Two Empresses Read online

  Euphemia David holds her snake, a muscular brown and gold python as long as she is tall, Li Grande Zombi, the serpent god incarnate, high above her head, while her body undulates from shoulders to feet, writhing just like a snake. When the python dips its powerful head down and its tongue flickers against Euphemia David’s cheek her followers fall to their knees in an ecstasy of devotion, screaming praise and adoration; their queen has just been kissed by the divine; proof of her power has been given right before their eyes. She is invincible!

  Her all-seeing eyes are big, gold, and wild as a feral cat’s. Her skin is smooth as silk and the rich golden tawny color of caramel. She doesn’t look a day over thirty, but the oldest slaves on the island are in their eighties and remember her from their childhood and swear she hasn’t aged a day and that their own grandmothers told tales of her. One toothless old man, wizened as a raisin, with sightless eyes like cloudy white marbles and withered limbs, claims that he was, for one brief season, her king. In his prime, the handsomest and nimblest dancer of them all, he served her faithfully each day and shared her bed every night, basking in her reflected glory, dancing in a loincloth of sky-blue silk dripping with bloodred fringe, light as a feather beneath the fortune in gold chains she hung about his throat. But the notion seems laughable. One has only to look at the Queen in all her terrifying beauty to know that it is only an old fool talking.

  Those who have seen her hair unbound say it hangs all the way down to her heels in thick waves the blackish-red color of berry juice. Some say, like Samson, the source of her power reposes in those splendid tresses. No wonder every lover and devotee vies for a lock of her hair; surely there can be no more powerful talisman on earth?

  Euphemia David can walk on water; dance through fire; ride a hurricane like a lover or a bucking, mad stallion; raise the dead; heal the sick; make the deaf hear, the blind see, and the lame not only walk but also dance; glimpse the future plain as yesterday; make grown men fall down on their knees and bark like dogs or cry like little girls. She can make her enemies perish in agonizing pain vomiting up snakes and snails, or even bent, rusty nails, or simply by causing their heart to shrivel up. She can sway lawsuits and contrary minds like a pendulum; lift and lay curses; blind, maim, or kill with tiny coffins left on the damned one’s doorstep or balls of black wax covered with the feathers of a black cock sewn inside their pillow, or by blowing the dust of a dead fer-de-lance directly into their face. She can make or break a love affair or marriage; keep a beloved spouse or paramour from straying, an unwanted child from being born, a crotchety uncle or unforgiving father from disinheriting you. She can make a gambler’s fortune with just one night in a graveyard and a powerful charm of grave dust and bones from a black cat’s tail, or cause a person of inconvenience to waste away to ashes. There is no end to her power. That is why there is tattooed onto the small of her back a snake, curled into a perfect circle, swallowing its own tail, no end and no beginning. Euphemia David goes on forever. Whether they believe in voodoo or not, every living soul on Martinique respects her power. Only fools do not fear Euphemia David.

  One by one the worshippers approach, fall reverently upon their knees, swearing their devotion, presenting their mostly humble offerings—hard-earned or stolen coins, a bouquet of flowers or herbs, a bell, a bottle of rum, a Madras handkerchief, a string of beads, or one perfect pearl. As each man or woman kneels before her Euphemia David fills her mouth with rum from a bottle on the altar and spews it out upon their faces in a blessing that parodies a priest sprinkling his congregation with holy water.

  “Adam and Eve were blind until the Serpent gave them sight! Let the blind SEE!” Euphemia David takes the snake from around her shoulders and holds it out, to let its tongue flicker over the sightless egg-white orbs of an old woman whose children have brought her to kneel before the Queen and beg that the gift of sight be restored to her.

  The ancient one starts up and screams like a person set on fire as the scales fall from her eyes, like the filmy white skin of eggs; then she drops back down on her knees to kiss the hem of the Queen’s gown and bathe her bare feet with thankful tears. She pledges eternal devotion and promises pineapples and bananas, just as many as she can pick, and she will bake the Queen a rum cake. Euphemia David just smiles and graciously waves her away.

  The King, the latest in a long line of handsome young men to catch the Queen’s fancy, springs into the clearing with a great leap, his legs slicing through the air like scissors. He dances wildly, spinning like a top. Naked but for a loincloth of turquoise silk trimmed with scarlet fringe like rivulets of blood running down his black thighs, a weighty, magnificent chain of gold-dipped snake vertebras and the tailbones of black cats about his neck, gold hoops in his ears, and tiny, tinkling gold bells tied to scarlet ribbons about his ankles. His hard body, rippling with muscles, dripping with sweat, executes a series of nimble leaps and twirls in the air before he lands, kneeling reverently, at the Queen’s feet for her blessing. It is given in a shower of rum and a quick caress to her lover’s cheek.

  The King rises and approaches the altar and, from a cage sitting in the shadows beside it, seizes a black cock that flaps his wings wildly and loudly complains. The man grasps the cock by his feet and holds him up high, in offering, to the woman the King adores. At her nod, with one quick motion, he rips open the cock’s feathery black breast with his teeth and quickly reaches in to tear out the bird’s heart and, even as it still beats, extends it, like a living ruby jewel on his palm, as a gift for his queen.

  Euphemia David accepts the heart as her due. She holds it up high, like a woman scrutinizing a large ruby against the sky, watching it pulse. Calmly, like an idle plantation wife dipping into a box of bonbons, she puts it in her mouth. But Euphemia David doesn’t chew and savor the flavor; she swallows it whole, feeling the heart’s dying beats as it slithers down her throat.

  Bones beat and palms pound the cowhide drums and peas rattle and shake inside gourds as the rhythm grows faster and more frantic. Spirits have possessed the drums; if the loas will it, the musicians will play until they fall down dead, powerless to stop, palms bloody, split or worn down to the white bones within.

  The voodoos go wild, their screams seem to ricochet off the full moon, and the dancing takes on a new insane frenzy. Some leap, others fall, in ecstasy. They spin until they fall down dizzy; then their friends pull them up and they are off again, twisting and twirling, gyrating like mad. A black goat is led to the altar and the King slits its throat. Hot blood gushes out into a big bowl of beaten gold. The Queen drinks first, followed by the King; then it is passed around from hand to hand. Everyone takes a sip, hurrying to pass it on to the next before the blood cools.

  The dancers join hands, and a convulsion ripples down the line, like a jolt of power leaping from hand to hand. Their bodies spasm and jerk and their eyes roll up until they look as blind as the old woman they saw their queen heal. The line breaks and everyone goes their own way. They dance; they spin; they leap. They shriek and speak in tongues, caress and claw and paw and sink their teeth into one another; drawing yet more blood, they fall upon the ground, in passionate congress, convulsions, or as senseless as the dead. Some are trampled, bones crack trying to outshout the drums, but no one seems to care. A few compassionate souls think to drag the prone and senseless from the clearing into the quiet darkness of the woods to recover, but most stay where they fall, coupling, convulsing, or unconscious, to take their chances beneath the dancing feet.

  When the first cock crows it is instantly over. All left standing fall down to sleep or else crawl away to find their beds or the sheltering shade of a tree. Only the Queen remains.

  Rose seizes the moment and, without hesitation, rushes into the clearing and drops an eager curtsy before Her Majesty. Aimee cautiously follows and makes her own curtsy; after all, it is the polite thing to do whether one believes in voodoo or not.

  A twitch of amusement tugs at Euphemia David’s crimson mouth.

 
“I know what you have come for. Follow me,” she says.

  The King starts to follow, walking respectfully several steps behind his queen. Without turning around, Euphemia David dispassionately pronounces sentence.

  “Your reign is over. You have served me well, and I thank you for it, but now you are done. I have no further need of you. Find a sweet young girl and marry her, but be kind to her; if you are not, I will know.” The threat is subtle but felt as though it were spoken openly in excruciatingly painful detail. The Queen is known for showing no mercy to men who misuse their women.

  The dethroned King looks sick and shivers as a cold sweat covers his brow. For a moment there seems to be a lump, as large as a rooster’s heart, in his throat that he cannot swallow down. But then it passes.

  “Yes, my queen.” He takes the heavy golden chain from his neck and lets the blue and red silk slip from his hips and passes them, reverently yet regretfully, into the steady sovereign hand stretched out to reclaim the royal regalia that will adorn her next consort.

  Euphemia David accepts them, without thanks, never looking back.

  The erstwhile king, now just a common man, stripped of his power, seems suddenly so young and vulnerable; he might be as young as seventeen but no more than twenty. Naked but for the gold hoops in his ears and the bells on his ankles, trinkets that any worshipper can wear, he falls to his knees and kisses the trailing hem of his beloved’s gown. “It shall be as you wish, my queen. Thank you for letting me serve you.”

  The Queen takes his deference as her due and walks away, head held high, never looking back. The hem of her gown whispers fleetingly against his palm in one last caress, but he doesn’t try to hold on. It is better this way. He is many things perhaps, but not a fool.

  Rose, more avid now than at any etiquette lesson taught by her mother or the well-meaning nuns at the convent school in Fort Royal where she was an occasional, and most reluctant, day pupil, takes note—this is the way to leave a lover!

  Aimee glances back, her blue eyes lingering pityingly on the young man kneeling naked in the dust, his forehead resting reverently where his queen’s feet so recently walked, as though he can still feel their warm caress. His tears, silently shed, Aimee thinks, will soon turn the dust to mud. How much it must hurt to be dismissed so coldly and without warning! Life really can change in a single instant. Life, love, power, passion, and glory are such fleeting and ephemeral things. He must feel just like the cockerel whose heart he so recently ripped out; only he, this erstwhile king, must go on living, waiting for the pain to die.

  The Queen’s house is exactly as everyone has described it. The ramshackle little house, painted bloodred, sitting ensconced like a vulgar jewel in a setting of scarlet flamboyant trees, peculiar purple-pink orchids that are somehow lewdly suggestive, a tenacious tangle of honeysuckle vines, jasmine and night-blooming white lilies. Inside are the accoutrements of the Queen’s trade: candles of many colors, some crafted into male and female form, hearts, or the engorged masculine organ, jars filled with mysterious oils and powders, wax figures and balls, tufts of feathers, bits of bone, and the tiny black coffins everyone fears finding on their doorstep or front lawn. Bouquets of dried herbs, swags of bones, and the dried ball-round fat bodies of prickly puffer fish hang from the rafters, swimming in air instead of water, like macabre desiccated wedding decorations. Dried lizards, toads, and cow hearts are nailed to every wall.

  The Queen sinks down wearily into a throne of gleaming bones, situated like any other favorite hearth-side armchair, and the serpent hugs her shoulders as its flickering tongue darts out to kiss her cheek, Li Grand Zombi, the one lover she will never forsake.

  Imperiously, she extends her hand. Rose eagerly offers her palm. The Queen’s eyebrow arches high in a silent question.

  Rose gasps. “P-P-Pardon!” she stammers, and fishes clumsily inside her nightgown for the little velvet bag hanging from a cord around her neck. Sweat has glued the velvet between her young breasts and she fumbles to draw it out. At last her anxious fingers manage to withdraw two coins; she passes one to Aimee, nearly dropping it in her nervous haste, and offers the other to the Queen.

  Euphemia David nods her approval and holds out her hand again. “Your palm, mademoiselle.”

  Her face is a blank slate as she studies Rose’s palm.

  “Now yours, mademoiselle.” She turns to Aimee, ignoring Rose’s puzzled frown.

  Aimee extends her palm with the coin resting on it, earning a twitch of a smile from the Queen.

  “Yours again, mademoiselle,” she says to Rose, who eagerly thrusts out her hand as the Queen’s fingers close tightly around Aimee’s wrist to stay its withdrawal.

  For what seems an eternity, Euphemia David sits, bent forward, thoughtfully glancing from palm to palm, sometimes tilting her head, narrowing her golden eyes, nibbling her lower lip, or furrowing her brow. Finally she releases Aimee’s wrist and waves Rose’s eagerly outstretched palm away.

  “Destiny has bound you together in a loose knot. Your fates shall be the same, but entirely different. Each of you shall live in a magnificent palace and wear a crown, greater than any queen—an empress you each shall be. But there your paths diverge. You”—she fixes a hard, unwavering golden gaze upon Rose—“will be celebrated and adored as a great man’s lady. Your husband will cover the world with glory and your body with ardent kisses and diamonds. He will put a crown on your head. His ambition will burn like a wildfire that threatens to consume the whole world. Nations shall kneel down before you and sing your praises. Every garment you wear, every word you speak, every move you make, will be discussed for good or ill. You will smile at the world but in private shed many tears. You will find yourself a prisoner in a way you never dreamed possible; your grand palace will seem like its walls are made of glass. Fame will be your jailer, your crown a heavy burden when in your dreams it sat on your head light as a feather, and your wedding band the golden shackle that binds you to the life you spent your youth dreaming of. At the very hour you think your happiness is won it will in truth be lost forever. Like the most fickle of lovers, happiness will abandon you, and you will die alone, knowing just how little fortune and fame truly matter, and regretting more than anything the lazy, simple life you left behind when you sailed away from Martinique.

  “As for you, little one”—Euphemia David turned to Aimee—“not for you the glory and fame of those who strut like pretty peacocks so proud and vain across the stage of the world’s theater for all to see. The world will forget your name. Before you are twenty, everyone who ever knew you will have forgotten your face; only portraits, lifeless and flat, will remain to remind them if they think to glance.” Her eyes shifted to the side like arrows of accusation aimed at Rose. “Only when you are dead will you begin to live. Like the serpent that swallows its own tail, your end shall also be your beginning. Your face will be hidden from the world, but do not mistake a veil for a living death, or a window you can see but hazily through. Veils not only hide; they also reveal, like the caul that covers the face of a child born with second sight. To the unknowing eye, you will be dismissed as a powerful man’s plaything, a pretty toy he can break or discard as he will, but that will be the grand illusion, for all the power shall reside here in the palm of your hand.” She reached again for Aimee’s hand and stabbed a long, sharp fingernail down into the heart of it. “Like a sculptor with a lump of clay, you will mold and shape, and create greatness seemingly from nothing, but you will never be celebrated for it, and the steps leading to the throne will be red with blood and wet with tears. You will do things you cannot in your innocence even imagine now, unthinkable things that will make you fear for your soul and God’s judgment. But on the day Death closes your eyes, should someone come to your bedside and ask, Was it worth it? you will know without a doubt that yes, it was, because of what you leave behind.”

  Rose sat and stared at her palm with a dissatisfied frown while Aimee studied hers in thoughtful silence, wondering if the
Queen was just spinning a tale, telling two little girls what she thought they would most like to hear. Everyone, even charlatans, knew that all little girls play at being princesses; pauper or aristocrat, they all dream of growing up to wear a crown.

  Rose seems poised to ask another question, but Euphemia David silences her with a gesture and stands up.

  “And now you must go. I am weary and wish to rest, and there is still time for you to return to your beds before you are missed.”

  Aimee curtsies and thanks the Queen for the time she has given them and Rose quickly does the same, but as she starts to turn away Euphemia David suddenly reaches out and draws her back.

  “Poor little thing.” She stares down into Rose’s face and caresses her cheek with an unexpected tenderness. “You are like a songbird in a cage who yearns to fly out into the great unknown world called Freedom she has heard so many tantalizing whispers about, never dreaming of the dangers that sit on the lap of Liberty waiting to bite and scar innocent little girls like you. Remember—both of you—innocence lost can never be regained; consider carefully what you do and who, and for what, you sacrifice it to.”

  Rose is so struck by the great sorrow in the Queen’s golden eyes that she can only nod dumbly, murmur her thanks, dip an absentminded curtsy, and follow Aimee out into the pale yellow-gray dawn. But as Rose allows her little cousin to take the lead, tugging her hand, hurrying her back to their bed at Trois-Ilets, hoping they can indeed slip back in before they are missed, that niggling feeling of melancholy falls from her like a snake’s old skin.

  “Adored! I shall be adored and covered in diamonds! Just think of it, Aimee! I shall live in a palace, wear a crown, and be adored and covered with diamonds!”