Читать книгу Manchineel - John Ballem - Страница 8

The black case was no longer on the top shelf of the closet. Skye cursed his stupidity in not realizing that the case and its precious contents would be irresistible to voodooists. Adrienne. Damn her black heart! He had to retrieve the case before all that was left of Jocelyn was subjected to some hellish ritual. Maybe it was already too late. Probably not. Jocelyn’s ashes would be destined to play a starring role in tonight’s obscene ceremony and the climax wouldn’t come for some time yet.

Cursing Adrienne and his own stupidity under his breath, Skye raced across the lawn to the staff quarters. Although the night was warm and the breeze had died away, the windows were closed and tightly shuttered to keep out any spirits that might be roaming the night. Could Overfine have been in on it? No way. He and Agatha were both from St. Vincent and would have nothing to do with what Agatha scornfully called “them heathen orgies.” Rubbing his eyes, Overfine cautiously opened the door to Skye’s insistent pounding.

Skye told him to get dressed and explained what had happened. Overfine paused with one foot in his right pant leg and looked over his shoulder in wide-eyed disbelief.

“You ain’t planning on goin’ down to that place, are you, boss?”

“I am. And I would like you to come with me. But you don’t have to. Not if you don’t feel up to it. But I can’t let them do this to Mistress Jocelyn’s memory.”

That was the clincher, as Skye knew it would be. Overfine finished pulling on his pants.

“Don’t use the lights,” Skye said as Overfine’s hand reached for the switch on the jeep’s dash.

The native village sprawled down the far side of a hill. Ironically, it commanded the best view on the entire island. The Company had once considered moving it, but that came to naught because no one could agree on where it should be moved to. At the foot of the hill, Skye told Overfine to pull over to the side of the road and cut the engine. The sound of the three Rada drums was much louder now and grew steadily louder as Skye and Overfine walked up the hill, keeping well clear of the narrow asphalted road. Reaching the top, they skirted the darkened village. By Company decree, all the small wooden houses were identical. They were all painted white with green trim and were built on stilts to counteract the steep slope and to permit air to circulate underneath the floor. All were tightly shuttered. Those belonging to believers and non-believers alike. There were no non-believers, just non-practitioners. All believed completely and fearfully in the power of the voodoo gods.

The path branched off into a grove of casuarina trees, their jointed, leafless branches hanging motionless in the still air. Skye touched Overfine’s elbow and they stepped off the path and into the trees as they saw lights up ahead. A few yards further on, Skye whispered that Overfine was to remain there, out of sight. Overfine made as if to protest, then, seeing the determined look on Skye’s face, a look he knew well, nodded a reluctant acceptance.

“If things start getting out of control, you can run in and take the case from me,” Skye said as he moved away.

Reaching the edge of the clearing, Skye crouched behind a tree. There was little need of concealment. The worshippers were transfixed, intent only on what was taking place within the temple. Nor would there be any sentries. White people never ventured near the village after dark, and those natives who were not voodoo worshippers could be counted on to remain indoors, no doubt praying to their own god. The temple was a thatch-roofed shed with walls that extended half-way to the roof. Ostensibly it was a storage shed, but the items it stored, wheelbarrows, carts and wagons, were all designed to be easily removed when it was time for it to serve its true function as a tonnelle.

Skye nodded to himself as he spotted the old man with a pipe between his teeth, sitting on a chair outside the entrance to the temple. That was Papa Legba, keeper of gates and crossroads. Papa Legba was summoned early in the proceedings since his presence made it easier for the other gods to enter the temple.

The scene was lit with the harsh, baleful light of two gas lanterns, leaving large areas in shadow. Some fifty worshippers sat on the earthen floor, chanting in unison. Closer to the altar, young women dressed in white sat cross-legged. One of their number lay on her back, twitching and moaning. Those next to her stroked her as if praising her and seeking to share in her trance.

The altar was crowded with bottles of rum and wine, mounds of cornmeal, chunks of raw meat and cakes. Candles burned with clear, straight flames and wicks floated in coconut shells filled with oil. Adrienne, resplendent in a scarlet robe and feather headdress, traced a pentagram and other cabalistic signs in front of the altar with cornmeal poured from a bottle. Skye focused his binoculars on her as she straightened up and faced the audience. If he had not witnessed it before, he would have been shocked at the transformation. Her attractive, rather youthful face, with its air of good-humoured sensuality, was now a rigid mask beneath the black and scarlet plumes, lips drawn back in a ferocious snarling grin. The chanting rose and fell, interspersed with voices that soared above it in ululating solos. A shape in the semi-darkness to the right of the altar caught Skye’s eye and he zeroed in on it with the binoculars. It was Penelope dressed in a white tube top, rocking gently from side to side, her eyes closed. She seemed to be crooning to herself.

With the co-operation of Adrienne, Skye, who had a restlessly enquiring mind, had been an unseen witness to a number of voodoo rites. But tonight was different from the others. Tonight there was a palpable current of ecstatic fear, of deeper and darker mysteries that would unfold if the gods were willing. Skye knew only too well what would be used to tempt the most powerful of gods. He swept the area around the altar with the glasses. There was no sign of the plastic case. He knew it was there somewhere and tensed himself for action as soon as it appeared.

A man with a seamed, stubbly face approached the altar, holding a black cock out to Adrienne. While the altar servants held it, she drew a cross on its back with white flour. Another assistant crumbled a cake into the palm of her hand and she held it out to the cock. A moan of ecstasy went up as the cock pecked at the food. Adrienne stroked the fowl gently, then snatched it up and began a wild dance, whirling, holding the bird high over her head, its wings frantically fluttering, while the Rada drums beat an insistent tattoo. Then in one swift motion, she bit off its head and danced through the crowd, spraying the acolytes with the blood spurting from its neck, splattering their spotless white gowns with crimson.

Another black cock was brought in, and after a long suspenseful wait for it to peck at the food, was similarly sacrificed. This time Adrienne collected some of the spurting blood in a small bowl which she handed to a blood-splattered acolyte crawling on her belly across the floor. The girl took the bowl, drank from it, and slithered across the floor, offering it to the supplicating hands reaching out for the bowl. Damballa, the great serpent god, had arrived and mounted his “horse.”

A brown goat, tethered to a post at the far end of the temple, suddenly bleated in terror. With the intelligence of its kind, it realized that death was in the air. The altar servant helped the half-dazed Penelope to her feet and led her toward the altar, holding her tightly by the arm to keep her from stumbling. Her mother held out her arms to her, crying, “Damballa calls you! Come to the great Damballa!”

As Penelope half fell into her mother’s arms, another assistant led the little goat to the altar. The assistant knelt before it, rubbed its small hooves with oil, and traced a cross and circle on its forehead with blood from the cocks. Then he bowed low and held out some green leaves for the little goat to eat. Adrienne, meanwhile, was hugging Penelope, moaning and weeping as though they were to be parted forever. The altar assistant forced them apart, pushed the girl to her knees and held a bottle of rum to her lips. Her mother, once again the high priestess, her face a rigid mask, began to pour oil and wine over Penelope, working it into her hair and smearing her face and bare shoulders with it.

Penelope was on all fours, the palms of her hands flat on the ground, facing the goat. Adrienne, her arms outstretched, stood over them chanting over and over, “Damballa calls you. Damballa calls you.” Gradually the girl and the young goat grew quiet, staring into each other’s eyes, their foreheads almost touching, while red ribbons were tied on the goat’s horns and woven into the girl’s hair. As the priestess continued her monotonous chant the girl began a low, piteous bleating and the goat cried with a voice that was eerily human. The goat’s penis slipped its sheath and became fully erect and the girl’s nipples hardened under the thin cotton of her shift. She raised her eyes heavenward, exposing the curving line of her neck. A long, oblong bowl was slipped between the two heads and an assistant squatted on his heels and held out a branch covered with tender green leaves. He jiggled it slightly as if to attract their attention and a long sigh went up from the congregation as the girl began to nibble the leaves.

The mambo, holding a machete honed to a glistening edge, turned from the altar. The goat didn’t flinch as she touched its neck with the razor sharp blade, nor did it cry out as she deftly slit its throat. As the blood gushed into the wooden bowl, the girl, her body as taut and tight as a bowstring, leapt into the air with a strangled cry of agony, then sprawled senseless before the altar.

Skye left the shelter of the trees and sprinted across the clearing in a crouching run. A sacrifice such as this was intended to invoke a truly powerful god and he knew who it would be. Papa Legba had abandoned his keeping of the gate; he had turned his chair around to stare into the temple. Skye knelt by the chest-high wall and cautiously raised his head to peer over the top. His nostrils were immediately assailed with a rich miasma of smells—blood, human sweat, smoke from the oil lamps and other less identifiable odours.

The substitution sacrifice, so close to that most powerful of rituals, the dread sacrifice of the “goat with no horns,” had unleashed a frenzy of religious ecstasy. Two elderly women were carrying the unconscious Penelope off to one side where they would tend to her. Swarms of loas descended from the roof and sought out their favourite mounts. Nearly half the people were “possessed,” rolling on the ground, or prancing through the audience with up-stretched arms and rapt, trance-like expressions. One of the young acolytes stood up and began to rip off her bloodstained gown, shredding the flimsy cloth with frantic fingers. A muscular youth, bare to the waist, slipped out of the crowd and began to dance with her.

The Rada drums spoke in a rolling tattoo like muted thunder, and the frantic activity within the temple ceased as though time had stopped. Eyes rolled heavenward as the drums beat out an imperious summons. Would the great god come to them? A sibilant whisper of indrawn breath swept through the crowd of worshippers as Baron Samedi appeared before them. As always the loa was wearing a top hat, a long black frock coat, and tattered striped pants. He also wore dark sunglasses to signify that death was blind. Adrienne bowed low in obeisance to the god, her plumed headdress almost touching the ground. Kneeling, eyes fixed on the ground, she held out the gleaming black case to the “keeper of cemeteries.”

Skye vaulted over the wall and dashed toward the altar, jumping over the bodies that lay moaning and writhing on the earthen floor, avoiding an acolyte and her partner masturbating each other, and pushed aside a man who staggered into his path, his eyes glazed either with rum or a trance of possession. No one tried to stop him; their dazed minds were incapable of reacting to his sudden appearance. But an ominous growl went up when he tore the case from the god’s grasp. A quick glance at Baron Samedi’s face told Skye that he had never seen the man before. Undoubtedly he would be a high-ranking houngan from one of the other islands. It was impossible to see his eyes behind the dark glasses, but his deeply lined face was expressionless and he reeked of rum. As a god, he would have been stuffed with rum and food before being summoned. He offered no resistance as Skye grabbed the case from him. Out of the corner of his eye Skye saw Adrienne’s hand stealthily reaching for the bloody machete lying on the altar. He was closer to it, and picked it up before she could reach it. “Snap out of it, Adrienne!” he barked. “You’re in over your head.” But she seemed not to hear him.

Holding the machete down at his side, he turned to face the crowd. The sacrilege he had committed against Baron Samedi had shocked some of them back into consciousness. Skye noted grimly that most of those who had regained their senses were men. Scowling, muscular men. He stole a quick sideways glance at Adrienne. The hard lines of her face were beginning to soften. Standing next to her, Baron Samedi seemed scarcely aware of his surroundings. Skye lowered the machete to the ground and began to walk toward the exit. Two men, field workers from the look of them, moved to block his path. Holding the case in both hands, he pointed it at them and they fell back, crossing themselves. Other members of the congregation also hastily crossed themselves and recoiled from the dread object, leaving Skye an unimpeded path to the exit.

“Stay under cover, Overfine!” he hissed as he saw a movement in the trees. Overfine, who had been about to leave the protection of the casuarinas to join his boss, immediately recognized the wisdom of this advice and remained where he was. There was no point in letting his friends and neighbours know he had played any part in this night’s business.

“What you gonna do with that thing, Master Skye?” Overfine finally mustered the courage to ask as he parked the jeep in the driveway. “It be powerful bad medicine.”

“Mistress Jocelyn loved this place more than any other in the world. She once said that when she died she wanted her ashes scattered on the ocean. That’s what I am going to do. Tomorrow night.” He walked around the hood of the jeep to stand beside his servant. “I want you to come with me, Overfine. So you can tell the people what has been done and that the ashes are gone. Will you do that? For her? I know it would comfort her to know that you were there.”

Overfine swallowed, then straightened his shoulders. “You can count on me, Mister Skye.” He looked at the case Skye was holding with an expression that was no longer fearful, but filled with tenderness. “And so can she.”

“Thank you, Overfine. Tomorrow I want you to spread the word about what we are going to do. That way people will know her ashes are no longer on the island.”