Praise Song for the Butterflies Read online

  “I had a very strange dream last night. I dreamed I was pregnant.”

  Aymee’s eyebrows climbed. “Pregnant?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmmm, my grandmother used to say when one dreams of pregnancy, it means the opposite,” Kenya said.

  “The opposite?” Juba’s voice oozed with curiosity as she juggled the day’s “rescued” oranges.

  “Yes, I have heard the same thing,” Aymee offered quietly.

  “Dreaming of death means that someone is about to bring life into the world. Dreaming of a new life means that a life will soon be removed from the world.”

  Juba tossed one of the oranges to Aymee, who caught it and plunged her thumb deep into the navel, splitting it clean down to the center.

  Suddenly, Duma kicked the door open and charged into the hut like a wild boar. Aymee shoved the fruit beneath the belly of her sleeping child, but the evidence of its presence hung in the air like expensive perfume.

  Duma stood with his hands on his hips, snorting like the animal he was. “A-ha!” he cackled, wagging his finger at the terrified girls, “give it to me, you little thieves!”

  Aymee hurriedly removed the squashed fruit from beneath the baby and held it out to him. He glared at her. “You like oranges, heh?”

  Aymee lowered her eyes. Duma snatched the fruit from her shaking hands, crushed it in his fist, and then smashed it into her face.

  “Get up!” he yelled. Aymee rose obediently to her feet. “Outside!” He pointed to the door.

  “No!” Juba screamed. “I took it, not her.”

  Duma’s eyes narrowed. “Really? You, little Juba, a thief?”

  Juba swallowed, nodded her head. “I . . . it rolled from the truck—”

  “Did it now?”

  “Yes.”

  He took a step closer to her. “You are lying, aren’t you?”

  Juba looked at Aymee. “Yes, I am. I took it from the basket.”

  “You stole it. Say you stole it.”

  “I stole it from the basket.”

  “Then you must be punished. Stealing from the gods is a serious offense.”

  Juba nodded in agreement, raised her head high into the air, peered directly into Duma’s eyes, and announced, “Yes, I must be punished.”

  * * *

  Juba followed Duma to a cluster of neem trees and he bound her to the one with the trunk shaped like a crooked walking stick. There, he poured cane juice over her body and left her to the red ants.

  The ants covered Juba like a blanket, stinging every inch of her body until she begged for mercy. In the hut, Abeo and the rest of the girls huddled together in a trembling mass with their hands clamped over their ears.

  * * *

  Three hours. One hundred and eighty minutes. Juba screamed until she was hoarse. Only then did Duma untie her.

  At the river, Abeo and Kenya washed the cane juice from the girl’s body, taking tender care around her bloated lips and swollen eyes. The poor thing was covered from head to toe in angry red blotches.

  That night as they lay on their separate mats, each lost in her own thoughts, Juba whispered into the darkness, “Abeo, do you think your dream was about me?”

  Abeo rolled onto her side to face her. In the scant moonlight, Juba looked like a wounded angel. “No, no, Juba. It was not about you.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  Abeo sighed. “Why would you think such a thing?”

  “Because sometimes I pray to die.”

  24

  Wasik sat before Ismae’s closed coffin with Agwe squirming in his lap. All of the mourners were gone; just Serafine and the priest remained. Grandmother had returned to the air-conditioned limousine.

  Serafine and the priest stood waiting beneath the sparse shade of a baobab tree as Wasik said his final farewells. The sun shifted west and a gust blew in from the north, setting the limbs of a nearby sausage tree to trembling.

  Serafine lit a cigarette and inhaled. When she blew the smoke out of the side of her mouth, she caught the eyes of the old priest glaring at her disapprovingly.

  “Sorry,” she muttered, and dropped the cigarette to the ground. The priest pulled a tissue from his pocket, bent down, and retrieved the butt. “S-sorry,” Serafine muttered again before hooking the straps of her pocketbook over her shoulder. “Come on, Wasik, let’s go.”

  Wasik could barely walk. He leaned on the priest for support, and kept turning around to look at the coffin, hoping against hope that this was someone else’s funeral, praying to the gods that Ismae would leap out from behind one of the trees flashing that beautiful smile he loved so much.

  As deep as Wasik’s sorrow was, Serafine was suffering twofold. She had lost her sister and her daughter. She knew she couldn’t raise Ismae from the dead, but she had hope that she would still find Abeo.

  So, back at the house when Wasik filled his tumbler with schnapps and went out to the veranda, Serafine followed.

  “I’m going to ask you again, Wasik: where did you take Abeo?”

  In the darkness, Wasik looked as small as a child. When he turned to face her, his eyes were soupy with grief. “Huh?”

  “Where did you take Abeo?” Serafine grabbed his hands and squeezed. “Please, Wasik, tell me,” she pleaded, on the verge of tears.

  “You see that star?” he said, pointing at the sky. “That’s the North Star. It seems brighter tonight, don’t you think?”

  “Wasik? Wasik, please,” Serafine sobbed. “Abeo. I need you to tell me where you took her.”

  Wasik smiled. It was a sad smile, but a smile just the same. “I-I think . . .” he began in a slow, childlike voice, “I think that’s Ismae’s way of telling me that she is okay. That we’re all going to be okay.”

  “Wasik, please!” Serafine shrilled.

  He drained the glass. “No, Serafine, I cannot tell you that.”

  “But why?”

  “Because,” Wasik sniffed, “I do not remember.”

  And he didn’t. His memory before the night Ismae died was blank. He could barely recall the last seven days.

  Serafine pressed her fingers against her temples. “What do you mean you don’t remember?”

  Wasik rolled the glass tumbler nervously between his palms. “I just don’t remember,” he echoed flatly.

  Serafine exploded. She grabbed Wasik by his collar and slapped him twice across of the face. He didn’t make an effort to defend himself, he just stood there silently, swaying like a reed.

  She decided that if she could not make him talk, then maybe the police could.

  * * *

  “My daughter is missing,” she told the officer who took the call.

  “How long?”

  “I don’t know, months!”

  * * *

  The police came an hour later. Serafine babbled on like a madwoman, swinging an accusatory finger between Grandmother and Wasik. The officers listened, but every time Serafine mentioned trokosi or the shrine, they took a measured step away from her.

  The officers looked at Wasik, who sat mute, staring blankly at a potted plant. Grandmother, who had said nothing while Serafine raged, finally spoke, and the tale she told was littered with lies.

  “No child has been taken, but a life has been lost. Just today my son buried his wife, who was also her sister,” she pointed at Serafine, “and now they are both wild with grief.”

  The police officers’ jurisdiction did not cover the spiritual realm, and besides, trokosi may have been considered immoral by some, but it wasn’t illegal, and so they bid the family good night and left.

  Serafine called Thema. “Come and get me, I can’t stay here.”

  Away from Wasik and his mother, Serafine cried into Thema’s shoulder until she had no more tears, and then she asked, “Will you and Joseph take me to the shrine?”

  Thema folded her hands in her lap. “There are many shrines, Serafine.”

  “Many?” Serafine blinked. “Do you mean ten or twenty?” Her voice
dripped with hope. They could easily do ten or twenty—they could do that in a matter of days.

  Thema exchanged a look with her husband and then whispered, “There are hundreds, maybe thousands.”

  Serafine’s heart sank. “How can that be?”

  “It just is,” Joseph sighed.

  * * *

  The next day, the three headed out early in the morning. Joseph did not have any faith in their expedition, but Serafine had paced the house all night long, mumbling and crying. What could he do, ignore her? After all, he was a parent too.

  They drove in silence. Thema sat in the front seat gnawing on her thumbnail and staring out the window. Serafine sat in the back, her eyes wide and watching.

  “How much farther?” Serafine asked repeatedly.

  Joseph felt the hair on his neck begin to rise. It wasn’t like those places were listed on a map. Fetish priests did not advertise the location of their shrines. Either you knew where one was or you knew someone who knew someone who could tell you. And Joseph knew someone. “I think it’s just up the road here on the left,” he said.

  He drove the car into the shrine and a group of small children magically appeared, buzzing with excitement as they swarmed toward the car.

  A tall, thin boy shooed them away, planted himself in the path of the vehicle, and raised his hand for Joseph to stop. A second later, four men appeared and surrounded the car like soldiers.

  Serafine vaulted out and rushed toward the cluster of children. She anxiously scanned each and every one of their faces. “Do you know Abeo? Abeo Kata. Do you know her?”

  The children sang back, “What did you bring for us, mama? Candy?”

  The slim boy lunged at her, but Serafine skirted quickly from his reach, running aimlessly, hysterically screaming Abeo’s name.

  Joseph jumped from the car and started after the boy who was quickly gaining on Serafine. He caught the kid by the wrist and he whirled around in surprise, his free hand poised to strike. Joseph threw his own hands up in surrender. “I will contain her,” Joseph assured him, and took off behind Serafine.

  Thema, terrified, locked the doors and watched the absurd scene from the safety of the car.

  Joseph cornered Serafine between a tree and a hut. “Serafine!” he panted. “This is not the way. We must go see the priest.”

  * * *

  The priest was on the far side of the shrine, unaware of the pandemonium Serafine had caused. He sat napping beneath a massive silk cotton tree and was stirred awake when the trio approached.

  The boy whispered into the old man’s ear. The priest shot Joseph a curious look before nodding for him to state his reason for being there.

  “Father,” Joseph said, “I have come to see if my niece is here.”

  The old man studied him with jaundiced eyes. “Her name?”

  “Abeo Kata!” Serafine shrieked from behind Joseph.

  The priest cocked his head to one side and smiled at Serafine. “The women in Port Masi have forgotten their place. Their tongues are loose.” He shifted his gaze to Joseph. “You need to learn how to control your wife.”

  “She is not my wife,” Joseph said. “She is the mother of the child I seek.”

  The priest coughed, used the back of his hand to wipe the spittle from his lips, and said, “There is no Abeo Kata here.”

  * * *

  Two weeks and four shrines later, Joseph and Thema drove Serafine back to the airport.

  “There must be hundreds of shrines,” Thema had murmured after the third disappointment. “Maybe even thousands,” she said, repeating what she had told Serafine from the start.

  Their mission was hopeless.

  25

  Abeo had been thinking a lot about slaves. Sometimes she dreamed that she was in the stinking dungeons of Elmina Castle, running through its dark tunnels and corridors, until she finally burst through the Door of No Return and dove into the ocean where she transformed into a whale the color of a rainbow. When she woke from those dreams, her lips always tasted of salt.

  All she had now were her dreams. The memories of her former life had slowly evaporated; the faces of her family and friends were now faded like the images in old photographs. Abeo had even begun to question her very existence. There were days where she doubted that she had even been born, convinced that she had always been in this place, having sprung from the soil like the corn she harvested.

  * * *

  The day Abeo’s life changed again, she and the other girls were bathing in the river.

  “Did you cut yourself?” Juba asked.

  Abeo shook her head, rinsed her hand in the rushing water, and then swiped it between her legs. Another red smear.

  Kenya waded over. “Let me see.” After looking at Abeo’s hand, her eyes wandered fearfully to Duma, who was sitting in his usual spot on the hill, tossing peanuts into his mouth. She took Abeo by the hand and led her toward the riverbank and back to the hut.

  “Am I sick?” Abeo asked, her voice dripping with fear.

  In the hut Kenya handed her a cloth. “Put that between your legs. Is this your first time?”

  “First time for what?”

  Kenya pointed at her crotch. “Is this the first time you are seeing the blood?”

  Abeo nodded.

  “It is your cycle. You will bleed every month now. It’s what happens when you become a woman.”

  Abeo didn’t understand; she was just eleven years old. “I am not a woman.”

  “Yes, today you have become a woman. Here,” Kenya placed the cloth in Abeo’s hand, “put it between your legs. You’re making a mess.”

  Abeo looked down to see droplets of blood seeping into the dirt.

  Kenya moved closer and whispered, “If Duma knows about this he will tell, and Darkwa will come for you after your third cycle.”

  “Come for me? Come for me for what?”

  “To bring you to the priest.”

  Abeo frowned.

  Kenya continued: “And he will touch you with the hand of God and your belly will grow big with child.”

  Abeo began to tremble. “Don’t say that!” She balled her fists and charged at Kenya, but Aymee caught her by her wrist before she could land the first punch.

  “Stop it, Abeo!” Aymee scolded. “Kenya is only telling you the truth.”

  Kenya said, “Abeo, we don’t know if Duma saw. If he didn’t, we can keep you safe.”

  Abeo raised her head; her cheeks shimmered with tears. “Can you keep me safe forever?”

  “No,” Kenya responded unhappily, “we cannot.”

  As it turned out, they would not even be able to keep it from Duma for one day, because he’d seen the blood on Abeo’s hand—he had the eyes of an eagle—and had brought the news to his father. By then, however, the priest was old.

  Duma was a mirror of what the priest had been decades earlier—as fierce as a lion and wholly devoted to the practice of trokosi—so when Duma reported that the girl called Abeo had seen her first menstrual cycle, the priest gave him permission to act as the human consecrator that would seal Abeo to Yame forever.

  * * *

  In that place, months passed with the sluggishness of years. After the second month, the urgency surrounding the blood was forgotten—the girls thought they had outsmarted Duma.

  At night they boasted: “He is so stupid!” They laughed, forgetting that The Evil One was like a god, and also possessed the ability to see and hear all.

  Two weeks after Abeo completed her third menstrual cycle, Darkwa darkened the doorway of their hut and pointed at Abeo. “You, come with me.”

  She took Abeo to the ritual bathing hut located at the far end of the shrine. Waiting inside were three elder trokosi.

  “Take off your dress, remove your beads.”

  Abeo did so without question.

  In the center of the room was a large barrel filled with water.

  “Get in.”

  The water was warm and aromatic. All four women washed
her, each concentrating on one section of her body. They chanted as they worked.

  When they were done they mashed chunks of shea butter between their palms and slathered it onto her damp body, working it deep into her skin, until she shone like a freshly buffed shoe.

  It was dark outside when they slipped the white robe over Abeo’s head and delivered her to Duma.

  She had a sense of what was to follow. Muted like a foghorn, Kenya’s words resounded in her ear: He put it in me! Aymee’s words followed: He will touch you with the hand of God and your belly will grow big with child.

  It was 1987 and Abeo was eleven years, six months, and twenty-two days old.

  26

  A decade after Duma took Abeo’s virginity, he followed his father into the mango groves with a copy of the Freedom Journal clutched in his hand.

  The old priest moved slowly between the rows, stopping every so often to examine the fruit that hung heavy from the stems. Three of his wives trailed a safe distance behind them, ready to jump at his beck and call.

  “Father, I need to speak with you,” Duma pressed.

  The priest did not acknowledge his son’s request, but continued to hobble forward until he reached the edge of the grove. “Help me,” he demanded when they came upon the cool shade of a plantain tree. Duma guided the old man down to the ground. There, he surveyed the lush countryside, and a look of deep satisfaction settled on his face.

  Duma waited a few moments before diving in: “Father, please, I have important news.”

  The priest pulled a plump mango from the pocket of his robe and worked feverishly at removing the skin. “Speak,” he mumbled.

  Duma unrolled the newspaper and read. But because his formal education had ended when he was eleven years old, the sentences tumbled awkwardly from his mouth. He labored over the pronunciation of the words, stopping often to slowly retrace sentences. When he reached the end of the article, the priest looked at him and asked, “What does it all mean?”

  Duma folded the newspaper and looked directly into his father’s milky eyes. “It means the government has outlawed what we do here. It means no more trokosi.”

  The priest clucked his tongue and laughed. He raised the mango to his mouth and sunk his brittle teeth into it. He chewed the flesh slowly and thoughtfully.