That night the Widow was prepared for the town’s vengeance. She refused to light the candle, preferring the protection of darkness. Night swept down with stealth, unconcerned with the events of the day.
She had laid him in the room her husband was supposed to have died in. She imagined that she could smell Bligh’s presence in the room now. That depressed her even more. She never smelt her husband’s presence until he died. This would be what God would give her, grief. She cursed God under her breath, and the Rum Preacher, who made her wear blue.
Bligh’s sleep was not like sleep. Nor was it like death. Nor was it like before, when he would jump up and scream from nightmares and fall back into the bed. This was different. His hands were cold, but his heart, when she touched his chest, beat swiftly as hers did when she was frightened. She pulled up a chair beside his bed and sat there until sadness lulled her to sleep.
The scratching jolted her awake. A branch swung against the window, scraping the glass. She rose and went to the window to see a John Crow flying away into the night. The Pastor was in the position she last saw him before she fell asleep. His hands to his side, his body stiff, but something was different. His eyes were wide open.
“Hector, Jesus Christ! Hect—”
She ran over to him and grabbed his hand. He said nothing, staring at the ceiling.
“Hector?”
She waved her hand over his face. He was not awake. The Widow wished right there that she still had a hardened heart.
Lucinda had put the Apostle to bed. That was no easy task, the Apostle was the heaviest man she had ever held, heavier than all the drunken men she had helped her mother throw out of the house. He was not dead and that filled her with hope, but he did not respond to her begs or cries, not even those made to the Lord Himself. Lucinda had long resolved to never again experience the misery of a man, but misery overcame her, like a plague or a great spirit. Day Lucinda took off his jacket and shoes, and as she looked at his pants, Night Lucinda entered her heart.
Lying flat on his back, his crotch seemed to have risen like a new mountain. A black hill between the huge ridges of his thighs. She forced herself to return to grief, but failed. She thought of her back and of the whipping, but neither could take her mind away from his bulge, hidden in black pants. She prayed for herself and left the room.
Outside in the dark, the half moon saw her. In the silver light, Lucinda saw herself for what she really was. A beast, not the false creature in church clothes. The moon knew that she spoke to Sasa and rubbed goat’s blood on her breast. Far below grief was lust, and like any other sin, it came with opportunity.
Inside, the Apostle had not moved. Lucinda watched the rise and fall of his chest and the rise of other things that did not fall. She took deep breaths and closed her eyes. God will punish you for your wickedness, said Day Lucinda. Touch where life come from, said Night Lucinda. She sat down on the side of the Apostle’s bed and touched his feet.
Just this once, the Widow wished she knew the things of the spirit. Perhaps then an angel would come and tell her what had happened. She was a woman of reason, bitter though it was. He should be at a hospital, she said to herself, but that was impossible. There was only this bed, hot water, and hope. She would not pray. That morning while she washed his body he looked like a child interrupted. There was innocence, promise, and waste. She cried for a man who could not cry back. She washed his hair, rubbed his wrinkles, scrubbed his chest’s curly white hairs, and washed his feet. He lay on the bed, still. Maybe he too would rise on the third day. The Widow could only hope. She would not pray. At the window she saw the church and the Garvey house. Both rooftops were covered with John Crows.
On the evening of the second day, Lucinda wiped the Apostle from head to toe in warm water and soap. There was no need — his body smelt like incense — but Night Lucinda knew what she wanted. She had promised herself penance, so she gave herself over to abandon. Lucinda’s prayers were not for the Apostle, but for herself. He lay on the bed like a Greek statue toppled from a page in his books. Lucinda had stayed in his room all this time.
She wiped him clinically at first, distributing soap evenly over his body, avoiding his phallus one minute, accidentally brushing it with her rag the next. The second wipe she did with care, using warm water, fearing that cold water would wake him. She ran the rag along his neck and felt his heat and pulse. There were spots on his body. Little red circles like the one below his lips. They were islands swimming in skin. From his chest to his thigh she used his spots to create a map, with a treasure chest in the center of his body. The Apostle groaned and Lucinda jumped, grabbed the rag and basin, and climbed off the bed. He was still unconscious. Were he to wake now, there would be no explanation. But perhaps there would be no need. Night Lucinda hissed; the sound of hunger. Her eyes explored the Apostle. His ruddy face hidden in his beard, the red scar below his lip, and his long arms. She would stare at his bushy chest hair and follow it right down to the center of him. When he tossed and his phallus swung pendulous, she touched herself.
Her mind was made up, the Widow would stop caring. But this was the third day and he was as still as the first. At times the Pastor would open his eyes as before, seeing nothing. She wondered what kind of calamity could have happened between the two men that would leave the church in shambles and the Rum Preacher unconscious. Outside, the road was still empty, save for the teasing wind and tormenting crows. She knew that Mr. Garvey did not meddle in poor people’s affairs, but surely, she thought, he would bring back some order now. The man had the power of a massa, but perhaps the heart of one as well. Plus, he was the one who brought the Apostle here. She hoped the Apostle was dead even though she knew he wasn’t. Hector Bligh was inside her. He was a stupid man, but his stupidity had infected her, causing her to give it new names, like devotion, passion, and mission. She knew nothing of spirits, but imagined the Preacher and the Apostle’s battle a clash between Heaven and Hell, or maybe good and evil, but words like those meant nothing in Gibbeah. For a minute she imagined the Pastor as Superman in the movie serial that used to play at the Majestic. Perhaps Bligh was Superman and the Apostle a Super-Nazi-villain, and in their clash of super powers they laid the church to waste. Perhaps Bligh grabbed a bench all by himself and threw it at the Apostle, who dodged in time for it to crash into the altar. Then the Apostle would rip away a chunk of the wall and hurl it at the Preacher, who would punch the chunk to bits. Then both would fly into each other with a Bang! Pow! The thought made her chuckle. Then she looked at Bligh, motionless on the bed, and chuckled more. Her chuckle grew into a laugh, then a fit. As tears ran down her eyes, the Widow didn’t know if she was laughing at grief or crying at laughter.
Since Lucinda wiped him last she had not dressed him. He was naked and she was naked too. And there was no shame. She was glad he was asleep.
On the third day the Widow awoke to the sound of scratching. She had slept in the living room, ignoring the mosquitoes. The scratching came from his room. John Crows. They had found a way in.
“Hector! Hector! Hect—”
On the left wall in the room, words curled and twisted, moving up and down and crossway in black and smudged gray. On the right wall, words circled a huge black cross like a whirlpool that spread from wall to window to floor. On the north wall, in front of the bed, came the sound of scratching. Bligh was writing words and numbers, crosses and hexes, and things she did not understand. His hair was wild and he wore only his white pants, which were covered in black smudges. Bligh wrote with fury, cutting into the wall, his hands moving faster than he could scribble. She looked away, at the ground, and saw her husband’s papers, all scattered and covered with Bligh’s writing. The sound of scratching cut through her.