And as I sat there and cursed her, called her all sorts of horrible names, accused her of all things terrible, Marina listened to every word. And cried.
“Stop shedding your bullshit tears,” I demanded. “All it makes me want to do is rip off your head and stomp your face. I feel nothing for you and your sadness except pity and disgust. Years, Marina! Years of coming to you, seeking your advice and your comfort, and all along you were in cahoots with her, plotting some savage end for me. Go!” I stood and shouted and all of me seemed to take up the hallway as my sudden rage filled the space and threatened to burst everything at the seams.
“Oh, please, Juma. Do stop all this carrying on, it’s giving me a goddamned headache.” Death crossed her arms and looked bored with the scene playing out before her eyes. She then glanced down at Marina and said with a sneer, “And you, I told you I would come find her. I knew you would go soft like this, crying and letting your precious Juma manipulate you into all sorts of nonsense.”
“SHUT UP!” I shouted, and flew at her, but Death was faster and had me around the neck and against the wall in seconds flat.
“Relax, Juma, and I will loosen my grip as I imagine after having your throat slashed, this is not the most pleasant experience.” She smiled as she spoke, and I hated her for it.
“Only because you so deem it,” I choked out. “Who the fuck else is forced to bring their suffering from life into death but me?”
“Language, Miss Thing,” she said with a sneer, and held me tighter.
“Fuck you!” I spat, and much to my surprise, Death released me.
“And for the record, Juma,” Death spoke, and for the first time in what felt like forever, all of her looked soft around the edges and everything about her felt sincere, “it is not only you. The death scar—” And here she touched her throat in the same place as my scar. “I would never do that to you. All of you carry them, every Poocha who has suffered a final death. It is something I have fought the Rouxs on since I can recall leaving behind my life as Giselle and becoming Death, and have yet to be able to convince them otherwise. They are fucking bastards and angry I can kill them with impunity, so wield what little power they have over me whenever they are able. Final death scars are unfortunately their domain.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked as she turned on her heel and walked down the hall, uninterested in me and my questions.
“Marina!” Death shouted without turning back to us, “bring her and let’s go. I am antsy and there is a tall, dark, beautiful man on a beach with lots of sun and very little clothing awaiting my arrival.” Then without another word, she was gone. I stared hard down the long hall and wondered where she’d disappeared to now. Rolling my eyes, I turned back to Marina, opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came out.
I was shocked into silence.
Gone was the bloody-walled hall of naked lights and endless dread, and in its place were my Mapplethorpes and Picassos, all my favorite chairs to curl up on and read a book, miles of shelves covered in my treasured novels and collections of poetry, and beloved, beaten-up, dog-eared dictionaries everywhere.
A low table littered with Frida Kahlo’s artwork and her diary occupied space with a sewing table and a gorgeous old Singer machine, while “In a Sentimental Mood” wafted through the air and my treasured photo of Thelonious Monk hung on a nearby wall.
Whiskeys from around the world, buckets of cherry ChapStick, vases full of tulips. So much of my life and my memories and my loves lay scattered everywhere, preserved and well maintained by her, for me. I wanted to cry and laugh and cry again as I took in the endless space of hundreds of moments that mattered to me.
And then I saw it.
In a corner left to itself, spare and beautifully lit, curated with such perfection, it could only have been done with much love and time and attention, was my life with Dutch. Private moments and quiet moments, laughter and tears. My photos mixed with other shots made up of my memories of him and me and us. So much time and tenderness, so many of the moments I held in my heart, all there for me.
Saved.
Forever.
I left Marina and walked into the space and time fell away as all of me, this new me, the version that would never be allowed to cross back and touch or kiss him again, would never feel his breath on my skin or hear his low laughter, that me fell to her knees and succumbed to the loss of him.
“Dutch.”
I’d told myself I wouldn’t say his name aloud because then it was all too real, but sitting in this space, surrounded by him, I couldn’t help myself. I needed to say it and not just in my head, but loud. And clear. My voice needed to vibrate with the one syllable that held so much of me in it.
“Dutch.”
I bent over and sobbed and thought of him and our last moment together, his eyes never leaving mine, as I died tied to that wall like an animal. And as much as I hated knowing that his final memory of me was so brutal and tortured, I also loved knowing that in the end we stayed true to our promise to each other: Right here. With me. This moment.
“Juma.” Marina’s gentle voice called me out of my despair. “We have to go, baby girl. The Mistress and the others are waiting.”
I sat up, wiped my face, and caught sight of my favorite shot of Dutch. The one from my apartment that morning, his head tossed back and laughing, the light kissing the hollows of his cheek and the line of his jaw, the smoke from his cigarette curling around him just so. It was the shot that inspired me to rise from death all those weeks ago, cross that white room alone, and face whatever my future held. And it did so again as I glimpsed it and heard his voice in my ear: Let’s do this, gorgeous.
I turned to Marina and stood and asked, “What others?” and she held out her hand and smiled, and suddenly I was ten again and sad and crying about something or the other, and she came to me and smiled and promised to make it all better.
“Just come,” she replied, and even though my thirty-six-year-old self knew there was nothing she could do this time to make it all better, I took her hand anyway and together we walked.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: JUMA
I am love
the magic wild unrestrained
kind of love
that keeps you up
at night
and makes mornings
worth rising for
I am love
and I am
yours
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: JUMA
We walked in silence for what felt like miles and unlike every other time Marina had led me down hallways and passageways I’d never before seen and I asked a million and one questions about the whats wheres and whys of the route, this time I didn’t care. I was too caught up in Dutch and that room of memories.
“Did the Mistress do that?” I asked, and before I could explain myself, Marina answered.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because she loves you.”
“But she hates Dutch,” I replied, and Marina stopped walking and made me do the same.
“The Mistress has never hated Dutch,” Marina said as she touched my hair and her eyes scanned my face and all of it felt very maternal. “Long before you and Dutch crossed paths, the Mistress came upon him dying some horrible death in some hovel on a back alley in Havana and she saved him because she knew.”
“Knew what?” I asked. “That she wanted to fuck him?”
Marina laughed and even though I didn’t want to join her, I couldn’t help myself.
“Yes, knowing her, and knowing him”—Marina raised an all-knowing brow—“probably. But it was more than simple sex appeal. She knew he was special, different. Unlike all the others. So please, dismiss this idea that she hates Dutch. She might hate that you love him as you do—” And here Marina smiled and all of her felt like the old Marina, the one who loved me something fierce. “—but she doesn’t hate him. Not at all.”
“She hates me,” I despaired, and surprised even myself at th
e sadness in my voice.
“Oh sweet baby girl, you have no idea.” Marina kissed my cheek and her eyes filled as she tugged on my hand and we started walking again. Two iron doors down and one chain-link fence away, which even Marina found bizarre but neither of us said a word because it was the Mistress and this was her world, we found ourselves before a building that rose from the dust and I swear to the gods above, looked exactly like the Supreme Court of the United States.
“What the fuck?” I whispered, and Marina laughed.
“She’s become very obsessed with all things jurisprudence.” Marina rolled her eyes and pushed open the door and despite what the building looked like on the outside, the inside was a whole other story.
“Good fucking god,” I said under my breath, and Marina pinched my side and snapped, “Language,” as we walked up the aisle carpeted in a thick, sink - your - foot - five - inches leopard-print shag rug straight out of Pimp Style 1971.
“She’s also reliving the seventies,” Marina added.
We entered a smoke-filled room of lava lamps and free love, bean bags and sexy music, and I turned to Marina and shot her a look because for real, this was some bullshit. I didn’t need any of this. I needed time alone to contemplate my new self and all the ways I would keep myself busy and occupied to avoid succumbing to the loss of my parents and my freedom and Dutch.
Always Dutch.
What I did not need was a room full of people fucking each other while Marvin Gaye crooned about getting it on.
“I am out of here.” I turned on my heel and prepared to leave. Where to, I had no idea, but definitely out of here.
“Leaving so soon, Juma?”
The lights came up and Death stepped into view and where there had been a room full of men and women doing all sort of things to each other’s bodies, and moans and sighs and so many too many “I’m going to comes,” now it was just me, Marina, the Rouxs, and Death.
Gone was the music, the smoke, the leopard shag rug, and in their place was a long, mahogany table straight out of a New York City “big law” conference room in the sky. And seated on one side of the table were the Rouxs, many of whom I knew, a few I didn’t. Marina took a seat at the near end of the table and instructed me to sit opposite her. Death watched everything from atop a black leather barstool, a few inches above everyone, undoubtedly on purpose.
I glanced up and down the room, cocked my head to the side, and hesitated.
“I’ll stand.”
Death smiled and it reached her eyes and after so many months of stepping around her foul moods and nasty temper, the woman standing before me, looking beautiful and warm, seemed more deadly than ever.
“I think you should sit, Juma,” she replied, and nodded to the seat. “Life contains a few moments when you should be sitting, and this is one of them.”
“But I’m dead,” I replied, and she laughed and I forgot how much I loved the sound of her laughter and wondered if I was about to embark upon an eternity of her laughter. If so, I hoped it would not always be at my expense.
“Yes, you are very much dead,” she agreed. “But still. Sit.”
Her tone demanded nothing less.
So I sat. And I pressed my hands together, closed my eyes, and breathed deeply, as if beginning a yoga class instead of receiving my eternity’s sentence to Death and her realm. I gasped down a sob as I thought of Dutch and sitting on our yoga mats early in the morning together, the sun warm on our backs as we saluted the day with chaturangas and crow poses.
“Juma.” Marina reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “It’s okay, baby girl.”
And I smiled because no matter what she had conspired with Death, I couldn’t help but love Marina. She was my mommy all those moments I spent away from my real ma, she lived deep in my bones, her name hummed in my blood. I couldn’t hate her if I’d wanted to. So I squeezed her back and sucked up my tears, sat tall and awaited my fate.
Firenza sat at the center of the Rouxs, with four others flanking her on either side, and I knew I was right about her being the most powerful of the lot. Seated at this table, she certainly gave off the air of supreme authority, and I could only wonder what she and the rest of them had in store for me. And I knew this right here—the quiet, the seriousness, the gravity—was why no Poocha ever spoke of their final death. This shit was terrifying.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” I broke the silence and Death rolled her eyes, “but could we do whatever it is you all are going to do to me so I can go?”
Death chuckled. “What exactly do you think we’re going to do to you, might I ask?”
“I don’t know, Mistress”—I shrugged my shoulders—“probably punish me for falling in love,” and I hated myself for doing it, but I sobbed and the sound bounced off the walls and it was wretched and I couldn’t help but think that even if one didn’t believe in love, if they heard that cry, they would feel sympathy for the poor soul who did.
“Juma,” Death spoke my name but I couldn’t bring myself to make eye contact with her, because I could not bear the mockery I knew I would see reflected in her stare. And so she commanded, “Look at me.”
“I would rather not, Mistress. Just tell me what’s next and we can be done. Please.”
Then the room fell quiet and I knew everyone, including Death, was waiting for me to listen to her because she was Death and everyone listened to her, but I could not. All I could see was Dutch’s sad smile and our Right here. With me. This moment, so like all the other times I had to pick between Dutch and anyone else, I chose Dutch and stayed locked inside our imaginary moment, head down, filled with unspeakable despair.
“Do you know the reason I chose you all those years ago?” she asked, breaking my stubborn silence and for the first time in our togetherness, giving into me. I shook my head and focused on my hands in my lap, still unwilling to meet her gaze. “Because even as a young child, you emanated fierce protective feel - it - in - your - toes love. And that was the kind of love I needed.”
I raised my eyes and met her stare and she smiled and it was so damn sad.
“Don’t get me wrong, I was by no means being altruistic when I chose you, but I need you to know I would never punish you for loving the way you do,” and I shot her a look because the words coming out of her mouth did not at all comport with her behavior. “I mean, of course I fucked with you because all of that vulnerability you walk around with makes my skin crawl, but punish you for love and being able to love? Never.
“Especially when it’s that love—the deep-seated, utterly ridiculous emotional attachment you hold for your mother and father and your love for Dutch—that’s going to make you say yes to my offer. Which isn’t an offer at all, but it sounds better when I make it seem as if it is.”
I pushed away from the table and rose to stand because something about everything that fell from her lips gave me pause. And I needed to stand and parse it for a beat or two.
“Juma.” She spoke my name nice and slow and it sounded like a warning.
I held up my hand and closed my eyes and nodded. “I know, Mistress. You want me to sit. Just give me a second.”
She gave me ten seconds and then she repeated my name in that same tone and I sat. And waited while she bit and bothered her lower lip, all the while watching me, and as each second ticked by, I became more uneasy with her unease. She was Death. She was not supposed to be ill at ease with anything.
“Oh fuck it,” she said, and tossed up her hands after long drawn-out minutes of her fidgeting, and I saw Marina go pale as a sheet and Sayyid look skyward and the rest of the Rouxs shift about, and I thought to myself, This is it. This is when everything that is already so bad becomes a million times worse. Death stood and grabbed a bag off the ground that I knew was not there seconds ago, and held a sun hat in her other hand, and all of her was already somewhere else. “I quit. The job’s all yours, Juma. Knock ’em dead,” and she laughed at her own bad joke, looking girlish and excited, then blew a
kiss to the Rouxs, offered up a “Toodle-oo, cunts,” and—poof!—she was gone.
“That bitch,” Firenza growled, and everyone looked startled, with Death’s abrupt departure or Firenza’s foul language, it was difficult to tell. “What?” she asked as we stared at her, all of us too shocked to know what to do with ourselves. “It was not supposed to happen this way at all. I was supposed to make the announcement and Giselle was to sit by and listen, and only depart once the torch had passed.”
She slammed her hand into the table and cracked the wood and I jumped because I never knew a Rouxs held such power, probably because I never saw them lose their shit because I never saw Death quit on the job because because because.
“Yes, yes, Firenza,” Grud interrupted Firenza’s exasperated lecture, “but all of us knew whom we were dealing with—Giselle has always beaten her own drum and danced to her own song. What’s done is done, no sense crying about it.”
What the fuck was happening? I looked around and wondered while they argued and bitched and no one but myself seemed surprised by Death’s announcement.
“But there are procedures and she knows all of them,” Firenza continued her complaining, “in particular for the power shift.”
“My goodness, who cares?” Grud shut Firenza down and I started to think maybe he was the one in charge. “The power has already shifted,” and the room fell quiet as all eyes landed on me.
I leaned back in my chair and looked at all of them and glanced at the doors on either end of the room, expecting Death to saunter back in any moment now and announce she was just fucking with me and holy shit, I was an idiot. Then she and Marina and the Rouxs would all have a good laugh at my expense, someone would explain to me what my afterlife consisted of, I’d say thank y’all very much, pass along my goodbyes, and go back to that room full of my life with Dutch to stay there forever.
Instead.
Marina stood and pushed back from the table, and the look on her face made my blood run cold.
Death Page 25
