Chosen (14 page)

‘Your worldly goods will do you little good on judgement day,' Our Father says.

‘Amen,' says everyone.

‘But they will help us in our crusade to locate and educate the Chosen. Come close.' Peter kneels at Our Father's feet and receives a blessing. And then he rises, stumbles a little, as if overcome, and with both fists pressed to his heart, leaves the platform.

‘Ladies,' Hannah says, and five young women stand and move up onto the stage.

‘What is your sacrifice?' Our Father says.

‘Ourselves,' Dodie thinks they say, and she looks to Rebecca but she is straining forward, a bright sheen in her eyes.

‘We have no worldly goods to offer but we willingly give our bodies for Our Father.'

‘Bless you,' Our Father says.

‘Like prostitution?' Dodie whispers.

‘Shh.'

Our Father blesses each of the women and, as they leave the stage, so much joy shines from their faces that it seems to brighten the dimness of the hall.

‘We must honour the Chosen for their sacrifice. And each of you must search your heart and soul for what you will give. That which is dearest to you, will be best for your soul, and that which benefits Soul-Life is what is asked of you, and truly you will find it is no sacrifice for these are scales you must shed in your journey towards the Universal Soul.'

Our Father's voice is weakening. Dodie has to strain to hear.

‘Amen' makes a quiet ripple round the room in throaty, fervent whispers and it's almost quiet, only a cough here, a fidget there, as each contemplates what he or she will give. And Dodie looks down at the ground, littered now with paper cups and cake cases and crumbs, and knowing she has nothing more she will give, not her body, not her house, not her son, she feels a shiver of separation, a sliver peeling away between herself and the rest.

‘Tonight is the Ceremony of the Lamb,' Our Father continues. ‘The Lamb is a symbol of all that is meek and good.' He hesitates and the Mask that is Martha comes close to him, supports him, whispers in his ear before he continues: ‘It is a symbol of the son of our Lord who sacrificed his own child for the good of mankind; the Lamb is a symbol of sacrifice itself.'

‘Amen,' everyone intones, louder now. One of the Masks leaves the platform by the door and returns with a tiny newborn lamb in his arms. Another withdraws a long blade.

‘The Blood of the Lamb is a benediction from our Lord in Heaven,' Our Father says, and he takes the creature tenderly in his arms. Against a steady background hum from the Masks, the lamb bleats and before Dodie can believe what is about to happen, it has happened and blood flows from the neck of the lamb into a bucket, audible above the hum, pumping out in a heavy splatter as the creature squirms, slackens, hangs empty across Our Father's crimsoned lap.

Dodie's hand flies to her mouth and she gags, eyes watering. She looks at Rebecca's expression, fixed and resolute. John still lies on the floor, eyes closed. But Daniel's
eyes are bright, and his smile is joyful. The hum in the room rises, most people joining now in a multi-stranded crescendo, which, as Our Father lifts and holds out the little body as an offering, stops.

‘To be washed in the Blood of the Lamb,' Our Father says, ‘I invite you one and all.'

‘Stand.' Hannah lifts her arms. And the pompous piped music rises again as the crowd stands, but not John. Dodie hunkers down beside him.

‘John,' she says. She shakes him. ‘
John
.' But there is no response. ‘Help me,' she says, and she and Rebecca pull John to his feet. Hannah has instructed everyone to file out past the platform. As they pass Our Father he dips a finger in the blood and daubs a cross on each forehead. There is a kind of glee about the whole occasion now, as if this is a most outrageous treat; the giggliness returned. ‘Bless you,' Our Father says to each.

‘We need to get him out of here,' Dodie says.

‘But he must be blessed,' Daniel says.

‘But he's unconscious. He needs a doctor. We'll ask Martha.'

‘Put him down while we wait,' Rebecca says. ‘I don't think you're meant to stand unconscious people up.' They struggle John into the queue and allow him to slump down, head lowered between his knees. Dodie looks down at the shaved top of his head. Knotted white scars amid the sandy stubble.

‘Know what's up with him?' she whispers.

Rebecca shakes her head.

‘It's the Lord's will,' Daniel says and Dodie feels more of herself peeling away from the fanatical shine in his eyes, the blandness of his face which might as well already be a mask.

Eventually, supporting John, they approach the platform. ‘He's blacked out,' Dodie says. ‘He really needs a doctor.'

‘Bring him to Our Father,' Martha says.

Our Father's mask tilts towards the grey-faced man. The
bucket is almost empty. He has to smear his finger round the sides to pick up enough blood to mark first John, then Daniel, then Rebecca, and finally Dodie with a cross. The blood is tacky and Our Father seems to linger with his finger, the eyeholes focused on her for too long. The iron tang of blood makes her want to gag again, that and the sick heaviness of John and the gullible shine of Daniel.

‘Where shall we take him?' Rebecca asks.

Hannah steps down from the platform. She bends towards Our Father, holding her thumbs, and Dodie sees the shiny pink depression where the thumb joint was. A peculiar quailing sensation travels through her when she sees his thumbless hand, narrow, flipper-like, bloody from the lamb, and she finds herself clutching her own thumb close to her heart in the familiar gesture.

B
ring him this way.' Hannah walks away from them along the corridor. The elastic thread from the mask is tight round the back of her fairish-grey head. Manipulating John is like steering a drunk. There's some movement in his legs now, some life returning, and he staggers soggily between Dodie and Rebecca. Daniel has left them now and Dodie is glad, something like hate was growing in her for him, or for his ability to believe and follow. He glowed with a sort of holy smugness.

Hannah opens a door into a narrow room with beds and lockers like a hospital ward. One of the two lights fails to switch on – it's dismal and almost cold.

John has peed himself. They work off the wet trousers and put him into bed. His body is thin, the flesh waxy, the ribs and knobbles of spine showing yellow through the skin. His penis is a poor scrunched acorn lost in a drift of leaves. He lies flat and groans, flutters his eyes open for a moment. His breath is foul.

‘He needs a doctor,' Dodie says.

‘Water?' Rebecca asks him and he nods. There's water in a jug but it's dusty and half-evaporated. She goes to the tap and freshens it, wets a cloth and wipes his face.

‘Will you phone?' Dodie asks.

Hannah's mask holds still on her face. ‘There's no medical intervention, don't you know that?'

‘But this is really serious!'

‘And Our Lord is really serious. If He wishes John to recover, then he will.'

‘But he might –' Dodie begins, but can't say
die
in front of John.

‘If it's God's will, our Brother will be released from the trials of life. He will let go, finally, the edges. He will be free.'

‘We just let him go?' Dodie says. Hannah stares at her until she looks down. The blood crusts itchily on Dodie's brow, but she won't scratch, doesn't want lamb blood under her nails.

‘You and Rebecca stay with him,' Hannah says. ‘I'll be back in a moment. Rebecca:
remember
.' She blinks at Rebecca and leaves the room, locking the door behind her.

‘Remember what?'

Rebecca concentrates on stroking John's cheek.

‘What?' Dodie says. ‘
What?
'

Rebecca flashes a quick grin. ‘Not to let you – Satan – get to me.'

‘Satan,' Dodie says. ‘Do you
really
believe in Satan?'

Rebecca frowns; she looks confused, a struggle going on behind her eyes.

John shifts and groans. He seems to be trying to say something, gathering himself for some effort.

‘What is it?' Dodie says. ‘What do you want?' He lifts his head but then it falls, his eyes roll back, the whites a frightening yolky colour.

‘We should try and get a doctor,' Dodie says. ‘Maybe someone here was a doctor?'

‘No,' John says. His voice comes out with surprising strength.

‘Are you sure?' Dodie asks.

‘It's his choice,' Rebecca says. ‘To come here. We all know there's no medical interference.'

‘But –'

‘God's will,' Rebecca says.

‘It's God's will to let someone die when they might be saved?'

‘It's a different meaning of saved.'

‘If God didn't want there to be medicine, why did he let there be doctors?'

Rebecca won't meet her eyes; she's playing with John's fingers.

‘Or are doctors and medicine Satan's work?'

Rebecca eyelids are veined like leaves. ‘Remember, these doubts are good,' she says, and she still won't look up. ‘It shows the new you is aware of Satan's tricks.' She says it like a recitation.

‘I don't believe you believe –'

‘Don't,' Rebecca says, sharply, a flutter of panic in her voice. ‘Let me believe what I want to believe.'

‘What you
want
to believe?'

A shadow moves across Rebecca's face. The blood has dried brown on her smooth white forehead; a flake fallen off and lodged in her pale eyebrow.

‘What can we do, Brother, to make you feel better?' Rebecca leans over John, strokes the side of his face. He's so sweaty that the blood has smeared all over the place, ghastly red against the grey-yellow of his skin and eyes and lips and even his teeth, which seem coated in mouse fur when he gasps his mouth open for a rattly breath.

‘I don't know if I can do this,' Dodie says, staring at the mess that is John. ‘And that poor lamb.' She winces, remembering the heavy splattering of blood into bucket.

‘The sacrifice is central,' Rebecca says.

‘But why?'

‘Don't,' Rebecca says. She blinks and hums, a high wavery mosquito.

Dodie sighs and grasps John's other hand. Runs her
finger over the tattoos that mottle the back and crawl bruisily right up his arms under the fair curly hair.

‘How did
you
come to be here?' she asks him, expecting no answer.

His breath is rattly and laboured but he has a smile on his face now. ‘Chosen,' he gets out and then a sharp inhalation and, ‘
Man
.'

‘What?'

‘
Pain
.'

‘Where?' Dodie says, but he lays down his head and his eyes slide under his lids. ‘Just rest,' she soothes, ‘take it easy.'

‘Let go,' Rebecca says, and the corners of his mouth lift. ‘That's it, let it all go.' They sit and watch the breath struggle in and out of his bluish lips. His nostrils pinch open and shut with the effort.

‘Will you do prostitution?' Dodie whispers.

Rebecca shrugs. ‘Maybe.' She massages John's fingers, squeezing the tips between her own.

‘I couldn't,' Dodie says. ‘I just couldn't stand it.'

Rebecca gives a little shrug. ‘We have to, like, do something. And there's teaching in it. That this body is nothing really, just a fleshmobile. Moving towards the loss of identity. It doesn't matter, you see.'

But it sounds phoney, as if she's kidding herself.

‘You know what, Rebecca, I
like
your identity,' Dodie says. ‘If we were out of here we'd have a lot of fun.'

Rebecca flattens the corners of her mouth.

‘Yeah,' Dodie says. ‘Hannah's slipped up leaving us alone. I'll soon lead you astray.'

Rebecca loses her struggle with her expression and grins. There's a weak smile on John's face, or maybe a grimace.

‘OK, John?' Rebecca says, but he doesn't answer. They sit for a moment, gazing at him.

‘Don't you think . . .' Dodie picks her way carefully through the words. ‘Don't you think it's kind of
exploitative
?'

Rebecca gives a scrape of her fantastic donkey laugh.
‘Whores for Our Lord?' she says. ‘That has a pretty good ring to it.'

Dodie stares at Rebecca, trying to read the smoothness of her face. The pale lashes are lowered, the sickly artificial light casts elderly shadows on her cheeks spinning her years into the future when the fair will be grey and the freshness will have faded. Dodie realizes she's been crushing John's hand in her own; she scrubs the brothy sweat on the leg of her trousers. She wets the cloth and wipes John's hands and squeezes a little water onto his dry lips.

‘So, no sex among the Chosen but you can go and fuck any old pervert who's got a few dollars going spare?'

‘Guess so,' Rebecca says evenly. ‘But it must be a sacrifice. If it was nice it wouldn't be, would it?'

‘It might be nice sometimes,' Dodie says. ‘What if a gorgeous hunk walked in, would you turn him down?'

Rebecca guffaws again. ‘Shut up!'

Dodie goes to speak, but then she feels a shiver go up her arm as if something has travelled, evaporating, through her veins. The hand she holds has lost all tone. She and Rebecca feel it at the same instant and their eyes meet. He's gone. No question. The smeary lamb's blood on his brow looks almost fluorescent against his dead skin, sunken eyes, sickly smile. She lets his dead hand drop. A tattooed mermaid has her tail wrapped round his wrist. The hairs are crisp and light, the message not got through to them yet. The pupils are flared in the muddy hazel of his widened eyes. Rebecca swallows audibly. Tentatively, she puts her finger on the lids to press them down. Dodie gets a sudden shocking urge to giggle. She turns away and frowns at the wall, a dispenser of pocked blue paper towels. A Sprite can on a shelf. Her throat aches with the outrageous banality of death.