The Sacrifice (32 page)

The soft blue-wool blanket splotched with blood, Anis had dragged over her, to hide her.

A sign that he loved her, Ednetta knew. Hide her shame, and keep her from cold. And from the sight of somebody staring inside the room, to see her how she would not want to be seen.

Ednetta gripped Sybilla’s head in her hands. Turned her head, to see how bad it was.

Blood in the girl’s hair like grease. And blood down her face like tears. Her eyes beginning to swell. Lips cracked and bleeding. In his rage she understood had been a despairing rage he’d torn the girl’s clothes, battered her with his fists. He’d been cursing and sobbing, she knew. Hated the rage that came over him like liquid fire how the rage came into him and how it hurt
him
, he could not prevail against it.

This girl Sybilla was her most vexatious child. Sassy-mouth daughter she’d had to love but it was a hurtful love like a pebble in your shoe.

Ednetta screamed at the girl she’d provoked him! God damn you
look now what he done, you know Anis have a hard life, now they will send him to prison the rest of his life. Anis die in that nasty place, girl it will be on your head.

Your stepdaddy he love you, girl. He try to love you. He help support you, like you his own daughter. And this how you thank him actin like some slut.

Girl, you open them eyes. You look at
me
.

She’d been with that boy, that was it. That Jaycee Handler the girls always talking about, nudging Sybilla in her ribs like it was a joke. And Anis not happy with Sybilla staying out of school and the kind of people she hangin with. Anis saying, if that girl gets pregnant, ’Netta, ain’t no joke. If that girl shames us, that ain’t no joke you know that.

People never knew, Anis took family serious. Anis took the responsibility for the kids serious. Looking at Ednetta like he’d be hurting
her
, she didn’t control the daughter. She’d told Anis she thought that the boy was incarcerated, she’d heard it was Mountainview, talk was maybe Jaycee wouldn’t survive, havin enemies there. But that never happened. What happened was, Sybilla went to see Jaycee with his sister Shirley, and Ednetta the last to know. And Sybilla fourteen years old!—just havin her birthday, so she was fifteen. This news that came (belatedly) to Ednetta, she had to know that Anis knew, too. Worse then, Sybilla had stayed away from the house overnight fearing Anis, and when she came back like a sniveling little dog with his tail between his legs there was Anis. She knew, Anis had to discipline her. He’d warned her enough times and all the kids knew, the girl disrespecting him would have to be punished. That big girl of Ednetta’s always sassing Anis Schutt behind his back or without any actual words only just
thinking
, he could discern this. That cast in her left eye seemed always to be mocking him
Fuck you asshole-stepdaddy, you don’t know shit what I’m doing.

Wasn’t Anis’s fault, such provocations.

Ednetta believed that was the way it had been.

Sybilla lay shuddering in Ednetta’s arms on the bed, where Ednetta dragged her up. Maybe a mistake, the blood would get in the bed worse than it was soaking down into the mattress already brown-blood-stained and urine-stained, but she had to comfort the girl—that beating was bad. Sybilla smelling of her body where she’d wet herself and maybe worse. Girl was sweaty and had vomited on herself. He’d had to discipline her, but he had not used a strap this time. There were no strap-welts on the girl’s chest, buttocks, back Ednetta could see. If she had to take the girl to a doctor nobody would ask about the strap. Other questions they would ask, Ednetta had worked out ways to answer. If no bone was broke, only maybe a rib sprained, that would be OK. Ednetta thought it would be OK. But she would have to take her for some kind of medical treatment—like stitches in her eyebrow where it was all bloody and the skin kind of loose—anybody seeing Sybilla would know there’d been a bad beating, and cops might find out. And if the girl went back to school, damn teachers askin questions! They put away Anis for the rest of his life and he die in that nasty place and Ednetta in her bed alone mourning him. Or, Anis die on the street if the cops tried to take him.

The father of Sybilla, he die like that on the street like a dog. But not in Pascayne, in New York. Some street in the Bronx where he end up, only age thirty-six or -seven. But Ednetta had set her heart against
him
, the shit he’d done to her. And Sybilla never knew that father, or any of the younger children. And Anis never ask.

In Ednetta’s arms Sybilla lay snuffling like something was broke in her nose. Like a guilty beat dog, that has given up. Swollen eyes, swollen mouth, Ednetta hoped no teeth were loose. Didn’t want to think of how the girl was beneath her torn clothes that Anis complained of through the summer, his stepdaughter out on the street
like some slut, and people knowing she was
his
. Then this last straw, Jaycee Handler he knew to be a punk selling crack to hooker crackheads. Anis in such a fury he hadn’t known what he would do, like bringing a match to a curtain, see how the fire flare up—nobody to stop it, once it start. She was shivering bad herself. She was tasting blood in her own mouth. She said, S’b’lla, we got to find some way. It up to us. When she was feeling strong enough she half-carried the girl out into the hall and to the bathroom, kicked aside the mess and ran hot water into the tub. Hoped to hell the younger children weren’t sitting on the stoop. Or hanging at the back door like hungry pups. Last thing Ednetta wanted was some damn nosy neighbor coming over. Hard to get Sybilla into the tub without her slipping and falling. Like something broke in her head, she can’t stand without teetering. Even her littlest right toe looked like it was crooked. Then in the tub Sybilla lay stiff with pain, moaning like some kicked dog. With a washcloth Ednetta washed between her legs. Gentle as she could but the girl started whimpering. A swirl of blood, fading into the water. Ednetta didn’t ask how bad it was there, had to hope there wasn’t something torn inside, she’d have to be taken to the clinic to have fixed.

Thinking
A girl is yourself. A daughter is yourself one more time. You got to love her no matter how vexatious she is, she ain’t got nobody but her mama.

After the bath that was steamy-hot and left them both dazed and sleepy Ednetta dried the girl in the biggest, best towel and whispered some baby talk in her ear and slipped her arm around the naked skinny waist where the bruises were starting, and walked her back to the bedroom, straightened the bed and another time the two lay together in each other’s arms exhausted and drifting off to sleep.

Sybilla whispered
Mama, you gon forgive me?

FEBRUARY 19, 1988

NEWARK, NEW JERSEY

T
hereby are you baptized in the name of the Prophet—‘Aasia Muhammad.’”

She was kneeling at the altar of the First Temple of the Kingdom of Islam of Newark, New Jersey, as the Black Prince baptized her into the faith. She was kneeling trembling and scarcely daring to breathe her eyes fixed upon the altar floor and the Black Prince’s rather small, narrow feet in black leather boots visible beneath the hem of his white silk robe.

The ceremony in the Temple had been lengthy. The small gathering of the faithful murmured prayers and responses in a language she could not comprehend, that seemed wonderful to her. Several times she’d become light-headed from having fasted and slept only a few hours the previous night and from the excitement of the occasion.

“As you are ‘Aasia,’ so you are
hope
. And you are a vessel of
hope
for others.”

With his fingertips the Black Prince touched her bowed head. She
felt that touch through her being—like an electric current rendering her helpless. The Black Prince who was a “soldier” of Faith—a “warrior” of Allah—was praying over her in the strange, startling language that came to his tongue as readily as the more common, English language she’d been hearing all her life.

She’d been instructed how to reply. Faltering, determined to prevail, she murmured the responses she’d memorized that were incomprehensible to her except as words of magic. This, the very speech of Allah.

But it was beautiful speech! Uttering such words she felt that she might turn into a tropical bird with rich royal-blue feathers, cream-colored neck plumes, astonishing sea-green tail. Her speech was musical, mysterious. She could spread her wings, and
fly.

That morning, early she’d been bathed by Sisters. Her hair had been stiff-plaited and affixed to her head with hairpins. Slowly then and with elaborate care she’d been clothed in white undergarments and in a white nylon skirt to her ankles and a long-sleeved white nylon tunic that fitted her slender body loosely. Over the plaited hair, a white nylon head covering like a nun’s.

White is the color of
purity, virginity
. White was Aasia Muhammad’s color.

“‘Great is the happiness of the daughter of the Prophet . . .’”

Among females of the Faith, there were “daughters”—“sisters”—“brides”—“wives.” At fifteen, Sybilla Frye would be a “daughter.”

Eagerly and anxiously she’d taken lessons in the Faith. Numerous times she’d practiced the ritual of conversion. With her Sister-instructress she had practiced the act of submission—first, on her knees, and her head bowed, and then sinking forward slowly in submission until she lay prostrate on her chest, belly, legs and her arms flung out above her head on the altar floor.

This is the posture of
utter acquiescence
, she’d been instructed. No
one is so vulnerable to Allah as at this moment, prostrating herself on the Earth.

And Allah looks with love upon those who prostrate themselves in this way which is the way of the child.

Ednetta who’d accompanied Sybilla to her lessons had been astonished to see her sassy, rude, vexatious daughter so
obedient
. Sybilla had taken a mischievous pleasure in surprising Mama.

Too bad, there was (yet) no Temple of the Kingdom of Islam in Pascayne. This conversion ceremony, specially arranged by the Black Prince for Sybilla, took place in the Newark Temple, in a neighborhood not unlike Red Rock near the river.

It was mid-February: a low bleak sky like dirty pavement. The Passaic River turgid and lead-colored. In her beautiful white clothes with a coat flung over her shoulders Sybilla had been cold, shivering almost convulsively. She’d wiped at her eyes, and at her nose. Ednetta had pressed tissues upon her, that Sybilla wadded and pushed up inside her sleeves; how awful it would be, mortifying!—if as Sybilla advanced to the altar on the arm of an elder Sister, in her beautiful clothes, one of the wadded tissues would fall out of her sleeve.

Damn but Sybilla’s eyes continued to water, uncontrollably. Since that bad beating, her left eye seemed particularly weak.

In another year or two, “Aasia Muhammad” could be betrothed. Her Sister-instructress in the Kingdom had told her that in the African countries of Morocco, Nigeria, Libya, Kenya, girls of fifteen, even fourteen, or thirteen, were frequently betrothed. To remain a girl, a child, was not desirable in the Kingdom, when one could become a “bride” of the Prophet, and a “wife” to a designated husband.

“‘Aasia Muhammad.’ Daughter of the Prophet you will rise . . .”

Aasia Muhammad!
She had never heard so beautiful a name.

No longer was she “Sybilla Frye”—already the name sounded coarse and common to her ears.

Already that old, outgrown life had become repellent to her. A life of squalor, ignorance, shame, sin . . .

Things she’d done. Things she’d allowed to be done to her.

Years ago, in sixth grade. So young.

Older boys had given her beer in cans. She’d shared their beer. They’d given her joints to smoke, or to try to smoke. What they’d claimed to be crack she’d sniffed up into her nostrils so tender they’d bled. And the guys laughing at her.

Taking money from men hanging at the edge of Hicks Park. Taking money for Sybilla Frye to go with these men into the (nasty-smelly) men’s lavatory or out behind the storage shed.

They’d give her small change to keep. Called her
Dog-face
which was cruel and unfair because everybody knew, Sybilla Frye was one of the sexy-attractive girls.

Except for the gap between her front teeth, and that damn eye so they’d call her
Cross-eye.
Which wasn’t true, either.

Jaycee hadn’t been the first. Jaycee’d been the one broke her heart.

He’d fired a gun at another boy. Jaycee always insisted, the boy he’d shot had been shooting at
him
.

It was something God must’ve decided, that Anis hadn’t murdered her for disobeying him. Showing her ass like a slut in the hot summer, and her little titties in a T-strap shirt, had riled him worse than she’d known, but going out to Mountainview with Shirley, he hadn’t even found out about it for certain, only just heard some damn rumor, he’d lost control. Sybilla tried to call him
Daddy
like he’d wanted but came out wrong, he’d thought she was sassing him, and maybe sometimes she was, it happened like that in school sometimes too, you rolled your eyes or made a smirk-face and a teacher saw you, and you hadn’t even meant it. Anis Schutt had murdered his first wife but not everybody knew he’d (maybe) murdered another woman, too, whose body
had never been found but was believed to be dumped in the river off the Pitcairn Bridge.

And maybe Mama knew? For sure, Aunt Cheryl knew. And Martine knew. You had to feel pity for Mama, not a bad-looking woman for her age but so sad and desperate to keep her man. And everybody knew, Anis Schutt used ’Netta Frye for his convenience like some old wife the husband doesn’t glance at or give a damn for long as she cooks for him, cleans his clothes for him and crap like that. So trusting she’d given Anis some of the Reverend’s money, with a promise of more. Sybilla had known, Anis had hated Ednetta for that money,
shame-money
he’d called it, but he’d taken it from her just the same.

Anis Schutt wasn’t in this Temple this morning. Anis Schutt had nothing to do with Sybilla converting to the Kingdom of Islam and for all Sybilla knew, Ednetta was keeping it a secret from him.