I got back to the hotel with barely enough time to bathe and change into the clothes I would wear on our trek to Les Domaines. Deliberately pushing the events of the preceding night to the back of my mind, I half-convinced myself that it had been part erotic dream, part nightmare, with no basis in reality. I did not trust myself to think of Sabrina.
Harry, bright as a new penny, arrived at eight. He clattered up to the front steps of the hotel, leading the mules we had hired to carry our gear. Accompanying him was Napoleon, a noir boy who would cook and act as servant-of-all-work, and Torg Swenson, who would be our guide.
Torg, a Norwegian whom Harry had befriended in a café, had lived in Haiti for over twenty years. Built like a jockey, small and thin, he had the sort of wrinkled young-old face I used to see on the riders at Pimlico. He spoke excellent English with scarcely a trace of accent, one of several languages he had mastered in the course of his travels. He had roamed the length and breadth of Haiti and its next-door neighbor, the Dominican Republic, in various capacities: prospector, coffee agent, sugarcane grower, and sisal explorer. For two years he had lived among the natives in the jungle along the Guayamouc River.
I had met Torg earlier and found him a rather taciturn man. What information I had of him had been gleaned mostly by Harry. But as he rode beside me now, he would nip from a small canteen—rum, I guessed—and gradually, as the miles progressed, his tongue loosened somewhat. Instead of grunts, he would answer my questions with words, sometimes a string of them to make a sentence.
On Torg’s advice we had hired mules instead of horses, three to ride and two to carry Napoleon and our gear, which included hammocks, cooking pots, a lantern, machetes, tinned food, and a supply of rum. Our plan was to take a dirt path—one could hardly call it a road—up through Mirabalais across the Montagnes Noire to Hinche. From there, Harry’s plantation, according to Torg, was a half day’s ride.
When we started, the weather was warm, but not uncomfortably so. However, once we entered the jungle, the heat suddenly enveloped us like steam from a Turkish bath. Sweat broke out in a matter of minutes, rolling down my face and from under my armpits, drenching my shirt, so it stuck to my skin. We traveled Indian-file along a narrow trail winding between liana-roped trees that soared high over our heads, spreading a dense canopy of green. Not a flicker of sunshine penetrated that living ceiling. Giant maupou trees with trunks six feet in diameter were studded with spikey growths that protected them from the strangling vines. Despite this armor I saw trees slowly dying, smothered by clinging jungle growth, unable to fend off the figier-maudet, a type of parasitic fig.
The tropical forest, saturated with moisture, oozing mud under the mules’ feet, was cast in perpetual, depressing twilight. A sullen silence reigned, an abysmal soundlessness to match the green gloom. Nothing moved, nothing squeaked or chirped, nothing rustled in the rank vegetation. We fell silent too. Even Harry, usually so loquacious, said nothing, riding soberfaced, his brimmed hat shading eyes set straight ahead.
We came to a small clearing where the jungle, seizing its chance at sunlight, ran riot. Tangled among the omnipresent, ropy liana, bushes, tall plants, and spreading trees blossomed in exotic, brilliant colors. The air hummed as swarms of bees winged from one honeyed stamen to another. In the center of the clearing stood a deserted hut, its wooden sides decorated with painted figures. The door stood open, the unglazed windows gaping blankly. In front of the building, impaled on a tall stake, hung an animal skull, a dog’s, perhaps.
"‘What is it?” I asked Torg.
“A houmfort,” he said.
‘‘A what?” And when he didn’t answer, I said, “Shall we see what’s inside?”
“I wouldn’t,” he advised.
We plunged into the dim jungle again. After an hour’s plodding, the trees grew thinner and the undergrowth became denser. Here the insects seemed to come into their own. Blowflies tormented humans and mules alike. The ferns and tree branches along the way crawled with centipedes and hairy spiders and lines of red fire ants. Butterflies as large as small bats fluttered in painted beauty, gold etched on black velvet, brown on yellow, orange on blue. The path grew wider, and I rode beside Torg again. He took out his flask and drank, then silently handed it to me.
I declined. Rum. Ever since my last night at the Duvals’ I had lost my taste for rum.
“Tell me, Torg,’’ I said, breaking a long silence, “about the hut we passed.’’
“It’s a houmfort, a prayer house.’’
“For Voodoo? Isn’t that like praying for magic?”
He turned to me and fixed me with his small nut-brown eyes. “Did it ever occur to you that magic might be the craft of survival?”
“Isn’t that an odd way to look at it?”
He did not answer at once and when he did it was not directly. “In Haiti everything is Voodoo. It’s a religion. No, it’s more than a religion. Voodoo is the warp and woof of life here. It regulates politics, outlook, social and family relations, morals, medicine.”
“I understand it came originally from Africa.”
“Yes, it was brought here by the black slaves, the only thing they could bring aside from their chains. That’s what I mean by survival. Once under the yoke of their French masters, the slaves combined Voodoo with Catholicism—certain parts of it, at least. Voodoo acknowledges one God above the lesser ones; it makes use of the cross as a symbol, the Virgin Mary, but then . . .’’He hesitated.
“But then?” I urged.
“These are only superficial. The basic heart of Voodoo remains unchanged. The cross fades beside the power of the snake, Damballah the Serpent, the python in particular, who is venerated for its strength and wisdom.” He paused, took another pull from his canteen, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His face screwed up as he looked at the sky.
“We’re in for a storm.”
I followed his gaze and saw only a deep, clear blue, not a single cloud in the sky.
“It looks quite fair to me.”
“You’ll discover that Haiti is not always what it seems.”
“I’m beginning to realize that. Can you tell me more about Voodoo?”
“It’s complex. There’s an entire loa, or gallery of gods, too numerous to mention. And acting as go-between is the hougan, the Voodoo priest, and the Mambo, sometimes addressed as Mama or Mamloi, who is the Voodoo priestess. They are both very powerful people.”
“Do they dispense charms and spells too?”
“Most decidedly. The ouanga, for instance. A love fetish. If a man or woman feels his or her love is not being reciprocated he goes to the hougan and begs for help. The magician takes two sewing needles, binds them eye to eye with strands of wool around which are wrapped a few leaves. The amulet is sewn in a leather pouch and worn around the neck.”
A leather pouch! Aurore! Aurore and her full, coral-tipped breasts, a small leather bag nestling in that honey-sweet cleft. Despite the heat my skin prickled.
“But surely,” I said, “the upper-class, educated mulâtres don’t believe in such nonsense.”
Again he turned his monkey face toward me, scrutinizing me through lidded eyes. “It’s not nonsense to these people. It is a force, sensual, primitive, if you will, but nevertheless a force that controls their lives. The mulâtres, of course, profess it’s all superstition, but in their hearts they believe.” Suddenly, and literally out of the blue, a clap of thunder shattered the humming air. A rumbling and muttering rolled over our heads. The sound had hardly faded before another clap struck. Soon a gray bank of ugly clouds began to race across the azure heavens. The world below became hushed, the birds ceased their chattering, and even the leaves hung limp and still.
“We’d best find shelter,” Torg said.
We led our mules under a clump of banana trees. As we watched, the sky turned darker and darker. Then suddenly, like the breaching of a dam, the heavens opened. No pitter-patter of preliminary raindrops here, but a torrential sheet pouring dow
n like a roaring waterfall. The banana trees were of little protection. In a moment we were all drenched, rain plastering the clothes to our bodies and running off in rivulets.
Then as quickly as it had begun, it was over. The heat and the insects returned twofold. Torg, wringing out his neckerchief and hat, said, “Can you wonder the Haitians believe in spirits? The weather, like disaster, is unpredictable here. And the jungle—I don’t need to tell you—wages an unrelenting fight against us puny humans. Think of the poisonous insects, the plants with lethal thorns, the venomous snakes—all lying in wait to destroy. What can a mere mortal do, except pray some friendly spirit is guiding and protecting him?”
We camped that night in a deserted village, if one could call a cluster of three or four huts a village. What had driven its people away, we had no idea. Perhaps they had simply grown bored and moved on. They had cultivated bananas, for the trees stood in more or less regular rows right up to the doors of the huts. I thought we might put our sleeping hammocks inside, but Torg advised against it. I knew why when I entered one of the dwellings and found the rafters black with hanging bats. Centipedes, some nearly a foot long, and thin-shelled, pincer-clawed land crabs scuttled and scurried over the earthen floor.
We dosed ourselves liberally with quinine, a malaria preventative, before retiring under our mosquito netting. The gauze gave poor protection. The whining insects managed to get to me, gorging themselves on my unwilling flesh.
Thus far it had been anything but a pleasant journey. Although we spent only two full days in the jungle it seemed like an eternity. To make matters worse I had a bad dream, brief but terrifying, toward dawn of the second night. I dreamt of a faceless Sabrina who beseeched me to return to her, crying so pitifully it wrung my heart. I tried to reach her, but my way was barred by a woman dressed in a long white gown who kept shaking a green snake at me. When I tried to wrest the writhing serpent from her, its head turned into Aurore’s.
I awoke to the tumult of the jungle morning and the rapid beating of my heart. As I lay in the hammock, watching a purple blossom slowly unfold at the touch of fingered sunlight, I thought of Aurore. I remembered how she had sat next to me at the supper table that last night, the rum and the white wine we drank and how quickly it had taken effect. I remembered the summerhouse, the black idol, and the little leather pouch she wore between her breasts. I recalled the way she had lifted her face, drinking in the throbbing beat of the drums with every fiber of her lithe, silken body. Voodoo drums. The tom-te-tom casting its exotic erotic spell, filling the moonlit room with black magic.
Aurore and Voodoo?
I did not scoff at the notion, as I might have done out loud to Torg or to Harry. In my innermost soul I accepted Aurore’s link to the dark cult as valid. I didn’t understand its mystic force, but I believed. There was something in me that made such belief possible, I’m sure. The phantoms of Invernean had manifested themselves to me—and to none of the others. Why? I did not know. I did not consider myself mystical, certainly not superstitious or particularly spiritual. And yet those ghosts had appeared. But they were benign spirits, harmless. And this—this dark practice, this sorcery that came alive at the staccato beat of hidden drums—was not benign, not for me. It was sinister.
I resolved never to see Aurore again.
By midafternoon we had left the jungle behind, climbing a stony escarpment dotted with giant cacti. Further on and higher up into the hills the air was cooler, the vegetation tamer. Red-berried coffee bushes, orange, lime, and grapefruit trees, native to the soil and climate, grew at chance. Passing native huts, I noted how their shanty-like construction was made picturesque by the feathery cacao palms and blooming shrubs that shaded and half-concealed them. We rode through pleasant little valleys where clear, chattering streams ran, fed by thin silver-threaded waterfalls spilling down from the surrounding precipices. The meadows of sweet grass were dotted with flowers similar to the black-eyed Susans and sneeze weeds at home.
At one point we descended a mountain into jungle again. Here we had to cross a river. Torg went on ahead, walking along its banks, looking for a likely ford. He soon called to us, and we rode up to where he stood, his mule up to its fetlocks in the muddy stream.
“It isn’t too deep. In flood we couldn’t cross it, but it will be all right now. Just watch yourselves.”
He jerked his head in the direction of a submerged rock—at least it looked like a rock until it began to move. “Crocodile,” he warned.
We started across in silence, Torg in the lead, I following him, Harry behind, and the black boy, Napoleon, bringing up the rear.
It was deeper than Torg had thought. We moved cautiously, the water rising as the mules waded on. The current kept getting stronger, its swift pull rushing over the calves of my legs. Suddenly my mount moved out of line and stepped into a deep underwater pothole. Before I could get a grip on the floundering mule’s reins, the racing river knocked me from its back.
I was a fairly good swimmer, but the flow was strong, and I had to fight against being carried downstream. As it was, I was being pushed back to the shore we had just left. I was about to relax and let myself go, thinking it would be wiser to get my feet on land than to attempt swimming to the other side, when I saw the knobby, parasite-encrusted hide of the crocodile moving toward me. My first reaction was one of disbelief. Then, as it gathered momentum, advancing at what seemed like the speed of a charging locomotive, disbelief turned to alarm.
Spurred by terror, I renewed my efforts, flailing out at the current, arms and legs thrashing, every muscle striving to reach the bank.
I was not moving. Not an inch gained. The powerful drift held me like a vise. And the ugly beast was getting closer. For a moment the sheer injustice of my predicament—why me? —threatened to overwhelm me.
I heard a yell. It was Harry. He was in the river, swimming toward the crocodile, keeping to the right of it and out of the swift current. He yelled again, splashing the water with both hands. The reptile turned, its repulsive torso moving with serpentine grace, and headed toward Harry.
God—the fool!
Grasping a floating tree limb, I hung on, watching, working my legs against the current, to keep from being swept downstream. Harry, who did not have to fight the powerful river pull, was swimming toward land. He reached it just ahead of the snapping, jagged-tooth jaws of the monster. Scrambling, stumbling, he pulled himself up with the help of a trailing liana. The crocodile came on, dragging itself out of the water on its short, stumpy forelegs.
A shot rang out, raising a wild cacophony of shrieking as winged creatures rose in a cloud from the vine-covered banks. Torg, kneeling in the mud a few feet from Harry, held a hunting rifle to his shoulder. Such a gun, useful for bringing down birds or small game, would hardly nick that animal’s heavily armored hide.
And Harry—God! Harry had caught himself in the twisting vine. The beast came lumbering on, its jaws wide, its tail moving from side to side. Torg fired again, but he may as well have been bombarding a steel wall. Then Harry, managing to free one hand, withdrew his revolver from its waterproof pouch and shot directly into the crocodile’s gaping mouth. The revolver went off again and again. The reptilian creature grabbed Harry’s trousers in its scissorlike teeth and a moment later lay still.
I’d been so absorbed I hadn’t noticed that an eddy had whirled me to within two easy strokes of the river’s edge.
“Are you hurt?’’ I shouted across the water.
“Nope!” Harry yelled back. “The dam critter didn’t touch me.”
That night, as we sat over the cooking fire, eating our evening meal, I said, “Harry, I haven’t thanked you for saving my life.”
“That’s what fathers are for,” he said simply.
But in his eyes I caught a look that said far more; it said, You are my son and I am fonder of you than you think. Had I failed him? Had I neglected to return his affection? Did he mind my not calling him Father or Papa? But I couldn’t ask. I co
uld no more articulate those questions than he could speak the words to express his innermost emotions. But I felt closer to him. On that trip I truly came to value those qualities—his courage, his simple trustworthiness, his lack of pretense— which I had merely noted at the beginning.
We arrived at Hinche without further mishap. A fair-sized village on the central plain, it boasted a few respectable looking clapboard houses in addition to the usual cluster of thatched huts. Inquiring about Les Domaines des Étoiles, we were informed by the man at the provincial office that no record of such a place existed. All the files had been burned in an uprising during the ’60s, but he would see what he could find out from the town elders.
We waited on the verandah, seating ourselves on withe-bottom chairs. A pleasant breeze, fragrant with orange blossoms, cooled our faces. Torg said, “I always did like the interior more than the coastal cities. The people seem to be better off, healthier. Urban civilization corrupts a peasant faster than anything I know.”
As we sat there, a small group of urchins in various stages of ragged undress gathered to gape at us.
Torg said something to them in Creole and they laughed, showing white teeth in dark faces, their eyes dancing with glee, the older ones shoving each other to get a closer—but not too close—place in the ringed circle.
Presently the official came back with a very old man who wore a white headcloth. The children scattered.
“This is Papa Dessel,” the official told us. “He say he remember Jean-Pièrre’s relative. The relative die maybe fifty, maybe seventy-five year ago.”
I looked at Torg. “Papa Dessel must be as old as Methuselah,” I said.
Torg chatted with the patriarch, who drew a map with his stick in the dust as he talked.
We got an early start the next day. Crossing the Rivre Petite, we climbed a rocky gorge to a higher elevation. The path became narrower, winding through neat rows of cultivated coffee bushes. Here and there among them stood a native hut. After some miles the path broadened, diverging into several smaller ones that ran across a plateau. Staying to the main branch, we soon saw a ruined wall and, farther on a tumbledown gate standing all by itself, the wall that had once flanked it having disappeared.
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