His face had not fared much better, especially his swollen tongue he’d nearly severed when he bit down on it upon impact. It was hard for him to speak, and painful. He’d also scraped some skin from his face along his jawbone. He would have to fix it.
After drying his face with a towel, dabbing at the tender spot one-handed, Dawit found cotton gauze in the bathroom first-aid kit and secured it to his face with white surgical tape. The bandage was unsightly, but at least it would hide the damage to his face.
There was nothing he could do to improve his shoulder. He considered an attempt to snap it back into place, but the thought of new pain dissuaded him, especially since his ribs were already stabbing his insides. Better to let it heal itself.
“David? Are you okay in there?” Jessica called, knocking on the closed door.
“I’ll be right out, baby,” he called back.
He wrapped himself in his white terry cloth robe and took one last look. He’d cleaned his blood away and covered his bruises with clothing or bandages, so there was no more to be done. This night would be his test. He must make it through this one night.
In the bedroom, Jessica had lighted candles on either side of the bed and put on a tape of music from India that she’d bought from a yoga center years before when Dawit was helping her experiment with basic meditation. He recognized the instruments right away, the flute and tambura. He had played the mystical- sounding stringed tambura for a time with his brethren in the House of Music. Sometimes, he missed those days. He missed Mahmoud and Khaldun most of all.
Jessica had selected the right music to calm him. Dawit shuddered with regret, thinking of her. Surely, he had scared her. What must she think of him?
Jessica patted the space on the bed beside her. “Come,” she said. “I want to talk.”
He leaned over to kiss her cheek, lingering despite the pain. “I have only two words: I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am.”
“I know,” she said. When he sat, she slid beside him and slowly slipped her arm around his waist. He wanted to scream when she brushed his rib cage slightly, but he repressed the urge. She rested her chin on his good shoulder. “David … we have to go to a doctor. You know that, right?”
Dawit sighed. “Yes,” he said. “Tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to wait that long. I’ll have Mom come over right now to sit, and we can drive to North Shore Hospital.”
“Darling …” David said, wishing he could rest his aching tongue. “I know you don’t believe me, but I’m fine. Even the shoulder isn’t as bad as it looks. I know what I’m talking about. It’s happened before. Let’s give it until morning. If you’re still worried in the morning, I’ll go. I promise.”
For a long time, Jessica didn’t speak. He knew she was not happy, but she seemed to realize this was the biggest compromise she had ever won from him. “I called the DeNights to apologize,” Dawit went on, to prove he’d recovered his mind. “I freaked, as you would say. The fall scared me, more than anything. But it’s okay. It really is.”
Jessica kissed his good shoulder, nudging her lips past his robe to his skin. “Okay,” she said. “You know this is all just because I love you, don’t you? Because if you let anything bad happen from being stubborn and stupid, I’m going to kill you. You know that, right?”
“Yes,” he said. Now, it was he who felt tears, both from the wretched pain and from his depths of love for this woman, this mortal woman—a woman he must soon leave or convince to join him in Life forever. And how could he do either?
The hypnotizing sound of the tambura and its gentle Eastern strings reminded him of the incongruity of their worlds.
“I’ll never leave you, Jessica,” he said, not realizing until later, as he tried to sleep despite the diminishing shocks of pain, that he had come to his decision at last.
21
“David, wake up, honey. Look who stopped by.”
Confused, Dawit blinked into the daylight from his canopied sleep sanctuary. For a moment, unreasonably, he expected to see Christina’s face above him. Or Adele’s. But neither of those women called him David, of course. David was Jessica’s name only.
And so she was here, dressed for work in an orange silk blouse and houndstooth skirt, smiling down at him nervously. Dawit shifted in the bed and felt a dull, distant throbbing behind his shoulder blade—a residue of pain rather than the pain itself. His body had done its work, leaving him depleted of energy. Once while traveling through Ethiopia, after losing his right hand in swordplay with a nobleman in Gonder whose wife he’d conquested with his charms, Dawit fell unconscious and found a fully formed hand in its place by morning; but the new limb nonetheless ached for a full two days. Regeneration was a strain on his system, and that hardship had not improved with time. Dawit felt groggy and disconnected, lost in the patchwork of his own ancient histories.
“Babe?” Jessica asked, sounding worried this time because he didn’t respond. Dawit scowled at her, half sitting up in the bed. “I said there’s someone here to see you.”
Alexis, Jessica’s sister, stood in the doorway in a white lab coat. She too was apparently on her way to work and had no doubt stopped by at Jessica’s urging. Dawit tightened his fingers around the silk bedsheet, rigid with anger.
“What’s up, David?” Alexis said cheerfully.
Dawit nodded. “’Morning,” he mumbled.
“Hear through the grapevine you took a fall out of a tree. My price is right, so Jessica wanted me to come check you out.”
Jessica looked at Alexis, grateful, and then back at Dawit, with pleading, apologetic eyes. She bit her bottom lip, waiting for Dawit to respond. Of all wretched luck, marrying a woman with a physician in her family! He had never met anyone who hounded him about doctors’ care as much as Jessica. Americans had grown far more pampered in recent decades. Perhaps the Searchers were right in what they had told him the night they came to bid him to leave his family in Chicago; perhaps it was no longer possible, in modern times, to blend with mortals.
But Dawit decided to acquiesce. After his mean-spirited temperament the night before, Jessica had earned his cooperation. “Well, I know a deal when I hear one,” he said, mustering a smile. “It’s not every day you can find a doctor willing to make house calls. I have only one rule, Sis: no needles.”
“Deal,” Alexis said.
Once Dawit’s robe was off and his torso bare, Alexis examined him in the bright morning sunlight from the bedroom window. She ran her fingers across his back, his shoulders, his ribs. Her fingers tickled, sometimes finding a vague soreness, but Dawit sat without moving, his eyes occupied with watching his toes wriggling absently inches above the floor. Jessica stood beside them, her hands folded across her chest as she watched.
“Which shoulder is it?” Alexis asked at last.
“The left shoulder,” Jessica said.
Alexis probed with her palm. Dawit winced, more for display than out of discomfort. “Let’s look at your abrasion,” Alexis said unexpectedly, and before Dawit could protest she zipped his bandage away from his cheekbone. Jessica leaned closer, and Dawit sat beneath the two women’s eyes. From their faces, and from past experience, he knew that they could not see evidence of the raw skin from the night before.
“It was just a scratch,” Dawit said.
Alexis chuckled. “I don’t see no damn scratch.”
Dawit looked at Jessica and tried to make her smile with a wink, but her face remained taciturn. She was silent, crossing and uncrossing her arms. Dawit wondered what dangerous thoughts were unsettling her. “Jess, I told you I’d be fine,” he said, squeezing her hand.
Jessica accepted his hand, but he noticed she didn’t squeeze back. In the past, Jessica had always been very good about ignoring his vanishing scratches and scars. For the sake of them both, he hoped that was not changing. This was the worst possible time for a change.
Or was it? Perhaps this was the best time, after all, an avenue for all of the unlikely possibili
ties ahead to come to fruition. Even the subconscious thought of disclosure, brushing the edge of his mind, made Dawit’s spirits soar.
“Do you hurt anywhere?” Alexis asked him.
“My ribs are sore, but just a little. They’re not broken or anything … See?” he said, poking his rib cage to make his point.
“David, your shoulder was completely out of whack,” Jessica said. “Mr. DeNight said it was dislocated.”
Slowly, Dawit raised his arm and wound it in an exaggerated propeller motion. “No dislocated shoulder here,” he said.
“You got that right,” Alexis said. “You’re damn lucky, David. That tree out there is no joke.”
“Of course I’m lucky. I married your sister, and I get free exams to boot. I’d call that damned lucky.”
Alexis laughed, but Jessica’s gaze was hard and analytical, with set eyes that had finally seen too much.
Jessica convinced David to fix Kira’s breakfast and dress her for school so she could follow her sister outside to her white Beamer to steal a moment with her. Not that she had the first idea what she planned to say. She just wanted to tell her sister she had goose- bumps, even despite the morning heat.
“Look at you, Jessica, all worried for nothing. I’m glad it wasn’t serious,” Alex said.
“Yes, Lord,” Jessica said, swallowing hard, standing over her sister’s open driver’s side door. She knew Alexis was late to the hematology lab already, but she stood planted there.
“You okay?”
Jessica shook her head. “No. I have to ask you something.”
Alex dropped her arms to her sides, gazing at her expectantly. “What?”
Jessica sighed. What was the best way to tackle this so she wouldn’t sound like an idiot? Alexis had legitimate business at her lab and didn’t have time for foolishness. Besides, Alex wouldn’t have any qualms about laughing right in her face.
Jessica began, staring at the ground. “Uhm … Is there any medical condition that would explain a hyperactive immune system? Or accelerate somebody’s recovery rate?”
“Some people have very strong natural defenses, if that’s what you mean,” Alex said. “I assume you’re talking about David?”
Instinctively, Jessica glanced at the house to see if they were being watched or overheard. No one was standing at any of the windows, and she’d been careful to close the whitewashed wooden front door before pulling the screen shut.
“Alex, this whole thing is weird. I saw him last night. He had much more than a scratch on his face. He scraped a bunch of the skin off. It was bleeding. And his shoulder was so jammed out of place, he looked deformed. Look up there,” she said, pointing up at the orchid tree, where the shears David had left were still nestled high in the branches. “He fell from there. He banged the hell out of himself. Last night, I was scared to death he’d broken half of the bones in his body. This morning, he’s fine.”
Repeating aloud what her brain had been telling her all morning, Jessica felt a tingling sensation on her arms and at the nape of her neck. The words sounded ridiculous, but they were true. All true. She realized her heart was pounding, making her feel weak. She wondered if the uneasiness in her belly was because she hadn’t yet eaten breakfast, or if it was from confronting the impossible.
Alex gazed at her a moment, then her eyes wandered to her dashboard. “It’s not that weird to me. David’s fall scared the devil out of you last night. Maybe it just seemed worse.”
Jessica leaned so close to her sister that their faces nearly touched. “I know blood when I see it. I know a bruise when I see it. How can he be bleeding one night, and then there’s not a trace this morning? And he knew. Even with his shoulder, he kept saying ‘Wait until morning, wait until morning,’ like he knew the whole time that he’d be all better. What about his shoulder? How did it get fixed?”
“People can pop their dislocated shoulders back in. Although, if he did, he should really see a doctor because there’s probably ligament damage. I’m surprised he’s not sore …”
“Sore? Why should he be sore? He doesn’t have a mark anywhere on his body. What about that bandage on his face? Alex, there was nothing there. Absolutely nothing.”
“So you should be happy, right?” Alex asked.
“Yes, I’m happy. I’m ecstatic. I just want to understand it, that’s all. I want to know how he can do that. I want you to explain it. I’m a journalist. We need to know these things.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. Granted, maybe another specialist would know something more, but I don’t think so. Unless your immune system is suppressed or impaired, recovery pretty much takes place at the same pace. We cut ourselves, our blood clots, we form scars.”
“And the scars last,” Jessica said.
“Yes,” Alex said. “Not long, usually. But they last.”
Jessica lowered her voice to a hush. She was revealing things she’d never allowed herself to think about, much less shared with another person. Teacake had scratched the bridge of David’s nose as a scared stray kitten, drawing blood. During a hike on a trail in El Yunque in Puerto Rico before Kira was born, David tripped in his boots and scraped his elbow against a jutting tree stump. And he’d had a burn mark on his arm just a few weeks before. All of the marks were gone before she realized it. Why hadn’t she ever wondered about it before?
“His scars don’t last,” she said aloud, in wonderment. “They never do. Right now, I’m trying to remember even one time he’s had a scar longer than a day. I’m telling you, they don’t last.”
Alex’s eyes darted upward, and Jessica followed her gaze. David was staring down at them from the open second-story bedroom window, Kira’s room. He waved.
Jessica waved back, smiling, but her voice was free of mirth as she spoke to her sister in the same guarded tone. “I don’t get it. He’s my husband, I love him to death, but I have to be honest. It’s freaking me out.”
“So get him to a doctor. Have some blood tests done,” Alex said. “Hell, I’ll do it myself. About time he saw somebody.”
Jessica shook her head. “Won’t happen,” she said ruefully. “You know better.”
“Ain’t you learned how to handle that man yet?” Alex asked playfully. “Listen, tell him you won’t give up any you-know-what if he won’t take his tail to a doctor.”
“You’re so vulgar. You should be ashamed,” Jessica said, slapping her sister’s shoulder. “I’m serious, Alex.”
“Shoot. Me, too.”
Jessica’s didn’t answer; her eyes were fixed on David’s form as he stood in the window watching them. Alex got into her car and turned the key in the ignition.
“Look, I’m late. Don’t worry about Superman up there. Some people are blessed, that’s all. And science ain’t got nothing to do with it,” Alex said. “Wish I had a dose of whatever he’s got.”
“Amen to that,” Jessica said.
22
Lowell Mason Farm South of Baton Rouge
1844
A shock of cold water droplets against Dawit’s cheek makes him cringe and claw at the dirt to retreat farther into the sawdust-filled corner. He has spilled water on himself after batting his arm against the sudden appearance of a corroded tin cup in front of his face. The cup clanks, a hollow sound, against the packed dirt floor. He does not know where the cup came from. He does not care. His senses are drowned in agony.
A woman’s voice. “Damned if he ain’t—”
Next, a gruff man speaks. “Can’t make him drink if he don’t want to.”
“He gots to drink, Ben. He been bound up in the sun two hours. Miracle he ain’t bleed to death.”
Be quiet, Dawit’s mind screams. Go away and leave me alone. He would strangle the voices with his bare hands if he had the strength to move or to even open his eyes again. His back is raging with pain, as if it is on fire. He is curled against the wooden wall, but he cannot move even to relieve the suffering of his tender skin against the wall’s rough texture.
The smell of blood fills his nostrils. His own blood, he realizes. His stomach lurches, and suddenly his mouth is running over. Unable to turn his head, he begins to cough uncontrollably, swallowing back the warm, meal-like vomit.
“Lawd, now he’s gon’ choke hisself,” the woman’s voice says, and he feels his head pushed to the side so he can cough his mouth clear. A sour-smelling dry rag moves across his lips.
“Damn,” the man says, sounding more distant than before, “I ain’t seen nobody take a hunnert with the cowhide in a long while. And him hollering like a girl. Bet you he can’t talk from raising all that Cain.”
“Talking ain’t gon’ be his problem. You hush and fetch me that balm I keep in the washbucket. Lord Jesus, look at how his back’s cut to pieces,” the woman said.
“I ain’t gon’ look at him no mo’ myself. Turns my stomach. What he try to run from Ole Master for? Nigger ain’t got no sense. Wonder where he from. Sound like he was hollerin’ in African.”
“Uh huh. Wild as can be.” The woman sighs. “But he won’t try to run no mo’. He sho’ ain’t.”
Dawit feels a flame of pain across his back and writhes weakly, trying to scream. He can make no sound. His throat is raw and tattered. The woman’s voice is close to his ear, soothing. “Hold yo’self still, now,” she says. “I ain’t no roots woman, but this the best I can do. It hurt now, but yo’ back ain’t never gon’ mend without it.”
“Ain’t gon’ mend noway,” the man mutters.
Another blaze of pain. The woman’s fingers are smearing something sticky on his back, across the open wounds. Dawit grits his teeth so hard together he is certain they will dislodge from the pressure. He longs to strike out at this woman, the one who is bringing him renewed pain, but he knows she must be a friend.
“Shhhhh. That’s right. Just hush. Don’t know what p’ssessed you to run like that, straight from the block. You ain’t even seen the farm, don’t know nothin’ ‘bout Ole Master. There’s lots worse than him, when you get sold this far south. You could be in the rice swamp, you ain’t careful. Mason Farm ain’t so bad.”