Wade Davis - The Serpent and the Rainbow

Inside it was cooler, and as our eyes adjusted to the light, Josephine introduced us to her president, Andrés Celestin. As it happened we had seen him twice before, once at the ceremony where he had been presented with the other Bizango leaders, and a second time when Rachel’s uncle Robert Erié had pointed him out in the main plaza of Saint Marc. Then he had appeared rather dashing, dressed in the stiff denim uniform of the Ton Ton Macoute. Now he seemed a broken man, lying prostrate on a cot with much of his face swollen and distorted by a sharp blow received, as we would learn later, when two Rara bands had met and clashed several nights previously. He was in no condition to receive anyone, and when despite his obvious pain he tried to stand to greet us, Rachel moved quickly to his side to ease him gently onto his back. He was severely concussed, and though the wound itself was not serious, it had become dangerously infected. We remained with him only long enough to promise to return the next day, and then, leaving some money for food, we hurried back to Saint Marc to purchase medication, which we dispatched with the old woman Josephine. We did return the next day, and each day after that until slowly his condition improved. Finally, about a week after being injured, he felt strong enough to speak with us, and by then, of course, he knew exactly what we needed.

Quite unlike Leophin or Jean Baptiste, established men whose authority was so certain that it appeared transparent, Andrés was a man on the rise, and his every gesture revealed a restless entrepreneurial spirit. As a youth he had deliberately moved close to Saint Marc, a center of Bizango activity, and it came as no surprise to discover later that he had been prominent in Leophin’s society until eventually the competition between them became too great. Dismissed for disobeying orders, he had formed his own society, which he was now in the process of consolidating. He was ambitious, perhaps excessively so, but he wasn’t corrupt, and in a grand manner he was terribly sincere. It was just that like many of his peers, while being true to his gods, he was more than willing to push them a bit toward satisfying his own aspirations. For Andrés, our chance meeting was a potent opportunity, for him no less than us.

“It is quite normal,” he explained, “that we work together. I have something that you want, which is knowledge. And you have something that I need.” He was speaking of more than just money, but also what our connections could mean for his society, and for my part I found his summation refreshingly frank. Behind him a pod of children gathered around a cooking fire, pushing out their hungry bellies. To one side, a tired-looking woman dislodged a clump of coarse sand from the ground to scour a pot; beside her lay piles of spindly firewood, and tin cans of water too precious to bathe in. A certain undeniable truth lay between us. We eyed each other for a moment, and then he lifted his head from the cot and his croaky laughter sealed our agreement.

It was Wednesday, the day when the society met, and that night following Andrés’s instructions we returned to the compound. We were late, as usual, and already most of the members were there, mingling about, waiting somewhat impatiently in the dark for a Coleman lantern so that the ceremony could begin. At the back of the tonnelle, in place of the cooking fires, three women moved impulsively to the rhythm of a small battery of drums. They stopped soon after we arrived. The compound was too small and the members were too few for anyone to feign discretion. Those who knew greeted us fondly; the rest stared in bemused disbelief.

Andrés was completely unfazed by our awkward arrival, and after a few moments of idle conversation he suggested politely that it was a good time to speak with the master. Groping in the darkness, we followed him out of the shelter of the tonnelle and around the corner of his house to a small outbuilding perched precariously on the steepest part of the sidehill. After knocking three times to alert the spirits, Andrés unlocked the rusty latch and led the way inside, passing through a voile curtain that concealed a small altar in the midst of which burned a single wick in a bowl of hot wax. Above the flame, a canopy of dozens of small mirrors and bells hung by ribbons from the ceiling. Rachel and I sat close together, knees touching on two small wicker chairs huddled to one side. Andrés leaned toward us, and for the first time I noticed the black patch that covered his wounded eye.

“You see, you have never met him, and you must. I cannot do something that is beyond my time. He is the one who can really give you the secrets.” Someone coughed behind us, and I realized we were not alone. Andrés pulled back the curtain and ordered whoever it was to bring a bottle of rum. “And tell the people they can dance,” he added before turning back to the altar. “Now, my friends, there are so many lessons. I shall show you great things. Wade, you are a blanc , and Rachel, you must serve as his master to show him all that I show you. Understand? Both of you? Good.”

Andrés picked up a bell and rang it while his free hand swept through the mirrors, sending bits of amber light dancing across every surface. The assistant scuttled back in, placed the bottle at our feet, and backed away. Another chime, and then Andrés sat down, and commenced a hypnotic drone of the liturgy, on and on, beseeching perhaps two hundred or more spirits and powers, until, stumbling over a single syllable, his voice changed. And started to stutter almost uncontrollably. In the guise of the master “Hector Victor,” the pwin , or mystical force, of the society had arrived.

“O-O-O-O-O Wha-wha-what is this? How are you? We-we-we-we have two foreigners here. Where are you from? Port-au-Prince? I-I-I’m glad. I am Hector Victor. I serve anywhere, do-do anything. Listen, little lady. I-I-It seems you need me? You need information? No? What then? O-O-Oh! Ha! So the guy talked to you already. What did he tell you?”

“He said that we should speak with you because you’re the one who knows,” Rachel answered quietly.

“O-O-Oh! It is true. I do know one thing. That is something that costs. It’s like school. Y-You must pay. Y-Y-You see. A-Ahow much can you pay?”

“No, no, Hector Victor, you must tell us the price. I can’t just say any amount.”

“Oh.” The voice paused. “Sa-sa-say, is that rum?” I passed him the bottle. Only in Haiti, I realized, is it possible to drink rum and haggle with a god. “We-we-well,” Hector Victor continued, “little lady, myself, I know that you can make me much more money than what I make here. So, th-th-this will cost s-s-s-sixty dollars. But you’ll see how worthy it is. Your father is a houngan, no? Y-y-you’ll see how pleased he’ll be.”

“Well,” Rachel paused as if buying vegetables.

“Rachel,” I said quietly, “it’s fine.”

“All right, we’ll pay forty dollars now and owe the rest.”

“Oh. Yes, I can trust you. I surely can. I-I-I’ll take this, but you’ll see that it is worth far more. So, I’ll be going now and let my horse do the work. But remember that Hector Victor can mount any bagi.” Hector Victor turned to the assistant that had brought the rum and handed him one of the bills I had given him. “T-t-t-take this and change it and give it to the others. Tell them they’ll bring more.” The shadowy figure of the assistant scurried out of the bagi.

The master blew his nose into a piece of newsprint, and then sat slumped on his chair looking comically disconsolate. “M-m-m-money,” he sighed, “see how it goes?” Another assistant arrived. “W-w-w-who’s there? Ah! My dear. Listen, there is something we are going to do. Do it well. We need these people. W-w-w-we want them and nothing must go wrong. T-t-t-tell my horse that these people will make us walk over land we never could have walked over.” The assistant distracted us for a moment, insisting that we write down his name so that we could contact him by way of the public announcements on the national radio. The master lifted his one good eye into the light, and once he was sure that the correct information had been recorded, he disappeared, leaving a limp body that soon came to life in the form of Andrés Celestin.