Mumbo Jumbo

by Ishmael Reed

  It must be something in the air, Biff Musclewhite says. You know, this Jes Grew thing has reached Dunkirk New York. Maybe I will come over and see you, Musclewhite says, brows furrowing. Half hour?

  Yes, do come over.

  37

  CHARLOTTE WALKS TO THE window. She removes some rose petals that had been placed in saucers resting on the sill. Much of the soft water has evaporated and a film is floating on the top. She removes the film and pours it into little vials. It would sit there for a few days until all of the water evaporated, leaving behind the aromatic essence of the rose.

  Charlotte picks up the newspaper which is lying on a table. She sits on the sofa. It is the maid’s night off, so she goes to the kitchen and pours herself a glass of milk. Then she walks into the living room and picks up the newspaper. And she screams and drops the newspaper to the floor. BERBELANG SHOT BY BIFF MUSCLEWHITE!!

  MUSCLEWHITE BAGS COON

  War Hero Slays Art-Napper

  Depraved Black Mu’tafikah Dead

  More Arrests Predicted

  Manhattan, the 1920s—Today Biff Muscle-white, fearless curator of the Center of Art Detention and consultant to Yorktown Police, shot and killed Berbelang the bad, cute Black bandit, and leader of a gang of dope-sniffing self-styled Mu’tafikah.

  The shooting occurred shortly after he freed himself from a hideout where he was being held for ransom in the gang’s wild scheme to exchange the well-known city father for the ugly sausage-lipped big-headed Olmec head.

  Musclewhite escaped by subduing Thor Wintergreen, misguided tycoon’s son who had joined the band of freaks and their scantily clad flappers.

  Trapped inside his headquarters the demented coon chose to shoot it out with the World War 1 combat veteran and hero who once told Nature where to go. “Come in and get me, coppers,” the spade shouted, followed by his wild, bizarre laughter.

  The doorbell rings. Charlotte opens it upon Biff Musclewhite…

  You…you killed Berbelang.

  Buff Musclewhite forces himself into the room.

  O you seem concerned. I didn’t know that you knew the man, Biff Musclewhite says, removing the cord from his pocket. You were always irresponsible. Fickle. Never loyal and always looking askance at them as they picked cotton fanned you in the mosques, fetched your horses and scratched your alabaster back. You can’t be trusted.

  What are you going to do? Charlotte says, alarmed, walking backwards.

  She reaches a table and knocks the gas lamp to the floor.

  Biff Musclewhite brings the cord about her neck and puts all of his strength behind it, squeezing it, until Charlotte drops lifeless to the floor.

  38

  WHEN THE ROOKIE COP arrives, Musclewhite is calmly sitting and drinking some bootleg whiskey.

  The rookie comes into the room and finds Charlotte on the floor, dead. What happened here?

  I had to bust her for possession, see this booze? Musclewhite points to the liquors on the table. Found it in her cabinet. Not bad either. Well when she saw that her number was up she offered resistance and I had to, er…well, you know, she was resisting.

  But you know no 1 is being arrested for that any more; besides, she looks as if she’s been strangled.

  I had to…you see she had a gun.

  But there’s no gun here, sir.

  Well a man, he was her accomplice; he escaped through the fire escape.

  Could you describe him, sir.

  He was a muscular Black, a huge stud if I ever saw 1.

  The rookie walked over to the window from which 1 could look down upon the alley separating Charlotte’s building from the next 1 over. There were huge white feathers lying on the sill of the ½-opened window as if a large bird had struggled to get through.

  But there’s no fire escape here, sir.

  Look, are you disputing my word, Biff Musclewhite says, squeezing the glass in his hand.

  No, sir, no sir. I’m going to call the coroner.

  The rookie leaves the room.

  Biff Musclewhite thinks I should have called the coroner in the first place. He was a bowling partner; he’d see that this rookie was transferred. He’d fix him; he’d transfer him to Harlem.

  VooDoo Generals Routed

  Peralte Slain By

  Valiant Marine

  Hunt What’s His Name

  39

  WHAT DID ALL OF these things mean? She grins and takes a sip of coffee. A knock at the door. PaPa LaBas and T Malice enter the room.

  Earline, have you heard? Berbelang…

  She doesn’t know what they are talking about. She collapses to the floor. T Malice lifts her and takes her into the other room. LaBas lifts the phone and calls Herman.

  Herman?

  Yes, what’s up?

  Earline. I think she picked up one…the one with the red dress on. The one known in Brazil as Yemanjá; you know what W. C. Handy called her: St. Louis woman.

  Be right down. I’ll bring some sisters and some food.

  LaBas gives him the address and hangs up.

  T Malice is standing in the door leading to the bedroom.

  Pop, there’s a man in there asleep.

  O brother, let me talk to him.

  He went into the bedroom, T Malice following close behind.

  40

  EARLINE IS ASLEEP BUT her eyelashes are fluttering which means that the 1 she picked up would soon be active again. He hopes that Black Herman will hurry.

  Hey man? LaBas said, shaking the sleeping trolley car operator.

  Wha…wha…The man begins to open his eyes.

  Hey man, wake up, hurry.

  The trolley car operator wakes up slowly and looks about the room. Hey man, if it’s your wife…look, she flirted with me. I didn’t…

  No need to explain but you’d better leave. We have an emergency with her, no questions asked.

  The man climbs out of the bed and begins to put on his clothes. You know, nothing like this never happened to me. I’m happily married and have 3 children. I’ve never laid an eye on another woman.

  You couldn’t help yourself. If you hadn’t given in to her requests she would have destroyed you.

  I don’t understand.

  Look, I’m PaPa LaBas, here’s my card, LaBas says, giving the trolley car operator his card. The trolley car operator walks toward the door, self-conscious and embarrassed.

  Come by my office sometime when you get a chance. I’ll explain it all to you. The trolley car operator nods to LaBas and leaves.

  Just as the trolley car operator leaves the room, the sisters and Black Herman enter. They talk, and then leave T Malice in the living room to answer the telephone and to keep out friends who might come to inquire about Berbelang. The others go into the bedroom.

  The old sisters, steady, sober professionals that they are, gather about Earline’s bed. They are dressed in white uniforms: white dresses white stockings and white shoes. They wear white nurses’ caps.

  A lavender mixture of High John Conqueror compound, orris root, sandalwood, talcum plain, is floating up from the incense burners they’ve placed about the room. The shades have been drawn. The designs on the window shades are those of hearts pierced by daggers. 1 sister is sprinkling oil of white rose about the room. Another is in the bathroom drawing hot water into a tub while an assistant sprinkles it with basil leaves. Black Herman is in the kitchen wearing a white apron, mixing a solution of rice, flour, eggs, crème de menthe, juices of 2 pigeons and 2 chickens, Madeira wine, raw brought to a liquified boil.

  It will be ready in a few minutes, Herman yells to LaBas, standing in the bedroom. Then I will prepare the cocktail.

  Earline was beginning to stir.

  Earline, LaBas calls. Can you hear me?

  She gives him a smile so wicked in its content that it makes his flesh crawl. He touches the back of her left hand softly; she digs her nails into his right hand, she is tense like a cat. LaBas plays it cool; he withdraws his hand and a sister wraps a w
hite bandage about it. The sisters, although they have not seen anything like this before, do not reveal their surprise but keep on doing The Work.

  Girl, LaBas begins to speak. Why don’t you leave Earline alone? The child has enough troubles. Her man is dead and she loved him. You understand that, don’t you? You got 1 man to flirt with you and make love to you, now why don’t you return to where you came from. There’s no need to worry her like this. Pick somebody else.

  Earline slowly moves back from the edge of the bed. She smiles at the sisters who look at 1 another and return the gesture.

  How did you know it was me?

  Look, we may not have the legitimate Assons but we’ve been called and we can Work-It-On-Out too.

  Man, Earline says, waving him away in a high piercing West Indian accented voice, there ain’t nothing no American HooDoo man or whatever you call yourselves can do for me.

  I wouldn’t be too sure about that, Black Herman says entering the room carrying 2 huge glasses containing his recipe on a tray.

  What’s that that man has in his hands? Earline asks, reaching for the glasses on the tray from where she lies on the bed clad only in a black slip and panties.

  Herman recoils, setting the tray supporting the cocktails on a table in the room.

  O no you don’t. You don’t lay your hands on this until you promise to depart from this girl’s body.

  A sister has entered into another phase of the ceremony. Clarence Williams is singing some mellow blues. She has placed the record on a Victrola. People begin to sway a bit along with the music.

  What’s that sound? Earline asks Black Herman.

  It’s a loa that Jes Grew here in America among our people. We call it Blues.

  It sounds nice, Earline says, climbing from the bed in her bare-feet and approaching Herman. LaBas and the women move out of the way. She puts her arms about Black Herman’s neck and starts to move with him. As they dance about the table where the tumblers of the drink rest, cherries held by straws leaning on the rim, she tries to reach for the cocktail.

  Herman pushes her hand away.

  You better let me have that, nigger, before I put a hurtin’ on you you won’t like.

  Black Herman walks to the bed, picks up her scarf, and casts it to the floor where it becomes a snake. He moves a fingertip in a teasing manner about the snake’s head. A snake with sufficient deadly venom to fell an elephant.

  Anybody can do that, Earline taunts. You don’t have what it takes, Black American man, she says, moving again toward the tray.

  Black Herman grabs her by the arms and flings her onto the bed. She starts to spring at him but before she can he swiftly moves the spread of hearts-and-daggers design out from under her and she lies curled-up, in thin air, about 2 feet between her and the top of the bed. Black Herman known as “an international heartbreaker,” the man who while on the trip to Africa hypnotized a lion, is now the first American to give a Crisis de loa to a loa.

  Earline twists in the air, confused.

  Put me down! Put me down!

  Black Herman reaches over to where she is suspended and puts his arm about her waist, gently bringing her body toward him like an intelligent fisherman reeling in, causing only a slight ripple in the water, enchanting the fish. Black Herman is a Fish Bewitcher.

  He bends over, holding her there and kissing her. She begins to struggle but suddenly kisses him back, passionately hanging on to him as he holds her from the waist up, her bottom half suspended there like a mermaid in water.

  Black Herman signals for the sisters and PaPa LaBas to leave the room. They quietly leave, turning the lights down to a dark red glow, the music a quiet piano moving through the room. Herman takes over where LaBas has failed.

  Before LaBas exits he hears Black Herman whisper to Earline.

  Softly, a husky whisper. Now you know you want to leave this girl now, don’t you?

  She cries passionately almost inaudibly Yes! Yes! You know I will; but first… please… please feed me! Then I will leave her…

  The door closes shut.

  41

  ABOUT AN HOUR LATER Black Herman emerges from the room. LaBas and the sisters are seated about the kitchen table drinking tea.

  How is she? T Malice asks.

  She’ll be all right. When she wakes I want you to give her the magic bath; she will be herself again. But don’t tell her about Berbelang, she won’t remember anything from the last 24 hours or so. Just stay with her until she comes out of it and don’t mention who visited her. 1 of the sisters nods.

  LaBas sits a minute; Black Herman joins the rest at the table. How did you succeed where I failed, Herman?

  Well it’s like this, PaPa. You always go around speaking as if you were a charlatan and putting yourself down when you are 1 of the most technical dudes with The Work. Abdul was right that night…I didn’t want to say. You ought to relax. That’s our genius here in America. We were dumped here on our own without the Book to tell us who the loas are, what we call spirits were. We made up our own. The theories of Julia Jackson. I think we’ve done all right. The Blues, Ragtime, The Work that we do is just as good. I’ll bet later on in the 50s and 60s and 70s we will have some artists and creators who will teach Africa and South America some new twists. It’s already happening. What it boils down to, LaBas, is intent. If your heart’s there, man, that’s ½ the thing about The Work. Even the European Occultists say that. Doing The Work is not like taking inventory. Improvise some. Open up, PaPa. Stretch on out with It.

  Maybe I’m a bit too rigid. 1 of Berbelang’s friends, Jose Fuentes, called me a repressed Negro.

  There was silence for a moment.

  Don’t you think we ought to check with Earline to see if the other 1 has completely left.

  O pop, I don’t believe that a little Etzulie ever did anybody any harm.

  The sisters smile. T Malice smiles too.

  42

  THE NEXT MORNING LABAS receives a call from Black Herman, indicating that “visitors in the harbor” are anxious to meet with him. He also indicates that Earline is in good hands and that she is “coming out of it.”

  About a ½-hour later Herman’s President straight 8 pulls up to Mumbo Jumbo Kathedral and LaBas enters.

  Who are we to meet?

  I am not at liberty to say—it’s secret, but the people want very much for you to meet with them. Did you hear of Abdul Hamid’s murder? Herman asks.

  Yes, I forgot to say I discovered the body. Was there anything to indicate how he got his?

  I found something I didn’t show to the police, but as you will recall he mentioned something about an anthology, the archives of an ancient people. I found a crumpled piece of paper, an epigram in his fist concerning Egyptian-American cotton. I can’t connect it to anything but I have a nagging suspicion that it has something to do with the missing anthology. I can’t put it out of my mind.

  Strange, very strange, Black Herman said, steering the car toward the Hudson River pier. You know the night before he died I had a vision of him attired in something which resembled a night club floor, he was whirling about the center like a dervish, in the center, he wouldn’t move away from that center…

  LaBas hasn’t paid attention to the last remark. He had picked up a copy of the New York Sun. It was folded to the society page and a red pencil had circled the picture of a distinguished looking grey-haired man above the caption “Patron-of-the-Arts.” It was Hinckle Von Vampton, publisher of the Benign Monster. He wore a black patch over his eye but what was even stranger was the pendant he wore about his neck. The pendant depicted 2 Knights riding upon 1 horse.

  A very interesting pendant; do you have it encircled for any particular reason, Herman?

  I just want to keep my eye on him.

  Once at the pier they approach the freighter The Black Plume. The ship’s searchlight swings in their direction. It blinks on and off 3 times. 2 of the Host’s assistants—Python men—both over 6 feet tall emerge from a room and lowe
r the ramp. Black Herman and PaPa LaBas board. The men escort them into a stateroom where they are invited to sit upon some chairs. Outside the ship may be tugboat-shabby but the interior is beautiful. On the floor are loa signatures drawn with cornmeal and water. Rada Drums hang from the ceiling. The colors of the room are black and red, the walls are red, the floor is black. A flag hangs from the ceiling upon which has been sewn the words Vin ’ Bain Ding, “Blood, Pain, Excrement.” On a table are handbells, descendants of instruments Egyptians called (ancient) sistrums found in their Temples of Osiris and Isis. The central post is red. Incense composed of hot iron is burning.

  On the walls are oil portraits of Toussaint L’Ouverture, and Jean Jacques Dessalines, heroes who had expelled Napoleon’s troops from Haiti and brought about the Independence of 1803. Next to these are portraits of Henri Christophe and Boukman, the Papa Loi, who rallied the Haitian countryside to the banner of VooDoo, and the mulatto general André Riguad.

  A tall Black man enters the room. He is wearing a red robe and a long necklace made of beads and snake bones. On his finger is a ring upon which a Dark Tower is ensconced.

  B. Battraville invites the others to sit. He sits, crosses his legs and lights a cigarette.

  I must give you the background, gentlemen. As you well know we surrounded the Marines at Port-au-Prince but the action wasn’t entirely successful because they had been tipped off by the mulatto secretary.

  The New York Times called you bandits.

  Benoit Battraville smiles as a tall Python man serves them rum.

  Charlemagne Peralte was hardly a bandit. Our leader was a member of the Haitian elite. He did not invite the American Marines to land in our country on July 28, 1915. The U.S.S. Washington landed uninvited. They came on their ships without an Act of your Kongress or consent of the American people.

  We didn’t learn about it until recently and that was when you surrounded the Marines…

  We were lucky to hear even then, Black Herman, Battraville replies. It was made as a signal to someone. It was a telegram, a message by headline from 1 man to a secret society located in a “neutral country.”