Merrick - Anne Rice [64]
Merrick broke off for a moment, her eyebrows knitted, her mouth slightly open. Then she began again.
“ ‘The hell you’ll come back for her.’ That’s what Great Nananne told her. ‘You’ve never done anything except run wild and let that child run wild, well, she’s staying here with me, and you go to Hell.’ ”
Once again, she stopped. Her girlish face grew quiet. I was afraid she was going to cry. I think that she swallowed the tears very deliberately. Then she spoke again, clearing her throat a little. I could hardly make out the words.
“Think she went to Chicago,” she said.
Aaron waited respectfully while the silence filled the old kitchen. I picked up my coffee and drank deeply again, savoring the taste of it, as much out of respect for her as for the pleasure.
“You’re ours, darling,” I said.
“Oh, I know, Mr. Talbot,” she answered in a small voice, and, without moving the focus of her eyes from some distant point, she lifted her right hand and laid it on mine. I never forgot the gesture. It was as if she was comforting me.
Then she spoke. “Well, Great Nananne knows now. She knows whether my mother is alive or dead.”
“Yes, she knows,” I answered, avowing my belief before I could think the better of it. “And whatever she knows, she’s at peace.”
There was a quiet interval in which I became painfully conscious of Merrick’s suffering, and of the noises of the Talamasca acolytes who were moving every object in the place. I heard the grinding noise of the large statues being dragged or pushed. I heard the sound of packing tape being stretched and torn.
“I loved that man, Matthew,” said Merrick softly. “I really loved him. He taught me how to read the Book of Magic. He taught me how to read all the books that Oncle Vervain had left. He liked to look at the pictures I showed you. He was an interesting man.”
There was another long pause. Something in the atmosphere of the house disturbed me. I was confused by what I was feeling. It had nothing to do with normal noises or activity. And it seemed imperative suddenly that I conceal this disturbance from Merrick, that such a thing, whatever it was, not trouble her at this time.
It was as if someone altogether new and different had entered the house, and one could hear that person’s stealthy movements. It was the sense of a coherent presence. I wiped it from my mind, never for a moment fearing it, and keeping my eyes on Merrick, when, in a daze of sorts, she began to speak rather rapidly and tonelessly again.
“Up in Boston, Matthew had studied history and science. He knew all about Mexico and the jungles. He told me the story of the Olmec. When we were in Mexico City he took me to the museum. He was going to see to it that I went to school. He wasn’t afraid in those jungles. He thought those shots protected us. He wouldn’t let us drink the water, you know, all of that. And he was rich, like I told you, and he would have never tried to steal these things from Cold Sandra or me.”
Her eyes remained steady.
I could still feel this distinct entity within the house, and I realized that she did not feel it. Aaron did not know it was there, either. But it was there. And it was not far from where we sat. With all my soul I listened to Merrick.
“Oncle Vervain left lots of things. I’ll show you. Oncle Vervain said we had our roots in the jungle land down there, and in Haiti before our people ever came up here. He said we weren’t like American black people, though he never said the word ‘black,’ he always said colored. He thought it was polite to say colored. Cold Sandra used to laugh at him. Oncle Vervain was a powerful magician, and before him there had been his grandfather, and Oncle Vervain told tales of what the Old Man could do.”
I realized her soft speech was becoming more rapid. The history was pouring out from her.
“The Old Man, that’s all I ever called him. He was a Voodoo man in the Civil War.