The organisation of these sad, short meetings fell upon Lupita’s shoulders. She baked peach pies. She made iced tea. She fussed and fretted that the tablecloths were ironed and the silver shining, in case her mistress returned. For a while, it felt as if some part of Mother’s spirit remained in the house, protecting us. But it wasn’t long before that feeling sputtered and died, like a kerosene lamp left out in the rain.
Now that she was gone completely, the parishioners didn’t have a reason to visit anymore. The house fell silent.
It is my recollection that Pastor Olafssen visited us for the last time a few days before Mother disappeared. (The memory of that time is so blurry now.) Then he stopped coming, I assumed because he couldn’t stand visiting us without my mother’s calming presence.
Pastor Olafssen’s abandoning us hurt, but I didn’t hold it against him. If I’d been given the chance, I would have escaped as well. Besides, I never thought it was Pastor Olafssen’s fault. I often imagined that he’d been attacked by robbers on the road to El Paso, like in the story of the Good Samaritan.
After everyone else had abandoned us, Carolina still visited. We’d hole ourselves up in my room and look at picture books of sailing ships and dream we were explorers like Roald Amundsen or Robert Falcon Scott. We’d make plans on old maps to search for buried treasure and write long lists of necessary supplies.
Carolina’s presence was my only consolation. I felt a special bond with her because her mother had gone away too, although everyone knew where in her case. She’d abandoned Carolina and her father to run off with a land surveyor. He happened upon Incarnation on his way to New Mexico, and she just picked up and left with him. Carolina never heard from her again. But she still loved her mother with a ferocity that frightened but also fascinated me.
One day before I got sick and was still going to school, we were eating lunch in the schoolyard together. An older girl with acne scars named Adeline came up to Carolina. Flipping a rock menacingly in her hand, she drawled, ‘My pa says your ma’s a harlot. And they stoned harlots back in Bible times.’
In the blink of an eye Carolina head-butted Adeline in the stomach and knocked her down. Then the older girl got up and punched Carolina square in the jaw, knocking out her right canine tooth.
Carolina didn’t cry. She jumped back up and grabbed hold of Adeline’s two, knotted pigtails. Blood spurting from her mouth, she screamed like a banshee, ‘You take that back. My mamá’s una angelita! My papá says so.’
Adeline tried to free herself, but Carolina reeled her in by the pigtails and bit a chunk of flesh out of her neck. The bigger girl burst into tears. She yanked her bloody pigtails away from Carolina’s grasp and ran all the way back to her farm on the edge of town. She didn’t come back to school for a week.
All the schoolyard was in a hush. Carolina was still trembling with rage and covered in blood, as I walked over and helped clean her off with my handkerchief.
The next day, Carolina arrived at school with her canine hanging around her neck on a piece of packing string. She was defiant, beautiful. At that moment, I secretly gave my heart to her.
Of course I never told her my feelings. I don’t think anyone suspected, except for Father. I think he wanted to make a clean break with the past and all the friendships it contained. That’s probably why he picked a fight with Carolina’s father.
The thick wall that separated our two houses had a beautiful wisteria growing on it. The flowers were like fragile bunches of pale-blue grapes, growing from our side and overhanging the wall on Carolina’s side. They always reminded me of the description in the Bible, ‘a land flowing with milk and honey’. We all knew it was Carolina’s favourite plant, and Carlos tended it with special care.
One day, Father cut the plant to shreds with pruning shears. Then he dug up the roots and tossed them over the wall to Carlos’ side. He said the plant was ruining the structural integrity of the wall, a massive monument that had stood witness to the many generations of Carlos’ folk.
Carlos was upset, but he held his tongue. After all, Father was a man of God. Father went on to pick a dozen other petty fights with Carlos, criticising him that his weeding was bad or that he over-watered the trees. Carlos suffered through it all. One day, he told Father he understood how difficult it must be without Mother around. I think Carlos’ empathy was what incensed Father the most.
The last straw came one Sunday service when Father quoted the Presbyterian minister John Lewis in a withering tirade against the ‘swarm of blind, superstitious ceremonies that are among us, passing under the name of old harmless customs’.
Father didn’t call Carlos by name, but everyone knew he was referring to him, because he was the local storyteller. Then Father made it painfully obvious by proclaiming, ‘The Indians’ demonic stories lead decent women astray and make men gullible to cuckoldry.’
Carlos was sitting in the pew next to me at the time, and I saw how his face turned ashen. His hands trembled. His knees shook. It was as if the old man was restraining himself from rushing at my father and tearing him to pieces. Then Carlos crossed himself and got up. He grabbed Carolina by the hand and stormed out of the church. They never came back, and Carlos forbade Carolina to ever step foot in our house again.
With Carlos gone, the garden went wild. The weeds and nettles took over the paths we used to stroll upon. The peach trees became feral and thorny. The unkempt branches closed out the sky. Then, early one morning, some time after Mother disappeared, my brother and I were awoken by the sound of shovels breaking the flinty soil in our backyard. We stumbled along the garden path in our pyjamas to find the source of the noise.
Rubbing the sleep out of our eyes, we saw Father directing a bunch of Mexican labourers. They were filling in our pool.
‘But, Father, what are you doing?’ I asked.
My father replied, ‘All this pool means is work for me.’
‘But, Father,’ Sebas protested, ‘we’re the ones who take care of the pool, Verge and me. Don’t do this. Please. We’ll change the water every day and clean it good. I promise.’
‘Nonsense,’ my father muttered, directing the men with a sharpened pencil as if conducting a Wagnerian opera. ‘Your promises are worth about as much as a wooden nickel.’
That was that. The pool was filled in.
As the rains set in, we watched the weeds sprout over the bulging mound in the middle of the pool, like an elephant’s grave. Each day, the underbrush became thicker and more obscene, finally closing over the pool and hiding it from view.
Then one day, without me even realising how it happened, Mother became just a memory, and what had been our garden had become a jungle, ugly and unkempt.
One night I stood in the garden alone, staring at the impenetrable gnarly mass of peach trees and trying to imagine how we used to play. There was a ‘clank’ near my feet. It was a tin can tied to a string, stretching over the wall from Carolina’s yard! Trembling, I put the can to my ear. The line suddenly became taut, almost jerking out of my hand. Carolina’s voice came soft and faraway: ‘I miss you.’ Then the string went slack.
I waited for the longest time, but she didn’t say anything else. I went to bed full of expectations that we’d talk the next day.
Early in the morning, I sat down at the kitchen table. My father was already up and scribbling in his notebook. I wolfed down my breakfast, trying to think of an excuse to go out and play in the garden so I could talk to Carolina. Without looking up, Father picked up the tin can with its severed string and set it in the space between us. Taking a sip of coffee, he said, ‘When you’re done with breakfast, Vergil Erasmus, please throw this out with the trash.’
CHAPTER SIX
From an early age, reading was a great hobby of mine. After I got sick and could no longer go to school, it became my whole world. Apart from my brother Sebas, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Jules Verne were my only friends.
As the years went by, my illness continue
d. Incarnation gradually became less real to me. When I try to describe it now, it’s almost as if I never really lived in the town, but that I’d read about it in a book instead. In place of those rut-filled, muddy lanes, barns and homesteads arise the vast expanses of Kenya, the sheer cliffs of Cornwall and the dripping caves of the Pacific, filled with skeletons and buried treasure.
My father tried to rip me from my imaginary world and toughen me up with exercises from a book on ‘muscular Christianity’. It didn’t work. I couldn’t do more than ten toe-touches or five chest-expansion exercises without feeling dizzy. I could no longer climb the old, gnarled peach trees in the backyard without being overcome by vertigo. My father made it painfully clear that I wasn’t strong enough to survive in the real world and that I shouldn’t even try.
But not Sebas. He was the strong one in the family. The bold one. Adventure was imprinted on his soul. How I used to beg him to show me the long, serpentine scar on his left shin! He got it climbing over the cemetery wall at midnight to kiss the carved face on an old Spanish gravestone. It was a long-standing dare amongst the boys in town, for, if kissed on the stroke of twelve, the stone woman was rumoured to come alive and hunt for human flesh. No other boy in town was brave enough to meet the challenge. I once paid Sebas a nickel to touch the red, bumpy scar between his shoulder blades. That was where a farmhand from old man Svensen’s had shot him with a barrel of rock salt when he’d caught him stealing corn. I knew stealing was a sin, and I prayed that God would forgive Sebas. But on many nights, I also prayed for a scar like his.
I’d follow Sebas throughout the house, hungry for stories of adventure. How many trout had he caught while skipping school? How many fights had he been in? The more interest I showed, the more he rejected me. He’d push me away and eventually slam his bedroom door in my face.
I never tired of adoring Sebas, and he never tired of torturing me in return. I remember clearly that a few weeks before I turned seven—my birthday’s on October 31st—Sebas came to me and asked, ‘You know what Halloween is, Verge?’
‘Sure,’ I said, pleased he was showing some interest in me. ‘It’s when kids dress up like goblins to get candy. I mean, other kids, not us.’
‘Why do you think Pa won’t let us?’
‘ ’Cause candy’s not good for us?’
‘No, Verge, ’cause Halloween’s based on Samhain. It’s an ancient, evil celebration.’
‘Is that right?’ I said, my skin beginning to feel all prickly.
‘Yeah. On that day, the Devil’s allowed certain privileges. For example, any woman about to give birth, well, he can take a little piece of his horn and stick it in the baby. It’s invisible and pokes right through the mommy’s tummy, so she doesn’t even feel it.’ As he said this, he poked me hard in the stomach with his finger. ‘The horn mixes with baby and makes it evil.’
‘You’re just saying that to scare me,’ I said, rubbing my stomach.
‘No, it’s the God’s honest truth,’ my brother swore. ‘Think about it. Why do you think you and I look so different?’
He got me there. I’d always wondered why Sebas was muscular and blonde, and I was a reedy little thing with a shock of black hair. I started trembling.
He continued, ‘That’s ’cause you got a bit of devil’s horn mixed in you. And by poking you with his horn, the Devil made you his. And, every certain number of years, the Prince of Darkness returns to earth, and he has the right to take you down to hell with him.’
‘Stop it! Don’t say things like that,’ I whimpered.
Sebas continued mercilessly, ‘How many mouths does the Beast have in Revelations?’
‘S-seven,’ I stammered.
‘And how many tongues?’
‘Seven.’
‘So, what do you think the magic birthday is, when the Devil’s allowed to take back his children?’
I looked up at Sebas, my eyes filled with horror.
‘That’s right, Verge, he whispered. ‘He’s a comin’ for you on your seventh birthday. So you’d better pray extra special these next few nights that he don’t drag you down to hell.’
I ran crying from the room. I jumped under the covers of my bed and quickly mumbled through my prayers.
What Sebas had said rang with the truth of the fire-and-brimstone sermons my father used to practice in his piercing lecture voice at night. It was just as plausible that the Devil was coming for me as it was that the Holy Spirit murdered all the first-born sons in Egypt, or that the loving Baby Jesus ordered bastard children to be thrown into the sulphurous pit of hell.
The day before my seventh birthday, Sebas passed by my bedroom and heard me crying beneath my sheets. He knocked on my door and asked, ‘What’s wrong, Verge?’
‘It’s the Devil!’ I whimpered. ‘I can feel him so close. Sometimes I hold my breath at night and hear him creeping up next to me. Oh, Sebas,’ I cried out, ‘I don’t want to go to hell. I don’t want my skin to burn!’
The springs on my old bed creaked as Sebas sat down. He put his hand on my head and sighed, ‘The Devil’s not after you, Verge.’
‘You’re just saying that to me make feel better,’ I cried. ‘But I know he’s coming. I can hear him!’
‘No, he’s not. I was just tryin’ to get a rise out of you. You’re a good boy . . . not like me. The Devil don’t want you. Besides, you’re my brother, and I wouldn’t let anythin’ bad happen to you. I promise.’
I still didn’t believe him.
Then he added the word I longed to hear: ‘Constantinople’.
‘Constantinople?’ I repeated.
‘Yeah, Constantinople. Dry your tears and come beat me at checkers.’
I threw back the sheets, a smile from ear to ear. I hugged him with all my strength.
‘Constantinople’ was our safety word. Years before, we were looking at lithographs in an old book of crusaders battling in the Holy Land. I don’t remember how it came about, but we made a pact: whatever lie we told, whatever trick we played, if it ever went too far, all we’d have to do was tell the truth, followed by the word ‘Constantinople’. We sealed our promise by slicing our palms with a paring knife and mixing our blood.
We’d never have to apologise or explain. Just ‘Constantinople’ and all would be forgiven. . . .
One night, when I must have been about nine years old, I woke up during a rainstorm, tiptoed into Sebas’ room and got into bed next to him. Usually, if I tried anything like that, he’d slap me on the head with a pillow. But that night he didn’t move a muscle, even though I could tell from his breathing that he was awake. Before I could say anything, he said, ‘You had a dream about Ma again, didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I whispered.
‘What was it about?’
I was silent for a long time, listening to the rumbling of the thunder and the staccato raindrops against the windowpane.
I gulped and said, ‘I dreamed she’d fallen off a horse and lost her memory.’ Then I blurted out, ‘Oh, Sebas, what if that’s the reason she hasn’t come back? What if she gets better, and then she’ll come looking for us?’
‘Verge,’ he said, his voice clear, even above the storm, ‘she’s dead. I can feel it in my heart.’
‘Are you sure? Maybe there’s a chance that. . . ?’
Lightening illuminated the whole sky as he said, ‘Constantinople’.
From that moment on, my mother was dead to me.
I stayed in bed with Sebas all that night. I touched my toes to his now and then just to make sure he was there in the darkness. Some time before dawn broke I got up without waking him and went back to my room.
We never talked about it again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
One evening, Sebas sat down at the dinner table with a wide grin on his face. A beautiful black fountain pen shone in his hand.
‘Father,’ he said, ‘look what I found on the path to the cemetery.’
‘You found?’ my father asked, lifting his eyebrows above
the frames of his steel-rimmed glasses. He didn’t take his eyes from the notebook he was scratching in.
‘Yes, sir,’ Sebas said, smiling a little less now, ‘on the path to the cemetery, like I said.’
My father made a clicking sound with his tongue. He drummed his long, thin fingers on his notebook.
‘You mean, you stole.’
Sebas stopped smiling altogether. His hands were trembling. He said, ‘I swear I found it, Father.’
‘Well, Jonas Sebastian,’ my father replied, ‘your way of finding is stealing. What happens when the person who dropped that pen retraces his path and doesn’t find it? There can’t be more than two or three men in the whole county who can afford a pen like that. The owner will be missing it for sure. When he finds the little impression in the mud where it fell, where you “found” it, you will have converted yourself into a thief. A thief as vile and despicable as the unrepentant one crucified at the left side of our Lord.’
Sebas breathed out heavily. His eyes grew darker. ‘What do you want me to do, turn myself in to Sheriff Wilkinson?’
Tapping his notebook with his pencil, my father said in a dry voice, ‘It isn’t what I want, boy. It’s what the Lord wants. It’s your duty to go back to the path by the cemetery and place the pen back in the impression of the mud, in the exact way, at the exact same angle, that you found it. That’s the only way to undo your crime.’
‘But it’s just a pen,’ Sebas said.
‘And dinner’s just dinner, but you’re not getting any, until you go back to the cemetery and return that pen.’
‘But . . .’ my brother started to say, but he realised it was useless. There would be no dinner tonight, and there would be no dinner the next night or the night after, until he returned the pen.
Sebas stomped away from the table, and I heard the front door slam. I reached for the breadbasket. But my father, resuming his notations, said, ‘Tut-tut, Vergil Erasmus. There’ll be no eating until your brother gets home. It wouldn’t be fair.’
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