Tropic of Night (48 page)

Just another day, Danolo

I probably missed Christmas already, and New Year’s. Moon gibbous, a little over half full.

I’m sick a lot nowadays from the stuff he makes me eat and drink. He says my body has to be changed, so that part of me lives in m’doli all the time. This is something I’ve learned, how the chemical magic M. was always talking about really works. Didn’t believe him at the time. Beyond that?there are as yet only intimations. Did my first sorcerous feat today, after three days of prep, nauseous, pissing black, night sweats, horrible dreams. These are all good signs, U. says. First thing in morning, we discuss my dreams. Never recalled dreams much before, but now they’re as vivid and recollectable as Casablanca. U. doesn’t think dreams are meaningless random discharges in the sleeping brain.

My sorcerous feat was that I was finally able to “smell” dulfana, the trace essence of magical operations. We took a walk out of town, because inside it’d be like trying to find a pickle blindfolded in a garlic factory. I found a little bag of fenti U. buried under an acacia, just like a truffle pig. Ridiculously pleased with myself. Now I realize the source of that itchy not-quite-odor I have been sensing for the past day or two.

On the way back, a guy steps out of some bushes and starts following us. I smell dulfana strongly off him, and I ask U. if he’s a sorcerer, too, and U. laughs and says no, just a paarolawats. This word means “destroyed person” in Olokan. When the wind shifted, we were bathed in the sour smell of dead meat. U. did not seem particularly concerned. I asked him why the thing was following us. He said it was Durakné Den, the witch, spying on us, riding in the paarolawats. It was, however, a very old one and falling apart, so we were in real danger. I asked was it dead, and he laughed. No, Jeanne, the dead sleep, they don’t walk. Only, the person who used to be inside is locked up, and the witch rides him like a horse. Never let them touch you?he’s very clear about that.

U.’s fairly limited French vocabulary won’t handle magical concepts to the requisite depth. Lucky me, I don’t have to know that stuff yet because we’re only working with komo, which is anti-sorcery stuff, both the substance and the methodology. I have to learn that first, because if I were to try any actual sorcery without being protected, I would be a sitting duck out there in m’doli, which is apparently a kind of Dodge City place.

In our spare time we do Ifa. I am supposed to memorize the verses like U. has done, but I cheat and write them down. U. does not throw Ifa for me. He says he already did, but won’t tell me what the oracle said.

I brought the subject around to this witch, Durakné. U. seems reluctant to use his name, calling him m’tadende (the “outside one”) or “our dontzeh. ” Apparently, Durakné is the only surviving dontzeh child now in Danolo. U. trained him, and he was a good pupil. Now a rival, it seems. Oedipus in the Sahel? Need to query U. on moral structure. Failed again to get him to discuss history: why did Olo leave Yorubaland? Also seems preoccupied, sometimes stops talking and falls into what seems to be a light trance. Making lots of komo, preparing little packets and burying and hanging them around the compound. The war is heating up, it seems. Durakné apparently behind it, with some of the other sorcerers, who should, according to U., know better. Our arrival associated with this in some way, but he’s mum on the details?changes the subject when I ask, pretends not to understand. He’s good at that.

A day in the life, Danolo

My period started today, and if I am as regular as I usually am, I estimate this is the 33rd day of our visit here. Henceforward, I will keep track. Moon full. U. is a little nervous of me, and I wonder why, until Sekli takes me aside and says it is my flux. All very well to make me an honorary man but the spirits are not fooled. She gives me elaborate instructions about what to do with my “cloths” so as to prevent witches and grelet from taking advantage of this vulnerability. I must spend next three days with the women, however, which I do not mind at all. I spend most of my time with Tourma. She seems, unlike most of the people here, to possess the sort of innocence much prized by anthropologists who go native and Rousseauian. I suspect that is a personal, rather than a cultural, detail; perhaps that sort of anthropologist picks out people in the native village that even the native villagers think are a little fruity. In any case, Tourma is happy, trilling all the day long. She weaves on the horizontal loom, long strips of multicolored cotton that she sews into bags, shawls, and sashes. It is quite thrilling to watch figures appear under her fingers.

While she works, I worm out of her some Olo info. Their cosmology is quite similar to that of the Yoruba, their psychology not so. Psychology, a funny word. We use it as a placeholder for talking about thinking and emotions, learning and dreaming, although as far as people are concerned there is not much in it. We don’t really (except for Jungians I suppose) believe in the reality of the psyche, that the psyche has the same reality as cobalt or North Dakota. The Olo do, and here they seem to be right in line with the Chenka. Ogga again, but here they are called grelet. The Olo think that grelet invade the mind and grow there like Guinea worms do under the skin. They grow by attracting your attention, making you worry about whether you are handsome enough, or sexy enough, or smart enough, or have sufficient cattle or children. You can starve them out by concentrating on the moment, on the unfolding m’fa. Or you can have a sorcerer remove them. A grel is an independent entity. The stronger ones can take people over, and work mischief.

Tourma asked me what kind of grelet there were in the land of the dik. I had to tell her that in my part of Diklandia they did not believe in the grelet at all. She thought this hilarious. Do they believe in colors? she asked. In water? In beans? A riot among the ladies & I laughed, too.

Day 34, Danolo

Took Tourma to my little house (my bon ) to see my treasures, but she wasn’t that impressed. She wanted to know if I had made the Bic pens and lighter, the colored pencils, the various articles and implements, and was bored when I told her no, and even more at my halting attempts to explain late capitalism. Merchants do not have high status among the Olo. The visit ended badly, when I showed her my Olo artifact, which I did quite innocently. I saw it in my bag and asked her what it was. It is apparently an idubde . She cried that out, backed away, and ran like hell was chasing her back to the big bon .

Later I made up with her, but she would not tell me what an idubde was for. Sekli scolded me for showing it to Tourma?the worst possible thing to show to a pregnant woman? ch’andoultet.Didn’t I know anything ? Not much.

Tourma sings to the child within her and talks to it. It’s a girl. She knows this. She hopes she will make sefuné with this child. It occasionally happens and is considered a terrific omen. Tourma also sings to the birds, the clouds, the bushes and rocks. She says they sing back to her. Can’t you hear them, Gdezdikamai? No, I can’t.

Day 36, Danolo

Dreamed about Dad last night. Nothing Freudian, just floating peacefully over him as he went about his business, supervising Frank the groundsman at Sionnet and having lunch (tunafish on toast and bouillon) and working on the ‘29 Packard. Extremely peaceful, but lonely-making. Am out of contamination now, so I told U. about this dream and he scoffed that it wasn’t a dream at all, but merely bfuntatna, soul-travel, and not a message from the orishas. On the other hand, the fact that I could do it boded well for my magical career. He is in a talkative mood today, or rather a discursive one. He’s never surly, but often he speaks gnomically or in riddles. He missed me? Maybe he is bored, maybe he is tired of the sorcerers’ war that’s been brewing, and I offer some relief. Comic relief? An experiment, teach a woman ndol, like teaching a dog to talk?

His view of time. Every moment in time is accessible through the m’doli, which exists outside normal time and space. Ifa is the guardian of time, which is why we go to him for oracles, but he also guards the past. Why does the past have to be guarded? asks the novice. He gave me a pained look. Because it can be changed. But that is adonbana. An act that afflicts the world, he translated. The reason for our travels. He used the word ilidoni, literally “going down,” but that is also used as if capitalized to reference the hegira of the Olo from Ifé of glorious memory to this place, Danolo, or Den ‘aan-Olo, “where the people have to stay.” I lit up, of course, because I thought he was going to let me in on the unspeakable secret, but he did not. He said, I will tell you when you require it. How will I know this? You will know, and he wouldn’t say anything else.

Asked how can the past be changed? The past is past. Except in our memories. He rapped me gently on the head. Jeanne, Jeanne, why can’t you understand this? The short course in Olo ontology. Only m’arun is real. M’fa is a show, only shadows, a game. Plato in Africa. But it is a gift of the orishas. They let us sorcerers play with it, as a father may let his little son play with his spear, his bow. But not use it. Not break it. We must observe débentchouajé. New word = harmonious connectedness? Way things are supposed to be? What happens if a sorcerer doesn’t? Then the orisha comes, he said. I said, But the orishas come all the time. Ifa comes to give oracles, Eshu comes to open the gates, the orishas ride their devotees at the ceremonies of the Yoruba … No, no, he said, I mean the orisha comes in himself. Not as a spirit, as in the ceremonies of the Yoruba and the Songhai gaws. The true orisha. And what happens then? I asked him. He shrugged. It depends on the situation. A disaster. A great blessing. Have you ever seen this? Once, he said, a long time ago. I don’t want to see it again.

They were in the homicide unit, at Barlow’s desk, and Barlow had the whole story now, as reconstructed by Paz, with the weird parts edited out, smoothed, made rational. Barlow chewed on it silently for a while, and Paz experienced the familiar and unpleasant feeling of being assessed.

“You told anyone else about this, Jimmy?”

“No. I thought I’d run it by you first.”

“Good,” said Barlow. “Let’s see if I got you straight, now. Here’s this lady you got locked up, who used to be Tuoey, but she’s really Jane Doe. She’s married to DeWitt Moore, a famous writer who happens to be in town, doing his show in the Grove, but also doing these murders, because he’s also an African witch doctor in his spare time, which is why he’s doing the murders and cannibalism in the first place. Also, besides thinking he’s a witch doctor, with strange powers, he also has a gang of accomplices and some kind of African witch powder drug that he’s using to mess up the minds of his victims and the folks who’re trying to guard them. And he also killed Mary Doe a couple years back, even though we found he had a perfect alibi. Those African powders again. Have I got it all?”

“You don’t believe it, right?”

“No, I didn’t say that. I believe you got the real Jane there, and this Moore character is the killer. That’s good. Far as the rest of it goes … it’s pretty tall.”

“Tall? A little while ago you were saying that Satan was loose in Dade County.”

“Oh, he’s loose all right,” said Barlow, unfazed. “But that’s not the kind of fact I take to the state’s attorney. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, which in this case means evidence and a story they can eat and not spit up. Meanwhile, your girl there ain’t exactly a reliable informant.”

“Then talk to her yourself! See what you think. Whether she’s criminally involved or not, she’s still protecting him with all this witch doctor crapola.” He laughed humorlessly. “Crazy? Yeah, crazy I’ll give you.”

They brought Jane Doe out of the holding cell and back to the little interview room. Paz watched while Barlow talked to her, in his usual quiet and effective way. No sarcastic remarks, no one-liners from old Barlow, just two people talking. They had a tape recorder on, getting it all. Paz had seen it many times before, and it pissed him off, because he couldn’t do it himself, he always had to show the mutt he was in charge, that he couldn’t be fooled. He knew it, he knew it was dumb, but he couldn’t help himself, which was why he was doomed to be the bad cop, and never the one who got the confession and cleared the case.

The story she told was essentially the same one she had told to Paz earlier, but more detailed and easier in the telling. Barlow ran her through the nights the women were murdered. No alibi for Wallace, she was at home alone with the kid. Vargas, she was with friends all evening. At the time of this latest, Alice Powers at the Milano, Jane told them, she had been at a bembé .

“Come again?”

“A bembé is a Santería ritual,” Doe explained. “People dance and the orishas, the spirits, come down and take them over for a while and give advice.”

“You don’t tell me! And did you get any advice from these spirits, ma’am?”

“I did. I was advised that before I close the gate it must be opened. And that I was to bring the yellow bird to the father. I was advised to flee by water.”

“That’s real interesting. What do you make of it?”

“I’m not sure. Ifa is often indirect. The fleeing by water part is fairly clear, though.”

“By water, hm? Why didn’t you?” Paz noted that Barlow was enjoying himself. And, more remarkably, so was the woman. There was a light in her face, now, and Paz looked at her with more interest. Her bony features were never going to be on a magazine cover, but besides that she’d let herself go a good deal, and she didn’t have any taste. Paz liked women with taste. Flair. That hairdo was a disaster.

She said, “I don’t have a boat. Also, I have to find some allies first, and I have to stop my husband. I feel responsible.”

“I see,” said Barlow. “Well, you’ll give us some names and we’ll check it out. Now, these allies … you’re talking about this gang that Detective Paz here thinks your husband has got?”

She shot Paz a look. “No, I meant magical allies. There isn’t any gang. It is a figment of Detective Paz’s imagination. My husband is doing this all by himself.”

“Would you like to explain how?” asked Barlow.