by Anbara Salam
At the end of each row, Sousan handed the beaker on to the next row of churchgoers. Since the cupbearer travelled anti-clockwise, and Bea sat right at the front on the left, she was always the last recipient of the cup, and she always dreaded the moment when she must sip from it.
Bea looked around her at the room full of elderly women with luxurious beards, young children dribbling mucus down their chins, toothless teenagers chewing betel nut. Absolutely the last thing Bea ever wanted to do was to press her lips against the cup that had already been sucked and spittled on by every last person in the village. When it was her turn, she rested the cup gingerly above her top lip. She tipped it so the red cordial lapped up against her skin, and mimed swallowing while trying to maintain an appropriately holy expression on her face.
And then, Aru began his sermon. At first, Bea was grateful he was speaking in English. But as his service continued, she began to wish she hadn’t been able to understand.
‘The End of Days,’ Aru bellowed, swaying side to side, on the tops of his toes, as if stepping on hot sand. Then, more quietly, ‘The End of Days has come upon us.’
‘A-men,’ a woman at the back of the room replied.
‘Praise be to Jesus!’
‘A-men.’
‘And right now, now, even as we sit here in church giving thanks to the loving Holy Father and His son, Jesus Christ –’
‘A-men.’
‘– the Beast walks among us.’
‘Oh Lord!’ The woman shook her head sadly from side to side.
‘Yes, sir. The Beast walks among us. And it is the will of the Beast that the body of the church be split up!’ Aru pointed his finger to the sky, leaping on to his toes as he did so. ‘Yes, indeed. It is the will of the Beast that the believers, the body of Christ in the church, be divided.’
‘Oh, Jesus! Oh, Jesus!’ the woman moaned softly.
‘The Beast is the enemy. Anyone who is not in the body of Christ, is against the body of Christ. Any man, woman or child, who is not with the body of Christ, his believers, seeks to destroy us. To tear us up!’ Aru raised his voice to a yell, punching both his fists in the air.
The women in the church fanned themselves more quickly, to a muttered chorus of, ‘Yes, sir,’ and, ‘A-men.’
‘And how do we recognize this danger, you may ask?’ Aru said in a stage whisper, half-crouched on the stage, beads of sweat shining on his top lip. ‘I’ll tell you how. They are the weak of spirit, the weak of flesh. And the mind controlled by the flesh is hostile to God. Their weak bodies are wide open to evil. Any enemy of this church is an enemy of God!’
‘A-men.’
‘For too long, we have kept the weak amongst us. The weak of spirit are the enemy of God. It is their unbelieving ways that lets in the darkness.’ Aru paused, holding eye contact with the congregation, not making a movement. Barely a breath was drawn. When he spoke again it was a thundering roar. ‘It is our job, our holy obligation, to seek out these unbelievers and cast them out of the body of Christ. We have the power of the spirit and the Lord Jesus Christ –’
‘A-men, Lord Jesus!’
‘We have the blessing of the Lord!’
‘A-men.’
‘Praise be to Jesus!’
‘Hallelujah!’
‘And in these sad times, we see what dangers threaten the community of God.’ Aru strolled across the platform, shaking his head. ‘We must be grateful God has spared us, that Jesus has died for us, and we, we will be saved.’ He raised his hands to his face, his voice breaking with emotion.
‘Oh, praise Jesus,’ the woman muttered, the ‘Jesus’ foaming together like one hiss under her tears, ‘Praise Jesss, praise Jesss.’
‘We must search out the weak. The unbelievers. They may not even know their own weakness. They may not even know – they are under the power of Ukunu – that they work for Satan himself!’
A chorus of whooping went around the congregation, with more flapping of fans, more whispering of A-mens.
‘We will come together as one body, one body of believers, one body in Christ!’ Aru continued.
Several drops of sweat fused together at the base of Bea’s neck, trickling down her back to the strap of her brassiere.
‘And cleanse them of their weakness! By the power and the spirit of Jesus Christ our Lord!’ Aru shouted, almost drowned out by the noise of so many A-mens.
Bea felt her face flushing with the heat, her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Nod, she told herself. Say, ‘A-men.’ She was gripped by a wave of paranoia, tinged with a sudsy, nauseous rim. Why was everyone looking at her? They couldn’t be talking about her? She was the Pastor’s wife.
She gripped her fan and waved it furiously under her nose. Whatever happened, she mustn’t faint. She must not faint in front of these people. They would only think it was the devil in her trying to escape, being affected by the power of their Holy Spirit. Bea pushed a thumbnail into her left thigh, hoping the tiny nag of pain would distract her from the green splotches popping on the corners of her vision. Close your eyes, she told herself, close your eyes and say, ‘A-men.’
21
On the day of the christenings, Bea walked north to Hot Wata with the other women. Max, Edly Tabi and Aru had gone ahead hours ago. There were about six women walking all together, dressed in their finest island dresses, with hibiscus flowers tucked behind their ears. The day was shimmering with heat, and as they walked, Bea could smell the clay cooking in the mud along the coast. Bea watched the flower wilting in Morinda’s hair.
Bea had already been baptized, of course. In her father’s house there had been a small photograph of her in her white baptismal gown in her mother’s arms. As a scrawny, frowning baby with unusually thick eyebrows, Bea barely looked related to the slim, glamorous woman in the short-brimmed hat and white gloves.
But Max had said this was a different kind of baptism. Aru held a yearly ceremony for any members of the surrounding villages who wished to recommit themselves to the Lord. And this year, Max was in charge. He hadn’t exactly asked her to participate, it was just implied. He had been especially excitable in the days leading up to the ceremony, whistling in the house. She hadn’t thought it a good idea. He had barely recovered from his fever – surely, she’d told him, the baptisms could wait. Aru could do them, she offered, and Max could be in charge next year. But he hadn’t even replied to her suggestions. He hadn’t spoken to her much at all. One day, he’d just been out of his bed, bright-eyed and jittery. He’d become so thin, Bea was perplexed he even had the strength to sustain this rush of sudden energy. And he’d shaved off his beard.
He and Aru had drawn up a list of the names of the people who had received baptisms over the past few years, as well as those participating in this year’s ceremony. Beside each name, Max had drawn a tiny cross. Bea had seen this list tucked inside Max’s Bible on the kitchen table of Mission House. She had unfolded it to find her own name written carefully in pencil along with the others. There was no cross beside her name.
An hour or so after they left Bambayot, a boy appeared on the coastal path, running towards them holding a huge stick. He had almost reached her skirts before Bea realized it was Moses. He grabbed his mother’s hand, beaming, and started speaking in rapid-fire Language that Bea couldn’t understand. The women nodded between themselves, before following him down to the beach. In the shady part of the sand, near the treeline, there were two other boys about Moses’ age sitting on the roots of a huge mango tree. The commotion seemed to be directed somewhere behind the roots.
Bea approached warily. It wasn’t the first time Moses had enthusiastically steered her towards one of his finds – a dead parrot with its brains unspooled, or a trail of ants carrying a severed bullock’s tongue halfway up a papaya tree.
But cornered behind the tree roots was a huge turtle. Its shell was the size of a small bathtub, and its long head bobbed slowly up and down. Joyce and Moses began bickering behind her, and a couple of the women
broke away from the beach, ambling back up towards the coastal path. Bea took a step towards the turtle. Its head was tapered and scaly, and it was wearing a strange half-smile on its face.
The boy on the root closest to her was watching her carefully. ‘Whitewoman,’ he said, whistling.
He was sitting astride the roots, one pink foot dangling. He offered up his stick, and gestured towards the turtle. Bea shook her head, recoiling. She knew in theory turtles were slow-moving, but this was a monster. The boy chuckled at her and, with a swift jab, poked the turtle in the chin. It drew its head partway back into its body. The boy looked at Bea again. She felt some kind of reaction was expected, so she smiled and nodded in appreciation of his bravado. Moses had stormed off down the beach. He threw his stick on the shore, and kicked up a flurry of sand. Joyce turned to Bea and rolled her eyes.
‘He loves to eat turtle –’ she pointed at Moses ‘– but this is a Mama Turtle. It’s tabu to kill them.’ Joyce raised her voice in quick admonishment to the two boys guarding their prize, and walked back up to join the others.
It took another three hours to walk to Hot Wata. No one said much as they walked. Bea had hoped there might be singing, or gossiping, but the mood was sombre. Finally, as they approached Hot Wata village, Bea saw a small crowd had gathered by the path to watch the spectacle, smoking and swatting flies with their bushknives.
A chubby teenage girl wearing an island basket tied around her forehead stopped nearby. She touched Bea lightly on the inside of her elbow. ‘Do you know the Pastor’s wife?’ she asked, her eyes wide.
Bea was taken aback. ‘I am the Pastor’s wife,’ she said, looking around her for validation from Joyce.
The girl nodded, and stood staring at her in silence until Bea awkwardly walked away.
By the shoreline, Max and Aru had set up an impromptu table on a wooden crate. On it were placed a plastic beaker and a Bible. An archway had been created from large twigs, bound together with vine, which was wound with more hibiscus flowers and palm fronds.
Bea had been expecting a sermon of some kind, but instead, the singing began, and one by one, each woman walked through the arch, to join Max and Aru. They both waded into the ocean. There, Max and Aru exchanged words, pressed the Bible against the woman’s forehead, and submerged her in the water.
When it was her turn, Bea walked extra carefully. The last thing she wanted was to lose concentration and slip and fall in front of all these people. As she waded into the ocean, a swell rose against her legs, and the hem of her dress lifted. Bea quickly clamped it between her shins, struggling to get into the water past her knees.
Max and Aru said their prayers. Bea wasn’t listening. She had heard it all before. She turned towards Max, as the others had done. Despite the ocean, she could smell the sweet smell of Max’s sweat. The water had lapped up over his shirt and it was translucent over the muscles in his arms. When he reached forward to push her under, his expression was unreadable. She realized it was the first time he had come close to her in weeks.
After the baptisms, the women stood to the side, dripping, while Max and Aru led them in more prayers. There was more singing. And then people began to disperse. Someone laid a banana leaf filled with slices of taro into Bea’s hands. When she looked up to say thank you, she didn’t know who had given it to her.
Max walked over to stand next to her. ‘Today was successful, I think,’ he said, looking around the small crowd of dispersing villagers.
Bea nodded, quickly swallowing a crumbly mouthful of taro in case he expressed an opinion about fasting or feasting. Aru came to stand by them, then he and Max began to walk away north along the coast. Max half turned to her, raising one eyebrow, which Bea took to mean she should follow him. They walked along the shore for about ten minutes until they reached Hot Wata spring. Bea could smell the sulphurous, eggy water before she even saw the trickle. They stopped on either side of it.
‘This is a holy spring.’ Aru pointed at the water.
Bea looked up at Max, who nodded generously.
‘This was the landing place of the first pilgrims to come to the island. It was the site of the very first church on the island,’ Aru continued.
Beatriz looked around her.
‘Before the earthquake,’ Max added.
Aru pointed at the spring. ‘This is the water of life.’
‘Beatriz,’ Max turned to her. ‘I ask you to cleanse yourself in this water.’
‘But –’ Bea pointed out into the ocean ‘– I’ve already been cleansed.’
Max looked at her. ‘Your spirit has been cleansed, but your will must also submit.’
‘My will?’
‘Your stubborn will.’
Bea looked down at her own ankles. Her face felt hot. She did have a stubborn will. But how could Max say such personal things in front of Aru?
‘You are special to me, Bea. I have to take a particular care of your spiritual health,’ Max said.
Bea peered up at him. He had never said anything like that before. Special? She felt her throat grow tight.
‘I have a special responsibility for you,’ he continued.
Bea nodded, pressing her left big toe into her right big toe, until the nail went white.
‘I can’t rest until I know you are safe – that your soul is safe.’
‘You must practise obedience,’ Aru said. His eyes were downcast.
Bea tried to keep her face neutral.
‘Yes,’ Max said, ‘obedience to God. How can the Lord do His work through you, until you admit your sins?’
‘I have, I admit my sins, I do!’ Bea looked around her, blinking back tears of shame. She wished Aru weren’t there.
‘We are all sinners. And we must all practise obedience. It is not enough to say the words. You must demonstrate it in your actions, in your spiritual life. Only obedience to the Word can drive out the sin – the evil of the soul.’
‘I will, I shall. I do.’
Aru gestured towards the spring.
Bea looked up at both of them. The sulphur water shot out of the ground in a spitting stream. ‘Oh, no.’ She shook her head.
Max exchanged a look with Aru. ‘I have taken responsibility for your spiritual well-being. Do you understand?’ Max said.
‘I do.’
‘I can’t stand by while you continue to reject God’s grace. It is not your fault. We are all sinners. I was once like you, too. Vulnerable. You must practise obedience until you are truly clean.’
Bea stepped back. ‘No, I can’t. It is too hot, I can’t – it will burn me!’
‘Beatriz,’ Max said, gently, ‘it is only flesh.’
Bea felt shaky as she walked towards the water. The spring was little more than a muddy puddle, bubbling over in a rolling simmer. There was barely enough water to reach her ankles, but the stink was overwhelming. She stood with her face towards Max. Despite the months of walking across coral without her shoes, her feet were prickling and itchy in the searing heat of the stream. Max laid a hand on her shoulder and pushed lightly downwards. She crouched in the water and her knees dipped into the bubbling spring. The dress soaked up the smell. She wobbled, and put her hands out to steady herself. She heard herself gasp. The water was scalding. It pierced all her bites and scrapes. The sore on her right hand stung and throbbed. The water was silty and gritty at the bottom, it felt almost greasy on her skin.
Aru prayed, and Max cradled her head back in his hands, so the egg water splashed over her scalp, trickling down the sides of her face. Bea held her breath, and closed her eyes.
It was only flesh.
22
Ten days after her baptism, Bea woke up to the pressure of Max’s hand on her left foot through the mosquito net.
She sat up on her elbows. ‘Maxis?’
‘My dear.’ Max gave her foot another squeeze. He was holding the hurricane lamp. ‘Sweetheart,’ he said gently, ‘will you come with me?’
Bea’s heart started beating in her thr
oat. ‘Is there a storm? The garden?’ She began to paw through the folds of mosquito net to find the opening.
Max chuckled. ‘No. Nothing like that. I want you to come with me.’
She squinted at the floor for her sandals. ‘Where are we going? Is everything all right?’ Bea realized a glimmer of light was perforating the wall to the corridor. ‘Is someone else here?’ she asked. She shook out her sandals and leant against the frame of the cot to slip them on.
Max looked back over his shoulder quickly. ‘Yes. Morinda is here.’
‘Morinda?’ Bea combed out her braid with her fingers and began to re-plait it.
‘Don’t worry with that now,’ Max said impatiently, gesturing towards the door frame with his head.
Bea kept braiding her hair anyway. ‘I don’t understand. Why is Morinda here? Is Mabo-Mabon –’
Max took a step back as Bea peered into the corridor. Morinda was holding a candle, looking shyly at the ground.
‘No –’ Max put his hand on the back of her shoulder ‘– Mabo-Mabon is fine. We’d like you to join us for a prayer.’
Bea’s stomach dipped. He wanted her to join them in the church.
Bea followed Morinda, watching the pale semicircles at the back of her bare feet as Morinda walked slowly out of the front of the house. Her candle blew out as soon as they stepped out of the door. Bea didn’t look ahead, but concentrated on putting her footsteps inside the imprints left by Morinda’s heels in the wet grass.
As they walked down towards the church, Bea could see a faint glow of illumination coming from within. There was already a group of people inside. She could hear low, soft singing coming from the building. A wave of adrenaline crested in Bea’s stomach. She felt sick. She wrapped her arms over her chest. She wished she weren’t wearing her nightdress.