Brown Girl In the Ring (14 page)

“Little bit.”

“All right. I want you to tell me everything that happen after you and Tony left here this morning. Don’t leave nothing out, you hear?”

Ti-Jeanne looked into Baby’s eyes, focused on the child’s calm, steady gaze, and told her grandmother the story of how she and Tony had reached the highway safely, only to be trapped. The old woman’s eyes got hard as stone when she heard how Rudy had seemed to know where they were. “That mean another life gone,” she said in a harsh voice. “Deathblood is the price you pay to get the duppy to spy into Guinea Land for you.”

“What is that, Mami? That duppy everybody keep talking about?”

An ancient pain hollowed out her grandmother’s features. “Doux-doux, Rudy is a shadow-catcher. He got the spirit of someone dead in that calabash, that does do he work for he. Rudy does work the dead to control the living. Is that he probably use to track you and Tony.”

Ti-Jeanne’s skin crawled at the words. She remembered the men at the highway talking about how Rudy controlled some woman named Melba, made her do horrible things. Ti-Jeanne remembered what Osain had said to them in the chapel:
Tell Gros-Jeanne is past time for she do my work.
“Mami,” she said softly, “what Osain mean when he say you ain’t take care of Rudy like he tell you?”

To Ti-Jeanne’s surprise, stern Gros-Jeanne looked down at the floor, refusing to meet her eyes.

“Mami,” Ti-Jeanne persisted, “what business you have with Rudy?”

Gros-Jeanne refused to meet her eyes, for all the world like a child being scolded. “Is me teach he how to serve the spirits, but he take the knowledge and twist it.” Mami’s eyes finally met hers, sorrow and regret brimming in them. “Rudy is my husband. Your grandfather.”

Shock leached heat from Ti-Jeanne’s skin. “What? But how… Mami, Rudy is a young man!”

The old woman shook her head sadly. “Rudy fourteen years older than me. That is other people youth he wearing, youth he steal from them when he catch their shadows to put in he duppy pot.”

Suddenly Baby screamed, twisting and fighting in Ti-Jeanne’s arms. Had a pin from his diaper stuck him? No. Baby howled as though he’d lost everything in the world he’d ever loved. Ti-Jeanne rocked him and rocked him, trying to soothe him, but he was inconsolable.

“Give he to me,” Mami said. Ti-Jeanne gratefully handed him over.

Mami cradled Baby, looking right into his eyes. “Little soul, little soul, is what vex you so? Like you need a healing bath to soothe your spirit, child. Eh? Is what do you?”

Baby sobbed and sobbed. It sounded as though he were crying, “Bolom! Bolom!” over and over. He looked so lost and miserable. A bolom was an unborn child. It was Ti-Jeanne’s private name for Baby, the one she’d started calling him while he was still in her belly. Past time to give him his own name now. She leaned over her baby, ran a hand over his head. Mami’s eyes on his little face were worried. “Ti-Jeanne,” she said, “when this child learn to talk, I feel he go have plenty to tell we.”

“How you mean?”

“Like I tell you, is not just you Legbara did ride last night. He visit your baby, too, just for a second. Baby talk to we while Legbara did riding he.”

Ti-Jeanne’s heart sank. She had hoped that she had imagined coming back to her senses in time to hear Baby talking in an adult’s voice.
Them spirits following he and all?
She had to leave this place as soon as she could, get away from the balm-yard and Mami and Rudy and all these beings she couldn’t see who were trying to control her life. “What he make Baby say, Mami? What words he put into the child mouth?”

Gros-Jeanne relayed the odd message to her. Ti-Jeanne just found it confusing. Death and life? What did any of it have to do with her?

“Don’t worry about Baby, doux-doux. Maybe Legbara just come to he because Legbara love all children, and they love him back.”

“No, Mami! That skull-and-bone
thing
?”

“Oh, yes. Remember what he say: he does watch over the crossroads between death and life, too. Dead people precious to he because he does shepherd them across one way, but children precious to he because he does shepherd them across the other way.”

“I go study that later, Mami. Right now, I need to know what happen to me out there by the highway.”

Mami frowned. “I feel we start something when we had that ceremony last night. What happen to you is part of that. Tell me, doux-doux, what Osain say to allyou last night? I couldn’t hear, because is me he did riding.”

“He say he vex with you. He say he done tell you already to find Rudy duppy pot and break it. He say…” Ti-Jeanne tried to remember the spirit’s odd words, “He say to tell you that it too late for you and the middle one, but maybe the end one go win through. I ain’t know what that mean.”

Mami’s face was bleak. “The middle one is Mi-Jeanne. He telling me it too late to help she. God, God; my child gone for good.”

Fear settled like lead in Ti-Jeanne’s stomach. “My mother? And the end one?” she whispered.

“The end one is you. It look like you did dreaming true, doux-doux. I must be the one to set the trap for Rudy, but is you go have to stop he.”

Ti-Jeanne remembered Rudy’s voice ordering their doom from the phone. “Mami, this ain’t my fight. I never do anything to get in Rudy way.”

“Except today. He not going to forgive you for damaging his three generals.”

“But that wasn’t me!”

“I know. It was Legbara.” She looked at Ti-Jeanne. “He is a Eshu, you know, one of the guardians of the crossroads. When you black out, he must be did riding you. You never know what Legbara going to take it into he head to do. Him is a trickster. The Eshu-them too love to play games.”

“Games?” Ti-Jeanne pulled away from her grandmother’s hands. “Is game allyou think this is? Eh, Mami? Is game you been playing with me and Tony all this time? With we
lives
?”

“Ti-Jeanne, you know better than that.”

She did, but it felt better to have someone familiar to accuse of all this.
Legbara.
That was the word she had been saying when she woke up with Crack’s chin in her hand. “Mami, I need to know how to deal with this. I need to know who is all these spirit names you does call all the time, and what it is does happen to me when I black out.”
And how to make all of it go away,
she thought, but she didn’t say it out loud.

The old woman looked grim. “But ain’t is that I been trying to teach you all along? And is now you want to learn, eh? When is your man involved. Well, sweetheart, look like you have to learn your lesson now. Your Tony probably run away already to the ’burbs” (the words seared Ti-Jeanne’s heart like a new wound) “and leave you here. Well, good. I hope you learn your lesson.”

Despair settled on Ti-Jeanne’s shoulders. Mami could always cut her down to size. But maybe Mami had the key to freeing her of the spirits that were haunting her. Let the old woman think Ti-Jeanne was feeling chastised. Mami was always more forthcoming then. She slumped her shoulders, put on a glum expression. “Yes, Mami. I sorry, Mami. I ready to learn from you now.”

“Now you talking sense, sweetness. We go start right now. No time to waste.” The old woman settled herself comfortably on the floor, pulling her skirt up above her knees so she could sit cross-legged. As ever, Ti-Jeanne marvelled at Mami’s trim, strong body. Despite her small, almost child-like frame, Mami was as tough as a workhorse. “Now, doux-doux,” Mami said, “to start off, it have eight names you must know.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “Shango, Ogun, Osain, Shakpana, Emanjah, Oshun, Oya, and Eshu.”

Ti-Jeanne tried to memorise the sounds. “And explain to me exactly what them is, Mami.”

“The African powers, child. The spirits. The loas. The orishas. The oldest ancestors. You will hear people from Haiti and Cuba and Brazil and so call them different names. You will even hear some names I ain’t tell you, but we all mean the same thing. Them is the ones who does carry we prayers to God Father, for he too busy to listen to every single one of we on earth talking at he all the time. Each of we have a special one who is we father or mother, and no matter what we call it, whether Shango or Santeria or Voudun or what, we all doing the same thing. Serving the spirits.”

“Osain and Eshu I hear already today, Mami. And Legbara.”

“Yes. Legbara is your spirit father, like Osain is my own. I already tell you what that mean.”

“Yes, but I don’t understand. I supposed to watch over people dying, or something? I don’t like how that sound, Mami!”

“Doux-doux, the spirits don’t call we unless we ready to accept the call, so you must be ready, even if you don’t want to accept it. Legbara is your guardian. He will watch out for you, if you is a good daughter.”

And a good daughter single-handedly hunted down obeah-wielding gang lords, Ti-Jeanne supposed.

R
udy was pissed off. Tony had blurted out his story to him in the limousine ride back to Rudy’s office. Only three more days left to collect the heart for the hospital, and this pissant boy had been wasting time. He’d even found a match, but he was too cowardly to do what had to be done. On top of it all now, Tony had put his three best generals out of commission. Rudy didn’t even know if Crapaud was going to live, and Jay and Crack were only lying there like babies, talking foolishness about how Tony’s girlfriend beat them up. He scowled at Tony across the oak dining table. He touched the linen napkin to his lips, put it down. The waiter moved in quickly to clear the table, glancing fearfully at Tony from time to time. Rudy watched him in silence, then, “All right. You could go now.”

Tapping the fingers of one hand on the tabletop, Rudy glared at Tony again.
I have a mind to just feed him blood to the calabash one time,
Rudy thought. Lately the thing in the duppy pot had been demanding to be fed more often. And what about that message that Crack had brought him from Eshu? The Eshu in the Black Cape. The one that had shown him the way to control people, to work the dead.

Rudy thought about it. Now that he knew where to find a match for Uttley, he could get some of his boys to beat the woman up, then just call the hospital to come and collect, and claim his finder’s fee. Less money, but still profitable. Maybe not yet, though. He still had a chance to use Tony to get the full fee. Rudy was sure he could give the man the right incentive. And it would get those blasted women and their nicey-nicey balm-yard spirits out of his way once and for all.

“I figure,” Rudy said to Tony, “you must be did see what happen out there by the highway? You see the spirit that appear to Crack?”

Of course, Tony couldn’t reply. He was flopped limply in the armchair in Rudy’s office, head flopped to one side. Only the panicked look in Tony’s eyes betrayed any awareness.

“Some people call that spirit the One in the Black Cape, seen? Him does always dress in funeral colours. Him is the one you call when somebody work a obeah ’pon you and you want revenge. I call him. Twelve years ago. I wasn’t nobody then, you understand? Just a poor man who get kick out of he house by he ungrateful wife. Motherass woman take up with a next man behind my back. Them days, I was living in a flophouse, and I had one little problem, same like you. Buff. Used to spend all my money on it, then steal to get more. And just like you, I make a mistake. I steal from the posse.”

Tony’s eyes were watering.

“But your eyes must be stinging you, eh, Tony? It does burn when you can’t blink them, right? Is so the toad poison does take you. Temporary paralysis. Is them kinda things could happen when people cross me. Never mind, though,” he said in mock friendliness, “I go get Melba to fix you up, all right? Melba, take your hand and close that man eyes for him. Gentle, now. Don’t poke him like you jook the last one.”

Melba shuffled out of the corner where she’d been standing. She’d been bathed, but the boys hadn’t known what to do with her hair. It hung matted and snarled from her scalp. She had lost a lot of weight. Her clothes sagged on her body, and her skin was grey and flaky. She wouldn’t last much longer. She went toward Tony, who started making “uh, uh,” noises. She ignored them, slid his eyelids down over his eyes, then stood where she was.

“Now,” Rudy said, “what I was saying?”

Tony’s noises took on a more desperate tone. Rudy chuckled. “What, Master Tony? Me think say you would prefer if you could see what me a-do, eh? All right, brother. If you could stand the burning, who is me to tell you no? Melba, open up he eyes again.” She did.

“Move away now, Melba. Go back to your corner.” The woman obeyed.

“So yes, brother, me was telling you: me steal from the posse, and them find out, and the boys come for me. Me did slash all the buff one time. Me was flying high when them bruk down me door. I don’t like to tell you how bad them do me that night, me brother. Them nearly kill me.” He shook his head, remembering. Cool breeze, though. That was a long time ago. And the two men that had done it had lived to see their error. He went and stood over Tony. “Them break me one leg, here so,” he said, laying a hand on Tony’s thigh. Tony’s eyes were wild with terror. “And me hand, and them crack open me cheekbone, here so.” With his index finger, he touched a spot just under Tony’s left eye. A tear dripped down. He smiled and flicked it off his finger.