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Late in the afternoon after the men had left for the cemetery with the coffin, dona Mercedes and I went to the village.
"I wonder where all the people are?" I asked. Except for a young girl standing in a doorway with a naked baby astride her hip and a few dogs lying in the shade of the houses, the place was deserted.
"At the cemetery," dona Mercedes said, leading me toward the church across the plaza. "It is the day of the dead. People are weeding the graves of their deceased relatives and saying prayers for them."
It was cool and shadowy inside the church. The last threads of sunlight spilling through the tinted-glass windows in the nave illuminated the statues of saints in the niches along the walls.
A life-size crucifix, with its ripped, twisted flesh and its drooping, bleeding head in vivid color, dominated the altar. To the right of the crucifix stood the statue of the blissful-faced Virgin of Coromoto draped in a blue, star-embroidered, velvet cape. To the left was the cross-eyed figurine of Saint John, with his narrow-brimmed hat at a rakish angle and a red flannel cape, torn and dusty, flung casually over his shoulders.
Dona Mercedes blew out the flame of seven candles that were burning on the altar, put them in her basket, and lit seven new ones. She closed her eyes and, folding her hands, recited a long prayer.
The sun was only a glimmer behind the hills when we walked out of the church. The crimson and orange clouds trailing across the sky toward the sea gilded the late afternoon in a golden twilight. By the time we arrived at the cemetery it was dark.
The entire village seemed to have come out to commune with their dead. Men and women praying in soft voices were crouched beside graves ringed with lit candles.
We walked along the low wall encircling the cemetery to a secluded spot where Lorenzo Paz and his friends were resting.
They had already lowered the coffin into the ground and covered it with dirt. Their faces, sculpted into abstract masks by the surrounding candlelight, could have been the ghostly forms of the dead beneath us.
As soon as they spotted Mercedes Peralta, they began to pound the makeshift cross firmly into the ground at the head of the grave. Then, the men disappeared, swiftly and soundlessly, as if they had been swallowed up by the darkness.
"Now we have to lure Birgit Briceno's spirit here," dona Mercedes said, retrieving the seven candles she had taken from the church's altar and the same number of cigars from her basket.
She stuck the candles in the soft ground on top of the grave. As soon as she had them all lit, she put a cigar in her mouth.
"Watch carefully," she mumbled, handing me the rest of the cigars. "The instant I finish smoking this one, you must have the next cigar ready for me, already lit."
Taking deep drags she blew the smoke into the four cardinal directions. She huddled over the grave, and smoking uninterruptedly, she recited an incantation in a low raspy voice.
The tobacco smoke no longer seemed to come out of her mouth but directly from the ground. Like a fine mist, it grew around us, enveloping us like a cloud. Fascinated, I just sat there, handing her cigar after cigar, listening to her melodious, but incomprehensible, chanting.
I edged closer to her as she began to move her left arm over the grave. I thought she was shaking a rattle, but I could see nothing in her hand. I could only hear the clattering sound of seeds or, perhaps, small pebbles moving rapidly in her hand.
Tiny sparks, like fireflies, escaped from in between her closed fingers. She began to whistle a strange tune that soon became indistinguishable from the rattling noise.
Out of the cloud of smoke emerged a tall bearded figure wearing a long robe and a Phrygian cap.
I held my hand over my mouth to muffle my giggles. I believed that either I was still under the influence of the rum I had had earlier, or the pallbearers were playing some kind of trick that was all part of the day's festivities for the dead.
Totally absorbed, I watched the figure move out of the circle of smoke toward the wall surrounding the cemetery. The vision lingered there, a wistful smile on its face. I heard soft laughter, so quiet, so unearthly, it might have been part of Mercedes Peralta's chanting.
Her voice became louder. The sound seemed to come from the four corners of the grave, each side repeating the words like an echo. The smoke dispersed. It rose toward the palm trees and vanished into the night.
For a long time, dona Mercedes remained huddled over the grave, mumbling softly, her face barely visible in the light of the burned-down candles.
She turned toward me, the trace of a smile on her lips. "I lured Birgit Briceno's spirit here but not to her grave," she said. Holding onto my arm, she stood up.
I wanted to ask her about the strange vision, but something in the empty expression of her eyes compelled me to silence.
Lorenzo Paz, leaning against an enormous boulder, was waiting for us outside the cemetery. Without saying a word he rose and followed us down the narrow path leading to the beach.
A half-moon shone brightly on the bleached-out driftwood scattered about the wide stretch of sand.
Dona Mercedes ordered me to wait by an uprooted tree trunk. She and Lorenzo Paz walked down to the shoreline. He took off his clothes, then waded into the water and vanished amid the rolling phosphorescent whitecaps edged in silver shadows.
He was gone for quite some time until a wave, shimmering with moonlight, washed him up on the beach.
Mercedes Peralta retrieved a jar from her basket and poured its contents over his prostrated form in the sand. Kneeling beside him, she rested her hands on his head and murmured an incantation. Gently, she massaged him, her fingers barely touching his body, until a faint halo appeared around him. Swiftly, she rolled him from side to side, her hand describing oddly circular movements in the air, as if she were gathering shadows and wrapping them around him.
Moments later she came up to where I was sitting. "Birgit Briceno's spirit was clinging to him like a second skin," she said, sitting beside me on the tree trunk.
Shortly, Lorenzo Paz, fully dressed, walked toward us. Dona Mercedes, with a movement of her chin, motioned him to sit in front of her on the sand.
Pursing her lips, she made loud smacking noises, and her rapid, drawn-in breaths became muffled growls in her throat as she recited a long prayer.
"It will be a long time before Birgit Briceno's ghost will forget," she said. "Dying continues long after the body is in the ground. The dead lose their memories ever so slowly."
She turned toward me and ordered me to sit in the sand beside Lorenzo Paz. His clothes smelled of candle smoke and rose water.
"Lorenzo," dona Mercedes addressed him, "I would like you to tell the musiua the story of how you bewitched Birgit Briceno."
He regarded her with a puzzled air, then turned around and faced the sea. His head slightly cocked, he seemed to be listening to a secret message from the waves. "Why would she like to hear nonsensical stories about old people?" he asked her without looking at me. "The musiua has her own stories. I am sure of that."
"Let us say that I ask you to tell her," dona Mercedes said. "She is examining the many ways through which the wheel of chance can be made to turn by human means. In your case, an object turned the wheel for you, Lorenzo."
"The wheel of chance!" he said, a wistful tone in his voice. "I remember it all as if it happened only yesterday." Seemingly bemused, he prodded a pebble with the tip of his shoe and stretched out flat on the sand.
From his rocking chair behind the counter of the dim, smoke-filled bar, Lorenzo watched the group of men leaning over the billiard table in the corner.
He shifted his gaze to the old mantel clock on the shelf, marking the time under a glass bell. It was almost dawn.
He was about to rise and remind the men of the late hours, when he heard the unmistakable sound of Petra's shuffling feet from back of the house.
Promptly, he sat down again. A wicked grin spread slowly over his face.
He would let his aunt deal with the men. No one in town escaped her admonitions. They listened to her words regardless of how vile and outrageous they were.
As she stepped into the room, she complained in a croaky voice, "Those damn clinking billiard balls will not let a soul sleep. Do you not have wives waiting for you? Do you not have work to go to in the morning, like any good Christian?"
She gave the men no time to recover from their surprise, but continued in the same indignant manner. "I know what is the matter with you. You are already regretting that you brought those pagan Christmas trees into your homes, and that you permitted your children to act in a Christmas play."
She crossed herself and faced one of the men. "You are the mayor," she said. "How can you allow such things! Have you all turned Protestant?"
The mayor, making the sign of the cross, said, "God forbid, Petra. Do not make a mountain out of a molehill. What is the harm in a tree and a play? The children like it."
Grumbling something unintelligible, she turned to go, then stopped short.
"Shame on don Serapio! He is more foreign than a true foreigner. And shame on that real foreign wife of his.
"Thanks to them most children in town will not get their presents from the Three Wise Men on the sixth of January, as every good Christian should.".
She reached for a pack of cigarettes on the counter. "Now they will get them on Christmas day," she went on, "from some fellow called Santaclos. It is a disgrace!"
Leaning against the door, she stared at the mayor menacingly, oblivious that the ever present cigarette in her mouth had fallen onto the floor. She reached for the half-empty bottle of rum next to the billiard table and left the room muttering to herself.
Lorenzo, grinning behind the counter, clearly remembered the day when a truck loaded with singularly fragrant trees arrived in town. Don Serapio, the pharmacist, had called them Christmas trees. He had ordered them from Caracas, together with the appropriate decorations and records of European Christmas songs.
Not to be outdone by each other, don Serapio's friends quickly followed his example and paid a great deal of money for the brittle trees so that they could be prominently displayed in their living rooms.
To the great chagrin of the older relatives living in those homes, the trees were placed next to, and in some instances even in place of, the traditional nativity scenes.
With their windows wide open, so every passerby could see in and hear such unknown tunes as "Silent Night" and "0 Tannenbaum," the women decorated the scraggly branches with glass balls, garlands, gold and silver tinsel, and cotton snow.
The rattling of the beaded curtain shattered Lorenzo's reveries.
He waved to the men as they left the bar, then put the bottles back on the shelves. His glance was caught by a mask crammed behind the cheap religious statuary of virgins, saints, and mute-suffering Christs. The figurines had been given to him over the years by his poorer customers to pay for their drinks.
He pulled out the mask. It was a devil's mask with huge ram horns. A man from Caracas had left it behind. He, too, had been unable to pay for the glasses of rum he had consumed.
Upon hearing Petra clanking her pots and pans in the kitchen, he put the mask back on the shelf. Instead of locking up the bar, he took his rocking chair outside on the sidewalk. The wide branches of the ancient samans on the plaza stood outlined against the pale dawn sky.
Leisurely, he rocked himself back and forth. Through half-closed lids he watched the old men who never slept beyond dawn. They sat in front of their doors, talking, recollecting every minute detail of their bygone days in ever increasing vividness.
A melody floated through the stillness. Across the street, Birgit Briceno, the pharmacist's wife, was looking out from her window directly at Lorenzo, her face resting on her folded arms. Her radio was on. He wondered if she had also not slept or if she had simply risen early.
Her face was a perfect oval. And the corners of her small, sensual, beautiful mouth were set in a gesture of defiance and boldness. Her yellow hair was braided around her head, and her cold blue eyes seemed to sparkle as she smiled at him.
He nodded at her in silent greeting. He was always dumbstruck in her presence, for she had been for him, since the day he first saw her, the picture of beauty.
She is the reason I have reached the age of forty and never married, he mused. To him, all women were desirable and irresistible, but Birgit Briceno was more than irresistible, she was indeed unattainable.
Birgit Briceno shouted from across the street, "Why do you not come and watch the Christmas play tonight, Lorenzo? Tonight is Christmas Eve."
The old men, dozing in front of their doors, suddenly perked up and turned their heads toward the bar owner. Grinning expectantly, they waited for his answer.
So far, Lorenzo had consistently declined don Serapio's invitations. He could not abide the pharmacist's air of self-importance, nor his insistence in trying to convince every friend and acquaintance that he was the most influential man in town, and that it fell upon him to give an example of what civilized living was all about.
However, regardless of how insufferable he found the man, Lorenzo could not resist his wife's summons. In a loud voice, he promised Birgit Briceno that he would come that evening.
He then took his rocking chair inside and went to sleep in his hammock at the back of the house, pleased and full of confidence in himself.
Dressed in a white linen suit, Lorenzo walked around his bedroom, testing his new patent leather shoes. It was a large room crowded with heavy ornate mahogany pieces that had once stood in the parlor, which his father had converted into a bar years ago.
Lorenzo sat on the bed, took off his shoes and socks, and put on his cloth sandals.
Petra shuffled into the room and commented, "I am glad you are not that vain. There is nothing worse than having uncomfortable feet. It makes a person downright insecure."
Her little dark eyes shone with approval as she examined his suit. Then catching his glance in the mirror, she proclaimed, "You will never entice Birgit Briceno by ordinary means, though. That foreigner will respond only to witchcraft."
Lorenzo shrugged his shoulders with studied indifference, and mumbled, "Really?"
Petra crossed her spindly arms across her flat chest, and challenged him, saying, "Is that not the reason you went to see a witch? To get a love potion for that musiua?"
Realizing that he was not about to answer, she added, "Well then, why do you not follow the witch's advice?"
Lorenzo laughed, and regarded his aunt thoughtfully. She had an uncanny way of knowing what was on his mind, and her assessments were always accurate.
Petra had moved into Petra's house upon his father's death. He had been ten years old then. Not only had she taken care of him all these years, but she had also managed the bar until he had been capable of doing so himself.
Petra repeated obstinately, "Birgit Briceno will respond only to witchcraft."
Lorenzo examined himself in the mirror. He was too short and stocky to look dignified. His cheekbones were too pronounced, his mouth too thin, and his nose too short to be handsome.
Yet, he loved women unabashedly, and he knew that women loved men who loved them that way. But to have Birgit Briceno, he would need more than that. And he wanted her more than anything in the world.
He had never doubted the power of witchcraft. The witch's recommendation on how to seduce the foreign woman, however, was far too outlandish.
The witch had said to him, "Love potions are for people who do not have the strength to go directly to the spirit of things. Anything can grant you your wish, your most earnest wish, if you are strong enough to wish your wish directly into the spirit of a thing. You have a devil's mask. Ask the mask to seduce Birgit Briceno."
He decided it was all too vague. He was too practical, and he had relied on something only when it was concrete.
Facing his aunt, he said, "You know what? Birgit Briceno herself has invited me to her house."
Petra replied cynically, "She probably invited half the town, and the uninvited half will be there, too."
She rose and, before shuffling back to her room, added, "I did not say you could not get Birgit Briceno. But mark my words: It will not be through ordinary means."
Lorenzo had discarded the witch's advice because he did not want merely to seduce the Swedish woman. He wanted her to love him, even if only for an instant. In his moments of euphoria, he thought, he would not be satisfied with less than one hour.
The front door and the windows of the Bricenos' house were wide open. The tall fir tree in the living room was lit by a myriad of colorful lights, and could be seen in all its splendor from the plaza.
Lorenzo walked inside the house.
The place looked like a train station. Rows of chairs faced a raised platform that had been set up in the patio. The stuffed leather armchairs, couch, and Moroccan stools from the living room had been moved out into the gallery next to the willow furniture. Boys and girls dashed about barefoot, their mothers in tow, trying to put last minute touches on their costumes.
"Lorenzo!" don Serapio called out the instant he caught sight of him from the wide open living room. Although he was tall and thin, don Serapio had quite a paunch, and whenever he stood, his legs were slightly spread.
Don Serapio adjusted his thick horn-rimmed glasses, and patting Lorenzo cordially on the shoulder he steered him toward his guests, the elite of the town, as he said, "We are about to serve coffee."
Among the guests were the doctor, the mayor, the barber, the school principal, and the priest. They all had the same expression on their faces: utter perplexity at seeing Lorenzo in don Serapio's house.
The pharmacist seemed genuinely pleased to have the elusive bar owner among his guests.
Lorenzo greeted everyone, then edged his way to the door, and almost collided with Birgit Briceno as she stepped into the room.
She smiled, taking them all in, and exclaimed, "Well, we have the children ready to start the play. But first, come and join your wives for cookies and coffee."
She took her husband's arm as she led the way to the dining room.
Lorenzo could not take his eyes off her. She was tall and strongly built, yet he thought there was something vulnerable, almost frail about her long neck, and her delicate hands and feet.
As though aware of his scrutiny, she looked at him. She hesitated for a moment, then poured coffee into two minute, gold-rimmed cups and brought them over to where he stood. "There is also rum," she said, wistfully eyeing the bottle at the far end of the table, "to which only the men help themselves."
Lorenzo said, "I will take care of that, right away."
He finished his coffee in one gulp, and then reached for the bottle. He filled his cup with the rum, then casually exchanged her empty cup with his.
Grinning, she reached for a cookie, nibbled at it, and sipped her rum daintily. With her eyes suddenly sparkling, and her cheeks flushed, she said, "There are always surprises in store for me."
Lorenzo was oblivious to everything except her. He had not realized that don Serapio was talking until she made a subtle gesture of annoyance, and said, "I had better get back to the children."
In a slow pedantic voice, the pharmacist was denouncing the Venezuelan tradition of Christmas revelers, who each night played their drums and sang improvised Christmas carols. Not only was it annoying, he stressed, to hear the incessant beating of drums, but it was downright disgusting to see young men reeling through the streets from all the rum they had been given as a reward for their songs.
An expression of pure mischief spread slowly over Lorenzo's face as he recalled his last visit to the witch. He had told her, "I do not believe what you are telling me, because I do not know who could grant me such a monumental wish."
She had replied. "Trust me. There is no way to know who grants these wishes. But they do happen. And when you least expect it."
She had insisted that he already possessed the item that would cast a spell on Birgit Briceno: a devil's mask. "All I can add is that you must wear the mask in triumph, and it will grant you your wish."
The witch had told him that it was vital for him to choose his time well, for the mask's magic would work only once.
Certain that more than a coincidence was involved in his spotting the mask that morning, Lorenzo walked casually out into the yard. He made sure no one saw him, then dashed into a side street and slipped into his house through the back door.
He tiptoed to the bar, lit a candle, and reached for the mask on the shelf. Hesitantly, he ran his fingers over its red-and-black-painted surface.
The carver had put something diabolical into his creation, Lorenzo thought. He had the odd feeling that the eye slits, half-hidden behind bushy brows made from sisal fibers, were accusing him for his neglect; and the mouth, with the long fangs of some wild animal at each corner, grinned fiendishly, daring him to dance with the mask on.
He held it over his face. His eyes, nose, and mouth fitted so well into the mask, he almost believed it had been made for him. Only his cheekbones rubbed slightly against the smooth wood inside. He tied the rawhide straps behind his head and covered them with the long sisal fibers, dyed purple, green, and black, hanging down the back.
Lorenzo did not hear Petra shuffling into the room. Startled, he leapt into the air when she spoke.
She handed him a pair of pants and a patched shirt, and declared, "You will have to change your clothes. Take off your sandals, the devil goes barefoot."
She looked around, afraid someone might overhear, then added, "Remember, the devil commands without uttering a word."
Quietly, the same way he had come in, Lorenzo slipped out the back door.
He deliberated for an instant, wondering which way to turn when he heard a group of revelers playing their drums down the street. Protected by the shadows, Lorenzo kept close to the walls as he approached them.
"The devil!" one of them shouted upon seeing Lorenzo, then excitedly ran up and down the street, announcing that the devil had come to town.
Four young men detached themselves from the group, and surrounded the devil. Their hands moved loosely and gracefully as they began to beat on their drums. One of them sang an impromptu verse, proclaiming that they were at the devil's command for the night.
Lorenzo felt a shiver run up his spine. It filled him with a restlessness he could not control. Slowly, he lifted his muscular arms, and his feet moved, on their own accord, to the rhythm of the drums.
Windows and doors opened as they cavorted through the streets toward the plaza, followed by an ever increasing crowd.
As if the devil had requested it, the lights in the plaza and in the surrounding houses went out for three or four seconds. The music stopped. Momentarily paralyzed, the crowd watched the devil go into the Bricenos' house.
Lorenzo leapt upon the platform in the patio just as rockets, lit by someone outside, shot up in the air. Red, blue, green, and white lights exploded against the sky, then fell dizzily to earth, a shower of faint golden sparks.
Spellbound, the guests stood transfixed, their eyes on the devil and the drummers that had followed close behind him.
As if hearing some silent music, Lorenzo danced in the middle of a circle of quiet drummers, his body slightly stooped over, his red-and-black mask gleaming, his horns menacingly pointing to heaven.
Then all at once like thunder came the sound of the drums, turning the prolonged silence into a rumble that extended to every corner of the house.
The devil, seeing Birgit Briceno leaning against the dining-room door, jumped down from the platform, grabbed the bottle of rum on the table, and handed it to her.
Laughing, she took the bottle, then proudly tossed her head back and drank.
Confident of his power, the devil danced around her, moving with consummate grace, his back stiff, only a suggestion of movement in his hips.
With hands outstretched, her face rapt, Birgit Briceno responded to the drums as if in a trance.
Don Serapio, his face contorted behind the thick, horn-rimmed glasses, sat huddled in the depths of an armchair that suddenly looked too wide for him.
The guests, mingling with the crowd that had come in from the plaza, began to dance. Slowly, their hips swayed modestly, their movements deliberately restrained.
Lorenzo, surrounded by an ever increasing number of dancing women, who all wanted to hold him, to touch him, to reassure themselves that he was made of flesh and blood, lost sight of Birgit Briceno.
He broke free from the women's eager hands and hid behind a door. Making sure he had not been followed, Lorenzo dashed to the back of the house, peeking into every room he passed.
The sound of joyful laughter brought him to an abrupt halt. Leaning against the arch that separated the laundry area from the backyard stood a tall, corpulent figure clad in black boots, a long red robe trimmed with white, and a red Phrygian cap fastened on top of a curly wig.
Lorenzo moved closer to the oddly attired person. Gazing up into her clear, bold eyes framed by wire-rimmed spectacles that had no glass in them, he mumbled under his breath, "Birgit Briceno."
She corrected him, saying, "Santaclos!"
A wide grin parted her lips, hidden by a shaggy beard and mustache. She reached for a burlap sack on the ground stuffed with packages, and grabbed a staff leaning against the wall.
She explained, "I was going to wait until tomorrow, and surprise the children who took part in the Christmas play with gifts, but I can not pass up this opportunity."
Her smile took on a sly, conspiratorial edge as she asked, "You are with me, are you not?"
Her eyes shone with a wicked gleam as she bent down to look into the slits of his mask.
Lorenzo bowed to her. He took the burlap sack, flung it over his shoulder, and motioned her to follow him.
He led her out to the backyard and onto a side street, and then led her toward the plaza where a few old people, several women, and their small children had gathered to watch the party at the Briceno's house from across the street.
"There goes the devil!" a little girl shrieked. Calling to the other children to follow her, she ran toward the middle of the plaza. They stopped abruptly. Silently, the children stood in front of the two figures, their eyes wide with fear and curiosity.
The little girl pointed to Lorenzo, and said, "That is the devil."
Then she demanded of the tall figure, "Who are you? And why are you dressed like that?"
"I am Santaclos, and I bring presents," Birgit Briceno said, pulling out a package from her burlap sack. Smiling, she handed it to the child.
Dancing around them, the other children asked, "Do you have presents for us, too?"
Laughing, Birgit Briceno placed the packages into their eager little hands. A bewildered little girl held a box tightly against her chest, and shouted excitedly, "Santaclos and the devil are going to dance together!"
The children's delighted shrieks attracted a crowd in a matter of moments. Some musicians among them began to play their instruments, and beat their drums.
Lorenzo whispered into Birgit Briceno's ear, "Let us dance away from your house, and when we get to a side street, we will slip away."
Lorenzo looped a bandanna around her waist, and held the ends firmly. Their bodies twisted and trembled in a fiery, rhythmical embrace.
Afraid to loose his grip on the ends of his bandanna, he ignored the other women's explicit invitations to dance with them.
In the eyes of everyone, he was engrossed in his dancing, but the moment he heard another group of musicians coming down the street, he grabbed the startled Birgit Briceno by the hand, and pulled her through the multitude.
Before anyone realized what had happened, the devil and Santaclos had vanished.
They ran until they were out of breath. And when they heard the crowd laughing and thumping just around the corner, Lorenzo lifted Birgit Briceno in his arms, and walked through the front door into the home of one of his friends and customers.
Lorenzo saw him in the living room amid a small group of people. It did not occur to Lorenzo that he might be intruding upon a family reunion. All he could think of was that he had to convince his friend to lend him his car.
A beaming smile parting her lips as Birgit Briceno sighed, "What a night. That crowd almost got us."
She pulled off the wig, beard, and mustache, and threw them out the window.
She unfastened the cushions from under her robe, and flung them on the backseat. Searching the darkness outside, she asked, "Where are we going?"
Lorenzo chuckled behind his mask, and continued driving toward the small house he owned near the sea.
Giggling, she relaxed in her seat. She breathed in deeply, and murmured, "I smell the sea breeze."
She added, "I was born in a Swedish fishing village. The people I come from have always been buried at sea or by the sea, and the only regret I have in life is that I will not be. Serapio already owns a plot in the cemetery in town."
Puzzled by her odd concern, he stopped the car.
She asked, "Can the devil's mask grant me my wish to be buried by the sea?"
There was such a serious and determined expression on her face, that he could only nod in agreement.
She said, "A promise like that is sacred."
The look in her eyes made it clear that for her their understanding was total.
She leaned back in her seat. She was still, yet a strange, almost mischievous smile played around her mouth. She whispered, "And I, for my part, promise to love the wish-granting mask's bearer this whole night."
Lorenzo would have settled for an instant of love. Next to an instant, a night was an eternity.