Unsympathetic Magic - Laura Resnick [105]
I didn’t recognize any of the young women, though, and I wondered where Puma was.
Someone carried a live rooster into the center of the hounfour and whirled around with it before moving on. I had a feeling I knew what the bird was for. However, according to my reading, sacrifices occurred much later in the ceremony. I was frankly hoping to leave before then, since the ritual would last well into the night.
Now there was a lot of chanting in Creole, and the mambo poured libations with rum, paid obeisance to the drapeaux, and started drawing vévé on the floor, creating the complex designs from memory and by sprinkling talcum powder delicately from her fingers. Mambo Celeste began by invoking Papa Legba and asking him to open the gates to the spirit world. Then she moved on to invoking other loa. The rum pouring, vévé drawing, invoking, and chanting went on for quite a while.
Lopez muttered to me, “I vow I will never again complain about how long High Mass takes.”
The celebrants and worshippers were all vibrantly engaged in the proceedings, which followed a sort of organized chaos. I noticed that Max was deeply absorbed and seemed to be enjoying himself.
I saw Baron Samedi prowling around—or, rather, a man dressed up like the Lord of Death. He wore a frock coat with tails, striped trousers, sunglasses, and a formal top hat. His face was painted like a skull, and seeing him wandering around, popping up here and there, made me uneasy enough that I was very glad Lopez was with me.
Finally, we reached the point in the ceremony where almost everyone in the room starting dancing, singing, and chanting; the rum was flowing pretty freely by now. This was the part of the ritual where people lost themselves in dance and awaited possession by a spirit. To be possessed was a mark of favor and a great blessing, a form of religious ecstasy.
However, since I didn’t know the language or really understand what was going on, I started to feel restless and ready to leave. Especially since I knew this could go on a while. Max seemed so enchanted by the service, though, that I didn’t have the heart to ask him to come with me. But I thought Jamal’s warning was well worth heeding: It would be evening by now, and although it wasn’t totally dark outside, I still didn’t want to leave the building by myself.
So I said to Lopez, “Will you come with me to get a cab?”
“Sure.” He turned away from the ceremony with me and put his hand on my back—but then a small explosion behind us made him turn back to the action.
I saw that the mambo was throwing powder into the brazier, and it was creating small explosions.
“Jesus, I think that’s gunpowder,” Lopez said. “Hang on. I think I’d better deal with this.”
“Of course,” I said.
As Lopez maneuvered his way through the dancing throng, heading toward the mambo, Max came up to me.
“What is she doing?” I asked him as another explosion made my head start to ache.
“She’s asking Ogoun to join us,” he said. “ He’s the loa of—”
“War, fire, and male fertility,” I said, remembering what Catherine had told me.
It suddenly occurred to me that the anthropologist wasn’t here. That surprised me. I’d have expected to see her hovering nearby, taking notes.
Then again, maybe after you’ve done that at a few hundred rituals, the fun starts to wear off. Perhaps she had decided to stay home with a good book tonight.
Lopez was approaching the brazier as the mambo threw another handful of gunpowder into it. He fell back a step and looked a little dizzy for a moment, as if the resultant explosion had affected him.
“What’s he doing?” a familiar voice asked me.
I turned to see Jeff by my side. I said, “There you are. You disappeared for a while.”
“Should