by Alex Abella
"Last week, señor."
"And you feel if Mr. Valdez had been there your son would not have left you?"
"I am sure of it."
"You think Mr. Valdez is a good man?"
"He is the best man I have ever known, Mr. Judge. The very best."
Reynolds turned his head, skeptical. "He didn't pay you to come here, did he?"
"No, señor. My testimony is free and voluntary. I'm here because I love him."
A moment of silence. "You are excused," said the judge.
Ramo got up, gazed at Ramón with compassion, then walked out in silence. Ramón grinned ferociously, a mask of teeth around his feelings.
I walked around downtown for the two hours we had for lunch that day. Restless, half-formed feelings and vague memories assaulted me in the brassy light that winter afternoon. A block west, on Broadway, a river of Hispanics surged and flowed on the sidewalks, from First to Olympic, past the grandiose movie theaters built like Aztec temples and the concrete and masonry buildings with money-changing offices and farmacias and Spanish-language newsstands and discount electronic stores on the first floor, past Pershing Square and the Japanese-owned Biltmore Hotel and the bloodied Jewelry Mart where this tragedy had struck on a winter's morning almost three years before.
I had been told the Schnitzer site was to be turned into a fast- food place, but in reality it had been converted into yet another jeweler's, Arossian Brothers. I peered inside but did not dare enter in spite of the entreaties of the long-nosed clerks, who pleaded for the pleasure of my business. I was about to leave when my eye was drawn to a sparkling diamond and sapphire pin shaped like a dove in flight. My eyes flickered and for a moment I thought I recognized my father's reflection in the glass, but when I turned there was just an empty sidewalk and a crack dealer peddling his dream wares at the corner.
At one point I found myself chewing on something and discovered I had a blood sausage taco in my hands. I stood in front of a food stand at the Central Market. Old housewives, potbellied Mexican cowboys and five-dollars-a-blow hustlers taking a break from the life surrounded me. The girl behind the counter proffered a cup full of a pink liquid.
"Your sorrel drink, señor."
I shook my head, tossed my taco in the garbage can and walked away. I looked back and saw an ocher-skinned old man in stained white shirt retrieving my taco from the can and taking a bite from it, before grabbing my drink from the counter as well and rushing to hide in a corner behind the fruit stand. I had no words, I had no feelings. A lamb's head in the butcher's meat case, skin pulled off, pink gristle over white bone, fixed its gaping blue eyes on me. I hurried out. Give me strength, Lord, guide me through this valley.
White puffy clouds rose like castles in the background as I ascended the hill on Olive Street. They were unlike any I had ever seen, tall, glimmering statues of vapor that rose thousands of feet into the air, crenellated towers of gossamer that pushed in from the San Gabriel Mountains. There was a host of them, white structures looming against the sky, surrounding the Criminal Courts Building like so many giant sentries, waiting for an order to strike. For the first time I was frightened by what these creatures of nature, wild, unthinking, inhuman, could do.
"Santa Ana wind is blowing them in from the desert," said Camille Clark, a former public defender who'd shucked the poor for a job in Century City defending insurance companies against medical malpractice claims. "Always happens this time of year, surprised you never noticed before. Things should start popping pretty soon."
"What do you mean by that?"
We rode up in the packed elevator, the reek of alcohol from a potbellied biker almost palpable to the touch.
"The static, when the clouds come in like that and run into the tropical front we've been having lately, all kinds of things happen. It's actually tornado weather, just like in the Midwest. You know, Charlie, you don't look too good. You should take better care of yourself."
I stepped out on my floor, the elevator doors snapping shut like a guillotine.
"Call me!" were Camille's last words.
Pimienta was waiting out in the hallway, his bulky figure slouched on the brown concrete bench by the courtroom. I'd subpoenaed him to be my witness the following day, since I wasn't expecting de Alba's testimony to take up more than an afternoon, so for a brief moment I thought he'd simply gotten the date wrong. He glanced up, stopped me. One of the jurors went around us, dashed into court.
"Morell, we have to talk, coño," he said.
"We will, tomorrow, don't worry."
"No, I got to talk to you before."
"I don't know if I can. Where's your attorney?"
"Señor Smith? He's not handling my case anymore. He got married and went to Paris on his honeymoon."
"So you have no attorney?"
"That doesn't matter. Listen to me, we have to talk."
"What about? I got to go into court now."
"I've been having dreams, Morell, bad dreams. I see the faces of the dead, their fingers are choking me, their shouts and cries, and I find myself in the store again but this time it's all on fire and I can't get out. Every night I have these dreams."
"Well, we all have nightmares, José. I really can't talk to you right now. Look, why don't you-"
The bailiff came out. "Better get your ass in here, Charlie. The old man's fuming."
I turned to Pimienta. "Look, José, sit right here and wait for me. I'll get back to you in a little while."
I walked briskly into the court.
De Alba had somehow entered the court during the lunch break and set up an entire Santería altar at a far wall, next to the jury box. Split in several levels, with offerings of flowers and live pigeons in baskets and sweets, the entire thing was surmounted by a picture of Saint Peter holding the keys to heaven.
A dozen men and women dressed in white sat in in the front row while de Alba, all in black, braced herself on the bar speaking to the oldest member in the group, a thin black man with tribal markings on his cheeks and forehead.
The jury was already in the box, distracted by the altar and all the strange objects. Reynolds was in his chair, Phyllis and Ramón in theirs. As always, I was the last one to the party. Reynolds gestured at me and Phyllis to approach.
"Don't we want the reporter in here?" were Phyllis's first words.
"No, no, that can wait, this is strictly between us. Listen, Charlie, I told you I was going to give you a wide latitude in your defense, but this is making a circus out of the whole thing. I mean, this is a damn altar this here woman has set up. Now, this is no church and I sure ain't no preacher, so what is it that you two are doing?"
What are you doing, Charlie? booms the echo in my mind. How can you show like at a carnival, the wounds that suppurate, the joining at the hip, the grinning bearded creature?
"Judge, this is just for demonstration purposes," I improvised. "There will be testimony about the religion, so I felt it would be good for the jurors to get a good look at what it's all about."
"She's not going to be casting any spells, is she?" asked Phyllis. "She looks like a witch to me."
"I don't think so. But maybe I'll ask her to cast a hex so I can win this."
"Fat chance."
"And who are the folks in white on the front row? Just look at them, it's like a convention of souls of the departed."
"I'll ask."
I walked up to de Alba and leaned over the bar.
"Mrs. de Alba, who are these people?"
"These are some of the main babalawos of Los Angeles. I told them I was going to be testifying so they wanted to see what was going to happen. They won't bother anyone."
"I see. Are you a priest too, by the way?"
"Oh heavens, no. I'm just an anthropologist. I don't even belong to the religion."
I walked back to the judge. "They're spectators."
"I can see that for myself. What else are they?"
"Members of the religion. They are interested in the
case."
The judge sighed. "Well, hell, it's still a free country, they have a right to be here too. Let's proceed."
After Curtis swore in de Alba, she bowed to the altar before sitting down. The bailiff tried to bring the microphone closer to her but she pushed it away.
"I don't need this. My voice carries. I hate mechanical things."
I took my post at the lectern, yellow pad at the ready. On it I had written down a single question-why?
"Mrs. de Alba, could you tell us your occupation?"
She adjusted her seat. "Certainly. I'm an anthropologist." Her Cuban accent, which had been very faint, became more pronounced under the stress.
"Could you tell us your qualifications and experience?"
"Of course. I'm a graduate of the University of Havana, 1932, in anthropology. I studied with Dr. Franz Boas, one of the founders of modern anthropology, at Columbia University in 1933, then obtained my doctorate in Harvard in 1935, also in anthropology. I have diplomas from the Sorbonne, Cambridge University, the universities of Berlin, Heidelberg, Vienna. I have published, what, sixteen books and over a thousand articles for publication. I have also conducted field studies among the Indians and blacks of Brazil with Dr. Claude Levi-Strauss and, when she was with us, with Dr. Margaret Mead. In addition-"
"That's enough. I think we can all agree you had a solid education."
Laughter in the courtroom. I panic. I'm not supposed to be funny, I'm supposed to bear down on this case, to remind everyone of the forces behind us.
"Yes, you might say so," said de Alba.
"What is your field of specialization, if you have one?"
"My particular field is the study of Santería, an Afro-Cuban religion with about five million followers in this hemisphere."
"I see. Do you know Mr. Valdez, the defendant in this case?"
"Not personally. But I've heard of him."
"What have you heard?"
Phyllis rises, red silk dress rustling. "Objection, Your Honor, hearsay evidence."
"Sustained."
How can I get around this, to bring out her knowledge of who Ramón is? And do I really want that?
"What do you know about Mr. Valdez?"
She stared unblinkingly at Ramón. "I know he once was a very prominent priest of Santería. His reputation was that of a miracle worker, years ago."
Should I follow this line of questioning? No, let it lay, the words miracle worker are suggestive enough in themselves. Move on, Charlie, you have a big job to do. He is waiting for you.
"You mentioned your special field of study is Santería. Could you tell us what kind of religion that is and how it is different from other organized religions, like Christianity or Buddhism?"
"Certainly. Santería is a syncretic religion. By that I mean it has fused together two separate strands to form a new one. It is a combination of West African religion and Catholicism, wherein the old Nigerian Yoruba pantheon of gods is identified with the saints of the Catholic church. It was born during times of slavery, when African slaves had to hide their religion from their white Spanish masters."
"Excuse me for interrupting your questioning, Counsel," said Reynolds with the look of someone sitting on boil, "but Mrs. de Alba, are you saying that this voodoo stuff is actually a religion? I mean dolls with pins and all that?"
I could have objected, argued that this was tantamount to judicial meddling and deserved a mistrial but I let it go. I figured most people in the jury were thinking exactly like Reynolds.
De Alba turned to the judge and spoke in the enlightened tone of a teacher with a benighted student. "Actually, Your Honor, believing that dolls with pins are effective is not so different from thinking that the waters of Lourdes can cure the sick or that the liquefaction of the blood of the patron saint of Naples foretells disaster for that city. It's a question of selective belief. After all, if you think that praying to a man on a cross can bring you what you desire, there's not such a great leap to thinking getting a lock of someone's hair will give you the power to affect that person. Do you follow me?"
"Like a hound after a hare, ma'am. But what you're describing sounds to me like witchcraft."
De Alba harrumphed. "Well, Your Honor, witchcraft is a pejorative term used by members of one religion against practitioners of another. It's a mind-set, you see. Santería is a religion in that it holds a set of beliefs and theological principles that guide the behavior of its followers. It believes in an immanent, transcendental supreme being and advocates the very same principles of goodness and brotherhood that Western followers of the Judeo-Christian tradition hold dear."
Reynolds hesitated. "Proceed."
"Thank you, Your Honor," I said. "Now, Mrs. de Alba, you bowed before this altar, I suppose you call it, which is next to you, before sitting down. Could you explain to us what this is?"
"Certainly." She wiggled out of her seat, leaning on her cane, took the two steps down to the altar.
"As I said, Santería uses Catholic images to represent the gods in its pantheon. There are seven main gods worshiped in Santería. They are all representations of several aspects of the main god, Olorun, the immanent supreme power. Saint Peter here is one of them, he is the symbol of Oggún, the god of war and warriors. Now this here," she said, pointing at the altar, "is called a plaza, an offering to the god whose picture appears here."
"Excuse me again, Counsel, but ma'am, I just have to ask, do you really believe in these gods? I mean that they actually exist?" asked Reynolds.
"Your Honor, I myself am not a member of the religion; that would affect my standing as an anthropologist. But there are many millions of people who do believe."
"That wasn't my question. What I want to know is if you really believe in the actual, corporeal existence of these gods?"
"Well, Judge, I tend to think of them like the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung did, that they are representatives of the collective unconscious, which is present in each of us simply because we're humans. Each god represents a certain aspect of our personality so that, when in the hold of the god, when possessed by Shangó, Obatalá or Oggún, the attributes particular to that god are the personality traits that we are bringing forth through the power of the unconscious mind. That is why in Santería two people in the same room can be possessed by the same god because, in essence, we carry the god within us."
"So they don't really exist."
"Oh yes they do, they exist in our mind, in an ontological sense, just like the entire universe exists strictly speaking in an ontological way."
Reynolds looked peeved. "Serves me right. Ask a simple question and you get ontology in return. Whatever that is. Proceed."
Laughter this time, but nervous, a little release but no escape.
"Mrs. de Alba, you said this is an altar to Saint Peter here, also known as the African deity Oggún. Now, he is the god of war, is he not?"
"Oh yes, a very difficult god he is too. Let me show you." De Alba picked up a toy gun on the altar and pointed it at me. There were cries in the courtroom.
"No, no," said de Alba, "it's just a toy! See!" She pulled the trigger and a click was heard. "You don't need the real thing, just a facsimile."
"Just like if you were entering a contest?"
"Exactly. This gun and this knife here"-she picked up a steak knife from a woven basket-"these are the symbols of Oggún's warrior status. He is also the master of everything that is made of iron, because he is the blacksmith of the Yoruba gods. Besides, he is also the god of anger and revenge."
"So these are sacred offerings, are they not?"
"Now they are, certainly. They are filled with the aché, the power of the god."
"What would a follower of a god have to do if the offerings he'd made were taken away from the altar?"
De Alba paled. "Oh dear, that is a most terrible sacrilege. The first thing is, the person who desecrated that altar and those responsible for it would suffer the wrath of that god. Which can be terrible, ranging
from financial loss to disease to death itself, if the losses are severe enough and the god is a fierce one."
"Would you say Oggún is a fierce god?"
"Most definitely. In the pantheon of Santería he is known as the Warrior. He's a very vengeful god indeed."
"So then, what would the follower of the god have to do?"
"He, or she, would be duty bound to recover these offerings, otherwise the wrath of the god would be visited on his or her head too. It's a sacred duty."
Good. The duty has been shown. Proceed with the rest of the gory list of excuses.
"I see. But I suppose there are nicer gods than Oggún, softer gods, like the god of love, for instance?"
"The goddess. That's Ochún, represented by the Virgin of El Cobre, the patron saint of Cuba."
"Can't a follower of Santería choose one god over another, say, pay homage to Ochún instead of Oggún?"
"You can ask each god to grant you the blessings that are in its power-but you cannot choose your saint."
Yes. Open the door and let us in.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well, you see, in Santería it is believed that your destiny is known from the day you are born and that you have a saint, a god, that rules your personality, your life, from the moment of conception. In Mr. Valdez's case it is the god Oggún, the one shown here."
