Steve." After frowning into space for a few seconds, Steve added solemnly, "Let me tell you something, Louis. Tom Driscoll thinks we've become a target for some kind of evil force here. Would you laugh at that?"
"Voodoo, you mean? I was born here in Dame Marie."
"Meaning?"
"I don't laugh at voodoo. Or voudoun, vodun, vodoun—however you want to pronounce it. I've seen houngans and mambos do things I can't do."
"Such as?"
"Cure people who seemed hopelessly ill. Or, in reverse, make healthy people so sick I couldn't cure them."
"I understand Dame Marie is a hotbed of voodoo," Steve said.
"Haven't you heard the drumming?"
"Well, at times. Seemingly from a pretty good distance, though."
"Not that far," Clermont said. "Only from the part of town they call The Hounfor. If you like, I'll take you there for a look-see one night."
"Thanks. If I'm to work here, I ought to know more about what's going on. Anyway"—Steve frowned—"Driscoll thinks the voodoo people have it in for us here. Do you put any stock in that?"
"I don't doubt they resent your being here. Just how they may be expressing their resentment I wouldn't want to guess."
"I see. On the other hand, Driscoll wasn't talking wholly about voodoo, I'm sure. When he said we'd become a target for evil, he had something like the Devil in mind, as well. Maybe the Devil working against us through voodoo. What would you say to that approach?"
Funny, Clermont thought, how it broadened a man to talk to someone he liked and respected. He knew a good deal about voodoo, of course, and honestly believed much of it was good for his people. The highly ritualistic services, for instance, and the sense of discipline they instilled. The houngans and mambos with their genuine knowledge of old-fashioned herbal medicine. The belief in an afterlife that held out a promise of something better than the miserable poverty so many peasants had to endure in this one.
Of course, there was evil in voodoo, as well. At least on the fringe of it, in bocorism and zombiism and related spin-offs. He would not deny that.
But if anyone had suggested to him yesterday that Dame Marie and the Azagon might be under attack by some force of evil not in the realm of voodoo, he might have been derisive.
Now he said quietly, "Let's look into it, Steve. Shall we?"
10
O n leaving the Azagon, Louis Clermont did not go directly back to his office. He stopped his car, an old Renault which he used as seldom as he could, at the home of the Jourdans, near the school for girls where Ginette was a student.
It was one of the better homes in town, and its owner, Maurice Jourdan, was the town's leading merchant.
The woman who opened the door had been a St. Joe City beauty once, with café-au-lait complexion, doll-like features, and a superb figure—the dazzling French-African combination that made so many of St. Joe's elite women so attractive. Except for the addition of some twenty pounds of what looked like baby fat, she still retained her beauty.
"Louis, thank God you've come!" she exclaimed in a voice really lovely, despite her near hysteria. "It's awful! Just awful!"
Knowing he could have come here before going to the alcoholics' place, Clermont felt a twinge of guilt. "You didn't say over the phone—"
"Oh, I couldn't! I just couldn't talk about such a thing over the phone!"
Clermont followed her into the house and was met in the living room by her husband, who gravely and silently shook his hand. Maurice was precisely the kind of man a woman like Leonie Jourdan could be expected to seek out and marry. Tall, physically fit and handsome, ever obedient to his wife's whims, he was at all times more inclined to listen than to talk, while she did the talking for them both.
He had begun his career as a shopkeeper in Dame Marie, then become a merchant in the capital. With the building of the resort hotel, he had thought a move back to his birthplace would add to his stature and increase his profits.
Now
"Voodoo, you mean? I was born here in Dame Marie."
"Meaning?"
"I don't laugh at voodoo. Or voudoun, vodun, vodoun—however you want to pronounce it. I've seen houngans and mambos do things I can't do."
"Such as?"
"Cure people who seemed hopelessly ill. Or, in reverse, make healthy people so sick I couldn't cure them."
"I understand Dame Marie is a hotbed of voodoo," Steve said.
"Haven't you heard the drumming?"
"Well, at times. Seemingly from a pretty good distance, though."
"Not that far," Clermont said. "Only from the part of town they call The Hounfor. If you like, I'll take you there for a look-see one night."
"Thanks. If I'm to work here, I ought to know more about what's going on. Anyway"—Steve frowned—"Driscoll thinks the voodoo people have it in for us here. Do you put any stock in that?"
"I don't doubt they resent your being here. Just how they may be expressing their resentment I wouldn't want to guess."
"I see. On the other hand, Driscoll wasn't talking wholly about voodoo, I'm sure. When he said we'd become a target for evil, he had something like the Devil in mind, as well. Maybe the Devil working against us through voodoo. What would you say to that approach?"
Funny, Clermont thought, how it broadened a man to talk to someone he liked and respected. He knew a good deal about voodoo, of course, and honestly believed much of it was good for his people. The highly ritualistic services, for instance, and the sense of discipline they instilled. The houngans and mambos with their genuine knowledge of old-fashioned herbal medicine. The belief in an afterlife that held out a promise of something better than the miserable poverty so many peasants had to endure in this one.
Of course, there was evil in voodoo, as well. At least on the fringe of it, in bocorism and zombiism and related spin-offs. He would not deny that.
But if anyone had suggested to him yesterday that Dame Marie and the Azagon might be under attack by some force of evil not in the realm of voodoo, he might have been derisive.
Now he said quietly, "Let's look into it, Steve. Shall we?"
10
O n leaving the Azagon, Louis Clermont did not go directly back to his office. He stopped his car, an old Renault which he used as seldom as he could, at the home of the Jourdans, near the school for girls where Ginette was a student.
It was one of the better homes in town, and its owner, Maurice Jourdan, was the town's leading merchant.
The woman who opened the door had been a St. Joe City beauty once, with café-au-lait complexion, doll-like features, and a superb figure—the dazzling French-African combination that made so many of St. Joe's elite women so attractive. Except for the addition of some twenty pounds of what looked like baby fat, she still retained her beauty.
"Louis, thank God you've come!" she exclaimed in a voice really lovely, despite her near hysteria. "It's awful! Just awful!"
Knowing he could have come here before going to the alcoholics' place, Clermont felt a twinge of guilt. "You didn't say over the phone—"
"Oh, I couldn't! I just couldn't talk about such a thing over the phone!"
Clermont followed her into the house and was met in the living room by her husband, who gravely and silently shook his hand. Maurice was precisely the kind of man a woman like Leonie Jourdan could be expected to seek out and marry. Tall, physically fit and handsome, ever obedient to his wife's whims, he was at all times more inclined to listen than to talk, while she did the talking for them both.
He had begun his career as a shopkeeper in Dame Marie, then become a merchant in the capital. With the building of the resort hotel, he had thought a move back to his birthplace would add to his stature and increase his profits.
Now
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