The Living Blood

by Tananarive Due

  Stephen’s heart began to race, and his headache clanged between his ears. Suddenly, the singer’s voice felt like an ice pick as her voice trilled up and down the scale. Kak! What now? How could he avoid being followed from Gaborone to Serowe? And what if there were others?

  Think, think, think, think. The word pounded Stephen’s temples with each heartbeat.

  He would have to run. He had no choice.

  “Sir, your curry,” the waiter said, bringing Stephen a steaming plate of curried chicken.

  “Cheers,” Stephen said, using the all-purpose thank-you he’d picked up in England and had used ever since, which his father said made him sound more and more like a white man all the time. “Can you point me to the toilet?” Involuntarily, as he asked the question, Stephen tensed slightly, even here at Bupendra’s place in Botswana, because he remembered like yesterday when he couldn’t be served in his own country’s big-city restaurants, much less be allowed to use the toilet. Black piss must not mingle with white piss, after all.

  The waiter pointed. “Just there, in back. You’ll see the sign.”

  “Oh, right. Cheers.”

  He hoped his spy had watched his food arrive and had seen him ask for directions to the toilet. Now, Stephen had to figure out what to do about the duffel bag at his feet under the table. He couldn’t be seen lifting it, or he’d give himself away. But how could he take it with him, then?

  By now, Stephen was breathing hard, virtually dizzy from his headache. He wished he could believe the man outside was merely on holiday, that the spying was all in his mind. Then, he could just sit and eat his lunch and walk out of the front door like a dignified man.

  But he couldn’t.

  Stephen had some folded pula in his front breast pocket, and he slipped the money to the table, hoping it would be enough for his meal. Then, after one quick glance over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching him—including his spy, who had shifted position but still appeared to be looking away from him—Stephen kicked his bag away from him as hard as he could. When he kicked, the bag crumpled against his foot, barely moving. “Kak,” Stephen said aloud. Painstakingly, trying not to change his position, he nudged the bag farther and farther until it was fully exposed, no longer under the table.

  Stephen lifted his fork, as casually as he could muster, and took a bite of his food. He forced himself to sit that way, lifting his fork from his plate to his mouth, for a full minute. Then, when he felt sure his spy would have looked in on him at least once, he ventured one more glance behind him. This time, the open newspaper stared at him through the glass picture window. His spy was facing him now, but his face was hidden by the paper. This was his chance.

  Stephen sprang from his seat, hunching over to grab his duffel bag by one strap. He moved so quickly, he was convinced he might have done it without drawing anyone’s notice. Slipping to the back, he found there were no exits on this side of the building, only the toilets.

  “Oh, bloody Christ . . .” He hurried into the men’s toilet, praying for windows.

  There was only one. The smoked windowpane was high, near the ceiling above the far stall, and from where he stood, Stephen wasn’t the least bit certain he could even fit through it. And he was very sure his duffel bag would not.

  Without hesitating, Stephen unzipped the bag on the floor and pulled out the hard metallic briefcase he’d brought with five small, empty vials nestled snugly in the foam inside. He searched the rest of the bag, sorting through the extraneous items: clothes, his heavy coat, underwear, deodorant, a box of condoms, books, his HerbaVytes. Next, he rifled through the leather waist-pack he was wearing to make sure he was already carrying his cash and passport. He was.

  Fine. He’d leave the rest. The only item he had to have was the briefcase.

  Stephen pried the lid off a tall rubbish bin and dumped his duffel bag inside, mashing it down so he could replace the lid. Then, he dragged the bin inside the stall closest to the window. Still breathing hard, he locked the stall, stepped onto the toilet seat, then climbed atop the bin’s domed lid for extra height so he could hoist himself to the window.

  He’s noticed you’re gone, Stephen thought. He’s on his way right now.

  The image of the Boer launching himself toward the door to the toilet frightened Stephen so much that it took his fumbling hands a precious twenty seconds to figure out how to unlatch the window. Then, he pushed the window open and discovered that it only gave partially, giving him even less room than he’d anticipated. Wasn’t this absurd? He was standing atop the rubbish bin in a public toilet! His father thought he’d gone mad long ago, and maybe he was finally right.

  But then his instincts kicked in again, and Stephen tossed his briefcase through the open window, hearing it clatter loudly on the paved ground outside. Christ, did it have to make so much noise? Then, with all the strength in his arms, he hoisted himself up to the window.

  His head outside, he looked right and saw an alley behind a row of buildings that stretched to nowhere. To his left, he saw the traffic on the busy main thoroughfare, perhaps not even twenty meters around the corner from where his spy was standing right now. Any passerby might see him climb out of the window and shout at him, but Stephen would rather risk that than . . .

  He didn’t know what. But whatever it was, he wasn’t going to take any chances.

  With a groan, Stephen heaved himself through the window, angling his shoulders to make them less broad. A sharp knob scraped the small of his back painfully as his weight pushed against it, and then for a horrifying instant he was afraid he’d never fit his hips through the tiny opening. But he did, finally. Gracelessly, practically headfirst, Stephen fell nearly three meters down on top of his briefcase, skinning one elbow raw against the restaurant’s rough brick exterior and banging his knee so hard on the asphalt that he nearly cried out in pain.

  Standing gingerly, he assessed himself. Nothing was broken, he decided. His starched white shirt was torn at the elbow, dotted with pinpricks of blood. His beige trousers, which he’d bought at the Gap during his holiday to New York last year, were smudged with black dirt at both knees. Ruined, he was sure.

  But he had gotten out. And no one had noticed him yet. No curious eyes were watching. And he didn’t see the Boer in the black jacket. Yet.

  With that thought, as if suddenly remembering his predicament, Stephen ran in the direction away from the busy street, toward the promising dark seclusion of the alleyway. His knee flared with pain with each step, so soon his run was little more than a wild, fast lunging.

  Maybe he was only being silly. Maybe he’d just thrown away his belongings and made a dramatic exit for nothing, and he’d have a good laugh at himself one day.

  But Stephen Shabalala didn’t care. As soon as he got his blood and his 7 million rand, he’d never sneak away from a restaurant by climbing through the window like a tsotsi again. He’d fill his closet with trousers from the Gap, quit his computer sales job, build his parents a bigger house, and do whatever else he wanted.

  Once he got that blood, as the Americans would say, he’d be set for life.

  22

  Jessica woke up knowing something was very different, and she was right.

  When she sat up, she was in the oak-frame bed she’d had throughout her childhood, blinking with shock and bewilderment at the sunlight streaming through her sheer yellow curtains. Beside her, on her nightstand, was the lamp with the matching yellow petal-shaped lampshade she’d had so long that she couldn’t remember when her mother had bought it for her. And on her closet door across the room, she saw the full-length mirror with her Y-100 sticker across the top. She gaped at the image of her too-big self in the cramped little twin bed, her mouth open.

  This can’t be real, she thought, staring at herself. I must be dreaming.

  But if it was a dream—and it had to be, she kept telling herself, it just had to be—then it was unlike any dream she’d ever experienced, even when Fana had made her believe Kir
a was within her touch again. There was no sensation of dreaming, no fuzzy edges, no fog in her mind this time. The room presented itself to her matter-of-factly, exactly as it had looked when she’d moved back home with her mother after Kira had died; her shelves were full of the tattered paperbacks she’d read and reread in high school, and on her floor she saw her stack of tired old LPs beside her turntable and eight-track player: the Sylvers and KC & the Sunshine Band and Donna Summer.

  She was back at home.

  Jessica moved to stand, and she was met by an angry mewing. Teacake!

  Her orange, long-haired cat had been sleeping in the valley between her legs, and he shifted irritably at the disturbance, gazing at her with green-marble-colored eyes. His elegant powder-puff tail lashed back and forth. “Teacake?” she said, stroking the soft fur between his ears. “How are you, my little sweetie? Oh, Mommy has missed you . . . I’m sorry I had to send you away.”

  She hadn’t seen Teacake in nearly two years, since her mother and stepfather had taken him back with them to the States. The travel throughout Africa had made Teacake so skittish that he’d refused to come from under her bed, even for meals or to use his litterbox. Now, Jessica was relieved to see that he was back to his old self, the way he’d been before they went to Africa. Teacake was the same old cat he’d been before David experimented on him with the blood, making him the world’s only immortal feline. In some ways, watching Teacake’s psychological decline during their travels in Africa had made Jessica worry for her own future sanity.

  “Are you sure you’re okay now, baby?” she said to him.

  Teacake purred a response, and Jessica smiled, leaning over to bury her nose in his soft fur. She inhaled his clean, freshly groomed scent. How could she smell a dream? How could she roll the strands of her cat’s fur between her fingertips and feel them?

  “Jessica? Girl, come on out here! Breakfast!” Alex’s voice bellowed through her open doorway. Bossing her around, just like always.

  But Jessica should have known it was time for breakfast, she thought, because she could smell the greasy sweetness of crisp bacon floating above her, mingled with the scent of the Pillsbury biscuits from a can her mother always used, baking fat and buttery in the oven. When was the last time she’d had those biscuits? Grateful tears springing to her eyes, Jessica leaped out of bed and ran out of her room as eagerly as she used to as a child on Sunday mornings, the only morning her mother fixed anything other than cold cereal and maybe a slice of toast. She was going to have breakfast with her family again!

  They were already at the table, bowing their heads for grace; Bea, Alex, and Daddy.

  Jessica accepted the sight of her family without question until she realized, only dimly, that her father was long dead. So it must be a dream then, she thought. But how . . . ?

  “You just gonna’ stand there, Baby-Girl?” her father’s voice rumbled. He was grinning at her with his coffee-stained teeth that gapped slightly in front. She had so few photographs of her father, she’d barely remembered his gap. Or how his skin color was as rich and lovely as finely stained dark cherrywood.

  “No, Daddy,” she whispered, grinning, and took the empty seat beside him. Then, she slipped her fingers inside his warm, callused hand. She felt a weight she’d endured the past twenty-four years finally lift from her chest as she held her daddy’s hand. She was captivated by the smallest details, such as how stray hairs in his salt-and-pepper mustache splayed in all directions, and how he smelled like Old Spice to mask the sweat of his morning’s yardwork in the sun. Oh, God, I’ve missed you, she said to him with her eyes. He only squeezed her hand, winking.

  “How’d I get here?” she managed to ask him.

  “You came in the room and sat down like everyone else,” he said. Then, Bea hushed them both for her morning grace. With her face already made up, Bea looked much younger than Jessica had seen her mother look in years. “I don’t want us walking into church late two weeks in a row, so let’s eat,” Bea said, and bowed her head. As always, she paused before she began her thanks. “Dear Lord,” she said, her smooth face relaxing as she waited for the words to come to her, “this family has been through so many trials, but we know you have a plan for us. Please give both our daughters strength on this difficult journey before them.”

  “Amen, Lord,” Daddy said, his voice solemn.

  “Please light their way with faith.”

  “Yes,” Daddy said with his eyes closed, exactly the way he used to at church, as if God were whispering directly into his ear.

  Again, Jessica felt absorbed by the details around her. In the kitchen, the refrigerator clicked and then began to hum loudly. And outside, Jessica could hear their German shepherd, Scout, barking at someone passing the house. She could even see the front page of the Miami Sun-News beside her father’s elbow, dated July 26, 1978. From the year after he’d died.

  Jessica found herself reading the words on the page, amazed at how the sentences flowed, exactly as the articles might have read that day. The biggest story was about a test-tube baby: In England yesterday, the world’s first baby conceived outside of the human body was born to John and Lesley Brown . . . But how in the world could she remember details from so long ago, even the temperature in the top right-hand corner? The high today would be ninety-one degrees, it said. She could read this newspaper word for word!

  Then, the soothing cadences of her mother’s voice recaptured Jessica’s ear: “. . . their task will not be easy, Jesus, but it’s in Your name and for Your glory. Bless the blood, Lord.”

  “Yes,” Daddy said. “Bless the blood.”

  Jessica felt all of her pores flush warm. With her mother praying for her while her father clasped one hand and Alex clasped the other, she felt as if she were floating above the world. Jessica was so overwhelmed with love for her family, she was mute.

  She glanced around at her sister suddenly. Alex looked exactly as she had when Jessica had left her in Botswana, so world-weary and anxious that her face barely held a trace of the teenager she had been in 1978. She smiled at Jessica, but there was nothing happy in her eyes. Alex leaned over, and Jessica felt her sister’s breath against her earlobe. “Hurry back, Jess,” she said. “Before the storm.”

  With that, startled, Jessica woke up in a place much stranger than anything in her dreams.

  • • •

  “Ah!” Teferi said when she told him about her dream. She felt invigorated from the encounter with her family, spiritually sated, and she’d been so anxious to share it that she’d found herself describing the dream to Teferi when he brought her breakfast. Although he was virtually a stranger, Teferi listened with rapt patience. “How marvelous you were able to accomplish that with no training!”

  “Accomplish what?” Jessica asked him.

  They sat in a far corner of the chamber, allowing Fana to sleep on in the center of the odd round bed that felt almost like a water bed but was more spongy than watery. Teferi had brought Jessica coffee and a basket of pastries called toogbei he said he’d made himself, based on a recipe he’d learned while living in the kingdom of Ghana. The small, sweet dough balls were warm and delicious, the perfect breakfast. With his attentiveness and apparent cooking skills, Teferi was beginning to remind her of David, except that he was about half a foot taller. Teferi, she thought, could have had a decent career in the NBA. He was a willowy giant.

  “Lucid dreaming,” Teferi said, answering. “Visiting any place or time of your choice, and experiencing it as if it’s real. You’re right—you could have read that entire newspaper you described, remembering anything your unconscious absorbed when you saw it as a child. You could read an entire library or hear any piece of music. Or, for more extraordinary amusement, you should try a feat like leaping from the Grand Canyon and taking flight! You’ll feel the wind in your hair, I promise you.”

  “Is it because of the blood?” Jessica said, her voice still soft and confused. “It’s never happened to me before, except something
like it once when Fana messed with my head.”

  “No, you shouldn’t credit the blood. That dream was probably accessible to you because your chamber is here in the House of Meditation, and Khaldun uses scents to help induce deeper meditative states in beginners. I imagine there are traces of the scent in your chamber. I can bring you your own dream-stick to burn while you sleep, if you like. You’ll have even more clarity that way, and deeper sleep. There are brothers who have complete lives that exist only in the boundaries of their dreams. They’re kings, animals, warriors. Waking experiences—even physical sexuality—soon become much less alluring than the dreams, I’m told. You can become much more sensitive to mind stimulation than mere touch. Of course, that takes more practice . . .”

  “It almost sounds like some kind of drug,” Jessica said.

  “You could say that, but dream-sticks are much more potent than your world’s version of drugs. Because, you see, it is possible to escape—through dreams. If you don’t mind an outsider’s interpretation, it sounds to me as if you needed something from your family and your unconscious mind gave it to you. Or, rather, you gave it to yourself.”

  “Yes,” Jessica said with feeling, remembering the sensation of her father’s touch, the sound of her mother’s voice. “I still can’t believe how real it felt. It was real, to me.”

  “That’s only your first sip from a vast goblet, Jessica. Mortals use very little of their minds because they don’t know their potential. But Khaldun has shown us what we are capable of. And he can show you, too.”

  Jessica glanced over at Fana, who was curled up on the bed, her mouth hanging open with silent snores. She looked so placid compared to how upset she’d been the night before, and Jessica was grateful. She hoped her daughter was dreaming herself into a happy world.

  “When will Khaldun see us, Teferi?”

  At this, Teferi only shrugged. “In his own time. I pray it will be soon.”

  Throughout the morning, Teferi told her more about the Life Colony, sounding every bit like the proud national of an ancient, mystifying country. The Life Brothers had developed several of their own languages, including a specialized thought-language that was like shorthand, making thoughts easier to understand, he boasted. They had also devised many of their own instruments and musical styles, as she had heard at dinner, as well as several systems of combat involving intricate leaps and swordplay. After Fana woke up, she sat amiably on Jessica’s lap and chewed on a dough ball while she listened to Teferi.