Green Eyes

by Lucius Shepard

  The last time they visited, while sitting on the steps and waiting for Mr-Robichaux to dress, the youngest girl - a grimy-faced toddler, her diaper at half-mast - waddled up to Donnell and offered him a bite of her jelly donut. It was stale, the jelly tasteless, but as he chewed it, Donnell felt content. The eldest boy stepped forward, the other children at his rear, giggling, and formally shook Donnell’s hand. ‘Wanna thank you,’ he muttered; he cast a defiant look at his brothers and sisters, as if something had been proved. The toddler leaned on Donnell’s knee and plucked off his sunglasses. ‘Ap,’ she said, pointing at his eyes, chortling. ‘Ap azoo.’

  Robichaux was buttoning his shirt when Donnell entered. He frowned and looked away and once again thanked him. But this time his thanks were less fervent and had a contractual ring. ‘If I’m down to my last dollar,’ he said sternly, ‘that dollar she’s yours.’

  Donnell shrugged; he squinted at Robichaux’s field. ‘Have you seen a doctor?’

  ‘Don’t need no doctor to tell me I’m cured,’ said Robichaux. He peered down inside his shirt. The web of broken capillaries rose to the base of this neck. ‘Don’t know why you had to do this mess. Worse than a goddamn tattoo.’

  ‘Trial and error,’ said Donnell without sympathy. It had come as a shock to him that he did not like Mr Robichaux; that - by gaining ten pounds and a measure of vigor - the characterless thing he had first treated had evolved into a contemptible human being, one capable of viciousness. He suspected the children might have been better off had their father’s disease been allowed to run its course.

  ‘It ain’t that I ain’t grateful, you understand,’ Robichaux said, fawning, somewhat afraid. ‘It’s just I don’t know if all this here’s right, you know. I mean you ain’t no man of God.’

  Donnell wondered about that; he was, after all, full of holy purpose. For a while he had thought healing might satisfy his sense of duty unfulfilled, but he had only been distracted by the healing from a deeper preoccupation. He felt distaste for this cringing, devious creature he had saved.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ he said venomously. ‘But neither are you, Mr Robichaux. And that little devil’s web on your chest might just be an omen of worse to come.’

  ‘… Since the great looping branches never grew or varied, since the pale purple sun never fully rose or set, the shadow of Moselantja was a proven quantity upon the grassy plain below. Men and beasts lived in the shadow, as well as things which otherwise might not have lived at all, their dull energies supplied, some said, by the same lightless vibrations that had produced this enormous growth, sundered the mountain and sent it bursting forth. From the high turrets one could see the torchlit caravans moving inward along the dark avenues of its shadow toward the main stem, coming to enlist, or to try their luck at enlistment, for of the hundreds arriving each day, less than a handful would survive the rigors of induction…’

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Donnell.

  Jocundra did not care for it, but saw no reason to tell him. ‘It’s strange,’ she said, giving a dramatic shudder and grinning. She emptied the vase water out the window, then skipped back across the room and burrowed under the covers with him. Her skin was goose-pimpled. It had been warm and dead-still the night before, but the air had cooled and dark, silver-edged clouds were piling up. Sure signs of a gale. A damp wind rattled the shutters.

  ‘It’s just background,’ said Donnell petulantly. ‘It has to be strange because the story’s very simple. Boy meets girl, they do what comes naturally, boy joins army, loses girl. Years later he finds her. She’s been in the army, too. Then they develop a powerful but rather cold relationship, like a hawk and a tiger.’

  ‘Read some more,’ she said, pleased that he was writing a love story, even if such an odd one.

  ‘War is the obsession of Moselantja, its sole concern, its commerce, its religion, its delight. War is generally held to be the purest natural expression of the soul, an ecological tool designed to cultivate the species, and the cadres of the Yoalo, who inhabit the turrets of Moselantja, are considered its prize bloom. Even among those they savage, they are revered, partially because they are no less hard on themselves than on those they subjugate. As their recruits progress upward toward the turrets, the tests and lessons become more difficult. Combat, ambush, the mastery of the black suits of synchronous energy. Failure, no matter how slight, is not tolerated and has but one punishment. Each day’s crop of failures is taken to the high turret of Ghazes from which long nooses and ropes are suspended. The nooses are designed not to choke or snap, but to support the neck and spine. The young men and women are stripped naked and fitted with the nooses and lowered into the void. Their arms and legs are left unbound. And then, from the clotted darkness of the main stem, comes a gabbling, flapping sound, and the beasts rise up. Their bodies are reminiscent of a fly’s but have the bulk of an eagle’s, and indeed their flights recall a fly’s haphazard orbiting of a garbage heap. Their wings are leathery, long-vained; their faces variously resemble painted masks, desiccated apes, frogs, spiders, every sort of vile monstrosity. Their mouths are all alike, set with needle teeth and fringed with delicate organelles like the tendrils of a jellyfish. As with any great evil, study of them will yield a mass of contradictory fact and legend. The folk of the plain and forest will tell you that they are the final transformation of the Yoalo slain in battle, and this is their Valhalla: to inhabit the roots and crevices of Moselantja and feed upon the unfit. Of course since the higher ranks of the Yoalo model their energy masks upon the faces of the beasts, this is no doubt a misapprehension.

  ‘There are watchers upon the battlements of Ghazes, old men and women who stare at the failed recruits through spyglasses. As the beasts clutch and rend their prey, these watchers note every twitch and flinch of the dying, and if their reactions prove too undisciplined, black marks are assigned to the cadres from which they had been expelled. Many of the recruits are native-born to Moselantja, and these are watched with special interest. Should any of them cry out or attempt to defend themselves or use meditative techniques to avoid pain, then his or her parents are asked to appear the next day at Ghazes for similar testing. And should they betray the disciplines, then their relatives and battle-friends are sought out and tested until the area of contagion is obliterated. Occasionally a seam of such weakness will be exposed, one which runs throughout the turrets, and entire cadres will be overthrown. Such is the process of revolution in Moselantja…’

  As he read, Jocundra tried to force her mind away from the unpleasant details, but she could not help picturing the hanged bodies in stark relief against the purple sun, rivulets of blood streaming from their necks as the beasts idly fed, embracing their victims with sticky insect legs. When he had finished, she was unable to hide her displeasure.

  ‘You don’t like it,’ he said.

  She made a noncommittal noise.

  ‘Well,’ he said, blowing on his fingers as if preparing to crack a safe. ‘I know what you do like.’

  She laughed as he reached for her.

  A knock on the door, and Mr Brisbeau stuck in his head. ‘Company,’ he said. He was hung over, red-eyed from last night’s bottle; he scowled, noticing their involvement, and banged the door shut.

  Hard slants of rain started drumming against the roof as they dressed. In the front room a broad-beamed man was gazing out the window. Dark green palmetto fronds lashed up behind him, blurred by the downpour. He turned, and Jocundra gasped. It was Papa Salvatino, a smile of Christian fellowship wreathing his features. He wore a white suit of raw silk with cutaway pockets, and the outfit looked as appropriate on him as a lace collar on a mongrel.

  ‘Brother Harrison!’ he said with sanctimonious delight and held out his hand. ‘When I heard you was the wonder-worker down on Bayou Teche, I had to come and offer my apologies.’

  ‘Cut the crap,’ said Donnell. ‘You’ve got a message for me.’

  It took a few seconds for Papa to regain his poise, a time during
which his face twisted into a mean, jaundiced knot. ‘Yes,’ he said. “Deed I do.’ He assessed Donnell coolly. ‘My employer, Miss Otille Rigaud… maybe you heard of her?’

  Mr Brisbeau spat. Jocundra remembered stories from her childhood about someone named Rigaud, but not Otille. Claudine, Claudette. Something like that.

  ‘She’s a wealthy woman, is Miss Otille,’ Papa went on. ‘A creature of diverse passions, and her rulin’ passion at present is the occult. She’s mighty intrigued with you, brother.’

  ‘How wealthy?’ asked Donnell, pouring a cup of coffee.

  ‘Rich or not, them Rigauds they’s lower than worms in a pile of shit,’ said Mr Brisbeau, enraged. ‘And me I ain’t havin’ their help in my kitchen!’

  Papa Salvatino beamed, chided him with a waggle of a finger. ‘Now, brother, you been cockin’ your ear to the Devil’s back fence and listenin’ to his lies.’

  ‘Get out!’ said Mr Brisbeau; he picked up a stove lid and menaced Papa with it.

  ‘In good time,’ said Papa calmly. ‘Miss Otille would like the pleasure of your company, Brother Harrison, and that of your fair lady. I’ve been authorized to convey you to Maravillosa at once if it suits. That’s her country place over on Bayou Rigaud.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Donnell; he sipped his coffee. ‘But you tell her I’m intrigued as well.’

  ‘She’ll be tickled to hear it.’ He half-turned to leave. ‘You know, I might be able to satisfy your curiosity somewhat. Me and Miss Otille have spent many an evenin’ together, and I’ve been privy to a good bit of the family history.’

  ‘Don’t bullshit me,’ said Donnell. ‘You’re supposed to tell me all about her. That’s part of the message.’

  Papa perched on the arm of the sofa and stared at Donnell. ‘As a fellow professional, brother, you mind tellin’ me what you see that’s givin’ me away?’

  ‘Your soul,’ said Donnell; he stepped to the window and tossed his coffee into the rain. At this point his voice went through a peculiar change, becoming hollow and smooth for half a sentence, reverting to normal, hollowing again; it was not an extreme change, just a slight increase in resonance, the voice of a man talking in an empty room, and it might not have been noticeable in a roomful of voices. ‘Want to know what it looks like? It’s shiny black, and where there used to be a face, a face half spider and half toad, there’s a mass of curdled light, only now it’s flowing into helical patterns and rushing down your arms.’

  Papa was shaken; he, too, had heard the change. ‘Brother,’ he said, ‘you wastin’ yourself in the bayou country. Take the advice of a man who’s been in the business fifteen years. Put your show on the road. You got big talent!’ He shook his head in awe. ‘Well’ - he crossed his legs, leaned back and sighed - ‘I reckon the best way to fill you in on Otille is to start with ol’ Valcours Rigaud. He was one of Lafitte’s lieutenants, retired about the age of forty from the sea because of a saber cut to his leg, and got himself a fine house outside New Orleans. Privateerin’ had made him rich, and since he had time on his hands and a taste for the darker side of earthly pleasures, it wasn’t too surprisin’ that he fell under the influence of one Lucanor Aime, the leader of the Nanigo sect. You ever hear ‘bout Nanigo?’

  Mr Brisbeau threw down the stove lid with a clang, muttered something, and stumped into the back room, slamming the door after him. Papa snorted with amusement.

  ‘Voodoo,’ he said. ‘But not for black folks. For whites only. Valcours was a natural, bein’ as how he purely hated the black man. Wouldn’t have ‘em on his ships. Anyway, ol’ Lucanor set Valcours high in his service, taught him all the secrets, then next thing you know Lucanor ups and disappears, and Valcours, who’s richer than ever by this time, picks up and moves to Bayou Rigaud and builds Maravillosa.’ Papa chuckled. ‘You was askin’ how rich Miss Otille was. Well, she’s ten-twenty times as rich as Valcours, and to show you how well off he was, when his oldest girl got herself engaged, he went and ordered a cargo of spiders from China, special spiders renowned for the intricacy and elegance of their webs, and he set them to weavin’ in the pines linin’ the avenue to the main house. Then he had his servants sprinkle the webs with silver dust and gold dust, all so that daughter of his could walk down the aisle beneath a canopy of unrivalled splendour.’

  The wind was blowing more fiercely; rain eeled between the planking and filmed over the pictures and the walls, making them glisten. Jocundra closed and latched the shutters, half-listening to Papa, but listening also for repetitions of the change in Donnell’s voice. He didn’t appear to notice if himself, though it happened frequently, lasting a few seconds, then lapsing, as if he were passing through a strange adolescence. Probably, she thought, it was just a matter of the bacteria having spread to the speech centers; as they occupied the various centers, they operated the functions with more efficiency than normal. Witness his eyes. Still, she found it disturbing. She remembered sneaking into Magnusson’s room and being frightened by his sepulchral tone, and she was beginning to be frightened now. By his voice, the storm, and especially by the story. Fabulous balls and masques had been weekly occurrences at Maravillosa, said Papa; but despite his largesse, Valcours had gained an evil reputation. Tales were borne of sexual perversion and unholy rites; people vanished and were never seen again; zombies were reputed to work his fields, and after his death his body was hacked apart and buried in seven coffins to prevent his return. The story and the storm came to be of a piece in Jocundra’s head, the words howling, the wind drawling, nature and legend joined in the telling, and she had a feeling the walls of the cabin were being squeezed together and they would be crushed, their faces added to the collection of pasted-up images.

  ‘Valcours’ children spent most of their lives tryin’ to repair the family name,’ said Papa. ‘They founded orphanages, established charities. Maravillosa became a factory of good works. But ol’ Valcours’ spirit seemed to have been reborn in his granddaughter Clothilde. Folks told the same stories ‘bout her they had ‘bout him. And more. Under her stewardship the family fortune grew into an empire, and them-that-knowed said this new money come from gun-runnin’, from white slavery and worse. She was rumored to own opium hells in New Orleans and to hang around the waterfront disguised as a man, a cutthroat by the name of Johnny Perla. It’s a matter of record that she was partners with Abraham Levine. You know. The Parrot King. The ol’ boy who brought in all them Central American birds and set off the epidemic of parrot fever. Thousands of kids dead. But then, right in the prime of life, at the height of her evil doin’s, Clothilde disappeared.’

  Papa heaved another sigh, recrossed his legs, and went on to tell how Clothilde’s son, Otille’s father, had followed the example of his grandparents and attempted to restore the family honor through his work on behalf of international Jewry during World War II and his establishment of the Rigaud Foundation for scientific research; how Otille’s childhood had been scandal after scandal capped by the affair of Senator Millman, a weekend guest at Maravillosa, who had been found in bed with Otille, then twelve years old. Donnell leaned against the stove, unreadable behind his mirrored lenses. The storm was lessening, but Jocundra knew it would be a temporary lull. July storms lingered for days. The damp air chilled her, breaking a film of feverish sweat from her brow.

  ‘The next few years Otille was off at private schools and college, and she don’t talk much ‘bout them days. But around the time she was twenty, twenty-one, she got bitten by the actin’ bug and headed for New York. Wasn’t long before she landed what was held to be the choicest role in many a season. Mirielle in the play Danse Calinda. ‘Course there was talk ‘bout how she landed the part, seein’ as she’d been the playwright’s lover. But couldn’t nobody else but her play it, ‘cause it had been written special for her. The critics were unanimous. They said the play expanded the occult genre, said she incarnated the role. Them damn fools woulda said anything, I expect. Otille probably had ‘em all thinkin’ slow and nasty ‘bou
t her. She’ll do that to a man, I’ll guarantee you.’ He smirked. ‘But the character, Mirielle, she was a strong, talented woman, good-hearted but doomed to do evil, bound by the ties of a black tradition to a few acres of the dismal truth, and ol’ Otille didn’t have no trouble relatin’ to that. Then, just when it looked like she was gonna be a star, she went after her leadin’ man with a piece of broken mirror. Cut him up severe!’ Papa snapped his fingers. ‘She’d gone right over the edge. They shut her away in a sanatorium someplace in upstate New York, and the doctors said it was the strenuousness of the role that had done her. But Otille would tell you it was ‘cause she’d arrived at certain conclusions ‘bout herself durin’ the run of the play, that she’d been tryin’ to escape somethin’ inescapable. That the shadowy essence of Valcours and Clothilde pervaded her soul. Soon as they let her loose, she beelined for Maravillosa and there she’s been for these last twelve or thirteen years.’ He puffed out his belly, patted it and grinned. ‘And I been with her for six of them years.’

  ‘And is she crazy?’ asked Donnell. ‘Or is she evil?’

  ‘She’s a little crazy, brother, but ain’t we all.’ Papa laughed. ‘I know I am. And as for the evil, naw, she’s just foolin’ with evil. The way she figures it, whichever she is she can’t deny her predilection, so she surrounds herself with oddballs and criminal types. Nothin’ heavy duty. Pick-pockets, card sharps, dopers, hookers…’