Filter House (5 page)

On the phone, Big Mama only instructed her to get good grades in school, do what her mama and daddy said, and bring the seeds with her, and they would see.

But the following summer was the riots. No visit to Big Mama’s.

So it was two years later that Mom and Dad drove down Davenport. The immediate neighborhood, though isolated by the devastation surrounding it, had survived more or less intact.

Big Mama’s block looked exactly the same. The vines surrounding her house hung thick with heavy golden blooms. Ivy Joe and Luemma reported that at the riot’s height, the last week of July, streams of US Army tanks had turned aside at Woodward, splitting apart to grind along Stimson and Selden, joining up again on Second. Fires and sirens had also flowed around them; screams and shots were audible, but just barely.

Thanks to Big Mama. Everyone knew that.

Oneida didn’t understand why this made the people who lived there mad. Many of them wouldn’t even walk on the same side of the street as Big Mama any more. It was weirder than the way the girls at Oneida’s school acted.

Being almost always alone, that was the price she’d paid for having her questions answered. It didn’t seem like much. Maybe there’d be worse costs, later, after she learned other, more important things. Besides, some day Mercy would come back.

The next afternoon, her lessons resumed. She had wrapped the eleven extra seeds in the same scarf as her eleke. When Big Mama saw them, she held out her hand and frowned.

“Yeah. Right.” Big Mama brought out her own eleke. “Ima ask Yemaya why she wanna give you these, what they for. Watch me.”

Big Mama had finally agreed to show her how to ask questions with answers other than yes or no.

Big Mama swirled her necklace around in the basket top. On the altar, the silver-covered candle burned steadily. But the room brightened and darkened quickly as the sun appeared and disappeared behind fast-moving clouds and wind-whipped leaves.

“It start out the same,” Big Mama said, “lif it up an let it go.” With a discreet rattle, the necklace fell. “Now we gotta figure out where the sharp ends pointin,” she said. “But we dividin it in four directions: north, south, east, an west.”

Oneida wrote the totals in her notebook: two, four, five, and five.

“An we do it four times for every question.”

Below the first line of numbers came four, one, seven, and four; then six, zero, two, and eight; and three, three, seven, and three.

“Now add em up.”

North was fifteen, south was eight, east was twenty-one, and west was twenty.

Big Mama shut her eyes a moment and nodded. “Soun good. That mean—” The brown eyes opened again, sparkling. “Yemaya say ‘What you
think
you do with seeds? Plant em!’”

Oneida learned that the numbers referred to episodes in those long, incomprehensible stories she’d had to memorize. She practiced interpreting them. Where should she plant the seeds? All around the edges of her neighborhood. When? One year and a day from now. Who could she have help her? Only Alphonse. How much would it cost? Quite a bit, but it would be worth it. Within the Wallamelons’ reach, no one she loved would be hurt, ever again.

Two more years. The house built on the vacant lot was once again empty. Its first and only tenants fled when the vines Oneida planted went wild, six months after they moved in. The house was hers, now, no matter what the mortgage said.

Oneida even had a key, stolen from the safebox that remained on the porch long after the real estate company lost all hope of selling a haunted house in a haunted neighborhood. She unlocked the side door, opening and shutting it on slightly reluctant hinges. The family that had briefly lived here had left their curtains. In the living room, sheer white fabric stirred gently when she opened a window for fresh air. And leaned out of it, waiting.

Like the lace of a giantess, leaves covered the housefront in a pattern of repeating hearts. Elsewhere in the neighborhood, sibling plants, self-sown from those she’d first planted around the perimeter, arched from phone pole to lamp post, encircling her home. Keeping it safe. So Mercy could return.

At first Mom had wanted to move out. But nowhere else Negroes could live in this town would be any better, Dad said. Besides, it wasn’t all that bad. Even Aunt Elise admitted Cousin Alphonse was calmer, better off, here behind the vines. Mom eventually agreed to stay put and see if Dad’s promotion ever came through.

That was taking a long time. Oneida was secretly glad. It would be so much harder to do what she had to do if her family moved. To come here night after night, as her eleke had shown her she must. To be patient. Till—

Then.

She saw her. Walking up the street. As Yemaya had promised. And this was the night, and Oneida was here for it, her one chance.

She waved. Mercy wasn’t looking her way, though. She kept on, headed for Oneida’s house, it looked like.

Oneida jerked at the handle of the front door. It smacked hard against the chain she’d forgotten to undo. She slammed it shut again, slid the chain free, and stumbled down the steps.

Mercy was halfway up the block. The noise must have startled her. No way Oneida’d be able to catch up. “Mercy! Mercy Sanchez!” She ran hopelessly, sobbing.

Mercy stopped. She turned. Suddenly uncertain, Oneida slowed. Would Mercy have cut her hair that way? Worn that black leather jacket?

But who else could it be?

“Please, please!” Oneida had no idea what she was saying, or who she was saying it to. She was running again and then she was there, hugging her, and it
was
her. Mercy. Home.

Mercy. Acting like it was no big deal to show up again after disappearing for four years.

“I tole you,” she insisted, sitting cross-legged on the floorboards of the empty living room. One small white candle flickered between them, supplementing the streetlight. “Emilio axed me could I come help him. He was havin trouble.…” She trailed off. “It was this one group of kids hasslin his friends.…”

“All you said before you left was about how the Blue Lady—”

“’Neida, mean to say you ain’t forgot
none
a them games we played?!” Scornfully.

The price had been paid.

It was as if Oneida were swimming, completely underwater, and putting out her hand and touching Mercy, who swore up and down she was not wet. Who refused to admit that the Blue Lady was real, that she, at least, had seen her. When Oneida tried to show her some of what she’d learned, Mercy nodded once, then interrupted, asking if she had a smoke.

Oneida got a cigarette from the cupboard where she kept her offerings.

“So how long are you here for?” It sounded awful, what Mom would say to some distant relative she’d never met before.

“Dunno. Emilio gonna be outta circulation—things in Miami different now. Here, too, hunh? Seem like we on the set a some monster movie.”

Oneida would explain about that later. “What about your mom?” Even worse, the kind of question a parole officer might ask.

Mercy snorted. “She ain’t wanna have nothin to do with him
or
me. For years.”

“Mizz Nichols—” Oneida paused. Had Mercy heard?

“Yeah, I know. Couldn make the funeral.” She stubbed out her cigarette on the bottom of her high-top, then rolled the butt between her right thumb and forefinger, straightening it. “Dunno why I even came here. Dumb. Probably the first place anybody look. If they wanna fine me.” Mercy glanced up, and her eyes were exactly the same, deep and sad. As the ocean. As the sky.

“They won’t.” The shadow of a vine’s stray tendril caressed Mercy’s cheek. “They won’t.”

A disclaimer: the system of divination Big Mama teaches to Oneida is my own invention. It borrows heavily from West Africa’s Ifa, and it also owes a bit to China’s “I Ching.” To the best of my knowledge, however, it is not part of any authentic tradition.

The Pragmatical Princess

(with apologies to Jay Williams)

Princess Ousmani had fallen asleep in her chains, from boredom. She woke to the weight of a dragon’s head resting uncomfortably on her stomach. One rough, scaly paw kneaded her left shoulder, pricking at her skin.

Ousmani closed her eyes again. She did not believe in dragons, any more than she believed in the affrits and djinns of her father’s homeland, or the water-demonesses of Mali, where her mother had been born. “It is a horse,” she told herself. “A very large and very ugly horse.” Peering out under her long, dark lashes, she considered the dragon’s glittering snout, its gleaming, golden eyes. Its irises were formed like slits, as were the nostrils inches from her own, from which an occasional wisp of steam escaped.

“You have stopped sleeping,” the dragon said. It spoke French, a mountain dialect of course. Ousmani understood, though at first with some difficulty. The beast continued. “Why do you pretend? To fool yourself, perhaps, for you can see it is impossible to convince me.”

The princess shrugged, then winced as the tips of the dragon’s claws insinuated themselves into her shoulder. “The illusion seemed a sensible one: if I slept, I dreamt. You have spoiled it, though, and must provide another.”

“Must I?” Her ribs vibrated with its voice, which possessed an odd, dry timbre, seeming wide rather than deep.

“It seems only fair.”

“Life is not fair,” said the dragon. “Consider, for example, your plight.” It drew back its head as if doing just that.

“I must admit, it does appear to be an unfortunate one.” Princess Ousmani lay chained flat on her back, close to the edge of a precipice. She was not naked, but an unfriendly Northern chill pierced her scarlet silks. It had done so all day, except for a brief, sunny respite around noon. “My only comfort has been philosophy. But then, this has been true most of my life.”

“A most unprey-like speech. I grow increasingly intrigued,” the dragon said, consideringly. “Let us continue this conversation in an atmosphere more conducive.”

The garish head moved from her field of vision. She heard a loud hissing, felt a sudden heat in first one, then the other of her shackled wrists.

“Rise.” She tried, and found she was able to sit. The chains, which had run from wrist shackles to iron bolts fixed in granite, now ended in red-hot, half-melted links.

The chains that bound her feet were considerably shorter. The dragon paced closer and considered them dubiously. “I should like to melt these, too, but I fear to cause you unnecessary pain. Do you suggest another remedy?”

Unlike the others, these chains ended in a common terminus, an iron staple driven into the ground. Ousmani thought back to certain Greek texts she had recently acquired for translation; in particular a work by one Archimedes. “A stout stick, I think, will make the trick. And a stone of middling girth, flat on one side.”

The dragon dove off the precipice, then circled overhead on oily-looking wings to shout one word: “Patience!”

The Princess Ousmani wondered when, if ever, some other virtue would be urged upon her, such as courage or resourcefulness. She shivered, and not entirely with the cold. Despite her show of stoicism, the Princess had never really resigned herself to death. Though rejecting as false the conclusion that because offerings made to a dragon disappeared, ergo there must
be
a dragon, she had made what hasty arrangements she could to be spared consumption by more prosaically horrible beasts. Barring treachery, she had expected rescue to come with the fall of night. But now it looked as though she might not be present to be rescued.

“I must just keep my wits about me,” Ousmani admonished herself. “If my perceptions remain unclouded by expectations of any sort, the possibilities inherent in the moment will present themselves to me with much more readiness.” So saying, she tucked her goose-bumped arms between her satin-trousered legs and amused herself with speculations as to the range of European wolves.

It was getting dark by the time the dragon returned, dropping to the ground with a rattling clatter. The source of this sound was soon revealed: a pike, a slim, straight Frankish sword, and a badly dented helm. “I hope you don’t mind,” the dragon said, depositing his acquisitions at her feet.

“Mind? Why should I mind? They are not exactly what I asked for, but they will do most admirably.” She began scraping away the soil beneath the iron staple with the sword.

“Well, but what I meant was, the former owner of these implements is now completely incapacitated, and I thought you perhaps—”

“Might object? To the death of one of my father’s enemies?” She dropped the sword and positioned the helm, dent-side down. “Or if not, of some turncoat who persuaded him to place me as I am now?” She picked up the pike, measured it against the helm and staple, moved the helm, and inserted the butt of the pike.

“We see. Perhaps you will do the favor of explaining recent political developments in greater detail.”

“With pleasure, once we reach your conducive atmosphere, which I fervently hope will be a warm one.” The princess gave a shiver. “And now if you will be so kind as to stand upon this pike-head, I will very soon be free.” The dragon did, and it was as she had predicted. A little more scraping with the sword and the staple came up in the princess’s hands.

“What now?”

“Now I will take you home.”

“Is it far?” asked Ousmani, for she was hungry, cold, and despite her earlier nap, tired.

“Not far,” the dragon reassured her. “But I’m afraid it will not be possible for you to walk.”

The flight was a short one, and unspectacular. Evening mists obscured the view. Ousmani’s only impressions were of rough, rushing winds and a bone-numbing chill, combined with the dull realization that the dragon failed to crash into any unseen obstacles. She discovered as she dismounted that the dragon’s wings were quite as oily as they looked.

“You approve?” asked the dragon, as the princess gazed around its lair. A central fire revealed many-fissured walls hung with strands of jewels and a floor of glittering white sand.

“Oh, yes,” answered Ousmani, hurrying to the fire. “Now if only—” She stopped suddenly. Perhaps it would be unwise to introduce the idea of eating. Reptiles, she remembered reading, could go for long periods without nourishment.

“If only what?”

The Princess made no answer.

“But, naturally, you do not wish to appear rude. I, by corollary, do not wish to epitomize the insufficient host. If you will examine the leather wallet directly opposite you, lying against that breastplate, I believe its contents will satisfy.”

Ousmani seized the leather pouch and untied the drawstring. It held a crumbling lump of leavened bread, a withered onion, and four trapezoidal segments of some unrecognizable dried meat. Pork, probably, Ousmani thought, but she did not in the least care. It had been a day, more than twenty-four hours of the clock, since her last meal. She stuffed a brown slab into her mouth and chewed, suffusing her tongue with a delicious saltiness.

More than twenty years of training in the niceties of court conduct made themselves felt, and Ousmani spoke without thinking. “Sir, will you dine?”

“Not tonight,” replied the dragon.

This ambiguous reply renewed Ousmani’s uneasiness.

When the dragon saw that the princess had finished her meal, it directed her to a spring hidden in a recess of the cave. She returned refreshed and ready, as bid, to tell her tale.

“Kind Sir—” She faltered. “Or Madame, I know not which, and ought not to assume without scientific proofs—”

“Sir will do,” interrupted the dragon.

“Kind Sir, then, know that I am Ousmani, oldest daughter of Musa the Magnificent, third cousin twice removed to the most merciful Caliph of Al-Andalus, Abd-er Raman. I was born of my father’s third wife, Omiyinke, who also gave birth during that same night to a son, my brother Tikar. The best lawyers in Cordoba having spent several years arguing the question, they determined that as Tikar’s birth preceded mine by some minutes of the clock, our mother’s manumission took effect before I emerged into this world. Thus, at the age of ten, I was declared free.”

A susurrus escaped from the dragon at this point, and Ousmani glanced suspiciously in his direction. “Most interesting, pray to go on,” he assured her. “I was merely venting steam.”

“Owing perhaps to these early legalistic associations,” the princess continued, “my mind took an unusual turn for a woman. I immersed myself in scholarly pursuits, amassing a notable collection of scrolls, ancient and modern. My mother took no notice of this, being concerned with the advancement of my brother’s career at court. She sent various suitors my way, but when they became discouraged by my unfeminine wit, did not press matters.

“My father, however, is a different kettle of fish.” The princess paused, perplexed as to how to elucidate the nature of this paternal bouillabaisse. “Although in almost all respects a worthy man, he has a—a mania. He wants to conquer France,” she confessed.

“Languedoc?” inquired the dragon.

“No,
France. All
the land beyond these mountains. He says he will be the Hannibal of the Pyrenees.” Both were silent a moment out of respect for this monumental folly.

“Hannibal, I believe, failed,” said the dragon thoughtfully. “And then, if he must needs conquer, the sea would seem a less toilsome route, would it not?”

“I know. But he will not be dissuaded from his course by any counsel. The Caliph gives him leave, undoubtedly to prevent my father’s ambitions from being directed toward the throne. Also, of course, any progress he does make enlarges the Caliphate.”

“Of course.”

“And I—I must admit I was happy in his misguided happiness, for he never seemed to care what I did. Until now.” She rose and circled the fire, standing before the armor of the fallen Frankish knight.

“Upon testimony of some captives that a dragon dwelled among these peaks and that it demanded as sacrifice on each of four certain days of their calendar a virgin, live, and of noble blood, he decided that to secure his safe passage into France he would offer—me.” Ousmani kicked a nail-studded gauntlet, nudged it closer to the fire, watched it curl, blackening. “What better use for an heterodox daughter, long past marrying age?”

“You are—?”

“Twenty-six,” said the princess. “I never hesitate to tell anyone. The delights of matrimony are beyond me,” she added, in a tone of voice that indicated that for their own good they had best maintain themselves in that position.

“I comprehend,” said the dragon. “That is to say, your situation now seems clear. Mine, on the contrary, is enormously complicated by your advent, and by the news you bring.” He stretched, let loose another audible burst of steam, half unfurled his wings, and folded them back again. “Let us see what wisdom sleep procures.” Settling in the sand, he composed himself as if for the night. “Good rest, Ousmani.”

Perforce, the princess laid herself down also. The sand was warm, she was weary, and soon she sunk in slumber, regardless of the threat of circumstance.

When she revived, she found herself alone and entirely uneaten. She refreshed herself at the spring and at a little crevice further in, where she hoped the smell would be unnoticeable.

Surely, she reflected, the most reasonable moment to have attacked her would have been during her incapacitation by sleep? Therefore it seemed probable that she should consider herself safe from consumption.

But as she explored the dragon’s lair, her critical faculties sharpened, though not as quickly as they would have with her customary morning cup of koffi. The dying fire showed her no excreta, an absence unsurprising given the evidence of her nose. A cat could be just as cleanly, and there
was
all that sand.

More intriguing was the lack of bones. Ximonedes and all the more reliable bestiaries were emphatic in placing carnivorous middens within the confines of their constructor’s quarters. There ought to be one here somewhere. Close inspection of former victims’ remains might provide valuable information as to the dragon’s method of attack. Did it lull its prey or exhale poisonous vapors? And if she found no bones, how might that be interpreted?

Abandoning for the moment speculations on archaic mid-flight feeding reflexes, Ousmani dropped to her knees to examine the dead knight’s armor. She found no knives or other weapons, nor anything more useful than a delicate garter of green and purple ribands, attached to the front of a padded jacket. She had heard of this immodest habit of infidel knights, decking themselves with their paramour’s linens. She donned the jacket for warmth, deciding that the stains were rust, not blood. As an afterthought she removed the garter and used it to secure her lustrous black curls.