In the Wilderness - Kim Barnes [81]
She moved into the dining room and motioned for me to follow. Already the heat had invaded the house, settling into the corners, sucking the breath from the morning. All the curtains were closed to shield against the sun, and the tempered light slowed our movement, as though sound and motion were somehow connected to the clarity of our vision. She pointed to a chair and I understood we would talk.
She began simply. “You should know,” she said, “that Brother Lang has felt the presence of Satan in this house for some time now.” I nodded in giddy agreement, aware that demons populated the very air we moved through. Only constant vigilance held them at bay; only prayer and purity kept them from burrowing like maggots into our souls, where they would fester and burst forth in a frenzy of vile destruction. When Christ cast out Satan’s Legion from the possessed man, even the pigs in which the demons took refuge knew that it was better to hurl themselves from the cliff rather than be made monstrous by such evil.
I felt my jaws tighten, the saliva pool behind my teeth. Not until she reached out and pulled the dishtowel from my hands did I realize I had been stripping it between my fists, spotting the table with water. I rubbed at the spots with my palm, then looked at my hand, the creases damp and shiny.
“We’ve heard strange noises, the stairs creaking in the middle of the night. Evil stalks this house.” Then she pointed her finger, the towel hanging down like a skin. “You,” she said. “You have brought these demons into our home.”
I watched the movement of her mouth. I could see her talking, but her words floated from her lips and into the air, mixing with the sounds of flies and Saturday traffic. I sat with my palm still open, feeling my body let loose its hold, feeling that part of me that wanted to rise screaming and begging instead drift slowly downward, inward, settling somewhere deep, unreachable. I could just as easily not be there. I could be anywhere I wanted—outside feeling the hot sidewalk through the soles of my shoes, or sitting at the piano, safe in the dark church. I began to hum a little to myself, rocking in my chair.
There was more. She told me she knew of my love for Terry, the husband of her true daughter. Hadn’t I called him one day to the shadowed sanctuary? Hadn’t I pressed myself against him and whispered in his ear the name of some dark familiar? In the church, she said, I had seduced him.
I was stunned with disbelief. Nothing had prepared me for this story of my life, a story that made of me a plotting adulteress, a betrayer of gross, unimaginable proportions. I shook my head, wanting to say no, no, I’d never do that, I’d never … but I had no breath to form the sounds, no chance of changing the vision Sister Lang had created of my lascivious nature.
There had been several times when Sarah had brought up veiled references to my sexual experience, her implication being that I had led a life of promiscuity. I never felt I had the right to protest, to set their thinking straight: I was a virgin, that magical designation that meant everything to a girl’s future on earth as well as in Heaven. Once, over a meal at the K mart cafeteria, I had shyly asked Brother Lang if he would perform the ceremony at my wedding. I didn’t understand the smirks and shared glances between the family members until Sarah said, “Daddy only marries virgins.” I’d nodded, too naive to believe she meant her comment to be cruel. I could no more register that kind of intent than I could begin to understand how Sister Lang believed me capable of seducing Terry. I was fourteen years old and had been cast in the role of Jezebel, whose story I knew well: for her sins against the believers she was thrown down into the street and made to be eaten by dogs; only her skull,