by Eden Royce
“Long as you’re not ruined, my baby. That’s what I care about.” Her mother clucked over the mess as she picked up pieces of broken stoneware.
Sandra was aghast. “Mom, what do we do with—”
“I’ll take care of it.” Both women looked at the man towering over them with the pasty skin and disproportionate ears. Two holes were burned into the blue shoulder of his coveralls, but no other mark was on him.
“How—how is he alive?” Sandra looked back and forth between her mother and the man.
“Oh, he’s been through much worse. Right, Jackie?” When the man nodded, Sandra’s mother patted him on the shoulder. “Miss Maggie’s grandson had a gang member after him and it got handled right away. That’s why this place is so good.”
The man was crouched over Robert, methodically lifting his arms and legs as if weighing them. “I can fix it.” He wrung his large hands, his eyes darting between both women.
“You sure, Jackie, honey?”
“Yes, Ma’am. I can do it. Double quick.”
“Okay,” her mother said. “You be careful, now.”
The hulking man began his work, separating Robert into manageable parts and removing all trace of him from the condo. Sandra found she couldn’t turn away from the spectacle until her mother called her to help take the broken dishes out to the patio for recycling. When they returned, not a piece of Robert was left. Later the sound in the wall returned.
“It’s one of Jackie’s machines,” her mother explained as she poured three cups of tea. “I think might have told you—it’s a chipper or a grinder. Comforting, isn’t it?”
Rhythm
Bay kou bliye, pòte mak sonje.
The giver of the blow forgets, the carrier of the scar remembers.
-Haitian proverb
With the slow beating of thetanbou,David drew Ezili Danto to his fire. He sensed the spirit mother lurking close, not yet ready to allow him to see her. Tangy salt air sagged under the weight of her presence. The scent of vetiver accompanied her, crisp with wild grasses and smoky with ash. His bare toes itched where they curled into the dry dirt of the Haitian mountainside. Drumbeats thudded against the darkening sky and echoed off the dilapidated buildings clinging to the cliffs. The promise of rain hung just out of reach.
He felt born to this land and its pulsing, eerie music. It swelled within him, growing, feeding.
No stage performance had given him the feeling of pride he felt from learning the intricate tempos native to the tanbou. He’d played the bongos in Cuba and the djembe in West Africa without the surge of power that surrounded him tonight. On the plane, he’d questioned the wisdom of coming here in the midst of the country’s devastation and his own inner turmoil. The books and the movies didn’t do it justice, but his grandfather’s stories were right. Magic lived on this island, thriving like a rare species not seen anywhere else in the world.
David continued to play, enticing the ancient lwa with feral music from the taut drum. Friction from hours of practice had thickened the skin of his palms. The goatskin drumhead warmed under his touch and vibrated with sound.
He shifted on the hard soil. The drummer drew in a deep breath and released a jubilant cry to the heavens, celebrating the feeling like coming home.
***
In a small shop, David pointed to a drum where it sat on the dusty floor, wrapped with rough rope. Reaching almost to his waist, the instrument looked as though hands had shaped it on a potter’s wheel: large round body atop a tapered base. Strips of bright cloth, a scattering of blue and yellow and green, coiled around its entire length. “How about this one?”
“Ah, good choice. For a memory of your time here,” the shop owner said, his wrinkled hands patting it to send a hollow echo through the tiny store. “Hand made of softwood from the—”
“Petwo nation. I know.” At the shop owner’s raised eyebrow, he explained. “My grandfather came here in the thirties when the Marines occupied Haiti. What he didn’t tell me, I learned on my own. Mwen pale kreyòl.”
The man laughed at David’s pronunciation. “Good try. You a scholar? That why you come to Port au Prince?”
“I’m here to learn, but I’m no scholar.”
He peered at David with sun-weary eyes. “I know you. I see you before. You come with other blans to rebuild schools and clean wells.”
“Did you just call me white?” He lifted a coiled dreadlock to call the man’s attention to his coarse, thick hair. David was from the Carolinas, where any duskiness of skin tone automatically put you in the category of black—or to a larger extent, the category of “You must got some kinda black in you, son. Or maybe Indian.”
There was camaraderie in that—a certain safety—knowing your darker skin gave you a sense of community with others of color. He hadn’t realized the pleasure he took in the slight nod of recognition blacks gave each other back home, even if they didn’t know you. The loss of that acknowledgement left another hole in him—this one smaller, but deep and weeping.
“You not from Haiti, so you blan no matter what color you is.” He lifted his shoulders in an elaborate shrug, hands out, pale ivory palms contrasting with espresso-tinted skin.
“How much?” David asked.
“For you, a deal. Half price. In thanks for helping my country.” He quoted a nominal figure.
Half price was still a substantial profit for the man. “I’ll pay full price if it comes with lessons.”
The Haitian’s eyes went wide. “You want to play tanbou? Why? To get a woman in your bed?”
“I want to call a spirit.”
The man turned and spat on the floor. “You playing, right? You play with Vodou? I do not help you make such jokes.”
“No, nothing like that. I respect the ways of Vodou. That’s why I’m here. One of the reasons, anyway. I want to call on a spirit goddess for guidance.”
“Which one?”
“I have the money. Will you teach me?”
Indecipherable Haitian Creole accompanied the shop owner’s noncommittal shrug as the man turned to go back to his counter.
“Fine. I want to call Danto.”
“What you know about Ezili Danto?” The man glanced around as though the ancestral misté could hear him.
“I need advice to deal with a problem.”
“Your problem not money. Love, maybe? You need her sister Ezili Freda. She gentle and will help your heart.”
“No, it has to be Danto.”
“Ah, I see. You want someone to suffer.” He snorted laughter and stuck a toothpick from his shirt pocket between his teeth. “You a fool. She will not come to you. You not Haitian.”
“A fool willing to pay for your time, so it’s no loss to you.”
The shopkeeper considered the offer. “I don’t sit the circle with you.”
“Then I’ll sit alone.”
“Yes. That is good.”
Alone in a clearing with the colorful drum between his thighs, David pounded out a beat to bring the spirit to his fire. His arms ached and his back throbbed. When he shifted position because his legs had fallen asleep, they stung like they were pierced with fire-tipped needles.
She came closer, dancing with the writhing flames as they lapped at her midnight skin. Moonlight kissed oiled flesh. Impossibly long arms flapped like sailcloth in an ocean breeze. Powerful thigh muscles bunched when she leapt into the air. The spirit’s chosen form leaked sweat as she danced to the primal call of the tanbou. Ezili’s face, painted chalk-white, bore no expression, but a red, angry scar blazed on her right cheek.
He continued to play.
Her full breasts were bare to the night and they swayed to the tempo of his hands. David was unable to look away from her hips as they jerked back and forth as if in orgasm, giving glimpses of round buttocks swathed in the short dried grass skirt. He felt himself grow hard, his erection pressing against the side of the drum.
Ezili Danto circled the fire like a jungle beast: unafraid of man, secure
in her superiority. He had been able to bring her this close, to see the lone drummer dressed in the white robe of an oungan.
The ground beneath David pulsed with heat and sweat crawled down his back. He called out to the spirit, praising her as the shopkeeper had instructed. “Come to my fire, Danto, whose eyes bring the storms. Feel the music of my hands and counsel me.”
David thumped the hides, alternating palms, thumbs, and fingers. The scent of sweet sap and resin teased his nose as the nimble creature swayed to the primal beats. His palms thudded against the drumhead and his vision wavered in the heat and smoke. She seemed an illusion, her form a quivering mirage in this devastated tropic.
He rocked back and forth without realizing it, caught between his world and hers. Ezili’s broad feet stomped, creating a blurred whirlwind of dust and gravel, as her dancing outpaced the drummer.
David sped up, desperate to keep pace. His little finger caught the edge of the rope holding the drum together. He heard a crack and cried out in pain, clutching his injured digit.
The fire blazed up with a sharp hiss, then vanished as if blown out, leaving him in darkness.
***
Morning rose, hot and oppressive as David entered the shop, already drenched in sweat and frustration.
“So. Your circle was good?”
David cursed as the shopkeeper gripped his hand. “Not exactly.”
“You alive. You here. Is good.” Amusement danced around the man’s eyes and he scratched at his coarse salt and pepper beard.
“I couldn’t keep up long enough. She disappeared when I stopped playing.”
The rheumy eyes sharpened and David felt their gaze jab at him like a stick. “Stop? Why you stop? If you want her, nothing can make you stop.”
“The ropes came loose and I caught my finger. I think I broke it on that piece of shit drum.”
The man sucked at his teeth in disgust. “That why you stop? A finger? You are not enough for her.”
“You don’t understand. My hands are my life. They’re how I earn my living.”
“I understand you not ready for Danto.”
“No, I am. I’m ready.” His voice hardened as he squared his shoulders. “I only have a few more days. I can do this.”
“It take a lifetime to master tanbou and make it speak like the voice of mistés. Without that, there is no Vodou.”
“I’ve been drumming since I was eight years old, man. I got her attention once and I can do it again. And this time, nothing will get me to stop. ”
A gust of sea air blew open the frail shop door like an angry customer. David shivered in the cool breeze and pulled the shirt away from his damp back with quick, sharp jerks.
“You ask no small thing.” The Haitian ambled over to the door and glanced outside before closing it. He leaned against the doorframe as he continued. “Make for her a path. Maybe she use it, maybe she don’t. But there is danger, drummer.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“Think that matter?”
David didn’t reply. “Has anyone you know ever seen her?”
“Oh, yes. But none see the same Danto.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Some say she like a mother protecting her child. Some say she come like a new lover, sweet and hot.” He pulled the drum to him. “Some say nothing.”
“Nothing? Why?”
“Some do not speak of the time with her. Or they cannot.”
“What’s your take on all of this? What do you say?”
“I say she come in the way you need.” His smile took the sting out of his next words. “But she will not come to you no way, so?”
He pocketed David’s money and sat on an overturned barrel. “Listen.” He looked into the younger man’s eyes as he gave his final lesson, a heated duple meter beat. His dark, gnarled hands were stark against the ivory colored drumhead. “No food, you play. No rest, you play.” His eyes closed and his head tilted, as if he were listening to someone whispering a secret in his ear. “No pain can make you stop. She takes your everything.”
David’s gaze slid away from the older man’s and he ran a finger over a callous on the base of his thumb. “My everything is already gone.”
He told Connie he wanted to help with the relief efforts. “Do you want to come with me? We could do a lot.”
“To Haiti? Are you crazy?” Her neat, trim brows crinkled in a frown and she bit her lip.
“Connie, you’re an RN, you could help more than I can. We don’t have to stay long. A week, ten days. If it’s okay with you, I might stay a little longer, but I think it’d be an amazing experience.”
She twisted the ring on her left hand. “I don’t think so. But you go. It would be great publicity for a member of the band to be seen over there.”
David took her face in his hands. “I know you hate it when I go on tour and you think this is just another trip to keep us apart. But I promise when I get back, we’ll go somewhere together.” He kissed her and hugged her close. “Once we make the big time, it’ll all be worth it.”
Connie pulled away first. “I know. I’ll be fine. There’s plenty for me to do here.”
“That’s ‘cause you’re my girl. Don’t forget I’m getting my vaccinations after work today. Did you know I have to get close to ten shots for this visit?”
She smiled. “Better you than me.”
Under a clear, star filled sky, David built the fire twice as large this time, the memory of betrayal sharp and acidic in his mind. He bound his fingers with tape like a boxer before a match and began to play. Gentle winds shushed the slums into silence. Rickety doors remained shut tight against the ancestral spirits.
No one stirred.
Both of David’s hands caressed the tanbou and the sound rolled off the taut goatskin in aching waves. The beats lengthened, grew deeper, into a slow and loping gait. As the music rose, it gained confidence and strode forward with sure steps.
Faster now, short smacks of open palm mixed with thumps of closed fist. Divergent, each hand marked a necessary dissonance to appease the quick, demanding spirit. He created an image of Connie’s face in his mind, lips parted in ecstasy, and used it like a lens to focus his pain and draw the vengeful Danto’s attention.
His left thumb struck the drumhead in the center. The thumb clung and slid over the goatskin, leaving a weary moan on the night air. He squeezed his eyes shut against the hot tears pricking his lids. The wail of the drum joined his heart’s cry for justice.
When he opened his eyes again, Ezili sat across the fire from him. Still as stone, she waited, her red eyes reflecting the dancing flames. The scar on her cheek bled freely now. Tendrils of fear coiled around his heart. A female voice ground its way into his head. Tell me your story.
He did.
Connie’s iPod was in the speaker when he got home, its volume turned close to maximum. The player blared electrified noise into his skull and a headache had started by the time he reached the kitchen.
“Hey, babe,” he yelled. “The doc changed my appointment to tomorrow. They got really busy this afternoon.” He realized the uselessness of yelling over the music and went to look for his fiancée.
He found her in the den. She lay back on the leather couch, legs wide, with her mouth open. Her long hair curled along the arm of the sofa as she bucked under the enthusiastic pumping of a burly, tattooed man.
The sight of her, splayed open, welcoming the brute into her was more than he could stand. His head pounded, too tight for his brain. Breath came in great gulping heaves as fury burned a hole in his chest big enough for his heart to fall through.
No, not again.
David started toward the couple. So engrossed in pleasure, neither of them noticed him. A veil of anger dropped over his eyes and the room went red. He looked around for something sharp. For something heavy.
Not this time…
He backed out of the room, unable to yank his gaze from their entwined bodies, until the door closed behind
him, Connie’s moans the soundtrack for his plans.
Ezili’s shadowy form slipped through the half-light of the fire as she roiled to the drum’s cacophony. Chalky paint made her face look as rough as coconut skin. She swiveled her elongated head toward him.
David’s shoulders began to slump, but he jerked himself upright. His back protested the hours he’d sat on the unforgiving ground with loud, painful pops and his eyes burned with fatigue and grit. The spirit slunk closer, drawn by the tortured music. Her essence surrounded him, pressed in on his body and his soul.
Balmy wind amplified the whispered words, bringing her promise to him again and again with each passing breeze. On hands and knees, she crept closer until all David could see were her eyes. In those almond-shaped orbs, red and white swirled together. His breath slowed as he stared into their depths.
Under her marbled gaze, his heartbeat shifted and changed to mimic the one coming from his hands. Ezili ran her hands down his shoulders and over his chest in a caress, the tips of her fingers disappearing inside his skin. She trailed her fingers over his lap and his penis responded, straining like a divining rod. Although her face didn’t change, he could feel her pleased laughter in his mind.
She is stupid girl.
David shuddered as she enfolded him in her long arms, surrounding him with fierce protection. Through the steamy air, coldness pierced him like a blade as the ancient spirit’s will displaced his own. All that was David moved aside, cowering in her presence.
“Not like this. I don’t want—”
The young man trembled in shock and fear while Ezili pressed in, smothering him like an overbearing mother. She filled him like boiling oil, searing his soul with flashing quickness. It left his body shuddering as his hands spasmed on the drumhead, playing an unintentional beat, sharp with the tang of acidic sweat. He was full, near to bursting, and he panted with the effort of speech. “What…are you going…to do?”
