Every story is completely made up; every story is based on experience. On that spectrum, this story comes the closest of mine to being based on real events. When I visited Brazil, I went through an Umbanda purification rite, and I witnessed the sort of possessions that I describe here. I also received an odd and uncanny warning from the saints. I gave this tale an exotic setting, but it doesn’t have much of a speculative element, save the questions we all ask ourselves after the golden age has passed.

At Clarion, instructor Richard Paul Russo was a big fan of “Sea and Stars.” So this one is for him, and for absent friends.

Stoned four days straight, and our Brazilian thrill was gone. The lime juice caipirinhas cloyed; the cachaça liquor fueled dreams that were nasty, brutish, and long. An infinite stretch of Bahian beach was ours alone, but unappreciated through squinting bloodshot eyes and UV protection shades.

      Miguel (Mike to us) and Paul were about finished with playing backgammon against each other. For life. At first Mike had won every game. “Just a question of skill,” he said, waving a hand dismissively over the board.

      “It’s dice-driven. A game of chance,” Paul grumbled.

      Mike grinned, bleary eyed. “A question of skill and intellect.”

      Paul’s jaw clenched, his face like a Cold War diplomat’s. He had been down all day, and now he was getting pissed at Mike. Elena, Paul’s fiancée, watched with silent concern. Paul really needed to change gears. So I butted in. “Paul, it’s only toilet paper money. Why don’t you settle up and start fresh?”

      Elena smiled and stretched out again on her towel next to Debbie’s. My idea worked its psychological magic—Paul began to win. “Are you cheating?” Mike asked. Paul laughed. “Are you cheating?” Mike repeated. He wasn’t joking. Game over. Damned good thing firearms weren’t present. Still, we were better off with Paul happy.

      All the stoned giggles had long gone out of tall-and-lanky Elena and short-and-busty Debbie. Deb was Paul’s ex-girlfriend, but we were all good friends. I avoided staring at them while they sunbathed.

      “Hey, Johnny, could you rub some sunscreen on our backs?” asked Deb without opening her eyes.

      I stalled. “I’m eating.” True enough—my fingers were already oily with fried yucca. Quiet Elena just looked up at me, wistful. Hard to tell whether she understood, or just wanted me to get cracking with the sunscreen.

      Long before her romance with Paul, I had learned that that there was nothing for me in Elena’s direction. Smart woman. I didn’t let it bother me. I particularly didn’t let Paul bother me. We were all smart stoners.

      Paul sat down between the women’s sun-bleached heads. He still looked fit, but I had been at a law firm a year longer than he had, so I could see how the job ate at his edges—a little pastiness here, some hair loss there. He was trying to tell the women about his job.

      “It’s crazy. I’m a smart guy, and I work smarter. They don’t care. They keep piling stuff up for me to do. When I tell them I’m already busy, they just laugh.”

      I shook my head. I had warned him about firm life, but that’s the problem with smart people—they think they’ll be the exceptions. Deb flicked a hand at her face as if he were a whining mosquito. Nobody wanted to hear the complaints of the guy with everything—brains, looks, and now money. Then Elena gave Paul’s shoulder a squeeze, and Deb said something about the advantages of meditation and offered a therapeutic massage.

      The women’s eyes were wide open now, restless. Massage, sunscreen, and other monsters of the id hung like ripe coconuts overhead. The ocean waves were a slow drum that played on my nerves.

      “We should do something,” I ventured.

      “Why?” asked Mike, as he rolled another cigar-sized joint.

      I was high and drunk enough to speak with the Midwestern deliberateness of Jack Nicholson. “Because, as good a host as you’ve been, we didn’t fly four thousand miles just to watch your Hungaro-Brazilian ass get overbaked.”

      “You may kiss my royal Magyar ass, gringo.”

      But Debbie said, “Johnny’s right. You promised us an Umbanda ritual.” A dubious ally. Deb was quick to annoy with her New Age Gaia-worshipping weekends-in-the-woods-with-women crap. I understood her spiritual inclinations; a little magic on life’s edges was fine. She just babbled on about it too much.

      Mike grimaced. For him, Deb had always been out of phase. “You just want to chase Brazilian goddesses.”

      But then Paul said, “Yeah, let’s go,” and everyone caught his sudden enthusiasm. Elena just smiled and nodded—she found talking even more uncomfortable when high than straight.

      Collectively, all we knew was that Umbanda was like voodoo, but that was enough. Stoner geeks can’t resist a good social-anthro opportunity—even if you’re not high during, it’s a good memory for a later buzz. Mike knew enough to help us hunt down the right place. Debbie wanted to compare rituals, and I needed a non-libidinous distraction.

      So we grabbed some of our cash and flopped into Mike’s jeep. Mike drove like a happy maniac over soul-crunching roads towards Porto Seguro. We made good time with a few bruises. Paul sat in the back with the two women. I braced myself against the dash and tried to talk over the engine and Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here. “Why don’t you play some Brazilian music?”

      “Ha!” Mike pointed at the stereo. “This is what I grew up listening to. Dire Straits, Pink Floyje.” He said the name Brazilian style.

      “I thought you picked up this stuff in undergrad.”

      “Fuck no. American music sucks.”

      Mike’s Brazil had always seemed a colorful abstraction in college, vaguely better than my Ohio or Deb’s New York. But now some things that I had thought were just Mike were also Brazilian. Strange. It made him larger and farther away.

      We hit a large dirt bump. I stuck my head around my seat. Paul scratched my head and the two women joined in. I lolled my tongue like a goofy dog on a jeep ride. They finally stopped.

      We slowed as we passed a small, ancient church, all white. I studied the floor of the jeep. Paul and Elena’s engagement was still an abstract thing, without definite date.

      Deb must have been thinking the same thing. She started in on the astrology. “With your signs, I think August would be a good month for a marriage.”

      Paul raised his hand to his mouth in mock horror. “This August?” He shook his head. “Maybe August next year instead.”

      “Next year?” Elena spoke, so it was important.

      “Yes! Next year. Here! You’re all invited.” Backgammon forgotten, Paul passed his boundless manic energy to Elena in a kiss.  And Elena re-radiated love in all directions, even mine.

      #

      Porto Seguro’s loneliness on the map makes it seem more important than it is. Mike pointed abstractedly towards the north. “The Portuguese made first landfall near here. Colonialist fuckers.” Mike subscribed to the sort of Marxism that only a child of the third-world elite could afford.

      Paul leaned forward. “The Portuguese always knew a good beach when they saw one.”

      “Did the Portuguese bring the Umbanda?” asked Elena. But no one really wanted to answer her. Too much history that was and was not ours.

      We parked the jeep. Mike inquired first at a pharmacy that sold Umbanda supplies on the side, then at a small Umbanda specialty store. The men at the stores took forever to say “no” in that painfully slow Baiano accent, which seemed to have the cadence of a Californian surfer on ’ludes. It fit the pace of time here too well.

      Deb took the time at each store to run her fingers over the strange candles and to smell the incense and oils. She would say “Elena, take a look at this, this one is good.” And Elena would sniff it, and then pass it on for Paul to smell as well.

      The specialty store was crowded with statuettes just slightly skewed from the saints I grew up with. Deb picked one up. The statuette looked like the Virgin, complete with a blue cloak. She was standing on blue waves, and above her head were silver stars.

      Paul whistled. “She’s a babe.”

      “Who is she?” asked Elena.

      “Looks like Mary,” I said.

      “That’s Iemanja, goddess of the sea.” Mike was doing his hippie professor bit. “But yeah, she’s also Mary, so she’s queen of heaven, too.”

      “Dude, you believe this stuff?” Paul didn’t take his eyes from the goddess.

      Mike shrugged. “No. Brazilians all know this stuff, but I don’t believe any of it.”

      Elena shuddered. “She… it looks cold.” Elena took the statuette from Deb and returned it to its place. We left the store.

      “How long is this going to take?” I asked.

      “Not long,” said Mike. “One more place.” Mike saw this, like backgammon, as an intellectual challenge. He led us into a shabbier corner of Porto Seguro. After the fresh air of the beach, we had to adjust our nostrils again to the developing-world smells. Every building seemed dirty and on the point of collapse. At each turn the streets seemed to grow darker, though it was only late afternoon. Debbie scanned around like a nervous bird. “Maybe we weren’t meant to do this.”

      Elena agreed. “Maybe we should go back.”

      Paul laughed. He looked like himself again, perfectly at ease, the shining boy in the rough of college punks on dope. I had the sudden, sure sense that maybe we really should go back. All the way back to colder climes and sturdy houses, where the outside kept out and the inside kept safe. But we were too far gone now, with many miles of bad road and ocean between here and there.

      We saw another Umbanda store up the road. A painting of an old black man with a pipe was outside the shop, and written below it was “Casa de Preto Velho.”

      “What’s a preto velho?” I asked.

      “It’s the house of the old black man, the old black ancestor spirit.”

      Paul nodded solemnly, looking at the painting. “Like Clarence Gatemouth Brown.”

      Mike went in to speak with the storekeeper, then quickly returned. “The guy says that if we come back at 7:00 we might see a ceremony tonight.”

      “Outstanding,” Paul barked like a drill sergeant. “Let’s eat.” Between all the toking and all the searching, we were starving.

      We walked out of the dark maze into an open sunlit plaza. We found the usual copious Brazilian feast—steak and fried yucca, seafood stews, lots of nearly cold Brahma beer. We toasted Paul and Elena’s wedding like it had already happened, and Paul grinned at the whole restaurant.

      Everybody’s mood improved, but I still felt something was wrong, and the wrongness got worse as the sun lowered in the sky. I looked over at Deb, but she was just staring off towards the Casa de Preto Velho. I asked her, “Do you still want to do this?”

      “We have to do this. It’s like when I’m in the woods sometimes. I can feel it.” And then she smiled and seemed herself again. “Aren’t you excited?”

      This didn’t reassure me, but I couldn’t see what I was going to do about it short of having a fit or otherwise embarrassing myself. Paul and Mike were two alpha primates. Gentle Elena would do whatever Paul wanted. Deb had some agenda of her own. I was along for the ride.

      The bill came: 70,000 cruzeiros. The usual nonsense ensued. Most of our currency and useless travelers’ checks were secured in the pousada’s safe. Mike lent some money to the ever-cashless Deb. “That about taps me out,” said Mike.

      “We’re low on hard-earned cruzeiros too,” said Paul.

      They were each a little short of their share, as always. I never bothered to dispute the math. I covered my share and a bit more. That was always my job with my friends, making up the difference. I understood that, but this day it seemed harder.

      We still had some time, so we toked up some more weed to aid our digestion. The sun was setting. We stumbled back through the winding shadows to the Casa de Preto Velho.

      #

      We filed with a small crowd into the ceremonial room adjoining the shop. It was a large living room that had been converted to ritual use. Several young women with bawling babies or sick children already occupied the few folding chairs.

      I expected to see an old black man, but an old black woman, Mãe Wanda, greeted us. She was dressed in white, in a man’s pants and a man’s hat. She smoked a cigarette instead of a pipe. She spoke to Mike and he explained that right then Mãe Wanda was a woman in physical form only. “She’s being ridden by the old black man’s spirit.”

      “Ridden?” asked Paul.

      “She’s already possessed by his spirit. As the ‘mother of the saints’ for this place, she’s possessed before the rest of the mediums. So call her ‘he’ please.”

      She, or rather he, made it easy to play this game of pretend with a straight face. Mãe Wanda acted thoroughly male, walking, talking and gesturing with the expansive brusqueness of a guy’s guy. He seemed pleased enough to have us there. “You’ve come all the way from America to visit. Excellent!” Then, Mãe Wanda pointed at Debbie and Elena and asked Paul with a leer if he might sleep with them sometime.

      Paul laughed and said, “Ask them yourself.”

      Mãe Wanda looked the women over, breasts to hips and back again. “This one,” he said looking at Elena, “loves you too much for me to get any. But this one,” and he stared right into Debbie’s eyes, almost serious for a moment. “This one, maybe I talk to her later.”

      At this, Paul and Mãe Wanda chuckled together like old friends. Mãe Wanda continued to smoke, drink beer, and spit like a man, and Paul was completely unclenched and unguarded.

      The worshippers who continued to file in were nearly all women, and young women at that. Paul’s eyes followed each of them from the time they entered the room until they stood crowded among the folding chairs. Deb seemed to notice this, but Elena did not. I felt a little angry for Elena, until Mãe Wanda nudged Paul and said, “Brazilian women are beautiful, and they wear fewer clothes than American women, so you can just pull something down, and push something up.” And Paul actually reddened. I turned away. This wasn’t what I’d left the beach for.

      My new view brought me no relief. Colorful statuettes and other objects crowded an elaborate altar. Iemanja was here, too.

      Next to Iemanja was a nightmare. The bust of a black woman with incongruous blue eyes stared at me defiantly. She wore some kind of metal gag over her mouth, held in place by an iron collar. It did not appear that the gag was ever meant to be removed. “Mike,” I whispered and pointed. “What kind of place is this?”

      He had to ask one of Mãe Wanda’s assistants. “That’s Anastasia, a slave who refused to sleep with her master. As punishment, a metal gag was bound over her mouth. She was not able to eat or drink, and after suffering for twenty-three days, she died a martyr.”

      Anastasia came from no heaven or hell that I recognized. Deb and Elena saw it, and I felt a shame without name or remedy. Elena brought her hand near the image, but didn’t touch it.

      Paul stared at Anastasia. Blue eyes met blue eyes, with no compromise on either side.

      The assistant spoke hurriedly, moving us away from the altar. “Many died rather than submit. Men and women would walk into the ocean, into the arms of Iemanja, and not return. We do not remember their names, but Anastasia, we remember.” She left us off to the side of the room.

      I watched Paul watching another woman who had come in from an adjoining room. She was particularly beautiful, even for a Brazilian, young with a perfect café au lait complexion. Like two other women in the room, she wore a white skirt over her regular clothes. The skirt reminded me of Mãe Wanda’s white pants. Mãe Wanda went over to speak with the attractive newcomer and I felt relieved by a rare intuition. I nodded to Mike and Paul. “She’ll be Iemanja.”

      “Maybe,” said Paul.

      The assistant addressed the crowd in a loud voice. The ceremony had begun. We became remarkably orderly, given our current chronic condition. We knew how to appear in the presence of Religion—intently interested and deeply respectful, yet not patronizing, regardless of how we felt.

      The ceremony itself was not so orderly. More improvisational. Nobody seemed to notice that we were even there. Drums played, the rhythm alien and raw even to our world beat ears. The worshippers chanted songs. Soon, the mediums began to spin around to the music, working themselves into a trance.

      The rhythm made us sway. We even sang along when the words repeated, although only Mike knew their meaning. Debbie began to turn as she swayed, so slowly we hardly noticed it.

      The air gelled with incense and damp sweat. One by one, Mãe Wanda approached each medium, and with a word and a touch or a gesture and a puff of smoke, brought them fully into their trance state.

      Mike whispered the names of the spirits to us as they took hold of the mediums. The first woman was possessed by Saint Barbara. One by one, she took each of us by both hands and raised up our arms, then brought them down forcibly. It felt as though she was pumping us full of some invisible energy. We responded to her efforts awkwardly, except for Debbie, whose arms followed the saint’s tugs without resistance.

      Another woman was ridden by the “sultan of the forest.” The sultan screeched and whooped, startling and ecstatic.

      The would-be Iemanja continued to spin. She seemed to grow dizzy, but no new person was arising within her. Mãe Wanda noticed and spoke quietly with her. She shook her head and left the ceremony room. The disappointment in the room was palpable. “A bad omen,” I whispered towards Debbie.

      But Deb continued to spin as well, faster now. “Deb,” I hissed, “cut it out. Respect this.” She didn’t respond. Instead she moved out towards the mediums.

      I reached out to stop her, but Mike grabbed my arm. “Dude, it’s dangerous.”

      I tried to shake him off. This was no longer an academic experience. “You’re a fucking Marxist.”

      “Don’t ask me why, but it’s dangerous. Leave this to the professionals.” He signaled Mãe Wanda.

      I stepped back. The room and world seemed to twist and spin. Paul held Elena protectively, and Elena held her eyes tightly shut. My stomach turned to churning lead. I was going to be sick.

      Mãe Wanda came over. He said something about “santa bruta”—an untamed saint. Mãe Wanda spoke to Debbie in Portuguese. Debbie responded in a strange mix of Portuguese, English and other words, punctuated by signs and gestures. Mãe Wanda shrugged his shoulders, whispered something to Mike, then guided Deb to join the other mediums. An assistant found a white skirt to wrap about Deb’s waist and a blue cloak for her shoulders.

      “Dude,” Mike whispered, “Mãe Wanda says this has happened to Deb before.” Fucking woodland retreats. She must have been doing some kind of trance work. This was no santa bruta. “She’s being ridden by Iemanja.”

      Elena clung tighter to Paul. The chanting crowd sounded like laughter. I was numb, neither sick nor well. Deb had never looked so beautiful, so damned sexy, so frightening, as her body swayed under the saint’s control with simple, unhindered grace.

      Deb and the mediums drifted into different positions in the room, and assistants brought some of the worshippers to consult with them. Mãe Wanda brought us to speak with Debbie as Iemanja.

      We looked like a mixed-up wedding procession, with Deb as the priest and Mike and I doubling as best men and maids of honor. Elena, tugging Paul along with her, tried to go first, but Deb shook her head and reached for Mike. She touched his cheek and quickly embraced him. She brought her hands to her heart, then stretched her arms towards him as if offering something. Mãe Wanda beamed at Mike. “Iemanja welcomes you home again, wandering son. Here in Brazil, you will find your house, your love and your children.”

      “But I don’t even want children.”

      Mãe Wanda leered and rocked his hips forward and hooted. “That’s what you say now, but you do the one thing, and the other’s sure to follow.”

      My head was throbbing as if clamped from both sides, the pressure forcing me forwards or backwards. I stepped forward. But Deb waved me aside, and turned to Paul and Elena. Deb reached out and clasped their hands tightly between her own. Mãe Wanda looked at this gravely. “Marry him now,” he pronounced. “You will not be able to marry him later.”

      Elena asked in her small voice, “What does that mean?”

      Deb stared at the sultan, who whooped and made a sudden rush towards Paul, waving a club at him. We all flinched and raised our arms to protect ourselves. Pathetic. The sultan ignored us and waived the club over and around Paul, as if to shield him from something. Mãe Wanda spoke to Paul. “You are in danger. Your enemy wants to kill you.”

      “Who is he?” asked Paul

      “He does cocaine.”

      Elena started and gripped Paul’s arm. Paul looked around as if his enemy were watching. “What can I do?”

      “There is a ritual I can perform here and now, for protection. Afterwards, you’ll need to buy three yards of fine red fabric and offer it to Iemanja of the Sea. Iemanja is beautiful, and draws beautiful things and people to herself. If your friends all help, we can stop your enemy. But your circle must not break.”

      Mike asked him how much the ritual would cost, knowing that it would cost something.

      “65,000 cruzeiros.”

      Not so much—less than the cost of dinner. But Mike was now cashless and Paul and Elena only had 25,000 between them.

      Everyone looked at me. A difference to be made up. Forwards or backwards. I threw in 5,000. “That’s it,” I said. Deb was still looking at me.

      Mãe Wanda was solemn. “Not enough for the ritual. We would use candles and other things that we would need to replace.”

      Elena was about to cry. The clamp tightened. I had to do something.

      But Mãe Wanda must have seen Elena’s face. He walked back to the altar, took the bust of Anastasia and gave it to Elena. I could hear the pity in his voice when he said, “This is Mãe Wanda’s patron saint. May she guard you through any troubles.”

      Elena’s eyes went wide, as if she had received some promise of personal horror. Whatever this was a talisman against could not be so bad as the image itself. My head was exploding. I had to do something.

      Deb’s gaze never left me.

      When Paul gave the money for the bust to Mãe Wanda, Debbie leapt forward and seized my arms so tightly I yelped with pain. She shook me while shrieking horribly in my face, spittle flying into my eyes. I tried to wrench away, but Deb was a strong woman, and Iemanja was far stronger. She was shouting in English now. “Don’t let him do it, damn you. Don’t break the circle. Save him or he’ll come to me!”

      Then Mãe Wanda grabbed her from behind and spoke something in her ear. Deb let me go and an assistant helped her into the back room. The others stared at me with some inchoate accusation. My head cleared. There was nothing I could do.

#

      We left the ceremony before it ended. Deb met us outside, her skirt and costume gone. She was just Debbie again, looking spent and confused.

      Elena hugged Debbie and Debbie asked what happened. We told her what we had seen, but she said she didn’t remember anything. She calmed quickly; she seemed fine.

      But Elena was still frantic. “We’ve got to go back and get more money for the ritual!” Tears traced down the road dust on her cheeks.

      “Shhh, Elena.” I stretched my open hands towards her, trying to soothe her from a distance. “Paul is going to be fine. Besides, they’ll be done here by the time we get back from the pousada. Let’s call it a night.”

      Mike agreed. “Good idea, dude.”

      Paul didn’t say anything at first. He still seemed a little freaked from the ceremony, lost in some memory or anticipation, and very, very tired. But then he saw Elena’s distress and embraced her all around. “It’s OK, El. It’s bullshit. We’ll always be there for each other. Let’s call it a night, OK?”

      “OK.” she sniffled.

      We trudged back to the jeep, leaving the shadows for ordinary night. We drove back the way we came. And at first, we were quiet, peering with Mike at the road ahead. Then Mike put on Paul’s favorite Rolling Stones tape. And soon we were singing along to “Dead Flowers” like we used to in school. We screamed ourselves hoarse over the wind and engine into the night, and every word was a promise.

#

      The next day was our last day together on the Bahian beach. We walked northwards on the sand until we came to a wide channel with a swift flowing current. Paul and Mike said we should swim across it. Debbie agreed and joined them. I declined. I was still feeling fuzzy, and the water made me nervous. I stood with Elena and watched them. Despite fatigue and four days of accumulated toxins, they swam strongly against the current.

      When I saw them on the other bank, they looked like golden statues in the sun.

#

      Paul and I were on the same flight back to the States. The women were to spend two more days in Rio with Mike. Paul and I both had to get back to our respective law firms. Unable to sleep, Paul and I talked about law firm work, Elena, and anything but Umbanda. His eyes were old, his jaw clenched.

      I tapped the armrest between us. “Look Paul, you don’t have to make partner. You don’t have to do anything. If the firm gets too crazy, you can always just walk away. Settle up and start fresh.”

      “I don’t know.” Paul turned away from me and looked out his window towards the sea and stars. “My family, Elena, they expect great things. They think it’s about brains. But it’s not that kind of game. I don’t want to disappoint them.”

      “Your family, who knows? You should just worry about Elena. You know, if you ever hurt her, if you ever cheat on her or leave her for somebody else, I’ll have to kill you.” I had never been so good in my life, but I was binding him. “Understand?”

      Paul sighed with mock exasperation and said, “Yeah, I get you.”

      I promised that I would call to help him work through the law firm stuff. If he ever needed my help, I said I’d be there for him. He smiled and said, “I know.”

      On arrival in Miami, he went to exchange his cruzeiros, and I skipped the exchange and went on to my connecting flight to New York.

#

      I’m on the Bahian beach again. It’s a pitch black that is hard to find anymore in the States, and the stars seem infinite and cold. The wedding’s done. I’m waiting on a friend, but I don’t think he’s going to show.

      They held the ceremony on this beach just this afternoon, New Year’s Eve, the sacred day of Iemanja, and a good day for a wedding. Both bride and groom wore white. Mike’s (to them, Miguel’s) bride, Maria, is a lovely woman with her mother’s dark Amerindian hair. She has never been to the States.

      When all the words were done, they walked together (respectfully sideways) into the sea, hand in hand to be blessed by Iemanja. Miguel still does not believe in Umbanda, but hopes that it will not argue with him if he does not argue with it.

      I am not a medium, but I can see their future in Maria’s smile. Miguel is smart and thinks he’ll be an exception. He still claims not to want children, but they will have one soon, and that means more work and less Marx and less ganj. He grows larger and farther away. And I will see still less of him in the States, or even here.

      None of the others are with me on the beach.

      In the August following our trip, Paul died. I wasn’t sure it was suicide at first, but now I’m pretty certain it was. I still don’t think it was anything he decided to do. After months of depression, it just happened without thinking.

      Paul left his office one night, the memo he had been frantically trying to complete left unfinished. He walked east until he got to the Atlantic. A witness said she saw him take off his suit on the sand, face squarely towards the ocean, and run into the water in his briefs. He swam out into the sea. He never swam back. His body washed up two days later.

      I hadn’t spoken to him for months.

      He had been doing cocaine again, after years away from the drug. But coke was just the portent. I don’t blame it and I don’t blame Paul for using it.

      I’ve never used cocaine. I tried it once, but that’s not the same thing.

      Debbie still claims not to remember anything from the Umbanda ceremony, but I’m not sure I believe her. A lot of Deb was there in Iemanja that day. It is still hard for us to talk, particularly since Paul died. She didn’t return for the wedding; she prefers to keep her goddess at a distance now. I don’t blame her.

      The shock of Paul’s death nearly shattered quiet Elena. Though everyone bears their sadness alone, it’s worse for someone who prefers silence to expression. For a time, Elena did not eat enough. She would not speak. She seemed to be fading from the world.

      Then, slowly, Elena came back. I think she had made a decision about horror and death: she would not go quietly. She keeps the bust of Anastasia in a corner of her bedroom, along with a photo of her and Paul in Brazil, on this beach. Elena talks to everyone, including me, more than she used to, but she has not had another relationship since Paul’s death. She’s in grad school now studying to be a social worker. She wants to care for women and their problems. She couldn’t get away for the wedding. I don’t blame her, either. But her sadness breaks my heart.

      I have to do something.

      It’s late now on the beach, and I think everyone else has finally gone to sleep. I get up, hugging a bundle to my chest, and wade out into the ocean until the sea is above my waist. Then I open the bundle. Three yards of fine red silk. I float the fabric on the water. It undulates like a dress on a beautiful woman.

      I sense no call to stay. Iemanja wants only the beautiful ones.

      I leave the water and sit on the beach again for a while, waiting. I don’t know what for. Maybe I hope Paul’s spirit will be able to talk to me, say thank you and goodbye. Maybe I hope Iemanja will give him back to us, to Elena. It’s late, and I’m drunk, so I hope for too much.

      But now my hands feel a light, soggy weight in my shorts’ pocket, and I remember what I forgot to give the ocean. I take out the sodden wad of paper. Cruzeiros. The same cruzeiros I had in my pocket at the ceremony, but kept to my small, peevish self. Easily more than the cost of the ritual. Couldn’t exchange them then, in front of Paul in Miami. Worthless now. Like a lost wedding ring. I wind up and throw the paper towards the sea, as far into the darkness as I can.

      I’ll wait a little longer. If I have to have a one-sided conversation, that will have to be enough. Still, maybe I’ll hear Paul joke that he’s sorry about hurting Elena, but what am I going to do about it now? And then maybe he’ll forgive me, and we’ll sing “Dead Flowers,” and I can go home again.