Cross Current

by Christine Kling

  B.J. took a deep breath. “Sey, I know what it’s like to hear stories about your father. Stories are all I’ve ever had about my dad.”

  I knew that B.J. had been raised by a single mother in Southern California and that he had absolutely adored her. She’d died when he was only a few years out of graduate school. It was then that he abandoned the corporate lifestyle, moved to Florida, and started working as a boat carpenter. He rarely talked about his life before Florida, only occasionally letting loose with little tidbits.

  “Even though I never met my dad, by his very absence, he played a part in my life. I would imagine he was this very powerful man, and it was the people around him who were preventing him from ever coming to visit his son. When I was in high school, my mother told me that he came from a wealthy Hawaiian family. He had been slumming in Southern California before going back to school up at Berkeley. She was seventeen and dancing in a Polynesian restaurant, and when he found out she was pregnant, he offered her fifty thousand dollars to get an abortion. She refused, he left, and that was the last she ever heard of him.”

  “I’m sorry, B.J.”

  “Don’t be. I had the greatest mom. No complaints. I just know that I want the chance to do the fatherhood thing right. Sey, being a family doesn’t have to mean polyester clothes and a minivan. Look at me. I was raised in women’s dressing rooms in a handful of Polynesian restaurants.”

  I rolled my eyes. “That explains a lot.”

  His mouth spread wide, showing his incredibly white teeth. “So I love women. But Sey, of all the women I have known, I’ve never felt like this. I miss you when you’re not there. I’ve never ever missed anyone before.” He took my hand.

  Jeannie appeared in the hallway with Solange at her side, and she clutched at her chest and gasped. “Oh, my God. He didn’t propose to you, did he?”

  I pulled my hand back and stood up. “Of course not, Jeannie. B.J.? Propose? You’ve got to be kidding. The man loves women. Plural. He’ll probably have a new girlfriend by the end of the week.”

  The street where Max and Racine lived looked even less inviting in the dark than it had in the daylight. I was acutely aware of how little protection the Jeep’s soft top afforded us as I rounded the corner and began peering down the unlit street, trying to recognize the cinder-block house that was set so far back from the street.

  Jeannie and I had argued before I’d climbed into the Jeep, after B.J. had smiled sadly and left the house. I hadn’t been nice to him. He deserved better than that. Jeannie told me all that and then some, and I knew she was right. Then she called me irresponsible for taking a child into Collier City after dark to see some kind of Voodoo priestess. When she put it that way, it did become difficult to defend. Then I thought of B.J.’s words on the topic, how he had explained it to me the other night, and I tried to tell Jeannie that she needed to step out of her middle-class American point of view and accept the fact that there were alternative religions, alternative ways of healing. She looked like she wanted to slap some sense into me. It had all sounded so much more convincing when B.J. said it.

  It wasn’t the house I spotted finally, but rather the number of cars parked in front of the house. What had been a wide, empty dirt yard was now covered with a varied collection of cars, everything from huge sport utility vehicles with dark tinted windows to older-model sedans and shiny new imports.

  I parked the Jeep close to the street, so as not to get blocked in by any late arrivals. Solange was sitting up, her eyes open, but she took no more interest in these surroundings than she had taken in me or anything back at Jeannie’s house. She simply stared ahead as though she had retreated to some place deep inside. I helped her out of the car and held her hand as we walked to the door.

  Still a few feet from the front door, I hesitated. The front porch was dark, but colored lights behind the house illuminated the branches of the huge strangler fig tree. Loud island drumming and the sound of people laughing and talking drifted over the top of the house, intensifying the stillness in the front yard. I felt like a voyeur about to peep through a window.

  I leaned down, closer to Solange’s face, concentrating, trying to see her features in the darkness. “Solange, I wish you’d help me out here, kid. Is this right? I’ve got to find somebody who can help you.” As usual, she showed no reaction. “Do you want to go in? I want to help you, but you probably know more about what’s going on here than I do.”

  Nothing. She stared straight ahead. I had no idea if she could hear me or understand me. I didn’t know what else to do, so I took her small hand in both of mine, squeezed it, and walked forward.

  Max opened the door. He was wearing a formal black suit and black bow tie. “Bon soir! Bienvenue! I am so glad you have come, both of you.” He bent down and peered into Solange’s face. “This is your young friend?”

  “Her name is Solange.”

  He said something to her in Creole, which I didn’t understand, and for all the reaction he got out of her, it was as though she didn’t understand, either. His eyes crinkled at the corners when he looked at me again. “She will be fine,” he said. “Ne t’inquiet pas. Don’t worry. Mambo Racine will take care of the child.”

  Max led us through the house, and when we stepped into the backyard, it was like stepping into another world. All my senses were immediately under direct assault. At least fifty people stood around the yard, clustered in groups, talking, drinking, laughing. No one turned or paid any attention to us. The women all wore scarves on their heads, and most wore bright, colorful dresses, although a few were dressed entirely in white. Many of the men wore their work clothes, while others were dressed in white with red sash-like belts.

  The high thick branches of the strangler fig tree made a ceiling over the fenced-in yard, so it was like stepping into a massive room. The branches of the tree completely obscured the sky, but it was the trunk of the tree that startled me most. Strangler figs start as vines that surround and eventually kill the host tree, leaving a trunk that looks like dozens of roots all tangled and woven together. This tree had been painted with colorful designs that used the natural shape of the twisted roots to form pictures and patterns. There was one especially thick root that twisted around the rest of the trunk, and this root had been painted to look like a rainbow-colored snake climbing the tree. As we stepped down from the back door, I looked up and saw the head of the snake, his tongue and fangs painted on a large gnarled stump of wood in the branches just over our heads. Bits of ribbon and rags were tied among the upper branches of the tree, and other strange artifacts like gourds and beads and dried flowers dangled there on strings. A low, foot-high wooden bench had been built around the base of the tree, and it, too, was painted with vivid designs.

  The light in the yard was dim, just one small spotlight at the base of the tree. Beyond the tree, at the very back of the yard, I could make out two smaller buildings, and it looked as though one had designs and human figures painted on its side. The other with its thatched roof looked more like a Seminole Indian chickee hut.

  The air was pungent with the smell of wood smoke, though I didn’t see the fire anywhere. A group of three musicians pounded on different-size handmade drums, and the drumming seemed to drive the crowd to laugh and talk louder and louder. Everything in the whole tableau moved to the rhythm of the drums.

  “Max ...” I turned to ask him where Racine was, but he had gone. The back door to the house was closed.

  I knelt next to Solange and watched her face. “Solange.” I stroked the side of her face and moved my lips close to her ear. “Can you hear me?”

  Nothing. She stared straight ahead, her body even more rigid than before.

  A hand touched my shoulder and I jumped, nearly falling on my butt in the dirt. When I stood and turned around, I was facing a woman who was taller than me. She had to be more than six feet tall, though from the look of her sharp, jutting elbows I probably outweighed her significantly. Her skin was exceptionally dark, a match in h
ue to Max’s, but she was so thin that her cheekbones protruded above deep hollows. She wore a bright red dress and an elaborately embroidered straw hat.

  “You are Seychelle Sullivan?” she asked, grasping my fingers in her dry, bony hand and shaking it vigorously. Her voice was deep and raspy, as though she had smoked cigarettes her entire life, but she spoke so low I could barely hear her over the pounding drums. “I am Racine Toussaint. I understand you have come here to speak to me.” Her English revealed only the mere hint of an accent.

  “Yes, I brought this child,” I said, wrapping my arm around Solange and pulling her close to me.

  “I know about the child. Follow me.”

  She led us through the crowd. Many of the people had started dancing. Those not dancing were moving off to the perimeter of the yard, while the dancers marched slowly around the tree, undulating to the rhythm of the drums.

  We passed a man who was kneeling on the ground, drawing curly designs with sand in the dirt yard. The fine white grains trailed from his fist as he added a final flourish to what looked to me like a large, stylized, compass rose.

  Racine stopped in front of a door to one of the outbuildings. Up close, I could see that the paintings on the walls were far more elaborate than I had originally thought. The style was unusual, what fancy art critics called primitif, but the subject matter was clearly religious—from the black Madonna and child on the right of the door to the intricate black cross adorning the door itself.

  “Miss Sullivan,” she said, “I understand this must all seem very strange to you.”

  I nodded and smiled. While it was easier to speak out here farther from the drums, I still found myself overwhelmed and not sure what to say.

  “We Haitians practice a form of Christianity that has blended with the African religions of our ancestors. We call this religion Vodou." She directed her gaze over my shoulder at the dancers back in the yard and smiled. “Most Americans, when they hear that word, they think of black magic. They have all those images of zombies, curses, and Voodoo dolls from their films. In reality, Vodou is a way of seeing the universe, of being connected to our ancestors, of using nature to heal. I hope you can keep a more open mind.”

  I nodded. “I’ll try. But I’ve got to tell you, all this”—I swung my hand in an arc toward the drummers and the people who were starting to dance—“I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s very beautiful, but a little frightening as well.”

  She smiled. “I appreciate your honesty. But there is no reason to be afraid. One of our rituals is a sacred cleansing ritual called a lave tete," she said, pronouncing the words lavay tet with a beautiful French accent, “because we wash the hair several times with special herbs. This clears the consciousness of the individual. This will help the child wash away her fears and bring her back to us. Can you trust me?”

  “You’re just going to wash her hair?”

  Racine took my hand in hers. Her skin was cool and dry, and her palms felt almost like crepe paper. As she spoke, her dark eyes locked on mine. “I would never do anything to hurt this child.”

  I believed her. “Okay. I just want her to get better. I don’t know what else to try.”

  “When we are inside,” she said, “I don’t want you to say anything. You may watch, but I ask you not to speak.”

  Racine took Solange’s hand and led her into the small room. An involuntary shudder shook my shoulders as I watched Solange pass through that doorway without me. I was seized by an overwhelming urge to grab her, run for the Jeep, and get the hell out of there. Instead, I followed them inside.

  The only light inside the room came from dozens of candles on an altar that ran along the right side wall. Scraps of cloth bearing a variety of patterns covered the base of the altar. It was difficult to make out all the paraphernalia that crowded the shelf. There were bottles and jars made of colored glass, a big wooden cross, a stone bowl, terra-cotta pots, and what looked like little packages wrapped in colored paper with ribbons tied round the paper to form long necks. Two low chairs had been placed directly in front of the cross in the center of the room, one in front of the other.

  Racine led Solange to one of the chairs and began to undress her. When she pulled the T-shirt over the child’s head, her arms flopped down and dangled loose at her sides. The term rag doll popped into my mind. Solange was flesh and bone, but she seemed to have lost all control of her body. She was wearing only her new white underwear, and I realized again just how skinny she was. She looked so small and vulnerable.

  I held my breath, and I was certain my hands would shake if I held them in front of me. What was I doing here?

  A woman in white entered the room carrying a small white dress. Racine pulled it over Solange’s head. The skirt nearly touched the dirt floor, and I thought of the white dress Solange had been wearing the day I pulled her from the sea. Racine eased Solange into the front chair, then sat in the chair behind. She gently removed the beaded bands and combed out the braids in the girl’s hair. Two more women dressed in white came in, carrying between them what looked like a huge galvanized soup pot and ladle. As they placed the pot behind the chairs, gentle steam rose from the water inside. The smell was earthy, almost musky. It reminded me of when, as kids, my brother Pit and I used to make “tea” by mixing sticks and leaves from all over our yard.

  Racine stirred the pot, then tested the liquid on her wrist, like a mother testing the temperature of her baby’s milk. She nodded, then lifted the child’s chin, tilting her head back, and ladled the steaming water over her head.

  Solange showed no reaction to what was happening. I looked around the room. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and I noticed for the first time that there were other observers leaning against the walls. I couldn’t make out the features of a tall man on the far side of the room, dressed all in black, but closer to me, slouching and sucking on three fingers, was a girl not much older than Solange. When she turned to look at me, I recognized her. It was Juliette, the girl from Martine Gohin’s house. She pulled her fingers out of her mouth and pointed first to her lips and then to me.

  Did she want to talk to me? I pointed at her and then at myself and lifted my hands and shoulders as if to ask “What?”

  She ignored me, walked around the head-washing ceremony, and slipped out the door.

  I assumed she wanted me to follow her. I looked back at Solange and was surprised to see her smiling. Racine was saying something in Creole that I could not understand, but the child seemed quite safe. I would step outside for just a minute.

  It wasn’t until I opened the door that I realized how well soundproofed the room had been. The noise of the drums hit me, and I could feel each beat pounding in my body. The dancing in the yard had grown more frantic. Nearly everyone was involved now. Some of the dancers were writhing on the ground, and others were jumping around in bizarre contortions that made them look double-jointed. One woman fell to the ground, flopping around like a snake that had just been run over by a car. Three people surrounded her and helped her to her feet, but she seemed to struggle against them. They dragged her from the dance area toward the building that looked like an Indian chickee hut.

  “Pssst.” Juliette’s head poked out, then disappeared into the shrubs at the side of the building I’d just left. I started in her direction.

  “Seychelle Sullivan? Is that you?”

  When I turned around, a short woman in a bright blue- and-yellow dress was coming toward me from the center of the yard. Like all the other women, she wore a colorful headscarf. I used my hand to shield my eyes from the spotlight behind her and attempted to make out the features of her face. She wore heavy, dark-tinted glasses.

  “Martine?”

  “Mais oui. Seychelle, what are you doing here?”

  I pointed to the door. “I brought Solange. You know, the little girl? The Earth Angel? She’s sick. It’s a long story. I found this card on board the Miss Agnes—it had Racine Toussaint’s name and address. They’re wash
ing her hair in there.”

  “Ah, the lave tete. Yes, that will help.”

  “You practice Voodoo?”

  She shrugged. “I am Haitian, non? Come, follow me.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. There was no sign of Juliette. Martine led me closer to the dancers. She motioned for me to bend down, so that she could talk over the drums and into my ear.

  “Some of these dancers have been mounted by the lwa."

  “What does that mean?”

  “The lwa are spirits who can enter the body of a living person and possess him in order to communicate. We call that mounting, just like a rider mounts a horse. You see the tree in the middle of the peristil?” She pointed to the strangler fig trunk. “That is called the poto mitan, or center post. It is hollow, and that is how the spirits pass the Crossroads and travel from their world to ours. Usually it is truly a pole, but Mambo Racine has chosen a tree. It seems to work well enough.” She shrugged again.

  At that moment the door to the chickee hut opened, and the woman who had been taken from the dance area emerged wearing a bright red dress. It was difficult to recognize her as the same woman who had been writhing on the ground. Her face was made up, her lips bright red, her hair combed loose, and now she was leading the people who just moments before had been dragging her. She strode onto the dance floor, commanding the attention of all the men, and began a slow, seductive dance. Although she was more than fifty feet away from me on the far side of the yard, I was sure I could smell her perfume.

  “That’s Erzulie. She is the spirit of love.”

  “You said ‘Erzulie’?”

  “Yes, she manifests herself in several different forms— from the gentle seductress to the fierce protective mother. This is Erzulie Danto, the mother. She may have come because of the child. You see that man with the cane? That is Legba.”

  Martine continued to talk about many of the other lwa who had possessed the people who were dancing before us, but I ceased to hear as I tried to sort out what all this meant. Why had that woman in the boat told Solange she was Erzulie? Was that her real name? Did Solange think the woman on the boat was a spirit or possessed by one? I had told Racine I would keep an open mind, but it was growing more and more difficult.