“Mi madrina,”said Paz, “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
The old woman shrugged and grinned and exchanged looks with the other two. “Of course not, but when theorisha is in your head, then you’ll understand it all.”
“The other thing I don’t get,” said Paz, “is I always thought that theorisha called the person and then the person prepared to receive thatorisha. But noorisha has called me.”
“Theorisha has been calling you for years,” said theyubona, “but you stopped your ears against him. He called so loud that everyone else heard it. It was very annoying.”
“I’m sorry,” said Paz, and as he said the conventional phrase, discovered that he really was. The old woman patted his hand. “Don’t worry, my son, we’ll make everything all right, although it’s going to be hard. You’re a stubborn donkey, like your mother, God bless her.”
“Really? I thought my mother was always made to the saints, from when she was a young girl.”
“If you think that, you don’t know much,” Julia said, and pressed her hand onto Paz’s still-inquiring mouth, saying, “No, this is not the time for you to talk. This is the time for you to listen, and watch and prepare your head for theorisha. ”
So then it began. Paz was ritually bathed and his head was washed and shaven, and he was dressed in white garments. He was placed on a mat, and the three women attended him as if he were a baby, giving him food and drink by hand, holding the spoon and the cup to his lips. The food was bland, mashed, and pale, the drink was herbal tea of many different kinds. There was a good deal of chanting and incense burning. A man Paz did not recognize came in and sacrificed a black pigeon, draining its blood into a coconut-shell bowl. He used the blood to draw designs on Paz’s nude scalp. More tea, more smoke, more singing. Paz lost track of time. He felt himself regressing into infancy, which he gathered was the idea. At length he slept.
And of course dreamed. When he awoke, there was Julia, her dark eyes and black-leather face close to his, asking him what his dream had been. The other two sat in the background quietly observing, like judges at a gymnastic event. He told her the dream. He was in Havana, walking down a forest path with Fidel. He felt that he had impressed Fidel so much that Fidel was going to give up communism and free Cuba. Only one thing stood in the way of this great blessing-Fidel wanted to hold a feast to celebrate the end of communism, and the only thing he wanted at the feast was baby wild pigs. They would need seven of them for the feast. Fidel handed Paz a bow and seven arrows and Paz went into the forest to hunt wild pigs. He found he was a great hunter and soon had seven little pigs in his bag. As he walked back to Fidel’s palace, he met his daughter. When he told her what he had in the bag she asked him for one of them. But Paz said no, because it was necessary for something very important, the liberation of Cuba, which Fidel would only do if he came back with the seven piglets. Not even one? Amelia cried. No, not even one, said Paz. It has to be seven. Then Amelia went away, and it started to rain and storm, a regular hurricane. Paz came to the palace all wet and battered by the storm and gave Fidel his sack. But when Fidel took out the piglets there were only six. Fidel was angry and said, “Can’t you follow my orders, Paz? I said seven. No freedom for Cuba now!”
So, Paz thought, some wicked person has stolen one of the piglets. So despite the hurricane he went back into the forest and found another herd of pigs and with his bow and arrow shot another one and brought it to Fidel, who was very happy with it. Then Fidel said, “You have done good work, and now do you wish anything for yourself? Ask and it shall be done.” And Paz thought about this and answered, “Yes, I want that wicked thief who stole my piglet caught by the police and shot.” So Fidel said, Let it be done. But the police brought in little Amelia, and Paz had to watch as they put her in front of the firing squad.
“And was she shot, your daughter?”
“I don’t know. I pointed my bow at Fidel and threatened to shoot him if they didn’t let her go; it was kind of a standoff, I think.”
“No, in the dream she dies. You know that this is the dream of Oshosi?”
“I didn’t know. How can you tell?”
“It’s the same story, what we call theapataki, the life of theorishas while they were still human. But in that story Oshosi hunts quail for Olodumare, the god of gods, and his mother steals it, and Oshosi catches another one, pleasing Olodumare, and Oshosi asks that his arrow find the heart of the thief, and so it did, killing his mother. Also Oshosi’s number is seven, and there were seven arrows and seven pigs. What were you wearing in the dream?”
“I don’t know, some kind of uniform, a green and brown uniform like they wear in Cuba.”
“Yes, green and brown are Oshosi’s colors. He is the lord of the hunt. Now you know who is trying to fill your head. It’s good.” She smiled broadly at him, and the other holy ladies did, too. And itwas good, Paz thought. Oshosi the Hunter felt right to him. He had been a hunter himself, a hunter of men, and even though he was one no longer, he felt the pull, and so he had let himself become involved in hunting the magic jaguar. He recalled how he’d handled the small bow at thebotánica, and also one of the symbols of Oshosi was a jailhouse, yes, and what was Paz’s favorite fruit-the mango, also Oshosi’s. Yes, everything was connected, a sure sign of insanity, his wife might have said, but his wife was not here. Only themadrinas were here, unless this was another dream, that he was in a small white room with white-clad women treating him like a baby, in which case he was doomed, so why think about it?
He watched with interest as they laid out the round stones, thefundamentos of Oshosi in a half circle in front of him. These contained theashe of theorisha, which would be transmitted into Paz’s head. The woman honored thefundamentos by bathing them and pouring herbal decoctions on their smooth surfaces. The same was done to Paz’s head.
Five days passed in this way, Paz not being permitted to walk or talk, being fed by hand. Was he drugged? He didn’t know, and after a short while he didn’t care. His former life became vague, a distant half-recalled dream. This was the only reality, the slow, chanting, smoky, endless afternoons and nights. And more sacrifices. Thesantero came in at intervals and sacrificed beasts: roosters, pigeons, a small piglet, a black goat. Thesantero fed a portion of the blood of the sacrificed to the stones and arranged their heads and feet in the deep-bellied clay pots,soperas. At the end of the five days, Julia announced that a seat for theorisha had formed in Paz’s head.
Paz felt this, too, a difference subtle but real, like the loss of virginity or how you felt after killing a man. He could talk now, it seemed, and was free to walk around, which he did on tender feet that seemed not to quite touch the floor. The five days of private gestation were over; now wasel dia de la coronación. Paz wasiyawo, a bride of the orisha. Themadrinas dressed him in fresh white garments and freshly shaved his head, renewing the markings on it. He was given a crown of bright green parrot feathers, a cloak of emerald brocade, and the symbols of hisorisha: a bow, and a leather quiver with seven arrows, and a small wooden model of a jail. Around his shoulders he wore the great embroidered, bead-worked, shell-danglingcollares de mazo, and thus clothed they led him to the main room of the house, one corner of which had been made into a throne room, with silk hangings of green and brown and apilón, a royal stool of the kind used by the kings of Ifé. There they sat him, and around his feet they lay yams and mangoes in piles, and the air was scented by these and by the cooking for the wedding feast, the roasting and frying of the sacrificial beasts.