Merrick

One never knew which priest might have heard of the Talamasca, which priest might have feared it or despised it, under the guidance of Rome. To those within the hierarchy of the Church, we were alien and mysterious. We were maverick and controversial. Claiming to be secular, yet ancient, we could never hope for the cooperation or the understanding of the Church of Rome.

It was after this man disappeared, and as Aaron continued his polite and subdued conversation with the old woman, that I had a chance to view the shrine in full.

It was built up of bricks, from the floor, in stair steps to a high wide altar where perhaps special offerings were placed. Huge plaster saints crowded the top of it in long rows to the left and right.

At once I saw St. Peter, the Papa Legba of Haitian Voodoo, and a saint on a horse who appeared to be St. Barbara, standing in for Chango of Xango in Candomble, for whom we had always used St. George. The Virgin Mary was there in the form of Our Lady of Carmel, standing in for Ezilie, a goddess of Voodoo, with heaps of flowers at her feet and perhaps the most candles before her, all of them aflicker in their deep glasses as a breeze stirred the room. There stood St. Martin de Porres, the black saint of South America, with his broom in hand, and beside him, St. Patrick stood gazing down, his feet surrounded by fleeing snakes. All had their place in the underground religions which the slaves of the Americas had nourished for so long.

There were all kinds of obscure little mementos on the altar before these statues, and the steps below were covered with various objects, along with plates of birdseed, grain, and old cooked food which had begun to rot and to smell. The more I studied the entire spectacle, the more I saw things, such as the awesome figure of the Black Madonna with the white Infant Jesus in her arms. There were many little sacks tied shut and kept there, and several expensive-looking cigars still in their wrapping, perhaps held for some future offering, I couldn't know for sure. At one end of the altar stood several bottles of rum.

It was certainly one of the largest such altars I'd ever seen, and it did not surprise me that the ants had overrun some of the old food. It was a frightening and disturbing sight, infinitely more than Merrick's recent little makeshift offering in the hotel. Even my Candomble experiences in Brazil did not make me immune to the solemn and savage spectacle of it. On the contrary, I think these experiences in every regard make me more afraid.

Perhaps without realizing I was doing it, I came deeper into the room, close to the altar, so that the woman and her sickbed were out of my sight, behind my back.

Suddenly the voice of the woman in the bed startled me out of my studies.

I turned to see that she had sat up, which seemed almost impossible due to her frailty, and that Merrick had adjusted her pillows so that she might rest in this position as she spoke.

"Candomble priest," she said to me, "sacred to Oxalá." There it was, the very mention of my god. I was too astonished to respond.

"I didn't see you in my dream, English man," she went on. "You've been in the jungles, you've hunted treasure."

"Treasure, Madam?" I responded, thinking only as quickly as I spoke. "Indeed not treasure in the conventional sense. No, never that at all."

"I follow my dreams," said the old woman, her eyes fixed on me in a manner that suggested menace, "and so I give you this child. But beware of her blood. She comes down from many magicians far stronger than you." Once again I was amazed. I stood opposite her. Aaron had forsaken his chair to get out of the way.

"Call up The Lonely Spirit, have you?" she asked me. "Did you frighten yourself in the jungles of Brazil?" It was quite impossible that this woman could have had this intelligence of me. Not even Aaron knew all of my story. I had always passed over my Candomble experiences as though they were slight.

As for "The Lonely Spirit," of course I knew her meaning. When one calls The Lonely Spirit, one is calling some tortured soul, a soul in Purgatory, or earthbound in misery, to ask that soul for its help in reaching gods or spirits who are further on. It was an old legend. It was as old as magic under other names and in other lands.

"Oh, yes, you are some scholar," said the old woman, smiling at me so that I could see her perfect false teeth, yellow as she was, her eyes seemingly more animate than before. "What is the state of your own soul?"

"We are not here to deal with such a matter," I fired back, quite shaken. "You know I want to protect your godchild. Surely you see that in my heart."

"Yes, Candomble priest," she said again, "and you saw your ancestors when you looked into the chalice, didn't you?" She smiled at me. The low pitch of her voice was ominous. "And they told you to go home to England or you would lose your English soul."

All this was true and untrue. Suddenly I blurted out as much.

"You know something but not everything," I declared. "One has to have a noble use for magic. Have you taught Merrick as much?" There was anger in my voice, which this old woman did not deserve. Was I jealous of her power suddenly? I couldn't control my tongue. "How has your magic brought you to this disaster!" I said, gesturing to the room about me. "Is this the place for a beautiful child?"

At once Aaron begged me to be silent.

Even the priest came forward and peered into my eyes. As if minding a child, he shook his head, frowning most sadly, and wagged his finger in my eye.

The old woman laughed a short dry little laugh.

"You find her beautiful, don't you English man," she said. "You English like children."

"Nothing could be further from the truth with me!" I declared, offended by her suggestion. "You don't believe what you're saying. You speak to dazzle others. You sent this girl unaccompanied to Aaron." At once I regretted it. The priest would certainly come to object when it was time to take Merrick away.

But I saw now he was too shocked by my audacity to protest it further.

Poor Aaron was mortified. I was behaving like a beast.

I had lost all my self-possession and was angry with an old woman who was dying before my eyes. But when I looked at Merrick I saw nothing but a rather clever amusement in her expression, possibly even a little pride or triumph, and then she locked eyes with the old woman and there was some silent message exchanged there for which all assembled would have to wait.

"You'll take care of my godchild, I know it," said the old woman. Her wrinkled lids came down over her eyes. I saw her chest heave beneath the white flannel nightgown, and her hand trembled loosely on the quilt. "You won't be afraid of what she can do."

"No, never will I be afraid," I said reverently, eager to make the peace. I drew closer to the bed. "She's safe from everyone with us, Madam," I said. "Why do you try to frighten me?"

It didn't seem she could open her eyes. Finally she did and once again she looked directly at me.

"I'm in peace here, David Talbot," she said. I could not recall anyone having given her my name. "I'm as I want to be, and as for this child, she was always happy here. There are many rooms to this house."

"I'm sorry for what I said to you," I answered quickly. "I had no right." I meant it from my heart. She gave a rattling sigh as she looked at the ceiling.

"I'm in pain now," she said. "I want to die. I'm in pain all the time. You'd think I could stop it, that I had charms that could stop it. I have charms for others, but for me, who can work the magic? Besides, the time has come, and it's come in its own fashion. I've lived a hundred years."

"I don't doubt you," I said, violently disturbed by her mention of her pain and her obvious veracity. "Please be assured you can leave Merrick with me."

"We'll bring you nurses," said Aaron. It was Aaron's way to pursue the practical, to deal with what could be done.

"We'll see to it that a doctor comes this very afternoon. You mustn't be in pain, it isn't necessary. Let me go now to make the proper calls. I won't be long."

"No, no strangers in my house," she said as she looked at him and then up at me. "Take my godchild, both of you. Take her and take all that I have in this house. Tell them, Merrick, everything that I told you. Tell them all your uncles taught, and your aunts, and your greatgrandmothers. This one, this tall one with the dark hair—," she looked at me, "—he knows about the treasures you have from Cold Sandra, you trust in him. Tell him about Honey in the Sunshine. Sometimes I feel bad spirits around you, Merrick. . . . " She looked at me. "You keep the bad spirits from her, English man. You know the magic. I see now the meaning of my dream."

"Honey in the Sunshine, what does it mean?" I asked her.

She shut her eyes bitterly and tightened her lips. It was extraordinarily expressive of pain. Merrick appeared to shudder, and for the first time to be about to cry.

"Don't you worry, Merrick," said the old woman finally. She pointed with her finger, but then dropped her hand again as if she was too weak to go on.

I tried suddenly with all of my might and main to penetrate the old woman's thoughts. But nothing came of it, except perhaps that I startled her when she should have been in peace.

Quickly I tried to make up for my little blunder.

"Have faith in us, Madam," I said again adamantly. "You sent Merrick on the right path." The old woman shook her head.

"You think magic is simple," the old woman whispered. Once more our eyes met. "You think it's something you can leave behind when you cross an ocean. You think les mystères aren't real."

"No, I don't."

Once again she laughed, a low and mocking laugh.

"You never saw their full power, English man," she said. "You made things shake and shiver, but that was all. You were a stranger in a strange land with your Candomble. You forgot Oxalá, but he never forgot you." I was fast losing all composure.

She closed her eyes and her fingers curled around Merrick's smallboned wrist. I heard the rattle of the priest's rosary, and then came the fragrance of fresh-brewed coffee mingled with the sweetness of newly falling rain. It was an overwhelming and soothing moment—the close moist air of the New Orleans springtime, the sweetness of the rain coming down all around us, and the soft murmur of thunder far off to the right. I could smell the candle wax and the flowers of the shrine, and then again there came the human scents of the bed. It seemed a perfect harmony suddenly, even those fragrances which we condemn as sour and bad.

The old woman had indeed come to her final hour and it was only natural, this bouquet of fragrances. We must penetrate it and see her and love her. That was what had to be done.

"Ah, you hear it, that thunder?" asked Great Nananne. Once again her little eyes flashed to me. She said, "I'm going home."

Now, Merrick was truly frightened. Her eyes were wild and I could see her hand shaking. In fact, as she searched the old woman's face she appeared terrified.

The old woman's eyes rolled and she appeared to arch her back against the pillow, but the quilts seemed far too heavy for her to gain the space she craved.

What were we to do? A person can take an age to die, or die in one second. I was afraid too. The priest came in and moved ahead of us so that he could look down at her face. His hand was easily as withered as her own.

"Talamasca," the old woman whispered. "Talamasca, take my child. Talamasca, keep my child." I thought I myself would give way to tears. I had been at many a deathbed. It is never easy but there is something crazily exciting about it, some way in which the total fear of death kindles excitement, as if a battle were beginning, when indeed, it is coming to an end.

"Talamasca," she said again.

Surely, the priest heard her. But the priest paid no attention at all. His mind was not difficult to penetrate. He was only here to give the rites to a woman he knew and respected. The shrine was no shock to him.

"God's waiting on you, Great Nananne," said the priest softly, in a strong local accent, rather rural sounding. "God's waiting and maybe Honey in the Sunshine and Cold Sandra are there too."

"Cold Sandra," said the old woman with a long sigh and then an unintentional hiss. "Cold Sandra," she repeated as though praying, "Honey in the Sunshine ... in God's hands."

This was violently disturbing to Merrick. It was plain from her face. Merrick began to cry. This girl, who had seemed so strong throughout, now appeared quite fragile, as if her heart would be crushed.

The old woman wasn't finished.

"Don't you spend your time looking for Cold Sandra," she said, "or Honey in the Sunshine, either." She gripped Merrick's wrist all the harder. "You leave those two to me. That's a woman who left her baby for a man, Cold Sandra. Don't you cry for Cold Sandra. You keep your candles burning for the others. You cry for me." Merrick was distraught. She was crying without a sound. She bent down and laid her head on the pillow beside that of the old woman, and the old woman wrapped her withered arm around the child's shoulders, which appeared to droop.

"That's my baby," she said, "my baby girl. Don't you cry over Cold Sandra. Cold Sandra took Honey in the Sunshine with her on the road to Hell."

The priest moved away from the bed. He had begun to pray in a soft voice, the Hail Mary in English, and when he came to the words "Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, " he timidly and gently raised his voice.

"I'll tell you if I find those two," said Great Nananne in a murmur. "St. Peter, let me through the gates. St. Peter, let me through."

I knew she was calling on Papa Legba. Possibly they were one and the same for her, Papa Legba and St. Peter. The priest probably knew all about it too.

The priest drew near again. Aaron stood back out of respect. Merrick remained with her head down on the pillow, her face buried in it, her right hand against the old woman's cheek.

The priest raised his hands to give the blessing in Latin, In Nomine Patris, et filie, et spiritu sanctum, Amen. I felt I should leave, out of decency, but Aaron gave me no signal. What right had I to remain?

I looked again at the gruesome altar, and at the huge statue of St. Peter with his Heavenly keys, very like the one I was to see years later—only a night ago—in Merrick's hotel suite.

I stepped back and into the hallway. I looked out the back door, though why, I was uncertain, perhaps to see the foliage darkening as the rain fell. My heart was pounding. The big noisy wet drops came in the back door and in the front, and left their mark on the soiled old wooden floor.

I heard Merrick crying aloud. Time stood still, as it can on a warm afternoon in New Orleans. Suddenly, Merrick cried all the more miserably, and Aaron had put his arm around her.

It had been an awakening, to realize that the old woman in the bed had died.

I was stunned. Having known her for less than an hour, having heard her revelations, I was stunned. I could make no sense of her powers, except that too much of my Talamasca experience had been academic, and, faced with true magic, I was as easily shaken as anyone else.

We remained near the door of the bedroom for three quarters of an hour. It seemed that the neighbors wanted to come in.

Merrick was at first against it, leaning against Aaron and crying that she'd never find Cold Sandra, and Cold Sandra ought to have come home.

The child's palpable misery was dreadful to us all, and the priest again and again came to Merrick and kissed her and patted her.

At last, two young women of color, both very fair and with obvious signs of African blood, came in to attend to the body in the bed. One woman took Merrick in hand and told her to close her godmother's eyes. I marveled at these women. It wasn't only their gorgeous colored skin or their pale eyes. It was their old-fashioned formal manner, the way they were dressed in shirtwaist dresses of silk, with jewelry, as if to come calling, and the importance of this little ceremony in their minds.

Merrick went to the bed and did her duty with two fingers of her right hand. Aaron came to stand beside me in the hall. Merrick came out, asked Aaron through her sobs if he would wait while the women cleaned up Great Nananne and changed the bed, and of course Aaron told her that we would do as she wished.

We went into a rather formal parlor on the other side of the hall. The old woman's proud statements came back to me. This parlor opened by means of an arch into a large dining room, and both rooms contained many fine and costly things. There were huge mirrors over the fireplaces, and these had their heavily carved white marble mantels; and the furniture, of rich mahogany, would fetch a good price.

Darkened paintings of saints hung here and there. The huge china cabinet was crowded with old patterned bone china; and there were a few huge lamps with dim bulbs beneath dusty shades.

It would have been rather comfortable except it was suffocatingly hot, and though there were broken windowpanes, only the dampness seemed to penetrate the dusty shadows where we sat down.

At once, a young woman, another rather exotically colored creature, lovely and as primly dressed as the others, came in to cover the mirrors. She had a great deal of folded black cloth with her, and a small ladder. Aaron and I did what we could to assist.

After that she closed the keyboard of an old upright piano which I had not even noticed. Then she went to a large casement clock in the comer, opened the glass, and stopped the hands. I heard the ticking for the first time only when it actually ceased.

A large crowd of people, black, white, and of different racial blending, gathered before the house. At last the mourners were allowed to come in and there was a very long procession, during which time Aaron and I retired to the sidewalk, as it was perfectly plain that Merrick who had taken up a position at the head of the bed, was no longer so badly shaken, only merely terribly sad.

People stepped into the room, as far as the foot of the bed, and then went out the back door of the house, reappearing again along the side as they opened a small secondary gate to the street.

I remember being very impressed by the sobriety and silence that reigned, and being somewhat surprised as cars began to arrive and smartly dressed people—again, of both races, and of obvious mixture—went up the steps. My clothes became uncomfortably limp and sticky from the drowsy heat, and several times I went inside the house to assure myself that Merrick was all right. Several window air conditioning units in the bedroom, living room, and dining room had been pressed into service, and the rooms were growing cool.

It was on my third visit that I realized a collection was being taken for the funeral of Great Nananne. Indeed a china bowl on the altar was overflowing with twenty-dollar bills.

As for Merrick, her face showed little or no emotion as she gave a little nod to each person who came to call. Yet she was obviously numb and miserable.

Hour followed hour. Still people came, drifting in and out in the same respectful silence, only giving in to conversation when they were well away from the house.

I could hear the more formally dressed women of color speaking to one another with the most genteel southern accents, very far from the African which I have heard.

Aaron assured me in a whisper that this was hardly typical of funeral affairs in New Orleans. The crowd was altogether different. It was too quiet.

I could sense the problem with no difficulty. People had been afraid of Great Nananne. People were afraid of Merrick. People made sure that Merrick saw them. People left lots of twenty-dollar bills. There wasn't to be a funeral mass, and people didn't know what to make of it. People thought there ought to be a mass, but Merrick said Great Nananne herself had said no.

At last, as we stood in the alleyway once more, enjoying our cigarettes, I saw a look of concern on Aaron's face. He made a very subtle gesture, that I was to look at an expensive car which had just come to the curb. Several obviously white persons got out of the car—a rather handsome young man, and an austere woman with a pair of wire-rimmed glasses on her nose. They went directly up the steps, deliberately avoiding the gaze of those who hung about.

"Those are white Mayfairs," said Aaron under his breath. "I can't be noticed here." Together we moved deeper into the alleyway and towards the back of the house. Finally, when the way became impassable due to the magnificent wisteria, we stopped.

"But what does it mean?" I asked. "The white Mayfairs. Why have they come?"

"Obviously, they feel some obligation," said Aaron in a whisper. "Truly, David, you must be quiet. There isn't a member of the family who doesn't have some psychic power. You know I've tried in vain to make contact. I don't want us to be seen here."

"But who are they?" I pressed. I knew a voluminous file existed on the Mayfair Witches. I knew Aaron had been assigned to it for years. Yes, I knew, but for me as Superior General it was one story among thousands. And the exotic climate, the strange old house, the clairvoyance of the old woman, the rising weeds, and the sunshiney rainfall had all gone to my head. I was as stimulated as if we were seeing ghosts.

"The family lawyers," he said in a hushed voice, trying to hide his annoyance with me. "Lauren Mayfair and young Ryan Mayfair. They don't know anything, not about Voodoo or witches, here or uptown, but clearly they know the woman is related to them. They don't shirk a family responsibility, the Mayfairs, but I never expected to see them here." At this juncture, as he cautioned me again to be quiet and stay out of the way, I heard Merrick speaking within. I drew close to the broken windows of the formal parlor. I couldn't make out what was being said. Aaron, too, was listening. Very shortly the white Mayfairs emerged from the house and went away in their new car. Only then did Aaron go up to the steps. The last of the mourners was just leaving. Those out on the pavement had already paid their respects. I followed Aaron into Great Nananne's room.

"Those uptown Mayfairs," said Merrick in a low voice, "You saw them? They wanted to pay for everything. I told them we had plenty. Look there, we have thousands of dollars, and the undertaker is already coming. We'll wake the body tonight and tomorrow it will be buried. I'm hungry. I need something to eat." Indeed the elderly undertaker was also a man of color, quite tall and completely bald. He arrived along with his rectangular basket in which he would place the body of Great Nananne.

As for the house, it was now left to the undertaker's father, a very elderly colored man, much the same hue as Merrick, except that he had tight curly white hair. Both of the aforementioned old men had a distinguished air, and wore rather formal clothes, when one considered the monstrous heat.

They also believed that there should be a Roman Catholic mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, but Merrick again explained that they didn't need that for Great Nananne.

It was amazing how well this settled the whole affair.

Now Merrick went to the bureau in Great Nananne's room and removed from the top drawer a bundle wrapped in white sheeting, and gestured for us to leave the house.

Off we went to a restaurant, where Merrick, saying nothing, and keeping the bundle on her lap, devoured an enormous fried shrimp sandwich and two diet Cokes. She had obviously grown tired of crying, and had the weary sad-eyed look of those who are deeply and irreparably hurt.

The little restaurant struck me as exotic, having a filthy floor and obviously dirty tables, but the happiest waiters and waitresses as well as clientele.

I was hypnotized by New Orleans, hypnotized by Merrick, though she was saying nothing; but little did I know that stranger things were yet to come.

In a dream, we went back to Oak Haven, to bathe and to change for the wake. There was a young woman there, a good member of the Talamasca whom I shall not name for obvious reasons, who assisted Merrick and saw to it that she was turned out beautifully in a new navy blue dress and broad-brimmed straw hat. Aaron himself gave a quick buffing to her patent leather shoes. Merrick had a rosary with her and a Catholic prayer book with a pearl cover. But before she would have us return to New Orleans, she wanted to show us the contents of the bundle she had taken from the old woman's room.

We were in the library, where I first met Merrick only a short time before. The Motherhouse was at supper, so we had the room entirely to ourselves, with no special request.

When she unwrapped the sheeting, I was astonished to see an ancient book or codex, with brilliant illustrations on its wooden cover, a thing in tatters, which Merrick handled as carefully as she could.

"This is my book from Great Nananne," she said, looking at the thick volume with obvious respect. She let Aaron lift the book in its swaddling to the table under the light.

Now vellum or parchment is the strongest material ever invented for books, and this one was clearly so old that it would never have survived had it been written on anything else. Indeed, the wooden cover was all but in pieces. Merrick herself took the initiative to move it to the side so that the title page of the book could be read. It was in Latin, and I translated it as instantly as any member of the Talamasca could do.