Resurrection (Blood of the Lamb) (26 page)

Lazarus sank his head into his hands, his breath sifting loudly backward and forward through his fingers. Finally he blew out a defeated breath and raised his head. “I understand. Forget I ever said a thing.”

“I do like you, Lazarus. I really do. We're friends. It's just—”

He rose to his feet in one fluid motion. “It's all right. There's really no need to explain.” The devastation in his voice made her want to weep. “I understand it. I loved my cousin too. He was everything I'm not.”

He skulked away, disappearing behind one of the machines before she could think of a reply. Stupid. She should have seen this coming—but he'd so loathed her, right from the start. Surely?

Then his words that first night of their outward voyage
sprang to her mind.
The thing with hate, Sister, is that it needs love to define it…
Oh Lord, even then?

She thought about his spying as she and Joseph caressed each other in Marawa Island's gentle waters, and his fury when he thought she was toying with Joseph's love. How could she possibly have known? And yet…that day at Umatu's, she realised now, he'd almost said it then, but she'd rejected it, banished all whispers of that possibility from her mind. Yet the proof was there, if she'd chosen to look. He'd sailed to her rescue, risking his life. He'd opened up and told her of his childhood, his deepest fears. Whenever she had needed him, despite her constant irritation and suspicion, he was there. And how was she rewarding him? By breaking his heart. The trouble was, it caused her own heart to hurt just as much.

Maryam went in search of him, finding him slumped in a corner near the door. He did not look up as she approached, but stared steadfastly at his feet. She squatted down beside him, looping her arm around his neck, and felt how his body stiffened. She dropped her head onto his shoulder, trying to transmit how much she cared.

“I'm sorry.”

He didn't reply, nor did he move an inch. The silence built around them like an impenetrable mist, and eventually Maryam closed her eyes. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest, and matched his breathing with her own.

The next thing she knew Lazarus was lifting her, carrying her like a baby back over to the bunk. She was so dozy she couldn't unlock her tongue to speak. He lay her down carefully and spread the scrap of blanket over her to keep her warm.

She heard him climb into the bunk above, and had almost
drifted back to sleep when she heard him start to cry. The sound ate right into her, down to her bones, the guilt a deep enduring ache inside. When she could bear it no longer, she rose and climbed up beside him, curling herself around his heaving back until, at last, his pain gave way to exhaustion and they both could sleep.

Maryam woke to find Lazarus laying a tray of fresh food on the bunk below her.

“Good morning,” he said, as though nothing significant had passed between them the evening before. He looked crumpled and exhausted, however, as if his sleep had given him no peace. “Hushai just dropped this off. I think you'd better eat as much as possible—he reports that there's definitely something afoot.”

She climbed down from the bunk to join him. “Did he say what?”

“He doesn't know. But he said the whole ship is rife with rumours that some of the villagers are ignoring Father's edict and still seeking the cure.”

“See?” she said. “Our little flame is still alive.”

“Which is more than we may be by the end of the day, if Hushai's intuition is correct.” There was such desolation in his voice, Maryam felt her stomach lurch. The nausea of fear had made a speedy return.

They ate their meal of bread, goat cheese and fresh fruit in silence, each locked inside their own dread. I should pray, Maryam thought. If there ever was a need the time is now. But this really was no longer a viable option: her faith in the Lord
had been tested a step too far, and now she'd opened her heart and mind to the possibility that He did not exist—or at least not in the ways depicted in the Holy Book or espoused by the Apostles—there was no going back. She would have to rely on her own inner strength, just as she'd had to do right from the start. Besides, even the Lamb had been deserted by His Father in his final hours. Ruth was right not to agree to come.

There was nothing to do but wait now, though the minutes felt like hours and the hours like whole days. At times they talked, trying to devise plans for escape, but it felt so pointless and impossible that, in the end, they tacitly agreed to change the subject, attempting to distract themselves with silly stories from their younger days. Lazarus had a gift for this, was able to make her laugh even at this worst of times, but all the while her fear weighed upon her like thick humid air and she could not seem to take more than the shallowest of breaths.

At last the door clanged open and the same bulky server who had marched her from Motirawa entered the room. He pointed to Maryam. “You, come with me.” She rose on shaky legs, Lazarus right beside her. “No,” he said to Lazarus, “You stay.”

“If you think I'm letting her go without me you are—” He got no further. The server swiped him across the face so hard with the back of his hand, Lazarus fell to the floor.

“You pig!” Maryam cried, stooping down to see if Lazarus was all right.

But the server grabbed her roughly around the neck and pulled her away. He dragged her, kicking and defiant, from the room, leaving the still reeling Lazarus locked inside.

“Please. You don't have to do this,” she cried as the man led
her past the noisy water purifiers and up a flight of stairs. “Why stay here when you could be free?”

He refused to answer her. They turned into one of the endless mildewed corridors where the Sisters slept. They passed one numbered door after another, and Maryam felt as if all coordination between her brain and body was lost. She could hardly lift her feet to take each step, let alone work out where she was. Finally, at the end of the corridor, he thrust her through an open door and locked it behind her.

Not again.

She spun around, convinced she'd find Father Joshua here ready to accost her.

“Te bebi!” It was Mother Elizabeth, the woman whom Maryam had once thought of as her adopted mother. She held out her arms to Maryam, beckoning her into an embrace.

Maryam could see her pregnant belly beneath her tunic, and felt repelled. She backed against the locked door. “Don't touch me. I know you for what you really are.” She had known. She'd consciously nurtured the Sisters until they were ripe for sacrifice—fattened like goats for slaughter—all the time filling up their heads with the Apostles’ lies.

Mother Elizabeth dropped her arms. “I understand your anger at me. I really do. But you have to believe me when I tell you I am sorry. I'd never really thought through the consequences until you made me see.” She took a tentative step forward, stopping again when Maryam pressed back further into the door.

“Why should I believe you? Everything else you'd ever said was lies.”

“Please, Maryam, have some faith in me—”

“Faith has been my biggest downfall. Tell me. Will you sacrifice your own baby at the altar too?”

Tears brimmed in Mother Elizabeth's eyes. “Since the day you and dear Ruth left, I've suffered cruelly, knowing what I did was wrong. But what can I do? You know The Rules.”

“I know them and defy them—I'd rather die than let him sour my soul.”

Mother Elizabeth crossed to the bed that lay along one wall, collapsing onto it as if her legs had given way beneath her. “I'm not as brave as you. There—that's the truth. I was raised to do my job, to obey without question…This is who I am. I'm sorry. I know you think me weak.”

“I do.” Maryam's anger and sense of betrayal were undiminished, yet to see her Mother so cowed and hurt was hard to bear. She conceded enough to cross the room and sit beside her, though not so close that Mother Elizabeth could touch her if she tried. “If you really are sorry,” she said now, knowing her words would be in vain but compelled to try, “send someone to free Lazarus and let us go. We'll disappear. You'll never have to see either of us ever again.”

Mother Elizabeth wrung her hands, tears tracking down her velvety cheeks. “You know I cannot do that, te bebi. I've risked my baby's life twice for you already—I never told the Holy Father that I saw you and Ruth leave, and I warned Lazarus that he meant you harm. Is that not enough?”

Maryam weighed up the chances of success if she continued pleading, but she knew Mother Elizabeth had spoken the truth: she simply wasn't brave enough to take further risks. She felt her anger at the woman melt away. In a sense Mother Elizabeth was just like Ruth: obedience was so ingrained in her make-up
and her faith, she'd never fight the status quo, unless she had no other choice. And, again like Ruth, the compulsion to be loved exclusively by her child, when no other real love was offered, kept her blind to whatever horrors still lay in store.

“Explain this then, please,” she asked now. “Why have you brought me here to tell me that you cannot help?”

“For this…” Mother Elizabeth held out her hand, and Maryam took it, and allowed herself to be led to the internal bathroom door. Inside, a steaming hot bath had been prepared, complete with steeping pandanus leaves that caressed the air with their spicy, soothing scent.

The offer of such luxury was so bizarre, unease crept in. “Why are you doing this?” The scented water was calling to her, teasing her with tendrils of sensuous steam. She hadn't had a hot bath for months.

Mother Elizabeth met Maryam's eye. “Quite honestly, I'm not allowed to say. But, believe me, you are in for an unprecedented privilege indeed.” She didn't wait for Maryam to comment, but helped her to lift her grimy, sweat-laden clothes over her head. “Meanwhile, why not just enjoy this for the gift it is?”

Indeed. She'd get no more out of Mother Elizabeth—if she'd been sworn to secrecy there was no way she'd tell. But whatever lay ahead—unprecedented or otherwise—the opportunity to soak away the layers of dirt was too tempting to ignore. She waited for Mother Elizabeth to vacate the room and dealt first with her Bloods, then slipped into the bath. Oh Lordy Lord. She closed her eyes to block out the sight of the black mould that caked the pale green tiles on the walls, while the oil of the pandanus leaves worked its magic on her senses.
The water cradled her in its warmth. If only Lazarus was here…The thought dropped into her mind so suddenly her eyes sprang open with the shock. No, not here, of course! But how she hoped that somewhere right now he too was sinking into a bath to ease his aches and pains.

The trouble was, now she'd thought this, she couldn't get the picture of his naked body from her mind. He was taller than Joseph, and his shoulders broader, but leaner now than when she'd first encountered him, and so browned from the sun that the places where its tanning rays could not reach stood out as starkly as white coral sand. She imagined the two boys standing side by side, comparing them, glad old Hushai was not here with his uncanny capacity to read her thoughts.

She could clearly see the two silhouettes in her mind's eye, but when she tried to discern the distinct differences between the two she failed. Lazarus she could see so plainly it was as if he stood there in the flesh, yet every time she tried to get a fix on Joseph's face she'd almost catch his likeness then it would slip away. His eyes—so blue they'd seared into her soul—kept transforming to Lazarus's eyes. His lips, always curved into his gentle smile, had now been colonised by Lazarus as well. Even his soft blond hair was indistinguishable from his living cousin's. How could this have happened? Joseph was the one she loved. Yet all the details she thought would be forever etched into her heart had faded, overwritten by those of the boy she'd just rejected when he'd declared his love.

Unable to comprehend it, and unwilling to delve into why, she plunged her head under the water and untied her hair. She teased it free of its tangled plait and let it stream around her. She took the soft coconut soap from the side of the bath and
washed her hair, then scrubbed herself with soap and pumice until her skin was tingling clean. She knew she should get out—the water was growing cold around her—but this one luxurious moment in time had to be treasured, for she'd known all along it likely was her last. When, finally, she felt the chill starting to undo the hot water's initial charms, she rose, her body suddenly heavy and clumsy and reluctant to move.

Mother Elizabeth must have heard her getting out of the bath, for she re-entered the bathroom and handed Maryam a towel. When she was dry, Mother Elizabeth ran her long fingers through Maryam's hair to unsnag the knots, then led her back out into the tiny cubicle of a bedroom and held out a gown.

At the sight of it Maryam's heart lurched in terror. Pure white, it was a Judgement gown, like the one she'd worn the day she had Crossed. “Why must I wear this?” she asked, carefully watching for clues on Mother Elizabeth's passive face.

“I couldn't possibly say.” Neither her expression or voice gave anything away. “All I was told was to prepare you—and that you must wear this as well.” She took a parcel from the table beside the bed, opened it, and removed a small bundle of fabric, which she now shook out. It, too, was white—a large square of sheer filmy cloth. She draped it right over the top of Maryam's head to obscure her face.