“You mean, last night?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. Except that I don’t know what I mean. I can’t remember much, except for some nightmares afterwards. I don’t know what was dream and what wasn’t. Do you?” Peter shook his head, a frown settling across his stained face.
“I’m not sure I want to go through with it, Peter. And I’m even less sure you ought to go through with it.”
“But why not, Met? It seems like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!”
“Oh, it is—for them!”
“I don’t follow you.”
“About the only thing they don’t know about you, mon ami, is that you are white. I doubt they would care about that any more. You see, I think they want to use you, your position in society back in the States. They know that you will have connections they could never get, influence they wish they had.”
“For what?”
“Oh, the cult is very old. They once had power and influence on a scale you can’t imagine. They would love to get it back. At least that’s what the Old Ones are telling them in dreams. I know, because since the Second Oath, I share in some of those dreams. And they think you can help them get their old power back again. And I’ll tell you something else—I’m quite sure they’ll never let you publish the facts of what’s really going on here. Only a kind of toned-down version. I’m sorry to upset you, Peter. I’ll leave now. I want to scout about the camp a bit. I’ll see you tonight before the ceremony. Till then, you think about what I’ve said, okay?” Metellus left without giving Peter a chance to respond.
Peter did give the matter some thought, though nothing he could think of persuaded him to change his mind. He had too much invested in the thing now. And what harm could come of it? Metellus seemed to have survived it with no difficulty. And what was he worried about all of a sudden? It was dark in the hut, and, while not quite as hot as in the countryside below, the place was still pretty sweltering. So Peter did what he often did on such days. Without actually deciding to, he slept.
He dreamed. In his dream, Metellus returned earlier than he had said he would. He had a sense of great urgency about him, said he had managed to remember something. But the more he pleaded with Peter to get up and leave the compound with him, the deeper Peter seemed to sink into slumber. It was a strange dream, and Peter began to forget it as soon as he felt hands shake him awake. They were black hands, Metellus’s he thought at first, but no. The priest had sent him the two unspeaking escorts as he had promised. Peter was happy to join them and surprised, once the door opened, to see that it was already dusk. And no sign of Metellus. Well, probably he was on his way to the ritual area where the crowd was beginning to reassemble. Metellus, too, he remembered, was due to undergo an initiation this night.
Smiling faces greeted the outsider, about to become an insider. The throng parted like a curtain to let him penetrate to the center, where the old priest, in ceremonial finery, stood holding a ceramic cup. He was already chanting. It did not sound like Creole. The postulant met the old man’s glance, smiling and, he hoped, reverent. But he could not help stealing a glance here and there to check on Metellus’s presence. Still he did not appear.
Peter was made uneasy by the strange language, filled with gutturals and grunts, yet also with tongue-twisting, liquid-sounding accents, almost melodious, and yet somehow bestial. It became clear, as the priest neared a crescendo, that he was reciting the conditions of an oath, the Oath to Damballah. Peter knew he should shortly have to assent to whatever it was they were requiring of him. If only Metellus were here to help him make some sense of it all. But then, he thought ruefully, he was the anthropologist! He should be able to figure it out. Well, there was nothing for it now but to go on with the drama. When the priest stopped, looking expectantly at Peter, the latter nodded and bowed, hoping that would suffice. It must have, for the old man said something else unintelligible to his congregation, and they broke into wild applause and joyful shouting. Women and children came forth to place flower wreathes around his neck, a laurel wreath upon his sweating brow. Several dipped their fingers in the cup the old priest held, then made crosses on Peter’s face and forehead with the red substance contained in the cup. After all had their chance, the old man offered the cup to Peter and bade him, this time in clear Creole, to take a drink. Peter knew by now that it must be sacrificial blood. But he was not one to be shocked or disgusted at alien mores, much less alien diet. As a field anthropologist, he could never afford such scruples. So he took the cup and drank of the salty beverage. More cheering followed. He guessed he had successfully taken the First Oath of Damballah. Now he need only wait to discover what secrets the initiation entitled him to. It was a cross-cultural constant: initiates into any cult received catechism about the inner truths, though still deeper secrets might well remain pending further degrees of initiation, degrees he dearly hoped might not take him too long to attain. It was all a matter of research, and of making friends with these people. And that shouldn’t be too hard. Like all Haitians he had met, they were plainly good-natured and friendly.
The drums began to throb, and his pulses involuntarily picked up the pace. The priest gestured toward one of the huts, and Peter realized the ritual was not over after all. He looked at his initiator, then in the direction he had pointed. Shrugging, he decided he was game, and started for the hut. Now he noticed the drummers were moving into a circle around the small structure. As the shaman walked beside him, Peter ventured to whisper to him, “Grandfather, you do me great honor. But where is my friend? Was not, he, too, to receive initiation tonight?”
The oldster smiled and bobbed his head enthusiastically. “So he was. And so he did, less than an hour ago. You will see him soon enough. And now, my son, you will learn the secrets of life and death. First life. The Second Oath of Damballah.” So saying, he pushed open the flimsy door. Peter went through it and gazed around the close quarters. There was room for a pad on the ground, and it was not unoccupied. Her black flesh gleaming in the light of banks of candles, the very incarnation of Haitian female vitality stretched out invitingly. His pulses hammered, his hormones surging. The drums outside did his thinking for him, though thinking had little to do with a situation like this! She was naked, and in a moment, he was, too. As he mounted her, as impatient as she of preliminaries, he got a good look at her face and saw two things with a gasp. He recognized her as the woman at whose cottage they had left Metellus’s car. And her eyes were completely vacant, whites showing, lost in a rapture that was at least as spiritual as sexual, probably more. Peter understood that she was in the midst of a possession trance, no doubt believing herself to be indwelt by the spirit of the love-loa Erzulie. He had never imagined making love to a woman in such a state. As he entered her, pumping madly, he found she was like a volcano, a bucking mustang. It was all he could do to hold on, to gain purchase and drive himself home again and again till explosive release came. It was glorious!
He was winded, rolled over, felt her lithe limbs shuddering, shivering, coming to a gradual relaxation. Still she said nothing. And in the post-coital silence Peter could detect the low tones of an antiphonal chant. On one side of the hut, he could make out male voices. They repeated an invocation, Nigguratl! Then the female voices responded, Yig! He wondered what it meant specifically. He knew what it meant generally: he had just participated in a holy rite older than Baal and Asherah, the Hieros Gamos, or sacred marriage between god and goddess, between heaven and earth. It was supposed to be a magical guarantee of fertility for the fields. As this went through his mind, he realized for the first time he had exposed his piebald, half-dyed flesh! But the woman had been past noticing.