Ritual (43 page)

Sergeant Dupree
chuckled. ‘This gentleman’s an
optimist,
you have to
give him that.’

‘Thank you,
sergeant,’ said Mme Musette smoothly. ‘You’ve done an excellent job.’

‘You can’t hold
us here,’ Robyn protested.

‘Of course
not,’ said M. Musette. ‘But while young Martin McLean remains alive and whole,
I’m sure that his devoted father is not going to abandon him. Any more than you
my dear, are going to abandon his devoted father.’

‘I want to see
him,’ Charlie insisted.

•awr-^y ajj
meanS)’ agreed
M. ,–
He looked at his eighteen-carat
Ebel wn’stwatch. ‘At the moment, he is at devotions. But he should be here
shortly. Perhaps you would like me to show you around?’

Robyn said,
‘This is quite illegal and quite ridiculous.’ M. Musette smiled distantly. ‘It
depends on your definition of both words, my dear. Sergeant Dupree will assure you
that nothing is being done here which contravenes either state or federal law.
And as for it being
ridiculous ..
.
well
,
even our Lord was ridiculed. Look at him there, with his crown of thorns.’

Robyn snapped,
‘Officer – I insist you arrest this man for kidnap.’

Sergeant Dupree
shook his head. ‘I can’t do that, miss. I don’t have any grounds.’

‘Then arrest
me, on the charges you mentioned before.’ ‘I may,’ Sergeant Dupree told her.
‘But not just yet.’
‘It’s all right, Sergeant Dupree,’ said
M. Musette. ‘You just leave these good people to us. We’ll take care of them.’

‘Sir – I’m sure
you will,’ Sergeant Dupree replied. He raised his hat to Mme Musette, and then
to
Robyn,
and walked unhurriedly out of the hall,
closing the double doors behind him.
i
‘Now what?’
said Charlie.
‘ M
. Musette raised a hand. ‘There’s no
need to be impatient, Mr McLean. Nor is there any cause to be angry. First of
all, you look as if you could use a shower and a change of clothes. Perhaps I
can lend you one of my suits; and I’m sure that Ms Harris here is just as
slender as my dear wife.’ ‘I want my son,’ Charlie repeated doggedly. ‘All in
good time,’ M. Musette assured him. It was then that a wheelchair was pushed
into the hall by a man with a blue medic’s shirt and close-cropped hair. The
wheelchair was crammed with white pillows, to support the creature who was
sitting in it. The man with the close-cropped hair wheeled it across the hall,
and parked it right beside M. Musette. ‘You said you wanted to see her before
she cuts off her breasts.’

‘That’s right,’
said M. Musette. ‘I wanted to give her a last word of praise and prayer.’ He
knelt down beside the wheel-chair, resting his elbow on the arm of it, and
looked warmly into the eyes of his Devotee. Charlie could feel Robyn’s hand
searching for his. He held it, and she clutched him tight with absolute horror.

The creature
propped up in the wheelchair had no legs and one arm. She was wearing nothing
but a yellow sleeveless T-shirt, which had been knotted together underneath her
pelvis to conceal the stumps of her legs. The stump of her left arm was still
wrapped in surgical dressings. It was her face, however, which was the most
disfigured. She had cut off most of the fleshy part of her nose, leaving a
red-raw cavity, and she had sliced ribbons of flesh off her chin and her
cheeks.

Her carefully
back-combed ash-blonde hair made her disfigurement seem all the more grotesque.

M. Musette held
her one remaining hand, and squeezed it. The creature turned her eyes on him,
and gave him a mutilated smile. ‘The Lord is near,’ she whispered. ‘I can feel
it.’

M. Musette
said, ‘Yes, Velma, my dear. The Lord is near.’

C
harlie and Robyn were taken away from the main building to one of
the accommodation blocks, which looked as if it had once been a creamery. They
were led to separate rooms, both
bare
except for a
single bed and a plain pine locker, and a picture of St Celestine. They were
allowed to shower; and when they came out, they found that their old clothes
had been removed, and new clothes
laid
out in their
place. Charlie had been given a light grey suit with unfashionable
bell-bottomed trousers, while Robyn had been given a blue print cotton frock
with puffy sleeves and a very deeply scooped front.

All the time,
the man with the close-cropped hair stood guard outside Charlie’s door; and a
matronly-looking woman waited outside Robyn’s door. They were not technically
prisoners, but Charlie was quite sure what the reaction would be if they
attempted to escape.

They were
brought back to the main building and told to wait. M. Musette was welcoming
the delegation from Reno, Nevada. Mme Musette was meditating. They sat at the
end of one of the trestle tables, supervised from twenty feet away by the man
with the close-cropped hair, who stood with his arms folded, completely
expressionless, and stared at the opposite wall.

Charlie looked
around. ‘They must be holding the Last Supper in here.’

‘Just so long
as they don’t expect me to attend,’ said Robyn. ‘That woman, Velma – I can’t believe
that anybody could do that to themselves.’

‘Religious
ecstasy,’ said Charlie. ‘Think of
Jonestown, that
was
worse in a way. I guess there’s a self-destructive element in all of us.’

‘But she
smiled ..
.’

Charlie closed
his eyes. He didn’t like to think about Velma. He could still remember too
vividly the way she had appeared when he had first seen her at the Windsor
Hotel.
A little blowsy, maybe, but strongly attractive; a
woman with looks.
It was almost impossible to believe that the maimed
and mutilated creature in the wheelchair was actually her, the same woman. Only
the eyes gave her away. They were Velma’s eyes. The
eyes,
and the ash-blonde hair.

Robyn held
Charlie’s hand. ‘Supposing it actually happens,’ she said.

‘Supposing what
actually happens?’

‘Supposing they
eat all these twelve Devotees and supposing He does come back –Jesus.’

‘Are you
kidding? Do you think that Jesus – even if you believed in Jesus – would
seriously consider returning to earth for a bunch of crazies like the
Celestines?’

‘Do you believe
in Him?’ asked Robyn seriously.

Charlie lowered
his eyes, but wouldn’t look at her. ‘Right at the moment, I’m not so sure.’

‘Because of Velma?’

‘I guess
Velma’s part of it. But mostly it’s because I can’t see Jesus condoning
anything like this. I mean, whatever name you want to put on it, it’s barbaric.
It’s like voodoo.’

Robyn said, ‘I
went to Haiti once. My friend’s father used to have a sugar plantation just
outside of Port-au-Prince. She was always talking about voodoo. That was when
Baby Doc was still in power, and they still had the Tonton Macoute. She took me
down to the servant’s quarters, and showed me a bone that her father’s maid
used to use for putting evil spells on people. It was a baby’s finger bone. It
gave me the shivers. She said if you pointed this bone at somebody you didn’t
like, Baron Samedi would come and tear them to pieces.’

‘Baron Samedi?’
said Charlie, lifting his head.

‘That’s right.
He’s the great voodoo demon.
The king of all the zombies.’

‘Eric mentioned
Baron Samedi.’

‘Well, I expect
he would. He probably thought that Baron Samedi was coming to get him. I mean
he probably believed it.’

‘Samedi means
Saturday, right?’ asked Charlie.

‘What of it?’

‘I don’t know.
Something clicked. Maybe it’s just circumstantial. But in the Celestine Bible,
when they’re talking about the Last Supper, they say something like “You should
know by these secrets that he was vanquished on the fifth day, but the sixth
day is his day, and on that day you’re going to get your just reward.”‘

‘Well?’ said
Robyn.

‘Well, don’t
ask me,’ said Charlie. ‘But “his” was written with a small “h”, as if they
weren’t referring to Jesus, but to somebody else. “He was vanquished on the
fifth day”. Who was? Not Jesus. Jesus triumphed on the fifth day. He was
crucified and he died and just by dying he redeemed the sins of the world, and
conquered evil. So who was vanquished?’

Robyn
whispered, ‘The Devil.’

‘That’s right,
evil was vanquished. But what does the Celestine Bible say? The sixth day is
his day.

And the sixth
day is Saturday.
Samedi.
And on that day you’re going
to get your just reward.’

‘Charlie,’ said
Robyn. ‘What exactly are you trying to tell me?’

‘I don’t know.
Maybe I’m going crazy. I am going crazy. But supposing when those Celestines
lived on that Caribbean island with those cannibals all those years ago –
supposing their religions became totally tangled up, voodoo and Roman
Catholicism, so that you couldn’t tell one from the other? The Caribs
worshipped Baron Samedi, right? So what if Baron Samedi got himself all mixed
together with Jesus Christ? Supposing what they’re actually doing here isn’t
arranging for the second coming of Jesus – but the second coming of Baron
Samedi?

“The sixth day
is his day,” right? For God’s sake -supposing they’ve gotten it all wrong?’

Robyn squeezed
his hand. ‘If you don’t believe in Jesus Christ, you’re not going to start
believing in the Devil... Or are you? Come on, Charlie, it’s not going to
happen. It’s all fantasy. There won’t be any second coming of Jesus Christ and
there won’t be any reincarnation of Baron Samedi.’

Charlie sat
back, and tried to smile at her. ‘What do you think of the suit?’ he asked.

‘Terrible,’ she
said. ‘You look like one of the Monkees.’

‘Something
really bad is going to happen here tomorrow,’ Charlie told her. ‘Can’t you feel
it? I don’t believe in the supernatural, but can’t you feel the atmosphere in
here?’

‘I don’t know,’
said Robyn. She stared at him sadly. ‘What are you going to do about Martin?’
she asked. ‘Do you think you’re going to be able to get him free?’

Charlie said,
‘I’m going to have to talk to him first. It’s possible that he’s changed his
mind about cutting himself up. If he has, we’re going to have a pretty good
chance of getting out of here. If he hasn’t... well, I’m going to have to work
that out as I go along.’

The doors
opened and M. Musette appeared, accompanied by Mme Musette. ‘Well, Mr McLean,’
he smiled, rubbing his hands together so that they made a dry, chafing noise.
‘How would you like a tour of inspection?’

‘Can I see
Martin?’

‘My dear sir,
of course you can. You are only too welcome. I will take you to meet all of the
twelve Devotees who will be part of the second coming. Your son, naturellement,
is the twelfth.

Perhaps you
will meet some other faces that you know.’

Mme Musette
said, ‘We were talking about you, Mr

McLean, just a moment ago.
We were saying what a courageous
man you are. You have fought harder than any other father we have come across.
You were mistaken, of course. Being a father does not entitle you to own your
child’s future. But very courageous.’

Charlie could
have lashed out with any one of a hundred different retorts. But he knew that
this was the moment for keeping cool. He nodded his head in silent
acknowledgement of Mme Musette’s compliment. At the same time he noticed how
incredibly beautiful she looked, in her white silk sheath. She was standing
directly under the light, so that her body stood out in shadowed relief – her
breasts, her angular hips, the curves of her upper thighs and the distinctive
swelling of her pudenda. She could have been a statue, smoothed out of
pearly-white ice.

‘This way,’
said M. Musette. ‘Let me show you some of our accommodation.’

He led Charlie and
Robyn outside. The afternoon was grey and overcast but very humid. They walked
across to a long single-storey building with a corrugated asbestos roof and
whitewashed walls. ‘This is where our friends from
Le Reposoir
are staying,’ M. Musette explained. ‘I’m sure that
they’ll be glad to see you.’ He opened the door, and beckoned Charlie and Robyn
inside.

‘This church is
a family, you know. If we like you – well, we treat you like a relative.’

‘And that’s
what you do to your relatives, is it?’ asked Charlie. ‘You cut them up and eat
them?’

M. Musette
looked saturnine and stern. ‘Don’t mock me, Mr McLean.’

‘I’ll make a
deal with you,’ said Charlie. ‘I’ll stop mocking you if you let me take my son
away from here, unharmed.’

‘What a word to
use, unharmed,’ said M. Musette. ‘How can he come to harm if his destiny is to
become part of the reincarnated Christ? Mr McLean, you son is going to be
honoured above all imaginable honour. His life will become the keystone in the
perfect reconstruction of the Mother Church. Tomorrow the world will change for
ever, and your son’s self-sacrifice will make that change possible. Don’t you
feel any pride at all? Don’t you understand what your son is about to do?’

Charlie said
tautly, ‘What my son is about to do makes me sick to my stomach, so don’t talk
to me about perfect reconstructions of the Mother Church, do you mind? Just do
whatever it is you want to
do,
and then leave us
alone.’

‘You’re a
heretic, Mr McLean.’

‘You’re not the
first person to tell me that today,’ said Charlie.

M. Musette
smiled, as if he knew what Charlie was talking about, but he said nothing in
reply. He took hold of Charlie’s elbow and guided him into the accommodation
block. ‘Of course, this isn’t the Beverley Hills Hotel, but it’s clean and it’s
comfortable – and, do you know, we’ll be catering for more than one hundred and
fifty people here – Guides and Devotees and advisors.