The Bourbon Thief(96)

Tamara tried standing up straight, but she was hit with another wave of nausea. She staggered backward and rested against the wall. She sank down to the floor and lay there. All she needed was a little rest. That was all.

“Tamara?”

Was it God calling her name?

“Tamara?”

Was it Daddy coming to get her and take her to Bride Island?

“Tamara?”

A hand touched her shoulder. Tamara’s eyes flew open.

“Levi?”





33

Instinctively Tamara tried crawling away from him. She reached for the ax, but it was too far away. Levi was dead. Who was this man who’d come for her?

“Tamara, calm down, it’s me. It’s me. It’s just me.”

“Levi...” she breathed. A slow smile spread across her face. She closed her eyes.

“Yeah, it’s me. Who else?”

She forced her eyes opened again. Levi knelt on the floor in front of her.

“You were gone. And you...you took the gun.” She gulped the words, trying to swallow them. In her panic and confusion she was breathing in reverse. “I thought you were dead.”

“I was driving to the island.”

“Why?”

“Bowen. He knew.”

“You were going to kill him?”

“No. But I was going to kill someone. But I stopped. I couldn’t keep going. I told you I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be the man who got you pregnant and left you to face your mother alone. I came back. I had to come back.”

“I was afraid you were already dead.”

“I didn’t think you’d want to ever see me again.”

“Yes,” she said. “I always want to see you...”

That was the first time it occurred to her that she didn’t care what the truth was about him and her and them. She was his wife first before she was his sister. Only a half sister at that. Surely a full wife trumped half a sister. Did one have to be greater than the other?

All those nights together—mornings, too, and afternoons—they had sought each other’s bodies. Whenever they could, whenever they wanted, Levi found her breasts and her fingers hunted down his buttons. Once a day wasn’t enough any more than eating once a day was enough. They didn’t even try. Three times a day, sometimes four, they joined themselves together. Levi didn’t ask permission nor did she deny him anything. It was a given. Both of them were a given. When she reached for him, he took her. When he reached for her, she gave to him. The hours apart were a severed time. In the dark one night as he moved lazily inside her, in no hurry to finish and separate themselves again, Levi had told her a theory of Plato’s taken from the Symposium, of how once all humans had four legs and four arms and two faces. These creatures were powerful enough with so many eyes and so many limbs that even Zeus feared their might. He sliced them in two, Zeus did, sundered them in half. And forever since that time each half goes forth in misery seeking its other half. When Levi was inside her, she believed this fairy tale. Four legs. Four arms. Two faces. One body. Half meeting half. Half making whole. Her half brother. Her half husband. Her half. Their whole. Levi had quoted to her, “Love is simply the name of the desire and the pursuit of the whole.” They’d laughed at the joke as he slid his fingers inside her. Love, though they did love each other, had as little to do with it as it had to do with dinner. She had to eat to live. She had to be with Levi. Same reason.

“I can’t stay away from you,” Levi said. “I tried and lasted one day.”

“What will happen to us?” she asked. “What will we do?”

Us. We. Those were the words she understood.

“Did you know in the days of the pharaohs the royal family would often marry brothers and sisters or fathers and daughters? Did you know that?”

“No. They never taught us anything good like that in school.”

“The pharaohs were like gods,” Levi said. “They were worshipped. The blood of the gods couldn’t mingle with the blood of the commoners. Gods aren’t easy to come by. They had to marry their own so they could stay gods.”

“We aren’t gods. We’re just people.”

“So were they. But they were gods, too. We can be, if you want,” Levi said. “At least to ourselves. What is a god but someone who is worshipped? I’ll worship you and you’ll worship me and we’ll be gods together.”

“Will you forgive my sins?” she asked.

“There are no sins,” Levi said. “Gods don’t sin. They act. What they do is right not because it’s right, but because they did it.”

“What do gods do?” she asked. “I’ve never been a god before.”

“Anything they want.”

Tamara felt Levi’s hand on her face.

“They smite people,” he said. “They part seas and send down lightning and thunder. They impart justice and mercy and vengeance...”

Tamara opened her eyes. She saw the bourbon on the floor like blood leaking from a corpse.

“Maybe I am a god.” She looked at Levi.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “What is this about?”

“It’s about our father,” she said. “He thought he was a god, too. But he wasn’t. He was a devil.”