He bent over. His left arm closed around her shoulders, his mouth sought hers. “Flora,” he said huskily. “My beautiful strange Flora.”
“—WE LOVED each other. I’ve never been afraid to love, Clara. You should learn how.”
The other woman stubbed out her cigarette and reached for a fresh one. “What happened?”
Voice and visage grew blank. “A revenue boat intercepted him in 1924. When he bade fair to outrun them, they opened fire. He was killed.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
Laurace shook herself. “Well, we’re familiars of death, you and I.” Once more calm: “He left me a quarter million in negotiable instruments. I needed to get away, sold my night clubs and spent the next four years traveling. First Ireland, England, France. In France I unproved my French and studied about Africa. I went there, Liberia, then the colonies along that coast, hoping to discover something about my ancestors. I made friends in the bush and added to what I’d learned from books, more of how those tribes live, what they live by, faith, ritual, secret societies, tradition. That caused me to return by way of Haiti, where I also spent a while.”
Clara’s eyes widened. “Voodoo?”
“Voudun,” Laurace corrected. “Not black magic. Religion. What has sustained human beings through some of the crudest history on earth, and still does in some of its most hideous poverty and misrule. I remembered people here at home, and came back to Harlem.”
“I see,” Clara breathed. “You did start a cult.”
Momentarily, Laurace was grim. “And you’re/ thinking, ‘What a nice racket.’ It isn’t like that in the least.”
“Oh, no. I didn’t mean—”
“You did.” Laurace sighed. “Never mind. A natural thought. I don’t blame you. But the fact is, I had no need to prey on superstition. Investments I’d made before going abroad had done well. I didn’t like the look of the stock market, and pulled out in time. Oh, by myself I’d be quite comfortably off.” Seriously: “There were my people, though. There was also the matter of my own long-range survival. And, now, yours.”
Clara showed near-bewilderment. “What’ve you done, then, if you haven’t founded a church?”
Laurace spoke quickly, impersonally: “Churches and their leaders are too conspicuous, especially if they achieve some success. Likewise revolutionary movements. Not that I wish for a revolution. I know how little bloodshed ever buys. That must be still more true of you.”
“I never gave it your kind of thought,” Clara said humbly. Her cigarette smoldered unnoticed between her fingers.
“What I am organizing is—call it a society, somewhat on the African and Haitian mode!. Remember, those outfits aren’t criminal, nor are they for pleasure; they are parts of the whole, the cultures, bone and muscle as well as spirit. Mine does contain elements of both religion and magic. In Canada I was exposed to Catholicism, which is one root of voudun. I don’t tefl anybody what church he should go to; but I open for him a vision of being not only a Christian, but belonging to the whole living universe. I don’t lay curses or give blessings, but I say words and lead rites in which I am—not a goddess or Messiah, not even a saint, but she who is closer than most to understanding, to power.
“Oh, we have a practical aspect too. A Haitian would know what I mean by the surname I’ve taken. But I don’t call for gaining control—not by vote, like the Republicans and Democrats, or by violence, like the Communists, or by persuasion, like the Socialists. No, my politics is individuals quietly getting together under leadership they have freely accepted, helping each other, building a life and a future for themselves.”
Clara shook her head. “I’m sorry, I can’t quite see what you mean.”
“Don’t worry.” Warmth was in the reply. “For the time being, think of it on the spiritual side as offering my followers something better than booze and coke. As for the material part, now that breadlines have gotten long, more and more hear about us and come to us, black, white, Puerto Rican, every race. Openly, we’re just another among hundreds of volunteer groups doing poor relief. Quietly, as newcomers prove trustworthy and advance through our degrees of initiation—we take them into a community they can belong to, work in, believe in, modestly but adequately and with hope. In return, when I ask for it, they help me.”