"Be good boys," I said and nodded at Pierre, who I knew could make Jean behave. He grimaced with unhappiness, but led Jean to chairs where they would sit obediently and wait for Daddy.
Meanwhile Mommy had the restaurant hostess hail us a cab. "Quickly, honey," she told me. We rushed out.
"Where to?" the driver asked.
Mommy gave him the address.
"You sure you want to go there? That's not the safest part of town this time of the night," he said.
"We know where we want to go. Just get us there quickly," Mommy said. Her anxiety made her unusually firm and caustic. No one I knew spoke to servants and service people as kindly as Mommy usually did.
As we drove out of the Vieux Carré and toward a poorer section of the city, Mommy told me of the time Nina Jackson took her to see a voodoo mama so she could get a charm or learn a ritual to keep her sister Gisselle from being cruel to her. She described how she had cast a ribbon belonging to Gisselle into a box containing a snake.
"Not long after that, Gisselle was in the car accident," she said mournfully. "I always felt guilty."
"But, Mommy, you surely don't believe the ritual was the reason for the accident. You said her boyfriend had been smoking pot and driving recklessly."
"Still . . . the voodoo ceremony might have put her in the grip of danger. Afterward, I returned with Nina, and the mama made me reach into the box with the snake in it and take out the ribbon, but she wouldn't guarantee I could rescind the curse. She said once my anger was cast into the wind, the wind had control and I probably couldn't pull it back."
"But, Mommy . . ."
"I told Gisselle, you know."
"What did she say?"
"She just used the information to blackmail me into becoming her slave, but I deserved it. I should never have let my anger get the better of me. No one else knew about it but Nina. She was always burning candles to keep evil away from me and giving me good luck charms, like the dime you now wear," Mommy said, smiling.
We turned the corner and started down a long, dark street. The buildings looked no better than shacks. Despite the hour, I saw young children still playing on the stoops and on the scarred and bald front yards. Broken-down cars were parked along the sidewalks, and the streets were very dirty, the gutters full of cans, bottles, and paper.
We stopped at a shack that looked somewhat better than its neighbors. The yard and the sidewalk were clean, but I saw bones and feathers hanging above the front door.
"Wait here for us," Mommy ordered the driver. "I won't wait long," he warned.
"I have your name and your license number," she told him. "You had better be here when I step out of that house with my daughter," Mommy countered. He grunted his reluctance, but sat back. Mommy took a deep breath and then found my hand. We walked to the stoop, and Mommy knocked on the door. A moment later a short black woman peered out at us. Her long gray hair hung down to the middle of her back, and she wore what looked like a potato sack and old sneakers without laces. Dangling from her earlobes were two small live lizards. They both held on for dear life.
"We're here to see Nina," Mommy said.
"Nina is not here," the small woman said.
Mommy glanced at the note she had been given. "I was told to come to this address. I was told Nina Jackson was very sick and dying in this house."
"That be told true, but Nina's gone. Zombie take her about an hour ago. She's in paradise."
"Oh, no. We're too late," Mommy moaned. I squeezed her hand, and she straightened her shoulders. "I want to see her anyway," she insisted.
The woman stepped back for us to enter. A sweet aroma flowed from the rear of the house. The old lady nodded toward the left, and we heard the monotonous rat-a-tat of a drum. Slowly Mommy and I walked toward the entrance to the rear room.
It was a small bedroom with the shades drawn. The bed took up most of the space. Around it nearly a hundred candles were burning. Another black woman, not much bigger than the one who had greeted us, sat very still beside the coffin. Across from her, an elderly man with a luminous white beard was tapping a drum made of thin cypress staves hooped with brass and topped with sheepskin. He didn't look our way or move his head an inch when we entered, but when the woman turned toward us, her large, sad eyes brightened with some recognition.
"You be Nina's Ruby," she said.
"Yes," Mommy said. "Are you Nina's sister?" The woman nodded and glanced at the body of Nina Jackson. Her face looked waxen, like a mask. I hadn't seen them at first, because my eyes were blinded by the glow of the candles, but at the foot of the bed were two cats, a black one and, on its left, a white. They were both dead, preserved by a taxidermist. Above the headboard dangled a black doll wearing a brightly colored dress and a necklace of snake vertebrae, from which hung an alligator's fang encased in silver.
"My sister couldn't wait no more," the woman said. "I'm sorry," Mommy said, moving to the side of the bed. I was right beside her. "Poor Nina."
"She be rich Nina now," the sister said quickly.
"She be with zombie."
"Yes," Mommy said, smiling. She sucked in her breath and sighed before reaching out to touch Nina's hand. She closed her eyes and said a silent prayer and then looked at Nina's sister. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
"No, madame. Nina called for you because she wanted to do something for you. Before he took her, zombie told her something. Before she go for good she say, go fetch Madame Andreas. Bring her to me. I got to tell her what zombie let me know. But you don't come, and she couldn't wait no longer, see?"
Mommy made a tiny cry. I took her hand. "Did she tell you anything?"
"No, no. Nina can tell such a thing only to you. All she do is tell me get you fast, and then she asked if you be here and I said no. A while later she asked again, and again I say no. Then I heard her mumble a prayer. I seen her take her last breath and when I look closely, I see she died with a tear in her eye. That bode no good omen.
"You go pray now, madame. You go pray for Nina's voice. Maybe best you go to cemetery at midnight. Bring a black cat. Nina maybe speak from beyond through the cat's mouth."
The drumming got louder.
"Mommy, let's go," I whispered, feeling a chill in my spine. She looked transfixed, her eyes frozen in fear. "The taxi."
She took another deep breath and then opened her purse and took out some money. "Please, take this and buy what you need for Nina's burial," she said. Nina's sister took the money. Mommy looked at Nina again and turned to leave.
"You better go to the cemetery at midnight," Nina's sister called after us.
Mommy was silent most of the way home. She stared out the window until we were nearly there. Then she turned and mumbled, "I should have gone immediately. I knew it. I should have just gone to her."
"But, Mommy, how could you? All those people had come to see you."
"None of that mattered as much. I know Nina wouldn't have sent for me if it hadn't been important," she said, shaking her head.
"Mommy, you don't really believe all that; you don't really believe Nina went to the land of the dead and returned to tell you something, do you?"
She was silent.
"Mommy?"
"I remember once going with Grandmère Catherine to drive away a couchemal," she said, "an evil spirit that lurks about when an unbaptized baby dies. She was called to drive it away so it wouldn't bring the family bad luck."
"How did she do that?" I asked.
"She put a drop of holy water in every pot, every cistern, anything that could hold water. We went around the house searching and while we she was depositing the holy water . . ."
"What?" I asked when she hesitated.
"I felt it. I felt the spirit," she whispered. "It flew past me, touched my face, and disappeared into the night."
I swallowed back my gasp.
"I don't mock anyone's beliefs," she said, "and I don't challenge the charms, the gris-gris, or the rituals. I don't want to believe in most of it, but sometimes . . . sometimes I can't help it. It fills my stomach with butterflies."