Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord Page 9

  ‘I knew that already, Your Excellency,’ confessed Señor Vallejo. ‘What clinched it was that he had a pair of scales in his hand and a horn slung across his shoulders. Also he always has clouds flowing across his face, with lots of flashes, like sheet lightning, and so I knew it was him.’

  ‘I see,’ said the President. ‘Well, I don’t know whether to believe you, but as I am a cautious man, and, as you know, not entirely narrow-minded about such things, I shall not go to the club. I shall also telephone the club and tell them to close tonight, just in case.’

  The Foreign Secretary sighed and said, ‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am. If one ignores Gabriel’s messages, he becomes extremely unpleasant. I once did that, and for six months he gave messages consisting entirely of the most revolting obscenities.’

  That night, El Jerarca had the Club Hojas blown into fragments, and sent a telegram to La Prensa to claim the credit. No one was killed, and one person was injured. This was Don Hugh Evans of Chiriguana, who had arrived very late, not having known that the club was closed for the evening. When he was twenty metres from the door the blast had sent him flying backwards, causing him to rick his neck upon colliding with a horse, which was itself miraculously unhurt by the huge Welshman’s unprecedented impact.

  His Excellency sent for the Foreign Secretary’s security file, having concluded that he might have been warned not by Gabriel, but by someone inside the cartel who owed him a favour. But just in case, he burned four beeswax candles in honour of the Archangel, and, having lit them, he went to look up the word ‘epicene’ in the dictionary.

  23 The Grand Candomble of Cochadebajo de los Gatos (4)

  THERE WERE NONE of the dark gods invited; neither Iku, who is death, nor Ofo, who is loss; not Egba who is paralysis, nor Arun, who is disease; not Ewon, who is incarceration, and not Epe, who is malediction. These were frightened away by the incense, by the feverish making of talismans, and by the fact that everyone had been obeying Olofi’s eleven commandments for an entire week.

  It was evening in the city of Cochadebajo de los Gatos. Its ancient stones, stained by centuries of inundation, took on a gentle grey shade as the sun began its vertiginous descent behind the mountain, and people were taking gentle paseos and calling in on friends before the guemilere began. The enormous black jaguars, for which the city is famous, patrolled the streets and greeted each other nose to nose. Some of them were playfighting together in tangled heaps, knocking people over and terrifying the dogs and chickens. Others slept in odd places, as cats do; here was one stretched out on Pedro’s roof, and here was another, draped along a wall with all its feet in the air in a most undignified fashion. There was one at the foot of one of the jaguar obelisks that lined the ingress to the city, sharpening its claws on the carved stone and seeming to be wrestling with it. Some were calling in on their favourite humans, rubbing their musky cheeks on people’s thighs and cadging morsels to eat, and others were just sitting contemplatively, looking like Bast or Sekhmet, staring absently into the distance and occasionally blinking their eyes and yawning. These monarchic animals were completely tame, and were regarded by the inhabitants with a kind of friendly awe. Visitors to the city, however, were generally terrified of them, especially as the cats had an unerring intuition about who was scared of them, and used to go and try to sit on them and lick their faces with tongues like engineers’ files. This would lead to comical scenes of panic in such people, and Misael and many others were of the opinion that the animals did it solely for amusement. The people were justly proud of their felines, and believed that this was a city set apart on their account.

  When the first playing of the bata drums began, the cats became restless, as though sensing the presence of the gods. They went towards the sound and ringed the courtyard of what had once been the palace of the lords, which today was to be the ileocha of the ceremony.

  The three drums of differing sizes spoke to each other in their reverberating voices, and suddenly the world grew dark. The torches flared and guttered. The great Okonkolo drum spoke unvaryingly, and the Iya and Itotele drums questioned and answered, commented and invoked over the top of its relentless tempo. The whole night seemed to be full of no other sound beneath the constellations.

  Summoned by the oratory of the drums, the people began to converge upon the ileocha. They made the genuflection before the drums and the altar, they listened to Sergio, who today was the invoker of the deities, and they began to dance. This dance is the bambula. It is a wild dance, the dance in which the Orishas descend into the bodies of their devotees, and one always knows when that has happened, because remarkable phenomena occur. People hate it when a god takes them over; it is not for nothing that they call it the ‘asiento’ when they are initiated, because it feels like being hagridden. One loses control and one’s soul flees the body to make space for the saint, so that afterwards people have to tell you what you did and what you said.

  Sergio had before him on the table the skull of his twin brother Juanito; it had been well-cleaned by the termites in its grave before Sergio had dug it up, and one could clearly see the place on the temple where the fragment of army grenade had punched its way through to the brain all that time ago. Sergio hired out the head for sorcery, and he brought it along today because Juanito had always enjoyed a good candomble.

  Sergio was invoking Eshu, because Eshu is the messenger of the Orishas; he fetches the Orishas, and without him no work can prosper. Before the altar was a head of Eshu, made of cowrie shells, and before the head was an offering of coconuts, a twisted forked branch, some scraps of smoked possum, and a whistle made of cana brava. There was also a large pot filled with black and red stones. Over the stones had been poured a brew of thirteen herbs, which included abre camino, pata de gallino, and itamo real. There was also goat blood, the blood of a mouse, and the blood of a black chicken. Some of this delicious and health-giving brew had been drunk in advance by those believing in the power of such omieros. For each of the Orishas who had been invited there was such a tureen filled with the correct stones and omiero, prepared especially by the initiates of each one, the sacrifices having been performed only by those who had received the initiation of the knife. The animals were slaughtered in the name of Oggun according to the ritual formula, ‘Oggun choro choro,’ for Oggun is the god of violence and of steel, and it is he who kills and not the wielder of the knife.

  Sergio called upon Eshu in the language handed down by the slaves: ‘Ibarakou mollumba Elegua . . .’ His voice trembled and wavered against the night, rising into a wail. But nothing happened. Everyone knows, however, that Eshu is the Orisha of mischief, and no one doubted that he was present; he was merely pretending not to be. Sergio repeated the invocation ‘. . . Elegua kulona. Ibarakou Mollumba . . .’ And then Eshu arrived in style.

  There was a very old man named Gomez who had only barely managed to survive the migration. He walked with a stick and talked with a wheezy whistle through the teeth. Yet here he was, foaming at the mouth and convulsing upon the packed earth, and here he was, leaping amongst the dancers and performing flamboyant handsprings, pinching backsides, tweaking noses, and jumping on the tables backwards.

  ‘Ache,’ cried the people in greeting, and Sergio also cried ‘Ache, Eshu, Ache. Tell the Orishas that we are prepared, and tell us, Eshu, what it is that you would give to the Deliverer.’

  The body of Gomez arched and backflipped, and Eshu grinned his sly grin which always strikes the stranger as malicious. In a voice as deep as the rumbling of an avalanche he gave the reply, ‘I will steal from him what he should not have, I will spare him from the accidents with which I feed Oggun, I will open up the roads for him.’

  ‘Moddu cue,’ said Sergio, which is to say ‘thank you’, and Eshu disappeared, leaving Gomez in a puzzled heap upon the floor, until Eshu returned once more with the other saints and again made Gomez his horse, returning him to the indefatigable dance.

  Felicidad’s dance became wild. She was an initi
ate of Chango, who is also Santa Barbara, and he is famous for his philanderings. Felicidad was beautiful, and today she wore Chango’s necklace, having alternately six red and six white beads, which matched her dress in Chango’s colours. She was whirling to the bata drums, her black hair whipping about her face, when Chango emerged from his wooden batea bowl full of thunderstones and ram’s blood, snail juice and palm oil.

  Chango took over Felicidad with a terrible blow that sent her sprawling to the floor before he rose. ‘Ache,’ the people shouted, ‘Kabio, kabio sile,’ which is ‘Welcome to my house.’

  ‘Ache, Chango,’ said Sergio, ‘and what do you give to the Deliverer?’

  Chango pointed his forefinger to the sky and said in his basso profondo voice, ‘I give him my thunder, and I give him my bolt of lightning that is in my fingers.’

  ‘Moddu cue, Chango,’ and he danced on in Felicidad’s frame, enjoying the party and eyeing up the women.

  And now it was Leticia Aragon, who had strayed to Cochadebajo de los Gatos while following her vague itinerary towards Ipasueno. She had been here for several weeks and everyone already accepted her and her unusual ways. Already they would come to her when anything was lost, so that she could find it, and they would look into her face with puzzlement, trying to name the colour of her eyes, and wondering how it was that her hair was fine as cobweb.

  When Oshun arrived and took possession of Leticia, her dance became like the flowing of a stream. The people crossed themselves because Oshun is not only Orisha of love, but is also Nuestra Señora de La Caridad del Cobre, decked out in copper and gold. Leticia was robed in yellow because Oshun is so particular about cleanliness that her clothes turn that colour from being washed every day in the river. Oshun is in love with Chango, and so she went to dance with him as he leapt in Felicidad’s body, offering him her honey, and showing him the red beads in her gold necklace that she wears for him. Oshun would not address the guemilere until she had tasted of the ochinchin which was prepared for her, the dense omelette made of cress and shrimps that had been skimmed from the streams of the cordillera.

  ‘Ache, Cachita,’ the people called, using her pet name, and Sergio asked his question, to which she replied, ‘I give him the love of many of my sex, so that he will be consoled for she who shall be taken off, and I give him pleasures to redeem his sorrows.’ And Oshun, being vain and proud of her beauty, threw off her clothes and danced naked amongst the crowd, sinuous and fluid, while the drums renewed the discourse of their conversation.

  Sergio summoned her sister Yemaya. ‘Ache, Yemaya,’ and she too danced over to Chango in Francesca’s body, for although she was his mother she had had an affair with him without knowing who he was, and so their greeting was only a little like the embrace of a mother and a son. She also greeted her sister, whose children were in her care, swaying and circling like the waves of the sea. Her necklace was seven crystals and seven blue beads, and on her belt Francesca wore a representation of the crescent moon. Yemaya gave the Deliverer many children who would always bear the mark of his paternity.

  There was an earthenware vessel which contained turtle blood, glass balls, deer horns, rainwater of the month of May, peppers, Holy Water, river and sea water. It had been buried for six days beneath a palm and six days beneath a ceiba, and had been blessed by Eshu at a crossroad. From this vessel Osain came forth.

  Pedro the Hunter was dressed in nothing but blood plastered with chicken feathers, and Osain knocked his legs from under him because Osain has only one leg and walks with a crutch. Misael gave a twisted forked branch to Pedro, and he danced with it upon one leg. He gave the Deliverer the art of cures.

  Who else appeared at the tambor? Eshu came in five of his paths, Eshu Alabwanna, Eshu Aye, Eshu Barakeno, who turned an old man into a child, Eshu Anagui, who turned a child into an old man, and Eshu Laroye, who hid behind a door. Obatala came dressed in white, giving incorruptibility and the gift of creativity, as befits his identity as the Virgin Mary and Jesus of Nazareth. He was cold and trembling because he lives in the sierra, and he danced shuffling while the people called ‘Hekua, baba, hekua,’ which is ‘Blessings, Father, blessings.’

  Osun came, promising to be a guardian angel, and Yegua, saying that she would control the transition of death, and Inle, who is the Archangel Raphael, giving bealing when the Deliverer would be wounded. Obba said that the family of the Deliverer would be faithful to him, and the Jimaguas who are Saint Cosme and Saint Damian came, but they gave no gift, since prosperity is all that they have to offer. Orisha-Oko, decked in pink and blue beads, who is Saint Isidro Labrador, gave stability that would overcome madness, and there was also Oya. She was pleased with the hens and goats that she had been offered, and she swore that the Deliverer should not be destroyed by the fire that she shared with Chango, her estranged husband. She is Saint Teresa and Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, and she always wears robes as red as wine. She is so fond of flowers that she does not allow her initiates to wear them, keeping them all to herself. Her necklace is brown and red and white, and as soon as she saw Yemaya they began to fight, because Yemaya swindled her out of the sea and gave her a cemetery instead. The assembly was therefore treated to the spectacle of Francesca and Dolores the whore engaged in vicious combat, overturning each other’s tureens, rolling up the straw petate mats and coshing each other over the head. It took Chango to break up the fight, because he was Oya’s first husband, and he knew that to frighten her off, all he had to do was to show her a ram’s skull. Later in the fiesta Oya took revenge by stealing Juanito’s skull, and dangling it before Chango’s eyes, whereupon he fled, screaming, because what he fears the most is a human skull.

  There came all at once the three Orishas with whom Oshun had had love affairs before she fell in love with Chango: Oggun, Ochosi, and Orunla. Oggun is Eshu’s best friend, and Eshu arranges car crashes for his friend so that he can consume the blood. He is the Orisha of slaying and bloodshed, and therefore he never rests, walking the earth vigilantly by day and night, and he is the Orisha of metals and the weapons made of them. As soon as he arrived he made a beeline for Oshun, with whom he is still desperately in love even though nowadays she loves only Chango, preferring passion to violence. His colours used to be sanguine, but he lost his reds to Chango, just as he lost his love, so that now he has black and green. Oggun is Saint Peter, who once cut off a man’s ear with a sword; for this reason Oggun wears a machete and his straw sombrero in addition to his skirt made of mariwo. He is a lover of dogs, and when he came the first thing he did, after flirting with Oshun and spitting at Chango, was to pick up a prodigious mastiff in his arms and cuddle it. To the Deliverer he gave mastery of fatal force.

  Ochosi, lover of deer and master of the crossbow, also took possession of Pedro, so that Osain rode Misael instead. He is the patron of hunters, Saint Norbert, and he has learned medicine from his constant friend, Osain, which is also the reason why the latter allowed him to ride Pedro. He drank his offering of milk, honey and maize meal, and he thanked the people for the sacrifice of pigeons. What he gave to the Deliverer was justice as the reward for his endeavour.

  Orunla was once the Orisha of dance, but he swapped the gift with Chango, in exchange for divination. He is a misogynist; he manifests in the intellect only and never makes his horse do crazy things. He is Saint Francis of Assisi, and once upon a time he tricked Death into avoiding anyone who wears his green and yellow beads. On this day he gave the Deliverer prescience, to make him strong against the future, and the ability to trick Iku, Lord of death. Before he left he had an altercation with Yemaya, who was once his wife, and who had humiliated him by divining with the cowrie shells better than he.

  Most terrible, Aganyu made a rare appearance. He kissed his son, Chango, with whom he had once quarrelled but become reconciled. He is Saint Christopher, and despite his ferocious temper he gave the Deliverer his relentless anger of a volcano, and its power of destruction.

  Saint Lazarus came, leaning decrepitly
upon a staff. He is Babalu-Aye, and he is a beggar struck with every contagious disease; because he is so poor he dresses in sackcloth and eats only toasted corn. He also loves dogs, and he shares confidences with Eshu and Orunla. Now that Olofi has cured him with purifying rain, he has become a great lover, and as he knows the cure of diseases he is able to heal syphilis with sarsaparilla and cleanse a house with albahaca and apasote. His colour is the violet of diseased flesh, and he is not without a sense of humour, which is why he took over Hectoro, who counted himself an unbeliever and who, even if he had believed, would not have allowed his dignity to be diminished even by being mounted by a god. The reason for this mischievous choice eventually became clear. He not only promised that the Deliverer’s enemies should succumb to terrible disease, but also said that the Deliverer would be given the sexual prowess of a horse. Everyone laughed, especially Eshu and the libidinous Chango, because everyone knew that Hectoro kept three wives at a safe distance from each other, and serviced all of them regularly.

  And so the candomble raged for three days. The people danced to the bata drums without resting and without tiring, they drank prodigiously, love affairs flowered in the darkness and in the corners of the courtyards, and they ate the offerings with indecent greed once the Orishas had extracted their essence. The black jaguars of the city lounged amongst the dancers, chewed upon abandoned bones, and got in the way of the gods.

  The world is well-stocked with legends of the times when deities walked the earth and when saints performed miracles in Jesus’ name. For the most part these legends are a quaint echo of nostalgia for times which now seem naive. But for the population of Cochadebajo de los Gatos and for millions of santeros of all races and colours all over the Hispanic Western hemisphere they walk the earth in broad daylight, still performing miracles, still discoursing with ordinary folk, still arguing, fighting, having love affairs, dispensing favours and punishments, still being greeted by cries of ‘Ache.’