In her heart, Marie knew they were. Mami Wata had helped her perform a healing.
She and K-Paul were both spent, yet, amazingly, adrenaline kept them alert, almost frenetic. It was a high to bring a new life into the world. To save a mother. To escape the full horror of a hurricane.
Yet they were following Katrina. She was whipsawing, lashing her way up the waters to the Mississippi, flowing beside the banks of New Orleans.
“When we get to the city, we should party. Listen to some zydeco. Hurricane Katrina won’t destroy New Orleans.” K-Paul clutched her hand. “I know you’ve got to get to Baton Rouge. To get your baby girl. But you can leave Parks. He left you.”
“I’m staying, K-Paul. For better or worse, Louisiana’s home.”
“Staying with me? You’re staying with me?” His hand was on her thigh. She lifted it, kissing his open palm. “Maybe. Let’s give it time.”
K-Paul grinned. He punched the defroster. Humidity was clouding the windows. Next came mist, rain. Cypress and oaks dripped water. They were riding the tail end of the storm, chasing Katrina, heading for New Orleans.
They had to get to Charity Hospital, to help as best they could.
The Guédé, in funeral top hat and tails, were standing beside the road, their heads bowed, their gloved hands, palms flat, crossed over their chests.
“K-Paul, stop.”
He slammed on the breaks. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”
Marie got out of the car. Brenda’s baby started crying.
Her dream—she’d forgotten the river of bodies.
K-Paul climbed out of the car.
“I see . . . I see . . .”
Transfixed, she couldn’t speak.
She blinked and saw bleak, empty streets. Trees, street signs, were down, roofs were ripped off houses. Cars overturned. The hurricane had come and gone.
Something else was wrong.
In her dream, animals and people were floating, dead, in the water. New Orleans’s streets were littered with refuse, but clear of water.
“Water needs to go where she needs to go.”
“Flooding, K-Paul. The storm isn’t the worst for New Orleans. The levees.” Despairingly, her voice cracked. “I think the levees break.”
“The end of the world.”
She looked down and saw water swirling over her feet.
She saw water climbing over grassy knolls, concrete barriers, and bags of sand. New Orleans was like a bowl, filling up with muddy water. Two feet, four feet, ten, twelve.
“Water needs to go where she needs to go.”
Riding the waves, she saw Mami Wata, Yemaya, LaSirene, and all the other descendants of Wata.
Dozens of spirit women with mermaid tails—some teal colored; others brown, some with alabaster skin, others full breasted and pregnant.
Marie was in awe of their beauty—a flotilla of women across the spiritual ages, all signifying creation and the beginning of life.
Marie raised her hand, saluting them, and some waved back, others primped, and others swam, and still others spun delicately, as if waltzing. Then, as if on cue, all the water goddesses began crying. Marie shivered at the high-pitched wailing; any second, the sound would break her heart.
Marie understood. “Mind the water, K-Paul. Mine the water.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We’re all responsible for the environment. Nature cleanses and renews. But we keep making it harder. Making it worse.”
“Like the dead zone?”
“Yes, causing unnatural dying. Unnatural harm.”
“Levees, levees . . . levees . . .” the word was humming, whispering like a breeze. “Levees, levees, levees.”
Like a woman’s water breaking, water would break free of the levees.
Mami Wata was trying to heal herself, give birth.
But there would be such pain. Such cost to New Orleans. Louisiana. Her home.
“It is what it is,” she heard.
“The world can be hard on women,” she answered. “On men. On children. Animals.”
“Harder than you have yet imagined,” responded El with cool words that rattled in Marie’s mind.
“Harder.” What could be harder? How much destruction, disaster could Louisiana take?
The Guédé, Mami Wata, and the mermaids had all disappeared; they were replaced by her ancestor Marie, and Nana, and El. The women chanted her name: “Marie Laveau.” They were showering her with love, telling her that she was a New World voodooienne, a medical and spiritual healer.
“Survive,” she murmured.
“Louisianans always do that.”
“Even when it’s the end of the world? That’s what you said, K-Paul. ‘End of the world.’ ”
“Well, I guess it’s not going to end in my lifetime.”
“Come on, K-Paul. Let’s chase the storm. Let’s go home.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
For centuries, environmental damage and environmental racism have afflicted Louisiana and the Gulf marshes and waters. Science, spirituality, and historical perspective are all needed by my protagonist, Marie, to understand why New Orleans was so vulnerable in 2005 to Hurricane Katrina and why the levees failed.
In 2009, the National Museum of African Art/Smithsonian Institution mounted a brilliant exhibit honoring the African water goddess, Mami Wata, and the permutations of how her spirit transformed as slaves carried their faith into the New World. The Fowler Museum at UCLA first exhibited the collection of sculpture, paintings, and mixed media and published a glorious book, Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and Its Diasporas, written by Henry John Drewal (and contributors Houlberg, Jewsiewicki, Noell, Nunley, and Salmons).
Mami Wata’s core emphasis on fertility, creating new land and new worlds, and celebrating womanist power resonated deeply with me.
Mami Wata, for me, became a symbol for the Mississippi River itself, dammed to serve human needs. Clearly, responsible environmental stewardship means balancing resources with certain and potential damage and caring for the vitality of the environment for future generations.
In Hurricane’s metaphorical world, Mami Wata came to symbolize the devastation of the Gulf Coast region, in general, and the dead zone in the Gulf, in particular. Irresponsible environmental stewardship that had made New Orleans and the coast especially vulnerable to Hurricane Katrina seemed, in my imagination, a cry from Nature—Mami Wata herself. Having constricted Mami Wata, her waters were unable to give birth to new land that was essential to creating and sustaining life—both human and animal.
The 2010 BP oil spill compounded problems in the Gulf of Mexico and reinforced my theme of human hubris versus humility in resource extraction.
My protagonist, Marie, doesn’t have the answer to solve environmental problems. But she does have faith—a spiritual belief that Nature itself is a good to be honored. She also has courage and optimism to lend her talents to heal a community undone by natural and man-made disaster.
Hurricane ends my contemporary voodoo trilogy. Marie Laveau née Levant has become a quintessential Louisianan. She’s become strong enough to keep fighting for the city and state she calls home. She’s comfortable with her spiritual power, unafraid of battling injustice, and honored to proclaim her name to the world:
“I am Marie Laveau.”
She is one in a long line of women, handing sight, strength, and love down through the generations.
Sincerely,
Jewell
WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Jewell Parker Rhodes
> All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Washington Square Press Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Washington Square Press trade paperback edition April 2011
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The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rhodes, Jewell Parker.
Hurricane / by Jewell Parker Rhodes.
p. cm.
1. Laveau, Marie, 1794–1881—Fiction. 2 African American women—Fiction. 3. Vampires—Fiction. 4. Voodooism—Fiction. 5. New Orleans (La.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3568.H63H87 2011
813′.54—dc22
2010037938
ISBN 978-1-4165-3712-0
ISBN 978-1-4391-8741-8 (eBook)
WWW.JBECKETTPHOTO.COM
JEWELL PARKER RHODES is the award-winning, bestselling author of the acclaimed novels Season, Voodoo Dreams, Magic City, and Douglass’ Women, as well as a memoir, Porch Stories. She is the Piper Endowed Chair and founding artistic director of the Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University. She lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, and Boston, Massachusetts. Visit www.jewellparkerrhodes.com.
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The Legend of Marie Laveau Mystery Trilogy Page 61