Michael Bishop - Ancient of Days

“How did they manage this? It’s uncanny, Adam.”

“There is nothing to manage. It happens. In this creative endeavor, at least, the feelings of one are the others’ feelings; also, the talents. Because art requires leisure, they take turns at painting. They work turn by turn, by months. This is Alberoi’s month. Next, Dégrasse’s again. And so on. While the artist does art, the others tend their cassava patches, forage for firewood, or barter with trustworthy islanders for food items and such. It works very well. No one becomes disgruntled.”

Caroline said, “The canvases. The paints. Where do they get them?”

“Of late, RuthClaire and I have supplied them, but before we came, Erzulie went to Rutherford’s Port for them. She took carven figures of rosewood or mahogany to trade in the art shop next to Le Centre d’Art near the International Hotel. It was her idea. She saw primitive paintings like these—not as good, really—selling to tourists in the bazaars. This crate holds three years’ work—not quite, though, because Erzulie has sold some of these paintings already. To guess who may have them is impossible.”

“Used-car dealers from Ohio,” Caroline said. “Not knowing what they have, they hang them in their dens next to big paintings of Elvis on black velvet.”

“Maybe,” Adam said. “I don’t know.”

I asked him what name he favored for our solitary naif. Would it be wrong to use his? Adam rejected this idea. He was not ashamed to sign these canvases, but no one who knew his own paintings would believe that he’d done these, too. The styles diverged too widely. He worked with the advantage, and disadvantage, of a crystallized ego, whereas Alberoi and the others painted from the soft core of their unspoken common experience, from a collective unconscious too rubbery for any “I” ever to get a firm grip on it.

“What, then?”

“Fauver,” Adam said. “Call this unknown artist Fauver.”

“From fauve ? That’s a school of painters, Adam, not a single artist. And it means ‘wild animal.’”

He smiled broadly. “Yes, I know.”

We could have chosen a dozen paintings, rolled them up, and bid farewell to Prix-des-Yeux, but Adam insisted that we must not leave Montaraz without experiencing a vaudun ceremony. A rational pagan like me, he declared, ought to subject himself to at least one powerful mystical experience in his life, and he and Erzulie would guide me safely through it. The other habilines would form a chorus, an upland rara band, to play drums and chant the needful chants. Fortunately, tomorrow was Saturday, and our voodoo service would begin a split second after nightfall. In the daylong interval, I must finish my photographic inventory of the caves—while Caroline and RuthClaire drove to the capital for items essential to the service. I liked none of these arrangements, but the others voted in a bloc against me (two cheers for democracy), and it was decided.

“There’s danger?” I asked. “I need help to see me safely through the ceremony?”

RuthClaire said, “It’s only dangerous, Paul, if you provoke the loa . Keep an open—preferably, a blank—mind.”

“He ought to be able to manage that.” Caroline was teasing, not being malicious, but the remark prompted RuthClaire’s laughter, too. The resurgent chumminess of the women, united again in playful ridicule, stung, and that Brian Nollinger was also present did nothing to pluck out the barb.

“Why the hell do they have to go to Rutherford’s Port?” I asked.

“To do this right,” Adam said. “We need a baptismal gown big enough to fit you, Mister Paul. Also some rum, orgeat , Florida water, cornmeal, oil, and two chickens.”

“Chickens?”

“Don’t ask,” RuthClaire said, and she and Caroline guffawed again, their arms around each other like long-lost-but-lately-found sisters.

“Do we have to get the chickens, too?” Caroline managed through this sputtering.

“I’ll drive you,” Brian said. “You can shop for trinkets. I’ll buy the chickens.”

“Live chickens,” Adam said.

“They don’t need you to chauffeur them, Herr Professor,” I said.

“I like to buy chickens,” RuthClaire said. “Even live ones. It’s hauling them home in a Jeep that rapidly loses its glamor.”

Brian tried to explain: “I’ve got to check in with my bosses. They give me a fairly free rein with this PADF project, but not so free that I can skip the island.”

Adam’s eyes widened and narrowed again. Nollinger saw, and I think both men remembered that nearly two years ago Brian had betrayed Adam to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. What would keep him from calling in the Tontons Macoutes in the hope of a reward, either money or preferential treatment?

“I’ll tell no one what I’ve seen here,” he said. “You have my word.”

A cynical snort escaped me.

“What would be the point?” he added. “I’d destroy my chance to do important field work here. I’d put myself in competition with dozens—maybe hundreds—of other would-be ethnographers. Do you really think I’d do that?”

“He wouldn’t,” Caroline said. “Brian knows what he’s got in Prix-des-Yeux.”

“And I want to see the vaudun ceremony tomorrow night. I’ll buy the damned chickens and truss them so they won’t flap. I can’t promise they won’t cackle, but that’s chickens for you.”

“Crumble sleeping tablets into their feed,” I said. “Do that methodically enough and maybe you’ll get research funding from the National Institutes of Health. You could call your paper ‘On the Tendency of Barnyard Fowls to Fall Asleep When Administered Mickeys.’”

This time Caroline and RuthClaire laughed with me, rather than at me, and I had the pleasure of seeing Brian’s annoyed look. But, hat in hand, he argued that he would be foolish to reveal what he knew and that RuthClaire and Caroline would be better off with him along than tooling down the coastal road unaccompanied. He’d help them load their purchases—he’d haggle for every item on their list. He was an expert at open-air bargaining, a skill he’d picked up in the Dominican Republic.

“We’ll keep an eye on him,” RuthClaire told Adam. “He’ll report to his bosses at Austin-Antilles, and that’s it. No side trips. No private phone calls. Et cetera.”

“Okay by me,” Brian said. He had won. He showed me a raised eyebrow of ironic triumph. Because RuthClaire and Caroline wanted showers and a good night’s rest before going into Rutherford’s Port, they hiked down to the beach that same afternoon and spent the night in the cottage on Caicos Bay. Brian Nollinger drove them. He made a pallet for himself on the porch, and, the next morning, he wrestled the rented Jeep along the coastal road into the city so that the women could do their vaudun shopping. This summary of events, of course, I report secondhand, trusting that it does not deviate too much from what actually happened. I slept very little that night, though.

At sunrise, the coolest part of the day, Dégrasse brought breakfast: mild Haitian coffee with rapadou and a spoonful of powdered milk, a stew of plantains, and a piece of odd-looking but tasty fish. The stew and the coffee were hot, but the fish seemed to have been forked out of lukewarm brine. Although groggy from lack of sleep, I ate ravenously. In the lee of the houngfor , Toussaint and Dégrasse ate with me, neither paying me the slightest heed. Then Adam appeared, in walking shorts and a pair of Adidas sneakers. He handed me the camera equipment and led me uphill through the fortification of sablier trees to Hector’s secret entrance to the caves.