House of Rougeaux(9)

When it came time for the carpenter to return the healing woman to her home, she took Abeje’s hands and gave her a small bundle of several dried plants. She pressed the girl’s fingers over the bundle, looked her in the eye, nodded and smiled.

“Thank you, Mam,” said Abeje, her heart so full.

She would never see the Obeah again.

Later Adunbi grinned at her and said, “Now I will call you Big Sister!” Abeje laughed.

The carpenter’s wife recovered and went on to bear a healthy child. People began to regard Abeje with new eyes, as one whom spirit had marked, as the Obeah had said. One Sunday, Vere asked Abeje if she might help with her stiff knees. A few weeks later Lise punctured her palm on a nail, came down with a fever and went to find Abeje. Abeje began with the songs, the plants and their spirits, the Anaya, and the threads of light around her fingers. When she touched the ailing flesh she felt its call, and knew how to answer it.

In the months, then years, that followed, more of the people sought out Abeje’s help, and every time she learned something new. The people offered food, sometimes a clay pot, a piece of cloth. She and Adunbi suffered less and less from the hunger they had always known.



* * *



One night during the rainy season, when Abeje was nearing her twenty years, she felt her brother shaking her arm to wake her. “What is it?”

“Listen,” he said. The faint sound of animals lowing and braying came across the distance. “Sure a storm coming,” said Adunbi. “Mighty big.”

Quickly they roused the others in the hut. Abeje grabbed her two shawls and a few cakes of meal wrapped in a large leaf, then went out to help spread the warning through the Quarters. A great pressure pressed at her ears. The wind struck up leaves from the ground and flung them into the sky. The people began to run in the direction of the barns, which were made of stone, and to the Great House, also of stone, where they might find shelter in the cellars. Adunbi made to follow them, but dread took hold of Abeje. “No, this way.”

They ran toward the Grove as dawn broke. The blowing clouds glowed an unnatural green. There was a place Abeje knew from her wanderings, a small cave of limestone hidden in a hillock, covered with shrubs and vines. The wind thrashed the trees now, so violently the two could scarcely move forward. By the time they reached the cave they were drenched from the rain, but they managed to struggle inside before the storm neared its full strength. From the mouth of the cave, a small passage led upward, to where the darkness was almost complete. They crawled along, feeling their way between the walls, and the stones that reached up from the floor and down from the low ceiling. They went as far as they could, then stopped, huddled against the stone. The hurricane roared, far away. Some gusts still reached them, and in places water streamed in. The storm beat hour after hour.

For a long time neither spoke. They listened to the scream of the storm, muffled by the twists and turns of the cave passage. Abeje shivered, and Adunbi drew her close, surprising her by saying, “Beje, do you remember when Ma’a died?”

“Mais oui.” Never once had they spoken of that night.

“It felt just like this,” he said.

They were quiet some time more, until Abeje said, “Adu, give me your hand.” He reached over and she felt his strong fingers. “Here is Baba,” she sang, grasping his forefinger. “And here is Iya,” moving to his middle finger. “Here is Adu,” and at the littlest, “and here is Abeje.”

“Who is the Fat Man, then?”

“Georges.”

Adunbi’s deep laugh burst against the walls of the cave. Georges was the houseboy that Lise said was always scurrying out of the kitchen, chewing on something.

By the time night fell their clothing had mostly dried. The storm raged on. They feared for the others but didn’t speak of it. Here and there water pooled in pockets in the limestone. They drank from these and ate some of the meal cakes Abeje had brought. They sang Iya’s songs. Abeje sang the songs of the spirit village and Adunbi listened, and at last the songs bridged into dreams.

The hurricane lasted all of the next day and night as well. At last on the third morning all was quiet. Sunlight danced before the mouth of the cave, sparkling off the green leaves, playing at innocence. Abeje and Adunbi ventured out not knowing what destruction would meet them. The low places of the land were flooded and strewn with the bodies of people and animals. The huts in the Quarters were gone, only pieces of thatch, board and clay lay scattered on the ground or caught up in treetops. Abeje and Adunbi ran up to the barns. The roofing had collapsed and been torn off by the wind, but some people had survived there inside a grain cellar. Adunbi immediately began to round up and secure any living animals and Abeje took her place in aiding the injured people. She felt their turmoil as clearly as if the storm still raged, and this she sought to ease, but she also felt their strength, like iron forged in fire. It was said of the dead, “They are free now.”

On the fourth or fifth day after the storm, as Abeje struggled to continue at her work, hardly any strength left in her, Lise appeared saying she was wanted at the Great House. Monsieur’s young son was very ill. The békés would never accept the aid of one like herself, but because of the Hurricane, and the ruined roads, no regular doctor could be summoned. Lise herself told Madame, “Mam, there is one in the Quarters, called Marie, who helps people that are ailing.” Monsieur said no colored would feign witchcraft on his boy, but Madame was so desperate she shouted she would go and fetch Marie herself if she had to, and that her husband had better not stand in her way.