Pleasantview

by Celeste Mohammed

  They pulled up to the Pleasantview traffic lights and the same Silence was there—selling mangoes this time. Declan raised the volume on the CD player, honked and waved at the boy like they were old friends. All for Ruth’s benefit. To show how unaffected he was by her pinched face. Silence was just about to run across to them with a bag of fruit when the light changed and Declan sped off. Ruth reached down, lowered the music.

  For spite, Declan drove badly. He sang and worked the pedals to make the car dance. When Track 5 began, he swiveled the volume knob and sang louder, “Gyal, skin out! Say if you know you can take the wuk. Gyal skin out!” He sliced eyes at Ruth. Skin out? Did she even remember how to? She walked around like a rusty clothespin, like she couldn’t open her legs even if she tried. Which is why he didn’t blame himself for anything. He was a normal, hot-blooded man. It was she who’d stopped sleeping with him.

  Declan remembered the exact day. Two years ago, at a time when things weren’t yet so bad between them. Ruth had barged through the door one Sunday after church. “Bedroom. Now!” she’d ordered, as she kicked off her shoes and ran upstairs. He’d left the TV and followed, taking the steps two by two, thinking the worst: another round of bleeding, clots, loss, grief. A grief that made the house seem too small; it bundled them into opposite dark corners.

  “What? W’happen?” he asked breathlessly, lunging into the bedroom.

  Ruth was stripping, like her clothes were full of red ants. She explained between pulls and tugs, “Healing service today. Bishop laid hands on me, Deck. He say before the anointing leave my body, we should try again. You drink beers today?”

  “No. But you believe that old-talk, girl?”

  “Good, then you ain’t defile yourself. Come on, I ready.” Ruth was now naked.

  She climbed onto the bed and lay with her legs and arms spread wide, curly hair fanning out. Like that famous da Vinci drawing, Declan thought. Like she was submitting herself in the service of science. It wasn’t sexy. But he’d tried anyway, and failed. Who wouldn’t? Which man alive could stay hard if he knew that his woman didn’t really want him, that she was thinking about and whispering the name of another man? There Declan was, trying to pelt waist; and there she was, whispering, “Jesus … Oh Jesus … Come, Lord Jesus.”

  Ruth seemed to hate Declan more after that failure. It was as if he’d lost all usefulness to her. She’d moved into the spare bedroom that same evening.

  Hurt afresh by the memory, Declan mashed the accelerator and swung the volume dial almost to its highest. Ruth turned it back down again. He swung it back up.

  “Declan,” she said, “please stop. Please. Can’t you just put everything aside, just for tonight? It’s our anniversary. Can’t you just do this for me? Please?”

  It was the “for me” that got Declan. That and her voice cracking. He still loved her—well not this version of her, not Ruth. He loved Michelle. God, how he missed her! The last time Declan had seen her was on Carnival Tuesday three years ago. As usual, they’d played mas in the band, Harts. They liked to play in the same section, but pretend they weren’t together. Carnival was a time to be free: he could wine-up on any woman; she could grind-up on any man. Of course, it was difficult for Declan to watch his wife in her costume—for all its sequins and feathers it was really just a bra, thong and stockings—and just surrender her luscious, bouncy ass to all mankind. But to see her flailing, cheeks red from sun and rum, hips gyrating, eyes closed in the ecstasy of soca music; and to watch other men watching her, jockeying to be the one who got closest, the one who got to thief a wine on her ass—it made Declan feel other things. Good things. He was the one who’d be taking her home and he was the one who’d be making love to her that night and every night.

  Except that three years ago, on that Carnival Tuesday night, she left him for Jesus.

  Since then, Declan passed his days in a tug-o’-war between the looming suspicion Michelle was gone forever and the tiny hope she was still alive, somewhere, buried inside this holier-than-thou Ruth. That all he needed to do was dig Michelle out. Most days, he just ignored his wife and waited for deliverance to come from somewhere; other days he reasoned that the right remark—sharp and cutting—would free her. But there were still other times, like now, when his wife spoke to him in this way—“please … for me …”—with this humility, Declan couldn’t bring himself to keep up the nastiness. It sounded so much like an apology, like she knew she was the guilty one, like she was asking him to just bear with her a little while longer.

  He switched the music off. A weighted silence took its place.

  Just as it had that Carnival Tuesday night in the car, on the way home. Michelle had been so quiet that Declan had reached over and squeezed her thigh. She began to sob that she “just couldn’t do it anymore”; she’d been “pretending to have a good time”, but she “would never play mas again.” All the way home, she’d sobbed and babbled while Declan tried to figure out what she meant. After a long bath—so long he’d knocked twice to see if she was still alive—Michelle had emerged into their living room, her long curly hair slicked back, her eyes bloodshot.

  She sank onto the couch next to him and held his hand. She confessed that she had, since the last “bleeding episode”, been studying The Word with Yolande and Ottley, who lived two doors down in Townhouse 4. When? On evenings while Declan played football. They’d invited her to Church and she’d gone. When? A couple of weeks ago, while he was at that weekend retreat with his students. She’d felt something move inside her during the service but she’d held back. Why? Carnival was around the corner and she knew how much Declan was looking forward to it and that he’d already paid for their costumes. She’d chosen to ignore God’s call—she’d done it for Declan. But she couldn’t live that empty life anymore. She’d made up her mind to get saved.

  There were so many cars Declan had to park down the street. It was the second night of a seven-day crusade and a huge, red-and-white, Ringling Brothers-style tent occupied the church parking lot.

  “Oh look, a circus!” Declan said as they left the car. He couldn’t resist throwing some picong at Ruth.

  She stuck her nose even higher in the air. She crunched away, through the gravel, toward a group of old ladies lurking in a huddle at the side of the stage. Declan guessed they were part of the choir. All fat; the long white robes and belts of golden braid made their stomachs look pregnant. They embraced Ruth, two by two, rocking her back and forth, side to side, patting her back as if she were a baby they were trying to belch. When was the last time she’d hugged him, her husband? Then he watched them turn like synchronized swimming whales, to scowl at him. What had she told them? What sad story was she telling them now? About his clothes? The music? Poor, poor Ruth; married to that terrible, terrible Declan. He smiled and waved as if he hadn’t registered the bad vibes.

  In truth, now that Declan was actually here, he did feel awkward in his STAG T-shirt. Like a child wearing a superhero costume to a wedding—then regretting it. Everyone seemed to be pointing at him. Awww … a soul in need, their faces seemed to say.

  Declan squared his jaw and looked around for something to criticize. The place was shabby; it seemed Bishop had spent all the tithes-and-offerings on the Audi parked outside. Imagine: Ruth gave that joker ten percent of her monthly salary—ten percent that could help with the mortgage Declan was now carrying alone, like a friggin’ cross. A few feet away, under the glare of some precariously hung fluorescent lights, two youths in shirt-and-tie wrestled with rusty folding chairs. Another boy stood under one of the lights with a broom, sweeping the bulbs, trying to coax them to light from end to end. A few decades ago, that might’ve been Declan. In the Jumping-Jesus church just like this one, where his grandma had worshipped. There was always one in Pleasantview—taking poor people’s money to fatten the pastor, giving false hope in return. Where was the pastor and all that money when Declan’s grandpa had died? When his grandma, in her sixties, had to start scrubbing shit out of other
people’s drawers to make ends meet? When, on the worst days of Mammy’s arthritis, Declan and his sister, Judith, had to fight-up with the brown stains themselves?

  Declan’s pulse pounded with rage and shame. He had to look away from the boy.

  At the front of the tent, a small plywood stage had been erected, made smaller by a massive carved podium. Gargoyles eating grapes, it looked like—but it could just as well have been angels. Who knew with these superstitious freaks?

  Ruth’s voice came from behind, startling him, “Bishop says they have seats for us in front. Come, nah.”

  Declan considered pointing out that she was breaking another part of the deal they’d made about tonight. They were supposed to lay low near the back, where he could slip out now and then when he needed fresh air, or when he couldn’t stand any more of the somersaults and vampire-slaying brought on by the Holy Spirit. But Ruth stood before him, chewing her cuticles. Declan felt afresh that pinch of regret about the T-shirt and the music in the car. He followed her to the front row.

  He made it through the scripture reading and opening prayer. He even maintained his smile when the Deacon reminded everyone of the night’s theme: “Saving Marriages, One Soul at a Time.” That’s when Declan glanced around and noticed the male-female-male-female seating configuration: the audience was composed of couples.

  He grunted and locked his arms across his chest, debating if to feel tricked or not. Ruth had made it sound like an ordinary Night Service, like they were just coming to pray; she hadn’t mentioned the sermon would be focused on marriage. But then again, Declan considered, this was appropriate for a couple celebrating their fifth anniversary. And by now, Ruth surely knew better than to think she could convert him. What she didn’t know, Declan smirked inwardly, was that he was intent on her re-conversion—back to Michelle—tonight.

  He began his crusade by whispering in her ear. “So, how much you think that Audi cost? … Papayo! That’s a fancy suit Bishop wearing there. What colour that is? Pimpish-purple? … Any young girls pregnant for him yet?”

  Over and over, getting nastier and nastier, Declan peppered Ruth for almost an hour, and yet she ignored him.

  She was jubilant during Praise-and-Worship: jumping, waving, prancing—it wasn’t an act or something she was doing just to annoy him. And when they sang “Roll, Jordan, Roll,” the woman was practically rolling her waist! Declan hadn’t seen her so animated since that last Carnival Tuesday. A whirring sound, an unsettling sensation, came over him, as if he was trapped in a centrifuge. Something gritty swirled in his stomach, while something liquid rose to his chest. He felt nauseous. Maybe it was the crowd—being packed in, shoulder to shoulder, like that; he’d always been a little claustrophobic.

  Ruth danced, and the more she did, the more seasick he felt, the more he gnawed inside his cheek. But Declan couldn’t look away. If only she would stop moving. If only she wouldn’t glow so much. If only she didn’t seem so alive.

  He grabbed her underarm and reeled her in. “This is what you does come here for? To wine like you in a fête?”

  Ruth wrenched free, continued rejoicing. Somewhere between “Shout to the Lord” and “Make a Joyful Noise”, it hit Declan that he’d always known this but had never wanted to actually see it and have his suspicions confirmed: Ruth was far different with these people than she was at home; she was happy. She’d taken something that was once his and given it to these strangers. It was the worst betrayal he’d ever known. He’d tried to even the scales—Trudy—but that had never made him as happy as Ruth was now. A pang of loneliness, like a sudden foul smell, made his eyes sting and burn.

  Testimonies started and Declan was relieved they could finally sit. Over a crackling, wheezing sound-system people droned on about how the Lord had changed their lives for the better. Declan forgot himself for a bit as he listened. Sex, drugs, booze, kleptomania—gripping stuff! These people seemed, to Declan, eager to prove some kind of scientific correlation between how sinful they were in the past and how much Jesus loved them now. It was especially hard not to laugh at the illiterates, like the man who testified he was a born-and-raised Hindu but his life changed the day he’d heard the story of “The Portugal Son”, and the dougla lady who claimed she was a former prostitute but, even in those days, between jobs, she’d studied “The Book of Palms”.

  These testimonies comforted Declan. Yes, he had Trudy, but he’d never been as depraved or as foolish and reckless as any of these folks. He was a good, educated, respectable man.

  “You see?” he said, nudging Ruth’s ribs. “You call me a demon for wearing a T-shirt and playing a CD, but I never yet do anything like these people, your so-called friends.”

  Ruth answered from the side of her mouth, not taking her eyes off the stage. “At least they’re not hiding anything.”

  “I not hiding anything,” he said.

  It had suddenly become noisy as, next to them, Sister Yolande was prattling in tongues.

  “Oh really? Then prove it. Why you don’t go up?” Ruth shout-whispered in his ear.

  It took Declan a moment to realise she was referring to the Altar Call the Bishop had just made, for any spouse who wished to be “born again”.

  “Look, girl, don’t be stupid,” he said, then turned his back to her.

  As he faced the open side of the tent, a cool night breeze reached him. He leveled his arm on the back of the chair, propped his head and closed his eyes. He longed to be released.

  A brain-splitting squeal came from the speaker-boxes at the front. Declan jerked upright and stuck his fingers deep into his ears. He turned around just in time to see Bishop Roystone T. Scantlebury—with jerri-curls alive like mercury—descending from the stage. The Bishop shimmied and danced on the first stair, grimacing with holy passion till his unibrow convulsed—but a worm in a beaker of acid is what Declan saw.

  Scantlebury gargled his words, like Listerine, before spitting them out so hard every line ended in the same phonetic syllable.

  “… And Gahd said to me-ah,

  He said ‘Roystone-ah,

  I’m about to give you a word-ah,

  For a special woman here tonight-ah.’”

  There, Bishop paused, giving the congregation time to cheer. Some clapped, some stamped their feet, some swayed.

  He hopped to the middle step and continued. “This word is for a woman unevenly yoked, tied to a man who don’t know Jesus. Sister, no matter what you do, your man just won’t believe. You know why?”

  “Why?” came the high-pitched response. All the women in the audience were yelling in unison but, seated next to Ruth, Declan heard only her plaintive voice. He stole a glimpse at her. She sat there gaping at the Bishop, unblinking, as tears spilled onto her cheeks. She was thinking about them, wasn’t she? Her face, her tears—just like that awful evening, that last time, when he’d come home from work and found her on the toilet, crying. He’d known right away she’d lost another one. And now, just as then, Declan’s forearm twitched with the urge to pull out his kerchief and wipe her face, but he was afraid to touch her.

  The Bishop was now on the last stair. “See, your husband is a man afflicted. Blame the Devil, sister! Don’t you blame your man! For, no matter his faults, the Bible says he is still the head of your household.”

  “Amen! Amen!” the baritone voices took over. Declan was silent. He hadn’t acted like the head of anything when he’d remained at the bathroom door and urged his wife, “Come on, stop crying. We’ll get through this one too,” before escaping to their bedroom and locking the door behind him, locking her out.

  As if she was sharing in the memory, Ruth turned to Declan and met his eyes. His impulse was to break the stare but he found he couldn’t. They hadn’t looked, really looked, at each other in ages. He saw no disdain or judgment in his wife’s gaze—only a skewed silhouette of himself stretched over her dark pupils. He stared past it, as if down a tunnel, searching for Michelle. And he thought he glimpsed her—her love at least�
��she was still there, hovering, misty. What was she reading in his eyes? Love, shame, the truth he couldn’t say: that he’d left her in the bathroom because he’d felt his body folding in on itself like a broken umbrella, and that he’d ended up in a heap on the bedroom floor, crying too, because after three lost babies he was angry with her, and with God, for putting him through a fourth.

  Now, Declan dared not breathe. The movement of his chest might interrupt whatever it was taking place between him and his long-lost Michelle. Was this the moment she’d come back and forgive him? He wanted permission to forgive himself.

  Then Bishop made landfall, and bellowed into the microphone,

  “Gahd says, ‘Woma-a-an!

  Thou art loosed-ah!

  I will finish the good work-ah

  I have begun in you-ah!

  And tonight-ah,

  And forever more-ah,

  I will loose your man!’”

  Ruth ripped her eyes from Declan’s and launched from the chair, bawling openly now, waving both arms at the Bishop as if he were a rescue plane.

  Declan jumped up as well, a reflex. For the past three years they’d been castaways on opposite sides of the same empty island but now, now that they’d finally made contact, he could not let her leave. Not again. He wanted to shout, “Michelle! Look at me! Me! Not Scantlebury! We don’t need him.” But Declan stood foolishly, arms dangling when he knew they should be reaching.

  Garbled instructions were being yelled over the mic and Declan lost sight of the Bishop. The open space between the front row and the stage grew dark with jostling bodies. For a moment, the crowd seemed to swallow Ruth, but then she burst through and flung her arms around Declan, stapling their bodies together.

  The circle contracted and, it seemed, a thousand hands fell upon him. Thud after thud shook his back. He wriggled, but couldn’t free himself. The centrifuge started spinning again. He heard nothing but a dull roar, saw nothing but shadows. Then, Bishop Scantlebury’s face appeared. Ruth let go but the Bishop’s abysmal glare held Declan in place. He planted a palm on Declan’s forehead and gave a mighty push. Or did he? Declan felt himself falling backwards but had no time to panic. He felt himself pass through arms and chairs and legs and reams of memories. All he knew when he hit the ground was that his wife was now on top of him. He was back in her arms.