The Witch's Dream. ©1985 By Florinda Donner-Grau.

Part 7 - Chapter 24.

Sharing the faint light of the bulb above us, Candelaria and I sat across from each other at the kitchen table. She was studying the glossy pictures in the magazine I had bought for her; I was transcribing my tapes.

"Did you hear a knock at the front door?" I asked, pulling the earphone from my ear.

Totally oblivious to my words, she pointed to the picture of a blond model. "I can not decide which girl I like better," she mused. "If I cut out this one, I will lose the one on the other side of the page, the brunette walking down the street with a tiger on a leash."

"I would save the one with the tiger," I suggested. "There will be more blond models in the magazine." I touched her arm. "Listen. Someone is at the door."

It took Candelaria a moment to draw herself away from the magazine, and another moment to realize that indeed there was someone knocking.

She shifted her attention back to the glossy pages as she mumbled indifferently, "Who could it possibly be at this late hour?"

I glanced at my watch, and it was almost midnight. I said, "Perhaps it is a patient."

Candelaria looked up, and calmly said, "Oh no, my dear. No one ever comes at this hour. People know that dona Mercedes does not treat anyone this late unless it is an emergency."

Before I had a chance to say that it probably was an emergency there was another, this time more insistent, knock.

I hurried to the front of the house.

For a moment I hesitated outside the healing room, deliberating whether I should let Mercedes Peralta know that there was someone at the door.

For three days Mercedes Peralta had been in that room. Day and night she had lit candles on the altar, smoked cigar after cigar, and, with a rapturous expression on her face, had recited unintelligible incantations until the walls vibrated with the sound.

Mercedes Peralta had never answered any of my questions, yet, she seemed to welcome my interruptions when I brought her food or insisted she rest for a few hours.

Another knock sent me hurrying to the front door, which Candelaria always bolted as soon as it got dark; an unnecessary precaution, for anyone wanting to come inside could have done so through the open kitchen.

"Who is it?" I asked before unlatching the iron bolt.

"Gente de paz, peaceful folk," a man's voice answered.

Amazed to hear someone with a faint foreign accent reply in the archaic convention dating from the days of the Spanish Conquest, I automatically responded in the required manner, "Hail the Virgin Mary," and opened the door.

The tall, white-haired man leaning against the wall regarded me with such a baffled expression on his face, I burst into laughter.

"Is this Mercedes Peralta's house?" he asked in a halting voice.

I nodded, studying his face. It was not so much that it was wrinkled but rather eroded, ravaged as though by grief or pain. His watery blue eyes were sunken in wide circles of age and weariness.

"Is Mercedes Peralta in?" he asked, looking past me into the dimly lit hallway.

"She is," I replied. "But she does not see people this late."

"I have been walking around town for hours, pondering whether I should come," he said. "I need to see her. I am an old friend; or an old enemy."

Shaken by the anguish and despair in the man's voice, I invited him inside.

"She is in her working room," I said. "I had better let her know that you have come to see her." I stepped ahead of him and smiled encouragingly. "What is your name?"

The man gripped my arm, and begged, "Do not announce me. Let me go in by myself. I know the way."

Stiffly, he limped across the patio and down the corridor. He paused for a second in front of dona Mercedes' room, then climbed the two steps leading inside.

I followed close behind him ready to take the blame should Mercedes Peralta be annoyed by the intrusion.

For an instant, I thought she had already gone to bed. But as soon as my eyes became accustomed to the shadowy darkness, I saw her sitting in her high-backed chair at the far end of the room, barely outlined by the faint light of a single candle burning on the altar.

She stared at him in total panic, and gasped, "Federico Mueller!"

She seemed not to trust her vision, and repeatedly rubbed her eyes with her hands. "How can it be? All these years I thought you were dead."

Awkwardly, he went down on his knees, buried his face in the healer's lap, and cried with the abandonment of a despairing child. In between sobs he repeated, "Help me. Help me,"

Hastily, I moved toward the entrance, only to halt abruptly when I heard Federico Mueller fall on the floor with a dull thump.

I wanted to summon Candelaria, but dona Mercedes stopped me. She exclaimed in a trembling tone, "How extraordinary! Everything is fitting into place like a magical jigsaw puzzle. This is the person you remind me of. You brought him back to me."

I wanted to tell her that I saw no similarity between the old man and myself, but she sent me to her bedroom to fetch her basket with medicinal plants. When I returned, Federico Mueller was still lying curled up on the floor. Dona Mercedes was trying to revive him.

She said, "Get Candelaria. I can not handle Federico Mueller by myself."

Candelaria had heard the commotion, and was already standing by the entrance. She walked in.

There was an expression of disbelief, and of sheer horror in Candelaria's eyes. Approaching Federico Mueller, she murmured, "He has come back."

Candelaria crossed herself, then turned to dona Mercedes and asked, "What do you want me to do?"

She answered, "His soul is detaching itself from his body. I am too weak to try to push it back."

Candelaria sat on her haunches and swiftly moved Federico Mueller's inert body to a sitting position. She gave him a sort of bear hug from behind. The bones of his back cracked as if they were breaking into a hundred pieces.

Candelaria propped him in a sitting position against the wall, and said to me, "He is very ill. I think he has come back here to die."

Candelaria crossed herself as she left the room.

Federico Mueller opened his eyes. He took in everything in one glance, then he looked at me as if he were silently begging me to leave him alone with dona Mercedes.

As I was walking out of the room, dona Mercedes said in a weak voice, "Musiua. Since you have brought him back to my life, you ought to stay."

I sat down awkwardly on my stool.

Federico Mueller began talking to no one in particular. He rambled on incoherently for hours.

Mercedes Peralta listened attentively. Whatever he was saying seemed to make all the sense in the world to her.

A long silence ensued after Federico Mueller stopped talking. Slowly, dona Mercedes rose and lit a candle in front of the statue of the Virgin. Poised before the altar, she looked like an ancient wood statue, her face an expressionless mask.

Only her eyes seemed alive as they filled with tears. She lit a cigar and drew each breath deep inside her, as if she were feeding a force within her chest.

The flame grew brighter as the candle shrank. It cast an eerie light on her features as she turned to face Federico Mueller.

Mumbling a soft incantation, she massaged his head first, and then his shoulders.

He pressed both her palms against his temples, and said, "You can do anything you want with me."

Dona Mercedes, her voice a shaky whisper, told him, "Go into the living room. I will be along shortly with a valerian potion. It will put you to sleep."

Smiling, she patted his hair into place.

Hesitantly, he limped across the patio and down the corridor. The sound of his steps echoed faintly through the house.

Mercedes Peralta turned once again to the altar, but could not reach it. She was beginning to fall, when I jumped up, and caught her.

Feeling the uncontrollable tremor of her body, I realized how immense had been her stress and her poise. She had comforted Federico Mueller for hours.

I had seen only his turmoil. She had revealed nothing about her own.

Dona Mercedes stepped into the kitchen where I was writing, and said, "Musiua. Tell Candelaria to get ready. You are taking us in your jeep."

Certain that she was already asleep, I went immediately to look for Candelaria in her room. She was not there.

The door of her wardrobe stood wide open, exposing the bevel-edged mirror on its door and all her clothes. They were arranged not only by color, but also by the length of the hems.

Her narrow bed- a frame of laths, and a horsehair mattress- stood between two bookcases filled with romance novels and photo albums containing cutout magazine pictures.

Everything was in immaculate order, nothing was rumpled.

Behind me, Candelaria said, "I am ready,"

Startled, I turned around, and started to say, "Dona Mercedes wants you to..."

She did not let me finish, but propelled me toward my room down the corridor.

She assured me, "I have taken care of everything. Hurry up and change. We do not have much time."

On my way out I peeked into the living room. Federico Mueller was sleeping peacefully on the couch.

Dona Mercedes and Candelaria were already waiting for me in my jeep. There was no moon, nor a single star in the sky, yet it was a lovely night; soft and black with a cool wind blowing from the hills.

Following Candelaria's directions, I drove the two women to the homes of the people who regularly attended the spiritualists' meeting.

As was customary, I waited outside. Except for Leon Chirino, I had never met any of them, yet I knew where each one of them lived.

I wondered if the two women were setting a date for a seance, for they did not stay long at any of the houses.

"And now to Leon Chirino's house," Candelaria said, helping dona Mercedes settle in the backseat.

Candelaria seemed angry. Nonstop she rambled on about Federico Mueller.

Although I was bursting with curiosity, I could not pay attention to her seemingly incoherent statements. I was too preoccupied watching the distraught look on dona Mercedes' face in the rear-view mirror.

She opened her mouth several times to speak, but instead she shook her head and looked out the window, seeking aid and comfort from the night.

Leon Chirino took a long time coming to the door. He must have been sound asleep and unable to hear Candelaria's impatient, loud banging.

He opened the door with his arms crossed, protecting his chest from the cold, humid breeze spreading the dawn across the hills. There was a look of foreboding in his eyes.

"Federico Mueller is at my house," dona Mercedes said before he had time to even greet her.

Leon Chirino did not say a word. Yet, it was evident that he had been thrown into a state of profound agitation, of great indecision. His lips trembled, and his eyes alternately shone with rage or filled with tears under his white, bushy brows.

He motioned us to follow him to the kitchen. He made sure dona Mercedes was comfortably settled in a hammock hanging near the stove, then he made a fresh pot of coffee, while we sat in complete silence.

As soon as he had served Candelaria and me a cup, he helped dona Mercedes into a sitting position, and standing behind her proceeded to massage the back of her head.

He moved down to her neck, then to her shoulders and arms, all the way to her feet. The sound of his melodious incantation floated over the room, clear like the dawn, peaceful and infinitely lonely.

"Only you know what to do," Leon Chirino said to her, helping her up. "Do you want me to come with you?"

Nodding, she embraced him and thanked him for lending her his strength. A mysterious smile curved her lips as she turned to the table, and leisurely sipped her cup of coffee.

"Now we have to see my compadre," she said, taking my arm. "Please take us to El Mocho's house."

"Lucas Nunez?" I asked, looking from one to the other.

All three nodded, but no one said a word.

I had remembered Candelaria's comment about the godfather of dona Mercedes' adopted son Elio. Candelaria had told me that Lucas Nunez blamed himself for Elio's death.

The sun had already risen above the mountains when we reached the small town along the coast where Lucas Nunez lived.

The place was hot and salty from the sea and musky with flowering mimosa trees.

The town's main street lined with brightly painted colonial houses, a small church, and a plaza ended at the edge of a coconut plantation.

Beyond was the sea. It could not be seen, but the wind carried the sound of waves breaking on the shore.

Lucas Nunez's house stood on one of the town's side streets, which were not really streets but wide paths covered with stones.

Dona Mercedes rapped lightly on the door and, without waiting for an answer, pushed it open and stepped inside a dark, damp room.

Still blinded by the brightness outside, I could at first barely make out the silhouette of a man reading at a wooden table in a small back patio.

He gazed at us with such a desolate expression on his face I wanted to flee.

Haltingly, he stood up and silently embraced dona Mercedes, Leon Chirino, and Candelaria.

The man was tall and bony. His white hair was cropped so close to his head that the darkness of his scalp shone through.

I felt a strange anguish upon noticing his hands and realized why he was nicknamed El Mocho, the maimed one. The first joint of each finger was missing.

"Federico Mueller is at my house," dona Mercedes said softly. "The musiua here brought him to my door."

Slowly, Lucas Nunez turned toward me. There was something so intense about the man's narrow face, about his shiny eyes, that I shrank back.

"Is she related to him?" he asked in a harsh voice, no longer seeming to see me.

"The musiua has never seen Federico Mueller in her life," dona Mercedes remarked. "But she brought him to my door."

Lucas Nunez leaned against the wall. "If he is in your house, then I will kill him," he declared in a strangled whisper.

Dona Mercedes and Leon Chirino each took him by an arm and led him into one of the rooms.

"Who is this Federico Mueller?" I asked Candelaria. "What did he do?"

"But, Musiua," she said impatiently. "I have been telling you during the whole trip about the horrible things Federico Mueller did."

She looked at me baffled, shaking her head in disbelief.

Despite my insistence that she repeat them, she would not say another word about Federico Mueller.

Instead of going to rest in her hammock upon returning to her house, Mercedes Peralta asked Candelaria and me to join her in her working room.

Mercedes Peralta lit seven candles on the altar, and reaching behind the folds of the Virgin's blue mantle, pulled out a revolver.

Horrified and fascinated, I watched her caress the gun. She smiled at me, and pressed the revolver into my hands.

"It is unloaded," she said. "I unloaded it the day you arrived.

I knew then that I was not going to need it, but I did not know that you were going to bring him back to me."

She went over to her chair and, heaving a deep sigh, sat down. "I have had that gun for almost thirty years," she went on. "I was going to kill Federico Mueller with it."

Candelaria, through clenched teeth, hissed, "And you should do it now!"

Dona Mercedes ignored the interruption, and continued, saying, "I know what I am going to do. I am going to take care of Federico Mueller for as long as he lives."

Candelaria exclaimed, "Dear God! Have you lost your mind?"

A childlike look of innocent hope, a wave of affection, shone in dona Mercedes' eyes as she regarded us intently.

She held up her hand, pleading us to silence, then said to me, "You brought Federico Mueller to my door. And now I know that there is nothing to forgive. Nothing to understand. He came back to make me realize just that.

"This is why I will never mention what he did. He was dead, but he is not now."

The Witch's Dream. ©1985 By Florinda Donner-Grau.

Part 7 - Chapter 25.

There were several empty rooms in the house, but Federico Mueller chose to sleep in the narrow alcove back of the kitchen. It was just large enough for a cot and a night table.

Quite vehemently, he declined my offer to drive him to Caracas and get his belongings.

He said that nothing of what he had there would be of any value to him now; yet, he was grateful, when at dona Mercedes' prompting, I bought him several shirts and a pair of khaki pants, and toiletries.

And thus, Federico Mueller became part of the household. Dona Mercedes pampered him. She indulged him.

Every morning and again every afternoon she treated him in her working room; and each night she made him drink a valerian potion laced with rum.

Federico Mueller never left the house. He spent all his time either in a hammock in the yard, or talking to dona Mercedes.

Candelaria ignored his existence. He did likewise, but not only with her. He also ignored me.

One day, however, Federico Mueller began to speak to me in German, though haltingly at first. It cost him a tremendous effort to form the words.

But soon he gained a total command of the language, and never again did he speak a word of Spanish with me.

That changed him radically. It was as though his problems, whatever they may have been, were encased in the sound of Spanish words.

Candelaria was, at first, mildly curious about the foreign language. She began asking Federico Mueller questions, and ended up succumbing to his innate charm.

He taught her German nursery rhymes, which Candelaria sang the whole day long with faultless pronunciation.

And he repeated to me again and again, and in a perfectly coherent way, all that he had said to dona Mercedes the night he had arrived: His story.

It all began, at the age of thirty, while Federico Mueller was at a party in Caracas. He was approached by a high-ranking general in the government who asked him point-blank to join the secret police.

Believing the General to be drunk, Federico did not take the man's words seriously. It came as a surprise when a few days later an army officer knocked on his door.

The man introduced himself, saying, "I am Captain Sergio Medina."

Federico saw nothing sinister about the short, powerfully built man with the copperish skin, and the gold-rimmed teeth that flashed in a strong open smile.

Convincingly, the captain talked about the job they had in mind for him, the excitement, the good pay, and the fast promotions. Flattered and intrigued, Federico accompanied captain Sergio Medina to the general's house.

The general patted Federico affectionately on his back like an old friend, took him to his study, and told him, "This job will earn you the respect and gratitude of this country. A country that, after all, is your own and yet is not. This will be your chance to truly become one of us."

Nodding, Federico could not help but agree with the general.

He had been sixteen years old when his parents had immigrated to Venezuela. Under the auspices of a government program, they had settled in the interior to farm the vast acreages of land allotted to them, which they had hoped to own one day.

After an accident that killed both of his parents, Federico, not in the least interested in farming, apprenticed himself to a German zoologist who was an expert in taxidermy, and who taught Federico all he knew.

"I can not think how I could be of use to you," Federico said to the general. "All I know is how to trap and stuff birds."

The general laughed uproariously. "My dear Federico," he emphasized, "your experience as a taxidermist is the ideal cover for the job we have in mind for you."

The general smiled confidentially, and leaning closer added, "We have accurate reports of a subversive group operating in the Curmina area. We want you to find out about them."

He laughed again, gleefully, like a child. "So far, we have been unsuccessful with the men we have sent into the area. But you, my friend, a musiu trapping birds, will not arouse any suspicion."

Federico was never given the opportunity to refuse the job. Within days, a brand-new jeep equipped with the latest instruments and chemicals of a quality he had never been able to afford were put at his disposal.

Federico was always careful when in the hills. One morning, however, upon seeing a rare toucan in one of his traps, he leapt out of his hammock without first putting on his boots.

He felt a sting between his toes. He swore, and thought he had stepped on a thorn. But then a sharp pain radiated from the small punctures where two little drops of blood had formed, and and quickly spread through his whole foot, and up his leg. He knew he had been bitten by a snake; a snake he had neither seen nor heard.

He rushed to his jeep parked nearby, and rummaged through his gear until he found his first-aid kit. He tied a handkerchief halfway up the calf of his leg, then expertly cut across the two punctures and bled the wound.

But too much poison had already gone into the bloodstream. Flashing pains shot all the way to his buttocks, and his foot swelled to twice its size.

Easing himself behind the steering wheel, he knew that he would never make it to Caracas. He would have to take his chances in the nearest town.

The nurse at the dispensary near the plaza calmly informed him that they were out of antivenin serum.

Federico's face was contorted with anger and pain as he shouted, "What am I supposed to do? Die?"

The nurse remarked calmly, "I hope not, although I am sure you have already discarded the chances of reaching Caracas in time."

She studied him, carefully considering her next words. "I know of a healer here. She has the best contras; the secret potions to counteract a snake's poison."

The nurse smiled apologetically. "That is why we hardly ever stock up on serum. Most victims prefer to go to her."

She examined the swollen foot once more. "I do not know what kind of snake bit you, but it looks bad to me. Your only chance is the healer. You had better take it."

Federico had never been to a witch doctor in his life, but at that moment he was willing to try anything. He did not want to die, so he was beyond caring as to who helped him.

The nurse, assisted by two customers from the bar across the street, carried Federico to the witch doctor's house in the outskirts of town. He was put on a cot in a smoke-filled room that smelled of ammonia.

At the rasping sound of a match, Federico opened his eyes. Through the haze of smoke, he saw a tall woman lighting a candle on an altar.

In the flickering light her face was like a mask, very still with high-molded bones over which her tautly stretched skin, dark and smooth, shone like polished wood. Her eyes, hooded by heavy lids, revealed absolutely nothing as they looked into his.

"A macagua bite for sure," she diagnosed, shifting her gaze to his foot. "That snake gave you all she had.

"You were lucky the nurse brought you here. There is no serum for this kind of poison."

She pulled up a chair beside him, then examined his foot with great attention, her long fingers soft and gentle as she probed the skin around the wound.

"You do not have to worry," she stated with absolute conviction. "You are young. You will survive the poison and my treatment."

Turning toward the table behind her, she reached for two large decanters filled with a syrup-like greenish brown liquid in which roots, leaves, and snake entrails floated around. From one jar, she poured a certain amount in a metal plate. From the other one, she half filled a small tin mug.

She lit a cigar. Inhaling deeply, she closed her eyes and swayed her head. Abruptly, she bent over his foot and blew what seemed to be the accumulated smoke of the entire cigar into the cut he had made with his knife. She sucked the blood, then quickly spit it out and rinsed her mouth with a clear, strong-smelling liquid. Seven times she repeated this procedure.

Thoroughly exhausted, she rested her head against the back of her chair.

A few moments later she began to mumble an incantation. She unbuttoned his shirt, and with her middle finger which she had dipped into the cigar's ashes, she drew a straight line from the base of his throat down to his genitals. With remarkable ease, she turned him around, pulled off his shirt, and painted a similar line down his back.

"I have halved you now," she informed him. "The poison can not go over to the other side." She then retraced the back and front lines with a dab of fresh ashes.

In spite of his pain, Federico laughed. "I am sure the poison spread all over my body a long time ago," he said.

She held his face between her hands, forcing him to look into her eyes. "Musiu, if you do not trust me, you will die," she warned him, then proceeded to wash his foot with the liquid she had poured into the metal plate.

That done, she reached for the tin mug. "Drink it all," she commanded, holding it to his lips. "If you throw up, you are done for."

Uncontrollable waves of nausea threatened to bring the foul-tasting potion up.

"Force yourself to keep it down," she urged him, placing a small rectangular pillow filled with dried maize kernels under his neck.

She watched him attentively as she soaked a handkerchief in a mixture of rose water and ammonia.

"Now breathe!" she ordered, holding the handkerchief over his nose. "Breathe slowly and deeply."

For a moment he struggled under the suffocating pressure of her hand, then gradually relaxed as she began to massage his face.

"Do not get close to pregnant women. They will neutralize the effect of the contra," she admonished.

He looked at her uncomprehendingly, then mumbled that he did not know any pregnant women.

Seemingly satisfied with his statements, Mercedes Peralta turned to the altar, lined up seven candles around the statue of Saint John, and lit them.

Silently, she gazed at the flickering flames, then with a sudden jerk, she threw back her head and recited an oddly dissonant litany.

The words turned into a cry, which rose and fell with the regularity of her breathing. It was an inhuman-sounding lament that caused the walls to vibrate and the candle flames to waver.

The sound filled the room, the house, and went far beyond, as if it were meant to reach some distant force.

Federico was vaguely aware of being moved into another room.

The days and nights blurred into each other as he lay half-conscious on the cot, hounded by fevers and chills.

Whenever he opened his eyes, he saw the healer's face in the darkness, the red stones in her earrings shining like an extra pair of eyes. In a soft melodious voice, she sent the shadows, the terrible phantoms of his fever, scurrying to their corners.

Or, as if she were part of his hallucinations, she identified those unknown forces and commanded him to wrestle with them.

Afterward, she bathed his sweat-covered body and massaged him until his skin was cool again.

There were times when Federico felt someone else's presence in the room. Different hands, larger and stronger, yet as gentle as the healer's, cradled his head while she urged him in a harsh tone to drink the foul-tasting potions she held to his lips.

The morning she brought him his first meal of rice and vegetables, a young man holding a guitar followed her into the room.

"I am Elio," he introduced himself. Then strumming his guitar, he began to sing a funny little ditty that related the events of Federico's bout with the poison.

Elio also told him that the day the nurse at the dispensary brought him to his mother's house, he set out for the hills, and with his machete, slayed the macagua that had bitten him. Had the snake survived, the potions and incantations would have been useless.

One morning, upon noticing that the purple swollen flesh had returned to normal, Federico reached for his laundered clothes hanging over the bedstead.

Eager to test his strength, he walked out into the yard, where he found the healer bent over a tub rilled with rosemary water. Silently, he watched her dip her hands into the purple liquid.

Smiling, she looked up at him. "It keeps my hair from turning white," she explained, combing her fingers repeatedly through her curls.

Bewildered by the surge of desire welling up inside him, he moved closer. He longed to kiss the drops of rosemary water trickling down her face, her neck, into the bodice of her dress.

He did not care that she might be old enough to be his mother. To him she was ageless and mysteriously seductive.

"You saved my life," he murmured, touching her face. His fingers lingered on her cheeks, her full lips, her warm smooth neck. "You must have added a love potion to that foul-tasting brew you forced me to drink every day."

She looked straight into his eyes but did not answer.

Afraid she had taken offense, he mumbled an apology.

She shook her head, her raspy laughter starting low in her throat.

He had never heard such a sound. She laughed with her whole soul, as if nothing else in the world mattered.

"You can stay here until you are stronger," she said, tousling his blond curls. In her veiled eyes, there was a hint of mockery but also of passion.

Months passed swiftly. The healer accepted him as her lover. Yet, she would never let him stay a full night in her room.

"Just a little longer," he pleaded each time, caressing the silken texture of her skin, fervently wishing that for once she would give in to his demand. But she always pushed him out into the darkness, and laughing, would close the door behind him.

"Perhaps if we stay lovers for three years," she used to tell him every time.

The rainy season had almost come to an end before Federico resumed his trips into the hills.

Elio accompanied him, at first to protect him, but soon he too was caught up with trapping and stuffing birds.

Never before had Federico taken someone with him. Despite the ten-year age difference, they became the best of friends.

Federico was surprised at how readily Elio endured the long hours of silence as they waited for a bird to fall into a trap; and how much he enjoyed their leisurely walks along the cool, hazy summits, where one was easily overtaken by fog and wind.

Federico was often tempted to tell Elio about Captain Medina, but somehow he never dared to break that intimate, fragile stillness.

Federico felt a vague guilt about the easy days in the hills and the secret nights with the healer. Not only had he convinced Elio and the healer, but he himself had begun to believe that Captain Medina was merely the middleman from Caracas who sold his stuffed birds to schools, museums, and curio shops.

"You have got to do better than catch those damn birds," Captain Medina said to him one afternoon as they were having a beer at a local bar. "Mingle more with the healer's patients. Through gossip, one learns the most astounding things. At any rate, you must finish your brilliant maneuver."

Federico had been surprised and, in turn, upset when Captain Medina had congratulated him on his clever scheme. The captain actually believed that Federico had let the snake bite him on purpose.

Federico told the captain, "It is the intellectuals, the educated people, who plan and plot against a dictatorship. Not poor farmers and fishermen. They are too busy making a living to notice what kind of government they have."

Medina cut him short, saying, "Musiu, you are not paid to give me your opinions. Just do what you are supposed to do."

Medina turned the empty beer glass in his hands, then looked up at Federico and added in a whisper, "Not too long ago the leader of a small, but fanatic, revolutionary group escaped from jail. We have reason to believe that he is hiding in the area."

Laughing, Medina placed his right hand on the table. "He left in jail the first joint of each of his fingers. For that, he is now called El Mocho."

The rain had been falling since early afternoon. The sound of the defective gutter by his window prevented Federico from falling asleep.

He went out into the corridor, and was about to light a cigarette when he heard a soft murmur coming from the healer's working room.

He knew it was not the healer. That morning he had driven her to a neighboring town where she was to attend a seance.

Federico tiptoed down the corridor. Among the different voices, he distinctly recognized Elio's excited voice.

At first, he could not make much sense of their conversation, but when the words 'dynamite', 'the proposed dam in the hills', and 'the dictator's unofficial visit to it' cropped up several times, he realized with disturbing clarity that he had unwittingly stumbled on a plot to assassinate the head of the military government.

Federico leaned against the wall, his heart beating violently, then he resolutely walked up the two steps into the dark room.

"Elio! Is that you?" Federico said. "I heard voices and got worried."

There were several men in the room. They recoiled instantly into the shadows.

Elio was not in the least perturbed. He took Federico by the arm and introduced him to the man sitting on the chair by the altar.

"Godfather, this is the musiu I have been telling you about," he said. "He is a friend of the family. He is to be trusted."

Slowly, the man rose. There was something saintly about his bony face, with the wide cheekbones standing out sharply under his dark skin and eyes that shone with a chilling fierceness. "A pleasure to meet you," he said. "I am Lucas Nunez."

For a moment Federico stared at the proffered hand, then shook it. The first joint of each finger was missing.

"I feel that you can be trusted," he said to Federico. "Elio says that you may be willing to help us."

Nodding, Federico closed his eyes, afraid his voice and gaze would betray his turmoil.

Lucas Nunez introduced him to the group of men.

One by one they shook his hand, then sat back on the floor, forming a half-circle. The faint flicker of the candles on the altar barely outlined their faces.

Federico listened attentively to Lucas Nunez's precise, calm arguments as he discussed the past and present political situation in Venezuela.

At the end of his explanation, Federico asked him, "And how can I help you?"

Lucas Nunez's eyes revealed a sad, reflective mood. His face clouded over, struck with unwelcome memories.

But then, he smiled and said, "If the others agree, you could drive some explosives into the hills for us."

They all agreed instantly. Federico sensed that they had accepted him so fully and so quickly because they knew he was Mercedes Peralta's lover.

It was after midnight when their conversation ceased, bit by bit, like the flapping wings of an injured bird. The men looked pale, haggard.

Federico felt a chill as they embraced him. Without a sound, they left the room and disappeared into the darkness of the hall.

He was stunned by the devilish irony of his situation. Lucas Nunez's last words rang in his ears. "You are the perfect man for the job. No one will suspect a musiu trapping birds in the hills."

Federico pulled the jeep over to a small clearing beside the road. A light drizzle swathed the hills as with gauze, and the half-moon filtering through the misty clouds gave a spectral radiance to the landscape.

Silently, he and Elio unloaded the well-padded box packed tightly with dynamite sticks.

"I will carry the stuff down to the shack," Elio said, smiling reassuringly. "Do not look so worried, Federico. They will have the bridge mined by dawn."

Federico watched him descend the steep overgrown trail into the shadows below. Often he had come with him to this spot, looking for wild pomarrosas, a peculiarly fragrant fruit that smells like rose petals. It was the healer's favorite fruit.

Federico sat on a fallen tree trunk and buried his face in his hands.

Except for the vague guilt he had felt, at times, for accepting the generous pay- which far exceeded the worth of even the rarest of birds he had delivered to Medina- he had dismissed all thought regarding the implications of what he was doing.

Until now, it had all seemed to him like a make-believe adventure in a movie or in some exotic novel. It had nothing to do with having to betray people he knew and loved; people who trusted him.

He wished Elio would hurry. Federico had seen Medina's jeep parked in a secluded place on the outskirts of town, secretly following him.

Federico had told Medina everything, and now it was too late to regret it.

He leapt to his feet as a dazzling flash of lightning illuminated the sky. Thunder broke in a deafening roar, echoing in the depths of the ravine. Rain came in a solid sheet, so dense it blurred everything around him.

"What a fool I am!" he cried out loud, running down the steep trail. With absolute certainty, Federico knew that Medina had no intention of honoring his promise to spare the healer and her son, that he had only given it as a means to get Federico to divulge everything he knew.

"Elio!!" Federico screamed, but his shout was drowned by the resounding volley of a machine gun and the startled cries of hundreds of birds rising up into the dark sky.

In the few minutes that it took him to reach the shack, his mind raced through a nightmare. With devastating clarity he saw how his life, in one instant, had taken a fatal turn.

Almost mechanically, he went through the motions of sobbing over Elio's lifeless, torn body. He neither heard nor saw Medina and the two soldiers entering the shack.

Medina was shouting at one of his men, but his voice was only a distant murmur. "You goddamn fool! I told you not to shoot! You could have had us all blown to pieces with that dynamite."

"I heard someone running in the dark," the soldier defended himself. "It could have been an ambush. I do not trust this musiu!"

Medina turned away from the man and pointed his flashlight into Federico's face. "You are dumber than I thought," he spit. "What did you think this was going to be? Make believe?"

He ordered the soldiers to take the box with the explosives up the ravine.

Federico brought the jeep to such a violent halt in front of the healer's house that he pitched forward, hitting his head on the windshield.

For a moment he sat dazed looking uncomprehendingly at the closed door; at the closed shutters.

No light shone through the cracks of the wooden panels, yet the blaring sound of a radio playing a popular tune could be heard for miles.

Federico went around to the yard, where he saw the army jeep parked on the side street. "Medina!" he screamed, running across the patio through the kitchen to the healer's working room.

Defeated, utterly worn-out, he fell to the ground, not far from where the healer lay moaning in the corner by the altar.

"She does not know anything," Federico shouted. "She is not involved in this."

Medina threw his head back, and laughed uproariously. His gold-rimmed teeth caught the light of the candles burning on the altar. "To be a double-crossing spy, you have to be infinitely more clever than I," he said. "I have practice. Being cunning and suspicious is my livelihood." He kicked Federico in the groin. "If you wanted to warn her, you should have come here first and not wasted time crying over the boy you killed."

The two soldiers grabbed the healer by the arms, forcing her to stand up. Her half-closed eyes were bruised and swollen. Her lips and nose were bleeding. Shaking herself loose, she glanced around the room until her eyes found Federico.

"Where is Elio?" she asked.

"Tell her, Federico." Medina laughed, his eyes shining with malice. "Tell her how you killed him."

Like an enraged animal unleashing its last strength, she pushed Medina against the altar, then turned to one of the soldiers and reached for his gun.

The soldier fired a shot.

The healer stood still, her hands pressed on her chest, trying to stop the blood from seeping through the bodice of her dress. "I curse you to the end of your days, Federico."

Her voice dropped. The words were unclear. She seemed to be reciting an almost inaudible incantation.

Softly, like a rag doll, she collapsed on the ground.

With a last surge of lucidity, Federico made a final decision. In death, he would join the people he had betrayed.

His thoughts ran ahead of him. He would atone by killing the men responsible for everything: himself, and his accomplice Medina.

Federico unsheathed his hunting knife, and plunged it into Medina's heart.

He expected to be killed instantly, but one of the soldiers only shot him in the leg.

Hand-cuffed, blindfolded, and gagged, Federico was carried outside into a car. He wondered if it was already daylight, for he heard the mocking babble of a flock of parrots crossing the sky.

He was certain they had arrived in Caracas when the car stopped hours later.

He was put into a cell. He confessed to anything his torturers hinted at. Everything he said was immaterial to him. His life had already ended.

Federico had no idea how long he remained in jail. Unlike the other prisoners, he did not count the weeks, months, and years. All the days were the same to him.

One day he was set free.

It was a morning of great agitation. People were screaming, crying, and laughing in the streets. The dictatorship had come to an end.

Federico moved to an old section of the city, and he began to stuff birds again. He no longer, however, went into the hills to trap them.

Thirty years later, and as had been happening every night, Federico Mueller woke up screaming.

He sat up in bed with his back pushed against the headboard in an effort to escape that one particular face. It always came so close to him that he could see the cruel mocking glint in the man's eyes, and see his gold-rimmed teeth as he laughed in great guffaws.

And beyond that man were all thee other faces of the people who always populated his nightmares. Their faces were distorted by pain and fear. They always screamed in agony; begging for mercy.

All of them, that is, except for her.

She never screamed. She never broke her stare. It was a look he could not bear.

Moaning, Federico Mueller pressed his fists against his eyes, as if with that gesture he could keep his past at bay. For thirty years he had been tormented by those nightmares, and by the memories and visions that would follow in a wave of dreadful lucidity.

Exhausted, he slid back under the covers.

Something palpable, yet unseen, lingered in the room. It prevented him from falling asleep.

He pushed the blanket aside, and reluctant to turn on the light, limped across to the window, and pulled back the curtain.

Spellbound, he gazed at the white mist of dawn filtering into the room. He strained his eyes wide open to reassure himself that he was not dreaming.

As it had so often happened, she materialized out of that formless haze, and sat by his working table amid the stuffed birds that stared at him impassively from their dead, empty glass eyes.

Carefully, he approached her figure, but she swiftly vanished, like a shadow that leaves no trace.

The bells of the nearby church and the hurried steps of old women on their way to early mass echoed through the silent streets.

The familiar sounds reassured him that today was going to be like any other day.

He washed and shaved, then prepared his morning coffee and ate standing at the stove.

Feeling decidedly better, he settled down to work on his birds.

A vague restlessness, some undefined dread, prevented him from finishing his work on the owl he had promised a client for that afternoon.

He put on his good suit, and went outside for a walk.

The city still had an air of restful clarity at that early hour.

Slowly, he limped down the narrow street. The section of Caracas where he lived had been bypassed by the frenzy of modernization that had swept through the rest of the city.

Except for a casual greeting, he never stopped to talk to anyone.

Yet, he felt oddly protected by these old streets with their one-story colonial houses alive with the laughter of children, and the voices of women gossiping in front of their doors.

At first, people had talked a great deal about him, but he never gave in to the need to explain his presence. He was aware that because of his aloofness, his neighbors speculated about him, and were suspicious of him.

Over the years, as was to be expected, people's interest in him finally waned. Nowadays, they merely thought of him as an eccentric old man who stuffed birds for a living, and wanted to be left alone.

Federico Mueller caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror outside a shop.

As always when he saw his reflection, he could not help but be startled to discover that he looked so much older than his years could possibly warrant.

Not a vestige remained of the tall, handsome man with blond curls and a deep tan.

Although he had been only thirty when he first came to live in this section of Caracas, he had already looked the way he did now at sixty: old before his time. He had a useless leg, white hair, deeply etched wrinkles, and a death-like pallor that would not disappear regardless of how long he stayed outdoors.

Shaking his head, he resumed his walk toward the plaza and rested on a bench.

A few old men were already about, sitting with their hands between their knees, each one lost in his own memories. He found something oddly disturbing in their unshared solitude.

He rose and walked on, limping through block after block of crowded streets.

The sun was hot. The contours of buildings had lost their early-morning preciseness, and the noise in the streets intensified the dizzying shimmer of the haze hanging over the city.

And again, as he had done so many times before, he found himself standing in front of the same bus depot.

His eyes caught a dark face in the crowd. Though he knew it could not possibly be her, he whispered, "Mercedes."

He wondered if the woman had heard him, for suddenly she looked into his eyes. It was a rapid, yet deliberate glance that filled him with apprehension and hope.

Then the woman vanished in the crowd.

"Have you seen a dark, tall woman pass by?" he asked one of the hawkers roaming around the bus depot, his tray of candies and cigarettes strapped in front of him.

"I have seen hundreds of women," the man said, making a wide circle with his hand. "There are lots of women around here." He grabbed Federico Mueller's arm and turned him slightly to the left. "See those buses over there? They are filled with women. Old ones, dark ones, tall ones. Anyway you like them. They are all going to the coastal towns." Laughing, the man continued weaving in and out of the waiting buses, advertising his wares.

Possessed by an irrational certainty that he would find that face, Federico Mueller got on a bus and walked down the aisle gazing intently at each passenger. They stared back at him in silence.

For an instant, he thought that all the faces resembled hers. He had to rest for a moment, he thought, and sat on one of the empty seats at the back of the bus.

A faint, faraway voice demanding his ticket roused him from his slumber. The words vibrated in his head.

A drowsiness pressed heavily on his brow, and he had difficulty opening his eyes. He gazed out the window. The city was far behind.

Puzzled and embarrassed, he looked up at the ticket collector. "I did not intend to go anyplace," Federico Mueller stammered apologetically. "I only came looking for someone."

He paused for a moment, then mumbled to himself. "Someone I hoped and dreaded to find on this bus."

"That happens," the man remarked sympathetically. "Since you have to pay the full fare, you might as well take advantage of the ride, and go all the way to Curmina."

The man smiled and patted Federico Mueller on the shoulder. "There you can get a bus that will take you back to the capital."

Federico Mueller handed him some money. "When does the bus come back to Caracas?" he asked.

"Around midnight," the man said vaguely. "Or whenever there are enough people to make the trip worthwhile." The man gave him back his change, then continued down the aisle, and collected the rest of the tickets from the passengers.

It was fate that I had to catch this bus without having planned to do so, Federico Mueller thought.

A half smile flittered across his face. His worn eyelids closed with a quiet and deep feeling of hope. Fate was finally forcing him to surrender to his past. An unknown peacefulness filled him as he recalled his past on his way to see Mercedes Peralta.

The Witch's Dream. ©1985 By Florinda Donner-Grau.

Part 7 - Chapter 26.

"Human nature is most strange," dona Mercedes said. "I knew that you were going to do something for me. I knew it from the first moment I laid eyes on you.

"And yet, when you did what you were here to do, I could not believe my eyes. You have actually moved the wheel of chance for me.

"I can say that you enticed Federico Mueller to return to the realm of the living. You brought him back to me by the force of your witch's shadow."

My retort was cut off, before I had time to open my mouth, as sh said, "During all these months you have been at my house, you have been under my shadow- in a minimal way, of course- and the usual would have been for me to make a link for you. Not the other way around."

I wanted to clarify matters. I insisted that I had not done anything, but she would not hear of it.

For the sake of understanding, I proposed the line of thought that possibly she had made the link herself with her conviction that I was the one who would bring her something.

She puckered her face, and said, "No. Your reasoning is wrong. It makes me very sad that you seek explanations that only impoverish us."

She rose and embraced me, and then whispered in my ear, "I feel sorry for you."

Suddenly, she laughed. It was a joyful sound that dispelled her sadness. She said, "There is no way to explain how you have done this. I am not talking about human arrangements or about the shadowy nature of witchcraft, but about something as elusive as timelessness itself."

She almost stammered, searching for words. "All I know and feel is that you made a link for me. How extraordinary! I was trying to show you how witches move the wheel of chance, and then you moved it for me yourself."

"I told you I can not take credit for that," I insisted and meant it. Her fervor embarrassed me.

"Do not be so thick, Musiua," she retorted in an annoyed tone that reminded me of Agustin. "Something is helping you to create a transition for me. You can say, and be thoroughly accurate in saying it, that you have used your witch's shadow without even knowing it."