The Book of the Heathen (34 page)

He left us after that.

The boy held his hands close to the dead fire. He rubbed the soot from the charred paper and boards onto his forehead and cheeks. He spat into his palms and moulded a handful of this mess into a small ball, which he smeared over his lips and teeth, and which he then sucked as though it were some sweet fruit.

Ensuring that nothing legible or identifiable remained, I left him and returned to my bed, the dawn's first light already showing above the trees.

29

Later that morning, and ensuring I was not observed, I went to see Cornelius. The noise of hymns and of Klein berating his flock rose from the chapel, the voices amplified and distorted by the tin walls and roof which could not contain the racket.

At first I thought Cornelius had fallen and that he lay unconscious on the floor, but as I knocked and entered he roused himself and rose slowly and stiffly from where he had spent the night. He wore only his trousers and boots. There were dark rings of sleeplessness around his eyes, and his usually neatly trimmed beard and moustache had started to spread over his neck and cheeks. He mumbled an apology for his appearance and told me to sit down. He pulled at a cloth tied around his upper arm and then flexed his arm back and forth. The cloth left a dark welt.

I started to tell him what I had learned from Frere the previous day, but he remained distracted, unconcerned by what I said.

Eventually he held up his hand to silence me and moved closer to the window to better hear the singing and the voice of the priest.

‘Listen to him,' he said. ‘Listen.'

I stopped speaking of Frere.

‘He antagonizes you deliberately,' I said. ‘It's a game to him.'

‘He doesn't have to antagonize me,' he said. ‘His very presence, his very existence is a constant reminder of my own failings and weaknesses.' He took his crumpled jacket from the bed and put it on.

‘He knows that, too,' I said. ‘But what do you imagine you will ever achieve by confronting him?'

‘All I want to know is the truth.'

‘About your wife?'

‘“Wife”,' he repeated softly.

‘Your child's mother,' I said.

‘“Wife” will suffice. She was that in all but the eyes of the church,
his
church.'

‘Can't you accept what Perpetua told you?' I said.

‘And for which she was punished. Perhaps I will have to accept it, but I would much prefer to hear it from him before everything here is gone forever and we too are forgotten to the world.'

‘What do you intend doing?' I asked cautiously.

He finished buttoning up his jacket before turning to me and slowly shaking his head.

‘Are you going to see him?' I knew he was. ‘Then let me come with you to—'

‘To what? To witness fair play? Save that for Frere. You are as useless to him in that respect as I ever was to her or my daughter.'

The remark caught me unawares.

‘Yes, I intend going to see him. And, if necessary, I'll pay him to find out exactly what happened to her, where she was sent, where she might still be.'

We went outside together, and no sooner had we secured his door behind him than we heard a loud scream, followed by another and then another in rapid succession. There was a short silence, followed in turn by three more screams, as evenly spaced as the first three, and leaving us in no doubt that they came from inside the chapel.

Cornelius ran ahead of me. I tried to grab him and stop him, to give us time to send for Fletcher, but he pulled himself free of me and ran panting to the chapel door, pushing it open just as a further three screams filled the air.

I ran to join him.

The chapel was full, the congregation on their feet and dancing in a common rhythm from side to side, men and women groaning aloud and shouting out. Some of them stood with their faces pressed to the corrugated walls and others lay writhing in the aisle and round the edges of the small room.

At first no-one appeared to notice our arrival and the commotion continued unabated. It was difficult to see what was happening at the front of the chapel because of this throng of shifting bodies, but Cornelius pushed through them, shouting for people to get out of his way as he went. Those he pushed aside complied without resistance, and many became silent in his wake; some even fell back into their seats, exhausted by their exertions.

I followed a short distance behind him, and as I passed into the body of the crowd, and as the men and women gave way around me, a further three screams filled the small space, echoing against the walls and low roof so that this time there was no silence between them, and so that the three were drawn out into a single, prolonged cry.

Ahead of me, Cornelius continued to push through those at the front of the crowd and emerged into the space before the altar. He called out at what he finally saw there, and the people closest to him moved away in alarm. I hurried to join him. A woman fell at my feet and shook on her back as though having a fit. I stepped over her; no-one else made any approach to her, merely moving further beyond her reach as she continued to twist and turn and bang her head and palms on the ground. Everyone in the overheated room was bathed in sweat, their faces dripping with it as though they had all been doused.

I finally arrived where Cornelius stood and saw what he saw.

There, beneath the altar, on a rack resembling a slanting cross, lay Perpetua, bound by her ankles and wrists to the upright and cross-piece in some semblance and mockery of the crucified Christ. She was naked but for a cloth fastened around her groin, and upon her head was a crown of thorns, pushed hard into her flesh so that she bled where it pierced her. I looked at all this, unable to fully comprehend what I was seeing, looked closer and saw the welts across her legs, breasts and stomach, saw where these bled in lines over her black skin.

Only then did I see that to one side of her stood Felicity, her eyes closed, her hands clasped in prayer. She was once again wearing her nun's habit, the hood of which covered most of her face. She kept her head bowed, intoning whatever useless prayer she uttered.

And at the other side of the woman on the rack stood Klein, his slender cane in his hand, held above his head, as though he had stopped mid-stroke at Cornelius's sudden intrusion. The man seemed unperturbed at his discovery. He looked hard at Cornelius, at the disgust and incredulity which filled his eyes, and he smiled, almost as though he had anticipated this interruption, as though Cornelius's arrival were part of the ritual and the punishment, and as though the ceremony and the woman's suffering were now enhanced by Cornelius bearing witness to it.

And from Cornelius, Klein looked briefly to me, and I saw a flicker of uncertainty and anger cross his face. I looked from him to the cane he held, and almost as though in response to this, reminded of the act he had interrupted, he brought it sharply down across Perpetua's breasts.

Before either Cornelius or I could respond to this, Klein swung the cane and struck her again, and then again, this time not looking where his blows landed, but instead keeping his eyes on Cornelius. The first of the blows landed across Perpetua's stomach, and the second caught her on her neck and immediately raised a welt there. Her screams were louder than before and I felt each one as though it were a blow to my own face.

Unable to tolerate any longer what was happening, Cornelius ran at Klein and pushed the man so harshly that he fell back against the wall, where he stood for a moment recovering from the blow. Cornelius turned to Perpetua. He took out a knife and cut her from the cross. I anticipated that the rest of the congregation might finally make some move against him, but instead they cleared an even wider space around us and watched us in fright. Cornelius pulled down the embroidered altar cloth and gave it to Perpetua to cover her nakedness. She trembled uncontrollably and needed his support to remain standing. Cornelius called for Felicity to help him, but the woman remained where she stood, still refusing to raise her head.

By this time, Klein had regained his composure. He ran at Cornelius and struck him across his back with his cane. Cornelius turned, grabbed the stick and snapped it easily in half. Klein backed away from him. He stabbed his finger at Perpetua and told her to remove the altar cloth, accusing her of desecration. Cornelius positioned himself between the priest and the woman. Klein called to his congregation to help him, but despite the ripple of fear his words sent through the crowd, no-one approached the altar to carry out his command.

Cornelius took the crown of thorns from Perpetua's head, causing her to cry out as each of its points was prised free of her. He gave her a handkerchief to wipe the bloody mess of her brow.

Klein exhorted the men who stood closest to him to seize Cornelius, but they too refused to obey him, looking at each other over his head and then backing away from him.

‘She is
possessed
!' Klein screamed at Cornelius. ‘By devils. By her own admission. This is for her own good. She will not be allowed entry into our new church until she is rid of them. It is what she wants.
Ask her. Ask her!
'

‘You have no intention of taking her with you,' Cornelius said loudly. ‘Nor Felicity. They know too much of you. They've seen the dirt on your hands.'

‘Such eloquence, such insight,' Klein said, raising his hands in mock surprise.

Cornelius turned back to Perpetua and again wiped her brow. ‘I know you understand what I'm saying,' he said to her. ‘I know you won't speak, won't answer me.'

She held his hand briefly as he wiped the blood from her eyes. She still trembled beneath the gold-embroidered cloth.

‘You, too,' Cornelius said to Felicity, who raised her head barely an inch in acknowledgement before lowering it again.

Then Cornelius turned back to Klein. ‘You're right,' he said. ‘I did want answers from you, I did want to know what happened to the child's mother and—'

‘The whore!' Klein shouted. ‘Say it. That was what she was when you met her and defiled her. And that is surely what she went back to being when you abandoned her with her belly already swollen.'

I saw the restraint Cornelius exercised at hearing all this. I saw his fists clenched hard by his sides.

The rest of the congregation continued to watch us in terrified awe. Klein's snapped stick at his feet had done nothing to diminish their fear of the man.

He saw them looking, pointed to Perpetua, and shouted, ‘She was possessed by devils, many devils, devils that would have defiled her just as this man defiled and abandoned his own woman! There is no place in our new church and mission for women like that or men like him. Is that what you want? Is that what you truly want? To be forever surrounded by such animal evil? Is it? Or do you want to follow me and build anew in the new light of a new age?'

No-one answered him. There was considerable agreement with what he said, but no-one responded directly, preferring instead to nod their concurrence and to either bow their heads or to avert their eyes when he looked at them.

‘She was a whore!' he shouted at Cornelius. ‘And a bigger whore when you left her. What did you imagine – that I would take pity on her and keep her at the mission, give her work and a home there for her and her bastard child, is that what you thought? We sent her to Port Elys as soon as the child was born. Perhaps we even believed that we might save the child by removing her from her mother, and her from us. Whatever, she was a sickly child, and so who knows?' He paused to catch his breath. ‘Or perhaps she pined for her mother and that was the reason she was so sickly. Perhaps having a whore for a mother was better than having no mother at all. Perhaps she would have learned to live with the idea just as you learned to live with it. Oh, you did learn to live with what you'd done didn't you, van Klees, with the lives you'd blighted? Surely you learned to beg forgiveness of the Lord for what you'd done, and then to live with that forgiveness? No? No? What,
never
?'

Cornelius pulled at the cross until the top was lifted free of the altar and he threw it to the ground.

‘One cross,' Klein said. ‘Such a resurrection. And your woman, van Klees – don't imagine that we at Kirasi did not in some way benefit from her departure. Or should I say her sale?'

Cornelius looked up at this, his fists still clenched, his thumbs running back and forth over his knuckles.

Klein seized his advantage. ‘Did you imagine we just gave all those poor, disappointed women away after all the mission had done for them, after all we had provided for them? The Port Elys traders knew where we were, how to reach us. They understood the quality of our goods. Tell me, is that where you hope to go in search of her? Because if it is, don't bother. Port Elys is only where they start out. No-one lasts long there. From Port Elys they are sold on to Yalata or Petit Coeur, and you know what those places are like. Perhaps you've even visited the women there. Of course you have. Rest assured, van Klees, your wretched child was better off not knowing how she came into the world, far better off. And you, too – I imagine you made your own convenient excuses which were easier to live with than the truth of the matter. I pity you, I really do. You're no different from that wretched man Frere, no different, except that he is to be called to account for his actions and you are left to live damned but unpunished with the consequences of everything
you
have done.'

I doubted if Cornelius could stand much more of this, and I stood ready to restrain him should he again attempt to reach Klein. Klein, too, I sensed, understood that he had said as much as he dare, and he turned away from Cornelius and Perpetua and raised his hands above his head and started singing, stopping briefly to shout for his congregation to join him, which they did, falteringly at first, but then with growing conviction and enthusiasm, as though they too understood that this was the only release available to them.