Tropic of Night (9 page)

Lary’s Palm Court Guest House is a two-story white building, hipped metal roof painted a faded red. Our team has taken over the whole place, all ten bedrooms. Lary’s cooler than the street, dim, ceiling fans slowly stirring the air, worn wicker furniture, smell of cooking, peppery spices, fried meats, then as we marched to our rooms, disinfectant, wax, furniture polish. Décor amazing: in the reception area, large steel engraving of stag at bay, a litho of Jesus with children, breakfront with cheap souvenirs of English seaside, a dining room with four round tables, set with plastic-covered cloths, heavy, cheap silver and glassware, plastic flowers in vases?could be Blackpool, Brighton. Everything spotlessly clean, except for omnipresent tan dust. W. not pleased, said something about the colonial mind, complained about bath, toilet, in hall. He has not traveled much in foreign lands. I opened the shutters, found our window gives on a little courtyard, shaded by a big mango tree. There are two goats tethered there and a worn table, at which two women in bright dresses and headscarves are doing something with a mound of some vegetable. They looked up & saw me & waved, smiled & I waved back. I am going to like this place.

W. said he had a headache, took a bunch of aspirin and plopped onto the bed. I went downstairs. Mrs. Bassey, proprietor, has mien of the Queen Mother, speaks perfect English in an accent like a song, every sentence ending like a query?We serve dinner at six sharp? I decided to take a walk.

Down the hot, narrow, smelly streets, music everywhere from radios and what looked like dives, dark holes stinking of beer. A wide thoroughfare, across which was Yaba Market. Every dozen or so steps a young man would approach me, asking to become my guide, or trying to sell me something or steer me to a stall. I told each, no thank you, that would not please me, in Yoruba, which usually got a startle, sometimes a grin, and a comment too quick for me to catch. I found a moneychanger and traded dollars for naira, getting a little more than twice the legal rate. I bought a paper cone of something called kilikili, because I liked the name, and it turned out to be spicy deep-fried peanut butter, pretty good, and some gassy local mango soda. Yaba an untouristy kind of market?most stalls devoted to everyday stuff?plastic pans, hardware, dry goods, clothing (new and used), shoes, cheapo electronics, music tapes. Constant pounding of music, most of it interesting, beat driven?Yaba also a big nightclub district, lots of the musicians live here. Also market artists, some of them better than the stuff you see in SoHo, brilliant colors, abstracted natural forms?terrific! In central Asia the markets are segregated by goods?here apparently not.

Joined little crowd between a woman selling fish out of plastic tubs of ice and a woman selling lengths of tie-dyed adira oniku cloth, saw man squatting, bare-chested, dressed only in khaki shorts, thought he was doing some craft, but he was winding length of colored twine around a dog’s skull, chanting. To one side, the client?fat, elderly man in robes and pillbox hat. Shirtless man finished knotting up the skull, placed it on a dented tin bowl, took a brown hen out of a straw basket. He cut the hen’s throat, let the blood spurt over the skull.

Felt faint, not the sight of blood, but confronting sorcery after all this time. Market juju only, but still … repulsion and attraction both. Rite familiar from books. The fat guy is a moneylender or businessman. Someone owes him money, hasn’t paid. Now debtor will have dreams of dogs chasing him every night, he’ll go to a witch doctor so he can get some sleep and witch doctor will tell him to pay his debt, if it’s a just one, or if not, he can set up some countermagic. M. used to say that immersion in a different culture was like an enema for the spirit. Could be: I feel higher than I have in months.

Professor Herrera’s face registered surprise when Jimmy Paz walked into her office. Paz flashed his warmest smile and stuck his hand out and she took it with good enough grace. In Miami, when Iago Paz is announced, you don’t normally expect a black man to walk in the door. Paz was used to it, expected it, had grown to appreciate its disconcerting aspects. He did his quick cop take of the office and its occupant. Fifteen by twelve maybe, neat, organized, with just enough room for a chrome-legged Formica-topped desk, with computer and monitor. A chair and visitor’s chair in the same style, padded with orange plastic, a credenza in cheap institutional teak veneer, and, behind the desk, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, crammed with books and green cardboard reprint boxes, the contents indicated with red label tape. On a shelf in the center of this array, some family pictures, knickknacks of various kinds, a large plaster statue of Saint Francis of Assisi, brown-cowled, holding a rosary and a dove, the base wrapped around with green and gold ribbons. One small window, protected from the merciless afternoon sunlight by drawn steel venetian blinds. On the wall, diplomas: Clemson, University of Miami. A local girl, of course. Some framed photos, too, groups of people in explorer gear standing around with people wearing less clothes, lots of green foliage as background: the typical anthropology shot; also, framed antique botanical drawings of leaves, flowers, seeds, with Latin titles, something else in a frame on the credenza behind him, looked like a rosary.

The proprietor of all this was a woman in her late thirties, with blond hair, intelligent hazel eyes, reflecting a little unease now, Paz observed, which was okay from his point of view, parchment-colored skin made matte with careful makeup. She was a little heavy for her age, although not for her culture. Behind the desk, on the wooden floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, there was a picture of her with a darkly handsome, chunky man, looking younger and thinner. She’d married, had a kid, maybe?right, there was another photo, two of them, framed in silver, this next to a couple of bright leaves embedded in a block of Lucite. Not a pretty woman, but attractive in a severe way. She wore a sheer violet-colored silk shirt with a delicate stripe in it, under the beige jacket of a suit. A little formal for the professoriate, but perhaps she was teaching a class and wanted a little formality. That would be upper-class Cuban, Paz thought, the stratum from which this woman clearly sprang. Ordinarily she would have spoken with a man from his own stratum only to point out where to plant the new hibiscus or order the Lexus serviced.

But politely, of course. Politely, then, Lydia Herrera directed Paz to the visitor’s chair, offered coffee (declined), asked, “So, Mr. Paz, I understand Al Manes gave you my name. I assume this is about some plant?”

“Yeah, he said you were a pretty good ethnobotanist.”

“I am.” No false modesty for Lydia. “And you’re with … ?”

Paz held up his ID and shield. “Miami police,” he said, and watched her carefully plucked arcs of eyebrow rise.

“And why does the Miami police need an ethnobotanist?”

Paz took Schrebera golungensis in its bag from his jacket pocket and placed it before her. “We thought you might be able to tell us what that thing is used for.”

Herrera picked it up. “Can I take it out of the bag?”

“Be my guest.”

She examined it, replaced it, handed the bag back to Paz. “It’s part of an opele .”

Paz consulted his notebook. “Yeah, that’s what Dr. Manes said, but what is it used for?”

“No, I mean, opele the thing, not opele the name of the nut. It’s part of an Ifa divining chain, an opele, also called an ekwele . It’s used to divine the future in Santería and other West African—derived cults. Didn’t you ever see one?” The tone was slightly mocking. Of course a black Cuban ought to know everything there was to know about Santería. That’s what they were for .

“No,” said Paz, coldly. “Do you have one?”

She was smiling. “As a matter of fact, I do. Over there on the credenza.” She pointed with a red-lacquered fingernail. He got up and looked. Not a rosary after all. The large black frame sat on a little stand, and in it, displayed against black velvet, like a diamond necklace, was a shiny brass chain about three feet long. Strung into the chain at widely spaced, even intervals, were eight pieces of thin tortoiseshell, gently curved. From the two terminal shells depended short cords, ending in cowries. Each tortoiseshell piece was carved into a tapering pear shape, with a ridge down the center of the concave side.

“That one’s from Cuba, mid-nineteenth century,” Herrera said. “You notice how the shell is carved?”

“Yeah, it’s sort of like the nut there.”

“Right. What you just showed me is the original. The craftsman who carved that one probably never saw a real opele nut, but the memory survived. Interesting.”

“Yeah.” Paz pulled his eyes away from the frame and faced Herrera again. “How does it work?”

“It’s a machine for generating a number. You don’t know anything about Ifa divination?”

Again the surprised, slightly mocking tone. Paz said, “No, but perhaps you would be good enough to instruct me, Dr. Herrera,” in the flattest voice he could generate. He was very close to breaking one of Barlow’s rules: anybody got something you need to know about is your best friend.

Dr. Herrera’s smile widened. Dimples appeared on her plump cheeks. Teaching Santería to an Afro-Cuban! She would dine out on this one for months.

“All right, Detective. Ifa is the orisha, the demigod, of prophecy among the Yoruba and related peoples of West Africa. The opele is one method that the babalawo, the diviner, uses to consult the god. There are others, involving the number of palm nuts or cowries grasped in the hand. The purpose of both methods, as I mentioned, is to generate a number. As you can see, there are two possible ways for each of eight indicators to fall, and therefore there are sixteen basic figures that can form at each throw. The diviner marks a single line where a shell or nut has fallen concave side up, and a double line where one has fallen concave side down. The lines are drawn in two columns of four. In Africa the babalawo uses a shallow box full of fine wood powder to make the marks, but here they just use pencil and paper. Okay, so you end up with two columns of four marks each, single or double lines, I mean, for every throw, but it matters which column a particular marking is in, so you have to take account of the mirror images too. Are you following this?”

Paz said, “Yes, Doctor. If you include all the reverse combinations then the total number of combinations is sixteen times sixteen, or two hundred fifty-six. What happens when you get the number?” Remarkable, the nigger can do math in his head, Paz figured she was thinking. Guzana. Maggot.

“Yes, well,” said Dr. Herrera, deflated, “each number they generate relates to a particular memorized verse. The babalawo recites the verse, or more commonly, he just references it and interprets it to answer the client’s question. The information is assumed to come from the orisha, who influences the fall of the shells. This is Ifa, by the way.” She pointed to the statue on the bookshelf. “In Santería, known as Orula or Orunmila. The Yoruba slaves who brought Ifa divination to Cuba and into Santería thought that Saint Francis’s rosary looked like an opele and so they made the identification. The other santos or orishas in Santería have similar histories. Eleggua, for example, is Anthony of Padua, Shango is Saint Barbara, because …”

“Right, got that. What I’d like to know is if any drugs are used in the divining ceremony, either by the diviner or the client.”

This was abrupt, peremptory. The professor did not like it. Not smiling now, she answered, “You mean intoxicating drugs? Well, rum is involved, but only sacramentally.”

“Not rum. I mean narcotics, something that would cause unconsciousness, like that.”

“No, not that I’ve ever heard. Of course, I’m not an expert.”

“No? You sounded like one a minute ago.” It was his turn to be a little tormenting.

She glanced briefly at the diploma wall. “I did my B.A. here at Miami. It comes with the territory?Santería, I mean. Also being a Cuban …”

“But you’re not a participant.”

“No.”

“As an anthropologist, then, you know something about the rituals, what they do.”

“Some, but I don’t practice as an anthropologist. I’m an ethnobotanist. It’s a different specialty. Detective, maybe you should tell me what all this is about. The opele nut’s connected with some crime?”

“It’s evidence in a homicide case,” said Paz, shortly. “Are there, let’s say, sacrifices associated with this kind of divination?”

“Sacrifices? Well, many of the verses suggest sacrifices, but that usually means a tip to the diviner. Two chickens and ten dollars, that sort of thing.”

“I was thinking more of actual sacrifices. Killing things, right there, maybe before the ritual.”

“Not that I’ve heard of, but, as I said …”

“Yeah, right, you’re not an expert. Who would be?”

“In Santería? Well, you have an embarrassment of riches here in Miami. On the faculty, Maria Salazar wrote the book on it.” Dr. Herrera reached to the bookshelf behind her, pulled down a thick volume, and handed it to Paz. Its title was simply Santería . The dust jacket was red and had a picture of two red-and-yellow-painted wooden axes crossed and lying on top of an ornate covered urn. He flipped the book over. The author’s photograph showed a small elderly woman with fine features, her eyes large and deeply shadowed, her hair a halo of white frizz. She was sitting on a stone bench in a garden in front of a live oak covered with epiphytes.

He inscribed the name in his notebook. “Is she around?”

“From time to time. She’s semiretired now. Works mostly out of her home. You’d have to call her. You might also want to talk to Pedro Ortiz.”

Paz wrote this name down too. “And he is …”

“He’s a babalawo, ” said Dr. Herrera, smiling again, into his eyes. “He’s considered the best babalawo in Miami.”

He returned her look and he had to concentrate on keeping his expression neutral. He knew he had a problem with Cubans of this class, and he worked at it, on his cool. Coolly, then, he asked, “So anyway, you’re not a devotee yourself? You don’t believe in this … ?” He left the word hanging. It could have been “crap,” or something more respectful.

“I’m a scientist. Santería uses a lot of herbs, and that’s my business, to identify pharmacologically interesting folk medicines. As for the rest, the divination, the orishas … let’s just say that for a certain social class it provides a relatively inexpensive form of therapy and psychological security. If a bunch of uneducated people want to believe that they can call gods down to earth and interest them in Aunt Emilia’s bronchitis and Uncle Augusto’s sandwich shop, then who am I to say no?” Meaning, people like you.