“Isandro and Hong Lan knew by then that her cancer was incurable, that she had no more than two months to live. She didn’t want to spend the last of her days with a mother who taunted her daily, reminded her how she’d dirtied her family name. No, Hong Lan wanted to be with the man she’d fallen in love with. She wanted the last weeks of her life to be the happiest.”
Dtui’s translation flagged as she fought back tears.
“Apart from foraging for food,” Siri continued, “hunting game, and keeping his lover free from pain, Isandro was also gathering his thoughts. There must have been many conversations, the three of them holed up in the cave with nothing much else to do. They knew the altar at the Sheraton had to belong to someone. There weren’t that many Cubans to choose from. Perhaps they heard from Hong Lan that it was Santiago who had made the accusation to her father about the boys. Or perhaps they remembered the rumor about a pretty young nurse, with a fiancé back in her home village, who seemed to have fallen for Santiago. Nobody could understand why she was so eager to fall into the old doctor’s bed.”
Santiago laughed when he heard the translation and asked why Siri was so jealous. Was it inconceivable the old Cuban was attractive to young women?
Siri ignored the comment. “Perhaps they remembered the Cuban accountant who had suffered from an infection of the throat. How they’d questioned the need for a tracheotomy for such a small ailment, then recalled that he had been forced to return to Havana before completing a full audit of the doctor’s books.”
Unseen behind his desk, Santiago had worked open a drawer. At the front was a small wooden box with a colorful Hunan Tea emblem on its top. But the gray powder it contained had taken many months to blend and infuse with magic.
“Or perhaps they’d heard of your own unfortunate run-in with the doctor, Comrade Lit,” Siri continued.
“I don’t think …, “ the security head mumbled nervously.
“Come, Comrade,” Siri told him. “You have nothing to fear here today. Trust me.”
Lit did draw confidence from Siri’s words. He was angered by the constant grin the old Cuban wore on his face. He sighed and told a story he’d avoided relating to anybody.
“We’d had one of our many disagreements,” Lit began. “They’d told me Dr. Santiago was to be the overall supervisor of the project, but the Vietnamese soldiers were annoyed because he knew nothing about engineering. Some of the decisions he made they considered to be downright dangerous. I remember …”
“Go on.”
“I remember pointing my finger into his face and telling him he was wrong about an important issue. He stared at me and told me that was the last time I’d ever use this finger. He said I was wrong to underestimate his ability. I laughed at him and left, but when I woke the next morning, this finger was already bloodless. In a few days it had begun to wither. I know he did it. I don’t know how, but from that day on I stayed clear of him. I, too, have heard stories of his wizardry.”
“Well, now you know,” Siri said. “And so did Isandro. I imagine he was quite upset when he realized the doctor had set them up and caused them all this hardship.”
“So, if you’re saying the two boys had no connection to black magic, why did Odon have the scratches on his chest?” Lit asked.
“Yes, I admit it took me a while to work that one out. It especially threw me that Odon had the marks and Isandro didn’t. Then I got to wondering what benefit the boys could gain from their knowledge of Santiago’s little hobby. If, for example, they threatened to expose him, write to the project directors in Havana, and tell them what their resident representative was getting up to out here, what did Santiago have to offer them in return? And that’s how we come to the deaths. They all knew Hong Lan would soon die. But Isandro couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. They wanted their souls to be reunited for eternity. Odon told Isandro about an old Palo practice. An elderly couple in a town near his own had taken poison. A shaman had been recruited to unite their souls in death.”
Santiago asked Dtui how her doctor could know such a thing.
“I spent a very pleasant time with Odon last evening,” Siri smiled. “Tell him he’d be surprised at the information two men without a common language can share with the aid of a little mime and a pointed stick.”
Dtui enjoyed translating these words.
The coroner continued. “The Cubans decided if Santiago here was such a great priest, he would know of the ceremony and agree to perform it in return for their silence. But Santiago refused to perform it himself. He did, however, agree to teach Odon. The scratches were a part of the ritual preparation, I imagine. My technical knowledge is lacking from here on. I wonder if the good doctor would be kind enough to talk us through the ceremony so we may better understand what happened that night.”
Santiago was taken by surprise. He’d been busy maneuvering open the lid from the tea box without being noticed. But he agreed to pass on the secrets of the ceremony. Siri was curious as to why he would give up such presumably classified information so readily. But he went into great detail and seemed inordinately proud to be passing on his knowledge. It appeared that for the rites to work, the hearts of the lovers had to be fresh. Santiago suggested that it would be best of all if they were still beating when they were removed, but conceded that this was often a little too gory for most people. The important thing was for the bodies to stay in perfect condition for as long as was possible after death.
“Hence the watery grave,” Siri concluded. “But why?”
Santiago told Dtui that the couple would appear together in eternity the way they looked when the fusing of their spirits had been completed. As even the undead have a sense of the aesthetic, they prefer their loved ones to be relatively free of rotting flesh.
For three nights before the ceremony, the priest would mix a special concoction, a paste. Only the very best priests knew the ingredients and the incantations used while mixing them. The Cuban began to boast to Dtui of his skill; he told her he was one of the greatest exponents of the dark arts.
Siri interrupted her translation. “Dtui, thank the doctor for his commercial. But perhaps he wouldn’t mind getting back to the night in question.”
Santiago laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Lit asked Dtui.
She squirmed in her seat before replying. “He said he can tell us everything we want to know, because …”
“Because what?”
“Because the three of us will remember nothing of this meeting. He says when the sun comes up tomorrow, we won’t even know who we are.” Dtui and Lit were intimidated by this announcement. Only Siri saw a funny side to it.
“I look forward to that,” he said impatiently. “But Civilai and I have done that trick no end of times with a bottle of rice whisky. It isn’t so hard. Now, the ceremony?”
Santiago told the doctor that he admired him for the bravado he managed to display when he was soon to meet a horrible end. He agreed to describe the rites in detail. The priest, he said, removes the hearts from the lovers. These he cuts into very small pieces on the altar and mixes them with the blessed paste in a pestle. Over and over he chants the incantation, over and over till he falls into a deep trance. He knows nothing beyond the actions he is to perform. On the altar, the same altar where he has minced the hearts, he models the paste into the shape of a bird. It is a bird in flight. There’s no need for the priest to be a great artist. Just the crude shape of a bird is enough. This figure must then be concealed. Nobody must see it or touch so that the bird can develop its own life and symbolically fly to eternity. Then the lovers will be together forever.
“And how long does this process take?” Siri asked.
Santiago thought for a second before replying. It was hard to say. Weeks? Months? Sometimes years. Sometimes not at all. It depended on the will of the lovers. Then, all of a sudden, Santiago sighed and removed his glasses as if he’d said enough. His demeanor changed. He removed the tea box from the drawe
r and placed it on the table in front of him. His voice became gruff and his eyes bloodshot as he growled at his guests.
A tremor entered Dtui’s voice. “He … he says he’s enjoyed talking with us but now it’s time for us to go.” She abandoned her role as translator. “Doc, I don’t like the look of this. I don’t think we should let him—”
Before she could complete her warning, Santiago had seized the box in his left hand and scythed it through the air in an arc. The powder it contained blew in a cloud around the three guests. They could smell the scent of long-dead beasts and the stink of putrid spices. They could hear the loud angry chant emerging from between the Cuban’s nicotine-stained teeth. Although their eyes stung from the dust, they could see Santiago back against the wall, extending his arms to an unseen God.
Dtui expected some manifestation—blisters, horns sprouting, a feeling of dread overwhelming her—but all she could manage was a sneeze. Lit also sneezed. Siri emerged from the cloud of powder with his hand over his mouth and nose and stared at the Cuban, now prone on the floor behind his desk.
“You can tell him to stop all this rot, Dtui. It didn’t work,” Siri said.
“But why didn’t it?” Lit asked, taking his gun from his belt and pointing it at the confused Cuban.
“Because it never does,” Siri told him. “Our Dr. Santiago here is a phony—a charlatan. He’s only the great high priest of Endoke in his own mind. He couldn’t conjure up a bubble in a bottle of Lao beer.”
“But that isn’t possible. You said he was thrown out of Cuba because …”
“Because he was a nuisance, not because he could actually perform any of the magic he professed to know. They thought he was a nutcase. His experiments got in the way of his medicine. Nobody was going to hire a surgeon, no matter how talented he might be, who believes the dark spirits are guiding his hand on the scalpel. Dtui, do you want to get him up off the floor before his joints freeze?”
Dtui helped the old doctor back into his seat, still mumbling an ancient curse, unable to believe that his intended victims were still conscious and coherent.
“I’m not saying he didn’t study the dark arts,” Siri continued. “I’m sure he did. I’m sure he’s a veritable authority on all the rites and rituals of Santeria and the Palo Mayombe. But the fact is, any old José can’t just declare himself to be a Grand Mage any more than I can announce to the world that I’m Mr. Universe. You have to have something special. You have to be touched by the spirits. Our Santiago here, despite his enthusiasm, just doesn’t have it.”
Deprived of the benefit of translation, the Cuban sat at his desk with a curious look on his face.
Lit stood, shaking his head. “But he did … he must have. What about this?” He held up his finger, which drooped sadly like a fractured stick insect. Siri walked to the towering refrigerator in the corner of the office and opened the door to reveal thousands of trays of neat petri dishes.
“Comrade Lit, if a man has no natural ability to perform miracles—and most men don’t—they resort to trickery, to conjuration. Once we established that our friend here was a fraud, it was just a question of going through the tricks he’d performed to explain them. Some he just made up. Others had more rational explanations. Take his supposed love potion, for example. We met the young nurse who had been charmed into his bed. But it wasn’t a spell that got her there. He’d caught her stealing medications to send back to her village. Her body was payment for him to keep his mouth shut. Simple blackmail.
“Many of his other spells can be explained scientifically. Among other things, he is a brilliant chemist. I’ve been trying to work out how he caused your finger to atrophy. As you were all billeted together in the same caves, I have to assume he infected you with some virus. He has a vast collection of cultures. It wouldn’t have been difficult for him to creep to your bunk at night and touch you with some contaminated sample.”
Comrade Lit was crestfallen. Could he really have been duped like a simple villager?
“Every odd event that happened here,” he said, “I marked down to Santiago and the supernatural. I was too afraid of my superiors’ reaction to report what was going on. I was too afraid of him. Do you suppose he might have had something to do with Colonel Ha’s death? His reaction to the ambush was inexplicable.”
“Once a popular myth begins, son, it takes on a life of its own,” Siri said. “The colonel had been so devastated by the news of his daughter’s condition that he’d become dependent on opium to pull him through. I’m afraid the ambush came at a time when he was too drugged and grief stricken to appreciate the reality of the situation.His batman told us that the colonel wasn’t fit for duty. He shouldn’t have been on that patrol. But his reaction had nothing to do with witchcraft. The drug had unsettled his mind.”
“So the last hope of Isandro and Odon was a mirage. They’d been fooled, too.”
“Yes and no. Santiago refused to perform the ceremony because he knew he didn’t have the ability to produce the result they all hoped for. By handing over the responsibility to Odon, he also removed the pressure from himself. You see? Dr. Santiago believes wholeheartedly in his magic. It must be terribly frustrating for him to be such a failure at practicing it. But I sense—and perhaps he did too—that Odon had some innate ability. By preparing Odon to perform the rite, I imagine the doctor could vicariously experience success.”
“Are you saying that Odon was a shaman?”
“No, just that he was probably able to channel. He believed all the mumbo jumbo would work, that his friend and his friend’s lover truly had a chance to be united in eternity. That made him a very appealing vessel for the spirits.”
“You think he might have been successful?”
Siri’s thoughts returned to his first visit to the president’s cave, to the wardrobe, and the shadow of the mysterious bat. “It isn’t impossible,” he said. “He might actually have hit on the right formula for once.”
“Should I tell him his magic worked then?” Dtui asked.
“Goodness me, no. We don’t want to confirm him in the belief that he actually possesses the ability to send people off into eternity. The less enthusiasm he has, the better. I get the feeling Dr. Santiago will soon be recalled from his post here. Civilai tells me the embassy was very interested to hear about his background. I think he may be going home any day now.”
Dtui looked down at the old Cuban, still vainly searching for an appropriate spell to dispatch his guests. “OK, perhaps one last question,” she said. “If the ceremony was successful, and Isandro and Hong Lan are now sitting under a bo tree in heaven somewhere sharing a bottle of fizzy nirvanic nectar, why is Odon’s spirit so restless?”
“Ah, yes. Good question,” Siri agreed. “Originally I thought his spirit just wanted a hunky, physically perfect body in which to dance the nights away. That’s why he chose me, of course. Then I started to wonder what might have happened to unsettle him. I found the answer when I met the Hmong scout, the one who led the raid that night. He’s an interesting old character. An eccentric. In fact, he wears the nails on his little fingers long and varnished. It’s a traditional thing.”
“The nail in the mummy’s tomb?”
“Right. But I didn’t pursue that. He told me that night, when the laborer arrived to report his sighting of the two Cubans, the raiding party had already been selected and was ready to attack them.”
“How come?” Lit asked.
Dtui was the one who answered his question. “They’d been tipped off.”
“And I think we can guess by whom,” Siri added. “Santiago wanted the ceremony to go ahead. He was curious. But he was also afraid that Odon might blackmail him when it was all over. Or maybe he was afraid word would get out that he, the great doctor and magician, was a fraud. I doubt Santiago expected the Vietnamese soldiers would kill Odon. Perhaps he didn’t care, but once the young fellow was out of the way, he made sure that there was plenty of circumstantial evidence to suggest that Odo
n had been the Palo priest.”
“So Odon’s spirit knows that and he wants revenge,” Dtui said.
“Which leaves only one thing to do,” Siri decided. He went to the desk and smiled at Dr. Santiago. The Cuban seemed to have recovered from his shock and was again looking confident. “Could you tell the good doctor that we know everything. I can’t pretend to like what he’s been doing, but I still have great respect for him as a surgeon. I’m sorry he won’t be able to practice his profession anymore after this, but I wish him good luck in the future.”
While Dtui translated, Siri offered his hand to the Cuban and gave him a warm smile. Santiago slapped his palm into Siri’s and returned the smile. He seemed surprised at the strength of Siri’s grasp. And then he appeared to understand.
The Cuban screamed and tried in vain to remove his hand from Siri’s. A force passed swiftly between them. Dtui watched Dr. Santiago squirm and shift on his seat. His posture improved and his demeanor seemed to change. By the time Siri pulled his hand away, a different person seemed to be seated at the desk.
Comrade Lit also noticed the change. “Dr. Siri, can I ask what just happened?”
In the light of everything the security chief had just heard, Siri decided there was nothing to be gained by keeping secrets. “Comrade Lit, for the past week, I have been hosting the spirit of Odon. He first came to me at Santiago’s altar. At the time I thought he was trying to abuse Nurse Dtui, but, as it turns out, his aggression was directed toward Santiago. I should have realized that earlier.”
“What? That no self-respecting spirit would want to abuse sweet little me?” Dtui asked. She had abandoned all attempts at translation. She felt no obligation to be polite to the old Cuban now.
“That there was no logical reason for it,” Siri said. “Spirits are predictably logical. Odon wanted to clear his name and that of his friend, for a man’s reputation survives his death. And to point us in the right direction. Now he’s taken over the man who caused his death.”
Disco for the Departed Page 20