Sabrina (Post 3)

“Oh, look at this, S, it’s perfect for you,” Sky cried, smiling mischievously as she held up an enormous hand-carved mask next to her face.  The face was elongated and grimacing, its hooded eyes narrowed into ominous slits. I shuddered covertly, reminded of the masks that hung in my grandfather’s home. As a small child, I would close my eyes as I walked past them so they wouldn’t give me nightmares. “It kind of looks like Tanya when she’s drunk,” Sky added, grinning.

Both Tanya and I forced smiles for Sky’s sake and then continued to peruse the wares of the stall individually, walking in opposite directions.

Poor Sky. Ever since college, she’d been the peacemaker. The three of us had been roommates since sophomore year in college, and Sky had always been there to break the tension between me and Tanya. And tension there was – I was the classic over-achiever, she was the classic slacker. I was the prude, she was the playgirl. She was the life of the party, I was the party pooper. And we were both stubborn, full of self-importance, and – most importantly – full of love for each other. Somehow, our friendship worked, but not without Sky to defuse every storm. If Tanya and I were extremes, Sky was the perfect balance. Moreover, for some God foresaken reason, she wanted to be with us.

Sky sighed, realizing her efforts were in vain. “Oh, Dylan would love this,” she said, mostly to herself, as she picked up a carved wooden pirate pistol.

“Or this,” Tanya said softly, indicating a selection of wooden pirate swords laid out on a table. “I could just see you trying to take one of these onto the plane with you.” She snickered, looking at me for an unguarded second, and then quickly looking away, her smile gone.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t apologized for what she’d said in her drunken, angry fit. She had. And that was hard for her to do – Tanya was not one to admit defeat. But I hadn’t been willing or able to forgive her just yet. After apologizing, she’d looked at me with big, hopeful eyes, and I’d said simply, “I just need some time, T. Give me time to cool off. I’ll come around.”

We’d gone to the Straw Market in Nassau in an attempt to please me, I think; it was a planned excursion that Sky had arranged early that morning before I’d awakened. It was a steamy day, and the brightly colored wares shimmered in the humidity. The market, housed under an enormous tent, teemed with tourists. The amount of merchandise under the tent was staggering – I developed a mild headache merely skimming the items piled high at a single stall. Headache aside, the distraction was a welcome one, and I began meandering away from the stall where Sky and Tanya were bartering for some straw handbags.

I found myself at a stall with an odd assortment of goods: scowling masks peered down from the walls; wooden figurines of elongated women carrying baskets on their heads, their lips enormous, eyes haunting, and breasts exposed; paintings of mules and goats dancing, carousing, sneering… I was suddenly dizzy with the familiarity of it all. I steadied myself by gripping the edge of a table and looked up when I sensed I was being watched. A woman, her skin the darkest ebony, had stood up from where she sat in a corner and gazed at me, her eyes boring holes through me.

“Oh, look, honey!” A fat woman with a thick fringe of bangs and a Southern drawl stepped between me and the ebony woman, picking up a figurine. An equally fat man stood behind her, humoring her, but clearly bored out of his mind. The fat tourist chattered on. “Haitian art! I love this stuff. We should buy a couple paintings…”

The ebony woman’s eyes never left me, and the tourists had not drawn me out of my deja vu. I was dizzy and disoriented. I wanted to run away from the woman’s gaze, but could do nothing but gaze back. She was ageless, anywhere between thirty and sixty. Her body was very thin, and her hair glistened with strands of silver. She moved, cat-like, to my side, and said in a low, sing-song voice, “Pitit Beauchamp! Kisa ou ap fe isit?”

I stared at her in disbelief, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. The whites of her eyes seemed to glow in her black face. She waited patiently, unblinking, for me to find my tongue. Finally, I managed to whisper, “How do you know who I am?”

Her expression didn’t change. Her eyes flickered to the side, and she indicated a stool in the corner. “Shita.” Under normal circumstances, I would have declined, I would have insisted to know how she knew me, I would have gone back to my friends immediately if she didn’t answer me directly. But something in this woman’s eyes made me follow her commands without hesitation. It was like… being in a trance. She sat across from me on a stack of boxes, our knees practically touching. “Sabrina,” she said, drawing out each syllable. And then she smiled – a white, brilliant smile.

“You knew my grandfather?” I ventured, hoping there was some reasonable explanation for how this Haitian woman knew who I was. Because, as far as I could tell, there wasn’t. My grandfather had died when I was ten. I had not been to Haiti since then, nor had I been in contact with any family members or friends from Haiti. That chapter in my life was over, and I had not looked back. So for this woman to know who I was… Even if she had known me as a child… It was impossible…

“I worked for your grandfather,” she replied in perfect but heavily accented English. “I cooked. You would not remember me. I was only there until you were three or four years old.” She pulled out a greasy paper bag, in which were two Haitian pates. The smell of the meat-filled pastries wafted at me as she opened it, asking, “Ou grangou?” The dizziness returned, and I had a moment of Proustian memory. I shook my head and thanked her. If my stomach wasn’t so knotted I might have accepted, remembering with sudden clarity the early mornings in my grandfather’s garden, eating pates and listening to the street peddlers call and roosters crow.

She put the paper bag down, all the while watching my face carefully. “I am Miryam Dieujuste,” she said, as if that explained everything. I just stared dumbly, the name meaning nothing to me. A veritable army used to work in my grandfather’s kitchen. He’d employed many Haitians for his household – the kitchen, the garden, the housekeeping. My apparent lack of recognition did not seem to bother Miryam. She continued, “Let us just say… I remember you.” She smiled enigmatically.

“Yes, but…” I stumbled over my words. This woman had really gotten to me. Either that, or I was catching something. “That doesn’t explain… I haven’t been to Haiti since I was a child. You couldn’t know who I am…?”

Miryam suddenly took my hand in hers. I looked at her hands – unlike her ageless face, her hands were rough and gnarled. They could have been the hands of an eighty-year-old woman. She examined my fingers absently, her brow furrowing. “You have displeased your loua, Sabrina. I must warn you.”

Loua? Spirits? Comprehension flooded my mind. Voodoo manbo. I jerked my hand away, but Miryam did not look surprised or hurt. Her eyes met mine, and this time they were filled with… Fear? I would go so far as to say terror. It was contagious, and my heart rate accelerated. She continued, unperturbed by the fact that I was slowly standing up. “I have seen you many times in my mind. Pitit, something big is about to happen to you. Souple! Tende mwen! Listen to me.”

There were no fewer than five tourists at Miryam’s stall, all within a few feet of us, but neither one of us paid any attention. The tourists glanced at us curiously, but didn’t seem to hear, or understand, what Miryam was saying. She stood and brought her face close to mine, our eyes locked. “I didn’t understand why I was seeing you. Now I know.” Her words were rushed, because she could see I was about to bolt. “Sabrina, Bondye bon. Look around you, open your eyes! You – ”

“Sabrina! God, we thought you’d been kidnapped or something!”

I rushed toward Sky and Tanya, relieved. I grabbed them both around the waist and turned them around. “Just keep walking,” I muttered as they looked back, confused. Miryam stood before her stall, watching us retreat, her lips moving, her eyes wild. She watched us until we were lost in the crowds.

“S, who was that?” Tanya asked.

“She’s scary, S! Do you know her or something?” Sky looked back, hugging her belongings to her body.

I wasn’t sure how to respond. Was I overreacting? Away from Miryam’s stare, things began to seem silly. “She… used to work for my grandfather. When I was a little girl.”

Sky frowned. “And she remembered you? That’s a bit odd, isn’t it? You haven’t been back since you were a kid.”

I shrugged, Miryam’s spell broken, my sanity slowly returning. Under the bright sun, watching children chase each other and laugh, my heart resumed its normal pace. “Yeah. She said something about my ’spirits.’ She was clearly into Voodoo. Probably a priestess or something.”

“She was a Voodoo priestess?” Tanya’s eyes goggled. “Dude, that is freaky, S!”

Sky slipped her arm through mine. Her voice contained a trace of concern as she asked, “What, exactly, did she say about these spirits?”

I shook my head, unwilling to relive the experience. “Nothing sane. She was just messing with me. She was obviously batshit crazy. What time is it? We’re not going to get left behind, are we?”

Tanya adjusted her new straw hat on her head. “Oh, they already left us. We’ll find another way back.” She grinned at me expectantly, her eyes searching mine for forgiveness.

I smiled and threw an arm around her neck, relaxing away from Miryam Dieujuste’s penetrating gaze. “Maybe we can find some hotties to take us back.” Tanya giggled, thrilled by both my reaction and by my words. Sky walked a step behind us, her arms crossed on her chest, biting her lip pensively.