Night of the Jaguar (40 page)

He watched with interest as they laid out the round stones, the
fundamentos
of Oshosi in a half circle in front of him. These contained the
ashe
of the
orisha,
which would be transmitted into Paz’s head. The woman honored the
fundamentos
by bathing them and pouring herbal decoctions on their smooth surfaces. The same was done to Paz’s head.

Five days passed in this way, Paz not being permitted to walk or talk, being fed by hand. Was he drugged? He didn’t know, and after a short while he didn’t care. His former life became vague, a distant half-recalled dream. This was the only reality, the slow, chanting, smoky, endless afternoons and nights. And more sacrifices. The
santero
came in at intervals and sacrificed beasts: roosters, pigeons, a small piglet, a black goat. The
santero
fed a portion of the blood of the sacrificed to the stones and arranged their heads and feet in the deep-bellied clay pots,
soperas.
At the end of the five days, Julia announced that a seat for the
orisha
had formed in Paz’s head.

Paz felt this, too, a difference subtle but real, like the loss of virginity or how you felt after killing a man. He could talk now, it seemed, and was free to walk around, which he did on tender feet that seemed not to quite touch the floor. The five days of private gestation were over; now was
el dia de la coronación.
Paz was
iyawo,
a bride of the orisha. The
madrinas
dressed him in fresh white garments and freshly shaved his head, renewing the markings on it. He was given a crown of bright green parrot feathers, a cloak of emerald brocade, and the symbols of his
orisha:
a bow, and a leather quiver with seven arrows, and a small wooden model of a jail. Around his shoulders he wore the great embroidered, bead-worked, shell-dangling
collares de mazo,
and thus clothed they led him to the main room of the house, one corner of which had been made into a throne room, with silk hangings of green and brown and a
pilón,
a royal stool of the kind used by the kings of Ifé. There they sat him, and around his feet they lay yams and mangoes in piles, and the air was scented by these and by the cooking for the wedding feast, the roasting and frying of the sacrificial beasts.

People arrived in numbers, singing praise songs and abasing themselves before the throne of Paz-Oshosi. Among these was his mother,
and seeing her, Paz understood that his previous relationship with her was over, that the personality of a rather bratty and sarcastic man he’d used to defend himself against her force during the whole of his life was gone, that now they would be demigods together.

The room became more crowded and grew warmer. Paz was given a glass and told to drink it: it was
aguardiente,
Oshosi’s drink. The sweat popped out on his upper lip. The drummers arrived, three very black men, and greeted the
santero,
and set up their instruments on a wooden platform built on one side of the room: the
iya,
the great mother drum, the smaller
itotele,
and the little
okonkolo.
As usual, in the casual African way, the thing began. The sharp penetrating crack of the
iya
rang out, and the chatter of the other drums and the gourd rattle in the hands of the
santero,
weaving the ancient and intricate sounds, music as the language of the
santos
. The
ilé
took up the song to Eshu-Eleggua, the guardian of the gates,
ago ago ago ilé ago
: open up, open up.

Paz sat on his throne-stool thinking about his mother and about someone he seemed to have heard of long ago named Jimmy Paz, who had a kid and who was married to a doctor, nice enough guy, something of a wiseass, and wondered if what he was now could ever be fitted back into that container.

People swayed to the rhythm, and an elderly woman made to Eshu danced in front of Paz. The chanting grew louder, more insistent. The people sang for Oshosi to come down to take his new bride. Paz blinked sweat from his eyes; the shapes of people and objects were starting to get weird and shaky. And there was a little inquiring voice in his mind, and Paz had to admit that yes, he’d gone through this somewhat tedious ritual, and he understood the benefits of purification, and he recognized it as a symbol of some kind of coming-of-age, some kind of making peace with the Afro-Cuban part of his background, and yes, it had changed him, he was really a better person for it, and he even imagined himself explaining all of this in a rational voice to his wife. But in the midst of this pleasant notional conversation (itself born of a terror that Paz was yet unwilling to own), Oshosi, Lord of Beasts, stepped through the gate from the unseen world and into Paz’s head.

So now Paz understood that there is a virginity much deeper than the sexual one about which people make so much fuss, the basic bedrock understanding of physical being we bring from earliest childhood that nearly everyone in the modern world carries intact to their graves: that the world is as it is represented by our senses; that we sit permanently within our own heads, all alone in there; that belief is a choice we make with our minds. All this vanished in the first seconds, as the
orisha
penetrated his body, and here he understood that calling the person in this situation a bride was no mere figure of speech; he was being fucked by a god, not unwillingly it seemed, but undeniably possessed, never again to be the same.

Paz has seen people ridden by the
orishas
before this and had supposed that while the
orisha
was in charge the people were unconscious, but now he finds that this is not so. He is now outside his body, a disembodied spirit containing nothing but a benign interest in what his body is doing. It is down there dancing in front of the throne while the drums sing. It goes on for a long time, this dance; Paz sees his body do things it cannot normally do.

Then he is back in the flesh, with people helping him to stand. His legs barely support him, and he is covered with sweat. There was a warmth in his groin and his joints, as if he has just made love for hours. They sat him on his throne, and Julia and the
madrinas
and the
santero
spoke to him about his new life, and of the
ewos,
the ritual tasks and prohibitions that came with it. Thus passed
el dia de la coronación
. The next day was
el dia del medio,
devoted to feasting and visits of congratulation by Miami’s Santería world. People prostrated themselves in front of Oshosi as Paz. Paz found he enjoyed being a god. His mother came by, and they had a long conversation about this, during which Paz was able to admit cheerfully that he’d been wrong about nearly everything, and his mother was able to do the same about all her mistakes in raising him, and they had a good laugh about it.

The next day was
el dia del Ita.
A man, the
italero,
very old and brown and dressed in immaculate white, came in and threw cowrie shells on a mat and from the fall predicted the remainder of Paz’s life, its dangers, failures, and triumphs. Paz was surprised at some of it,
but the rest seemed a reasonable projection from his current state.

He asked the
italero
about jaguars and daughters and got the usual oracular answer. Apparently it was all up to Paz, either he’d make the right decision or not. He should depend on his
orisha.
Having now met this entity, Paz thought this was pretty good advice.

W
hile Paz is becoming a god, Moie appears in the bedroom of Felipe Ibanez, slipping unseen past the guards Ibanez has hired. Moie has prepared for Jaguar to come, but Jaguar does not. In this case it proves unnecessary. Ibanez wakes from his usual nightmare, sees the small Indian, understands what he represents, and recalls what has been done to his colleagues. Wetting himself in terror, the businessman promises to dissolve the Consuela Company, to stop all cutting of trees in the Puxto reserve. He speaks in Spanish, and Moie understands. Moie starts to leave, but the man wants to keep talking. Moie has noticed this about the dead people, that they want to fill the air with words even when everything necessary has been said. Ibanez says that because Consuela will not cut the Puxto, it doesn’t mean that others won’t. There are many other timber operations. It’s Hurtado who is making the whole thing move, Hurtado with the contacts in the Colombian government, Hurtado who bribes the guerrillas and the paramilitaries who fight the guerrillas, Hurtado who wants the Puxto cleared so he can plant coca in the virgin territory and also for another reason that he now tells to Moie. “You have to kill Hurtado,” Ibanez shouts as the Indian departs. Then he presses the alarm button. In the ensuing melee one of the hired guards shoots another one, not seriously. No one sees the Indian, and the guards privately
agree that the old fart was dreaming. Ibanez is already on the phone to his subsidiary in Cali.

While Paz is becoming a god, Hurtado stays in a mediocre residence hotel in North Miami. When he heard the news that Ibanez had pulled out of the Puxto operation, he summoned El Silencio to his room. “See, you didn’t believe me, but this is the proof. He’s behind this whole thing, Ibanez, that
chingada,
one of the others must have got to him.”

“Are you sure? He was okay on the first shipment. It got to Miami with no problem.”

“To put me off my guard! He was very smart, smarter than I thought. Some of these old Cubans…this is a good lesson, Ramon, never underestimate the intelligence of your enemies, especially when they’re your friends.”

El Silencio studied his employer as the man paced back and forth in front of the blaring television. It was unlikely that anyone knew they were staying in this particular shithole, but Hurtado had the TV on whenever he said anything out loud. The boss did not look good. It had been a long time since Hurtado had been on the run, thought El Silencio, and even longer since he was afraid of anything. The arrests and losing those three men had got to him. He kept asking where was Martínez, as if he had the kind of instant information system here that he had back home. Who knew where the
cabrón
had run off to? Clearly he disappeared after the two men were killed and the girl escaped, and that was enough to get Hurtado upset all by itself. People did not run out on Hurtado. It had made the man twitchy.

“Do we know where Ibanez’s granddaughter is?”

“Yeah, somebody called and said she’s staying at that place with the fish pool, where the other girl was staying.”

“Go there. Get her. Cut off her tit and send it to Ibanez. And kill anyone else in that fucking house, all of them.”

El Silencio didn’t move. Hurtado glared at him. “Well?”

“Boss, you know, maybe this isn’t such a great idea. At home, sure, no problem. But there’s something going on here I don’t like.
I don’t like it when I don’t understand what I’m up against…”

“It’s Indians. Ibanez and whoever he’s with—Equitos or the Pastorans, or somebody from Medellín—brought down a crew of Indians. You’ll see, we grab up his girl and he’ll give us the fucking Indians. We should’ve done it first thing, but how could you figure…?”

“I don’t know, boss, I think there’s something else…”

“Ramon, you’re thinking again,” said Hurtado sharply. “Stop thinking and go do what I said!”

El Silencio left the room without another word. After almost twenty years of working for Hurtado, he was about as independent as a toaster oven, but he could not entirely suppress the feeling that the organization was out of its depth for the first time. At home, for example, there would be no problem with the police. They owned the police, and the army, and the special incorruptible drug police who worked with the Americans, and should anyone appear on the scene who could not be bought, he could be killed. This was apparently not the case here in America. Also, Hurtado was persisting in his belief that a rival Colombian gang was behind this business, using Ibanez as a tool and Indians as soldiers. El Silencio thought this was unlikely, and he knew more about Indians than Hurtado did, being a quarter Indian himself. He’d heard stories from his grandmother about what some of those up-country Indians could do, and while he was not a particularly superstitious man, the carnage in the garage had given him pause. El Silencio had presided at a number of mutilations and he knew for a fact that the two gunmen had not been slashed by a human being. Nor was Prudencio Martínez a superstitious man. He was (had been) the most efficient crew boss the Hurtados had owned, and if
he
had pulled the plug, then what they faced was
not
just a bunch of Indians.

El Silencio walked down the dim hallway, which stank of chlorine from the pool and frying from the coffee shop, and went into a room. Here were his available troops, six men, all of whom looked up from the card game, the TV, the magazine, when he came in. He didn’t know them well, for he was not a crew boss himself and uneasy with command. He almost always worked alone, besides which he would have to leave one person behind to watch over Hurtado. This was even more disturbing.

They were all staring at him. Someone muted the television, which
drew El Silencio’s attention: someone who could act independently, a little more alert than the others? Or he just didn’t care for what was on? The guy was named…something Ochoa, a veteran of the paramilitaries that the big
latifundistas
used for protection against the Marxists, a solid shaven-headed man with a scar under his eye. El Silencio gestured to him.
Delegate,
that was one of Hurtado’s favorite words.
Delegate
and
hold accountable
. El Silencio had never had a problem with the latter of these, and now he was going to learn about the former. He took Ochoa to his own room for an interview.

While Paz is becoming a god, Geli Vargos is hiding out in Rupert Zenger’s house. The woman had arrived late one night with only the clothes on her back, having fled her grandfather’s house in the disturbances following the arrest of Hurtado’s men. Cooksey was kind, gave her a drink, questioned her gently.

“Was Hurtado himself arrested?”

“No, he was never there except once. My grandfather was terrified of him. But he mainly stayed at some hotel. There was this other guy carrying whatever orders he had…even the thugs were scared of him, but the cops got him, too. Then I heard they got sprung, and that’s when I left. I feel like such a coward! What do you think they’ll do to my grandfather?”

“Nothing, I imagine,” said Cooksey. “He’s covering for them, and they need him intact for the Puxto operation to go forward. I expect that they are not the primary threat to Mr. Ibanez. If he doesn’t stop cutting down that rain forest, I’m afraid…I mean what happened to his partners could well happen to him.”

When Geli understood what he meant she burst into hysterical sobs. Cooksey held her and stroked her back absently. In irregular warfare, he had been taught, there was a time to stir things up and a time to lie low and wait. This was the waiting time.

Paz returned home on the evening of the Sunday, eight days after he’d left. His mother drove him home.

“You’ll be all right,” she said when they pulled up to the curb. “You have my prayers and the prayers of everyone in the
ilé
. Keep on the
path of the saints.” They embraced, clumsily, as one does in the front seat of a car, and also because embracing had not been much practiced between them. Paz watched his mother drive off. He was carrying his bow and arrows and his model jailhouse, and for a moment he felt like a kid being dropped off to play at a friend’s house, holding toys, and the thought made him laugh out loud.

There was laughter coming from his house as well, from the patio in the back, and Paz went around the side of the house to join in the fun. Lola was apparently entertaining. Paz stepped into the patio and everyone stared at him as at a ghost. Amelia was the first one to respond. With a shrill “Dadeeeee!” she propelled herself at him and swarmed up him like a monkey. Paz had to put his emblems down on a chair so that he could hug her, which he did until she objected. He put her down and surveyed the party: Lola, Bob Zwick, Beth Morgensen, and an older balding man with a pleasantly ugly face whom Paz recognized as Kemmelman, Lola’s boss at the hospital.

Conversation sprang up again; everyone wanted to know all about what had happened. Paz ignored this, leaned over Lola, and kissed her.

“How easily I’m replaced,” he whispered. “And a Jewish doctor, too.”

“I won’t dignify that with a response,” she whispered back, but the dynamics of the group had changed. Kemmelman seemed to become uncomfortable, and shortly he stood and said he had to get home. When he’d gone, Zwick said, “So, give. Paz. Are you all holy now?”

“I am, as a matter of fact.”

“Yeah? Do something holy. What are these objects?” He picked up the bow and twanged it. “Or are they too sacred for me to touch?”

“No, they’re just symbols of my status, like your white coat.”

“Oh, so they
are
sacred.”

The adults laughed, easing some of the tension, but Paz remained wary. There was something wrong with their faces, or maybe he was just seeing with new eyes. It was as if he could penetrate the social masks they displayed to the real person hiding beneath. It was not a pleasant experience: Zwick’s intellectual arrogance sheltering the frightened, driven nerd, Beth’s fear of loneliness generating a spasmodic seductivity…he found it hard to look at his wife. Married people, however intimate, require a reserve of privacy; he felt that he could
violate that now, and the ability repelled him. Only Amelia seemed true all the way to the core.

There were questions about the ritual he’d just been through, and he found himself dodging these with studied humor, although he admitted to having been possessed by his
orisha,
which Zwick explained away as arising from the effect of entraining rhythms, drugged food, and varying light levels upon the medial temporal lobe of the brain. Apparently it was well established in the literature.

Paz found this explanation more exhausting than the ritual itself. “What happened to Jenny?” he asked when Zwick at last ran down.

“She’s cooking our dinner,” said Amelia. “She’s a good cook, Daddy. We’re having shrimp. I helped peel.”

And here was the girl herself, carrying a steaming wok full of stir-fried shrimp and vegetables. Paz watched her place it on the table, amid applause. She looked up and he met her gaze. A chill flashed up his neck, blossomed out in sweat on his forehead. There was a mask there, too, but behind it was not just Jenny Simpson.

They ate and engaged in the usual chat, in which Paz joined when it would have been rude not to. They seemed like children to him; he was like sitting down at a kids’ birthday party, pleasant, unchallenging, slightly tedious. When they were done, he went out into the garden and picked a few ripe mangoes from his tree. He cut them up efficiently at the table and fed his guests the dulcet yellow flesh, together with the coconut ice cream that Jenny fetched from the freezer.

After this dessert was done, Paz said, “Who’s up for an expedition?”

“Where to?” Lola asked.

“I think we should go by Jenny’s old homestead. We could bring Professor Cooksey a little basket of mangoes.”

“They have plenty of mangoes on the property,” said Jenny.

“Well, we’ll bring a bottle of
aguardiente,
too. We’ll sit around and drink
aguardiente
and eat mangoes and talk. They have a big open-air pool with tropical fish in it. We could go skinny-dipping after we get high on
aguardiente
.”

“I’m up for that,” said Zwick, and Beth Morgensen produced a naughty laugh.

“Shouldn’t we call?” Lola asked.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Paz. “Dr. Cooksey keeps an open house. He’s a welcoming kind of guy. Isn’t that right, Jenny?”

Who shrugged and said, “I guess.”

“We’ll want bathing suits, those of us who require them,” said Paz.

They all piled into the Volvo and drove to the house on Ingraham. Paz took his bow and arrows along with the fruit and the
aguardiente;
no one asked why. As predicted, Professor Cooksey was home and perfectly gracious, as if he were used to groups of mainly strangers dropping by in the evening. Cooksey arranged them all around the big table in the terrace, and they drank a round from Paz’s bottle, chased with beers. Cooksey expatiated in a lively manner about the history and architecture of the house and its gardens, and about the construction and ecological design of the fishpond. Those who had not seen this marvel asked to see it, so Cooksey led the party into the garden. He switched on the underwater lights, and they all gawked.

Taking advantage of this distraction, Cooksey approached Jenny and said in a confidential tone, “I’m very pleased to see you again, my dear. Are you back for good?”

“Sure. I was just helping out over there.”

“Are you quite all right? You look different.”

“Yeah, well, I’m still a little bent out of shape from what happened.”

“Of course. You haven’t seen Moie since the, ah…”

“No,” she said. “Have you?”

“Not as such. But he’s certainly about.”

At that moment Scotty and Geli Vargos came down one of the paths. The woman stopped short when she saw the new people. She seemed about to retreat the way she had come when Jenny spotted her.

“Oh, there’s Geli!” she cried and ran to greet her friend with hugs and Jennyesque babble, at which Geli collapsed into sobs. Jenny led her away to a nearby bench, where the two engaged in what seemed like intense conversation. Zwick, Lola, Beth, and Amelia had missed this byplay and were now splashing in the shallows of the pool.