Brown Girl in the Ring Read online

  The elevator pinged. “What the rass . . . ?” cursed Crack. The elevator doors slid open and out stepped Ti-Jeanne.

  “Hey!” Rudy shouted. Ti-Jeanne jumped when she saw him, but neither Crack nor Barry seemed to take any notice of her presence.

  “Bloodfire!” exclaimed Crack. “How the damn thing reach up here with nobody in it?”

  “Idiot! Look she right there.” Rudy pointed. No response from Crack.

  “Like it haunted, oui,” joked Barry. He jumped to hold the door open. Ti-Jeanne slid out of his way along the wall, keeping her eyes on Rudy. “Let we just go and make sure everything all right downstairs.”

  “Seen,” Crack agreed.

  Astounded, Rudy watched the two men leave. He was beginning to understand what was going on. The bitch was responsible. “Girl-pickney,” he said to Ti-Jeanne, “like your granny teach you some of she antics after all.”

  She didn’t say anything. Maybe she couldn’t see him, either? Her lips were pursed tightly together. Gros-Jeanne used to do that when she was frightened. Rudy put the calabash on the desk that Crack had vacated. He took a step to the side. She could see him all right. She was tracking him with her eyes. Then, before he could rush her, Ti-Jeanne pulled a gun out of her pocket. She closed her eyes and, with one hand against her ear, shot him. Rudy staggered back from the impact, sharp pain blossoming in his chest. He gripped the edge of the desk for support, strong nails biting into the old oak. He growled, gritted his teeth, and forced himself to stay standing, broad chest thrust out proudly so that the bitch could see the hole she’d torn in it. And watch it begin to heal before her eyes. The pain was already subsiding. He could feel flesh and bone knitting, the flow of blood out of the wound slowing. Rudy smiled at Ti-Jeanne, who goggled at him and ducked behind the wall into the nightclub part of the tower.

  Rudy chuckled. “The old woman tricks ain’t help she, and them nah go help you. You go dead here tonight, granddaughter.” He didn’t waste any more time on her. “Kill she,” he ordered the duppy.

  With the crackling sound of green wood in a fire, a spume of glowing sparks fountained up out of the calabash. The pleading and anguish on the disembodied spirit’s insubstantial face were so plain that Rudy was struck by its expression. He hadn’t known it could still feel. It howled soundlessly at him, and for a brief second he was afraid that the thing wouldn’t attack its own child.

  “Mummy?” Ti-Jeanne’s voice was soft.

  The fireball jerked at the sound. Sparks were raining off it, draining it of substance. Rudy’s heart clenched in fear. The thing was nearly depleted of energy, and he hadn’t fed it. He was losing control over it. Quickly he stammered the words of his ritual. “I give you she blood to feed on. Kill she!”

  It made claws of its hands, raking at its own face, but it was still his. It had to obey. It rushed at Ti-Jeanne, who screamed and fired into it. It absorbed the bullet, glowed brighter, and fell on its daughter.

  • • • •

  I can do this, Punchinello little fellow,

  I can do this, Punchinello little boy.

  —Ring game

  “Mummy!” Ti-Jeanne threw up her hands to protect her face. The fireball charged her again. She felt its heat, felt red-hot talons score deep trails through her cheek. She hissed at the pain. Fingers of flame tugged at her jacket as the duppy pulled her close to itself, eyes begging forgiveness, to lick the blood hotly off her torn cheek. The skin of her cheek bubbled as its touch seared her. The duppy glowed brighter still at the brief taste of blood. Screaming in panic, Ti-Jeanne batted at the thing. It clamped fiery teeth in her wrist, ripped away a mouthful of skin, devoured that. It latched on to her arm. The flesh sizzled like meat on a grill. It put the hot crimson hole of its mouth to the wound. Hysterical, Ti-Jeanne tried to shake it off. It held on, staring right at her with crazed eyes. Then it released her. Ti-Jeanne snatched her arm away. Drops of her blood spattered the floor. The fog about them lifted. Rudy’s blood spilling from her veins had yanked them fully back into reality.

  “Bumbocloth! What the ass is this now?” came Rudy’s agitated voice.

  Ti-Jeanne barely spared a thought for all that. Shuddering, nearly out of her mind with pain and fright, she waited for the duppy’s next attack. In a shaking hand, she pointed the gun at the duppy, knowing it would do no good. But instead of pouncing on her, it lowered itself to the ground and licked up the drops of her blood, one by one. Rudy loudly ordered it to finish the job, but it kept licking, one drop at a time. It was obeying him, but at its own speed. Ti-Jeanne had shown it that trick. It looked up at her pleadingly. It was trying to convey something to her.

  “What, Mummy?”

  Only a few drops left on the ground. One more. Last one gone. The duppy snarled soundlessly at her, gathered itself catlike to leap at her again. That thing wasn’t her mother. It was a Soucouyant, and it was going to suck her dry of blood.

  It was a Soucouyant. Suddenly Ti-Jeanne remembered how you delayed a Soucouyant. Praying that the old-time stories had it right, she shook her bleeding arm, scattering more drops of blood. The Soucouyant hovered over them again, licking them up one by one, like the Soucouyant in her dreams had been compelled to pick up single rice grains at a time. Duppies could be delayed by tricks like that. She had dreamt true.

  Rudy snarled in exasperation and rushed at Ti-Jeanne.

  Intuitively she fired past him at her mother’s prison. Instinct. Don’t think.

  The calabash exploded into shards. Noxious things flew from it: reeking clumps of dirt; a twist of hair; white knuckle bones; the black, mummified body of what looked like a dead cat. The duppy swelled, flared to incandescent, its freed hands outstretched in thanks to Ti-Jeanne. It dove at Rudy, who backed away, hands beating ineffectually at the roaring flame. Ti-Jeanne thought her troubles were over. Her mother had turned on Rudy. But then the duppy shrank to the size of an ember and winked out. Gone. Her mother was finally fully dead, and Ti-Jeanne was alone with Rudy.

  Rudy screamed, fell to his knees. A network of wrinkles was stitching itself over his face. Swollen veins wormed their way over the backs of his hands, while the knuckles bunched like the knobs of ancient roots; he put his arthritic hands to his mouth, spat his teeth into them. His lips sank in on themselves; a ray of fine lines etched themselves around his pursed, trembling mouth; his hair blanched to grey; his shoulders rounded as his spine curled. Ti-Jeanne gasped. Old; he was old!

  Pain exploded in Ti-Jeanne’s hand as Barry kicked the gun out of it. Ti-Jeanne hadn’t heard the two posse members come back up in the elevator. “Lord Jesus,” breathed Barry. His gun was trained on Ti-Jeanne, but, eyes the size of dinner plates, he was staring at Rudy. Ti-Jeanne started toward him.

  “Don’t move, sweetness,” drawled Crack. She stood still. Neither his gun nor his eyes wavered from her. “Look like we not going to have that chance to get to know one another better after all.”

  “No, don’t shoot she,” came Rudy’s querulous voice. The words were mushy in his toothless mouth. He pushed himself painfully to his feet. “Hold the bitch. Me can’t stay old so. Me need a new duppy.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  BOLOM: Ask him for my life!

  Oh God, I want all this to happen to me!

  TI-JEAN: Is life you want, child?

  You don’t see what it bring?

  BOLOM: Yes, yes, Ti-Jean, life!

  —Derek Walcott, Ti-Jean and His Brothers

  As the duppy bowl cracked, another soul than Mi-Jeanne’s flew free of it. Rudy had reserved a special agony for this victim. He had forbade him full death, had ordered the duppy to chain and torture his soul down inside the microcosmic hell that was the world of the duppy bowl. For nearly twelve years, divorced from sense or logic, he cowered and gibbered in his purgatory, was chased endlessly through his nightmare existence by a yowling cat, a ball of fire, and a hand that clawed with no arm or body. Cats must howl and hands must clutch, but he knew that the fireball would have left hi
m in peace if it could have. Sometimes, even as he fled his goads, he could see deep into Guinea Land, see what would be the fate of the woman he had loved, if he couldn’t warn her. He cried out for help. It had taken nearly twelve years for his call for help to worm its way through the duppy bowl world to his spirit father. Unable to reach the soul in torment, Legbara had provided a bodily housing for his soul, then set events in motion to have him freed from the duppy bowl. But too late, too late. His earthly body had tried its best, but she was gone again.

  Oh, the sound of that calabash finally cracking was a world exploding, a heart breaking twice. Flying to join its body, the soul ember took comfort that the union would bring forgetfulness. The still-growing brain wouldn’t have room for the memories.

  Sleeping fitfully in Romni Jenny’s arms, Baby jerked once, hard. Dunston’s soul and his new body finally were truly one. Then he fell into a peaceful, coma-deep sleep. No longer Gros-Jeanne’s doomed second husband. Nothing but a baby now.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Egg don’t have no right

  at rockstone dance.

  —Traditional saying

  Held down on the table by Barry and Crack Monkey, Ti-Jeanne glared defiantly at Rudy. Inside she was quailing in fear, but she refused to show it. She watched as Rudy came out of what had been the restaurant on the observation deck level of the CN Tower. He was bearing a large pot. His newly old body walked with a stoop. He bent painfully and scraped the grave dust that had been in the calabash into the pot. Grimacing, he straightened, put the pot on top of the console that displayed the world’s weather. “This pot for you,” he told Ti-Jeanne in his breaking octogenarian’s voice. “For your spirit when I catch it.” He reached into a cupboard under the console and came to stand over her. He held a calibrated phial of buff powder. Tremors in his hand made the cobalt blue crystals slide restlessly back and forth. He asked Crack and Barry, “How much I should give she? How much oonuh think she weigh?”

  “’Bout one forty, boss,” Barry replied. “And hard, too, you see? No fat on she bones.” He gave her a slimy grin.

  “I hope you did enjoy feeling me up,” Ti-Jeanne taunted him. “For I go be the last woman you touch. I is a seer woman, and I dream it.”

  Lies, pure lies, but she had the small satisfaction of seeing a look of doubt and unease creep over Barry’s face. “Shut up,” he told her.

  “You go make me?”

  He released her arm, hauled back his hand, and slapped her face hard. Stunned, she nevertheless swung out with her free arm, felt it connect with his jaw.

  “Ow! Bitch!”

  “Barry!” Rudy’s voice still had the sound of command, although it shook with the weight of the years that had fallen on him in seconds. “Mind me, man! If you only get me vex tonight, me will take you out and shoot you myself. Just hold she. And ignore what she say.” Barry sucked his teeth but grabbed her arm again, slamming it down to the table harder than was necessary.

  Not to think, not to think. Instinct alone. Ti-Jeanne had been using the words as a mantra ever since she had set out for Rudy’s this night. But her heart was trying to fight its way out of her chest. If she were truly to obey her instincts, she would be begging for mercy, promising anything, if only the three men would let her go free. She bit her lips and just breathed, in and out. The need for breath was a deeper instinct than even fear.

  “Hold she good now, Crack,” Rudy instructed the man restraining her legs. No need to reinforce the order. Crack’s grip on her was already hideously strong, his fingers digging into each leg just above the knee. But she would not cry, she would not speak.

  Rudy picked up the butcher knife, turned it from side to side, inspecting it.

  Ti-Jeanne found she couldn’t keep her promise of silence. “What you going to do?” She followed the glinty twists of the knife with her eyes, unable to look away from it.

  “Let in the poison, my darling,” quavered Rudy. He picked up one of her plaits, gently touched the knife to it. The blade sliced clean through. “You ever slash buff, granddaughter?”

  “Uh-uh.” Her voice came out high and childish. She would not cry, she would not beg.

  “Is Haiti people first make it, you nah know? From poison toad and some herbs. Bufo toad. Is that name that buff come from.” He rotated the phial in front of her face. Crazily, all she could think was what a beautiful shade of blue they were.

  Rudy picked up the rubber gloves he had placed on the table and snapped them onto his hands. Even through the gloves it was obvious how veined and arthritic they were. He scowled at them.

  There was another measured phial on the table, a molasses-thick liquid. He carefully poured a measure of it into the buff crystals, using one hand to still the tremors in the other. “When people slash buff,” he said, swirling the phial to mix the two substances, “them only use little bit, cut it with crack. It make them feel say them flying. We go give you a different mixture of it, though. Buff with some other Haiti medicine mix in. You know what buff does do you, Ti-Jeanne?”

  “Nerve and muscle paralysant,” she whispered through clenched teeth. She’d seen the deceptively relaxed bodies of people who’d OD’d on buff.

  “Yes, my darling. Your grandmammy teach you good. So you know why I have to be careful how much you get. Nah want your heart and lungs to stop working, right? Want you to be awake and know what we a-do to you. And the other things I mix in? They go lower your emotional resistance, make you more suggestible. For you see that paralysis, Ti-Jeanne? Is the first stage in making a zombie.”

  Then he took the knife and slowly made a deep incision in the meat of her thigh muscle. Ti-Jeanne arched her back as the knife traced a line of agony up her leg. The trembling of his hand made the pain even worse. The grunting sounds issuing past her teeth weren’t sobs, not quite.

  “It stinging you, nuh? Good. I coulda give a injection, but I want you to feel me make the cut. For all the trouble you cause me today.” She tried desperately to heave herself free of the restraining arms, but it was no use. Rudy poured some crystals from the phial into the gash on her leg, checked the level in the container, poured some more. Then he used his thumb to work the mixture deeply into the wound. Her leg began to go numb immediately. With every beat of her heart, the poison was moving deeper into her body.

  “Yes, the first stage for making a zombie. Combine the paralysis and the suggestibility with the right kind of um, indoctrination, and the zombie go do anything me tell it. Sometimes me want little help ’round here, you understand? To keep the place clean and so.”

  Both legs were numb now. An eerie sensation of cold creeped over Ti-Jeanne’s trunk as the superficial nerves went dead.

  “A zombie can’t do nothing complicated,” Rudy continued, “but if you tell it to wash the dishes, it go wash every dish in the place.”

  “Clean ones and all,” Crack sniggered, “if you don’t say different.” Rudy smirked at the comment. Ti-Jeanne found she couldn’t turn her head.

  “Sometimes me only want to teach somebody a lesson. Like that Melba, holding back some of she earnings from me. But for you, sweetness,” Rudy said, holding her by the chin to look deeply into her eyes, “me have more than that in store for you. If you could convince a spirit from out a dead body to serve you, then you nah have to fear nothing again. Not enemies, not bullets, not age, not death. The duppy could kill your enemies, trap them souls in it duppy bowl, if you want. It could stop bullets, eat death. If you only have the balls to kill somebody and trap their soul in bowl to serve you. Is Legbara tell me that.”

  Not Legbara! Ti-Jeanne tried to shout. Him woulda never tell you how to do this! But all that came from her flaccid mouth was a vague, grunting noise.

  “Stupid spirit.” Rudy chuckled. “Him think say I woulda find that so horrible, I wouldn’t do it. Him think wrong.”

  He slapped Ti-Jeanne in the face, right where Barry had just hit her. She felt involuntary tears start to her eyes. She couldn’t blink them away.
>
  “And I come to find out something him nah tell me. A duppy from a dead somebody not too smart. Smarter than a zombie, but you still can’t give it nothing too complicated to do, seen? But if you split off the duppy from it body while the body still alive! Well, then you have a servant for true. One that could teach you everything it did know in life. You know your mother was a seer woman, right?”

  He slapped the other side of her face. “Ah, like you ain’t feel that one, granddaughter?” She hadn’t. Her head had rocked to the side with the force of the blow, but there was no pain. Her tears flowed freely for her mother and for the man who had trapped his own daughter’s soul in a container so that he would never have to die.

  “All right, she ready now,” said Rudy. “Let we start.”

  Start? She had thought they’d already started.

  They lifted her inert body from the table to the floor. She couldn’t help but see what they were doing. She couldn’t control the muscles that would close her eyes. Rudy produced an old, fire-blackened knife, on the blade of which he heaped a few mounds of some kind of powder. “Gunpowder,” he said conversationally to her. “Me know say your body can’t speak, but when your spirit agree to serve me, this gunpowder go burst into flames. The body could lie, but when your spirit ready to accept my bond, it go tell me true.” They put her in a black sack. She could smell the white rum that was being sprinkled on it. Some of it dripped through the sack and made her open eyes burn.

  She heard Rudy grunt as he eased his old body onto the ground by her head. Then he spoke to her once more. “Ti-Jeanne? Me know say you could hear me, granddaughter.” Coming from Rudy’s lips, the word “granddaughter” sounded as obscene as a curse. Ti-Jeanne prayed that he’d given her too much of the bufo poison, that her heart would stop of its own accord. But she remained stubbornly alive.

  “I go tell you a little something, Ti-Jeanne.” His voice sounded companionable, as though they were sharing an intimate secret, just between the two of them. “Is your mother sheself ask me to put she duppy in the bowl.”