Objects of Worship (13 page)

It’s not quite dawn yet, and there are candles burning.
Marie’s eyes are closed; she is chanting softly, almost
humming. Sam stares hard into my eyes while he talks
solemnly. I don’t want to be nervous, but I can’t help it.

“God the Spider devoured the previous, dead universe,
and then wove this universe into being. God has no name
and no gender. Its memory lives on in degraded form in
human folklore. Some peoples have not forgotten that
Spider created the universe, and they gave God a name,
made up stories based on their primordial memories but
filtered through their cultures. Around the world Spider is
worshipped as creator, in either male or female aspects: for
the Akan of West Africa, Anansi Kokuroko is the spider god
of creation; in the Congo, the name is Mebege; the Kiribati
in the Pacific refer to the creator as Nareau the spider. In
the Americas, the creator is remembered as Spider Woman:
Koyangwuti to the Hopi, Sussistanako to the Pueblos,
Teotihuacan to the Aztec. For comics fans, God has become
a superhero called Spiderkid.”

He cracks a smile, and I relax.

I straighten my back, and I nod at Sam. I’m ready.
He nods back.

Marie is still humming.

Sam leans forward and takes the lid off the urn.
Marie’s mouth opens wide, and now she’s chanting a high note that conveys joy, anticipation, and awe.

Two mesothele spiders crawl out of the urn toward
Sam and Marie. They climb onto my lovers’ toes and move
upward. The spiders reach Sam and Marie’s open mouths.
Sam and Marie extend their tongues, and the spiders crawl
onto them, then disappear down their throats.

Sam is chanting, too, now.

For a while nothing happens. Then Sam and Marie fall
silent, their eyes bulge, and their bodies convulse.

Legions of mesothele spiders file out from Sam and
Marie’s tattoos. The primitive spiders crawl toward me,
subsume my body.

I feel their jaws dig into my flesh. The pain is delicious.
I welcome the creator.

Njàbò, my only child, my daughter, walks with me. She is as old
as the forest, while I was born but three and a half decades ago.
Our ears prick up at the sound of drums. We scan the sky and
spot a column of smoke to the northwest. We run toward it. The
ground trembles under our feet.

The settlement is ringed by rotting carcasses. Their faces are
mutilated, but the meat is left uneaten. These are the bodies of
our people.

I weep, but Njàbò is past tears. She sheds her calf body.
Njàbò the great, the wise, the ancient thunders with anger; her
flapping ears rouse the wind.

Njàbò charges the human settlement, trumpeting her fury.
Everywhere there is ivory, carved into jewellery and other
trinkets, evidence of the mutilation of our people. She squeezes
the life out of the humans and pounds them on the ground. The
humans and their houses are crushed beneath the powerful feet
of the giant Njàbò. She kicks down the fireplaces and tramples
the ashes. She screams her triumph.

Njàbò’s shouts go on for hours. Our scattered tribe gathers
from around the world to the site of Njàbò’s victory.

Throughout all of this I have been weeping, from pride
and awe at Njàbò’s beauty, from horror at the deaths of both
elephants and humans, from relief, from grief, from sadness
and loneliness at my child’s independence.
And, like too many
nights of the past eight years, I wake, quietly weeping, from
this dream that is always the same.

Waters is sitting on Cleo’s chest, nuzzling her nose, purring.
Cleo’s cheeks are crusty from dried tears. She guesses that
she’s been awake for two hours or so. She’s been lying on
her back — motionless, eyes wide open — trying to forget
the dream and the emotions it brings. The skylight above
the bed reveals that dawn is breaking. She should get up,
get started.

She stretches. It sends Waters leaping from her chest
and out through the beaded curtain in the doorway. Cleo
slides out of bed, two king-size futons laid side-by-side
on the floor. She looks at her lovers in the diffused early-morning light: a domestic ritual that marks the beginning
of her day.

Tall, graceful, long-legged Tamara, with her baby-pink skin,
rosebud breasts, and long hair dyed in strands of different
colours, has kicked off the sheet, lying on her back.

The hard curve of West’s shoulder peeks out from under
the sheet he holds firmly under his armpit.

Assaad is sleeping on his stomach, his face buried in
his pillow, his arm now stretched out over Cleo’s pillow,
his perfectly manicured feet sticking out from the bed, as
always.

And Patrice — gorgeous, broad-shouldered Patrice —
isn’t back from work yet.

Patrice comes home from the night shift at The Small Easy
to find Cleo yawning over the kitchen table, the night’s
tears not yet washed away. He crouches and hugs her from
behind.

“You look so tired, baby.” Cleo hears the smile in his
quiet voice, the smile she’s always found so irresistible.

She turns and rubs her face against his chest. “I didn’t
sleep well last night.”

Patrice kisses her on the forehead. “Then go back to bed.
Let me make breakfast.” Again, that smile. She feels herself
melting, almost going to sleep in his arms.

“But,” she says, yawning, “you’ve been cooking all night
at the café. You should rest.”

He laughs and pats her butt. “I’ll be alright, Cleo. Allow
me the pleasure of taking care of you, okay?”

She thinks,
Can you make my dream go away?
But she says
nothing. She squeezes his hand, forces a smile, and leaves
the kitchen.

For a few seconds, Cleo is confused, does not know where
she is. Has she been sleeping? And then she remembers.
This is the girls’ bedroom, the girls’ bed. The curtains are
drawn, the door is ajar. What time is it?

She’d quietly snuck into the girls’ room after Patrice
had come home, careful not to wake them. She’d crawled in
between them and was calmed by their sweet, eight-year-old smells. She had only meant to lie down until Patrice
called breakfast. Where were the girls now?

Shouldn’t Cleo be smelling tea, pancakes, eggs, toast?
Hearing the chaotic banter of the breakfast table?

The kitchen is deserted and wiped clean. Indefatigable
Patrice, again. No-one leaves a kitchen as spotless as he
does. She looks at the clock: it’s nearly half past noon. She
can’t remember the last time she slept in. Last night, the
dream was more vivid than usual; it drained her.

Her mouth feels dry. She gets orange juice from the
fridge and gulps it down. She wanders from room to room.
She stops in the bathroom to splash her face.

The quiet is strange. She usually spends the morning
and early afternoon tutoring the girls. West must be at the
university, Assaad at The Smoke Shop. Patrice, she notices,
is sleeping. Waters is curled up on the pillow next to his
head. Where are the girls? And then she remembers: Tamara
is back. She must have taken them out somewhere.

Just two days ago, Tamara returned from a six-month
trip to Antarctica. She brought back photographs she’d
taken of strange vegetation, species that paleobiologists
claim have not grown for millions of years.

Cleo ends her tour of the house with Tamara’s office and
is startled to see her sitting at her computer, fiddling with
the photos from her trip. “Tam?”

“Clee, love, come.” Tamara, naked as she almost always
is around the house, waves her over. Cleo is enchanted by
her beauty, more so all the time. Cleo missed her while she
was away.

Cleo settles in Tamara’s lap. Tamara is so tall that Cleo’s
head only reaches up to her neck. Tamara’s poised nudity
makes Cleo feel frumpy and unattractive, especially now
that she notices the rumpled state of her own clothes, slept-in all morning. The feeling evaporates as Tamara squeezes
her, digging her nose into Cleo’s neck, breathing her in. “I
haven’t been back long enough to stop missing you, Clee.
There were no other women on the expedition.” Tamara
pulls off Cleo’s T-shirt, cups her sagging breasts. As always,
Cleo is fascinated by the chiaroscuro of the soft pink of
Tamara’s skin against her own dark brown. “They were
like little boys, nervous at having their clubhouse invaded
by a female, at having their secret handshakes revealed,
protective of their toys.”

“Tam . . . Where are the girls?” How could Cleo have
thought that Tamara had taken the girls out? Of all of
them, Tamara was the least interested in the girls. She
let them crawl all over her when they felt like it and was
unfalteringly affectionate with them, but she never set
aside time for them. She was vaguely uneasy with the idea
of children.

“West took them to school. At breakfast, he talked
about his lecture, to warm up. His class today is about the
symbolic use of animals in politics. One of his case studies
is about African elephants. You should have seen Njàbò!
She got very excited and asked him tons of questions. She
wanted to go hear West at school, and he thought it would
be a treat for both of them. Especially seeing as how you
seemed to need the sleep.”

“I can’t believe Sonya would be interested in that.”

Tamara runs her fingers through Cleo’s hair and says,
“Doesn’t Sonya always do what Njàbò wants? Sometimes I
think all of us are always doing what Njàbò wants. She’ll
grow into a leader, that one. She’ll trample anyone in her
path.”

Cleo is momentarily reminded of her dream, but she
makes an effort to push it away. She jokes, “Wanna play
hooky and go out for lunch? At The Small Easy?”

Eight years ago, Cleo gave birth to Njàbò. Most people
thought that the girl looked like Patrice, especially because
of her dark skin — like Patrice’s, darker than Cleo’s — but
she could just as easily have been fathered by West or
Assaad. The five of them had agreed not to do any tests to
find out.

Assaad was Sonya’s biological father and her legal
guardian. She’d been the daughter of their friends Karin
and Pauline. Both women had died in a car accident the day
after Njàbò was born. Sonya was three months older than
Njàbò.

A few days later, a grey-brown cat jumped through the
kitchen window while Patrice prepared breakfast. The cat
drank water from a dirty bowl in the sink, and then refused
to leave. The family adopted him and called him Waters.

At The Small Easy, while waiting for their order, Tamara
goes to the washroom. A few seconds after she gets up, a
man wearing a denim jacket materializes in her seat. One
moment the seat is empty; the next, the man is there. Cleo is
seized with a paralyzing fear. The man is short, almost like
a child, but his face is that of an old man. His wrinkled skin
is a washed-out greyish brown. He grabs both her hands
in his. She feels his fingers, like vises, almost crushing the
bones of her hands. “Do not fear your dreams. Do not fear
Njàbò. You, too, are one of us, daughter. Believe in Njàbò.
Follow her.” He vanishes as inexplicably as he appeared. Still
numb with fear, all Cleo can focus on is how the old man
hadn’t spoken in English, but in what she assumes must
have been an African language. How had she understood
him?

Tamara returns. Cleo says nothing about the old man.

When Cleo and Tamara come back from lunch, the girls
are still out with West. There’s a message on the voicemail.
He’s taking them out downtown; there’s a new Brazilian
restaurant he’s curious about, and then they’ll go the
Museum of Civilizations. He says he’ll pose in front of the
paintings and sculptures and have the girls try to figure out
his ancestry. His favourite joke.

When asked about his roots, West never gives the same
answer. A mix of Cree and Russian? Hawaiian and Korean?
Tibetan and Lebanese? He looks vaguely Asian, but his
features don’t conform to any specific group. He loves to
confuse people, to meddle with their expectations. His odd
wit has always charmed Cleo.

Thinking of his easy silliness helps take the edge off
her strange encounter at The Small Easy. Cleo takes this
opportunity to give herself the day off from mothering and
housekeeping.

She goes down to her sanctum. In the basement of their
house, she’s set up a studio. There’s a small window high up
on the wall, but she keeps it covered, lets no natural light
in. She burns scented candles and incense. She’s comfortable
painting only in the dim, flickering light, breathing in a rich
blend of odours. Full, harsh light makes her feel exposed. The
dim candlelight, the smoke, and the smells all contribute to a
sense of being enveloped, of being in a cocoon, a womb, in a
world where only she and her imagination exist. Sometimes,
like today, she smokes a pipeful of hash, not only to relax but
also to enrich the room’s aroma. Today, she needs to relax.

Had she hallucinated that man in the restaurant? She
still remembers the feel of his rough hands against her
smooth skin. His smell: like damp soil. How could he know
about her secret dream?