My Soul to Keep (29 page)

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 passing 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 pass 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.

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 F
OR
S
ALE
B
Y
O
WNER
sign in the front yard as soon as he dropped Kira off at school, and this company’s advertisement 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 grass? Let grass 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 passing 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 pass 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 assigned 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 F
OR
S
ALE
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 dîner à 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 dîner, oui?”

“Le dîner,”
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.

“Kira, Mommy asked you a question,” Dawit said.

Kira sighed, rolling her eyes.
“Je suis fatiguée,
Daddy.”

Dawit glanced at Jessica and saw that her face was drawn with anger. Kira knew her mother did not speak French, so she was purposely trying to annoy her. What was worse, it was as though she instinctively knew how to play on Jessica’s most basic insecurities. As with past offspring, Dawit was surprised at how naturally intuitive children are, for better or worse.

“You speak English to me,” Jessica said.

Kira didn’t answer, her eyes on her plate, puffing her cheeks out so that she reminded Dawit of Dizzy Gillespie. This time, when Dawit looked at Jessica’s face, her bottom lip was trembling.

“Kira Wolde,” she began, “you better answer me, or I’m going to get one of my belts and whip your little behind. Do you hear me? Do you want a whipping?”

Jessica’s hushed voice hung over the table. Neither of them ever spanked Kira, so the threat startled Dawit and made tears appear in Kira’s eyes. Kira crossed her arms, her lips pursed.

“David, you better say something to your daughter,” Jessica said icily.

“Babe, I think she’s just—”

“And stop always making excuses for her!” Jessica shouted, glaring at him. The anger in her eyes was the potent brand that accompanied ultimatums. He fell silent. Jessica pushed her plate away and leaped up from the table, near tears herself. “I don’t need this. I must be crazy to put up with this shit.”

As Jessica climbed up the stairs, Kira began to sob.

“Kira …” Dawit began, leaning toward her. “Were you acting that way because you were disappointed Mommy was late?”

Still sobbing, Kira nodded.

“Well, you shouldn’t do that. It isn’t nice to try to hurt people’s feelings on purpose. A little later, you need to tell Mommy you’re sorry. Don’t be a baby. You’re almost six.”

He wished he could explain to Kira that Jessica’s emotions were likely to be very volatile because the face of her entire world was changing. Kira’s time for illumination would come soon, but not yet. Not quite yet.

Jessica had her good days and her bad days—and this was a bad day, Dawit decided. She’d been so much stronger, so much more accepting, than he’d imagined she would be, but she was still a mortal being forced to bring changes into her life. Mortals and non-mortals shared a dislike for change. He could not rush her. The balance was very precarious now. The slightest upset might push her away, and then it would all be lost.

After dinner, Dawit left Kira in her room coloring at her desk and found Jessica curled on top of the bedspread, talking softly on the telephone. The TV was playing a 1970s sitcom about a bigoted white-haired man he remembered vaguely. Dawit had his own affinity for romantic movie classics, a weakness Jessica teased him about, but at least he had an excuse; as he told her, until he’d returned with his phony documents to amuse himself at Harvard fifteen years before, he had never seen a motion picture. Some of them, especially the older ones, were charming and full of innocence.

“ … Love you. ‘Bye,” Jessica said, hanging up, and Dawit recognized the voice she used with her mother. They spoke once a day, usually at this time. Dawit had not known parents in so long that he observed with amazement how strong Jessica’s family ties were. Christina, too, had constantly been in her parents’ bosom. He imagined she must have gone back to them, with Rufus and Rosalie, after he left them alone.

Jessica sighed, blinking. She was staring hard at the television screen, but Dawit was certain she was not paying attention to the program. Since she didn’t speak right away, he busied himself changing into his bedclothes.

Jessica would have reason enough to grieve for her family, Dawit thought sadly. Once the Searchers realized that Jessica knew about the Living Blood, Bea and Alexis would be in danger if Jessica returned to Miami. Jessica was not likely to see much of her mother and sister for many years. And she would surely live to see them both die, as she would every other mortal on the planet.

But Dawit knew he could not explain any of this now. The process of disclosure with Jessica was not yet complete.

Dawit felt liberated by the small secrets he had divulged so far, but bigger ones still weighed against his conscience. He could not tell Jessica how Khaldun claimed that he had come into possession of the Living Blood, not now nor ever. Even if Khaldun’s claim was unfounded, a true woman of faith like Jessica would never consent to receive blood that might have been stolen from Christ.

And, grievably, there was much more he could not tell. The worst secrets remained unuttered. The worst must never be uttered, and so he would never be free of them.

If only he had tried to think of more clever solutions than killing those mortals. Yes, killing was always the easiest method to quell questions or dissent, but he had come to dismiss mortal lives too easily. He had told himself he’d acted to fulfill the Covenant, and yet now he had willfully broken his word to Khaldun by revealing himself to Jessica. What purpose, then, had the deaths served? Death had been a favor to dear Rosalie—he must believe that—but he had killed the others in hypocrisy. Or, as Mahmoud said, in sport? Killing had been Dawit’s first lesson in life as a child wrested from his father, after all. Killing, too, was as constant as he.

But it would cease. It must. The killing must end.

And even Teacake’s secret could not yet be told. Dawit could not mention Teacake’s condition because he knew she would be horrified by the violence of the Ritual inflicted on her precious cat. For now, that must wait.

Besides, he knew Jessica was not yet ready to face the question of whether to accept the Life gift. Her abrupt silence in the cave after he revealed that he could perform the Ritual told him that. He should have held his tongue! Once they vanished to safety in Senegal, he would begin to convince her. How could she refuse to spend eternity as a family? And what mother could forfeit the opportunity to protect her own child from death?