My Soul to Keep Part 23

"No. They caught me. And the woman who came with me."

"What happened?" Jessica asked.

David sighed, sifting the short hair on Jessica's forehead through his fingertips. "Well," he began, swallowing, "we were unarmed, but we fought them. And she died."

The sorrow in David's voice was tangible. Jessica could feel it moving through him, throughout the cave, and it shattered her mental defenses. This was David talking. Not only had he had other wives before her, he had loved other women who lived before her great-grandparents were born. And this long-dead slave woman still lived with him, in his thoughts. His past was as real as the blood she would find if she scratched the surface of his skin. It wasn't history. It was present still.

"What was the woman's name?" she whispered.

"Her name ..." David started to speak, but his lips clamped shut and he drew a deep, difficult breath. He shook his head and squeezed Jessica's hand, silent.

His grief, at that moment, made her swell toward him. "And you've never told anybody any of this, David?"

"It isn't permitted. You're the first," he breathed.

"I don't know how you could live so many years and not tell anyone. I don't know how you could do that."

"I don't know either," he said.

"Thank you for choosing me. For trusting me."

David moved as if to kiss her, but stopped himself. "Her name was Adele," he said instead. He told Jessica about how the five men caught them when they stopped to take a drink at a river. And how they violated and lynched her while David watched. Afterward, for long minutes of silence, Jessica tried to think of words that wouldn't sound small and meaningless. She couldn't. She was horrified for him, and for her own faceless ancestors.

"For vengeance, I fought in the war, and I slaughtered men. Many men, Jessica. I died many times over," David said in a hollow voice Jessica had never heard. "I call that time the Century of Blood. I lost my soul."

"You can't lose your soul, baby."

"When you have seen enough. And done enough. Oh, yes."

She stroked the side of his neck with her index finger. How would she ever have managed all the hate David had felt, and must be feeling still? Thinking of all the men he said he'd killed, she wondered if maybe David had really lost his soul, after all. She would have too. Jessica had read The Autobiography of Frederick Dougla.s.s, and she remembered how wretched he'd felt as a child, even though he'd never known anything but slavery. She'd thought it must have been worse for people like her own ancestor from Ghana, whom Bea had told her about, who was kidnapped and brought to the United States as an adult, as a man with his own life, in the 1840s.

"What year did you come here, David?" she asked.

"Eighteen forty-four."

Jessica's heart spun as she began to realize the weight of David's words. "My great-, great-, great-... oh, I forget how many greats back it is-but my ancestor was brought here around that time, even though it was illegal. From Ghana. Isn't that amazing? Think of it. You might have known him. But he was a slave in Georgia. I guess you never met."

"No, most likely we didn't," David said. "But I do know him, Jessica. I know his heart. As much as I know my own."

"How could you stay here after all you'd been through?" Jessica asked. "Couldn't you get the money to go back to Ethiopia, to the others? At least you lived to see the end of slavery, and you had somewhere else to go, a home."

"No, it wasn't money. I could always find work as a tradesman, a skilled laborer, a technician. I was very advanced, understand, and wisdom has always been a precious commodity. Life was backward here. I planned to go home right after the war, and I did visit briefly in the 1890s. Ethiopia was being encroached upon by the Italians, and I went to fight, to fend them off. But I returned here."

"Why?"

He sighed. "How can I explain? The other Africans here shared my wounds. Does that make sense to you? Just as I could never ill.u.s.trate to any mortal all I have seen and felt in my lifetime, I could never expect my Life brothers in Lalibela to understand all I have seen and felt here."

David sighed again, a ragged sound, and she realized he was going to cry soon. He went on: "I was enslaved only a brief time. Yet, that short time, in its cruelty, stands out in my memory. I have never suffered more greatly than I did watching the senseless way Adele died, like a hunted boar. When my first wife died long ago, in Ethiopia, I thought I knew grief. But until you have witnessed the death of a loved one to another man's violence, you know nothing of grief. And when you do, it lives with you and changes everything you thought you were. When I was a boy, I watched my father lose his life, and I became a warrior in my heart. And when Adele was killed? I still don't know what that made of me. I am afraid to know."

Jessica blinked, rapt.

David took a long, labored breath. "Adele was the only glimpse of beauty in the midst of so much ugliness. Men who emptied their l.u.s.ts inside of her still called her less than human. These same men sold their own children, and hers, as chattel. She told me these things at night, when we talked, as you and I are talking now. One by one, infants were wrested from her arms. And so, as much as Adele yearned to love a child, we did not dare create one because it would not be ours.

"I remember these events as well as I do eating breakfast this morning. It was a very short time ago. Yet, I have lived to see it buried. And Adele, and all of us, treated as though our pain was imaginary. It was not imaginary. It is with me every day."

Even in the darkness, Jessica could see David's frame shaking violently as he spoke. Suddenly, he sobbed and collapsed against her. For the next hour, he wept in her arms.

Maybe it was only a temporary phase, maybe it would pa.s.s, but at the times Jessica wasn't utterly swallowed by her fears of the future, she found herself in awe of David. It was like the awe she'd felt early in their courtship, when his intellect became more plain each day. Her new awe was even more keen.

One night, he brought the old Jazz Brigade photograph to the cave and told her how he started the group with a couple of buddies who used to have jam sessions in his living room. He pointed each man out to her, telling her their names, laughing about things they said and did.

"What was your name then?" she asked.

"Still Seth. Seth Tillis. They called me Spider."

He had this whole wonderful life as a musician, and a wife and children, and then the people from Ethiopia he called Searchers came. Just like that, he had to go. That was exactly what was happening now, he told her.

After hearing the story, Jessica began to unb.u.t.ton her blouse. Then, she hooked her fingers to the fly of his jeans, resting the heel of her palm against the lump there.

"In the cave?" David asked, surprised.

She only smiled.

Standing over the bathroom sink later to shake dried leaves from her hair, Jessica wondered if this new ardor was a form of hysteria. Her eyes found the mirror; there, in her own troubled face, were the doubts. Was she clinging to David's physical body because that was all she could possess of him, since she believed she was about to lose him? He was becoming a mirage to her, and she was a mirage herself. A stranger in her own body.

One of two things would happen now: He would leave and they might never see him again, or they could run away with him. Either scenario was unthinkable.

But even if they all went to Africa for a year or two, then what? Wouldn't his friend Mahmoud find them again? At some point, wouldn't anyone be able to notice that David wasn't aging? Even Kira would be old enough to ask questions soon.

On these nights, with hard questions gnawing at her peace of mind, Jessica climbed into bed beside her husband and curled around him so tightly that she imagined she could squeeze beneath his flesh like a second covering. Touching him this way, his name and history didn't matter, because she knew him; the familiarity made her doubts vanish. They dissolved inside each other's body heat as though they wore their souls on their skin.

Now, she decided, it was time to learn the core of it all, the one truth he'd left unspoken.

"Tell me about the ritual that made you this way," she whispered to him.

Dawit shook his head firmly, covering her mouth with his palm. Then he sat up, gestured, and they slipped down the stairs and through the kitchen into the yard, following the path to the cave. Teacake followed them. He always settled between Jessica's crossed legs when they sat on the blanket they'd brought inside the cave "We call it the Life ritual. Khaldun is the blood's source. It's a pa.s.sing of the blood."

"Did it hurt?" Jessica asked.

"Cramps and such, for a time. He baked a poisonous bud into loaves of bread and separated us into small groups, then he instructed us to eat. Its effects were swift. We couldn't breathe. We gasped and fainted. Then, as we died, Khaldun performed the Ritual on us, one by one. He recited an incantation and gave us drops of his blood."

"How did you feel when you woke up?"

"I don't remember. We were all in a state of disbelief, I think. I had a headache. I remember being thirsty."

"When you ate the poisoned bread ... were you afraid?"

"Very," David said. "I've never been more afraid since."

"Then why did you do it?"

At this, David smiled. He reached over to try to pet Teacake, but the cat's head snapped to hiss at him. Why was he so touchy lately? Teacake seemed afraid of David now, as if he knew something had changed. David withdrew his hand.

"Why? A very good question. I've asked myself that many times, believe me. Many times. I just wanted to know ..."

"Know what?" she asked, fascinated.

"I wanted to know everything," he said.

Jessica could understand that. She felt the same way, just as she wanted to know everything about David now. There wasn't enough time in a week or a month or a lifetime for all the questions she wanted to ask him.

"So, is Khaldun the only one who can do the ritual?"

At this, very suddenly, David met Jessica's eyes. She saw an ardent hopefulness in his face that scared her. "No, Jess," David said gently, his eyes holding her. "I can pa.s.s the blood too."

All of her other questions slipped out of Jessica's head. A dreamlike sensation tugged at her, making her lose her mooring in the moment. Her mind was shutting down. All she felt was fatigue, like she could sleep for a week. She knew this feeling; it came when a part of her began to give in to her doubts, reminding her that she no longer had even the simplest understanding of life anymore, that nothing was what it should be.

And that maybe her best times, her happiest days, were already behind her.

"Let's go to sleep, David," she said in a toneless voice.

That night, they slept in the same bed, but their bodies were far apart.

32.

Dawit had never particularly cared for Jessica's cat. Teacake shed everywhere, he was more temperamental and aloof than Princess had been, and he was too undisciplined with his claws. Once, after Teacake swatted at Kira and drew blood on her tiny wrist when she was two, Dawit raged and threatened to take the animal to the pound. It sparked one of his worst arguments with Jessica, one he sulked about for days.

But that history was instantly irrelevant the moment Dawit saw Teacake sitting on the porch. Waiting. Alive.

He could catalogue all of the happiest moments in his life-the promise of his marriage to Rana, his unblemished nights with Adele, his studies in Lalibela, the music in Chicago, the birth of Kira, the unequaled relief of his disclosure to Jessica-and the sight of Teacake alive ranked high among them. Dawit had been so preoccupied with nursing Jessica from the trauma of the weekend at the cabin that he'd forgotten to dread the return to the cat he thought he'd killed.

So, he was stunned on two levels to see Teacake. He'd forgotten Teacake was supposed to be dead. And, remembering that, he was amazed to find he was not.

Teacake pranced on the dining room table, mussing Dawit's newspaper in a bid for attention, but Dawit did not rebuke him. He nuzzled the soft fur at Teacake's throat, where he could feel the rough rumbling of the cat's purr. Teacake had shied away from Dawit for a while, apparently skittish from the memory of the injection, but he'd responded well to Dawit's kindness in the past two weeks. In the end, no matter what, pets always forgive.

"Do-It-Yourself Realty," a woman's voice chirped from the speaker on the telephone beside Dawit's elbow, full of that too-pleasant American artifice. For the past two minutes, the line he'd dialed had been ringing unanswered.

That morning, Jessica agreed Dawit could list the house for sale, just to see how it would fare in the marketplace. He bought the materials to post a FOR SALE BY OWNER sign in the front yard as soon as he dropped Kira off at school, and this company's advertis.e.m.e.nt in the paper claimed it would send someone to photograph the house the same day. By the time Jessica came home from work, it would be done. They would be that much closer.

All he needed was time enough to sell the house. He could not go back to his colony for ancient bars of gold or rare paintings, so he could ill afford to walk away from something so valuable at the time they needed money most. If Mahmoud challenged him, Dawit thought, he would explain he was selling the house because Jessica had always wanted a larger one, and she could use the money to move wherever she pleased. You know women cannot conduct business, Mahmoud, he would say. Let me at least give her this.

Surely Mahmoud would grant him the courtesy of a second visit before attempting to carry out his threats against Jessica or Kira. Would Khaldun even give his permission for such a severe tactic? Dawit doubted it; his teacher seemed to value mortal life. He remembered a remark Khaldun had made once, when Dawit returned from the battlefield against the Italians: What do you gain from it, Dawit? Must a scythe prove itself sharper than a blade of gra.s.s? Let gra.s.s grow as it will.

While the Do-It-Yourself clerk described the company's terms and prices on the telephone, Dawit stroked Teacake and kissed his cool nose, hardly listening. Occasionally, he couldn't suppress a small, anxious laugh. Teacake represented a possibility of lasting happiness Dawit had never allowed himself to fathom. Teacake's small beating heart was a promise, a new covenant. Love that which is constant, like yourself. Weren't those his teacher's own words? And here was Dawit's solution, unfolding with such simplicity that his mind could barely comprehend it.

Dawit would have the opportunity to watch Kira grow up, even after the Ritual. Berhanu, who had been twelve and his youngest Life brother when he underwent the Ritual, had confounded Khaldun because he was the only one among them who aged. Berhanu grew visibly taller and more masculine with each pa.s.sing year, until he reached manhood. Then, as with all of them, his aging process stopped. So it would be with lovely Kira, he was certain.

In coming centuries, he and Jessica could have dozens of children together-and, once immortal, might Jessica pa.s.s the Living Blood to their offspring, as Khaldun believed? What a blessing if that could be so! Their future children would be immortal without the price of the Ritual; lasting life without the pain of death.

And they would be the first children of the Living Blood.

Dawit tried to banish his disobedient thoughts, but they were too seductive each moment of the day, especially when Teacake was within his sight. Dawit would never again have to wish for death to end his isolation, or envy mortals for the irreversible fact of their mortality. Could this really be?

"So, how's two?" the Do-It-Yourself woman asked.

"Uhm ... two? For ... ?"

"We can send the photographer at two."

"Perfect," Dawit said.

"That's a great area. You won't need it, but good luck selling your house."

Dawit smiled. "Thank you. I have a feeling my luck has permanently changed for the better."

Jessica came home at eight, an hour later than she'd told them to expect her, but Dawit was not surprised at her tardiness. On the telephone, he'd detected that her voice was distracted, the way it became when she was away from their home, immersed in that world outside. He did not want to lose her to that world. She insisted upon going to work, even now, and each day Dawit wondered if she might return with uncertainty or loathing in her eyes instead of gladness.

"I'm sorry, baby," she said breathlessly, wrapping her arms around Dawit's neck to kiss him. He savored her cleaving and her scent, closing his eyes. "Drug dealers. The usual."

Kira, though she'd been asking about dinner since the moment Dawit picked her up from school, had insisted on putting off eating until Jessica was home. After finishing a sheet of simple addition problems she'd been a.s.signed as homework, Kira, while waiting, had promptly fallen asleep watching cartoons on a cable channel.

"Mommy's here, sweetheart," Jessica said, prodding her awake. Kira made a face, blinking at her.

Dawit had fixed curried chicken and Ethiopian enjara to eat it with (Jessica had complained enjara tasted sour to her in the beginning, not like any bread she'd known, but she'd adapted well). The food was barely warm by now. They ate together as Duke Ellington's "Solitude," one of Dawit's favorite pieces, played from the living room stereo. Teacake was curled in Dawit's lap, and Dawit did not move to stir him. Jessica did not remark on the FOR SALE sign posted at the end of the driveway. Instead, she focused on Kira. "Honey, after dinner I want you to bring your homework downstairs so Mommy can check it."

Kira shook her head, looking irritable. Her moods were the most sour when she first woke up. "Daddy already checked it."

Jessica chewed faster, appearing nervous. "That's okay. Bring it down for Mommy to look at too. *Kay?"

Sulkily, Kira glanced up at Dawit, so he winked at her. Kira slipped a thin strip of a green pepper into her mouth, sucking it like spaghetti. "Okay," she said after a moment. Then she smiled and twisted in her seat to face Dawit. "Daddy, listen: Nous prenons diner a huit heures."

Dawit smiled and clapped, delighted. "We eat dinner at eight o'clock," she said, and with such a beautiful accent! "That was lovely, darling," he said, "but one correction: LE diner, oui?"

"Le diner," Kira said, smiling back.

He asked her, in French, if she liked her dinner. Yes, Kira replied, she liked it because she was hungry. "J'ai faim."

"Kira ... want to tell me how school went today?" Jessica asked.

Kira didn't answer, playing with her chicken with her fingers. Dawit was surprised. It was as though Kira hadn't heard her mother.