The Black Witch of Mexico

by Colin Falconer

  The witch saw them staring and grinned at Adam and motioned him inside. Jamie shook her head and hurried him along.

  On every stall there were cures for cancer and for baldness, manuals on how to perform exorcism alongside children’s toys, Barbie dolls and Tinkerbell handbags. There was a bewildering range of charms, amulets and dolls.

  “What are these medicines?” he asked her.

  “That is dried rattlesnake--people take it to prevent cancer. That is dried skunk, it strengthens the blood.”

  “The chains of garlic?”

  “To protect against the evil eye.”

  “It’s like going back five hundred years.”

  “Some of the medicines are good; some of these people are herbalists. Others, you’re right, it’s just superstition. But as you can see, we Mexicans enjoy our superstitions. This is your competition!”

  “Does anyone ever get sick from all this crap?”

  “About ten years ago if you wanted an abortion you could come here and buy medicine you could use at home. It was very bad, there were girls bleeding to death. The police stopped it. But most are harmless--just love potions. You see that one? Atrapahombres - that’s a soap for making a man love you. The powder there is called Ven a mi -come to me - and that potion there is miel de amor - love honey.”

  “Amansa guapos?”

  “That is for taming handsome men. Perhaps I should buy some,” she said and kept walking.

  They came to a huge glass cage with a life-size doll of the Madonna with a child’s rattle at her feet. Beyond was the pet market: puppies in cages, iguanas, frogs, goats, turkeys. He couldn’t get any closer because of the stink. Even the vendors had masks over their faces.

  They turned and walked back through the Mercado. Despite himself he was fascinated. He pointed to a little packet called Jabon de Calarme.

  “What’s this, Elena?”

  “That’s soap. It’s called ‘Soap to Shut Me Up.” You give it to your wife. What did you call me?”

  He stared at her, confused. “What?”

  “You called me Elena.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did. Who’s Elena?”

  “No one.”

  “She must be someone. Is that who you’re running away from?”

  “I came here to help at the mission.”

  She squeezed his arm, an intimate gesture he was not expecting. “What are we going to do with you?” she said and then moved off through the market. From behind, that braid, that hair, she looked just like her. Why couldn’t Jamie Fox Garrido have been short with black hair, like everyone else in this damned country?

  They passed a shop selling religious and occult statuary. Inside, rows of saints were lined up on shelves like soldiers alongside racks of exquisitely suffering Christs.

  He almost barged into a life-size statue of a skeleton in a scarlet and black robe.

  “Santa Muerte,” she said. Saint Death.

  “That is grotesque,” he said.

  “She is venerated here. During the flu epidemic here four years ago, sales of Santa Muerte went through the roof. She may look terrifying, but to a Mexican she is a great healer, especially when she is dressed in white. We pray to her when someone we love is sick.”

  “Do you believe in all this ...” He was about to say ‘crap’ and stopped himself.

  “Not in the daylight.”

  “But your father’s a Baptist minister.”

  She shrugged.

  “What about your mother? What did she believe?”

  “She said that a soul cannot die, just like my father does. But she did not believe in heaven, she said we go to a place called Mictlan, the land where souls wait to be reborn. She did not believe in a judgment day like my father does.”

  “So why did she marry a Baptist minister?”

  “Because she loved him,” she said. “I don’t agree with my father on many things but I still love him. Do you have to agree with someone before you can love them, Adam? If you do, you must live a very frustrating life. Not many surprises for you. Sorry, now I have offended you again. Let’s try to cheer you up. Here’s some candy. Do you like candy?”

  The candies were skulls made from dark chocolate and sugar coated. She bought a dozen and popped one into her mouth. “Muy bien,” she said. “Here, try one.”

  He shook his head.

  “You don’t like chocolate?”

  “I don’t want to eat a skull.”

  “Then what about one of these? It’s a skeleton. They’re called calavera, they’re delicious.” She went back to the stall and bought two. She popped one in her mouth and offered him one. He hesitated and took it.

  “You can spit out the bones,” she said, then laughed at his expression. “It’s just chocolate.”

  They passed another of the witches. “Have you ever been to one?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “You have, haven’t you?”

  “No, but I thought about it.”

  “When you were a teenager, right?”

  “No, last week.”

  “Last week?”

  “I’m going through a pretty messy divorce.”

  “You wanted the witch to get him back?”

  “Not really.”

  “Then what?”

  “I helped the freeloading bastard all those years he didn’t have a job and now he wants half of my apartment and a cash payout. If he has some bad luck, I wouldn’t mind. The only real way to get him off my back is if he ...”

  “If he dies? You’d go to a witch and ask him to put a curse on him so that he ...”

  “I didn’t do it. I said I thought about it. But you don’t know what a temptation it is.”

  “You don’t really believe these guys could do that?”

  “When you’re in Mexico, sometimes you don’t know what to think.”

  “That they can kill people?”

  “Many people here believe the maldad negra is the cause of all illnesses, all bad luck, all accidents.”

  “The black evil? So - like black magic then?”

  “Yes. The Darkness. The devil.”

  “You really think one of these guys could make your ex disappear? Like a spiritual hit?”

  “You are making fun of it but maybe when you have lived in Mexico more than one day it won’t seem so funny.”

  They left the market and walked back to the Zocalo.

  “So this divorce,” he said. “This is why you’re sending all these text messages?”

  “No, that’s work. But the divorce is making me a little edgy.” She saw the expression his face. “All right, I know I’ve been a little rude a few times. But this guy would try the patience of a saint.”

  “Why did you marry him?”

  “I loved him.” A shrug. “I knew before I started sleeping with him that he was no good for me, just a waster. Now look. He cheated on me and stole all my money.”

  “How can you fall in love with someone like that?”

  “What do you want me to say? You can’t help how you feel.”

  “Sure you can.”

  “Do you always think through who you’re going to fall in love with? Do you have a check list?”

  Adam didn’t want to tell her that yes, he did. “I wouldn’t let someone do that to me.”

  “But she did. You are.”

  “Who?”

  “This Elena. She’s gone off with another man, and all these months later you’re still bleeding about it. You even had to leave your job for a while to deal with it.”

  “If you still love him, why don’t you ask one of those guys to make your ex fall in love with you again?

  “Sometimes we want things we’re not supposed to have.”

  “If you want something you go and get it.”

  “Really? If I loved you, for instance, and you didn’t love me, would you want me to go to a brujo to make you do something you didn’t want to do?”

  “No power on
earth would make me do something I didn’t want to do.”

  “But it’s okay to take away someone else’s control?”

  They were almost back to the Zocalo; over the steady roar of the traffic he could hear the drums of the Aztec dancers.

  “You’re right,” Adam said. “I did break up with someone.”

  “And her name was Elena.”

  He nodded. “That’s why I came here. You must think it’s pathetic.”

  “Why would I think that?”

  “I’m behaving like a lovesick schoolgirl.”

  “You don’t believe in love?”

  “I don’t believe in getting so damned screwed up over a woman. People fall in and out of love all the time. It’s just chemicals. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”

  “And it scares you.”

  “It doesn’t scare me, it pisses me off. I’m ashamed of myself.”

  “Because you’ve lost control?”

  “Because I’m behaving like a damned idiot.”

  “You must have loved her very much,” she said.

  “I guess.”

  “So tell me,” she said. “Tell me what it was you loved about her.”

  Chapter 24

  They went away with six friends down to Cape Cod, for Labour Day weekend. The first night they all got drunk and decided to play charades. Elena opened the first piece of paper and he looked away. He knew her lips would move when she read it but he also knew they were going to win, they didn’t have to cheat. She put down the piece of paper, turned around and then looked back over her shoulder with her tongue out. He said “The Exorcist,” and she laughed and jumped up and down like a kid with a new toy.

  They won.

  They were accused of cheating. One of the couples hadn’t even heard of the movie, it was made before any of them were born. “But,” Elena said, “but it’s a horror classic. It is also ...”

  “... the funniest movie ever made,” he finished for her.

  The others looked at them as if they were freaks.

  But for their next turn they made Elena face the other way to read her slip of paper. She turned around and grinned, putting her lips over her teeth to pretend she was toothless, and mimed stirring a pot.

  He said “Macbeth” and they won again.

  The others were speechless. They again insisted they had cheated. But it was obvious. “The Witch scene is the first scene in the play, it’s the bit everyone remembers, right?”

  When it was Adam’s turn he picked a slip of paper out of the bowl and it was Faust, the play by Goethe.

  He pretended to be the Devil, the tempter; he put two fingers behind his head to make horns and swept his other arm around as if he was twirling a cape. He raised an eyebrow.

  She looked puzzled.

  Then he put a hand on his hip like a streetwalker.

  “Doctor Faustus,” she said.

  The others jeered and said to hell with the game if you won’t play fair. All their protests of innocence were met with disbelief. “How could you possibly have known that if you weren’t cheating?” they asked her.

  “It was the devil trying to be seductive,” she said.

  He and Elena just shrugged their shoulders at each other because in a way the others were right. The mime was ephemeral at best. In a way they had cheated because they could read each other’s minds.

  Or they did, for a long time.

  Once he was reading the paper and he saw there was a Tarantino movie at the multiplex and he looked up and started to say: “Do you want to go see ...” and before he could finish the sentence she said: “Yeah, I love Tarentino.” He didn’t know how she knew what he was going to say. He just thought it was cute.

  Now he felt like a conjoined twin and his other half had died but was still there, a constant reminder of what it was like to never be lonely.

  Chapter 25

  As they drove back down the Paseo he watched Jamie out of the corner of his eye. She had unsettled him with her beauty and her aggression and her quick mind.

  “Do you want to have lunch with me?” hesaid.

  “Are you trying to pick me up?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Why not, am I that ugly?”

  “No, you’re beautiful and sexy as hell.”

  “Don’t come on to me. I’m just trying to get over a divorce.”

  “I wasn’t coming on to you. What do you want me to do? Pick you up, not pick you up? Which is less insulting to you?”

  “Aren’t you still in love with El-en-a.”

  “It’s only lunch. I like learning about the country. I like your company.”

  “You despise Mexico, and I have been unceasingly rude to you since you got here.”

  “Forget it then.”

  “Yes, I’d love to have lunch with you. But I can’t. I have wasted the entire morning with you and now I have to go and do some work. Why don’t we have dinner instead?”

  * * *

  The concierge called him a cab and he gave the driver her address in San Angel. They stopped outside a yellow villa with hacienda doors and white washed walls a hundred yards from a cobbled plaza.

  She opened the door in a white sheer blouse, a pencil thin black skirt and burgundy Manolo Blahnik heels. She looked breathtaking. Her perfume was subtle but intoxicating. He wondered where this was heading.

  She showed him around. She had decorated with Mexican art: expensive Talavera pottery, ochre Oaxaca vases. There was a wrought iron balcony that overlooked a tiny courtyard, a kitchen with a bright coloured parrot in a large metal cage. “Does he bite?” he asked her.

  “He can probably amputate a finger faster than you can.”

  The bird looked at him with a black and sinister eye, lowered its head, inviting him to try. He backed off. He didn’t trust anything in this damned country.

  There was a small altar in a corner of the living room, covered with black crepe and papel picado, and sprinkled with marigold petals. There were various ofrendas; chocolate calaveras, pan del muerto, miniatures of tequila. It jolted him seeing a Madonna next to a chocolate skull.

  In the middle of the altar was a framed photograph of an attractive dark-haired woman. There was an artist’s brush beside the portrait.

  “Is that your mother?”

  “I was ten years old when it was taken.”

  “She must have been very young when she died.”

  “It was a car accident.”

  “I’m sorry.” He looked closer.

  “Thank you. It happens. You know this better than anyone.”

  “You look very much alike.”

  “Everyone says so. My mother’s looks, my father’s colouring.”

  “Is this altar here all the time?”

  “No, this is only for the Day of the Dead. It is tradition. Everyone has an altar like this. When I was a little girl my mother would light candles on ours the night before so her grandmother could find her way home from Mictlan. Then at midnight she’d ring a bell to let my abuela know the feast was ready. She put me in my prettiest dress and my best shoes and we’d go to the cemetery with all her family. We’d take along photographs of my abuela and some of my mother’s own guacamole, a family recipe. Oh, and a little bottle of tequila. We lit candles and cleaned the grave and told funny stories about her.”

  “In the cemetery?”

  “Of course, in the cemetery. It’s very crowded on the Dia del Muerte; there are families everywhere. It’s fun, I used to look forward to it.”

  “It seems grim to me.”

  “Why is it grim? I loved my grandmother. We all wanted to encourage her to stay with us, so she could hear our prayers and help us from the other side.”

  “You stayed there all night?”

  “We did but I always fell asleep. I tried not to but I couldn’t help it. My mother used to wrap me up in the blanket that was meant for my grandmother and cuddle me until the sun came up. Then we all went home.”

  “W
hat about the food? Doesn’t someone just come along and eat it and then drink all the tequila after you’ve gone?”

  “We don’t leave it there! We take it home. But the spirits have already taken the essence out of it, so you can’t put on weight or get drunk from it. Me and my cousins ate all the candy skulls but we’d give the pan del muerto and the chicken mole to the church to give to the poor.”

  He smiled.

  “You think it’s all nonsense, don’t you?” she said.

  “When you’re dead, you’re dead.”

  “So you know everything there is to know about the world, because you’re a doctor.”

  “I’m a rational man. I know what I see.”

  “Do you not go to church?”

  “My father took me and my sister along when we were kids. He was a regular church goer.”

  “He was a logical man?”

  “He invented logic.”

  “Then he did not find it illogical to go to church and eat the body of a dead man and drink his blood?”

  “It’s just a ritual.”

  “A ritual that means nothing? So why do you perform it?”

  “Well I guess that’s why I stopped going.”

  “So what do you believe in now?”

  “I’m an agnostic, I guess.”

  “You don’t believe in anything?”

  “Do I have to?”

  “But of course. My mother was a great believer--in the spirits, in art, in love. That is why she was so passionate. It was what people loved about her.”

  “It sounds like you miss her very much.”

  “Como no. Would you not miss your mother if she was not here?”

  He didn’t answer her. He knew the answer, but he felt disloyal saying it aloud.

  “My mother was an artist,” Jamie said. “You see these paintings on the walls? They were hers.”

  He looked around the room. “She painted all these?”

  She nodded.

  Most were oils, tableaus from Mexican history. Their style reminded him of Rivera. But there were portraits too. She used strong colours: magenta, ochre, leaf green, sandstone.

  She showed him the painting he had seen when he first came in; it faced the hallway entrance, a nude with her hands on hips. “A self-portrait. Not what you think from a minister’s wife, right?”