Back to Wando Passo by David Payne (books to improve english txt) 📕

She retrieved her Chardonnay and took a sip as Claire and Marcel filed to look.

“What’s it for?” asked Claire.

“It’s a religious pictograph. The circle represents the world. In the cross, the horizontal line is the threshold between the living and the dead. The vertical line shows energy rising from their realm into ours. It’s the sign of Zarabanda.”

“What’s that?” asked Claire.

“Who. He’s one of the nkisi, a spirit in the Palo pantheon. Honestly, Ran, that was my first thought when you said the pot was wrapped in chains. Zarabanda’s cauldrons often are. What I don’t get, though, is how a prenda could have gotten here.”

“Couldn’t the slaves have made it?” Marcel asked.

She shook her head. “What I’d expect to have been practiced here, Cell, as I told Ran, was Conjure. It’s Congo, too, but instead of prendas, they’d have made these little flannel sacks called mojo hands or tobies. In Zaire today, priests use something called a futu, which is similar. To anyone familiar with Congo traditions, the technology is more or less the same, meaning a futu or a mojo hand is essentially a miniature prenda, and a prenda is a larger mojo hand. There are differences, but the process that occurs in them is basically the same.”

“And what process is that?” Claire demanded soberly.

“Basically, it’s a recipe, Claire. There’s a list of ingredients—‘palos,’ sticks from certain sacred trees—palo hueso, malambo, quiebra hacha, and so forth; different earths: from the cemetery, the crossroads, from beneath the jailhouse and the court, river and ocean sand; different minerals, stones, roots, insect and animal remains. You put these all together in the pot and you create an environment—a kind of magical terrarium—into which a muerto, a disincarnate spirit, can materialize, which becomes the Palero’s ally and then can be sent out to do his bidding. ‘Una Prenda es como el mundo entero en chiquito y con el que usted domina.’…That’s what Cabrera says: ‘A prenda is like the whole world in miniature—in microcosm—which you use to dominate.’”

“To dominate what?” said Claire.

“Whatever you want or need to dominate,” said Shan. “In the first instance, whatever’s dominating you. Slaves used them for help and protection from their masters. Basically, anything a Christian might pray to God for, a Palero can ask of the nfumbi and nkisi.”

“And this is real?” Claire said. “You’re telling us you believe all this?”

“Absolutely.” Shanté took a heavy sip of wine. “I’ve been in ceremonies where people are mounted by these spirits, Claire—possessed by them. Someone will say, ‘Pruébalo’—‘Prove it’—and hand the caballo, the medium, a machete or a knife. I’ve seen them slice their arms until the blood just pours. I’ve seen them cut their tongues and eat glass and fire. I’ve seen them press burning cigars into their cheeks. And I’ve seen it faked, too. Even in big celebrations in New York, I’ve seen fake possessions, prendas that aren’t alive, just big, ugly, smelly messes someone made out of a book or bought from some fraudulent online Palero. But when the spirits are there, there’s no mistaking it.”

“So how did this thing get here?” Ransom asked.

“I seriously doubt it was brought over in a boat,” she said, “so someone with the knowledge probably made it on the place. Someone Cuban, I’d bet. Someone black—a slave. Probably a man.”

“Are you sure of that?”

Claire’s sharp tone made everybody look. She traded looks with Cell, then turned to Ran. “Tildy told us something last night after you left, Ran….”

“‘Us’?” he repeated, wretchedly.

“Do you remember Ben Jessup’s story?” she said, ignoring this. “The little boy they found after Harlan and Adelaide disappeared?”

“He wasn’t Harlan’s child, was he?” said Ran, who’d long since arrived. “Addie had the child by someone else.”

Claire pressed her lips and shook her head. “It wasn’t Addie’s child at all.”

“What!”

Claire shook her head and slid a photograph across the table, a tintype of a dark-eyed habanera seated in a chair with a closed fan pressed against the breast of her black dress. “Her name was Clarisse. She was the daughter of Percival DeLay and a slave—a Cuban slave—named Paloma.” Claire pointed to the young man with muttonchops and a cigar, standing behind Clarisse’s chair. “That’s Harlan. This is an engagement photograph.”

Ran blinked and blinked again. Then he looked up. “His own sister?”

“Half. They didn’t know. They met in Cuba as adults and fell in love. Clarisse came here with him. Tildy doesn’t know how they found out, but somehow they did, and the wedding was called off.”

“And he married Addie.”

“He married Addie.”

“And the little boy…?”

“Clive and Tildy’s grandfather. In his final illness, he told his son that his mother’s name was Clarisse.”

“And Tildy knew this?”

“Tildy knew,” Claire said.

“Goddamn.” Ran sat back in his chair, letting it sink in. “Goddamn.” He slapped the table with his palm. “I knew she was holding out on me. That old bitch! After all these years, all the social agony your people put me through…” He got up and started pacing. “Do you see what this means? She’s passing, Claire. Miss Tildy I’m-better-than-you-are-it-takes-twelve-generations DeLay is passing. Clive was passing. Hell, Claire, you’re passing! Holy shit!” He slapped his forehead. “Holy, holy shit!”

“If I’m passing, Ran,” she replied, “then so are those two children up those stairs.”

Ran blinked again. “You’re right, they are! It’s unbelievable! Am I the only honky in the house? I am! Goddamn. Ransom Hill, come on down! And after all Tildy’s social airs and lectures…”

“I fail to see how having an African bloodline should affect her pride in who she is in any way,” Claire said.

“Yeah, right,” Ran said. “That’s why they hushed this up for the last hundred and forty years. In Charleston, Claire? Get real! I mean, you know, don’t you, in the big scheme of things, this doesn’t matter to me in the least?”

“I wouldn’t have thought so, Ran. What I find hard to stomach, though, is all this glee.”

“Come on, babe,” he said, “after you and yours have used me as your