12
AARON GREETED ME at the door.
"Merrick's at her house in New Orleans. The caretaker says she's been drinking. She will not talk to him. I've called every hour since morning. The phone simply rings and rings."
"Why didn't you tell me this was happening?" I demanded. I was deeply concerned.
"Why? So you'd worry about it all the way across the Atlantic? I knew you were coming. I know you're the only one who can reason with her when she's in this state."
"Whatever in the world makes you think so?" I argued. But it was true. Sometimes I could talk Merrick into ending her binges. But not always.
Whatever the case, I bathed, changed clothes, as the early winter weather was unseasonably warm, and set out in a drowsy evening shower, with the car and driver, for Merrick's house.
It was dark when I got there, but even so, I could see that the neighborhood had deteriorated beyond my wildest speculation. It seemed as if a war had been lost in the district, and the survivors had no choice but to live among hopeless wooden ruins tumbling down into the eternal giant weeds. Here and there was a well-kept shotgun house with a bright coat of paint and some gingerbread trim beneath its roof. But dim lights shone through heavily barred windows. Abandoned cottages were being dismantled by the rampant greenery. The area was derelict and obviously dangerous as well.
It seemed to me that I could sense people prowling about in the darkness. I detested the feeling of fear which had been so uncommon in me in my youth. Old age had taught me to respect danger. As I said, I hated it. I remember hating the thought that I wouldn't ever be able to accompany Merrick on this insane journey to the Central American jungles, and I'd be humiliated as the result.
At last the car stopped at Merrick's house.
The lovely old raised cottage, painted a fresh shade of tropical pink with white trim, appeared rather wonderful behind the high iron picket fence. The new brick walls were thick and very high as they embraced the property on either side. A bank of densely flowering oleander behind the iron pickets shielded the house somewhat from the squalor of the street. As the caretaker greeted me, and brought me up the front steps, I saw that Merrick's long windows were well barred I
also, in spite of their white lace curtains and shades, and that lights were on throughout the house. The porch was clean; the old square pillars were solid; the leaded glass sparkled within the twin windows of the polished double doors. A wave of remembrance passed over me, nevertheless.
"She won't answer the bell, Sir," said the caretaker, a man I scarcely noticed in my haste. "But the door's unlocked for you. I took her some supper at five o'clock."
"She asked for her supper?" I inquired.
"No, Sir, she never said anything. But she ate the food. I picked up the dishes at six." I opened the door and found myself in the comfortable air-cooled front hall. I saw at once that the old parlor and dining room to my right had been splendidly refurnished with rather bright Chinese carpets. A modem sheen covered the old furniture. The old mirrors above the white marble mantels were as dark as they had ever been. To my left lay the front bedroom; Great Nananne's bed was dressed with an ivory white canopy and a counterpane of heavy crocheted lace.
In a polished wooden rocking chair before the bed, facing the front windows, sat Merrick, a wobbling light easily illuminating her thoughtful face.
There was a bottle of Flor de Ca?a rum on the little candlestand table beside her. She lifted the glass to her lips, drank from it, and then sat back, continuing to stare off as if she didn't know that I was there.
I stopped at the threshold.
"Darling," I said, "aren't you going to offer me a drink?"
Without so much as turning her head, she smiled.
"You never liked straight rum, David," she said softly. "You're a Scotch man like my old stepfather, Matthew. It's in the dining room. How about some Highland Macallan? Twenty-five years old. That good enough for my beloved Superior General?"
"I should say so, gracious lady," 1 replied. "But never mind that just now. May I step into your boudoir?" She uttered a small pretty laugh. "Sure, David," she said, "come on in." I was startled as soon as I looked to my left. A large marble altar had been erected between the two front windows, and I saw there the old multitude of sizable plaster saints. The Virgin Mary wore her crown and the vestments of Mount Carmel, holding the radiant Baby Jesus beneath her innocent smile.
Some elements had been added. I realized they were the Three Magi of Christian scripture and lore. The altar was no Christmas crèche, you understand. The Magi or Wise Men had merely been included in a large panoply of sacred figures, more or less on their own terms.
I spied several of the mysterious jade idols among the saints, including one very mean little idol which held its scepter quite ready for duty or attack.
Two other rather vicious little characters flanked the large statue of St. Peter. And there before them lay the green jade hummingbird perforator, or knife, one of the most beautiful artifacts in Merrick's large cache. The gorgeous axe of obsidian which I had seen years ago was given a place of prominence between the Virgin Mary and the Arc Angel Michael. It had a lovely luster in the dim light.
But perhaps the most surprising contents of the altar were the daguerreotypes and old photographs of Merrick's people, ranged thickly as any display upon a parlor piano, the multitude of faces lost in the gloom. A double row of candles burned before the entire array, and there were fresh flowers aplenty, in numerous vases. Everything appeared dusted and quite clean. That is, until I realized that the shriveled hand had its place among the offerings. It stood out against the white marble, curled and hideous, very much as it had seemed when I first saw it long ago.
"For old times' sake?" I asked, gesturing to the altar.
"Don't be absurd," she said under her breath. She lifted a cigarette to her lips. I saw by the box on the little table that it was Rothmans, Matthew's old brand. My old brand as well. I knew her to be a smoker now and then, rather like I was myself.
Nevertheless, I found myself looking hard at her. Was she really my beloved Merrick? My skin had begun to crawl, as they say, a feeling I detest.
"Merrick?" I asked.
When she looked up at me, I knew it was she and no one else inside her handsome young body, and I knew that she wasn't very drunk at all.
"Sit down, David, my dear," she said sincerely, almost sadly. "The armchair's comfortable. I'm really glad you came." I was much relieved by the familiarity of her tone. I crossed the room, in front of her, and settled in the armchair from which I could easily see her face. The altar loomed over my right shoulder, with all those tiny photographic faces staring at me, as they had long ago. I found that I did not like it, did not like the many indifferent saints and the subdued Wise Men, though I had to admit that the spectacle was dazzling to my eyes.
"Why must we go off to these jungles, Merrick?" I asked. "Whatever made you decide to drop everything for such an idea?"
She didn't answer immediately. She took a drink of rum from her glass, her eyes focused on the altar. This gave me time to note that a huge portrait of Oncle Vervain hung on the far wall beside the door through which I'd entered the room.
I knew it at once to be an expensive enlargement of the likeness Merrick had revealed to us years ago. The processing had been true to the sepia tones of the portrait, and Oncle Vervain, a young man in his prime, resting his elbow comfortably on the Greek column, appeared to be staring directly at me with bold brilliant light eyes. Even in the shuddering gloom, I could see his handsome broad nose and beautifully shaped full lips. As for the light eyes, they gave the face a certain frightening aspect, though I wasn't certain whether or not I ought to have felt such a thing.
"I see you came to continue the argument," Merrick said. "There can be no argument for me, David. I have to go and now."
"You haven't convinced me. You know very well I won't let you journey into that part of the world without the support of the Talamasca, but I want to understand—."
"Oncle Vervain is not going to leave me alone," she said quietly, her eyes large and vivid, her face somewhat dark against the low light of the distant hall. "It's the dreams, David. Truth is, I've had them for years, but never the way they come now. Maybe I didn't want to pay attention. Maybe I played, even in the dreams themselves, as if I didn't understand."
It seemed to me that she was three times as fetching as I had remembered. Her simple dress of violet cotton was belted tightly at the waist, and the hem barely covered her knees. Her legs were lean and exquisitely shaped. Her feet, the toenails painted a bright shiny violet to match the dress, were bare.
"When precisely did the onslaught of dreams begin?"
"Spring," she replied a little wearily. "Oh, right after Christmas. I'm not even sure. Winter was bad here. Maybe Aaron told you. We had a hard freeze. All the beautiful banana trees died. Of course they came right back up as soon as the spring warmth arrived. Did you see them outside?"
"I didn't notice, darling. Forgive me," I replied.
She resumed as if I hadn't answered.
"And that's when he came to me the most clearly," she said. "There was no past or future in the dream, then, only Oncle Vervain and me. We were in this house together, he and I, and he was sitting at the dining room table—." She gestured to the open door and the spaces beyond it, "—and I was with him. And he said to me, 'Girl, didn't I tell you to go back there and get those things?' He went into a long story. It was about spirits, awful spirits that had knocked him down a slope so that he cut his head. I woke up in the night and wrote down everything I remembered, but some of it was lost and maybe that was meant to be."
"Tell me what else you remember now."
"He said it was his mother's great-grandfather who knew of that cave," she responded. "He said that the old man took him there, though he himself was scared of the jungle. Do you know how many years back that would be? He said he never got to go back there. He came to New Orleans and got rich off Voodoo, rich as anybody can get off Voodoo. He said you give up your dreams the longer you live, until you've got nothing."
I think I winced at those choice and truthful words.
"I was seven years old," she said, "when Oncle Vervain died under this roof His mother's great-grandfather was a brujo among the Maya. You know, that's a witch doctor, a priest of sorts. I can still remember Oncle Vervain using that word."
"Why does he want you to go back?" I asked her.
She had not removed her eyes from the altar. I glanced in that direction and realized that a picture of Oncle Vervain was there too. It was small, frameless, merely propped at the Virgin's feet.
"To get the treasure," she said in her low, troubled voice. "To bring it here. He says there's something there that will change my destiny. But I don't know what he means." She gave one of those characteristic sighs of hers. "He seems to think I'll need it, this object, this thing. But what do spirits know?"
"What do they know, Merrick?" I asked.
"I can't tell you, David," she replied raggedly. "I can only tell you that he haunts me. He wants me to go there and bring back those things."
"You don't want to do this," I said. "I can tell by your entire manner. You're being haunted."