The Black God's Drums

by P. Djèlí Clark

  “Ma maman kept me away from her customers.” This makes the captain flinch, but I just shrug. “It was work. She didn’t have no shame in it. And I don’t have no shame for her. I used to see you, though, coming here as crew with other Free Islanders, before you had your own airship. You couldn’t have been much older than me.”

  “And how old is you now?” she probes.

  “Sixteen,” I declare, trying to sit up a little taller. She frowns dubiously. “Fine, fifteen,” I amend. She frowns further. “Fourteen,” I mutter. I refuse to admit thirteen.

  The captain barks a laugh. “I was well past nineteen before I jumped on any airship! My grandmother would have put licks on my backside if I was even thinking it so young. At your age, all you should be studying on is your schooling and how some boy might like you so and dreaming about when you marry.”

  I make a face. Next thing she’ll have me in frilly dresses and ribbons. “You don’t seem to like boys,” I remark.

  This actually makes her smile. Her teeth are straight and white as pearls. “Don’t think because you playing sneak-foot behind me that you does know my mind,” she reprimands in a firm tone. “I like boys—men. Sometimes. And I get my schooling!”

  “So, you plan to get married?” I say mockingly, folding my arms.

  She snorts loudly. I almost smirk at that. Hard not to admire a woman who’s not afraid to let out a good snort. “Not if I can help it. Eh! Stop with all these blasted questions! I a grown woman, and I don’t need answer to you!” I watch as she swings her legs over the edge of the bed. And it’s then I notice one of them isn’t whole. Her right leg is only a thigh of smooth brown skin fitted snug into a metal casing; the rest is made of twisting copper rods that flex like muscle and bone. There’s a steel ball joint where a knee should be and the calf is covered by a leather brown boot. So that explains the limp. She didn’t have that when she visited before. I open my mouth to ask about it then clamp it back shut. None of my business.

  She looks up to me, noticing my staring—and suddenly there’s light. Gold like the sun, so much it hurts my eyes. She’s bathed in it, all through her twisted coils of hair and covering her skin. I blink and the light’s gone, leaving twinkling stars in her eyes. In my head Oya thunders, pushing words from my lips I don’t mean to speak aloud.

  “Bright Lady!” I blurt out before I can stop myself. The rest blares through my thoughts. Oshun! The Bright Lady! Mistress of Rivers! Oya’s sister-wife! Shango’s favorite! How hadn’t I noticed it before? So that explained Oya’s odd emotions, the jealousy and familiarity. More than one goddess shared this room.

  The captain goes stiff as a beam at my words and her eyes narrow. So she knows about the goddess hovering about her, then. I can see it in her face, in the way her lips are pressed together all tight. But she hasn’t accepted it. Well, that’s none of my business either. I turn my head and say no more.

  The magic of those old Afrikin gods is part of this city, ma maman used to say, buried in its bones and roots with the slaves that built it, making the ground and air and waterways sacred land. Only we forgot the names that went with that power we brought over here. Since Haiti got free, though, those gods were coming back, she’d said, across the waters, all the way from Lafrik. Now here’s two of them in a bordello in New Orleans. Who knows what that means.

  In the awkward quiet, the captain stands to slip back on her britches, then her remaining boot. “I’m going to find my crew,” she tells me finally. “See if they think you talking true or just trying to sell me one big nancy-story. Wait here. I’ll be back.”

  She buttons her Free Isles jacket and walks to the door.

  “What’s your name?” I call out quickly.

  The captain turns back to me, hesitant before deciding. “Ann-Marie,” she answers. “Ann-Marie St. Augustine.”

  “I’m Creeper,” I reply. She pauses at that. Everyone does. But she nods.

  I wait until she’s gone. Then I disappear through the window into the night.

  * * *

  The next morning, I sit at the telegraph station near the Cabildo on Chartres Street in Emancipation Square. It’s the most used one in the city, where all the finely dressed ambassadors and diplomats in top hats go to get their encrypted messages. If I figure things right, the captain should be here. I idle my time reading the day’s Crescent broadsheet. Front page is mostly filled up with all the festivities, today being the Monday before the Maddi grá. Everybody just waiting for King Kwamena and King Deslondes to arrive on the Big Miss and lead the Night March, honoring the slave uprising of Afrikins and Creoles way back in 1811. The celebration used to kick up such a ruckus—what with all the poorer folk, street people, Guilde gangs, and like involved—that it got banned. But the City Council brung it back and made it proper, so that “respectable ladies and gentlemen”—so the broadsheet say—can take part. Say it’s a good way to remember the unity that keep free New Orleans strong.

  I’m dusting the sugar off my fingers from some beignets and folding away the papers when the captain shows up around midmorning, alone. She’s easy enough to pick out, in that red and green Free Isles jacket ending at her waist with gold running on the lapels and cuffs. And there’s that limp. After going inside the telegraph station, she returns some time later, head down and reading a letter.

  “What does it say?” I ask, sidling up beside.

  She whirls about to see me, then glowers, those big eyes scolding. “I tell you to wait last night!”

  “So you could hand me over to Madame Diouf?” I accuse. “How stupid you think I am?”

  She don’t deny the charge, instead muttering, “Yuh a hard-headed child.”

  “And you don’t answer questions,” I retort, nodding to the telegraph. “What does it say?”

  I’m half expecting her to drag me back to Shá Rouj. But instead she grunts and answers: “That your story right. There’s a scientist in Haiti missing in truth. A man name Doctor Duval. He works on hydrometeorology and low altitude atmospheric modification. Might be the same one you hear about.”

  Hydro-Alti-Atmo what? The string of words make me dizzy just hearing them. But I keep my face blank—something you learn to do out here on the streets—as if I understand her plain as the day. “So what are we going to do?”

  She looks back down, eyebrows raised. “We? We not doing anything. I done send out some of my crew to ask around about this white-haired Cajun man.”

  I make a scoffing sound, rolling my eyes for emphasis. “That Hindoo, the stone-faced Haitian, and the big Chinaman?”

  “Nogai a Mongolian,” the captain responds. Catching my quizzical look before I can hide it, she explains. “The one you calling a Chinaman. He not Chinese.”

  I try to shrug it off. “What’s the difference?”

  “A whole wall,” she remarks dryly. “You see? This is why you need your schooling.”

  I sigh. That again? “Fine, Mongolian. Anyway, no one’s going to tell them anything. New Orleans folk don’t talk to outside folk about our business. And those three stick out like a big old caiman at a rooster’s ball.” I pause, waiting to add the last words: “Besides, I already know where your scientist is.”

  The captain’s head whips around to me, her eyes wider than I ever seen. She lunges at me then—grabbing my jacket and almost lifting me off my feet. Her swiftness catches me by surprise and Oya lashes out before I can stop her. There’s a rush of wind and the captain is pushed away, stumbling back on her booted heels and dropping me. She seems dazed for a moment but then starts at me again, eyes blazing.

  “I only just found out!” I say, backing off. Damn, the woman is quick! “I’ll take you there now! Just tell me we have a deal on me joining your crew!” She’s not stopping and a small bit of me starts to panic. “People are watching!” I hiss.

  The captain stops then, just noticing the stares we’re getting from passersby. Her face is a storm cloud. And for the first time, I’m all too aware she is a grown woman�
��quite taller than me and stronger too, much stronger. She seems to be thinking something over in the moment of silence that stretches on forever. Finally, clenching her fists and taking a deep breath, she says in a tight voice, “I’ll think on it.”

  For a moment, all I can do is stare. She’ll think on it? That’s it? I go through all this trouble and she’ll think on it? I want to shout back that she better think on it fast or there’s no deal. But that fierceness in her face says I best not. I know well enough when to press and when not to. And that ain’t no face ready to be pressed. I decide that think on it will have to do—for now.

  “Let’s go, then,” I say grudgingly, heated at being grabbed and even more about giving in.

  “Go where?” the captain demands, refusing to move. “How you know where he is?”

  That could get a little messy if I have to explain. “I have a source,” is all I reply.

  Her face turns even more suspicious, if that was possible. “What kind of source?”

  “The kind I can’t tell you about.” It’s the same way I knew your airship would be arriving, I want to say, but keep that to myself.

  “And how I know you not lying?”

  I throw up my hands. Could this woman be any more stubborn? “What good would lying do me? If you don’t find your scientist, I don’t have anything to trade! I want to find him as much as you do!”

  That seems to settle her doubts. I hope. At least for the moment. She motions for me to lead the way, but her face never changes.

  We walk down narrow streets bordered by a mix of buildings that carry pieces of New Orleans’s history: colourful two-story Creole structures with gilded balconies, patterned Spanish arches, narrow flat-fronted redbrick American townhouses, even big stone monstrosities with ancient-looking columns and scowling gargoyles. It’s all mostly quiet now, but come tonight and tomorrow these streets will be filled with people. Some are already masked, a few in headdresses of long feathers and others in the guises of animals, crescent moons, golden suns and other things. They dance in their ones and twos, wandering about to a set of goat-faced musicians blaring trumpets and strumming banjos. I hope we’re done with this business in time for me to catch the festivities. Might be one of my last for a while. I glance up to the captain’s face to find those storm clouds haven’t cleared none.

  “You still angry.” I sigh. No response. “I didn’t tell you about where the scientist was because I thought you’d leave me behind.”

  She waves me off. “I not mad about that—much.”

  I look over her face again, reading it properly this time. “You’re mad at the scientist. That he would sell your secrets.”

  She glares at me for a bit, like she’s angry all over again that I figured it out. Then she nods in admission. “That he ah traitor, yes. But more than that. What he doing, it damn irresponsible. Shango’s Thunder not something to play with.”

  “If it’s so powerful,” I venture, “then why don’t Haiti just give it to the Union? That way they could just whip those rebels and end the war for good. Everyone knows Haiti and the Free Isles run weapons up North. That you help supply old General Tubman in her guerilla war, blowing up Confederate munitions and smuggling out slaves. No matter what the armistice say. Figure that’s what you do on your airship.”

  Her eyes narrow. “Oh yes? What make you think so? More sneak-foot business?”

  “Don’t take no sneaking.” I point to the pistol in her holster. “That gun’s Free Isles issue, made for privateers. Your ship’s a cargo freighter, but I didn’t see you unload anything. Bet you aren’t taking on much either. That’s kind of funny, ain’t it? And no ordinary airship captain gets encrypted wires from Port-au-Prince.”

  A slight smirk plays on her lips. She’s impressed. Annoyingly, I find myself pleased at this and try not to smile back. “After France lose she fleet, she was set on getting back she colony,” the captain relates as we walk. “Napoleon send out three times as many ships as before, and he get all the great powers to join him. They was enemies, yes. But they come together to destroy Haiti. America agree too, even if she don’t take part. When Dessalines hear about that big fleet coming he know he can’t stop it with he small navy. All he generals say, let loose the Black God’s Drums! Turn the sky black again!” She stops to shake her head. “But Dessalines ’fraid that power. He ’fraid it too bad. When it use the first time, the storm not only mash up France’s fleet, it come up on land, cut through the whole island, kill hundreds—men, women, children. Storm don’t care who it take, you hear? It swallow up everything in it way.”

  “That’s how General Toussaint died,” I put in.

  The captain nods gravely. “The old people in Haiti say when the Black God’s Drums loose again, Papa Toussaint going to rise from the sea and lead an army of jumbie to conquer the whole world!” The thought sets Oya to rumbling laughter, and flashes of ghosts on horseback, galloping up from the waves to sweep across whole cities, fill my head. “So instead, Dessalines have he inventor, Duconge, make him another weapon—great big air balloons cast out of iron, filled with the very same gas we airships does use now. And each balloon carry men with the green sticky-sticky fire. Those balloons sail out one morning from Haiti and drop that sticky-sticky fire down on the invading armada right on the water.” She makes a whooshing sound, snapping her fingers. “It light all them ships up like a match—burn up everything. Men jump into the sea to get away, but the sticky-sticky fire keep burning even in the water. None of them leave alive! When Dessalines threaten to send those iron balloons across the sea and set fire to London and Paris, real fear catch the whites for the first time. They beg for peace. Dessalines demand they pay a big ransom, too—millions of francs. He make them give up all their slave colonies in the Caribbean, and the Free Isles was born.”

  I know that part. Everyone do. Lots of folk still name their sons—daughters too—for Dessalines. “So no one’s ever used Shango’s Thunder again?” I ask. “Not since that one time?”

  “No one schupid enough to do that,” the captain responds darkly. “These black storms that come every year now, what allyuh does call tempêtes noires. The ones that make your city build these big walls to protect itself. That some of Shango’s Thunder still in the skies. Houngan-scientists in Haiti say loosing that power just that one time mess up the whole weather. Just that one time, you see! If we start using it to fight . . .” She trails off, shaking her head.

  She don’t need to finish. I ain’t like the more well-off that can leave New Orleans when the tempêtes noires come, so I been through them every year. Spent enough time in the city shelters, clutching onto people I don’t even know and listening to them pray as the winds beat on the walls around us—sounding like a steam train about to plow right through. When I hold on to them, it’s not because I’m afraid. It’s because of Oya. She likes them black storms. And when they come, it’s all I can do to control myself. Truth is, I want to run out in the streets and dance in all that wind and rain, even knowing it’ll dash me to pieces. So, I stay in the shelter with people, so I can keep hold of myself.

  “Why you so set on coming on my ship?” the captain asks. The shift in topic catches me off guard. “This is where you raise up,” she goes on. “Why you want to leave it?”

  Fair enough question, I admit. I never been out of New Orleans, not once. Most other people I know can’t imagine being nowhere else. Talk about the city like nothing else exists. But spending time up on Les Grand Murs, watching all the airships and people coming in, make me want to see as much of this big world as I can. That don’t mean I like New Orleans any less, though. It’s too much to say, I decide. And I’m not sure how. I answer instead with my own question: “What made you leave your home?”

  The captain shrugs. “Trinidad nice. Real nice. But it not big enough to hold me. Whole world is my island.”

  “Same for me,” I say. She looks down and for once there’s something in those dark eyes like understanding. Then something
else is in there, something more guarded. It takes her a while to speak, and when she do her voice is low.

  “Last night, you say something to me about Oshun,” she all but whispers.

  There it is. I figured that had to come up sometime. Oya and her mouth!

  I just nod. If she want me to say more, she’ll have to do the asking.

  “How do you know? Is she . . . with you too?”

  I shake my head. “For me, Oya.”

  The captain’s eyes rise but settle just as quick. She don’t look like the type that stays surprised too long. “The sister,” she mutters. “That explain some things.” Her face folds into a frown, inspecting me up and down. “You some kind of santera or mambo? So young they does make you here?”

  “I’m not any of those things. The goddess is just . . . with me.”

  “Like you possessed?”

  It’s my turn to frown up at the woman. “You know that’s not how it works.”

  She huffs, muttering: “Yes, yes. Have to let them in. Don’t understand how all of them can be with we, and with they priests and all over the blasted place at the same time.”

  “They’re gods,” is all I answer. Really, it’s not complicated. I figured a long time back that what’s inside me isn’t the whole goddess Oya. Don’t think nobody could have all of her inside them. And she’s not just in one place either. She’s too vast and too big for that. I think it’s more like parts of her can be in many places at once, each of them different—but also the same, so that one set of people might even call her other names or see her with a different face. But even so, she’s always Oya. Alright, so maybe it is complicated.

  “It don’t bother you, then?” the captain presses. “Having she inside you? Knowing what you thinking?”

  Bother? I turn the strange question over in my head. Like asking if I’m bothered by my right arm. Me and Oya might quarrel some, but I can’t imagine putting up the fight this captain do. No wonder she’s always frowning.