For a few seconds, the whole world stood still and I was trapped in a bubble that was empty and without air to breathe. “No,” I heard myself whisper at some point, but it was too late. My mind started putting together all the pieces of a picture that I had been blind to.
“Oh, yes, I see you understand what I mean. It took me some time to find him in Louisiana, in a place where it was possible toget close to him.” He reached out to me and ran his index finger along my cheek.
“No…no, no, no…” The shock could hardly have been greater. Ever since he came aboard the Agamemnon, he had always reminded me of someone. And now, after he had indirectly told me who he was, my father’s son, whether conceived willingly or involuntarily, I suddenly knew who he looked like: my grandfather, Richard Hampton, of whom my father had only one portrait left—the one that hung in the Victorian reception hall in Baton Rouge. I had walked past it every day during the Louisiana summers. Isaac had inherited Richard’s noble features and that was why he had always seemed different to me than all the men from Coldville. More cunning, more intelligent, out to win and get his way. For power. Like my father, he always had to get what he wanted or so it seemed to me. And he had even indirectly told me so.But before that, we definitely need something from Daddy.
I had believed it was mockery.
“I suppose you know what our father did back then?”
I stared at him, motionless.No!my mind was still screaming. Over and over,No!
“When I finally found the courage to call him out after weeks, he had his bodyguards chase me away. But I returned and that’s when he had them beat me up. He shouted that I was a fraud, a swindler, like the ones who lurked outside his door every day, and that the next time, he would have his guards shoot me. I believed him because, in Louisiana, no one is prosecuted for defending their property with a gun, not our father anyway.”
The disturbance at the gate. I remembered. Dad had talked to me afterward. He certainly hadn’t believed a word Isaac said, maybe hadn’t really looked at him to see the resemblance. And my dad probably didn’t even know who Coralie McCormack was.
Dad probably thought at the time that the stranger wanted to kidnap me if he didn’t get any money and that was why we never returned to Baton Rouge.
Oh Dad!
I closed my eyes, unable to look at Isaac for a second longer. Isaac, my half brother, as well as little Nicholas, who had long since been buried.
Despite knowing the truth now that I couldn’t help but believe because of the similarity between Isaac and my grandfather, Isaac didn’t stop tormenting me. Every night, he thought up new cruelties for me. During that time, I learned that a person can endure a lot more suffering, a lot more than they initially believed. They can make themself deafer and blinder than they believe possible but still break in the process, not all at once, but bit by bit. I learned that you can or must forget yourself. While mosquitoes sat on my blood-crusted wounds during the day, I just lay there and kept breathing. And on, and on. I hung on by inhaling and exhaling. I stopped crying and no longer hoped for rescue.
At the time, I didn’t want to be rescued either because I didn’t know how I would ever be able to live with these memories, with this body that no longer belonged to me, that was foreign to me, that disgusted me because it had to endure so many things that I hated and detested. That I could not prevent. That only existed to satisfy my half brother so he could exact his revenge as if it were his duty.
Isaac told me the rest of his story in bits. That way, he always had something new to share with me, something that could pull me out of my apathy. Sometimes, he told me about Nathan—it was the only thing that could still make me cry and he knew it. Hetold me about days and weeks without food, about the beatings and the farmers’ cattle whips, about endless grueling hours of waiting on the banks of the Mississippi where they hoped for a ride. He told me how he looked after his younger siblings, always promising a better life. His voice sounded so caring that I couldn’t connect it with his true personality and that only disturbed me more.
One night, when he was sitting on the floor next to me again, feasting on the sight of me, drinking, and smoking moonshine, he told me about how he met my father a second time.Our father.
He gently stroked the wounds on my face, something more terrible than any violence he could inflict on me. I found him so disgusting, so revolting, I almost threw up again, something that happened to me often. Blinking, I stared at the streak of light that fell through the window despite the night. A few days ago, I had managed to get up during the day and peek outside through the crack. I had seen men patrolling and bald cypress trees. Was it winter already? December…Christmas? There was probably snow in New York and the Christmas tree might already be up at Rockefeller Center. Here and now, however, the sky had to be clear and starry, perhaps there was a full moon. Dust danced in the moon and starlight beam, and for a few seconds, I thought of Lea and then Mom. Could she hear me? I wanted to reach for the light, disappear into it, and hide from Isaac. I wanted to die, to end my life myself, but I saw no way. The windows were boarded up, so I couldn’t throw myself out, and there was nothing I could use to kill myself. Isaac even took the ropes with him every morning.
He hit me in the face suddenly to get me out of my thoughts. “Listen to me!” he demanded roughly.
I looked at him, but I saw through him. The fact that he was my half brother was more horrifying than anything else.
“I saved money. I had worked for three or four years as a laborer in a crab fishery and for cheap cleaning companies. Illegally, of course. I cleaned smelly toilets because that was all someone like me could get, at least not without a work permit and a decent résumé. Someone like me only gets the crappy jobs that nobody else wants to do. And you only earn a few cents. I bet you didn’t even have to wipe your own sweet ass up there in your fancy penthouse, did you, little sister?”
The last two words made bile rise in me.I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. However, I remained still as he lit a cigarette. “You know why I never got sick even though I’m not allergic to fish like Nath?” He smoked for a while before giving me the answer. “Different genes. Our father’s genes. Winner genes. Not everyone gets sick up there in Coldville. Some are immune to the dirt and poison. But that’s not what I wanted to tell you.” He grinned lewdly and my stomach clenched. “I had been saving money, saving every penny for years to pay for a lawyer. He owned a tiny firm—Thornton or something, the lawyer was a notorious drunkard, but still capable of fighting a simple lawsuit like that. At least I hoped so because I couldn’t afford anyone else. Back then, I still thought the American legal system worked. I truly believed I would get an honest trial.”
The words swirled around in my pounding head. Had he sued my father for paternity?
“Naturally, our father initially refused to take the test…and you can’t force someone to do it, but if you refuse several times, paternity is automatically recognized, at least, that was how I remember it. So, our father eventually agreed to the test. But then he had the results falsified, just like he’s always had many, many results falsified. He’s good at that…our dear daddy…knows the right people and everyone owes him some kind of favor…he’s a bit likeThe Godfatherin that respect.” Isaac laughed harshly and ruffled my hair. Revulsion surged insideme. I wanted to jump up, throw myself out of the boarded-up windows, or squeeze his throat, but I couldn’t even get on all fours without assistance.
“After that, my savings was gone, so I wanted to face my father face to face and throw the truth in his face. We had never met during our lawyers’ correspondence. He had kept out of it. So I ambushed him. By then, I knew how he operated.” He took the bottle of clear moonshine and swirled the liquid around. “It was a dramatic, formative experience that would change my life and my entire existence forever, Willa Nevaeh Rae.”
Money is minted freedom, I recalled the words of Dostoyevsky that my dad liked to recite often. However, no amount of money in the world would save me from Isaac. His hatred of Dad and me was too strong, his thirst for revenge would only be quenched when he had taken and destroyed what Dad loved most. Me.
Isaac stopped talking, raped me without taking off all his clothes, drew a line on the wall, and only then did he continue speaking as if he had just gone to the bathroom.
“Your father, our father, came out of the back door of his office on his way to his limousine accompanied by his bodyguards. The sight of him looking so dapper made me lose my temper. I shouted at him that he was a hypocrite and a liar, that I was his son, and he knew it.” Isaac drank some more and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “That was the moment he noticed me. Really noticed me—for the very first time. He took several steps toward me and looked at me. Then he asked, ‘What’s your name, boy?’ And I thought, Now! Now he will finally acknowledge me and admit his guilt. Accept the prodigal son… I was so naive. I raised my chin and said proudly, ‘Isaac McCormack. I sued you for paternity. My mother was Coralie Chevalier from Coldville. She worked in Fort McMurray. You should know her.’ I didn’t even mention what he did to her.”Isaac laughed harshly. “I’ll never forget the look in his eyes. I don’t know why, but he suddenly knew I was telling the truth. He knew it as if he recognized someone in me.”Richard Hampton, I thought, incapable of anything more. Isaac shook his head. “He surely was scared that I would go public with my story even though he had the media in the palm of his hands. All it took was one up-and-coming, ambitious reporter who remained incorruptible and I could tarnish his reputation forever. America is merciless when it comes to things like that once it gets out. You’re never fully vindicated.” He looked at me with scorching eyes. “Our father is clever and he was afraid. He didn’t want to share your attention and love with some random half brother. And he definitely didn’t want you to know what he’d done to my mother even if he didn’t know if there was any evidence…old medical reports that he could have made disappear. But that wasn’t the point.” There was that dangerous smoldering in his eyes again, which made me tremble despite my isolation from him and the world. “You were the reason; he had to get rid of me because of you. He was afraid you would find out from me at some point and sometimes doubts are enough to damage a relationship irreparably. He wanted to remain Mr. Clean for you.” He was silent for a few seconds before continuing. “He reacted too quickly and that was his mistake, that’s why you’re here today. For my part, I was done with him and left New York. Nathan was in Coldville at the time and I wanted to go back to Canada, at least for a few weeks to help the people up there. Chopping wood for the winter, digging graves… I probably would never have bothered our father again, but apparently, he didn’t trust me. He had me under surveillance. On my way north, I was arrested shortly after I came out of a diner. The police had allegedly found a considerable amount of cocaine in my motel room, enough to put me behind bars for several years. An anonymous tip—you can probably guess who from. Later,your father acted as a benefactor and made sure that I was released after two and a half years in prison. I never found out who he bribed to do it, but it worked. He demonstrated his power to me in this way. It was a clear message: I can be heaven or hell for you, my boy. Don’t come too close to me and my daughter! Don’t defile me even with the truth. I’m not suggesting that he knew what happened to me in prison, but he probably wouldn’t have cared. Maybe he would have approved of it—so I would be intimidated enough to keep quiet forever.” He looked at me disparagingly, his gaze hard, hiding everything he had endured. “What I do to you is nothing compared to that.” He snapped his fingers and blew away something invisible. “Nothing. Be grateful that I’m not repeating everything that was done to me.”
I wasn’t grateful to him. I hated and feared him. I wanted to hide from him, and at the same time, do terrible things to him. That night, he was even crueler than usual. For the first time, he tied the rough ropes around my neck, tied them to my ankles and wrists, changing from unbridled violence to unbearable gentleness that crushed me as if under the sole of a shoe. I wanted to be dead without dying. I cried, I begged, but it was no use. In his blind madness for revenge, for release from his own pain, he beat me senseless with his belt, hitting me so hard that I fell into a black sphere, a state between unconsciousness and total self-abandonment.
When he had gone, I lay there not knowing if I was still alive. The welts from the belt were like claw lacerations on my skin. The beam of light shone next to me. I wanted to raise my hand and grab it, but I couldn’t. Memories flickered through my mind, my whole life blowing by. I saw myself as a child cutting out cookies with Mom, all moons and stars, and her swirling midnight-blue organza dress. Dad holding me in his arms after Mom died, holding me so tightly that I could hardly breathe, myfirst oil painting, me with the brush, colorful from head to toe; at the fence in Baton Rouge, Nathan’s fleeting first kiss, and our wild love in the wild boar hut… I thought I was going to die and then I saw Mom. She slipped out of the beam of light like smoke in her white Fendi summer dress, so wonderfully cool and soft. I almost thought I could feel it against my skin, against my countless stinging, blood-crusted wounds.
Mom!I wanted to call out, but I couldn’t. I wanted to touch her, but she was transparent like a ghost. I wanted to thank her for finally being there to guide me to the other side, but she just shook her head.
I didn’t come to take you with me, Nevaeh, my heart.
