The Good House Read online

  I did not speak for a full year afterGrandmèredied when I was eighteen, so much did my heart ache. I expected her to come to me right away, in dreams and visions, but she did not. In her homeland of Haiti, the not-speaking disease, pa-pale,is said to usually come after childbirth, but in my case it was after a death. I hardly washed or ate. My family could do nothing with me.

  It was Philippe Toussaint, the Creole young man who served as my father’s attorney, who drew me from my prison of mourning, with his gentle smile, wit, and constant attentions. For two years, he courted me, and I would not have him. I did not want to be a wife right away, as so many others of my sex did. I went to the Mary McLeod Hospital and Training School for Nurses, to learn nursing to complement myvodoupractice, and when I returned, Philippe was still waiting for me. Again, as I said, I was spoiled. Why should I settle for one thing or the other—my education or my suitor—when I could have both?

  At last, we wed. He built me a lovely house very near my parents. We had a daughter, Dominique. I was no longer angry at life for the loss ofGrandmère,nor for the absence of her spirit.

  Then, as if to prove its mean core, life became a horror.

  That night is too painful to me to describe in full, but suffice it to say that one can hardly comprehend that human beings would be capable of such monstrosity. It began when Philippe grew interested in politics, encouraging other colored people to register to vote despite the stranglehold of Jim Crow. With my blessings, he could have amassed more power than any colored man in the history of the state, and there were many others who knew it. We were naive not to expect reprisals.

  I had no warnings, no dreams. I had prayed for Philippe’s safety, but it was not enough.

  They came for him with their rifles at night, when we were sleeping. They pulled him from my bed, from my desperate embrace. My baby was too young to comprehend the violence, but Philippe was killed before our eyes.“Remember the sight of this, nigger,”one of his torturers spat at me, as if I could forget a sight that could not have been more abhorrent if it had been a rendering from Hell itself.

  Those men were all soon dead for their crime—thelwashelped me punish them—but that was small comfort to me. Papa Legba tried to console me by offering himself as my spirit-husband, a ceremony consecrated by a prétsavannfrom Haiti, a bush priest, with the signatures of witnesses dutifully collected on our marriage papers, and I swore to Papa Legba that no man of flesh should ever touch me on Saturday, my spirit-husband’s sacred day. But even as the new bride of so powerful and generous a lwaas dear Papa Legba, I could not shake myself from my mourning.

  My heart died with Philippe. I barely had heart enough left for the child of mine, who now knew only one parent, but I did not give the baby to my sisters, as they begged me to. If only I had! Instead, I took my precious Dominique away from New Orleans, away from the South, as far from the place of her father’s murder as I could go.

  It was then thatGrandmèrebegan to find my dreams and visions, offering me the miracle she had promised me as a girl.

  It was then that my journey to damnation began.

  Twenty-One

  THURSDAY

  UNDER A RAINY SKYthe color of dirty snow, the creature that had once been Tariq Hill drove a 1968 bay-window Volkswagen microbus northbound on Interstate Five in southern Washington, nearly an hour past Portland. Onyx was curled on the passenger-side floorboard, either sleeping or pretending to. Onyx hadn’t always been this quiet, but he’d wised up since Tariq caught him with a quick kick in the ribs two hours back. The dog had nearly ruined his telephone chat with that prissy Myles Fisher, with all the racket he’d been making. Tariq had wanted to kick Onyx two or three more times, but he’d stopped himself, counting to ten. He was getting better at that. Anger management.

  Tariq opened the glove compartment and pulled out a handful of sunfaded cassette cases, spreading them across the passenger seat. Teddy Pendergrass, Marvin Gaye, Al Green. Coincidentally, all his favorites. When he popped a cassette in the player, “I’m So Tired of Being Alone” mewled from the van’s old speakers, distorting Al’s voice with a hiss on the high notes. Still, the sound of the music was celestial. He remembered that much about who he had been. Music, so far, was his favorite souvenir of himself.

  Tariq drove at seventy miles per hour, the precise speed limit, neither more nor less. He was in a hurry, but he would not be pulled over for speeding. He had no faith that he would be cordial if someone in a police uniform tried to delay him. He had never liked police uniforms much, the fault of a few bad apples. He remembered that too.

  That Bitch Marie was a bad apple. She had spoiled everything close to her, everyone she touched. Marie had been lost from her precious granddaughter for a time, but she would never be lost from thebaka who deviled her.

  It was too bad he had won his knowledge so late, Tariq thought, or he’d have known from the start that Angie’s line was spoiled, that she would be impossible, and that the boy would be as greedy as his great-grandmother. Tariq knew the entire shameful story, because thebaka With No Name had whispered it while it awakened within him, gleefully telling him about the downfall of the silly flesh creatures who tried to be gods.

  Eshu had been too good to Marie and her forebears, thebaka said, favoring them blatantly with his attentions. That was Eshu’s way, blinded by his love for his children. Over the ages, when Marie’s line had called him from Yorubaland, or Cuba, or Haiti, or the Americas, praying for Eshu-Elegba, Eleggua, or Papa Legba—by any of the names by which he was known to them—Eshu came speedily. He had been generous, his eternal flaw. Foolishness!

  One’s children, thebaka said, can only be motivated by fear.

  Yet, Eshu had bid his fellow spirits Yemoja and Oyá to hold famines, earthquakes, and hurricanes at bay to save Marie’s line a dozen times over. Most of her line had been spared slavery across the sea, but for those he had lost, Eshu had given voice to their prayers in the bellies of the great ships, and they had stayed strong. He had rescued Marie’sgrandmère Fleurette from a shack in the swamp, brought children to Fleurette’s barren womb, married her daughter Sonia well to thatpassé blanc she loved so much, showered them in property and riches. And they had grown so vain!

  When Marie’s husband was killed, Eshu had hastened her grieving pleas to Ogun and Oyá to wreak the penalties against those who had taken the unlucky man’s life. Those murderers awakened with boils across their bodies, fire in their genitals, dying at the rate of one a year, and always at the anniversary of Marie’s husband’s death. Then, Eshu led Marie to the sacred grounds in the far west to begin her life afresh, far from the place her beloved died. He had given her free run of the land to use as she pleased.

  And how had Eshu been repaid? Eshu, the great Trickster god, had himself been tricked.

  “But you’ve learned better now, haven’t you, Marie?” Tariq said. “You were only a silly flesh witch playing games. You were a child, Marie. You’re still a child.”

  Eshu had led her to the land willingly, to the Crossroads Forest, but when Marie found it, she had become insufferable. She could have offered libations and sacrifices and collected sacred soil in a pouch to wear around her neck, across her breast. That soil would have suited her well enough, and thebaka there might have slept forever, undisturbed. She could have gone anywhere with the soil and ensured health and happiness for her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

  Instead, That Bitch had been proud enough to steal the land.

  Even that, though, was not the worst offense; the land had been stolen by others, and it recognized no owner. The land belonged to spirit, not to flesh. The red men had understood this about the land, and Marie should have known, too.

  But even Eshu could not forgive the way she befouled the land.

  Oh forgive me, Papa Legba, but I did not know,she claimed in so many prayers to him afterward, when she pretended to be shocked at the potency of her wishes. She, who had been tutored by Fleurette, a prieste
ss who would have been burned as a witch in earlier times because she was so brazen with her gifts, governing crops, rain, and births. She, who had been taught the history of the line from which she was descended. She, whose dreams had revealed forgotten prayers, prayers from long before the Journey of her people across the sea. She, who wore the ring mined from gold blessed by the most powerful circle of priests in her people’s original land. It was all the more impudent for her to claim she did not know her power!

  And Marie was a clever one. She had kept her progeny in ignorance, stripping them of her knowledge, as if Eshu might be placated with so small a penance, and as if thebaka could so easily be banished from their trail. But it was too late for penance. And thebaka could not be so easily deceived. Thebaka had taken Marie’s daughter easily. Marie’s efforts were feeble. Thebaka would not be banished.

  Especially now that it had taken the boy.

  Tariq had once loved the boy, as a flesh creature. But silly was silly, whether or not the boy was his son. The boy had been too easy to fool. All flesh was easy to fool. So, thebaka would take the last of Marie’s line, to make Marie an example. Thebaka had nearly fulfilled its lesson. Eshu, in his anger, would not intervene.

  Angela Marie—daughter to Dominique, grandchild to Marie, great-great-grandchild to Fleurette—was the last of the line. Angie was the last.

  Tariq could feel her nearby. He could see her face in the evergreens his bus drove past on the freeway, painted in the gaps between the trees. Her chiseled brown face was all around him now, bringing its own memories. But thebaka had warned Tariq: There would be trickery. There would be messengers. All of it was evidence of That Bitch’s pride, her effort to preserve her progeny. Marie and her line had held Tariq in sway for two years, through pure strength, or else he would have completed his calling much sooner. He couldn’t discount her power, the power of her line.

  But Marie’s line was not the stronger of them. Tariq would teach her that, at last.

  As a revelation came to him, Tariq opened his van’s glove compartment and smiled at what he found: The gun lay there waiting atop the old registration papers, maps, and receipts that had migrated their way into the space over the years. Its butt was still wrapped in old tape, but its black barrel shined as it never had. The gun had been taken when the boy died, impounded.

  Tariq had lost this gun before. Thebaka, once again, had given it back.

  There would be ironic beauty in taking Angie with this gun, Tariq realized. She had always been afraid of it; knowing, yet never understanding what she knew.

  The sight of the gun brought back another ghost of memory: In his pure flesh life, Tariq and his brother Harry had heard gunshots through the wall of the bedroom they shared as children, the first time Tariq had heard the terrifying sound so close. Tariq couldn’t remember the woman’s name, but he remembered the thrill and shock of knowing their neighbor had committed a murder. She’d been a nice woman, that was the thing. A waving and smiling kind of woman whose home was one of the few places he, Harry, and their sisters were allowed to trick-or-treat. When he’d asked his father to make sense of how such a nice woman could turn around one day and shoot her husband to death, his father had told him,Sometimes you get mad. When you’re mad enough, you can do anything. That was a lesson Leland Hill had taught his children many times before.

  And Angie had seen it when he first brought home this gun. She’d seen how the bruises at his father’s hand had left him eager to settle arguments with his fists, or with a weapon. He had never touched her that way, but he had wanted to. He may not have aimed that gun at her breast in life, but she knew he had many times in his imagination. She’d seen it in him, just like Brother Paul.

  Angie, a true child of Marie’s line, had known her future.

  LONGVIEW—STATE ROUTE FOUR, the familiar green roadway sign said, announcing an exit that veered into the countryside fifty yards ahead. Even without the sign, Tariq knew he had nearly reached the road to Sacajawea. He was close to the place. He was nearly home.

  Tariq had wanted her that summer. He had driven a long way to reclaim her that summer, just as he was driving a long way now. He had tasted her skin and tongue, and he vowed to enjoy Angie’s flesh once more the same way he enjoyed his old music: with exquisite, grateful pleasure. He had a memory of the folds of her womanhood, the pink and brown rises and valleys, that made him moan softly as he drove. That memory was better than the music by far.

  There would be time for play. Thebaka had promised him that.

  But then, Tariq must finish it.

  Still, Tariq sped past the Longview exit without looking back, not veering from the Interstate to the road that led to Longview and Sacajawea. In his mirror, he watched the exit retreat behind him. “Good-bye for now, Angie,” he said. “I’ll see you soon, Snook.”

  He had never been good at patience, but he would master that trait today.

  He had one more trip to make. Five hours north of here on Interstate Five, across the malleable Canadian border, another detail needed sorting. One more special task lay at Tariq’s feet before he could go home to his wife.

  Tariq had to see a woman about a dog.

  Twenty-Two

  VANCOUVER, BRITISHCOLUMBIA

  That same day

  YOU’REPOSITIVE YOU CAN’T GO TODAY,Naomi? I could get you to Victoria by dinnertime.”

  Her assistant was trying so hard to please her, Naomi felt sorry for the girl. Naomi shook her head, and marbles cracked inside her skull. She hadn’t had a headache this bad in her life; not the day of the Emmys forCoretta, not even after Mama June died and then Daddy followed six months later, the worst year of her life. Naomi lay across the couch in the living room of her two-room suite at the Sutton Place Hotel, barefoot, wearing the hotel’s white terry cloth robe over the workout clothes she’d put on before talking to Angela had ruined her day’s plans.

  Suzanne’s mudcloth head wrap and large gold hoop earrings made her look like a high-toned African shaman, Naomi thought. She felt slight pressure across her eyes as Suzanne gently swathed a cold, damp towel on her face, above the bridge of her nose. Suzanne had been tending her for an hour, doing her best, but Naomi longed for the massage Angela had given her backstage at the Emmys, with perfect strokes at her temples that made her headache vanish as if by magic.

  “How about if I pack you a weekend bag?” Suzanne said, her voice a gentle murmur. “Then we’ll go straight to the spa when your headache dies down. I booked myself that early flight to L.A. tomorrow, so if I don’t take you today…”

  “Go on about your business, girl. I can get there. It’s only a couple hours from here.”

  Let Suzanne go on home, she thought. Hell, maybe she’d fly home tomorrow, too. Or go to Sacajawea and say good-bye to her dog properly, no matter what Angela said. Or maybe she’d lie where she was for four days straight. That sounded tempting, too. All Naomi gave a fuck about right now was having some quiet, so her head would leave her be.

  “Naomi, Angela is going to be all over me if you don’t go to this spa,” Suzanne said, as if Naomi had voiced her doubts aloud. Suzanne sounded nervous and gloomy, more like the twenty-one-year-old she was, not the quick-thinking dynamo she’d been the past couple days. Suzanne was working her heart out.

  “Don’t let Angela scare you,” Naomi said. She almost smiled, until she realized what she’d been about to say:Angela’s all bark and no bite . New tears, new ripples of pain. Fuck. Anytime Naomi’s mind tried to stray from Onyx, her headache punished her. A nasty thought rolled with her tears. “Angela saw Onyx dead in the woods before I left and didn’t tell me,” she whispered.

  “Why would she do that?” Suzanne said.

  “Why else? She wanted me to come to work.”

  It was so obvious now, Naomi felt stupid. Angela was looking out for her ten percent. Bennett had told her to remember that. There’s business and there’s friendship, her older brother always said, reminding her she was too quick to let peopl
e into her heart. Naomi felt her insides churning, spurring her headache. She was on the verge of the wailing kind of crying best done in private. Soul-tears, Mama June used to call it. No amount of Tylenol, massage, or cold towels would ease the pain of losing Onyx.

  “I’m okay,” Naomi told Suzanne. “You can go now.”

  Suzanne squeezed Naomi’s shoulders, kneading hard. Her grip said she knew why she was being sent out of the room. “I’m always nearby. Just call.” She kissed Naomi’s forehead.

  Alone in her suite, Naomi lay still, trying to will away the pain. Thank God for Suzanne, she thought. When Suzanne finished her U.C.L.A. film degree in January, maybe she would come work for her full-time, stay on a year or two until she made her own industry contacts. Naomi had promised herself a full-time assistant when she got her first million-dollar payday; and in January, that would come to pass. What the hell else did she have to spend her money on? Her husband? Her children? Not in this life, honey. Not yet. She didn’t have time for vacations, and she was living in the same house she’d bought with her soap-opera money.