Soon they had departed from the Barrens, had crossed the road and were passing through a village of huts on the other side, where still more people came out and joined them. The sky had grayed slightly in the east, and a breeze off the sea drifted toward them. As the sky lightened, the palm trees went from black silhouettes against it to gray to green, when finally the crowd rounded a turn in the broad, sandy trail beyond the village and came to the sea, silvery and smooth in the dawn light. The waves lapped placidly at the spit of sand that ran out from the point, and fifty yards beyond the spit, anchored in shallow water, was the boat, a low turtler, broad-beamed, with a short, dark red, single sail.
The people sang and danced as they marched, clanging on the steel ogan, blowing the conch shell, the L: lambi, as if it were Gabriel’s horn, beating the assator and the tambour drums with joyous fury, and when they reached the water, as if it were not there, as if there were no firmament between the firmaments, they strode on, moving directly into the sea, a black river foaming and churning down from a mountaintop to the shore and merging with the sea. Soon they were wading in chest-high water, the offerings, drums, goat, asson and barque held high as they neared the boat, and when they reached the boat, the men carrying the barque of Agwé steadied themselves a second and then slid it up and over the rail into the boat and clambered aboard, with the rest following helter-skelter, grabbing at rails on all sides, clinging and swinging themselves up and over, scrambling into the boat, even climbing the masts, until it seemed the boat would capsize from the load. And still there were stragglers trying to come aboard, among them Claude and Vanise and Charles. Vanise held her baby up above her head, as if he were an offering to Agwé, and a man took him from her. She reached out her hand, and another man grabbed it and hauled her aboard. Claude grabbed at the gunwale, and at that moment, someone on the other side hauled up the anchor and the boat shifted to starboard, and Claude lost his hold and fell back into the sea. Gasping, his mouth filling with salty water, flailing wildly, Claude cried out in terror, Vanise! Oh, Vanise, moin la! Moin la! for he could not swim, and he knew that he was supposed to drown now, because of Grabow. It was Grabow himself pulling him down and shoving the crowded boat away from his grasp, Grabow’s blood-soaked hands yanking at Claude’s legs, Grabow and all the Petro loas in dark concert working this poor, frightened boy down, when suddenly his hand felt human fingers, and he tightened his hand around another and looked up into the bland, calm face of the mambo, a sweetly organized, mother’s face.
The woman pulled, and Claude came free of Grabow’s grasp and scrambled over the rail of the boat and fell into a mass of arms, legs, bowls of food, drums, goat, flowers, the huge, awkward barque. He ended in a crouched position facing the woman who had pulled him aboard, the mambo in the scarlet dress. She shook her asson at him and demanded in a fierce voice to know who he was, where did he come from, who was his family. I do not know you, she said coldly.
Claude Dorsinville, he said. I am Claude Dorsinville. His breath came in harsh patches and grabs, and he stammered that he had come in search of her, the mambo, had come with his aunt and her infant. He nodded in their direction, and the woman glanced over, quickly returning her gaze to the dripping, frightened boy before her.
You want a service, she said, you got to pay me, boy. Mézi lagen ou, mezi wanga ou. Your money is your charm.
I … I have money, Claude said, and he looked across at Vanise, who had retrieved her child and sat comfortably on the broad rail of the boat, which dipped and caught the morning wind, despite its great load, and was headed smartly across the spreading bay toward the open sea. The starboard rail, where Vanise sat with a dozen others, flashed along near the surface of the sea, sending a silvery spray into the air, blue-green jewels in the new sunlight.
Vanise! the boy called. Talk to her, and he nodded at the mambo. Tell her what you want! he pleaded.
Vanise looked at him as if she did not know him.
He understood. He possessed the money for the service, and he had promised it to her, and she was holding him to his promise. Grabow’s money, the fat roll of dollars that had come from his corpse, had come from the loas. It was blood money. The money he had earned from the Chinaman, the dozen wet dollars in his pocket, was to be given back to the loas. An even exchange. It was only fair.
