Requiem for the Devil

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  “Ludicrous,” Walter said. “The automatic door opener probably just short-circuited.”

  “Just the same,” she looked over her tiny glasses at her mashed potatoes, “I’m glad I don’t have a garage.”

  Marc nudged my elbow and pointed at the seitan. “Hard to believe it never walked and squawked, huh?”

  “All the food is wonderful.” Rosa nodded to her husband. “Walter, your gravy is delicious as always.”

  “Thanks, honey.”

  “It’s a perfect dinner,” Rosa said. We all nodded in silent agreement.

  “Except there aren’t any children.” Serafina sighed.

  “We’re the children, Grandmom,” Marc said.

  “No, I mean little ones. When are you all going to have babies?”

  “Mom, don’t start,” Rosa said.

  “I don’t understand any of it.” Serafina gestured to the twins. “You four spend all your time taking care of animals nobody wants,” she pointed to Gianna, “you never married that nice man who would have made a wonderful father, and now you’re hooked up with some young playboy who can’t possibly be serious about you—”

  “Hey,” I said, but Gianna squeezed my knee to silence me.

  “And you,” Serafina said to Marcus, “what’s your excuse? You’re better-looking than the rest of them put together, so why aren’t you married? How come you never bring home any of your girlfriends?”

  Rosa set her wine glass on the table. “Mom—”

  “I don’t have a girlfriend at the moment, Grandmom.” Marc shifted in his chair.

  “You’re almost forty now, Marcus, it’s time for you to get serious about women.”

  “Mom, stop—”

  “My friend Edna has a granddaughter, about thirty years old. You should meet her, maybe go out for coffee or lunch or—”

  “Mom, for God’s sake, can’t you see the boy’s gay!?”

  The word and Rosa’s shrill voice hung in the silent, stuffing-scented air. Everyone had stopped in mid-chew and seemed to be trying to find an inconspicuous way to swallow.

  “Gay?” Serafina whispered. “You mean . . . how do you know?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Rosa said.

  “He’s not gay, he’s just . . . artistic.” Serafina’s hand flitted over her pearl necklace. “Marc, tell your mom it’s not true.”

  Marc looked at his mother, then his father, then at the pseudo-turkey. “It’s true.”

  Serafina stared at him, emitted a short peep, then began to cry.

  “Aw, for the love of Christ, Rosa,” Walter said, “why’d you have to go and do that?”

  “I couldn’t bear it anymore, this charade.” She gestured to Marc, who was still staring at the turkey. “Walter, how long were we supposed to pretend we didn’t know?”

  “This is how you broach the subject?” he said to his wife. “Do you feel better now? Your mother’s hysterical, your son’s catatonic, and everyone else here suddenly wishes they were on Jupiter.”

  I had to admit, the gravity in the dining room had increased to at least half that of the giant gas planet. Gianna looked frightened.

  “Grandmom, it’s okay,” she said. “It’s nothing to cry about.”

  Her grandmother continued to bawl. Rosa put her hand to her mouth and rushed out of the room. I had a mad desire to stand up and shout, “He may be gay, but I’m the Devil!” at the top of my lungs.

  Matthew put his hand on his grandmother’s shoulder. “Can I get you anything?”

  “Just take me home now,” she said.

  “No, please stay,” Luke said.

  “I think Christmas dinner is dead, at least in spirit.” Walter tossed his napkin onto the table. “I’ll take her home.” He helped his mother-in-law out of her chair and led her to the door, where he turned and looked at Marc. “I’m sorry, son. This wasn’t the way I wanted it to be.”

  The rest of us sat in silence until the front door shut, then Kathleen said, “You okay, Marc?”

  He blinked a couple of times, then said, “I can’t believe my mom just outed me over Christmas dinner.”

  We all pondered this reality for a few moments. I was the first to laugh. Soon the rest of the table joined me in savoring the melodramatic absurdity.

  “That’s one for the therapist’s sofa,” Gianna said.

  Matthew ran his hand through his thinning brown hair. “Holy—”

  “—shit,” Luke said.

  Matt looked at him. “Actually, I was going to say ‘Holy mother of God.’”

  “Really?” Luke said. “How ’bout that?”

  “It must be a new era,” I said.

  Gianna dabbed mock tears from her eyes. “You’re all growing up so big. I’m so proud of my babies.”

  “Shut up, Mom,” Marc said.

  “Does this mean you’re going to stop flirting with me?” Kathleen asked him.

  “It means I’ll be flirting with you even more, cousin.” He blew a lascivious kiss in her direction.

  “I’m glad you all think this is so funny.”

  We turned to see Rosa in the doorway.

  “Your poor grandmother is probably having a heart attack right now,” she said, “and it’s mostly my fault.”

  “Aw, Mom, look at it this way,” Marc said, “if she keels over from this, that’s one fewer Christmas gift we’ll each have to buy next year.”

  Rosa hurled a small kumquat at her son’s head. It bounced off his temple into the sweet potatoes.

  “Ow! Come on, Mom . . .” He held out his hands to her.

  “Kathleen, let’s clear the table for dessert,” Gianna said.

  “But I’m not finished dinner,” I said. She poked me in the arm. “Oh, right.”

  Between the seven of us, we cleared all the plates in one trip, leaving Marcus and his mother alone in the dining room.

  “I can see why you like Christmas,” I said to Gianna in the kitchen. “It’s very entertaining.”

  That night I lay naked in my tiny temporary bed, staring at the doorknob. After two hours, it turned, and Gianna entered. She removed her nightgown, slid under the blankets next to me and kissed me long and deep. “Hi.”

  “What took you so long?”

  “I had to wait until the house was totally quiet.”

  “And is it?”

  “Yes, and it has to stay that way. Look, this bed is incredibly creaky, and there’s a guest room right below us.”

  I pulled her on top of me. “We won’t make a sound.”

  We didn’t, almost. Gianna let out a little gasp at first, then bit her lip. Barely moving, we slowly brought each other to orgasm, the torture of silent ecstasy allowing us no release but locked gazes and pulled hair.

  When it was over, Gianna rested her forehead on my chest. The cross around her neck fell between my ribs. I pulled the icon out where I could see it.

  “Gianna?” I whispered.

  “Mmm?”

  “Why did you love Adam?”

  She lifted her head to gape at me. “What?”

  “He’s so unlike me. How could you love us both in the same lifetime?”

  “What do you want me to say? That I was a different person then?”

  “No, I want to know the truth. I’m curious.”

  “He was . . .” She shook her head. “I’m not comfortable discussing this while naked. Let’s go down to the kitchen where we won’t have to whisper.”

  We got dressed and went downstairs. Gianna filled a kettle with water and set it on the stove.

  “Do you want some tea?” she asked. “My throat’s kind of scratchy.”

  “No, thanks. Are you sick?”

  “No, it’s probably from all the talking and laughing.” She turned to me. “He was my comrade.”

  “Who?”

  “Adam. We fought our crusade together, we had the same values, the same goals. We were united in our struggle against people like you.”

  “Am I going to wish I hadn’t asked?”
/>
  “We were each other’s heroes.” She reached in a cupboard for a mug. “Ultimately, of course, it wasn’t enough for me. When I left him earlier this year to move to Washington, it was like abandoning half of what I believed in.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m a player now, just like you. I work within the system, while Adam actually deals with the people we’re trying to help. Every day he sees their misery and despair, and somehow he still believes that things can get better.”

  “So do you. That’s one reason why I love you.”

  She frowned. “You don’t think I’m naive? You don’t laugh at my delusions behind my back?”

  “No, only to your face.”

  “How honorable.”

  The kettle began to whistle softly, and Gianna grabbed it. She poured the boiling water over the teabag in her cup.

  “There’s something else,” I said. “Marc told me a few things.”

  “About what?”

  “About Adam.”

  Gianna scoffed and set the kettle down on a cold burner with a slight bang. “Marc’s just being overprotective, like always. I wish he’d let me grow up.”

  “Has Adam sent you flowers and gifts?”

  “Did you ever hear the saying, ‘When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail’? Marc’s hammer is domestic violence, so he sees abuse wherever he looks. Even in Adam, who is one of the kindest—”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Yes, he sent me flowers and gifts.”

  “And?”

  “And I sent them back.”

  “Did you ask him to stop?”

  “Yes, I asked him to stop, and he stopped. Today was the last time I’ll ever see him. He’s finally accepted that it’s over between us.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “Trust me.” Gianna came to me and wrapped her arms around my waist. “Please.”

  I kissed her warm forehead. “I do trust you. It’s the rest of the world I don’t trust.”

  Later, as she left me outside my bedroom, I said to her, “Maybe next year you can stay here all night.”

  “Yeah, right. That’ll never happen in this house, not unless we were—”

  Her eyes widened. I didn’t blink. She stared at me for a moment, then shook her head. “Good night, Lou.”

  I slipped into bed and watched the snow skitter across the windowpane. A bizarre thought entered my mind and would not be banished, and I had to struggle not to erupt in gales of laughter. A squeaky, Mickey Mouse voice inside my head declared that this had been “the very best Christmas ever.”

  25

  Quem Patronum Rogaturus

  I awoke late the next morning, nine-thirty by the clock on the nightstand.

  After showering and dressing, I went downstairs to find Gianna’s mother sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and reading the newspaper.

  “Good morning, Lou. I’m glad someone’s finally up. I was starting to wonder if everyone had left in the middle of the night.”

  “I’m not usually such a sloth. I must have been really tired.”

  “You must have been.” She looked at me directly, her playful smirk informing me that she was aware of Gianna’s late-night visit to my room. “I’m glad we have a chance to talk. I wanted to apologize for Adam’s appearance yesterday.”

  “It’s not your fault.” I poured myself a cup of coffee.

  “He’s been around a lot in the last six months, ever since Gianna left. He and Walter will sit and watch football together, and I end up inviting him to dinner because I don’t know how to send him away. Adam’s a good man, but . . .”

  “I don’t hold it against him,” I said. “If anything, I feel sorry for the guy. If Gianna left me, I’d—”

  “You’d what?”

  I tried to think of something to say that would sound romantic but not psychotic. The last thing this family needed was another loser stalking their daughter.

  “I’d be crushed.”

  “Lou, you seem to be just what she needs right now. You’re strong, but not domineering, and you obviously adore her, but not in that needy, clingy way.” She placed her coffee cup on the table and adjusted her glasses. “Of course, I worry, naturally, about the age difference and whether . . . I mean, Gianna’s thirty-five years old—you knew that, right?” I nodded. “Okay, good. So of course I worry about her future.”

  “You hear her biological clock ticking, and you’re worried that I’m too young to do anything but hit the snooze alarm.”

  “That’s what I like about you, Lou. You cut through the bullshit so gracefully.” She looked at her watch. “It’s not like Gianna to sleep this late. I’ll go check on her. I know you two need to be on your way.”

  “Thanks.”

  As Gianna’s mother exited the kitchen, Bobo entered. He sat next to my chair and fixed his eyes on my face. I tried to ignore him, but he shuffled around so as to stay within my line of sight. Whenever I looked directly at him, his tail wagged softly two or three times, then stilled.

  “Stop that,” I said. Bobo turned in a circle once, then lay across the kitchen threshold and stared at me.

  “Bad news.” Gianna’s mother stepped over the dog into the kitchen. “Gianna seems to have the flu.”

  “The flu? I’d better go see her.”

  “She doesn’t want you to come up there, because she says she looks ugly. Which she does, but I think you should go, anyway.”

  Bobo stepped aside like a sentry and followed me up the stairs to Gianna’s room. I knocked on her door.

  “Gianna, it’s me.”

  “Don’t come in.”

  I opened the door and entered. On her bed was a human-sized lump entirely covered by a sheet. The blankets were in a heap on the floor.

  “Are you deaf?” Gianna said from under the sheet. “I told you not to come in.”

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Maybe because I asked you.”

  “Oh.” I sat on the bed next to her. “Well, I’m here now, so you might as well talk to me.”

  “I’m miserable.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she said. “Probably caught it from Ellen. I hate her now.”

  I reached for the edge of the sheet and tried to pull it back.

  “No!” she croaked. “Don’t look at me like this.”

  “You can’t stay under there forever.” I gave the sheet another gentle tug. “And in your weakened condition, you aren’t up to fighting me.”

  “Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She pushed the sheet off her face, which was puffy and covered in sweat.

  “Aaaaaaagggh!” I covered my face. “My eyes! My eyes!”

  “Jerk.”

  “Wait, it’s okay. I can work around this.” I reached in my shirt pocket for my sunglasses and put them on. “There, that’s better.” Gianna covered her face with the sheet again. “Hey, I’m just kidding. You’re getting to be as vain as I am.”

  “It’s different for you,” she said. “You’re gorgeous.”

  “True, but look at it this way—you still have your inner beauty.”

  “When I get better, I’m going to punch you in the stomach.”

  “Okay. So when do you think you’ll be ready to leave?”

  “Lou, I can’t even turn over in bed without feeling sick.”

  “It’s that bad?”

  “Haven’t you ever had the flu before?”

  “No, actually.”

  “That’s right, I forgot you were an alien,” she said. “Getting the flu is like being body-slammed by a huge invisible flaming mucus monster.”

  “Now that I’ve experienced, so I can understand.”

  “Good. Then go away.”

  “Gianna, wouldn’t you rather suffer in your own bed? Come on, I’ll get you home, and I’ll . . . take care of you, you know, bring you stuff.”

  She was silent for a moment, then sai
d, “I want my mommy.”

  “Fine.” I stood to leave.

  “No, wait.” Gianna sighed and stretched a limp hand towards me. “We should go home. Help.”

  I took her hand. It was burning hot, and it filled me with a sudden surge of lust. I put my arms around her feverish body and helped her to her feet. She clutched my arm and stood swaying for a moment, her eyelids fluttering. My passion faded into a sensation I’d never felt before.

  “Ohhh, I feel like shit, shit, shit,” she said. “Make it go away.”

  I put my arm around her and imagined the virus inside of her, intending to burn it out. But it had taken hold of her entire head and throat and chest. There was no way to destroy it without hurting her. I had no healing powers—and until that moment had never wanted them.

  “I need to wash my face,” she said. I helped her to the bathroom, where she pulled her hair back with a headband and examined herself in the mirror. “Jesus God, look at me. I mean, don’t look at me.” Gianna put her hand out to my face. “Go away.”

  I placed a soft kiss on her burning temple. “You look fine,” I said to her reflection.

  “You’re lying.”

  “I love you.”

  She looked at me in the mirror for a few moments, then began to sob.

  “I’ll go get Marc,” I said, “and we’ll leave as soon as you’re ready.”

  “So, Lou, what did you think of your first real Christmas?” Marc asked me in the car.

  “Not bad,” I said. “From what I can tell, Christmas is mainly about eating and drinking and arguing.”

  “You bissed da poid of id.” Gianna sniffled.

  “The bore you talk, Giadda,” Marc said, mocking her stuffy nose, “the bore we’ll bake fudda you.” He flailed his arms. “Hep be, I deed a decondethdud.”

  “Shuddup.” She pointed at me. “Dode you dare laugh ad be.” I smirked. “Dode smirg eeder,” she said. Marc and I wailed with glee. “I hade you guys.”

  When we got to Gianna’s apartment, I helped her up the stairs and into bed. By the time I’d brought her presents in from the car, she had tossed all the sheets onto the floor and lay whimpering on her sweat-soaked bed.

  “I need to take a shower,” she said. “Help me up.”

  I helped her drag herself to the bathroom, where she shut the door without a word. In a moment the water began to spray, and the shower door slid open and closed.