Requiem for the Devil

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  Behind the stifling congestion and shuddering pain that permeated my head lurked another sensation. In this chapel, of all places, I felt . . . safe. This feeling terrified me, and finally drove me to flee.

  I indicated my intentions to Gianna, my handkerchief over my face. She nodded and moved to join me.

  “No,” I whispered. “Stay. I’ll be all right.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Look, your favorite song’s coming up next.”

  She squeezed my hand. “We won’t be long.”

  I tried to minimize my stagger as I exited the church. A relieved stander took my vacated seat.

  It was still raining. I opened my umbrella and stumbled down the marble steps to a bench near the parking lot, in view of the chapel doors. Within moments my breathing eased, and the pain in my temples had subsided enough that I could fully open my eyes.

  At least I had avoided the communion issue. I had no idea what might happen were I to partake in this ritual—probably nothing, but I didn’t savor the thought of revealing myself to Gianna by having my tongue burst into flames on Christmas Eve.

  Yet it had been beautiful—the singing, the statues, the incense, even the prayers. I craved the sight of Gianna’s bliss again, and longed to view it with a pair of clear, painless eyes.

  The rain pattered on my umbrella and mixed with the faint sound of a thousand voices singing praises, mere echoes of angelic anthems that had once risen from my lips, in what seemed like another lifetime. For the first time since the Fall, I could almost hear one of the old melodies in my head. The notes floated, unjoined, searching for one another in the vast, scorched fields of my consciousness.

  Then the rain fell harder and drowned out the hymn within me. I huddled alone on the bench, staring towards the light and warmth like a banished child, and sighed.

  In my dream I relived the previous night with Beelzebub as if I were watching a movie with all the frames out of order. His words trampled over my sleep like a stray dog in a flower garden:

  “You are Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness . . .”

  “How long has it been since you were touched by an angel?”

  “. . . Emperor of the Underworld, the second most powerful and single most cool being in the Universe . . .”

  “If you want . . . I’ll wear the wings.”

  “. . . Author of All Evil, the Adversary, the Arch Fiend . . .”

  “No matter what we do, God doesn’t care.”

  “. . . You are the Infernal Serpent.”

  The scene would rewind and fast-forward itself at random, until the entire sequence of events became a causeless, effectless blur.

  Until the end, that is.

  This time, after rejecting him and hurling him to the floor, as I stared at his face full of fear and surprise, something inside me snapped.

  I pounced on him.

  With one movement I tore off his shirt. Buttons clattered against the floor and table and walls, and then I was holding him, his body arched against my lips. My tongue and teeth devoured his smooth, hot chest and neck, and finally our mouths crashed together in a brutal kiss.

  Fingers tore at each other’s skin and clothing. We dragged ourselves to the rug in front of the fireplace. I knelt over him. His hands crawled up my bare thighs, and he peered up at me in triumph.

  His mouth was hot and wet and precise, and unendurable. I pushed him away and pinned him flat to the floor with my body.

  “No,” I said. “Not like men, this time. Like demons.”

  The edges of his mouth quivered. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Our core temperatures soared to levels that would have killed a human being. While our hands and mouths stroked and searched, our flesh began to bubble and melt until we dissolved into one pulsing, radiating liquid body.

  The walls shook with our screams. The sensations came not in waves but in one excruciating escalation of delirium. When my eyes were open, I could glimpse a strand of his hair or a corner of his face, but nothing more. The boundaries between us could no longer be seen or felt.

  The heat continued to rise, and we writhed together, burning like the molten pits into which we had been flung as children. We consumed each other in a furious union of fire and flesh, until the last blaze nearly annihilated our bodies and minds.

  Finally the heat subsided, and we had to separate before we cooled or risk tearing flesh from each other’s bodies. But we clung together, gasping for breath and searching for strength. When we finally wrenched ourselves apart, the searing pain and cold made us wail. I collapsed onto the floor next to him and saw that the rug was scorched with the outline of our united body.

  I woke, shaking and weeping, on Christmas morning.

  24

  Mihi Quoque Spem Didisti

  “Are you feeling better today?”

  I looked at Gianna over my steaming cup of coffee. My hands shook.

  “Somewhat,” I said. “In a way.”

  “I think Santa Claus came while you were sleeping.”

  He’s not the only one, I thought, then ducked back into my coffee. “Really?” I said. “How can you tell?”

  “Take a look under the tree.”

  I followed her into the living room. “Holy shit,” I said.

  Presents not only sat under the tree, but extended out from its base at least four feet in every direction, piled as high as Gianna’s waist.

  “Every year my dad says, ‘I’m warning you kids, this is going to be a lean Christmas,’ and every year it gets worse. More stuff. Part of the extreme display is due to the fact that my mom wraps every piece of every gift separately, numbered in descending order of importance, so that it might take you all morning to figure out what the hell they’ve given you. But that’s part of the fun. You’ll see.”

  To detail everyone’s gifts to everyone else would require a three-dimensional, color-coded scorecard with blinking arrows and a live professional commentator. Gianna gave me an exquisite dark brown leather jacket (she said she was curious to see what I looked like in something other than black) and a framed photograph of us at the Grand Canyon. In the picture, taken by a passing tourist, we gazed into each other’s eyes while the hungry raven perched in the background, slightly out of focus. The family oohed and aahed over the gifts I presented to her, especially the blue dress I’d bought in the boutique with the nosy, helpful lady in line behind me.

  Finally, I handed her a small flat box. “This isn’t as impressive as the other gifts, but I think you’ll like it.”

  She took off the ribbon, opened the box, and began to cry.

  “Gianna, what is it?” Rosa leaned forward.

  “Show us, show us,” Donna and Dara chimed.

  “None of my presents ever made you cry,” Marc said.

  “That’s not true, Marc,” Luke said. “Remember when she turned four and you wrapped up a live cockroach?”

  Gianna lifted the silver cross out of its box and looked at me as if we were the only two people in the room.

  “I know how much this means,” she said, “coming from you.”

  “No, Gianna. You have no idea.”

  She dropped the box on the floor and embraced me. “I love you so much.”

  I slowly closed my arms around her. The rest of the room was silent for a full five seconds.

  “Will someone please roll the credits now so we can eat?” Marc said.

  Amidst the laughter, the gift-giving party broke up in favor of a cleanup party to make way for the dinner-fixing party, which was, of course, to prepare for the Christmas dinner party itself. Each of us grabbed a separate box and poured the many components of his or her gifts inside, to be sorted out and pieced together later, perhaps in June.

  Uninvited to the dinner-fixing party, Gianna and I sat on the living room couch while Marc and Walter watched the football pre-game broadcast. She fastened her pendant around her neck and admired it cross-eyed.

  “I’ll never take
it off,” she said. “I’ll be like those really tough Irish Catholic boys who pray to the Holy Mother before their boxing matches. They always wear those little crosses, and you just know they wear them in the shower and in bed—”

  “You’re kidding, right?” I said.

  “About me, yes. I’d probably strangle myself if I slept in it, and that would be a tragedy on so many levels.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “Get the door, Gianna,” Marc said.

  “You get it. You’re closer.”

  Marc got up from the floor and dashed to the other side of the room. “Not anymore.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Gianna’s father said, “you’re turning into little brats again. No toys for you next year.” He pushed past Bobo, who was leaping at the door and growling. “Hush, Bobo, you silly mutt. What’s the—” He opened the door. “Oh. Well . . . Merry Christmas, Adam.”

  “Aw, fuck me with a kazoo,” Gianna said under her breath.

  Marc leaned over her shoulder. “You want I should break his legs for my baby sister?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said.

  “Seriously, I’ll ask him to leave if you want.”

  “No, I need to handle this one on my own.” She squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry, Louis. Just let me get this over with.” We all stood, and Gianna moved forward towards Adam, who was entering the living room despite the best efforts of Bobo.

  “Uh . . . Gianna honey, Adam’s here to see you.” Walter moved out of the way for a tall man with putty-colored hair and thin-framed glasses, a man who looked at Gianna as if she were the last step of a thousand-mile journey. It was the man I’d seen her with outside the House Office Building the day of her testimony.

  “Hi, Gianna,” Adam said. “Merry Christmas.” His voice was gentle and more than a bit tremulous.

  “Merry Christmas, Adam.” Gianna wore a tight smile. She folded her arms across her chest.

  “You’re looking well.”

  “Thank you.”

  Adam cleared his throat. “Yeah, so I was talking to your dad last week, and he said you’d be here for Christmas.”

  Gianna gestured to her surroundings. “And I am.”

  “So I was in the neighborhood, and I thought I’d—” His gaze tripped past her and fixed on me. “You must be . . .”

  “Adam, this is Louis Carvalho,” Gianna said. “Louis, Adam Crawford.”

  We shook hands, and I could feel his heart wither.

  “Good to meet you,” he said. “Carvalho. Is that Italian or Spanish?”

  “Portuguese, actually.”

  “Really?” Gianna said. “That’s interesting. I always assumed it was Spanish.”

  “People make that mistake a lot,” I said.

  “Right. Yeah, I’m sure it’s an easy mistake.”

  The three of us stood there, nodding and how-’bout-that-ing, until Marcus broke the strained politesse by putting his arm around Adam’s shoulder.

  “So, Adam,” he said, “how ya been? Life treating you okay?”

  “Yeah. Fine, thanks.” Adam’s blush deepened, and he moved away from Marc under the pretense of petting Bobo. He stretched out his hand to the dog, who almost bit it off.

  “Bobo!” Walter grabbed the dog’s collar. “I’m sorry, Adam, let me get him out of here. I don’t know what’s come over him.”

  “Bobo, I thought we were buddies.” Adam watched the dog and Walter disappear into the basement.

  “I guess he’s found a new buddy . . . buddy,” Marc said.

  “I guess.” Adam turned back to Gianna. “Anyway, so, I was . . . uh . . .”

  “In the neighborhood,” Marc said.

  “Right.”

  “This neighborhood, thirty miles from your home.”

  “Right.”

  “And you thought you’d stop in and . . . what?”

  “Oh, I wanted to drop off some gifts.” Adam held up a red shopping bag. “Ho ho ho and all that.”

  “Gifts?” Gianna said.

  “Yes, I brought something for your mom and dad,” Adam pulled a large flat gift-wrapped box out of the bag and placed it on the coffee table, “and something for you.” He held out a tiny box towards Gianna. She made no move to take the gift.

  “Adam, we need to talk,” she said.

  Marcus and I went into the dining room on cue.

  “Geez, Lou, sorry about that,” he said. “I had no idea he’d show up on Christmas Day. He’s got some sizable cojones, I’ll say that much.”

  Walter entered from the basement. “Poor guy. I hope she sets him straight once and for all.”

  Gianna and Adam passed by the dining room door on their way to the study.

  “Hey,” Marc said. “Wanna go listen to her break his heart?”

  “Marcus, have a little mercy.” Walter sat at the table. “It’s bad enough he’s got to be rejected without you selling front row seats.”

  The voices from the study suddenly rose in volume, and the three of us fell silent.

  “Why, Gianna, why? I still don’t understand why you want to throw away nine years. We worked hard on our relationship.”

  “I know, I know, but I got tired of doing nothing but work,” she said. “It just wasn’t fun anymore.”

  “Fun? Is that what you’re having now? Fun?”

  “Technically, we’re not eavesdropping,” Marc said. “We’re just having a conversational lull, and they—”

  “Shhh.” I held up my hand. “I’m eavesdropping.”

  “Is that his Mercedes out there?” Adam was saying. “Is that why you’re with him? For his money?”

  “You know me better than that, Adam. I love Louis in spite of his money, not because of it.”

  There was a short silence, then Adam’s desperate voice rose again. “You love him? You love this guy, after what, six weeks you’ve been seeing him?”

  “Yes.”

  “How can that be love? That’s not love. Love is fighting the same battles together and nursing each other’s scars. Love is picking up each other’s socks off the living room floor and not complaining. Does he pick up your socks, Gianna?”

  “He doesn’t have to! I pick them up myself, the way I do everything else since I left you. I don’t need you or my brothers or anyone else looking after me, okay?”

  Their voices lowered again, and Marcus and I pressed forward near the study door to hear their conversation.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, Adam.”

  “Gianna, I just want you to be happy.”

  “I am happy. You want me to be happy with you, and I can’t be.”

  “But—”

  “I don’t love you anymore,” she said.

  Those words carried by her voice turned my blood to ice. I suddenly felt like a voyeur to my own future. I moved back into the dining room. Marcus followed me and laid a hand on my arm.

  “That’s not you in there, Lou, remember,” he said. “She loves you, in a way I’ve never seen her love anyone.”

  The study door swung open. Marc, Walter, and I grabbed silverware and pretended to be preoccupied with setting the table. When Adam passed the dining room doorway, he stopped. He fixed his slate blue eyes on me. The light in them was dim now, like a half-buried ember.

  “If you ever hurt her, Louis, if one tear ever falls from those eyes because of something you said or did, I swear to God I’ll destroy you.” Adam swept out the front door without looking back.

  I went into the study. Gianna was on the couch, her face in her hands. I sat next to her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

  I hooked a finger underneath one of her arms. She leaned against me and began to weep. I pulled her close to me and felt for the first time the ultimate transience of mortal emotion.

  “I love you, Louis. I know you look at Adam, and you wonder if that will be you someday, and I can’t promise that this will never happen to us. But you feel right in a way Adam never did.�
��

  “And he probably felt right in a way I never will,” I said.

  She sighed. “I hate it when you’re wiser than I am.”

  “It’s not just fools who fall in love, you know. The fools are just the ones who believe that love lasts forever.”

  I kissed her and knew that anything less than forever with her would be a tragic joke.

  Christmas dinner provided a new flood of relatives, food, and spirits. I hadn’t experienced this much revelry outside of Hell since the days of the pagan feasts.

  Gianna’s cousin Kathleen, a gorgeous young woman with cascades of strawberry blond hair, watched me for most of the meal. At one point, a crimson drop of lamb juice oozed onto the corner of her mouth, and she fixed her eyes on me while she curled it back in with her tongue. I sensed Gianna was watching my reaction to this display, so I kept my face impassive, though a howl of lust echoed inside my brain.

  Meanwhile, Gianna’s grandmother, Serafina, had been chattering like an insulted mockingbird.

  “So Friday I went to Thelma’s house, and you should see her great-grandson. He’s riding a bike, and he’s only four years old, no training wheels. And her grandson’s wife is pregnant again. I tell you, I could sit and watch little children all day.” She peered around the table.

  Gianna held up a plate of something turkey-shaped. “Lou, want some faux turkey? Donna made it.”

  “Sure, I’ll try anything.” I took a small helping and tried a piece. “Not bad. What’s it made of?”

  “Seitan,” Donna said.

  “Satan?!” Serafina said. “It’s made from Satan?!” Her shriek rasped my vertebrae against my spinal column.

  “No, Grandmom, seitan,” Matthew said. “It’s—”

  “Wheat gluten,” Luke said. “Kinda like—”

  “Flour. You knead it and simmer it for a couple of hours, then it gets—”

  “Chewy, like meat. Try some.”

  “Oh, no,” Serafina said. “I don’t want to eat anything to do with the Devil. You know, my neighbor told me she has demons in her garage.”

  “Demons in her garage?” Rosa said. “What makes her think that?”

  “The door keeps going up and down all day and all night, halfway up, halfway down.”