"I searched the public records for Eva and her family. Not a single birth or death announcement. There's no information on Eva's mother, grandmothers or any other maternal relatives. I couldn't even locate a deed to the house."
Lindsey jumped at the honking from outside. "I forgot about him," she said.
"So did I."
Jeffrey's hands shook, scrunching the towel. He had it in his mouth, sucking on it. The water pitcher was empty.
The horn blared for several seconds, followed by a few more blasts in a row. Jeffrey ran to the door with the pitcher in hand. He threw it across the street at the car. From the window where she watched, Lindsey saw it hit the bonnet, glass sprinkling across the windshield like hail. Jeffrey held up his middle finger, yelling at the driver in isiZulu and in Afrikaans. When the Rolls Royce pulled away, tires crunching over glass, she secretly hoped Jeffrey would get in that car and go away with it.
Jeffrey slammed the front door, walked over to the couch in her living room and plopped.
"I made that phone call," she said. "He came to the hospital and prayed over Caroline. He was going to perform an exorcism."
"But he was too late," Jeffrey said, eyes closing.
"I thought so, too," Lindsey said. "He said it was too late to help her in life, and wanted to perform the exorcism on her dead body. At first, I told him no. I went to visit her grave the day after we buried her. A crow kept circling me, and landed on her headstone. Tatwaba said crows were bad luck. So, I called the priest and asked him to meet me at the graveyard. When I got there, your uncle was at her plot."
70
Lindsey had arrived at the cemetery, cringing at the sight of Father Charles Thurmont digging with rapid strength at her daughter's mound. She sat in her car watching him, wondering why she had ever agreed to this in the first place.
Father Charles' shirt, wet with sweat, clung to his back. His gloved hands slipped only once on the handle as he sank deeper into the ground with each shovel full he tossed. Flowers that had come from friends and former employees, acquaintances, and people she forgot she knew were scattered around Caroline's open grave. And where the hell was Edward whilst his daughter was being lowered into her grave? Damn, Eva. Lindsey wanted to kick the trampled and broken flowers in that hole.
He paid her no attention as he dug, throwing heap after heap onto a growing pile.
"I changed my mind," she said, getting out of the car, treading through the flowers. She reached out for his swinging shovel and screamed, "You might as well cut off her head and drive a stake through her!"
"Lindsey," he replied, his grip on the handle firm. "If we don't dig her up, someone else will. Her suicide made the papers."
"I told you," Lindsey said. "The coroner hasn't officially called it suicide."
"But that's what the papers reported. Grave robbers will dig her up--I'm surprised they haven't already--and sell her body parts as muti. I don't want you to drive away and I don't want you calling the police. You said you were okay with me doing this. Are you?"
Lindsey released the shovel and forced a scream down into her stomach, where it ate at her. Her whole body felt like it was being eaten from the inside out. Reluctantly, she nodded.
"I don't expect you to help, but you have to allow me to finish." He turned back to his task. "Get in your car," he said. "I'm almost done."
"Should I be grateful?" She asked the question honestly.
"You should've been out of the country by now," he said, waist deep.
"I couldn't leave without Caroline," she shot back, angry at his indifference.
"Now you will," he replied, heaving up another shovel full of dirt.
"Because my daughter is dead."
"Because Caroline and Jeffrey made the terrible mistake of becoming interested in Eva. Interest can lead to obsession. You dig and you dig for information." Father Charles threw out a large rock. "When you hit an obstacle, you dig even deeper. You risk disintegrating into the hole you've dug, losing yourself." He paused, turning to face her, almost breathless. "Jeffrey became capable of doing things he never thought he would do." Father Charles reminded her of Nkumbi, with his words and his calm reserve.
His shovel clanged against something hard. "I'm at the coffin."
She turned away when Father Charles hopped out of the hole, heaving two bloated, white hands in his as he pulled on her dead daughter like a rope. She heard the scrape of her daughter's body being dragged across the hard earth. He grunted when he lifted her and Lindsey wondered at how fast he had accomplished his task. When the body thumped into the boot, her car's backend dropped. Lindsey covered her mouth and cried out into her hand.
Father Charles stood at her window. "Her eyes?" he asked. Lindsey had told him about Caroline's eyes changing colour. She would not think about Caroline's green eyes.
"They're gone," he said.
Gone. Well, then. She would not think about what might have happened to them.
Father Charles said, "Give me a few minutes to fill in the ground."
Lindsey and Father Charles drove to the Shantytowns outside Cape Town. As they turned onto a dirt path, they followed a bend to a white hut. A makeshift cross, fashioned from two pieces of driftwood, rose out of the hut's roof. Father Charles said, "This is a church. The ground here is good."
Lindsey stayed in her car.
Father Charles opened the boot and rolled Caroline's body into a readied unmarked hole, dropping dirt he pulled from his pocket and prayers he spat over and over. The hole burst into flames and Lindsey stared in horror at the thick, black smoke as it hovered, closing like fingers into itself.
71
Lindsey said to Jeffrey, "Then your uncle and I went home and I haven't left the house since. But I'm leaving soon, and when I do, I'll never be back. You can come with me. I'm hoping that's why you're here." When he didn't respond, Lindsey walked over to the couch and sat across from him.
"Where is my uncle?" he asked.
"He came to help us, to set Caroline free and to take you home. Look at me. This life you're pursuing? It's not yours anymore. Stop trying to live it. It's made you desperate. The more you want, the more you lose. He'll help you."
He closed his eyes, but he opened them, fighting sleep.
"You're tired," she said. "We'll go in the morning. Everything else can wait until we're across the ocean, out of the country and off this continent. Nkumbi told me that we have to cross the ocean to get away from her. She's useless because light--the colour within it--is Eva's fuel source, and it disperses in water. She can't get to you once you leave. Do you think you can do that?" He was unresponsive and looked like a wax figure propped on her couch. "Go upstairs. I'll book a flight for you today. You can go back home to England." Lindsey reached over and grabbed his hand, squeezing it tight.
"Maybe I'll see my father," Jeffrey slurred.
"No," she said. She crossed her arms, rubbing her elbows. "He died, Jeffrey."
Jeffrey struggled to sit up. "Eva said he might be extradited on charges."
"She's lying," Lindsey said.
"She said she could have him pardoned, that Edward had ties and that he could move back here."
Lindsey suppressed the desire to scream "Idiot!" as he continued to stammer. "Not unless she can raise him from the dead," Lindsey interrupted. She struggled with what she had to tell him next, and fidgeted with her hands. "He went to your uncle to hide. He said your father suffered a heart attack." She took a deep breath and said, "Your father was wearing an eye patch when he got there. He didn't explain much about what had happened; he dropped within minutes of arriving."
Jeffrey fell back against the couch, his eyes closed. Lindsey shook his arm, called his name, even threw water in his face. She could not wake him.
72--JEFFREY
Strong hands shook my shoulder. Gobbledygook was being whispered in my face. I resisted as long as I could, fighting for more sleep, but those hands wouldn't let me. An old man hovered over me. A priest.
"Voestak!" I yelled.
Lindsey stood behind the old priest. The airy, clean fragrances I had smelled earlier were now displaced with the rotten scent of festering meat. I coughed, my lungs as hot as my forehead.
"Ek surmaak," I said, pleading with her. Clutching both hands to my chest, feeling the hardened disc underneath burn and throb, I again cried, "Ek surmaak."
Lindsey stepped closer. "What hurts, Jeffrey? Your chest?"
More gibberish came from the priest's mouth. I couldn't understand him. Not a word. And I hadn't been able to understand the priest outside Caroline's hospital door. "Bliksem," I barked at him. "Verdomde bliksem. Fokkof, poephol."
Lindsey turned to him, and I jumped off the couch, taking a swipe at her. She ducked behind the old man. "Why did you bring him here?" I asked. I was ready for a physical fight, from both of them. I wanted a fight. I wanted to hit someone, anyone. "This is your uncle," Lindsey said. "He's putting you on that plane himself."
The thought of getting on a plane and crossing the ocean made my heart hurt, and I had tried telling them that, but they couldn't know what it felt like to have your heart beating against a metal disc. I darted past the two of them and headed for the front door.
The clock on the wall chimed. Five o'clock. Outside the open window, dusk had fallen, and thunder clapped. Ah, my chest. I grimaced and buckled my knees. It took a few steps for me to realize that the disc under my skin was dragging me forwards, leading me towards the door.
"All right," I said, hand to my chest. "I'll go." Then the pain, as if hearing my acquiescence, released me, and I was able to stand. Lindsey had invited that horrible old man inside, the one whose appearance shot bits of pain through me, hurting my heart, whose undecipherable words drove me deeper into confusion. Eva's house would protect me from such unwelcome people, and that was my consolation.
"Where are you going?" Lindsey was at the front door wielding a long-tipped umbrella in her hand. "It's raining," she said. "Maybe it will wash away the smell from where you peed. You peed on my verandah, Jeffrey."
Oh, yeah. So I had. "Pretty sure I pissed on your couch as well," I said. "Want me to drag that out into the rain?"
She opened the door and stepped aside. The sky was an ochre colour; misty and full of hatred. Eva traveled in that weather.
She's on her way and will be pulling up in that black hearse any moment. For you.
Believing I heard an engine purr outside, I staggered forwards. "Ek geloop," I said.
"You walked here?" Lindsey asked. "I figured as much. You can go. I won't stop you. I thought I was helping."
In Afrikaans I said, "Like you helped Caroline."
Lindsey sucked in her breath. I saw her aiming the umbrella at me and I flinched. She said, "If you leave, we can't help. Walk away from Eva right now."
"I'd run if I could," I said in the same language. "How do I do that? Can you tell me? I don't think so--you haven't managed to do it yet."
I surveyed the room, noting artwork on the walls, gold and platinum rimmed vases filled with flowers, porcelain trinkets balancing on glass shelves behind glass doors. Imported rugs. Heavy furniture. "You going to give up this beautiful home?" I asked. Gold earrings dangled from her lobes. "I don't think you can," I said. "He's gonna put me on that plane?" I jerked my head towards the man behind me. "I didn't think the government would let me out of the country."
"We discussed this last night," she said, "Eva is a liar. You can go home."
"I don't want that."
"Well what do you want?" she asked. I knew she was waiting for her opportunity to take a stab at me with that umbrella. Of course she wanted me dead and rotting in the ground, festering alongside her daughter.
"Everything," I said.
"I didn't know your father well," she said, "but I have to tell you, you're sounding a lot like him."
The old man was watching. She had called him my uncle, but his face was not that familiar. As long as he kept his distance from me, I'd be all right.
"I don't see you giving up all your things," I said. "Could you even bear to let go of these?" I reached out and snatched an earring, ripping it through her fleshy lobe.
Lindsey screamed, dropping the umbrella and putting both hands defensively to her ear. Blood trickled down her neck and through her fingers.
I went for the umbrella and turned it on her, then jabbed her in the gut. Arms stronger than I expected from an old man slipped around my neck and held me in a wrestler's grasp. My tongue lolled out and I gurgled, releasing the umbrella.
Two black policemen stood at the door. Fuckers. Sons of bitches. The pock marked, oily faced fuck snapped his chewing gum. The other lighter skinned one thwacked a club into his open palm, waiting for me to move. If I were to get that club in my hand, I'd pummel the bastards, and enjoy it. I'd watch their heads cave in like over-ripe melons.
Nkumbi stepped inside the door, feet spread, hands on hips.
"It all started with you," I said to Nkumbi and tried climbing to my feet. I was met with a thwack to the chest. The club drove the medallion deeper.
73--LINDSEY
"So, now what?" Lindsey asked Father Charles, rubbing her stomach, tender above the navel where Jeffrey had jabbed her with the umbrella. She had been offering the umbrella to Jeffrey, so he could protect himself from the rain. But he had circled her as if she were threatening him with it, dodging out of the way.
Lindsey summoned all the remaining sympathy for the man in the backseat of the police car. She was sure that he had loved her daughter, but Jeffrey was no longer Jeffrey. If they could find a way to break Eva's charm over him and to keep him away from her and the house, then Lindsey believed that he would be the first one to get revenge. He would find a way to send that witch back to Hell.
She wanted to hate Jeffrey, and part of her did. She wanted to hate her husband, Edward, also. If only she knew what had happened to him. Jeffrey had given no indication as to whether Edward was an accomplice or a victim, and she figured he probably didn't know.
The umbrella lay like a discarded sword in the doorway and Lindsey snatched it by the fabric that moved in the wind of the storm and dumped it in its metal stand by the door.
Father Charles placed another clean, damp cloth against her ear. "It looks much better," he said. Father Charles took a breath to say something, hesitated, and said with a saddened purse of his lips, "He doesn't recognize me."
"He has been through much," Nkumbi said, offering Father Charles the same explanation Lindsey was about to give. "You used to live here. You know what he has witnessed."
"You used to live here?" Lindsey asked.
"I was a missionary priest, one of several exorcists blessed by Bishop Desmond Tutu," Father Charles said. "He conferred on us the power of adjuration."
"What's that?" Lindsey asked.
"It's an urgent demand coupled with the name of God," he said. "It's how we tell the demon to leave the possessed. I lived here for about seven years, and exorcised two people who had come in contact with Eva. They wound up as suicides. I had warned my brother and Jeffrey, practically begged them not to come here." Father Charles asked, "You said he was at Eva's before he came here?"
"He is staying there," Nkumbi said. "Security cameras at the hospital show him getting in her car. I cannot get a search warrant for her house, but I can drive over, look around."
"I'll go get Jeffrey out of jail," Father Charles said, sighing.
"Do not," Nkumbi said, coughing into his fist. Lindsey raised her eyebrow; that dry cough sounded like Jeffrey's. "He is safer there," Nkumbi said on his way to his car.
74--CHARLES
The tall, uniformed secretary stood behind a bulletproof glass cage, going through Jeffrey's things as he dropped them into a manila envelope.
Charles stood on the other side of the glass, rapping with his knuckle. The secretary looked up and said, "A man of God. We have need for you. Lots of men."
"I'm not here for the men." C
harles nodded at the envelope. "I'm Father Charles Thurmont. I want that envelope, and I want the man those things belong to; Mr. Jeffrey Thurmont, Esquire."
"Esquire, eh?" the secretary asked, then laughed. "We don't discriminate in tere." Then he filed the envelope into a box. To Charles he said, "You wait."
75--NKUMBI
Nkumbi parked along the foliage outside of Eva's estate. He swallowed hard, trying to suppress a cough.
He checked his watch; Five thirty-two a.m. The rising sun was another hour away. Within the past few years, he had learned that Eva and her followers were like cockroaches--scavenging in the hidden darkness, scattering in the light.
It was only a few years ago when he had pulled over Eva's Rolls, registered under Edward. Meeting Phred and Edward for the first time, catching his first glimpse of Eva--he remembered exactly where he had followed them after he had let them go.
Now, his nose and ears were his guides, smelling rot and hearing soft groans that the sea tried to disguise as he closed in on her property boundary.
Nkumbi formed a plan, making backup and what-if contingencies. If he came face to face with her she might kill him. What if she accosted him with torture, he wondered. He had been through the worst, watching his mother, sisters, and aunts raped and set to flames by sweating, gun-bearing Congolese. His village had long feared their arrival and their strong, evil juju, and had prayed unsuccessfully against it. Those Congolese swore and yelled in one voice, their eyes burning with the same fever as they destroyed the village. They amputated men's arms, including his father's, and shot the stumbling, limbless men. They kidnapped his little brother and other young boys that were not gunned down or hacked apart with machetes. The carnage happened within minutes, and then the nightmare sped out of the village in mud-caked Jeeps. Nkumbi had been left alive as a message.
He would never tell anyone what he saw while hiding behind the smoke of his burning hut. He would not be their omen, spreading their fear like the flames that rose above his head.
Seeking Samiel Page 19
