Doreen looked as cool as cheesecake about it. The pandemonium in my head was rather otherwise.
I began to wonder if she might be a cop. I tried to explain the pill wasn’t evidence. Really there was no evidence that there’d been a murder, no hard evidence of anything except that Aetna Simmons knew how to have a good time. But Doreen argued at every turn. Motive, means, opportunity, etc.
“How would she have known which drug to use to kill Momma? From what you’re telling me, this stuff is so rare it’s not in any databases. Guess she could’ve asked the dealer.”
“Doreen, I know you want closure and all that,” I broke in.
“News to me, seeing as there’s no such thing.”
“At least you want to believe the best about your momma.”
“Why? She sure as hell didn’t do me any favors.”
A moment of a smothered sigh. I needed Doreen on the defensive. She wasn’t about to make it easy, and I should’ve taken note of that.
Easy to say so now, of course. The owl of Minerva takes flight only when the shades of night are gathering. Hindsight and all that jazz.
“I’ll cut to the chase,” I said.
“Good idea.”
“Aetna disappeared before your momma died. What if she killed herself—”
“You want to say she killed herself for the same reasons I’m saying she might’ve killed Momma. Because Momma bled her dry, because she ran out of money and got sick of being scared of what Momma had on her. Momma was so hungry for money losing her tenant sent her right into a stroke, which served her right because—”
“Look, I didn’t say that.”
“Because in the end, Momma was the only criminal around for miles. An extortionist. Her victim crawled off somewhere to OD and dropped one of her tablets in a purse that stayed behind. Is that what you want to say?”
It was. It really was.
Except the last bit. I mean Aetna OD-ing on Empyreal. That had never entered my imagination. I’m not kidding.
I was already perturbed, and this just made it worse: “How the hell do you know that? How the fuck do you know what goes on in my head? It’s creepy. It’s my head, for fuck’s sake.” I shut up, tried deep breaths; it was no good. And Doreen didn’t answer right away. A beam of dingy sunlight eked between the curtains over her shoulder, battled through the dust and murk only to fade in the dank air between our bodies. I followed her gaze to the place where the light died.
She said, “We’re the same. Not all the way but on some level. I don’t have to know you to figure that out, I mean it’s pretty obvious.” She started to turn away. I reached across and grasped her wrist.
“What’s obvious?”
“You want to think I haven’t noticed, but you and I, we’re spending a lot of time dancing around something. That’s because we’re used to being that way. Our shadows run deep. They go right to the bottom.”
Those were her words exactly.
“Since that goes for both of us, you may as well forget about hiding anything from me.”
She set her jaw as though she stood on a hill above a battlefield, tall and proud and grim. The anger I’d nursed all afternoon started to burn. Slowly at first but then, as I realized how unfair everything was, from Empyreal to Masami to Nabi and Louis Vuitton, and this stranger who presumed to sit there oozing gorgeousness and lust, daring to know me, that anger detonated to engulf them all and wrap me in a shockwave of despair. Doreen began to suck the fingers I’d curled around her wrist, and I believe I meant to shove her. I didn’t.
Sunday is the Lord’s day. That means it’s full of joy each week before it’s even started. My husband told me that.
One day, soon after we met, Martin took me to a lovely seminar at the Bermuda Bible Institute. “The Wisdom of Paul: Don’t Give Up.” Romans 6, Colossians 1, Martin loves St Paul. Galatians 6:9, that’s one of his favorites: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap, if we do not give up.” After the class he took my hand in his strong fingers & said it again. “Don’t give up.”
Face it, acegirl: I was unhappy. K had gone to Harvard, I was trapped at the bank. He & I talked or texted all the time, so I tried to pretend I didn’t have to miss him, but I wasn’t any good at it. I tried to be myself (a janitor at work called me Smiley-Face), but I wasn’t. I was a teller, dispensable & bored to tears, while my best friend got to go off & make something of himself. Martin’s taking my hand, saying what he said, let me know that he knew. He knew better than I did even though I hadn’t told him. & he wanted me to be OK.
Next thing I know, M & I are an “item,” he’s moving from St Paul AME to Mt Olive (Mummy & Daddy were over the moon!), & he & I are running Sunday Bible Study! Now I get to watch him find all the Good Book’s possibilities & point them out to people in the Book & in the world. He sees the Joy of Promise everywhere. That’s Faith, & Martin’s Faith is pure & inspirational. Take that poor man the other day with the midnight ice-cream cravings, Lord have mercy. Honey whipped out his cocktail of Corinthians & Galatians, his kind & stirring voice warmed & sparkled all at once & almost made me cry.
Now he’s traveling so much, that voice only comes out on Sundays. After the service when our little group troops into the hall, that little bit of social awkwardness which often troubles Martin just evaporates. We relax. He is inspired. He knows all the important translations & his interpretations ring out elegant & confident. & he always finds a way to work in his message just for me: Don’t Give Up. We are comfy, he makes jokes, people laugh. They love his earnestness. It’s pretty sexy actually. & I’m the one who gets to take him home. He’s what my Faith dreams of. He’s the beauty & the joy in Faith. & he’s always back by Sunday, Honey’s very proud of that.
One summer long ago, K’s first summer back from Harvard (I hadn’t met Martin yet), K was different, a little sad & trying not to be. Just like me, really, but we didn’t understand yet. I took him to church, thinking it might help. It was Baby’s first time to attend a service. I grew up on Sunday services. But poor K & E, I don’t think their momma believes in God. I don’t say that to be mean, it’s just she took a lot of flak for taking Mr C away from his faith & not bringing up the children in the church, it sort of sidelined the whole family in the community. But my momma didn’t think she could argue with her, so anyway. Kenji in suit & tie. Yes, girl. Mmmhm. Real sharp.
We were 18 or so. Mummy & Daddy looked nervous & Iesha was smug. The sermon was Matthew 5, the Beatitudes & “Love your enemies.” & after, K & I went walking around Fort Scaur. Usually our conversations travel deep & far into the nitty-gritty. This time he just kept saying, “Yeah, it gave me a lot to think about.” I pushed & prodded even tickled him, & K surprised me by getting annoyed. Turned out he got hung up on Bertrand Russell (I looked him up later, God have mercy on his soul) & verses 28-30-ish: “But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. & if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out & cast it from thee…”
I got all hot in the face like I hadn’t breathed in awhile. But I got annoyed too & sort of panicky for no reason. That made me more annoyed. I’m telling you, we didn’t understand. I said, “It’s just a figure of speech.”
“Well, you know, I offend a lot of people,” said K. “A born Bermudian who in’t a ‘real’ Bermudian cuz I in’t black enough. I’m too black for Japan. I’ve been called dirty in both places, you know that, dirty meaning what? Offensive. The Americans point out how un-American I am every _____ day & how dangerous it makes me. Now you’re saying eye removal is some kind of figure of speech for what these lot should do to me?” He said it lightly like a joke. Like it made no difference to him.
“That’s not what Jesus meant.”
“Course not.” & Kenji grinned. I thought he was going to put his arm
around me, but he didn’t. He bumped my shoulder with his shoulder & said, “You know what? That service was the best thing I’ve done in months. You know why? Cuz I did it with my best friend.”
K never talked about Jesus again. I talk all the time, I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to, & Baby never fails to encourage me. He encouraged me & Martin to take over Bible Study when the group needed somebody. He let me practice “O Holy Night” out on his balcony when I was due to sing solo at the Christmas service. He said, “Nikkou, you make Mariah & those lot sound like bad auctioneers.”
But he won’t talk about the Bible. He’ll listen, he’ll tease just enough to make me laugh. But he won’t do nitty-gritty. It’s cuz our friendship’s a safe haven. All those years he was away, we never argued once. We don’t want to mess it up by disagreeing. Iesha says I was a coward not to wait for him.
But it’s Martin who’s the strength & courage in my Faith. Without Martin & in poor misguided Kenji’s shadow, the Word Of God would look like nothing more than black & white. Without Martin there’d be no Sunday Bible Study Group, I couldn’t carry on without him, all our friends & our pastor would cut their eyes at me! & how can I Give Up on our Lord Jesus? No, I can’t.
I mean, it’s not like I really have to choose. M’s good for me, but so is K. K’s always searching for new perspectives & ideas, a total contrast to M’s unswerving Faith. But it’s a good contrast! & You’d rather have a sinner than a sinner without Faith, wouldn’t You?
AS4.
Calligraphy on greeting card. Color: “creamy beige” (JB).
Stoic humility, costly naïveté.
A man with a toga and distracted expression strolled beside the Mediterranean as boats with billowing sails glissaded through the peaceable sea. Even if I were not an old man, he wrote, I could not have helped feeling pleasure at this. And such small pleasures were all he required out of life. Almost.
Life is not incomplete if it is honorable.
That’d look good in embroidery on a cushion, wouldn’t it? Too bad it wasn’t really Seneca’s point.
His point was that if living isn’t good, healthy, stimulating fun (and don’t forget “honorable”), then it simply isn’t worth it. Living just for the sake of living might as well be death. It’s about quality, not quantity. And if quality is lacking, well, then one must leave off bravely, and our reasons therefore need not be momentous; for neither are the reasons momentous which hold us here…
I found him in AS4, the content of which Aetna borrowed from “On Taking One’s Own Life,” Seneca’s seventy-seventh Moral Letter to Lucilius (c. 62-65 AD). His letters aren’t like hers. They’re not suicide notes. Whilst they do advocate suicide for the sick, the decrepit, the miserable, and those who’d rather not join them, Seneca’s letters are meant to be therapeutic. Philosophy, he said, is a healing power.
Drawing from a classic text would’ve helped Aetna conceal her identity. But it also would’ve precluded any specific simulation. Seneca’s was not the face she needed. The archaic tone, the wont, the perspective is ancient, distant, the true author well-known, the message too general. As someone else’s missive, document examiners would never buy it. You want to say it wasn’t for them. You want to say this one was personal.
Or it wasn’t. A greeting card that stands up on its own so the message greets the reader like the name on a place setting. Inside, the card is blank.
But consider its place in the narrative of the Ten. In AS4, she philosophically denies the fear of death that torments every animal. She denies the momentousness of life and its demise. Considers the feeling of the transition, a peaceful dissolution (cf. AS1 and AS2). She has Seneca the Stoic establish learned precedent for her overcoming of brute instinct with cool reason.
I’m ready, she is saying.
She wasn’t ready. She had six notes left to write. And she was still dreaming. I mean, slow dissolution? That’s what Seneca thought too.
Despite his toga and eloquent vocabulary, I’d hesitate to call him a reliable source on this matter. First Nero accused him of conspiring to kill the emperor, who at the time was (yes) Nero. He sentenced Seneca to die; the latter chose to slit his wrists. But he didn’t do it very well. His cuts produced an anticlimactic trickle. He cut his legs too. Didn’t help. So he sat down and dictated something philosophical, something very important, no doubt suffused with insight, that has since been lost. When he got impatient, he took poison. It paralyzed the poor man’s limbs but failed to do him in. Fed up and exhausted, he decided on a hot bath. There, at long last, Lucius Annaeus Seneca choked on the steam and perished.
He and Aetna shared a wish: if only I could die and death could be this way. This isn’t I am ready but holding her hand over hot water, not yet touching, just assessing her courage. AS4 is a feint. Like my wasted weekend.
It’s no wonder I was out of sorts on Monday morning, having been through all that foolishness only to learn nothing new. All I managed that weekend was to place my professional and private lives on the tip of my nose, bend over backwards, and fail to escape feet-first as the ceiling started lowering. This could not be rectified until I’d traced that peregrine Empyreal.
Four people may sell my products without violating the fine print. They are the concierges at Bermuda’s most famous hotels. First stop: Jasmine Lounge, Fairmont Southampton Princess.
The lounge had a few tourists but not many. Americans don’t care for finery anymore. The Jasmine has begun to feel less like a tea room and more like a high-end diner. The cutlery is rolled in napkins, and the first thing on the menu is a pulled pork taco. But for all that, it is easy, sitting there and sipping out of bone china, to imagine oneself back to the glory days of tropical colonialism as lush palmettos crowd against the picture windows and a carpet of English roses fades under your feet. I ordered the house blend and added, “Tell Gino that Dr. Caines is here.” The concierge came running to my table, greeted me with a loud embrace as though I were a long-lost brother.
Here’s how it works. When a tourist wants to party, he tells Gino. Gino helps him choose the product, tacks on a commission for himself, and collects. Then he texts me using a code based on Jasmine’s appetizer menu. I stop by the lounge, enjoy a cup of tea, and since Gino and I have been old friends since the day we met, no one thinks anything of it when he joins me. We exchange gossip and a few other things, and he deals with the tourist, who has no clue that I exist.
Gino’s not allowed to keep a stash at the hotel. If I suspected him of stashing or if he placed too many orders to be credible, I’d report him to the cops: possession with intent to sell. Besides, what I do is a service to my nation. My products are so exquisite, so unique that tourists have been known to visit this place several times a year for the sake of tiny, arcane things in velveteen boxes. With his job on the tip of the recession’s tongue, Gino appreciates all this.
He read about Aetna on Bernews when she disappeared. Before that, he’d never heard of her. And he hadn’t served any one-night-only guests. No locals, in other words, playing tourist just to place an order.
I had another cup of tea at the Hamilton Princess, another at the Rosewood and the Loren. No concierges had anything for me.
In a darkening mood I stopped at the Louis Vuitton store on Front Street. The sun was out, the harbor clear and blue, and it was Monday. Should’ve been lovely. But when I came face to face with a glass-enclosed Bandoulière Infini, everything in me grew heavy.
I decided that the weekend was Nabi’s fault. I looked at the bag, feeling pissed off and pathetic. A well-pressed individual came up to me and said, “If it makes you feel better, the matching wallet’s only seven fifty. We have the mini-agenda too. Five hundred, I think?” She dropped her voice, adding, “The agenda makes a great I-miss-you gift. Just so you know.”
Had some evil sorcerer turned me into a billboard? Had the keys to my painfully cra
fted, multi-layered façade somehow just appeared in women’s inboxes around the world? How did I manage to smile at Vuitton’s crispy sprite? “What about an I’m-sorry gift?”
“The wallet. Definitely.”
“I’ll take both.”
At the counter I attempted to pump the sprite for information. Vuitton products come with lifetime warranties, so I figured they must have a database of buyers. I complimented the sprite’s little haircut, and she agreed to look and see if my lady really bought the Bandoulière or if it had in fact been the Speedy 25 Minibag.
“Aetna with an A,” she said. “You know what? I don’t see her. I hope somebody didn’t trick her into buying a knockoff. Do you know there are people who actually do that?”
“I can’t believe it.”
“No, really. But the good news is you’re sure about the color. The Minibag and Bandoulière both come in Infini, so either way, you’re straight.”
It was possible that whoever bought Aetna the bag also bought the drugs. Possible that she bought it herself under another name. Her real name perhaps, which in spite of all I’d done I still did not know.
Doreen called. She wanted to meet up, said she’d been to the locksmith. I didn’t feel like talking. I let the call go to voicemail.
Chemically and economically, Empyreal is unconducive to daily consumption. The worst addict I’ve ever met couldn’t stand to use it more than twice a week. The stuff is just that good. A ten-tablet box should last at least a month. I reasoned that anyone who reordered too soon could be selling. I do not, however, maintain sales records. That would’ve been stupid. The plan was to shake up every repeat buyer of Empyreal and observe whatever spilled.
Not a healthy plan. Implementation was stressful. It took effort not to growl at the best of clients as they all began to look like greedy bastards out to ruin me. This set in motion a familiar spiral of existential questions which did nothing to improve my disposition or expedite my other inquiries.
Drafts of a Suicide Note Page 13
