He continues, ‘Jesus, your love is the only way. Your love is the only path. There is no other way to be cleansed of our sinning natures. Amen.’
‘Amen,’ everyone says, and so do I. I open my eyes.
‘Now,’ Brother Sam says. ‘Who would like to testify?’
The nurse in the white outfit volunteers. She’s overweight and unattractive, with little eyes and a tiny chin lost in a mound of fat, but she has that well-scrubbed look of someone trying her best with severely depleted assets. She tells the story of how, this week, John Junior stole from her, again, and spent her entire paycheque on booze, but she forgave him, thanks to the grace of Jesus. It’s not clear if John Junior is her husband, or her son, or perhaps her father, but the people in the room nod knowingly, as if they’ve heard this story before, maybe from her, maybe even last week, and there’s nothing terribly surprising about any of it.
Brother Sam pretends to listen. Finally, he asks, ‘May I cast out Satan from you, my dear?’
‘Yes, Brother Sam,’ she says, eagerly. ‘Yes, please.’
The preacher walks to where she stands and lays his hand on her sweaty face. ‘Jesus,’ he intones. ‘Enter the body of this woman. Bless her.’ He shuts his eyes and begins to speak in a gibberish that sounds like a made-up children’s language. A pig-Latin, but with a drawl. ‘Katanya edanah, katanya edanah,’ he repeats. I realize that he’s speaking in tongues. ‘Katanya edanah, katanya edanah!’
He presses the woman’s head back, tilting her little chin to the ceiling. Her body stretches backwards, as if she’s playing limbo.
‘Satan, get out!’ Brother Sam screams. ‘Get out, Satan. I command you in the name of Jesus. I cast you out!’ Two burly men position themselves behind the woman. When they’re ready, they exchange a signal with Brother Sam, a little nod, and the preacher pushes the woman’s face with great force, so that she is shoved back into the men’s waiting arms. ‘Satan, be gone!’ he yells. The men catch her, and she opens her eyes, and smiles with surprise and delight.
‘He’s out!’ she screams. ‘He’s out!’
‘God bless you,’ Brother Sam says.
‘Amen!’ the other people say.
Amanda calls out, too. ‘Amen,’ she says.
The men lead the fat woman back to her chair. It squeaks under her bulk when she sits. If Satan was indeed cast out from her, he must not weigh a lot.
The meeting continues like this for some time, with other testimonies – a black man who was tempted to drink but didn’t, a muscular tweaker with tats running down his arms, who speaks a million miles a minute and shifts in his seat, but who insists he’s been clean since prison. Looking around the room, I sense no one believes him.
I’ve been to a dozen meetings like this. All twelve-step programmes are the same – a lot of heartfelt stories about unrelenting personal failure. The squinty-eyed-Jesus stuff, and the speaking in tongues, is novel enough, I have to admit, and more entertaining than anything back in California, but it’s still really the same old show. I’ve seen it all before.
Which is why I’m anxious to leave this basement. I’m practically at the edge of my seat, ready to bolt and call a cab – Amanda be damned, sexy tattoo or not – when Brother Sam says, ‘Are you ready to be healed, Mr Boss, and to accept Jesus as your personal saviour?’
Everyone looks at me. I’m ready for many things, but not that.
‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘That sounds like a pretty big commitment.’
‘It is, Mr Boss,’ he says, approaching me. ‘It is a wonderful commitment. It is a commitment from you to Jesus. And from Jesus to you. A permanent commitment.’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘Gotcha. It’s just that—’
‘He loves you,’ Brother Sam says, interrupting. ‘He forgives you. Whatever you have done, he understands. Have you done bad things, Mr Boss?’
‘Oh yes,’ I say, quite truthfully. As I speak the words, the images come too – a rush of them, a slipstream of tragedy and failure: Libby’s tear-streaked face the night Cole died; his wet blue corpse floating in the water; the black hooker with the blonde wig that I visited that night; the white meth smoke curling in the glass pipe; Gordon Kramer punching me in the face, knocking out my tooth – everything out of order and jumbled, but all of it painful, and all of it my fault.
Brother Sam says, ‘There is no sin too large. He ate with whores. He died on the cross beside thieves. He is the god of sinners and broken men. Anyone can be reborn. Anyone.’
‘Anyone?’ I say, my voice hoarse. More images from that night come back to me. I recall the long walk down the corridor, how I carried Cole’s body in my outstretched arms, how I laid him gently down on his bed; how I stood over him for hours, his room lit only by the moon in the window. How long did I stand there, over him? It couldn’t have been hours. But everything about that night seems wrong. All sense of time twisted. I had left him alone only for a few minutes. Only a few minutes in the bath. I was coming right back. I just needed a few minutes.
Brother Sam lays his hand upon my shoulder. ‘Rise, sir. Accept Jesus as your saviour.’
Everyone is staring now, and I feel extraordinary pressure to conform. One of the things about being an atheist is that you always find yourself in bad company, with cranks and know-it-alls – people who take every opportunity to ruin everyone else’s comfort, by telling everyone how stupid they really are. I do not want to be one of these people. After all, if you don’t believe – if you can’t believe – why not just go along for the ride?
Which is what I do. I stand. There are smiles and nods of appreciation. Brother Sam lifts his palm, and puts his sweaty fingertips on my face. ‘Close your eyes, Mr Boss,’ he says, in a stage whisper. Louder, now: ‘Jesus, enter into the body of this man, whatever be his true name. Cast out Satan from him.’ He starts speaking in tongues again – ‘Katanya edanah katanya edanah’ – repeating the phrase over and over, louder each time.
‘Cast out Satan from this man!’ Brother Sam shouts. ‘Satan, be gone! Satan, be gone! Be gone, Satan! Be gone!’
His voice bounds along, faster, graceful and athletic, like a gazelle leaping through savannah. ‘Katanya edanah!’ he shouts. He puts his face close to mine. He yells: ‘Be gone, Satan! Get out of this man! I feel you inside. Get out! I can feel you, Satan. Get out, you beast! Leave this man. I command you to leave him!’ His spittle dots my cheek. ‘Katanya edanah katanya edanah.’ His breath smells like garlic. ‘Satan, be gone! Get out! I feel you, Satan! I feel you in this man! I feel you! I feel—’
He stops mid-sentence. He opens his eyes and looks at me.
And what I see in his eyes – there is no other word for it. I see horror.
He is staring at me with horror.
His skin is suddenly as pale as moonlight. He glistens with sweat. His eyes are open wide now – not rheumy slits any more – wide, as if he has stumbled accidentally upon an abomination in this very church. He takes his hand from my cheek, quickly, as if from a hot stove. He backs up a step, off-balance, nearly trips on the leg of a folding chair. A man sitting nearby reaches up to offer support.
Brother Sam bats the man’s hand away, not very politely, and backs up another step, away from me farther still.
Then, suddenly, he seems to remember where he is – a church basement – and who I am – a sinner – and what is expected of him. He looks down, embarrassed. ‘Forgive me,’ he mumbles. ‘I must not be feeling well. I think... ’ He glances around the room.
‘Brother Sam,’ a man nearby says, ‘are you all right?’
‘Yes, of course. But... but... ’ He stops, collects himself. ‘I’m sorry. I think we should end here for tonight.’
No one in the basement speaks, but I feel the force of silent stares upon me.
Despite his words, Brother Sam remains still. He does not move. He does not step closer to me. He does not look at me. He does not offer me a hand, nor make a gesture of apology. He stays as far away from me as he can, as if
he wants to be sure that he remains out of my grasp.
I look over to Amanda. She regards me thoughtfully, her head tilted to the side, as if a new and interesting quality has been revealed in me, one that impresses her very much.
Now we’re in her car, heading back to the office, so that I can pick up my own Ford and return home. It’s nine o’clock. I can still make it back to Libby at a reasonable hour. Perhaps – if I play it right – I won’t even have to explain to my wife where I went, or with whom.
‘Well that was interesting,’ Amanda says drily.
I stay silent.
‘I know you don’t believe,’ Amanda says, staring straight ahead as she drives. ‘But it’s real, you know.’
‘If you say so,’ I say, agreeably.
‘He changed my life,’ she continues.
‘Brother Sam?’
‘Jesus.’
‘Oh,’ I say.
‘He can change yours, too,’ she goes on. ‘What do you think of that?’
What I think is that Amanda is becoming less sexy with each passing second. Another minute, and my bra-less receptionist with the breast tattoo will be singing hymns and trussing a corset. I’d like to be back home in my own bed before then.
‘Hey,’ I say, as we speed past the Tao Software office building. In the rearview mirror, I see my Ford grow distant and then recede over the horizon. ‘I think you passed the office.’
‘We’re going someplace else.’
‘Where?’
‘My apartment.’
‘Why?’
She looks at me, sidelong.
‘What about Jesus?’ I ask.
‘He’ll come too.’
She lives in a complex called Plantation Manor, two miles from the office. Despite its regal name, the place has a decrepit look. It’s a three-storey building, timber and cement, with open walkways exposed to the weather, overlooking a parking lot. There’s a swimming pool off to the side, fenced in, teeming with debris, and surrounded by rusting sun loungers.
From one of the balconies hangs a vinyl sign that screams, ‘No Deposit – No Credit Check – First Month Free!’
Amanda leads me up two flights of stairs. The air is humid, and halfway up the first flight, I’m out of breath. I hear the thrum of cars from the highway, just beyond a concrete noise abatement fence, which doesn’t seem to be doing much abating.
At the top of the stairs, she leads me down a long hallway. We stop at the apartment marked ‘309’. She fiddles with a key in the lock, then shoves the door with her shoulder. I follow her in. We’re hit by a blast of wintry air. An air conditioner roars in the window like a jet.
‘What do you think?’ she asks, standing aside to give me a better view.
‘I think electricity must be included in your rent,’ I say, shivering.
‘I leave it on,’ she says. ‘Because I like the cold.’
‘You moved to the wrong state.’
‘Sit down,’ she says. ‘I will pee.’
She disappears around a corner. I sit on the couch as instructed. I look around. It’s a standard sunbelt apartment: white stucco plaster ceiling, a medium-pile beige carpet, a breakfast bar overlooking a tiny galley kitchen, and a sliding glass door with Levolor blinds leading to a patio. No photographs, no books. It’s simultaneously clean, and depressing: the apartment of a woman who is one part hard-worker, and one part flight-risk.
I hear the sound of urine tinkling on porcelain. ‘So now I will tell you my story,’ she calls from the other room, as she pees. I wonder whether she has left the bathroom door open. I peer around the corner, but can’t see.
‘Maybe you want to finish up first,’ I suggest.
She ignores this. ‘I was born in Russia. You knew that, didn’t you?’
‘You have an accent,’ I say. ‘Just a slight one.’
‘When I was twelve, I ran away to Moscow. There was a man. He told me I should model for magazines.’
The toilet flushes. I hear water in the basin, and then the sound of rapid soapy hand-washing. Soon she’s back, rejoining me in the living room. ‘He called himself an agent,’ she continues. ‘But he wasn’t, not really.’ She sits on the couch beside me, on her knees, with her feet behind her. ‘I visited him one night, so that he could evaluate me. That’s what he called it: “evaluate”. He did evaluate me, in a way. There were a lot of men, not just him. I won’t tell you everything. But you can imagine.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She waves her hand, dismissing sentiment. ‘I never saw my family again. They brought me to different houses, and different cities, and soon I didn’t know where I was. After a few months, they brought me to this country. I worked for them. Do you know what I mean?’
‘I think so.’
‘They called me a dancer. But I did more than dance. I did everything. Whatever they told me.’
‘Why didn’t you... ’ I stop before I utter the words. But it’s too late. She knows what I’m going to say.
‘Escape?’ she suggests, and laughs. I nod.
‘Let me tell you a story. On the first night, they picked one girl from the group. Just at random. I remember the one they chose. She was standing right next to me. She had blonde hair, and she was very young and very pretty. They unrolled plastic sheets, onto the ground, and they told her to stand on the middle of the sheets, because they didn’t want to clean the carpet. No one understood what they meant. They told all the girls to gather around and watch. They took out a gun, and put it into the young girl’s mouth, and they shot her. Just like that. And then they said to the rest of us, ‘This is what happens. If anyone tries to leave, this is what we do. We’ll kill you, and we’ll kill your family in Russia, too, because we know where they live. But—’ She raises a finger, and pauses. Her face takes on a stony hard look. ‘But, if you’re good, and you do what we say, you can earn your freedom.’
She slinks closer to me on the couch. Part of me wants to comfort her – to put an arm around her, to hold her – this girl from another land, who was taken from her home. But I know not to. She does not seek my comfort. She does not seek any man’s comfort.
‘I will tell you a secret,’ she says. ‘Do you want to hear my secret?’
‘All right.’
‘It doesn’t matter how they threaten, because soon you don’t want to escape. They give you things, to make you like being there. You want to stay. Do you understand?’
‘Drugs,’ I say. I try to sound clinical, but my voice is thin and excited despite myself, the way you sound when you try to speak casually the name of an old lover.
‘Yes.’ She comes closer. ‘Oh yes,’ she purrs. ‘How nice it was.’ I can feel her warm skin next to mine. ‘You know that feeling, don’t you, Jim?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve tried.’
Not a question. ‘Yes.’
‘From that first day at the company, I knew. We can recognize each other. Can’t we, Jim?’
It’s true. Being an addict is like being in a club. Once you’re in, you’re in. It’s something straights can’t understand. When I walk down the street, I know. Just looking at strangers, I know – I know who is on, and who is off, and who is heading back. There’s something in our eyes. We’re searching. We never find it, but we’re always looking. It’s a hollow, haunted, hungry look. Amanda has it, too. Some part of me always knew that.
Amanda continues, ‘I did terrible things. I wish I could... ’ She shakes her head. ‘I wish I could take them out of here.’ She points to her skull.
‘I know that feeling.’
She leans over. For a moment I think she’s going to kiss me. But then she turns away. She says, ‘Jesus rescued me.’
I repeat stupidly: ‘Jesus... rescued you?’
I sit there, squinting, trying to picture Jesus, with flowing white robes, leading some kind of Delta Force extraction of Amanda from a Russian’s compound, abseiling down walls and evading laser-scoped rifles.
‘I prayed
,’ she says, ‘and he saved me. He gave me a new life.’
‘But... how did you escape?’
She shakes her head and waves her hand, as if that subject is uninteresting – mere logistics. ‘It doesn’t matter. Once you decide you want to leave, there’s always a way. The hard part is deciding. But I did. And then I came to Florida. I moved in with a girl – a college girl. She taught me what to do, and how to act, and how to get a job. I got a GED. I fixed my English. I took a receptionist job. Men like hiring pretty girls for their front desks. Have you noticed that, Jim? That’s how I found Tao.’
‘Well I’m glad you’re here.’
‘What a boss thing to say,’ she scoffs. ‘You’re “glad I’m here”. Why on earth would you be glad I’m here, answering your telephone?’
I search for an answer. After a long moment: ‘We do get a lot of calls.’
She laughs. ‘You see how you hide?’
‘Hide?’
‘Behind jokes, Jim. You try to distract people. You’re very devious.’
‘I didn’t know I was devious.’
‘A devious man. You always avoid the question. Even now, you are avoiding it.’
‘What question is that?’
She leans close, lowers her voice. ‘You know the question.’
I don’t. Not really.
She says: ‘Here you are, a married man, on a Thursday night, in your receptionist’s apartment. On her couch. And she’s very close to you. Very close. She could be naked at any moment.’
‘But she’s not.’
‘But she could be,’ she whispers. She leans in, and her lips brush my ear. She whispers, so close and soft, that her words are just warm breath against my skin. ‘The question is: What are you going to do?’
‘It is a very good question,’ I admit. ‘Tricky.’
‘I’ve seen your wife’s photograph. She is so pretty.’ I can smell her perfume. It’s the scent of flowers, rich and sweet, like a funeral spray.
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