Paradise Cursed – Snippet 13

The island of Grand Cayman, only seventy-six square miles and fifty thousand residents, enjoys a rich economy. Of the fifty largest banks in the world, forty-three are here, though they exist primarily in digital format. Some say these islands have sold their soul to finance. Nevertheless, every city has its humble underbelly, including George Town, and that’s where Ayanna was meeting Shaman Demarae.

The streets narrowed here, the homes appeared older, shabbier and most were unfenced. Demarae’s house was not shabby, merely plain. White with peach trim, a popular Caribbean color that I considered pale and insipid, the shaman’s home had not seen a coat of paint in a while, but the hedges were neatly shorn and a tumble of bright magenta flowers grew in planters at each corner of the porch. All the shutters were tightly closed.

Before we could approach the door, a tall, ebony-skinned woman dressed in white greeted our taxi. Her smile a bright flash of red lip rouge and white teeth in her dusky, gaunt face, she guided us around back to an all white building with no windows at all.

“Oluku mi. Welcome, my friend,” she said. “I am Marisha. Shaman Demarae will be along. He is in the chapel room, cleansing.”

She opened the door, where ten women of various ages, sizes and skin colors sat on whitewashed wooden chairs. Like Marisha, the women wore loose white garments. They rose when the door opened and pushed their chairs against a wall.

In the center of the room sat a single white plastic chair, arranged for Ayanna, I assumed, the guest of honor tonight. This was not my first cleansing ritual to attend, by far. None was precisely the same as the last, but similarities were as constant as the charlatans that often used ceremonial pomp the way magicians use smoke and mirrors.

Beneath the plastic chair, on the clean concrete floor, was drawn a familiar chalk symbol. A circle, large enough that everyone in the room could stand inside it, was intersected around its circumference by short straight lines and flanked by a smaller circle on each side. The smaller versions were divided vertically and horizontally to form four equal parts, each containing either a cross, an X, an even smaller circle or a square.

“Santeria,” I said softly. An African-Caribbean religion.

“We prefer the proper and more ancient Yoruba title,” Marisha said, “Regla de Ocho. Remove your shoes, if you please, before entering.”

Once we were in the room, she said to me, “You know the religion?”

“Only in passing.” I tipped a nod toward a lace-covered altar along a back wall. A shelf above it held brightly colored bowls, each containing a river stone and cowries shells. “Your orichas?”

“Yes. We honor our saints and ancestors in this holy room. They attend and consider whether to offer the help we seek.”

Two larger bowls on the altar were surrounded by fresh flowers, plates of food offerings, and candles. The flickering glow from these and other candles placed about the room and bouncing from the whitewashed walls provided the only light. Having lived my entire life aboard a ship, where fire represented a serious hazard, I never felt quite comfortable surrounded by hundreds of tiny flames. At shamanic ceremonies, they were a staple.

A door opened and a man entered. That made two of us in this progesterone gathering.

Unlike his plainly dressed devotees, Shaman Demarae, for it could only be him, wore a red tunic and pants adorned with gold buttons. Strings of beads and feathers hung around his neck. In one hand he held a short stick of cane that, apparently hollowed out and filled with seeds, made a musical sound when shaken. In his right hand, he held a hatchet.

“Oluku mi,” he said, holstering the short ax in a leather loop at his side. He took Ayanna’s hand and made a slight bow. “Welcome, my friends. We have gathered to honor Oricha

Babalu Aye and Oricha Oya Mimo. We will request their help in cleansing the evil that is visiting Ayanna.”

A white man with salt-and-pepper hair and beard, he spoke excellent English with an island lilt. He flashed a somewhat guarded smile at me before guiding Ayanna to the empty chair.

From an array of small instruments on the floor near the altar, half of the women picked up drums, shakers or ringing stones. Slowly, melodically, they began to play. Bata drumming, I’d heard it called. The music had a sensual and irresistible rhythm. Feeling the beat, I found myself nodding. After a moment, they began murmuring a soft chant.

“Huuuuuul, huuul-hum, huuuuuul, huuul-hum…”

I recognized it as a sacred mantra attributed to the ancient sound of the earth.

“Sir,” the shaman said to me, “if you are brethren or friend of Ayanna you are welcome here.”

I introduced myself, adding, “Ayanna is my first mate on the Sarah Jane. I am here to support her in any way I can.”

“Your good thoughts can only help.”

Demarae took up their chant and began to dance around Ayanna’s chair. He dipped his hands in a bowl on the altar and sprinkled Ayanna with what appeared to be water. Holy water, I assumed, previously blessed in preparation for the ritual. Ayanna’s eyes widened and sought mine. Seeing what I interpreted as a mixture of hope and fear, I smiled and nodded my support.

The mesmerizing music continued as the women arranged themselves along the perimeter of the largest circle. Those without instruments joined Demarae in the dance, and their cheerful smiles were infectious. Though I remained near the door where I had entered, I tapped my feet and clapped softly in rhythm, thinking the movement might lessen the stupor taking hold of my mind.

“Huuuuuul, huuul-hum…Babalu Aye, hear our prayer…huuuuul…Oya Mimo, hear our prayer…huuul-hum….”

Two women danced toward a corner where a wire cage contained a plump white hen.

“Huuuuuul, cleanse this good woman, Babalu Aye, hear our prayer…”

Caught up in the other ceremonial trappings, I hadn’t noticed the bird, which I assumed was about to be sacrificed to honor the orichas.

“Huuuuuul, cleanse this good woman, Oya Mimo, hear our prayer…”

The music’s volume and intensity increased. As the women removed the chicken from its cage, I might have been watching a slow-motion film. One woman held the hen’s feet, the other its head as they carried it squawking and flapping. They lifted the bird above Ayanna’s head.

Shaman Demarae approached with his hatchet.

“Huuuuuul, cleanse this good woman with the earth’s blood, Babalu Aye…”

Having witnessed animal sacrifice before, none of this surprised me, and in my stupor I could almost smell the chicken soup someone would make for dinner after the ceremony ended. Then a glint of candlelight on Demarae’s blade shattered my daze. Having known rituals, whether intentional or not, to turn savage on short notice, the line of demarcation between civil and savage quite thin enough at times to blur, I ceased clapping and readied my hands to yank Ayanna away from a possible cut.

“Huuuuuul, cleanse this good woman with the earth’s blood, Oya Mimo…”

The music intensified even more as Demarae artfully sliced through the chicken’s neck, halting his cleaver before it touched Ayanna’s hair.

Blood spurted. Startled, Ayanna flinched.

The women continued playing and dancing, but now only the shaman spoke, chanting as he handed off the blade and took the bird’s body.

“Huuuuuul, we return blood to earth to cleanse this good woman, Babalu Aye…”

Upending it, he drizzled Ayanna’s hair, skin and clothing with blood. Dancing around her chair, chanting, he shook blood at the other women. A hot spray of droplets touched my face.

“Huuuuuul, we return blood to earth to cleanse this good woman, Oya Mimo…”

The fervent drumming and chanting, Demarae’s bright ceremonial clothing the only color among the white garments lightly splattered with red—the spectacle was truly awesome.

I hoped Oricha Babalu Aye and Oricha Oya Mimo were dutifully impressed.

After another moment, Demarae began dribbling the last drops of blood into a pair of thimble-size bowls held by the same women who had proffered the hen. The drumming softened, and the shaman’s chant rose in timber.

“Huuuuuul, we offer this blood to cleanse this good woman, hear out prayer, Babalu Aye…”

When the two tiny bowls were filled, adequately I hoped, the women turned to the altar and drizzled the scant blood offering over the stones in the two largest bowls, which I took to represent the saints being honored by this gathering.

“Huuuuuul, we offer this blood to cleanse this good woman, hear our prayer, Oya Mimo… huuul-hum…huuuuuuuul…huuul-hum…”

Five minutes later, it was done.

Again, Shaman Demarae took Ayanna’s hand, this time to guide her in rising from the chair. He kissed her lightly on both cheeks. The women crowded round and took turns hugging Ayanna, kissing her cheeks, until everyone was cheerfully smeared with dabs of blood.

As we said our goodbyes, I saw the shaman give Ayanna a folded paper. In return, my first mate passed an envelope to Demarae, her smile as broad as I’d ever seen it.

How much, I wondered, does this man charge to lift a curse? No sum would be too much if the curse was indeed a fact and if Demarae’s magic worked to undo it.

Was there any chance in hell that it had worked?

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