Even through the dirt, she could see him redden. “I’m sorry,” he said after several seconds.
“Good. I almost hit you when you said it?and I am very strong.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“I care what Doro does to me. He knows I care. I tell him.”
“People don’t, normally.”
“Yes. That’s why I’m here. Things are not right to me merely because he says they are. He is not my god. He brought me to you as punishment for my sacrilege.” She smiled. “But he does not understand that I would rather lie with you than with him.”
Thomas said nothing for so long that she reached out and touched his hand, concerned.
He looked at her, smiled without showing his bad teeth. She had not seen him smile before. “Be careful,” he said. “Doro should never find out how thoroughly you hate him.”
“He has known for years.”
“And you’re still alive? You must be very valuable.”
“I must be,” she agreed bitterly.
He sighed. “I should hate him myself. I don’t somehow. I can’t. But … I think I’m glad you do. I never met anyone who did before.” He hesitated again, raised his night-black eyes to hers. “Just be careful.”
She nodded, thinking that he reminded her of Isaac. Isaac too was always cautioning her. Then Thomas got up and went to the door.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“To the stream out back to wash.” The smile again, tentatively. “Do you really think you can take care of these sores? I’ve had some of them for a long time.”
“I can heal them. They will come back, though, if you don’t stay clean and stop drinking so much. Eat food!”
“I don’t know whether you’re here to conceive a child or turn me into one,” he muttered, and closed the door behind him.
Anyanwu went out and fashioned a crude broom of twigs. She swept the mounds of litter out of the cabin, then washed what could be washed. She did not know what to do about the vermin. The fleas alone were terrible. Left to herself, she would have burned the cabin and built another. But Thomas would not be likely to go along with that.
She cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and the terrible little cabin still did not suit her. There were no clean blankets, there was no clean clothing for Thomas. Eventually, he came in wearing the same filthy rags over skin scrubbed pale and nearly raw. He seemed acutely embarrassed when Anyanwu began stripping the rags from him.
“Don’t be foolish,” she told him. “When I start on those sores, you won’t have time for shame?or for any other thing.”
He became erect. Scrawny and sick as his body was, he was, as he had said, not impotent.
“All right,” murmured Anyanwu with gentle amusement. “Have your pleasure now and your pain later.”
His clumsy fingers had begun fumbling with her clothing, but they stopped suddenly. “No!” he said as though the pain had to come first after all. “No.” He turned his back to her.
“But … why?” Anyanwu laid a hand on his shoulder. “You want to, and it’s all right. Why else am I here?”
He spoke through his teeth as though every word was hurting him. “Are you still so eager to get away from me? Can’t you stay a little while?”
“Ah.” She rubbed the shoulder, feeling the bones sharply through their thin covering of flesh. “The women take your seed and leave you as quickly as possible.”
He said nothing.
She stepped closer to him. He was smaller than Isaac, smaller than most of the male bodies Doro brought her. It was strange to be able to meet a man’s eyes without looking up. “It will be that way for me too,” she said. “I have a husband. I have children. And also … Doro knows how quickly I can conceive. I am always deliberately quick with him. I must take your seed and leave you. But I will not leave you today.”
He stared at her for a moment, the black eyes intent as though again he was trying to control his ability, hear her thoughts now when he wanted to hear them. She found herself hoping her child?his child?would have those eyes. They were the only things about him that had never needed cleaning or healing to show their beauty. That was surprising considering how much he drank.
He seized her suddenly, as though it had just occurred to him that he could, and held her tightly for long moments before leading her to his splintery shelf bed.
Doro came in hours later, bringing flour, sugar, coffee, corn meal, salt, eggs, butter, dry peas, fresh fruit and vegetables, blankets, cloth that could be sewn into clothing, and, incidentally a new body. He had bought or stolen someone’s small crudely made wagon to carry his things.
“Thank you,” Anyanwu told him gravely, wanting him to see that her gratitude was real. It was rare these days for him to do what she asked. She wondered why he had bothered this time. Certainly he had not planned to the day before.
Then she saw him looking at Thomas. The bath had made the most visible difference in Thomas’ appearance, and Anyanwu had shaved him, cut off much of his hair, and combed the rest. But there were other more subtle changes. Thomas was smiling, was helping to carry the supplies into the cabin instead of standing aside apathetically, instead of muttering at Anyanwu when she passed him, her arms full.
