Cross on the Drum

by Cave, Hugh

  And Alma Lemke—what was on her mind? Leander Mitchell hadn't mentioned the Lemkes, but if they were in the habit of attending services now and then, it would be a great boost for the church. A plantation manager was a man of influence, a lot bigger in the social scheme than a new minister.

  Her costume struck him as odd for church. Trousers, of all things. Her blouse was modest enough, a long-sleeved affair with a sort of collar—but trousers! He was puzzled, even a bit shocked, until he realized suddenly that she must have come on horseback; the plantation was a journey of several miles. He smiled at his stupidity. She saw him and smiled back.

  When it came time for the offering, he asked Felix Dufour, whose white trousers gleamed this morning, to pass the plate, and led a hymn while the little man did so. The plate when returned to him contained five small coins and two single dollar bills. Alma had dropped one of the bills in, he guessed. The other had come from Dufour himself. He nodded solemnly at the magistrate before turning to the altar. At least there was one honest man on Ile du Vent.

  "Praise God from whom all blessings flow," he sang, and was pleased to hear them singing with him. Then, as the service drew to a close, he heard the drums.

  He stood motionless before the altar, aware that his little congregation was watching him and waiting to see what he would do. They must have known, of course. All of them but Alma Lemke, at any rate. Sunday morning was no usual time for a vodun service. Most unusual, in fact. To hold one at such a time, Catus would have had to announce his intentions beforehand. He let his gaze travel from one face to another. On Lucy's he saw indignation. Louis Cesar and his wife seemed embarrassed. Dufour gazed innocently at the underside of the iron roof.

  He frowned at Micheline. She was adjusting the neckline of her dress.

  He was very angry. "The grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore. Amen." He knelt for a moment, trembling in his anger, rose from his knees, and strode down the aisle in silence. Without looking back he crossed the clearing to the rectory at a fast walk. His hands still shook as he removed his vestments and hung them up.

  When he had drunk a glass of water he went out again, carrying the saddle and bridle he had bought from Dufour and striding a straight line to the edge of the clearing where the gray mule was tethered. His congregation stood outside the church, watching him.

  He saddled the mule quickly and swung his leg over. It was a bit like a scene from a Western movie, he thought: the crowd standing tense and silent, watching the young sheriff mount his trusty horse to ride out and hurl his challenge at the forces of evil. He gave the animal his heels and it reared under him, pawing the air with its forefeet, and then answered his knees and took off at a run. It was a good mule, a bit hard to manage but strong and sound. Perhaps they were waiting to see if it would give him a bad time. Only Lucy knew that he had been on its back before, putting it through its paces around the clearing.

  HE HAD NO TROUBLE locating the ceremony. The sound of the drums would have led him to it even if he had not known where the hounfor was. Dismounting at the gate in the cactus hedge, he tied the mule to a gatepost and hurried into the yard.

  From a chair in the doorway of the Cesars' house an old woman looked up at him in surprise. She was watching the child, he supposed, while the parents were at church. She said nothing and he went past with a nod.

  Directly in front of him was a packed crowd of people.

  He halted. A propulsive mixture of anger and curiosity had carried him this far. He had not thought of danger. Now he hesitated. The crowd filled an enclosure a hundred feet long and thirty or forty wide under a roof of thatch supported by poles, and swelled out toward him into the yard. To see what was going on in the center he would have to force his way through.

  He could leave if he wished. He had not been seen yet. Every back was toward him.

  He hesitated only a second, then stepped forward and used his hands. "Let me through, please." It was rather comical. They turned in anger to see who was pushing them, saw who it was, and made way for him. He had only to keep reaching and saying "Let me through, please." Then he saw a ring of white-robed women moving with quick, jerky steps about a painted central post, and geometric designs faintly outlined in white on the dark earth, and drummers bent over their instruments. He was aware of having propelled himself into a whirlpool of sound that deafened him. The women were chanting. The drumbeats bounced off him like blows. He came to a dead stop, confused and out of breath, not knowing which way to turn.

  Catus Laroche in a bright red shirt moved leisurely toward him. The drummers and dancers went on without missing a step or a beat but watched to see what would happen. The crowd through which he had forced his way closed in behind him, shutting off any possibility of retreat.

  Catus said, "Good morning, Father. This is unexpected."

  Barry wished the drums would be still for a moment. What a religion! How could they know what they were doing in such a din? How could they think? He turned his back to the drummers and looked at the houngan's outthrust hand. He accepted it. You had to shake hands.

  "What do you mean, holding a vodun service on Sunday morning?" he demanded. But his challenge had no force. It conveyed nothing of his indignation. To have spoken in anger above the thunder of the drums he would have had to scream and make himself ridiculous. The drums effectively reduced his words to a simple question.

  Catus shrugged. "This is a special kind of service, Father."

  "What special kind?"

  "Yesterday my sister's child walked on her injured foot. This is our way of thanking the loa for saving her."

  "Thanking the loa?" Blast the drums, Barry thought. How could you make a tone of voice mean anything?

  Catus smiled at his discomfiture and lifted a hand. The tumult diminished. The drummers still bent over their instruments, their hands were still a swift blur, but the sound dropped to a murmur. It was as though, by raising his hand, Catus had turned the dial on an overloud record player.

  "You were saying, Father?"

  Barry looked about him. They were all watching. The circle of faces had come closer. The dancers were barely moving their feet. He and Catus might have been actors on a stage before an audience hanging on every word.

  "You know very well what saved your sister's child," he said sharply.

  "Certainly. You did, Father."

  "Then why a demonstration such as this? Why couldn't you have come to church this morning and said your thanks properly?"

  "Because, Father, we are not sure who guided you in your efforts. Perhaps it was the God you believe in; perhaps it was one of ours. Try to understand, please. If it was one of the loa who told you what to do, and we neglected to show our gratitude, there could be trouble not only for the child but for all of us. Perhaps even for you."

  Barry looked into the houngan's face and saw no mockery. "You can't believe that."

  "We do believe it. We have no wish to offend you. All we do here is offer thanks."

  Barry shut his eyes for a moment and sighed. Would he ever understand these people? Ever reach them? They were still children; one could not reason with children. He looked again at the silent crowd. He could not be angry. He fashioned a wry smile.

  "How? How do you offer thanks?"

  Catus spoke to someone behind him. A chair was brought and the houngan invited Barry to sit. "I can't promise you the loa will come," he said. "In this case we don't know which one we owe thanks to, and may not have drawn the correct veve or performed the proper invocation. There are many loa. But if we have done what is necessary, and the loa does come, you will see how we offer thanks. Unless, of course, you prefer to denounce us as supersititious savages, as Père Mitchell did. In that case I would not advise you to stay. The loa would surely be angry."

  Barry sat. The chair had been placed some distance from the circle of dancing women, but he could see well enough. Catus, standing at his side, sign
aled the drummers and the sound was turned up full again. It became an uninterrupted thunder that crept through the hard-packed earth of the tonnelle floor to the soles of Barry's shoes and worked its way through the leather to his feet.

  He would have heard it even if he were deaf, he told himself. He would have felt the rhythm of it in the air that pressed against his chest, in the wobbly arms of the chair he sat on, in his blood. He remembered having read somewhere that the secret of vodun "possessions"—the strange business of a participant's thinking himself "mounted" by a god—lay in the hypnotic effect of the drumming. It could easily be true. In so many of these primitive religions drumming played a major role. The sound did something to one's mind. There was no question of it.

  He watched the three men at the drums and thought of the few times he had attended folklore performances in the capital. The drums there had been eloquent too, but not like this; there was a difference. At the folklore he had admired the drummers' technique, their showmanship. Here he sensed in them a fanatical devotion to the assigned task.

  There were three drums. The man at the largest made thunder with a hammer-shaped stick and his empty left hand. The one at the smaller central drum used a bow-shaped length of wood and a straight one. The smallest instrument was played with two slender sticks, rata-tat, rat-a-tat, in a nervous, rapid rhythm that never varied. The blended tones were overwhelming: an awesome thunder, a rhythm that forced one to respond to it, a relentless chattering staccato that set the nerves on edge. He wanted to scream at the players to stop. He wanted them never to stop.

  Catus had joined the dancers. It was not hard to follow his movements; the red shirt among the white robes was a blaze of color, a flag. Barry was lost in admiration watching it. At the folklore performances the dancers played to the audience, seeking applause, but Catus cared nothing for this audience. His dancing obsessed him. He had begun to spin and weave the moment he stepped through the ring of women. Now he whirled about the central post like a blur of scarlet paint spun in a bowl. He was a whirling flame. Without the red shirt to mark his passing he would have been only a spinning cone of shadow. It was incredible.

  The ring of women had widened to give him room. A girl stumbled over Barry's foot, caught herself and glanced at him with a foolish grin. The dance carried her away from him and he watched her, wondering. Had she been drinking? Perhaps that was the answer. He had read somewhere that there was little or no drinking at genuine vodun services, but it was hard to know what to believe. So much nonsense was written about vodun. And rum or clairin would explain so much of this . . .

  The women had come full circle again, with Catus a scarlet streak in the center and the sound of the drums growing louder with every beat. Suddenly one of the dancers threw her arms wide and became rigid, her body balanced on wide-spread legs and head flung back as though her back would break. She was directly in front of him. He pushed himself sideways to get out of her way. His chair tipped. He would have fallen to the ground had not a hand caught the back of his chair and held it. He turned his head. Micheline stood behind him.

  She paid him no attention beyond holding the chair until she was sure he had recovered his balance. Her gaze was fixed on the stricken dancer. It was the same girl, Barry saw then, who had stumbled over his foot.

  Therein lay the miracle. She had drawn his attention to herself before—unwittingly, he was certain—by stumbling against him. He had looked into her face and thought her drunk. If not a drunken face, it had been a stupid one. Now before his eyes she changed.

  Her rigidity vanished and she stood poised, swaying, her whole body undulating in rhythmic motion. She grew taller. It was no illusion; it had nothing to do with the drumming or the effect on his senses of Catus' incredible dancing; the girl grew taller. Inches taller. Her face lost its youthful stupidity and coarseness and became more mature, more serene, a thing of strange beauty. It was like a movie trick happening before his eyes, close enough for him to touch. Everyone in the place was aware of it. The drummers let their frantic hands flutter to a halt as they watched. Catus Laroche stopped whirling. A stillness flowed over the spectators.

  The girl turned to Catus and extended her hands. He looked into her eyes, frowning at her. She gestured impatiently. He took her hands and held them.

  She spoke softly, and Barry strained to catch what she said. He heard her but did not understand. It was a puzzling thing. She spoke Creole, or what sounded like Creole, but he could not translate it. She continued to speak. The tonnelle was a place of statues and held breath. Somewhere outside a dog barked. Another answered, farther off. Barry felt a shiver begin at his knees and travel to his shoulders, down his arms to the tips of his fingers. The girl turned to look at him.

  Step by step, still murmuring the Creole-sounding words that were not Creole, the girl led Catus Laroche to the chair on which Barry sat. Step by step Catus permitted it, his own face shining with sweat and his bare feet dragging themselves over the ground. The girl looked at Barry and spoke again. Barry understood nothing. Catus fell to his knees in front of her, violently trembling.

  For a moment the houngan knelt there, gazing up at her. His eyes rolled. Flecks of foam ran from the corners of his mouth. Suddenly his shoulders moved spasmodically and he dropped his head, pressing his lips to the ground at Barry's feet. Barry recoiled from him. The girl in the white dress stepped back.

  Behind him Micheline whispered fiercely, "Stand up! Greet her!" He rose. It was impossible not to. "I—moi dit bon jour," he stammered.

  The girl exhaled a long, shuddering sigh and Catus Laroche rose from his knees to peer into her face. Her features lost their strange beauty. She was dull-witted again. Catus took her by an arm and led her away. At once the drummers recommenced their infernal pounding.

  Micheline said quietly, "You may sit down again, mon Père. It is all right now. Aida Ouedo has gone."

  He obeyed. He fumbled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face, and the handkerchief came away soaked. Dazed, he watched the women in white bustling about at some sort of ritual involving the preparation and cooking of food, but in his mind all he could see was Catus Laroche kissing the ground between his dusty shoes. The rest, whatever it signified, was anticlimax. He supposed it was the actual thank-you offering to the god for saving the child, or for helping him to save her.

  The atmosphere of the ceremony had changed. There was laughter now. Catus returned, followed by the girl. She at once dropped onto a chair and sprawled there, grotesquely limp and seemingly asleep. No one seemed interested in her any more. Men and women faced each other, hands on hips, shuffling their feet in time to the drumming. Catus came toward him, scowling.

  "Well, Father?"

  An hour ago I was in church, Barry thought with a touch of panic. I was saying the benediction . . .

  "Is it finished? May I go now?"

  "You may go now. Perhaps you would like some coffee? Micheline would be glad to make you some."

  "No. No, thank you." He wanted to leave. It seemed important to get away from here, to go home. Yet something held him. Something kept him standing there, staring into the houngan's face.

  "I don't understand this, Catus."

  "If I may call on you this afternoon," Catus said, "I will try to explain."

  He nodded. That was it: a long talk in the peace and quiet of the rectory. Questions and answers. He felt immensely relieved.

  When he left, some of them spoke to him. The service was finished; the dancing now was a social affair and people had drifted into the yard. They stood around in groups. Some of those who spoke were people he had greeted on his walks to the village to see the sick child, people who had ignored him. Something had altered their attitude. Was it his work at the clinic or the the thing that had happened just now at the service? Or was it simply that he had come to the service? He would never understand these people.

  At the gate he paused to wipe his face again with his handkerchief. He would be glad to get home. A sh
ower, a chance to sit and think . . . He felt as though he had been drugged. Outside the gate a crowd of children had gathered, filling the path. The gate itself was a montage of round eyes peering at him. Go away, he thought. Go away, please. Leave me alone.

  They fell back as he opened the barrier and stepped through. Kids of all ages, from toddlers up. He made pushing motions at them with his hands, said "Scat!" and turned his back on them to untie the mule. He turned the mule and put a foot in the stirrup.

  He had no premonition of disaster. He had shooed the children back and was concentrating on getting into the saddle, an awkward task with the mule stepping sideways, forcing him against the cactus hedge with its inch-long thorns. He saw a boy dart from the group on the outside of the path but was putting a leg over the saddle and trying to turn the mule's head.

  He felt the beast lunge under him. He heard a noise, the sound a heavy fruit might make on falling to the ground from a tree. The children screamed and pointed to something behind him.

  He threw himself out of the saddle and saw the boy lying there in the path, at the base of the hedge. He saw blood. The mule had swung its rump against the hedge and he had to push it aside to get through. As he did so the beast kicked out again, missing him by a scant inch.

  He ducked past and pulled the fallen child out of range, yelling at the others to keep away. Only then did he see the handkerchief. It must have fallen from his pocket in his struggle to mount. The boy had run behind the mule to pick it up for him.

  He used the handkerchief to wipe away some of the blood, and felt a tightening in his throat. Good Lord, this was serious. The boy's chest looked as though a boulder had fallen on it. There were broken ribs, surely; perhaps worse. The lad was unconscious.

  He stood up with him and turned toward the gate. The mule had gone down the path a little way. The children were silent now, watching him. The grown-ups were hurrying from the vodun service.