Haiti Noir

He had built the little clay house for Douslina with his own hands and it was stronger than most others, made properly with raclage under the clay, a real tin roof, and a concrete floor. True, Douslina had demanded it when she reported herself pregnant by Magloire a second time, yet he was proud to have accomplished the house, and her children were healthier than the son Anise had given him. The sweetness of Lina was that dous he’d woven to her name, and now when she saw what he had brought and came to him, surrendering all her warm weight against his body, Magloire felt stronger and more intelligent and capable than before, and he felt that all the paradoxes of his life had for a moment integrated: the constant puckering sourness of Anise completing a sphere with this sweetness now.

One of Douslina’s hands explored the bag and another was interested in Magloire’s other possibilities (the children were asleep, she said), but he pulled a little away from her, muttering Fòk mwen ale as he turned his face toward the drumming, the choruses that answered the lead singer now- it was well to remain pure, or at least somewhat pure, until he had thanked the lwas for their generosity; furthermore, it would not be practical for Douslina to have another child, or anyone else Magloire was responsible to feed.

He kissed and left her somewhat regretfully, but that feeling faded as he grew nearer to the drums, merging with threads of other people going there. The moon was so bright it was easy enough to see his way, and in the ring of the onfò there was electric light now, along with a sound system that projected the voices out over the church and across the bay. The pathways to the central area were labyrinthine, twisting among houses pinned to the steep flank of the mountain, but Magloire’s movement became automatic with the drumming. He greeted his acquaintances without seeing them. On the periphery women sold fried food, soft drinks, raw cane rum, and even cold beer, but Magloire had no money left and did not care. Bleachers had been built around the oval floor of the onfò, which by day was sometimes used for cockfighting. Magloire slipped through and moved toward the altar, a crazy tall structure in tiers like a wedding cake and with many real layer cakes offered upon it, along with holy cards and novenas and Vodou passports and candles and padlocks and mouchwa tèt and grubby illegible bills of money and the less valuable hexagonal yellowish coins. Ven dola. In his comings and goings all day, Magloire had encountered various creditors who’d heard of his spending money in the market, whom he could only tell Demen, demen, tomorrow and tomorrow, as his last centime had been spent on the red candle he affixed now to the corner of the altar and the looped black string he set beside it: at once a gesture of gratitude for the ven dola he had received today and a sort of fox trap he hoped might snare him another ven dola tomorrow.

He could give way now. The whole walk to the onfò he had been feeling a pulse rising between the cords at the back of his neck, responding to the drumbeat, the red magic rising from the back of his brain toward the front so that soon the Maji Wouj would submerge him completely: this was good. As he moved toward the concentration of dancers under the drums, Magloire caught a glimpse of Charlie Chapo on the periphery-Charlie had in fact discarded his chapo and wore only his red mouchwa tèt, to show the spirits he courted the red magic too. He stood at the edge of the dancing, turning his torso lightly at the waist and letting his slack arms sway like cooked spaghetti. In the glance they exchanged, Magloire understood that Charlie Chapo desired what possessed Magloire and that he would not get it. Magloire went altogether under the drums.

Charles Morgan, le-dit Charlie Chapo, was a connoisseur of many cultures and had experience of more than one pathway to the trance state that preceded full possession. Tonight he was combining several techniques-a scrap of qi gong, a bit of yoga, a subroutine of self-hypnosis-all in hope of bucking the ego out of his being for a time. He had planed down his consciousness till it was as frail as the weave of his worn-out hat, but he could not get all the way through membrane. Not tonight. A couple of times the thing had happened to him by itself, and while it terrified him then, he still desired and tried for it even though he knew how wrong-headed and futile it was to think that he could get there by trying.