Back to Wando Passo, David Payne [little red riding hood ebook .TXT] 📗

blind and barely hints at what they are. Their true name is ‘nkisi’; they are spirits of great power and antiquity, who reside in stars and wind, in lightning and the sea. They, too, concern themselves with human fate, and these men—men like Demetrio and Andrés Petit—can summon them to intervene.”

“And you see them?” Addie asks, feeling cast adrift. “You actually see these spirits?”

“Not see, Addie. The nkisi are invisible, but I’ve heard them speak as clearly as you hear me speaking to you now.”

“How?”

“They come down, Addie, bajan…. They enter one of the faithful and speak por su boca, through his mouth. They give instruction and direct trabajos, works of various sorts. They heal and exorcise bad spirits. They do what all the poets in all the books I read, all the books you see upon these shelves, could never do for me: they tell us how to live. And, in the end, they tell us how to die. And they lay obligations on us, too. They make demands. Once upon a time, such a demand was made of me. That is where this tale is wending, Addie. I was told to free Paloma. It was at la fecha del Santo Cristo in Havana on September fifth, the month before we sailed for home. Petit himself was the ‘caballo,’ the medium or ‘horse,’ mounted by San Luis Beltrán. He didn’t order me to free all my slaves, to ruin my family and myself financially. No, he told me only to do what, in my heart, I already knew I had to do, and I knelt down on the floor in front of him, I touched my forehead to the bricks, I wept and swore I would, and then…” Percival looks away now toward the window.

“And then?”

“And then, I brought Paloma home with me to South Carolina. She bore my son, and forty years went by, and somehow I never could.”

“Why not?”

“Is it so hard to guess?”

She doesn’t care to try.

“I was afraid that if I freed her, she might leave.”

Outside, in a cedar tree, a cardinal sets forth a strangely cheerful trill, and they both turn their heads.

I was afraid that if I freed her, she might leave. The words set off an echo in her head, and as Addie listens to the bird, they seem among the most terrible she’s ever heard a human being speak.

“The thought of life without her—and, eventually, without Jarry—was unbearable to me. I decided I could free them at my death and keep the letter of my vow. I told myself this lie. That’s what I meant, Addie. When I said I am the head and root and that this all goes back to me—that’s why.”

The cardinal takes wing and flies away. Watching, she is thoughtful. “I can understand how this must weigh on you. But what has it to do with Harlan, or with me?”

“You’ll understand that story more in time, I fear.”

“If you won’t tell me where he went, then tell me what to do,” she says.

“Pose the question to your husband,” he replies. “If you’re to have a marriage, that’s the sole recourse I can see.”

“I don’t think we can have a marriage now.”

“That’s wholly up to you, my dear. Before you leave him, though, don’t you owe it to yourself, and him, to find out what he’s done?”

“I’m too afraid I know.”

“You’re too afraid you know. That is only a suspicion.”

She holds his gaze, then looks away distractedly. “You’re right, it is.”

“There’s something I must ask you, Addie.”

She looks back at him, and Percival reaches into his shirt. On a string around his neck, there is a key. “In that drawer,” he tells her, pointing to the partners desk, “you’ll find my will, with the provisions for Jarry’s and Paloma’s manumission. I would be grateful if you’d put it someplace for safekeeping. I can’t trust Harlan to honor my wishes in this matter. That I can’t is as much my fault as his. What Jarry said last night was true. I’ve always loved him more. I didn’t choose it so. No father does. But even when I denied it to myself, Harlan knew. There was some crucial aspect of myself that I could never give him, however hard I tried, which I shared with Jarry out of simple joy. And it’s curious, then, isn’t it, that Harlan will have Wando Passo, all this, while Jarry will leave here with nothing but the clothes on his back? Yet my promise to him will be kept. Had I held dearest those I’ve cherished most, I should have freed him and Paloma both long since. Now death is my last chance to set it right, and what I fear, Addie, is not cessation, but what the coming life may be for me if I do not. May I count on you in this?”

She takes the will. “I think it is the right decision.”

“Now, kiss me,” the old man says, “and go and have your interview.”

Harlan, however, doesn’t rise till almost suppertime. She comes back from a walk to find him waiting, tense, on the piazza, a bouquet of Jarry’s wilting roses in his hand. “My dear!” he says, leaping to his feet. “I was afraid you’d left me! Addie, I’m appalled at my behavior! I have no excuse!” He mops his brow and reaches into his coat for a cigar.

“Where did you go?”

“Where? They were celebrating in the quarters, Addie. They wanted me to jump the broom—it’s a custom here. We drank toasts. I had too much rum, the better part of a cask, judging by the way I feel. Blessedly, I have few memories beyond that point.”

“Few memories…”

“Practically none, my dear, yet if it’s any consolation to you, Addie, I am suffering. If someone put the Purdey to my temple and pulled the triggers now, I’d consider him a friend. Not to put too fine a point on it, my behavior was piggish. And, in short, I am a pig.”

“Where did