The Devil's Concubine

by Goyanes, Ángeles; Johnson, Kasia

  “ ‘You know I’m not brave enough to commit suicide. You know that!’ I said stubbornly.

  “ ‘Nor should you do it. They say it’s a mortal sin.’ He joked.

  “ ‘And when I get lethargic again? When my body is useless?’ I asked.

  “ ‘It won’t be pleasant but I would do what I can to help you. The same as I’ve done until now. Think about it. Every day I’ll be able to tell about Shallem. And any day he can come back and visit us. What more could you ask for? Now that he’s with our Father, he’ll find a way to help you. You’ll see.’

  “ ‘But you can help me now. The sooner I die the sooner my soul can rest and the sooner I’ll be with him again,’ I desperately insisted.

  “ ‘I won’t do it.’

  “ ‘Why? Did Shallem ask you to take care of me?’ I asked.

  “ ‘Maybe he didn’t have to ask me. Did you ever think about that?’

  “ ‘There’s always a need to ask, no matter how irrelevant. Even I asked you to take care of Shallem. How absurd, right?’ I continued.

  “ ‘I didn’t know how to care for him but now I know how to care for his mortal treasure, you. I’ll give you time to think,’ he said and then stood to walk toward the door. ‘In a few days you’ll want to live as much as you have always wanted to live. Shallem is not dead, he’s alive and happier than ever. Just knowing this should be enough to make you happy; it’s not like you’re suffering because he was destroyed.’

  “I remained on the sofa for hours, thinking about my frightening future, but also enjoying Shallem’s success. I couldn’t bear to live without him. It was then that I perfectly understood how empty he had felt without his Father. Shallem was my god, and without him, my only thought was death.

  “Cannat, once again, was intensely and magnificently happy, as only he could be. He hated the twentieth century; nothing within it satiated his aesthetic appetite. He said we should go forward in time, see what happens next. Cannat and Shallem had never jumped forward in time for such a trivial reason. They said it was Earth’s destiny to progressively deteriorate and that we must enjoy the moment we were in because it would always be better than what was to come. But now Cannat had a different reason to want to jump forward, he wanted to shorten the time that he would be separated from Shallem.

  “I refused. I was convinced Shallem would be greatly displeased. And it must have been so because, in just a few days, Cannat stopped insisting. I assumed he must have spoken to Shallem. Oh, yes! They constantly spoke. Sometimes, Cannat would sit beside me completely absorbed in his thoughts and without saying a word, he would suddenly burst out laughing.

  “ ‘Come here,’ he said on occasion. ‘Shallem wants to see you.’

  “I would stand in front of him and he would tell me what Shallem said.

  “I couldn’t understand that miracle. However, just seeing Cannat’s unfaltering happiness proved that all he told me was true. And, as always, I was infected by his joy.

  “I began asking him, with childish insistency, when Shallem would visit, when I would see him again. He smiled at me and caressed my face as if I were a little girl.

  “ ‘We don’t measure time like you do,’ he answered. ‘Not for a while.’

  “ ‘Years?’ I asked.

  “ ‘Yes, years.’

  “ ‘How many?’ I insisted.

  “ ‘I don’t know. Still many more.’

  “ ‘More than five?’

  “ ‘Maybe. It’s possible. I can’t be sure.’

  “ ‘But, why won’t he come, even if it’s just for a minute and although he would have to leave again. Did he already forget me?’ I argued stubbornly.

  “ ‘No, he has not forgotten you. He needs to stay away from this fetid world for a good while. If he were to come back now, he wouldn’t be strong enough to leave. You would keep him from leaving with one of your tearful scenes of sorrow. It’s still too soon.’

  “Cannat was so euphoric and thankful that God had kept Shallem alive. He was handling everything very well. Sometimes, he would interrupt me while I was reading or watching TV and would drag me toward the door yelling:

  ‘Let’s go have some fun! Let’s go kill some humans!’

  “But we never went killing; he took me to nice restaurants and also to the movies, the one human invention he objected to the least. However, he would always complain during the movie, and, if not then, he would complain when we left.

  “ ‘How boring! What lack of imagination! If I were able to sleep, I would have done so! Those wretched humans with their miserable, trivial mortal stories! I went for you. Just for you.’

  “Then I would remember all those times the three of us had gone to the movies. We would usually stay until the end even though we weren’t enjoying the movie. We stayed just for the mere pleasure of huddling silently together to watch the luminous, large screen.’

  “ ‘I think I’ll be an actor.’ Cannat told us one day when we returned from a movie. He was gazing at his reflection in the mirror as he touched up his long blond hair. ‘Women from around the world would fall in love with me and send me letters. I would have to taste all of them. What do you guys think? Am I handsome enough to be an actor?’

  “ ‘Shallem and I laughed. Then I approached him and gazed at how his gray suit sparkled and how his eye shined like jewels beneath the artificial light.

  “ ‘Well, don’t get discouraged if you aren’t handsome enough.’ I joked. ‘Not all actors are handsome.’

  “Along with movies and fine restaurants, Cannat took me to visit my children who now lived in India. I could only watch them from afar, and had done this for the past four hundred years. They were exactly the same: two beautiful, aloof and immutable prodigies. Only their expressions had changed and now possessed a certain air of melancholy and incomprehension, just like their father. Cannat was enchanted by them, since watching them, for him, was like watching Shallem. They would have instantly died if Shallem had been destroyed. That was a heartache I hadn’t stopped to think about at the time. After all, for me, the entire world had died with Shallem.

  “I kept feeling that my own death could no longer be delayed. I had come to the conclusion that Shallem would never return as long as I lived on Earth. I was as sure of this as I was that my soul, one day, would awaken in his arms. I was anxious to die to be with him. This wasn’t an uncertainty, my god would do as he had promised: ‘I will look for you in any corner of the universe.’

  “Nothing that could alleviate the emptiness of my lonely nights. Only when Cannat lay down in my bed to console me was I able to peacefully fall asleep, my head against his chest, lulled by his immortal heartbeat, wrapped in his extraordinary warmth, and smelling his delicious scent. It was then that I found peace. And when I closed my eyes, I realized that Shallem and Cannat were truly the same soul.

  “Once in a while, I would conger up the courage to ask Cannat to end my life. He wouldn’t even answer me. Angry, he would look at me with his eyes wide open and shake his head like he had done so many times before as if to say, ‘What am I going to do with you? You never learn!’

  “Cannat usually left me alone at night. At times in body and soul, and others only in soul. He needed his own world, his private life. I was alone one night when I woke up angry and overwhelmed by anguish. Seeing that I was alone, I decided to get dressed and go for a walk in the city.

  “I put on a short white dress, some very high but comfortable sandals I had bought in Madrid and grabbed my straw purse where I kept my keys and wallet. I felt so alone, tremendously alone. The streets were bright, cheerful and busy. It was summer and people on vacation were out on the streets.

  “I liked to walk around Los Angeles. I always saw familiar faces; even though they didn’t even know I existed.

  “I took a taxi to Taco Bell and spent some time there drinking a soft drink as I watched the people inside. When I finished the drink, I left. But I wanted to walk some more before I took taxi to my empty, sil
ent home.

  “It was already very late and the street I walked was deserted, sepulchral. When I finally decided to get a taxi, none were around. I had no other option but to continue walking and walking.

  “Beautiful, cozy, single-family homes stretched before my eyes. The scenes I imagined taking place inside them made me think of my own mortal family, times I would never get back and then tears flooded my eyes. I was anxious to get home and hoped that Cannat would be there, impatient and worried, waiting for me, waiting to scold me. Yes, I wanted him to lecture me so I could throw myself in his arms. My prince, my dark angel who had protected me for reasons I never completely understood.

  “I was many kilometers away from home. The heat was suffocating. Suddenly I saw some shadows moving around in the windows of a house. It was a modern house, very clean and spotless, as though it had just been painted. I was so exhausted I decided to ring the doorbell so I could to use their phone to call a taxi.

  “I walked through their small front yard, climbed three steps and then rung their doorbell two or three times. Then I heard something like a large vase fall and break. I was surprised when I saw three figures leave from a door on the side of the house and run into the darkness.

  “No one opened the front door and I imagined something horrible had happened. My curiosity was greater than my desire to take a taxi home.

  “I cautiously approached the door on the side of the house which had been left open. I entered a kitchen. One of those huge, beautiful kitchens with a large island in the center and cabinets that matched the granite countertops. I tiptoed toward the main entrance to the kitchen and saw a flight of stairs. I also saw double doors that were partially opened which led into a large room. From the furniture I glimpsed through the doors, it seemed like the living room. I didn’t want to call out, it was obvious the men who had fled were not members of the family. Perhaps one of them was still inside.

  “Very carefully, I eased my head into the doorway and glanced around the room. I saw a sofa in the center of the room with a television directly in front of it. There was a small eat-in area in the corner and I saw a table surrounded by four chairs that were upholstered to match the sofa. I saw no one so I stealthily entered the room to look for a phone. As I looked around for the phone, I asked myself if anyone had been inside when the thieves broke in. It didn’t seem like it. But then as I rounded the corner of the sofa, I saw three bodies piled on top of each other. I saw the bodies of two children, a boy and a girl, who were around five and seven years-old. And I saw the body of girl who must have been around 15. They were completely covered in blood. All three of them had been stabbed to death.

  “A vertiginous sequence of ideas flooded my mind. I thought what had happened was a miracle. A miracle Shallem had placed before me to free me from the pain of living. It was the answer to my prayers, the solution to my prayers. With my heart pounding, I went back into the kitchen. I looked for something to clean with and for a rag. As quickly as I could, I cleaned doorknobs, furniture, tables... I erased all signs of the intruders; that is, if they had left any signs since I think they were wearing gloves. I flushed the rag down the toilet and then went back into the kitchen and placed the cleaner where I had found it. I grabbed a carving knife and went back into the living room. I studied the areas the children had been stabbed and then I stuck the carving knife, which was much larger than the knife the killers had used, into every single one of their wounds. I twisted the knife in their wounds so it would be impossible to guess that it wasn’t my knife that had killed them. After doing this, I resumed my search for a telephone. It was on a table toward the back of the room. I picked up the receiver, dialed and said: ‘Police? Yes. I just killed three people.’

  PART SIX

  The woman leaned back in her chair and crossed her hands on the table. She calmly watched her confessor, her eyes bloodshot as if she were waiting for his verdict.

  “That’s it,” she said due to his silence. She uncrossed her hands and then adopted a pensive posture as she stared at the nervous priest. It seemed like he was struggling, nervously debating, as if he had realized it was his turn to speak but didn’t know what to say.

  “You...,” he managed to splutter as he stared at his Bible. ‘You deliberately sought death. You are going to be executed for murders you didn’t commit.”

  “That is unimportant. I committed many others,” she responded.

  The priest lifted his gaze and looked at her timidly.

  “But only God can judge you for those,” he said, regaining his energy. “Man can prosecute human crimes, but you, what you told me..., those divine powers they urged you to use, the madness that inevitably overpowered you against your will... To what extent were you responsible for your actions if your spirit was ill?”

  His voice had turned emphatic, persuasive, as if he had suddenly seen the truth with his own eyes.

  “No one on Earth has the right to judge you. Cannat and Shallem made you who you are; they allowed your soul to suffer; you had no control over this. They had the power and the wisdom to convince you do anything they wanted; they manipulated you. They were impious and cruel gods who had you trapped in their claws.”

  “And who are you to judge them like that?” she asked, exasperated. “God has already judged Shallem and has saved him. Remember? Do you yourself dare condemn him?”

  “I’m only trying to make you see that perhaps you’re judging yourself too harshly,” the priest said as he leaned forward. “The answer is obvious! Don’t you see? If God saved Shallem, why wouldn’t he save you, his victim? Shallem is a part of God’s spirit; he is the Son of God. He was a sweet and sensitive creature tortured by his insatiable need for his Father’s love. His heart was ripped apart due to his Father’s silence, due to the pain brought on by an elusive and unreachable God. A seed of inexhaustible bitterness was planted in his soul because of his desire, because of his immortal hunger. Don’t you think he’ll help you, as he promised, now that God once more hears him as one of his children? He’s a part of God. A part of God! Don’t you understand? It’s God, directly, who loves you. Why would he want to hurt you?”

  The woman kept looking at him attentively, deep in thought. She shifted her weight to the left side and placed her fingernail in her mouth as though she wanted to bite it. Then she let her hands drop loosely in her lap.

  “It’s true,” she said. “I know you’re right but I can’t help but be scared. What will happen now? Will God allow us to be together again? Will he let Shallem come back to Earth? Will God let Shallem be with that little demon Cannat once again? Wouldn’t he rather keep him away from Cannat’s bad influence? And, if he did that, what would happen to them? I don’t want to think about it.”

  For a few seconds, the priest remained quiet, pensive.

  “That’s not possible. God wouldn’t keep them apart. He knows Shallem may have a positive influence on Cannat.”

  The woman smiled and blushed with pleasure, like a young girl who was convinced his weak but opportune argument were true.

  “Furthermore,” the priest continued. “Shallem defied heaven for him, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes,” she affirmed. “They both defied heaven. That’s the danger.”

  The sat looking at each other in complete silence, like good friends who didn’t need to speak to enjoy each other’s company.

  “Do you really want to die?” he whispered.

  “No. But it’s something that must happen.”

  “Do you regret what has happened? Would you go back if you could?”

  “How can you ask me that after everything I’ve told you?”

  The priest bowed his head.

  “Are you going to absolve me?” she asked softly, her eyes sad and imploring.

  “Me?” the priest asked surprised. “You are under the direct and divine protection of one of his angels. What more do you need?”

  The woman lowered her eyes and absentmindedly looked at her hands in her
lap. She stayed this way for a long time. Then, suddenly, she lifted her face toward the priest, opened her mouth as if ready to share a thought with him but her words froze in her throat. She looked at him with her mouth half open and her expression astounded.

  “The priest’s face was twisted into an expression of petrified horror. It didn’t even seem like he was breathing. He was completely still with his terrified eyes fixed on something behind her. Something, or rather someone, she immediately sensed.

  She felt the skin of his nude arms gliding around neck and watched as they crossed and rested upon her chest. Shivering, she closed her eyes and a breath of air violently escaped her throat. She tilted her head slightly when she felt his soft hair caress her cheek. Then she felt his warm cheek against her own. She didn’t try to move away, rather, she crossed her own arms over the ones that had encircled her. It didn’t seem like she was surprised; she seemed resigned to the inevitable.

  The priest was mesmerized by the steel blue eyes, which were glaring at him with perverse and threatening contempt. The angel’s teeth were clearly visible, it seemed like he exhibited them with a studied purpose. They looked as if they were chiseled in ivory, as if they served no other purpose but expressive, lavish decoration. The priest saw the way his canines glistened, the way they seemed somewhat sharper than a mortal’s canines. The angel had his head slightly bowed but his eyes were elevated and the tips of his long eyelashes touched his thick eyebrows. His thick, hirsute hair was a lighter blond than his eyebrows, rendering his face an unsettling feline expression.

  “Do you know who I am?” the angel asked. He raised one of his hands toward the priest. “These are the claws of a cruel and impious god,” he said.

  The priest saw his white palm and the blue green veins that lined the soft, thin skin around his wrist. He grabbed the edge of the table with both hands.

  With his hand, the angel turned the woman’s face toward his own. She opened her eyes and looked at him with an air of resignation and a slightly frightened expression, as if she had been a disobedient little girl. The angel shook his head admonishingly and clucked his tongue several times. Then he said something in French that the priest, who was glued to his seat, couldn’t understand nor barely hear.