a couple of bright leaves embedded in a block of Lucite. Not a pretty woman, but attractive in a severe way. She wore a sheer violet-colored silk shirt with a delicate stripe in it, under the beige jacket of a suit. A little formal for the professoriate, but perhaps she was teaching a class and wanted a little formality. That would be upper-class Cuban, Paz thought, the stratum from which this woman clearly sprang. Ordinarily she would have spoken with a man from his own stratum only to point out where to plant the new hibiscus or order the Lexus serviced.
But politely, of course. Politely, then, Lydia Herrera directed Paz to the visitor’s chair, offered coffee (declined), asked, “So, Mr. Paz, I understand Al Manes gave you my name. I assume this is about some plant?”
“Yeah, he said you were a pretty good ethnobotanist.”
“I am.” No false modesty for Lydia. “And you’re with …?”
Paz held up his ID and shield. “Miami police,” he said, and watched her carefully plucked arcs of eyebrow rise.
“And why does the Miami police need an ethnobotanist?”
Paz took Schrebera golungensis in its bag from his jacket pocket and placed it before her. “We thought you might be able to tell us what that thing is used for.”
Herrera picked it up. “Can I take it out of the bag?”
“Be my guest.”
She examined it, replaced it, handed the bag back to Paz. “It’s part of an opele.”
Paz consulted his notebook. “Yeah, that’s what Dr. Manes said, but what is it used for?”
“No, I mean, opele the thing, not opele the name of the nut. It’s part of an Ifa divining chain, an opele, also called an ekwele. It’s used to divine the future in Santeria and other West African-derived cults. Didn’t you ever see one?” The tone was slightly mocking. Of course a black Cuban ought to know everything there was to know about Santeria. That’s what they were for.
“No,” said Paz, coldly. “Do you have one?”
She was smiling. “As a matter of fact, I do. Over there on the credenza.” She pointed with a red-lacquered fingernail. He got up and looked. Not a rosary after all. The large black frame sat on a little stand, and in it, displayed against black velvet, like a diamond necklace, was a shiny brass chain about three feet long. Strung into the chain at widely spaced, even intervals, were eight pieces of thin tortoiseshell, gently curved. From the two terminal shells depended short cords, ending in cowries. Each tortoiseshell piece was carved into a tapering pear shape, with a ridge down the center of the concave side.
“That one’s from Cuba, mid-nineteenth century,” Herrera said. “You notice how the shell is carved?”
“Yeah, it’s sort of like the nut there.”
“Right. What you just showed me is the original. The craftsman who carved that one probably never saw a real opele nut, but the memory survived. Interesting.”
“Yeah.” Paz pulled his eyes away from the frame and faced Herrera again. “How does it work?”
“It’s a machine for generating a number. You don’t know anything about Ifa divination?”
Again the surprised, slightly mocking tone. Paz said, “No, but perhaps you would be good enough to instruct me, Dr. Herrera,” in the flattest voice he could generate. He was very close to breaking one of Barlow’s rules: anybody got something you need to know about is your best friend.
Dr. Herrera’s smile widened. Dimples appeared on her plump cheeks. Teaching Santeria to an Afro-Cuban! She would dine out on this one for months.
“All right, Detective. Ifa is the orisha, the demigod, of prophecy among the Yoruba and related peoples of West Africa. The opele is one method that the babalawo, the diviner, uses to consult the god. There are others, involving the number of palm nuts or cowries grasped in the hand. The purpose of both methods, as I mentioned, is to generate a number. As you can see, there are two possible ways for each of eight indicators to fall, and therefore there are sixteen basic figures that can form at each throw. The diviner marks a single line where a shell or nut has fallen concave side up, and a double line where one has fallen concave side down. The lines are drawn in two columns of four. In Africa the babalawo uses a shallow box full of fine wood powder to make the marks, but here they just use pencil and paper. Okay, so you end up with two columns of four marks each, single or double lines, I mean, for every throw, but it matters which column a particular marking is in, so you have to take account of the mirror images too. Are you following this?”
Paz said, “Yes, Doctor. If you include all the reverse combinations then the total number of combinations is sixteen times sixteen, or two hundred fifty-six. What happens when you get the number?” Remarkable, the nigger can do math in his head, Paz figured she was thinking. Guzana. Maggot.
“Yes, well,” said Dr. Herrera, deflated, “each number they generate relates to a particular memorized verse. The babalawo recites the verse, or more commonly, he just references it and interprets it to answer the client’s question. The information is assumed to come from the orisha, who influences the fall of the shells. This is Ifa, by the way.” She pointed to the statue on the bookshelf. “In Santeria, known as Orula or Orunmila. The Yoruba slaves who brought Ifa divination to Cuba and into Santeria thought that Saint Francis’s rosary looked like an opele and so they made the identification. The other santos or orishas in Santeria have similar histories. Eleggua, for example, is Anthony of Padua, Shango is Saint Barbara, because …”
“Right, got that. What I’d like to know is if any drugs are used in the divining ceremony, either by the diviner or the client.”
This was abrupt, peremptory. The professor did not like it. Not smiling now, she answered, “You mean intoxicating drugs? Well, rum is involved, but only sacramentally.”
“Not rum. I mean narcotics, something that would cause unconsciousness, like that.”
“No, not that I’ve ever heard. Of course, I’m not an expert.”
“No? You sounded like one a minute ago.” It was his turn to be a little tormenting.
She glanced briefly at the diploma wall. “I did my B.A. here at Miami. It comes with the territory?Santeria, I mean. Also being a Cuban …”
“But you’re not a participant.”
“No.”
“As an anthropologist, then, you know something about the rituals, what they do.”
“Some, but I don’t practice as an anthropologist. I’m an ethnobotanist. It’s a different specialty. Detective, maybe you should tell me what all this is about. The opele nut’s connected with some crime?”
“It’s evidence in a homicide case,” said Paz, shortly. “Are there, let’s say, sacrifices associated with this kind of divination?”
“Sacrifices? Well, many of the verses suggest sacrifices, but that usually means a tip to the diviner. Two chickens and ten dollars, that sort of thing.”
“I was thinking more of actual sacrifices. Killing things, right there, maybe before the ritual.”
“Not that I’ve heard of, but, as I said …”
“Yeah, right, you’re not an expert. Who would be?”
“In Santeria? Well, you have an embarrassment of riches here in Miami. On the faculty, Maria Salazar wrote the book on it.” Dr. Herrera reached to the bookshelf behind her, pulled down a thick volume, and handed it to Paz. Its title was simply Santeria. The dust jacket was red and had a picture of two red-and-yellow-painted wooden axes crossed and lying on top of an ornate covered urn. He flipped the book over. The author’s photograph showed a small elderly woman with fine features, her eyes large and deeply shadowed, her hair a halo of white frizz. She was sitting on a stone bench in a garden in front of a live oak covered with epiphytes.
He inscribed the name in his notebook. “Is she around?”
“From time to time. She’s semiretired now. Works mostly out of her home. You’d have to call her. You might also want to talk to Pedro Ortiz.”
Paz wrote this name down too. “And he is …”
“He’s a babalawo, ” said Dr. Herrera, smiling again, into his eyes. “He’s considered the best babalawo in Miami.”
He returned her look and he had to concentrate on keeping his expression neutral. He knew he had a problem with Cubans of this class, and he worked at it, on his cool. Coolly, then, he asked, “So anyway, you’re not a devotee yourself? You don’t believe in this …?” He left the word hanging. It could have been “crap,” or something more respectful.
“I’m a scientist. Santeria uses a lot of herbs, and that’s my business, to identify pharmacologically interesting
