False Allegations (21 page)

“Were you still pulling your hair?”

“Yes. But mostly my eyebrows by then. He was giving me a drug— “

“Brother Jacob?”

“Yes.”

“Was he a doctor?”

“No. He sent me to a doctor is what I should have said. A Psalmist doctor. Psalmists love the natural sciences— it’s part of the teachings. The doctor prescribed the drug, but Brother Jacob gave it to me the first time.”

“You only took it that one time.”

“No, I took it every day. Once with each meal, and one more time before I went to bed.”

“So you had to take them yourself, right? You weren’t with Brother Jacob all day…”

“He told my mother,” Jennifer said, as though that settled it. “He told her I had to take it. She made sure I took it.”

“What was it, do you know?

“A capsule. Orange and white. That’s all I remember.”

“Do you think it helped? With the hair pulling?”

“In a way, I thought it did. But I thought the…other stuff did more.”

“Touching yourself?”

“Yes. Like a good medicine that tastes bad, you know?”

“Were you still getting hit?”

“When I did something wrong, like lying. But not very much. I didn’t touch myself…down there,” she said, nodding toward her lap, “the right way. But Brother Jacob didn’t hit me. He said he would show me. To help me.”

“Did it help you?”

“Yes. Yes it did,” she said earnestly. “He did it…better. It was…it made me feel…warm. And safe. When he did it, I mean. It was safe when he did it.”

“Why was that so safe, Jennifer?”

“Because he was in
charge
. He was in control. When he was in control, he could make me do things. Things for my own good. I never pulled my hair in front of him. Never. He told me, once I got my period, I would never pull my hair again. Because he had prepared me. But he wasn’t finished…”

She was quiet for so long that I tossed her a question to snap her out of the trance. “He wasn’t finished with preparing you…?”

“For my period. He said I had to be a woman
before
it came. My period, I mean. He did it with his hand. His thumb, I mean. He was very gentle. It took a long time. And he was right.”

“About what?”

“About everything. He stopped hitting me after that. He just…prepared me. We were in love by then. Both of us. I mean, he was older, but he truly loved me. He said we would be together forever. First in spirit. Then in body. Then in wedlock. In the church. We were already together in spirit. But we couldn’t join in body until I became a woman. He loved me, so he said we had to wait for that. And we couldn’t wed until I was through with college, that’s when it would be right.”

She went quiet again, but this time I didn’t prod her, warned off by a sharp glance from Heather. “It came when I was a couple of months past my thirteen birthday,” she finally said. “That was late, everybody said. I couldn’t stand the waiting, but Brother Jacob was a rock. We did…other things. But he never came inside me until I had my period that first time. I couldn’t wait to tell him.”

“How long did it last?” I asked.

“That first time?”

“No. The…situation. With you and Brother Jacob?”

“Oh. Until I was fifteen. Almost sixteen.”

“What happened?”

“They transferred him. To another community. In Buffalo— all the way on the other side of the state. We wrote to each other. I still thought it was okay. But then I found out— he had another…girlfriend, I guess it was. Whatever. She was much younger than me. Just a baby.”

“How did you find out?” I asked softly, needing her to tell me the whole thing before she shut down again.

“I went to visit him. A surprise, it was supposed to be. I took the bus. I told my mother I was going on a school trip. It took all day. By the time I got to his address, it was late afternoon. When he opened the door, I could see the shock on his face.”

“Did he let you in?”

“Yes. He
had
to. It was cold outside, and getting dark too. He told me he was angry with me for just showing up like that, but he said he wouldn’t tell anyone. He took me into a front room and told me to sit down. He said he was seeing somebody, but he’d only be a little while. That’s when I saw her. That’s when I knew.”

“What did you see, Jennifer?”

“I heard a door open,” she said, hands clasped together so tightly they were mottled with bloodless white patches. “I heard him walking down the hall. Away from me. I hear another door close. That’s when I knew what he was doing. Going to the bathroom. He always used to do that, just after…”

Her voice trailed off. I let this one go, warning Heather with my eyes to stand where she was.

“She was about ten years old,” Jennifer finally said. “I snuck down the hall while he was in the bathroom. I looked in and I saw her. Skinny little girl. She was…playing with it. With the ruler. I used to do that too. That’s when I knew.”

“What did you do?”

“I just left. I walked out. I don’t even remember going to the bus station. I just went home. And then I just forgot about it.”

“What do you mean, forgot about it?”

“I mean
forgot
it,” she said. “Blanked it out…I don’t know. But I never thought about it again until…”

“Until…?”

“Until I tried to kill myself. The last time. Psalmists have a prohibition against suicide. A powerful, strong prohibition. Job
wished
for death, but he never tried to take his own life. His refusal mocked Satan and so made Job great. I knew I could be shunned for trying to kill myself, and I was afraid. But the church counseled me. First a neighbor— “

“In the hospital?”

“A ‘neighbor’ means a member. All Psalmists are neighbors. They can’t do pastoral counseling, but they can be…supportive, I guess. But it was a minister who did the real counseling.”

“Why did you try and kill yourself, Jennifer?”

“Because it was all…nothing,” she said, just above a whisper. “Just nothing. No matter what I tried to do, I failed. I flunked out of school. College, I mean. The work wasn’t hard, but I just never did it. I drank. A lot. And I smoked marijuana. I took pills too.”

“The orange–and–white capsules? Too many of them?”

“How did you…? I
did
do that, but that wasn’t what I meant. Uppers mostly. Speed. The church helped me with that too. When I flunked out, they got me a job. In an AIDS hospice. Psalmists are the leaders there,” she said proudly. “The Church has an encyclical condemning anyone who says AIDS is God’s punishment for sin. Job’s suffering was multiplied by his neighbors’ belief that he committed some hidden sin. But really it was Satan who had tricked God into testing Job’s faith. Job passed, and God has never tested any of us that way since. AIDS is a plague, not a punishment.”

“But the hospice job didn’t work out either?” I asked, guiding her back to what I needed to know.

“
Nothing
worked out,” she said, hollow–voiced. “I had a boyfriend. We were engaged. But he broke it off. I never knew why— he just came over to my apartment one day and told me. It was hard. Very hard to tell my mother…”

“She knew the man? The one you were engaged to?”

“No. She didn’t really know him. But he was a neighbor. And his father was a ‘son.’ That’s like a deacon in another church. His whole family was very highly respected.”

“And after that?”

“After that, I suffered. But not like Job. Not from illness. And not heroically either. Just…suffered. I got pregnant. And I didn’t even know who the father was. I had an abortion. And I got…hurt when they did it. I can never have a baby now.”

“Did you think— ?”

“I
knew
it wasn’t a punishment,” she interrupted. “God doesn’t do that. It was a mistake, that’s all. Another failure. Like me. I worked sometimes. I was a waitress. And I did office temp too. But I was always bad at it. Bad at everything. I knew I wasn’t stupid but I just…didn’t care, I guess. I knew I would always lose whatever job I had, so I always got lousy jobs so I wouldn’t care when I lost them. I did the same thing with men. Do you understand?”

“Yeah I do,” I told her. Stone truth that time.

“I started pulling again,” she said. “All the time. Even in public. I never did that before— I never went so far. Then I realized I couldn’t even stop
that
. And I knew I
had
stopped it once. So I would never get better. I had no friends. No
real
friends. Nobody to talk to. I started to cut myself. Not to die, so I could
feel
something. See?” She pulled up the sleeve of her blouse, showing me the perfectly parallel cuts on her left forearm, as neat as tribal markings. “I have them on my legs too. It always made me feel better…I can’t explain it.”

“Do you ever poke yourself?” I asked her “Like with the tip of the knife, or a pin or anything?”

“Yes. I did that too. I did
everything
to myself. And one day, I cut myself and I didn’t feel anything. Nothing at all. I watched the blood run down my leg and I didn’t feel anything. I was going to cut my throat. The artery— I know where it is. But I…couldn’t. So I found a vein.”

“Did you leave a note?”

“Who would I leave a note to? There was nobody.”

“How did— ?

“I failed at that too,” she said quietly. “I passed out, but I didn’t die. I was supposed to pay the rent that afternoon. The landlady always came by to get it— she wouldn’t take checks, it always had to be cash. When I didn’t answer the door, she just opened it up. She had a key. She called the paramedics, and I woke up in the hospital.”

“A psychiatric hospital?”

“No, a regular one. Later, I went to a…home, I guess it was. It didn’t have bars on the windows or anything, and it wasn’t a hospital. I don’t know what to call it.”

I could feel Heather’s eyes, but not Kite’s— like he wasn’t giving off any heat, just a piece of furniture. When I looked past the woman, Heather had turned her back to me. She was looking at the hologram, standing hip–shot, one hand under her chin, like she was studying a painting. I looked where her eyes were trained. The child’s kite was gone. Now there was a bird, hovering high, face to the wind. A hawk, maybe, watching the ground. I couldn’t see where the hawk was looking— Heather’s hips blocked that part.

“All that time,” I asked Jennifer, “you never— “

“All what time?”

“From when you walked out of Brother Jacob’s house in Buffalo to when you tried to kill yourself. How long was that?”

“Nine, ten years.”

“You never thought about what happened? Never thought about Brother Jacob?”

“No. If I had, I would have gone to a judge.”

“Sued him?”

“No, the church has a judge. Every congregation has a judge. Any neighbor can file a complaint against any other neighbor, even a minister. Judges have to investigate the complaints, and then they report to the Council.”

“That’s still in the church.”

“Yes. The Council is always seven: three judges, two deacons, and two neighbors. They’re elected. If the judge files a report, the Council decides if there’s guilt. And if there’s guilt, the Council decides on the punishment.”

“Which can be what?”

“You can be fined. Or suspended. Even banned from the church, depending on what you did.”

“But you never— “

“No. I never thought about it. Not about going to the judge. I mean, about…it.”

“You never called Brother Jacob, or wrote a letter?”

“No. I mean, not after that time when I found out— “

“And he never contacted you.”

“No. I just went into a void, I guess. I don’t really know— I don’t understand that part so well.”

“So how did you— ?”

“When I started the counseling, I just told them the truth. I failed at everything, and I didn’t know why. After a while, they said there were…gaps, like. That’s when I went for hypnosis.”

I could feel Kite stiffen next to me, but he didn’t make a sound. “By yourself?” I asked her.

“Yes. Oh! You mean…no, I mean, it wasn’t my idea. They found the therapist for me. The hypnosis, that was just part of it, not the whole thing. And it was a doctor. A real one, I mean. Not a Ph.D. doctor, like I have for my regular therapy.”

“How long were you in— “

“I still am,” she said, cutting into my question. “I guess I will be for a long time. It was…months before I even
started
to remember.”

“But then it all came out?”

“I don’t know if it’s all out,” she said, her voice resigned. “I don’t know…yet. I remember stuff more and more all the time. But what I told you, that much I know is true.”