by Lara Parker
“What happened to the wealthy man?” she had asked.
“He was killed by his own Negroes. He died for his sins, yes he did. Oh, that house has a long and ugly history.”
Angelique became more and more anxious as the cart moved steadily toward the forbidding structure.
“This isn’t our home, is it?”
“Yes.”
“But it’s so dark and gloomy!”
When the slave brought the pony to a halt, her father jumped from the cart and came around to her side. He reached for her and placed her on the ground. His hands were icy cold where they touched her skin.
Then Angelique saw several other little girls her age she knew from school, dressed as she was, in white festival dresses. Why were they here? They all began to walk toward the great house, and she could hear some of the other girls whimpering softly. Her father’s hand closed more tightly on hers, and he nearly jerked her off her feet as he strode along. She trotted to keep up.
Many people from the village were there as well, and it was because of them her father had been scowling, but now he ignored them. They were huddled along the path and stood watching the procession. She looked around his dark legs and recognized some of her friends: Celine, Marie-Therese, Sophia—island girls of light color who lived in other little houses along the shore. They proceeded in a long line toward a great iron gate in the wall.
And then she saw the chapel. It was a small building in the courtyard with a cross above the door. Suddenly she thought with a cold flash of fear that this must be the “communion” the sisters had told her about, when girls were taken into the church. “First Communion”—that was it! And at once she was terrified. She was already ten, and she didn’t know her catechism. She was supposed to learn it, but she had barely begun to memorize the Twenty-third Psalm. “The Lord is my Shepherd…” What was a shepherd? Was the Lord the Bon Dieu? Or was he Damballah? She couldn’t remember.
And why were the village people so worried? They murmured to one another, their white faces grim and frowning. Some whispered and pointed in her direction. Others shook their heads and made the sign of the cross. Was it because she was so small? She would fail the catechism because she had not learned it in time. She was wicked, and she would disgrace her father.
She looked up toward the castle, at its turrets and rounded walls. Now that the sugar cane was gone, the jungle had reclaimed the peninsula. Vines inched up the balustrades and across the parapets. As she drew closer, Angelique could see where tangled trunks of lianas snaked along the stones, and drooping foliage clung to the walls like moldy seaweed. They passed through the iron gate as tall as a ship, and crossed a bridge over a moat of slimy water. The dark chapel loomed in front of them like a mausoleum.
Suddenly, resolutely, she stopped and pulled back on her father’s hand. He frowned and looked down.
“What is it?” he said with feigned gentleness. “What is it, my angel?”
“I don’t want to go in there.”
She was surprised by the sound of her own voice; it was sharp and clear. Its sound gave her courage, and she began to think of running back through the gate and down the road. Where was he taking her? She belonged with her mother. What right had he to take her anywhere? She had no reason to obey him. She wrenched her hand from his grasp and thrust it behind her back.
“Take me back! I don’t like the church!”
Sudden rage darkened her father’s visage, and his eyes narrowed. He struggled for composure; the curl of his lip was shiny, and his teeth glistened. He knelt heavily to be on her level and looked in her face.
“Listen to me, Angelique…”
“I want to go home!” She felt hysteria welling up, and she thought of how her mother would have challenged him. She would scream, bite, kick, whatever it took. But she would not take another step toward the terrible chapel. She watched her father battle the forces inside him. His eyes were like fiery agates, and his breath came in hot spurts against her cheeks.
Defiantly, she turned on her heel and ran. Immediately she heard his heavy step behind her. Then, suddenly he caught her and pulled her into his arms, smothering her against his rough jacket.
“Listen to me, Angelique!” His whisper was harsh in her ear. “Think back to the day when I came to your mother. When I was so ill. Do you remember? I had the fever, and I was ranting and out of my mind.”
It was true; she did remember. He had staggered into their house by the sea, babbling and wild-eyed, his tongue black and thick in his mouth. Her mother had watched impassively as he had heaved himself upon their mat, squirming on the quilt, ripping the worn cotton patches.
* * *
“Cymbaline! You must help me. My head is exploding! Please … please … if you ever cared for me, for…” His eyes jerked, and the whites showed at their rims as he caught a glimpse of her. “For the sake of the child, don’t let me die!” Her mother had sauntered to his side, placed a hand on his chest, and listened. After that she had gone to her basket and taken a downy gull’s feather from a small sack.
Angelique had watched as her mother knelt beside her father and held the feather to his mouth while it quivered with his breath. Then she had closed her eyes and placed two fingers on the side of his neck, muttering to herself. After a moment the woman had risen and looked down at him, her hands on her hips and a wry smile on her face.
“You are not dying, Theodore Bouchard,” she said. “And your pain is of your own foolish doing. Some drink, no doubt. Some drug to make you manly and full of your wicked self, no?” Her mother’s voice was sweet with contempt. “Some magic potion to make your member hard and huge! No, I will not help you!” She had turned away and gone about her tasks, ignoring him now.
But he groaned even more. “Bitter, jealous woman,” he muttered. “Vain vixen!”
“Yes, you are right about that.”
“For God’s sake, get rid of this … agony … this devil of a headache. It’s gone on for days now. It’s no drug. It’s … it’s…” his eyes were bulging, “the fever! It’s one of those wretched Negroes who hates me. My favorite shirt is missing from the wash. I know … I’m certain, one of those miserable black demons has taken it and used it as a shroud. Do you hear me, Cymbaline? There is a body … a rotting corpse somewhere wrapped in my clothes, and I am dying! Do something, damn you! Take some hair … some … some blood! Cymbaline! Help me, you filthy wretch!”
Grabbing the kitchen knife, he waved it at her, to bleed him, but her mother turned her back on him and began to sing a soft island song to drown out his complaints. Then, lifting her basket to her head, she took the wash out to hang under the banana trees. Angelique followed her into the garden. Green rows of well-tended peas and yams stretched at her feet. Her mother set the basket down beside a cucumber vine.
“Come take one end, darlin’,” her mother said. She loved to help her mother hang the pareus in the wind. Each one was a faded field of flowers, soft and multihued, like the coral under the sea. She lifted the flapping cloth and let herself be drawn into the colors, touching them with her mind.
Her father lay grunting and moaning on the mat.
“Angelique…”
He had called her name. She turned, amazed that he would speak to her. Curious, she put down the pins and went in to him, walking slowly to where he lay. She remembered how black he had looked, under his pale skin. She couldn’t see the light that pulsed from other people’s faces. She wondered where his light had gone and thought it must have been sucked in by his pain. She reached out her small hand to find it, and her fingers had grazed his forehead. He sighed so deeply she snatched her hand away.
“No-o-o-o…” he had whispered, “stroke my forehead, my little angel.” Hesitant, she touched his head again. “Ah-h-h-h … your hand is cool, and your fingers … yes, that’s it … push away the pain.” Hesitantly, she pressed on his temples, moving her fingers up his brow, into his hair, then stroking down to his neck, tugging at the soft skin,
digging for the lost light. And, to her amazement, with a long guttural sigh, he had fallen asleep.
* * *
This all came back to her in a moment as he held her smothered against his chest. His arms squeezed the bones of her back, and her face was pressed against the scratchy fabric of his coat. She breathed in the musty odor of his body. Then he jerked her away from him and stared down into her face. His beard moved as he spoke, and spit flew out of his mouth.
“I knew! That day I knew! You are not like these other girls. They are miserable and weak! You have the power to change what you are about to see. To transform it with your mind.” His voice was insistent. “Nothing is real, unless you will it to be!” His fingers clenched her shoulders, digging into her skin. “Make me proud of you…” he breathed a moment, then his voice fell to a raspy whisper, “my … daughter.”
At that moment the stone of her heart opened a little, and it was as if a trickle of water flowed out, like a tear.
“I will try.”
He took her by the hand and led her forward. At that moment she would have given her life to please him.
But they did not go in the front of the chapel, and Angelique began to think her fears had been senseless. Instead, the small procession moved into the flagged courtyard and approached the back of the building. There they stopped. Angelique saw the deep-grained wood of a door with heavy iron hinges that yawned open above an underground room.
Once again he whispered to her, his voice hissing in her ear. “No crying out. Do you hear me? Whatever you do, don’t blubber or shriek. What you see is not real. It is all a trick!”
The other children, suddenly aware they were to be sent into this room alone, began to moan. They clung desperately to their parents, terrified of being separated. Another sound, a mournful howling deep from within the castle walls, sent a shiver through them all. Angelique felt the fear rising in her stomach.
Her father tugged at the heavy door and pushed her forward, and her head swirled as she felt herself shoved down into the darkness with the others. The door closed on the light, and suddenly she was standing in total blackness on cool earth. The damp wall was behind her, and she placed her palms back upon its stones. She could smell something rank and familiar. Some memory of something she had known before drifted into her mind, then vanished. The reek of dead flesh hung in the air, and again her stomach knotted as she hovered close to the other girls, too frightened to make a sound. They formed a tight cluster like intertwining snakes, their breaths wispy and shivering, all of them trembling, afraid to move. One of the girls began to sob softly.
There was a swishing movement in the blackness, the sound of something exploding, then sconces high on the wall brought the scene to life. As one mass, the girls gasped and shrank back from the sight.
On the floor in the center of the room was the head of a wild boar, ripped from the body. The coarse black fur was spiked with blood. Bone and gristle protruded from the neck, and yellow tusks curved from the gaping mouth. The beady eyes caught the light of the fires and stared out, as if alive, the death terror still shining there.
Children screamed hysterically and threw themselves against the door, scratching and beating it with their fists, sobbing for their fathers. But Angelique pulled away. She thought the other girls were silly, as she did when some girl at school shrieked at the sight of a spider. A vague curiosity filled her mind as she stared at the animal’s garish visage. She knew it was real, that it was no trick, and that her father had lied. But she also knew, as ferocious as it looked in the flickering light, there was no way it could harm her. It was dead.
Then she heard a whimpering and a scraping sound, a scuffling, and a mournful chorus of whines that stopped her breath and lifted every hair on her head.
Animals—and these were alive—were scratching at the wood of a separate door in the wall, clawing to be let in. The door sprang back, and six wild dogs sprang forth in a fury of growling and ravenous snapping, with teeth bared and sides heaving. They leapt upon the head of the boar, and, in their eagerness, clawed at the backs and necks of their own kind, biting in feral savagery with yelps and vicious snarls.
The girls had stopped their crying and were huddled together, breathing one breath, their eyes huge, faces blotched, noses red and watery.
Angelique was silent as she stood apart. She watched, fascinated and confused, as the dogs devoured their bloody meal. She struggled to understand, but her mind was a swirling blur. Her father had come for her. Why had he brought her here? How could he have thrust her into this place?
Anger rose in her chest and roared in her ears like the droning of bees. Suddenly she wanted to punish him, make him regret this cruel abandonment. Her father in name only. Suddenly, she hated everything about him: his hands cumbersome and graceless when he lifted her, his insistent voice: “Make me proud of you!” She felt a weakness in her limbs and ached for the warm safety of her mother in the house by the sea. She sucked in her breath. He had asked her to be brave. She had only to stand and wait.
At that moment her heart jumped; the largest dog turned and looked at her. His eyes were glowing, his muzzle painted with blood, and his lips wrinkled up to his nose, exposing his gleaming fangs. A low rumble quivered in his chest, and he gathered, ready to leap. She knew she was helpless to stop him, but she stood motionless, her mind focused in some other dim place and time. Slowly, she reached for the charm that hung at her neck and pressed it between her fingers. She felt the tiny skull.
The dog growled again and crouched deeper, his eyes like burning coals. Angelique could hear now the keening of the other girls, but she was more hypnotized than afraid. Something was familiar here, some memory or dream, but what it was she could not pull into her conscious mind.
The dog inched toward her. She could feel his hot breath on her ankles and smell the sour blood on his jowls. Wise enough not to move, she stood frozen, searching for a means to save herself. If only she knew more of her mother’s magic. Invisible forces were everywhere—winds that tore the trees and currents in the sea too strong to swim against. If only she could become invisible as the wind, fade into the wall, lose herself in the cold stones.
She heard the dog growl again, the warning before the leap. But it was not pain she feared; it was failure—failure to be worthy of her father’s faith and her mother’s love. She would not cry out. She locked eyes with the dog, willing to be devoured, almost eager to … to what? To begin her life again? The dog’s gaze was vacant and indifferent. Then some inner demon flickered in his eyes, and they became two flames. His mouth with its cruel, reddened teeth seemed to curve into a fiendish grin.
I have been waiting for you …
Her skin shrunk with a creeping cold. Did she imagine that he spoke to her? Not in any language or voice, but in a dark thought that floated through her. Or, was it only another growl from deep in his stomach?
For a long moment he stared at her as if to see whether she had heard, or felt, his message, and she stared back, into his flaming eyes. Then he bent his head and sniffed her ankle with the tip of his nose. She froze, waiting for the jaws to open. But instead, he merely licked her foot, his hot tongue leaving a bloody mark. Then, slowly, he turned away from her and bent again to his grisly meal.
Four
The door flew back. Light poured in. The dogs cowered from the whip. The girls collapsed in their guardians’ arms, sobbing with relief. Angelique walked into the sunlight. Her father was surrounded by other planters, and he seemed exuberant as they congratulated him, some pressing money into his hand. They all spoke at once.
“Well, you won that bet, Bouchard!”
“Amazing! I’ll have to say that. Simply stunning, she was … wherever did you find her?”
“Good God! I should never have made that wager with you, Theodore!”
“Just think of it as a cockfight, Luis”—her father laughed—“except that if it had been a cockfight, you would have lost far more.”
&nbs
p; “So that’s what’s put you so deeply in debt,” said another man.
“It’s my cross, Jacob—gambling, wretched gambling. And this”—he lifted his fistful of bills—“pays all my debts. What’s more, now they have another little goddess to keep them happy!”
“Just not too happy, let’s hope—”
One of the planters, dressed extravagantly in a green riding jacket and tall boots, bent down, glared at Angelique, then straightened and slapped her father on the shoulder.
“Well-done, well-done, my man!” he cried. “A little beauty! Keep your coins on the pile so to speak, eh?” His skin was blotchy from too much drink, and his words were slurred. “S’pose this makes you the master here. At leas’ for a while. Very good for the purse, that. Very good indeed.”
“Let’s hope so, Luis.”
Angelique looked up to her father, expecting some praise.
“Was I brave?” she asked. A younger planter stared at her with some interest. He was of stocky build and wore a white shirt open over leather pants; his expression was serious and his demeanor earnest.
“She has huge eyes—of such a flowering blue—why, she can’t be more than nine or ten years,” he commented.
“Yes, it’s a shame that her skin is so light,” said her father. “In another time, a better fate might have been waiting for her.”
“And you would sacrifice her to your shameless gambling debts?”
“No, no, it’s more than that, much more—” Her father moved away. It seemed he did not want her to hear what he had to say. “Nasty business yet to come.”
“I can’t believe you look forward to that,” Luis muttered under his breath.
“Aye, but they want it, don’t they?”
“What do they call the sacrifice? ‘Debatement’?”
“No, they call it Manje Lwa or mange loa…” and Theodore laughed.
“Oh, yes! The fountain of youth, and all that rubbish!”
“Reminds them all of home. Flesh of a child, time out of mind, and so forth. Listen. They’re already drumming.”
