The Kingdom of Heaven

by 19

  She nibbled at the toast, and she only finished the tea because he stared a warning at her when she tried to set it aside.

  –Do you still hurt? His fingers kept finding reasons to wander over her hair, her shoulder. He could see her sickness in the lines of her mouth, even though she shook her head and pretended to smile. He was so damn worried.

  He made her lie back, arranged the covers over her. –If you're not better by morning, I'm taking you to Spectre's.

  She nodded. It had a quality of, listless, that he didn't like.

  He started to get up, to go and sit on the little chair in front of the dressing table. She caught at him again. –Stay here. Just until I'm sleeping?

  He arranged himself beside her, cracked open a book from his pocket. . –No dreams, he promised her.

  (15)

  She wasn't better in the morning, and there was no way he could take her to Spectre's.

  She woke him with an agonized fit of coughing. She was making a terrible wheezing, wailing sound.

  He was holding her up before he was even awake, making her sit up, holding her arms up. –Breathe, Mar. Breathe. It's okay.

  She didn't even hear him. He laid her back down, on her side. She didn't resist, didn't even notice. She was shaking so hard her teeth were chattering. She was as hot as someone with sun sickness.

  He stood up, pacing, watching her, his hands wandering to his mouth, up into his hair, back to his mouth. He had no idea what to do.

  –Don't make me do this, he whispered to her. –Please, Mar. Not to you. Please don't make me.

  She couldn't hear him.

  –Fuck! he shouted, at everything in general, half-hoping it would wake her. It didn't.

  He shoved his feet into his boots, wrapped the laces, knotted them, muttering no not you to himself. He put on his sunglasses, kissed her hard on the mouth, said one more thing she couldn't hear, and left, walking towards town.

  DRUGSTORE was painted in dark green over the door. A smaller placard on the door said God bless you for your business in cash or goods. Gasoline and kerosene needed.

  He went inside. It was the kind of place that doubled as a post office, that sold straw hats and brooms and bleach and candy and envelopes and faded postcards. There was a splintered wooden counter along the back wall that had probably once been a bar. It was labeled PHARMACY in marker on a piece of cardboard. A fat pale man in a too-small black suit and a powder-blue tie sat there, paging through a leather-bound book.

  He stood there, patiently. The man looked up at him, disinterestedly, and went back to his reading.

  –Hi. I think I need your assistance.

  –You got a prescription? the man drawled out, not even looking up.

  This was converting worry into anger damn quick. –Is there a doctor in this town? he countered.

  –Nope.

  –That's why I don't have a prescription.

  –There's a doctor in Clayton. 'Bout eighty miles east.

  –I don't have eighty miles, he snapped. –I don't have the eight seconds of my life I just wasted in this conversation. I need antibiotics.

  –Can't just give em to you. You talk to Elijah?

  He took off his sunglasses, tucked the earpiece into the collar of his shirt. He kept his eyes down. –You're not going to give them to me. I'm going to buy them from you. And Elijah doesn't have shit to do with this.

  –You want to watch that.

  He was tired of this game. He looked up at the pharmacist then. The man had just enough time to see his eyes and open his mouth to yell when he lunged across the counter. He grabbed this human by his idiotic tie and pulled him forward so hard his feet came off the ground. –Listen. You get your fat ass back there and you hand me whatever the fuck you give someone for pneumonia or I will twist your head right off your neck, you got that?

  The man squeaked things that rhymed with yes, nodded frantically.

  He let the idiot go, and watched him scrambling through bottles of pills. He didn't take his eyes off him.

  The man began setting bottles in front of him, shaking. –Antibiotic, and this here is for congestion, and–

  –I need something for fever. And something for pain.

  The man nodded, swallowing hard, and set those down, too.

  He kept him pinned with his gaze, unscrewed the cap of all four bottles, set one of each pill on the counter. –Take them.

  –I...you don't...

  –Take them. If they don't kill you, I know you didn't try to get smart with me, he ordered.

  The man picked up the pills, dry-swallowed them, trembling and white as bleached bone. –There. See? I didn't do you no wrong.

  He picked up the bottles, recapped them, stuffed them into his pockets. He took off one of his rings, a plain band of pure platinum, and dropped it on the counter. –Is that enough?

  –That's, more than...

  –Thanks.

  He put his sunglasses back on.

  He was at a dead run by the time he got outside.

  She wouldn't swallow them.

  She had either coughed or vomited a horrifyingly dark, thick fluid onto one of her pillows.

  –Mar, please. You have to. Come on. At least these two, he pleaded, picking the antibiotic and the decongestant out of his palm. –Just these. They'll make you better. Come on.

  –Can't.

  He pushed her hands out of his way and pressed his ear against her chest. It was there, all right. A fluid percolating rattle.

  He crushed the pills between two spoons, stirred them into more tea. She drank two swallows, pushed it away, and made it halfway to the bathroom before she threw it up.

  She was crouching in the floor, crying, coughing. –Leave me alone. Go away, she wailed at him, trying to push him away from her.

  He got her back in the bed, peeled her bathrobe off her and scrubbed her with it. She curled up in the bed, in her bra and panties, clutching the pink blanket close. She was still crying, her hands pressed hard against her ribs. Hurts, she mouthed at him.

  He came over, sat down, eyes aching, and laid his hand over hers. –I know.

  He was lying behind her, stroking her hair. He had dressed her in a clean t-shirt of his own, and once he had it over her head with her arms in the sleeves he gritted his teeth and reached under it and took off her bra, maneuvering the straps down her arms and over her hands without taking the shirt off again. He didn't think the pressure around her ribs was doing her any good. She didn't resist, didn't really even seem to notice. It was like dressing a mannequin, or a doll

  (or a corpse)

  He wiped her face and her neck and her hands with a wet dishtowel, persuaded her into tiny sips of the tea until she fell asleep again.

  –Don't make me do this, Mar, he whispered to her, one more time. His temples were wet. He didn't feel it.

  The next morning he couldn't wake her. Nothing worked. He even bit the cartilage of her ear, hard, something that worked no matter how much alcohol you'd had. Nothing. She didn't even flinch, even though he could see the marks of his teeth darkening into a bruise.

  An infection wasn't like a broken wrist, a collapsed lung. He would have to be in her down to the cellular level. There would be no changing what that would do.

  –Mary, I'm going to have to hurt you. Very badly, he whispered to her, standing beside her bed. –Forgive me.

  He took off his rings, put them in his pocket. He took a deep breath, bent over her, pushed her shirt up to just under her breasts, pushed his hands under the edge–so much higher than most people thought.

  He laid his hands over her lungs.

  He did it quick and hard. He would have spared her no pain by being gentle. It would have only taken longer.

  It pulled her up off the bed like someone possessed. The sound it drove out of her was passionate, almost sexual. He was just, pulling, like an endless inhale. Only her feet were touching the bed, now, her hands and her head hanging back limp, his hands flat against her skin
drawing her up in magnetic levitation.

  Four breaths. Three. Two. One, one more breath.

  He was crying. Sobbing. She fell back onto the bed with a muffled thump. She wasn't moving.

  She wasn't breathing.

  He fell to his knees. He could feel her infection burning in his joints, in his throat.

  He dragged her over to him, slapped her twice, hard. –Breathe. Damn it. Mar.

  Her chest hitched.

  She sucked in a deep shrieking breath, exhaled.

  He listened again. No fluid. No rattle. Her heartbeat was slow, but steady.

  He covered her up again. She would sleep for at least two days. Sometimes it was as long as a week. She was young.

  He picked up the bottles of pills from her bedside table, along with his sunglasses. He left again. This time, he walked out into the desert.

  (16)

  He went due south, walking in a straight line. The sand went from hard-packed closer to Calvary, to scratchy and studded with rocks, to wide vast dunes the texture of powder. He kept going until the sun was straight overhead, slamming down on him in hard sheets of light and heat.

  He sat down, in the middle of the inferno, took two of the antibiotics, and lay on his back. The sky overhead was hospital-white and bigger than anything.

  He waited.

  His skin did not burn, and after a while he was no longer sweating. His heartbeat went through all the phases of frantic speed, and finally slowed to an occasional thickblooded pulse just before sunset.

  Was that such a terrible choice for you?

  The voice was pretending to be sympathetic, but there was an edge of amusement underneath. The waiting was over.

  He said, –You have no right to ask me that.

  (17)

  Zillah was standing with his arms folded, a black cloak snapping in the wind from his shoulders. He had abandoned his imaginary identity. They both had. –Don't I? Did you have any right to do that? Oh, I'd forgotten that you never have been happy with God's will.

  He closed his eyes. Opened them.

  Zillah smiled. –You remember me, now. I bet you just thought I had one of those faces.

  –God has forgotten what it is like to be human, he said, standing up. He would not do this looking up at Zillah. They were by no means on equal ground, and he could not afford to ignore even the slightest advantage.

  –You've forgotten almost everything. You don't even remember your own name. Oh, you use subtlety, a little illegal glamour so that none of them notice that they have no word for you. It doesn't work on me.

  –I remember how to love, he said, too softly for Zillah to hear.

  –You should have just chosen something. Any old name will do.

  –Not to me, he said, dizzy.

  Zillah moved closer, light burning in his gray eyes. –Do you know me? Or are you just bluffing?

  –I know you serve my Enemy. That's all I need to know.

  Zillah nodded. –What was that like for you? he asked, gouging in with words, with his smile. –Working on her like you would work on that truck? Seeing her for the flesh machine she is?

  –Stop it.

  –It does bother you, Zillah taunted, laughing.

  –You bother me. Get away from me.

  He turned to look out at the horizon.

  –So make me vanish. Erase me. Unmake me. Send yourself away from here. Go to Rome. Go to Hawaii. New York. Go to 1969 and watch Hendrix play Woodstock. Go back to her.

  He said, nothing.

  Zillah laughed because he thought he was winning. –You're here because you choose to be.

  –Yes, he snapped, turning on Zillah so quickly that he drew back a fraction of an inch. –That much is true. I am here by choice. Can you say the same thing?

  Zillah's face betrayed him, the ghost of rage and long teeth flashing into view for the space of a breath. He smoothed it over with a hustler smile. –You're just angry about Jordan.

  He shook his head. –I already know you can't touch him. You can fuck him all you want. His heart belongs to me.

  –Oh, I don't intend to hurt him. I think you can handle that all by yourself.

  He turned away again, his eyes stinging.

  Zillah went on, merciless. –I almost pity you.

  This part was true.

  –You're going to die for being something you don't even know how to be. And you won't understand that until it's too late.

  –I understand more than you think.

  –Really? It doesn't seem that way, Zillah said. –You can heal their bodies. Who's going to heal their minds? Who's going to restore the faith you destroy with all these selfish miracles?

  He turned on Zillah, shaking in rage. –They have to heal their own minds. They have to find faith in themselves. That's why I'm here.

  –Please. You overestimate human intelligence. They'll pretend to worship you, but what they will really feel is terror. And anything that is different and scary to this race, they hunt down and kill.

  He moved to strike out, furious.

  Zillah caught his hands and drew him close and kissed him hard and deep before he could resist.

  –I can save you, Zillah whispered, the words long and soft and drawn out, their mouths wet, together.

  He fell into it for one perilous instant, the feeling of flesh like his own after so long, the hot texture of Zillah's tongue, that familiar smell of the space between stars

  (Mary)

  (who is tempting who, who is, tempting)

  He shoved Zillah. Struck him across the face.

  –I told you to get away from me. Get into the wilderness, go into the high places. You're not wanted here.

  Zillah laughed. There was hurt in it. –You remember those words pretty well. I guess you've heard them enough times.

  –Shut up.

  –You're giving up something you do want, very badly. And you're giving it up forever.

  –I've read that book. Norman Mailer. Tears? Was that what this was called, this choking wetness? –Fuck off.

  Zillah was still too unearthly for that. –Can you be your own reflection? Can you really do that?

  –I'm already doing it, he whispered. –Go. Dingir.

  Zillah's face unfolded into terrible grief, and then he was gone.

  He looked into the east. The first star was just beginning to glow. It was called Venus, now, but it had once had another name.

  He started back to Calvary, and Mary.

  (18)

  She was sleeping. Her skin was cool to the touch. Her breath was slow and deep.

  He cried a little, again, still, looking down at her. It was more out of relief than anything else.

  He rummaged around in his bag for his notebook, made two false starts that he scribbled out, finally did it right, and tore out the page, and folded it carefully.

  He moved the little chair from the vanity to the side of her bed, and sat there, waiting for her to wake up.

  She made a long stretching motion, and opened her eyes, and sat up, smiling at him. Her eyes were stickybright with sleep, and her hair was messy and gorgeous. –I'm so glad you made me take that awful stuff. God, I feel so much better. Thank you.

  He didn't answer her.

  –What's wrong?

  He took off his favorite ring, the one with the secret compartment. He took her hand. He had to put it on her forefinger, and it still hung loose. –Open it, he told her softly.

  She gave him an amused, suspicious look. –Is it drugs?

  He laughed. –No. Not this time.

  She had to fumble with the tiny catch for a minute, before she finally opened it. Inside was his note, folded up into a little hard capsule. She unfolded it, read it twice, and her eyes filled with tears.

  It said: I love you. I missed you before I knew you. Will you marry me?

  –Yes, she said, and scrambled into his lap in a tangle of knees and elbows, nearly breaking his ribs. She was kissing him all over his face.

 
He kissed her back, feeling her hand on his neck, with his ring heavy and cold on her finger.

  BOOK TWO:

  SUN

  (19)

  He asked Spectre's permission, as Mary's only living male relative, as was required in the Code. He screwed up the formal wording beyond repair, and finally just made something up.

  Spectre listened to his petition, smiling a little at the parts that came out butchered, and did not interrupt until he was finished. Finally, he asked, –Do you love her?

  He had expected, how do you expect to support the two of you, or what the Hell do you think you're doing, you've known her for three fucking months!

  He thought, not about his answer, more about how to phrase his answer. Finally, he said, –I drove her home, that night. If I had just wanted to fuck her, I already would have. Yes, I love her. More than anything. I want to live to make her laugh. I don't know how I will support us, but I will find a way. Any way. I'll turn tricks, if I have to. I've done it before. I don't think I will have to. I can type, sew, do carpentry, clean, run a cash register, drive farm machinery...I have marketable skills. I want to be her husband. I want her to stay at home and wait for me. I want her happy.

  Spectre nodded. Then, he led him from the porch into the living room, where Zillah and Jordan waited. –I believe that this man has honorable intentions. I do not know him. Will anyone here speak for him?

  –I will, Jordan said, almost before Spectre had finished speaking.

  –I will, also, Zillah seconded, refusing to meet his eyes. That amazed him. –He is a man of dignity and honor. He will honor your family.