A man stood at the gate, his face dusted in white chalk, a top hat on. On his nose was balanced three pairs of spectacles, all with the glass missing. He had stuffed white cloth into his ears and mouth, like we do whenever we prepare a body for burial. He removed his cloth only to speak in a nasally, high-pitched singsong that I could not understand. Beside him was another man, taller, who was inspecting everyone who came past. All around us, everyone was eager for his scrutiny.

I nudged Ti Me. “Kiyès li ye?”

She snorted. “You talk to me in English. It will be easier.”

“Who is that?”

“Papa Gede,” she said. “And Brave Gede. Papa Gede, he wears the top hat, he is the first man who ever died in this world. He knows what happens to us in the land of the living, and he knows what happens to those in the land of the dead. The man next to him, that is Brave Gede. He guards the graveyard and keeps the dead inside. He keeps the living out. He decides who enters today to play with the dead.”

“Will he let us in?”

Ti Me snorted again. She walked faster, through the crowd. I had no choice but to follow her.

When we reached the gate, the man in the spectacles widened his eyes and the taller man threw back his head. Both of them laughed as we approached and began to yell even louder. But whatever they were shouting did not frighten Ti Me; she began to laugh, too. And both men waved their hands, as if to say You shall pass, and Ti Me stepped boldly into the cemetery.

I tried to follow, but as I did, one of the men yelled something again, in that sharp, nasally voice, so strange.

Ti Me laughed to herself but kept moving.

“Why does he talk like that?” I asked her as I hesitated just past the entrance. I could feel the heat of the crowd pressing against my back.

“He speaks in the voice of the dead,” Ti Me said. “The dead all sound like that.”

“What did he say?”

“I will tell you after, mamselle.”

In the graveyard, people were crowding around two tombs, pressing forward, laughing, singing. Some were resting against the walls of the dead, others placing bowls of food and drink on the tops. “These are the tombs of the first woman who died, Manman Briggette, and her husband,” Ti Me said. “And here is the tomb of the first to die by the hand of man, and there is the first murder. They are all here to call up the dead.”

All around us was the sharp smell of rum. A woman danced past, a jug held high above her head, the liquid sloshing out, down her arm, on her face. Some of it sprayed on me. I coughed when it touched my lips.