by Wade Davis
The two men had heard that Beauvoir had influence in the capital, and they wanted to know if he might be able to arrange for them to demonstrate their horsemanship for the president. They offered to put on a private demonstration for Beauvoir the following week in Desdunnes.
The day before I was scheduled to leave Haiti, Max Beauvoir, Rachel, and I arrived in Desdunnes, finding more than fifty mounted men waiting beside their commander’s house. By American standards the horses were small, but all appeared well trained, and the men put on an impressive display. At midmorning, as the horsemen broke off and gathered by the plaza to drink with us and the commander, I happened to mention that I enjoyed horses. The commander took that casual comment as a signal that I wanted to ride with his group. Within minutes I was atop an exhausted horse. The commander asked Beauvoir if they ought to lead the horse by the halter, but by then a couple of the men and I were trotting out of the plaza. Then, as they realized I could indeed ride, the men broke into a gallop, and those on foot began to shout, “Savandier.” At that point, as I would later learn, the commander turned to Beauvoir and said, “A man who rides like that was born on the savanna. So, my friend, you come to have a look at us, and you bring your own rider.” Then after a pause he went on, “Let’s have a look at him. We have a horse that doesn’t dance, but it does run.”
We tethered our horses, and after a few drinks the rhythm of the afternoon set in. We had been sitting for about an hour when two men returned with a fresh brown mare.
The town was by then in a frenzy. It was Easter, and the Rara bands had swarmed out of the temples to celebrate the end of Lent. Their processions wove through the streets, swirling past one another, invading gardens and homes, absorbing idlers and growing longer and longer tails of dancers. From a distance they could be taken as hallucinations, except for the music—a single four-note song. The bass line came from four long bamboo tubes. Tin cans transformed into trumpets and trombones created a glittering horn section; rubber hose transformed into tubas created another. Percussion in the hands of a Haitian is anything that knocks—two sticks, a hubcap, a hammer-and-leaf spring from a truck.
The bandleader was a malevolent jester, somewhat androgynous. The others in the lead looked like the Queen of Hearts, only more lascivious, in long satin dresses sporting lewd bustlines. All of them were men. Sweeping across the head of the procession was a menacing figure, wielding a sisal whip, flailing at the crowd. But it was a symbolic display, and no one was hurt. Nevertheless Rara remains somehow intimidating and subversive. It is an amazing sexual inversion and an extraordinary triumph of the spirit. No wonder that by political decree the bands are permanently forbidden from entering the major cities.
So, with a gallery of dusty-faced peasants interwoven by the brilliant, swirling colors of the Rara bands, I got onto the horse. Two men on foot released the halter, and four others on horseback led me out of the plaza to the main entrance of town. As our trot broke into a canter, two of the other horsemen fell back. Then we began to run, and I found myself with the remaining horseman in an unanticipated contest. His challenge thinly disguised, he led me on a wide circuit about town, past the thatched huts and across the crowded plazas. At one point when I veered onto the wrong trail, the horseman paused and turned back to me, laughing. Then, as I drew abreast again, he loosened his rein and let out a great howl. The race was on in earnest. Women grabbed their children or chased away the chickens, and the town’s main thoroughfare became a storm of dust. As we circled the mapou tree in the central plaza, my horse entered the lead. The peasants began to shout, “Blanc, blanc” as froth from the neck of my horse struck my face.
Although I crossed the line a few paces ahead of my companion, it clearly mattered less who won than that the race had actually taken place. With obvious delight the commander took my reins as I dismounted, then led me into the courtyard of his house. Surrounded by the rest of his horsemen, we posed for the local photographer. Finally he led me into the house to join the Beauvoirs for lunch.
Only later would Max Beauvoir tell me that the commander was a president of a secret society, that I was now considered a member of his horse troop, and that the meal had been prepared and served by three queens of the secret society.
That afternoon we left Desdunnes and continued north to an important ceremonial center in the Artibonite Valley. There, once again by chance, I came across an important clue, yet it was a discovery that, like so many made during this first phase of my investigation, only deepened the mystery. At dusk, in the fields behind this most sacred of sites, I stumbled upon an entire field of planted datura. The next day I left Haiti and returned to the United States.
PART TWO
Interlude at Harvard
7
Columns on a Blackboard
ON EASTER SUNDAY I passed through United States Immigration at Kennedy Airport in New York carrying a kaleidoscopic Haitian suitcase constructed from surplus soft drink cans. The specimens inside included lizards, a polychaete worm, two marine fish, and several tarantulas—all preserved in alcohol—as well as several bags of dried plant material. Two rum bottles contained the antidote, while the poison itself was in a glass jar wrapped in red satin cloth. There was also a dried toad, several seed necklaces, a dozen unidentified powders, and two vodoun wangas, or protective charms. Two human tibia and a skull were at the bottom of the case. A cardboard box was full of herbarium specimens, and concealed inside in a duffle was a live specimen of the bouga toad. The customs agent opened the cardboard box, took a quick look, and told me he didn’t even want to hear about it. He never saw the toad.
There was no one in when I rang Nathan Kline from the airport, so I left word on his answering machine and caught the next plane for Boston, arriving in Cambridge slightly after dusk. I found the Botanical Museum deserted. I was tired, and when I entered my office I placed the tin suitcase on my desk and, without turning on the lights, lay back in a hammock I had strung across a corner. It was amusing to look at that colorful case so symbolic of an entire nation. Haiti, it is said, is the place to discover how much can be done with little. Tires are turned into shoes, tin cans into trombones, mud and thatch into lovely, elegant cottages. Material goods being so scarce, the Haitian adorns his world with imagination. Yet if there was anything silly about the suitcase, there certainly was not about its rank contents. If the mystery of the zombi phenomenon was to be solved, these specimens were the most important clues. Without them, there was nothing concrete. With them, I could take full advantage of the resources of the university.
I stood up and emptied the case, placing the specimens in a long row across the back of my desk. Then I took a piece of chalk and drew a column at either end of a large blackboard that covered much of one wall. On the left I listed the ingredients in Marcel’s poison: human remains, the two plants, the sea worm, toad, lizards, and fish. On the right I wrote the medical symptoms of Clairvius Narcisse at the time of his death: pulmonary edema, digestive troubles with vomiting, pronounced respiratory difficulties, uremia, hypothermia, rapid loss of weight, and hypertension. After a moment’s recollection, I added cyanosis and paresthesia, for both Narcisse and his sister had mentioned that his skin had turned blue, and that he felt tingling sensations all over his body. In between the two lists was a very large blank space.
Early the next morning I passed through the dark corridors of the Museum of Comparative Zoology and deposited the animal specimens with the museum’s various specialists for identification. Then I returned to the Botanical Museum to have a look at the plants. I had three initial questions. Did the plants have pharmacologically active compounds that might cause a dramatic decrease in metabolic rate? If so, were the strength and concentration of the compounds sufficient to be effective in the doses used by Marcel Pierre? And finally, were they topically active, or did they have to be ingested? All three were tempered by an important consideration. Very often in folk preparations, different chemicals in relatively small concentrations ef
fectively potentiate each other, producing a powerful synergistic effect—a biochemical version of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. Thus my primary concern was to demonstrate whether or not any of the plant or animal ingredients contained interesting chemical compounds. Once the specimens were identified, I would find most of this preliminary information in the library.
Late that afternoon the museum secretary interrupted me with a message from Kline asking me to return as soon as possible to New York.
The door to the apartment was open. I went in, stood rather tentatively for a moment in the alcove, then wandered into the living room. The decor was unchanged, but the late afternoon sun left the air hot and compressed and tinged every object with color.
“You seem to be all right.” I turned around, and Kline’s daughter Marna was behind me, smiling and leaning against the doorway to the kitchen. “Welcome back.”
“Hello, Marna. Sorry if I’m barging in.”
“It’s fine. Father told me you’d be coming. How was Haiti?”
“It’s a good place.”
“And the work?”
“Okay.”
“Was he right?”
“Your father?”
She nodded. “No, don’t tell me, don’t say anything. Wait until he gets here. Can I pour you a drink?”
“That’d be nice.”
“Some rum, or have you had it?”
“I’ll take a whiskey.”
Marna went back into the kitchen to get some ice and then walked over to the bar. “He was worried, you know.”
“Your father? Why?”
“Weren’t you a week late getting back?”
“I don’t think so.”
“He expected you several days ago.”
“There were a few delays,” I said. “Where’s your father now?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. He just stepped out. He should be right back. Bo Holmstedt is with him. Do you know him?”
“He is? Yes I do.” This was a surprise. Bo Holmstedt is a professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and one of the world’s foremost toxicologists. He and Schultes were good friends and had collaborated on a number of projects in the Amazon.
Marna and I were having a second drink when her father and Holmstedt returned. Nathan Kline seemed a different man from our first meeting—warm, even affectionate as he greeted me.
“There you are. All in one piece, I’m glad to see. You know Bo Holmstedt?”
“Professor.”
“Hello, Wade.”
“Bo was on his way to the airport, but I’ve persuaded him to wait until he hears what you’ve got to tell us.”
“Now, Nathan, don’t put the lad on the spot,” Holmstedt said. “Marna, haven’t you got a quick drink for an old sot?” He spoke with the accent of a Scandinavian educated in Britain. An elderly man, short and heavyset, he was dressed conservatively in gray flannels and a blazer. We chatted informally until all were comfortably settled, and then I began my account. In a necessarily anecdotal way, and responding to frequent questions, I shared my instincts for the country, its history and unique social structure, stressing repeatedly the importance of the vodoun religion as the axis around which so much of Haitian life revolves. Then I recounted the events that led up to my obtaining the preparation from Marcel Pierre. Finally, the conversation turned to the poison itself.
“I haven’t got all the determinations yet on the animals, but I have identified the plants. One is a liana known to the Haitians as pois gratter, the ‘itching pea.’ It’s Mucuna pruriens, and like just about everything else in the genus the fruits are covered with vicious urticating hairs.”
“Anything on its chemistry?” Kline asked.
“Not much. I spoke with Professor Schultes, and he seems to think the seeds are psychoactive. He’s also seen it used medicinally in Colombia to treat cholera and internal parasites.”
Holmstedt joined in. “There is a species of Mucuna called … Damn it, what is it? Yes, flagellipes. It’s used in central Africa as an arrow poison. Has something in it not unlike physostigmine. You know, of course, the literature on the Calabar bean?”
It was a good thing I did, for Holmstedt had written a large portion of it. I reviewed briefly the hypothesis I had come up with, and explained that there was no evidence that the plant had reached Haiti.
“A good hypothesis is never wasted. Now what else have you got?”
“Albizzia lebbeck. The Haitians call it tcha-tcha. It’s a native of West Africa introduced into the Caribbean some years ago as an ornamental shade tree.”
“You may be onto something there. What did you find out about it?”
“The bark and seedpods contain saponins. In small concentrations quite effective as a vermifuge. But dosage is critical.”
“Isn’t it always?” said Kline.
“Some West African tribes use the plant as an insecticide or fish poison,” I said.
“How’s it work on fish?” Marna asked.
“They put the crushed seeds in shallow bodies of water. The saponins act on the gills to interfere with breathing. The fish suffocate, float to the surface, and the people gather them up. Doesn’t affect the meat.”
“You will find that killing a mammal with saponins is somewhat more complicated,” Holmstedt said. “But it can be done. In East Africa, the roots of Albizzia versicolor make a bloody fine arrow poison. But it’s no good putting it in someone’s food. Saponins aren’t absorbed by the intestines. You’ve got to get the stuff into the blood.”
“But isn’t that what they say they do in Haiti?” Marna asked.
“Yes,” I replied, “through the skin. Professor Holmstedt, what are the symptoms of saponin poisoning?”
“In sufficient dosage, nausea, vomiting, eventually excessive secretions into the respiratory passages. In simpler terms, the victim drowns in his own fluids.”
“With pulmonary edema as an interim result?” I asked.
“Yes, of course.” It was the condition that headed my list of Clairvius Narcisse’s symptoms at the time of his death.
“You will find that Albizzia has one more secret,” Holmstedt went on. “Many species of the genus contain a special class of compounds known as sapotoxins that are absorbed by the intestines. They work in a rather nasty fashion by interfering with cellular respiration throughout the body. They kill you by actually weakening your every cell. Incidentally, the Efik traders of Old Calabar used the bark of Albizzia zygia in a potion known as ibok usiak owo, which means in their language ‘a medicine for mentioning people’—a sort of native truth serum, I would say. They administer it orally as an ordeal poison. You see, Wade, you come back full circle to your hypothesis.”
“Have you got anything yet on these lizards and toads and whatever else they put in?” Kline asked.
“Nothing encouraging,” I replied. “There’s a polychaete worm that Marcel sequesters with the toad. It had bristles on it that some say inflict a mild paralysis. They may be venomous, but the reports are vague. The herpetologists up at the museum knew the lizards right away. Neither is known to be poisonous. In Dominica, they say one of them can make the hair fall out and turn your skin green. But the people eat it anyway. Another species in a related genus plays havoc with housecats in Florida, but it doesn’t kill them. But it wasn’t a lizard that took down Narcisse, that’s for sure.”
“What about the toad?” Holmstedt asked.
“Bufo marinus.”
“You’re certain.”
“It’s unmistakable. The people at Herpetology confirmed it.”
Holmstedt paused to consider. “Quite,” he said finally, and looking straight at me, “Wade, I’d say you’re onto something.”
The next morning when I returned to Cambridge, there was no new information for me. The first botanical determinations did show that Marcel Pierre was exploiting plants with both pharmacologically active compounds and proven African connections, but isolated reports drawn from over half a
continent explained very little. The Calabar hypothesis, despite Holmstedt’s words of encouragement, seemed to have led me nowhere. I had found no evidence of the Calabar bean in Haiti, and while datura had been present, its connection to the zombi phenomenon remained uncertain.
It was discouraging, but my luck would change by the end of the day. The more I read about the large bouga toad, the ingredient that had so caught Holmstedt’s interest, the brighter my mood became. I learned that the paratoid glands on its back are virtual reservoirs of toxic compounds.
Although Bufo marinus is a native of the New World, it apparently reached Europe very soon after the voyages of Columbus, and there it was well received by nations long familiar with toad venom. Europeans believed that toads derived their poisons from the earth by eating mushrooms (hence the English name toadstool). As early as Roman times, women used toads to poison their husbands. Soldiers in the Middle Ages believed that a discreet means of wounding an enemy was to rub his skin with the secretions of Bufo vulgaris, the common European species. And not long after Bufo marinus reached the Old World, poisoners found that by placing the toad in boiling olive oil, the secretions of the glands could be easily skimmed off the surface. In Italy early in the sixteenth century, poisoners devised sophisticated processes for extracting toad toxins into salt, which could then be sprinkled on the intended victim’s food. In fact, so highly regarded was the toxicity of toad venom that at the beginning of the eighteenth century it was actually added to explosive shells. Presumably the commanders felt that if the cannon did not kill their enemies, the toad toxins would.