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The rainy season was almost over, yet it still rained every afternoon; a torrential downpour accompanied by thunder and lightning.
Usually, I spent these rainy afternoons with dona Mercedes in her room, where she lay in her hammock, either bemused with or indifferent to my presence.
If I asked her a question, she would answer me. If I said nothing, she would remain silent.
"No patient ever comes after the rain," I said, watching the downpour from her bedroom window.
The storm was soon over, and it left the street flooded.
Three buzzards landed on a nearby roof. With wings outstretched they leapt about, then lined up at the very ridge and faced the sun bursting through the clouds.
Half-naked children came out of their houses. They booed the buzzards away, then chased one another across the muddy puddles.
"No one ever comes after the rain," I repeated and turned to dona Mercedes, who was sitting silently in her hammock, one leg crossed over the other, staring at her cutoff shoe.
"I think I will go and visit Leon Chirino," I said and got up from my chair.
"I would not do that," she mumbled, her gaze still on her toes.
She looked up. There was a heavy brooding look in her eyes.
She hesitated, frowning and biting her lips, as if she wanted to say something else. Instead, she rose and, taking my arm, led me to her working room.
Once inside, she moved with great speed, her skirt swishing noisily as she went from one corner to another, looking over and over again in the same places, turning everything upside down on the table, on the altar, and inside the glass cabinet. "I can not find it," she finally said.
"What did you lose?" I asked. "Perhaps I know where it is."
She opened her mouth to speak, but instead she turned to the altar. She lit a candle, then a cigar, which she puffed on nonstop until it was just a stub, her eyes fixed on the ashes falling on the metal plate in front of her.
She turned abruptly, stared at me still standing by the table, and went down on her haunches. She crawled underneath the table and, reaching behind the bottles, dragged out a long gold chain on which a clump of medals was attached.
I began, "What are you..."
I stopped in mid-sentence as I remembered the night she threw the chain high up in the sky. 'When you see the medals again, you will return to Caracas,' she had said.
I never found out if some kind of trick had been involved or if I had merely been too tired to witness their fall. I had totally forgotten about the medals, for I had not seen them since.
Mercedes Peralta was grinning as she stood up. She hung the medals around my neck and said, "Feel how heavy they are. Pure gold!"
"They really are heavy!" I exclaimed, bouncing the clump in my hand.
Smooth and shiny, the medals had a luxuriant orange tinge to them, characteristic of Venezuelan gold.
They ranged in size from a dime to a silver dollar. Not all of them were religious medals. Some bore the likeness of Indian chieftains from the time of the Spanish Conquest.
I asked, "What are they for?"
Dona Mercedes said, "To diagnose. To heal. They are good for anything I choose to do with them."
Sighing loudly, she sat on her chair by the table.
With the chain still around my neck, I stood in front of her. I wanted to ask her where I should put the medals, but a feeling of utter desolation rendered me speechless. As I gazed into her eyes, I saw boundless melancholy and longing reflected in them.
"You are an experienced medium now," she murmured. "But your time here has ended."
She had tried for a week to help me summon the spirit of her ancestor. It seemed that my incantations had no more power. We had failed to lure the spirit as I alone had done every night for months.
Dona Mercedes laughed a little tinkling laughter that sounded oddly ominous. "The spirit is telling us that it is time for you to move on.
"You have fulfilled what you came to do. You came to move the wheel of chance for me.
"I moved it for you the night I saw you at the plaza from Leon Chirino's car. It was at that precise instant that I wished you to come here.
"Had I not done so, you would never have found me regardless of who sent you to my door. You see, I, too, used my witch's shadow to make a link for you."
She gathered the boxes, candles, jars, and scraps of material from the table, piled them in her arms, then carefully eased herself out of her chair. "Help me," she said, pointing with her chin to the glass cabinet.
After placing each item neatly on the shelves, I turned to the altar and lined up the knocked-over saints.
"A part of me will always be with you," dona Mercedes said softly. "Wherever you go, whatever you do, my invisible spirit will always be there. Fate has woven its invisible threads and tied us together."
The thought that she was saying good-bye brought tears to my eyes. It struck me like a revelation that I had taken her for granted, loved her carelessly and easily the way one loves the old.
I had no time to express my feelings, for at that moment an old woman burst into the room.
"Dona Mercedes!" she cried out, clutching her folded hands against her shriveled bosom. "You have to help Clara.
"She has had one of her attacks, and there is no way I can bring her here. She is just lying on her bed as if she were dead."
The woman spoke rapidly out of the side of her mouth, her voice rising sharply as she moved toward the healer.
"I do not know what to do. There is no use calling the doctor, for I know that she is having one of her attacks."
She paused and crossed herself, and as she looked about the room, she discovered me. She mumbled contritely, "I did not realize you were with a patient."
Offering the woman a chair, dona Mercedes put her at ease as she explained, "Do not worry, Emilia. The musiua is no patient. She is my helper."
Then dona Mercedes sent me to fetch her basket from the kitchen.
As I stepped outside I heard dona Mercedes ask Emilia if the aunts had been to visit Clara. I took my time closing the curtain behind me so that I could hear the woman's answer.
She said, "They finally left this morning after having been here for almost a week. They want to move back here. Luisito came, too, and as usual he was anxious to take Clara back with him to Caracas."
Although I had no way of assessing what the information meant to dona Mercedes, I knew that she deemed it necessary to include the house in her treatment, for she sent Emilia to the drugstore to purchase a bottle of lluvia de oro, golden rain; a bottle of lluvia de plata, silver rain; and a bottle of la mono poderosa, the powerful hand.
These flower extracts, mixed with water, are used to wash the bewitched as well as their houses. It is a task the bewitched themselves have to perform.
The valley and the gentle slopes south of town- where sugarcane fields used to be- had been claimed by industrial centers and unattractive rows of boxlike houses.
Amid them, like some relic of the past, stood what remained of the hacienda El Rincon: a large pink house and an orchard.
For a long time dona Mercedes and I stood gazing at the house, the peeling paint, the closed doors, and shutters.
Not a sound came from inside. Not a leaf stirred in the trees.
We walked through the front gate. The traffic noise from the wide streets around us was muted by the crumbling high wall enclosing the property and by the tall casuarina trees, which also shut out the direct sun.
"Do you think Emilia has returned?" I whispered, intimidated by that eerie silence; by the afternoon shadows falling across the wide walkway.
Without answering, dona Mercedes pushed open the front door.
A gust of wind redolent of decay scattered dead leaves at our feet.
We walked along the wide corridor bordering the inside patio full of shade and humidity.
Water trickled from a flat dish held perfectly balanced on the raised hands of a chubby angel.
We turned a corner and continued along another corridor past endless rooms.
Half-opened doors allowed us glimpses of unmatched odds and ends of furniture thrown together in the most haphazard fashion.
I could see sheets draped over couches and armchairs, rolled-up carpets, and statues. Beveled mirrors, portraits, and paintings were propped against the walls, as if waiting to be rehung.
Dona Mercedes, not in the least perturbed by the chaotic atmosphere of the house, only shrugged her shoulders when I commented on it.
With the confidence of someone familiar with her surroundings, she stepped into a large, dimly lit bedroom.
At the very center stood a wide mahogany bed draped with mosquito nets as delicate as mist. Dark, heavy curtains covered the windows, and a black cloth was flung over the mirror on the dresser.
The smell of burning tallow, incense, and holy water made me think of a church.
Books lay everywhere, piled carelessly on the floor, on the bed, on the two armchairs, on the night table, on the dresser, and even on an upside-down chamber pot.
Mercedes Peralta turned on the lamp by the night table. "Clara," she called softly, pushing the netting aside.
Expecting to see a child, I stood gaping at a young woman, perhaps in her late twenties, propped against the raised headboard with her limbs all awry like a rag doll that had been carelessly tossed on the bed.
A red Chinese silk robe embroidered with dragons barely covered her voluptuous figure. In spite of her disheveled appearance, she was stunningly beautiful, with high slanted cheekbones, a sensual full mouth, and dark skin burnished to a fine gloss.
"Negrita, Clarita," dona Mercedes called, shaking her gently by the shoulder.
The young woman opened her eyes with a start- like someone awakening from a nightmare- then shrank back, her pupils enormously dilated. Tears flowed down her cheeks, but no expression crossed her face.
Pushing the books onto the floor, dona Mercedes placed her basket at the foot of the bed, retrieved a handkerchief, sprinkled it with perfumed water and ammonia, her favorite remedy, and held it under the woman's nose.
The spiritual injection, as dona Mercedes called it, did not seem to affect the young woman, for she only stirred slightly. "Why can I not die in peace?" she asked, her voice querulous with fatigue.
"Do not talk nonsense, Clara," dona Mercedes said, rummaging through her basket. "When a person is ready to die, I will gladly help them prepare for their eternal sleep.
"There are sicknesses that bring a body's death, but your time to die has not come yet."
As soon as dona Mercedes had found what she was after, she rose and motioned me to come closer.
"Stay with her. I will be back shortly," she whispered in my ear.
Uneasily, I watched her leave the room, then shifted my attention to the bed, and caught sight of the deathlike stillness in the woman's face.
She did not even appear to be breathing, but she seemed aware of my intense scrutiny. Her lids slowly opened, flickering and lazily, hurt by the dim light.
She reached for the brush on the night table. "Would you braid my hair for me?" she asked.
Smiling, I nodded and took the brush. "One or two braids?" I asked, running the brush through her long curly hair; over and over to get out the tangles.
Like dona Mercedes' and Candelaria's, her hair smelled of rosemary.
"How about one nice thick braid?" I asked.
Clara did not answer. With a fixed, but absent, gaze she stared at the farthest wall in the room, where oval-framed photographs hung surrounded by palm fronds braided in the form of a cross.
With her face contorted by pain she turned toward me. Her limbs began to shake violently. Her face darkened as she gasped for air and tried to push herself up the headboard.
I ran to the door, but afraid to leave her all by herself, I did not dare go out of the room. Repeatedly, I called for dona Mercedes. There was no answer.
Certain that some fresh air would do Clara good, I stepped over to the window and pulled open the curtain.
A faint glimmer of daylight still lingered outside. It made the leaves of the fruit trees vibrate with color and chased the shadows out of the room.
But the warm breeze drifting through the window made Clara only worse. Her body shook convulsively. Heaving and gasping, she collapsed on the bed.
Afraid that she might be suffering from an epileptic seizure and might bite off her tongue, I tried to get the hairbrush between her chattering teeth.
That filled her with terror. Her eyes dilated further. Her fingernails turned purple, and her wildly racing heartbeat throbbed in the swelling veins of her neck.
At a total loss as to what to do, I clutched the gold medals, which were still around my neck, and swung them back and forth in front of her eyes. I was not guided by any definite thought or idea; it was a purely automatic response.
"Negrita, Clarita," I murmured the way I had heard dona Mercedes call her earlier.
With a feeble effort, Clara tried to lift her hand.
I lowered the chain within her reach. Moaning softly, she clasped the medals and held them against her breasts.
She seemed to be drawing strength from some magic force, for the swollen veins in her neck receded. Her breathing became easier. Her pupils went back to normal, and I noticed that her eyes were not dark but a light brown, like amber.
A faint smile formed on her lips, which stuck dryly to her teeth. Closing her eyes, she let go of the medals and slipped sideways on the bed.
Dona Mercedes walked in so swiftly that she seemed to materialize at the foot of the bed, as if conjured up by the shadows invading the room.
In her hands, she held a large aluminum mug filled with a strong-smelling potion. Tightly clasped under her arm was a pile of newspapers.
Pressing her lips firmly together, she gestured me to remain silent, then placed the mug on the night table, and the newspapers on the floor.
She picked up the gold chain from the bed and, smiling, hung the medals around her neck.
Mumbling a prayer, she lit a candle and again rummaged through her basket until she found a tiny black clump of dough wrapped in leaves.
She rolled the dough between her palms into a ball and dropped it into the mug. It dissolved instantly with a fizzling sound.
She stirred the potion with her finger, and after tasting it brought the mug to Clara's lips. "Drink it all," she ordered.
Dona Mercedes watched silently, with an oddly detached expression on her face, as Clara gulp the liquid down.
An almost imperceptible smile appeared on Clara's face. It quickly turned into a harsh laughter, and ended in a terrified chatter, of which I did not catch a single word.
Moments later, she lay flat on the bed, whispering broken excuses and asking forgiveness.
Totally unperturbed by her outburst, dona Mercedes bent over Clara and massaged around her eyes; her fingers describing identical circles.
She moved to her temples, then with downward strokes, massaged the rest of her face, as if she were pulling off a mask.
Expertly, she rolled Clara toward the edge of the bed. Then, making sure Clara's head was hanging directly over the newspapers on the floor, she pressed hard on Clara's back until she vomited.
Nodding with approval, dona Mercedes examined the dark clump on the floor, wrapped it in the papers, and tied the bundle with a string.
"Now we will have to bury this mess outside," she said, and in one swift motion she lifted Clara off the bed.
Gently, she wiped her face clean and tightened the belt on her robe.
"Musiua," dona Mercedes called, turning toward me, "hold Clara's other arm."
With the young woman in between us, we slowly shuffled down the corridor out into the yard and down the wide cement steps that led to the terraced slope where fruit trees grew.
There dona Mercedes buried the bundle in a deep hole she made me dig. Clara sat on the stone steps and watched us indifferently.
For six consecutive days Clara fasted. Every afternoon at precisely six o'clock, I drove dona Mercedes to El Rincon. She treated Clara in exactly the same manner. Each session ended under a fruit tree, where the newspaper bundle, smaller each day, was buried.
On the sixth and last day, hard as she tried, Clara did not vomit. Nevertheless, dona Mercedes made her bury the empty, bundled-up paper.
"Will she be all right now?" I asked on the way home. "Are the sessions over?"
"Not quite, to both questions," she said.
"Starting tomorrow, you are going to see Clara every day by yourself as part of her treatment." She patted my arm affectionately. "Get her to talk to you. It will do her a lot of good.
"And," she added as an afterthought, "it will do you a lot of good too."
Clothes and shoebox in hand, Clara hurried down the corridor into the bathroom.
She dropped everything on the floor, then took off her nightgown and admired herself in the mirrored walls.
She moved closer to see if her budding breasts had grown a bit more overnight. A satisfied smile spread over her face as she bent her head and counted her few pubic hairs.
Humming a little tune, she turned on the hot and cold water faucets in the enormous shell-shaped bathtub, then went over to the dressing table and carefully examined the various bottles arranged on the marble top.
Unable to decide which of the bath gels or salts to use, she poured a small amount of each into the water.
For a moment she stood staring at the foaming bubbles.
How different it had been in Piritu. Water had to be drawn from the river or from the newly installed municipal faucet by the road and had to be carried up the hill in tin cans.
Only a year had passed since her arrival at El Rincon, yet it seemed she had been living in this large old house forever.
She had made no conscious effort to forget her life in Piritu. Her memories, however, had begun to fade like visions in a dream.
All that remained was her grandmother's face, with the sound of her rocking chair creaking on the dirt-packed floor on that last day in the shack.
"You are almost grown up, Negra," her grandmother had said, her face looking older, more tired than it ever had before. The child knew at that instant that the only person she had in the world was going to die.
"That is what old age does," her grandmother had said, aware of the child's realization. "When a body is ready to die, there is nothing one can do but lie down and close one's eyes.
"I have already traded my rocking chair for a coffin, and this shack for a Christian burial."
"But grandmother..."
"Hush, child," the old woman stopped her in mid-sentence.
She pulled out a handkerchief from her skirt pocket, untied the knot in one corner, and counted the few coins she kept there for an emergency. "It is enough to get you to El Rincon."
She ran her fingers over the child's face, then braided her long curly hair.
"No one knows who your father is, but your mother, my daughter, is don Luis's illegitimate child.
"She left for Caracas right after you were born. She went to seek her fortune; but fortune does not need to be sought...quot;
Her voice trailed off. She had lost her train of thought.
After a long silence she added, "I am sure don Luis will recognize you as his granddaughter. He is the owner of El Rincon. He is old and lonely."
She took the child's hands in hers, pressed them against her wrinkled cheeks, and kissed the leaf-shaped mole in her right palm. "Show this to him."
The candle burning before the figure of a black Christ blurred before the child's eyes.
Clara let her gaze wander to the cot in the corner, to the basket stuffed with starched, unironed clothing, to the wheelbarrow leaning against the wall in which she pushed her grandmother around.
For one last time Clara's eyes rested on the old woman settled back in her rocking chair. Her grandmother stared with empty eyes into the distance, and her face was already shrunken with death.
It was dusk when the bus driver let her off right in front of the recessed arched doorway built into the wall surrounding El Rincon.
She walked up the terraced hillside, where fruit trees grew all evenly spaced from one another.
Halfway up she stopped short and remained utterly still, her whole being taken over by the sight of a small tree covered with white blossoms.
A voice said, "That is an apple tree."
Then the voice inquired, "And who are you? Where have you come from?"
For an instant, she believed it was the tree that had spoken, then she became aware of an old man standing beside her.
Clara said, "I fell out of the apple tree."
She held out her hand in greeting.
Surprised by her formal gesture, he stared at her hand. Instead of shaking it, he just held it in his with her palm turned up. His thumb moved over the leaf-shaped mole, as he murmured, "Strange."
He asked again, "Who are you?"
Clara said hopefully, "I think I am your granddaughter."
She had taken an instant liking to him. He was frail-looking, with silver-white hair that contrasted sharply with his tanned face. From his nose to the corners of his mouth ran two deep lines. She wondered if they had been drawn by worry and hard work, or by smiling a lot.
His thumb still rubbing over the leaf-shaped mole, the old man asked, "Who sent you here?"
Clara answered, "My grandmother, Eliza Gomez, of Piritu. She used to work here. She died yesterday morning."
He studied her upturned face with its wide, amber-colored eyes, the fine nose, the full mouth, and the determined angle of her chin. He asked, "What is your name?"
She started by saying, "They call me La Negra..."
But she faltered under his intense scrutiny.
He finished for her by saying, "La Negra Clara. That was my grandmother's name. She was as dark as you."
To make light of his words, he led her around the apple tree, and said, "This was the size of a parsley sprig when I brought it back with me from a trip to Europe. People laughed at me, saying that the tree would never grow in the tropics.
"It is old now. It has not grown very tall, nor has it ever borne any fruit. But once in a while it dresses itself all in white."
Wistfully, he looked at the delicate blossoms. Then his glance came to rest on the child's eager face, and he said, "It is just as well that you fell out of the apple tree. This way I will never take such a gift for granted."
Emilia's voice roused Clara from her reveries. "Negra," she called, sticking her head through the door. "Hurry up, child. I heard the car down the road."
Hastily, Clara stepped out of the tub, dried herself, and still half-wet, slipped into her favorite dress. It was yellow with embroidered daisies around the collar, the sleeves, and the waistband.
Looking at herself in the mirror, she giggled. The dress made her look even darker, but she liked it.
She had no doubt that her cousin Luisito would like it, too. He was to spend the whole summer at El Rincon. She had never met him. Last summer his parents had taken him to Europe.
Upon hearing the sound of an engine, Clara rushed along the corridor to the living room just in time to see from the open window a shiny black limousine pull up the driveway.
Amazed, she watched the uniformed chauffeur and a corpulent woman dressed in a white smock alight from the car.
Somber faced, they unloaded an endless number of suitcases, boxes, baskets, and bird cages.
Silently, they carried everything inside, disdaining Emilia's help when she ran out to give them a hand.
Before they were quite done, a loud, uninterrupted honking echoed down the road. Within moments a second car, just as large, black, and shiny as the first one, pulled up.
A short fat man, dressed in a beige guayabera, a Panama hat, and dark pants stuffed into boots that creaked with newness, moved out from behind the steering wheel.
Clara knew it was Raul; a very important man in the government and her grandfather's son-in-law.
"Don Luis!" Raul shouted. "I have brought your daughters; the Three Graces!"
He bowed low, almost sweeping the ground with his hat, then opened the back door of the limousine and held out his hand to help three women out of the car. They were the twins, Maria del Rosario and Maria del Carmen, and the youngest sister, Maria Magdalena, Raul's wife.
Raul opened the car's front door, and called out, "Luisito. Let me help you with those..."
Clara, not waiting to hear the rest of his words, rushed outside. She began, "Luisito! I have been looking forward..."
But Clara came to a dead halt. Bewildered, she stared at the little boy holding on to a pair of crutches, and said, "I did not know you had an accident."
Glowering, Luisito looked into her dark face. "I did not have an accident," he said matter-of-factly.
For being so slight and frail, he had a booming voice. "I had poliomyelitis," he explained, and noticing her uncomprehending expression, he added, "I am a cripple."
"A cripple?" she repeated with a quizzical, yet calm, acceptance. "No one told me."
His little white hands and dark curls framing his pale, delicately featured face made her think of something unworldly. He reminded her of the blossoms on the apple tree.
She knew him to be thirteen, a year older than she, but to look at him one would think he was seven or eight.
His lips turned up at the corners, twitching, as if he had guessed her thoughts, and was suppressing his laughter.
"Oh, Luisito." She sighed with relief and bent to kiss his cheek. "You look like an angel."
"Who is she?" one of the twins asked, turning to Emilia. "Did you find someone to help you in the kitchen? Is she a relative of yours?"
"I am Clara!" the child retorted, planting herself between the housekeeper and the aunt. "La Negra Clara, your niece!"
"My what?" the woman shrieked, grabbing Clara by the arm and shaking her.
"Negrita, Clarita," the boy cried excitedly. With the aid of only one crutch he limped toward her.
"Did you not hear, Aunt Maria del Rosario? She is my cousin!" Taking Clara's hand, he pulled her away from his startled parents and his aunts. "Let us see what is keeping Grandfather."
Before Clara could explain that Grandfather was in town, Luisito had turned to the wide gravel path that led to the orchard behind the house. He maneuvered his crutches so swiftly and skillfully, he made her think of a monkey rather than a cripple.
"Luisito!" Maria del Rosario called after him. "You have to rest after the long, tiring drive. It is too hot to be outdoors."
"Leave him alone," Raul said, ushering the three women inside. "The fresh air will do him good."
"Where is Grandfather?" Luisito asked, easing himself to the ground under the shade of the mango tree growing by the wall.
"In town," Clara said, sitting beside him. She was glad she had not accompanied her grandfather on his rounds as usual.
She liked going with him to the barber shop, to the pharmacy where he bought the latest medicines which he never took, and to the bar where he had a glass of brandy and played a game of dominoes.
But today, she would not have missed Luisito's arrival for anything in the world.
"Let us surprise Grandfather. He did not expect you until late in the afternoon," Clara suggested. "Let us go into town without telling anybody."
"I can not walk that far." Luisito lowered his head and slowly pushed his crutches away.
Clara sucked in her lower lip. "We will make it," she declared with fierce determination. "I will push you in the wheelbarrow. I am good at that."
She held her hand over his lips to stop him from interrupting her. "All you have to do is slide into the wheelbarrow and sit."
She pointed to the narrow arched doorway in the wall. "I will meet you there."
She gave him no time to voice any objections but rose and ran to the tool shed halfway down the slope.
"You see how easy it was." Clara laughed and helped him into the wheelbarrow. "No one will know where we are." She placed the crutches on his lap, then pushed him along the wide, newly paved road, past factories, and still, empty stretches of land.
Sighing heavily, she brought the wheelbarrow to an abrupt halt. The heat made the landscape waver in the distance. The shimmering light hurt her eyes.
Her grandmother, although tiny and skinny, had certainly weighed more than Luisito, she thought, yet Clara did not recall having had such a hard time pushing her about as she did now with her cousin.
"It will take forever to get into town on this road," she declared, wiping the dust and perspiration off her face with the back of her hand. "Hold on tight, Luisito!" she cried out, steering the wheelbarrow down an empty field, green with weeds from the recent rains.
"You are a genius," the boy said laughing. "This is better than anything!
"You make me feel very happy; and happiness is what makes people healthy. I know it because I am a cripple."
Excitedly, he pointed one of his crutches skyward. "Look, Clara. Look at those vultures above us. They are so powerful, so free."
vHe grabbed her arm. "Look at them! Look at their open black wings, how their legs stretch out beneath their tails. Look at their fierce beaks dripping blood. I will bet you they are happy, too."
"The slaughterhouse is nearby," Clara explained.
"Push me to that pack of vultures on the ground," he begged, pointing to a place where the birds had settled like black shadows at the other side of the slaughterhouse.
"Faster, Clara!" he yelled. "Faster!"
The vultures hopped aside, then lifted lazily into the air and flew low in ever tightening circles before descending again a bit farther away.
Watching his flushed face, his eyes shiny with excitement, Clara knew that she was making him happy.
For a moment, her attention strayed from the uneven terrain, and she failed to maneuver the wheelbarrow around a large stone.
Luisito fell forward amid a clump of tall grass. He lay so still he looked dead.
"Luisito," Clara called anxiously, kneeling beside him. He did not respond.
Carefully, she turned him around. Blood trickled from a cut on his forehead, and the weeds had scratched his cheeks.
His lids fluttered open. His eyes, round and puzzled, looked up into hers.
"You are wounded," she said. Taking his hand, she pressed it against his forehead, then showed him his bloodstained fingers.
He looked so happy, so pleased with himself that she laughed.
"Let us see if you are injured anyplace else," she said. "What about your leg?"
He sat up, then lifted his pant leg and said, "The braces are fine. If the braces ever get twisted, my father knows how to adjust them."
"But what about your leg?" she insisted. "Is it all right?"
Luisito shook his head sadly. "It will never be all right," he declared and swiftly pushed down his pants.
He explained to her what poliomyelitis was. "I have been to many doctors," he continued. "Father has taken me to the United States and to Europe, but I will always be a cripple."
He shouted the word so many times he became exhausted by his effort, and broke into a fit of coughing.
He looked at her sheepishly. "I will go with you anywhere you want me to," he said, pressing his head against her shoulder. "Clara, are you really my cousin?"
"Do you think I am too dark to be your cousin?" she retorted.
"No," he replied thoughtfully. "You are too nice to be my cousin.
"You are the only one who does not make fun of me or look at me with pity and disdain."
He pulled out a white handkerchief from his pocket, folded it into a triangle, then rolled it and fastened it around his forehead. "This will be the best summer I have ever had," he said happily. "Come on, cousin, let us find Grandfather."
Before opening the dining room door, Clara brushed a few loose strands of hair behind her ears. Since the aunts' arrival from Caracas, her grandfather and she no longer had breakfast in the kitchen.
Maria del Rosario sat at the far end of the table, arranging flowers in a vase, tweaking them here and there with impatient gestures.
Maria del Carmen, with her head buried in her missal, sat silently beside her sister.
Luisito's parents, who had only stayed for a few days at El Rincon, had left for Europe.
"Good morning," Clara mumbled, taking her seat at the long mahogany table next to Luisito.
Don Luis looked up from his plate, and winked at her impishly.
He was trying to provoke the twins; he went on dunking his roll in his coffee, slurping noisily. They never ate before going to mass.
From over the rim of her hot-chocolate cup, Clara stole a glance at the disapproving faces of the twins.
They no longer bore any resemblance to the oil paintings of the young beautiful girls hanging in the living room. With their sallow complexions, their sunken cheeks, and their dark hair pulled back in a small bun, they reminded her of the embittered nuns that taught catechism at school.
Of the two, Maria del Rosario was the most difficult. Clara felt anxious and uneasy in her presence.
Maria del Rosario had the nervous eyes of a person who does not sleep; eyes of impatience and alarm; eyes that were always watching and judging. She was only agreeable when she had her own way.
One hardly noticed Maria del Carmen, on the other hand. Her heavy-lidded eyes seemed to be weighed down by some ancestral tiredness. She walked with noiseless steps and spoke in a voice so soft it seemed as though she was only moving her lips.
Maria del Rosario's sharp voice intruded on Clara's musings.
"Will you not convince Luisito that you two should go with us to mass this Sunday, Clara?" she addressed the child as if speaking to her was against her better judgment.
"No. She will not," Luisito answered for her. "We will go in the evening, with Emilia."
Clara stuffed a fritter into her mouth to hide her smile.
She knew Maria del Rosario would not insist. She hated scenes on Sunday, and there was no one like Luisito to get his way.
Aside from his grandfather, Luisito never heeded anyone's advice.
He used and abused the terror he inspired by his rages whenever his aunts tried to oppose his wishes; rages expressed in such frantic banging of his crutches against any object in front of him, obscene gestures, and foul language that it put the women on the verge of fainting.
"Clara, finish your breakfast," Maria del Rosario ordered. "The maid wants to clear everything away before we leave. She, too, wants to go to church."
Clara gulped down the rest of her hot chocolate and handed the cup to the tall, grave-looking woman the twins had brought with them from Caracas. She was from the Canary Islands and had taken over the running of the house.
Emilia was not in the least upset, for all she had to do now was to prepare don Luis' food. He absolutely refused to eat the vegetarian dishes the aunts were so partial to.
"Not even dogs would eat this food," he would say each time they all sat down for a meal.
Clara was not particularly fond of vegetarian dishes either, but she thought it the height of elegance when Maria del Rosario had the chauffeur drive her each morning to the fields of the Portuguese farmers, so that she could pick the vegetables for that day's meal, and pay twice as much as Emilia would at the open market on Saturdays.
The instant Clara heard the light tap of Luisito's crutches coming down the corridor, she climbed out the window and ran halfway down the terraced slope to the mango tree growing by the wall.
Unconcerned about her yellow dress getting dirty, she stretched full length on the ground, and kicked off her shoes.
Unable to find a comfortable position she turned this way and that. She felt her blood hammering in her temples, in her breasts, in her thighs. It filled her with a strange desire she did not understand.
She sat up abruptly upon hearing Luisito approach.
"Why did you not answer?" he asked, easing himself down beside her. He placed the crutches within reach and added, "They have all gone to mass, including Grandfather."
Smiling, she searched his face with tender admiration. He had a dreamy, soft-edged look, sweet, yet daring.
She wanted to tell him so many things, but she could not express any of them. "Kiss me the way they do in the movies," she demanded.
"Yes," he whispered, and that one word answered all her turmoil, that strange desire she did not understand. "Oh, Negrito," he mumbled, burying his face in her neck. She smelled of the earth and the sun.
Her lips moved, but there was no sound. Wide-eyed, she watched him open his pants. She could not shift her gaze away.
His face shone down on her with glowing animation. His eyes seemed to melt between his long lashes. Carefully, so his steel braces would not hurt her, he eased himself on top of her.
"We will stay together forever," Luisito said. "I have convinced my parents that I will be happier at El Rincon. They are going to send a tutor out here."
Clara closed her eyes. In the last three months her love for Luisito had taken on monumental proportions. Daily they lay together in the shade of the mango tree.
"Yes," she whispered. "We will stay together forever." She wrapped her arms around him.
She did not know what she heard first. Luisito's muffled sigh, or Maria del Rosario's horrified scream.
The aunt shrieked. She moved closer and, lowering her voice, said, "Luisito, you are a disgrace to the family. What you have done is unspeakable."
Her hard, implacable eyes never wavered for an instant from the red and white blossoms hanging over the wall.
She went on, saying, "And as for you, Clara, your behavior comes as no surprise. No doubt you will end up in the gutter, where you belong."
She hurried up the steps. At the top, she halted. "We will be returning to Caracas this very day, Luis. And do not pull any of your tantrums. It will not work this time. No obscene gesture, and no foul language could be worse than what you have done."
Luisito began to cry.
Clara took his pale face in her hands and wiped the tears from his lashes with her fingers. "We will love each other forever. We will always be together," she said, and then she let him go.
Clara watched the evening shadows darken everything around her. Through a veil of tears she gazed up at the tree above her.
The leaves, outlined against the starlit sky, took on unexpected forms, shapes she did not quite recognize.
A swift breeze erased the patterns. All that remained was the sound of the wind; a desolate cry, bringing an end to the summer.
"Clara!" her grandfather called.
Torn between remorse and anxiety, she did not answer.
The light shimmering among the fruit trees did not waver. The certainty that her grandfather would wait for her, even if it took her the whole night to answer, filled her with gratitude.
Slowly, she rose and brushed the leaves and the dampness from her dress. "Grandfather," she called softly, climbing the steps toward the light, and the love and understanding that awaited her.
"Let us look at the apple tree," don Luis said. "Perhaps it will bloom again next summer."
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Two weeks later, on a Sunday afternoon, dona Mercedes announced that she had to go to El Rincon.
"Has Clara taken ill again?" I asked, alarmed.
"No," dona Mercedes said, rising from the hammock in her bedroom. "I want to make sure she follows my instructions. She is a willful patient."
Dona Mercedes rested her hands on my shoulders. "Today, you and I will help Clara. Together we will move the wheel of chance for her."
She turned to the blue and pink painted wardrobe that blocked the door facing the street, and fumbled with the key.
Before unlocking it, she looked back at me and said, "Gather all your clothes and put them in your jeep.
"Seeing that you are packed, Clara will think you are leaving for Caracas. She may decide to take advantage of the ride.
"In the depths of her, she knows that she will be well only if she leaves El Rincon."
I was really surprised at the scarcity of my belongings. I had brought much more, but then I remembered that I had given away most of what I had to some of Agustin's young patients.
"Clara's story is a sort of bonus to you," dona Mercedes said as she helped me put my bag in the jeep. "At least I did not expect it.
"It came out of nowhere, but it is very appropriate.
"I encouraged you to talk to Clara and to spend time with her. Under her shadow, I am sure you have felt the turns of the wheel of chance in her life.
"She is another person with a natural gift; a natural control over the witch's shadow."
Definitely, Clara was a very strong person. I felt that her emotional conflicts made her rather somber. She seemed, at least to me, always preoccupied; reflecting on something unsaid.
Dona Mercedes agreed with my assessment of Clara, and added that Clara needed our combined help.
"Let me put it this way," she said.
"Clara is so strong that she has now engaged your witch's shadow and mine to move the wheel of chance for her."
"What is the meaning of that, dona Mercedes?"
"It means that you and I are going to help her leave, not so much because we are good Samaritans, but because she is forcing us to do it."
There was a strong compulsion in me to disagree with her or, rather, to set the record straight.
"Nobody is forcing me to do anything," I said.
Dona Mercedes peered at me quizzically, her glance half-pitying, half-mocking. Then she lifted my bag, and gently placed it on the back seat.
"You mean to say you would not move a finger to help her?" she asked in a whisper.
"No. I did not say that. I merely said that Clara is not forcing me at all. I would gladly do it all by myself without her asking me."
"Ah, there is the link. Clara forces us without saying a word.
"Neither you nor I could remain impassive. In one way or another, we have been under her shadow too long."
Through the rear-view mirror I could still see Candelaria, a hazy lonely figure waving farewell. She had fastened a yellow, blue, and red plastic pinwheel to the jeep's antenna. It whirled noisily in the wind.
"Do you think Candelaria wanted to come with us to Caracas?" I asked dona Mercedes.
Dona Mercedes settled in her seat to doze, and mumbled, "No. Candelaria hates Caracas. She always gets a headache the moment she reaches the outskirts of the capital."
As soon as I brought the jeep to a full stop in front of El Rincon, dona Mercedes, not waiting for me to help her out, alighted from the car, and dashed into the house.
Swiftly, I caught up with her, and followed her toward the swishing sound of a broom.
It was Clara cleaning the patio.
She looked up. She smiled but did not speak to us.
She seemed to be sweeping the silence and the shadows, for there was not a single leaf on the ground.
Dona Mercedes lit two candles on the stone ledge circling the fountain.
She closed her eyes and waited for Clara to finish.
"I did all you told me to do," Clara said, sitting between the two lit candles.
Dona Mercedes did not look at her but began to sniff the air, trying to identify some elusive scent.
"Listen carefully, Clara," she said shortly. "The only thing that will keep you well is to leave this house."
"Why should I leave it?" Clara asked, alarmed. "Grandfather left it to me. He wanted me to stay here."
"He wanted you to have the house," dona Mercedes corrected her. "He did not want you to stay here. Do you not remember he said that to you before he died?"
Seemingly indifferent to Clara's mounting agitation, dona Mercedes lit a cigar.
She smoked with slow, even puffs and began to massage Clara's head and shoulders.
She blew the smoke around her, as if she were outlining her form against the air.
"This house is inhabited by ghosts and memories that do not belong to you, Clara," she went on. "You were only a guest in this house.
"You ruled this place from the moment you arrived because you had luck and strength. These two forces were disguised in you as affection and a great ease with people.
"But there is no one here anymore. It is time to leave.
"Only ghosts remain here; ghosts and shadows that do not belong to you."
"But what can I do?" Clara asked tearfully.
"Go to Caracas!" dona Mercedes exclaimed. "Go and live with Luisito!"
"Really, dona Mercedes!" Clara retorted indignantly. "How can you suggest such a thing. It is downright indecent."
Dona Mercedes replied, "You sound like your aunts." and she regarded Clara cheerfully; then flung her head back and laughed. "Do not be an ass, Clara.
"What is indecent is to pretend to be prudish. Have you forgotten what you and Luisito have been doing since you were twelve years old?"
Clara remained silent, seemingly lost in thought. "I can not be rushed into a decision." She smiled, tracing the cement cracks on the ground with her toes. "I can not just leave all this."
"You can if you have guts," dona Mercedes said. "The musiua here is also leaving today. We will take you to Luisito."
"And what about Emilia?" Clara asked.
Dona Mercedes replied, "Emilia will be happy with your aunts.
"Your aunts have been wanting to come back to El Rincon for a long time. This place holds all their memories; all their feelings.
"Here, the three women can set back the clock to an ideal time that never was. The shadows of the past will dim the present, and erase their frustrations."
Dona Mercedes was silent for an instant, then she took Clara's hands in hers, perhaps to communicate the urgency of her words. "Put on your yellow dress. Yellow suits you. It will give you strength.
"Change quickly. You need nothing else.
"When you came to El Rincon you had only one dress; you should leave the same way."
Seeing Clara's hesitation, Dona Mercedes pressed her point. "This is your last chance, girl.
"I have already told the musiua that the only way for you to keep well is to love Luisito with abandon and completeness, as you did when you were a child."
Clara's large eyes, bright with tears, closed in a hurt blink. "But I love him," she murmured. "You know that I have never loved anyone but him."
Dona Mercedes regarded her thoughtfully. "True," she admitted and, turning toward me, added, "She had dozens of rich suitors.
"She still does, and she still gets a malicious pleasure disappointing them. She has escaped from more sure engagements than I care to remember."
Clara's laughter rang out loud. She put her arm around dona Mercedes' shoulders and brushed her lips across her cheek.
"You always exaggerate everything," she said, her tone betraying how delighted she was. "But in spite of all my admirers, I never loved anyone but Luisito."
Dona Mercedes took her arm and guided her toward her room. "You have to love Luisito in the world the way you love him within the crumbling walls of El Rincon."
She pushed Clara inside, and said, "Go on and put on your yellow dress. We will be waiting for you in the jeep."
Clara's description of Luisito had not prepared me for the astonishingly handsome man who greeted us at his apartment door in Caracas.
I knew that he was in his late twenties, but he looked like a teenager with black curly hair, green-yellow eyes, and smooth white skin.
When he smiled, his cheeks dimpled.
In spite of his pronounced limp, there was nothing awkward about his movements.
His engaging personality and his self-sufficient manner did not allow for pity.
Luisito was not in the least surprised to see us; and when he served us a sumptuous meal, I knew that dona Mercedes had arranged things beforehand.
We stayed until late, and it was an unforgettable night. I had never seen dona Mercedes in such an expansive mood.
Her flawless mimicry of the people we all knew in Curmina, her knack for recalling the most absurd situations, her talent for dramatizing them, and her shameless exaggerations turned her anecdotes into memorable tales.
It was shortly before midnight when, declining Luisito's invitation to stay for the night, Mercedes Peralta rose and embraced both Clara and Luisito at the same time.
Then, with her arms wide open, she approached me with an exuberant gesture of affection.
I said, "Do not embrace me like that. You are not saying good-bye to me, too. I am going back with you."
I laughed and returned her embrace.
I reached for the ignition. Wrapped around my keys was a chain.
With trembling fingers I untangled it. It was a long gold chain with a huge medal hanging from it.
"You better wear it," dona Mercedes said, looking at me. "It is Saint Christopher, the remarkable patron saint of travelers."
A sigh of contentment escaped her lips as she settled back in her seat. "You will be well protected. After all, you are a traveler who has stopped only for a moment."
Instead of heading for Curmina, dona Mercedes directed me along specific streets; clear across town.
I had the feeling we had been driving in circles, when she finally made me stop in front of an old, green colonial house.
"Who lives here?" I asked.
"My ancestors lived here," she replied. "It is their house. And I am just a leaf of an enormous tree."
She looked at me so intently she seemed to be imprinting my face in the depths of her eyes.
Leaning closer, she whispered in my ear. "A witch has to have luck and strength to move the wheel of chance.
"Strength can be groomed, but luck can not be beckoned. It can not be enticed. Luck, independent of witchcraft or human arrangements, makes its own choice."
She ran her fingers through my hair and over my face, feeling rather than seeing me, then added, "That is why witches are so attracted to it."
I was filled with an odd premonition.
I looked at her questioningly, but she reached for her basket and pulled out a reddish brown leaf shaped like a butterfly.
"Look at it carefully," she said, handing me the leaf. "The spirits of my ancestors told me to always carry a dry leaf.
"I am this leaf, and I want you to throw it through that window."
She pointed to the house in front of us. "As you throw it, recite an incantation. I want to know how powerful your incantations are."
Willing to humor her, I examined the leaf from every angle, turning it over and over. I surveyed its surface and searched its depths.
"It is beautiful," I said.
"Throw it through the window," she repeated.
I climbed up the wrought-iron grill, pushed the heavy curtain aside, and threw the leaf inside as an incantation flowed out of me.
Instead of falling to the ground, the leaf fluttered upward toward the corner by the ceiling like a moth.
Alarmed, I jumped down.
Mercedes Peralta was no longer in the jeep. Certain that she had gone into the house, I knocked softly on the door.
It was open. "Dona Mercedes," I whispered and stepped inside.
The house, built around a patio and shadowy corridors, was like a silent dark cloister.
Long rain gutters dropped from the dark roof, and metal rings dangled from the ancient protruding eaves.
I walked to the center of the patio, toward a weeping willow shrouded in mist.
Like phantom beads, the tiny silvery dew-drops on its leaves slid soundlessly into the fountain beneath.
A gust of air shook the willow tree, scattering fresh dry leaves all around me.
Gripped by an irrational fear, I ran out into the street.
I sat in my jeep determined to wait for Mercedes Peralta. I reached under my seat for a box of tissue paper and felt my camera and tape recorder.
Puzzled, I turned around. I had no recollection of packing anything but my clothes.
To my utter astonishment, I discovered a box on the backseat. It contained my tapes and my diaries.
Stuck to the box was an unsigned note.
I recognized Candelaria's bold handwriting.
It read, "A witch's farewell is like dust from the road; it sinks in as one tries to slough it off."