[Etienne] - Games
Chanting fades to silence, and the strident wind that a moment ago had raged - howled? - in my ear is gone. I feel as if I should say something, make some obeisance, even tend to her arm, but my heart is pounding too hard, my mind too full of surging thought. It takes me a moment to realize that my lips are slightly parted, my eyes a little too wide... and she’s said something.
I nod and come to kneel by her, trying to think what she asked me, but I’m gripped by a knife’s slice and the crimson line welling from her fair skin. “I... your arm, can I..?” Brilliant. Well put. Full of dignity and reverence.
She shakes her head, unconcerned, her hand holding tight to her arm, and tells me how to clean up the ritual. I realize that’s what she asked me at first, and out of embarrassment more than anything else I simply obey. When I clean the knife of her blood, I save the cloth; somehow that seems important. I’m about to ask her if I should break the veves when she tells me to, and I shoot an amused glance at her.
I rake my fingers through water and sand and blood, obliterating the careful lines, scattering the traces. I even rough it with a kick or two; no trace, she’d said. I offer her a hand up and she ignores it, standing on her own, asking me to carry the bag instead. Of course she does.
I, of course, can’t help myself, though I don’t expect it to matter. "We're walking through the jungle. You should at least wrap the arm." Sure enough, she dismisses it airily, serenely. Of course she does. I manage a shrug, conceal irritation and amusement both. “As you like.”
My mind goes back to the ritual, flies to it and through its twists and turns. The names she invoked, the words she used and the cadence, the rising and falling tones of her voice... that strange rush of wind and how hard my heart beat.
“Penny?” She asks casually, as she has a dozen times before. I have time to notice how perfectly the moon silvers her arched eyebrow, and then she’s starting back across the beach toward the forest.
I step after her, the satchel over my shoulder, and flash her a smile. It’s still hard to do otherwise, with her. “I’ll give you one guess as to what’s on my mind.”
Her lips quirk. "I could. I could tell you your every thought. But I'd prefer to hear it from your lips." Of course you could, and of course you would. Damn woman.
"I was thinking about the ritual, start to finish. It was not what I'd expected, in many ways."
"What did you expect?" The question is innocent, but even in the wan light in the jungle, her eyes flash sudden interest. Oh ho, got your attention now...
"Any number of things. More people involved. I expected it to be longer, slightly more involved. I didn't..." As always, I find myself saying more than I’d intended. "...didn't expect to feel the results so powerfully."
"My worship is peculiar in many respects. It isn't entirely Umbanda, it isn't entirely vodou. It takes aspects of both, some of other faiths. It makes practice with others difficult." Facts first, but then she stop restraining her own curiosity. "What did you feel?"
I’m picking my way over a tangle of roots, and I take the moment to think about how to explain it, what to tell her. "I felt the wind surge... and there was a howl. Like something far away but furious. It was... stirring. Set my blood racing, and pulse pounding."
She merely nods. "There is power here and in this."
"I know. I've felt it before... just never quite so directly.” I flash back on the wind’s sudden surge, and my heart pounds again with the thought. She’s given me a great thing tonight, a beginning of real understanding. "Thank you for this, M-A."
She sidesteps a spray of philodendren and nods somberly. "You're welcome. You need this. Not everyone needs faith the same way. The way I worship will likely not be the way you do. But you are still trying to find your place and your gods."
I keep myself quiet after that, partly because I’m not sure how to respond, partly to give myself time to think. Part of my brain is still picking at the ritual, putting things I saw tonight together with facts and things I’ve read. Part of me is puzzling over her words, her cryptic ways, turning over questions to ask her. At some point, after we’ve walked for a time, I think about asking her in some depth how she ended up where she is, what brought her to this place in her life and her surety of faith.
I take a moment to imagine her answers in all their labyrinthine, evasive glory, and I actually laugh aloud.
She looks at me curiously, and I hide my grin, but decide on a whim to be honest. "I was just thinking of asking you how you came to this path." And being highly amused at how you’d answer. Let’s see if I’m right.
She makes a sound low in her throat. "Mmm. That is... complicated."
I laugh again at the understatement. "My dear Madeline-Antoinette, if I asked you easy questions, you wouldn't keep me around!"
She stops walking for a moment and looks at me, as so often, like she’s staring at something beyond me. "That's truer than you know," she says, which naturally keeps my laugh from dying completely. Of course I know.
I mimic her cadences teasingly. "'Truer than I know.' My dear friend, with all her knowledge and her secrets." On an impulse, I dart forward, step half-into her path and strike a slightly challenging pose. She bristles.
“You wouldn't like me half so much were it not for my secrets," she snaps back.
I’ll play, but not the irritated game. "You fascinate me the more for your mysteries, how could I deny that? But I know I'm more than a diversion, M-A, or I wouldn't stay around. Do you really think I'd be lost to you so easily, if you didn't have quite so many locked doors?" I’m still teasing, but this is slightly more serious. I find that I really want to know, and how she answers this will tell me a lot.
But rather than a comeback, she closes the distance and raises her hand to lay gentle fingers along my jaw, holding my chin. Part of me notices that her wound is still open and not bleeding, and wonders at it. A small part, with her staring into my eyes from so close. "No, no you aren't. To answer fully is to reveal things I can't, not yet. But we should play a game, see how clever you are." Games again. How many shall we play at once?
I reach up, touch her arm, and accidentally graze the wound. I wince, and lower my fingers, but she never even blinks, and I do not even try to wrench my gaze away. “Always games,” I say quietly, “but then I play so well.” And I’ll play if you want it. For you. This had better not be another test. "All right. What will it be tonight?"
For a moment, she doesn’t even breath, so still is she… but then she inhales suddenly, deeply, and nods. "We're going to examine what you know of me. What you surmise to be true. And then we'll discuss what you think it means for my faith."
I watch her carefully, waiting for more, and the wind makes soft music in the foliage. Finally, when it’s obvious nothing more is forthcoming, I take my own breath, nod in turn. "All right." Damn you.
"Come,” she says, turning blithely back to the path. “The night isn't getting any longer." Ahead, I can barely see the glimmer of lights from her estate.
I follow, shadowing her, one hand holding her satchel, weaving through the undergrowth. I’m happy for the darkness and movement that make it easy to hide my frown. I play because I said I would; listing off facts for her, only what I am sure of. Certain she will catch my meaning, I carefully don’t include much that she’s personally told me, only what I’ve seen and confirmed to be true.
As I speak I fall into a measured cadence, one I’ve used before when listing off facts. And this particular litany, I’ve spun for myself a few different times in private, examining it from different angles, trying to understand the mystery of Madeline-Antoinette Sabatier. As I talk, we walk, and we are mere feet from her walls by the time I’ve neared the end of even the cursory list that will suffice for an answer.
"...I know you speak with an accent, and are bolder and quicker of wit than most anyone I know." That should do. "I could go on, smaller details, but it would take all night."
Her responses have been spare; she only nods at this. "And what do you surmise about me?"
I pause, thinking about how I want to answer this part. Honest, I think, and only as cutting as she deserves. "I surmise that you've told me the truth about most things; your name and Roberto's, where you're from, what you're doing here, the tidbits you've mentioned about your family." As I speak, she brings out a key, opens the gates, and gestures me through. I keep up my listing, the various important things I’ve guessed, as we walk through her slightly wild garden, up the stairs to the servants door and into the warmth and light of her house. She is finally displaying reactions, amusement, and maddeningly I cannot keep my own irritation. I wrap up my list, offer her my arm courteously and with only a little mockery.
She takes it, heedless of the blood on her hand, and puts more of her weight against me than usual. She takes a moment, considers what I’ve listed off. "Mostly true. What of your suppositions do you think are the most likely?"
"Your faith," I say immediately. Easy question. Though if I had to choose a second... "And your general feelings toward people." Wicked woman.
She laughs, delighted. "Oh, both are true enough."
I shrug, smile a little. I knew that. "I'm willing to admit I could be wrong or ill-informed about most of the rest, but I'm fairly certain about the extent of your knowledge. And I'd really like to believe I know your name, and that the shreds I have of your history are real." I really would… "Madeline-Antoinette," I say, and caress the name as I often have to myself, rolling the liquid French sound of it. "I've always liked your name."
Her eyes betray something in that instant, and then, suddenly: "It's not the one I was born with. But it's real enough."
I look sharply at her; I can’t help it. I don’t know why that simple admission makes me so angry, but it’s more than I can do to keep it out of my face and muscles. Purposefully, I stay quiet, manage a nod. We walk to the library doors, and I open them for her, falling back on courtesy to keep from rage. Calm, Etienne.
She goes directly to her desk, rummaging in a drawer. "Why does that bother you?"
I move across the library to one of the great north-facing windows, quelling emotion and thinking before I answer. Moving the curtain aside, I lean on the window’s frame to look out at Sao Paulo. The hour is late, and the city lights fewer. A beautiful view, but I can’t appreciate it at the moment. "I... don't know. You have as much a right as anyone to a different name, and probably more need for one. I think... it bothers me because I told you about that oak tree above the vineyard.” I bite back something scathing, instead manage coolly withdrawn. "Which is to say, not for any rational reason." I’ve given you so much of what I am. Why do you give me so cursedly little?
"Because I've cast off a name that no longer has any meaning to me?” She pauses, rustling, moving a little around the room. “It is well. I do have my secrets and I'll keep them as long as I can, although my family aren't the secret keepers." She comes up behind me then, and puts a hand on my back. She never does that, and I shiver under this strange intimacy, even through my anger. "Come sit with me."
I look at her for a moment. Another level to the game? I follow her back to the comfortable leather chairs where we’ve spent so much time, wait for her to sit. She pulls bare feet up under her, and says, "So. Let's take what you know and what you surmise and apply it to my peculiar brand of faith."
I sit in my chair, sink into it with as much grace as I can muster, but make no reply, watching her carefully. I have a strange feeling I’m about to get angrier, or possibly hurt.
"I am wealthy, educated and a night owl. I dislike people and everyone you've met that might be my peer is likely catholic. Yes?” I quirk a smile when she mentions her 'peers', but gesture agreement, and she purses her lips. "I've told you in the past that my religious proclivities were chosen for me. You know that I'm New Orleanian. What is the obvious conclusion?"
I let a half-smile twist my lips, because I can’t for the life of me think what grand conclusion I’m supposed to come to. "Look at me being a disappointment... I don't think I quite follow your path of logic here. I'd say you're referencing New Orleans voodoo, but that's not a conclusion, only another step. The really obvious conclusion is that you're part of one of the old American families from that illustrious city and are playing the black sheep with your heathen ways. But that seems too simple. So what am I missing?"
"This is a long and sordid path. There are many conclusions that are merely steps. So. Both of those are correct. However now I'm here. What do you suppose caused the change of scenery?"
“I can only assume some kind of schism with your family. Otherwise why would you strike out on your own so far from home when your husband died?" For some reason that makes her narrow her eyes.
"I'm not a widow." There’s the next needle. How many more tonight?
I can feel my eyes narrow in turn. I want the truth of this. "Never married or never widowed?"
"Never married. What do you think of that?"
"I wonder whether you lied for your guests or for me." I grin because I don’t want to snarl at her. "I wonder whether you never married because nobody would ever put up with you, or because nobody could ever keep up with you. If it were a hundred years ago, or even fifty, I'd wonder at the fact that you were never married, all wit aside. But today, it's not so uncommon. Especially for someone so... enlightened... as you are."
She throws her head back and laughs, and I’m beginning to hate how that silvery laughter melts my anger. "Enlightened, hmm?"
I sink further into the chair, a small means to isolate myself, and tap a finger against my lips. "Remember when I said you were quicker of wit, and bolder, than most people I've ever met? That wasn't an assumption. And that sets you apart, M-A. Whatever the source, enlightenment is as good a word as any."
"Hmm. Well, tribulation doth bring it. So. Louisiana Vodouisant goes to Brazil. What is her faith lacking that Brazil provides?"
I steeple my fingers, looking for the conclusion so I can find her point and be done with this. "Context? History? More freedom or a new start? I suppose those are all aspects of broader understanding."
"Which do you think it is?"
I shut my eyes, count to five, and then meet her searching gaze. "Knowing you and guessing... I'd say some of two things. You left because you wanted freedom, either from your family or from the structure you were living in there." I sit up, the better to toss out my own arrows, and point at her. "You came here, in particular, because you found parts of the faith you were taught that didn't work for you, didn't seem correct. So you came to a place which is the heart of another faith, a closely-related faith, to look for answers to your heart's questions.” And the logical extension, “I'd be very much surprised if you didn't settle in Haiti for a time before coming here."
She laughs. "And there you have your answer, or at least a part of it."
I look inquiringly, inviting explanation.
"You asked how I came to this path, and you've answered it quite neatly." …I have. She made me answer my own question entire. She smiles encouragingly. "But I think that the question you asked is not the one you meant."
I smile back, and I don’t think I keep all the anger out of it this time. "I said I was thinking about asking you. The reason I laughed when I told you that is because I knew precisely what you'd say if I did ask."
"Oh?" She arches that perfect eyebrow again, still looking amused.
"Oui. I was dead right, too."
"You often are. Even when you don't realize it." She produces another penetrating stare, and this time I meet it in kind, trying to fathom this woman for the hundredth time.
"There's your mystery again."
At that she grins, a look portending laughter. "And I'm not even the mysterious type, really."
It’s too damned much for me that she actually said that, and I lean my head back against the chair and start to laugh, staring up at the ceiling. I laugh for some time, making myself see the ridiculousness of all this, trying to bury my anger and mostly succeeding. She doesn’t interrupt, just watches me, and I’m grateful for that. I’m tired, I realize, tired of the constant games and the tests and secrets, and that’s probably why tonight, a more avid round than any yet, has gotten to me. Eventually the laughter is gone, and I wipe my eyes, but keep my gaze up. I don’t know if I want to see her face.
I must be looking pensive. "A thought like that might be worth more than a penny," she says wryly.
I change my mind and tilt my head up a little, enough to glance at her, but she’s as serene and unreadable as ever. I let my eyes stray away from her face, close them. My voice sounds tired even to me. "What will you give me for it, then?" Surprise me, M-A, please...
She does; quick as that she is up and out of her chair, and kneeling next to mine. Before I can decide how to react, she takes my hand, squeezes my fingers gently. "I'd give you a great deal. But not now. Keep your thought. You're not ready to give it and I'm not ready to have it."
I can’t think how to interpret that; there’s too much in my head. Her fingers are slim and cool, delicate-seeming. Slowly I sit up, and curl my own fingers loosely around them. My eyes wander over her hands, up her scarred arms and past the makeshift bandage, over her throat, her hair and her face. I find her eyes and look deep, trying to find some core of her under all the masks... but who am I to begrudge her the disguise? I think of the past months of friendship and learning, I think about tangling fingers into her hair and kissing her. Instead, I gently free my fingers, and stand up.
“I think," I say, my voice catching a little, "I ought to go for the night." Let me go. Don’t let me go. Ask why… say something.
She nods and rises, her expression suddenly distant, and that wintry reserve hurts me all over again. "Have Roberto see you out."
I control my face, absurdly proud that I manage it, and nod in turn. As I step past her, closer than I should, my fingers steal out as if of their own volition and graze the back of her hand, but again she doesn’t move, only watches as I move to the doors. There, half a moment’s pause.
"Good night, M-A." Then I’ve gently closed the doors, and am walking out, numb and exhausted.