My Other Life (11 page)

Soon after, we passed a cluster of mud huts, and at the edge of this small settlement there was a horizontal bar across the road, an iron pipe resting on two oil drums: a bush roadblock. At either side of the road were about eight men and boys, looking hot and bad-tempered, wearing the faded red shirts and smocks of the Malawi Youth League. They held wicked-looking sticks and vicious slashers and crude, lumpy truncheons. Yet seeing how I was dressed, they backed off, seeming sheepish and awkwardly respectful, handling their weapons with obvious embarrassment.

"Good day, Fadda-sah," one said.

"You can pass this side," another said, raising the iron pipe.

It was all just as Father DeVoss had said.

They were staring at Birdie now, their mouths slack and hungry.

"What's the problem?" I asked.

"We are assisting wid da security situation, Fadda-sah."

The man who said this was dressed like the others—faded red shirt, khaki shorts, barefoot—but he was grizzled, with a nasty face; a little old man in a boy's clothes.

Assisting with the security situation was the opposite of what they were doing. They were the paid thugs of the government, obstructing the road in order to intimidate anyone on it into buying (for five shillings) a membership in the Malawi Congress Party. Like other hacks in this one-party state, they were making trouble while pretending to keep the peace. At Moyo I had forgotten the political trouble in the country.

There were two more roadblocks (grubby men, a dusty iron pipe, "You can pass, Fadda") before we got to the lake. Then Birdie was shouting into my neck. I saw the lake shining through the trees, not cool or blue but a hard metallic glitter, like tin foil, a great wrinkled expanse of it, and I felt helpless. There was too much of this emptiness, and this was not where I wanted to be. I wanted to ride straight back to Moyo. I said so to Birdie.

"But I brought food," she said.

Because she had food was I obligated to eat it? I parked the motorcycle, but I did not walk far from it.

"I'm not hungry."

"I am," she said. "Very hungry."

She said this in a good-humored way, paying no attention to my ill temper.

"I hate those roadblocks. I hate those horrible guys and their dirty faces."

"They respect your cassock, Father. Doesn't that give you a sense of power?"

"No. It's like scaring someone by wearing a mask," I said.

"They do it all the time."

"It's cruel."

"They're cruel." She said this with a shrug, as she poked in the saddlebags for something to eat.

"I'm thinking about the trip back."

"I know, Father." She unwrapped a sandwich and took a bite.

"Stop calling me Father."

She ignored me and said, "I sometimes think I don't belong anywhere else."

As she chewed the bread, she seemed innocent and defenseless, and I thought how a person's character was never more apparent than when she was eating. There seemed to be a brainlessness about eating, too: poor dumb hungry animal.

Perhaps sensing my pity for her and mistaking it for compassion, she swallowed and looked grateful. Then she touched my hand and in the kindest way said, "What would make you happy?"

I was glad that she had put it that way. It gave me the confidence to say plainly that I was uneasy here on this great sloping shore, among the boulders and the stones and the blowing trees and the splash of the lake. It was almost four-thirty. It would be dark at six or so. Couldn't we just leave?

Birdie said, "I was imagining a picnic by the lake. But we could have it somewhere else."

"What about back at Moyo?"

"I have a bottle of cream sherry in my room back at the convent."

"Let's go home."

This abrupt change of plans was like a reprieve and put me in a good mood. Everything seemed simple now. Instead of killing time at the lake, we would forget the picnic and go back. I had not had an alcoholic drink in over a month, and the prospect of it, the novelty, and the way Birdie had tried to please me made me willing. She said, "OK, let's go," and without realizing it I began following her directions—a shortcut back to the mission. I was glad we were together and liked her high spirits and this haphazard outing that had just proven to me that I too felt at home among the lepers of Moyo.

It was growing dark when we got back—dark enough for me to need my headlight. The road and the paths were empty, the whole mission occupied eating their early supper. I drove slowly behind the dispensary and up the hill to the motorcycle shed, which was near the church, and between the priests' house and the convent.

As I cranked out the kickstand with my toe and propped the bike, Birdie said, "Let me go first, to see if the coast is clear."

I did not wonder what she meant by that. It seemed just another expression of her unpredictable high spirits.

At this time of day the fading light gave everyone a ghostly appearance, the threadbare look of an apparition that might quicken or fade. Birdie turned and glowed for a few moments and then was gone.

I waited—longer than I expected—wondering what to do. Then I saw a light go on in an upper room of the convent. Birdie came to the window—said nothing, but raised her head, beckoning me.

And I obeyed. I did not question all the randomness that had led me this evening to climb the back stairs of the convent to Birdie's room. I did not take Birdie seriously, because I knew that if I did, I would have to conclude that I did not like her very much.

She opened and shut the door so quickly that I was inside before I realized that she was dressed as a nun, in the white robe and bonnet of this severe order of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart. Birdie had switched her lamp off. Two candles burned on her dresser, giving it the look of an altar and the room itself the feel of a dim chapel.

"Just a joke," she said.

People said that self-consciously of their most passionate acts. I did not know what to reply.

"Did anyone see you?"

I shrugged. What did it matter whether anyone saw me?

"Because you're not supposed to be here, Father."

She was whispering, she was barefoot, she had a crazed nun's look of sacrilege. She must have put her habit on hurriedly, because a lock of her hair was loose at the side of her face, and the gown itself—the robes, the sleeves—was disheveled. I could see her naked breasts through a wide, hitched-up sleeve.

When I turned to push the door open, to leave, she stepped quickly over and held the door shut. This was a nimble move, swift and serious, and when she put her finger to her lips to shush me, I heard other voices.

"This box of bandages has to be sorted for size."

"Did you see this other stack?"

They were nuns outside in the hall, speaking through an open door.

"We can start now or go on with it after dinner."

Go, I urged with my whole mind.

"I will do some. Sister Rose can wash the vegetables and then you both can come to help."

Sorting bandages, washing spinach—good, plain chores. It was what I wanted, what I valued most in the place, simplicity and completeness. For this I had gladly rejected my writing and buried my books. And this was the reason I was so uncomfortable in Birdie's room, with a bottle of South African sherry, by candlelight, the two of us dressed as priest and nun.

Her tongue was clamped between her teeth in a parody of concentration. She slid the heavy deadbolt in the door, then plucked my sleeve and led me across the room to the only place to sit, the edge of the bed.

The nuns were still fussing, some of them muttering in Dutch.

"I feel sorry for them," Birdie said. "But sometimes they're awful." She thought a moment, biting her lip. "I'm as bad as they are."

I did not need to be convinced that it was unwise of me to leave just then, with nuns hurrying back and forth in the hallway. But I realized how great a mistake it was for me to be here with Birdie. What convinced me of my error of judgment was Birdie's energy: my enthusiasm waned as hers rose. She liked this game of dressing up, she in her habit, me in my cassock, nun and priest clinking glasses of sticky South African sherry, sitting side by side in the narrow convent room, the door locked and bolted.

She seemed very excited, as though we shared a terrific secret. But each thing that roused her only made me more gloomy.

I said softly, "This is ridiculous."

She opened her mouth eagerly, as though shaping the word yes. It was the absurdity of it that she seemed to like best. She sipped more wine and kissed me, forcing my lips open with her tongue, and spat this sip of wine into my mouth. My surprise as I choked and swallowed only thrilled her more.

"Father," she said, and kissed me, holding my head, searching my mouth with her tongue again. At first I was so startled I began to pull away, but her boldness challenged me. I was astonished at the strength of her hunger.

Outside the room a nun said, "Twenty-eight. All folded. The rest are stained. We'll have to bleach them. It's never enough."

Birdie was probing my ear with her tongue. Her breath was hot, and she whispered, "No, Father. Don't make me. I'm so afraid."

And still she held me. I was going blind and deaf, fooled with the inklings of desire.

I would have taken my cassock off, but I was stuck in it—it confined me, like a sack around me; and her gown and robe were caught in its folds. So we embraced, pleaded in our different ways, in a great soft knot of white cotton, her gown, my cassock, the starched wings of her bonnet askew, and all her nakedness shifting beneath this tangle of cloth. Trying not to hold her, I trapped my fingers in the plackets of her robe and touched the softness of her warm skin, and, breaking free of her kissing, I dislodged her bonnet with my chin and her hair tumbled between our faces.

"Don't touch me, Father," she implored, her breath harsh with heat.

Her irrational sincerity scared me, and then her hands were on me, searching through the unbuttoned flap of my cassock. I was confused. I drew back, saying, "
No, wait,
" though I could feel her pleading in the pressure of her fingers.

"Not if you don't think they're clean," a nun said in the hall.

Birdie took hold of the inert slug of my penis and began pumping it, as though trying to start some odd, primitive engine with a churning, chafing motion of a little handle.

It hurt. I wriggled free, keeping her away by holding her shoulders.

"Don't rape me, Father," she said, and now her eyes were unfocused and she lay back as though she were my victim.

There was drumming—was it from the village or from the throbbing of my temples? Whatever, it too made me hesitate.

I was overcome with embarrassment and anxiety. Everything that aroused her unnerved me—the clothes, the pretense, the seclusion, the nuns yakking outside, the risk of being caught in the convent room on this hot night. I could not lead her on. My heart was not in it. I had no interest in her, did not even like her much. I was too afraid and self-conscious and too remote from her fantasy to be able to perform in this sad comedy of dressing up.

"Then just hold me," she said. She was trembling.

I could not even do that simple thing. I was preoccupied with the problem of how to escape from her.

"I have to go," I whispered, though it probably sounded to her like a wicked hiss.

She said nothing, and then, "You can go at any time. You don't belong here."

Her face was in shadow, and she was a rumpled mass of hair and tangled clothes.

I stood up and undid the rest of the buttons on my cassock and took the thing off. I had a T-shirt and bathing suit on underneath. I folded the cassock and sat and put it on my lap. Birdie lay across the bed in a tragic posture, looking grotesque, a mass of shadows, sorrowing.

Nothing, not even laughter, kills sexual desire quicker than tears. The spell was broken. There was no more to be done. I could not determine her mood, whether she was disappointed or embarrassed.

I hugged her and she went rigid against my arm, pretending to be stubborn and unyielding. I imagined her to be very angry.

"This was a bad idea."

"I don't think so," she said. "But if you do..."

I held my breath, waiting for her to finish the sentence, because she was on the verge of tears.

"...then you're useless."

She began soundlessly to cry, making a horrible face.

That was not the end of it. I stayed two more hours, until eleven or so, which was after lights out in the convent. She ate some of her food. I chewed on its tastelessness and found it hard to swallow, because of my mood. The bed creaked and so I lay very still beside Birdie, without touching her, and we talked in whispers about ourselves.

I was young; my story was short. I told it quickly. But she was seven years older than me. She had been sent here on a Catholic church program, as a trained nurse. "I couldn't go home. I wouldn't fit in." It was exactly what she had said about the lepers. She was from a small town in southern Indiana. She told me about the town, how the high school kids hung out at the Dairy Den, and celebrated at Punchy's after the Panthers won a game, and how they drove up and down Main Street on Saturday nights, and hung out at Mickey D's and then paired up and went parking at the cemetery.

After that long, unusual day we lay like old friends, listening to the murmuring nuns closing drawers and doors. At last Birdie took a deep breath. When she let it out, all her frustration, all her yearning and humiliation were audible in the sigh.

"I wanted it to happen," she said. "Now it will never happen."

I did not dare to look further into that thought.

"Don't you have any fantasies?" she asked.

"Not here," I said.

It was said at the leprosarium that there were no secrets. No matter what happened in darkness, it was known; no matter how soft your whisper, it was heard. Then everyone knew. That was another aspect of the reality of the place. Nothing was hidden, everything known—no subtlety, no symbols. A leper was a leper, and everything was easily visible. It was like a doctrine. We were naked.