by Rice, Anne
I began to recount to him my recollections in order.
Only a few days after Merrick had come to Oak Haven, some twenty years ago, Aaron and I had set out with Merrick to drive to New Orleans and to visit Merrick’s Great Nananne.
My memories were vivid.
The last cool days of spring had passed and we were plunged into a hot and damp weather, which, loving the tropics as I did, and do, had been very pleasing to me. I had no regrets about having left London at all.
Merrick still had not revealed to us the day of Great Nananne’s death as it had been confided to her by the old woman. And Aaron, though he’d been the personage in the dream who gave the fatal date to Great Nananne, had no knowledge whatever of this dream.
Though Aaron had prepared me for the old section of New Orleans to which we were going, I had nevertheless been astonished to see the neighborhood of tumbledown houses of all different sizes and styles, steeped in its overgrown oleander, which bloomed profusely in the moist heat, and most surprised of all to come upon the old raised cottage of a house which belonged to Great Nananne.
The day, as I’ve said, was close and warm, with violent and sudden showers of rain, and though I have been a vampire now for five years, I can vividly remember the sunshine coming through the rain to strike the narrow broken pavements, and everywhere the weeds rising out of gutters which were in fact no more than open ditches, and the snarls of oak and rain tree, and cottonwood, which sprang up all around us as we made our way to the residence which Merrick was now to leave behind.
At last we came to a high iron picket fence, and a house much larger than those around it, and of much earlier date.
It was one of those Louisiana houses which stands upon brick foundation post pillars of about five feet in height, with a central wooden stair rising to its front porch. A row of simple square pillars held up its Greek Revival porch roof, and the central door was not unlike the grander doors of Oak Haven in that it had a small fanlight intact above.
Long windows went from floor to ceiling on the front of the house, but these were all pasted over with newspaper, which made the house look derelict and uninhabited. The yew trees, stretching their scrawny limbs to Heaven on either side of the front porch, added a note of grimness, and the front hall into which we entered was empty and shadowy, though it went clear through to an open door at the back. There were no stairs to the attic, and an attic there must have been, I conjectured, for the main body of the house had a deeply pitched roof. Beyond that rear open door all was tangled and green.
The house was three rooms in depth from front to back, giving it six rooms in all on the main floor, and in the first of these, to the left of the hallway, we found Great Nananne, under a layer of hand-sewn quilts in an old plantation four-poster, without a canopy, of simple mahogany design. I say plantation bed when I refer to this species of furniture because the pieces are so huge, and so often crammed into small city rooms that one immediately envisions more space in the country for which this kind of furnishing must have been designed. Also, the mahogany posts, though artfully tapered, were otherwise plain.
As I looked at the little woman, dried-up upon the heavily stained pillow, her frame completely invisible beneath the worn quilts, I thought for a moment she was dead.
In fact, I could have sworn by all I knew of spirits and humans that the dried little body in the bed was empty of its soul. Maybe she’d been dreaming of death and wanted it so badly she’d left her mortal coil for but a few moments.
But when little Merrick stood in the doorway, Great Nananne came back, opening her small crinkled and yellow eyes. Her ancient skin had a beautiful gold color to it, faded though she must have been. Her nose was small and flat, and her mouth fixed in a smile. Her hair was wisps of gray.
Electric lamps, quite shabby and makeshift, were the only illumination save for a wealth of candles on an immense nearby shrine. I could not quite make out the shrine, as it seemed shrouded in dimness, being against the papered shut windows of the front of the house. And the people drew my attention at first.
Aaron brought up an old cane-backed chair, to sit beside the woman in the bed.
The bed reeked of sickness and urine.
I saw that newspapers and large brilliantly colored Holy Pictures papered all of the decaying walls. Not a bit of plaster was left bare save for the ceiling, which was full of cracks and chipped paint and seemed a threat to us all. Only the side windows had their curtains, but much glass was broken out and here and there newspaper patches had been applied. Beyond loomed the eternal foliage.
“We’ll bring nurses for you, Great Nananne,” said Aaron, in a kindly and sincere voice. “Forgive me that it took me so long to come.” He leant forward. “You must trust in me implicitly. We’ll send for the nurses as soon as we leave you this afternoon.”
“Come?” asked the old woman sunk down into the feather pillow. “Did I ever ask you—either of you—to come?” She had no French accent. Her voice was shockingly ageless, low in pitch and strong. “Merrick, sit by me here for a little while, chérie,” she said. “Be still, Mr. Lightner. Nobody asked you to come.”
Her arm rose and fell like a branch on the breeze, so lifeless in shape and color, fingers curled as they scratched at Merrick’s dress.
“See what Mr. Lightner bought for me, Great Nananne?” said Merrick beside her, gesturing with open arms as she looked down on her new clothes.
I had not noticed before that she was in Sunday Best, with a dress of white pique and black patent leather shoes. The little white socks looked incongruous on such a developed young woman, but then Aaron saw her completely as an innocent child.
Merrick leant over and kissed the old woman’s small head. “Don’t you be afraid of anything on my account any longer,” she said. “I’m home now with them, Great Nananne.”
At that point, a priest came into the room, a tall sagging man as old as Nananne was, it seemed to me, slow moving and scrawny in his long black cassock, the thick leather belt drooping over shrunken bones, rosary beads knocking softly against his thigh.
He seemed blind to our presence, only nodding at the old woman, and he slipped away without a word. As to what his feelings might have been about the shrine to the left of us, against the front wall of the house, I couldn’t guess.
I felt an instinctive wariness, and an apprehension that he might try to prevent us—with good reason—from taking the child Merrick away.
One never knew which priest might have heard of the Talamasca, which priest might have feared it or despised it, under the guidance of Rome. To those within the hierarchy of the Church, we were alien and mysterious. We were maverick and controversial. Claiming to be secular, yet ancient, we could never hope for the cooperation or the understanding of the Church of Rome.
It was after this man disappeared, and as Aaron continued his polite and subdued conversation with the old woman, that I had a chance to view the shrine in full.
It was built up of bricks, from the floor, in stair steps to a high wide altar where perhaps special offerings were placed. Huge plaster saints crowded the top of it in long rows to the left and right.
At once I saw St. Peter, the Papa Legba of Haitian Voodoo, and a saint on a horse who appeared to be St. Barbara, standing in for Chango of Xango in Candomble, for whom we had always used St. George. The Virgin Mary was there in the form of Our Lady of Carmel, standing in for Ezilie, a goddess of Voodoo, with heaps of flowers at her feet and perhaps the most candles before her, all of them aflicker in their deep glasses as a breeze stirred the room.
There stood St. Martin de Porres, the black saint of South America, with his broom in hand, and beside him, St. Patrick stood gazing down, his feet surrounded by fleeing snakes. All had their place in the underground religions which the slaves of the Americas had nourished for so long.
There were all kinds of obscure little mementos on the altar before these statues, and the steps below were covered with various objects, along
with plates of birdseed, grain, and old cooked food which had begun to rot and to smell.
The more I studied the entire spectacle, the more I saw things, such as the awesome figure of the Black Madonna with the white Infant Jesus in her arms. There were many little sacks tied shut and kept there, and several expensive-looking cigars still in their wrapping, perhaps held for some future offering, I couldn’t know for sure. At one end of the altar stood several bottles of rum.
It was certainly one of the largest such altars I’d ever seen, and it did not surprise me that the ants had overrun some of the old food. It was a frightening and disturbing sight, infinitely more than Merrick’s recent little makeshift offering in the hotel. Even my Candomble experiences in Brazil did not make me immune to the solemn and savage spectacle of it. On the contrary, I think these experiences in every regard make me more afraid.
Perhaps without realizing I was doing it, I came deeper into the room, close to the altar, so that the woman and her sickbed were out of my sight, behind my back.
Suddenly the voice of the woman in the bed startled me out of my studies.
I turned to see that she had sat up, which seemed almost impossible due to her frailty, and that Merrick had adjusted her pillows so that she might rest in this position as she spoke.
“Candomble priest,” she said to me, “sacred to Oxalá.” There it was, the very mention of my god.
I was too astonished to respond.
“I didn’t see you in my dream, English man,” she went on. “You’ve been in the jungles, you’ve hunted treasure.”
“Treasure, Madam?” I responded, thinking only as quickly as I spoke. “Indeed not treasure in the conventional sense. No, never that at all.”
“I follow my dreams,” said the old woman, her eyes fixed on me in a manner that suggested menace, “and so I give you this child. But beware of her blood. She comes down from many magicians far stronger than you.”
Once again I was amazed. I stood opposite her. Aaron had forsaken his chair to get out of the way.
“Call up The Lonely Spirit, have you?” she asked me. “Did you frighten yourself in the jungles of Brazil?”
It was quite impossible that this woman could have had this intelligence of me. Not even Aaron knew all of my story. I had always passed over my Candomble experiences as though they were slight.
As for “The Lonely Spirit,” of course I knew her meaning. When one calls The Lonely Spirit, one is calling some tortured soul, a soul in Purgatory, or earthbound in misery, to ask that soul for its help in reaching gods or spirits who are further on. It was an old legend. It was as old as magic under other names and in other lands.
“Oh, yes, you are some scholar,” said the old woman, smiling at me so that I could see her perfect false teeth, yellow as she was, her eyes seemingly more animate than before. “What is the state of your own soul?”
“We are not here to deal with such a matter,” I fired back, quite shaken. “You know I want to protect your godchild. Surely you see that in my heart.”
“Yes, Candomble priest,” she said again, “and you saw your ancestors when you looked into the chalice, didn’t you?” She smiled at me. The low pitch of her voice was ominous. “And they told you to go home to England or you would lose your English soul.”
All this was true and untrue. Suddenly I blurted out as much.
“You know something but not everything,” I declared. “One has to have a noble use for magic. Have you taught Merrick as much?” There was anger in my voice, which this old woman did not deserve. Was I jealous of her power suddenly? I couldn’t control my tongue. “How has your magic brought you to this disaster!” I said, gesturing to the room about me. “Is this the place for a beautiful child?”
At once Aaron begged me to be silent.
Even the priest came forward and peered into my eyes. As if minding a child, he shook his head, frowning most sadly, and wagged his finger in my eye.
The old woman laughed a short dry little laugh.
“You find her beautiful, don’t you English man,” she said. “You English like children.”
“Nothing could be further from the truth with me!” I declared, offended by her suggestion. “You don’t believe what you’re saying. You speak to dazzle others. You sent this girl unaccompanied to Aaron.” At once I regretted it. The priest would certainly come to object when it was time to take Merrick away.
But I saw now he was too shocked by my audacity to protest it further.
Poor Aaron was mortified. I was behaving like a beast.
I had lost all my self-possession and was angry with an old woman who was dying before my eyes.
But when I looked at Merrick I saw nothing but a rather clever amusement in her expression, possibly even a little pride or triumph, and then she locked eyes with the old woman and there was some silent message exchanged there for which all assembled would have to wait.
“You’ll take care of my godchild, I know it,” said the old woman. Her wrinkled lids came down over her eyes. I saw her chest heave beneath the white flannel nightgown, and her hand trembled loosely on the quilt. “You won’t be afraid of what she can do.”
“No, never will I be afraid,” I said reverently, eager to make the peace. I drew closer to the bed. “She’s safe from everyone with us, Madam,” I said. “Why do you try to frighten me?”
It didn’t seem she could open her eyes. Finally she did and once again she looked directly at me.
“I’m in peace here, David Talbot,” she said. I could not recall anyone having given her my name. “I’m as I want to be, and as for this child, she was always happy here. There are many rooms to this house.”
“I’m sorry for what I said to you,” I answered quickly. “I had no right.” I meant it from my heart.
She gave a rattling sigh as she looked at the ceiling.
“I’m in pain now,” she said. “I want to die. I’m in pain all the time. You’d think I could stop it, that I had charms that could stop it. I have charms for others, but for me, who can work the magic? Besides, the time has come, and it’s come in its own fashion. I’ve lived a hundred years.”
“I don’t doubt you,” I said, violently disturbed by her mention of her pain and her obvious veracity. “Please be assured you can leave Merrick with me.”
“We’ll bring you nurses,” said Aaron. It was Aaron’s way to pursue the practical, to deal with what could be done. “We’ll see to it that a doctor comes this very afternoon. You mustn’t be in pain, it isn’t necessary. Let me go now to make the proper calls. I won’t be long.”
“No, no strangers in my house,” she said as she looked at him and then up at me. “Take my godchild, both of you. Take her and take all that I have in this house. Tell them, Merrick, everything that I told you. Tell them all your uncles taught, and your aunts, and your great-grandmothers. This one, this tall one with the dark hair—,” she looked at me, “—he knows about the treasures you have from Cold Sandra, you trust in him. Tell him about Honey in the Sunshine. Sometimes I feel bad spirits around you, Merrick.…” She looked at me. “You keep the bad spirits from her, English man. You know the magic. I see now the meaning of my dream.”
“Honey in the Sunshine, what does it mean?” I asked her.
She shut her eyes bitterly and tightened her lips. It was extraordinarily expressive of pain. Merrick appeared to shudder, and for the first time to be about to cry.
“Don’t you worry, Merrick,” said the old woman finally. She pointed with her finger, but then dropped her hand again as if she was too weak to go on.
I tried suddenly with all of my might and main to penetrate the old woman’s thoughts. But nothing came of it, except perhaps that I startled her when she should have been in peace.
Quickly I tried to make up for my little blunder.
“Have faith in us, Madam,” I said again adamantly. “You sent Merrick on the right path.”
The old woman shook her head.
“Yo
u think magic is simple,” the old woman whispered. Once more our eyes met. “You think it’s something you can leave behind when you cross an ocean. You think les mystères aren’t real.”
“No, I don’t.”
Once again she laughed, a low and mocking laugh.
“You never saw their full power, English man,” she said. “You made things shake and shiver, but that was all. You were a stranger in a strange land with your Candomble. You forgot Oxalá, but he never forgot you.”
I was fast losing all composure.
She closed her eyes and her fingers curled around Merrick’s small-boned wrist. I heard the rattle of the priest’s rosary, and then came the fragrance of fresh-brewed coffee mingled with the sweetness of newly falling rain.
It was an overwhelming and soothing moment—the close moist air of the New Orleans springtime, the sweetness of the rain coming down all around us, and the soft murmur of thunder far off to the right. I could smell the candle wax and the flowers of the shrine, and then again there came the human scents of the bed. It seemed a perfect harmony suddenly, even those fragrances which we condemn as sour and bad.
The old woman had indeed come to her final hour and it was only natural, this bouquet of fragrances. We must penetrate it and see her and love her. That was what had to be done.
“Ah, you hear it, that thunder?” asked Great Nananne. Once again her little eyes flashed to me. She said, “I’m going home.”
Now, Merrick was truly frightened. Her eyes were wild and I could see her hand shaking. In fact, as she searched the old woman’s face she appeared terrified.
The old woman’s eyes rolled and she appeared to arch her back against the pillow, but the quilts seemed far too heavy for her to gain the space she craved.
What were we to do? A person can take an age to die, or die in one second. I was afraid too.
The priest came in and moved ahead of us so that he could look down at her face. His hand was easily as withered as her own.
“Talamasca,” the old woman whispered. “Talamasca, take my child. Talamasca, keep my child.”