Seeking Samiel

by Catherine Jordan

  Caroline pulled free. She yanked my briefcase up off the floor and tossed it into the hall closet. Folders fell out and papers scattered. "Caroline," I said gently, "You can't do that. These briefs are important."

  "Then don't leave them lying around. This isn't your office or your house. You can't just come in here and drop your stuff as if someone is picking up after you."

  "I don't expect you to clean up after me," I said, bending over to gather the papers that had been organized by case, but were now shuffled together like playing cards. "And since when do you clean?" I stopped myself--she was cooped up in an empty house and tedious work was the best way to relax a racing mind. At least that tactic seemed to be working for me. We were both on an emotional tightrope between my finances and Caroline's illness. Schizophrenia, I had said to Lindsey. She did not like my suggestion, that her daughter might be mentally ill, but it was not a death sentence, and I told her that schizophrenia could be properly managed with the right medication.

  I left the strewn papers on the floor, guiding her away from them.

  "Where's your mother?" I asked. "Your father?"

  Caroline dumped the pill bottle from the sack, popped open the lid and swallowed a tablet. "Funny you should ask." She smiled as if she did find it funny. "My mother finally told me that my father is missing."

  "When did she tell you?" I asked.

  "Why didn't you tell me?" she asked.

  "Because we're worried about you. I didn't think you should bother yourself about something that wasn't a concern. I'm sure Edward is all right. He's a busy man."

  "He's retired, in case you forgot. He does nothing but sit around the house and drive Mother crazy. Mother's a worried mess searching for him. She's contacted the police, called his friends. He called right after she put a telephone call into the Kingdom of Lesotho saying he was staying at Eva's; that he's been there since her party. Mother doesn't believe he's there. She said it doesn't even sound like his voice. The police won't look for him because they say he isn't missing if he's at his own daughter's."

  Now was not the time to tell her that Edward had called me twice. The first phone call had sounded like him, the second did not. And I could not bring myself to tell Caroline or Lindsey that I'd been to Eva's since that phone call and had seen no sign of him.

  Except for the tooth.

  Not his tooth, and never would I tell her about that.

  "I didn't realize that it was unusual for Edward to be gone for a few days. I thought he still did business in Lesotho," I said.

  "It's been two months since anyone has heard from him."

  "Two months?" I asked, incredulous. "It's been two months already?"

  Caroline dropped her head, gaping at me like I was the daft one in the room.

  "All right, all right. I haven't been as concerned about Edward as I have been about you. Your mother said he called, and the authorities are aware that he hasn't been seen. Let's wait and see what happens, okay?"

  29

  I took Caroline by the hand and led her onto the porch. "Beautiful night," I said. We sat across from each other on the enclosed patio. Caroline had described it as "intimate" after she decorated. Plush yellow chairs, crystal vases filled with store bought flowers placed at alternating highs and lows on the table, and a ceiling fan, made the patio an outdoor living room. A low hanging chandelier lit our faces, the humid air moistening her skin. I stared past her into the early evening.

  "Caroline, do you like Eva?"

  She made a noise in her throat that might have been a cough or a laugh. "I'm not . . . I think . . . She's my sister," she said, exhaling. "I have always been in awe of her. Daddy jumps at her every word. Mother hates her."

  "Lindsey told me Eva was a Satanist."

  Caroline shifted in her seat, grimacing, as if she had tasted something awful. "That name," she said. "My sister's name. Don't say it, okay?"

  She blames Eva for this.

  She was jealous, has been, and she got sick at her house, ran out of the party.

  On purpose, for attention.

  "She says she is a parapsychologist," Caroline said. "But after reading her book, after being at that party, I'm not sure. We've led separate lives, her and me. Daddy says it's because she sleeps during most of the day because of her eyes, because of the sun."

  "How did she get your purse?" I asked.

  "She took it."

  "Who?"

  "The lady in the picture."

  "You're not making sense," I said.

  "She wanted the scarf."

  I sat up. "Where is it?" I asked.

  "I lost it."

  "Where did you get it? How?" I kept telling myself that it was not my mother's scarf.

  "In the house."

  "You mean when you went in to use the bathroom?"

  "Before the pictures," she said.

  "Pictures?"

  "Of her. And her mother."

  "You told me that there weren't any pictures of Eva or her mother."

  Caroline winced. "I asked you not to."

  I said, "Sorry. I forgot." Our conversation had gone down a rabbit trail and I followed it where it led.

  "Daddy and Mother met after Ehvleen died. Daddy never talked about Ehvleen. I asked him once and all he said was that she was exactly like her daughter. Daddy said that neither one of them liked their picture taken. Ehvleen was also a recluse. I never hurt her, I . . . I never," Caroline's began to tear. "Why has she done this to me?"

  "What has she done?" I asked.

  Caroline quickly swiped away at her tears with the back of her hand. "Never mind."

  "No, tell me. What has she done? Has she said something?"

  "I think we could've been closer," she said, her eyes downcast.

  "Caroline, that's not what you were going to say."

  "Yes, it is."

  There was no point in pushing her. She had become quite irrational lately, and I knew she would not say another word about what had been on her mind. I decided to change the subject, and maybe bring it up again later.

  "The sky," I said with a note of awe. It's on fire." Red, orange, pink and magenta waves twisted together like tie-dye, eclipsing the blue. "I've never seen anything like that before," I whispered.

  Caroline was quiet.

  The sky's phenomenon was not new to her as she had once described the brilliant display to me on our first date, her hands and her eyes animated whilst she talked about the beauty of her country.

  The sun was almost set, and its colours had faded. A yellow halo peeked from behind the clouds. Disappointed, I looked out over the grass and the garden. Caroline's garden was doing remarkably well, despite the drought, and it relied on the overflow from the small pond stocked with frogs to keep the mosquitoes--South Africa's plague--at bay.

  I had bought the frogs when she put in the pond. The news had done a segment on mosquitoes and water fleas, and it made me paranoid. Mosquitoes brought the malaria and water fleas brought the worm larvae. The larvae burrowed in the skin, maturing in the human body, growing an inch per week. The worm didn't kill, but emerged painfully from an open wound in the body. Frogs took care of both, so I stocked that pond with a crate full of frogs.

  The ceiling fan whirred to life. It started on low, then picked up speed, the blades chopping through the air with such force that the whole thing threatened to separate from the ceiling and take flight. Then, it stopped, the blades coming to a sudden halt as if a hand had been stuck into its path. "Humph," I said.

  "There it is," said Caroline, attentive, back straight.

  "What?" I asked.

  "Listen," she said.

  I heard the singing pond frogs and the occasional snap of insects against the screens. I looked her up and down, thinking about what she told me--that it had been two months since that night at Eva's. Caroline had not improved at all.

  "That thing is hiding," she said, like I was supposed to do something about it.

  I turned and looked out into
the yard. "What thing? The dog? Is that dog back?" I asked.

  "No, not the dog." Her robe collar fell open around her shoulders.

  I winced as I noticed her thinness for the first time. Blue-black veins trailed across her shriveled chest like markings on a map. Clavicle bones jutted out, shoulder bones sharp and defined.

  I leaned over and tugged at her collar, my fingers lingering on her clammy chest. Another time, that touch would have led to a kiss. I traced my fingers down the length of her robe and cinched it closed. "What's hiding?" I'd play along and hope it would help calm her. "Tell me. What can I do?"

  "You can't do anything to it." She leaned in close and said, "They aren't hims or hers, they're its. Don't call it or any of them by name."

  Not again, I thought, with the name.

  Caroline leaned in closer and said, "I have its name--," she mouthed the name in whisper so quiet I had to ask her to say it again. "Mr. Granger," she said, just barely audible. "You can't see Mr. . . . it." She shook her head and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. "I can see them all. Horrible. There're so many, you can't see the sky. When I close my eyes, their faces pop in and out of my mind like a slide show." She squirmed, unable to sit still, wringing her hands together, bobbing her bony knees up and down.

  "Mr. Granger?" I thought of my clients names, the names I'd heard mentioned at Eva's party, and the few friends that we still had. My mind came up blank. The government? They had called me, looking for Father. My father had never trusted the government, and it scared me to think that they would have snuck into my girlfriend's house and tormented her to get to me.

  Caroline was glaring at me. "Don't. Say. Its. Name. I just told you. It," she growled through clenched teeth. "They aren't human."

  "Caroline, if Eva has done something to you or . . ."

  Caroline threw her hands up into the air. "You'll summon them, with the name. The demons. Even my sister. No, no. Don't look at me like that. She, I mean she-it looks human. To you, anyway. Not to me, not anymore. I've seen her." She nodded as she talked, the look in her eyes becoming wilder. "In my mind," she whispered, putting her index finger against her temple. "And," she mouthed the name, Mr. Granger, "told me. Yeah. That's right. And there is nothing I can do about it." Caroline sat back. "You hear nothing. They want silence so I can hear. Sometimes they want a distraction so I won't."

  Holy shit. She'd lost her marbles. She really believed what she told me. She heard voices. Saw things in her head and in her room.

  "I'm going to call your mother, okay?" I wanted to help her, and consolation was all I had to offer at the moment. I placed my hands around her shoulders. "I can't be here with you as much as I'd like. You know I'm working to make things better for us? Because you deserve the best. I want to be able to give you that. Right now, I can't, but I'm working on it."

  I gave her a gentle squeeze and sat with her until her head began to drop with sleep. I tried to carry her off to bed, but I couldn't lift her, so I woke her and walked her to her room.

  30--CAROLINE

  Caroline awoke to the sense that it was time to awaken. It had been months since she first got sick. Jeffrey couldn't believe that so much time had passed. He sat with her, sometimes.

  She had leaned against him, once, for support, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder. A familiar scent lingered on his shirt. Any other woman might have mistaken the smell for another woman's expensive perfume. Not Caroline. He had been back to that house, had been face to face with Eva. It was she that Caroline smelled, and it made her want to cry. She never leaned that close to him again.

  It was a waste of time telling him anything anymore. He would look to the ground as if he had lost something, not seeming to register her words. "The heat," was all he would say.

  Either he was lying about the visits, or--as Mr. Granger had said--he was under her spell and couldn't remember them. People had told him what Eva was, and Jeffrey had even asked Caroline. But Caroline had glossed over the subject because she was afraid. Eva wanted Jeffrey, and Caroline was in Eva's way, which was exactly why this was happening to her.

  Her Daddy had feared Eva, not respected her. Caroline understood that, now. She wondered if Daddy had ever loved Eva. And she wondered why she hadn't listened to her mother in regards to Eva. But no one ever came right out and said Eva was a Satanist, that she practiced witchcraft, that she was a demon. Even if they had, Caroline would never have believed them. Or, maybe she would have glamourized Eva in some morbid way. It was her own fault. She had gone to her sister's house even though Daddy had told her not to. She had convinced Jeffrey to go to the party, had believed they would have a grand time, see people they would not otherwise meet. "My fault," Caroline said.

  Jeffrey was over Eva's house almost all the time. If she had asked, he would've said he was working. But he was doing much more than that. She should ask Mr. Granger to be sure.

  She shivered. The cold was getting to her, making her muscles ache. The pain in her lower back and neck told her she had lain in that mattress groove too long. She looked to the clock. Two forty-five a.m.

  Every morning at three a.m. a crow perched on Caroline's windowsill--one of four windows, twenty-eight panes on each. No matter how she tried to prevent it, the bird always got inside. She tried greasing the sill with lard, then nailing the sill shut. She had asked Jeffrey to caulk any holes around the roof and siding, giving the cold draft as the reason. He obliged, irritated by the unwelcome cold. Nevertheless, the bird appeared. It never cawed or flew around the room. Just sat there and watched her until she looked away. And then it was gone.

  Tatwaba brought Caroline a broom when she asked for one. She looked at Caroline expectantly, and Caroline said, "There is a black crow at my window." Tatwaba's eyes widened and she turned towards the empty window. "It's not there now," Caroline said. "But it will be."

  Tatwaba said, "It a message. De crow warning you of danger. Leave it alone." Tatwaba left the broom anyway, but Caroline was too terrified to use it, afraid she'd incite the docile crow into a screaming bird of prey. The broom was now gone, Tatwaba having taken it back at some point, to clean, supposedly.

  The ceiling fan spun overhead, providing little relief from the sweltering heat. 1,152 stucco swirls on the ceiling. Caroline dragged her legs across the bed and tried to sit. Dizzy. Tipping back onto the bed in a fetal curve, her head throbbed and her stomach rumbled. She had slept through several meals, possibly through several days, and could not find the strength or desire to get up.

  Doubts and fears bounced around inside Caroline's mind, poisoning her. The poison might have entered through her mouth, but now it was in her gut, her chest, her veins, her head.

  A cramp in her bladder demanded she get up. 2,133,425 carpet fibers on the area rug under her feet. "It's only sixteen steps to the bathroom," she told herself.

  Each counted step reaffirmed her ability to move. "You can do this," she coached, counting backwards in ancient Aramaic. Caroline had never studied it, never heard it spoken, never visited a country where its dialect was used. She liked the way the words rolled off her tongue, the throaty sound they made when she said them aloud. "That's right," she said in the same, guttural language. "Good. Couple more. Ah, you did it." Relief pulsed out and into the toilet.

  A full-length mirror was propped against the wall opposite the toilet. She had pried it off the door and moved it there to see herself in her most basic, undignified form. That pose confirmed her humanity and she stared at her reflection through puffy, swollen eyes.

  "You shouldn't have looked," she said as she stood in front of the mirror. Her nightclothes hung from her body like a paper doll's hanging on by a tab--the clothes would fall from the cardboard body no matter how tightly you pinched.

  Her knees wobbled and she saw that she was leaning. She tried to straighten, but her body wouldn't stay upright. It must be the mirror, she thought, and so she tilted it as best she could. But it made no difference. Her body was leaning to the left.


  The crow cawed outside.

  31--TATWABA

  Tatwaba swey-swey into room, cleaning basket full in her arms. Caroline whisper in her sleep. Tatwaba bless herself, din clean, work fast, pick up laundry, dust, scrub bathroom, spray air freshener.

  Tatwaba pray over Caroline, in secret. Poor chile. Tatwaba's incense and herbs no help, but she stay as housecleaner and watch Caroline's disease, watch to see if it spread.

  Dat scarf--no good. Der was a brown hardened stain in middle. It look like it been use to mop a spill. Beautiful scarf. Tatwaba take it home to clean.

  Tatwaba pull clean sheets from basket. She near de once beautiful woman-chile on de bed, but Tatwaba no touch her.

  "Baleka," Caroline whisper.

  "Hush," Tatwaba say. She try to get Caroline to move.

  "Baleka," Caroline say.

  Caroline more and more harder to move. Tatwaba pull de sheets, din trow dirty sheets in basket. Tatwaba hold clean sheet into air. When sheet fall to bed, Caroline sit up and scream, "Musa ukungena. Baleka. Musa ukungena!"

  Tatwaba see it crawling out hole in wall, long grey arms wiggling through. uSathane! She run down steps and smack into Mr. Jeffrey.

  "What's going on?" he demand.

  Tatwaba push away from Mr. Jeffrey. "I go. I go." Tatwaba want to pass Mr. Jeffrey but he hold Tatwaba's elbows. Tatwaba shout, "Caroline say, 'Baleka--get out.' She say, 'Musa ukungena--do not enter.' You hear, Mr. Jeffrey?"

  "Caroline asked you to leave? Tatwaba, stop."

  "Indlu," Tatwaba say, head shaking, body shaking. "I see uSathane, de devil."

  "Speak English."

  "Indlu--de house. The devil in de house, in de walls. Caroline tell it to get out, do not enter. She no control de devil. Devil control her!"

  Mr. Jeffrey hold Tatwaba, din finally let her go. Tatwaba run out front door.

  32--NKUMBI

  A cup of water and a cracked, plastic bucket sat between his slippered feet. He had already thrown up once. "Ever been consumed by desire?" he asked Nkumbi, squirming in the metal chair, unable to sit still. "Ever wanted something you couldn't have?"