“Am I supposed to photograph these?” I asked Adam.
“Only if you wish. Take a few with you, if you like, champion them about, and sell them for modest prices. Keep your commission and send the rest to RuthClaire and me. We can ship others to you, if your markets will bear such an influx.”
“I’ll take ten or twelve,” I said. “It’s probably best to see what sorts of interest they’ll generate before taking the lot.”
“You don’t want all of them?” Caroline asked me. “You’ll sell every habiline painting, or toenail clipping, entrusted to you.”
“But he won’t let me identify them as habiline artifacts.”
Caroline looked at Adam. “No? That’s self-defeating.”
“I am not trying to mop up, Miss Caroline, only to preserve what’s preservable and to pay for the privilege as we go.”
I had noticed an unusual, although perhaps not surprising, fact about all the paintings in the crate. “Adam, not one of these is signed. What names do you want to give the artists? I need names for gallery owners and department-store buyers.”
“Not names, Mister Paul. One name.”
I glanced at Alberoi. “He didn’t do all of these, did he? Didn’t you say Erzulie painted too? And all the others, for that matter?”
“Erzulie does. Likewise the others. But only one name is necessary for all the paintings, don’t you think? Regard them closely.”
I did as Adam asked. Caroline helped me compare. The canvases, no matter their subjects, did seem the work of a single hand. Brush strokes, color choices, draftsmanship, compositional techniques, overlay patterns—all these telltale criteria suggested but one artist. Even the bleak portraits of the Tontons Macoutes and the Arada-Dahomey demons differed from the other paintings only in color choice, and it was hard to think of many artists who did not sometimes vary their palettes to imply the full spectrum of human feelings. (RuthClaire had stayed with murky pastels for the Souls series, of course, but that series composed only a small fraction of her total output.) So, yes, it would make some sense, and simplify my marketing approach, to offer these paintings to prospective buyers as the work of a solitary talented naif.
“How did they manage this? It’s uncanny, Adam.”
“There is nothing to manage. It happens. In this creative endeavor, at least, the feelings of one are the others’ feelings; also, the talents. Because art requires leisure, they take turns at painting. They work turn by turn, by months. This is Alberoi’s month. Next, Dégrasse’s again. And so on. While the artist does art, the others tend their cassava patches, forage for firewood, or barter with trustworthy islanders for food items and such. It works very well. No one becomes disgruntled.”
Caroline said, “The canvases. The paints. Where do they get them?”
“Of late, RuthClaire and I have supplied them, but before we came, Erzulie went to Rutherford’s Port for them. She took carven figures of rosewood or mahogany to trade in the art shop next to Le Centre d’Art near the International Hotel. It was her idea. She saw primitive paintings like these—not as good, really—selling to tourists in the bazaars. This crate holds three years’ work—not quite, though, because Erzulie has sold some of these paintings already. To guess who may have them is impossible.”
“Used-car dealers from Ohio,” Caroline said. “Not knowing what they have, they hang them in their dens next to big paintings of Elvis on black velvet.”
“Maybe,” Adam said. “I don’t know.”
I asked him what name he favored for our solitary naif. Would it be wrong to use his? Adam rejected this idea. He was not ashamed to sign these canvases, but no one who knew his own paintings would believe that he’d done these, too. The styles diverged too widely. He worked with the advantage, and disadvantage, of a crystallized ego, whereas Alberoi and the others painted from the soft core of their unspoken common experience, from a collective unconscious too rubbery for any “I” ever to get a firm grip on it.
“What, then?”
“Fauver,” Adam said. “Call this unknown artist Fauver.”
“From fauve? That’s a school of painters, Adam, not a single artist. And it means ‘wild animal.’”
He smiled broadly. “Yes, I know.”
We could have chosen a dozen paintings, rolled them up, and bid farewell to Prix-des-Yeux, but Adam insisted that we must not leave Montaraz without experiencing a vaudun ceremony. A rational pagan like me, he declared, ought to subject himself to at least one powerful mystical experience in his life, and he and Erzulie would guide me safely through it. The other habilines would form a chorus, an upland rara band, to play drums and chant the needful chants. Fortunately, tomorrow was Saturday, and our voodoo service would begin a split second after nightfall. In the daylong interval, I must finish my photographic inventory of the caves—while Caroline and RuthClaire drove to the capital for items essential to the service. I liked none of these arrangements, but the others voted in a bloc against me (two cheers for democracy), and it was decided.
“There’s danger?” I asked. “I need help to see me safely through the ceremony?”
RuthClaire said, “It’s only dangerous, Paul, if you provoke the loa. Keep an open—preferably, a blank—mind.”
“He ought to be able to manage that.” Caroline was teasing, not being malicious, but the remark prompted RuthClaire’s laughter, too. The resurgent chumminess of the women, united again in playful ridicule, stung, and that Brian Nollinger was also present did nothing to pluck out the barb.
“Why the hell do they have to go to Rutherford’s Port?” I asked.
“To do this right,” Adam said. “We need a baptismal gown big enough to fit you, Mister Paul. Also some rum, orgeat, Florida water, cornmeal, oil, and two chickens.”
“Chickens?”
“Don’t ask,” RuthClaire said, and she and Caroline guffawed again, their arms around each other like long-lost-but-lately-found sisters.
“Do we have to get the chickens, too?” Caroline managed through this sputtering.
“I’ll drive you,” Brian said. “You can shop for trinkets. I’ll buy the chickens.”
“Live chickens,” Adam said.
“They don’t need you to chauffeur them, Herr Professor,” I said.
“I like to buy chickens,” RuthClaire said. “Even live ones. It’s hauling them home in a Jeep that rapidly loses its glamor.”
Brian tried to explain: “I’ve got to check in with my bosses. They give me a fairly free rein with this PADF project, but not so free that I can skip the island.”
Adam’s eyes widened and narrowed again. Nollinger saw, and I think both men remembered that nearly two years ago Brian had betrayed Adam to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. What would keep him from calling in the Tontons Macoutes in the hope of a reward, either money or preferential treatment?
“I’ll tell no one what I’ve seen here,” he said. “You have my word.”
A cynical snort escaped me.
“What would be the point?” he added. “I’d destroy my chance to do important field work here. I’d put myself in competition with dozens—maybe hundreds—of other would-be ethnographers. Do you really think I’d do that?”