The Liminal People

by Ayize Jama-everett

  I’ll handle this Alia. Then I’ll disappear from Tamara’s life. If I take too much of an interest in her, the boss will get curious. If he gets curious he’ll want to meet her. And if he meets her . . .

  I step out under a drizzling sky. Me with no raincoat or umbrella. Suspicious. I’ve got to find a cheap clothing store. I’ve got to change, and I’ve got to get to this address the boss provided. I don’t have a lot of time. There’s a little girl waiting on me. It’s only when I walk into the department store that I see people looking at me sheepishly. I feel the tightness on my face, the rise in my jaw muscles. I’m smiling. Fuck.

  Ten minutes from West Kensington, and I’m convinced everyone is staring at me. It’s not the smile. I lost that half an hour ago when I went to the mega-mart for some normal-looking clothes. When going to speak with Nordeen, smiles are not appropriate. What’s more, they make him curious. He’s the only man I hear say “Why is he so happy?” and think he’s making a threat. So the smile is lost. But I’m still gaining attention in this neighborhood.

  It’s a growing immigrant neighborhood. When I lived in London, these families probably lived in the council estates. Now, by saving their money from selling whatever it was they could—gum, newspapers, their home, food, questionable driving abilities—they can afford modest homes not too far from their old stomping grounds. From the tube to the address, I’m getting stares from kids in turbans to old women in sarongs. Soccer games stop, chins are scratched, eyes lock on me. I’m wearing jeans with a casual hoodie over a button-up, topped off with a dark tan overcoat. My face and features are stable. It’s not like they’ve never had foot traffic in this neighborhood. It’s making me nervous. Is this Alia? Another power? Is this how Nordeen plans to do me in, through paranoia?

  I’m waiting at the door of the address on the card. I’m almost afraid to knock. But there’s a little girl hiding behind cement blocks for me. She needs me. That’s a good feeling. Shit, I’m smiling again. That’s when the door opens.

  “You?” she says. It’s the Ethiopian, the tiny girl Nordeen asked me to deliver to the metronome-hearted East Ender the last time I was in London. She stands before me, older and wrapped in thick white cloth save for one shoulder. There is nothing but surprise in her face. I forgot how beautiful she is. Before, she was a child, not much older than Tamara. Now she seems my age, with a knowledge of the world in her eyes that matches mine.

  “I mean you no harm.” Whether she believes me or not, she makes no move. I give her the card that was delivered to me. “I was directed here.”

  “Your master is more devious than even I thought possible. He picks his only servant who has done me no harm to collect his debt. Enter and be welcome, healer.”

  Her little Victorian matches her demeanor. It speaks in layers. The couches and other furniture are strictly old-world Ethiopian, created by a master craftsman schooled in ebony woodwork. Every cushion is covered in a base cream-colored cloth with a bright contrast slash in either red, blue, or green cutting across it at an angle that makes my head hurt if I look at it for too long. But instead of big-headed biblical tales as posters like most of her orthodox Christian country folk, she has Tibetan flag paintings of demons, posters of Tupac, and huge canvas hand paintings of apocalyptic visions directly on the walls. I see creatures that look like humans in that they have arms, legs, and hands coalescing from dust in the middle of impressionist representations of what can only be human souls. All the souls are running to join another sepia-toned amorphous creature, larger than the threatening, humanlike creatures. The humans are forming the body of their protector. It’s like a mandala. There’s more and more detail the longer I look at it. So I turn away, in case it’s an elaborate distraction.

  There’s some insane world beat music on. Not the hippy kind—this is music spun by a dj obviously trying to work something out. It’s raw, complicated, no 4/4s anywhere near it. But it’s disciplined enough for even the most unskilled dancer to find a groove in. Wait a minute . . . Where the hell are the speakers?

  The house is traditional and futuristic at the same time. It’s so unnerving I refuse to sit until she comes back with a tray of tea. She’s taken her hood down to reveal five small cornrows that meet perfectly at the back of her neck. She’s allowed her wrap to fall a little, revealing a red, skintight shirt. When she smiles at me, the beauty of her homeland beckons. I sit on the ground with the pillows, as she does.

  “My name is Samantha.” She pronounces it differently. There’s a juvenile tingle in my pants and a tightening in my throat I know but have long forgotten. I feel like a schoolboy. But this woman is no teenager. I tell her my name. She gives me a cup of tea as though it were a handshake. “It’s a chocolate tea I like. No caffeine. I hope that’s OK.”

  “It’s fine,” I say, putting my cup down on the small wooden table that separates us. It’s too warm. The wood. It feels like its alive. “I actually don’t have a lot of time for tea, if you can forgive me for saying so. Someone is waiting for me.”

  “Tell me what you need,” Samantha says, totally unhurried by my impatience.

  “I need to speak with Nordeen in confidence.”

  “You must never be confident in your conversations with that man,” she says, grinding her teeth just a tad.

  “Then in privacy.” I’m still distracted. This woman is releasing the pheromones of a hoard of adolescent girls. It makes her almost irresistible. I have to know. “You are like me?”

  “We are kin of a sort,” she says, motioning to my tea. “Please drink. What you desire takes preparation if it’s not to be painful. I will be ready by the time we finish this pot of tea.”

  “I mean no disrespect in this, but I should tell you that I’m notoriously resistant to poisoning.” She puts on a face of mock surprise, then moves to sly confidence, putting both her hands behind her and leaning back.

  “You reveal more about yourself than you do about my character in your assertion, healer. I bid you welcome in my home, Taggert. I will offer you no harm nor will I tolerate it while you stay with me. A man of your . . . skills would no doubt notice the attention you drew coming to this house. These are all my protectors and my wards. If you had any intention of harming me, you would not have made it to my door. The same holds true for any who would try to hurt you now. You are under my protection.” She pauses for a minute then continues. “Although if I were truly committed to that ideal, I would not put you in touch with your master.”

  “I would appreciate it if you didn’t call him that,” I say, taking big gulps of the tea. It is good. And not poison. “I like to think of him more as my patriarch.”

  “But patriarchs take care of their children. I mean no disrespect. I only speak the truth.”

  “But do all truths need to be told?” I’m keeping my voice calm and focused, but she picks up on my frustration some other way.

  “You have my apologies. I mean no disrespect to you. I’ve had no dealing with your . . . employer since the last time we saw each other. Then last night I received a note under my door, similar to yours, telling me that he was calling in his marker. It requested that I stay home until ‘a friend from the past’ came for a visit.”

  “You were indebted to Nordeen?” Most who are don’t admit it. And I’ve never met a person who had gotten out from under him.

  “A folly of youth. I did not know what he truly was. Even now I don’t fully understand what he is. As you are kin, perhaps he is our molesting rich addict of a distant elder. But yes, I owed him. I stayed home today either to kill his emissary or to be killed myself. But the archetypal manipulator chose his only agent who never caused me harm, and who shepherded me from his control to that of my new master.” She says master like it means father.

  I don’t know what to say, so I stay quiet and pour more tea, first for her and then for myself. She bows politely like I just impressed her. I’m still trying to figure out if she’s flooding my senses intentionally or if it’s just natural
for her, the way Tamara picks up thoughts. Tamara. The reminder sends my eyes racing for a clock. When I don’t find one, it’s all I can do to stay seated.

  “Will you tell me about the work you’re doing now?” she asks as if we’re old friends.

  “I’m afraid I can’t. It’s difficult to articulate, and as I said earlier I am in a bit of a hurry.” She’s looking at me as though I were an idiot but not bothering to explain why. Manners are hard to maintain when the weight of the world is on your shoulders. That’s also when they’re the most important.

  “Your employer didn’t explain how this works, did he?” she says with a smile that has little joy in it.

  “No. Is it necessary for you to know the details of my business to put me in contact with him?”

  “No. But soon I will know enough of your intimate details that these questions will seem trivial. I am ready when you are, Taggert.”

  I stand quickly and help her to her feet. She smooths her white sarong and guides me by the hand up a flight of stairs. Behind her, the music and the lights fade gently, as though they were there only for her benefit. She leads me to a bedroom where a Japanese glass bed covered in black sheets rests. Nothing else in the room is made of the see-through material. And though there is no carpet and no heating, the room feels as warm as the wooden table downstairs. I barely have time to take everything in before I’m standing in front of a naked Samantha.

  Her robe’s at her feet. The frail small figure before me looks like a joke of a woman’s body. That’s what my eyes tell me. That her breasts are small, her hips way too narrow. She barely has an ass. But with nothing between her pheromone-secreting skin and my heightened senses, it’s all I can do to keep my hands off of her. Instead, I cough.

  “Do you know what my name means?” she asks as though she were not standing naked in front of me. Slowly the lights dim. I look to the wall and see no light switch.

  “The feminine version of Samuel, no?” I’m shaking.

  “I’m impressed, healer.” She does the smile and goes to the black sheets that bind her glass bed tight. “The etymology of Samuel is tricky. Some believe it simply means Son of God. Others believe it means Listener to God. Shem is the tricky part, you see. But it does not matter in biblical terms—for Samuel, the seal of the old judges, was both a seer, a listener of God, and a prophet, a son or gifted one. And as he was, so am I.” Mercifully, she gets under the sheets.

  “Is it okay to be totally confused now?”

  “Yes,” she laughs gently. “And thank you for your honesty. Now pay attention. To commune with the man whose name I swore I’d never say in this bed again, you must first commune with me. Your seed must spill inside me. When that happens, I can connect you.”

  “You are fucking with me.” Counterintuitively, I sit.

  “Not yet I’m not.” She snakes out from under the covers. Her little ass is tighter and rounder than Eve’s apple. She rests her head on my lap as I use all my might to resist her trick.

  “You’re telling me I have to have sex with you in order to talk with—?” Samantha reaches up quickly and silences my lips before I say his name. She nods her head slowly, and her face feels too warm against my pants.

  “I will say that your level of self-control is impressive, Taggert. Most men who are around me propose marriage within the first five minutes. I am honored that you’ve shown such restraint, but if you are in such a hurry then there’s no need to delay. You needn’t worry about STDs. I’m incapable of—”

  “That’s not the issue,” I snap as I stand. Of course, I’m hard pressed to think what the issue is. Maybe it’s the visions of all the prostitutes Nordeen has surrounding him. I always assumed they were throwaway norms. But even in his sexing he recruited, I realize now. “This was your function for him, wasn’t it? You slept with people he wanted to have secured conversations with.”

  “Do you plan on judging me?” She can play it off as mellow as she wants, but, her beautitul head resting on her beautiful hand, I know she’s angry.

  “No. I don’t pity you, either. I want to apologize for my impatience. I didn’t realize the process was so intimate.” She raises herself to my face. Somehow, her breasts don’t seem so small pressed against me.

  “You are the only one of his followers that ever deigned to apologize to a whore.” I take her face, gently but quickly, and hold her eyes to mine.

  “You are no whore.” Her mouth is impossibly hot. I’m flushed. She kisses me. I swear she kisses me first.

  There is a vast expanse of black openness before me. I do not feel my body. My body is my lodestone. Without it I am powerless. I don’t want to panic, but I do. Luckily it’s a purely mental panic. No hormones to go awry, no nerves to seize and spasm with a cascading lack of coordination. Just the realization that less than a minute ago I was losing control inside of a woman so beautiful her looks alone could kill me . . . and now I’m incorporeal.

  “In the time it took you to meet this vessel, I could have flown to London.” It’s a young stranger, walking with a cane across an old African savannah in a deep red tribal wrap and headband. The expanse is gone, giving way to harsh, untended grains that scrape at my legs, tiny swarming bugs that move in haphazard patterns, and a setting sun that matches the tone of the stranger walking toward me.

  I know the voice and the eyes. Yellow eyes, and the same spittle-infected tone. Nordeen. This is an ancient landscape he strides across, in a time before language. What I am experiencing both has happened and is happening right now.

  “Only the faults are mine,” I say as I bow my head. I look down and find myself dressed in the clothes I wore in high school. A T-shirt and faded jeans. This is not my body. This is an image of my adolescent body from when Mac was the center of my world. Nordeen once told me one that, in the spirit realm, it is our self-image that we present—the image of what we think we are. But this is not me. I can’t feel my body.

  “The whore’s talent takes some getting used to, there’s no denying it,” he says and I remember Samantha’s insinuation that he is our inappropriate uncle. “But she has her uses. Don’t trust a word she says, though.” I keep my head low. Part of me wants to ask him why. But that’s not why I’m here. Part of me wants to believe him fully, but I also know I was being flooded with pheromones right before I got—

  “Where are we?”

  “An off-ramp between the Akashic records and the astral plane,” he says, taking my arm and continuing to walk a circular path. “It doesn’t matter. Speak quickly, little healer. We will be able to communicate like this only so long as your postcoital slumber lasts, and I know how that thing inside of you resists rest.”

  “I need to know if one of us has backing from greater powers.”

  “Some of us do. The bitch whose body rests next to yours serves a deviant plant god with plans so surreptitious even I don’t know its true orientation.”

  “A specific one of us.” I take note of the strength of the hand that won’t let me go. Nordeen’s lightly bronzed skin oppresses the veins and muscles in his spirit hand. Is this how he used to look?

  “Ah, no doubt you ask about the illusionist.” He says with that smile. He puts his young yellow eyes upon me. It’s not hard to show deference to this new body. In his prime, I would’ve been no match for him. But he’s in his principal physical shape. How come I’m not?

  “She is a pretender to a nonexistent throne,” he scoffs viciously. “She thinks there is a pantheon of our kind. She believes she deserves a seat at this imaginary table.”

  “You know her. Alia?”

  “Not her name, before this, but her actions, yes. She sent supplications to me once. I ignored them. I figured a lesser player would take out someone as ostentatious as she before her actions would become worthy of my attention. What did she do to evoke such ire in you, healer?”

  “She killed a friend of mine. Another one like us,” I say slowly. I’m not ready to lie to him. Even though my powers don’t
work here, his, whatever they may be, might. But even without my powers I can tell he’s about to speak when a crowd appears in the horizon. They are dressed like him, coming out of the sun. But they run as though chased. Some have spears made of iron. Others just wood. All of them men. I wish for my powers and feel nothing. Still, out of instinct I extend my hand against them.

  “No need. These are only memories of a long-gone time. Tell me more about your plans for this Alia.”

  I try and ignore the pleas of the dreams who speak in words so close to clicks and grunts that I’m barely able to distinguish them as language. They throw themselves before us, begging Nordeen for help with some endeavor. He steps over them as though they were rocks or fallen trees. There is no way to understand them, but I imagine them calling to him as a god, as a benefactor. They beg him for aid. Somehow, they can see us. The very memory of their language is no doubt long dead; still, they see us.

  “She’s way too brazen with her skills, as you say. My friend was connected to someone powerful in the normal world. This girl is responsible for taking them both out. I’ve got a plan to deal with her, but I wanted to make sure it wouldn’t interfere with anything else you had going.”

  “The girl’s illusions are realistic enough. But I doubt she’d expose herself with an open killing. She does brazen, not stupid. On the phone you alluded to there being others,” young god Nordeen says.

  I need to go careful with this one. But it’s hard to pay attention. Another vision from the horizon comes as we walk in a winding down circle. A man, or at least a part man with a lion head, walks toward us. He growls, and I feel it in my body, in my sleeping body. Even Nordeen mumbles something about forgetting how loud the lion man is. He is naked. The supplicants raise their pitiful weapons against him, and already I know they are dead.