Chapter 34
The heat of day yearned dreamily for the cool of evening, and so the dusk came shyly but obligingly into sight, a bride led step by step, all the while blushing a winsome crimson, promising the consummation of night.
Spreading his legs wide on a pallet of thick clover, Jona propped himself up on his elbows, feeling the sweat drops that rolled down his neck begin to evaporate as a cooling breeze riffed by. They lay together, the three, on a grassy hillock that sloped to the river’s edge, high enough to see the vast and mountainous forest that concealed the far horizon, but not too high to lose the sights and sounds of the river flowing briskly below them. There were rocks large and small in the water, causing a gentle gurgle with each v-shaped ripple, speaking to each other in a language peculiar to themselves. As the light glimmered, an early chorus of cicadas chanted their lamenting plaint in response.
Jona listened attentively to the streaming water, overwhelmed by the utter majesty of a river that coursed without cease, trying to calm himself, trying to make sense of the day that had just passed. Amelia sat cross legged next to him, very quiet, and Gwen lay on his other side, lying on her belly and humming to herself as she picked at dandelion tufts. Andrews and Murphy stood away from them, a bit downstream at the edge of a shrub bordered runnel that fed the river with giddy fervor. It would be easy to imagine the scene as peaceful, flavored with the mellow languor of an old lithograph. Lieb’s mind, though, was in a turbulent, flickering frenzy of thought and feeling.
The first shock had come in the morning, with the realization that the woman at the car door was the mythical Amelia. It seemed surreal, much as if an actress had stepped off a theater stage, right over the floor lights and into intimate encounter with the only person in the audience. He had never really believed that he would find the mystery woman linked to his father’s distant past, but here she sat, right next to him and very real. They had talked of course, quickly in the beginning, and without saying very much that made sense to either one. Lieb had tried to explain about the diary from 1909, and the man with the suspenders in New Orleans, and the obese piebald professor he met in Atlanta, but after a few minutes Amelia had poked him on the arm, curtly interrupting his torrent of words.
“Jona, you are rambling. Don’t exert yourself. We’ll have time to go over everything when you’re more able.”
Lieb had felt guilty leaving Gwen behind, but Amelia insisted it was best for her to sleep and recover strength after her prolonged seizure, and asked that the two agents stay and monitor her when they returned. She spoke rapidly and with a tone of easy command, bolstered by the holstered gun at her hip. And so they left the car and walked together, the two alone, down to the river side by side.
At first, impenetrable stands of cattails and bulrushes blocked the sharp decline leading down to the water’s edge, but with some maneuvering she led him down a well trodden track to the muddy shoreline. She strode easily, lithe and elastic in comfortable jeans and a red plaid shirt with sleeves rolled up above the elbows. Jona thought she blended in with the dense foliage perfectly, as if she were a natural living part of the landscape. They reached an irregular embankment that stretched to a lost horizon. The waters were quiet here, as if the river wished to take repose from the froth and turbulence that was sure to come further on along its journey. Even before they emerged into full view of the river, as they maneuvered through a palisading copse of black willow, Jona could hear the sound of singing once again, louder than before but indistinct nonetheless. A gentle shower began to fall as they walked, a warm patter of drops kissing his forehead and face, growing stronger as they mounted a small rise overlooking the river.
The people in the stream were still there. They stood in place, forming a broad semicircle facing the shore, the water rising to their knees or waist according to their size. There were men and women, some young and some old, some stooped, some straight, swaying in slow synchrony, tugged by the current to and fro. Their line in the river formed a wide arc, like buoys marking safe passage through a treacherous strait. Some, Jona saw, were dressed in white robes, as if prepared for pagan sacrifice. Perched on a rocky promontory by the water’s edge stood a tall, thin woman, with jet black hair flowing to her waist, her arms outspread, her face uplifted, her feet planted in clumps of stonecrop and moss that seemed to clasp her securely to the black earth below her sandals. Suddenly, the morning sun’s rays flared through a break in the clouds, streaming across her face and forehead, turning her features into a mask of emblazoned bronze. As Jona came closer, he could hear her imploring the skies above with arms stretched to the heavens.
“O weep,” she cried, “O weep all of you as the heavens weep above, weep now as you once wept by the rivers of Babylon, and by the Tennessee, and by the Congo, and wherever else our flesh was bred. O weep, where the river meets the rain and where the past brings us pain, and where the blood we shed has left its stain. O weep, and forget not the New Jerusalem, but keep it in your hearts always, for there we shall find glory forever, to the ages of ages.” She lowered her arms sharply and began to sing. The people standing in the river began to sing with her and now he could understand their words:
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
A long way from home,
A long way from home.
A long way from home
The words hovered over the water, a rhythm deep and sad, a gentle pulsation from long ago, so long ago that it was almost long gone before it was even born. Jona could hear the people but did not really listen. His mind was bound up with shapeless thoughts that flitted in and out without rhyme or reason. He realized suddenly that his hands were shaking and his hip was burning.
“Her name is Alithea.”
“What? Who?” Lieb stumbled as he responded, clasping Amelia’s shoulder for support.
“Her.” Amelia pointed at the woman leading the singing. After a brief pause, she continued. “Your father brought her back from Africa as a young woman.”
Jona felt a quick shiver of anger. “Brought her back? What, as a souvenir?”
“Yes, I think, something like that. A trophy, in a way. He named her, too, when he baptized her.”
“She didn’t need any baptism.” Lieb did not attempt to hide his bitter sarcasm.
“Oh, but you’re wrong. She did, in order to begin her work. The work she’s doing now, as you see. One thing must follow another.” Amelia shot a hard stare in his direction.
“I see plenty. Plantation Sally is taught the so-called gospel and then does what she’s told. She couldn’t help herself, and couldn’t think for herself, her mind was so filled with poisonous ideas by the likes of the great Earnest Lieb.”
“Oh, oh, oh…” Amelia spun towards Jona, placing both hands firmly on his cheeks while gazing into his eyes with a penetrating look. She was neither angry nor pleased, but cocked her head slightly to one side as if examining his face for defects. Jona took a step back, startled. He stared as well, searching her face in turn. She seemed young for being old, at the very midpoint between the grace of supple youth and the blemish of jaded age. Her chin was still sharp, her straight hair dark blond, and the web of lines below her eyes nothing more than a faint trellis of shadows. “All of us have ideas that are planted in us from early on. It’s necessary. Biologically necessary. That’s how we grow and adapt.”
“Yes, yes, I know!” Lieb found himself shouting. “Right, right. Ideas are planted, right? Some become fruits that nourish the body, some bloom into flowers of beauty that are cherished, and others become weeds and vines that trap and choke, that snuff the goddamn life right out of you. Right? Right?”
“Calm yourself. I won’t tolerate nonsense. What are you saying?” Amelia began to squeeze his shoulders tightly, almost painfully. Her eyes bored steadily into his, clear and unflinching.
“You know what I’m saying.” Jona was bawling loudly now, exhaling deeply after each breath, speaking rapidly. “I’ve heard that trash a hundred, a thousand times. Don’t lie to me, you must have heard it too. Both of us from the same source. From him. One of the little platitudes he was so pompous about. He had a million of them, like little vipers that were meant to bite and sting, and that I was just supposed to endure. How about you? The same? Bitten also?”
“In a way, I suppose. We are given from the past in order to create the future, it’s that simple. You weren’t raised in a cell, were you? Of course you were given teachings which prepared you for life. Anyway, anyone can change if they really want to, can they not? If you will it so, it will be so.” She continued to hold Jona by the shoulders with strong hands, firmly enough that he could feel himself trembling within her grasp. “Are you alright?”
“Yes I’m fine. No. I need a cigarette.” Then, after a short pause, he slumped in her arms. “I need to sit down.”
Quickly, they sat down on the pebbled riverbank, Jona first then Amelia opposite him, uncaring of the wet slime and mud that soaked them. The rain returned, coming down harder now, firm pellets that struck with force and dripped down shoulders and chest in rapid streaming rills. Soon, without wishing to, Jona found himself sprawled on his back, supine, his body simultaneously rigid with pain and shaking spasmodically. Amelia placed the palm of her hand firmly on his forehead, pressing downward as if trying to squeeze out his torment. Her face remained impassive.
“How long have you been suffering?”
He exhaled deeply before answering. “I can’t remember. All my life.”
She pressed harder. “I remember you as a child. You were mostly quiet and alone. Never wanted to talk to others, but you talked to yourself incessantly. Your mother feared that a demon possessed you.”
Jona tremored. A staccato olio of images swarmed rapidly through his mind, bursting bubbles of remembrance, none of them complete or coherent. The pain in his hip flamed down his leg.
“You knew her?”
“You’re asking if I knew her?” Amelia twisted her mouth into a strange contortion, half smile and half sneer. “Of course I knew her.”
Jona picked up a smooth, palm sized rock, hefting it a few times before heaving it into the water. “I just want it all to disappear.”
“Nothing disappears, Jona. Nothing. We can move things from here to there, place something in one closet or another, bottom shelf or top, but nothing is ever truly gone. Even when we can’t remember, it’s still all inside.” She tapped her forefinger over her head, then smiled ruefully and waved her hand at the dense gray low lying clouds above. “Or maybe it’s all out there, collected in a cloud, who knows?”
“You believe that?”
“I do. Find even a trace of a smile, or a stain from a single teardrop, and the life it came from can be traced back to its beginning. And then back even more, and back again. Nothing is lost. The universe does not allow it. It’s science, not imagination. Conservation of information requires it.”
“So, you think that if you know where something is, then you know where it’s come from?”
“Something like that.”
“But what if it’s not like that at all.... Sometimes things just happen, like meeting someone out of the blue. Sometimes there’s no before, and sometimes no after. Haven’t you ever felt that?”
“Things go in a straight line. There is always a before and after. Anything else is just your imagination. A perverse imagination.”
Lieb tried to lay still, allowing Amelia to massage his brow with a deep, probing pressure from her fingertips. “It feels strange to me to be here right now. I shouldn’t have come. I want to go back where I was.”
“Certainly,” she answered crisply. “Did you belong where you were?”
Jona shook his head, gritting his teeth. “Did my father belong? Anywhere?”
“Of course. One place. The only place. Here. With me.”
“You think this was home? You’re wrong. The world was his home.”
“No, Jona. The world was where he moved. This is home. I am his home.”
Jona paused. The rain diminished as quickly as it had started. His hair was sopping wet, and his shirt drenched. Despite the sauna-like heat of the day, he began to tremble. “Why did he leave here? He had everything he could have wanted. He couldn’t know what his future would bring.”
Amelia laughed, making several quick guttural exhalations as if expelling something unwanted from her system. “He didn’t have everything he wanted down here. Prestige and position were not enough, and nothing could hold him. The world beckoned, and he responded.”
“You loved him. He loved you.”
“Well.” Amelia smiled, the kind of smile that can come from a long ago pleasure or an ever present ache; a contortion, a twist, a curve in time stretching across the face from the past to the present. “They say that love is a gift freely given, but I guess that’s not really true. Sometimes love is extracted, dug up, like mining for something precious. You find it, maybe, but it’s painful and exhausting work, and maybe you spend more time worrying that you’ll lose it than enjoying it. And then....”
“And then it’s gone and you never get it back?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps that’s it for some. But for others it’s not enough. Whatever it is, whatever the feeling, some want more, that’s all. Some lust for more and are never happy enough, then turn around one day and feel like maybe they never loved at all.”
“And which were you two?” Jona let his head sink back onto a smooth, water-worn stone.
“Which were we? I still don’t know for sure. I can shut my eyes and see it one way, or open them wide and see it another. Which is more real? Sometimes the feeling changes from moment to moment. One thing I know…Neither one of us could imagine life without the other.” She stroked Jona’s cheek briefly, lost in remembrance, then in an instant withdrew her hand. “You see, you’re not the only one with questions.”
“Tell me about him.’’
“Is that why you’re here? For answers? Solve the riddle of Earnest Lieb? Close the book, complete with explanations, tidy annotations and footnotes? Who are you to ask? You have no right to those answers. Nobody does. Nobody. I understand, Jona. You want to know what he did, and where he went, and when, and who he knew, and what he accomplished, and why. But you’re not asking what he was. What he felt. What he believed. What he desired. I may be the only one who understood what he was, and what moved him, and that has helped over the years to make me feel complete. Can you comprehend that? Unless you open your heart, your journey here is wasted. Maybe you should tell me about you. Are you capable of doing that? Truly?”
“I don’t know.”
“He wanted more. More than I could give. More than anything here could give. More than any one thing at any one time could give. That was your father.”
“Is that why he left? In 1909?”
“He was driven by belief. To make the world better. And, to be honest, to make himself better. Along the way he connived with the times and the people he encountered. It was not a game, it was a method. And, along the way, he discovered that beliefs can change, and so he changed as well. Is it so hard to imagine that?”
“Can a leopard really change its spots?”
The sound of splashing came from the river. The people standing in the water began to wade ashore, crowding around Alithea with a fricative buzz, a murmured cluck of greeting and farewell. The rain stopped again as quickly as it had started. Golden laced leaden clouds skittered across the sky, opening like great guard gates and unveiling a ceiling of blue and the brilliance of a still arising sun. Alithea descended the low bluff that served as her pulpit and mingled among them, speaking to each one, hugging some briefly and clenching the hands of others. Soon, the crowd dissolved, and she began striding towards Amelia and Lieb. In the span of moments she was towering over them where they sat, fists firmly on her hips, her skin afire where it was pierced by powerful darts of morning sunlight. She seemed huge, hovering high in the morning air, her forehead, eyes and lips dominating the span of Jona’s vision.
Amelia clambered to a kneel, grasped Jona’s hand and raised it to touch the smooth hem of Alithea’s skirt. “Jona, meet Alithea.”
Jona said nothing, merely cupping his hand to shield his eyes from the radiating sun and from the blaze of her face.
Alithea bent at the waist, blocking the sky completely as she hovered gigantically over him, studying him closely with eyes that embraced him with penetrating luminosity. “I’ve been told many times you might be coming by here one day.” Her voice chirruped with the bright energy of a pine warbler, her words rising and falling in quick, harmonious cadence. “It gives me great joy to meet you at last, Jona. I am your father’s daughter.”
Jona could feel his own breath, a thin fume pluming to and fro with a long and distant sigh, the only sound that could be heard. He was lying on a bed that was foreign to him, in a house unknown, in a darkened room that he somehow knew was located in the second story. Hesitantly, he lifted his head to look out the nearby window, expecting to see a revelation, a conclusion, an explanation of everything as soon as he could focus clearly.
He was down there, in the garden, playing among the azaleas that screened the house. There was a small rock he had found, very shiny in the blunted light of late afternoon. It was round and flat, like a coin, and he imagined it contained precious metals that had lithified over the course of ages. Over and over, he struck it against a much larger, dull brown stone, hoping to free the magical contents from imprisonment. He felt safe where he was, and happy to be on the verge of a great discovery.
“What are you doing, Jona?”
It was his mother, appearing unexpectedly. In his vision, Lieb startled in surprise. He could see her face, as real as if she were alive and in his presence, a face he had not seen in so very long, and never in his dreams.
“Nuthin’. Just finding gold, that’s all.”
She erupted in laughter, a vibrant, shaking jingle that twisted through the air with a roundabout curlicue bouncing from leaf to leaf and flower to flower until the blue budded azaleas shook with her mirth. “You think you’ll find gold there? What are the chances?”
“Dunno.” Jona kept throwing the rock, watching intently for the blossom of gold he was waiting to see. “Maybe 50-50. Or maybe more if I try enough times, like a hundred or a thousand times. I’ll get it eventually.”
He could almost feel his mother shaking her head. “But gold is so dear and rare. The chance must be less than that.” Very gracefully, she gathered up a handful of pebbles and threw them high in the air. “Look, Jona. See them flying through the air. You don’t have to count them to know they’ll all come down, there are no chances to play. They go up and they come down, over and over. Do this one hundred times, one thousand times. None will turn into clouds or wind. That would be impossible.”
Jona flushed with anger. “Maybe it’s not like you think, something different could happen...You can’t know things will happen only one way, that’s not fair. Gold is there somewhere. When I see it I’ll know it.”
“Will you, though? Have you ever found gold? What would it look like? And what would you do with it?”
Jona shuddered in his bed, attempting to curl into a ball. The questions, so many, oppressed him, fettering him with unbearable chains that bound him tightly in their grasp. He squeezed his eyes closed, wanting to fly away, free from the garden below and the upstairs room he lay in, but escape was hopeless. He remained weighted down, imprisoned within his body as securely as if he were embedded in stone.
A raven lit on the brick sill outside his window, cocking its head towards him to stare with one leaden eye. In a moment, a second raven fluttered down, nudging against the first, then another, making three. Jona could hear them cawing at him, exclaiming in unison:
“You thought you would be king, that you would be the ruler of the day. But now your dreams have flown away, like a bird on the wing.”
He realized with sinking heart that he was back in Boston, and at the river Ob, and in his deserted New York apartment, and in Berlin, and everywhere he had taken breath and exhaled and endured both the thrumming thrust of life and the deadened passage of the day. He felt the burn of bile in his mouth, and the red heated sear of agony in his leg, but only momentarily. Little by little he pushed back on the pain and despair. He saw himself extending sinuous arms and moving a weighty boulder that blocked his path. He squinted. Beyond the boulder was a steep declivity. By stretching his neck forward Jona could see downwards into a deep void obscured by uncertain, thready wavelets and vague lines of shape and color. And there was more. He could smell an indescribable fragrance, and feel the grit of sand, and hear the creak of a gate opening and closing. Somewhere down there, beyond where he could see...down, deep down, he knew was either a chamber embroidered with silver and gold or a twisted maze of horrors. One or the other awaited. What were the chances?
He heard a voice whispering, hissing. The crows fluttered closer, one landing at each foot of his bed and one by his head. Or, they said. Or....Or...
Or what?
Don’t bother asking if you don’t already know. It requires imagination to know.
Try me. I can imagine.
Are you sure? One crow fixed him with eyes of beaded ochre, the other with a greenish gaze, and the third with a glance of seductive blue. Imagination can be dangerous, you know, they said as one.
How so?
Imagine Marielle dying in agony this very moment. How would you feel?
Jona felt a sudden surge of nausea. Devastated.
Why?
Because she’s dying.
But she’s only dying in your imagination.
A memory nagged at Jona but evaporated quickly. He strained to look out the window once again, unsure what he would see. He was still in the garden, playing with the rock.
But it feels real.
If you say so
The chip, chip, chime of stone striking stone continued. “It is real. I can feel it.”
“What is real, brother?”
Jona bolted up with a rigid spasm. The crows were gone. The window was gone. The garden was gone. He was gone.
Alithea loomed above him in the semi dark, her face a metallic cyprian orb, floating like a half-moon in the surrounding firmament.
“How long have I been here?” He shook his head to clear the fog of his dream.
“You’ve been sleeping several hours. You passed out, in pain, I think. Your companions are downstairs waiting for you. I thought I should be the one to keep vigil here because, after all, we share flesh and blood.”
“Do we?” Jona swung his legs around, testing his balance. He found himself clear minded and without pain. Sleep had rejuvenated him, and for the moment at least he felt no cravings. “Do we really?” He measured Alithea with a dubious stare, but very quickly. It was somehow uncomfortable to gaze directly at her for more than a few moments. “You look nothing like my dad. Or me.”
“Well, maybe not what you can see on the outside.” She flashed a dazzling smile, her teeth shining like a procession of stars. “But we are very much alike, believe me.”
“Really now? How?”
“We are all seeking glory. Father in his way, I in mine. And you in your fashion as well.”
Jona felt his teeth clench. “Glory? That’s an odd word to use. I’m not looking for anything of the sort. I’m no hero.”
“In a way you are. You are a seeker. That’s why you’re here, and why you came all this way and to this place. I believe that’s why we’re all here. Looking. Exploring. Searching to find something. You, especially.”
“Why me?”
“I can see you Jona, as you are. The passage of time has injured you. You’ve passed your days trying, trying so hard to save a life...after so much struggle, and as the days ahead narrow down, you think that is the only thing within your heart that you still hope is true. You tried to save a life, Jona, a life you hardly even knew.”
A few moments dragged by. Jona found himself almost dreading what he wanted to ask. “Did you know him well?”
“Maybe. It’s hard to know whether I knew a man or a myth.”
Jona felt a shiver, as if a window had opened unexpectedly, letting in a freezing draft. “Why...What...” He could not continue.
Alithea placed her hand on his shoulder, looking steadily into his eyes. Lieb avoided her gaze, looking down at his own hands instead. “Jona, you’re afraid of almost everything, aren’t you. And yet, you’ve been incredibly brave.” She paused and held her index finger straight upwards. “Listen. Can you hear the angels walk?”
“There are no angels. Anyway, angels fly.”
“No. They walk. Behind us, before us, even over us. We can’t see them, but then there are so many things we cannot see. Just listen closely and you might hear them walking, maybe in puddles of rain, or on concrete city sidewalks, or on fallen branches coated by the first hard frost. They are there, pushing and prodding, pointing us towards glory even when we ourselves don’t know it.”
“You can’t prove any of that, it’s irrational. You’re either a deliberate liar or insane.”
“The angels are there, walking with us. They guided me to our father, and him to me.”
“What in hell is that supposed to mean?” The words exploded out of Jona’s mouth. “I’m sick of this bullshit.” He shifted his legs as if to get out of the bed.
Alithea raised her hand, palm facing outward. A jeweled ju-ju flashed at her wrist, a beacon strobing in the semi dark. “I will tell you the story about me and our father, then you will tell me yours.” Jona stopped moving. He sat motionless, mesmerized by the amulet. The room’s low light played tricks with the gems as Alithea’s hand wavered slowly up and down, causing the bracelet to glow, then go dark, then glow again, seeming to throb with the purr of a slow and steady pulse, like a carnivore at rest. He placed his own hands over his face and sobbed without meaning to. “Go on.”
“Hear me then.” Her hand dropped, the flashing stopped, and the room went dark.
“I was married to my husband when I was nine. Well, almost ten. The course of my life was bent in new directions when that happened, taking me far from my quiet village life. Before that, as a girl, I had no memory of my father, only the stories my mother would tell me, about a tall white man with blue serpent eyes and a smile that could haunt your dreams. I was curious, and I asked questions, but never learned much more about him, only that he had gone back to his own country, a place much farther away than we could ever walk to. My mother was sad when we talked about him but was never angry, and after all I was not the only one in my village without a father.
The man I was given to was much older, though I never learned his true age. Seventy? Younger? Maybe older. His name was Diop, and it was rumored that he had traveled the world to make his fortune. My mother told me he was my grandfather’s brother and would only marry within the family, and she told me the names of his other wives, all three, all cousins from our village. They were good women, well into their years, she said, and would look after me.
The men who came to claim me gave my mother gifts that were acceptable. One of them sat down with my mother to bargain my price. Later I learned his name was Kuru, a strange name around our parts. I was not allowed to join them, but could see and hear them from our garden, where I crouched among the okra sprouts, pretending I was invisible. The discussion was not long. Their offer included, I will never forget, a gold coin with the portrait of a queen stamped on it.
My mother was a very proud woman. Even though we had little, she gave to me a mandala pendant with a small bright blue cabochon in the middle, and a macramé bracelet set with fiery stones, both very beautiful. That was my dowry. She placed them on my body with pride and I held my head high as I was taken away from everyone I knew and loved.
The men did not tell me beforehand that we would need to cross an ocean to reach my new home, so you can imagine my worry as we boarded a long black boat with patched white sails, billowing giants that lived by consuming the wind. I was never on a boat before, and I spent the voyage in terror whenever the ship rolled and rocked. Also, the ship reeked of tobacco. The stink was only a minor inconvenience, though, as I soon learned. There were no arrangements for a young girl, and no privacy. The men in charge of me threw up some straw mats in the corner of the cargo hold and told me to hide myself there when I wanted to be alone. It was disgusting down there, so I spent as much time as I could up top, whenever the ocean was not angry. The men did not like me up there because it was unlucky, they said, to have a female on deck. That was my first ever encounter with stupidity. I didn’t care and went up as I wished. There I could feel the wind fly against my face and see the rolling of the waters, churning as if a giant hand was stirring and kneading deep below. How often I wondered whose hand it might be.
After ages passed, we arrived at a port that was no more than a hamlet of limestone and wooden huts dropped randomly around a wharf, a place called Asha-Oyri. It was there, they told me, that my new husband was waiting to meet me. I had no means of washing myself, and though I felt unclean, I dressed as best I could, and wore my dowry of sparkling jewelry with pridefulness. The men led me to a big brick Customs House, the kind the whites would build, and then up and up and up, so many flights of stairs! The higher we went, the more important I knew Mr. Diop must be. When they ushered me into his office my little heart was racing so hard I almost jumped with fear of what lay before me. That was a young girl’s silliness, though. There would be time enough in the future to be frightened.
He was propped behind a small desk, curled up on a chair, looking smooth brown and purple, like a chuuma nut, lean in the eyes and covered head to toe in a mud blanket that almost buried him. His face was alive, though. He did not smile at first, he was so preoccupied in his examination of me, searching me up and down. Eventually he spoke, but in a language I did not understand. Kuru, who was now my chaperone, explained that Mr. Diop was speaking in the manner of English and would speak no other tongue, certainly not Yoruba as I was raised to learn, and that before long I would be speaking English too. That seemed impossible to me, but time allows for all things, doesn’t it? Next, Kuru told me that I was to be married to Mr. Diop right away. How strange that seemed to me. Where was the feast? Where were the guests? Where were the other wives, the ones who were to look after me?
Instead, some papers were put before me, and a pen, something I had seen but never touched before, and I was told to make a mark in a certain spot. I drew a picture of my village house with simple lines. My husband also made a mark, a long one, then folded up the papers and put them in a drawer. Only then did he smile. Kuru also smiled, and congratulated me.
“Your life is filled with good fortune,” he said. “You are now the wife of a great man, and you will have sons who will be great men.”
“But where are Magamba and Dunudu, and the third wife, Gaman? And where are their sons?”
Kuru shook his head and waved his hand to stop me from saying more. “That is not your concern. They are not here, and you are the favored wife now. All honor to you.”
And that was all.
My mother had explained everything to me before we said our goodbyes, and what I should expect from a husband, and that I should submit with obedience but always with my dignity wrapped around me as tightly as a heavy kitenge. In our village we knew all those things from early childhood on. I was apprehensive, but I was ready. Then nothing happened. I was given a room where I slept long hours, and food was brought to me either by Kuru or an elderly woman named Rifa, who spoke my tongue. She was a Mganda woman, very short, and walked so bent over that her waist was a swivel that moved only left and right, not up and down. Every motion she made brought her pain. I knew when she was coming to me because her grunts and moans sang her unhappy song long before she arrived. There was nothing given to me to do: no cooking, no herding, no garden weeding.
Days went by, then weeks. At last, one day Kuru came to me. With few words he told me we would be leaving that place and going elsewhere, to our real and proper home, and to prepare accordingly. I had nothing to get ready, nothing but what I wore on my back, so when we left the next day I was prepared for nothing and for everything. We went on another boat, this one much bigger and with noisy engines instead of sails. I was given a cabin that I shared with Rifa, and again I spent much time on deck, inhaling the vibrations of low blue sky and rolling wave. I did not see my husband at all during the voyage. I assumed he was very busy with important matters, but Kuru came to me every day, once or twice at least, and over time he began to smile and rub my head for encouragement. “Blessed one,” he would say, “Have faith that your best days are yet to come.” I sensed a comfort in his voice and felt not so alone. Over time I learned to accept each day as it was. My mother, my family, my village, all of my past slipped away like a silent dream, lost in the monotony of waves and wind and the wake of foaming bubbles.
Our destination was a great city owned by whites, called Loanda. I did not know then that I would spend the next five years there. Kuru explained that the city was a great port of commerce, where good things of all kinds drained from the inland forests, acquired by merchants like Mr. Diop, and then transported far away, especially to the lands of the whites. That is how my husband had made huge riches and become a great man.
“You must understand this above all things,” he told me. “We are the House of Diop, and we are traders. We buy and sell anything that one man might want of another.” Kuru would always bow his head and touch his chest, very delicately with two fingers, when speaking my husband’s name.
The house I was brought to was a palace unlike anything I had ever seen or imagined, with large cool rooms that inhaled the ocean breezes that swept up from the bay. I realized at that moment how fate had smiled on me and how lucky I was to have such a husband as Mr. Diop.
The morning after our arrival Kuru called me to the garden in the courtyard of our grand house. The garden was drenched in riches beyond compare. There was vibrant kudu crawling about in abundance, a sprawl of sugar bush treasure flowers, and tall red bloomed calla growing in tiered profusion. In the middle, spreading its wealth and power over the width and breadth of the garden like a giant parasol, a baobab tree ruled supreme. The day was still but somehow the air danced with gentle grace, fragrant with the smell of the flaming nandi and crane flowers that grew along the walls. There was something else I remember, another kind of smell, more difficult to place, weaving itself gingerly through the air. It was a mixture of things, of salt water and sand, seaweed and drying fish. And to my young senses, there was adventure and excitement and the lure of the unknown bursting in every direction. The sights and smells created a blend of magic and artifice, a promise of tomorrow, and then tomorrow, and the next day and the next, forevermore. I was so happy at that moment in the garden, and so happy to see Kuru there. He sat on a bench of whitest marble, grasping the edges of his seat with hands so black they rivaled the hue of a raven. A slab of sable inlaid upon the purest ivory would be no more beautiful. Actually, my little heart told me he was beautiful.
He was not alone. There was a young man sitting by his side, a white man dressed in a black frock, broad trousers and a wide brimmed hat with all the edges turned down. Even though his face was shaded by his hat, he wore narrow brown tinted glasses which obscured his eyes completely. Kuru waved me to a nearby bench, picking up a bundle from the ground as he did so.
“This is Leopoldo Rafael Carlos de Sousa Caldron.” He said each strange word carefully, as if reciting a difficult poem. “He serves Mr. Diop. He will be your teacher.”
The man stood and bowed, wrinkling his forehead in the way of greeting.
“I will be happy to learn.” I spoke as if the matter had no importance to me, deflecting me neither left or right. Simple girl that I was, I thought I would just continue as I was told, much like a guinea fowl following the other hens. “What will I learn?”
Kuru withdrew a book from the sack he was holding. It was an enormous book, almost the size of a winnowing stone. “You will learn the language of English from Mr. Caldron.” He tapped the book. “And you will learn from this.” He stood to emphasize the importance of the task. “Whites pray into this book. They don’t believe in river gods or spirits of the grasslands, or immortal hyenas or talking vultures. They have their gods and spirits inside this book. Understand the book and you will understand the whites we trade with. That will help Mr. Diop in his enterprises.”
I took the book from his hands with some trepidation. It was very heavy, and I needed both hands to keep it steady. When I opened it, the first page that appeared showed a drawing of three men standing in a pit of flames. They had their hands clasped together and were making no attempt to run away. How strange that was to my young eyes! Even a tortoise knows to run from fire.
Kuru was not finished with me. From the satchel in his hands he withdrew garments and fabrics of different sizes and colors. There were cool cotton dresses, elaborate silken scarves, and soft linen blouses, all marvelous in their pattern and feel, and in so many colors that they made me dizzy. “These are for you. Mr. Diop is happy with you, his new wife, and offers these gifts as a token.”
My heart at first soared like a crane, but quickly I felt troubled. Why did not my husband give me these presents himself? How was it that he could be happy with me when we had not seen each other in so very long? I remember Mr. Caldron smiling at me, as if I had accomplished something wonderful, but I had done nothing but what I had been told to do.
So time, in the way of years, went on. I wore my pretty clothes as I pleased, and received new ones more often than I could have wished. Rifa served my every need. Leopoldo, for that is what Mr. Caldron insisted that I call him, met me almost every day in the morning and evening, teaching me words and phrases from the big book, and instructing me to speak them properly. From time to time he taught me little poems and simple songs, and made me learn the words for all the things of earth and sea and sky. And, he told me about his home far away near the river Temes, where his mother and brothers still lived, and how and when they prayed and ate, and feasted, danced, and fasted. He was actually from two different places, he said, and now lived in a third, and he explained how someone could be a mix of many origins. I remember wondering whether I might have different origins one day.
In the coming years I saw my husband only once, very briefly. He did not touch me or speak to me, he merely smiled at me with lips so yellow and creased and crinkled that they reminded me of dried jackfruit. I wanted so much to like my husband, but his appearance frightened me. He came to me during my study time, observed a few minutes, and had me stand to face him. Then he left without another word, evaporating like morning dew fleeing springtime grass at the first lick of sunshine.
There were no other actors in my little play. Dunudu, Magamba and Gaman were never seen and never mentioned again, disappeared like shadows immersed in darkness. From my mother, I received no word, not ever.
Kuru, though, came every day. Sometimes he would join me for ogi in the morning, or samosa in the evening. Sometimes he merely sat and watched me as I read with Leopoldo’s guidance. Occasionally, though, he came to sit with me in the cool of the garden when my studies were done, and stare at the clouds above in silence. When he did, I would stare also. I can remember that he liked to slip off his sandals and curl his toes on the grass below our feet, and by doing so myself I could feel and share in his pleasure. Without any thought about it, my heart told me everything I wanted to know about Kuru. Nothing was ever said between us, but I came to believe he shared the tug of ardor that grew within me. As months and years passed, I began to wonder what the future might bring. After all, my husband was very old. Very old. One day a silent wind would blow his dust away back to his ancestors, leaving me alone. Kuru, though, was tall and straight as a quiver tree, and with hair that rivaled club moss, it was so dense and thick. And, I was untouched by the hand of any man. So, why shouldn’t I dream my dreams?
One day came when Kuru did not also come. I waited that day, then two days, and finally my distress could control itself no further. I asked Leopoldo about Kuru as cleverly as I could, but I was yet unschooled in the art of connivance, and he promptly gave me a look that pierced any pretense. He explained with a sympathetic smile that Kuru was away and would be away for months to come, on a trading expedition for the House of Diop.
I bit my tongue at hearing this news, and kept my lips pressed firmly in a straight line, but my spirit crashed. For the first time in my life, I experienced profound sadness and was so afflicted by melancholy that it colored my every thought and action. My studies became indifferent to me, prompting many scoldings from Leopoldo.
So, you can imagine my happiness when Kuru appeared in our courtyard one morning, bursting into view as if materializing out of wind and cloud. He brought me a wide straw bonnet as a gift, handing it to me with a pure smile. I wore it immediately, not as a guard from the sun, but because I was afraid he would see the tears in my eyes. Once again, we resumed the routine of our daily visits. In the coming years, though, Kuru was to leave again without warning twice more, for months at a time, leaving me despondent until his return.
The days and months passed unevenly, sometimes in a blink, and at other times in long, drawn out lapses of wearisome tedium and routine. Leopoldo did his best to keep me engaged in my studies, and I learned very quickly under his tutelage. At first, I was simply happy to master the language of what I called the Big Book. The words began to make sense to me, and before long I could conjure up images of the characters and places I was reading about. As I learned more and more, though, I came to realize how preposterous some of the stories appeared. Why would a just man lose everything at the whim of a god? Why would a god demand the murder of an only son? And why under heaven would there be only one god? What about Anansi and Osebo and all the other spirits I had grown up with? Why were they not in the Book?
Leopoldo was very passionate about this point, and stern, and insisted that I must stop my belief in such fanciful creatures. He made a special effort to teach me the word “expunge”, which I found very difficult to pronounce properly. He instructed me to expunge all that I had learned about the forests and rivers and mountains and all those who were funny and clever and powerful and wise who lived there. I should expunge all that, he said, and that would make me new. How odd to think I should hollow myself out to begin all over. If I were emptied out as he wished, was there any certainty that I would ever be filled again? I did not argue aloud, but inside I resisted. I did not want Leopoldo and his inventions to occupy the whole of my spirit. Just a portion, perhaps, and even that part I might want to take back one day.
Still, the stories I read stuck to me like glue. No, wait...Stuck like thick honey, because some of the tales were sweet, and somehow attracted new ideas and thoughts as thickly as a swarm of flies. So, I remained engrossed in the Big Book while the sun and stars and skies tramped their courses back and forth, over and over, unchanging through the heat of summer and the rain of winter. But there was change. I was the one changing and didn’t realize it. I was the moon, shifting shapes through its heavenly phases, and I was the sun, steering high and low across barriers of cloud and rain. At some point, at some hour or some moment, and without understanding it, I became transformed into something more than anything I had ever been.
One morning, we had a great storm that came unexpected and without invitation, as it was the dry season. I didn’t mind the tumult, though, and happily breathed in the howling as the wind and the sky turned to stony gray, remaining that way all through the day. Night followed day, and thunder followed night, marching in lockstep with the darkness. The clash of clouds above and the ferocity of rain reminded me of the great flood story I had studied in the Big Book, when all the people of the world had once drowned in a great storm, all except for a favored few. The god living in the Big Book was impervious to feelings of guilt and remorse, I thought, and might be doing the same thing again. Was the world of people about to be expunged and everything made new?
It was a strange feeling that filled me at that moment. Actually, not one feeling. It was more than that, more like having a host of feelings all at the same time, as if they were gathered around a feasting table, some whispering, or talking, or shouting, and some silent, but all craving to be fed. I was anxious, yes, but welcoming somehow. My years were still young, but my childhood had already soured, like a curd of milk turned rancid. For some time, thoughts had been coming to me that were different from before. Restlessness had invaded me, doubt separated me, and new, unaccustomed urges rapped at the edges of my mind. More than anything, anger had discovered me, tripping over me as it wandered the world in search of new and eager acolytes. I felt an urge to leave the safety of my prison and the boundaries of my feigned, unsubstantial marriage and move on, into the night if necessary. In that instant, I realized that I was no longer who I had once been. Changed forever, but like a clay pot still spinning on the turn-wheel I was not yet fully formed.
Feeling the urge to flee, I ran to the great door at the garden entrance and flung it open as hard as I could. The rain pelted and the wind pummeled but I cared not. The blackness beckoned, calling me out into the soaking moil and din, step by step. I somehow felt I was being judged and weighed by sky and earth, and that the storm would decide my worth and guide me to my proper place in the darkness. Looking back, I think the angels were walking right behind me at that very moment.
As my feet moved blindly, a voice came to me, calling my name. I thought for a moment it was the god of the Big Book, coming at last to explain the flashes of lightning, and the torrent of rain, and the turning of the days, and the meaning of loneliness and desire and every other possible thing that remained unknown. But it wasn’t the god. It was Kuru, stepping out of the doorway into the rain and reaching out his arms.
I ran to him, and as he embraced me I felt as if released from bondage. I was free, completely, and could spill out all that was trapped inside me. We stood as one, clasped tightly together in the eye of the drenching storm, and did not move or speak for an eternity. As if in a dream he led me to the shelter of the baobab tree. We leaned against it, arms locked and beheld the majesty of the tempest engulfing us. My spirit soared up through the swaying tangle of groaning leaves and boughs and I felt my soul nestle like a new-hatched dove among the tossing branches above. In that hour, the whirlwind had become paradise.
I must have whimpered, because Kuru spoke to me. “Are you afraid of the dark?”
“No,” I answered. “There is no darkness where there is love.” It sounds today like a simple-minded thing, a saying that I learned as a child, but I was so young and desire was so strong within me that I spoke as if reciting holy verses.
“You are the wife of Mr. Diop. There can be nothing for us.”
“There is already something for us. It can only grow. In your heart you know it to be true.”
He was silent for a long time, squeezing me to himself as if I were a precious cargo. All around us the wind screamed and sheets of rain poured down from a giant cauldron high in the heavens, but we were safe under the branching arbor of our guardian tree. When he spoke again it was in a whisper. “No. In a few days I will be leaving.”
“What do you mean? Leaving for where?” I must have pushed him away, because the damp cold enveloped me immediately.
“On a trading operation far away. I will be gone for months. Mr. Diop commands it.”
I don’t believe in indelible fate, and I know a vine can twist in many different directions as it seeks the sun. But I do believe that something pushes or pulls us down one path or another, one particular road out of many, and that it can’t possibly be our own doing alone. There are spirits that prod and tug us towards the light, and I sensed their touch at that moment.
“Then I am going with you!” It was my heart that cried out, but my mind was already churning furiously, as if the storm had somehow engulfed me, energizing me with its power. “I will arrange a meeting with my husband tomorrow.”
“No!” His voice was a shriek, a brittle, almost metallic blare that overcame the maelstrom surrounding us. “You must not! In any case, he will not meet with you, little one.”
“Yes he will. I will tell him I am ready to help the House of Diop make money in dealing with the whites. I will speak to him in English.”
“You must not do such a thing. Believe me when I tell you it could lead to no good.” I felt him clutch my shoulders fiercely, but only for a moment, and then he embraced me tightly once again.
As I clung to Kuru’s arms I felt the thrill of wind and welter deep within my heart, and I was certain we would never part again. I hardly noticed that he began shaking with deep sobs, and mistook the tears coursing down his cheeks for raindrops falling like silver pendants from heaven above. All would be well, I thought. I would seek out my husband in the morning, and he would not deny my wish. Wherever Kuru was to go, so I would also go.
Of course, I don’t know for sure why my husband agreed to see me, but I think he was curious to hear me speak, more than anything, and to judge the progress of Leopoldo’s teaching. It had been over five years of daily study, after all. I was fresh and eager when I came into his presence the next day. He seemed tired and remote. Since I had last seen him his eyes had become dark yellow and his skin almost corrugated, lined with the deepest of furrows. Time had confiscated all signs of youth as a tax on the excess of his years. His head and shoulders were buried under an enormous dusky shawl, and his legs were curled tightly under him on his seat, as if captured in stone. I held my breath for a moment, thinking he might flick his tongue out like a Mwanza lizard seeking morning prey. He twirled his finger a few times, indicating I should turn for him. As I did, he smiled without showing teeth.
“My wife, you have grown.” His words were steady, but I realized that he spoke his English poorly. Leopoldo would never approve of his diction.
“Yes, and it has come time for me to help my husband and the House of Diop. I am ready. Send me as a trading envoy with Kuru.”
He gestured with his hand to come close, and then he touched me on my leg, very high. Nothing I can tell you can describe the panic and revulsion that I felt at that moment, but he did nothing further and withdrew his fingers with a tremor. “I should keep you here and enjoy you as my wife. I can take a certain remedy, a potion that will restore my old urges and powers. You would make me young again.”
The floor creaked behind me. A presence was there I am sure, an angel, pushing me forward a step. I realized suddenly that I towered over Diop, and that he was no more than a feeble, dying soul wrapped in a dried out residue of worn and faded skin. “Husband, you can be with any woman that you want, and whenever it pleases you. But as for me, you have trained me for this great task from the day we wed. Would it not be a terrible waste not to use me? And also...” Here I paused to heighten the moment, and donned my most alluring smile. “I am young. I can use my charms to advantage with the whites in order to advance your interests.”
In seconds, his cheeks flushed a dull red, and chameleon-like his face blended into the folds of thick knitting that cowled around his head, his features receding from view like a ghost leaving this world without a sound. He nodded, and with a low sigh waved me away. I had won.
In three days, I fled my cocoon. We left by ship, a squat looking tug this time, with two tall funnels that spewed smoke and soot so black and thick that the afterdeck became coated with a tarry, sticky veneer. I was alone, without Rifa, and allowed only a few items stuffed into a small leather bag which I tied to the end of a sturdy stick. And also, I brought the Big Book, packed into a knapsack. Leopoldo insisted that I bring it and continue my studies, and Kuru agreed.
During the voyage Kuru avoided me completely. I understood that it was best to leave a space between us, but that only made my longing for him grow greater by the day, as if to fill that space. Yes, my heart soared with softly beating wings and my mind filled with intimate thoughts and imaginings, especially at night. You see, I was in a state of desperate, desperate love, and felt I would take any chance to be with Kuru.
For two days the boat hugged the coastline, like a crab crawling slowly but deliberately, until one afternoon we entered a vast, green tinted estuary, calm as a pond, with barely any movement on its surface. At first, cautiously, we navigated along and around oval-shored islets of bush willow and mangrove sprouting out of the water in random riot, creating a hundred narrow river channels that veered left and right in no particular order. Surrounding us on all sides was our boundary; a towering, somber, endless vista of jungle. A dozen miles or more along, and the river assumed a more ordinary appearance, with discernible shores to the left and right, lined by fortress walls of angular limba and towering kapok trees. This was the river Congo, I was told, the great vein feeding the trade routes that enriched the House of Diop.
The next day we arrived at our destination, the town of Matadi. What a strange place! The town itself sprawled along angular hills that heaved up from the river’s edge in a most unnatural way, as if a long-ago leviathan had risen out of the water and cast mammoth boulders to left and right. The ramshackle piers that jutted from the shoreline were infested by boats of all sizes and shapes, of steel, of wood, of reed, flashing colors of blazing reds, or blues, or yellows. Crawling like beetles along the docks were stevedores and laborers sweating under loads twice their size, carrying sacks, sheaves, crates, bales and timbers of every length. Piles of hidden goods wreathed in burlap were heaped here and there, forgotten in the din of activity. There was a continuous hubbub of shouts and curses, harsh-sharp notes rising above the background buzzing of human voices. It would take a great poet to describe the organized frenzy and chaotic hustle erupting there, a volcano of energy where jungle met river.
Kuru came to me as we disembarked. I remember his eyes, flitting left and right with the movement of dark brown moths seeking light. He would not look directly at me and made a point of staying at arm’s length. “Little one, I beg you,” he said, speaking as if afraid to be heard. “Get back on the boat and go home, where you belong. I can arrange it for you now, but once we leave this place there will be no going back, and there will be no guarantee of safety.”
I responded proudly, with chin up and neck stiffened, just as my mother had taught me. “I am not afraid, and I will not leave your side, even if you cast yourself to the four winds. My only safety is with you.”
I moved my hand to touch his arm, but he shrugged it away. For the merest instant he looked into my eyes, and I could see with certainty that he loved me just as I loved him. Yes, yes, yes, I could feel it though he would not say so. I knew it to be so, and remained calm within myself.
A man met us shortly after. He was loitering near the train station as we approached, oblivious of the to and fro flowing around him. He was of a foul appearing middle age, wearing a ragged, dirty white agbada made of dusty, threadbare linen. He had some kind of malodorous, weeping skin condition over his face and arms and where his chest was bared. Four meticulously straight and equal scars, one above the other in neat parallel rows, marked his left cheek. All in all he looked and smelled like a mangy dog, reminding me of the wild men described in the Big Book; men who lived in the mountains, or in the jungle, surviving on roots and honey, men of wind and dust who cared nothing about bodily existence.
Kuru waved at him and beckoned with confident intimacy, calling him Patrice, and the man joined our circle. That made us three, to my dismay. How I wished it would be only me and Kuru, just we two.
Shortly, we boarded a train. Kuru spoke to me quickly, tersely, telling me we had an overnight trip to our destination. Like the tug, the train plumed smoke, black as night, back along its length, so much like a charmed boa that followed wherever the train would lead. Our wagon was almost empty, but Kuru had me sit next to Patrice while he sat a few rows behind. I could not understand why he did so, leaving me both confused and angry. The smell coming from Patrice was a nauseating mixture of deep, dried sweat and rotting fruit. How different his asphyxiating odor from the gentle aroma of citron surrounding Kuru. I leaned away from him as much as possible, afraid to come in contact with him and contract whatever horrid condition was devouring his skin.
It was not long before he spoke to me, or tried to. He talked rapidly in a language I did not know. I could tell that he then tried another tongue, again one I did not understand. Finally, he said a few words in miserable English.
“My name Patrice. Yours?”
“Right now I don’t have one. I am between names.”
He gave a gruesome, crooked smile, and a gurgle from low in his chest. “That is good. Then I just call you girl. You are girl, no? Or between?” He waited for the angry flash of my eyes, then laughed louder, nodding to himself as if a great truth had been revealed.
We fell into silence. I expected him to ask me about myself, and why I was there, and on and on...but he did not, and I had no intention of speaking to him about anything at all. I remained sequestered within myself, and slowly I was overcome by the train’s sway and squeal and shimmy and shake as we traveled into the curve of night. In fits and spurts I felt anxiety about Kuru’s aloof demeanor, but that did not stop me from drifting into a deep sleep, dreamless and fearless.
When I woke, the sun’s rays were already groping over the mantle of thick forest lining the tracks on either side. Patrice was hunched over, absorbed with something he held tightly in his lap, hidden beneath the spread of his hands. I pretended to yawn and glanced as quickly as I dared. He was holding a pencil to a scrap of paper, immobile and lost in thought. I could not hold back my tongue, perhaps because I was still half in sleep.
“You are writing?”
“Trying...” He did not look up but after a moment he bent down even more rigidly. “Oh, I understand...Yes, I write.”
I felt no shame, though I should have, only perplexity. My own writing was rudimentary despite my years of study. “How?”
He grunted out a mocking laugh. “With pencil.” He must have seen the desired effect on my face. “The whites teach me. In their school, as a boy, as a young man. Want to make me a priest. A priest to the Africans.”
I knew what priests were, there were quite a few in the land I came from. They disgorged into the countryside like locusts every spring, invading one village after the other. “But you’re not one? Are you?”
Now he gave a genuine laugh, loud and uncaring, shaking his head and arms as if he were a puppet suddenly come to life. I swear my eyes saw dust and dirt flying out from his hair. “No! First they teach me to write, then throw me out when they see what I write. Not what they like. Throw me out and tell me to leave my country. But look, I’m here still. Here I be.” He began to speak in a gibberish singsong, nodding his head with great satisfaction, left and right, back and forth:
“Here I be,
Still here, you see,
Here I be,
I be here, you see,
And one day they won’t any longer be.”
The man was so peculiar and his words so jarring, I forgot about his smell and skin, and leaned closer. I wanted to know more about him. “Where are you from?”
“From the train station, don’t you remember?”
Thoughtlessly, I grabbed his wrist. “No! Tell me! Who are your people?”
He shook himself free and again lowered his head towards the rectangle of paper in his lap. “Right now I don’t have any. I am between people.”
Just then the train began to quiver and jerk. Piercing shrieks and screaming steam accompanied the long, loud whine of a whistle. Kuru came out of his seat and moved towards us, waving us to disembark as the train dragged itself slowly along a long dun colored platform.
Patrice sprang up and clapped his hands. “Arrive at last. Leopolvie.” He gave me such a wicked grin as he clapped, his head bobbing as if it had become unscrewed from his neck. “Now the fun begins. Here we meet my porters. Eight. Picked myself, strong and willing, fifty franc apiece. Here we have our cargo ready. And here we take the river, take it to Monopo. Three weeks with luck. And there we will meet the great Towusu, and there we trade for ivory and pangolin scales, and with luck some gold.”
“And what do we bring to trade?”
“You don’t know?”
“Tell me.”
He laughed again, a contrived, irksome laugh, and his throat jounced up and down as if words were drowning there by the dozen, unable to escape. “Well, then,” he said. “Maybe you. Maybe you are the goods we bring to trade.”
In a few moments Kuru joined us, clearly irritated. He motioned me to move along but I stood my ground and found my voice. “Kuru, what cargo are we bringing to Monopo?”
“Stop!” Jona’s voice erupted into the darkness. “I know what it is. I can tell by the way you’re building up to this. The old man was a crook, and his whole operation was criminal, some kind of a syndicate maybe. They were trafficking in guns, or booze, opium, little girls, or whatever.”
Alithea’s face contorted into a frown, her mouth dragged downwards by a great, immeasurable weight. “No, not illegal, but yes, criminal. We were transporting men and boys as our merchandise. Special men and boys. Kuru explained it to me. Workers at the rubber tree plantations were punished by the whites if they didn’t meet their quotas. The penalty was cutting off a hand or even an arm, usually the right one, as a warning to others. Sometimes many men in a village suffered so, hundreds of them every year. The men were unable to care for their families, and the families too poor to care for them. Many agreed to be purchased by Diop so their wives and children and parents could survive with the money paid. Diop in turn arranged to sell them where their value was greatest.”
“You mean as workers?”
“If you prefer.”
Jona rubbed his palm violently over his forehead, attempting to suppress the headache that began to flame. “But it doesn’t make sense. They were crippled.”
“Do your sums. Two men equals two arms. Diop would buy four for the price of one and sell three for the price of one. Or the bargain might be two men and a boy for full price. Lucrative, don’t you think?”
“No. No, no, no. The bastards.”
“Who? The men who bought and sold or the men who cut off limbs?” Alithea raised her wrist and shook her bracelet gently. The gemstone shot a stab of lustrous blue light as it trembled, unveiling itself for just a moment in the sullen gray of surrounding murk. “Who would you say, Jona? All? None? The whites who performed the monstrous deed? The villagers who took the money? Maybe you want to blame the men themselves, the ones I saw walking meekly to the boats as we embarked downriver, without a whimper or complaint?”
“Save the philosophic bullshit. I know what, how about we blame God?”
Unexpectedly, Alithea reached out a forefinger and touched Jona’s cheek very briefly; a quick rub, a swipe, as if taking a forensic sample for later analysis. Jona did not notice immediately. His mind, porous to every thought, had wandered to the earliest recollection of his father, and the latest memory of his mother, and the infinite moments in between, memories strung like a long strand of boxcars racing forward at a breakneck, imaginary speed while ordinary time struggled sluggishly just to reach the present moment. Eventually he swung his eyes in her direction. The room seemed even darker than before, but he could just make out the silhouette of her cheek, a bronze contour splitting the blackness into left and right, up and down, in and out, then and now.
“So what happened?”
Alithea did not hesitate, resuming her narrative as if she had never stopped, but speaking more crisply now.
“The expedition went underway as planned. The boats leaked, the flies were immense, and by the end the food was rotted. For me, the days were filled with terror of what might lie behind every bend in the river or submerged below every shallow narrows. When we tied up at night I could barely sleep because of the heat, and the insects, and the jungle noises...Every rustle and snap I imagined to be from the paw of a creature on the prowl, or the slither of a snake, or the crawl of a crocodile. But for me there was even worse. Kuru made a point of ignoring me whenever we had a chance to be near one another. We barely spoke during the journey, and never intimately. I was put in the third dugout boat, the last in line, while Kuru traveled in the first. I could see him, but not be near him, and this in turn drove me wild with fury and confusion. I did not doubt him, or so I told myself, but I was angry that he remained serenely alone while I struggled with the whirlwind within my heart.
There was one thing, though, that gave me uplift during the river passage, though this may strike you as odd. The first two canoes had small lateen sails that made their travel easier. The men in those boats could paddle and scull their way along with modest effort when the wind was right. My dugout was the largest, without a sail, and carried the men who were our cargo, about twenty souls. They manned oars and used punt poles to push us downstream. How, you ask? Two men would grasp a single pole with their left hands, and with a gentle rhythm propel us forward, yard by yard and mile by mile. There was a grace in this effort that touched me greatly. I saw something in each of them, something spiritual in their faces; there was longing, determination, anticipation and despair. They touched, embracing each other for support as they grasped their poles, lashed one man to the other by bonds of rope, but also of hope, and of destiny. There was elegance in their movements, but there was hatred, too, within their eyes. For them, any future was better than the hell they had already endured. I tried speaking with them, but our tongues were strange to one another, and the men did not seem eager to talk with me. It took some time to realize that they saw me as one of their oppressors, at one with Kuru and Patrice and the others who were hauling them down river to be sold to strangers. They were bound and I was free, and the chasm between us could not be closed. Some words from the Big Book came to me one day, overpowering me, admonishing me that whoever hides their eyes from those in need will be cursed. I felt shame that I could do nothing to help them. I also felt it strange that those words had the power to touch me so deeply. They were only words, after all, and from a place so foreign to me.
Mopondo looked much like all the other riverside settlements we had passed, with one exception. A flat field had been carved out of the jungle, creating an enormous campsite adjacent to the village. Our trading partners were already there and waiting for us, along with curious children, dogs, and chickens scampering about. Kuru was the first off the boats, calling out and waving at the strangers assembled at the water’s edge. As we gathered our packs to offload, Patrice sauntered up, his feet splashing loudly in the shallow water, his head bobbing as if unconnected to his neck.
“Here at last! Now we make exchange, and soon many francs will fill our pockets!”
I felt great bitterness hearing these words just as our prisoners were being herded onto shore, each man tied by the waist to the one ahead and the one behind. “Money means quite a bit to you, doesn’t it. More than the lives of these people.” I did not try to hide my disgust for the man.
Without hesitation, he grabbed me by the elbow and squeezed tightly with shocking strength. He stood rock still, his mouth straight and eyes half closed while the scars on his cheek burned an angry red. In a moment he had transformed from a clownish lout into a monster to be feared. When he spoke it was in a low, intense hiss that raised the hairs on the nape of my neck. “These men are already dead. Dead to the world and for most of them, dead to themselves. They can be sacrificed. But see, others still live today, and more will be born into this life tomorrow. Make money now, and use it. Do what is needed to change everything. Use the same lessons the whites are teaching us against them. One day, all this will be over.”
I understood what he meant. I had heard similar sentiments in the past, from others in my own village. But the men I had traveled with for so many days did not look dead to me. They were lean and scarred, but they laughed and cried and sang the songs of their homeland, both happy and sad. They each had a spirit, and their spirits deserved to live within their bodies as freely as mine lived within me. I nodded to Patrice and he promptly broke out with a crooked grin again, and his head resumed its rhythmic waggle back and forth.
I sought out Kuru in the meeting-field and touched his shoulder. I will never forget the look he gave me, the look of a dying animal in its last throes. He spoke to me as if he were a ghost. “Go back to the boats and stay there. Keep away, I don’t want to see you near me again. Whatever you imagined before was the silliness of a child. We have nothing between us.”
My body had traveled many miles to reach that place, but my mind and heart had not budged one inch so far, still trapped within the imaginary web of love I had spun for myself. In that instant, though, I had a glimpse of my future, just a glimmer. Learning the truth, the real truth, does not come as a sudden ascension to understanding. It’s a winding staircase, really, taken step by step. Once I took that first step, I could not stop. I have still not stopped.
The next day a large crowd gathered at the field, including the one they called Towusu, a giant with thin, bleached white bones piercing through his ears and nose, who strutted about very grandly together with his retinue. The men we had brought with us were lined up, still harnessed together, and Towusu marched back and forth before them several times, inspecting them I suppose, speaking loudly and gesturing with great bombast.
At first I stayed with the boats, watching from a distance. When I saw Kuru and Towusu recline under the shade of a sloping fever tree, legs crossed and canes in hand, I knew the bartering had started, and without any thought at all I made the most fateful decision of my life. With fear and trembling, but with the faith that I was somehow doing what was meant for me to do, I approached them. Did the angels of my inner nature propel me forward? Was I yanked and pulled by my own future, reeled in by a power greater than myself? Or was my act foreordained long ago, determined when all the stars were still mewling infants feeding at God’s feet? Know that answer and you know the mystery of life itself. As for me, I believe I felt the gust of hot breath at my back, and heard the rustle of unseen messengers guiding me on.
The two men were so wrapped up with themselves that they did not see me until I was upon them. As I came close Kuru jumped to his feet, his eyes and arms frantic. “Go back to the boats!” His voice gurgled, as if his life-blood was draining from his body.
I ignored his command, striding up to both men purposefully. “No!” I shouted with all my strength. “I go where they go!” I pointed to the line of men drooping in the heat.
At first, Kuru could say nothing. His jaw and mouth twisted in every which way, but no words came out. When he did speak, it made my decision even stronger. “You are a foolish girl. Leave us and get back where you belong.”
“I have fifteen summers within my breast, the courage of my people within my soul and the knowledge of the whites within my head. I am neither foolish nor a girl.” I paused, enjoying the glory of the moment, then I pointed at the bound and mutilated men. “I am tied to them as tightly as they are tied to each other. Wherever the four winds may blow them, that is where I too will go!” I sought out Kuru’s eyes as I said those words, hoping to remind him of the last glance of love we shared at Matadi. All I could see now was a look of rage.
He gestured at Patrice. “Take her back to the boats and rope her down like a pig if necessary. I don’t want to see her face again until we leave.”
“Hold!” That single word crashed upon us, louder than the thunder of a djembe drum. It was Towusu, the great Towusu, pointing a finger straight at me and planting his cane into the earth as if claiming a continent. “I will take her, too, with the others.”
Have you ever felt the earth and sky go still? They say that happens as you die, that everything just stops and God’s time means nothing, nothing ever more. So, everything became frozen for that moment, an intimate portrait of fear and jubilation. I don’t recall whether Kuru shouted or whispered when he said “No.”
Towusu shook his stick furiously. “The House of Diop has become great standing upon my shoulders. I have helped you all these years and have never said no to you. You will not say no to me now.”
Kuru bowed his head in supplication. “But this is the master’s wife...”
“There are no wives here, no attachments.” Towusu clapped Kuru on the shoulder with a huge sweep of his hand. “And no jealousy. Only goods are here, meant to be traded. That is the secret to our success. Diop himself has preached that lesson. Anyway, she’s not the first wife to come down the river, is she. Why is this one any different?”
So, once again, my life slanted in a different direction. There were no regrets as Towusu led me away, and to this day I regret nothing that transpired after. The memory of Kuru left a stain of sorrow in my heart, but over time that faded under the influence of sun and stars, rain and wind, and the heartache that was to follow.
A prince of his people, Towusu ruled from his seat of power at Stone City. It was apparent that he was greatly loved there, judging from the outpouring of adulation and celebration as we entered the city of winding streets and white plastered houses. This did not surprise me; how can any man be called great if he is not beloved? What did surprise me was the crumbling home he called his palace. It was an ancient fortress, squatting along a crown of hill overlooking the ocean beyond. It was spare, but it became my home as surely as it was his.
Towusu was a fair man who had allowed his boyhood to tag playfully along even as he progressed in years. He was neither husband nor lover, but he did come to me sporadically, I suppose as his mood suited. There were already many children in the palace, and in good time one of mine was added to their number. My child first came to me in my dreams, long before his small body came into my arms, beckoned by a song sung in my soul. I think that song was within me before I myself came into this world. By the time I kissed his birth face, I knew him and he knew me. I named him Oju, because he gave me a second sight into the mysteries of this world. Through his sight I saw everything anew, including myself.
In a way, life for me had settled, just as stagnant water might settle and slowly turn earth into mud, then slowly revert to earth again. There were no more tempests, no more adventures, and no more longings. Oju’s smile became the landscape of my happiness, and I was content to merge my world with his.
I continued reading from the Big Book, and in not too long I was teaching all of Towusu’s children from the book as well. From time to time the Prince also came to settle himself on the cushions spread among his children, and would ask questions about the stories that I read. One day he asked me whether I believed in the words I was reading, and whether he in turn should believe them. I had never been asked that question before. My cheeks flushed crimson, and my forehead smoldered suddenly as if a burning branch had been pressed upon it. I could not answer, but he did not mock me for it.
Time remained motionless until, one day, whites arrived at the shores of Stone City. They appeared as out of a troubled dream, emerging out of the morning fog, their enormous metal ships materializing out of the ocean’s mists. Towusu called me to his side to speak his wishes to them in their own tongue. I did, telling them they could depart in peace if they left quickly, and in turn they spoke their wishes to me. One of them huffed and puffed importantly, proclaiming that he was the representative of his great King, the King of Empire, who extended cordial good wishes to his brother king. However, he was quick to explain that all good wishes would evaporate if the whites were not allowed to build a naval base along Stone City’s sandy cove. Towusu’s guards, armed with the most modern guns and brandishing their ancient Kaskara swords, encouraged them to flee back to their ships. Alas, however, the ships did not leave. They hovered on the horizon like a line of Philistines arrayed for battle, dreadful and ominous.
Three days later the great illness began, coming as a voracious beggar might come, pleading to be fed. Where it came from no one knew, though many wondered if it had been decreed by the King of Empire. Much later I learned it was called cholera, but at the time we spoke of it as the emptying sickness. It flared like ground fire through the city and into the countryside beyond, taking old and young, taking so many and so quickly that it erased the very meaning of life. The land became a graveyard, haunted by the howls of hungry dogs at night. Looking back, I can close my eyes and imagine that all of us were herded into a long, serpentine line, marching in single file past the Goddess of Cholera. As we passed, silent worshippers at her feet, she touched some on the forehead and smiled benevolently at others, as it suited her.
Oju was touched in the first week, and succumbed quickly. As his spirit arose out of his body, I saw through his eyes, the eyes of an infant. There was no sadness to be seen and no remorse, only happy images of life in all its beauty. For Oju, that was enough.
O brother! Can words speak? Can they tell a story, or bring us love, or glory? Can they make the heavens flash in rage or sound the cymbal’s clash of joy? Can words bring back my little boy? I sought out words that might restore death back into life, words that would change the world and blot out every curse that could be hurled by either god or man. I thought that I could find Oju by fleeing from the common herd. Day and night, I studied the Big Book furiously, page by page, agonizing over every word. I found some consolation there, and comfort, but not peace.
The Goddess touched me in the third week. At first there was great pain and violence within my body. Soon though, very soon, all became strangely serene and I lapsed into a mute oblivion, lost within my own depths. At a given hour I found myself treading towards the entrance to a vast valley, silent and verdant. It spoke to me somehow, drawing me forward, entreating me to come in, promising me peace and understanding. I took some steps, small ones only, but then I heard my name whispered. I opened my eyes to the sound.
There was blue. Intense blue, the kind of indigo blue that can be seen from a high mountaintop on a pure clear day. I heard my name once again, then fell back to blackness. When I awakened the same eyes of blue drifted into my vision, and yet again when I came awake once more. Time staggered backwards to raise me up, the spark of life blew into me with a gasp, and my name was uttered over and over by unseen lips that hovered nearby. Were they the angels of my spirit? When finally I gained my senses I found myself looking into the face of my father.
Of course, at first neither of us knew it to be so. I was on a bed, defenseless, in a room with many others. Some were silent, some shook in spasms, while others cried out for release. The foul smell and the explosive noise and filth of unending evacuations was enough to drive me to the edge of hysteria, but my most overwhelming sensation was one of desperate thirst. One of the household women serving as a nurse gave me a salty drink I was told to sip slowly, but continuously.
By the next day I was moved out to the courtyard, where the summer breezes spiraling up from the bay soothed my brows with their cooling touch. Understand, please, that the story I am reciting might have ended right there. There were at least a dozen others convalescing and I was not in any special place of prominence. But, as the daylight began to falter, father came out of the sick ward and walked straight to my bedside, uncannily. I know he was pushed to where I lay by an unseen hand. I remember him well, as he appeared that evening. He was very tall, lanky, gray at the temples and thinly burnt in the face, with eyes of sapphire that penetrated right to my heart. When he spoke, I thought I could feel his words vibrating somewhere inside me.
“I’m told you’re the one reading the Scripture book.”
“The Big Book, yes.”
He smiled at me and patted my arm. “Why bother? None of it is real, you know.”
I surprised myself with my answer. “You’re wrong. Even if the stories are false, the words are very real, and come to me with their own truth.”
Father has a certain mannerism. I have noticed it many times and you must have, too. When challenged, his face becomes a cliff; sheer, impassive, a chalk board blank to any words. In a moment or two anything might be written and drawn there, but for a brief spell there is nothing. I have often thought that in those moments he frantically recreates the sky and earth, the stars, and all the moving parts of the universe in order to justify whatever he is about to say next. Or, maybe, he might quickly reassemble the earthly past, all the sod, the soil and sand, the spreading vines and bushes, so that all the collected parts together created a luxuriant garden where truth would grow. His truth. The only truth.
After not very long his face softened and he said the most curious thing. “Do the words come to find you, or do you go to find them?” I barely understood what he meant, and I could not answer. So curious a question to ask...a question I have been grappling with ever since, still with no answer.
When he saw I couldn’t respond he placed his hand on my wrist, turning it to expose my bracelet, the one you see right now. “You are a dangerous person.”
“How so?”
“Because you’re interested in truth. What is and what isn’t. People like you have caused great grief in the past. Believe me, I know.”
We talked then and did not stop until the stars spewed out from their heavenly bucket, cascading across the night sky in a brilliant gush. He asked me about myself, and how I had come to be there, and where I was from, my age, the name of my village, and my mother’s name. I told him my story just as I am telling you now. Finally, with a purr like that of a narrow runlet draining into a shrouded lake, he asked me what I knew of my father. I hardly had to answer.
So, there you have it, brother. Father told me he had been on his way to a place called Rajastan to study at the temple of the Goddess of Cholera, but had learned of the outbreak in Stone City. He was up the coast, not too far away, when a messenger, a man with one arm, was brought into his presence to report the sickness. Father decided in an instant that he could help. He calculated that when the epidemic came under control, the King of Empire’s ships, still loitering on the horizon, would take him on. With the story told, he revealed his wonderment at how all had unfolded.
We did not embrace, not then, but he held my wrists under the starlight and told me there was a place where I could study the Big Book and help others who were crippled by the mighty arm of man. He told me that I could choose to take a hand in spreading truth or spreading love, a place where I could be servant or master, but not both. That place is here, brother.
That is my story. I wrestle with the meaning of myself every day, and interrogate the Big Book for answers. The words have revealed that we are placed here to love others, though we don’t always know how. The angels guide me back to love when hatred peers over the crests of the hilltops, or creeps through the underbrush in my direction. They steer me towards the sun, always towards the sun, and now I know that it is in sunlight that I will end my days. Father explained my mission to me when he brought me to this place. He told me that after so much wandering, I would find certainty in my life through the love of others, and that is what I have tried to do. And, he told me one more thing. He told me it was something he himself was unable to do.”
Alithea stopped, drew a breath, and turned her face towards Jona. Her eyes drew light somehow, two moons orbiting steadily within his sight, fixing him in place with steely beams, pinning him so that he could not move. “And now, brother, tell me your story. Everything.”
And Jona did, beginning from a childhood bereft of a father’s presence, born of a mother who lived only in his fantasy, seeking dreams that were long lost, drifting in a current of pain that had no name. As he spoke, he could hear the crows cawing outside his window as they fled into the dark, and felt release from the chains encasing him, and could see the stone cast from his hand. He felt free.
Chapter 35
Dawn was exhumed from the night, pale and frail, materializing out of the gloom as an insubstantial wraith. Like a babe learning to take steps, it stumbled haltingly over trees and hilltops, pausing briefly by the riverside before attempting to toddle further. Jona slouched against a creek maple at the water’s edge, watching, smoking, gauging the progress of light by the inch. When the first rays touched the pebbles by the water’s edge, he could almost hear the river ripple and shiver in response.
“Hey doc.”
Jona recognized Murphy’s voice. He took another drag, not bothering to turn around. “Early for you, isn’t it?”
“Couldn’t sleep too good. Too much dreamin’. What’cha lookin’ at?”
“The water. Why?”
“That’s what you was doin’ on the boat to England, remember? When we started out on this little gig. Dark then, sorta like now. You were thinking, too much probably, and you were scared. Didn’t know what was coming your way.”
Jona squeezed his eyes closed, remembering. “Yeah. I was scared.”
Murphy took a cigar out of an inner pocket and puffed up quickly, without any fanfare. The sky had turned to a mellow pallor, barely lighting the low lingering clouds that hovered above. There were no sounds. All was still.
“So. What’s next, doc? Where to?”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said. What’s next? The day is young and decked out all nice right now, peaceful and whatnot, but it won’t stay that way for long. I have a pretty good feelin’ that something pretty bad is gonna happen pretty soon. Firstly, looks like rain to me. Second, some folks are gonna come tooting down that same road we came on yesterday, looking for us. They won’t be in a pleasant mood.”
“You think so?” Jona pressed his forehead against the tree trunk, trying to drive every thought in his head deeper into his brain.
“Look, this Amelia person isn’t some random lady living in a shack down by the river. She told me this is a government layout, and she runs it. They know who she is, and where, and her connection to you-know-who, and can figure out she’s only four hours from where you were last seen. We don’t have much time. So. What’s next?”
“Where’s Andrews?”
“Still getting his beauty sleep. Good for the skin.”
“O.K. You tell me what you think we should do.”
“Three choices, doc. One, we wait polite and peaceful-like until the nice policemen come and we turn ourselves in. Two. It’s about 100 miles to the Kentucky line. We take off now and hope for the best. Deal with the border when we get there.”
“You said three choices. The third?” Jona didn’t try to hide the irritation in his voice.
“Well, well.” Murphy’s cigar flared to an incandescent blue-white, partially illuminating his mouth and chin. He patted the left side of his chest. “Got my 1911 right here. Andrews got his. Maybe grandma here has a goody she can let you use as well. We wait, and duke it out with the bad guys when they get here, try an ambush, then we take option two. Gives us a few hours of head start. Will really piss off the bad guys, though. You understand, give them a bad day.”
Jona shook his head wearily. “I’m sick of death.”
“Yeah, well death ain’t sick of you, pal. It’s looking for you, kinda wanting to meet up with you, maybe even today. What’s it gonna be?”
“We should talk to Andrews.”
“Still the same three choices.”
“What if we hide? They come and search but find nothing and go their way“
Murphy cocked his head back and whooped a full throated, sarcastic cackle. “Our car is out in the open, and so are the tire tracks. You ready to trust mama Amelia with your life? What about the other one, your so-called sis? And by the way, what’s the story with that wacko, your friend...Her name is Gwen? Any money says her name’s not really Gwen. She’s on the lam for sure. A lot of loose ends there, doc. We’ve gotta decide what to do. Hit the road, and quick. What’ll it be?”
“We are all seeking a road.” The words came unbidden to Jona’s lips, hoarse but audible. “We are all...” For just a moment he thought he could see Alithea standing before him, tall and straight, her face radiant in the light of the dawning sun.
We are all seeking a road. Those were her last words to him when they parted the night before. After their shared story-telling she had taken him by the hand and walked him down a narrow dirt lane lined by wild myrtle and willow.
“I want to show you something,” she had murmured. “We have a Common House where we meet in the evening. Come see it.”
The House was nothing more than a coarse, porous, propped up log structure that guaranteed cold drafts and cloying dampness. Jona took a deep, involuntary breath when he stepped inside. There were people in there, illuminated by kerosene lamps lining the walls. Men and women, some sitting on roughhewn benches, others standing, a few cross legged on the floor, some slapping their cheeks and foreheads with both hands in rapid repetition, two or three babbling aloud in gibberish, several staring vacantly into space. A repulsive smell hung in the air, an odor of body sweat mixed with foul breath.
Jona took a step backwards towards the door, but Alithea maintained a firm grasp of his hand. “These are my people, brother. Our father once said I could be either master or servant when I came into this domain. You recall, he said not both. My conscience guided me to choose which I should be, and it was not at all hard to decide. You see here the people I serve, the ones I have devoted my life to. Do not shame yourself by looking away.”
There was a rustle from the doorway as a man entered behind them. He was tall, and black, and all bones, and bowed deeply towards Alithea as he passed. He had only one arm.
“Hey!” Jona gasped, clutching Alithea’s hand in turn with a sudden ferocity. “Hey. Is that one of them? The men on the river?”
“Yes. Joseph. Father asked for him, from Towusu.”
“He was a gift? In gratitude for healing the sick?”
“No. His blood price was paid in full. Father came to love him and considered him like a son. You might say that he is almost like your brother. I was the gift. To Towusu, I was much the greater sacrifice, and worthy of being gifted.”
Neither one let go of the other, hands intertwined as strongly as living roots twisted tightly together. Jona wrinkled his brow as he stared at the gathering, trying to understand what he was seeing, squinting hard until everything appeared magnified manyfold. He saw and measured and registered with eyes that had already seen much of humankind’s debris. Cratered skin, wide spaced eyes, odd scalp whorls, sunken chins, stunted shoulders, deformed nostrils, protuberant bellies, sloped foreheads, vanished lips, divergent pupils, shrunken skulls; all, all appeared before his vision with vivid clarity. A faint tingle speared down his hip and leg. “What is this place? This whole place, all of it? Tell me.”
“This is where we live, brother, and walk and talk, and love, laugh and cry. Where we exist today and from where we will pass on tomorrow. Does there need to be more?”
Jona felt a bitter brash rise up into his throat, almost choking him. “This is the place. This is the 1909 place, isn’t it, where it all happened. 1909 is still alive, right here. All these people...” He raised his voice to a throaty shout, pointing at several of them one by one. “All-these-people-are-already-dead, victims of a monster.”
“They have both spirit and flesh. They are alive.”
“You have to listen to me. The people here were deliberately poisoned, contaminated by my father. Alright, by our father. Did you know about that?”
Alithea turned her head slightly towards Jona, so that the lamplight played across the texture of her cheeks and illuminated the brown depths of her eyes. “Yes, he confessed it to me.”
Jona shook his head, suddenly nauseated. He wanted to run outside to cleanse himself in the humid night air, but he could not break the bond their hands had forged one to the other. “I don’t understand how you can be so calm about it. It was evil. He was evil.”
“You are wrong. Good had not yet grown within him. It did, later. Think of him as infected, or deformed in some way, then healed.”
“Don’t make me laugh. Like he was blind and could not see? I’ve heard that one before. Shove it.”
“He was injured and could not feel. Eventually he did feel and yes, he did see, and good appeared within him.”
Jona felt his hand begin to tremor, but was quickly steadied by the strength of Alithea’s hold upon him. He sensed his voice weakening but managed a whispered snarl. “Yeah, well tell that to all of them. Go ahead, shout it! Hooray! Earnest Lieb is good now, at last! Isn’t that great! See if that makes up for everything they’ve suffered.”
“Brother, walk with me” Alithea clasped Jona’s left hand firmly with her left, and his right with her right, and side by side she guided him down the House’s center aisle, slowly and with cadence, as if walking down a wedding aisle. Along the way she spoke the name of every person they passed, and they in turn murmured her name in response. Mo. John. Lizzy. Deborah. She uttered the names as if offering a supplication. Steve. Ruth. Cass. There was a weight behind each name, a freight transported over vast distances. Mary. Sam. Each name a star, or a moon, or a planet, turning, turning, turning, each one turning to square its face towards the sun. Abe. Zach. Every name a flowering garland connecting to another name, and place, and time, a seamless ribbon that bedecked the past and future at the same time.
“Why are you doing this?” Jona felt that he was weightless, gliding through the air without wings while holding Alithea’s hands.
“All the people you see here have already acknowledged the wrong done to them. They know it was father.”
“And they’ve forgiven him?”
“Only a few, and are at peace with it. Some don’t really understand. Some would forgive if I instructed them to, but of course I would not do so. Some are not part of this world at all, have no care for it, and turn their face towards the day in their own special way. Some do bear memory, and ask for justice. You see, we’re no different from others. There is one thing that unifies us, brother. Love. That is ours. Love yesterday, and love today, and the promise of it tomorrow. We create love, for ourselves and for anyone who joins us. For us that is sufficient. In a way, the damage done to my people in the past has made it easier for them to understand they are cherished in the present.”
Jona bowed his head. “Love can be bought. Earnest Lieb purchased love, didn’t he? The great hero used his fame to acquire love. How the masses adored him!”
Alithea turned towards Jona, placing both palms upon his chest, her fingertips brushing against his shirt very gently, as if touching a sacred garment. “Brother, try to see the world anew, as if through the eyes of an infant. What would you wish to see? A smile? Adoring eyes? The brightness of life? Try to feel with the hands of a newborn. What would you wish to feel? Tenderness? Warmth? Understanding? No matter where you are in the course of your days on this earth, you can remake yourself. Father tried to.”
“Easy when you’re praised. He never paid the price for his sins.”
“You don’t know that. It’s true he wasn’t put behind iron bars to eat gruel and die, but sin exacts its own price, and can execute its own vengeance. His agonies eventually chased him far and wide, enduring many sufferings. Perhaps it was his pathway to penance. Have you ever sinned?”
The question struck Jona unexpectedly. He wanted to push himself away immediately and press against the log-timbered wall at his back but found himself unable to move. The bilious, noxious air hovering densely in the room made him feel sick; he sensed himself suffocating, compelled to breathe with deep gasps. The House began to spin around him, forcing him to close his eyes, and as he did he could see Elfieda’s blond hair swaying to and fro in a rhythmic flow, and feel the texture of Alex’s long leather coat, and...and...He tried to suppress the image, but Marielle appeared, floating supine on a nonexistent gurney, sightless, senseless, motionless, breastless, and...and...He heard a laugh, a low cracking cackle as if the ground below him was splitting in two. Alithea’s hands burned into his chest, seeming to bore their way into his heart. He groaned. “Please stop.”
“Have you?” Alithea’s voice changed, no longer high pitched; now somehow somber, a deep bass bathed in sorrow. “Have you?” She persisted, raising one hand to touch his forehead, a delicate tentacle probing for truth.
Jona let himself fall upon her shoulders, allowing his tears to flow down his cheeks and onto her neck, weeping as bitterly as if the whole world was exploded high up into the skies above. In a moment, he felt an odd pressure on his back. It was Joseph, placing the stump of his arm on Jona in a limbless embrace. Soon, others crowded around, hugging or touching, sighing or moaning, some witless, some grinning, some crying, all of them wordless, as if any spoken sounds would be a desecration. Slowly, they pressed closer and closer without boundary or border, their skin feeling smooth against his, their breath mingling with his, their hearts beating over his. He could feel fingers and hands touching him and clutching him, and hear the trickling of throats, and taste the salty streaks of tears. So many surrounded him they became like a living shroud. Jona felt himself lifted and carried, swung in space and whirled around and around faster than any thought could travel, further than any eye could see, higher than any pain could reach. His lower body became numb, but he grasped those around him with both arms as tightly as he could. He had reached a threshold, a climax somehow greater than the sum of all his past suffering. He raised his head up and let out a wail loud enough to chase away the demons stalking him.
As if summoned by Jona’s shriek, Joseph abruptly relinquished his embrace, strode to the front of the room, pounded the wall loudly several times with his good arm, and then continued with a softer, rhythmic beat. He shouted to them to cluster closer. “Let us sing,” he cried. And he began:
O, de blin’ man stood on de road and cried
O, de blin’ man stood on de road and cried
Cryin’ O, my Lord,
Save-a me...
De blin’ man stood on de road and cried
Cryin’ what kind o’ shoes am dose you wear
Cryin’ what kind o’ shoes am dose you wear
Cryin’ O, my Lord
Save-a me...
He stopped in mid-voice and pointed at Jona, his lips quivering with emotion. “Deah brudda in great pain now, ain’ you. You in da road now, blind, goin’ where it lead. What shoes you gonna wear, huh? You can only save yo by deciding that, my brudda.”
Mo and Liz and Deborah and Abe, John, Ruth, and Sam, and all of them, also began to speak, each babbling in their own way, each voice bouncing off the other, high and low, soft and gruff, their words becoming indistinct, blending one into another, a living chorus of cacophony. The House shook, as if alive with the vibrations of words colliding with words. Soon enough, though, with Joseph leading them, their voices merged into one, raised in a great disturbance, and they began to sway in unison, back and forth, and clapped hands in metered precision, pushed by a tide of emotion. “What shoes you gonna wear? What shoes you gonna wear? What shoes you gonna wear....”
Later, Jona would not remember how long he remained there. At some point Alithea placed an arm around his waist and led him out of the House, out into the muggy, sweat laden night air. They were silent as they walked, but the woods all around them were alive with the rhythm of cicadas. There were thousands, a million, a billion, each one making itself known in its own language, their sound swaying back and forth in rhythm, in time drowning out the sound of singing coming from the Meeting House. Jona felt agitated as he walked. While standing among the sufferers, embracing them, feeling them, he had been overcome by a sense of euphoria bordering on exaltation. Now, though, a new feeling pierced him with anxious barbs. It was a notion of regret, or contrition, a feeling that he had committed a great wrong. Ridiculous, he thought. There is no reason I should feel guilt. There are a thousand other feelings I’m not allowed to have, I certainly should not feel guilt. It was my father who should have felt remorse. I’m innocent of all this. He cast a quick look back, but the House was hidden from view, obscured by trees and the darkness of late evening. I never wanted to see them, anyway. It was Alithea who forced me to come. He stole a glance in her direction. She remained impassive and silent, her face motionless in the gloaming. Never wanted to see them… the words continued to float through his mind, pinning him to that moment mercilessly and without respite.
The main residence was set on a bluff overlooking the river, only a modest incline from the road, but Jona labored in pain as he maneuvered upwards along the path. “Brother, are you alright?” Alithea was barely audible, and barely visible in the darkness.
Jona gritted his teeth and plowed on, angry at himself. “What was that back there? A show for me? I behaved like a fool.”
“A show maybe, but not for you. For them. Their journey demands it. They understand that the road is very much before them. Before all of us. You too, brother. You’re not nearly finished.”
An inner voice cautioned him, but Jona could not stop himself from snarling a response. “Look, I know you wanted to show me the true outcome of my father’s experiment. I understand, but I feel no guilt for their pain. None. Anyone might at any time have a legitimate illness, or accident, or war wounds and wind up the same way. It’s just unfortunate, that’s all. Not my fault and not my responsibility. I will tell you one thing, though. I’m finished with here, that’s for sure. It’s been too much, I’ve had enough. Too much pain around here. Outta here in the morning.”
Alithea turned towards Jona. The slightest sliver of light marked her forehead and lips in a silver lunate curve, and he could see that she was smiling. She answered as if she were somehow both burdened and free, remote yet profoundly present. “I understand. You should know that you have changed my life, brother. I am so much the better that we met today, just knowing that you live and walk and seek the comfort of light. But, I understand we each travel on our own path. Sometimes we stumble along without much thought about it. Sometimes we think the road is well marked and are sure of ourselves. At other times we struggle through swamp and jungle, feeling lost. I know that has been true for me. But we go on, don’t we, and as we go we all choose our own burden, whether we deserve it or not. So, peace to you, brother. Go. Just as it should be, we are all guided by our own angels, seeking our own road.” With those words barely said, she waved him on to the house at the end of the path, turned and dissolved into the darkness as she walked away. Within moments the sound of shoes scraping on gravel faded into a profound and deepest dark, her form faded from sight, and she was no more.
Lights were lit inside the house, but the approach to the doorway was lightless. As Jona fumbled for the handle, he saw movement on the ground just by a nearby bush. A voice rang out, sharp and strident. It was Gwen.
“Oh La-ance...I’m over here, in all this ivy shit. Come over and join me.”
Jona followed the sound of her voice, finding her hidden form curled up tightly on the ground behind a row of begonias. He could see the glint of a bottle waving in his direction. “Why are you lying there? You’ll be filthy.”
“I’m molting. Here, have a drink of auntie Amelia’s best brew.”
“What in hell do you mean?”
“I mean take a swig. Come on. Get filthy with me.” She giggled and held the bottle higher, shaking it so that the liquor sloshed loudly.
Jona knelt down next to her. She was illuminated by starlight alone, but he could just make out that she was on her side, naked, her thin marble-white thighs pressed up against her belly. “What do you mean you’re molting?”
“Exactly that. Molting. Turning into something else. Don’t you know nuthin’? Here, drink some of this, then you’ll understand.”
For an instant, an impulse came over Jona, a sudden feeling that he should strip his clothes off and roll on the ground, and bay like a wolf, and drink booze until he turned blue, and eat Gwen raw, beginning with her brains, and light fire to the house and burn the whole fucking thing down and then fire the Meeting House and burn all the crippled and demented and deformed, burn them into charcoal...He sat down next to her and took a gulp from the bottle. It was a surprisingly smooth whisky, leading quickly to another drink, then one more long swallow. Without meaning to, he touched Gwen’s breast, poking at it. “What are you turning into?”
She laughed, snatching the bottle back. “How should I know? It hasn’t happened yet, are you blind? Ask me tomorrow or the next day. I hope I turn into something beautiful, like a porcupine. A nasty old hippo will do. You know, I don’t have much choice in the matter. The season changes, and presto! Anyway, whatever form it may be will just be shed again one coming day. How about you, Lance? Molting anytime soon?”
Lance tried to give some consideration to the question, but a buzzing in his ears kept him from thinking clearly. He wrested the whiskey bottle from her and tilted it up to his mouth, propping it there until the last drops drained onto his tongue. With an effort he threw the bottle against the doorstep, shattering it into a thousand fragments. “Don’t know when, but maybe I’ll turn into little Jack Horner, or Peter Pecker, or Johnny-on-the-Spot. Someone famous like that.” He poked her breast again, this time harder, and kept his finger there a touch longer.
Gwen giggled again, louder than before. “Oh my! You are a sweet talkin’ son of a sailor, and I really can’t imagine what you’ve got in mind. But Peter, dahling, or Jack, or whoever you are, that’s not a titty, it’s a feather, or a scale. Some kind of reptile hide, maybe. Definitely not a titty, though. I’m surprised at you, acting crazy like that.”
“The whole damn world is crazy. Life is crazy. I’ve just been in a house of crazy. Everything that happens is crazy, no sense to it, so why not me.”
“You shouldn’t think like that. Life has great meaning if we can only grasp the truth of it. Finding the truth, and then accepting it, is so hard though. And it’s a great burden to take on, like a weight that gets larger every day. Even so, that should be your goal, Lance.” She tittered a muffled snort. “It’s like being constipated. Whatever comes out is hard and takes forever, but the quest is worth it. Life is so much like taking a crap.”
Lance squawked at the mention of a quest. The innards of his head heaved up and down and back and forth, and his eyes clouded, contracting to a narrow, unclear focus. The whisky sat in the middle of his chest like a burning faggot slowly consuming its victim. He lay down on his back with his head cushioned on Gwen’s belly, deciding to count the stars above. “I’m going to rename all the heavenly bodies,” he mumbled. “Every one, starting with that red one. It’s now the Jona star.”
“Who is Jona?”
“You’re right. That’s nobody. I’ll name it Lance. Do you want one for yourself?”
“No. I couldn’t see it anyway. You know I’m half blind. I shouldn’t be able to see at all with my affliction, but I do have special powers. No matter how far away, everything that’s on the outside of me I can see on the inside of me. I can even see when I close my eyes. I’m in great demand because of that little trick; you might even say I’m very desirable. Very. “Gwen cradled his shoulders with one hand and pointed at the night sky with the other. “Look.”
A thin silver rim appeared above the canopy of trees surrounding them, touching the horizon with delicate radiance. Lance gazed at it with awe and wonder. “It’s the moon, right?”
“Yes, silly boy. It’s almost full, you’ll see in a minute. So beautiful. You can understand why people pray to it. When it rises completely it will fill the sky. Tonight it’s special, it’s the strawberry moon. It has the power to seduce. Stare at it long enough and you will covet things you never dreamed you wanted. Or better yet, things that you only wanted in your dreams.”
Lance wondered about that, trying to imagine what he might be longing for. He could not stop staring at her breasts. “You’re pretty.” He waited a beat, then rushed his words very quickly. “You’re a smart girl.”
“Yes, I know. My daddy always took care to tell me so.”
“He must be smart too. What does he do?”
“Nothing now. He died.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“That’s OK. I shot him dead a month ago. That son of a bitch abused me all my life. He sold me into prostitution when I was twelve. Shooting him in the head was too good for him.”
Her words soaked into Lance’s awareness slowly, drop by drop, percolating, distilling, pooling at last at the base of his brain. “Was it hard?”
“Naw. Took me a second.”
Lance hesitated, trying to twist his tongue in just the right way, so that everything came out just as he intended. He wiped the drool from his cheek. “And...is he gone now? I mean really gone? You sure?”
“Sho’. Gone. I left his body in the desert for the coyotes. No, no, no, wait. The desert was someone else. I mean I dropped his body in a lake. Went fishing there the next day and caught a million water critters but no sign of him. He’s nowhere, not even in my dreams. He’s dead, I’m alive. There’s got to be a correlation there, don’t you think? An ipso facto kind of thing? Oh, just look at that moon, Lance! Isn’t it glorious! It’s speaking to me right now, piercing me to the bone. Get up. I want to dance, and sing, and feel alive. I want you to hold me close. Take your clothes off so I can see you, just like you’re seeing me. There are a million things we both want, things we’ll never have unless we try for them. Let’s take a chance. Come on, let’s dance.”
By straining his eyes, Lance could see that the moon was now suspended freely in the sky, a large globe untouched by any earthly impediment. He searched carefully for his father’s face on the surface but it wasn’t there. Nor was Alithea. No one was there. He closed his eyelids tightly. Nothing appeared. “Can’t dance, I’m crippled. Anyway, moon looks blue to me and I’m feeling blue myself. Time for bed.”
“Not yet, please, you’re my only playmate. Let’s make up poems to the moon. Lots of people do that. You first.”
“I can’t, I’m crippled.”
“Sure you can, my knight. Moon, moon, it can rhyme with soon, and strewn, and dune, and tune, and loon, and so many other possibilities. Each rhyme is sublime, almost endless really and I do not lie, no matter which you choose you cannot lose. Come on, just try.”
Something triggered in Jona’s mind. Not a memory and not a thought, just a sensation. The hairs at his nape shivered as he examined the moon once more. “Not everything about the moon is so benign. I was taught long ago that it can be frightening. The moon can see right through you, down to the last inch don’t you know, and create a demon that matches you perfectly. Even you.”
Gwen reached out with open palm and stroked Jona’s cheek. “I’ve never heard that Lance, but that’s why I love you. You know much more than me, but the moon can also set you free.”
“It can unleash monsters, though I suppose that a monster doesn’t have to be evil. Did you ever hear about the mooncalf? It’s famous; ‘Mooncalf, speak once in thy life, if thou beest a good mooncalf.’ I learned a lot of shit like that before I became Lance.”
“There’s no reason a mooncalf can’t set you free. Or eat you alive, if that’s what you prefer. Whichever, you’ll be different afterwards, which is what you really want, don’t you, Sir Lancelot.“
Lance shook his head, unable to speak and barely able to see and hear, feeling almost overcome by an alcoholic haze.
“Well, If you won’t dance and you won’t make poetry, my crippled prince, then I will, even if the moon is blue or there’s an ugly mooncalf hiding right behind it.”
Gwen leapt to her feet, leaving Lance lying on the ground. Pausing only a moment, she raised her arms above her head, twirled in an elegant pirouette, then began to sway back and forth with small steps to left and right and back and forward while turning and twisting and gyrating, her naked shoulders and hips a silhouette of blurry motion enveloped by the beaming cast of moonlight. Then she began to sing, her voice both husky and tremulous:
Oh, moon so blue
You’re the only one whose heart is true
How I wish you’d turn back to your native hue
And smile so lustrously as if you’re new
Oh, moon so blue
We’re stranded on a distant shore
You and I
Dreaming of a long lost sigh
And nothing more
Just writhing shadows trapped within a starry mesh
Our whispered words turned into blood and flesh
Oh, moon so blue
Past memories are now so few
My life has flown away like morning dew
And all I owe has now come due
Oh, moon so blue
I think that I’m in love with you
She stopped abruptly, arms raised up, eyes turned skyward, alabaster legs spread firmly on the ground, chest heaving, a smile of elation on her face. “I am!” she shouted. “I really am!” The moment was all deceit, the figment of a still life created by firmament and sky; time had paused, the cicadas had ceased, not a tree swayed, there were no clouds above, the stars were dumb, and Lance held his breath within him, not daring to mar the moment. He could sense that for an instant, all the earth stopped in adoration of dancing Gwen.
A light flared behind them, penetrating the darkness without care, and Jona heard the unmistakable click of a shotgun being cocked. It was Amelia standing at the doorway, a flashlight in one hand and a double-barreled long gun in the other. She spoke with a voice of command. “You two are making quite a ruckus out here. Look at all this broken glass, and look at both of you. Disgusting. Especially you, you shameless harlot. Time to come in.”
Gwen stalked forward a few steps, arms akimbo and skin glowing soft white. “You go to hell you saggy bitch!”
Amelia did not hesitate, raising the shotgun to her shoulder with ease. “Any more commotion and you’ll be in hell long before I will. My Snake Charmer here will riddle you so full of holes you’ll be wormier than a rotten log. Get your dress on and both of you come on in.”
Jona struggled to his feet unsteadily while Gwen dressed. When the light caught her face he could see her eyes darting back and forth in a fury of rapid, spasmodic repetition. She leaned close to whisper. “Let’s jump her. You can sit on her while I carve her up, beginning with her tongue. We’ll have it for breakfast.”
“That’s not human.”
“Yes it is. Listen, listen, listen to me, you don’t understand. It wouldn’t be a murder, it would be a sacrifice to the gods. That’s very different. Believe me, I know what I’m saying. The High God is a doctor, just like you but a doctor of the mind and soul, and I talk to him every day. A sacrifice would be the greatest thing, better than any song or dance or poem to the gods could ever be. The immortals are not too interested in those. They want meat. It would be like gifting them a slice of humanity. We would make a covenant that would bind us to the gods, can’t you see? They get the carcass, and we get the juicy parts, like the brain and the heart. They would join us and we would join them. Maybe we might be made honorary gods for the day. I think they’re expecting something like this, actually, and if we don’t give it to them, why then the gods would become angry, and curse us. Then you’ll never complete your quest, Lance. What do you think?”
Jona sighed with exhaustion. He felt as if his spinning head was dropping into a bottomless pit, and that very shortly everything around him would simply turn a formless black. “Can’t go on a quest, I’m crippled. The High God will understand.”
“Alright. In that case I’m going to go shit in the kitchen. That’ll show her who’s boss, and it will mollify the gods. They’ll get a kick out of it. Hey Lance, I have an idea...” Gwen began skipping towards Amelia. “Let’s make up poems about shit! Rhymes with sit, pit, mitt, kit...Also rhymes with tit! Got it, Lance?” She guffawed and sped into the house with great purpose.
Amelia waited patiently as Jona weaved his way towards the door. He could not see her face clearly, but thought she was scowling, and he attempted to stutter words of apology. She grasped him by the arm for support and helped him over the threshold. “No need for words. She’s not in her mind, I can see that. And you’re not the first drunk I’ve seen. If you think you can drink yourself sober, you’re wrong. I’ll show you up to your room, you need to sleep it off. You also need better manners.”
“Hold on. Where’s Andrews? Murphy?”
“Your boys are in the barn tonight. By the way, the big one needs better manners more than you do.”
They staggered together to a small foyer at the front of the house. Jona was so fatigued he felt hallucinatory, barely able to place one foot before the other. Before turning to take the stairway up, a shape caught Jona’s eye. It was an exuberant painting, hanging askew at the foot of the steps. He shrugged Amelia off, and leaned forward, staring at the painting with as much concentration as he could assemble. He could see a palette of colors; a shock of orange and greens adjacent to a bright splash of blue. There were figures he could see, many figures, massed together and heaped one upon the other in promiscuous clumps and clusters, each one distinctly different, a squirming array of form and movement; alive, shamelessly vibrant, indulgent, garishly nude, provocative, uncaring.
Faint threads floated through Jona’s memory, tugging at him, ensnaring him in a delicate web woven in the nether space between reason and madness. He stretched a finger tentatively towards the canvas, tracing some of the paint strokes without touching. The voice in his head stammered, causing him to mumble and slur aloud. “I know what this is ...I’ve seen it before, a long time ago, I was with...Wait. How did you get this?”
Amelia glanced at the painting before staring down at Jona from a mountainous height. Her forehead and eyes and lips ebbed and flowed in ribbon-wide rivers up and down within the cow-like contours of her face, defiant of gravity, and her sodden hair dripped down towards her shoulders like molten wax. She answered with the syrupy contentment of a well fed cat. “From Earnest Lieb of course.”
In a flash, Jona remembered. The memory inundated him: He was a child standing attentively behind his father and another man while they examined the painting and argued about the meaning of color and form and boundary and indistinct horizon lines and curves and naked transparency and belief and custom and the essence of free will and why humanity was doomed. All of that and more was extracted from the painting. It was Bathers at Moritzberg Lake. And here it was on the wall, hanging in obscurity, forgotten yet present nonetheless. His mind twisted violently, swirling as if flushing itself down a very long drain pit. “But how did it get here?”
Two eyes, two lips and a single tongue protruded straight out from Amelia, leaving behind irrelevant teeth and gums and throat, only stopping fractions of an inch from Jona’s face, accompanied by heavy breathing, the faint odor of jasmine, and the tiniest droplets of spit. “Why, he brought it here himself...”
Sirens began ringing in Jona’s ears, wailing loudly, warning of an oncoming disaster. He saw her lips begin to open again, and more words were cued up on the tip of the tongue, easily visible, waiting impatiently to be uttered aloud. The sirens turned into deafening explosions that rocked him almost senseless, causing him to stagger backwards against the banister. The room fogged and began to sway rhythmically in precise tempo, becoming a great pendulum suspended from somewhere above. Amelia herself was transformed, changing with each cycle of sway into Marielle, then to Elfieda and then back again to Amelia. All three were smoking and smirking simultaneously and Jona could tell that they didn’t give a damn about what he wanted and didn’t want. NO he shouted to himself, unable to speak to them by saying words aloud. For God’s sake say no more...
“As I recall, it was at Christmas some few years back.”
Jona collapsed on the stairs with the taste of vomit on his tongue. He had a brief vision of a nanny handing him a present wrapped in red with ribbons of green, telling him his father was away. He had torn it open to find a recording of Tosca, one that he later played over and over with immense joy. “Many years back?”
The lips turned into oyster shells, snapping open and closed with barely a hint of the pearl that lurked within. “Maybe three or four years now. He always brought something special at Christmas time. Never brought you of course, that would have been quite a bother.”
Jona had known defeat before, many times. Despair had befriended him, then jilted him, then come back again in a never ending lover’s cycle, always nesting deep within him, a secret companion hidden from the world. He lay back on the steps, splaying his arms out to either side, seeking comfort. “He came often?”
“Whenever he could.” Amelia’s eyes soared overhead and circled around him, up and down and side to side, connected to her skull by long thin cables that glowed a hot red as each pupil and retina conducted its probing inquest. “You’re wondering why he went to the trouble to come back as often as he did. It was to see me. I never went out into the world like he did. I stayed here. I was his rock, and yes, he often needed a safe harbor just to stay sane. And also, of course, he came to analyze the long-term outcomes of the subjects. We did that together.”
A calculator appeared before Jona’s eyes, tethered to the ether, rattling off exotic numbers and computations in strange symbols, clacking out a ticker tape made of graven stone. The numbers added up higher and higher, an astronomical sum that reached the heavens above. Some of the numbers reached so high that they turned into stars, traipsing in solitude across the night skies for eternity, shining faintly on the foolish mortals who wandered below.
“The outcomes. Maiming? Imbecility? Death? Those were the outcomes, weren’t they? While he wrapped himself in the holy garments of science, he committed murders for money. The price was paid by the people you’re hiding here.”
“Your father was a great man, a hero who saved millions. What price do you put on that? A few dozen subjects? Wake up to the world as it is, and tell me where we would be without him and others like him. We seek heroes and glorify them for a reason, little boy. They are the ones who save us. At the very least they nudge us forward. The rest of humanity just fills in the cracks, a meaningless mass of protoplasm turned into human glue, that’s all. Like you. He traveled the world just to gain one inch, one inch forward, and you’ll never know how much pain he endured. Now get upstairs and out of my sight, and don’t you dare spew any of that phony ethical slander again.” Amelia rocked on her heels and punched Jona hard across the forehead, right above the eye.
The blow shivered down Jona’s neck and spine, and after a very brief prologue of pain, delivered him to the unconsciousness he craved.
The memories of the previous night were blunted but still ragged by morning-time, sniping at Jona in irregular intervals. It was true that his world had not been tidy since the day his father died, but now the last shred of cohesion between reality and belief was gone, evaporated like morning mist in the meadow. He had awakened earlier than usual, and though still feeling stuporous he had decided to come down to the cool flowing river in the predawn murk, guided by the splash and the gurgling treble of swift waters. Jona found no peace there. He watched expectantly as the stars faded out from the canopied sky, and then as the umbral gloom was softened by the first aura of light in the east. He hated the world for all of it. Everything he saw around him was a routine that had played out for eons. The sun went down, the sun came up, over and over again, without deviation, without surprise, in accordance with an infallible formula. In contrast, his life was now in tatters, buffeted by random, manic blows outside of his control.
Control, he thought. That’s funny now, a big joke. I used to think I could stay in control of everything and everyone around me; my job, Murphy, Andrews, the so-called mission...Now I’m not even in control of myself. Nor even of my own thoughts. They come in and out of my brain as if they had a will of their own. Images, ideas, imaginings, all of them...Maybe they’re directed by some clever impresario, perhaps a poker player somewhere out there in the great unknown, someone who likes entertaining games that have capricious twists and turns. Or maybe a lunatic. In the meanwhile, I’m here, an irregular existence living at the center of a regular universe, bound by my biology but living a fucked up nightmare that I’m supposed to accept as my life. Is any of it real? Am I real? Was Earnest Lieb real, or just a happy fiction that pleased everyone but satisfied no one? No. No. I want out of the unknown, out of the unpredictable, out of the game. I will either play myself or play no one.
Murphy’s unexpected arrival in the morning gloom was another unanticipated intersection, a transitory gust of wind meant to deflect Jona towards a new direction. Now Jona could feel Murphy’s energy, his hard stare pushing at him, shoving him, challenging him to turn to a decision.
“Doc, we’ve all been wounded the last coupl’a months, maybe you more than anyone. But we’re here and that ain’t changing. Waddya say? At the very least let’s get moving. Somewhere, anywhere.”
“I’ve already made my decision. Get Andrews up, I want him ready. There’s nothing for me here. Mister Murphy, I want to go home.”
“Wow, never heard you talk so decisively...You’re still Jona, right? You’re right on target on this one.” Murphy strode close, readying a congratulatory handshake, when they both heard a soft whinny and the sound of leaves crumpling.
A horse appeared, first as a silhouette, then fully embodied by the touch of dawn’s rays. The man riding it, subdued under an enormous round slouch hat, hunched over the withers as if searching for something on the ground. He slowly raised his gaze directly at Jona. “You Lieb?” His voice trembled like a brisk wind darting through autumn leaves. The man gave a leisurely glance at Murphy, then came back to Jona. “You Jona Lieb?”
Jona stood frozen, thunderstruck by the apparition appearing before him. He struggled to see the man’s face but could see nothing but a dark void under the protective brim of the hat pulled low over his forehead. After some hesitation, he answered. “Yes. Yes I am.”
With a ponderous and elaborate sweep of his arm, the man removed his hat and doffed it in Jona’s direction. “I am Tokala. Miss Amelia sent me out to find you and bring you back, she says it’s very important. You have to leave the farm, she says. Now.”
“You probably have a few hours, but that’s cutting it close. Tokala has been keeping his ear to the ground and hasn’t heard about anything unusual as yet, at least not nearby, so there’s nothing very imminent. I made a telephone call a little while ago, to my patron in Richmond. Someone is coming here, Jona. They suspect that you’re here and they’re coming for you, and soon.” Amelia paused to study Jona’s face. Apparently satisfied, she turned towards Gwen. “They’re looking for you too. I wasn’t told your identity but you must be pretty important, because the Director asked about you several times, uhm, Gwen. He described you pretty well, including your little idiosyncrasies. You’re not one to fade into the wallpaper. Good thing I didn’t shoot you last night.”
“Hold on.” Andrews began pacing up and down the small parlor with frantic energy. He was shirtsleeved and without a tie. The morning light slanting in through the windows highlighted the stubble on his chin and cheeks. “Who is the Director? Is he the patron you mentioned? In charge of operations here?”
Amelia eyed him coolly, twisting her lips into a crooked smile. “You boys didn’t do any homework before coming up here, did you. I gather you drove here on a whim, just because Jona read my name in a journal some time back. Well, I hope you get out as easily as you came in, because they are coming in earnest. You don’t need to know who the Director is, suffice it to say that he has been a long time sponsor of our program, and a good friend to me and Earnest. He’s not the one coming, though. He says it’s some new fella, a northerner of all things, a big shot with a funny name, he’s called Mr. M. Gracious me, what drama. This M fella is running the show and hell bent on catching the lot of you.”
“How many are coming? Did your friend say?” Murphy spoke through clenched teeth, his face a rigid mask.
“I didn’t ask, but it’s only one car. Four or five I suppose.”
Andrews looked out the front window nervously. Tokala was right outside, lounging on the front porch and sipping coffee. “And what exactly does your friend in Richmond propose we do? Give ourselves up?”
“Lord no. He doesn’t want you caught. He wants you gone. Although it wasn’t said in so many words, it’s obvious that he doesn’t particularly care for Mr. M. Who knows what the politics of this might be, but he made it clear he wants all of you out of here and preferably out of the country completely. Go back north where ya’ll belong.”
Jona felt the tension building in the room. Even Gwen appeared disheartened, keeping her face averted from the others. He took a deep breath to compose himself. “Just how are we supposed to get back? Magic carpet ride?”
“Sure, why not.” Amelia shook out a pack of cigarettes and offered it around. Both Murphy and Gwen plucked one out and the three lit up. Andrews continued to fidget by the window, trying to get a good view of the road. After letting out a long circle of smoke with a deep sigh, Amelia nodded towards Jona. “Don’t worry about that right now. You’ll get there.”
Murphy grunted a response, pointing at Andrews. “See why he’s nervous? ‘Cause he can’t see a way out of this, and neither can I. We are Federal Agents, lady. Federal Agents of the wrong country as far as your pal in Richmond and the mysterious Mr. M are concerned, and we’re not getting a slap on the wrist if we get caught. Shit, they might decide we’re spies for all I know, and then it’s curtains.” He took a long drag and exhaled quickly, letting the smoke brush his face with wispy gray swirls.
Andrews pounded the window with the palm of his hand, looking desperate. “Too many people are counting on me right now, waiting for me to deliver. I’ve made promises I intend to keep, including to myself, and I can’t do that from a prison. Murphy and I will make a run for it, maybe try to cross the river until we come up with a plan. Lieb, you stay here. You’re the one they really want, and the girl here, whoever she is. Once they have you, they may lighten up on the chase, make it easier for us. Anyway, you would just slow us down.”
Jona stood motionless, dumbfounded. “You want to leave me behind? I thought...I thought we were...”
“We were nothing, Lieb. I was just an agent assigned to babysit you, that’s all. A business arrangement. Now the mission has gone to hell in a hand basket, and our little arrangement is officially terminated.” He jerked his head towards Murphy. “Am I right?”
Murphy contorted his face into jagged stone, exposing deep creases around his eyes. “Wrong, Johnny. We came in together and we’re gonna go out together. Like it or not it’s ‘we’ and not ‘me’.”
Amelia clapped her hands impatiently. “Quiet, all of you and pay attention.” She rapped on the window loudly and gestured to Tokala to come in. He appeared in moments, still slouched under his hat. Amelia pointed at him emphatically. “Tokala will take care of you. First, he’ll take you over to Bridgetown. That’s Cherokee land. No one can go in there who’s not allowed. Not police, not Guard, not nobody.”
Andrews appeared unconvinced. “And then what? Hibernate for a few years? No thanks.”
“Of course not. He’ll guide you to safety from there.”
The old, familiar feeling of agitation began to gnaw at Jona, causing his hands to tremor uncontrollably. “How could he do that? The whole way will be swarming with Guard and Army units.”
Amelia grasped Jona by both shoulders, giving him a quick but firm shake. “You’re a worrier Jona, I can appreciate that. Don’t you worry though. Tokala will get you over the border, just like he got your father back and forth these many years. For someone who knows, it’s not that hard. There’s a system.”
Almost in the same instant, they all turned their eyes towards Tokala. In acknowledgement he raised his head, stood tall, pushed up the brim of his hat, and smiled. The morning light, sweeping in through the windows, gleamed against the tiny diamonds embedded in his teeth with a sparkling, almost blinding brilliance.
Chapter 36
Gray.
Gray.
Not black.
Not white.
Just before dawn.
Just before night.
There are so many possibilities in gray. But then again, not really.
There is no love in gray, not really.
There is no hate in gray, not really.
As seen by an audience of one, emotions and thoughts in gray appear like actors on a stage, clothed in comfortable tunics donned for the duration of the play only to be cast off at the end, becoming nothing more than vapors viewed vicariously from within the gray.
Gray. Homogenous, shapeless, incoherent, purposeless, pluripotent, from where anything at all may come.
Or nothing at all.
MENTOR stared out the window framing the gray of cloud and drizzle, and wondered idly what was really out there, out where nothing could be seen. Gray is an illusion, he thought. Better yet, a hallucination. Color and movement and life are all out there, out beyond sight or sound. The stupid choose to process only gray, pretending they’re still in their own womb and that their tiny one sided universe is all that matters. If they can’t see it in all the gray, then it doesn’t exist, so they say. They, so easy to compel, coerce, convince. They, creatures of a lower order...they themselves are the gray, and they prefer it that way, willing prey to anyone with the power to see beyond.
Like me.
How I despise them all.
He cast a quick glance at Amelia before returning his gaze to the ashen sky outside. For some reason he found her attractive, in a dull, physical sort of way. Her figure was ordinary, and she was clearly older than his usual desires demanded. Nonetheless, there was a certain energy about her, a vibrancy in the way she swayed her bosom, as if it were alive, and flicked her eyes back and forth, much like a creature of the night on the prowl. MENTOR was always careful with women. He would not be influenced or corrupted by a seductive glance or nod. No, he was the seducer. Better yet, a despoiler who could force himself on anyone as he pleased. His pleasure would be someone else’s pain, always. Nonetheless, he did find himself drawn to Amelia. And, after all, she was Earnest Lieb’s woman. That fact weighed very much in the balance.
“You say you didn’t know who they were. Is that right?” He growled the words, hoping to intimidate her.
“That’s right. How could I? We’re quite remote out here. I speak to the Director once in a while, when the lines are up and working, but not recently.”
MENTOR paused, pondering the moment. Is she gray too, or is she alive? “Yet you put them up for the night. Four people you didn’t know. Four strangers...Odd, don’t you think?”
Amelia stood tall, very close to MENTOR, unafraid, eying him through half closed lids. “Alright, let’s cut the chatter, shall we? If y’all want to interrogate me, then call the Director and see what he says.”
As she spoke, spittle sprayed from her mouth onto his chin, something that caused an enjoyable tug within him. Definitely not gray, he thought, forcing his mind to move on quickly. MENTOR had the clarity to see he was in a bind. Amelia’s story was superficially plausible, and the Director was a powerful sponsor who had personally described her as an important government asset. There could be no rough work here. But even so, there could be pain. She would be a pleasant triumph, almost certainly a quick one. Then, on to the next, and the next after that.
He offered a smile, hoping it did not appear to be a sneer. “I’m not looking for a confrontation. Just an... accommodation, that’s all.” He touched her arm as lightly as possible.
Her gaze did not waver. “What kind?”
“Well, for starters let’s be friends. No reason not to be.” MENTOR waved in the direction of the window. “Must be hard for you, a bright woman living out here alone with all these illiterates. I’ve been on the road for over a month now. I’m longing for someone with some intelligence to talk to, and I can only imagine how lonely you must be.” He took a chance and placed his hand on her shoulder. “You know that the government leadership has been wiped out, right? We’ll get the bastards who did it, though, don’t worry. Lieb might be involved in some way, that’s why we want him so bad.”
“You mean Pickett is gone?”
“Heart attack. Dead.”
“What about Patton?”
“Also dead I’m afraid. Awful explosion, the worst kind of assassination. Terrible event. Looks like I’m going to be pretty high up in the new regime, probably the new Director. I can be a good friend, and a valuable one.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “What do you say?”
Amelia stood still, almost rigid, then blew out a breath very softly. “Yes. We can be friends.”
“That is excellent! Excellent!” He squeezed her shoulder more firmly, but deliberately tamped down the surge of excitement that erupted within him. “Now, why don’t we sit down and discuss your research program over lunch. From the beginning. I find your work here to be fascinating.”
Amelia nodded at the four gray forms huddled tightly together right outside the window, smoking, shifting nervously while shielding themselves from the rain. “What about them?”
“My men? Oh, I’ll get rid of them, send them to the next town over, Bridgetown I think, try to catch a scent of our quarry there. Let them snoop around the area, see what comes up. And then we’re on from there. Logically, the northerners are headed to Memphis, but they won’t get far.”
“Bridgetown is Cherokee. Treaty land.”
“Nonsense. The state gets what the state needs. Treaties are never permanent in any case. I like to think of treaties as toilet paper. When the time is right, use them to wipe your ass clean.” MENTOR smiled broadly, feeling a genuine sense of power and anticipation. “So, I can stay around a day or two, while the boys get the lay of the land.”
Amelia smiled as well, low and slow.
Later in the day, after a spartan lunch of cauliflower and turnip soup, they walked a dirt trail through a small, unkempt garden back of the house. Amelia enjoyed walking there, brushing past thrusting, wild-swaying branches of blackberry and upright mounds of untamed rosemary. The dead bough of a splintered chestnut tree dangled dangerously close to the ground, entwined by wild lilac. Nature reigned in the garden, remaining unsullied by human cunning, ruled only by the twin dogmas of sunshine and rain. The ground, the scents, the sights were all so familiar to her, awash with memories of past strolls, and close embraces, and sighs, and long touches, and burning desire, and dreams upon dreams upon dreams. How odd, that so long ago she had set out to capture Earnest Lieb, but in the end she was the one captured, now in his thrall for what seemed eternity. Closing her eyes, Amelia brought it all back, and imagined that Earnest was at her side, his hand cupping the small of her back. A moment of sadness pierced her. However much that we had laughed, she thought, we could have laughed some more. However much that we had dreamed, we could have dreamed some more. However much that we had loved, we could have loved some more. I had this much, but how I yearn for more, and I will never have it.
His pup, Jona, had wanted to know about the past, asking to speak to her as if an angel had commanded him to grovel at her feet.
“Please,” he had begged. “I’ve come all this way to find you. Tell me, please.”
“What exactly do you want to know?” She spoke brusquely, hoping he would be dissuaded from further questions.
“I want to know about you. And him too. Both of you.”
Amelia did not wish to be amused but could not refrain from a raspy chuckle. “Africa, right? You want to learn about that. You know, when we first met he was immersed in infestations. Filariasis. Hookworm. Malaria. On and on, he was fascinated. It was a peculiarity of his, his ability to become lost in a subject, totally and abjectly. He became interested in me immediately, because of my work with giardia. Do you know about giardia?”
“No. Never heard of it. An infestation?”
“Yes. Don’t blame yourself. Giardiasis is quite common but very few know about it, at least not yet. I had just completed my thesis on the subject, describing the life cycle, and Earnest became engrossed right away. My God, could that man ask questions! We spent an afternoon walking on the beach, talking about cysts and trophozoites. He has exceptionally clear brown eyes, but you know that already. He had let his hair grow, looking very much like a pirate or better yet a fierce Viking, his skin shone like shiny brass and he felt like steel to the touch. Yes, Jona, I fell in love with Earnest Lieb that day, but whatever it was that I felt has grown and changed and inflated and compressed ever since. We decided together that he would come back, and that I would stay by his side from that day. Questions answered?”
“Yes, I suppose.” Jona waited only a fraction of a second before blurting out, “Why didn’t you marry him? Did my mother know? Why a secret dalliance?”
“You are exhausting. It was all a long time ago. A lifetime ago, really. We didn’t want marriage. Sorry. Let me amend. I didn’t want marriage. I wanted to be free to continue my work, and later to manage the Farm. And, young Jona, I did not want children. Right or wrong, I valued my freedom more than anything, and Earnest respected that. Remember, though, there is no me without him, and there’s no him without me. Not really, not unless you’re only interested in newspaper clippings and hand-me-down tales of travel and adventure. All that was just the fixings. The main course was the man himself.”
“You told me that seeking love was like mining a precious metal. Difficult.”
“Yes. A constant trial.”
“But you loved him, right?”
“I still do.”
“And he loved you?”
Amelia reached over to pat Jona on the arm. “Is that very important to you?”
“Yes. I think so. Yes.”
“I said he was submerged in the study of invasive species. I think he viewed love that way. An invasion into the heart and soul, something from outside. He told me once that it was an enemy, an enemy at the gate. Love was, but so was hate. So was envy, and lust, and desire…You get the idea. So, yes he loved me, in his own way. Not the way you might think, but for me it was enough.”
They sat in silence. Jona brooded over her answer while his mind teemed with questions. He straightened abruptly. “What about my mother.”
“If I let you go on and on you’ll have a million questions. I can only tell you about the two of us, nothing else.” Amelia made a noisy exhalation. She sat on a gouged and marred leather settee; with some reluctance she gestured Jona to sit next to her with a simple flick of her wrist. “Let me ask you a question. Do you believe I can be seated both here and over in that chair at the same time?”
“Of course not.”
“So a person can’t be in two different places at the same time.”
“Correct.” Jona did not attempt to hide his annoyance. “What are you getting at?”
“Just this. Can two different places be in one person at the same time? What about you, Jona. Have you ever felt two different presences in you simultaneously? Three? Five perhaps? All rolling around inside you, all actually in the here and now. Have you?”
As if ushered into view by a master conjuror, visions of coffee houses, bright green baseball fields, placid lakes and laboratories with beaker stacked upon beaker all swam into Jona’s vision, swirling, coalescing, dissolving, then re-forming again. “All the time.” He whispered the words, a confession made with wonder.
“Your father lived his life in a dozen places at a time. Probing, planning, scheming, always thinking. Your mother was a pleasant woman, straightforward, but she needed a man who would stay at home, in one place at a time. That was not Earnest.”
“You knew her?”
“Yes. There were no games. It was not a secret liaison, not secret at all; she was my friend. I’m the one who introduced them. She came to know everything before they exchanged vows, and was accepting.”
Jona sat back on the couch, curling up as if wishing to disappear. When he spoke, Amelia understood that he was not speaking to her. He spoke into a void, a hole that warped through time and space, a conduit to a lost past. “I can still hear her crying,” he murmured.
Amelia remembered the lost expression on his face, just as Jona declined into a deep sleep. She had left him on the couch, to sleep and dream away the demons that roiled within him. Now, as she walked past eucalyptus and wild sunflowers, she felt the claw of demons swirling within her as well.
As they walked in the garden, MENTOR sensed that Amelia was distracted and distant and tried to adjust his calculations accordingly. He felt restless, wishing the afternoon would end quickly and allow night to consummate the day. Night was his time, the best time. When others might nod in weariness, he felt most alive. At night, plans and schemes nested and twisted within the clever plots and strategies that erupted from his brain in an endless stream of creativity. In the senseless game of life, the only satisfaction came from defeating all others, beating them senseless with the power of his mind alone, destroying anything they treasured in the process. Victory after annihilating victory provided a panorama of achievement and if it could be done with clever technique and opaque strategy, so much the better. To some degree, this was his protection from the grim realization that the game would one day end. And then the gray would come.
“Miss Amelia, are you still attached to all this?” He waved vaguely in the direction of the Community House as it came into view.
“This has been my life for three decades. I care deeply, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“And the blacks who are still here, the ones still alive, do you care for them?”
“I have a medical file on each of them going back to the beginning. I give each of them a medical examination personally every three months. I know them intimately.”
“They are an excess of humanity, don’t you think? Not just them, no, no, but so many others as well. They are among us, but unnecessary. Just like marbled steak, you can cut off the fat or keep it. Consume it or throw it away, it’s up to you, and no one would blame you either way. You didn’t answer though. Do you care?”
“I know what you asked. Yes, I do care.”
MENTOR paused at a bend in the path that overlooked the river. “And Earnest Lieb, did he care?”
Amelia did not stop, but slowed. “You like information, don’t you. You crave it. Earnest often said that information was the key to success, the kind of success that moves humanity forward.” She turned back towards MENTOR, holding both arms tightly against her chest as if protecting herself from a stiff wind. “You want success, I can see that. Do you also want to move humanity forward?”
“Nothing so grand, I’m afraid. I’m no Earnest Lieb, after all. Tell me...” He paused as if embarrassed. “What drove him to seek such fame in the world? After his great medical discovery here, he could have rested on his laurels, but he didn’t. Why not?”
“That’s easy. He had passion. His passion was the elixir of life, driving him on, and the more he drank of it, the more he dreamed, the more he believed, the more he struggled, the more he braved. Can you understand that, Mr. MENTOR? Do you have passions?”
MENTOR felt momentarily stunned, as if a dormant nerve had just been tapped. Amelia was indeed a formidable woman, and the realization stoked his lust to lay her low, and cover her in filth and dust, and trample on her, and drag her behind his chariot at full gallop, and more, until she herself was no more. He took a deep breath, relaxing himself, tempering the fire that raged within. He forced a smile. “To be truthful, I am an artist. That is what I do every day, every hour, every minute. My art moves me, and I hope that one day others will be moved by it as well, once I’m recognized for my work.”
“What kind of artist?”
MENTOR smiled broadly, a genuine smile that quivered across his face with a surging intensity. “Thank you for asking. My canvas is human emotion in all its extremes. There are no boundaries for a true artist like me, and nothing can be exempt. In fact, disgracing the sacred is a necessary technique to my artistry. Love and hate, pain and pleasure in all their fullness are just some of the tools I utilize for my creations. Lust is useful too, it is so human.”
“That sounds cruel. “
“I am beyond that. I did not invent the rules related to cruelty, and they do not apply to me. The beauty of my artistic expression is that it gives my life meaning. I gorge myself in the consummation of my artistry. Human beings are my canvas, and words are my brushes. How simple, yet how elegant, don’t you think? And what a vast space to work in! People of all kinds...young, old, men, women, frail or strong. The lines of perspective are without limit.”
“That is beastly.”
“Don’t be judgmental, my dear. I am not the first artist to exploit human suffering and pain. Traditional artists portray pain. I provoke it. What could be more creative? And my subjects accept it! Some desire it. Do you know what they all have in common? I’ll tell you a secret. They all want to feel something. That’s all. Feel something. The ignorant will say they want love, but the truth is that they want anything, anything that tells them they are alive, even though they may be dying. Or dead already. They are willing subjects of my artistry. When I’ve done well, really well, I come to the brink of fulfillment and gratification, and beyond. Do you understand? I live for my art, but please comprehend that my approach requires intellect, and thought, and mental preparation. What you call passions are just derivatives of our thoughts. That’s how it works, not the other way around. I’m sure Lieb believed that as well. He was a great man, I think, because of his great mind. Actually, zeal can be a hindrance. Intelligence, uncompromising intelligence, is everything.” He shook his head ruefully. “I wish I could have met him.”
Amelia smirked. “That sounds like you’re feeling a little...let me me guess...Jealousy?”
“You’re a very bright woman, Amelia, and a beautiful one.” Abruptly, MENTOR grasped her roughly around the waist, pulling her towards him in a smothering embrace. “Now,” he thought. The time of preparing the composition was over, and the colorful canvas standing in his arms was now ready to be devoured. “You know he died in the arms of a whore, don’t you? A black whore, a black whore far from your snowy white bosom, my dear. You do know he’s dead, right? Are you aware he had syphilis at the end? Oh what irony! He failed two treatments with his own medication. I’m told the coroner was revolted by the sight of him. I bet you didn’t know that about your pristine lover, did you? I hope he didn’t transmit it to you while he was pursuing his so-called passion. It turns out you were just one of many all over the world. Did you know that? Oh, what a grandee he was, oh so full of himself, a veritable Everyman. Chink, wop, nigger, yid, kraut, wetback, spic, mick...That phony pretended he was all of them wrapped up in one. The Universal Man, feeling every feeling, thinking every thought, suffering every pain. Don’t you hate it? You should forget about him and start all over with me, Amelia. I’m alive, and I’m here. In the flesh, as you can feel. Come on, you know it’s time to move on.” He squeezed himself upon her and began kissing her neck, sucking on it until the skin blushed bright red.
Amelia did not struggle. Instead, she drew herself even closer so that she could whisper in his ear. “Not here, we’ll be seen. Let’s go up to my room.”
They hurried back to the house arm in arm, and Mentor, giddy with incipient ardor, felt the deep pleasure of the moment. In the foyer, she pushed him back playfully. “Is there any other art that you can ply?”
“There may be a few more tricks that I can try.”
“So can I. Give me a few minutes to get ready. First room on the right.”
She left him with a coy smile and scurried up the stairs. In her bedroom she quickly changed into a long, flowing yellow chiton, something appropriate for the moment, then flung herself flat on her back and sighed with a mixture of sadness and resolve. When she heard the knock on the door she reached down under the bed and retrieved Snake Charmer, aiming it carefully just to the inner side of the door handle. The stock felt cool and soft as she tucked it to her chin and shoulder, very much like the smooth surface of a grand master’s violin. She didn’t play, but envied musical mastery. She imagined very briefly that she was about to give a performance, a concerto perhaps, in front of a clamorous audience. Or play a stately pavane, ancient but still vibrantly alive, and the music would dance and dance, from earth to heaven and back again in the rhythm of a throbbing heart, and this time the music would never stop, but go on and on until every last drop of passion was moaned aloud. Unbidden, Earnest Lieb’s face flashed within the music, looming just above her. Peeking between the notes as they rushed by, his chestnut eyes shone brightly with the frantic look of immediate desire, and his soft, soft, parted lips smiled ever so slightly. Darling, he seemed to say. Darling. Darling, come.
There was a second knock.
“Enter,” she called. “I’m ready for you.”
The room was dusty and almost bare. A small bed occupied one corner and a decrepit bentwood chair occupied another. There were no windows, the whitewashed walls were peeling, and a faint yeasty smell permeated the air. A kerosene lamp hung from the ceiling, casting a meager aura of dim light evenly around the room. Jona collapsed on the bed awkwardly, stretching out his hip and leg with some relief. He gave an embarrassed smile in Tokala’s direction as a sign of gratitude. The cramped ride to Bridgetown had taken more than an hour, over rutted, dirt roads that seemed to meander purposelessly through north Georgia backcountry. Lieb had endured the trip in great discomfort, jammed between Andrews and Murphy in the back seat.
The ride was made even more uncomfortable by Gwen, who opened her front seat window to shout incessant profanities at the trees and bushes as they sped by, naming them as if they were an enemy host intent on her personal destruction. “Fuck you, eucalyptus. Eat shit, buckthorn. Sassafras, kiss my ass!”
Finally, Murphy had had enough. “Close your potty mouth,” he bellowed, “Or I’ll apply a liberal cleansing with soap. That’ll shut you up.”
She calmed down immediately, turned around in her seat to face him with a quizzical look, and reached back to pat him on the head. “Why, Mr. Murphy, you are shouting at me. I’m surprised you can talk at all.” She exaggerated a long, slow drawl to stretch out the words ‘aaat... aaaall...’
He snapped back instantly, swiping her hand from his head. “What do you mean?”
“Well, a man in your condition.”
It was Murphy’s turn to appear confused. “What in hell are you talking about?”
“Oh baby, you know what I mean.” She paused to blow a kiss in his direction. “A man without a dick, like yourself, shouldn’t raise his voice to a lady.”
Murphy gaped in purpled, blotched astonishment but recovered quickly. “Oh yeah, you foul mouthed bitch? Who raised you, anyway, a pack of hyenas? How about I raise my fist instead, right up to your pretty little jaw once we’re out of this car. Believe me, I’ll do it.”
“No you won’t. I know you won’t.”
Jona decided to intervene. “Don’t aggravate him, Gwen. You never know. He just might do what he says.”
“He won’t, Lance. I know positively he won’t, because... Because. I’ll tell you a little secret about me, something I would only tell a knight, and only when they’re about to die trying to save me. I can tell the future. Not just the far future, but what’s actually gonna happen real soon. Everything that’s going to happen. Everything.”
Murphy guffawed loudly. “Really? You a carnival freak? In that case, blab what’s going to happen to us.”
She placed two fingers lightly across her cheek and shrugged. “Cigarette first.”
“OK. But then you entertain us.” He offered up a cigarette, placed it in her lips, and snapped a match to light it. “Alright, what’s my future?”
Gwen inhaled with agonizing slowness, then breathed out gently through her nostrils, allowing the smoke to settle over her mouth. The cigarette smoldered a dull red as she pointed it directly at Murphy. “Dead.” She whirled in her seat, pointing at Andrews next. “Dead.” And last, she moved just the tip of burning ash in Jona’s direction, rotating the cigarette slowly, as if shooting a beam of illuminating light towards his face. “Dead and alive.”
Andrews cleared his throat. “Don’t wish to intrude, Miss Gwen, but that is a nonsense statement. No one can be both alive and dead. Illogical. And, without being disrespectful, your prediction is hardly noteworthy. Everything that is alive in turn dies. We are alive and so....A, therefore B. Modus ponens.”
“Silly boy.” Gwen inhaled hugely, and again streamed thick plumes of smoke outward, almost obscuring her face. “Not everyone who is dead has been alaaaaave. Right?”
Andrews shook his head in exasperation and slumped back into his seat to brood. Murphy remained silent, retrieving a cigarette for himself. Jona, pressed on either side by the two agents, shifted forward.
“I want to believe you, Gwen, I do. Give us more predictions, something with teeth in it.”
“Well, I can tell you this. There’s going to be a big war.”
Murphy sprang forward, so agitated his lips began to twitch. He jabbed his cigarette in Gwen’s direction with short sharp thrusts. “Already happened, sweetheart. It’s in the past, not the future. I should know.”
“It depends on when you are living. If you live in the past, like I do, then it’s all in the future. I live in....oh, I don’t know. Maybe 1900, 1905, 1909. Maybe 1933, it changes. The war is coming. And you, Mr. Agent Man, will die in the war. Right next to your comrades in arms. On top of them, actually, stacked up one by one in a very neat pile, just like empty clam shells. Your corpse was buried in a deep forest somewhere, or is going to be. You might still be breathing for a while afterwards, like you’re doing now, but you die then.”
Quiet descended. Murphy became rigid, puffing furiously, staring into empty space. Andrews remained submerged in the darkness of his corner, and Tokala continued to drive impassively, chewing on a toothpick. The vast expanse of ash, oak and pine outside their windows pursued them relentlessly as they drove deeper into the heart of the hill forests.
After a few moments Gwen began to titter, quietly at first, then louder as she waved her cigarette in wide, majestic arcs. “Why, you boys are suddenly so serious and so withdrawn. What about you, Mr. Andrews, don’t you want to know more about yourself?” When he didn’t answer she waved the cigarette like a wand. “Poof, there’s your future. Oh dear, Mr. Andrews, look! You are like the marvelous Mr. Murphy...you don’t have one! The difference is, you never had a past either. It’s all gone, obliterated. Come on, Johnny-John, that’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? You appeared on the scene like you were a virgin birth born out of a thornbush. No mammy, no pappy, no story. You just are, out of the blue so to speak.”
“Stop. Those are just words, meaningless words.” Andrews barely mumbled, withdrawing even deeper into the hidden enormity of his corner, as if burrowing into a cave of his own making.
“But words are what make the past, my Johnny. Without words there is nothing before this moment, and with every second that passes more words are needed to fill in the void. Oh, it’s true that you can have pictures floating around in that oversized brain of yours, maybe a movie, but without words we don’t call that the past. We call that insanity. Believe me, I know. If you have no words, you have no past. That describes you perfectly. Did you think you’d come down all this way and people wouldn’t see right through you for what you really are?“
“And what is that?”
“Why, empty. Completely empty.” Gwen gave a shrill laugh and shifted herself to face forward once again.
“Gwen!” Jona blurted out her name and regretted it instantly. She gave a coquettish smile in return. “Yes, my Lance? Do you want to ask about yourself?”
“Yes. No. Maybe. I think so. Alive and dead?.”
“If you’ve ever seen a reflection of yourself, not straight on but just out of the corner of your eye, frozen for just an instant in time, then you’ll know what I mean. An image of just that single moment, twisting quickly into something different. That’s how I see you. It’s as if you’ve lived and died a dozen times already. That means you could die tomorrow. Or live tomorrow. Either one. When it happens and we see it, then we’ll know.”
“And you? What about you?”
“I’m sorry, Lance. Yesterday and tomorrow never seem to sit in one place. I live from one moment to another, whenever that might be. I fell in love with you in 1919, or 1939, or the moment after that, which might be yesterday or today, or some time real soon. Does that really matter? The only important thing is that my soul lies with yours, my knight, my love, my savior. Through all time. If there is time, that is.” She glanced back, locking onto his gaze, but only briefly. Her eyes fluttered violently back and forth in a pantomime of total blindness.
After that, the ride seemed to last forever, an eternity really, and not another word was spoken.
Tokala remained silent as Jona surveyed the room.
“Thanks Mr. Tokala. I need this.”
“Thank Miss Amelia. This is for her, seeing as I don’t know you from Adam. And... Don’t call me mister. I have one name only. Tokala.” He hesitated at the door, as if torn between leaving or staying. Finally, he tossed his hat on the floor and sat on the chair. “So, what’s your story? Your father is Dr. Lieb?”
“Yes. I’m a doctor too. Also Dr. Lieb.” Jona lay back on the bed, forearms crossed under his head. “Not like my father, though. He was special.”
“Yes. Special.”
Jona realized that Tokala was staring at him closely, studying him. “Did you know him well?”
“Know him well enough. As well as you can know someone like that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like you said, he’s special. Special in a lot of different ways. Your father would try hard to be whatever you wanted him to be, and he was usually successful. What did you need from him? Healer, professor, adventurer, idealist, pragmatist, saint, sinner...he had the uncanny ability to know what moved you before you knew yourself. That’s his true genius. He was always good to me and my mother. Respectful. Attentive. I love him for that.” He gave a quick throat clearing cough. “And that’s exactly what I wanted from him. He figured that out quickly.”
It was Jona’s turn to scrutinize Tokala carefully. He was fairly pale for a Cherokee. “You speak well.”
“What? For a Cherokee? Like I said, I don’t know you, so fuck off.” He spit the toothpick out, in Jona’s general direction.
“Sorry, truly sorry. No, you speak very well, period. Better than anyone else around here.”
“English, you mean. You don’t care how I speak my own language though, now do you. My mother taught me how to speak and how to write in our nation’s words. She also sent me to Birmingham when I was young so I could learn to talk well with the likes of you.”
“I was just trying to compliment you.”
“A common stupidity. Comparing others to your own standards, and trying to make them feel good about how they stack up.” He gave Lieb a sharp glance. “That’s all right, I guess I do exactly the same. Doesn’t work out well for you, though, when I do.”
Both men lapsed into a prolonged and deliberate silence which became progressively more awkward, but Tokala seemed disinclined to leave. He settled squarely on his chair and stared intently at Lieb. Unnerved, Jona finally spoke up. “This your house?”
“It’s our house. People use it as they need to. I have had your father here many times. He slept in that same bed.”
“He came here often?”
“Sometimes once a year, sometimes twice. One time he stayed the whole summer.”
Jona stilled the impulse to ask what summer that might have been. “And it was a secret, right?”
“Dunno about anyplace else, but not around these parts. Folks welcomed him, especially at the ranch. Miss Amelia and the others. The subjects. You met some, right?” Tokala’s words echoed briefly, circling around the dry stone walls before expiring.
“Doesn’t that make you angry?”
“Like I said, he’s been good to us. Not too many of your kind have been.”
“How did he get here?”
“Come on, now. What kinda question is that? Doctor Lieb is a big shot, biggest man in the world. Always came by limousine.”
“Not what I meant.” Jona paused again, then inhaled deeply. He overcame the urge to stay sprawled, raising himself upright at the edge of the bed. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sounds like you’re going to, no matter how I answer.”
“Are those really diamonds in your teeth?”
Tokala’s face lit up as he gave a big smile, turning his head left and right to showcase the glittering specks studding his teeth, sparkling brightly even in the dim lamplight. “Diamonds, yes. Small ones, sure. My own people ask me about it all the time, wondering why I had it done. It was years ago, and it was your father who gave me the idea.”
“How?”
“That’s a story, but I’ll make it short, if you really want to hear it.”
“Of course.”
“Ok:
We were convoying a shipment of goods across the border, lots of stuff he had smuggled back from Egypt and some place called Ethiopia, I believe. It was my first trip with him, and I felt lucky that my mom got me the job because there was five hundred bucks for me at the end of that rainbow. Even so, it was still nerve wracking. The more expensive our cargo, the worse it would be for me if we were caught, and sure enough the items were very valuable. Your father, though...He was bulletproof, immune from arrest, as if he had taken some kind of a vaccine that shielded him against the law, so he didn’t worry about it at all.
Anyway, in those days Dr. Lieb insisted that he personally accompany our cargo all the way to N’allans for sale there. Made lotsa dollas in those days. He changed later, when I took charge, but that’s the way he was back then. So we were together that trip, loaded up on the Lady Louise, only one, maybe two days from docking. We were on the afterdeck, it was a beautiful night, and our only company were the fireflies that flicked around us. My people wonder whether fireflies might be special for us, maybe flashing us signs from our ancestors, a secret code maybe. I don’t know, but I thought that night they were sending me a message of contentment and peace. Tranquil is the right word. We sipped a little Tennessee healing water, and your father took a few pops of black button, which he enjoyed doing from time to time. Said it helped him think straight. The night sky was right orderly, stars aligned to perfection, no skeeters buzzing around, and the both of us were sailing real smooth. Man, it was alright.
Something prompted him, who knows what, and don’t you know he takes something out of his coat pocket. It was a little painting on wood, a few inches by a few inches, a somber old fashioned lady with a round face, wearing a golden crown. A queen. The frame looked real fancy, like something you never see, and your father explained the details to me. I was mesmerized by the words he used to describe it. I like words, that comes from my mother, so I had him say it all over again the next day, when I was sober, so I could learn and write it down and say it exactly the same way. It went like this: Red glass and enamel along the outer edge, silver and niello along the inner side, earth stones on top and bottom, a ruby over the lady’s crown, and a double row of melees lining the border over a background of terra verte. Beautiful, huh? I can see it right now, even without closing my eyes. Dr. Lieb told me it was five hundred years old, and now it was his. He seemed kinda proud of that. I had an inkling it had something to do with the white people’s religion, and I asked him about it. I said, ‘Do you pray to this?’
He didn’t answer for a long time, maybe even an hour, or two, can’t be sure ‘cause I was toasted. Finally, he said “No, and yes. But it does help praying, if you have a mind to. I know your mom prays, though not this kind of way. You might say it’s like whisky, or the night air. Helps you get through the cracks and to the other side, if you know what I mean. Some people, though, they pray right into this little square of wood, like it’s gonna answer one day.”
I didn’t understand exactly, but I said nothing, just kept sippin’ on the bottle and staring at the heavens above.
He didn’t like that and leaned over to nudge me kind of rough. “Look close. Look at her eyes.”
I did. She was looking a bit sideways, but I didn’t see much else. “They’re big.”
He nudged me again, harder, almost knocking me off my seat. “It’s a snap glance. Is she looking at you, like she’s a friend turning your way, or is she starting to look away, like you’re a pile of shit?”
I couldn’t really answer for sure, so I gave him the answer I thought he wanted. “She’s coming my way, boss.” I think he liked that answer, because he settled down for a bit. The more I thought about it, the more I thought she did look kinda interested in me. In my condition at the time, I couldn’t tell.
It was like an hour later, when he spoke up again. “Well you are indeed a pile of shit, that’s why it means something important, the fact that she’s looking at you. Not looking away. Know what I mean?”
Actually, I had no clue what he meant, when just on a whim he handed the picture to me, you know, to share friendly-like so I could admire it. I won’t hide the fact I was pretty jarred at the time, so my fingers were like jelly. The little picture with the woody frame lasted in my hands about two seconds before I dropped it. The thing cracked, and a whole bunch of the little diamonds scattered over the deck.
Your father behaved kinda peculiar, but that was the essence of your father. Most men would start hollering stuff and say a lot of shit, and maybe do much worse. Even though I was loopy I steeled myself, not knowing what he might do. Well, I didn’t expect that he would start laughing. I mean really laughing, as if we were watching someone slip on a banana peel and do a double somersault before landing on their ass. He told me it was the night’s way of sending a message, that we shouldn’t love things so much, and we should throw away the past, and we should cut the chains that bind us, and all kinds of real deep stuff like that. Look, I know that a little bit of Mescalero chew can make a man say crazy things, but that’s just the thing; he wasn’t talking crazy at all, not as far as I could tell, just laughing and cursing a bit, and going into all this other stuff about life, and history, and fame, and I don’t know what all. Honestly, all that talk was wasted on me, even though he grabbed me by the lapels and talked right into my eyes.
Finally, he said to me, ‘Tokala, pick up all those little diamonds, and the ones you can find you can keep. Right now, I can see your future.’
I answered him, ‘Boss, what would I do with such tiny diamonds? Don’t think anyone would buy them, can’t be worth much.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said. ‘Take them. I know a Koasati in Chattanooga who will set them right into your teeth, right in the front. People you meet will think you’re seriously nuts, or seriously rich, or both. Saw this in Texas more than once. Think of the power that will give you over all the timid little souls out there. Plus, it’ll get you women, I guarantee it.’ Then he started laughing even harder, and I have to say I started laughing too.”
“So you went to Chattanooga and had it done.”
Tokala took on an odd look, squinting as he averted his eyes. It was a moment before he answered. “No, not right away. Not for a long while, anyway. Things looked a bit different to me in the morning, after I got my head screwed on right. Didn’t know your father real well at the time, and the idea seemed a bit crazy, so I just put the diamonds away.”
Jona tilted his head expectantly.
“OK. You want the rest of the story? I can do it long or I can do it short. Here goes:
Two years later almost exactly. Same boat, Lady Louise, probably about the same location. Just me, your father, and a guy from my tribe, name of Jacob Johnson. Big guy. Tough. Rumor had it that he was your father’s slave. They were close, it’s true, but I never saw either one of them behave anything along those lines, and back here in Bridgetown he lived in his own place and worked at my mother’s newspaper. Someone told me that Dr Lieb gave him to my mother as a gift, but that story’s a lie. He did buy the newspaper for her, but never one of our own people. I’m pretty sure Jake’s wages were his own. Anyway, he knew how to set type, and helped with layout, and he had a pretty grand opinion of himself. Thought he was a big shot because he could read and write so well. In English, that is. Not so great with our own words; my mother was always having to correct him. Dr. Lieb encouraged him to read white poetry, and learn it by heart so that he could recite at the drop of a hat. I saw him giving Jake lessons on how to read poetry properly. Jake lapped it up. I confess, he was smart at that. He did it for Dr. Lieb, but I think down deep he really enjoyed getting up in his own hair, throwing out words left and right, as smug as a Carolina grandee. Like I said, thought he was a big shot. I didn’t like him much.
We were all banged out that night, me and Jake on bana rum and your father on two or three buttons together with some Bama moonshine he found somewhere. The old man was being funny, making jokes at nothing and laughing like a banshee at everything. It felt good to see him nice and easy, sitting deep in his deck chair and far from the world. The night went on like that for a while, but then he changed. Hard to say exactly why, but he kind of drew into himself. He wasn’t quiet exactly, because I could hear him moaning, but the moans were like names that he was naming. Maybe he was dreaming, I don’t know. I could make out a few very faintly though I wasn’t positive: Maria? Alexandra? Amelia? I think those were some, but I’m sure there were more I couldn’t make out. I kind of thought that Amelia was Miss Amelia, but the other names meant nothing to me.
He kept on this way, slobbering a bit, until he stopped cold. I thought he had fallen asleep until he suddenly sat up and called out from his chair. “Hey Jake,” he yelled as the moon slunk low and the stars stripped their clothes off to show their bodies. “Where you at?”
“Right here, boss!” Jake thought he was quite an actor and made a grand gesture with his arms and grabbed at his chest, as if he were succumbing to some mysterious malady.
“You ever thinkin’ about women at all? I guess I am, they’re rollin’ around inside me right now.”
“I am if you are, boss.” He made a a big show of pointing at the sky above with both hands. “Look, it’s empty up there right now. We can fill it up any way we want. Ladies, song, wine, whatever you want and it shall be. You sing the tune and I will write the lyrics.”
“Yeah. Whisky, weed, and women. That is all you ever need to be really livin’. Or poems. Words. That too. Cumma’, say me a poem, Jake. I need one. Say me a poem that will save my life, godammit.”
Man, Jake didn’t think but a moment, said he had a “new one” from a lady up north, and then he started in like this:
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry...
Dr. Lieb got up out of his chair as the poem went on, stumbling a bit, and started to dance, a clumsy stomping kind of dance, a jig without any grace of movement, circling and spinning all solitary on the deck. He put his arms up and whistled a few times, and then stuck all his fingers up at the stars above, making himself unsteady and almost keeling over. ‘Listen carefully, take note and remember, cause we won’t give you another performance, this is the only one you’ll have,’ he shouted at them, and then he pointed at me, and Jake, and then I think he pointed at himself. Sirius was blazing that night, stark naked, a temptress riding high in the heavenly arch. Your father pointed right there, and called out to her. Not in an ordinary voice, no. In the kind of voice a wise man might use when calling to the spirits hiding in the winds and trees, or to the wolves that live within him, the kind of voice that becomes a spirit itself, wandering through the world like a beggar pleading to be heard. “Sirius,” he called. “I see you dripping with diamonds tonight, but I’ve seen you as well when you’re crying in the dumps of despair, or hiding behind closed curtains. I know that deep inside you’re hurtin’ and everything to you seems so uncertain right now, but come down and be with me, and I will be with you. Come on, Sirius, you sad lady, come bind your wounds with mine, and I will bind all of mine with thine.” He waited a few moments, staring upwards, and then joined Jake in finishing the poem, speaking in rapid cadence, with voice high, like a woman’s:
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
The poem didn’t mean that much to me, but the moment did,and I felt it deep inside. Your father seemed happy, which meant a lot, because I thought I had something to do with it. Giving happiness...that’s something special in this world. That’s something your father understood real well. My man Jacob, he was almost spinning up to heaven with joy, he was so excited.
In seconds, it all changed. There was a bang and somewhere something vibrated. There was a voice, or many voices, and men appeared on the afterdeck. They slunk real low as they came over the stern rails, kind of fox-nimble, their faces raccoon-sharp. They were Choctaw raiders, pirate thieves, I’m sure of it. You don’t have to like them to know them. Your father saw them first and gave a shout, but I give credit to old Jake; he carried a .44 and let fly immediately, dropping one right away. My brain was not working so well, but I drew also and began firing. All I could see were dim shapes in the night, but I was determined not to go down easy, so I kept shooting.
Well, this is not a nice story, so don’t be waiting for a happy ending. When the shooting stopped and the shadows had slithered away, there were three bodies lying on the deck. One was Jake. It was very sad to see. Your father dropped to his knees, and after checking him began to whine and cry like a puppy. I kneeled down also, and then I realized the truth. Jake had been shot in the back three times. From where I knelt, it was easy to turn and see the direction of the line of fire, exactly from where I had been standing.
Your father understood in the same instant. He reached over to grasp my hand and just held it for a moment. The captain and crew appeared, guns out, and it was chaos for a while, but I was pretty numb. I know they asked a lot of questions, but to this day I don’t know how I responded. I think Dr. Lieb did most of the talking.
Later, he came to visit me in my cabin. Of course, I don’t remember how I got down there, but I do remember that Jake’s cot was opposite mine, and all I could do was stare at it and hope that he would somehow just appear, cocky and uppity as he usually was. I held a bottle of whiskey in my left hand and my Enfield revolver in my right. The whiskey was to drown myself down. I’m not sure what the gun was for.
Dr. Lieb just stood in the doorway, staring at me, and at first said nothing. I thought he might be trying to find the right words of solace
to relieve the devastation I felt. Instead, he jabbed his finger at me. “There is only one thing you need to figure out, and you need to start right now, or you won’t be able to live your life in peace.”
I think I just shook my head, uncomprehending. “Figure out what?”
“Did you come this way or were you brought this way?”
I was too confused to argue and again I shook my head. “Don’t understand what you’re saying.”
In one stride he was standing over me, and gave me a slap across the face, dead on, the kind of blow no man would take without a fight. Instead, I buried my face in my hands and began to cry. He asked the same question. “Did you come here or were you brought here?”
When I didn’t answer again, he asked it different. “Did you make your fate or did you meet your fate?”
That, I did understand. I started to say that it was an accident, and couldn’t be helped, but I stopped myself. Though I was partly or mostly drunk, I felt the question sink into me, into my spirit, like a rock sinking deep into a pool of quiet water. The ripples are still spreading, you might say, to this day. Not as intense as that night, but still beating, wave after wave, not letting me forget the question.”
Jona waited expectantly, but Tokala lapsed into silence. “Did you ever answer? The question?”
The lamp hanging from the center of the room gave off a low but steady, even light. Even so, Tokala’s face shifted from dark to pale, then to a dusky hue over forehead and cheeks, as if an unseen moon was orbiting rapidly over his head, casting its light carelessly as it circled. After long moments had passed, he picked his hat up off the floor and arose from the chair. Before walking out the door, he captured Jona with an intense stare. “I did three things after that night. First, I told your father that from then on I would handle the transport of his goods. He didn’t need to expose himself like that. Second, I traveled to Chattanooga and had the diamonds fitted in my teeth. The third thing I did was the firstmost of all.” He paused to place a fresh toothpick in his mouth. “The third thing was, I looked up that poem, and memorized it, and keep it in me to this day.”
Later, in the dead of night, Jona felt a presence come into his
bed. He did not wake, not completely, but sensed a warmth spread
over his chest and belly, then migrate slowly down his legs, hands
and arms. The sensation probed him, gliding into a
loose embrace around his waist while a dense vapor of hot breath
descended over his neck and cheeks. Words came to him, embedded
in the dry rustle of his sheets. A woman’s voice spoke, spinning
through a cycle of sounds like a siren wailing a warning.
See, the voice seemed to say.
See. See.
And suddenly, he saw.
He was on a small boat. He was unclothed and exposed, but
his body was hardened to the roughness of his wooden bench seat.
The heat of the day poured over him in dazzling brilliance, almost
blinding him, but he could still make out the obscure, irregular line of
a far shore. He was rowing towards it, his long sinewy arms moving in
steady cadence and perfect coordination while his muscular legs propped him
up, exerting powerful support. There were flashes and slants and reflections of
light all around, but he ignored them, focusing only on the rhythm of
pull and draw, pull and draw. Sweat poured heavily down his
forehead, of that he was sure, but he could feel nothing else in his
bubble of space as he hurtled at high speed, anxious to reach the end.
The woman’s voice licked at him again, the sound now desperately close to his ear.
Do you know where you’re going?
Yes I do.
That won’t be the right place.
I’m going to one just past that, around the bend. It can’t be
seen from here.
You think that will be the right one?
I believe so.
The voice accelerated, becoming a high-pitched hum, the sound
of a hummingbird seeking a bloom to dip its beak and
break its thirst.
What if it’s not. Wouldn’t it be better to believe you’re wrong.
What could be better? No despair. No anger. No loss. No care. Just
drift, drift through the rise and fall of the daily sun, drift with the
drowsy stars above, drift like the slow scent of lilac, drift
until you become like me.
Who are you?
Ah, you still want me to be someone, don’t you. You want a name. Words are important to you. You should stop struggling. The sky has darkened, Jona, and so the light is going low. You realize you’ve lost your way, and now you’ve reached the end of day. So, no more. There are no further words to say. Just drift. Drift, drift, drift, until you drift away.
Jona felt a warm hand rub his brow, and like a numbing salve it
ushered him into the abyss of deep sleep. Just before he fell off, in the
brief instant between wake and silence, he spoke his last thought.
There has to be more.
We’re almost there.
After a journey through decades, continents, memories and secrets, Searching Jona is approaching its end.
Only a few chapters remain.
The road is narrowing. The pieces are beginning to come together. And Jona is getting closer to the answers he has spent so long searching for.
But there’s still one question left:
Where does the road end?
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