Christian spoke to them in fluent Spanish, telling them, as far as Michael could understand, that someone — he, Michael — was on the way through. A few minutes later they came to a cleared field, an airstrip with a hangar and what might be sleeping quarters. Somewhere, someone was beating the ogan, the iron drum of the ceremonies. People were singing.
"Wete mo danba dlo," Christian told him.
They walked on. Goats munched on the shaved cane and the coarse grass between the dismembered stalks. Once in a while one raised its head and turned a wise, wicked gaze on them.
At the far end of the strip, people were sitting in the lateafternoon shade, huddled around the Haitian-style houses and the strange churchly bulk of the lodge with its columns and tower. Another drum picked up the beat of the ogan.
He was trying to keep up with Christian when he heard a high-pitched cry, almost a scream. He looked across the cut canefield and saw Lara running toward him. She was waving a red handkerchief over her head.
He stopped and waited for her. She came calling his name. Two Colombian milicianos rose as though to intercept her, but finally made no move. She took him by the hand and led him down the road to the lodge building and the hounfor.
"I'm with my brother," Lara said. He put an arm around her shoulder. She seemed crazy and lost.
"You see, Michael," she said, the words spilling out as they walked toward the hounfor. "I'm with John-Paul again. We'll be together."
People came out of the thatched buildings where they had been sheltering to look at them.
"Come, Michael," Lara said. "This is the ceremony of retirer! Wete mo danba dlo! For John-Paul." She was holding his arm with a grip that hurt. "Michael, he came to me. Back from Guinee, from the bottom of the ocean. But I have to wait for Marinette because she has custody of my soul."
Her hair was streaked and soiled with ashes and straw and insects, living and dead.
"Yes, my love," he said.
"And, Michael, you have a soul, eh? You have a petit bon ange."
"Is that what it's called?"
"That's how we call it," she said. "And it's here," she said, "it's here for you."
Gently Michael moved her past the crowd of people in front of the lodge and through its entrance. There might once have been doors; now there were only cool shadows that closed around them. In the meeting room of the lodge he saw Roger Hyde together with a middle-aged woman and a pair of milicianos. The woman looked out of place there. She was dressed for the city and did not have the appearance of a believer.
"I admire your coming, Michael," Roger Hyde said. "You did the right thing."
Michael thought there was more force of conviction to the first statement than to the second.
"What a nice-lookin' guy," Hilda said. "Anybody tell you you should be in the movies?"
"Nobody," Michael said. The milicianos watched Hilda.
"So sit down," Hilda said to Michael. "Like dry off. Maybe you still wet, huh?"
"No," Michael said.
"I'm just joking with you. What's your name? Michael? I'm just joking with you, Michael."
"No," Michael said. "I had time for a shower and everything. To get the salt off."
"To get the salt off," Hilda repeated. "Was there blood? The guy didn't have, like, blood all over him? From the impact?"
While Michael tried to stammer an answer, the drums and the hounfor outside exploded in triumphant rolls. Lara had disappeared from his side. In a moment he heard her outside.
"She's calling the name of the god," Roger told him.
"Such a pretty girl," Hilda said. "Pretty girl, pretty fella. Nice pair you make, the two of you."
"I thought that immediately" Roger Hyde said. "As soon as I saw them together."
"So what happened, Michael?" Hilda asked. "What were you doing out there with our airplane?" She laughed as though the situation were droll. "All in the dark and wet there. What happened?"
"It was easier than I expected," he said. "It didn't take much—"
"What were you doing out there, Michael?" she shouted, interrupting him, pushing her powdered slumkid's face in his way. "Who told you to go down?"
"Lara did," he said. Saying it that way made him feel somehow like a snitch.
"Lara did," Hilda repeated. "How did you find out the plane was down?"
"She told me. She came to the hotel."
"She came to your hotel and asked you to dive on a crashed plane? And you said sure?"
"I was ready to do it."
Hilda looked him over.
"Love, huh? Love makes you do crazy things, right?"
He nodded.
Hilda asked one of her Colombian miliciano associates if he thought love made people do crazy things. The soldier considered a moment.
"Claro que sí" he said.
"Sure it does," Hilda confirmed. "Lie and cheat and steal. All that. Right, Michael?"
"The first two containers weren't a problem. Maybe I got careless." A certain tension settled on the room. Roger Hyde drew himself up and looked at the floor. Hilda grew more serious.
"Careless," she said and shook her head. Michael understood that he should not be accusing himself of things. "Careless is bad, Michael."
"But I don't really think I was careless. I handled everything step by step."
He could see Roger cheer up a bit. He felt fairly calm.
"My friends say," Hilda told him, "that when somebody makes a mistake, somebody's got to pay. It goes for you. It goes for me."
"He did his best," Roger said. "I saw him chasing down after it. It got away from him in the current. Anyway," he said, refilling a glass of brown rum, "we can make it up. We can cover it in a few months' business."
"Other people have made mistakes," Hilda said.
"Everybody does," Roger agreed.
"But," she said, "you don't want to hear about what happened to them." Then she laughed and said something in Spanish that made the Colombians laugh loudly and caused Roger to warily chuckle.
"So you did your best, mister? If there was a next time maybe you'd get it right?"
"I was careful," Michael said. "I did my best. I went after it."
His plea had a summary quality that made him uneasy.
"I should carry the cross?" Hilda asked. "I should explain for you characters? Get my own ass in the bad chair?"
"It can be made up," Roger said.
"I," Michael said, "I'd do anything I could to make it up."
"Yeah?" Hilda asked. "There in America you would?"
"Yes," Michael said.
"You're fucking right you would. If you thought you could just go back up there and forget about us you'd be making a bad fucking mistake. If we called on you, you'd deliver."
"Yes," Michael said.
"You know," Hilda said, "I'm not like the cabrones that say America this and America that. I lived in America a long time. I lived in Rhode Island. Americans are sometimes OK with me. Some of them." She looked from Roger to Michael, a guilty comic coquette's glance. "The good-looking ones, know what I mean?"
"These two are good kids," Roger said. "John-Paul loved them dearly."
"Go on," Hilda said, "go ahead, Michael. Dance the dance there. Go with your friend."
When they were outside, among the drums and the exhausted serviteurs, it struck him that Hilda and her friends must be waiting for night — that whatever happened to them would happen shortly. The darkness came down quickly, the sudden night of that latitude. Lara whispered in his ear.
"Marinette! Marinette is here."
That was as much as she could tell him. Hours ago, seconds before, she had fallen. After falling she had no idea of time; she had fallen into the darkness at the world's first beginning where the only light came from the glowing snake.