HABÁNAME, Chapter 9                                                   - 19 - Chela let herself be sung to sleep with her head resting on the older woman?s lap. She was alone when she awoke. It felt so real. Maybe if I am still alive tonight she will come back again. She felt the sunlight beating on her skin and was profoundly grateful to have been able to look into her lover?s eyes the night before. Three days of unprotected exposure to the reflection of the ultraviolet rays on the ocean surface had taken its toll. Her vision was almost gone ? if she waved her hand directly in front of her face she could see only shadows. This was a merciful development, actually. It meant that she was unable to see the ominous line of high black clouds stretching across the eastern horizon. Late that afternoon, as the seas began to become noticeably rougher and the humidity hung heavy in the air, two tiny islands of human misery floated closer and closer to each other, until they finally intersected. The raft of the three Haitian farmers was much larger and sturdier than the inner tube, and the men were still healthy enough to be paddling even after five days at sea. At first they thought the inner tube was unmanned and they hoped only to salvage it for supplies and for use as an additional flotation device. The youngest Haitian - a one-legged man who determinedly was maintaining a lit pipe in the blustery wind ? looked over the edge of the tube and let out a long whistle. [?My brothers, you have to look at this! This is a serious thing!?] The two other men carefully crawled over to gaze upon the sight of a crumpled woman, her dark flesh mottled white with burns, tucked into the bottom of the rubber disc. [?Is she dead? She appears to have no supplies with her.?] The first man reached in and turned the woman over as one of his compatriots held the tube steady. The woman gave out a weak moan. Her face was so heavily blistered that it was interfering with her breathing. [?She lives, but not by much. The poor thing. Why did she not even bring a paddle??] The two men started to pull her up onto their raft and paused when they saw the blood soaking the cloth between her legs. [?Well. Well. This is turning into the trip to end all trips. She has her period. She will draw the sharks. Papa Nicolas??] The men looked up to the third, a thin elderly man who pushed the two younger ones aside to have a closer look at Chela. He put a hand to her forehead, then raised up her eyelid to look at the state of her eyes. Nicolas noticed the necklaces and pulled them up, fingering them gingerly. He carefully studied the prominent blue and white one, then spent a few minutes in silence trying to discern the truth about the situation in which they found themselves. She is wearing the colors of the one we call Agwe and which the Cubans call Yemaya. Maybe we have been blessed. Finally, he let out a long hum and stood up. He reached out for his younger raft mate?s pipe and borrowed it for a quick puff before addressing the two other men. [?Look at us! Three skinny poor blacks with nothing to show for our lives. You don?t even have both legs, Claude! We are completely fucked. We have been out here for five days and have no idea where we are. All my experience tells me we are about to see the hurricane come upon us and we are sitting on a piece of floating wood the size of an outhouse. We are going to meet our maker, my boys, and do you know what will happen when Bon Dieu weighs the soul of old Papa Nicolas? He will look on the side of the bad and say, ?Nicolas, back when you were a wicked beast and ?worked with the left hand,? you made four men into zombies and you deflowered five virgins through deceit and you drank quite a lot of rum.? Maybe the only thing He will find when He goes to measure the good will be ?Nicolas, when you found your little mother floating helpless in the sea you did not turn away from her.? The woman stays.?] Nicolas ? like most priests of Vodou ? was as skilled in healing as in causing harm, and among the supplies packed on the little raft were a number of the herbs and salves that he had feared would be hard to come by in the United States. He worked methodically, giving Chela small sips of fresh water that she swallowed reflexively and sealing the burns so that she did not lose valuable plasma through the breaks in her skin. He badly wanted to give her herbs for the pain and the nausea but could not risk taxing her poorly-functioning kidneys. Chela started to become aware of her surroundings. She was very confused because she still could not see anything other than shadows. She could feel the roll of the sea beneath her and heard the excited voices of men speaking in a language she did not understand. French? No, not French. Kreyol. But they will understand. ?Où sommes-nous? Les États Unis?? She heard hearty laughter around her. ?Oh, little queen, your guess is as good as ours. We know we are not in the United States, though, because there is only the sea about us. And don?t trouble yourself on our account ? all three of us have cut cane in the Dominican Republic. We know your language.? ?So what are we doing? Where are we going?? Her voice was getting a little stronger now. ?There is a bad storm coming, little queen,? replied a deep voice close behind her. It is a fitting endearment, thought Nicolas, as he searched for words that might reassure the young woman. Those streaks on her skin make her look just like a warbler, the bird which the Spanish-speakers call ?reinita,? the ?little queen.? ?It is almost dark and we will start sending up our emergency flares in the hopes that the weather planes or coast guards see them. We hoped not to use them. For us, it means a trip back to Haiti, but that is better than dying. I guess for you it will make a big difference which country responds but again, the important thing is that someone find us.? ?Mam?zelle,? she was addressed tentatively by a younger, softer voice. ?I am not going to give you a bunch of stories. I am really scared. I don?t know how to swim. I have never been to sea and have only been off my