Night of the Jaguar jp-3

by Michael Gruber

  “For a pump?”

  “See, you say that because you’re not hydrologically aware. Miami is a fucking swamp. These bastards blow a few more pumps, and should we happen to get a couple fucking hurricanes this year, they’ll be fishing for marlin on Flagler Street. The major said to thank you for your invaluable help, by the way. They might make you a plaque.” Paz heard noises in the background, voices and car engines. “Hey, I got to go, man,” Morales said. “Catch you later.”

  Paz had been about to tell Morales that there was at least one man in town with a connection to the environmental movement who had a professional skill with bombs, but the moment passed. Let them figure it out. Paz had a boat, after all, and he thought it might be kind of cool to fish on the drowned avenues of downtown. Besides, he wanted to talk to Cooksey himself, on this and other matters. But not today. His week was spoken for. He went back to the lounger and let his mind go blank, listening to birdsong and his child’s laughter until he heard the sound of his mother’s car in the driveway.

  Jenny felt a certain relief when the man left. He had a way of looking at her, a sharp look that she associated with street cops, as if he knew stuff about her she didn’t want out in the open. Cooksey had a sharp look, too, but that was different, like he was seeing something in her that she didn’t know was there and it would be a good thing if she learned about it. She missed Cooksey a little, but her life had rendered her nearly immune to missing anyone very badly. Perhaps she missed the fish a little more.

  The child was getting wrinkly from the water, so Jenny got her out of the pool, dried and dressed, contemplating the clothes in her wardrobe with wonder. She supposed all of them had been bought new. She herself had never had new clothes as a child, but such was the sweetness of her nature that she bore the present child no resentment. She felt sorry for her, actually, without quite knowing why. A small puzzle here, nagging.

  The day progressed pleasantly enough. She called Cooksey and told him more or less what had transpired since she had left La Casita with Kevin, including her rescue by Moie, but omitting the details. She said she thought she’d stay at the Paz house for a while. They seemed to need her. Cooksey made no objection; he was delighted to learn she was safe.

  Then she made lunch for the girl, tuna fish sandwiches, from the can, following the child’s instruction so that the sandwich would resemble in every detail those made by her father, the toast just so, the crusts removed, the chocolate milk in the special glass. Jenny followed these diktats amiably, delighting in a child who had confidence enough to order an adult around. She had never seen anything like it while growing up.

  After lunch she cleaned the kitchen with quick efficiency and then went through the house with the child in tow, making a game of neatening, dusting, mopping, picking up toys and strewn luxuries. She didn’t think much of the mother’s housekeeping, but she figured that was to be expected from a doctor. Cooksey was a slob, too. The child informed her that no one was allowed in Mom’s office when she wasn’t around, and Jenny acquiesced in this.

  They watched DVDs,The Lion King and The Little Mermaid, with the child telling Jenny what was going to happen next and singing along with the songs. The Disney music was not able, however, to drive from her head the song that had been circulating around in there for a whole day now, maybe longer, an ancient Pink Floyd number, “Brain Damage.” An older kid in one of her foster homes was always playing it. She hadn’t thought about it for years but now could not get it out of her head:

  You lock the door

  And throw away the key

  There’s someone in my head but it’s not me.

  There was someone in her head that wasn’t her, a presence, unobtrusive, silent, but unquestionably there, like someone staring at you in a crowded restaurant, but staring from the inside. She was not afraid, however, and this in itself was startling. After all that had gone down recently-Kevin getting his brains blown out all over her lap, being kidnapped and tied up naked, and what she’d seen in the garage-she should be a nervous wreck. I should be a nervous wreck, she said to herself, but I’m not. I feel fine, like I just smoked a huge spliff of primo dope, just kind of floating in the middle of life, like a fish, or this Little Mermaid on the TV. She thought it might have something to do with visiting the land of the dead with Moie. Maybe she had left all fear there. Anyway, it was cool, in a way, like being an X-man with secret powers. She settled back on the cushions and watched the movie, humming softly to herself.

  Amelia dozed off toward the end of the film. Jenny watched the rest of it and then, driven by some unsettling energy, polished all the furniture that would take a polish and cleaned all the windows she could reach, with newspaper and vinegar. Then she began to assemble a meal. Invisible and indispensable, the two wings of her life strategy, her default mode. She slipped into it without thought, like a gecko going leaf-green on a leaf.

  Thus when Lola came home (noting as she did so the Miami PD car with two cops in it across the street) she was presented with a working mother’s wet dream of a helper: she cleans, she cooks, she’s live-in, she’s dirt cheap, the child adores her, she’s sweet-natured, if a bit blank, she’s not a guilt-making member of the hitherto exploited races, the opposite really, a guilt-lessening member of the handicapped. True, Jenny might be involved with a murderous Colombian mob, and vicious killers might at that very moment be stalking her family (with her wacko husband off at some voodoo party instead of protecting his dear ones, the rat), but on the other hand, you could actually see through the windows, and the floors did not stick to one’s bare feet in that disgusting way, and here prepared from food already in the house a delicious crabmeat salad and actual warm biscuits thats he baked from scratch herself, this alone worth defying the entire Cali cartel, enough even to forgive her husband.

  Who had been given by his mother into the care of three elderly white-gowned santeras, one of whom turned out to be Julia from the botanica; apparently, she was to be his yubona, or sponsor. Julia explained to him that what they were doing was quite irregular, that in old Cuba it might take nine months to prepare the head of aiyawo, an initiate, for union with the orisha, but that Pedro Ortiz and the other santeros and santeras had agreed that it was necessary, and also out of respect for his mother. They were in a room at the back of the house where Pedro Ortiz held his ile, a room that must at one time have been a closet or workroom, because it had no windows. It was furnished only with a mat and a large mahogany canistillero, a cabinet for ritual objects.

  The explanations went on for some time. Paz had a reasonable working knowledge of Lucumi, the African-based language of Santeria, but Julia was using words that he didn’t know, quoting divinations not only from Ifa but also from the special readings that were part of the asiento ceremony itself, that were done not with palm nuts or divining chains but with handfuls of cowrie shells. The sita divinations foretold a dark something if something didn’t do something to something sometime at some particular place.

  “Mi madrina,”said Paz, “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

  The old woman shrugged and grinned and exchanged looks with the other two. “Of course not, but when the orisha is in your head, then you’ll understand it all.”

  “The other thing I don’t get,” said Paz, “is I always thought that the orisha called the person and then the person prepared to receive that orisha. But no orisha has called me.”

  “the orisha has been calling you for years,” said the yubona, “but you stopped your ears against him. He called so loud that everyone else heard it. It was very annoying.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Paz, and as he said the conventional phrase, discovered that he really was. The old woman patted his hand. “Don’t worry, my son, we’ll make everything all right, although it’s going to be hard. You’re a stubborn donkey, like your mother, God bless her.”

  “Really? I thought my mother was always made to the saints, from when she was a young girl.”

  �
��If you think that, you don’t know much,” Julia said, and pressed her hand onto Paz’s still-inquiring mouth, saying, “No, this is not the time for you to talk. This is the time for you to listen, and watch and prepare your head for the orisha. ”

  So then it began. Paz was ritually bathed and his head was washed and shaven, and he was dressed in white garments. He was placed on a mat, and the three women attended him as if he were a baby, giving him food and drink by hand, holding the spoon and the cup to his lips. The food was bland, mashed, and pale, the drink was herbal tea of many different kinds. There was a good deal of chanting and incense burning. A man Paz did not recognize came in and sacrificed a black pigeon, draining its blood into a coconut-shell bowl. He used the blood to draw designs on Paz’s nude scalp. More tea, more smoke, more singing. Paz lost track of time. He felt himself regressing into infancy, which he gathered was the idea. At length he slept.

  And of course dreamed. When he awoke, there was Julia, her dark eyes and black-leather face close to his, asking him what his dream had been. The other two sat in the background quietly observing, like judges at a gymnastic event. He told her the dream. He was in Havana, walking down a forest path with Fidel. He felt that he had impressed Fidel so much that Fidel was going to give up communism and free Cuba. Only one thing stood in the way of this great blessing-Fidel wanted to hold a feast to celebrate the end of communism, and the only thing he wanted at the feast was baby wild pigs. They would need seven of them for the feast. Fidel handed Paz a bow and seven arrows and Paz went into the forest to hunt wild pigs. He found he was a great hunter and soon had seven little pigs in his bag. As he walked back to Fidel’s palace, he met his daughter. When he told her what he had in the bag she asked him for one of them. But Paz said no, because it was necessary for something very important, the liberation of Cuba, which Fidel would only do if he came back with the seven piglets. Not even one? Amelia cried. No, not even one, said Paz. It has to be seven. Then Amelia went away, and it started to rain and storm, a regular hurricane. Paz came to the palace all wet and battered by the storm and gave Fidel his sack. But when Fidel took out the piglets there were only six. Fidel was angry and said, “Can’t you follow my orders, Paz? I said seven. No freedom for Cuba now!”

  So, Paz thought, some wicked person has stolen one of the piglets. So despite the hurricane he went back into the forest and found another herd of pigs and with his bow and arrow shot another one and brought it to Fidel, who was very happy with it. Then Fidel said, “You have done good work, and now do you wish anything for yourself? Ask and it shall be done.” And Paz thought about this and answered, “Yes, I want that wicked thief who stole my piglet caught by the police and shot.” So Fidel said, Let it be done. But the police brought in little Amelia, and Paz had to watch as they put her in front of the firing squad.

  “And was she shot, your daughter?”

  “I don’t know. I pointed my bow at Fidel and threatened to shoot him if they didn’t let her go; it was kind of a standoff, I think.”

  “No, in the dream she dies. You know that this is the dream of Oshosi?”

  “I didn’t know. How can you tell?”

  “It’s the same story, what we call the apataki, the life of the orishas while they were still human. But in that story Oshosi hunts quail for Olodumare, the god of gods, and his mother steals it, and Oshosi catches another one, pleasing Olodumare, and Oshosi asks that his arrow find the heart of the thief, and so it did, killing his mother. Also Oshosi’s number is seven, and there were seven arrows and seven pigs. What were you wearing in the dream?”

  “I don’t know, some kind of uniform, a green and brown uniform like they wear in Cuba.”

  “Yes, green and brown are Oshosi’s colors. He is the lord of the hunt. Now you know who is trying to fill your head. It’s good.” She smiled broadly at him, and the other holy ladies did, too. And it was good, Paz thought. Oshosi the Hunter felt right to him. He had been a hunter himself, a hunter of men, and even though he was one no longer, he felt the pull, and so he had let himself become involved in hunting the magic jaguar. He recalled how he’d handled the small bow at the botanica, and also one of the symbols of Oshosi was a jailhouse, yes, and what was Paz’s favorite fruit-the mango, also Oshosi’s. Yes, everything was connected, a sure sign of insanity, his wife might have said, but his wife was not here. Only the madrinas were here, unless this was another dream, that he was in a small white room with white-clad women treating him like a baby, in which case he was doomed, so why think about it?

  He watched with interest as they laid out the round stones, the fundamentos of Oshosi in a half circle in front of him. These contained the ashe of the orisha, which would be transmitted into Paz’s head. The woman honored the fundamentos by bathing them and pouring herbal decoctions on their smooth surfaces. The same was done to Paz’s head.

  Five days passed in this way, Paz not being permitted to walk or talk, being fed by hand. Was he drugged? He didn’t know, and after a short while he didn’t care. His former life became vague, a distant half-recalled dream. This was the only reality, the slow, chanting, smoky, endless afternoons and nights. And more sacrifices. The santero came in at intervals and sacrificed beasts: roosters, pigeons, a small piglet, a black goat. The santero fed a portion of the blood of the sacrificed to the stones and arranged their heads and feet in the deep-bellied clay pots, soperas. At the end of the five days, Julia announced that a seat for the orisha had formed in Paz’s head.

  Paz felt this, too, a difference subtle but real, like the loss of virginity or how you felt after killing a man. He could talk now, it seemed, and was free to walk around, which he did on tender feet that seemed not to quite touch the floor. The five days of private gestation were over; now wasel dia de la coronacion. Paz wasiyawo, a bride of the orisha. The madrinas dressed him in fresh white garments and freshly shaved his head, renewing the markings on it. He was given a crown of bright green parrot feathers, a cloak of emerald brocade, and the symbols of his orisha: a bow, and a leather quiver with seven arrows, and a small wooden model of a jail. Around his shoulders he wore the great embroidered, bead-worked, shell-dangling collares de mazo, and thus clothed they led him to the main room of the house, one corner of which had been made into a throne room, with silk hangings of green and brown and a pilon, a royal stool of the kind used by the kings of Ife. There they sat him, and around his feet they lay yams and mangoes in piles, and the air was scented by these and by the cooking for the wedding feast, the roasting and frying of the sacrificial beasts.

  People arrived in numbers, singing praise songs and abasing themselves before the throne of Paz-Oshosi. Among these was his mother, and seeing her, Paz understood that his previous relationship with her was over, that the personality of a rather bratty and sarcastic man he’d used to defend himself against her force during the whole of his life was gone, that now they would be demigods together.

  The room became more crowded and grew warmer. Paz was given a glass and told to drink it: it was a guardiente, Oshosi’s drink. The sweat popped out on his upper lip. The drummers arrived, three very black men, and greeted the santero, and set up their instruments on a wooden platform built on one side of the room: the iya, the great mother drum, the smaller itotele, and the little okonkolo. As usual, in the casual African way, the thing began. The sharp penetrating crack of the iya rang out, and the chatter of the other drums and the gourd rattle in the hands of the santero, weaving the ancient and intricate sounds, music as the language of the santos. The ile took up the song to Eshu-Eleggua, the guardian of the gates,ago ago ago ile ago: open up, open up.

  Paz sat on his throne-stool thinking about his mother and about someone he seemed to have heard of long ago named Jimmy Paz, who had a kid and who was married to a doctor, nice enough guy, something of a wiseass, and wondered if what he was now could ever be fitted back into that container.

  People swayed to the rhythm, and an elderly woman made to Eshu danced in front of Paz. The chanting g
rew louder, more insistent. The people sang for Oshosi to come down to take his new bride. Paz blinked sweat from his eyes; the shapes of people and objects were starting to get weird and shaky. And there was a little inquiring voice in his mind, and Paz had to admit that yes, he’d gone through this somewhat tedious ritual, and he understood the benefits of purification, and he recognized it as a symbol of some kind of coming-of-age, some kind of making peace with the Afro-Cuban part of his background, and yes, it had changed him, he was really a better person for it, and he even imagined himself explaining all of this in a rational voice to his wife. But in the midst of this pleasant notional conversation (itself born of a terror that Paz was yet unwilling to own), Oshosi, Lord of Beasts, stepped through the gate from the unseen world and into Paz’s head.

  So now Paz understood that there is a virginity much deeper than the sexual one about which people make so much fuss, the basic bedrock understanding of physical being we bring from earliest childhood that nearly everyone in the modern world carries intact to their graves: that the world is as it is represented by our senses; that we sit permanently within our own heads, all alone in there; that belief is a choice we make with our minds. All this vanished in the first seconds, as the orisha penetrated his body, and here he understood that calling the person in this situation a bride was no mere figure of speech; he was being fucked by a god, not unwillingly it seemed, but undeniably possessed, never again to be the same.

  Paz has seen people ridden by the orishas before this and had supposed that while the orisha was in charge the people were unconscious, but now he finds that this is not so. He is now outside his body, a disembodied spirit containing nothing but a benign interest in what his body is doing. It is down there dancing in front of the throne while the drums sing. It goes on for a long time, this dance; Paz sees his body do things it cannot normally do.