He flung open the fragile door and staggered out. A semicircle of the cult elders, a couple of their musclemen, and a few little boys awaited him. His dramatic appearance caught some by surprise, awakened others. The little fellows scattered, their interest in the stranger at an end for the time being. The others, rising to meet him, seemed subtly to come too close, their chests hoisted as if to signal threat, forming a cordon around him. A strange way to treat a guest and a new brother in the faith! But they must have a pretty good idea what was going through his mind. Mustn’t he be weighing his old loyalties against his new ones? He would in a short time seal off the past and identify fully with the cult. That would be easier, of course, the longer they could keep him here among themselves, isolated from his professional colleagues and family members back home.
He met their polite questions as to his welfare with equally empty answers. He knew he was meant to see the corpse of Metellus. It must somehow be part of the ritual experience, “the secrets of life and death.” It also no doubt stood for a warning that the same thing could happen to him should he have second thoughts. Peter thought better of expressing his sorrow and rage at the ritual murder of his friend. It could only increase their suspicion. Better for the moment to let them think, as they no doubt did, that as a white man (oh yes, they knew all right: “you white men”), he regarded Metellus merely as an expendable hireling.
“I… saw great things. Heard great words. Words of destiny…” The older men smiled and looked at one another. He knew they had been waiting to hear something like this.
During the long afternoon, Peter listened and took extensive shorthand notes as the oldest of the cult elders fulfilled the promise made to him, that initiation should carry the privilege of disclosure. He got an earful of the lore of the cult. There was very little about the history of the group. Life changed very little in their tiny world from year to year, even from century to century, with the exception of the disruption of slavery. But the faith could go on and did go on, with only the temporary lack of sacrifices, in the slave quarters. And occasionally they had been able to get to the swamps on certain nights. By far most of their lore concerned the Old Ones, old gods, as he already knew, but now he sat entranced with morbid fascination at tall tales and weird theogonies unlike any he had encountered in his wide study of folklore and mythology. It was a treasure trove, and a genuine ancient tradition. There was far more here than he had dreamed of when he first dared hope there might exist in remote Haiti an untapped trove.
Most of what they told him, he was made to understand, he would be permitted to communicate to the outside world in the form of scholarly monographs. It was a sacrifice of traditional secrecy, to be sure, but even that was necessary to pave the way for the past of the Old Ones to come again. All men must know their Masters so that they might render them a fitting welcome when the great day came. Peter understood that there were yet greater arcana to which his two degrees of initiation did not yet entitle him, and of these he dared not ask, nor were the elders likely to permit them to be spread abroad.
Nor was Peter especially eager to advance farther along on the cult’s path of discipleship, given what he knew had happened to poor Metellus at the climax of his initiation. He kept thinking of those last words his friend’s shade had uttered in the dream vision. He had left him a dilemma, a riddle. He dared not give any sign of resisting or renouncing his role in their insane conspiracy, yet neither could he afford to become their accomplice, really their puppet, in it. He waited, as if for a signal he knew could never come: a signal from a dead man.
The catechism went on for days and then weeks. He could hardly imagine there was so much to the religion! It must be ancient indeed for the legendry to have become so complex, so fulsome, so baroque! There was no way of knowing how old the belief was. Their own lore said that it went back, of course, to the Old Ones themselves, and that they had come to this planet from somewhere else entirely. But here history had shaded off into mythology. The true story would never be known. Peter found he was beginning to think like an anthropologist again. He found himself, as he looked over his notes by firelight each evening, musing over possible methodologies to make sense of the seemingly confused symbols and myths. He felt even Levi-Strauss would find himself outwitted by these old myth-mongers! Well, one thing anyway: if he managed to get out of here alive and unharmed, he had more than enough for a monograph, no, a series of them that would make Victor Turner’s famous studies of the Ndembu look like a kid’s description of a birthday party!
If only he could leave it at that. But a dark pall hung over him. There was little chance, he now realized, that they would hinder his return to the outer world (he once would have called it “the real world,” but who knew what that was anymore?). Indeed, his role in their plan depended on that. But how many more atrocities must he be implicated in before he left? Back home, he could put that part of it out of his mind. Cultural relativism and alclass="underline" who was he, a Westerner, to judge their ancient customs? And so on. But there was a ritual tonight in which the Old Ones would be invoked, and believers would receive their expected foretaste of the ecstasy of the past of the Old Ones, a past which now looked closer than ever to returning, thanks to their new brother. He knew he could not stand seeing any more of the poor wretches picked out of the crowd to die in a bloody holocaust as part of the ritual. Yes, he now remembered all too well what had transpired on that first night.
He had a seat of honor alongside the ranks of shamans and bocors inside the circle. Behind him gathered a number of children, whom he hated to contemplate seeing what he feared they would see, though he knew they must be hardened to it by now. Peter was a favorite of the children, especially as his skin, free of the dye, had begun to lighten and lighten, until it approached very nearly its original hue. This fascinated the children, who followed him around like baby ducks.
The time came, and soon, as he feared, one of the priests began to intone the familiar invocations. He was interested to note that, even though they no longer had to be judicious in the presence of outsiders, the crowed persisted in the ancient formula, calling on the names of the vodun deities that masked the terrible entities they actually served. He knew that traditions endure even absent their original rationale. So here came the names: Legba, Ogoun, Erzulie, Damballah, Samedhi…
As before, the crowd’s enthusiasm was pent and building. But suddenly something surprised them. Something was going on at the rear of the circle. Peter craned his neck, trying to see over the shoulders of the old men. In a moment he could tell that the same thing, whatever it was, was going on all around the outer perimeter. Instinctively, he turned to his young entourage, gathered behind him, and sternly told them in his clearest Creole to get out, go to their homes, even out of the village, now.
The commotion was building. He could hear numerous physical impacts—bodies falling? Crowds clashing in battle? Was a riot beginning? Were some already intoxicated? Screaming began, and not just screams of alarm or of pain. There were shrieks of holy terror that ripped through the cotton humidity of the jungle night. Peter was on his feet, moving around aimlessly, uncertain what to do. If it was a fight, what side should he be on? How could a company of men approach the compound undetected? He began to slip on skids of blood on the packed ground, then to trip over bodies. A bloody harvest was progressing with amazing speed. He guessed that he, too, would momentarily fall under the scythe. Lanterns swung wildly and were extinguished. Torches bobbed and some went out. Some were swung as weapons, but ineffectively.