Cross Current - Kling Christine - Страница 26

When I returned and let Abaco off the leash in the backyard, she ran straight back to the dock where B.J. sat with legs dangling over the water. She licked his ears, and he scratched hers. She soon began groaning in pleasure as his magic fingers did their work. I smiled as I sat next to them. I could relate.

B.J. handed me an icy Corona. He was drinking from a plastic bottle of Florida spring water. “The food’s all ready, I just wanted to sit out here for a bit. Enjoy the river. How’s the little Earth Angel doing?”

“Not good. I mean, she’s recovering from the exposure at sea faster than expected, but something happened at the hospital today.” I hesitated, reluctant to tell the story again, but B.J. just waited quietly until I was ready to start.

We watched a small outboard chugging its way up the river as I talked. An older black man and a boy were in the inflatable dinghy, but with a mere four horsepower, the craft was barely able to make any headway against the current.

“I followed this one guy, a tall Haitian who was dressed and acting like an orderly. He seemed normal enough at the time. I even spoke to him, but I didn’t realize until later that he was probably the one who did it.”

“Did what, exactly?”

“Well, I don’t really know for sure. That’s where it gets weird. None of us saw it, and he was with her for only a few seconds. They couldn’t find any evidence that he had fed her anything or given her an injection, but now she acts like she’s drugged or in a trance. There’s a Haitian nurse who works there at Broward General. She as much as said that she thinks this guy put a curse on her. The kid won’t talk. She just stares straight ahead. She acts like a zombie.” I watched his face to gauge his reaction.

“Hmm. Zombies. Everybody in America hears ‘Haiti’ and thinks Voodoo and zombies.”

“I said like a zombie. I don’t think he really turned her into a zombie. I don’t believe in that stuff.”

“You don’t?” B.J.’s eyebrows arched high.

“Hell, no.”

“You might be surprised at what goes on down there. Don’t be so quick to write it off as silly superstition. There’s a great deal about this world that we still don’t understand, that our science can’t explain.”

“Come on, B.J., zombies?”

“Haiti is so close to the United States, and yet we know almost nothing about it. Did you know, you can do graduate work in world religions in this country and never study Voodoo? Yet they’re right there,” he said, extending his arm out in front of him, his flat palm indicating how close. “Like six million of them, and nearly all of them are Voodoo practitioners. There’s a saying: ‘Haiti is ninety percent Catholic and a hundred percent Voodoo.’ ”

I knew one of B.J.’s degrees was in comparative religions, but I didn’t know his expertise extended to Voodoo. “How much do you know about it?”

“Not that much. I’ve read some. I know that it is a real religion, even if to most Westerners it sounds like a bunch of superstitious mumbo jumbo. But if you think about it, Christianity would sound that way if you were hearing about it for the first time.”

“Okay, but we don’t go poking little pins in dolls.”

He rolled his eyes at me. “Sey, Voodoo is a monotheistic religion, which means its followers believe in one supreme being. Not so different, right?”

“Okay.” I smiled. It was really fun sometimes to poke at him when he got all serious. “But what about the zombies and the dolls?”

He ignored my question. “Voodoo originated in West Africa, and in the last three centuries, a lot of Catholicism has been blended into the mix. Voodooists believe in over two hundred different spirits, and many of them are now intertwined with Catholic saints. For example, an altar to their mother spirit—I forget her name—might include photos or statues of the Virgin Mary. They call upon these spirits much as Catholics call upon their saints.”

“Geez, B.J., should I be taking notes?”

He squinted. “You’re making fun of me.”

“No. It’s just that you’re very cute when you lecture.”

He smiled. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to get carried away. Sometimes I can’t help it.”

“I know.”

“I’ve just always felt that Haiti and her culture have gotten a bad rap. Like you said, you thought this child was acting like a zombie. That’s how most Americans see Haiti: black magic, Voodoo dolls, witchcraft, zombies. It’s not your fault. You’ve been fed that image. When a Voodooist enters into a trance—or is ‘possessed’—it is an absolutely amazing thing to see. I’ve only seen it on video, myself. These people are in altered states brought about by their spiritual beliefs. You said this girl Solange has had a curse put on her. Whether you believe in such things or not doesn’t really matter. We may not share her beliefs, but she is in an altered state, and she needs a hougan or a mambo to help her get out of it”

My head jerked up. “What did you say?”

“That’s what you call the priests and priestesses of Voodoo. The men are called hougans and the women are called mambos.”

“This morning I visited this woman, Racine Toussaint. Remember? From that card I found on the Miss Agnes? I met her husband, but I couldn’t see her, he said, because she was too busy. I liked him, but there was something creepy about the house and how he acted. But he referred to her as Mambo Racine. He asked me to bring Solange back to see the mambo."

“It could be your best bet for this kid. If it is Voodoo that has caused her to be in this state, it’s going to take Voodoo, not Western medicine, to cure her.”

I brought my heels up to the edge of the dock and wrapped my arms around my legs. Part of me wanted to curl into a ball and make all this go away. “B.J., I don’t know what to believe. It was pretty strange today up in Pompano. I wish you could have been there. This house, this man, the way he talked about stuff I didn’t really understand. And then he got all agitated when I told him about the body of that woman who was found in the boat with Solange. He kept repeating her name over and over. He said, ‘Erzulie, Erzulie, I wonder if Mambo Racine knows’ or something like that.”

B.J. snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “That’s it. That’s the name I couldn’t remember. Erzulie is the name of the Voodoo mother spirit.”

B.J. had already set the table with place mats and napkins and little paper packets of wooden chopsticks. All the junk that had been on the table was neatly stacked on the bar that separated my kitchen from the combination living room/ dining room. In the center of the table was a plate that contained what looked like an assortment of colorful little packages, like a miniature birthday party. None of it looked like anything I would refer to as food.

“What’s that?” I pointed to the pile of presents.

“Sushi,” he said with a mischievous smile. “You’re gonna love it.”

That was B.J. He knew very well that I was not going to love it. I don’t like being forced to try new things. Especially pretty things. Food was not supposed to be that pretty.

I piled twin peaks of white rice and some kind of noodles onto my plate and then took the smallest, least fancy-looking little package. B.J. just sat there beaming.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” I asked him.

“Yeah, eventually. I just don’t want to miss any of this.” He nodded in the direction of my plate.

With the wooden chopsticks in hand, I grasped the sushi roll and nibbled a little off one end. It wasn’t half bad. B.J. looked so expectant. He didn’t think I could do it. Just to show him I wasn’t a total wuss, I chomped off a big bite.

The heat started to grow in my mouth. In an instant, my tongue felt like it had turned into glowing charcoal briquettes. After nearly tripping over my chair, I made it to the fridge, grabbed a beer, twisted off the top, and began to chug-a-lug.