“No! I mean Darius! That’s what
he
said.
Ba . . . ka . . .
” I looked at Biko. “I thought it was just nonsense syllables. He wasn’t coherent at the time. But it’s a word? Baka?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not familiar with it,” Max said.
“The baka are the deadly tools of a dark sorcerer—of a bokor,” said Biko. “They’re evil spirits. They can take the form of small monsters or of—”
“Gargoyles!” I said.
“Oh, come on,” said Jeff.
Biko considered my comment. “Yes, I suppose you could say the baka look a bit like gargoyles. Or, at least, some of them do.”
“Wait, you were out hunting
gargoyles
last night?” Jeff shook his head. “Okay. That’s it. All
three
of you are insane.”
“That must be what I saw!” I said to Max. “That must be what attacked Darius. Baka!”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Biko said.
“Oh, you think?” said Jeff.
Biko ignored him. “If a bokor raised Darius from the dead—”
“Are you
listening
to yourself?” Jeff said.
“Then why would he—or she—send baka to attack him? Er, it? Um—”
“Whatever,” I said. “I don’t know. Could there be two bokors? At odds with each other?”
“Oh, dear.” Max looked alarmed. “Two warring bokors? That could be very messy.”
“Oh, Harlem has survived worse,” Jeff said philosophically.
Biko gave him a contemptuous look. “You only say that because you don’t know what a bokor can do.”
“Why were you hunting the baka?” Max asked curiously.
“What on earth makes you think these things exist?” Jeff asked him.
“How did you get involved in this?” I asked.
Biko’s expression was a mixture of anger, sadness, and revulsion. “My sister Puma and I . . .”
“Yes?”
“Well . . .” He looked at all three of us. “The baka ate our dog.”
“I find pet death very disturbing,” I said.
“
I
find the idea that you’re buying into this crazy bullshit very disturbing,” Jeff said.
“Here we are,” said Max. “I believe this is the place.”
Biko had to finish teaching his class, but there was clearly a lot that we needed to discuss. So he had advised us to go to his sister’s nearby shop, on West 123rd Street, and wait for him there. He called her on his cell phone and told her to expect us, then he went back to his students while we left the building.
Jeff, who was appalled by this whole business, had not intended to accompany us. But Max wanted to question him about Darius and also about Frank. So, aware of Max’s silent glances imploring me to convince him to join us, I asked Jeff if he’d like to go to the hospital with me, after we were done meeting with the Garland siblings, to visit Michael Nolan. I conscientiously did
not
imply that if he made a good impression, Nolan might help him get an audition for the show. (In fact, I thought there was a better chance of Fiorello LaGuardia being turned into a zombie than of Mike Nolan helping another actor get work.) But, as expected, Jeff leaped to the conclusion that he wanted to reach; and, for the sake of the greater good, I didn’t correct his optimistic assumptions. So he walked with us to Puma Garland’s shop.
Now Max read aloud the sign in the window of the small storefront. “Puma’s Vodou Emporium.”
“So I guess I can understand where Biko’s getting
his
crazy ideas,” Jeff said, looking at the shop window without enthusiasm. “But as for you two . . .” He shook his head.
“ ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’ ” I quoted.
“Whatever.”
Alerted by her brother, Puma Garland was waiting for us inside the shop. An attractive young woman with a robust, hourglass figure, she was dressed in blue jeans and a flowing shirt of brightly patterned material. Puma wore her chin-length black hair in bouncy curls, and she accented her look with gold hoop earrings and beaded bracelets. She was obviously older than Biko, probably in her mid-twenties.
And the moment he saw her, Jeff’s whole attitude about this venture changed. He took her hand when she introduced herself to us, looked into her eyes, and said, “We’ve come to help you.”
“Oh, good grief,” I muttered.
Puma flashed straight white teeth in a pretty smile, then turned to Max. “You must be Dr. Zadok?” She shook his hand. “And you’re Esther Diamond?” She blinked a little at my outfit, but she was welcoming, even so.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m really sorry about your dog.”
Her face fell.
“Oh, nicely played.” Jeff gave me a quelling look.
Puma rallied quickly. “Biko says you’ve seen the baka?”
“Yes. Last night.”
She took my hands and squeezed them in sympathy. “You’re lucky to be alive. They’re very dangerous.”
Recalling the dismemberment I’d witnessed, I said, “Yeah, that was my impression.”
The shop’s telephone rang. “I’m sorry, I’d better get that,” she said. “Make yourselves comfortable, and when I’m done with this call, we’ll talk.”
The caller turned out to be a supplier evidently trying to resolve a shipping error, and the conversation lasted for a while. Trying to ignore the rumbling of my empty stomach, I looked around the shop. It was small and crowded with merchandise, but well-ordered and appealing.
There was a display of charms and potions for attracting love, luck, and money, as well as for protecting oneself against negative forces, enemies, and evildoers. There were colorful drapeaux for sale on the walls, similar to the ones I had seen at the Livingston Foundation. The items available for a worshipper’s personal voodoo altar included candles, offering bowls, crystals, incense, and spirit bottles.
“What’s a spirit bottle?” I asked Max.
“It’s a tool for communicating with the loa.” He picked up a pretty bottle decorated with beads and delicate paint. “A mambo or a houngan has the power to call a spirit down into the bottle, where it will converse with worshippers who wish to question it. Or an experienced worshipper who prepares mentally and spiritually may call a loa into the bottle and commune with it there.”
“That seems very accommodating of the loa,” I said.
“They can be called into other objects, too.” Max pointed to some masks that were decorated with shells, paint, feathers, jewelry, and sequins. “You can hang such a mask in a room that you wish to protect. If you want to shield a child from illness and harm, for example, you might hang a spirit mask in his bedroom and call the appropriate loa into the mask.”
“You were right,” I noted. “This is a practical religion.”
The Catholic influence on Vodou was evident in the many pictures of Catholic saints for sale in the shop, as well vials of holy water, crucifixes, and rosary beads.
There was a bulletin board near the front door with flyers and notices pinned to it. Patrons of the shop were invited to attend traditional rituals, as well classes and lectures about Vodou. A calendar of the Livingston Foundation’s activities for the month of August was posted. And various mambos and houngans in the tristate area offered their services: divination, healing, casting spells, consulting the spirits, constructing charms, concocting potions, helping people find happiness and ward off evil, and spiritual cleansing.
Elsewhere in the shop, I examined a prepackaged ritual kit for beginners, but decided I wasn’t that interested when I saw the price tag; I’m a working actress, and I live on a tight budget. I also looked at some divination tools (including animal bones), spell kits, and protective amulets. There was a big gourd rattle decorated with cowry shells. I enjoyed playing with it until I read on the label that its rattling noise was not made by beads, beans, or pebbles, as I had supposed, but by snake vertebrae.
“What
is
it with voodoo and snakes?” I said, putting the rattle down quickly.
“In many faiths of the world, dating back far into prehistory, snakes represent wisdom, strength, and fertility.” Max added, “But there is no denying the negative reaction to snakes that our distant primate past instills in many of us.”
I poked around a large selection of whole and powdered herbs—some common, some exotic. Wondering what Jeff was studying so intently, I wandered over to him. He was looking at a machete and some ritual knives that were displayed inside a locked glass case.
“Do you suppose these are for slaughtering animals?” he asked me.
“
Sacrificing
animals,” Puma corrected him. She had just gotten off the phone. “Like us, the Vodou loa must eat and drink to stay strong. And if they are strong, then they guide us, protect us, and bring us good fortune. So we must nourish them.”
“How often does this nourishing occur?” Jeff asked cautiously.
“Around here, animal sacrifices are only made on special occasions. Most of the time, we offer grain, rum, tobacco, produce, and that sort of thing.”
“Oh. Okay.” Jeff relaxed and smiled.
“But I think we’ll have to offer an animal sacrifice soon,” Puma said with a worried look.
“What?” Jeff blurted.
“Everything is out of balance. Angry loa have been set loose in Harlem,” Puma said. “We must propitiate the spirits and seek their protection with a generous offering and a major ritual. Or else we will all suffer the consequences of their wrath.”
9
“
I
can scarcely imagine how painful this subject must be for you,” Max said to Puma. “But may I ask you to recount how your dog met its fatal end?”
Jeff gave Max a warning glance, then said to Puma, “Unless it’s too upsetting for you.”
She smiled warmly at Jeff. He smiled back, his bald head shining like a new penny. I hoped the gladiator job was worth having shaved off all his hair.
“It’s all right,” she said. “After all, you’ve come here to help, haven’t you? And to figure out what to do about the strange things happening in this neighborhood?”
“Indeed,” said Max.
“Then you need to know. Things have been . . . out of balance lately,” Puma explained, “You see, Vodou seeks balance between opposing influences. Light and dark, good and evil, life and death. These things are all aspects of human nature and part of us, not separate or alien. So we have gods of death and vengeance, just as we have gods of life and love. We serve them all, because they all claim a place inside each one of us.”
“Very practical.” I thought it was unlikely that death or wrath would vanish from human experience, so I could see the sense in a religion that accepted these forces within its theology and sought balance between the extremes.
“But lately,” Puma said, “things seem all out of whack. When I perform my Vodou rituals at home each morning, asking for good luck and blessings, I feel that the spirits are distracted and agitated.”
Jeff’s expression was a visible struggle between trying to look politely interested in a pretty woman’s earnest comments and trying not to roll his eyes in open skepticism.
“The natural harmony . . .” Puma seemed to search for a more accurate word. “The . . . direction . . .”
“The flow?” Max suggested tentatively.
“Yes! The normal
flow
of spiritual energy seems . . . disrupted or . . .” Puma shook her head and frowned. “Out of balance. I don’t know how else to describe it.”
“You’re doing very well,” Max said.
Jeff flashed him an incredulous look but said nothing.
I met Max’s gaze, recalling what he had told me this morning about the flow of mystical energy being reversed or misdirected. He gave a little nod in response to my inquisitively raised brows.
“Anyhow, Biko stayed late the other night at the foundation, to do some extra training by himself,” Puma continued. “And when he was leaving, he heard someone in trouble across the street from the foundation, near the gates of the park, crying out in the dark. So he went to help, of course.”
“Of course,” said Max.
“The boy’s got more guts than sense,” said Jeff.
I imagined that the Garland siblings’ mother had raised them to be the sort of people who did indeed help without hesitation when they heard someone cry out in the dark. The woman had, after all, named her daughter after the bold and resourceful mountain lion and her son after the brave activist who had galvanized resistance to apartheid in South Africa before being slain by his enemies in the 1970s. Those names were a lot to live up to, and I thought that Puma and Biko came across as people who made the effort.
Puma said, “And there on the sidewalk, right outside the park, Biko saw . . . these growling
creatures
attacking a man.”
I drew in a sharp breath through my nostrils and looked at Max again.