Sacrifices of Joy (19 page)

If this was his living quarters, not much living was going on.

The only other items I could see in the room were a milk crate filled with a few toiletries, and a mini-fridge that hummed quietly against the back wall with a double-burner hot plate sitting on top of it.

The room smelled like tuna fish.

“Kisu?” I called out, though he obviously was not there.

I let out a loud sigh and reached to turn off the light to leave, but something else caught my eye.

A black suitcase peeked from underneath the bed. I knelt on the floor beside it and pulled it out. There was no lock, and the zipper was partially broken.

I opened it.

The inside was filled to the brim. Papers, pictures, and other documents were strewn about, in no obvious order. This was Kisu's “envelope.” I smiled at the thought, taking Laz's idea that an entire life could be summed up and packaged into a stack of papers.

I sat on the bed, grabbing handfuls of the papers, and started flipping through them.

At first, nothing jumped out at me. Newspaper clippings of various stories with global interests were mixed in with recipes of international cuisine. Receipts from various stores and online purchases proved that Kisu had a hearty appetite for books.
Written words must be his company,
I reasoned, looking back through the open door where the library sat musty, quiet.

And then I got to a blue pocket folder. It was stored inside a clear plastic storage bag, tucked in a compartment almost unseen at the bottom of the suitcase. A sense of privacy loomed over it, and I wondered if it was too much of an intrusion to look through it.

I had to.

Holding my breath, I unzipped the storage bag, opened the folder, and gasped.

A picture of me and Roman.

His fifth-grade graduation.

I recognized the light blue seersucker shorts suit and bowtie I made him wear, and the towering, rock-hard French roll I regrettably allowed my sister's old friend KiKi Jackson to put in my hair. Roman had a scowl on his face and I looked like I was trying to not feel self-conscious about the small mountain that sat on the top of my head.

I would have laughed at the photo at first glance, but eeriness surrounded its existence. First of all, it appeared to have been taken from a distance as Roman and I posed for my mother's camera. Who snapped this photo? And why? And why did Kisu have it?

I swallowed hard as my mind drew a blank for answers.

There were two more photos.

The next was of Mbali and her four children. This one was a professional portrait, a Christmas postcard. The photo captured an elegance, a regality, and a warmth about the large family I'd never noticed before. The back was not addressed, and again I wondered how and why Kisu had it.

The third photo was of a white woman and a toddler who looked biracial.

Who looked like RiChard.

Same nose. Same shaped eyes. Same thick black curly hair.

The two stood in front of what looked like a huge, ancient fountain. The buildings that surrounded them had an old-world European flair.

RiChard had said his mother was from Perugia, Italy. I pulled out my smart phone and did a search for “Perugia Italy fountain.” The first result that displayed was for the
Fontana Maggiore,
a medieval fountain in a piazza in Perugia. The picture of the monumental fountain online was identical to the one in the photo.

Perhaps this was a picture of RiChard and his mother together when he was young.
But the clothes look too modern,
I conceded as my gut feelings agreed. I turned the picture over.

“Adriana and Luca, 1992,” was written on the back.

1992. Two years before I met RiChard, who was a seasoned grad student when I was a freshman.

I turned the photo back over, studied the beautiful young woman who had soft laugh lines and long wisps of dark hair. The toddler looked to be one or two in the photo, an equally beautiful child. Perhaps the two were cousins of RiChard, maybe even a sister and his nephew. I tried to explain the similarity in features between the boy and the man I had married years ago.

But I knew in my heart I was straining to explain away the obvious.

He'd told me he was an only child, that he didn't have any family members with whom he communicated. He'd never had contact with his parents while we were together, or least no contact that I was aware of. Who knew what secrets he held, secrets hidden anywhere in the world?

As I looked again at the pictures of me, of Mbali and her children, of the woman Adriana and most likely her son, Luca, I realized what else was bothering me.

Years ago, when I'd first gotten the urn with the lion's head ring inside, I'd gone to a Portuguese class at a community college with the hopes that the teacher could help me contact the senders of the package. The urn had a return address in Almada, Portugal, though later I would learn in a letter the teacher translated for me the package had originated from Kisu.

What bothered me at the moment was that the other student in the class was named Luca. Luca Alexander, I recalled. His eyes had brightened when I'd shared some of my story, specifically when I said that my long-lost husband's mother was from Perugia.
“I'm from Perugia.”
The dark-haired model wannabe had explained his sudden interest in my story. He had signed up for the class in anticipation of a trip to Rio.

It was conjecture, I knew, the thought that now nagged at me. Luca is a common Italian name, I reasoned, and the odds . . .

What was I thinking?

I put the pictures away even as unexplained tears began filling my eyes. Whatever the explanation, I knew that there were no such things as coincidences in Christ, that God's timing was perfect and purposeful.

I moved to what was next in the folder. An unaddressed, unsealed business-sized envelope. I opened it.

Photocopies of certificates.

Marriage certificates.

I took out my phone, put it on my document scanner setting. Then, smoothing each certificate down on the bed, I took a picture of each one, in order.

Adriana Salvay and Alex Santiago. Married in Perugia, Italy.

Sienna Davis and RiChard St. James. Married in Baltimore, Maryland.

Mbali Busisiwe and RiChard St. James. Married in KwaZulu Natal Province, South Africa.

Ana Clara Cardoso and Ricardo Santo Tiago. Married in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.

What did this all mean?

The first marriage was dated about three years before mine. The last wedding happened about a year after RiChard had left Mbali.

“That bastard.” I shook my head as a conclusion settled in my mind. I laughed even as hot tears streamed down my face.

Kisu had done a lot of research. His aims apparently as personal, as heartfelt, as mine. There were two more sheets of paper, folded up, placed face down in the other pocket of the folder. I shut my eyes; then, willing myself to look at them, opened my eyes again to get through it.

A faded birth certificate.

Alex Ricardo James.

Born in Chicago, Illinois in 1971.

Mother: Millicent Laquana Nelson.

Father: Martin Santiago James.

I was not a cussing woman. Indeed, I hadn't uttered one profane word since the day Shakina Monroe in second grade bet that I wouldn't say the S-word and I really wanted her candy bar. Looking at that birth certificate, however, I made up for my curse-free decades as every word I could think of spilled out my mouth.

Everything I knew about RiChard St. James, or should I say, Alex Ricardo James, was a bold, disgusting lie. His mother was from Perugia, Italy? No! His first wife was! I looked again at all the documents, stopping once again at his birth certificate. Alex Ricardo James! In my anger, I almost shredded the delicate paper up, until I remembered that I was scanning each document I'd found into my phone. I was saving the file when my senses picked up something new.

Footsteps.

Flat echoes sounded in the hallway near the library, and I knew I had just moments before I was not alone. Forget scanning. I stuffed the birth certificate into my workbag, then grabbed the last unfolded sheet of paper that was in the folder and stuffed it into my bag as well.

I'd look to see what that last paper was later. I had the information that I needed for the moment. I quickly stuffed the papers back into the suitcase and pushed it under the bed. Jumping to my feet, I checked that I had all my belongings with me: workbag, carry-on, and especially my phone! I pulled the chain to the light bulb and the room went dark. Shutting the door to the living quarters behind me, I stood frozen in a library aisle, trying to process the information I'd discovered in Kisu's suitcase, wondering what I was going to say to him, assuming that it was indeed him returning to the library.

The voices of two men sounded just outside the door where the footsteps had stopped.

“Thank you, Father. Your help with this project will ensure that many orphans in Zambia are fed. I will be depositing the money tomorrow.”

“Oh, it is our pleasure, Brother Felokwakhe. Christ has called us to serve the widows and the fatherless. Thank you for doing this great work. May you be highly blessed in God's Kingdom. Good night.”

Yes. Finally. Kisu.

I exhaled and relief flooded through me as the door began to open. My smile grew as an older man in a tweed suit jacket and a clerical collar turned away from the doorframe, revealing the man who had been standing by him.

The man took a step up into the doorway and our eyes met.

Both of us froze as I tried to make sense of why the man I knew as RiChard St. James and not Kisu was standing in front of me. He was thinner than when I'd last seen him nearly twenty years ago, his arms frail looking under the hunter green dress shirt he wore, his legs slightly bowed under his black trousers. His face, still the color of café au lait, was pockmarked and somewhat wrinkled, as if the years, and the sun, and the elements, and life itself had been harsh on him. Balding head. Slouched shoulders. Dull green eyes. I saw nothing that justified my obsession with him in our youth: no hint of his vigor; no trace of beauty; no residue of the charisma that had captivated crowds and towns, hearts and passions around the globe.

“Sienna?” His eyes widened even as mine narrowed.

“Alex Ricardo James?”

He bolted.

Before I could read the reaction on his face, or get another word out of my mouth, he had spun around and sprinted across the large hallway that led to the library door. He rushed toward an entryway opposite from the tunnel-like corridor I had come through in my journey to find the space, nearly knocking down the elder priest who looked as stunned as I did.

“Brother Felokwakhe? Is all well?” the priest called after him. “My dear sister? What is going on?”

I had no choice but to pursue RiChard/Alex down the corridor. “Wait a minute!” I yelled after him. I needed answers, and he was going to give them to me. For all I had been through, for all my son and the rest of the broken families Alex Ricardo James had left scattered around the world had endured, we all deserved an explanation, at a minimum.

“Come back here!” I struggled to keep up as he bounded up a narrow stairway. I was surprised that his legs, feeble as they looked, were able to carry him away so quickly. I scurried up the same stairs just to watch him disappear into another hallway. I followed, huffing and puffing as my carry-on and workbag bounced off my hips.

“RiChard!” I belted as he reached for the handle of a large wooden door.

Just before he opened it, he looked back at me.

And then had the nerve to smile.

My lips parted and a scream so piercing, so primal came out that, for a split second, I questioned if it had even come from me. I'd never felt the power of my own lungs like I did in that moment.

By the time I reached the door, opened it, and stepped through the threshold, I knew I would never catch him. We were outside. I stood on a covered portico, watching him disappear into the darkness. Trees and hills surrounded this side of the cathedral and cars lit up a highway in the distance.

He was not coming back.

I collapsed onto one of the stone benches that lined the walkway. The scream and the run had taken whatever fight, thought, feeling I had left in me. I let my bags fall to the ground and looked around me. I was surrounded by statues, stone figures of men and women with solemn eyes, gentle faces, Biblical scenes, stories, symbols. I looked up at the carved scene directly in front of me.

Jesus preaching on a hillside, a throng of people, some sick, some bowed, some broken crowded around him. His hands and eyes were raised, as if in prayer.

The Lord's Prayer was on a plaque next to the carving. The words I'd read in my brief quiet time earlier that week jumped out at me again.

Forgive.

It was too soon, too raw, too much to think about it, to consider.

There had not even been an apology, an explanation. I closed my eyes, seeing that last smile.

He had no remorse.

I stood, ready to run again, follow him to the trees, the highway if necessary when my eyes slid to another series of sculptures.

A cross.

An empty tomb.

The ascension.

The still, small voice was like a whisper in my consciousness.

I stood still for a moment, then grabbed my carry-on and my workbag and put each on separate shoulders. I walked back into the cathedral, now on the first floor, and followed green arrow exit signs that pointed to the main front entrance. I passed by the sanctuary and a smaller chapel, my footsteps slow but steady on the red tiled floors. The place was silent, lights dimmed, visiting hours now long over. When I got to the front entrance, I sat down on the steps, and took out my phone.

“Mom?” My son answered on the first ring. “I was wondering what time your flight got here. You never told me.”

“I need you to come pick me up, but I'm not at the airport.”

 

 

As I waited for my son to come get me, I remembered that there had been one other piece of paper, the sheet that I had stuffed into my bag when I'd heard the footsteps coming.

I pulled it out and understood immediately why RiChard, born in Chicago as Alex Santiago James, had every reason to run.

The paper had two photocopied documents.

The first was a death certificate for RiChard St. James, in Perugia, Italy, just last year. The second was a copy of a photo ID for “Kisu Felokwakhe,” but a light-skinned, pockmarked face with light eyes, and not a proud Zulu warrior, smiled at the camera.

Years ago, RiChard had claimed that Kisu was dead. Now, I had no doubt that he was, and that RiChard probably had something to do with it. It would be the only way RiChard, or whoever he was, could get away with using Kisu's identity and discard his own.