Chapter Eighteen

The tall, beautiful black woman slowed her long strides and turned around to wave Sanantha on.

Sanantha was moving as fast as she could, picking her way past the shoppers in the crowded open air market, dodging wandering children and animals, and sidestepping the vendors’ carts and booths that seemed scattered in her path. The smells were all too intense to enjoy, from the spicy foods to the lush flowers to the acrid animal urine. The sound of all those people talking and the pots clanging and the children crying, was all just too much. It all looked familiar, yet she knew she had no idea where this place was.

She hadn’t lost her tall guide, given the woman’s extreme height and her bright orange robes and high turban. Still, no matter how fast she walked, Sanantha couldn’t seem to shorten the gap between them.

She was so busy with the pursuit that it did not occur to her to wonder how she came to be following this woman, or for that matter, who the woman was. She did know it was desperately important to follow her.

She finally came to the end of the marketplace and her path opened up into a plaza. She looked around and realized the plaza was a park square surrounded by side streets that were crowded with merchants. She looked back, and again her tall guide had stopped and was beckoning impatiently.

Now that she got a full view of the woman, Sanantha was taken by her extraordinary looks. She must have been nearly seven feet tall, despite being in sandals and even before the turban, which added another foot. She was buxom, yet even through the robes she could see the woman was very muscular. Her neck seemed unusually long, and her broad lips smiled from under even broader cheekbones.

The woman grinned at her, and Sanantha realized she had been caught staring. The woman held out a hand and waited for Sanantha to catch up. Sanantha hesitated as she reached for the woman’s long graceful fingers. The woman took her hand warmly and led her on.

In the middle of the square stood a huge pavilion tent made of wide striped black and white fabric, festooned with flags on each tent pole. They were nearly upon it when Sanantha realized this very royal looking tent was their objective. Her surprise must have been evident, because the woman gave her hand a reassuring squeeze before they walked up between the hugely muscled shirtless black guards who stood at attention. As they walked past, Sanantha couldn’t help but notice the gleaming five foot long swords the guards held in front of them, point down with their hands resting on the handles.

The woman pulled aside the curtain over the entrance and Sanantha’s head was filled with a whole new set of sounds and smells, these all very pleasing in stark contrast to those of the market outside. Musicians played gentle rhythms and sweet strains, while incense billowed up from censers and the aromas washed away all of Sanantha’s apprehensions.

That is, until she stepped in and saw who they had come to see. Seated on a gold throne cast to look like it was made of skulls and bones was a full-grown African lion. Sanantha dropped to her knees and let out a gasp. “Papa Legba.”

The godhead looked over at her and cocked its head, as if waiting for something.

Sanantha looked up at her guide, and in a flash of embarrassing clarity recognized her as Erzulie. She felt suddenly exposed and unprepared and frightened. She looked up at Erzulie, hoping to get a sign of what she was supposed to do next. The goddess held her hands palm up, as if carrying something, and gestured toward the throne. Sanantha was supposed to give something to Legba.

Sanantha had nothing to give. She looked down at her own clothes for the first time and saw she was wearing a simple white homespun dress that didn’t even have pockets. She looked back up at Erzulie and frowned, and shrugged with her hands open.

This was apparently the wrong thing to do. All of the people behind and around Sanantha, whom up until then she hadn’t really noticed, inhaled sharply and stepped back away from her. She looked around at them, and they all averted their eyes, not in shame of her, but as if they were guilty. She stood up and asked the fellow closest to her, a short, fat white man in a green suit, “Do you know what I was supposed to bring?”

He didn’t answer, but instead began searching his own pockets. Then everyone near him started doing the same thing. This spread until everyone in the pavilion, except for Erzulie and Legba, were looking on their persons and under couch cushions and under rugs. In this sudden pandemonium, Sanantha looked over at Erzulie, who smiled sweetly and nodded at her as if giving her permission to do something.

Sanantha began sweeping the tent with her gaze, waiting for inspiration to guide her. Then she saw it. Sitting on an end table next to a rifled couch, in plain view and standing two feet high, was a brightly painted carved wooden doll of a woman. She walked over and picked it up. It was heavy, as if made of solid wood. She hefted it and felt something move inside. She examined it and found a seam around the middle. She gave it a twist and it separated into halves, with another doll inside. This one was similarly gaily painted, but of a girl. She thought this was an appropriate metaphor for a mother giving birth to a child. When she hefted the girl doll, she again felt something loose inside. She opened this doll and found a black carved wooden snake. This jarred her and she stood looking at it in confusion.

Then she noticed everyone who had been tearing the place apart had stopped, and they were all looking at her with great curiosity. Sanantha held the snake up for Erzulie to see, and the goddess smiled and nodded. She then gestured toward the throne.

Sanantha was more than a little cowed at the prospect of walking up to her Christ godhead. She felt very small under the lion’s gaze. If Erzulie had not been grinning so proudly at her, she would not have the courage to make the seven steps. She bowed deeply and lowered her gaze as she approached, then got down on all fours in front of Legba. She held up the snake sculpture without looking, and the lion took it.

Then he gently set his massive paw on her shoulder. It was heavy and rough and warm, and filled her with a joy like she had never felt before. She felt vindicated, forgiven, accepted, understood, appreciated, exalted, vital, and loved all the way to her core. The emotions were too much too fast, and she broke down sobbing. She dared a look up into those shining golden eyes, and was met with a nod before he withdrew his paw.

She backed away before getting up. She was shaking all over, with ecstatic tears streaming down her face. She turned to go and was met by Erzulie who held open her arms for a welcoming embrace. Sanantha was so overwhelmed, she wasn’t sure how much more of this she could handle. On the other hand, she wasn’t about to refuse an embrace from the Mistress of Forgiveness herself.

She reached around the goddess’ waist and woke up with her arms around her pillow. She was still shaking, still elated, still breathing hard, covered in sweat. She rolled off the pillow and thought she felt a gentle spasm in her groin. She sat up and checked. Indeed, the experience had moved her to orgasm.

She sat there stunned, shaking her head. She noted the dawn’s light just coming through her curtains and checked her bedside clock. 6:20. She recalled that sun up was 6:00 o’clock sharp, year round near the Equator, something she would never get used to.

She tried to replay the dream, hoping to remember as many details as she could before it faded under wakefulness. She fell back onto her pillow and let her breathing slow. It had all been so vivid, she hadn’t even realized she was dreaming. So many images. What could they possibly mean?

Then she made the chilling realization that she had never had a vision like this before. Even when she had been in the presence of demons and was fighting against Armageddon, her gods had never actually visited her. She must really be in danger if they felt they needed to contact her so directly.

She rolled out of bed and knelt down in front of her altar cabinet. She opened the doors, and lifted the bottle of rum out from the collection of amulets and carved stone figurines that filled the bottom of the tall wooden box. She found the shot glass, but had to steady her shaking hands before she could pour. Once she got the glass full, she set it on the stone block at the base of the central carved wooden pole. She then picked up the bundle of sticks and the pack of matches. Her hands were still shaking a little when she lit the end of the incense and then blew it out. She drew the shape of a heart in the air with the smoke before she set the bundle on the stone altar on the other side from the rum. The aromatic smoke curled around inside the cabinet and spilled upward into the room.

“Grand Matrisse, Heart of Forgiveness, Madame Erzulie, I send this prayer of my greatest gratitude heavenward to you. Holy Savior, Lion of Judah, Papa Legba, I send this prayer of my greatest gratitude heavenward to you. Thank you both for sharing with me your divine guidance. I will do my best to make good of the vision you have so generously given me. It may take my feeble mortal mind some time to fathom your divine message, but I promise I will act to bring your will into the world as you desire. In your Holy Names. Amen.”

She snuffed the incense out on the stone block and set it back down. She watched the remaining smoke float up out of the box, carrying her message with it.

She was halfway through her second cup of coffee, sitting at the kitchen table, before she recovered from the excitement of the dream. She decided not to fret about the danger such a vision implied, and to focus on the message her gods had given her.

A snake within a girl, and the girl within a woman. Even while dreaming she had thought the girl inside the woman meant mother and daughter. Why would that be a revelation? The snake inside the daughter would certainly apply to poor Desiree, who had been bitten by a snake. This relationship was so obvious, she wondered why it would be worth a divine intervention.

Then again, Cheri, the mother, had also been bitten by a snake, but survived, only to be killed in a car crash.

The coffee was helping to clear her head, but not to make any more sense of the dream. In a whole tent full of people, the gods had trusted her to be the one who could find the missing item. No pressure there.

It wasn’t the mother or the daughter dolls that Legba wanted her to find and give to him, it was the snake. Was there something about the snake that she needed to learn? Maybe Desiree wasn’t just suffering from a snakebite.

She checked the clock on the stove display. 7:25. Was that too early to call? She picked up the remote and turned on the small TV she had on the counter facing the dining table. The morning news was her usual background noise, so maybe it would help her sort things out.

She picked up the phone and dialed. “Randolph? This is Sanantha Mauwad. Sorry to be calling so early. Hi, how are you? Oh, really? Jakarta? Is everything all right? Oh, I see. Are you okay? Is it anything you want to talk about now? Back this afternoon, then?

“Look, I’ve made what I think could be a breakthrough connection. We haven’t been able to connect Desiree’s snakebite on any criminal activity. So I have to wonder if snake bite is really what she is suffering from. Yeah, I know it is kind of a leap, but I have my reasons for wondering. Is there any way of checking to be sure it was snake venom that put her into the coma? True, it has been months. Well, I’ll tell you what. You’re going to laugh at me for this. I actually have a way to test my hypothesis. It is not a strictly medical test. I need to be with her to do this. I can explain better in person.

“Wait a minute. I just heard Lo Cheung’s name mentioned on the news.” She watched in earnest and saw a clip of Lo Cheung being taken into custody at his home the previous night. “They say Cheung was arrested last night on suspicion of government corruption. I guess he’s not as squeaky clean as he told me. You’re right, that doesn’t prove anything, although it does add credence to our suspicions.

“So can I come out there and talk to you about this? I guess it’s just as well you won’t be back until later today. I’ve got a couple of appointments this afternoon that I really can’t get out of. It takes, what, three hours to get there? So if I leave right after my four o’clock is over at five, then I can be there around eight. Does that work for you? Great. Thank you for indulging me. I promise to make more sense in person. All right then. I’ll see you around eight. Yes, go ahead and have dinner first. I’ll eat something on the way. I’ll call you if I’m going to be much later. Thanks. Goodbye.”