The Faculty Club

25

“First of all, forget every ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard about voodoo. Forget zombies. Forget voodoo dolls. Our story begins four thousand years B.H.-Before Hollywood-in the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Assyria, Ethiopia. Their accounts of the stars, the planets, the human soul-these gave birth over millennia to the religions of the African tribes: the Fons, the Igbos, the Kongos, and dozens more. The slave trade brought these ideas to the New World: to Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, Galveston, New Orleans. Religions mixed and transformed, as slaves from different tribes were integrated… if you’ll excuse the term…” Isabella leaned in and gave us a smile that was as large and majestic as she was.

“Of course, it all starts with the word itself. In the language of the Fons, Vo means ‘introspection.’ Du means ‘into the unknown.’ Voodoo is therefore the investigation of mystery. Not just of gods and heavenly bodies, but of our own souls.” Isabella drew a line with her finger across the table. “The voodoo temple is the oum’phor, held up by a central post-the solar support-and balanced by the moon, a small boat hung from the ceiling, which represents the voodoo goddess Erzulie. The top of the sun-post is the center of the sky. The bottom is the center of hell. The post itself is the wood of justice, with a whip strung from it to symbolize penitence and redemption. The post is the physical center of the temple-it is, as they say, the cosmic axis of voodoo magic. The oum’phor has many chambers: a holy of holies, and symbolic ‘tombs’ for the uninitiated-death before rebirth. On the altar are pots-de-tete, small jars that contain a bit of the soul of each person in the room.

“Everything flows from the power of the gods-the loas. You legal types may be interested to know that loa comes from the French word lois, or ‘law.’” That smile again, magnetic. She leaned in. “Ask me where the gods live.”

“Where do the gods live?”

“In the astral city Ifé, in a star that bakes at thirty thousand degrees Celsius. You’ve heard of the ceremonies. Drums. Incantations. An animal sacrifice, or sometimes a plant. The loa comes down to earth to mount a voodoo practitioner, who becomes the god’s horse. This is an act of possession, so that the gods may perform an earthly task: heal the sick, accept a sacrifice. The mounting begins with a violent struggle but ends moments later with a whimper: in a flash it’s over.”

Isabella went to a cabinet. She pulled a small object out of a box, unwrapped the felt cover, and placed it on the table.

“Perhaps the most powerful item in voodoo is the baka.” She traced a circle around it on the table with her finger. “The baka is a talisman, but with a very special and dangerous composition. It is the fusion of two souls: the ka, the terrestrial soul that stays with the body after death, and the ba-the celestial soul that ascends to heaven. It is this combination that makes the baka’s power so volatile: it is whatever the holder wants it to be. A healing charm. A weapon.”

Isabella paused. She put the charm away. She walked to a cupboard, took out four glasses, and filled them with an almond liquor.

“For a time, voodoo did quite well in the New World. But you have to imagine the slave tent on a quiet night. The glow of the flames. The hint of drums. Rumors of rituals, miraculous seizures. The slave owners came down brutally, even for them: hangings, beatings, even flayings, punishments for the slightest whiff of voodoo.

“And so the religion evolved again. It cloaked itself in secrecy. Catholic saints were used to signify voodoo gods. Rituals were cloaked in other rituals. Erzulie becomes the Virgin Mary. Legba the Lion becomes Christ. Is it so surprising? Religions are always borrowing, mixing. Some believe that Moses himself was inducted into voodoo, under the tutelage of a black scholar named Pethro. Some even say Moses married a black woman briefly, until his family intervened. Who knows? But that is how voodoo, cloaked in a new skin, survived four hundred years of slavery in the New World. And how it exists to this very day.”

Isabella sat back in her chair and spread her hands.

“That, my friends, is all I know about voodoo.”

Miles, Sarah, and I each seemed to have the same reaction. Interesting-but what did it have to do with us? What did it tell us about the V &D? How was it going to save us? I weighed my words.

“Isabella, tell us about voodoo and death.”

“Well,” she said, thinking it over. “It’s common to honor the souls of your ancestors. And to prepare one’s soul for death. Penitence and redemption, like I said.”

“Okay, but what about… preventing death?”

“You mean healing the sick?”

“Not exactly… I mean, like, cheating death.”

Isabella wrinkled her brow.

“I don’t understand.”

“I met a man who was planning to live beyond his own obituary. To live forever. You didn’t say how someone would use voodoo to do that.”

She shook her head.

“They wouldn’t.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s just not a part of it.”

“Come on, there must be something.”

There was a strain in my voice. This was our last thread. Our only remaining clue. And it was unraveling before my eyes.

“What about zombies?” I tried. “That’s a way to bring people back from the dead, right?”

“I told you, forget about zombies.”

“Do they exist?”

“That’s Hollywood stuff. It’s not part of the culture.”

“But do they exist?”

Isabella pulled back. My voice sounded wild, plaintive. She sighed.

“I don’t know. There are stories, rumors. Once, some Harvard scientists claimed to find chemicals in Haiti that would knock a person out and bring them back, sleepy and submissive. But you know the legend as well as I do. A zombie is mindless, empty. If I wanted to live forever, it wouldn’t be like that.”

A fair point. Running around with my tongue hanging out might be fun for a Saturday night-but eternity?

“Please, Isabella, think. There has to be something.”

Isabella closed her eyes for a moment. She filled the room with her warmth, her calm. In the fluorescent light her strand of gray hair seemed to glow. She appeared to be searching for an answer to my question. Then she opened her eyes and held her hands out to me. She rubbed the tops of my hands with her thumbs, like she was reading my fortune. Her expression was kind, but she shook her head.

“At some point, every culture has to choose between the circle and the line. The circle seeks contentment: the seasons, the tides, sunrise and sunset, birth to death and maybe even death to birth, who knows?

“The line… the line seeks progress: acquisition, mastery, refinement of the world around you.

“Neither is intrinsically good or evil. That’s the thing most people don’t realize. It’s the balance that matters…

“But to live forever, as one person, through all time? To cheat the cycle? That’s the line, Jeremy… that’s the line out of control. What you’re describing isn’t voodoo. There’s no magic, no belief to make that happen. I’m sorry, but I think you’re looking in the wrong place.”

I felt frantic. This was our last clue.

“But what if someone found a way to use voodoo-someone from outside the culture-in a way it was never intended?”

Isabella thought about it.

“Well, if that’s the case,” she said, with that magnificent, wry smile, “then my black half is very disappointed in my white half.”

We left, with our final clue in shambles.

I was devastated for about an hour, and then I cracked the whole damn thing wide open.