by Brian Hodge
“Mullavey won’t do anything about it,” he was saying, to her and Christophe, it seemed. Surely he would already have had this argument with Moreno. “He wouldn’t risk it, he wouldn’t dare, not with what’s at stake in the larger picture. He’ll get his hand set, he’ll swallow his pride, and that’ll be it.”
She listened to his unwavering self-assurance with grinding envy. And what would be worse, in him? That he confronted men like Andrew Jackson Mullavey and blithely underestimated their capacity for grudge and payback? Or that he understood them so well he knew precisely how far he could push them without retaliation?
Either way, she supposed, there was a sad loss of part of him to their pervasive influence.
“Tell her,” he said to Moreno. “Were we followed out of the French Quarter?”
Moreno looked as if he had bitten something sour. “No.” Then, “But suppose you go home, another day or two, and there’s a couple of ugly legbreakers waiting on your doorstep? With orders to put you in the hospital and call it even.”
April bit her lip. She’d not even thought of that. A stalemate of shattered bones.
“Nathan’s the one who sends legbreakers. And Mullavey feels like he’s got something to prove to his brother. I’d be amazed if he even tells Nathan the truth about his hand.” Justin, shaking his head in that same damnable assurance, and then a tiny smile, the worst of all. “And if he does, and it happens like you say … it still might even be worth it.”
April closed her eyes. At what point was pressure so great you began to behave like your foe? We have met the enemy, and he is us.
“See if you can say that with steel pins in your knees to keep them in place.” Moreno leaned over the length of the dresser to crush his cigarette out in the ashtray, as if disgusted at his weakness. Then he shoved his hands in the pockets of his bomber jacket and looked at Christophe. “Are we finished here? I’ve done what I said I would, but damned if I can figure it out anymore.”
“I’m wondering,” said Christophe, “if perhaps we’re not, just yet.” He moved out from beside April, to sit upon the other bed so he could look them all in the eye as he spoke. “These are not just men of violence we have been dealing with. Whether you truly believe in them or not … they have used other methods to accomplish their goals. And this I know, because this I have seen. Do any of you have a problem with believing this?”
April waited with breath held, knowing that, yes, a more shadowed undercurrent had plagued this conflict, a wind blowing of island mysteries and tribal rhythms. She would never raise her voice in derision, nor would Justin; they both knew too well the facets of hidden realities. Apparently Moreno respected it enough to give it pause and consideration.
“They don’t know you, Ruben, but you two” — Christophe pointed to her and Justin — ”you may yet have reason to worry. The djab blanc. Even if they don’t come for you with guns, or for me, they may yet have him devil us in other ways. His ways.”
“If that’s the case,” April said, “then can we ever feel that we’re safe?”
“Possible. Possible. We may ask to be protected, by someone who can go to the loa on our behalf. Someone who still knows the ways.” He pointed at Moreno. “It would not hurt you either.”
“Do you know anybody who can do this?”
Christophe nodded. “In vodoun there are many false priests and priestesses. They want only the money they can make from the desperate, they have not heard the call, they only say they have. But there is a mambo I have known, and I believe her to be a woman of truth. I have attended her ceremonies in the countryside, I have been to her shop in the city. I believe she truly has heard the call.”
“What can she do for us?” Justin asked.
“The mambo can put us under a spell of protection, make it much harder for the djab blanc to work ill in our lives.”
“Then let’s get it over with,” Moreno said. “Soon as she’ll have us.”
April drew herself up into her chair while Christophe dug through his bag for a small book she presumed was for names, phone numbers, addresses. He went for the telephone and she tuned out for the moment, stealing small looks at Justin, and if he was doing the same toward her, never did the moments mesh.
Herself, three men, and a motel room. If ever she thought she had much insight into their minds, she’d been rudely reminded that no, she couldn’t, there was only so deep she could see, and from then on, all was shifting currents. Sometimes clear, other times murky. They could brutally lock her out with the slam of a mental door.
Justin knew where to find the doors better than anyone. And knew — or should have — just when they would smash the fingers of a hand reaching through.
He had promised. He would never use last year as a weapon in an argument. Though what were promises but borders waiting to be breached?
Christophe hung up the phone.
“Tomorrow,” he was saying. “We wait until tomorrow. Mama Charity is gone for the evening. She has a house on the far side of the lake, with no phone. And a new initiate she must get back to. This would be a very important week for him.”
“Why?” Justin asked. “What’s he doing?”
Christophe smiled. “Waiting for a god.”
It was the week of his death. His resurrection would follow soon enough.
Mama Charity’s guidance had been like a light to lead him through a forest of confusion. Upon a shore of oak and cypress, lake and Spanish moss, she had her world, into which she had so willingly allowed him entrance. He could never leave unchanged.
They had begun yesterday, Monday. Old songs came back from his boyhood with minimal prompting. In Mama Charity’s crude temple, her drummers had been summoned, pounding rhythms while he danced in celebratory supplication.
In a huge washtub, she administered his ritual bath, the water perfumed with herbs and petals and oils, and once dry, Napoleon put on the white tunic of the novice. It smelled of age and mothballs. He sang the old words again while tearing a palm frond into strips he then used to weave a thin whip, and when it was finished, Mama lay him flat. She knelt above him and anointed his head and feet with water, and with a greenish powder, traced upon his forehead and chest and hands the sign of the cross. Lightly, she whipped his legs with the woven lash, then traced intricate patterns above him with her gourd rattle. Tapping him upon forehead, mouth, and cheek — the sign of the cross once more — she pulled him to his feet.
They kissed, once, her hard dry lips firm against his. When he opened his eyes, Napoleon saw hers glaring into his soul with a mad divinity. How unutterably regal she was in this moment. How proud and fearsome, her wide brown face with its sharp cheekbones that of a queen fit to lead him on a pilgrimage back to himself.
The drums fell abruptly silent, and the drummers embraced him each in turn. Once strangers, now brethren who mourned the passing of the old Napoleon Trintignant who would never be seen again. In a week they would celebrate the emergence of the new.
“Come along, now,” Mama said. “Time we go to the grave.”
She led him through the curtain covering a narrow doorway and into the smaller of two rooms, the djèvo, the retreat where initiates became new. In the glow of her lamp he could see the rough boards of his spiritual grave, their grain dusty with faded chalk, the vèvès of the guardian gods of the initiates who had come before him. Along with the newest and sharpest … that of Macandal.
Napoleon lay upon a cane mat while Mama Charity clipped locks of hair from his head, beneath his arms, then hoisted his tunic for a wiry lock from between his legs. He lay before her like a child who had yet to know shame, and then she took nail parings from his left hand and foot.
“Gonna protect that soul of yours,” she whispered while wrapping these bodily gifts in a banana leaf, with blood and feathers, sweets and grilled corn, and placing it with reverence into a white china pot. “Not gonna let nothing happen to it, so don’t you be worrying … even though this week you’re gonna be ope
n, gonna be vulnerable. Like a child not learned a thing about the world yet, and what he becomes depends on the first thing he hears, first thing he sees. So you trust Macandal, if he takes a mind to show himself. And you let me worry about the rest.”
“Will I dream him to me?” Napoleon asked.
Mama Charity closed the lid on his soul with a rattle of heavy china. “Maybe you will. Maybe you won’t. Not my place to say, that’s up to Macandal. You, child, you just got to be ready.”
With his head hanging over an empty bowl, she poured across his skull a warm herbal wash. He licked it from the corners of his mouth, breathed the fresh medicine scent. With his hair still sodden, Mama Charity wrapped his head in a white cloth that reached just below his eyes, like a blindfold.
“You’re a lucky one, Napoleon.” Her voice came from the faint lantern glow still visible through the headcloth. “Some folks, they got to wait to know the loa what’s to be their guardian. And sometimes the loa get jealous. Come down and fight over ’em, two loa trying to ride the same horse. Most times, leaves ’em so wore out, it’s a wonder they still can breathe.” Her hands upon his shoulders, guiding him back down to the mat. “But you already know. Macandal, he already put his mark on you. And ain’t nobody can take that from you. Ain’t nobody can wash it away.”
She left him then, to die to himself and to the world. Never had time meant so little. Sun and moon and stars became dim fixtures in someone else’s world. He slept when he needed, and when awake sat upon the cane mat, listening to the rhythms of birds and water and wind, and the spirits that moved them, moved within them. They all spoke; one had but to listen. In the silence left by the void of one’s own voice, the beating of a great and magnificent heart could be heard. A heart in which his own was but one tiny cell. It was everything. By Tuesday night, when Mama came to bring his food, it was almost as if food were superfluous. Could he live on spirit alone in the djèvo? A lower corner of the curtain parted, and in slid a tray, upon which sat a bowl of chicken gumbo, a large wedge of bread, and a pitcher of water. He saw only Mama’s hand, and gave her the empty pitcher left from last night. He had quickly learned to ration his water and his bread; food arrived but once a day.
“Slop bucket too, child,” she said.
The hinge-lidded bucket he gave her with a grimace. Dead to the world he may have been, but his bladder and bowels went on the same as before. They had apparently not gotten the message.
“Mama?” he said, and heard her dirt-soft footsteps pause. “I’m here.”
“I know the loa are there.” He spoke to the curtain, that veil between worlds. “And I can believe that Macandal answers to his name because I know there was a Macandal. But what of the older loa, Mama? Papa Legba. Damballah-Wèdo. All of them, that came from Africa. These … aren’t their real names … are they?”
He sat beside the heavy curtain, arms wrapped around one leg drawn up against his chest. Such silence, for so long, that it was almost as if she’d gone away and taken every sound with her.
“I don’t believe they are,” she finally said. “Me, I always thought the loa answered to lots of names, in lots of lands. And these are just the ones we use, and the loa, well, they’re kind enough to agree to ’em. ’Cause if any man or woman thinks they know the real name of some god what’s been around since before the dawn of time, all a part of the one great God … I think they’re just flattering themselves.” More silence, then a warm chuckle. “Or maybe they got no need for names at all, on that other side. And it’s just a big laugh on us. Wouldn’t surprise me at all.”
Napoleon thought this over, and wasn’t so sure but that he wouldn’t prefer it that way. What were names but labels, and what were labels but a way for limited minds to keep something straight.
“Good night, Mama,” he said, and began to eat.
Chapter 27
The Politics of Dehumanization
Wednesday evening, late rush hour, they followed a woman they didn’t even know, in whom they would place the trust of their lives. What peculiar guardians his life had turned to on occasion.
With Moreno behind the wheel and Granvier navigating, the four of them had gone to the run-down little shop of the woman Granvier called Mama Charity, then fell in behind her as she led them out of the city. Solid urban ground gave way to swamp, then disappeared entirely. The causeway over Lake Pontchartrain became a fragile link to simpler lives.
“Like crossing the bay over to St. Pete,” he said to April.
She nodded. “Only longer.”
He reached for her hand there on the backseat, and listless fingers intertwined. Could he blame her for lukewarm reception? No. He had taken a cheap shot last night, and while apologies were a start, they weren’t the end of it. It would happen again, probably, given the right circumstances. He needed reprogramming.
Soul-searching: Why this overriding compulsion to see everyone as a potential adversary, or at least an obstacle to be overcome? Why the need to win, even when winning was mere illusion? That was the sort of thing that destroyed marriages were made of, and if he wasn’t careful, he could play the victor all the way to renewed status as a bachelor.
He’d work on it, once they got back home. And if that meant swallowing his pride and admitting he needed the help of a professional, then he’d call April’s therapist and see if she could work on smoothing him out too.
Wanting now only to get away from New Orleans, Let me out of this prison of circumstance, even though I built it out of my own insistence that I could right wrongs … and it turned out I was just as fucked up inside as I ever was. I was only a fuckup with a mission.
Sitting, watching April face the window and stare out over this inland sea, and if only he could break down now and tell her: I’m sorry, I have no right to expect absolution but I’m asking anyway. Forgive me; forgive me, and please help me overcome everything I never liked about myself…
And most of all tell me how you managed to do it for yourself without once hurting me in the process.
He had the words. If only he could have found the voice.
As such, he contented himself with listening to Moreno and Granvier in the front seat. Such easy discussion between them, of no light matters, either. He envied them their courage.
“You said Mullavey had them boated in … when?” Moreno was asking.
“It would have been, I believe, about nine years ago.”
“You ever think about how he’s pulled it off, that many illegal aliens, on his property, for this long?”
Granvier shrugged. “I would say bribery.”
Moreno nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking. Him, or his brother, at least one of them’s got an INS official or two in his pocket. Bet you he’s got a green card for every single one of those people, and they’ve never even seen them. Bet you he gets them renewed every year, under the table, like clockwork.” Moreno shook his head, vindictiveness in his voice. “Be interesting to investigate the New Orleans INS office, see which of its case officers are living just a little too far beyond their means.”
And then that glare in Granvier’s eye, seen only rarely. “We spoke of this once, already, Ruben. Leave those people be. They have a better life with him than in Haiti, and you do them no favors by taking it away.”
“Shut up a minute, will you, and listen to me?” Moreno smiled crookedly, and Justin tuned in fully. This guy had something up his sleeve, definitely. “And answer a simple question: All things being equal, do you think those people would leave Mullavey, if they could? If they had someplace else to go?”
Granvier sighed. “I don’t know, Ruben. I am not a spokesman for them, I never even have met them.” He turned in his seat to point to Justin. “He has spent more time around them than I have.”
Moreno’s eyes flashed to him in the mirror. “What do you think? You were listening, I know. What was your impression of the mood there at Mullavey’s?”
“I was there for one weekend. What am I supposed to tell f
rom one weekend?”
Moreno rolled his eyes in the mirror. “You can see, you can hear. You didn’t come away with nothing, did you?”
“For what it’s worth — and remember, most of them aren’t even working at the house, he’s got them in the canefields — maybe there was this sort of unhappy pragmatism there.” Recalling the conversation he’d had with the chauffeur, Napoleon, before the trip back to the airport. So much of the world beyond he had seemed curious about; such veiled unease about aspects of the place he called home. Or so it had seemed. “But Christophe’s right. They’ve got it better than they would in Haiti.”
“You two, you sound like it’s a choice between leaving them where they are or deporting them,” Moreno said. “There’s at least one other option.”
Justin listened, heard him out.
I’ll be damned, he thought. He’s right.
Eel reached the warehouse within twenty minutes of taking the call. Riverfront property of Nathan Forrest, though paper trails would never divulge it. Vital, given what sometimes went on here.
Once Lewis had eased the car through the broad doorway, one of his two soldiers on the inside lowered the door, and clicked the locks into place again.
“Stay with the car,” Eel told Lewis, and let the other man lead him out of the auto bay and into the warehouse proper. Dim and damply musty with an eternal chill, the scent of the river had had years to settle into this place.
Their footsteps echoed in the cavern of the main storage hall, largely empty, save for a few dusty crates hulking in the corners. Rafters trapped shadows above. There were no windows, and the only light came from a harshly glaring retractable metal shade lamp swaying from the ceiling, above a worktable near the center.
Eel slowed, looked at his soldier of the street, in a black leather jacket that hit him at mid-thigh. Eel had him run down the particulars, everything that couldn’t be said on the phone.