John Crow's Devil (18 page)

“Me know you want to do nastiness with me,” she said.

She was a church-going sister who was known as such. Nobody who knew Day Lucinda could find out about Night Lucinda. But as she released her buttocks to his coarse hand, a feeling came over her that in the past had only come from spirits. Lucinda reached to embrace, but he kept her away and they stood apart at the head, apart at the feet, slamming in the middle. When he came, he stepped away and spilled his seed into the river. She went over to him, rubbing her breasts on his shoulder. “So me and you goin married now?”

Greenfield looked at her eyebrows, raised for pity above her crossed left eye. He burst into a laugh that bounced all over the gorge through which the river ran. He pushed her away and she lost balance. When she fell backways in the river he walked off, not bothering to dress himself beyond a towel. She could hear him laugh all the way up to Mary’s house.

Not long after that, on the day Lucinda helped her wash, her mother collapsed in the river. Bowing under a pregnant noon sun, the left side of her body went dead and she stumbled into rough water. Her mouth was half speaking, her eyes half blind, and her body half asleep. Lucinda watched as river currents ran over her mother and she drowned. Despite having use of only half her body, the woman might have saved herself were it not for Lucinda, whose pinning foot never left her mother’s head until water forced its way into her lungs and killed her in jerks. There was to be no funeral. The night welcomed Lucinda back. In a bonfire she threw lizard skins, cat skeletons, and a dog’s paw that her mother had saved in vinegar. Mary and Mr. Greenfield were married the next day.

Lucinda, having resigned herself to never again experience the misery of a man, took over Sunday school. Mary Greenfield would never have children and her marriage died long before her husband did, killed by stillbirths, mistrust, and jealousy.

Both women now found themselves compelled by men they barely understood. The wind nudged the Widow from her sleep and blew toward the church. Outside, noon burnt in silence. She knew that something had happened. The Widow ran to the church.

THE RECOVERY

T
he Widow Greenfield and Lucinda met in the church as they came to take their men away. Both men were unconscious and the building was at peace. The Rum Preacher lay in the aisle with benches scattered all around him. His white suit was covered in dirt and filth and his body had the heaviness of death. The christening pool at the rear of the church had been toppled over and water covered the floor. She grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled.

Lucinda screamed. She could not find the Apostle. There was a tower of rubble at the altar from the broken podium, wood planks that had been forced free, tapestries that had been torn down, and pieces of the organ. At the bottom was a stiff hand that pointed two fingers. She leapt over chairs and benches and pulled away with the strength that came with panic. The Apostle had a gash above his forehead and a line of blood that divided his face. Lucinda turned and glared at the Widow, but she was almost out the door. The Widow pulled the Rum Preacher through the door as the wind waited. Outside, John Crows had gathered on the steeple and the cross. The road was empty.

That night the Widow was prepared for the town’s vengeance. She refused to light the candle, preferring the protection of darkness. Night swept down with stealth, unconcerned with the events of the day.

She had laid him in the room her husband was supposed to have died in. She imagined that she could smell Bligh’s presence in the room now. That depressed her even more. She never smelt her husband’s presence until he died. This would be what God would give her, grief. She cursed God under her breath, and the Rum Preacher, who made her wear blue.

Bligh’s sleep was not like sleep. Nor was it like death. Nor was it like before, when he would jump up and scream from nightmares and fall back into the bed. This was different. His hands were cold, but his heart, when she touched his chest, beat swiftly as hers did when she was frightened. She pulled up a chair beside his bed and sat there until sadness lulled her to sleep.

The scratching jolted her awake. A branch swung against the window, scraping the glass. She rose and went to the window to see a John Crow flying away into the night. The Pastor was in the position she last saw him before she fell asleep. His hands to his side, his body stiff, but something was different. His eyes were wide open.

“Hector, Jesus Christ! Hect—”

She ran over to him and grabbed his hand. He said nothing, staring at the ceiling.

“Hector?”

She waved her hand over his face. He was not awake. The Widow wished right there that she still had a hardened heart.

Lucinda had put the Apostle to bed. That was no easy task, the Apostle was the heaviest man she had ever held, heavier than all the drunken men she had helped her mother throw out of the house. He was not dead and that filled her with hope, but he did not respond to her begs or cries, not even those made to the Lord Himself. Lucinda had long resolved to never again experience the misery of a man, but misery overcame her, like a plague or a great spirit. Day Lucinda took off his jacket and shoes, and as she looked at his pants, Night Lucinda entered her heart.

Lying flat on his back, his crotch seemed to have risen like a new mountain. A black hill between the huge ridges of his thighs. She forced herself to return to grief, but failed. She thought of her back and of the whipping, but neither could take her mind away from his bulge, hidden in black pants. She prayed for herself and left the room.

Outside in the dark, the half moon saw her. In the silver light, Lucinda saw herself for what she really was. A beast, not the false creature in church clothes. The moon knew that she spoke to Sasa and rubbed goat’s blood on her breast. Far below grief was lust, and like any other sin, it came with opportunity.

Inside, the Apostle had not moved. Lucinda watched the rise and fall of his chest and the rise of other things that did not fall. She took deep breaths and closed her eyes.
God will punish you for your wickedness,
said Day Lucinda.
Touch where life come from,
said Night Lucinda. She sat down on the side of the Apostle’s bed and touched his feet.

Just this once, the Widow wished she knew the things of the spirit. Perhaps then an angel would come and tell her what had happened. She was a woman of reason, bitter though it was. He should be at a hospital, she said to herself, but that was impossible. There was only this bed, hot water, and hope. She would not pray. That morning while she washed his body he looked like a child interrupted. There was innocence, promise, and waste. She cried for a man who could not cry back. She washed his hair, rubbed his wrinkles, scrubbed his chest’s curly white hairs, and washed his feet. He lay on the bed, still. Maybe he too would rise on the third day. The Widow could only hope. She would not pray. At the window she saw the church and the Garvey house. Both rooftops were covered with John Crows.

On the evening of the second day, Lucinda wiped the Apostle from head to toe in warm water and soap. There was no need—his body smelt like incense—but Night Lucinda knew what she wanted. She had promised herself penance, so she gave herself over to abandon. Lucinda’s prayers were not for the Apostle, but for herself. He lay on the bed like a Greek statue toppled from a page in his books. Lucinda had stayed in his room all this time.

She wiped him clinically at first, distributing soap evenly over his body, avoiding his phallus one minute, accidentally brushing it with her rag the next. The second wipe she did with care, using warm water, fearing that cold water would wake him. She ran the rag along his neck and felt his heat and pulse. There were spots on his body. Little red circles like the one below his lips. They were islands swimming in skin. From his chest to his thigh she used his spots to create a map, with a treasure chest in the center of his body. The Apostle groaned and Lucinda jumped, grabbed the rag and basin, and climbed off the bed. He was still unconscious. Were he to wake now, there would be no explanation. But perhaps there would be no need. Night Lucinda hissed; the sound of hunger. Her eyes explored the Apostle. His ruddy face hidden in his beard, the red scar below his lip, and his long arms. She would stare at his bushy chest hair and follow it right down to the center of him. When he tossed and his phallus swung pendulous, she touched herself.

Her mind was made up, the Widow would stop caring. But this was the third day and he was as still as the first. At times the Pastor would open his eyes as before, seeing nothing. She wondered what kind of calamity could have happened between the two men that would leave the church in shambles and the Rum Preacher unconscious. Outside, the road was still empty, save for the teasing wind and tormenting crows. She knew that Mr. Garvey did not meddle in poor people’s affairs, but surely, she thought, he would bring back some order now. The man had the power of a massa, but perhaps the heart of one as well. Plus, he was the one who brought the Apostle here. She hoped the Apostle was dead even though she knew he wasn’t. Hector Bligh was inside her. He was a stupid man, but his stupidity had infected her, causing her to give it new names, like devotion, passion, and mission. She knew nothing of spirits, but imagined the Preacher and the Apostle’s battle a clash between Heaven and Hell, or maybe good and evil, but words like those meant nothing in Gibbeah. For a minute she imagined the Pastor as Superman in the movie serial that used to play at the Majestic. Perhaps Bligh was Superman and the Apostle a Super-Nazi-villain, and in their clash of super powers they laid the church to waste. Perhaps Bligh grabbed a bench all by himself and threw it at the Apostle, who dodged in time for it to crash into the altar. Then the Apostle would rip away a chunk of the wall and hurl it at the Preacher, who would punch the chunk to bits. Then both would fly into each other with a
Bang
!
Pow
! The thought made her chuckle. Then she looked at Bligh, motionless on the bed, and chuckled more. Her chuckle grew into a laugh, then a fit. As tears ran down her eyes, the Widow didn’t know if she was laughing at grief or crying at laughter.