The Company of Heaven: Stories from Haiti

Venant Found It Hard to Know

153 Venant Found It Hard to Know “Listen, this happened in our very own Haiti! As real as my name is Venant, there he was—Papa Gede! Standing in his specially-reserved-for-him black redingote and saying, That goat is missing a piece so I’m not taking it! Then he stomped and grinned. The oungan who was officiating called all the ounsi and told them to stop dancing so they could come and help him plead with that Spirit who just showed up and took over somebody’s whole mind so he could act out on this earth for a little while. The music stopped, the ceremony stopped, nobody’s talking, even the goat’s not breathing. I must say however that the rope was really tight around its neck—if it moved, it choked—so forget about being able to run away if that’s what it had in mind, and it 15 4 Ve n a n t F o u n d I t H a r d t o K n o w must have, unless it had no sense. Because, for the goat, this was a life-and-death situation though it had no say in this matter of how it lives or when it dies. Anyway, this oungan, a big man-chunk kind of a priest, had gotten all the ounsi on their knees in front of Papa Gede, and was telling Papa Gede they bought that goat with all the money they had, chose the best there was, it’s now the middle of the night, there’s no time, or money, to get another, and then too, Goat had been washed, dressed, it ate the tester food in the plate—Goat agrees to be offered—and was standing there quietly for Papa Gede to take him. Take him? For Goat, that meant getting cooked. Literally. But Papa Gede stomped again, yelling that the goat is missing a piece and he’s not taking it. Then, he almost stepped on the oungan on his way to the other side of the room where he could get closer to and flash his eyes at everybody standing there watching the scene. Nobody was talking, even the children, and my brother’s new baby stopped sucking at his mother ’s nipple. Me, I was holding the giggles so hard, I peed in my panties. You’d think Papa Gede knew it since he stopped right in front of me and eyed me down from behind the sunglasses he likes and that are handed to him when he shows up in a ceremony, and all I could see was only that one left eye of his because, as always, he had that one lens taken out. So, there was Papa Gede standing in front of me and I was pinching myself because Papa Gede’s face was my little sister’s face. My sister was glaring at me—that night Papa Gede possessed my sister! And there she was, so completely overtaken by the Spirit she didn’t know she was standing in front of me, her big sister, soaked in my own pee I was trying so hard not to laugh because Papa Gede didn’t think it was funny the rope around Goat’s neck was so tight it had rubbed off a little bit of the skin and because of that he found Goat was no longer presentable, offerable that is, and he was not gonna take it like that, not until he’s got us all dragged on our knees long enough begging him to please, ooh please, take it now since it’s midnight, the ceremony has started, the food’s on the table, the hot pepper liquor’s on the table, the calabash bowls are filled, the drums are warm, tight, and ready, the ounsi are all in their white dresses, even me, with Papa Gede eyeing me down, daring me to laugh if I dare. Ve n a n t F o u n d I t H a r d t o K n o w 155 “For this, I had come home? This was happening at my family home where we all grew up. The ceremony was for my sisters , my brothers, and me. I am a dosou. Now, dosou is the child born after twins—Clotilde and Clovis were born before me. But...