by Rice, Anne
I thought I myself would give way to tears. I had been at many a deathbed. It is never easy but there is something crazily exciting about it, some way in which the total fear of death kindles excitement, as if a battle were beginning, when indeed, it is coming to an end.
“Talamasca,” she said again.
Surely, the priest heard her. But the priest paid no attention at all. His mind was not difficult to penetrate. He was only here to give the rites to a woman he knew and respected. The shrine was no shock to him.
“God’s waiting on you, Great Nananne,” said the priest softly, in a strong local accent, rather rural sounding. “God’s waiting and maybe Honey in the Sunshine and Cold Sandra are there too.”
“Cold Sandra,” said the old woman with a long sigh and then an unintentional hiss. “Cold Sandra,” she repeated as though praying, “Honey in the Sunshine … in God’s hands.”
This was violently disturbing to Merrick. It was plain from her face. Merrick began to cry. This girl, who had seemed so strong throughout, now appeared quite fragile, as if her heart would be crushed.
The old woman wasn’t finished.
“Don’t you spend your time looking for Cold Sandra,” she said, “or Honey in the Sunshine, either.” She gripped Merrick’s wrist all the harder. “You leave those two to me. That’s a woman who left her baby for a man, Cold Sandra. Don’t you cry for Cold Sandra. You keep your candles burning for the others. You cry for me.”
Merrick was distraught. She was crying without a sound. She bent down and laid her head on the pillow beside that of the old woman, and the old woman wrapped her withered arm around the child’s shoulders, which appeared to droop.
“That’s my baby,” she said, “my baby girl. Don’t you cry over Cold Sandra. Cold Sandra took Honey in the Sunshine with her on the road to Hell.”
The priest moved away from the bed. He had begun to pray in a soft voice, the Hail Mary in English, and when he came to the words “Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death,” he timidly and gently raised his voice.
“I’ll tell you if I find those two,” said Great Nananne in a murmur. “St. Peter, let me through the gates. St. Peter, let me through.”
I knew she was calling on Papa Legba. Possibly they were one and the same for her, Papa Legba and St. Peter. The priest probably knew all about it too.
The priest drew near again. Aaron stood back out of respect. Merrick remained with her head down on the pillow, her face buried in it, her right hand against the old woman’s cheek.
The priest raised his hands to give the blessing in Latin, In Nomine Patris, et filie, et spiritu sanctum, Amen.
I felt I should leave, out of decency, but Aaron gave me no signal. What right had I to remain?
I looked again at the gruesome altar, and at the huge statue of St. Peter with his Heavenly keys, very like the one I was to see years later—only a night ago—in Merrick’s hotel suite.
I stepped back and into the hallway. I looked out the back door, though why, I was uncertain, perhaps to see the foliage darkening as the rain fell. My heart was pounding. The big noisy wet drops came in the back door and in the front, and left their mark on the soiled old wooden floor.
I heard Merrick crying aloud. Time stood still, as it can on a warm afternoon in New Orleans. Suddenly, Merrick cried all the more miserably, and Aaron had put his arm around her.
It had been an awakening, to realize that the old woman in the bed had died.
I was stunned. Having known her for less than an hour, having heard her revelations, I was stunned. I could make no sense of her powers, except that too much of my Talamasca experience had been academic, and, faced with true magic, I was as easily shaken as anyone else.
We remained near the door of the bedroom for three quarters of an hour. It seemed that the neighbors wanted to come in.
Merrick was at first against it, leaning against Aaron and crying that she’d never find Cold Sandra, and Cold Sandra ought to have come home.
The child’s palpable misery was dreadful to us all, and the priest again and again came to Merrick and kissed her and patted her.
At last, two young women of color, both very fair and with obvious signs of African blood, came in to attend to the body in the bed. One woman took Merrick in hand and told her to close her godmother’s eyes. I marveled at these women. It wasn’t only their gorgeous colored skin or their pale eyes. It was their old-fashioned formal manner, the way they were dressed in shirtwaist dresses of silk, with jewelry, as if to come calling, and the importance of this little ceremony in their minds.
Merrick went to the bed and did her duty with two fingers of her right hand. Aaron came to stand beside me in the hall.
Merrick came out, asked Aaron through her sobs if he would wait while the women cleaned up Great Nananne and changed the bed, and of course Aaron told her that we would do as she wished.
We went into a rather formal parlor on the other side of the hall. The old woman’s proud statements came back to me. This parlor opened by means of an arch into a large dining room, and both rooms contained many fine and costly things.
There were huge mirrors over the fireplaces, and these had their heavily carved white marble mantels; and the furniture, of rich mahogany, would fetch a good price.
Darkened paintings of saints hung here and there. The huge china cabinet was crowded with old patterned bone china; and there were a few huge lamps with dim bulbs beneath dusty shades.
It would have been rather comfortable except it was suffocatingly hot, and though there were broken windowpanes, only the dampness seemed to penetrate the dusty shadows where we sat down.
At once, a young woman, another rather exotically colored creature, lovely and as primly dressed as the others, came in to cover the mirrors. She had a great deal of folded black cloth with her, and a small ladder. Aaron and I did what we could to assist.
After that she closed the keyboard of an old upright piano which I had not even noticed. Then she went to a large casement clock in the corner, opened the glass, and stopped the hands. I heard the ticking for the first time only when it actually ceased.
A large crowd of people, black, white, and of different racial blending, gathered before the house.
At last the mourners were allowed to come in and there was a very long procession, during which time Aaron and I retired to the sidewalk, as it was perfectly plain that Merrick who had taken up a position at the head of the bed, was no longer so badly shaken, only merely terribly sad.
People stepped into the room, as far as the foot of the bed, and then went out the back door of the house, reappearing again along the side as they opened a small secondary gate to the street.
I remember being very impressed by the sobriety and silence that reigned, and being somewhat surprised as cars began to arrive and smartly dressed people—again, of both races, and of obvious mixture—went up the steps.
My clothes became uncomfortably limp and sticky from the drowsy heat, and several times I went inside the house to assure myself that Merrick was all right. Several window air conditioning units in the bedroom, living room, and dining room had been pressed into service, and the rooms were growing cool.
It was on my third visit that I realized a collection was being taken for the funeral of Great Nananne. Indeed a china bowl on the altar was overflowing with twenty-dollar bills.
As for Merrick, her face showed little or no emotion as she gave a little nod to each person who came to call. Yet she was obviously numb and miserable.
Hour followed hour. Still people came, drifting in and out in the same respectful silence, only giving in to conversation when they were well away from the house.
I could hear the more formally dressed women of color speaking to one another with the most genteel southern accents, very far from the African which I have heard.
Aaron assured me in a whisper that this was hardly typical of funeral affairs in New Orleans. The crowd was altogether different. I
t was too quiet.
I could sense the problem with no difficulty. People had been afraid of Great Nananne. People were afraid of Merrick. People made sure that Merrick saw them. People left lots of twenty-dollar bills. There wasn’t to be a funeral mass, and people didn’t know what to make of it. People thought there ought to be a mass, but Merrick said Great Nananne herself had said no.
At last, as we stood in the alleyway once more, enjoying our cigarettes, I saw a look of concern on Aaron’s face. He made a very subtle gesture, that I was to look at an expensive car which had just come to the curb.
Several obviously white persons got out of the car—a rather handsome young man, and an austere woman with a pair of wire-rimmed glasses on her nose. They went directly up the steps, deliberately avoiding the gaze of those who hung about.
“Those are white Mayfairs,” said Aaron under his breath. “I can’t be noticed here.” Together we moved deeper into the alleyway and towards the back of the house. Finally, when the way became impassable due to the magnificent wisteria, we stopped.
“But what does it mean?” I asked. “The white Mayfairs. Why have they come?”
“Obviously, they feel some obligation,” said Aaron in a whisper. “Truly, David, you must be quiet. There isn’t a member of the family who doesn’t have some psychic power. You know I’ve tried in vain to make contact. I don’t want us to be seen here.”
“But who are they?” I pressed. I knew a voluminous file existed on the Mayfair Witches. I knew Aaron had been assigned to it for years. Yes, I knew, but for me as Superior General it was one story among thousands.
And the exotic climate, the strange old house, the clairvoyance of the old woman, the rising weeds, and the sunshiney rainfall had all gone to my head. I was as stimulated as if we were seeing ghosts.
“The family lawyers,” he said in a hushed voice, trying to hide his annoyance with me. “Lauren Mayfair and young Ryan Mayfair. They don’t know anything, not about Voodoo or witches, here or uptown, but clearly they know the woman is related to them. They don’t shirk a family responsibility, the Mayfairs, but I never expected to see them here.”
At this juncture, as he cautioned me again to be quiet and stay out of the way, I heard Merrick speaking within. I drew close to the broken windows of the formal parlor. I couldn’t make out what was being said.
Aaron, too, was listening. Very shortly the white Mayfairs emerged from the house and went away in their new car.
Only then did Aaron go up to the steps. The last of the mourners was just leaving. Those out on the pavement had already paid their respects. I followed Aaron into Great Nananne’s room.
“Those uptown Mayfairs,” said Merrick in a low voice, “You saw them? They wanted to pay for everything. I told them we had plenty. Look there, we have thousands of dollars, and the undertaker is already coming. We’ll wake the body tonight and tomorrow it will be buried. I’m hungry. I need something to eat.”
Indeed the elderly undertaker was also a man of color, quite tall and completely bald. He arrived along with his rectangular basket in which he would place the body of Great Nananne.
As for the house, it was now left to the undertaker’s father, a very elderly colored man, much the same hue as Merrick, except that he had tight curly white hair. Both of the aforementioned old men had a distinguished air, and wore rather formal clothes, when one considered the monstrous heat.
They also believed that there should be a Roman Catholic mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, but Merrick again explained that they didn’t need that for Great Nananne.
It was amazing how well this settled the whole affair.
Now Merrick went to the bureau in Great Nananne’s room and removed from the top drawer a bundle wrapped in white sheeting, and gestured for us to leave the house.
Off we went to a restaurant, where Merrick, saying nothing, and keeping the bundle on her lap, devoured an enormous fried shrimp sandwich and two diet Cokes. She had obviously grown tired of crying, and had the weary sad-eyed look of those who are deeply and irreparably hurt.
The little restaurant struck me as exotic, having a filthy floor and obviously dirty tables, but the happiest waiters and waitresses as well as clientele.
I was hypnotized by New Orleans, hypnotized by Merrick, though she was saying nothing; but little did I know that stranger things were yet to come.
In a dream, we went back to Oak Haven, to bathe and to change for the wake. There was a young woman there, a good member of the Talamasca whom I shall not name for obvious reasons, who assisted Merrick and saw to it that she was turned out beautifully in a new navy blue dress and broad-brimmed straw hat. Aaron himself gave a quick buffing to her patent leather shoes. Merrick had a rosary with her and a Catholic prayer book with a pearl cover.
But before she would have us return to New Orleans, she wanted to show us the contents of the bundle she had taken from the old woman’s room.
We were in the library, where I first met Merrick only a short time before. The Motherhouse was at supper, so we had the room entirely to ourselves, with no special request.
When she unwrapped the sheeting, I was astonished to see an ancient book or codex, with brilliant illustrations on its wooden cover, a thing in tatters, which Merrick handled as carefully as she could.
“This is my book from Great Nananne,” she said, looking at the thick volume with obvious respect. She let Aaron lift the book in its swaddling to the table under the light.
Now vellum or parchment is the strongest material ever invented for books, and this one was clearly so old that it would never have survived had it been written on anything else. Indeed, the wooden cover was all but in pieces. Merrick herself took the initiative to move it to the side so that the title page of the book could be read.
It was in Latin, and I translated it as instantly as any member of the Talamasca could do.
HEREIN LIE ALL SECRETS
OF THE MAGICAL ARTS
AS TAUGHT TO HAM,
SON OF NOAH,
BY THE WATCHERS
AND PASSED DOWN TO HIS ONLY SON,
Mesran
Carefully lifting this page, which was bound as all the others were by three different ties of leather thong, Merrick revealed the first of many pages of magic spells, written in faded but clearly visible and very crowded Latin script.
It was as old a book of magic as I have ever beheld, and of course its claim—the claim of its title page—was to the very earliest of all black magic ever known since the time of The Flood.
Indeed, I was more than familiar with the legends surrounding Noah, and his son, Ham, and the even earlier tale, that the Watcher Angels had taught magic to the Daughters of Men when they lay with them, as Genesis so states.
Even the angel Memnoch, the seducer of Lestat, had revealed a version of this tale in his own fashion, that is, of being seduced during his earthly wanderings by a Daughter of Man. But of course I knew nothing of Memnoch back then.
I wanted to be alone with this book! I wanted to read every syllable of it. I wanted to have our experts test its paper, its ink, as well as peruse its style.
It will come as no surprise to most readers of my narrative that people exist who can tell the age of such a book at a glance. I was not one such person, but I believed firmly that what I held had been copied out in some monastery somewhere in Christendom, somewhere before William the Conqueror had ever come to the English shores.
To put it more simply, the book was probably eighth or ninth century. And as I leant over to read the opening page I saw that it claimed to be a “faithful copy” of a much earlier text that had come down, of course, from Noah’s son, Ham, himself.
There were so many rich legends surrounding these names. But the marvelous thing was that this text belonged to Merrick and that she was revealing it to us.
“This is my book,” she said again. “And I know how to work the charms and spells in it. I know them all.”
“But who taught you
to read it?” I asked, unable to conceal my enthusiasm.
“Matthew,” she answered, “the man who took me and Cold Sandra to South America. He was so excited when he saw this book, and the others. Of course I could already read it a little, and Great Nananne could read every word. Matthew was the best of the men my mother ever brought home. Things were safe and cheerful when Matthew was with us. But we can’t talk about these matters now. You have to let me keep my book.”
“Amen, you shall,” said Aaron quickly. I think he was afraid that I meant to spirit away the text but nothing of the sort was true. I wanted time with it, yes, but only when the child would permit.
As for Merrick’s mention of her mother, I had been more than curious. In fact, I felt we should question her on that point immediately, but Aaron shook his head sternly when I started to inquire.
“Come on, let’s us go back now,” said Merrick. “The body will be laid out.”
Leaving the precious book in Merrick’s upstairs bedroom, back we went to the city of dreams once more.
The body had been brought back in a dove-gray casket lined in satin, and set upon a portable bier in the grim front parlor which I described before. By the light of numerous candles—the overhead chandelier was naked and harsh and therefore turned off—the room was almost beautiful, and Great Nananne was now dressed in a fine gown of white silk with tiny pink roses stitched to the collar, a favorite from her own chifforobe.
A beautiful rosary of crystal beads was wound around her clasped fingers, and above her head, against the satin of the lid of the coffin, there hung a gold crucifix. A prie-dieu of red velvet, furnished no doubt by the undertaker, stood beside the coffin, and many came up to kneel there, to make the Sign of the Cross, and to pray.
Once again there came hordes of people, and indeed they did tend to break into groups according to race, just as if someone had commanded them to do so, the light of skin clumping together, as well as whites clumped with whites, and blacks with blacks.
Since this time I have seen many situations in the city of New Orleans in which people self-segregate according to color in a most marked way. But then, I didn’t know the city. I knew only that the monstrous injustice of Legal Segregation no longer existed, and I marveled at the way color seemed to dominate the separation in this group.
