Echoes of a Distant Summer (61 page)

Bones stood up and rang a small brass bell for his fitness coach. A tall, muscular brunette answered the ring and assisted him out of his silk pants and helped his frail body into the wonderful, relaxing warmth of his Jacuzzi. Once in the bubbling water, he thought of DiMarco: an expendable pawn. Bones had not told anyone in the organization about Tremain’s fortune for good reason. Soon he would have DiMarco’s jet and all the money that the nigger Tremain had stolen. He would have it
all to himself. Bones reminded himself to send fifteen thousand dollars with a note of thanks to Tavio Vazzi. His brother Mickey had been indispensable. Joe Bones sank deeper into the bubbling water. It seemed to take the ache out of his tired, old muscles.

T
he evening sky was filled with splashes of color from distant fireworks as the taxi jerked and bounced over the rough cobblestone pavement of the bridge leading into Algiers. It was a warm and humid summer night. Serena sat huddled in the darkness of the backseat. The sweltering shadows of the cab’s interior provided a cozy haven of security for her. This trip was her first foray away from her hotel room since she was brought in from the funeral in a semiconscious state. She had stayed in her room, living off room service without opening the curtains or lifting the blinds for nearly a week. She hadn’t even turned on the lights at night. She had wanted to stay wrapped in darkness. The light garishly revealed too many past mistakes. She felt the burn of acid in the back of her throat. Her stomach was upset, as it had been much of the time since the funeral. As she looked southward a particularly bright and colorful firework exploded across the dark blue of the heavens. Just as the sparkling colors faded, a low, rumbling thunder rolled past. It sounded to her like the earth itself had indigestion.

The taxi pulled up to the curb in front of a rundown hotel. The hotel’s unlit marquee was so weathered and worn that Serena could not read it in the darkness. The cabdriver, a short, stout, white man with a porkpie hat, got out and went up to talk with two black men who were lounging around the hotel’s entrance. The driver returned to the taxi and got in behind the wheel. While he turned the cab in a U-turn he explained, “Sorry, missus, Sister in Desire this day. I take you now. I take you direct.”

Serena stared out the windows at a passing landscape that was totally foreign to her. Although she had spent her youth in New Orleans and its surrounding environs, she was totally unable to orient herself to the
ways the city had changed in the fifty-plus years since she had last visited. Unfamiliar neighborhood passed after unfamiliar neighborhood, but she could tell when she entered the colored area of the city. She was surprised to see that electricity and neon lights were everywhere, even in the colored quarter. The taxi drove into a dark, narrow alley behind an old tenement. There was one street light at the entrance to the alley and that light did not illuminate the unlit doorway to which she was directed by the driver. Before she paid him, she asked him to wait for her, but he shook his head. He told her that the neighborhood was too dangerous and that she should call a cab when she was ready to leave.

She paused a moment before she handed the driver the fare, wondering if perhaps she should discontinue her quest and return to the relative safety of the hotel. But she realized that she had no choice and pushed money into the man’s hands. She was on the verge of madness.

The full weight of her past decisions had fallen upon her and crushed her to the floor, leaving her listless and vulnerable to the predations of every ghost borne of vengeance. She had spent five terrible days trying to stay awake because the moment her eyes closed she was transported to some horrible place where she was surrounded by angry crowds that shouted and screamed hateful words at her. That dream would have been bearable had she been able to relegate it as simply a figment of her unconscious mind, but she couldn’t. Everything she experienced had the look and stench of reality.

She dreamed one night that she had to sit immobilized while her brother, Amos, lined up every adult and child in the mob to walk by and slap her. The next morning the left side of her face was raw and sore, and she had trouble moving her jaw. Several times she had awakened and caught herself screaming at the spirits in the emptiness of her hotel room. Her waking hours were not much better. King was able to visit her in her conscious moments while the rest of the menagerie had to wait until fatigue delivered her back to them. King was enough. He was merciless, pointing out her every mistake, deriding the smallness of her intention and ridiculing her vanity. She found herself arguing furiously with him, talking aloud as if he were actually standing before her in the flesh. The colored hotel maids who came to clean her room were afraid of her. They whispered in her presence. One of them had even flashed a gris-gris several times when she thought Serena wasn’t looking.
Serena recognized it as a charm against harmful spirits. She had inquired if the maid knew of Sister Bornais. The maid had nodded. Sister Bornais was very famous and she was still alive. Serena knew right then she had to see her. She had to find out if there was some way to escape the pain, a way to escape the creatures of her guilt. As the cab pulled away from the curb, Serena turned and walked into the darkened doorway.

A large, solid wooden door barred her entrance. In the dim light, she saw an iron knocker in the middle of the door and used it to announce her arrival. She waited several minutes and there was no response. She pounded the door with a second, more sustained effort and the door swung open. A large, beefy, dark-skinned man with gold front teeth stood in the doorway. He put a beer bottle up to his lips and drained half of it then looked at Serena. His gaze was not inviting when he asked, “Yeah?”

“I’m here to see Sister Bornais.”

“It’s July fourth! It’s a holiday! She ain’t working today!” The man started to shut the door.

Serena was nearly frantic as she pleaded, “Please! Please! Ask if she’ll see me! I’ll pay her generously for her time!”

The man made a gesture of reluctance and asked, “What’s yo’ name?”

“Serena Tremain! King Tremain’s wife!”

The man closed the door partway while he whispered to someone who was behind it. There was a few minutes of muffled give and take and then he opened the door again and said, “Jes’ a minute. We gon’ check if she seein’ anybody today.” He took another gulp of his beer then pushed the door shut until there was barely a sliver of light coming through the doorway.

Several more minutes passed as Serena stood quietly in the darkened doorway. She was praying that Sister Bornais would see her. She could not afford to be sent away. There was no one else to whom she could turn. She heard faint laughter from somewhere behind her in the darkness. She recognized the voice. It was King Tremain’s. The problem was that she couldn’t tell if the sound originated in her head or if there was really someone behind her who just sounded like King. She turned and stared into the dim shadows of the street. With only the distant streetlight at the end of the alley for illumination, there was not much to see. She heard some rustling sounds punctuated by loud squeaks
around the garbage cans across the alley. She shuddered. It sounded like foraging rats. She held her purse in front of her chest and turned back to the door.

The door swung open and the man with the gold in his teeth beckoned her inside. As she started through the door a garbage can lid across the alley slid off and clanged to the pavement. The man pushed past Serena and shouted, “Goddamned rats!” He threw his beer bottle in the direction of the cans. Serena heard it shatter amidst loud squeaking and then saw the dim, humped-back shapes of large wharf rats scurrying into the darkness.

Serena was led up some rickety stairs and down a hall to a large room in which a pungent incense was burning. The room was lit by one standing lamp with a large, conical shade which stood next to a small round oak table that was placed in the center of the room. There were two high wingback chairs on opposite sides of the table. Along the walls were couches covered with knitted throws and all the windows had heavy, dark-colored curtains. Serena was seated in one of the chairs and left to await Sister Bornais’s arrival. Serena stared around the room. Since the lamp focused most of the light on the table in the center of the room, the walls and periphery were dimly lit, but Serena could discern that there were numerous ornate astrological charts on the walls. Other than the charts, there was no evidence that a voodoo woman was in residence.

Sister Bornais was rolled into the room in a wheelchair by the same man who had met Serena at the door. He took the other wingback chair and put it against a wall next to a couch. Sister Bornais was wheeled up to the table and into the light. The years had been kind to Sister Bornais. Even though she was reputed to be over a hundred years old, her face was relatively unlined and her eyes were still sharp. The man stood beside her and waited for a signal. She gave him a quick nod and he backed away from the table and left the room. Sister Bornais said nothing. She studied Serena, nodding her head as she did so as if she was confirming her intuition.

Serena grew uncomfortable in the silence, which stretched into many minutes. She attempted to explain. “You may not remember me. We met at the—”

“I remember you,” the old lady interjected in a trembling voice. “You was King’s woman. It was almost sixty years ago, but I remembers you.”

“I c-came be-because I need—”

“I knows why you came! I could feel yo’ haints while you was at the front door. You got both the unborn and the dead followin’ you, ’cause you didn’t listen to me. You didn’t follow my advice. You spurned my gift of seein’ then, and now you come for help when it’s too late. You want to close the door after the demons done got free. They visit you every night, don’t they?”

Serena mumbled, “Wha-what do you mean?”

Sister Bornais smiled and her dark eyes flashed. “Every time you close yo’ eyes, you got somebody talkin’ to you. You can’t find no rest in sleep, ’cause all them peoples you wronged wants they day in court, huh? You got chil’ren that was never borned talkin’ to you, don’t you? They wants to make sure you know what you done, ain’t that right?”

Sister Bornais’s insight completely disarmed Serena. She could do nothing but nod in confirmation.

“They yo’ brother’s and sisters’ chil’rens. They numbers was picked, but you canceled they turn to live. ’Cause they had a right to life, they gon’ get some of that through you. They gon’ live in yo’ mind and yo’ thoughts.”

Serena began to sob. She dabbed at the tears with her handkerchief. She pleaded, “What can I do? They’re talking and screaming at me all the time! I’m going crazy! It’s too much! I can’t take it! It’s too much weight. Please tell me, what can I do?”

“The problem is, you can’t undo! You had a chance and you didn’t take it. More’n that, you broke an oath you done signed in yo’ own blood, and ’cause of that you done doomed some more of yo’ kin to an early grave. They gon’ die soon too. You can’t undo what’s been did. It’s done.”

A young woman entered the room carrying a small tray with two teacups. All that Serena really noticed about her is that she had her hair braided around her head into the shape of a horn. The woman set the tray on the table and departed as quickly as she had entered.

Sister Bornais gestured to the cup. “Drink yo’ tea. It’ll steady yo’ nerves.”

Serena’s hand trembled as she picked up the cup. There was a pleading look on her face when she asked, “Isn’t there something? Some way? I would give my life to correct what’s been done.”

Sister Bornais snorted with indignation, “Yo’ life ain’t worth nothin’!
You done lived it! Used it up! Yo’ milk done curdled; can’t nobody drink it! You ain’t got nothin’ to trade with! You think you gon’ trade moldy bread for fresh with demons?”

Serena was incredulous. She set her cup down. She stared at the old woman, who returned her gaze with an unblinking eye. Serena had never given any thought to the possibility that there was no escape from her situation. She thought of all the clamoring voices that populated her sleeping hours and shuddered. She held her handkerchief to her mouth and gasped, “You mean there’s nothing I can do? There’s no hope for me? I was told that I was going to live a long time! Over a hundred! I still have plenty of life left!”

“Drink yo’ tea! I’ll tell you what I see in yo’ leaves.”

Serena picked up her cup again. Her hand was unsteady. She had to grasp the cup with both hands to get it to her lips. The hot liquid had a sweet, mint flavor and it coursed down her throat, suffusing her with warmth. She drank the whole cup in a few gulps and set it down.

Sister Bornais reached a wrinkled hand across the table and pulled the cup to her. She stared into the cup for several minutes then demanded, “Let me see yo’ hand.”

Serena offered her hand and was surprised at the strength of Sister Bornais’s grip. The old lady’s claw of a hand held her palm up in a tight clasp. She studied Serena’s hand intently, then looked back and forth between the cup and the hand several times.

Sister Bornais released her and said, “You is gon’ live a long time, but it’s a punishment. Yo’ life is gon’ be lonely and unhappy. You ain’t gon’ have no family to speak of ‘round you. You gon’ be sick a lot. You gon’ sink into yo’ grave bit by bit. Wouldn’t surprise me if you ended up in some kind of crazy house. It’s gon be bad.”

The air seemed to go out of Serena as she wilted and put her head in her hands. Minutes passed in silence. She could not speak. A hell beyond her worst fears loomed in front of her. In the background, faint sounds of distant conversations wafted toward her. She didn’t know if they were real or a product of her unconscious. She knew only that she was on the road to madness and that she was helpless to stop the disintegration by herself. Sister Bornais had offered no buoy or beacon to help traverse the sea of darkness in which Serena now struggled. Serena prepared to leave. She pushed back from the table and said with sad politeness, “Thank you very much, Sister Bornais, for seeing me on such
short notice. I have money to pay for your time. Just tell me the figure. I’ll pay up and leave you to your holiday.”