Red of His Shadow: A Novel by Mayra Montero, Edith Grossman (Translator)

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Chapter One

As if the sun had split in two above the countryside, a few husks of light scatter over the world and boiling cane juice spills unimpeded onto the batey. Never had so intense a fire burned on a Holy Thursday. Never. Not even in the Year of the Deaths, when rabid mongooses climbed into the cradles of the newborn and no spell or protection could chase them away.

Mistress Zulé has been looking at the sun for a long time, searching with staring eyes for the temporal cause of its fury. She is soon joined by Jérémie Candé, her most cherished bodyguard, and he squats down beside her, trying to look where she is looking.

"It's hot," says Zulé.

The dogs and children have run off to hiding places where they won't be tortured by the sun. But the men of the Gagá, those who display the untouchable dignity of elders, have remained outside in defiance of the heat, tying perfumed rows of handkerchiefs around their sweaty bodies, large colored handkerchiefs, all the handkerchiefs they can, while those women who are queens by right finish trimming the bows of their crowns and fan themselves in silence. Everything is ready, everything arranged. Later, when the heat moderates, the mistress will go with those closest to her to free the beings who live in the Palm, offer them their food, light for them the flame of proclamation, then carry it secretly back to the batey. Tonight they will celebrate and tomorrow they will leave without having slept, and the aroma of the food they will offer to those who make the promise, to those who singloudly, to every person who endures too fierce a trance, is already floating in the air.

"You'll burn your eyes," says Jérémie, who cannot bear to see the way she looks at the oily sky, at the air confounded by light.

She does not tremble when she asks what she must:

"Have you heard anything about Similá Bolosse?"

Jérémie Cané is her oldest servant, her oldest initiate. He is still very young, almost as young as she is, but since the time of her coronation he has followed her as submissively as if a holy amarre had been put on him.

"We know he made the vow again," he replies. "He swore he'd kill you and yesterday he was bathing in blood."

Zulé closes her eyes and seems to see the villain's face. How many goats, she wonders, and how many guinea hens had their heads cut off so that the bokor's huge body could be submerged in the tide of blood? Similá knows all too well that only in this way will his vow take on flesh; only in this way will he avoid having to resort to an ambush. Because he wants to kill her face-to-face; he wants to drown her, with his own hands, in the turbulent shallows of the river they call the Brujuelas.

"He can make all the vows he wants," she says. "We'll see who's stronger."

Sweet, soft sounds begin to be heard all around the batey. The queens are testing the echoes of their conch shells. ZuIé listens and smiles, and then tilts back her black, burning head.

"It's hot," she repeats. "Go tell the men to test the bamboos."

No one in the batey can understand why the mistress has chosen to leave her house and sit outside on the ground in the middle of the day, at the mercy of the brutally hot scrub. Some speculate that she is thinking about the battle and perhaps at the last minute will take the advice of her elders and decide to travel along another route to avoid the fight. But Zulé is the mistress and no mistress ever listens to the advice of the men who are considered her counselors.

"The tatúas have to be tested too," she says quietly. "Everything has to be tested."

He didn't sleep the night before. How could he sleep knowing that Similá was splashing in an enormous dark lake of congealing blood; deep black blood that would fill him with enough strength to cut to pieces the woman in command. In the morning he learned that Zulé had not slept either. No one told him. No one spied on her. But everyone saw in her face the reddened marks of the flame, the cut lips, the wild eyes she had when a mystery mounted her for a long time, many times, and with a good deal of rancor.

"Do you want some rum?"

She refuses, shaking her head slowly, and he begins to walk toward the shacks. In a little while Zulé's Gagá is going to wake to the sweet sound of the tamboras. The children will abandon their shaded holes, the dogs will approach with dark tongues lolling, and the president of the Societé will give the order for the queens and elders to go to their huts and adorn themselves in peace. At the same time, but far away, in the Colonia Tumba batey, the terrible tentacles of Similá's Gagá will begin to stir, summoned by the vibrant sound of the fututos. They will alert the members who have moved away without permission, and still it will be necessary to plead for a little order before the machete of the Grand Bois is raised, gleaming for war.

"What did she say to you?"

Somebody stops Jérémie Candé, taking hold of his arm. It is Papa Luc, and he is trembling, but it's no secret to anyone there that his fear is not for himself, his own life. His fear is for the light that still glimmers in the terrible blankness...