Chapter Nine

"I've changed my mind. I'll not be part of it." Serina pulled at his arm and realized she was shouting to make herself heard above the torrent around them. In the west the lightning flared again. "Take me back. Now."

Directly ahead the wide thatched roof of the mill house loomed out of the darkness. Atiba seemed not to hear as he circled his arm about her waist and urged her forward. A sheet of rain off the building's eaves masked the doorway, and he drew her against him to cover her head as they pa.s.sed through. Inside, the packed earthen floor was sheltered and dry.

The warmth of the room caused her misgivings to ebb momentarily; the close darkness was like a protective cloak, shielding them from the storm. Still, the thought of what lay ahead filled her with dread. The Jesuit teachers years ago in Brazil had warned you could lose your soul by joining in pagan African rituals. Though she didn't believe in the Jesuits' religion, she still feared their warning. She had never been part of a true Yoruba ceremony for the G.o.ds; she had only heard them described, and that so long ago she had forgotten almost everything.

When Atiba appeared at her window, a dark figure in the storm, and told her she must come with him, she had at first

refused outright. In reply he had laughed lightly, kissed her, then whispered it was essential that she be present. He did not say why; instead he went on to declare that tonight was the perfect time. No cane was being crushed; the mill house was empty, the oxen in their stalls, the entire plantation staff ordered to quarters. Benjamin Briggs and the other _branco _masters were a.s.sembled in Bridgetown, holding a council of war against the Ingles ships that had appeared in the bay at sunrise.

When finally she'd relented and agreed to come, he had insisted she put on a white shift--the whitest she had--saying in a voice she scarcely recognized that tonight she must take special care with everything.

Tonight she must be Yoruba.

"Surely you're not afraid of lightning and thunder?" He finally spoke as he gestured for her to sit, the false lightness still in his tone.

"Don't be. It could be a sign from Shango, that he is with us. Tonight the heavens belong to him." He turned and pointed toward the mill.

"Just as in this room, near this powerful iron machine of the _branco_, the earth is sacred to Ogun. That's why he will come tonight if we prepare a place for him."

She looked blankly at the mill. Although the rollers were bra.s.s, the rest of the heavy framework was indeed iron, the metal consecrated to Ogun. She remembered Atiba telling her that when a Yoruba swore an oath in the great palace of the Oba in Ife, he placed his hand not on a Bible but on a huge piece of iron, shaped like a tear and weighing over three hundred pounds. The very existence of Yorubaland was ensured by iron. Ogun's metal made possible swords, tipped arrows, muskets. If no iron were readily at hand, a Yoruba would swear by the earth itself, from whence came ore.

"I wish you would leave your Yoruba G.o.ds in Africa, where they belong."

How, she asked herself, could she have succ.u.mbed so readily to his preto delusions? She realized now that the Yoruba were still too few, too powerless to revolt. She wanted to tell him to forget his G.o.ds, his fool's dream of rebellion and freedom.

He glanced back at her and laughed. "But our G.o.ds, our Orisa, are already here, because our people are here." He looked away, his eyes hidden in the dark, and waited for a roll of thunder to die away. The wind dropped suddenly, for an instant, and there was silence except for the drumbeat of rain. "Our G.o.ds live inside us, pa.s.sed down from generation to generation. We inherit the spirit of our fathers, just as we take on their strength, their appearance. Whether we are free or slave, they will never abandon us." He touched her hand gently.

"Tonight, at last, perhaps you will begin to understand."

She stared at him, relieved that the darkness hid the disbelief in her eyes. She had never seen any G.o.d, anywhere, nor had anyone else. His G.o.ds were not going to make him, or her, any less a slave to the _branco_. She wanted to grab his broad shoulders and shake sense into him. Tonight was the first, maybe the last, time that Briggs Hall would be theirs alone. Why had he brought her here instead, for some bizarre ceremony? Finally her frustration spilled out. "What if I told you I don't truly believe in your Ogun and your Shango and all the rest? Any more than I believe in the Christian G.o.d and all His saints?"

He lifted her face up. "But what if you experienced them yourself?

Could you still deny they exist?"

"The Christians claim their G.o.d created everything in the world." Again the anger flooding over her, like the rain outside. She wanted to taunt him. "If that's true, maybe He created your G.o.ds too."

"The Christian G.o.d is nothing. Where is He? Where does He show Himself?

Our Orisa create the world anew every day, rework it, change it, right before our eyes. That's how we know they are alive." His gaze softened.

"You'll believe in our G.o.ds before tonight is over, I promise you."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because one of them is already living inside you. I know the signs."

He stood back and examined her. "I think you are consecrated to a certain G.o.d very much like you, which is as it should be."

He reached down and picked up a cloth sack he had brought. As the lightning continued to flare through the open doorway, he began to extract several long white candles. Finally he selected one and held it up, then with an angry grunt pointed to the black rings painted around it at one-inch intervals.

"Do you recognize this? It's what the _branco _call a 'bidding candle.'

Did you know they used candles like this on the ship? They sold a man each time the candle burned down to one of these rings. I wanted Ogun to see this tonight."

He struck a flint against a tinderbox, then lit the candle, shielding it from the wind till the wick was fully ablaze. Next he turned and stationed it on the floor near the base of the mill, where it would be protected from the gale.

She watched the tip flicker in the wind, throwing a pattern of light and shadow across his long cheek, highlighting the three small parallel scars. His eyes glistened in concentration as he dropped to his knees and retrieved a small bag from his waistband. He opened it, dipped in his hand, and brought out a fistful of white powder; then he moved to a smooth place on the floor and began to dribble the powder out of his fist, creating a series of curved patterns on the ground.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm preparing the symbol of Ogun."

"Will drawings in the dirt lure your G.o.d?"

He did not look up, merely continued to lay down the lines of white powder, letting a stream slip from his closed fist. "Take care what you say. I am consecrating this earth to Ogun. A Yoruba G.o.d will not be mocked. I have seen hunters return from an entire season in the forest empty-handed because they scorned to make offerings."

"I don't understand. The Christians say their G.o.d is in the

sky. Where are these G.o.ds of Africa supposed to be?" She was trying vainly to recall the stories her mother Dara and the old _babalawo _of Pernambuco had told. But there was so much, especially the part about Africa, that she had willed herself to forget. "First you claim they are already inside you, and then you say they must come here from somewhere."

"Both things are true. The Orisa are in some ways like ordinary men and women." He paused and looked up. "Just as we are different, each of them is also. Shango desires justice--though wrongs must be fairly punished, he is humane. Ogun cares nothing for fairness. He demands vengeance."

"How do you know what these G.o.ds are supposed to want? You don't have any sacred books like the Christians. . . ."

"Perhaps the Christians need their books. We don't. Our G.o.ds are not something we study, they're what we are."

"Then why call them G.o.ds?"

"Because they are a part of us we cannot reach except through them.

They dwell deep inside our selves, in the spirit that all the Yoruba peoples share." He looked down and continued to lay out the drawing as he spoke. "But I can't describe it, because it lies in a part of the mind that has no words." He reached to take more of the white powder from the bag and shifted to a new position as he continued to fashion the diagram, which seemed to be the outline of some kind of bush. "You see, except for Olorun, the sky G.o.d, all our Orisa once dwelt on earth, but instead of dying they became the communal memory of our people.

When we call forth one of the G.o.ds, we reach into this shared consciousness where they wait. If a G.o.d comes forth, he may for a time take over the body of one of us as his temporary habitation." He paused and looked up. "That's why I wanted you here tonight. To show you what it means to be Yoruba." He straightened and critically surveyed the drawing. His eyes revealed his satisfaction.

On the ground was a complex rendering of an African cotton tree, the representing-image of Ogun. Its trunk was flanked on each side by the outline of an elephant tusk, another symbol of the Yoruba G.o.d. He circled it for a moment, appraising it, then went to the cache of sacred utensils he had hidden behind the mill that afternoon and took up a stack of palm fronds. Carefully he laid a row along each side of the diagram.

"That's finished now. Next I'll make the symbol for Shango. It's simpler." He knelt and quickly began to lay down the outline of a double-headed axe, still using the white powder from the bag. The lines were steady, flawless. She loved the lithe, deft intensity of his body as he drew his sacred signs--nothing like the grudging branco artists who had decorated the cathedral in Pernambuco with Catholic saints, all the while half-drunk on Portuguese wine.

"Where did you learn all these figures?"

He smiled. "I've had much practice, but I was first taught by my father, years ago in Ife."

The drawing was already done. He examined it a moment, approved it, and laid aside the bag of white powder. She picked it up and took a pinch to her lips. It had the tangy bitterness of ca.s.sava flour.

"Now I'll prepare a candle for Shango." He rummaged through the pile.

"But in a way it's for you too, so I'll find a pure white one, not a bidding candle."

"What do you mean, 'for me too'?"

He seemed not to hear as he lit the taper and placed it beside the symbol. Next he extracted a white kerchief from his waistband and turned to her. "I've brought something for you. A gift. Here, let me tie it." He paused to caress her, his fingertips against her cinnamon skin, then he lovingly pulled the kerchief around her head. He lifted up her long hair, still wet from the rain, and carefully coiled it under the white cloth. Finally he knotted it on top, African style.

"Tonight you may discover you truly are a Yoruba woman, so it is well that you look like one."

Abruptly, above the patter of rain, came the sound of footfalls in the mud outside. She glanced around and through the dark saw the silhouettes of the Yoruba men from the slave quarters. The first three carried long bundles swathed in heavy brown wraps to protect them from the rain.

They entered single file and nodded in silence to Atiba before gathering around the diagrams on the floor to bow in reverence. After a moment, the men carrying the bundles moved to a clear s.p.a.ce beside the mill and began to unwrap them. As the covering fell away, the fresh goatskin tops of three new drums sparkled white in the candlelight.

She watched the drummers settle into position, each nestling an instrument beneath his left arm, a curved wooden mallet in his right hand. From somewhere in her past there rose up an identical scene, years ago in Brazil, when all the Yoruba, men and women, had gathered to dance. Then as now there were three hourgla.s.s-shaped instruments, all held horizontally under the drummer's arm as they were played. The largest, the _iya ilu_, was almost three feet long and was held up by a wide shoulder strap, just as this one was tonight. The other two, the _bata _and the _go-go_, were progressively smaller, and neither was heavy enough to require a supporting strap.