fly whisk, black and light blue for Babaluaye, with his crutches, cowries, and reeds, a red-and-white coconut for Oshosi, the hunter, with an iron cauldron containing deer antlers, bow and arrows, and a plastic toy rifle. There are statues in each shrine, too, some of them life size, of the santos, the orishas, Catholic saints melded with Yoruba demigods, all with brown skins, large eyes, and blank expressions. Placed high, wired to the ceiling, is Osun, the herbal messenger, bird staff in hand, who protects the life of the devotees on their journeys to God.
There are people in the room, a half-dozen women in white dresses and four men in guayabera shirts, unpacking large black boxes. I see they are removing drums. There is to be a bembe, then, a celebration of the anniversary of the descent of one of the orishas onto a member of Ortiz’s ile. This is not good. I had thought, in and out, pay the money, get the sacrifice, Ifa satisfied, only a brief appearance in the m’doli, maybe I won’t be noticed.
Ortiz is waiting in one of the house’s small bedrooms, which he has turned into a shrine to Ifa, or Orula, as he’s known among the Santeria people. He’s got yellow and green silk bunting draped on the walls and ceiling, a life-size statue of Orula in his guise as Saint Francis. Before this, draped in green-and-gold brocade heavy with elaborate beadwork, is the yard-high cylinder containing Ifa-Orula’s fundamentos. There are flickering candles in green glass tumblers, bouquets of gladiolas, frangipani, oleander, and jasmine, and piles of coconuts and yams, dozens and dozens of yams. I can smell the earth stink of them, mixed with the heavy odor of the flowers and the burning wax. One wall is nearly filled with a massive black wood cabinet, heavily carved: the canastillero, which contains shelves full of sacred objects. On the other wall there is a small table and two chairs for divinations.
He’s sitting in one of the chairs, looking like an ordinary black Cuban, no masklike visage, no strangely luminous eyes, just a guy in a white guayabera and white slacks. But spontaneously I dip my knee and touch my mouth and forehead, the way I used to greet Ulune. You see Olo kids do this, whenever an elder walks by; they’ll stop what they’re doing and make the gesture, and maybe get a pat on the head, and go right back to what they were doing before. I know that santeros get a different kind of obeisance, but Ortiz seems to accept mine.
I take the chair opposite. Ortiz smiles and takes my hand. He strokes it gently, in circles, with his thumb. No adult has touched me other than formally for nearly three years. He says, a statement not a question, “You are very frightened.”
“Yes. I thought you would be alone. I didn’t expect these others, or the bembe. I just wanted the sacrifice …”
“Yes, like McDonald’s,” he says, and his smile briefly grows into a grin, showing gold. “We could have a drive-through window?two pigeons and a rooster, please.” And more seriously: “Look, chica, you are safe here, as safe as you can be anywhere. We are under the protection of the santos in this house. You’ll come to the bembe, maybe the orishas will come down and tell you something you need to know.”
He has the animals ready. I give him my cowries. The four little lives depart, with brief flutters, to Orun. He grasps my hand. I want to leave, but there is no strength in the desire. I am on the line, well hooked.
From the other room comes the sound of someone tuning a fucking drum. After a long moment, I bow my head, submitting. I want to throw up, but I swallow thick, ropy saliva, and keep it down.
He rises, still holding my hand. Hand in hand, his warm, mine feeling like film-wrapped supermarket chopped chuck, we go back to the living room. Here the scent of flowers, too, and sacrificial rum, and the harsh sweet smell of the vapor from the holy spray cans they sell in the botanicas. People come up to Ortiz and pay him homage, a bow, the murmured moforabile, the acknowledgment of Ifa living in him; he embraces each and murmurs a blessing in Yoruba. We stand around while the drummers set up. They are all thin black men in white clothes. They have African names: Lokuya, Aliletepowo, Iwalewa, Oribeji. Their drums are familiar to me: the big bata; the iya, shaped like an unequal hourglass, the bell-hung, goatskin-headed mother drum, which talks and sets the changes; the midrange itotele; and the small, sharp-tongued okokolo. The Olo have these, or ones like these, and they also have the immense heartbeat ojana, which shakes the ground, and which you hear with your whole body, not just the ears. The drum does stuff to you in the hands of an expert, whether you want to have stuff done to you or not, which is why, since my return from Drum Central until tonight, I have avoided their beat.
More people come in and honor Ortiz and the orishas. Ortiz introduces me to each. They all have African names too. Ositola, Omolokuna, Mandebe. They seem like ordinary, hardworking, lower-middle-class black people, the kind you see in the hallways at Jackson, pushing waxers, carrying sterile packs and boxes of tools. They are shy when they meet me. We make small talk. I chat briefly with a woman called Teresa Solares, stocky, moon-faced, around thirty, I judge, worn-looking, wearing a tight yellow dress. She is a home health aide on the Beach. We have something in common, then, both of us health professionals, but our conversation does not flourish. I meet some others, Margarita and Dolores (oh, we have the same name! a smile exchanged) and Angela and Celia. They think I am an alien here. I wish that I were. The room is crowded now and hot.
The four drummers sit and face one of the shrines. It is the one to Eleggua-Eshu, always the first to be honored at these affairs, because you have to ask him to open the way between Orun and Aye. Orun, in both Santeria and Yoruba cosmology, is the spirit world, the world of the ancestors and the gods, which the Olo call m’arun. Aye is the m’fa. The Yoruba say, Aye l’oja, orun n’ile: the world is a marketplace where we visit, heaven is our home.
The drums start. My stomach rolls over. They are good, almost Olo standard. The oriate, the special devotee of Eleggua-Eshu, turns out to be the woman from PETS; she takes up a gourd rattle and begins her praise song. The ile chants along: Ago ago ago ago. Open open. She is dancing before the shrine of Eleggua, and everyone else is swaying, too. Something changes in the room; a different, more energetic air seems to circulate now. It’s happening.
The man on the iya does a frantic run and the drumming stops. The room sighs. The colors are starting to go funny. Now the drums start up again, and the praise song rises to Shango, orisha of force and war. The oriates of Shango whirl and stomp, but Shango does not come. The drums call the others in turn, Yemaya, orisha of the seas, Oshosi, orisha of the hunt, Inle, orisha of medicine, Oshun, orisha of love. Now something is happening within the group of dancers; the circle of moving flesh draws back, hollowing its center. In the ring thus made Teresa Solares is spinning, eyes shut, arms waving like water weeds, swaying her hips. Sweat flies off her, making red sparks where the candles catch the flying droplets. Everyone is chanting eshu eshu?hold hold. The beat quickens, impossibly fast; Teresa spins around three times on one heel, rolls her eyes up, and crashes to the floor. The drums stop instantly. The silence is astounding.
Several of the santerias help her to her feet and attempt to lead her away, but she shrugs them off and stands erect. She seems to have gained eight inches in height. Her face is utterly transformed, the eyes huge and bright, the features more defined. She rips off the clip that holds her hair, which swings out, as if electrified, like a lion’s mane. She is now Oshun. The drums take up a complex rhythm and Oshun dances. It is erotic beyond sex, beyond belief, Life Herself, the force that through the green fuse drives the flower, and we all like flowers lean forward swaying, as if toward a dancing sun. Oshun dances around the circle, feet hardly touching the ground, an ordinary woman with no training, dancing intricate steps, graceful as a puma. She kisses the devotees, she whispers to them, they stick currency to the sweat of her body, little sacrifices, and now she is before me. I fumble a dollar out of my bag and stick it below her neck.
She speaks to me in a deep contralto voice, sweet and thick as molasses, nothing like Teresa’s voice: “Child of Ifa, listen! Ifa says, go by water. Ifa says, before you close the gate, it must first be opened. Ifa says, the yellow bird will save you. Ifa says bring the yellow bird to the father. Ifa says, go by water, only by water.”
Oshun whirls away. I realize she has been speaking Yoruba, which Ms. Solares does not speak, as far as I know. I recall now that Ifa does not dance himself, he always dances through Oshun. The orisha finishes her dance and goes off with a few of the women who want a private consultation. The drums take up the beat again. The orishas start to come more easily, the excitement is palpable now, the whole house seems to be shaking, this is becoming a good, a really remarkable bembe. Ogun arrives, the angry smith, his voice booms bass notes from the throat of Julia, a dark woman of only moderate size. Obatala comes into Mercedes, spreading calm and clarity, and Margarita becomes Yemaya, capricious and powerful, the sea-mistress.
Then Shango comes, mounting a mild-looking middle-aged man named Honorio Lopez. When the orisha rises from Honorio’s faint, the devotees dress him in a red-and-white satin tunic, a red sash and a red headdress. The drums take up a staccato, violent beat, and he dances, crouched, then leaping impossibly high, then stamping his feet. He circles the ile, conversing with the devotees in a loud, harsh voice, making crude jokes and uttering threats. Then he stands before me, scowling, giving off an aura of violent energy, like a guy coming into a bar, looking for a fight. I can see him draw breath to shout at me, and without warning he changes again. That breath whooshes out
