The Devil's Concubine

by Goyanes, Ángeles; Johnson, Kasia

  “ ‘Oh, little lady, you’re scaring us!’ Joked the boy who had been raping the girl but who now stood to confront me. He made a grotesque movement with his hips and said, ‘Come on sweetheart, drop it. You don’t even know how to use it.’

  “Then one of them tried to run away, my entire body immediately tensed with alarm. He received a bullet in the chest and fell dead. Suddenly, the arrogant one I had caught actually raping the girl, pulled out a pocketknife and, holding it against her throat, threatened me with her life. The girl was terrified and crying.

  “ ‘I’ll kill her,’ he said.

  “Then using her body as a shield, he walked right in front of me. I shot the girl and watched how she heavily slide from his arms toward the ground.

  The woman smiled, but she didn’t look at the priest. She seemed entranced by her memory.

  “I really enjoyed seeing his bewildered expression when he realized what I had just done and that he would be next,” she continued. “He had taken a step back when I shot the girl and was now standing there crying with the girl’s cadaver leaning against his trembling legs.

  “ ‘Please,’ he sniveled. ‘Please.’

  “ ‘Oh! Please!’ I said arrogantly, more conscious than ever of the power I had over him. ‘She must have said please when she asked you not to rape her; or did she not? Was that her mistake? She didn’t say please?’

  “All of his insipid weakness surfaced with a cry. I was disgusted by him, I loathed him. The third boy was extremely young, probably around ten years-old. He was crying and squatting on the ground with his hands covering his head. I was worried he might try something stupid while I took care of the rapist so I shot him in the head. It didn’t excite me to shoot him since it was the arrogant one I wanted to see suffer.

  “He, the only one left alive, screamed, and hindered by the girl’s weight against his legs, fell to the ground as he tried to escape. Absolutely calm, I smiled as I approached him, the gun pointed in his direction. Suddenly, someone appeared at the entrance to the alley. Although it had grown dark during my short time there, I recognized the person immediately. I couldn’t control my inexplicable impulse so I hurried to shoot the boy. I killed him with two bullets.

  “Shallem, his dark hair falling over his shoulders and wearing a long black wool coat, stood beside me. He looked at the bodies. I felt myself die from horror. I had the pistol in my hand and didn’t know what to do with it so I foolishly tried to hide it, as if by doing so I would also hide the bodies. Shallem’s face didn’t reflect surprise, it only reflected pain. A heartrending pain.

  “ ‘Why did you kill the girl?’ he mumbled. ‘Do you even know why?’

  “I felt dizzy and truly wished I could faint just to end that disastrous, unbearable moment. I shook my head no. I didn’t even dare look at him. But I felt the intensity of his gaze and it tormented me. Thank God somebody had called the police and we had to quickly disappear before they arrived.”

  “But, why did you kill her?” Father DiCaprio asked.

  “Just to enjoy the look of horror on the boy’s face, I suppose. He was a bully who thought he was going to get away with it, but no one would have expected my reaction. Seeing his bewildered expression excited me. Even today I remember it clearly and will still be able to laugh about it for a long time.”

  “Did you regret what happened?” the priest asked, trying to control his emotions.

  “Of course, I regretted that Shallem found out.”

  “But you didn’t regret the crime?”

  “No. I didn’t even stop to think about it. I didn’t judge my actions as being good or bad, I only judged if they would displease Shallem. Nothing else mattered.”

  “You killed again, didn’t you?” the confessor asked.

  The woman gave him a cold smile.

  “No,” she said. “Never. It’s true that I had lost all respect for human life and it would have been easier for me to unload a machine gun in a grocery store than to kill a mosquito with mosquito repellant. However, although it was easier for me to kill, I didn’t find it particularly fun to kill for no reason, without some sort of provocation. It was different when I was with Cannat. When I was with him, I felt as if I had been pulled into a compulsive maelstrom, a maelstrom we shared. Together, we laughed and played as if the whole world were a huge amusement park. His passion, his exuberance for life, his control over a world he reinvented every day, all this impelled me, vivified me. But alone, what could I have felt? I was never a psychopath, it wasn’t my mind that suffered some sort of Freudian malady. Understand that. Although the act of killing those kids in the alley may have in itself brought me pleasure, the tragic pain Shallem felt for years afterward dissuaded me from killing again.”

  The woman stood and slowly wandered around the room.

  “The morning after I killed those kids, Cannat found me sitting alone on one of the sofas in our lavish apartment. I was leafing through some sort of ridiculous magazine. He grabbed me by the arm and forced me to stand, then he shook me so violently I thought he was going to dislocate my shoulder.

  “ ‘You’re stupid!’ he yelled, his eyes blazing. ‘I’ll kill you! Do you hear me! Fulfill your purpose or I’ll kill you!’

  “ ‘What are you talking about!’ I asked, shocked and hurt, as I tried to free myself. ‘What purpose?’

  “Then he grabbed me by the hair and threw me on the sofa. It had been hundreds of years since I had seen him so angry; at least not toward me. He leaned over and held me down with his arms.

  “ ‘Why in the hell do you think you’re still living?’ he asked, enjoying the slow roar of his words.

  “ ‘You tell me,’ I demanded defiantly, feeling the heat of his chest on mine and his breath piercing my skin. ‘I’ve always felt there was an interesting reason. Yes, tell me why you’ve so enthusiastically defended my life for more than three hundred years even though it wasn’t what you wanted to do. What happened that convinced you, at the last minute, to give me Ingrid’s body?’

  “ ‘Just do as I say. Obey me!’ he yelled and stood up.

  “For a few seconds, he stared at me with repressed fury and then he turned to leave the room. Furious, I stood up and followed him.

  “ ‘No!’ I yelled. ‘I want answers!’

  “Suddenly, he turned on his heels and grabbed my neck with his right hand.

  “ ‘What happened then,’ he said in a ferocious whisper. ‘is happening now, you fool.’

  “ ‘And what’s that?’ I stammered, suffocating but refusing to back off. ‘Tell me, once and for all.’

  “ ‘The way you’ve changed is sending Shallem to the brink of ruin!’ he yelled and squeezed my neck even tighter. I dug my long nails into his hands as hard as I could. He let go more from surprise that I could be so bold than for any other reason.

  “ ‘And whose fault is that?’ I burst out, beside myself. ‘Who ruthlessly drug me into this perpetual state of fevered restlessness, this lack of consciousness, scruples, and feelings? I have killed and felt absolutely nothing. You’ve molded me to be like you. My humanity has died.’

  “ ‘Thank God,’ he muttered.

  “ ‘Not him, you’re the one who killed it. You’re the one who threw me into this storm of horror and it won’t end well. But it must end.’

  “ ‘I’ll say when it will end.’

  “ ‘You? Why you and not Shallem? Have you ever counted on him for anything, risking that he may get between you and your objectives?’

  “ ‘Have you forgotten all those times you threw yourself into my arms, begging and pleading for a new body, for a new life?’

  “ ‘You led me to do that. You drove me to this horror, to this spiritual illness, fully aware of what would end up happening to me.’

  “ ‘And Shallem had nothing to do with it, he couldn’t refuse,’ he said sarcastically.

  “ ‘You used his feelings just like you used mine. Why?’ I screamed. ‘Why must I keep living?’

&nbs
p; “ ‘I can’t tell you why,’ he muttered furiously.

  “ ‘Why not?’ I screamed again.

  “ ‘Because it’s something I must hide from Shallem and your soul is about as transparent as that window.’

  “I looked at him. Suddenly, I lost all of my courage and didn’t know what to say. I hung my head. I knew I wasn’t going to get anything out of him. I turned and collapsed onto the sofa. I heard him slowly approach me from behind and then I felt him delicately wrap his arms around my neck. I didn’t have the courage to stop him.

  “ ‘I wish I could tell you,’ he whispered in my ear and every fiber in my body shuddered. ‘I wish I could share my burden with you. But that would be bad for all of us. I warned you that Shallem must never see you kill, that you must always be sweet and gentle, that you must control yourself.’

  “ ‘You don’t understand,’ I muttered. ‘It’s not me doing those things, I don’t even recognize myself anymore. I am myself but I am not myself and I can’t control my impulses.’

  “I still shudder when I relive the way his lips travelled from my temple to the corner of my lips. I closed my eyes and couldn’t help but sigh.

  “ ‘You talk of your lost humanity. Were you ever human?’ he whispered against my skin. ‘Your soul was tormented and lost on Earth until Shallem crossed your path and rescued it. You hated all mankind, you rejected it. If I could dare tell you what your soul went through before it came back to the world in Saint-Ange! Why do you think Shallem picked you?’

  “ ‘Tell me,’ I whispered, while my lips, on their own volition, seemed to search for a caress from his.

  “ ‘I can’t,’ he continued, refusing me the kiss. ‘It’s a taboo topic for Shallem.’

  “ ‘What you did to me was taboo.’ I caught his face in my hands and desperately looked for the kiss that never came. ‘That didn’t stop you.’

  “ ‘The end justifies the means, as mortals say.’ He dodged my kiss and once again brought his lips to my ear. ‘And there’s no end that would justify me doing what you are asking me to do. Furthermore, one day you would throw it back in my face, as you do everything I have done for the both of you. That seems to be my destiny, doesn’t it?’

  “ ‘Cannat,’ I whispered trying to find the strength to break away from him. Tears clouded my eyes. ‘Don’t you understand? My will is too weak. I try to fight my impulses but I can’t; I get carried away by my desires.’

  “ ‘Don’t worry. That’s natural and Shallem doesn’t care about that. It’s not your body’s desires you must control, you must control your soul’s desires.’

  “He picked up my right hand and looked at the enormous sapphire ring he had given me and which I always wore on my index finger.

  “ ‘Because, if you don’t control your desires,’ he continued in a whisper. ‘I will destroy you. I would like to wear that ring on my left hand..., with your soul inside it.’

  “He suddenly let me go and circled the sofa until he was standing in front of me.

  “ ‘Be who Shallem wants you to be,’ he threatened. ‘or you won’t be anything.’

  The woman had picked up the worn Bible and absentmindedly leafed through the wrinkled pages.

  “I changed bodies right away in case someone had seen me kill those kids in the alley. Also, we moved to go live in a most peaceful and beautiful place. It has a rather suggestive name. Can you guess where? Los Angeles. My burial place.”

  “You aren’t dead yet,” the priest said.

  She stopped what she was doing and looked at him surprised. For a few seconds she just stared at him as if she were trying to find a hidden meaning in those simple words. Then she smiled and once again sat down in the chair across from him.

  “But my sentence has been passed,” she calmly stated.

  The priest hung his head as though that fact was due to his own negligence.

  “Yes,” he murmured.

  “I’m not going to tell you where we rented our apartment. I don’t want you to be tempted to do something that would surely bring about your death.”

  “Do you mean they are still there?” the priest seemed to get excited.

  “You see,” she said and smiled. “For your own good, you must not know more than is strictly necessary.”

  “A little while after we moved, I fell into one of my lethargic states. It turned out to be the worst one yet. During those periods, I became helpless and needy and Shallem couldn’t refuse my slightest whim. Because of this, as soon as I recuperated, he rushed to find me a new body so my spirit would once again be happy after having slept for so long.

  “But my periods of somnolence progressively grew longer and more profound. Sometimes, I spent almost half a year in an almost vegetative state. Like an old person who constantly sleeps, spending more time closer to death than to life and who, upon waking, seems surprised and, at times, angry. At first, he’s confused and then, he’s disappointed by the place where he awoke.

  “But I didn’t get angry when I returned, I got angry because I had left. I didn’t even realize when it was that I had left. At times, I would wake up in bed not knowing how I had gotten there. My last memory could have been a walk on the beach, a dinner in a restaurant, or a movie whose ending I didn’t remember... And when I returned, I would be upset I wasn’t where I thought I should be. On occasions, I would burst out in screams when I regained consciousness. Shallem would run to me, and in spite myself, I would torment him with my questions.

  “ ‘What is happening to me, Shallem? What is this? Will it ever stop? Is there anything we can do?’

  “But there was nothing we could do, no esoteric remedy to be applied, no supernatural potion. He would hold me for hours, so grief stricken that I hated myself for not knowing how to control myself. I was the one who ended up reassuring him, telling him everything would be all right, that I would conquer my malady. But neither of us believed this to be true.

  “By 1985 things had turned completely unbearable. But even so, I survived. And at the expense of so many lives and my God, I didn’t care at all! Shallem couldn’t keep going. I saw it in his tear filled eyes, in his heart broken face. He was constantly suffering, even when we were happy I saw a subtle veil of pain covering his face.

  “Once again we started to travel to beautiful places; to every corner of my longed for Mediterranean; my beloved Florence; my beautiful Paris, where little seemed recognizable; and even to Egypt where I saw things in a new light. It was... my sad good-bye.”

  –IX–

  “When we returned to Los Angeles from our travels, it was Shallem who fell into one of his meditative states. Cannat spent entire days with him, just as if he were his lover. He sat with him and silently held him in his arms for hours. He kissed him, he brought him presents, he told him stories, he tried to make him laugh, he tried to cheer him up with flattery. I did the same things. But it was all useless this time.

  “ ‘Is it my fault?’ I asked him in desperation. ‘Are you sad because of me? If so, I want to disappear...’

  “ ‘No my love, it has nothing to do with you,’ he answered.

  “ ‘So then you’re thinking about God? Has he spoken to you?’

  “He silently and painfully shook his head no. I sat in his lap and kissed his cheek.

  “ ‘Are you sure he can hear you when you speak to him?’ I asked holding his face in my hands.

  “ ‘As sure as I am that I can hear myself,’ he whispered. ‘Because he created me and in essence, I am him.’

  “I would have given anything to have known what to say to console him, but I couldn’t think of anything.

  “ ‘I pray for you every day, Shallem. But I know he won’t listen to me... but Cannat also prays, he told me.’

  “ ‘He prayed for me?’ He looked at me surprised. ‘Cannat also loves him; so much so that he doesn’t even dare show it. He tries to hide his feelings from me and doesn’t pray to him because he can’t bear his rejection.

  “ ‘But
he has prayed.’ I pointed out, breathing in the fragrance of his hair. ‘He has prayed to him, at least for you.’

  “ ‘I love Cannat so much...,’ he whispered and rested his head on my chest.

  “ ‘I know, my love, I know how much you love him,’ I said with a lump in my throat.

  “ ‘I love him so much that I’m afraid he suffers because of me, I fear he doesn’t understand, that he thinks I love our Father more, and I don’t..., I don’t. I want to be where ever he is, just like I don’t want to exist unless he does, but I have to try and win back God’s love, I have to try even if Cannat tries to dissuade me, even though he calls me a dreamer, as he always has...’

  “Shallem abruptly stopped and, alarmed, lifted his head. The front door just opened, Cannat had returned.

  “ ‘I’ve never seen him so bad, Cannat, he’s been like this too long. He’s gone all day. Where does he go? What does he do?’ I pestered Cannat while Shallem was taking a shower. He was sitting on the sofa and gave me a look of absolute disinterest.

  “ ‘You’re not going to answer me? You must know. He’s planning something, something that scares me, something he wants to do but at the same time doesn’t want to do. What is it?’

  “ ‘You’re very clever for a mortal,’ he answered, his voice low and calm, making his words sound even more sarcastic. ‘It’s only taken you four hundred years to figure that out.’

  “ ‘Tell me what it is, I beg you. I have a feeling it’s something he shouldn’t do. Is he in danger? Is there danger?’

  “ ‘Ask him yourself,’ he said indifferently.

  “ ‘He doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. He suffers when he tries.’

  “ ‘I do too.’

  “ ‘You aren’t going to tell me? We’ve always talked about him, we’ve always worked together to try and help him. We do this well together. Why not now?’

  “ ‘Because there’s nothing else I can do without killing him with sorrow. It’s useless.’