Night of the Jaguar jp-3

by Michael Gruber

  Paz directed Morales into the small parking lot, observed that his mother’s pale blue ’95 Coupe de Ville was in its stall, and bid farewell to his supervisor-companion. He rang at the outer door. No answer. He used his key. At her apartment door he rang again with the same result, and after a brief wait, he let himself into the small foyer. He called out, “Mami, it’s me.” Nothing. Now a little prickle of concern.

  In the foyer, on a small wooden stand was a half-life-size clothed statue of a black woman holding a paler infant. The woman wore an elaborate silver crown, and there were silvered metal rays emanating from behind her gown of blue brocade, which was covered with silver embroidery depicting shells, fish, and other marine life. Below her feet tossed plaster sea waves, from which emerged a miniature steel anchor. When Paz was a little boy, this image had been a cheap framed poster; later, that had been replaced by a plaster statue, and then another more elaborate one, and finally this one, probably the most luxurious available image of La Virgen de Regla, aka Yemaya, the orisha of maternity and of the sea, to whom his mother was dedicated in Santeria. As a little boy he’d imagined it was a representation of Mom and himself.

  The living room, which he now entered, was furnished in pale pink velvet and mahogany, heavy, expensive pieces-a tall breakfront, a long couch, armchairs, a coffee table inlaid with a marine scene in pale woods. The lamps on the side table were plaster sculptures, whose pale silken shades were protected by clear plastic. Mrs. Paz, in a flowered blue robe, was lying on the couch like a corpse, one arm and one foot resting on the floor, a copy of People en Espanol fallen from her slack hand, reading glasses dangling from one ear. Her breath came in snorts and hisses.

  Paz had not seen his mother asleep all that often, despite having lived in her house for eighteen years. In his mind she was always up and pushing, often pushing Paz as well, full of angry energy focused on never, ever, falling back into the nothing from which she had finally emerged. Here was the consequence: utter exhaustion. Paz was struck by a tender compassion and was wondering whether to tiptoe out and leave the poor woman in peace when she suddenly awoke. A lightning flash of fear appeared on her face when she knew that she was not alone, and then, when she observed who her visitor was, she quickly reassembled her normal stern mask. She made her glasses vanish, sat up, and said, “What?”

  “What do you mean, ‘what?’ I’m your son, I’m visiting you on your day off.”

  “Do you bring Amelia?”

  “No, she’s still at school. Look, Mami, the reason I came is I need your help.”

  “Money?”

  “No, money’s fine. This is a spiritual thing.”

  Eyebrows climbed on her dark face. “I’ll make coffee,” she said and left for the kitchen.

  They sat there at the old, chipped enamel-topped table he recalled from their days of poverty, drinking her bitter brew, and he told her about the dreams, his and Amelia’s, of the spotted beast, and about what he thought was happening to his wife, and how he had given the child the charm, the enkangue he had received from her years ago.

  “That wasn’t wise,” she said when she heard that. “Enkangueare made for one person.”

  “I know that, but she was scared and anyway it seemed to have worked. She hasn’t had hardly any nightmares since I gave it to her.”

  “You should have come to me.”

  “I am coming to you, Mami. I need a set for the whole family. I thought, these dreams, and after that reading Amelia got…and now I’m looking at my…you know, Calderon’s death, and there’s some kind of big cat involved in that, too.”

  “Your father,” she corrected.

  “Honestly, I can’t think of him that way. I mean he treated us like garbage his whole life.”

  “You he did. But not me, never.”

  “What do you mean? I thought he, you know…when you needed money for our first catering truck, he took advantage of you.”

  She fixed him with a glare. “Is that what you think, son of mine? That your mother is a whore to buy a catering truck?”

  Paz felt blood rush to his cheeks, but he met her stare. “You had no choice,” he said.

  “You know nothing about it.”

  “Then tell me, for God’s sake!”

  She took a sip of coffee. “Ah, finally he asks, after nearly thirty years. All right, since you ask. Juan Calderon loved me and I loved him. He was a bad man and he loved in the manner of bad men, not like you love, but it was love all the same. He wanted me all the time, and I wanted him. Of course, it was impossible that it should go any further, but this we had, for seven months. You understand, it was something that was common in Cuba, the rich white man takes a black mistress to learn about passion before he marries whatever cold little white girl the parents have arranged. So I became pregnant, and therefore you must never think, my son, that you were not made in love, even in the love of a bad man. When I told him, he wanted to fly me to Puerto Rico so I could kill you, but I said no, and then he said, I will put you in a little apartment, you’ll be available. This is how it’s done, or was done where we both came from, a few years of comfort, he buys you some nice things, and then he finds another girl, a younger girl, and you go to work as a maid somewhere, and take care of your little cabron. But I said no, I said I wanted a loan from him to start a business, and we fought, because always he wanted to control me. But in the end I was stronger and he gave me the money, and said he would never see me again and if I ever made a claim on him, or you did, he would make something bad happen to the both of us. So I didn’t tell you about him, I made up a story, so you wouldn’t approach him. But you did anyway. The santos made it part of your life. And that’s also the reason I didn’t raise you in Santeria, may it not be held against me. I wanted you to be an American boy. I thought I could protect you with my prayers to the santos, and you would have a different kind of life, that you would escape from all this…the dark things. But Ifa has drawn out the thread of your fate in a different direction than I planned. And you know this, too, which is why you had Ifa cast for my grandchild and why you come to me now, although for your whole life you’ve thought that all of this was nonsense.”

  “I’m still not sure I buy the whole thing-” he began, but she made a dismissive gesture of her hand and interrupted, “Yes, yes, you believe in your heart, because the orishas have shown you things, things not even I have seen.”

  She drained her coffee down to the dregs, and swirled these around in the cup, a habit of hers. Sometimes things were revealed there, but apparently not now. She rose from the table. “I’ll get dressed and we’ll go see Julia at the botanica.”

  Paz just sat there mute, as if he had taken a blow to the head. She paused at the door and added, “I’m sorry, Iago. I was wrong. I tried to control things instead of handing everything over to the santos. But you know, this is how I am, like a mule.”

  Paz tried to recall if his mother had ever apologized to him about anything and came up blank. This was nearly as disturbing as the revelation about his father.

  The shop had no name. It was jammed between a pharmacy and a shoe place in a strip mall on West Flagler near the county auditorium, a twelve-foot frontage with one dusty window that announced BOTANICA in peeling gilt letters. Behind the window stood a row of dark-skinned plastersantos lined up like people waiting for a bus back to heaven: St. Lazarus, who was Babaluaye, curer of ills; the Virgen de Caridad, who was Oshun, the Venus of Cuban Africa; St. Peter, who was Ogun, lord of iron and anger; St. Anthony of Padua, who was Eleggua, the trickster, guardian of the ways; and Yemaya, walking on her plaster seas. Above these a slack piece of wire had been draped, from which hung cellophane packets of herbs and powders.

  Inside it was dim and dusty, heavy with oversweet perfume. Only a narrow way led to the counter in the rear, so crowded was the place with statues and crates, and slapdash shelves holding the physical paraphernalia of the religion: strung cowries, toy weapons of cheap metal, fly whisks, framed pictures of the s
aints; and cans of purifying sprays, glass jars of dried leaves, crucifixes, bolts of heavy cloth for making costumes for the ceremonies, dream books; and soperas, the containers used to hold the holy items appropriate to the various spirits, and a pile of concrete cones, each embedded with three cowry shells to make a crude face, the sign of Eleggua.

  The woman behind the counter was over seventy, Paz estimated, with a face as dark, slick, and worn as the seat of an old saddle; her head was wrapped in a cloth of pink African print cotton. When she saw who it was, she smiled, showing her four remaining teeth, put aside her newspaper and came from around the counter to greet them. A warm embrace for Mrs. Paz, and a more ritualized one for her son; the woman smelled of some musky spice.

  Chairs were swept clean and set out, chatting commenced. Most of it was about the workings of the various Santeria congregations in Miami, and most of the people mentioned were strangers to Paz, except for the people who were denizens of the spirit world. Paz knew those, at least. He listened silently, feeling like a fool, feeling about twelve in the presence of adult conversation. He was grateful that sociability did not seem to be required of him, though, because the premises upon which he had based his whole life had just been overthrown and he was not in the mood to chatter.

  After a little over half an hour this part of the visit expired. A brief silence, and Mrs. Paz poked him and said, “Give Julia the things from Lola and Amelia.” Paz had not mentioned these items to his mother, but of course, she knew that he knew that enkangue could not be made without them. He passed the envelopes to Julia, who made some gesture to his mother, and then both women vanished into the back room of the shop.

  Mumbles floated out from there, not all in the Spanish language. Paz gave up eavesdropping and amused himself with dream books. These were arranged in convenient alphabetical order, by subject. If you dreamt of a judge it meant you would overcome your enemy and also that you’d hit on a 28, 50, 70 bet at bolita, the Cuban lottery. He looked up jaguar but none of the dream books covered that one. He grew bored with this and explored the shop. He knew what a lot of it meant, but there were also any number of substances and objects he couldn’t identify. There was a basket of toy tools made of pot metal, and a selection of bow-and-arrow sets, and little plaster animals with arrows stuck in them. He picked up a bow and drew it. To his surprise, it was a real bow, made of some dark, oily wood. Pathetic, came the thought, miserable poor people desperate to change their luck. Ridiculous, really. What was he doing here, messing with this crap? He tossed the bow back into its bin.

  Irritable now, he checked his watch. Two thirty-five and he had to be at the school to pick up Amelia at three. He could be a little late, but then he would have to endure a lecture from Perfect Miss Milliken about being a model of reliability for the children. Sorry, Miss M., he imagined himself saying, my family is cursed and I had to drop by the botanica for some antihex medicine. She’d be on the phone to Child Protective Services within minutes. Or to the mother, thinking of whom brought the recollection that Lola got off early Mondays. He’d call her, make something up about the murder case, hot on the trail, he hated to lie, but still it was, if not really an emergency, a truly unavoidable delay. Not that he would a thousand times rather explain all this to Miss Milliken than to Lola.

  He pulled out his cell phone and popped a speed-dial button. But the woman at the ER nurses’ station said that Dr. Wise had gone home sick. What was it? She didn’t know, and here he heard a little hesitancy, something not quite right. Was it serious? This is her husband. Sorry, Mr. Wise, she had no information on that. He broke the connection and dialed home. Five rings and Amelia’s little voice saying they couldn’t come to the phone right now could you leave a…

  He called again with the same result and then dialed Lola’s cell phone, which he knew was like one of her breasts, always in reach and always warm. He got her answering service. Now in something close to panic, he skirted the counter and went into the back room. The two women were at a table, and both looked up, startled, as he entered. He explained the situation. The two exchanged an unreadable look.

  “We’re almost done,” his mother said. “Go and wait. We’ll drive over to the school.”

  Paz walked out without a word and called Tito Morales, and got another answering service. No one wanted to talk to him today. He was about to call for a cab when Mrs. Paz and Julia emerged, the former holding a small brown paper bag.

  “We can go now,” she said. “Everything will be all right.”

  “Let me drive,” he said. And he did, with reckless speed.

  Amelia is up in the tree, in violation of strict orders not to climb higher than Miss Milliken can reach. Normally she is an obedient child, but this thing in the tree seems outside of normal constraints, like being in a dream. As soon as she reaches the hammock, Moie continues the story where he left off, as if she has not been away for more than a minute.

  “So when Rain saw that Caiman would eat the whole world, she went to Sky and mated with him and out of her came Jaguar. She said to him, Jaguar, you are chief of all the beasts now. You must stop Caiman before he eats the whole world that our family has made. So Jaguar attacked Caiman and they fought for many hands of years. But Caiman was too strong. With his mighty tail Caiman threw Jaguar high into the air, up to the moon, so that he crashed into it. This is why you still see his face on the moon. When Jaguar fell back to earth he landed on a field of barren rock, with no food to eat. He was starving. Then came the Hninxa, and she said to him, Jaguar, eat my flesh. I will make you strong enough so that you can defeat Caiman, so he will not eat the whole world. So Jaguar ate the Hninxa…”

  “What’s a Hninxa?” asks Amelia.

  “No one knows,” says Moie. “There are no animals like that anymore. But this is what we call the little girls we give to Jaguar, so that Caiman does not come back and eat the world again. Now, Jaguar was strengthened so much by the flesh of the Hninxa that he defeated Caiman. He broke off Caiman’s long legs, so that he could not crawl far from River, and he broke off half of his tail, and from this he made all the fishes. He said: Caiman, you will not run on the land now, but crawl and eat only the fish I have made from your tail. And Caiman went to the water. But his spirit flew out into the world and became many hands of demons. Now, these demons are still alive and still wish to eat the world. And Jaguar thought, I will make First Man, and he and his people will help me rule the beasts, and if Caiman attacks me again I will have strong allies. So he did. Now it is many hands of years after that time, as many hands as the leaves in the forest, and the demons of Caiman’s spirit are in the wai’ichuranan, and they want to eat the world again. So Jaguar called me and said, Moie, take me to Miami America so I can fight Caiman as I did long ago. So I came. And Jaguar said also, I will send to you a hninxa of the wai’ichuranan and you will give her to me to eat, and then I will have strength over the wai’ichuranan demons. That is why I am in this tree.”

  “Did Jaguar send you a…one of those little girls yet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who is it?”

  “It is you,” says Moie, and he smiles, showing his sharpened teeth.

  Amelia stares at him, then giggles. “That was a good story,” she says. “Would you like to hear a story?”

  “Yes, I would.”

  But before she is more than halfway through The Little Mermaid she hears shouting from below, Miss Milliken’s voice and her father’s voice.

  “I have to go,” she says.

  “Wait,” says Moie, and dipping his finger into a small clay pot, he presses a spot of ointment to the back of her neck. It feels warm on her neck for a moment. She scampers down from limb to limb and drops like a warm mango into her father’s arms.

  After that she has to endure a stern lecture from the teacher, which her father supports. It is dangerous to climb into the tree. Does she want Miss Milliken to keep her indoors while the other children played? She does not. Well, then.

  As pa
rent and child walk away, Paz asks, “What were you doing up there, baby?”

  “Nothing. Eating Fritos and watching the bugs. Did you have imaginary friends when you were a kid?”

  “Probably, but I don’t remember.”

  “I think it’s very babyish. I have a friend named Moie who’s half imaginary and half not imaginary.”

  “Really? Like Mary Poppins?”

  They have been strolling across the lawn to the parking lot, but now she stops short and looks at him severely, a look he has seen any number of times on her mother’s face. But this fades and is replaced by one more confused. “I forgot what I was going to say.”

  “That happens to me all the time. Was it something about your imaginary friend?”

  She shrugs. Then the animation returns to her face and she asks, “If God said you should kill me with a big knife, would you?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “We had Bible study. They used to kill little boys and girls. It’s a sacrifice. I think Abraham was mean to sacrifice his little boy just ’cause God said.”

  “But he didn’t sacrifice him.”

  “No, but he was going to. I think God was mean, too.”

  “It’s just a story, honey. Abraham had faith that God wouldn’t really make him do anything bad to his little boy.”

  Again that dreamy expression crosses her face and clears.