (a newly acquired taste), and being lost in Adela’s world.

One day, her literary agent Cam called, wondering if Katia had fallen off the edge of the earth. Beth Cameron was growing ever more impatient, as the once-prolific Katia Barnes had not written anything in well over eighteen months.

I don’t need the money, Katia said. I’m on a sabbatical. I’m fixing up my house and recharging my creative energy.

"What about your career?" It was nearly pathetic, her pleading. What about all the readers who have been so loyal to you over the years? Are you going to let them down? Cam had tried all the different ways she could think up to cajole her former star client into cranking out a new fantasy. Warnings, threats, concern over Katia’s mental, physical, and emotional states; Cam had reached the end of her repertoire.

You just want another fat commission, Katia said bluntly, wondering where on earth the words had come from. She had never been so stubborn and obstinate. Not so long ago, she was pounding out almost more books than Cam could handle, ever willing to please. She had always been grateful to her agent, for Cam had taken on the unknown young writer, and had opened the doors necessary for the start of Katia’s career. But now, Katia was feeling as though she had repaid Cam and then some.

Both women were silent for a moment, then Cam said, You’ve changed, Katia. I think maybe I should come up there and see this new place of yours. It’s high time you did some entertaining. You haven’t invited me, and from the sound of it, you haven’t had anyone else out there either. I think you’ve cooped yourself up in that big old house in Rosedale and it’s not good for you.

Katia’s first reaction was defensive anger. Not good for me! Not good for her is more like it. Still, it is her job to keep me crunching out those damn formula romance novels. Finally, Katia acquiesced. Perhaps it really was time to return to the land of the living. Cam could come to see the house, and they could go out for lunch.

For a moment, Katia worried a little about what her agent might think of the picture window that looked into the large bathroom on the second floor. When the workmen had uncovered it, they had called out to Katia, and they had all stood around staring, wondering why on earth someone had installed a window that peered into a bathroom from the hallway. Cam seemed to be a rather conservative type of woman. No. Why should Katia be coy about all of this? She never planned to hide the facts about what this place used to be. The name Eden carved out in sensuous script on the stone steps was enough to make anyone curious.

Eden was a huge, two-storey late Victorian. The second floor was built of brick, rising from a ground floor base of very thick Credit Valley stone. The design was a Moorish fantasy, complete with a tower topped by an onion-shaped dome. The house had three wings; north and south, plus a back wing that stretched out toward the east, overlooking the Don Valley. The wings were joined by a central rotunda, winding between the floors through a semi-circular staircase. On the second floor, the stairs opened directly in front of the east wing. A mahogany railing surrounded the open view to the Great Hall below, forming a kind of mezzanine. The rooms in the east wing were lavish, but otherwise seemed quite normal for a fine manor of its period. It was only the rooms that stretched along the lengthy halls of the north and south wings that were strange.

The house itself inspired people to ask about its past. There were clues from the first day Katia had seen it. Victorian hand sinks had been installed in every bedroom, and there were a lot of bedrooms. Her father’s lawyer had told her the place had undergone only one major renovation since its construction, and that work had been done early in the century. The changes were made to convert the house for use as a private hotel and boardinghouse, which it had remained until sometime in the 1970s. Katia noted that the man did not specify exactly what the house was being converted from; perhaps he had not known. He remarked that the previous owner, a Mrs. Russell, had been very vigilant about maintenance. Although Katia’s father had not wanted to put a lot of money into the place, the essentials like heating and plumbing were still in excellent condition. However, there were some problem areas that had suffered from neglect. In one of the larger bedrooms, Katia looked up and noticed a piece of rotted material that had fallen from the ceiling, and caught a glimpse of what could only have been a mirror. During the early stages of her own renovation and restoration, four built-in ceiling mirrors were uncovered. Why would a boardinghouse in old Rosedale have ceiling mirrors?

There were so many unanswered questions! Katia never knew her father had owned the house. She had never heard of this Aunt Elizabeth who left it to him back in the 1980s. Who was this woman Elizabeth Russell? As far as she knew, there were no Russells in their family. Unless, she reasoned, Elizabeth had been a Barnes, and Russell was her married name. Had she been some sort of a black sheep? Katia had not found any trace of her in the house. Aside from the built-in fixtures, and the wardrobe and trunk hidden away in the tower attic, not a stick of furniture, nor any sign of Aunt Elizabeth had been left in the place. The only item Katia had been able to find was at the Reference Library; an obituary stored in the microfiche of a local newspaper:

Deaths-March 17, 1985

Russell, Elizabeth, 76, died quietly in her home on March 15. Viewing Findley’s Funeral Home, noon to 6 PM. No service.

Did her father ever pay his respects to this mysterious benefactor? Had he ever mentioned visiting a funeral home in Toronto? Katia wondered if her sister Karin would remember. Their mother also might know, if Katia got up the necessary fortitude to call her. In spite of the divorce, her parents had kept in touch from time to time. Perhaps she should ask the estate lawyers.

Almost three years earlier, Katia’s father, John Barnes, had died prematurely in his mid-sixties. He had heart trouble for a number of years, and finally succumbed to heart failure. They had always been close, and Katia had been devastated. He had been a loving, simple, and good-natured man. He had a delightful sense of humor, and she had known him to be very open and honest throughout his entire life. Having one’s closest parent die was the first blow. Learning he had kept several well-guarded secrets had been a shock.

In John’s will, he left the family home in Mississauga to his younger daughter, Karin, along with a much-welcomed bit of money. The reading of the will had been a tense time. No one wanted to sell the family home, and had the ownership been split between the sisters, everyone would have felt the pressure to sell, just so that it would all be fair. Karin and Phil and their ever-growing brood needed extra space, and the Mississauga house was a good size for them. It was well situated in a decent neighborhood, and convenient to all of their needs. They had been hoping to get the house, and had been worried John would leave it to Katia instead. Katia’s own legacy had come as a shock to everyone.

To Katia, his eldest and most favorite, John Barnes had left a strange old place in a very good neighborhood just northeast of downtown Toronto, with grounds overlooking the Don Valley. In addition to the house, John had received a tidy inheritance, including stocks, from his Aunt Elizabeth, and all of this was passed on to Katia. The lawyers said that the estate had been able to support itself for many years. The taxes in one of Toronto’s most exclusive neighborhoods might present a challenge, but Katia believed she could handle it. The investments were old, solid and strong. Katia already owned a condo in Mississauga, which she immediately sold. She had never owned a car, and had always been good with money. Even if Katia ran into trouble some time down the road, she would find a way. The real estate alone had transformed Katia into a millionaire, several times over.

In spite of having got what he wanted from the will and more, Karin’s husband Phil brought up the merits of selling Katia’s choice bit of Toronto real estate, and said that things might be a bit more fair should this mysterious property be divided up among them.

As though in anticipation of a dispute, the will mentioned that Karin was married, with a dual income household. Katia, being both single and the eldest, was left a legacy that would ensure her financial security. Katia refused to sell, and flatly stated that if they wanted a portion of her property, they would have to pay a portion of the taxes and upkeep while she lived there. Phil, knowing his headstrong sister-in-law was serious, had to admit he and his wife had not done so badly. Their growing family certainly could not stand the added expense of an enormous old house, nor could they afford the taxes. Karin wanted no part of the creepy old house, and she defended her sister’s position. Between the two of them, Katia and Karin agreed to adhere to their father’s last wishes. So in the end, it suited everyone just fine. If Phil had any lingering resentment, he knew better than to voice his opinion. And all in all, he was a decent fellow.

None of them had heard about the old house in Toronto, but when the lawyers showed them a picture of it, Katia fell instantly in love. When they all drove up to see it, Karin was horrified, but Katia was enchanted. Their father had known them well.

Eden seemed almost a fortress. Surrounded by a wrought-iron fence at the front, a stone wall around both sides and back, with an iron gate that opened from the road into a private cobblestone drive. A proper coach house and stables stood off to the back. Land had been sold off over the years, and the stone wall had been reduced several times. Even though the grounds of the original estate had been much divided, it had remained a jewel. A two-storey, red brick and stone, eclectic Victorian, complete with a tower topped by an onion-shaped dome.

Inside, there was stained glass everywhere. Full of real mahogany. Black and white checkerboard, marble tile floors covered the entrance hall, and the main floor hallways. A graceful, semi-circular staircase reached upward toward a magnificent, round arabesque skylight that looked like it came from some holy middle eastern mosque. The house needed some decorating, and several walls and ceilings needed to be refurbished, but it was otherwise in excellent condition. There was a caretaker named Bradshaw, who lived in the coach house,