Waking the Moon

Angelica and I went on.

It was an enormous round room, with faux marble walls and columns, parquet floors, a frieze of fanciful creatures circling the high ceiling around the dome’s perimeter. From somewhere rose the sweet strains of a string quartet. There was no air-conditioning, and the heat and humidity were intensified by the smoke. I felt as though I were swimming through some warm grey pool, washed by currents of expensive pipe tobacco and perfume and the fumes of about seventeen different kinds of exotic cigarettes, including clove, camphor, and what could only be hashish. Everyone smiled at Angelica, one or two of them greeting her by name. A few people even smiled at me. I smiled back, trying to put all of my charm and energy into my teeth, so they wouldn’t notice my clothes.

And everywhere I looked in vain for Oliver. I remembered what he had said about the Molyneux scholars —

“What are they?”

“Magicians—”

Though if anything, this looked like an assemblage of some very wealthy if eccentric alumnae, with a few flushed undergraduates and faculty members thrown in for good measure. And, whatever the Molyneux scholars were, they gave a loose interpretation to the term Formal Attire. I saw tuxedos of every vintage, as well as morning coats, evening gowns, beaded miniskirts, tribal robes, kimonos, velvet yarmulkas, and every kind of ecclesiastical attire, including a woman who appeared to be wearing a cardinal’s biretta and dalmatic. What I did not see was anyone else wearing a Blue Cheer T-shirt and black stovepipe jeans tucked into battered cowboy boots.

“I’m dying of thirst,” Angelica announced. She paused, smoothing her dress against her thighs, and peered through the smoke. “Come on—”

The bar was a long mahogany-and-brass affair that might have been imported from a 1920s cruise ship. Behind it a phalanx of harried undergraduates in ill-fitting white jackets poured drinks and opened bottles of champagne. I got a vodka tonic; Angelica took a fluted glass of mineral water. Then we walked to the end of the bar and staked out a spot by the wall. Angelica leaned back so that her dress rode up her legs, her stockings and high heels stark black against the creamy painted marble. I stood beside her and knocked back my vodka tonic.

“Nice bunch of folks,” I said, crunching ice cubes. “You think Oliver’s coming?”

Angelica shrugged, but I noticed how her gaze kept darting about the room. I was thinking of getting another drink when I spied a stocky figure off by himself, smoking a cigarette as he leaned against a medieval- looking tapestry.

“Hey! There’s that guy from Warnick’s class—what’s-his-name, you know—”

Angelica turned quickly, then nodded, disappointed. “Oh, him. Jose Malabar. He kept hitting up on me at orientation. He’s a commuter, lives here in D.C. with his parents.”

“And he’s a Molyneux scholar?”

“Yes—one of his brothers was, too. He’s an English major. Writes poetry. He showed me some of it.”

I rattled the last ice cube in my glass. “Any good?”

Angelica grimaced. “Not really my taste. Sort of raw. But it was okay.”

I looked back at the dark figure. He nodded and lifted his cigarette in greeting.

“Listen, I’m getting another drink,” I said. “You want something?”

“Maybe in a minute. But I’ll get it myself.”

At the bar I smiled gamely at the guys pouring drinks.

“You know her?” one asked, pointing his thumb at Angelica.

I took my vodka tonic and downed most of it in a gulp. “Yeah.”

“Huh.” He stared admiringly at Angelica, then flashed me a grin. “Well, you’re shitting in some high cotton, sister. Have another.” I traded my empty glass for a full one and stepped away. Angelica had floated toward the center of the room, deep in conversation with a white-haired man who could have been her grandfather. I turned and walked to the tapestried wall.

“Hi,” I said. Jose Malabar looked startled. “You’re Jose. You’re in Warnick’s class with me, right?”

He took a long drag of his cigarette and regarded me warily. He was my own age, heavyset and olive- skinned, with dark straight hair falling unevenly about his ears and small, almond-shaped eyes. He wore an ancient black suit over an open white shirt, flocked with burn holes and a dusting of ash.

“Joe,” he said at last, in a low voice. He had an accent that I couldn’t place. “Baby Joe.”

“Baby Joe.” I nodded and raised my drink to him. “I’m Sweeney Cassidy.”

He stared at me through a halo of grey smoke. “Yeah,” he said at last. “Sweeney. I know you. You’re the one got tagged by Beauty and the Beast this morning.” He began to laugh, a childlike wheezing giggle, and reached for my glass. I smiled uneasily and gave it to him. He took a sip, raising it in mock salute. “What’re you doing here?”

“I came with Angelica.”

“Huh.” Baby Joe frowned, then finished my drink. He handed me the empty glass and shook his head. “Yeah, I know her too. She’s okay. But you’re not one of them.”

“Who’s ‘them’?”

Baby Joe’s voice was derisive. “You know. The Benandanti. Brujos.”

“No.” I looked around uncomfortably, then set my empty glass on the floor. “I mean, I guess not. I never even heard of them until today.”

“That’s good.” He dropped his cigarette. “Because I hate them.”

He stared at the floor, waiting till his cigarette had burned a tiny black hole in the wood; then ground it out with a filthy high-top sneaker bound with electrical tape. The sneakers matched his shapeless suit, which was baggy even on his ungainly form. On the lapel was a small red button. I squinted as I read the tiny letters.

IT’S NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS WHAT IT SAYS.

I laughed, but Baby Joe’s expression remained enigmatic. He tapped another cigarette from a pack of Pall Malls, then began to speak with exaggerated slowness.

“Let me tell you something, Sweeney Cassidy.” He spoke so loudly that several people turned to frown in our direction. “You shouldn’t be here. This scholar shit is dangerous, di ba?”

I grew hot with embarrassment and stared at the tips of my boots, but Baby Joe seemed to enjoy the glares we were getting.

“You think you’re getting in for some nice schoolgirl fun, you and Barbie Doll over there, but you’re gonna get fucked.”

He paused and turned an insolent stare upon two elderly women who regarded us with tight frowns. “YOU—ARE GOING—TO GET—FUCKED.”

The women moved off in disgust. Baby Joe smiled, then looked at me and added, “And your friend Oliver? Talagang sirang ulo—fucking crazy bitch! He’ll be pushing a shopping cart down Fourteenth Street one of these days. He’s crazy, that whole family is crazy. My brother was here with his brother, Walter—”

“Waldo.”

“Whatever. He was nuts, fucking nuts, di ba? Tried to poison some teacher that failed him. With rat poison. Once he shot at my brother with a bow and arrow.”

“He’s a Buddhist monk now.”

“Figures. These guys—” He gestured disdainfully at the well-dressed crowd surrounding us. “—these guys tapped my brother years ago, di ba? When we were in Manila my mother was a bruja, you know, a—a midwife and—well, some other shit—but then she had a run-in with President Marcos’s chauffeur and they made things tough for us. My father died of bangungot—you know what that is? Bad juju, Schoolgirl, very bad stuff—and we had to leave Manila, leave the whole fucking country. My uncle lives in D.C. so we came here, but then he’s got like some weird connection with this place and my mom gets plugged into all that shit. And my brother Nestor, they think he’s brujo like my