'Kuringa insisted on it,' said Lurice as if he'd asked, 'It was her price for teaching me her secrets.' She smiled fleetingly. 'I managed to dissuade her from filing my teeth to a point.'
Jennings sensed that she was talking to hide her embarrassment and he felt a surge of empathy for her as she set her bag down, opened it and started to remove its contents.
'The welts are raised by making small incisions in the flesh,' she said, 'and pressing into each incision a dab of paste.' She put, on the coffee table, a vial of grumous liquid, a handful of small, polished bones. 'The paste I had to make myself. I had to catch a land crab with my bare hands and tear off one of its claws. I had to tear the skin from a living frog and the jaw from a monkey.' She put on the table a bundle of what looked like tiny lances. 'The claws, the skin, and the jaw, together with some plant ingredients, I pounded into the paste.'
Jennings looked surprised as she withdrew an LP record from the bag and set it on the turntable.
'When I say "Now", Doctor,' she asked, 'will you put on the needle arm?'
Jennings nodded mutely, watching her with what was close to fascination. She seemed to know exactly what she was doing. Ignoring the slit-eyed stare of Lang, the uncertain surveillance of Patricia, Lurice set the various objects on the floor. As she squatted, Pat could not restrain a gasp. Underneath the skirt of handkerchiefs, Lurice's loins were uncovered.
'Well, I may not live,' said Peter - his face was almost white now - 'but it looks as if I'm going to have a fascinating death.'
Lurice interrupted him. 'If the three of you will sit in a circle,' she said. The prim refinement of her voice coming from the lips of what seemed a pagan goddess struck Jennings forcibly as he moved to assist Lang.
The seizure came as Peter tried to stand. In an instant, he was in the throes of it, grovelling on the floor, his body doubled, his knees and elbows thumping at the rug. Abruptly, he flopped over, forcing back his head, the muscles of his spine tensed so acutely that his back arched upward from the floor. Pale foam ribboned from the slash of his mouth, his staring eyes seemed frozen in their sockets.
'Lurice!' screamed Pat.
'There's nothing we can do until it passes,' said Lurice. She stared at Lang with sickened eyes. Then, as his bathrobe came undone and he was thrashing naked on the rug, she turned away, her face tightening with a look that Jennings, glancing at her, saw, to his added disquietude, was a look of fear. Then he and Pat were bent across Lang's afflicted body, trying to hold him in check.
'Let him go,' said Lurice, 'There's nothing you can do.'
Patricia glared at her in frightened animosity. As
Peter's body finally shuddered into immobility, she drew the edges of his robe together and refastened the sash.
'Now. Into the circle, quickly,' said Lurice, clearly forcing herself against some inner dread. 'No, he has to sit alone,' she said, as Patricia braced herself beside him, supporting his back.
'He'll fall,' said Pat, an undercurrent of resentment in her voice.
'Patricia, if you want my help -!'
Uncertainly, her eyes drifting from Peter's pain-wasted features to the harried expression on Lurice's face, Patricia edged away and settled herself.
'Cross-legged, please,' said Lurice, 'Mr. Lang?'
Peter grunted, eyes half-closed.
'During the ceremony, I'll ask you for a token of payment. Some unimportant personal item will suffice.'
Peter nodded. 'All right; let's go,' he said, 'I can't take much more.'
Lurice's breasts rose, quivering, as she drew in breath. 'No talking now,' she murmured. Nervously, she sat across from Peter and bowed her head. Except for Lang's stentorian breathing, the room grew deathly still. Jennings could hear, faintly, in the distance, the sounds of traffic. It seemed impossible to adjust his mind to what was about to happen: an attempted ritual of jungle sorcery - in a New York City apartment.
He tried, in vain, to clear his mind of misgivings. He didn't believe in this. Yet here he sat, his crossed legs already beginning to cramp. Here sat Peter Lang, obviously close to death with not a symptom to explain it. Here sat his daughter, terrified, struggling mentally against that which she herself had initiated. And there most bizarre of all, sat - not Dr. Howell, an intelligent professor of anthropology, a cultured, civilized woman - but a near-naked African witch doctor with her implements of barbarous magic.
There was a rattling noise. Jennings blinked his eyes and looked at Lurice. In her left hand, she was clutching the sheaf of what looked like miniature lances. With her right, she was picking up the cluster of tiny, polished bones. She shook them in her palm like dice and tossed them onto the rug, her gaze intent on their fall.
She stared at their pattern on the carpeting, then picked them up again. Across from her, Peter's breath was growing tortured. What if he suffered another attack? Jennings wondered. Would the ceremony have to be restarted?
He twitched as Lurice broke the silence.
'Why do you come here?' she asked. She looked at Peter coldly, almost glaring at him. 'Why do you consult me? Is it because you have no success with women?'
'What?' Peter stared at her bewilderedly.
'Is someone in your house sick? Is that why you come to me?' asked Lurice, her voice imperious. Jennings realized abruptly that she was - completely now - a witch doctor questioning her male client, arrogantly contemptuous of his inferior status.
'Are you sick?' She almost spat the words, her shoulders jerking back so that her breasts hitched upwards. Jennings glanced involuntarily at his daughter. Pat was sitting like a statue, cheeks pale, lips a narrow, bloodless line.
'Speak up, man!' ordered Lurice - ordered the scowling ngombo.
'Yes! I'm sick!' Peter's chest lurched with breath. 'I'm sick.'
'Then speak of it,' said Lurice, 'Tell me how this sickness came upon you.'
Either Peter was in such pain now that any notion of resistance was destroyed - or else he had been captured by the fascination of Lurice's presence. Probably it was a combination of the two, thought Jennings as he watched Lang begin to speak, his voice compelled, his eyes held by Lurice's burning stare.
'One night, this man came sneaking into camp,' he said, 'He tried to steal some food. When I chased him, he got furious and threatened me. He said he'd kill me.' Jennings wondered if Lurice had hypnotized Peter, the young man's voice was so mechanical.
'And he carried, in a sack at his side - ' Lurice's voice seemed to prompt like a hypnotist's.
'He carried a doll,' said Peter. His throat contracted as he swallowed. 'It spoke to me,' he said.
'The fetish spoke to you,' said Lurice, 'What did the fetish say?'
'It said that I would die. It said that, when the moon was like a bow, I would die.'
Abruptly, Peter shivered and closed his eyes. Lurice threw down the bones again and stared at them. Abruptly, she flung down the tiny lances.
'It is not Mbwiri nor Hebiezo,' she said, 'It is not Atando nor Fuofuo nor Sovi. It is not Kundi or Sogbla. It is not a demon of the forest that devours you. It is an evil spirit that belongs to a ngombo who has been offended. The ngombo has brought evil to your house. The evil spirit of the ngombo has fastened itself upon you in revenge for your offence against its master. Do you understand?'
Peter was barely able to speak. He nodded jerkily. 'Yes.'
'Say - Yes, I understand.'
'Yes.' He shuddered. 'Yes. I understand.'
'You will pay me now,' she told him.
Peter stared at her for several moments before lowering his eyes. His twitching fingers reached into the pockets of his robe and came out empty. Suddenly, he gasped, his shoulders hitching forward as a spasm of pain rushed through him. He reached into his pockets a second time as if he weren't sure that they were empty. Then, frantically, he wrenched the ring from the third finger of his left hand and held it out. Jennings's gaze darted to his daughter. Her face was like stone as she watched Peter handing over the ring she'd given him.
''Now,' said Lurice.
Jennings pushed to his feet and, stumbling because of the numbness in his legs, he moved to the turntable and lowered the needle arm in place. Before he'd settled back into the circle, the record started playing.
In a moment, the room was filled with drum-beats, with a chanting of voices and a slow, uneven clapping of hands. His gaze intent on Lurice, Jennings had the impression that everything was fading at the edges of his vision, that Lurice, alone, was visible, standing in a dimly nebulous light.
She had left her oxhide shield on the floor and was holding the bottle in her hand. As Jennings watched, she pulled the stopper loose and drank the contents with a single swallow. Vaguely, through the daze of fascination that gripped his mind, Jennings wondered what it was she'd drunk.
The bottle thudded on the floor.
Lurice began to dance.
She started languidly. Only her arms and shoulders moved at first, their restless sinuating timed to the cadence of the drumbeats. Jennings stared at her, imagining that his heart had altered its rhythm to that of the drums. He watched the writhing of her shoulders, the serpentine gestures she was making with her arms and hands. He heard the rustling of her necklaces. Time and place were gone for him. He might have been sitting in a jungle glade, watching the somnolent twisting of her dance.
'Clap hands,' said the ngombo.
Without hesitation, Jennings started clapping in time with the drums. He glanced at Patricia. She was doing the same, her eyes still fixed on Lurice. Only Peter sat motionless, looking straight ahead, the muscles of his jaw quivering as he ground his teeth together. For a fleeting moment, Jennings was a doctor once again, looking at his patient in concern. Then turning back, he was redrawn into the mindless captivation of Lurice's dance.
The drumbeats were accelerating now, becoming louder. Lurice began to move within the circle, turning slowly, arms and shoulders still in undulant motion. No matter where she moved, her eyes remained on Peter, and Jennings realized that her gesturing was exclusively for Lang - drawing, gathering gestures as if she sought to lure him to her side.
Suddenly, she bent over, her breasts dropping heavily, then jerking upward as their muscles caught. She shook herself with feverish abandon, swinging her breasts from side to side and rattling her necklaces, her wild face hovering inches over Peter's. Jennings felt his stomach muscles pulling in as Lurice drew her talon shaped fingers over Peter's cheeks, then straightened up and pivoted, her shoulders thrust back carelessly, her teeth bared in a grimace of savage zeal. In a moment, she had spun around to face her client again.
A second time she bent herself, this time stalking back and forth in front of Peter with a catlike gait, a rabid crooning in her throat. From the corners of his eyes, Jennings saw his daughter straining forward and he glanced at her. The expression on her face was terrible.
Suddenly, Patricia's lips flared back as in a soundless cry and Jennings looked back quickly at Lurice. His breath choked off. Leaning over, she had clutched her breasts with digging fingers and was thrusting them at Peter's face. Peter stared at her, his body trembling. Crooning again, Lurice drew back. She lowered her hands and Jennings tightened as he saw that she was pulling at the skirt of handkerchiefs. In a moment, it had fluttered to the carpeting and she was back at Peter. It was then that Jennings knew exactly What she'd drunk.
No.' Patricia's venom thickened voice made him twist around, his heartbeat lurching. She was starting to her feet.
'Pat!' he whispered.
She looked at him and, for a moment, they were staring at each other. Then, with a violent shudder, she sank to the floor again and Jennings turned away from her.
Lurice was on her knees in front of Peter now, rocking back and forth and rubbing at her thighs with flattened hands. She couldn't seem to breathe. Her open mouth kept sucking at the air with wheezing noises. Jennings saw perspiration trickling down her cheeks; he saw it glistening on her back and shoulders. No, he thought. The word came automatically, the voicing of some alien dread that seemed to rise up, choking, in him. No. He watched Lurice's hand clutch upwards at her breasts again, preferring them to Peter. No. The word was lurking terror in his mind. He kept on staring at Lurice, fearing what was going to happen, fascinated at its possibility. Drumbeats throbbed and billowed in his ears. His heartbeat pounded.
No!
Lurice's hands had clawed out suddenly and torn apart the edges of Lang's robe. Patricia's gasp was hoarse, astounded. Jennings only caught a glimpse of her distorted face before his gaze was drawn back to Lurice. Swallowed by the frenzied thundering of the drums, the howl of chanting voices, the explosive clapping, he felt as if his head were going numb, as if the room were tilting. In a dreamlike haze, he saw Lurice's hands begin to rub at Peter's flesh. He saw a look of nightmare on the young man's face as torment closed a vice around him - torment that was just as much carnality as agony. Lurice moved closer to him. Closer. Now her writhing, sweat-laved body pendulated inches from his own, her hands caressing wantonly.
'Come into me.' Her voice was bestial, gluttonous. 'Come into me.'
'Get away from him.' Patricia's guttural warning tore Jennings from entrancement. Jerking around, he saw her reaching for Lurice - who, in that instant, clamped herself on Peter's body.
Jennings lunged at Pat, not understanding why he should restrain her, only sensing that he must. She twisted wildly in his grip, her hot breath spilling on his cheeks, her body violent in rage.
'Get away from him!' she screamed at Lurice, 'Get your hands away from him!'
'Patricia!'
'Let me go!'
Lurice's scream of anguish paralysed them. Stunned, they watched her flinging back from Peter and collapsing on her back, her legs jerked in, arms flung across her face. Jennings felt a burst of horror in himself. His gaze leaped up to Peter's face. The look of pain had vanished from it. Only stunned bewilderment remained.
'What is it?' gasped Patricia.
Jennings' voice was hollow, awed. 'She's taken it away from him,' he said.
'Oh, my God -' Aghast, Patricia watched her friend.
The feeling that you have to pull yourself into a hall in order to crush the snake uncoiling in your belly. The words assaulted Jennings' mind. He watched the rippling crawl of muscles underneath Lurice's flesh, the spastic twitching of her legs. Across the room, the record stopped and, in the sudden stillness, he could hear a shrill whine quavering in Lurice's throat. The feeling that your blood has turned to acid, that, if you move, you'll crumble because your bones have all been sucked hollow. Eyes haunted, Jennings watched her suffering Peter's agony. The feeling that your brain is being eaten by a pack of furry rats, that your eyes are just about to melt and dribble down your cheeks like jelly. Lurice's legs kicked out. She twisted onto her back and started rolling on her shoulders. Her legs jerked in until her feet were resting on the carpet. Convulsively, she reared her hips. Her stomach heaved with tortured breath, her swollen breasts lolled from side to side.
'Peter!'
Patricia's horrified whisper made Jennings' head snap up. Peter's eyes were glittering as he watched Lurice's thrashing body. He had started pushing to his knees, a look not human drawn across his features. Now his hands were reaching for Lurice. Jennings caught him by the shoulders, but Peter didn't seem to notice. He kept reaching for Lurice.
'Peter."
Lang tried to shove him aside but Jennings tightened his grip. 'For God's sake - Peter!'
The noise Lang uttered made Jennings's skin crawl. He clamped his fingers brutally in Peter's hair and jerked him around so that they faced each other.
'Use your mind, man!' Jennings ordered, 'Your mind!'
Peter blinked. He stared at Jennings with the eyes of a newly awakened man. Jennings pulled his hands away and turned back quickly.
Lurice was lying motionless on her back, her dark eyes staring at the ceiling. With a gasp, Jennings leaned over and pressed a finger underneath her left breast. Her
heartbeat was nearly imperceptible. He looked at her eyes again. They had the glassy stare of a corpse. He gaped at them in disbelief. Suddenly, they closed and a protracted, body-wracking shudder passed through Lurice. Jennings watched her, open-mouthed, unable to move. No, he thought. It was impossible. She couldn't be -
'Lurice!' he cried.
She opened her eyes and looked at him. After several moments, her lips stirred feebly as she tried to smile.
'It's over now,' she whispered.
The car moved along Seventh Avenue, its tyres hissing on the slush. Across the seat from Jennings, Dr. Howell slumped, motionless, in her exhaustion. A shamed, remorseful Pat had bathed and dressed her, after which Jennings had helped her to his car. Just before they'd left the apartment, Peter had attempted to thank her, then, unable to find the words, had kissed her hand and turned away in silence.
Jennings glanced at her. 'You know,' he said, 'if I hadn't actually seen what happened tonight, I wouldn't believe it for a moment. I'm still not sure that I do.'
'It isn't easy to accept,' she said.
Jennings drove in silence for a while before he spoke again. 'Dr. Howell?'
'Yes?'
He hesitated. Then he asked, 'Why did you do it?'
'If I hadn't,' said Lurice, 'your future son-in-law would have died before the night was over. You have no idea how close he came.'
'Granting that,' said Jennings, 'what I mean is - why did you deliberately subject yourself to such - abasement?'
'There was no alternative,' she answered, 'Mr. Lang couldn't possibly have coped with what was happening to him. I could. It was as simple as that. Everything else was - unfortunate necessity.'