Marie Laveau

by Francine Prose

  It was a life of courage. Gradually she understood that Jacques had sent her to the perfect place—the site of her duel, the house where a blind, deaf black man had been brave enough to live forty years. It was no ordinary retreat—the night sounds were louder, the shadows more threatening. It took courage to stay there: courage and solitude were links in the same chain.

  It was also a life of joy. She was satisfied. She had no regrets. Loneliness disappeared.

  And her magic was returning. Kneeling to wash in the rain barrel, she noticed a faint rash around her eyes. She couldn’t remember her dreams. But she could feel the power growing while she slept.

  All night the spirits moved through her, pushing her body farther and farther into the light of the full moon.

  She dreamed of a visit from Doctor John. The scent of Jockey Club Cologne and French Sandalwood Essence announced his presence by her bed. Marie looked up. His body seemed airy and insubstantial. There was no human smell beneath the heavy perfume.

  “Doctor John,” she whispered. “Where are you coming from?”

  “From beneath the surface of the water,” he said; slower than she’d ever heard him speak. “After our little duel I went out and stole a rowboat from the shore at Lake Ponchartrain. I rowed out into the water—I needed to cool off. And I needed to get a better look at the stars.

  “I was laying on the bottom of that boat, stargazing, when that big wind came up. Remember? Must’ve been St. John getting a head start on his birthday party. Too bad I never learned to swim. I said good-bye to my reflection in that dark water and fell through it to the other side. That’s where I’m coming from and I want to tell you—It’s nicer here. Much nicer.”

  “I can’t believe you’re dead. It doesn’t seem possible.”

  “Don’t believe it. But if I weren’t dead, why would I be coming this far to help you? It’s only ’cause I been down underwater so I know: Beneath the water, all duels end. Every spirit’s a winner. None of this matters. You’ll thank me for my help when you get there.”

  “You helped me enough already.”

  “No.” Doctor John laughed quietly. “This is different. Listen. Did you ever hear ’bout those dances I used to give out here on St. John’s Eve, ’way back when I was just starting out in business?”

  Marie nodded. Her clients had described those big dances which the tourists and hotel-keepers never knew about, secret gatherings open only to the true believers. They’d told her about the drinking, the nakedness, the animal sacrifices, the spirit possessions. But she’d never gone. At the time she’d been running from the loas as fast as she could, avoiding any contact with Doctor John.

  “Here’s my advice,” he went on. “Start those dances again. That’s where the real magic was—not like those shows in Congo Square. Out here in the bayou is where the spirits like to party. That’s where I got my power. If only I’d kept those up, I would’ve stayed strong. You never would’ve beaten me.”

  Embarrassed by the mention of his defeat, Doctor John faced out the window. Marie saw the moonlight shine through his long back.

  “If nothing else,” he said softly, “you’ll have yourself a good party.” He moved toward the door.

  “Wait!” cried Marie. “There’s something I need to ask. Why did you do it—teach me everything, give me the snake, fix Father Antoine, push me—when you knew all the time I’d beat you?”

  “Good question,” he said, laughing merrily. “Ask yourself that one.” Still laughing, he turned and left the cottage.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  A HEARTY SWALLOW of one hundred fifty-proof island rum, blazing a fiery trail from mouth to stomach; then a pipeful of marijuana, sharpening the eyes, drawing back the veil; gobs of belladonna ointment rubbed into the arms and legs, turning them to snakes loose enough to dance all night; then a swig of Texas whiskey, like a blanket on the heart; a handful of woodrose seeds throbbing at the back of the brain, brightening the colors; champagne filling the brightness with bubbles, and a hit of Tabasco for good luck.

  But the strongest intoxicants were the drums. The drums were Marie’s invitations, her servants, her horses—sending out word, dressing her guests in white, carrying them out to the beach where Bayou St. John met Lake Ponchartrain. The drums persuaded them—soothed their ailments, their aching feet, the pains grown sharper since Marie’s mysterious disappearance—then forced them, ignoring their excuses, dragging them down the bayou with rum, champagne, rattles, and tambourines. Except for a few older people who remembered the drumming at Doctor John’s all-night parties, no one knew where they were going. Yet long before they reached the shore, they could tell: the drummers were working for Marie.

  On the morning after her dream of Doctor John, Marie had gone back to town, straight to Sunny King’s house to ask his help.

  “Sure,” he’d said, flattered that the vanished queen had reappeared at his door. “I’ll make the sun rise for you in the middle of the night.”

  “Don’t do that,” said Marie. “The moon’s what I want. Can you make it turn red?”

  On St. John’s Eve the moon shone like a disc of fresh blood. Everything looked different in the red light. The musicians shook hands like strangers. Dancers who’d linked arms every Sunday failed to recognize each other. They looked to Marie for comfort, but she, too, had changed. Her face was glowing like a coal.

  Nothing was familiar. The drummers beat a new rhythm. There were no spectators except when a dancer grew faint and sat down to watch until the world stopped spinning. Two hundred dancers arrived at the same moment—the drums made sure no one was late. The dancing began right away. Twelve bonfires flared up without kindling.

  Marie watched the red light reflected in the dancers' white clothes. At last she drank as much rum as she could swallow and walked toward the grassy shore.

  “This isn’t Congo Square!” she shouted as the rum reminded her of how long it had been since the last time she danced. “This isn’t any tourist show. This is where the loas live. Tonight the saints come down to dance. So let’s invite them. Let’s get them down here dancing!”

  Marie threw back her head and heard herself singing strange songs she’d never heard before. She sang to the saints and loas, wishing John the Baptist a happy birthday, warning him to go easy on the drinking, praising St. Rita, offering the Twins a new toy, asking St. Anthony to open the door, luring Baron Cemetery with the promise of food, inviting Freda-Erzili to show off her new dress, tempting St. Peter with cold beer, complimenting Damballah’s new summer skin.

  Marie knew her songs were just what the saints and loas wanted to hear. All around her, spirits were assembling, saints raining down through the humid air, loas rising from beneath the waters. Invisible, they mingled with the dancers, helped themselves to pork and roast chicken, rum and whiskey, belladonna and hemp.

  Energized by the food and drink, driven by the drumbeat, they leaped into the dancers’ bodies. Marie heard her people chanting the spontaneous new lyrics in perfect unison. They sang in weird voices—lower than the bass drum, metallic as the iron bars, harsher than the sword of Samson. Opening her eyes, she saw them fall, shriek, shiver, gulp like turkeys.

  Slipping in and out of their trances, the dancers couldn’t manage the calinda steps. Instead they clung together a$ tremors rippled through the line. Rows of dancers twisted down the shore like water snakes gliding over the floors of muddy lakes. Marie peered into the crowd, searching out spines she’d straightened, stiff shoulders she’d unbent. But the spirits had stolen their faces and crowned their bodies with the pious eyes of saints, the grinning mouths of loas.

  Then the spirits made their move. Marie felt them claw at her skin, seep through her pores, invade her mouth, her nostrils, snap at her ankles like dogs. She felt them fix her feet, numb her legs, blow through her skull on a wind of whiskey and hemp.

  “No,” she said aloud. “Not yet.” Summoning all her strength, she lifted her left foot. The earth made a sucking sound. Sh
e grabbed the nearest bottle and took a deep drink of champagne, praying for the bubbles to drive the spirits back.

  She ran to take her place in line. Grasping an old woman’s hand, she let herself be pulled along. Pebbles gouged the soles of her feet but she kept on dancing, inhaling incense and smoke, eyes burning from her salty sweat. She heard the musicians playing better than they could play because they were playing what the saints demanded, saw the dancers dancing better than they could dance because the loas were dancing inside them.

  Another spasm shook the line. Marie felt the old woman’s damp hand tremble. Suddenly she felt the sensation which had always announced the snake’s presence in her house. And she understood: The snake’s power was in the dancers, the air thick with spirits, her own fevered body ...

  The dizziness returned. The numbness in her legs, the sweating, the nausea. Releasing the old woman, she dug her fingernails into her palm. The world dropped away with the old woman’s hand; beach and bonfires sloughed off like dead skin. Someone spat a mouthful of rum in her face. But now the spirits swirled in the liquor, determined to claim her ...

  A wave of light broke against her. She swam in blinding light. Inside the bright vortex, everything was silent except for a faint thrumming, like the beating of birds’ wings—spirits talking in the wind and trees, whispering her name. Then the brightness drowned the sounds in the silence of its white light ...

  At last she heard a dim ringing in her ears. Distant church bells. Still blinded by her trance, she counted: Ten ... eleven ... twelve. “Midnight,” she thought. “St. Louis Cathedral.” Gradually the bright wave washed her up on shore, restored her to the world of dancers and drums where it lingered only in the pale aura surrounding everything.

  The music had stopped. Everyone was crowded around Marie. Looking down, she saw a burning candle balanced on each of her fingertips. She stretched her arms before her. The ten white candles stayed upright. She shook her head; the smell of singed hair wafted across her face. Leaning forward to avoid setting fire to her skirt, she threw down the candles and searched the dancers’ faces for a clue: What had she done in her trance? How had the candles gotten into her hands? She tried to catch Sunny King’s eye, but the drummers had resumed their relentless pounding, and all the musicians were staring at a single point.

  Marie followed their gaze through the red air, the eerie half-shadows left from her trance. Finally she saw: Two men were leading an enormous bull across the clearing. The sweat on its black flanks glistened scarlet in the moonlight. Its silver horns were decorated with flowers and red ribbons.

  At that instant the bull saw Marie. Its red-rimmed eyes locked with hers. It began to bellow. The drums beat like racing hearts; rattles rushed like blood, flutes shrieked a shrill drone.

  Marie felt a blow like a truncheon’s slam into the base of her neck. She slumped forward, screaming as she slipped beneath the flood. This time the waters were dark vicous swells. The spirits possessed her, then left in light gusts of wind. This time she recognized the souls commanding her body. She felt St. John hurling his thunder against her hips, the snake arching its hood. Baron Cemetery bumping and grinding his joyous plague dance, Freda-Erzili celebrating her latest marriage, Madame Henriette climbing through the jungle, Old Marinette dancing her personal triumph at the blood feast. And finally the proud, angry spirit of Makandal ...

  The gray waters turned red. Marie felt herself surface. Her hands were coated with blood. The dead bull lay on the ground. She was kneeling beside it, a bloodstained machete resting in her lap. Her hand ached. She’d cut her palm. Her blood welled up, mingling with the bull’s ...

  Marie stood. The music stopped. Her clients filed toward her. One by one, they leaned across the bloody corpse and whispered their secrets, their hopes, prayers meant to carry them through to the next St. John’s Eve: Help me get pregnant. Make it a boy. Heal me. Make my great-great-grandchildren remember me.

  Marie listened, nodding gravely. She kissed their foreheads and they moved on. After they’d all passed, Marie surveyed the crowd. A slow smile lit her face.

  “All right,” she said. “Keep on. Everything will be all right.” Then she threw back her shoulders and danced till Sunny King’s famous sunrise rhythm charmed the cock into crowing at the red light breaking in the eastern sky.

  The rooster was still crowing when Marie disappeared. Picking her way over smoldering coals and broken bottles, she hurried up the bayou. Safe inside Franklin Midnight’s shack, she sighed with relief. The house was empty.

  But no sooner had she unfastened the top hook on her dress than someone knocked on the door. Marie scowled. In all her months at the shack, no one had ever bothered her. Her frown darkened as she forced her tired body to open the door.

  Standing in the door way was Jacques Paris. “Hey,” said Marie, grabbing the wall for support.

  “Good morning,” said Jacques. “What are you looking so sour about?”

  “Just tired,” she said, shutting her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look. “Come in.”

  But of course he didn’t come in. He leaned against the doorway, half-ready to leave. Grateful now for his hesitation, which had maddened her so many years before, Marie walked back into the room.

  At last Jacques entered the shack. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come so early,” he said. “I hear you were partying late last night.”

  “Were you there?”

  “No. ” He sat down on her bedroll. “I didn’ t want to spoil your party. That’s how it started with us, remember? Me almost spoiling your birthday.”

  “I remember,” said Marie. She took a deep breath and sat down beside him, turning to study him in the morning light. His face was as handsome as ever, but he’d aged: a few gray hairs, tiny crow’s feet by his big yellow-hazel eyes. TTiey still looked like two halves of the same soul, matched portraits.

  “You’re looking good, Marie. Especially for somebody who’s been partying all night.”

  “Thanks,” said Marie, wondering if he’d changed. Had he always been so soft-spoken, so familiar? She couldn’t recall. “Are you real?” she said.

  “Real?”

  “I mean...you’re not some kind of hallucination ...”

  “You know I’m real,” said Jacques. “Pinch me.”

  “No, thanks,” said Marie. “How did you find me here?”

  “I was the one who showed you this place, remember?”

  The day he’d brought her there seemed like a day in someone else’s life. A dam was going up in her heart, blocking her view of those memories: The night he’d wrestled the angel. Sharing the apple. That river of sperm. The scream in the middle of the night. All that had happened a long time ago. Sheltered behind the levee, Marie studied Jacques without pain or desire. “Where did you go?” she asked.

  “Santo Domingo.”

  “Why there?”

  “The water,” he answered, avoiding her eyes.

  “How was it?”

  “Not so good,” he said, still looking away. “Nobody likes half-breeds. It’s the same everywhere. And the trees were all different. It took me years to get my carpenter’s skills for those woods.”

  “How did you get back here?”

  “I was hunting shells on the beach one Sunday.” Relaxing, Jacques faced her again. “I ran into your old friend Marie Saloppe.”

  “I thought she was dead.”

  “She’s more alive than we are. She’s the gambling queen of Santo Domingo. She’s living in a big villa with her drunk old man and that pinhead. Anyhow, she asked if I wanted to visit New Orleans. She offered to pay my way.”

  “What for?”

  “She said it did a body good to breathe the air it grew up in. So here I am. With best regards from Marie Saloppe.”

  “How long you staying?”

  “I’m ready to leave.”

  “What’s the hurry?”

  “I got my reasons,” he said brusquely, evading her eyes again.

  Marie h
adn’t lost the knack for reading Jacques’s mind; she knew his reasons. “Well,” she said. “What can you tell me? What have you learned?”

  Jacques’s face took on a patient, serious look which reminded her of the times he’d told her wild lies about the forest creatures. “You can escape from some things real easy,” he said. “But others won’t ever let you loose.”

  Marie felt her heart chipping like an eggshell. “I know that, too,” she said, “I didn’t have to go all the way to Santo Domingo to find it out.” Only then did she think to wonder what he meant. Some bond which had drawn him back to her? More likely he was talking about the spirits which had claimed them both.

  The hole in her heart was growing. She had to hear him say what she already knew. “Did you marry again?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Still married?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who is she?”

  “A woman. In Santo Domingo.”

  “What kind of woman?” Marie touched her chest to make sure the levee was still there. “Does she wear purple lipstick? A pink lace dress embroidered with blue hearts and daggers?”

  Jacques seemed amazed, as if suddenly recalling the magic she’d used on him. “She used to. How did you know?”

  “I’ve got my ways. Some things you just can’t escape from.” Then she crossed her arms and hugged herself hard. “Oh,” she thought. “So that’s how this story ends.”

  Jacques stood up and began to amble around the room like its rightful owner, taking the distance with big, slow steps. “Does that make you sad?” he asked.

  “No,” lied Marie. “It’s been a long time.”