by Trevor Sacks
The bald preacher swept his free arm (the other one clutching the microphone still) over the faces below him, like a compass wavering under invisible and variable forces. I swear that arm parted a sea of people and pointed – there was no doubt – at me, though I was maybe forty rows back from the stage. The only white face, a cartoon ghost among the living believers, I was easy to pick out and there was no hiding, nor any point in pretending the finger was for the guy behind me.
Shadrack had a particularly strained look on his face and wouldn’t look anywhere but down. The man on my right gently urged me up by my elbow.
As in a dream I found myself walking the path towards the stage, forgetting already the first steps I’d taken; they simply dissolved behind me. A helper guided me onto the platform and there must have been some kind of dissociation on my part, I recognise now, to shield the thousands from my mind. I climbed that stage more easily than I’d ascended the bimah at my bar mitzvah.
I hadn’t seen him get up but the Bishop himself was there to welcome me. How he cradled my temples, how he cushioned my brow. The triplicate oration bayed and the bald preacher turned to point at me: whatever wrath or blessing being ripped out of the sky by him now, I realised, was to be unleashed on me. The cerberus paused and the microphone was held to the mouth of the Bishop by an assistant as he lay me flat on my back on the stage.
‘Your illness is the illness of the spirit,’ said the Bishop in English, and it was followed in breathy echo by the translations of the cerberus. ‘I have heard the message of the Lord that there was a bad spirit among us here today.’
The gathered congregants gasped in unison.
‘In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, I command this foreign object to leave you.’
Where the great tank of water had come from, I don’t know. I hadn’t seen it before, but soon I was being lifted by church helpers and moved over it. The Bishop smiled over me and then placed his warm hand on my forehead. My muscles slackened from my eyes to my calves, and I was immersed in the ice-cold brown water.
I came up to ‘Hallelujah!’ from the crowd and went in again.
‘Hallelujah!’ And down into the swishing, muted world beneath the surface.
‘Hallelujah!’ And some fantastic singing and clapping and swaying. I was weightless within the helpers’ hands, though my clothes were heavy with water. I was clean, I was refreshed, I was reborn. I was given a threadbare green towel and led off the back steps of the stage while the singing resounded.
‘The Bishop will tell you what you must do to avoid this bad spirit again,’ said the bald preacher in my ear. ‘He will meet you personally.’
I was taken to a building that, when I saw it, made me question whether I had indeed entered a new world. It was a church, too small to house the many thousands, and as I looked at it a muddle of déjà vu washed over me. So strong was my confusion I began to suspect there was something psychedelic in the brown baptismal water I’d swallowed by the mouthful. Still, I knew I’d seen the place before, and put it down to a series of slack-jaw incidents.
I was led to a backroom where I was told to wait, dripping and shivering on a wood-and-vinyl chair. The water ran from my jeans, down the leg, into a thick red carpet. Pinned to a wall was a map of the region and a cabinet with the paraphernalia of service – green-and-gold robes, a mitre, the curled shell of a crosier’s head.
I recalled my conferences with Joss about the non-interventionist, modern-era God we explained away. Here was a place where God was expected to be hands-on, to cure outward and inward illness, to perform miracles in a most biblical fashion, and on a biblical scale.
Pilgrims were drawn here in ever-greater numbers, but in town the Jews had to scrabble to find ten men. While these Zionists flourished, those ones dwindled.
I waited fifteen minutes until the Bishop came in. ‘I’m so sorry nobody gave you anything dry to wear,’ he said, opening the door. There was still loud singing outside.
I stood up while the Bishop, flapping his double-breasted suit, swept past me to sit at a heavy wooden desk.
‘Well,’ said the Bishop, ‘it’s been an honour to have you at our church.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘And thank you for, you know, healing me.’
‘You’re welcome, my son. You’re a student, I take it? Anthropology? “African-Initiated Pentecostal Churches” or some such study, no? The church prefers if you apply for permission first. This way our officials can guide you through the proceedings and history of the church.’
‘I must confess, Your Grace, I’m not a student.’
‘We’re not Catholics, my son. You don’t have to call me that. But you didn’t come to be healed either, surely.’
‘You called me up anyway.’
‘You didn’t come to be healed, but that doesn’t mean you’re not sick,’ he said, bringing his hands together, as well as his brows. Then his mood lightened and he relaxed into his office chair. ‘We like to give the anthropologists a good cleansing. And it’s good for the congregants to see that the Spirit has power over all, even the whites. But you say you’re not a student?’
‘No. I’m here on business.’
The Bishop arranged his fingertips neatly on the edge of the desk. ‘Perhaps you have the wrong impression. This is a church, my son. People come here to be touched by the Lord.’
‘Leo Fein sent me.’
‘I know the name. A Hebrew brother, isn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you? You’re Jewish?’
‘I am.’
‘And, as a Jew, this place doesn’t seem familiar to you?’
‘Well, the name, of course – Zion.’
‘I meant the building.’
Like a ton of bricks, it hit me. ‘The shul.’
‘My father built it,’ said the Bishop, ‘after seeing your own place of worship in the town. He requested the blueprints and your elders obliged. You’re sitting in your synagogue.’
‘It’s a replica?’
‘Exactly.’
‘The place I had my bar mitzvah.’
‘Mazel tov,’ said the Bishop.
‘Actually, this is the cheder room where I learnt to read Hebrew.’
‘Leo Fein. I know who he is. I know he’s tried to make an appointment to see me before. But his past worries me. It should worry you, too. He was mixed up with a bad element and he was forced to flee the country, am I right?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t know what kind of business we would have with a man like that.’
‘I think he wants to help the church. He wants to help you reach as many people as possible. He wants to help you, you know, multiply.’
The Bishop rose. ‘I’m sorry to send you away but Mr Fein doesn’t have the right credentials to deal with the church, I’m afraid.’
Again I was in a position Will should have occupied, negotiating terms with someone more powerful than I. ‘He wants to make money for you.’ I was desperate.
The Bishop went to the door and opened it. ‘Thank you for coming,’ he said.
‘Leo Fein has a message he asked me to pass on to you.’
‘Well? What is it?’
‘He told me to tell you: we must never give in to the communists.’
‘He said this?’
‘Yes.’
‘We must never give in, my son,’ he said, with much more authority than he’d used before, even in the service. ‘Never. We must not capitulate to communism, and godlessness.’
‘Yes.’
‘Our future depends on it. Now is a crucial time in this country.’ He thought for a moment. ‘We do want to grow our flock, it’s true. And safeguard it against heathenism. But it troubles me that Mr Fein was arrested for his involvement with evildoers.’
‘He was set up.’
‘He told you that?’
‘I know it first-hand.’
‘How so?’
‘I was the one who turned him
in.’
‘I see.’
‘I made a mistake. Now I’m trying to correct it. That’s why I’m here.’
‘Your soul is surely a turbulent one then.’ The Bishop studied my face, then said abruptly, ‘All right. Tell your Leo Fein I’ll come to see him.’ He shook my hand in both of his like a politician. ‘Travel safe. I think it’s time you went home now, my son. Shalom.’
I left the building, still soaked and frigid but nowhere near as shaky as Shadrack, who was waiting for me outside with a church official. ‘You talked to the Bishop?’ he asked.
‘Talked to him?’ I said. ‘I’m in business with him.’
My elation subsided in the wait for a taxi. The minibuses only leave once they’re full and no one was leaving Zion City. Shadrack was disappointed that I hadn’t introduced him to the Bishop; Shadrack with his glaucoma and itinerant internal ache, who actually needed healing, Shadrack who had lost his home and his job, along with us.
‘I’m sorry, Shadrack. We only talked business.’
‘Maybe I must go, for the vigil.’ Congregants would be staying up all night, singing and praying. ‘Maybe the Bishop will come.’
As we waited for a taxi, Shadrack’s reverence for the Bishop kindled my guilt – I tried not to think about whatever scheme it was I’d involved the church in. Instead, I began to think about getting back to Marieke in time. ‘Please, Shadrack. I need to get back. If you help me, I’ll pay you. How much do you want?’
Shadrack looked at me, then turned around and faced away from me. He wiped his right eye with his hankie, then his left. ‘And now, Benjamin?’ he said. ‘What now? You’re not the same.’
It wasn’t the worst thing I’d done but letting Shadrack down in this way hurt me more than all of it. I’d revealed to the man whose feeling for me had always been pure my most shameful aspect.
‘No, I didn’t mean it like that, Shadrack.’
He walked to the roadside and I thought he would keep walking but he started waving at an approaching car. He flagged down an ancient blue Peugeot and with barely a word we climbed in the back with two others and set off.
The driver, Alpheus, agreed to take me to The Ranch. But the Peugeot began to smoke before town and we had to pull over at a garage where the driver seemed to know people. While we waited for someone to arrive to help us, I ambled around and tried not to think about how I’d trodden on Shadrack’s heart, or what the consequences of a deal between the Bishop and Shadrack might be.
If anyone would be proud of how I’d dealt with the Bishop, I thought, it would be Will; if only I could tell him. I tried to calculate how long it would take for a commission to filter down to me. Would I have to wait for the Bishop to come to town to see Leo Fein? Or until there’s some sort of deal?
And then, what sort of deal? Did Leo Fein plan to arm the khaki jumping men? Would they join forces with the khakis of the AWB or would they square off against one another?
I would take my commission and that would be the end of it, whatever happened next, I decided. I began to believe again that if we first paid off Will’s debts with some of the money, he would be his old self, free to go after Leo Fein. With Will’s confidence restored, he would take the lead. From the safety of my brother’s shadow, as if I knew nothing of it, I’d let him attack Leo Fein to win back our fortune.
It was near eight in the evening. Whether the car was fixed or not I couldn’t say but Alpheus insisted on having a sandwich – and two beers – with his friend from the garage.
I found Shadrack dozing around the side of the building against the wall. ‘I think we’re going now,’ I said.
He nodded.
‘Shadrack, I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘Yes-thanks,’ said Shadrack.
‘I don’t know what I’m doing sometimes.’
‘A man must know, Benjamin.’
‘Yes, Shadrack.’
‘We’re going now?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m coming with you,’ he said. ‘Every time.’
‘Yes, Shadrack.’
We finally set off and Alpheus broke the news that he couldn’t take me as far as The Ranch since he was going to Zebediela and it was late. Shadrack helped me find another taxi from the rank and we said goodbye.
The taxi sat stationary for almost an hour while it filled up. I took the chance to sleep a bit, seeing as the other passengers were waiting patiently. It was a fitful sleep that left a heaviness over my face.
Finally arriving at The Ranch, I found the glass sliding door of our room, overlooking the pool, and tried it. It was locked so I knocked, softly at first, then louder when there was no answer. ‘Marieke!’ I whispered. And again, ‘Marieke! It’s me!’
I walked to the front desk to ask for a key and found another girl in the burgundy waistcoat on duty. She told me Marieke had checked out at about nine o’clock, over an hour before. I’d been abandoned.
The door to the office behind the desk opened and Gina emerged, putting on a suede jacket with fringed sleeves. ‘Hey, Ben,’ she said. ‘I’m just getting off my shift – do you want to get a drink in the bar?’
I considered trying to get back into town, but I just couldn’t face it. And seeing Gina peel a strand of hair off her forehead, and place it behind her ear to reveal a new, easier smile, my mind was made up.
‘Sure. I was baptised today,’ I said. ‘I think that deserves a drink.’
There weren’t many guests in the Bar Andalusia: a table of three sales reps; a man at the counter with white hair and a very old blazer; a boy of indeterminate age, with teeth too big for him, playing pool by himself.
Gina and I sat at a little round table together, with glasses of cheap red wine. Her voice still had that fine rasp it had had ever since I’d known her, and even now it lent an air of experience at odds with her fresh face.
‘I can’t believe you’re still in this town,’ she said.
‘Where else would I go?’
‘You should travel – that’s what I’m doing.’
We talked about the places she was planning to go, the museums, cathedrals, hippy meccas, metropolises and beaches. Education, she said, could wait and besides, education came in many forms and she wasn’t ready for the kind shovelled out by institutions.
She was as fascinating to me then as she had been in the bomb squad, only this time she was talking to me. I was experiencing the same awe I’d felt for her when we were twelve, a sense that she was more sophisticated, more experienced, more sure of herself than I could hope to be at this stage of life.
‘You could do it, too.’
‘No,’ I said, although when she said it, I believed it.
Gina said ‘yeah’, not ‘ja’. ‘Of course you could. Get the fuck out of this shithole, man.’
‘Maybe I should.’ This is a girl with a broader view, I thought, one who makes me feel I can do anything, who speaks my language.
‘What’s keeping you here?’
‘No money.’
‘Get a job.’
‘I’ve got one.’
‘Well?’
‘I don’t know – family, I guess. I need to help them.’
‘Yeah, family,’ she said. She shifted the wine glass, the salt and pepper, the table number, and I glimpsed a childish incarnation of herself, playing at tea party. ‘Do you also feel like you’re the parent sometimes? Most of the time I feel older than I am.’
‘I kind of feel younger all the time.’
‘Listen, you make your own family in this world. We’re just thrown together with these people we don’t even like and we’re supposed to get along. And spend Christmas together and all that shit. Hey – just because I’m related to someone doesn’t mean we’ve got anything in common. Doesn’t stop them from being an arsehole, does it?’
‘Oh, I’m the arsehole in my family.’
‘You’re just down cos that girl ran out on you. She did, didn’t she?’
‘She did.’ That Marieke
had left me there roiled inside me irrationally, and stoked up a prideful spirit. She’d left me. How could she?
The hotel grounds were quiet except for our giggles and shuffling, and we both stumbled on the brick path, falling over each other. I scraped the edge of my palm and Gina bumped her head on a paving stone, but our wounds were made negligible by the wine.
Inside her room, we sat on a thin mattress on the pine frame of her bed and she told me her head was sore. ‘Rub it better,’ she said, swaying somewhat, and I smoothed her fine black hair along her temple.
It was a moment I’d longed for, a kind of reward. Stroking her head had a soporific effect on us both, and as we kissed, her lips were slow, pushing sweetly into mine. It caused a spin and a pang of nausea and I had to pull away.
When we pulled off her leather jacket and her shirt, we knocked our heads together, and we exclaimed together, softly. I had my hand on her breast and I kissed her neck. She lay on her back and she gave a soft moan, then a sigh, then a snore.
* * *
Before Gina awoke I left The Ranch in the motel shuttle. The thirst I’d felt for her all those years had culminated in awkward half-undress. And while I’d been sure in the night I’d acted honourably, in the frayed morning it seemed like I’d done something regrettable.
I had the persistent sense I’d disappointed Marieke in the worst way; thoughtful Marieke, who was so good to me, so good for me. It would stick all day, this feeling: a bilious residue connected with too much drink but far, far worse than just physical illness. It was a nausea at my own self: a me-graine.
9
LEGAVAAN
I spent a ragged day at work at Northern Horizons and afterwards came home to Victor’s house. Nadine was in the living room filling out a form for their immigration.
‘Your mother’s not well,’ she said, without looking up.
‘It’s just a dizzy spell,’ I said, flopping into the couch. ‘She gets them.’ My energies were depleted and I wanted to avoid any more expenditure.
‘That’s not like you,’ said Nadine.
I looked away from her, stifling the anger that this had fired: it was the second time I’d been told that, for no good reason.