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

Jarry picks her up, Addie, far down in her world, alone and frightened, whispers, “Why? Why are you doing this for me?”

He stares into her eyes, incredulous. “Why? Because you are a human being. Because you’d do the same for me.”

Wretched, she closes her eyes and turns her face away. And she is like a shot corsage, crushed against him as he carries her downstairs. His arms are a place of refuge Addie’s missed and longed for. So why now? she wonders. Why does the nearness of death grant them a permission denied in life? She can smell dust in his black coat, and sweat, a pleasing sourness like salt. Addie thinks about the blocks in the dairy yard and in the horses’ stalls, licked into beautiful grotesqueries by need.

Through a gray pall of dispirited languor, she sees sky passing overhead and hears the creaking of the wagon wheels. She feels the warmth of the blanket Jarry’s wrapped her in, and notes, with a brief uptick of interest, that the leaves are full now on the trees. Winking through them, incandescent sunlight vies with inky black to form a filigree. They’re carrying her inside again. Is it the cottage? Addie doesn’t recognize the place, nor, after a vapid attempt, can she much care. There are other people in the room, speaking in hushed tones, but their faces blur. What is that there? Is it an altar? There are many things upon this altar, but what draws her attention is a figurine, a queer, small bust, coal-black, with eyes and nose and lips of cowrie shells. It’s almost silly looking, like a crude statue a child might make of mud. Or like the tar baby…This thought drifts through Addie’s mind, and she closes her eyes.

“Hey titter, enty you gwine tan one side and lemme git some water? Enty you know me pot duh bun? Enty you know me hurry? Enty you yeddy me tell you fuh mobe?”

Jarry’s words come back to her, mixing with Paloma’s, who is chanting, “Eshu a ke buru bori ake boye to ri to ru la…Ye fiyo’ ru a’re a la le ku’pa she eyo me’ko…”

Something soft brushes her face, and Addie opens her eyes to see the roosters’ eyes, tranced and golden, as Paloma, holding them by the feet, their wings relaxed and spread, passes them over her like a soft wind.

“Jarry?”

He takes her hand and presses it. “Don’t be frightened,” he whispers.

And now, when Addie looks at the black figure, the tar baby, which the others address as Lucero, as Nkuyu, as Eshu, it’s regarding her with consciousness in its expression. She is terrified. It suddenly occurs to her that the tar baby stands between her and the spring, and the spring is life.

“You’re Death, aren’t you?” she asks.

And the tar baby—Lucero, Nkuyu, Eshu, there are many names—laughs at her. “No, I am not Death,” it says, “I am dead, but I am not Death. I am El Portero. I open the gate.”

“Am I going to die?”

“Most certainly.”

“But I’m not ready.”

“No one ever is, niña. I myself was not. Life is like a child’s toy you grip with all your might, and then one day you wake and forget your need for it. You let it go, and then you find it in the toy box later, dusty, soiled, and old, and wonder what it was that made you love it so. I was once alive, and that is how life seems to me, like childhood seems to you, a place you think of fondly but have no wish to return to. It will be the same for you.”

“Please,” pleads Addie. “Please, not now. I want to live before I die. Let me stay a little more.” She clutches Jarry’s hand, as though to moor herself by it.

Lucero regards her with compassion, the way an adult regards a child who’s tired and doesn’t want to go to bed. And suddenly a warm rain is falling. Addie feels a droplet pelt her face. And another. And another. Opening her eyes, Addie sees the roosters twirling overhead. They’re like dancing girls, she thinks, girls dancing the mazurka, holding up their dresses and throwing up their cotillions. Paloma’s dancing, too, dancing with the roosters, swinging them round and round, wringing their necks, chanting, “Ensuso kabwinda…Embele kiamene…. Eki mengankisi…” and blood is raining over Addie, a few light drops, and on the tar baby, too, on Lucero, and Addie sees that he has turned away from her. He’s taken them instead of her.

And around her in the room, the people sing,

“Ahora sí menga va corre, como corre,

Ahora sí menga va corre, sí seño,

Ahora sí menga va corre…”

It’s like a beautiful old song Addie remembers from somewhere long ago, like a lullaby her mother sang her in her childhood, or another life that Addie put away in the box with all the other broken toys and then forgot. And the blood is falling, menga va corre, como corre, like a soft, warm rain, and it isn’t horrible to her. There is no horror here. Addie feels like a young girl at church, the way she felt at St. Michael’s long ago, taking first communion, when she walked outside into spring light and the fragrance of gardenias, and Great Michael was pealing overhead, and the day was beautiful and still and filled with peace. The rest that has eluded her these many days steals over her, and Addie sleeps for a time that seems like years, though only seconds pass. The sound of Paloma’s voice wakes her.

“Bring the knife.”

“The knife?” says Jarry.

“Nkuyu has shown me what to do….”

Reaching under the peignoir that Addie chose so carefully, so specifically, Paloma lifts the silk directly over Addie’s heart, and cuts away the button of French nacre—the one that Addie picked out for its deep-sea gleam. Tying the button’s hasp to the black hair on Addie’s temple, Paloma starts to pull and Addie feels it coming, hank by hank, like a piece of