Merrick (10 page)

“Come?” asked the old woman sunk down into the feather pillow. “Did I ever ask you—either of you—to come?” She had no French accent. Her voice was shockingly ageless, low in pitch and strong. “Merrick, sit by me here for a little while,
chérie,
” she said. “Be still, Mr. Lightner. Nobody asked you to come.”

Her arm rose and fell like a branch on the breeze, so lifeless in shape and color, fingers curled as they scratched at Merrick’s dress.

“See what Mr. Lightner bought for me, Great Nananne?” said Merrick beside her, gesturing with open arms as she looked down on her new clothes.

I had not noticed before that she was in Sunday Best, with a dress of white pique and black patent leather shoes. The little white socks looked incongruous on such a developed young woman, but then Aaron saw her completely as an innocent child.

Merrick leant over and kissed the old woman’s small head. “Don’t you be afraid of anything on my account any longer,” she said. “I’m home now with them, Great Nananne.”

At that point, a priest came into the room, a tall sagging man as old as Nananne was, it seemed to me, slow moving and scrawny in his long black cassock, the thick leather belt drooping over shrunken bones, rosary beads knocking softly against his thigh.

He seemed blind to our presence, only nodding at the old woman, and he slipped away without a word. As to what his feelings might have been about the shrine to the left of us, against the front wall of the house, I couldn’t guess.

I felt an instinctive wariness, and an apprehension that he might try to prevent us—with good reason—from taking the child Merrick away.

One never knew which priest might have heard of the Talamasca, which priest might have feared it or despised it, under the guidance of Rome. To those within the hierarchy of the Church, we were alien and mysterious. We were maverick and controversial. Claiming to be secular, yet ancient, we could never hope for the cooperation or the understanding of the Church of Rome.

It was after this man disappeared, and as Aaron continued his polite and subdued conversation with the old woman, that I had a chance to view the shrine in full.

It was built up of bricks, from the floor, in stair steps to a high wide altar where perhaps special offerings were placed. Huge plaster saints crowded the top of it in long rows to the left and right.

At once I saw St. Peter, the Papa Legba of Haitian Voodoo, and a saint on a horse who appeared to be St. Barbara, standing in for Chango of Xango in Candomble, for whom we had always used St. George. The Virgin Mary was there in the form of Our Lady of Carmel, standing in for Ezilie, a goddess of Voodoo, with heaps of flowers at her feet and perhaps the most candles before her, all of them aflicker in their deep glasses as a breeze stirred the room.

There stood St. Martin de Porres, the black saint of South America, with his broom in hand, and beside him, St. Patrick stood gazing down, his feet surrounded by fleeing snakes. All had their place in the underground religions which the slaves of the Americas had nourished for so long.

There were all kinds of obscure little mementos on the altar before these statues, and the steps below were covered with various objects, along with plates of birdseed, grain, and old cooked food which had begun to rot and to smell.

The more I studied the entire spectacle, the more I saw things, such as the awesome figure of the Black Madonna with the white Infant Jesus in her arms. There were many little sacks tied shut and kept there, and several expensive-looking cigars still in their wrapping, perhaps held for some future offering, I couldn’t know for sure. At one end of the altar stood several bottles of rum.

It was certainly one of the largest such altars I’d ever seen, and it did not surprise me that the ants had overrun some of the old food. It was a frightening and disturbing sight, infinitely more than Merrick’s recent little makeshift offering in the hotel. Even my Candomble experiences in Brazil did not make me immune to the solemn and savage spectacle of it. On the contrary, I think these experiences in every regard make me more afraid.

Perhaps without realizing I was doing it, I came deeper into the room, close to the altar, so that the woman and her sickbed were out of my sight, behind my back.

Suddenly the voice of the woman in the bed startled me out of my studies.

I turned to see that she had sat up, which seemed almost impossible due to her frailty, and that Merrick had adjusted her pillows so that she might rest in this position as she spoke.

“Candomble priest,” she said to me, “sacred to Oxalá.” There it was, the very mention of my god.

I was too astonished to respond.

“I didn’t see you in my dream, English man,” she went on. “You’ve been in the jungles, you’ve hunted treasure.”

“Treasure, Madam?” I responded, thinking only as quickly as I spoke. “Indeed not treasure in the conventional sense. No, never that at all.”

“I follow my dreams,” said the old woman, her eyes fixed on me in a manner that suggested menace, “and so I give you this child. But beware of her blood. She comes down from many magicians far stronger than you.”

Once again I was amazed. I stood opposite her. Aaron had forsaken his chair to get out of the way.

“Call up The Lonely Spirit, have you?” she asked me. “Did you frighten yourself in the jungles of Brazil?”

It was quite impossible that this woman could have had this intelligence of me. Not even Aaron knew all of my story. I had always passed over my Candomble experiences as though they were slight.

As for “The Lonely Spirit,” of course I knew her meaning. When one calls The Lonely Spirit, one is calling some tortured soul, a soul in Purgatory, or earthbound in misery, to ask that soul for its help in reaching gods or spirits who are further on. It was an old legend. It was as old as magic under other names and in other lands.

“Oh, yes, you are some scholar,” said the old woman, smiling at me so that I could see her perfect false teeth, yellow as she was, her eyes seemingly more animate than before. “What is the state of your own soul?”

“We are not here to deal with such a matter,” I fired back, quite shaken. “You know I want to protect your godchild. Surely you see that in my heart.”

“Yes, Candomble priest,” she said again, “and you saw your ancestors when you looked into the chalice, didn’t you?” She smiled at me. The low pitch of her voice was ominous. “And they told you to go home to England or you would lose your English soul.”

All this was true and untrue. Suddenly I blurted out as much.

“You know something but not everything,” I declared. “One has to have a noble use for magic. Have you taught Merrick as much?” There was anger in my voice, which this old woman did not deserve. Was I jealous of her power suddenly? I couldn’t control my tongue. “How has your magic brought you to this disaster!” I said, gesturing to the room about me. “Is this the place for a beautiful child?”

At once Aaron begged me to be silent.

Even the priest came forward and peered into my eyes. As if minding a child, he shook his head, frowning most sadly, and wagged his finger in my eye.

The old woman laughed a short dry little laugh.

“You find her beautiful, don’t you English man,” she said. “You English like children.”

“Nothing could be further from the truth with me!” I declared, offended by her suggestion. “You don’t believe what you’re saying. You speak to dazzle others. You sent this girl unaccompanied to Aaron.” At once I regretted it. The priest would certainly come to object when it was time to take Merrick away.

But I saw now he was too shocked by my audacity to protest it further.

Poor Aaron was mortified. I was behaving like a beast.

I had lost all my self-possession and was angry with an old woman who was dying before my eyes.

But when I looked at Merrick I saw nothing but a rather clever amusement in her expression, possibly even a little pride or triumph, and then she locked eyes with the old woman and there was some silent message exchanged there for which all assembled would have to wait.

“You’ll take care of my godchild, I know it,” said the old woman. Her wrinkled lids came down over her eyes. I saw her chest heave beneath the white flannel nightgown, and her hand trembled loosely on the quilt. “You won’t be afraid of what she can do.”

“No, never will I be afraid,” I said reverently, eager to make the peace. I drew closer to the bed. “She’s safe from everyone with us, Madam,” I said. “Why do you try to frighten me?”

It didn’t seem she could open her eyes. Finally she did and once again she looked directly at me.

“I’m in peace here, David Talbot,” she said. I could not recall anyone having given her my name. “I’m as I want to be, and as for this child, she was always happy here. There are many rooms to this house.”

“I’m sorry for what I said to you,” I answered quickly. “I had no right.” I meant it from my heart.

She gave a rattling sigh as she looked at the ceiling.

“I’m in pain now,” she said. “I want to die. I’m in pain all the time. You’d think I could stop it, that I had charms that could stop it. I have charms for others, but for me, who can work the magic? Besides, the time has come, and it’s come in its own fashion. I’ve lived a hundred years.”

“I don’t doubt you,” I said, violently disturbed by her mention of her pain and her obvious veracity. “Please be assured you can leave Merrick with me.”

“We’ll bring you nurses,” said Aaron. It was Aaron’s way to pursue the practical, to deal with what could be done. “We’ll see to it that a doctor comes this very afternoon. You mustn’t be in pain, it isn’t necessary. Let me go now to make the proper calls. I won’t be long.”

“No, no strangers in my house,” she said as she looked at him and then up at me. “Take my godchild, both of you. Take her and take all that I have in this house. Tell them, Merrick, everything that I told you. Tell them all your uncles taught, and your aunts, and your great-grandmothers. This one, this tall one with the dark hair—,” she looked at me, “—he knows about the treasures you have from Cold Sandra, you trust in him. Tell him about Honey in the Sunshine. Sometimes I feel bad spirits around you, Merrick. . . .” She looked at me. “You keep the bad spirits from her, English man. You know the magic. I see now the meaning of my dream.”

“Honey in the Sunshine, what does it mean?” I asked her.

She shut her eyes bitterly and tightened her lips. It was extraordinarily expressive of pain. Merrick appeared to shudder, and for the first time to be about to cry.

“Don’t you worry, Merrick,” said the old woman finally. She pointed with her finger, but then dropped her hand again as if she was too weak to go on.

I tried suddenly with all of my might and main to penetrate the old woman’s thoughts. But nothing came of it, except perhaps that I startled her when she should have been in peace.

Quickly I tried to make up for my little blunder.

“Have faith in us, Madam,” I said again adamantly. “You sent Merrick on the right path.”

The old woman shook her head.

“You think magic is simple,” the old woman whispered. Once more our eyes met. “You think it’s something you can leave behind when you cross an ocean. You think
les mystères
aren’t real.”

“No, I don’t.”

Once again she laughed, a low and mocking laugh.

“You never saw their full power, English man,” she said. “You made things shake and shiver, but that was all. You were a stranger in a strange land with your Candomble. You forgot Oxalá, but he never forgot you.”

I was fast losing all composure.

She closed her eyes and her fingers curled around Merrick’s small-boned wrist. I heard the rattle of the priest’s rosary, and then came the fragrance of fresh-brewed coffee mingled with the sweetness of newly falling rain.

It was an overwhelming and soothing moment—the close moist air of the New Orleans springtime, the sweetness of the rain coming down all around us, and the soft murmur of thunder far off to the right. I could smell the candle wax and the flowers of the shrine, and then again there came the human scents of the bed. It seemed a perfect harmony suddenly, even those fragrances which we condemn as sour and bad.

The old woman had indeed come to her final hour and it was only natural, this bouquet of fragrances. We must penetrate it and see her and love her. That was what had to be done.

“Ah, you hear it, that thunder?” asked Great Nananne. Once again her little eyes flashed to me. She said, “I’m going home.”

Now, Merrick was truly frightened. Her eyes were wild and I could see her hand shaking. In fact, as she searched the old woman’s face she appeared terrified.

The old woman’s eyes rolled and she appeared to arch her back against the pillow, but the quilts seemed far too heavy for her to gain the space she craved.

What were we to do? A person can take an age to die, or die in one second. I was afraid too.

The priest came in and moved ahead of us so that he could look down at her face. His hand was easily as withered as her own.

“Talamasca,” the old woman whispered. “Talamasca, take my child. Talamasca, keep my child.”

I thought I myself would give way to tears. I had been at many a deathbed. It is never easy but there is something crazily exciting about it, some way in which the total fear of death kindles excitement, as if a battle were beginning, when indeed, it is coming to an end.

“Talamasca,” she said again.

Surely, the priest heard her. But the priest paid no attention at all. His mind was not difficult to penetrate. He was only here to give the rites to a woman he knew and respected. The shrine was no shock to him.

“God’s waiting on you, Great Nananne,” said the priest softly, in a strong local accent, rather rural sounding. “God’s waiting and maybe Honey in the Sunshine and Cold Sandra are there too.”

“Cold Sandra,” said the old woman with a long sigh and then an unintentional hiss. “Cold Sandra,” she repeated as though praying, “Honey in the Sunshine . . . in God’s hands.”

This was violently disturbing to Merrick. It was plain from her face. Merrick began to cry. This girl, who had seemed so strong throughout, now appeared quite fragile, as if her heart would be crushed.