Godhead

by Hansen, Jalex; Alexander, Writing as Jordan

  Somewhere among the skids Pierre was loading boxes, hatless and carefree enjoying the use of his muscles.

  The day was still and hot and sultry, in the shed we were poached and wrung out by it. Some of the older women took shifts, sitting out under the trees and making bawdy comments about the barebacked men in between times. I wiped the sweat from my brow leaving sticky smears and drips of pesticide laden water on my face and neck. At some point, Matilde had disappeared to fix lunch and I decided I could use a moment in the shaded house myself.

  The other women closed the gap I left, filling it with industrious giggles.

  Walking through the fields I glanced up at the empty veranda. This morning Dante had stood watching the work, lord of the manor. He held a drink in one hand and shielded his eyes from the sun with the other. I had not seen him since.

  Only a third of the field was done, despite the many men and their quick and merciless harvest. The yield was beyond expectations and we would have work for days. The Fruit Company would no doubt be pleased, and Dante, perhaps, would be sated enough to stay away for awhile…until the time came to ask me for a favor.

  The house was quiet. I did not hear anyone in the kitchen or smell anything cooking. Maybe Matilde had snuck off with Pierre. They had the perfect opportunity to be alone, with everyone busy and her husband in the fields.

  I heard shuffling coming from the guest room and was suddenly disappointed that Dante appeared to be here after all. But there was something different about this sound, something familiar and disturbing. I walked near to the wall up to his doorway hoping to avoid being seen and caught spying.

  But he knew I was there.

  He looked right into my eyes and smiled as I stood in the doorway.

  There, between his white thighs, the sparse hair, and the chafed red knees, was Matilde’s dark sleek head, her succulent hair loose over her shoulders, totally unaware in her ministrations of my presence.

  I was frozen, revolted and fascinated by something I had never seen or experienced. The heat of the day seemed to gather in my belly. I wanted to run, but I was held there by the bead of Dante’s eyes, and my own eyes unable to stop watching Matilde.

  He placed his hand on the top of her head, a perverse benediction, and I turned and fled.

  Chapter Eight

  STONES

  “We are corrupt!” Julián lamented from the pulpit. “This church! This congregation! All of humanity! And soon the Lord will come and judge us for it. You good people have allowed Satan into your midst!”

  Matilde instinctively knew that she had been discovered, and so to save herself she had gone to confession and thrown herself onto the Father’s mercy. But Julián was at war with Satan and temptation himself and had no pity for her.

  “Revelations tells us that the Lord will not forgive these heinous acts that you are participating in. Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants, to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her space to repent and she repented not.”

  The congregation shifted uncomfortably, the usual willingness to ascribe his sermon to the individual replaced by an evident need to distance oneself from it. Julián took this ripple as a mass confession of guilt. “None of us is innocent!” he cried. “Behold I will cast her into a bed and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.”

  The word deeds rang against the empty expressions of the church, their stony faces attempting to deflect this accusation.

  Matilde was conspicuously absent, as was her truant husband.

  At the pulpit Julián’s hands trembled laying palm up on top of his Bible, the one he could not read, but consulted by touch. “But we are not necessarily damned,” he said, his voice just a whisper, offering reprieve. “The Lord says, that if we repent he will take us from among the heathens to a better land. Then I will sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you: I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”

  He stepped around the pulpit, stood looking down on us with eyes that beheld God and not man. “And how will we do this my people? You know the answer. It is so simple.” No one dared to speak, their usual loquaciousness shaken to silence under this unexpected tirade from the gentle Father.

  “Confess,” Julián said. “First John says If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

  He stepped from the platform and walked between the pews, parting the congregation, straight back to the confessional where he disappeared behind the black velvet curtain. We all sat in silence for a few moments, not entirely sure what was expected of us. A few looked relieved that they would not be required to admit anything publicly. A dozen or so rose to their feet and began lining up outside of the confessional, and since it appeared that everyone was guilty, the rest followed, no longer ashamed, but seeking solidarity and the relief Julián could pretend to give them.

  I waited until everyone was standing and slipped out the back door letting it click softly behind me.

  In my house there were traces of sawdust on the floor. Outside I could smell the acrid tang of lime being burned for fertilizer in the great stone oven that sat back by the empacadora. It made me think of brimstone.

  My bedroom had a door.

  A thick plank of mahogany with crudely carved panels had been hinged and hung, and sat fat in the open place that once air had moved through, with a key protruding from a hole above its long brass handle.

  I stood before it trying to determine what to think.

  “Did you enjoy your Sunday my little Papist?” Dante asked from behind me.

  “Why have you given me a door?” I knew of course that he was the only one that could be responsible.

  “Surely you realize the propensity a door has for keeping secrets?”

  “I have no secrets.”

  He laughed. “That’s very true. There are few secrets in this house, but perhaps this door will help. I have come to ask a favor of you.”

  So it had begun. Dante needed a favor that could only exist behind a closed door. “What is it?”

  “Go in and see. As long as I can trust you the key is yours.”

  I pushed on the door, smelling of fresh sawn wood and sticking slightly when I pushed, not completely square in its frame.

  Squatting around the perimeters of my room and piled in the corners were a dozen or more perfectly round stone balls. The little ones in the corners were perhaps three inches in diameter while the largest specimen that sat at the foot of my bed was eight inches across at least. I nudged it with my foot and it did not roll. “What are these…cannon balls?”

  Dante leaned against the door and eyed them speculatively. “No not cannon balls. Perhaps markers, bearing guides used for direction, or astronomy, or some purpose that only a primitive mind could dream up. They may have been a source of wealth. Most of them are from Costa Rica but some nearer. They are just balls of rock now, mystery planets.”

  I ran my hand over their surface, they seemed to be made of volcanic material so they were pitted and nubbly, but the carving of them was so perfect, so symmetrical, it seemed impossible that it was the work of primitive tools.

  Dante said, “These natives were once very civilized and ingenious. It’s a shame they became groveling field hands.”

  “Thanks to the Europeans.”

  “Now, now, that’s no way to talk about your own people Isabel, the tricksters in your blood.”

  More and more I felt the blood of the dispossessed rulers. I saw legions of Dantes in their shiny helmets, drinking my chocolate, and seducing my women, and manipulating me on one hand, while they robbed my storehouse with the other.


  “Are they worth anything?”

  “Everything has only the value we ascribe to it. They are just round stones, carved by ancient men laboring over someone else’s bidding. But now rich people want them again, as status symbols or lawn ornaments. So maybe their original purpose was wealth. They are really as worthless as any money we have now…they have the added benefit of being harder to steal.”

  “Do people bring them to you or do you find them yourself? The artifacts I mean…the things you….the things you redistribute.”

  He smiled warmly at me, pleased with his pupil. “A little bit of both. These had to be moved quickly, they are a new discovery and had to be taken before someone else caught wind of it. They are somewhat difficult to move and hide.”

  “So all I have to do is keep them in here, keep the door locked?” It sounded so simple, not at all worth the money and effort his company was investing in my bananas. Perhaps the simplicity of the task was to lull me, to make me complacent and easier to manipulate for the next more difficult thing.

  “No one comes in your bedroom,” he smirked. “Keeping them a secret should be very easy for you. And if you are lonely you can talk to the stones, tell them your hearts desire…maybe they grant wishes.”

  “Apparently not,” I told him “Or you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Christianity is not doing anything for you. You need to try harder,” he tutted. “The stones are taking up a bit of room, but I am sure there is still enough space to get down on your knees.”

  I ignored that. “How long do I have to have them here?”

  He switched from smarminess to business with a blink of his eyes. “In this case I already have a buyer, so it should only be a short time until I am able to move them onto the boat. Do not let anyone remove them unless I am here. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. What if I am not here when you need them?”

  “Well that’s part of the deal. You will be. These stones are your life until they are no longer your concern…and ...just in case something unfortunate happens to you.” He dug in his pocket and slid an object from its depths palming it and then displaying it with flourish. “Well...then I have another key.”

  This felt worse than the rest of it, the ability he had to enter as he wished. But of course, I had already agreed. I would sit all day in here with these damn rocks if it would keep him on the other side of the door. “Alright.”

  He nodded, satisfied with my compliance. “I won’t be staying here this week,” he said “I have things to attend to.” He leaned in close to me tracing the key up the outside of my arm, gently tickling my throat and pressing it against my lips. “I know I can trust you,” he said with the throaty whisper of a devoted lover. “So far, you have not disappointed me at all.”

  Matilde never came to cook dinner so I went without, and curled up to sleep among the stones and darkness behind my locked door. In bed hours early, I had opened the shutters to watch the sun set, but I could not see it beyond the haze of clouds that sat over the plantation. The murky light just sank into a dull black sky. I felt trapped, sullied, and guilty. I wondered if the sermon today had not been about Matilde at all. Perhaps it had been about me. Maybe I was the one that had let the devil into their midst.

  The stones seemed to emanate a heat; the same heat that had begun inside me when I saw Matilde and Dante, a wild ravenous heat that boiled in my belly and swelled my limbs.

  The stones hummed with it.

  I left the room and went and walked around the house. The guest room was empty. When Dante went he left no traces of himself behind, he simply vanished. Even the sheets were stripped and taken to the laundry. He was the ghost of this house.

  Outside the generator began to complain. I had forgotten again to fill it. I was used to Matilde reminding me. The equatorial twilight had passed quickly into night. Outside the crescent moon was swallowed by clouds and the darkness was deep and choking. The glow from the house extended only enough light for me to find my way to the generator shed. Back by the empacadora the coals from today’s lime fires burned in the oven, a distant red eye.

  Once the generator was sated I knew I would be unable to sleep. I wondered if Dante was watching me to see if I would stay put. I was getting paranoid. I never wandered at night; he had no reason to suspect that I would do such a thing.

  I felt the pressure of watching the stones. I felt Julián’s desperation and anger today in church. I saw his hands empty and trembling.

  I felt the heat.

  Without considering anything but my impulses, I walked into the darkness in the direction of the church. I had not brought a flashlight, but I knew the way. Without light there was no time, and I seemed to walk though darkness for hours. I did not fear predators, the jaguar and puma were rare, driven away by human activity. The howler monkeys made ghoulish noises, but I was used to them now. They blustered and shouted, but did nothing else. Occasional small flickering eyes of tapirs or smaller rodents dashed in front of my uncertain fee, and the birds that did not sleep winged my face on their flight between the trees. I worried mostly about snakes, the poisonous fer de lance that usually stayed by the water.

  The heat from the stones had stayed with me. It swirled and trickled between my hips until I had to sit down in the middle of the road in the wet sticky dirt, and try to still it, holding myself close.

  The real fear in my heart was not for these earthly things, but that there might be a God after all, and that He might seek retribution for the downfall of His flock, for my part in leading them astray.

  I was walking though this jungle night to purge myself, to clean my soul and empty my heart of guilt, yet even on this journey I smelted, and steamed, and stank of longing and sinful needs. I wanted to know if confession could indeed save me.

  When I reached the church just at the edge of town I realized that I had barely been breathing the entire way. My nerves tingled and jangled and made my movements quick and jerky. The lights were on inside, the generator humming, and I stood just at the threshold taking breaths of civilization.

  The intention that had developed on my passage through the dark was simply to go into the church and pray. I thought that perhaps the location would sanctify me, would make me sincere, that the church walls would create a magic alchemy within my soul which would allow me to feel forgiven and released. I was not certain that I believed, but neither was I sure I did not.

  What I had not expected was to find Julián himself in the church kneeling with his head in his hands. He looked up as I entered with a loose smile and the wet tracks of tears on his cheeks. “Hello my child, how can I help you tonight?”

  He did not know it was me, and I was shaken by his smile, his instant pull away from his own prayers and needs to the needs of another.

  “Julián, it’s me…Isabei.”

  The smile was replaced by wariness, a blackening in his eyes. His hands dropped to the pew and gripped it. “Yes. What is it that you want?”

  “I …I’ve come to confess.”

  He pulled himself to his feet, uncertain, and then motioned for me to follow him into the confessional.

  Inside it was as hot and stuffy as the forest I had passed through to get here. A dim light came from a recessed bulb over Julián’s head on the other side. Between us were bars. A garden gate had been hung up to divide the box. I did not know if the gate was meant to be representational, and whether I stood on the side of Paradise of Hell. “I don’t know how to do this. I’ve never confessed before.”

  “Just say what is on your heart. The Lord will direct your words.”

  I closed my eyes, but could not bear any more darkness. I studied Julián’s profile through the bars, his fine long nose and delicate hands clasped. I knew what I needed to say. I was so afraid and yet eager. I wanted to let it go. But the basis of my relief I would discover, was not sending it up to God, but placing it upon Julián.

  “I am in love with you,” I said.

  I heard his intake
of breath, but he did not move at all.

  “I know that it is wrong…that you are above that and consecrated by God. I know that I am guilty of lust and temptation….that I have wanted you to feel that lust and temptation too.” These huge accusatory biblical words sat uncomfortably on my tongue; they were too stern and legal. “I just wanted you to love me Julián. Whatever it was between us when we were young has grown in me. You left an imprint upon me, a map of your passing…and it is the one I have wanted to follow all my life. But I know that’s not what you want…that I am hurting you…and I’m sorry. I want you to forgive me.” I tried to breathe around the heat. “And I want God to forgive me, to take this away so that I am free. I don’t want this anymore if it ‘s wrong and impossible.”

  Suddenly, startling me back farther into the shadows, Julián moved to the bars and gripped them fiercely, a prisoner begging for mercy. His knuckles were white, and his eyes were depthless and dark.

  “You want forgiveness?” he growled. “You? I cannot forgive you…God cannot forgive you if you do not truly repent in your heart, not just with your mouth.” He seemed to be staring right at me, right into me with a desperation that was frightening to behold. “But what I can give you is a confession in exchange… my confession…

  I do not repent either.”

  His muscles tightened, his fingers pulling at the bars as though he would tear them apart and have no barriers between us. “You think I am above that lust, that I do not have wants? I thought the love I felt for you was something godly and beneficent. I lied to myself. It was the love of a man, and I used my place in the church to excuse myself the time I spent with you.

  “This is my confession… I smell your hair, I hear you come into the room and I remember…I remember my hands on your body and your lips sticky with the juice of mangoes and I want to touch you again...but not like this.” He clawed at his drawn and terrorized face. “Not blinded and hidden in darkness. I want to see you. I want to look down into your eyes and see your face as my hands tell me it is, the woman you have become. I want to lose myself in you even at the risk of Hell…to bury myself in your body, and in your mouth, and hands. I want….I want you…and God forgive me I cannot make myself stop!”