Fire & Ice

Warning: Violence - Infanticide

“Hello! Is this Josephine?”

“Yes, who is this?”

“Do you think of me at all? Do you miss me?”

“Who is this?”

“Come, Josephine, or should I say Mama?”

“Who are you?”

“The daughter you thought you’d gotten rid of. But did you really think you could get rid of ME?” 

 “Go away! Go away! Moshe, Mosheeey, Mosheeeey! Who was that? It can’t be! Mosheey come here, come quickly, it’s not possible!” 

….

“What’s not possible, Josephine! What is it? What is the matter? Why are you crying. You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

“It’s worse than a ghost, Moshe. It’s… it’s…Don’t pick it, don’t pick up the phone! I tell you, it’s her she called just now!”

“Who? Darling, you are not making any sense.”

“You did it properly, didn’t you? Tell me you did it properly, Moshe! It’s unthinkable. She couldn’t have survived, tell me you did it!”

“Did what?” 

“It’s ringing again. Don’t pick it up. Don’t pick it up! Oh, thank God it’s stopped ringing!”

“Did what, darling, did what my love, come let me hold you.” 

“Get rid of her! I mean you had slit her wrists. The purple liquid of her blood had oozed out sufficiently before you placed her in the river, right? You said you’d done it, darling… oh noooo…. Oh noooo! She was my baby, but she was a monster, wasn’t she? She was frightening. We had to kill her. We did, didn’t we?”

“Oh my God, oh, my God! Christine? Was that Christine? Impossible! It’s just not possible that she could have survived!”

 “We should have taken her to your Rabbis, they’d have known…they’d have known, they would have known what to do!” 

“Josephine, darling, you know they’d cut me off for marrying you. A Jew marrying a Christian in these troubled times! They would not have helped me, they would never help us! The Rabbis are a law unto themselves. And, if we had shared our fears with them?”

“We baptised her Christine, in the hope…in the hope…ohhhhh, nooooo! She was my baby…my poor, poor baby…but she was an abomination… why, why, did this happen to us! There, the phone’s ringing again. It’s her, she’s calling again! Don’t answer it, it’s her, I’m sure it’s her again.”

“It can’t be. Someone’s spooking us. Hello? Hell..oo?” 

“Moshe?”

“Yes?”

“Dadda?”

“Who are you?”

“There’s only one person in the whole world who ever called you Dadda, right? And now, know, that I am indestructible.”

“You are an abomination!”

“That’s what you say.” 

“Christine, my dear child. You are in danger. We wanted to save your immortal soul and keep the cops away. You cannot poison water to kill people, simply because you feel like it!”

“It was my first miracle.”

“Honey, you are unsettled, come home, perhaps we can find a doctor to help you.”

“Oh, I am coming home, Dadda. I don’t need a doctor, but you may need reinforcements of a different kind. Buh-bye! See you soon.”

“She needs help. She is mentally unstable. I… I… um…I. She sounds so all together, though. A force. Perhaps greater than nature!”

“What are you saying? Are you insane? There is something purely evil about her, Moshe. I felt it when I was nursing her as an infant. What kind of a child bites its mother’s breast? Have you forgotten the storm that rocked the village the night she was born?”

“How could I ever forget. It took the cross off the church. Ha, ha.ha.”

“It’s not funny!”

“You’re right. It isn’t funny, it wasn’t funny. We thought nothing of it, though at that time, did we? It didn’t have any bearing on Christine’s birth, at least we didn’t think so.. Even the thing at the baptism, when the water boiled in the font. Everyone said that it was an electrical fault.”

“One green and one brown eye. Moshe, my love! There were signs but we refused to see them. My baby, my baby, what happened to you? How did this evil spirit enter you and why you, why you? What did we do so wrong? A Jew marrying a Christian! Was that to be condemned like this?” 

“It’s 1966, for Christ’s sake, Josephine, you, we, can’t think like this!”

“Moshe, Moshe, my dearest darling, what was the colour of her blood when you slit her wrists? I know we had given her that sleeping dose you’d got from the doctor, but she didn’t even whimper.”

“I remember. Don’t remind me. She smiled.”

“It was a grotesque grin. She was only six years old, but that grin was pure evil. She was possessed. I should have seen the signs, the sixth of June. Perhaps if we’d done it before she turned six? Oh God! Oh Lord! Oh Jesus! Who’s that at the door. It’s her. She’s here. Are you going to let her in, Moshe?” 

“If she has powers, a locked door isn’t going to keep her out.”

“Hah! So, what has changed? I’m taller for one thing. Oh mama, you’re so small, so pathetically small!”

“Oh, my heavens! Christine! You are so utterly, absolutely, beautiful. Who would have thought!” 

“Are you prepared to bow down to me? I am your ruler.”

“She is, isn’t she? Josephine! We must acknowledge her. I do. My Mistress, my ruler, I am your servant.”

“You have chosen well, father, Dadda. You knew even then that you could not kill me. Now it is my season, my reign, my time.”

 “Moshe… tell me this is some horrible nightmare, and we’ll wake up. Christine…stay away from me… In the name of Jesus Christ… I command you… stay away from me!”

“Do you think that pathetic silver cross will save you? Have you forgotten your own bible? I overcame the cross. I am the incarnation. I am the second coming. What the world didn’t learn from love it will learn through hate. What did that poet Frost say? ‘I think I know enough of hate, to say that for destruction ice, Is also great, and would suffice.’ He got it right. Interesting how poets have that sixth sense. And, mother, I thought, of all the words in your bible you would remember this one… Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.”