“Now I remember,” thought Marie. “This is what it means.”
Desire: Her body sighing a soundless “Ohhh. . .a silent echo of the pleased surprised sound she’d made the first time she’d won at gambling, the first time her magic tricks worked. Beauty: The intertwined forms of a naked man and woman. Strength: The first sight of him hard, the muscles in her own back. Tenderness: Blood beating at the back of his neck. Blessing: The parts of her body reannouncing themselves, discovered and reborn. Now I have breasts. Knees. Thighs. Wonder: How can so much pleasure be possible? Love: There are no words for what is happening.
Remembering the meaning of the words, Marie turned back toward Christophe. Their bodies fit like two halves of a sea creature, crossing the oceans for centuries to be reunited.
“Mating,” thought Marie. “So this is what it means. This dance.” She looked at the candle burning in the champagne bottle and tried to remember which of them had lit it.
At last they fell asleep, curled up in each other’s arms like big cats, a lion and lioness slumbering through the winter in their warm den.
Marie dreamed she was at a wedding party. The bride-groom was a perfect cross between Christophe Glapion and Samson Moses Charles. His face was a shock—she was amazed that one can could combine the features of such a different-looking pair. But the wedding was more disturbing. She’d been there in another dream. Last time the bridegroom was Jacques Paris.
She awoke before she could see the bride. But she knew who the bride was. And she knew what she had to do.
She looked over at Christophe—smiling in his sleep, his mouth slightly open like a baby’s. She ran her finger down the scar on his face. Then she pulled on her robe and hurried to her office. Quickly assembling thirteen purple candles—the biggest Please Have Mercy Candles she had—she arranged them on the opposite side of their makeshift altar to St. Damian.
“Please, Freda-Erzili,” she said. “Please have mercy. Please leave him be. Please don’t take this one, too.”
Chanting the prayer over and over, she placed the altar in the center of the floor and lit the first six candles. Then she went into the kitchen and prepared a platter of white chicken meat, curried mayonnaise, and quartered hardboiled eggs. She took a decanter of blackberry liqueur from the parlor, some wine from the sideboard. Back in her office, she set the food beside the altar and lit the last seven candles. She shut her eyes and begged Freda-Erzili to leave Christophe alone.
When she opened her eyes, Freda-Erzili was sitting in the chair beside her desk. She recognized her from her dreams: a pretty, plump mulatto woman with shiny black ringlets, wearing a short pink lace dress with blue embroidery, heavy jasmine perfume, and lots of bright makeup. Crossing her legs, she tapped her stiletto-heeled foot impatiently in the air.
“Maybe she’s hungry,” thought Marie. “Please.” She pointed to the food. “Help yourself.”
“You having any?” asked Freda-Erzili in a trilling voice several registers above Marie’s.
“I’ll join you in a glass of champagne,” said Marie, locating two glasses. “I’ve had enough tonight, so one more won’t matter.”
Freda-Erzili stood, her straight back swaying on her high heels, hips swiveling as she walked. She helped herself to a big platter of chicken meat, mayonnaise, eggs, and a small glass of liqueur. Sitting down, she ate with great gusto—generously salting her egg, dipping the chicken into the mayonnaise, licking the sauce off her fingers and washing it down with wine.
“She doesn’t act like a loa,” thought Marie. There was nothing frightening about Freda-Erzili, nothing superior or imposing. She seemed more like a friend over for a late-night drink.
“Thanks for warning me with that dream,” said Marie. “Before I forgot again. Before it was too late. ”
“Thanks for inviting me,” said Freda-Erzili, leaning forward for another slice of chicken. “I get hungry loving all those men. You know how it is.”
They ate and drank in silence. Marie refilled their glasses through several bottles. Freda-Erzili freely mixed wine and champagne, obviously set on getting drunk. At last she smiled confidentially. “I wasn’t going to do it to you this time,” she said, her consonants already slightly slurred. “This time you were home free. That dream was just to show you what could have happened.”
“I believe you. Thanks anyway.”
“As for the last time ...” Freda-Erzili sighed. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I really didn’t. I wanted to be your friend. If only you’d invited me to the wedding, things might’ve been different. I don’t know. Sometimes there’s a call I’ve got to answer—I can’t help it any more than the men. It’s not always in my power. It’s hard, being one among the many ... Anyhow, I’d never do it to you again.”
“Why not?” Freda-Erzili drained the last of her pink champagne-wine mixture. “ ’Cause you learn your lessons. You get credit for that. I never do learn.”
“Learn what?”
“That it ain’t worth it.” Freda-Erzili sighed again and slouched in her chair. “That’s the lesson I should learn—the dagger in your heart ain’t worth it. I’ve loved a million men. I’ve stole a million husbands, wrecked a million happy homes. But none of them turned out to be worth it—not your man, not one of them. None of them loved me right—they just hurt me and betrayed me and hurt me some more ... ” By the end of her monologue, Freda-Erzili was weepy drunk.
“Some men are worth it,” said Marie, startled by the pleasure of remembered desire as she imagined Christophe asleep at that moment in her warm bed.
“That’s what we always say at the start.” Freda-Erzili chased her champagne with a shot of liqueur. “Maybe you’re right, though. Maybe some men are. . . . But most aren’t,”'she went on, teary-eyed again. “It makes me wonder why I waste millions of years fixed on these men. Sometimes I think it’s the worst dance you can do. I look at Damballah, creating and destroying the whole world. ‘There’s something to think about,’ I say. Or even Baron Cemetery, stalking the shadows, hiding in plagues, serving those awful meals—at least it’s a noble line of work. But me? I waste all my lifetimes possessed and crazy over what? Seven inches of meat, more or less. That dance. But I can’t change. It’s love with me, like it’s drink or gambling with others. ” She took another disconsolate swig from the wine bottle. “And from the number of candles that get burned to me every night, I guess there’s a lot like me. People with love on their minds. They need me.”
Leaning forward, Freda-Erzili put her soft hand with its pink-polished nails on Marie’s shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she assured her. “I won’t touch this one. I want you to know—I understand.”
There was nothing else to say. They drank as the Please Have Mercy Candles burned down. As the last candles sputtered out, Freda-Erzili vanished with their wispy smoke.
Christophe Glapion woke up smiling. Opening his eyes, he seemed confused till he saw Marie, then smiled again. “Here’s to voodoo,” he said, kissing her forehead. “Here’s to our success.”
“Here’s to power,” said Marie, moving down along the length of his body.
Later that morning Christophe sat up in bed. “I know this is a strange time to ask,” he began hesitantly. “But I forgot last night and I’m afraid I’ll forget again. I forgot to ask about your fee.”
Marie laughed. “Stay here,” she said. “That’s my fee.”
“What?”
“Stay here now. All day. I’ll cancel my appointments.”
“That’s an easy one to pay,” said Christophe. “The shop can stay closed. This seems like the right place to be.”
CHAPTER XXXII
BY THE TIME she’d missed her third month, Marie knew it was going to be a girl. Already imagining another voodoo queen to inherit her business, she took every precaution—brushed her hair ten times daily so no tangles would tie the child inside her, postponed her healings, avoided hunchbacks and cripples, crossed herself three times and spat in the shadows of blind men she
passed on the street. She took deep breaths, lit candles and prayed to the Virgin for an easy delivery.
But it wasn’t an easy pregnancy. “I’m too old for this,” she thought on queasy mornings, stumbling out to the courtyard for a mouthful of water. She forced herself to keep working, but often had to stop her consultations to bend over and press her lips against her belly. “Hush now,” she whispered to the child kicking inside her. “Hush. I know you want to be free—but not yet. I know what kind of baby you’re going to be.”
She knew she’d have an independent little girl, willful enough to interrupt her work, a child who could eventually be soothed into submission. And she knew her daughter would be religious: Delphine had told her how she’d cried from her womb for three-cent chocolates. But this child was demanding wine, raw cornstarch, and especially communion wafers—driving Marie to mass every day, where she waited hungrily to savor the tasteless bread on her tongue.
There was only one thing she didn’t know. “Who’s this baby’s father?” she asked the mirror which had shown her the healthy infant girl. Yet all the mirror would reveal was the face of that man in her dream, Erzili’s groom, the perfect cross between Christophe and Samson Moses. “That’s impossible,” she’d scream at the maddening image, knowing all the while that the world of dreams and mirrors had its own laws of possibility.
In that way her pregnancy was a mystery. For everyone else, though, it was a solution.
One Sunday afternoon, halfway through a fast calinda, Marie’s Chinese shawl fell from her shoulders, uncovering her belly, swollen and firm as a melon. “Ah,” thought the musicians and dancers. “That solves it. Now we know why she let that Christophe Glapion move in. He’s the only man in town who won’t ask the obvious question.”
Christophe never asked.
After his second night in Marie’s bed, he went to his small apartment above the bookstore and returned with his dearest possessions: three crates of books—Pascal and Descartes in the original French, Dante in Italian, the works of Spinoza and Aquinas, Fenimore Cooper’s latest novel, and a slim volume of Bryant’s poetry.
Each morning at ten he went off to the shop and returned at six with more books. Nights when Marie had her special appointments, Christophe waited in the parlor, reading happily. After the last client left, they drank coffee in the kitchen. Marie told Christophe about the day’s cures and fixes. He repeated what he’d read. Never lecturing like Father Antoine or Doctor John, never trying to educate her, Christophe explained the most complex ideas so slowly and patiently that she never needed a second explanation.
Their best times were Sundays—Marie loved having company on her day off. At mass she watched him light candles just as he’d lit those Make Him Love Mes which had worked on her. After church Christophe went home while Marie visited the prison. Remembering his own slow time in jail, he felt proud. She was doing the right thing. Later, watching her lead the dances and perform her amazing healings, he was so proud he didn’t seem to hear her followers speculating about why she’d married him.
All evening they made love, then slept in each other’s arms. One Sunday night Christophe ran his hand over Marie’s belly. She stiffened. For three months she’d been waiting for him to notice—everyone else seemed to know. Now she waited for him to ask. But he didn’t. Smiling, he kissed her belly and drifted off into tranquil sleep.
That was the second mystery: Why didn’t he ask? People were talking—surely he knew. Marie sat up and looked across the room at her mirror. Gradually an image appeared: Christophe’s white daddy patting his children’s heads and never asking where they’d come from. Christophe was a gentleman like his daddy. And a gentleman assumes his woman’s children are his.
“If you won’t tell me,” Marie silently addressed her mirror, “I’ll let him think what he wants. For all I know he’s right.”
The next day Marie made sure he’d never be hurt by gossip. “This baby is Christophe Glapion’s,” she told her clients. “If I hear one word to the contrary, I’ll make your hearts dry up like talcum and blow out of your chests with the first deep breath.”
There was no caul.
The baby’s face was purplish, scrunched-up, but no sticky film adhered to her tiny features. “That’s all right,” thought Marie. “She can see through the veil without it.”
Someone was holding the child: Christophe. Surfacing through dark red waters, waking from a long dream of pain and blood, Marie smiled weakly. “How long did it take?” she asked.
Christophe looked at his watch. “Twelve hours, ten minutes.”
She sighed. “Nothing magical about that number.” It had been a hard labor. She’d opened the doors and windows, undone every button in the closet, untied the knots in Christophe’s bootlaces. The petals of her rose of Jericho had opened smoothly. But it hadn’t eased the birth.
“It was magical,” said Christophe.
“Did I make a lot of noise?”
“You prayed a lot.”
“Prayed to whom?”
“Jesus ... St. Rita ... you kept talking about some twins ...”
“They must be deaf these-days. They didn’t help a bit.” Then she remembered: No caul. “What’s the date?”
“February second.”
“An Aquarius. Not what I would’ve wanted. But she’ll be all right.”
At that instant the baby began to howl. Marie took her from Christophe and kissed the soft damp skull. “That’s all right,” she whispered. “Everything will be all right.”
“She favors Christophe,” said Sister Delilah, cradling her little goddaughter as she and Marie brought her home from the christening. Christophe and the godfather, Bastile Croquere, were celebrating over a whiskey at the cafe.
“How can you tell?” Marie asked dispiritedly. She’d been edgy since the birth. The baptism had made her feel worse. The new priest—a sloppy, unshaven young Belgian who followed the mass book to the letter—had made her heart ache for Father Antoine. All through the service she’d sought comfort from the painting of John the Baptist. But the saint wouldn’t look at her. He seemed vexed, hurt, as if he knew that the priest’s perfect Latin had nothing to do with a wild man eating locusts and honey, drinking hard liquor and hurling his thunder against the sky.
“She’s got his eyes,” said Sister Delilah. “And she doesn’t have that rash of yours, thank God.”
“You don’t have to tell me that,” snapped Marie. “Why so nasty? Was she born with the caul?”
“No.”
“She is Christophe’s baby. I bet the magic skips a generation on you. I bet she winds up as a hairdresser or a nun. That’s just what you deserve.”
“You really think she’s Christophe’s?”
“Don’t you?”
“I don’t know.” Marie shrugged. She had nothing to gain from lying to Sister Delilah. “She might be Samson Moses Charles’s.”
Sister Delilah whistled. “You’re not human,” she said. 4 4 Any normal woman would be dying to know her baby’s daddy’s name. But not you. You think it’s your baby—yours and yours alone. That’s why you named her Marie. Marie Laveau. You want a little double to take over your business the minute you quit. That’s not how to raise a daughter—you’ll raise a monster, a zombie. You're not human. That’s why you haven’t aged. You look exactly the same as you did that first day I fixed your hair!”
Marie looked at Sister Delilah—who was aging, sprouting crows’ feet and worry lines despite her creams and lotions. “I’m human enough,” she said. “I’ve been lucky so far, but now I’ll start showing my years. They say a baby ages you faster than anything. ”
“Not you,” predicted Sister Delilah. “Not Marie Laveau.”
That night while Christophe slept, Marie heaped her altar with good-luck charms: dried rats’ heads, scarabs, snakeskins, magic stones, childrens’ marbles, and playing cards. She located Delphine’s silver vial which she kept full of holy water. At last she laid her child down before the m
agic objects.
Lighting a white Watch Over Candle to each guardian spirit, Marie tipped the vial into a clean cloth and sprinkled the baby’s forehead. “In the names of the saints and loas,” she said, “I baptise thee ...” She finished the sentence silently to herself. She reached for a pen and wrote a few words on a scrap of gray tissue paper, which she folded twice and stuffed into a blue velvet bag, a duplicate of the one at her own waist.
“Now she has a secret name,” thought Marie. “If only she has the sense to keep it secret, nothing can harm her.”
Her thoughts were interrupted by the baby, crying for the first time that day. Marie unbuttoned her dress and offered her a breast; she wasn’t hungry. She bounced her on her shoulder; her cries grew louder. Marie found a packet of Cloud of Joy Root; she wouldn’t touch it.
Her cries grew angrier, loud enough to wake Christophe. Too tired to explain the candles and magic objects, Marie prayed for the baby to stop crying. Without thinking, she dipped her fingers in some holy water and gently thrust them into her daughter’s mouth.
The baby sucked greedily. By the time she’d licked off the holy water, she was fast asleep, smiling like a cherub.
CHAPTER XXXIII
FOR ALL PRACTICAL PURPOSES, her secret name was Marie. Everyone called her Ti-Marie. Little Marie. Everyone said she was her mother’s little double, blessed with her looks, her charms, her gifts.
“She’s got gifts,” said Marie. “But I’m not so sure they’re mine.”
Secretly she suspected that some of her daughter’s gifts had come from the devil. For example, there was Ti-Marie’s talent for destruction. The house rang with shattering china, thudding candlesticks, clattering pans. Ti-Marie’s genius flowered when she learned to crawl, but Marie swore she’d broken things just by looking at them from her cradle.
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