My Soul to Keep (African Immortals)

  The sounds they made were part song, part call and response— from gasps to screams to whimpers. As their sounds mingled with the other night noises drifting through the open window, with her dripping perspiration and the damp scent diffused inside the breeze in the room, Jessica felt like one of the creatures outside, unashamed in the wildnerness, doing what God intended creatures to do.

  Afterward, they were both breathing hard, their slick chests rising and falling fast, and their flesh burned so hot that they couldn’t bear to touch. They fell away from each other and lay still on the blanket, smelling their heavy sex scent, their lower bodies moist from each other.

  The only light in the room was from the moon. David looked like a shadow beside her, as though she could reach her arm out and it would pass right through him.

  “I love you so much, Jess,” he said, a whine.

  “Me, too,” she said.

  He’d caught only one bass for dinner, using bread for bait since he’d forgotten to buy worms. They cut the fish in half after he fried it up. She’d eaten fresh fish and day-old fried chicken with a slice of bread, and it had tasted like a feast. They’d sat on the cabin’s steps, watching the blaze of the sunset light up their island in an orange bath while David’s radio played static-filled jazz that sounded like a broadcast from a time long ago. This is a dream, her mind had told her as she witnessed the too-perfect sunset. I’m going to wake up soon.

  David turned over in bed, facing her. She felt his rapid breaths against her forehead. “I have so many things I need to tell you,” he whispered, “but I’m scared out of my mind.”

  She’d expected this. A part of her had realized from the start that the purpose of this unexpected vacation was to give David whatever he needed—whether it was distance or guts or escape—to tell her more about himself. So, even without realizing it, she’d been prepared. His words did not alarm her. She touched his damp hair with her fingertips.

  “You don’t have to be scared.”

  “There’s so much you don’t know,” he said.

  “I know that,” she said. “But I need to. Right?”

  A nearby owl hooted so loudly that it sounded like it was in the room with them, perched at the head of the bed. When the owl fell silent, she noticed the chaotic chirping of the crickets. Everything around them was awake, it seemed. So was she. Her eyes were wide, trying to make out David’s features in the dark.

  “I’ve tried to imagine a life without you and Kira,” David said. “I can’t. I hardly remember my life before you. The only future I could bear would be the three of us together. Always. But you have to know things about me first. This is going to be so hard. Nothing will ever be harder than tonight.”

  “Hard for you or me?” she asked, trying to make a joke, but she realized that her throat was parched nearly mute.

  “Mostly for you, I think,” he said.

  “Maybe I’ll surprise you,” she said, accepting within herself that she could stand to hear about an affair with another woman— or even a man. She could, so long as it was over. If David was bisexual, so be it; so long as he was honest, he didn’t cheat, and they could fulfill each other’s needs. She could stand to hear about a criminal record, even, which might explain his financial independence. Hell, the Kennedys had been bootleggers and nobody hassled them. That story about an inheritance from David’s father had never rung completely true to her, or to Bea. People can change, she told herself. Jessica decided she could stand to hear any of those things because none of that would be worth losing David over. Not even close.

  David took a long, labored breath. “You remember when I fell out of the tree?” he whispered. “How my bruises went away?”

  The bruises. Jessica’s lips parted. She realized that David was going to take her to a deeper place than she had imagined, a place she herself had buried since his fall. She felt scared.

  “I remember,” she said.

  “Well, I saw the look on your face, the wondering. And you’ve probably noticed other times, too. How I don’t stay scratched. You’ve noticed, haven’t you?”

  “I’ve noticed.” Jessica became aware of how hard her nipples had grown, teased by the breeze. The back of her neck felt hot.

  “There’s a reason for that,” David said. “I have a very unusual makeup. Not just me. There are others like me. Mahmoud is another. There’s something different about our blood.”

  Jessica allowed his words to wash over her, and she struggled to hold her panic at bay. What could be different about his blood?

  “Are you sick?” she asked.

  “No,” he said soothingly, brushing his palm across her collarbone. “I’m perfectly healthy. I promise you that. It only means that I heal very quickly. That I never get sick. Wounds vanish overnight. That’s why I avoid doctors. I already understand my blood chemistry, and doctors would only be confused.”

  Unless she imagined it, Jessica was certain she could hear the thumping of David’s heart near her. Yes, she could. Or was it her own? She wanted to hug him and tell him it was all right, that he didn’t need to go on. But she had to know more.

  “So, that’s your big secret … ?”

  “Part of it,” David said.

  “What’s the other part? I’m with you so far.”

  She heard him swallow hard. “What you have to understand is, I’m sharing something with you I’ve never shared with anyone. Not because I cherish secrecy, but because I’ve been instructed not to. This is all so delicate, Jessica.”

  “Who told you not to? Is it like a … government thing?” The question sounded silly to her, but what else could it be?

  “No,” he said. “Not like that. It’s hard for me to explain. In fact … I can’t really explain, not verbally. If I told you everything now, flat out, you’d think me insane. You’d have me put away. But the alternative will be very traumatic for you. And I’m sorry for that. I wish I knew of another way.”

  “David …” she said. “Now, you’re scaring me.”

  “I know,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

  For a long time, they were silent. Jessica no longer heard the generator or the flurry of nocturnal life outside. All she heard was the silence of her waiting. Their hearts danced.

  “You know,” he said, “this is one instance I’m glad you’re a woman of faith. I really am. I’m going to ask you to believe in something tonight that your mind will tell you not to believe. But you must. I can’t tell you how imperative that is. You must know that I would not lie to you, that you can have faith in my word to you. And in the morning, everything will be all right. Just like I told you when I fell from the tree. Do you remember that?”

  Jessica nodded, not speaking.

  “We’re going to make a passage tonight, Jessica. Both of us. Our faith in each other, and our love, will be our light on this path. By morning, we’ll have witnessed a true miracle. I guarantee you that. We will.”

  Jessica couldn’t think of anything to say. She realized that her toes and knuckles were curled tight. Her entire frame was tense. David had never spoken this way to her. No one had ever spoken this way to her. Her mind was too unsettled to process what he was saying, to respond at all.

  Abruptly, David sat up. She saw him hang his head, staring at the floor. She saw him wipe his eyes. Then, painstakingly, he stood naked at his full height beside the bed, a far-off shadow.

  “Mi vida,” he said, “I have to stop talking now. I’m going to draw myself a cool bath and sit in the tub for a few moments. Okay?”

  Jessica was relieved. Taking a bath was a very normal thing to do, and the thought of the routine returned her to the sense of reality that had been fleeing as David spoke.

  “Sounds like a good idea to me,” she said.

  He leaned over the bed and kissed her forehead, so gently she could barely feel his lips. “We’ll talk some more a little later. And remember—by morning, everything will be fine. Just like before. I promise you.”

  J
essica watched him walk, in darkness, to the bathroom. He closed the door, then she saw warm light stream across the wooden floor. It seemed to her that a long time had passed before she heard him turn on the water for the tub.

  In that time, inexplicably, she had the sense that she could open the bathroom door and he wouldn’t be there at all.

  Dawit sat on the rim of the tub, struggling to calm his shaking fingers as he grasped the hunting knife he’d hidden beneath the tub earlier, while Jessica was reading outside. He saw his own face, elongated and exaggerated, reflected in the shiny blade. Tonight, he would experience his personal moment of self-discovery.

  Among his Life brothers, a small number had learned to worship and conquer pain. They conducted drumming ceremonies with swords and knives, amputating their own limbs, sawing through flesh and bone with maniacal grins on their faces. They culminated with disembowelment, mimicking what they had all witnessed Khaldun perform on himself the first night in the temple. A few of them went further, subjecting themselves to decapitation, a gruesomeness that turned Dawit’s stomach. The severed head always withered away, and, over a period of twenty-four hours, a new one grew at its old stump. During its formation, the new head was a mass of bloody flesh and bones. For some reason, severed heads always grew back without hair, even eyebrows. Bald Life brothers, the beheaded, were highly respected.

  These acts were considered the height of bravery.

  Each rebirth, these exhibitionists believed, helped cleanse their souls. Dawit had always considered them foolish, and Khaldun himself never watched their bloody rituals, dismissing them as childish spectacle. But Dawit recalled their ceremonies and grins now, and he admired their courage.

  Dawit had considered many methods of proving his condition to Jessica; a gunshot to his head, poisoning himself, leaping from a great height. No method, he believed, would be so effective as what Khaldun had done. His recovery would defy all explanation, and she would have no choice but to believe.

  The tub was already a quarter filled with water. He must hurry, since the beating water was meant to cover the sound of his own cries. He, who had killed so many, must find the will to commit the same butchery against his own flesh. He must not shy from the pain. He must welcome it. He must revel in it.

  Dawit extended his arms fully outward, grasping the knife with both hands, its blade pointing at his belly. The Japanese variation was hara-kiri, the ultimate act of sacrifice. His Life brothers called it The Cleansing. A union with the knife.

  “I do not fear the pain,” Dawit said aloud.

  A full minute passed. Then, he plunged.

  “David? Did you call me?”

  Jessica wondered if she had dozed off, but she wasn’t sure. She heard the water running in the bathroom, the monotony of the sound growing overbearing. She was more sleepy than she’d imagined she would be, considering the strange things David had just said. Even though he’d only been gone a few minutes (that’s what it felt like, anyway; she couldn’t be sure), already their conversation had taken on a surreal texture in her memory—as though, just maybe, she’d dreamed it.

  Suddenly, a practical consideration swept Jessica’s consciousness, bad news to complement bad news. She’d left her birth control pills at home, and she hadn’t taken one that morning. Damn. She was so good about remembering, but David hadn’t thought to pack her peach-colored daily dispenser and she hadn’t thought to check. Realistically, she could get pregnant this weekend; her doctor had warned her that the minipills she used, which didn’t have estrogen, needed to be taken religiously at the same time every day to be effective. So much for that. David’s sperm was roaming unchecked inside of her now.

  But that thought, as soon as it came, was forgotten.

  David’s sperm. David’s blood. If something was different about David’s blood, did that mean it might affect Kira? Did he have some sort of genetic defect, like sickle-cell anemia? Was it something Alex should study?

  I never get sick. Wounds vanish overnight.

  Jessica’s naked body was overrun by goosepimples. He had much more to tell her, he’d said. What could it be? What could sound more crazy than what he had already said? She no longer knew what to prepare for. There was no way to prepare at all.

  Again, Jessica was certain she heard David’s voice from the bathroom. Not calling her, exactly. A sound.

  “David?” she called, propping herself on her elbows.

  Only the stream of water answered. She wondered, for the first time, exactly how long he had been in there. It seemed to her that the water had been running for a long time, maybe fifteen minutes. Why did it seem he’d been gone so long?

  Suddenly, Jessica thought of Uncle Billy in her mother’s tub, dying, the water running over the rim and into the hallway. She remembered the way Bea had described the bloody gash at his temple. The thought scared her. She felt a momentary panic as she realized she was alone and nude in a strange place, in the dark.

  Why hadn’t David answered?

  Jessica found David’s T-shirt at the foot of the bed and slid it over her head, wearing it inside out. She slipped her feet into her Nikes, which were still damp from the afternoon, and stood up to shuffle toward the bathroom. This close, the sound of the water was nearly deafening. She knocked twice on the door.

  “David? I thought I heard you say something.”

  The door was unlocked. She eased it open and peeked inside.

  David had fallen asleep in the tub, his head turned away from her, and the running water was creeping up to his chin. Another inch and the water would be running onto the floor, just like with Uncle Billy. How had David managed to turn the water pink?

  Jessica took two steps forward. She meant to turn off the faucet. She meant to lean over and tousle David’s hair to wake him. She’d thought it might be nice to climb in with him.

  That was when David’s head snapped around and she finally saw his face. He was slack-jawed, his eyes wide but fluttering oddly. Though he was looking right at her, he wasn’t seeing her. He raised his arm from the tub, pulling out a dripping knife he allowed to clatter to the floor.

  The water wasn’t pink, she could see now. Near David, it swirled deep red. The closer she moved, the more red and murky the water. The red was coming from him.

  “I’m sorry, Jessica,” David gasped.

  She stared back down at the knife, and she knew.

  Jessica couldn’t stop screaming.

  29

  Jessica was startled by the sound of a fanatical woman’s wounded wailing echoing against the trees behind her, until she realized the sound was coming from her. She sloshed through the saw grass, nearly losing her footing in the knee-high water when she stumbled across something hard beneath the muddy surface. The beam from her flashlight skipped wildly from lilypads to grass stalks to isolated tree trunks, all looking large and forbidding. Another wrenching sob made her shoulders heave, and she had to wipe her eyes with her forearm because she couldn’t see for her tears. The flashlight pointed uselessly into the dense, dark sky.

  “Help me …” she said hoarsely. “Oh, Jesus … someone please come help me … David is …”

  Her mind wouldn’t finish the thought. Instead, another sob rose from her chest and nearly doubled her over.

  She didn’t know what she’d expected to find out here at the water’s edge. It was as though she’d thought this was a movie where she would run to the beach and see an ocean liner floating in the distance, and all she would have to do was build a bonfire and wave her flashlight, and paratroopers would come floating down. Or she could peer out and spot a nearby island with a fireplace flickering through someone’s window, and she could yell out—water carried voices farther, didn’t it?—and someone would peek out and say Joe-Bob, I think I hear something.

  Something unseen splashed in the water five feet in front of Jessica, and the sound made her scream and leap back. No, she wasn’t in one of those movies. She was in a fucking swamp, surrounded by snakes a
nd alligators and God-knows-what-else. It seemed unbelievable that an airboat from the mainland had dropped them off here just a few hours before. A few hours. And now everything was all wrong, and no airboat would come to her no matter how long she screamed into the night.

  Her feet were being sucked into the soft mud, and each time she took a step, the gunk nearly pulled off her untied shoes. Mosquitoes were biting her all over, and viciously—her face, her arms, her legs, her bare buttocks. Mosquitoes were raining on her.

  Sucking her blood.

  She thought about the blood everywhere, on the bathroom linoleum, in the tub, on the bedsheet she’d tied around his middle to hold his insides in because, yes, his insides were falling out through that mess he’d made in his belly, and when she finished vomiting in the sink she tied the sheet into a tight, tight knot around David’s middle like they would have done on Emergency! when she watched it as a kid. And the white sheet soaked through, just like that, into crimson. The Quicker Picker-Upper.

  She could smell it even here, the blood. It was on her hands, on her shirt. The blood smell blended with the smell of wet rot all around her, and she imagined her feet were drowned in blood. She shined the flashlight at the water to be sure, and all she could see was a pool of black filled with white specks.

  The mosquitoes pulled her from her trance. Eating her alive, her mother always said. Yes, they were. With another scream, she ran out of the saw-grass bed until she reached the beach. Her feet kicked up sand, which clung to her damp legs and pelted her face.

  Then, somehow, she was on her knees. She’d fallen. She collapsed onto her palms and wept. She remembered to pray again. She had been praying so long and so hard.

  Help me, Jesus. Please don’t let him be dead. Please, oh please, let him make it through the night.