into his fantasy of the three of them immersed in one another, secluded from the world. She’d already drifted from most of her friends, and her mother had only a toehold on her, though she lived just thirty minutes away. Same for her sister, Alexis, a hematologist who lived on Miami Beach. Her fellow sorors in Alpha Kappa Alpha were threatening to boot her out of the alumnae chapter if she didn’t start showing up at the meetings. All of her spare time was with David and Kira. A part of Jessica wanted to follow David wherever his dreams could take them, but then a voice whispered: What about your dreams?
When she was with him, the Sun-News always seemed far away. She hadn’t thought of her nursing-home stories once since she’dbeen home, and only now did she remember Peter’s book proposal with a sense of discomfort. She couldn’t bring it up. To David’s ears, the idea would sound appalling. She could almost see why. Almost.
“We don’t have to leave everything to love each other, David,” she said. “And we have plenty of time.”
David didn’t answer. Above them, Night Song’s voice fluttered through the dry leaves, shaking them with a gentle rattling, and rose into the velvet, moonless dark.
4
Once again, he had killed.
Never kill again. That had been his vow. After the Century of Blood, the years of rage, he promised himself he would never again use his hands for killing. For a hundred years, Dawit had lived by his own law. Yet, in a moment’s forgetting, he’d done it so easily. So effortlessly.
What aberration of nature would murder his own child?
He remembered a conversation he’d had with his Life brothers years ago, smoking opium and feeling full of themselves, when they’d compared themselves to the Yorubas’ immortal Orisha, the Spirits. You, Dawit, a brother told him, are Ogun: Iron Spirit, warrior, lonely self-exile. “Oh! I am afraid of Ogun,” they’d chanted in Yoruba, laughing in a mock prayer. “His long hands can save his children from the abyss. Save me!”
No, he was no god. He could not save anyone, not even little Rosalie. His only power was to bring death to others, despair to himself.
“This is damnation,” Dawit whispered into the darkness, not loud enough to awaken the woman beside him. They were not touching at this moment, their nakedness was separated by several inches. Perhaps a taste of her navel with the tip of his tongue or a quick gaze at her sleeping face would wipe his mind free. But he did not move, so his mind remained hostage.
Never love again. That too had been his vow. How foolish he’d been to forsake it! He should have realized by now that, to him, love was much more perilous than mere killing.
Love that which is constant, like yourself , Khaldun had told them all when they consecrated themselves to the Living Blood in the underground temple in Lalibela. The body heals itself, but the mind does not .
Now, 450 years later, Dawit knew what Khaldun had meant. His suffering, his worries, his losses, would be his living death. Nature had been poised to take his child, and for the first time he’d been a witness to nature’s inevitable triumph: his own child among the successsion of mortal lives constantly flickering out around him. In a blink of an eye, this was what became of a child. Every child. Always.
Was it more humane that he had taken Rosalie instead? No. It had been a selfish impulse, his shock at the profanity nature had made of her.
He should not have gone to see Rosalie. And he should not be sleeping beside this woman who had led him, again, to love, promising him a deeper abyss. Like Adele.
Before he could fight it, the horrible image swallowed Dawit’s memories: Adele’s naked corpse swinging from a rope tied around the thick branch of a tree. Adele’s face, which had kissed his, wrenched in painful death; her fingers, which had owned his private parts, bumping lifeless against her hipbones. He hadn’t remembered, until
When she was with him, the Sun-News always seemed far away. She hadn’t thought of her nursing-home stories once since she’dbeen home, and only now did she remember Peter’s book proposal with a sense of discomfort. She couldn’t bring it up. To David’s ears, the idea would sound appalling. She could almost see why. Almost.
“We don’t have to leave everything to love each other, David,” she said. “And we have plenty of time.”
David didn’t answer. Above them, Night Song’s voice fluttered through the dry leaves, shaking them with a gentle rattling, and rose into the velvet, moonless dark.
4
Once again, he had killed.
Never kill again. That had been his vow. After the Century of Blood, the years of rage, he promised himself he would never again use his hands for killing. For a hundred years, Dawit had lived by his own law. Yet, in a moment’s forgetting, he’d done it so easily. So effortlessly.
What aberration of nature would murder his own child?
He remembered a conversation he’d had with his Life brothers years ago, smoking opium and feeling full of themselves, when they’d compared themselves to the Yorubas’ immortal Orisha, the Spirits. You, Dawit, a brother told him, are Ogun: Iron Spirit, warrior, lonely self-exile. “Oh! I am afraid of Ogun,” they’d chanted in Yoruba, laughing in a mock prayer. “His long hands can save his children from the abyss. Save me!”
No, he was no god. He could not save anyone, not even little Rosalie. His only power was to bring death to others, despair to himself.
“This is damnation,” Dawit whispered into the darkness, not loud enough to awaken the woman beside him. They were not touching at this moment, their nakedness was separated by several inches. Perhaps a taste of her navel with the tip of his tongue or a quick gaze at her sleeping face would wipe his mind free. But he did not move, so his mind remained hostage.
Never love again. That too had been his vow. How foolish he’d been to forsake it! He should have realized by now that, to him, love was much more perilous than mere killing.
Love that which is constant, like yourself , Khaldun had told them all when they consecrated themselves to the Living Blood in the underground temple in Lalibela. The body heals itself, but the mind does not .
Now, 450 years later, Dawit knew what Khaldun had meant. His suffering, his worries, his losses, would be his living death. Nature had been poised to take his child, and for the first time he’d been a witness to nature’s inevitable triumph: his own child among the successsion of mortal lives constantly flickering out around him. In a blink of an eye, this was what became of a child. Every child. Always.
Was it more humane that he had taken Rosalie instead? No. It had been a selfish impulse, his shock at the profanity nature had made of her.
He should not have gone to see Rosalie. And he should not be sleeping beside this woman who had led him, again, to love, promising him a deeper abyss. Like Adele.
Before he could fight it, the horrible image swallowed Dawit’s memories: Adele’s naked corpse swinging from a rope tied around the thick branch of a tree. Adele’s face, which had kissed his, wrenched in painful death; her fingers, which had owned his private parts, bumping lifeless against her hipbones. He hadn’t remembered, until
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