by Lara Parker
Barnabas had not spoken a rational word to her since their argument; he had been so ill that everything he said was from the raging of the fever. He seemed to drift between penitent guilt and furious determination. “No more! No more!” he would cry, coming out of a disturbed sleep. Or he would grasp her hands in his and with wild eyes, plead with her to forgive him, saying, “Julia, stay with me, don’t leave me!” Moments later he would stare off into space, and scream, “Get away from me! Stay away!” and she would shrink with fright, certain he was venting his anger on her.
The Bokor said, “I will not show you murder and death. These you have already seen. I have shown you life returning from the dead. And tonight I will show you how to murder Death itself. Tonight you will stake the vampire.
“The vampire has ivory teeth, elongated and sharp, to suck the life force, and he leaves his victims exhausted and spent. He is a self-absorbed being without sympathy. I have told you that all gods come from our imaginings, and likewise the vampire is born in the realms of our innermost thoughts. He is the manifestation of our deepest longing and our deepest fears. Dead, but not dead. Blood still within the body. The odor of the vampire is like the guano in the cave where bats breed. He has eyes like hollows of madness with which he can see colors of rich intensity. He has the hearing of a predator and far-beyond-human capacities of survival. He cannot be killed when he is awake; therefore, you must not wake him. He can only be murdered in the grave.”
“What has made him that way?”
“The vampire bat has fed on him and poisoned his blood.”
“Why does the bat come?”
“A curse—an enemy pronounces a curse, the consummate form of vengeance. It takes enormous power to make this curse. Great power and great hatred combined.”
The sounds of the night were muted, and the candles gave a dim light. The sky was shrouded with clouds as we walked to the cemetery. Our footsteps were like the dead whispering. The Bokor motioned to the grave where the vampire slept. I saw the white cross and the coffin in the hole. The hounci were with me, because they wanted to take the parts, but they hung back in fear. “You cannot be frightened,” he said. “All fear is weakness.” He put the stake in my hand.
When I looked down on the vampire I was filled with wonder, for I could sense his mystery and his strength. His face was very white, like carved ivory, as were his hands, which were folded across his breast, and I could see the shape of his skull, and the bones of his fingers beneath his skin. His fingernails were long and yellow, and I could smell the odor of bat guano rising from his body. His coat was covered with dirt, and his ruffled collar with mildew and rust. He was sleeping so peacefully that I was suddenly reluctant to harm him.
The hounci moved closer. “Tonight you will murder Death itself.” I placed the point of the stake against his chest and thought only of how thin I was, and wondered where I would find the strength to force it into his heart. All I had was the weight of my own body, and I raised up and pushed with all my might on the sharpened post of wood, feeling it pierce the fabric of his coat and the layers of his skin, each section giving way with a little jerk. The monster groaned. The stake struck a rib, and I slid it down to find a softer entrance.
At that moment the vampire opened his eyes. His hypnotic stare sent a terrified quivering through my body. I could feel him draining my strength with the force of his will as his eyes burned into my soul, then he reached up his powerful hands and grasped the stake. His mouth opened to form the words to stop me, and his lips drew back to reveal the fangs, gleaming white and covered with slime. I could push the stake no farther.
Then the Bokor leapt upon my back, knocking the breath out of my chest as it struck the end of the post. Our bodies slammed into the vampire, and, as the stake slid into his heart, the blood spurted forth and covered me. I lay upon him, my face next to his face, my breath sucking the prolonged death rattle of a windpipe choked with blood.
Julia shuddered. She remembered how Barnabas had returned without the diary, his clothes in an awful condition, shivering and soaked to the skin. The wounds had reopened, and he was weak from loss of blood. She was worried that the bite of the vampire would cause a relapse, for Barnabas appeared to be fighting an inner battle between opposing demons, his emotions in turmoil, and his very nature feeding upon itself.
Most of the time she was certain he had no sense of who or where he was, and he raved about a ship attacked by pirates and lying in chains. Other times he seemed calmer and spoke to someone in a gentle voice, someone he loved.
Unable to stop herself, Julia continued to dry out and try to read sections from the diary.
The Bokor spoke to me often, and he was always discouraging. He liked to tease me and torture me with his riddles.
“Do you still wish to become a voudun mambo?”
“Yes.”
“The choice is not an easy one, and the journey once begun bears no returning. Will you go all the way?”
“I will not be left behind in shallows and in miseries.”
“Why would you want such a thing?”
“I believe it is my destiny.”
“Destiny is only what you believe.” He giggled. He liked turning a phrase on its ear. This time, I was determined to make him listen.
“I mean, I have gifts, and knowledge.”
“So does everyone.”
“Will you teach me what you know?”
“Voudun is confusing and cumbersome. It will not make your life better.”
“I need something to protect me.”
“Voudun will only make you more vulnerable.”
“But won’t it give me power?”
“Power is unwieldy. You want to control things, but voudun is not control. This is why I know you will never be a mambo. You are a white girl. How can you look into the African soul? You only want your way, like all vain females. You want tricks, silly little spells. You want to play with others like they are toys. This is not power, but only fiddling and foolishness.”
“I will tell you why I am so afraid. I have begun to think that I am bound to the Devil.”
“The Devil?”
“Yes.”
“And you want to be free of him.”
“Yes … free…”
“But the Devil is only another loa, and not a very interesting one at that. Another luminous spirit. The loas will never harm you unless you let them. Feed them and give them drink, and they will never bother you. Strike the vévé with the asson and the loa is obliged to descend. You know that. All the gods are only our own imaginings, and the Devil is no different.”
“Are you certain?”
“I am certain of nothing.”
“But I have seen him and spoken to him.”
“I did not say that he did not exist.”
“Then how can I free myself?”
“All right, answer me this. What is witchcraft, if you don’t already know?”
“You have always told me. It is interference, meddling.”
“How does it work?”
“You find the weakest point, and that is the place you fling your power.”
“So, you have just answered your own question. That is how you free yourself.”
“The Devil has a weak point? What is it?”
“Is he not the Horned God?” The Bokor giggled again, his little sea-cucumber body shaking.
“What does that mean?”
“Ah, you are still too young to know. He is always a cuckold. You must not fear him. As long as you fear him he has you.”
“Then why does he tell me that my power comes from him when I have taught myself these things and suffered to know them?”
“That’s easy. Think of what you just said.”
“Ah, that is my weak point.”
“Exactly. He knows how proud you are. He is trying to tell you something you already know. You have several choices. What are they?”
I thought about this for a time, then I answere
d.
“To live an ordinary life and never be what I was meant to be. To make little spells. Or to choose voudun.”
“Once you choose voudun there is no ordinary life.”
“What if I only choose good magic, like my mother. She was a healer.”
“Ah, yes, good magic. But there is no good magic. It’s all interference, and therefore evil. That does not mean it isn’t distracting.” And he giggled again.
“Stop these ridiculous riddles. Tell me the truth!”
“But the truth is the riddle!” And he jiggled with laughter. At least he was enjoying himself.
“So if I become a witch—”
“You are a witch already.”
“If I practice only what I know, and am not proud, will he leave me alone?”
“No. Because what you know is meaningless. And now we have come back around to the beginning of our conversation. Listen to me, Angelique, and I will tell you the truth as you call it. Everything I say to you you will forget, because you will not understand. But I will tell you anyway, and perhaps one day you will remember it. Death is the only power, and the Devil is death. All voudun has death at its center. When you accept death and cling to nothing in life, your power will emerge, and voudun will guide you.
“Can you do that? Can you achieve indifference? I think not. I think you will always be obsessed with something. You have not the character of a mambo. You will cling to life and ignore the death it springs from. You will seek love, and it will turn to jealousy, then revenge, because deep beneath all your rainbow colors is a dark pool of despair, and because your way is the way of desire. You say Erzulie is your goddess, but her mirror side is Erzulie-Rouge. Which will it be? The lily or the rose? Perfect innocence or profound understanding? The great voodoo goddess has Death sitting by her side. The moment surrounding the moment. The magic within the magic. The power is in the mirror. It will be many years before you realize, if you ever do, that you will be doomed by your obsession, and that the greatest power is in desiring nothing.”
Eighteen
Angelique was so filthy it seemed impossible for her to be light-skinned. The grime had entered her pores, and her skin had turned the color of ash. Soot was lodged beneath her fingernails, and her yellow hair was hidden, wrapped in an oily rag. She was so thin, she folded when she lay down on the earthen floor, her bones loose in her tattered shift. Cesaire would never have recognized her had her eyes not darted out at him like fire opals glinting in the dust.
“They told me I find you here,” he said, his nose wrinkling from the odors of smoke and burning herbs. “But I not believe them.”
“What else did they tell you?”
“That they tremble in your hounfort. That you are not cruel, but you are cruelly kind. That your magic be like the lightning, never know when it come, never know if it strike the mark. They say sparks fly from your fingertips, and that your potions are not safe, for sometimes you heal and sometimes you maim.”
“Erzulie lies with me now, Cesaire. My skin is not a barrier to her coming. The loa enters me when I breathe.”
“Erzulie—who is loved for her purity?”
“Oh, no, the other Erzulie. Her image in the mirror, Erzulie-Rouge, who is much more powerful, who feeds on men’s souls.”
Cesaire frowned and walked closer to where she sat.
“What are doing with these people, Angelique?”
“What do you mean? I live here.”
“Why?”
“Where else would I go? I need the hounci to care for me and give me food.”
“Is it so important to be a little goddess? To live in this foul place! Barrel of rotten apples give no choice.”
Her eyes flared at his insult. “You think I am vain and proud. You know nothing. That’s not the reason I am Bizango now. Erzulie protects me from him.”
“Who? The Bokor?”
“No, not the Bokor. From him!”
Angelique rose and walked to the altar. Smoke rose from her garment as though it were made of ash. She stood there, her body willowy and strangely regal, gazing at the sacred table. A long copper-colored snake was crawling slowly around the clay jars and pots of decayed and powdered food, his undulating body circling lighted candles and flowing over piles of bones.
“I will make you a charm, Cesaire, a love-ouanga, if you like. This morning I caught a hummingbird, and I need to use it before it grows cold. A love-ouanga just for you. Would you like that? Is there a pretty girl you want?”
She turned, and he could see the tiny bird in her hand, its iridescent feathers and scarlet breast. “I will need some of your blood and your semen.” She reached for him, smiling suggestively. “Come.”
Cesaire shook his head. “I need no charm from you today,” he said, and with an effort pulled his eyes away from her, and looked instead at the painting above the altar. It was of a naked woman with large breasts, the lower half of her body covered with fish scales. On all sides of her were paintings of the Virgin Mary.
Cesaire came to where Angelique was standing. He saw that she was holding a doll made of dried skin, and she was embellishing it carelessly with a strand of human teeth. It had a tiny shrunken head with beady eyes and several pins protruding from its wizened chest.
“Angelique, I have come to take you back to Martinique.”
“No. I don’t want to go. I can’t go back there!”
Cesaire shivered, and he looked up at the center painting again.
Beside the fish woman, a boat with a white sail rocked on curling blue waves. Beneath the boat was a chalice filled with crimson flowers, and the sky was painted black and sprinkled with stars. The woman was holding something, and when Cesaire looked more closely, he saw that it was a human head. It was then that he realized Angelique’s entire altar was made of gaping skulls.
“Listen to me, girl. I have news of your mother.”
Her eyes flew to his face, searching, revealing some hint of the child still hiding inside her.
“She in terrible trouble,” he continued. “I thought you want to know.”
“Where is she?”
“In prison.”
“Prison! But why?”
“She be tried for witchcraft, and she have been condemned.”
Angelique stared at him, unable to believe his words, as tears filled her eyes.
“I have a boat,” he said. “Will you come?”
* * *
The weather was calm but there was a heavy, rolling swell, and the wind changed, forcing the schooner to run before it. A sulfurous exultation emanated from the sea, and more than once Angelique leaned against the rail and whispered, watching as the surface boiled.
Cesaire stood on the other side of the deck, and she knew he was frightened and thought he no longer knew her, that she was like a dark specter against the sky, and although she had let her hair down, and it was a pale cloud, it gave her no light. She could reach out and touch the Dark Spirit when the waves leapt to her hand. He was not of the sea, but he was within the deep, and she said to him, “Don’t follow me.”
* * *
She opened the gate to the prison and walked into the grassy court. The weather was changing, and ominous gusts of fitful wind caught the straggly palms by the prison doorway and whipped them into a macabre dance. The guard was sitting just inside the door, snoozing on a spindly chair, his head thrown back as he snored. She made a noise in her throat that woke him, and he shook himself and stood on wobbly feet to address her.
“Visiting hours ended an hour ago,” he said abruptly. He was a large man, mulatto, with a red beard, and one of his eyes was blind, an opaque blue across the pupil, giving him a dismal demeanor as though he had only half a soul.
“I have come all the way from Port-au-Prince to see the woman who has been condemned for witchcraft. Please allow me to pass.”
The tyranny of petty officials empowered him, and he sneered at her. “My orders is to allow no visitors. Come back tomorrow.”
/> “What if I told you the woman I wish to see is my mother.”
“I got no part in that,” he said coldly. “Hangings every day, breakings at the wheel, executions by militia. I just guard the prisoners and, if I’m in the mood, throw them a bit of bread. Now be gone with you. I have my work to do.”
Reluctantly, she turned to leave, and as she did she glanced behind his desk toward a small room, which she realized must be his living quarters. She could see a cot and a chair with clothes strewn about and a table with bread, cheese, a bottle of rum, and a thick tallow candle that had burned down and spread its wax in a yellow pool. She stared hard at the flame.
“Is that your room?” she asked, and when he grunted in the affirmative, she sniffed the air, and said, “I believe something in there has caught fire.”
The guard let out an infantile yelp followed by a stream of curses when he turned and saw the flames springing from the floor. He lurched into the fire, tromping it with his boot, but to no avail, for it flared up in one spot, then another. It was attacking the bedclothes when he grabbed a basin of water and threw it on the blaze. Angelique slipped by him without his noticing her.
When she entered the prison corridor and looked through the bars, she felt her heart lift to her throat. It had been four years since they had seen one another, but Cymbaline had not changed. She was sitting on a small stool singing to herself. Her glossy hair hung about her shoulders, and her golden skin glowed even in the gloom of the cell, as though the light from the one small window emanated from her.
When she saw Angelique standing outside the bars, her black eyes flashed suspiciously at first, then widened in disbelief as she slowly shook her head, and a profound expression of utter pathos melted her features. She lifted her arms, and as Angelique reached through, she pressed the girl to her, sobbing, “Angel, oh, my Angel, my daughter—my precious child.”
“Mama, oh, Mama, I thought I would never see you again. I’ve missed you so much. Why are you here like this? What happened?”
But Cymbaline was unable to answer. She merely held Angelique’s face in her two hands and kissed whatever she could reach between the bars—cheeks, chin, forehead, lips—her words trapped in her throat. Her fingers traveled over Angelique’s face and hair as though she did not trust her eyes and needed to touch her to believe she was there. All the while her tears flowed.