Orfeo

by M. J. Lawless

  “Things are getting bad, Earl. There’s all sorts of warnings going on. They’ve given this hurricane a name, now. Katrina. They’re even saying it could hit the city.”

  “Katrina?” Earl downed a glass of the whiskey and poured himself another. “Who the fuck comes up with these names?”

  For a moment Papa’s face flickered with annoyance, surprising Earl. His loa almost never expressed any emotion. “Who cares how they name it? You’ve been so wrapped up in yourself that you ain’t been paying attention to anything. It hit Florida a couple of days ago, causing a whole stack of damage, and since then it’s been building up a pack of punches that’ll tear a hole in Louisiana.”

  “So?”

  Now Papa did seem to lose control of his normally impeccable self-control, displaying a frustration that Earl was beginning to enjoy.

  “So, they reckon it’ll hit New Orleans tomorrow. This thing is gonna rip up the town as though it was tinder wood! You even noticed how few people have been coming here the last few nights? Everything on the radio and TV is telling them to get the hell out of town, and we should too.”

  Drinking his whiskey, Earl clutched onto the bottle and swaggered across toward Papa. All his earlier anxieties had disappeared, replaced by a swaggering arrogance.

  “Let me get this straight,” he said, touching the bottle to Papa’s chest insolently. “This city is going to fall into chaos, and you think we should get the hell out of here, is that it?”

  Papa swallowed and looked away. Sweet Jesus, Earl thought as he caught the flash of expression before the other man’s face turned to one side, he almost looks human when he lets some feelings in. This was too good a chance for Earl to miss when it came to reasserting his authority.

  “Are you out of your goddam mind!” he bellowed, his face barely inches away from the brim of Papa’s hat. “Chaos, destruction, hell—Jesus fucking Christ! This was made for us! Bring that motherfucking hurricane on. Let all those other scum fuck off out of here—the city will be ripe for the taking afterwards. What’s the worst that can happen? A few shitty old buildings get blown down, some roads in and out get flooded.”

  Papa turned back to him and swallowed. “You may have forgotten that we’re less than five hundred yards away from the Mississippi,” he said in a very low voice.

  Earl took a step back, feigning astonishment. This was just too good to pass up on. “What are you talking about, man?” he asked, pretending to comprehend Papa’s anxieties. “Nothing bad’s gonna happen. We are talking about the fucking United States corp of motherfucking engineers here, boy. Good, solid, American engineering. Best in the fucking world.” He took a swig from the bottle and threw it to one side, enjoying the splintering sound of glass as it cracked and shattered. Now was the time to deliver his killer blow.

  “Are ya yella?” he asked, slurring his speech into a barely recognisable drawl. “Is that it, Papa? Lost your nerve?” He moved slowly, ominously forward now, his nose almost touching that of the other man. This close, he could stare straight into Papa’s eyes: when you got up to him like this, thought Earl to himself, you could clearly see that those black pits at the center of his eyes were a mortal brown, and the edges of his eyeballs were tinged yellow like his liver.

  “Not up to it, old man?” he whispered.

  Earl was prepared, his gloved hand curled into a ball beside his hips. If he moved quickly enough he would be able to grab hold of the inevitable garotte, throw the older man off balance—and in a contest of raw, brutish strength he knew he was more powerful.

  But then the strangest thing happened. The mask that Papa always wore descended once again. His eyes became steely and distant and the thin film of sweat that had been forming on his face seemed almost miraculously to evaporate.

  “They that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind,” he said, very quietly. Earl stared at him in confusion and, against his will, took a step back.

  “What the...?” he spluttered, incredulously. “What the fuck are you talking about?” Papa’s words had thrown him off balance so that whatever psychological advantage he had achieved was now lost. His left hand began to itch once more and, without thinking, he began to scratch it.

  “It’s as you say, boss. We take advantage of this storm, we can reap the chaos that comes afterwards. We’ll be rich men.” Papa gave a smile in which his mouth twisted into a grimace but his eyes remained dead. “Is it hurting?” He nodded his head slightly in the direction of Earl’s hand.

  “No,” Earl replied with a scowl. “Forget about it.” He began to turn away to hide his confusion—and also the rising irritation in his damaged limb. Another thought occurred to him, however, and instead he returned his gaze to Papa, his own dark eyes steely now.

  “One last thing before you go,” he said in a quiet voice. “I’ve changed my mind about the singer. I want him dead.”

  Papa raised one eyebrow at this news but did not lose his composure. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asked. “What if she finds out?”

  “It’ll make no difference,” Earl growled. “And in any case, don’t you ever question my fucking decisions ever again, you bastard. I want him dead, that’s a direct fucking order. Now get out of my sight.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  He had no idea how long he had been lying in the room. Day was succeeded by night before returning to day and once more to night. Sometimes he slept, but more often than not the agony in his chest and limbs kept him awake, as well as the deeper pain of loss. He made no sound in his misery, but the tears in his eyes had not yet dried up and often he wept when he thought of her, that he would never see her again.

  He was ashamed that instead of grief for Baptiste he felt only guilt, a guilt that could not manifest itself in tears. The old man had not wanted to go but Orfeo refused to listen to reason and for this Baptiste had died. And yet, even in that terrible realisation it was the loss of Ardyce that he felt more deeply, an agony much worse than that in his flesh and bones. They would heal, but his soul was torn forever.

  The girl who lived downstairs had visited him. She had knocked on his door not long after he had dragged himself into the room and, when he refused to answer, she had timidly pushed her way in, staring in shock at his wounds and bruises. It took him a long time to remember her name: Janine. Even though she stood in front of him there was something insubstantial about her, as though she were a ghost compared to his very real visions of Ardyce.

  She had visited him several times. At first she tried to speak to him, asking him what had happened. When he didn’t reply she tended to him, cleaning up his cuts and applying bandages to his chest. He had allowed her to move him in the bed, careless as to what happened. How many times did she come? He didn’t know nor did he care.

  She asked him to sing to her. His sullen silence was not so much a refusal as a lack of interest. One night she had come to him, still smelling of booze and other men’s stink. She was drunk and pulled off her clothes, showing her small, delicate breasts, her thighs dark and shining. Climbing into bed next to him, she attempted to touch him, to caress him gently so as not to hurt his broken ribs. When he pushed her away worldlessly, she began to shriek and curse him, hitting him so that his chest hurt as though on fire, but he said nothing. At least she had left after that and not returned. How many days had it been? He did not know.

  And so he lay there, motionless. He wanted to die, and without food or water he was content to starve himself to death, to die of thirst. Let the rains never come again, he told himself. Let the earth become a desert and I shall die here. There was no music in his room, no sound, but the noises from the city and the house where he lived filtered through his window and his door, refusing to leave him in peace.

  But his body was too young, too strong. Life throbbed within him, slowly knitting his bones and healing his flesh. The bruises purpled and faded like old flowers on a grave, and in their decay his skin revived, ebony black, his muscles strong and powerful yet.


  Nor would the outside world leave him alone. There was the ruckus of chaotic disorder in the house, of people shouting and yelling at each other, heavy objects clattering as they moved. With a sigh he sat up on the bed and placed his head in his hands. The pain in his chest was an ache now, but he could ignore it if he didn’t move too quickly. Despite everything he was still alive.

  How long had he been here? For the first time the question mattered to him, but the reason for this was even more painful than his fractured bones. Where was she now? What had they done to her? He wanted to cry once more, but the sound of smashing furniture and yelling beyond his room disturbed him again. Couldn’t these people let a man die in peace?

  With a sigh he stood up and walked toward the door. He was still naked, careless of such distractions as clothes, and the bandage around his chest reeked slightly. Tugging it from his body he threw it to one side and opened the door.

  At the bottom of the stairs, neighbors he just about recognized were screaming at each other as they attempted to push a chest out of the door to their apartment. She was large, matronly, her dark cheeks flushed with blood, her eyes wide and white as she shouted at the man, telling him to get a move on. He in turn yelled at her to leave it, that they had to get out as quickly as possible. A young child clutched to her mother’s skirt, looking up at Orfeo nervously.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. His voice was weak and raspy, an unfamiliar creature in his throat, struggling to make its way past his parched lips. The woman looked up at him, her face registering shock as she saw him naked at the top of the stairs. Quickly she bundled the child behind her.

  “Are you some hopped-up fool?” she asked. “The hurricane’s coming. We gotta get out the city as quickly as possible.”

  “It’s true,” the man beside her replied wearily. “It’s a big one, they’re saying. Gonna rip up New Orleans.”

  “Hurricane,” Orfeo repeated, struggling to understand the word.

  The woman stared at him as though he were deranged—or worse. “That’s what I said. A hurricane. Now get yourself out of sight! There’s decent folk still in this building you know. Best thing that storm can do is come and wash the filth right off the streets.”

  Ignoring her, Orfeo closed the door and sat down on the bed. Muffled shouting and bumps still came to him but his mind retreated from it all. The hurricane was coming. In his mind’s eye he saw it, a vision that made his skin turn cold. For an age he watched the winds scream like demons across New Orleans, the deluge falling like brimstone from heaven, destroying the city. The woman was both right and wrong: it would wash everything away, not only the filth. The righteous and the just would be caught up in the destruction along with those steeped in sin.

  He whispered one word to himself: “Ardyce.”

  The desolation of the past few days sloughed off him, like a snake emerging from its old skin, gleaming and new. Crossing to the basin in the corner of his room, he gulped down a few handfuls of water and washed himself quickly before shaving off the beard that had grown in recent days. Pulling on clothes, he felt his body filling up with energy: he had looked at the entrance to death, but it was life now that told him what he must do.

  There was some chaos in the streets but more than this Orfeo was astonished at how empty they were. He still had no clear idea of the time but sensed that it must be late afternoon from the sun’s position. From time to time he saw vehicles moving and heard people shouting in the distance, yet he felt that New Orleans had been abandoned, deserted by its citizens.

  It was evening when he finally reached his destination. His feet were sore, though this time at least he had worn shoes, and his breathing came in ragged gasps. Although he had paced himself he couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten and his body was weaker than it should have been. Nonetheless, he permitted himself a wide, almost manic grin as he saw his destination. Hades.

  The lights were flickering above the doorway, but now there were no queues outside. The wind was whistling down the street which was empty but for one other figure that stood in front of the entrance. Behind him, the gray cliff-face he had seen before stretched up to the darkening sky.

  The man wore a hat on his head, the black band contrasting with its pale color, the same hue as his suit in contrast to the gray-brown skin of his hands and face. As he lifted up his head, the wind tugging at his hat, Orfeo saw a pair of emotionless eyes watching him, eyes that would have filled anyone else with fear. Orfeo, however, was not afraid. He was dead already: he simply had one last task to perform.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” the man said. For some reason this didn’t surprise Orfeo, and he nodded in recognition, realizing at last who the man was. He simply nodded and stood there silently, his arms poised by his side, his body preparing to push forward into the club.

  “Not so fast, boy,” Papa said. “Do you know who I am?”

  “You’re Papa Legba,” Orfeo said. “You’re the gatekeeper. You are the one who stands at the crossroads, the invisible messenger to man. You should bring us Bondye’s words, father Legba, and show us the sun, but you’ve fallen into darkness.”

  Papa smiled with his mouth, but his eyes looked perturbed. “You know me well, boy.” Reaching into his pocket, he took out a long strip of silken rope and wrapped one end of it around his fingers, a silent garrote. “Why are you here, Orfeo? I’ve been sent to kill you, you know.”

  Orfeo nodded. “I know,” he replied. “I’ve come to do one last thing. Let me do it, and then you can kill me.”

  At this Papa gave out a low laugh and this time his eyes twinkled with amusement, a flash of life in the dead expanse of his dark face. “I might just do that, I might just. Tell me, what is it you want to do?”

  “I want to sing.”

  Papa pulled a bemused expression and turned his eyes from Orfeo to the silken rope that he twined between both of his hands. “You know what this is, boy?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can kill you quickly, mercifully. There’ll be no pain. This is my angel, my bringer of death. I save it for the special ones, the holy ones. It’ll be my gift. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” A simple word, unflinching.

  “Aren’t you afraid?” Papa’s eyes flicked up from his garrote to contemplate Orfeo. In response the young man shook his head.

  “I don’t suppose you are,” Papa mused quietly. “Course, I could kill you very painfully, ensure that your last moments on this not-so-fucking-good earth were spent in torture and torment. That’s what Earl would want.” At the mention of this name, Papa grimaced. “Not that I fucking know what Earl wants anymore. She’s driven him crazy, you know.”

  Orfeo nodded. “Is she in there?” he asked at last.

  “Oh, she’s in there, along with the few other crazy motherfuckers who are just too plain stupid to get out of this city. They’re more scared of how they’ll keep their addictions going than the goddam hurricane.”

  “And I guess we’re just as stupid as them for staying here.”

  At this, Papa started to laugh again, his eyes glittering as he regarded Orfeo. “You’ve got guts, boy. I’ll give you that. Shame you’re going to die, but you’ve certainly got guts.”

  Not bothering to respond, Orfeo began to step forward in order to pass Papa and enter Hades, but the older man placed a firm hand on his chest. “Not so fast. I’ll let you in, but you’ve got to pay the price first.”

  “The price?”

  “Yes, the price.”

  “I don’t have any money.”

  Papa snorted at this. “You ain’t got nothing I want—nothing at all except for that voice of yours. I heard it once, and damn me if I ain’t ever forgotten it. Sing for me, boy. That’s my price.”

  Staring at the older man, whose face now was stern and unforgiving, Orfeo nodded slowly. Drawing himself away from Papa, he stared at him in silence for a moment.

  As he closed his eyes, Orfeo felt the wind blowing around him and P
apa. That was good: the storm was coming, its breath rising before it. For too long he had been silent, his voice lost, but now he could draw upon the divine whirlwind, take its breath as his own.

  When first he opened his mouth, his voice croaked and rasped, unfamiliar with the sensations that rippled from his painful chest, dragging itself up through his throat and between his lips. His gift, the gift he had been born with, had never seemed so strange to him. As the words escaped from him, however, so his voice deepened, the rich baritone stronger even than the storm’s messenger, surrounding Papa with a spell he could not resist.

  “Life’s best is over,” Orfeo sang, his melody quiet at first, rising only slowly, “is beyond your reach, and all you can hope for is not to be. Come, come, come, accept the wisdom I teach: accept you are dust and find joy in me.”

  The breath of the hurricane filled his lungs as he spoke, its thunder was in his voice, swelling his words with a supernatural power.

  “The hounds of madness fly to the mountain

  and feed on the flesh of the wild kid goat,

  Maenads dance and drink from the fountain

  of sacred blood wine, cool fire in the throat.”

  Now he felt the divine madness of the storm in his eyes, falling as a flood of tears that would wash this world away.

  “The frenzy is holy, but only when pure,

  for I am most just, omnipotent power:

  whirling in heaven’s storm I shall endure

  the lightning I bring, the winds that devour.

  Most terrible god, most pleasant to man,

  ecstasy’s gift within each mortal span.”

  As he ceased, so his words seemed to echo in the wind and Papa looked about him, an expression of trepidation on his face. Then, hearing something else in the air, he turned back to Orfeo. His eyes were clear and he seemed to regard the young singer with a sense of understanding.

  “Life’s best is over,” he said at last, his voice barely audible above the breezes that plucked his clothes more violently now. “Go on, get in there. Before I change my mind.”