Father Womé arrived as three men in loose, button-down shirts were planting an eight-foot pole where the assistant priest had chalked the X. Frings registered that people noticed Womé, but went back to what they were doing. There was respect but not awe, and for some reason that surprised him. Maybe they were used to seeing Womé, or maybe Frings had fundamentally misunderstood what Womé meant to the people in the Community.
The crowd hugging the edges of the Square was growing, their bodies making it even hotter. Womé wore a light tan suit along with a homburg and round sunglasses. He leaned on a brass-tipped cane as he conferred with the assistant priest and the two women. More drummers set up on wooden crates or sat cross-legged in the dirt. The crowd hummed with expectancy.
Carla pulled on Frings’s sleeve and nodded toward Eunice, whose eyelids drooped as she listened to another woman, as if she were falling asleep; but her broad shoulders were tense. The woman left and Eunice was motionless until Carla gently touched her arm.
“She said there’s a group of white men gathering in the field, more coming all the time. Said the police killed some doctor, a white man.”
Berdych? Frings nodded. “Okay. I’ll find out what’s going on.”
He pushed out of the Square and headed toward the shantytown exit, trying to keep a constant direction. A goat was loose and a couple of boys chased after it with a rope.
He didn’t like the idea of white men gathering outside the shanties. On top of what he now figured was the shooting of Berdych, the situation seemed to be getting out of hand.
After a couple of false turns, he found his way to the outside. A warm breeze blew off the river, carrying something that approached fresh air. Uniforms gathered around a dozen police cars, smoking and talking shit. Two cops were posted at each corner of the shantytown. Frings stepped out to get a better view of the field and saw a group of two or three dozen white men, maybe fifty yards away, drinking bottles of beer, their boisterous talk drifting on the wind. Between the shanties and the men, a line of cops and, behind them, young Negroes pacing back and forth between the fires burning in oil drums.
Shit.
Frings found Westermann talking with three other cops, including the one who’d braced Frings the other night in the Palace. He kept his distance, edging over so that he was in Westermann’s line of sight. Westermann eventually saw him and nodded. The other three men turned to look. The cop from the Palace looked from Frings back to Westermann and then back to Frings. Westermann excused himself and walked over.
“I can’t be talking to you here.”
“What’s going on with those ginks in the field?”
Westermann looked at him.
“Off-the-fucking-record,” Frings said.
“Detective Grip over there”—Westermann nodded to where the three men were watching them—“says that there’s a sizable group of men planning to take down the shanties.”
Frings shook his head. “And the cops are here to what, guard the shanties?”
Westermann nodded. “If it comes to that.”
The drums were going again.
Westermann asked, “You know what’s going on in there?”
“Yeah. Come have a look at who you’re protecting.”
People stood three deep around the perimeter of the Square when Frings and Westermann arrived. Kids sat on the roofs of the surrounding shanties. The drummers were all going now, the rhythm fast and hypnotic. Frings led the way through the crowd to Carla and Eunice. Carla and Westermann exchanged looks but didn’t speak.
In the Square, Father Womé was shaking a rattle and moving in choreographed steps with the assistant priest, who carried a sword and was flanked by the two women, now carrying white standards attached to poles. The three would advance together and Womé would retreat, stop, and then advance on the three, who would retreat in turn. Women on the edges of the crowd were dancing subtle dances, not coordinated with each other, but moving with the same beat. People were singing, or maybe chanting in what Frings thought must be some African language. He felt out of place and conspicuous; looked over at Carla and saw that she felt it, too.
Westermann grabbed Frings’s arm. “Who’s that?”
Frings followed Westermann’s gaze to Moses Winston, slapping a drum with his bare hands, his head cocked slightly to the side, eyes closed.
“Moses Winston. He’s a musician.”
“He lives here, in the shanties?”
Frings was surprised by the question and turned to Westermann, not liking what he saw in the lieutenant’s unfocused eyes.
“He’s staying here, from what I’ve heard,” Frings said slowly. “He’s a traveling musician, just living here while he’s in the City. Why?”
Westermann frowned and seemed to sink further into himself.
In the Square, the assistant priest and the two women discarded their props and began dancing around the pole, the man, especially, moving libidinously; the women only slightly more chaste. The tempo picked up and two men from the crowd—thin, shirtless, gleaming with sweat—entered the Square whirling, their arms out, eyes rolling around in their heads.
This was what was going to save the Community? Would this ceremony stoke their courage? Inspire resistance?
Beyond Carla, Frings saw Eunice with her eyes closed, her head swaying slightly to the rhythm, mouthing the words of whatever song was being sung.