Episodic Novel

The Medallion

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The Medallion (Solace 7, 8, & 9)

7

St. James, Santiago, the patron saint of Spain and of the Conquistadores. Pale, egg shell blue walls, darkness ruling inside the church. It will do so until the sun peeps in the stained- glass windows and awakens all the sleeping colours. I bow my head, then my knee, and kneel at the back. Ahead of me, I recognize some of my neighbours who concentrate on the gestures of the priest as he mumbles to himself before the altar.

The early morning shadows creep across the walls until a single beam of sunshine descends and shatters the altar into a thousand tiny chips of fragmented light. My hands are pallid butterflies fluttering in the sun’s rays and a rainbow halo adorns my head. I shift away from the sunbeam and move to the side-chapel dedicated to the statue of St. James.

… St. James the Moor-Slayer … Santiago Matamoros … he stands on the severed heads of the Moors he has killed … behind him hands tied behind their backs dusky skinned warriors march away into slavery … my eyes are level with those severed heads and I stare eyeball to eyeball at a decapitated Moor … beside the statue stands a photo of the Gate of Glory, la Puerta de la Gloria, in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain … … generations of pilgrims have laid hands upon the Tree of Jesse, imprinting their fingers into the stone … human hands clasping rough granite in a search for comfort and warmth …

8

When I leave St. James, I find the witchdoctor squatting, in a trance. His fire burns low and a strong scent of copal rises from the coals, hangs heavy on the air, then slowly dissipates. I stop for a second to study El Brujo and the witch doctor speaks without opening his eyes.

“I spoke to your mother yesterday.”

“That’s nonsense,” I replied. “My mother’s dead.”

“What ails you, my son?”

“I’m not your son.”

“It’s a wise man knows his own father,” El Brujo opens his eyes. “One night, many years ago, Jaguar crept between your ribs and took your heart into his mouth. When he closed his jaws, your heart was as heavy as stone and Jaguar broke his tooth upon it. He cursed you and your heart remained a rock within your chest. At night, when you sleep, you dream of dust and ashes.”

“You speak in riddles,” I try to remain calm yet the words fan a sorrow within me that I thought had died a long time ago.

“Perhaps, but my words speak true.”

            … curses, stone, dust, ashes, broken heart, rock, heart in mouth … a marigold path, zopilote, high in the morning air, fire-red his wing-tips, and then an old stone bridge, a river below it with the snow floating down to be carried away by the current, three crones dancing on the steps of an orphanage, three beautiful ladies dancing on the temple steps, an old man, dead, then alive and walking in his burial clothes … hummingbirds dancing round the sun … red slashes of blood … tulips against a white-washed wall … an old man vanishing into a tomb … death’s face simmering in the moon’s dwindling pool …

“You must make a sacrifice, my friend.”

“I don’t do sacrifice, not like that boy this morning.”

“No, not like that,” El Brujo shakes his head. “You must sacrifice your beliefs and allow me to bless you.”

“I have no beliefs.”

“Even that is a belief.”

“Then I am sacrificing nothing.”

“If that is what you believe, it is so. Here: take this. It’s yours by right,” El Brujo offers me a medallion on a braided leather thong. “This is your mother’s gift to you.”

“You’re crazy. I told you: my mother’s dead. She didn’t leave me this.”

“I tell you that she did.”

“Did you know her?”

“I did.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You may believe what you want. But tell me, does the medallion call you?”

“I like it, yes. I can’t say it calls. How much?” I put my hand in my pocket.

9

“You do not have enough money to buy it, and if you did, you wouldn’t be the man I think you are. And in that case, I wouldn’t sell it to you,” his eyes took on a faraway look. “However, it comes from your mother and I promised your mother I’d give you this.”

            El Brujo’s eyes hold a power that disconcerts me. I lower my head to his fire and the copal makes my eyes water. I cough and my vision blurs. My lungs fill with perfume and El Brujo pushes me closer to the incense. I inhale deeply and break out in a sweat.

“You must wear this always. It will protect you,” El Brujo places the medallion round my neck. I place my hand upon it, feel its rough edges, and see through my tears that it is incomplete, for it has been broken in half. What remains shows half a cross with some broken roses where the crucified Christ would normally appear.

“But it’s broken.”

“Not broken, but divided. You must find the missing half.”

“Did my mother tell you that?”

“Your mother is dead.”

El Brujo lapses into silence and stares me down. Then he breaks into a weird, wailing chant, using a language that I do not know. As he sings, he leans forward and brushes my eyes with an eagle feather that he draws from his pocket.

“Now, you will be able to see.”

… an old woman dressed in black, pushes at a young man … colored threads hang out from her basket … they flap like flags in the single ray of sunshine that breaks into a million tiny sparks of fire … hummingbirds, tiny warriors, wing their dance around a sun that bears a man’s  face … a pair of scissors snips at the string that ties a child’s balloon to the earth and it floats away up into the air high above the cathedral tower … fire catches its wings and it flares like zopilote, the trickster, in the dawn’s early light … the cathedral spire is a notched measuring stick conducting the clouds as they dance and weave their patterns … within the prison of the sky … trenchant shadows, twisted dancers, old warrior kings bend themselves in and out of shape as they struggle to escape … an old man  wrings his hands, then vanishes …  a soap bubble floats away on the wind … a young girl stands on a bridge in winter … snow swirls and  draws a curtain around her body as she falls into the waters below … an old crone wrapped in rags carries a bundle of clothes to a set of steps and leaves it there …

            “The medallion vibrates, it’s heavy and warm.”

“It knows you.”

“What do you mean, ‘it knows me’?”

“Did you feel nothing? Did you see nothing?”

“I saw nothing,” I cough and clear my throat. “I saw nothing at all.”

El Brujo looks at me long and hard. He opens his mouth to speak, then shrugs his shoulders.

“Come, you have accepted the medallion your mother left you. Now accept my blessing.”

“Why?”

“Because I ask you to. Are you such a coward that you cannot accept a blessing from an old man? Here, kneel beside me,” El Brujo taps the ground at his side and, wondering what on earth I think I am doing, I kneel beside him.

Codex

Ay Ay Ayeres

Codex (Solace 3 & 4)

3
Down below, in the courtyard, the handy man wakes me as he tumble dries a TV ad in the washing machine of his song sparrow throat. He gargles with gravel and churns stony lyrics skywards until they grate at my bedroom window and drag me from my dreams.

My ears fill up with a crackle and roar. Wave after wave of sunlight breaks over the azotea. Blind with music, deaf with light, I am awash in the sea-surge rhythm of this surfacing sun. My dreams break up like biscuits and between my fingers I feel a sandstorm of crumbs.

Morning blows fresh colours into each corner of my waking mind. An early breeze shakes cobwebs and dust from my brain. New visions crawl out from the vellum codex I left open last night on my table. Red and green gods wearing black and white masks crawl through spaces still alive in my mind. Sometimes they move when the eye doesn’t watch them, but when I concentrate, they freeze in intimate poses. I link them with lines and arrows and vow that my life will never again be scarred by their secretive smiles.

The red glare of the day’s first rocket climbs its ladder of sky to smash at the gods’ front door. A second rocket draws me back to daylight. Awake, I lie there, counting. A third explosion is much closer. The fourth rocket surges skywards and the fifth and sixth rockets are two fiery giants exploding above my apartment. I pull back the bed clothes and swing my legs over the side of the bed. My day has begun.

4

The codex lies open on the dining room table I use as a desk. I scan the interpretation I made late last night, transferring the visual to verbal.

“Two breasts: one green, one yellow, symbolic of the hill where the church stands; the church itself bi-coloured, strong stone walls, a spire. A large red heart symbolic of the love we bear for you, our masters. Two feet walking the path of enlightenment you opened before us are accompanied by two hands pointing the way. The feet below the heart; the hands above the heart, like wings; and the heart becomes the body of the new place you have built for us. And in the heart is our sacred symbol: the Earthquake, a sign of leadership and power used only by those of Royal Stature and the Noblest Blood. Attached to the heart is the Numeral One which means Lord of the Earthquake; for you are Number One in our Hearts. Attached to the heart is a speech scroll showing felicitous words of praise; below it is the sacred earthworm, and beneath that the serpent head of wisdom and the flint knife promising strength through sacrifice.

But be wary: for our symbols are double-edged! The colors of the hill are divided, as the hill is divided, showing strife and division. The church is on top of the hill, for the symbol has conquered the people, and the people are starving, subject, and destroyed. The feet are pointing in opposite directions, for the people are stalled. They have no forward movement, nor will of their own, for they are conquered by the sword and not by love. And the hands are pointing in opposite directions; for the right hand knows not what the left hand is doing. And the hands are reversed showing anguish and distress. The sign of the heart is the sign of the disembodied heart, torn from the heaving chest of the vanquished and thrown to the dogs. The sign of the earthquake is also the sign of movement. And that movement is a bowel movement. And one movement in the middle of the sacrificed heart is the victor excreting on the vanquished and treating them with scorn and contempt. The scroll protrudes from the nether part and says that the victors are speaking words of excrement, that verbal diarrhoea issues from their lips. And the serpent has no feathers; it cannot fly. It is as a snake treacherous and bitter, crawling on the ground. The head of the serpent is two tongued and tells of treachery and of deceit. The flint is attached to a heart; it speaks of the heart that is as hard as flint, knowing no mercy. And at the end that heart will receive no mercy in its turn.”

Figures on the codex page take on a fresh life. They walk and strut, nod their heads, move their limbs. The sun climbs in the sky. Shadows shorten. Footsteps march steadily across the page from right to left. I blow a kiss to the piggy-back bride and she waves back.

Too much, too early. I reach for the remains of last night’s bottle of mescal and gulp them down. Order is restored. The cartoon figures go back to sleep. Normality, whatever that may be, returns.

My Father

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My Father (Solace 1)

1

            I saw my father yesterday evening. I walked through the zócalo, opened the main cathedral doors and walked in. The doors closed behind me. I looked towards the main altar and there my father stood, motionless. The evening light shone through the engraved glass panels and illuminated him as if he were some long passed saint come back to visit me. We stared at each other, but I couldn’t open my mouth to speak. The hairs on my neck stood on end and my hands shook. When I forced my mouth open, words stuck in my throat. He wore his best grey suit over a light blue shirt and a dark blue, hand woven tie: the outfit in which I had buried him.

               Three old women, dressed in black, broke the spell. One stood in front of me and wouldn’t let me approach my father. She held a large bag of knitting in her hands and the wool spilled everywhere as she pushed me away. The second threatened me with a pair of scissors that she held in her left hand and stabbed towards my face. The third beat a tailor’s measuring rod against my father’s head.  He nodded, smiled sadly, and they all turned their backs on me and hurried away out of the cathedral and into the square.

               Just for a moment, I stood there in silence. Then I pulled the doors open and ran in pursuit of my father. The setting sun filled the square with shadows that whispered and moved this way and that, as if a whole village had come down from the hills to walk beneath the trees and dance in the rays of the dying sun. I stood on the cathedral steps and called out my father’s name, but I could see no sign of him among the cut and thrust of the shadowy crowd.

               I ran out into that crowd and pushed at insubstantial people who stood firm one moment and then melted away the next like clouds or thick mist. I came to a side street and saw real people, flesh and blood beings, a group of villagers gathered behind their band. I stopped and as I did the village elder put a live match to the taper of the rocket that he clutched between his thumb and forefinger. The taper caught on fire and the rocket soared upwards with a searing whoosh. The village band marched forward and started to play a traditional dance as the rocket clawed its way into the sky to explode with a loud knock on the door of the gods.

               Tired of grasping at shadows and afraid of this living phalanx of men that marched towards me I went back to the cathedral and knelt at the altar of La Virgen de la Soledad, the patron saint of Oaxaca. Real wax candles stood before her altar, not tiny electric lights, and I inserted five pesos in the slot, took a taper, and lit a fresh candle from an ageing one that had started to sputter. I knelt and, for the first time in years, I prayed. I prayed for the soul I had saved from extinction by lighting my candle from his flame. I prayed for my father and my mother and, above all, I prayed for myself.

               On the way home to my second-floor apartment where I live alone, I bought two litres of mescal, one to send me to sleep, and the other so I would survive the next morning.

People of the Mist 18

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11:00 AM

            … hard baked loaves of stone … hot cobbles beneath the feet … the burning street forced upwards through the shoe leather to scorch the feet … the sun’s orb an irresistible hammer beating the strength out of the sweating body … the heart sucked dry … the lungs shriveled … a man dehydrated … already dried up by the baths … from the inside out …

Everything seemed different to his distorted vision. Translucent people, pale ghosts of themselves, passed before him and wandered across the street, shadows in a dream cast against a cave wall. Tim walked to the central square and entered the cathedral through the same carved glass doors in which he had seen his father’s image, but his father was no longer there. Wary of flames and flickering candles, Tim stood in the dust-laden beam of sunlight that fell from a stained glass window high in the roof.

Wave after wave of colored light broke across his face and played fragmented games upon his hands. He inhaled sunshine and felt the sea-surge of a body being reborn. A new man, he emerged from darkness into light, a spiritual being, neither of this world nor yet of the next. The colored light danced its chiaro-oscuro upon the surrounding walls and he felt soft sunlight flooding into him.

            … inside massive stone walls … candles … crucifixes … paintings of saints … statues … carved wooden images … outside in the sunlight … alebrijes … staring eyes … wagging tails …  protruding tongues … their spirits breaking through the wood … turning from darkness into light … within the man’s head … once open doors slowly closing …  keys no longer turning in locks … unwound clocks no longer ticking … cobwebs gathering in forgotten rooms … flowers on the altars… nochebuenas with their single and double petals … crimson and cream … cempasúchiles … marigolds lighting  a golden walkway to guide the dead … loved ones returning to visit the living …

Standing in the cathedral, drenched in a rainbow shower of light, Tim’s mind drifted in and out of sun and clouds. All around him he saw secret worlds opening like oysters before his eyes. Flames through the candles made hard, crisp sounds, hissing and sharp, like the inside of an apple when strong teeth penetrate the outer skin. Candlelight brought an unexpected peace as its yellow bees’ wax light wandered over the altar.

Tim went to the chapel dedicated to La Virgen de la Soledad, the patron saint of Oaxaca. A girl knelt in front of the altar with a basket of flowers upon her head. With a click, wheels turned in his head and Tim realized that he had seen her that morning in the square in front of St. James. He didn’t want to disturb her prayers, so he tiptoed to the far side of the altar rail and started to kneel. As he did, the flower girl turned her head towards him.

“Señor: I am so glad you have come. Please, I need your help.”

“My help?” Tim stood up and moved towards her. “Of course, what do you want me to do?”

“These flowers, I must place them on the altar. But the basket is caught in my hair. I cannot remove it. Could you …?”

“I saw you with a boy, this morning outside St. James, didn’t I?”

“Perhaps. My cousin walked with me until he slipped on the cobbles and could walk no more. He would have helped. Now there is nobody.”

“I’ll help. What must I do?”

“Take the weight of the basket and try to see where my hair is caught. You must untangle it, if you can. Then I can place the flowers on the altar as I have vowed.”

She knelt, motionless, an animal frozen in a trap. Tim lifted the basket and its weight shocked him: the stones within must have weighed at least twenty pound. As he lifted the basket, she winced and he saw where her hair had caught in the basket’s wickerwork.

“Can you hold the basket now?” he asked her.

She raised her hands and held it aloft. As she did so, Tim began to untangle her hair from the weave, a slow, difficult task. At last, the basket came free and the girl’s black hair fell smoothly into place.

“I hope I didn’t hurt you when I pulled your hair free.”

‘”Thank you and no, it didn’t hurt,” She took the basket in her hands and he opened the altar rail for her. She mounted the steps and placed the basket of flowers on the altar at the feet of La Virgen de la Soledad.

“There,” she bowed her head, crossed herself, and muttered a prayer. “My father will get better now.”

The girl returned through the altar rail and she and Tim knelt side by side in front of Oaxaca’s patroness.

“They say she will answer your prayers,” the flower girl looked weary and distressed. “She has worked many miracles for those who have walked the road. My cousin walked with me for a bit, but he was in great pain, so I sent him home.”

“Surely you could have finished the pilgrimage another day?”

“Oh, no, señor, it must be completed between the hours of six and twelve. My cousin should have helped, but I did it on my own. Señor, I must go now. It is time for me to change. I have completed my pilgrimage and now there is work for me to do.”

“Perhaps I can walk with you a little way?”

“Oh no, señor, that wouldn’t be right. I must go alone. But thank you.”

Tired, but full of grace, she got to her feet and walked backwards, away from the altar, not taking her eyes off the Virgin’s face. When she got to the chapel’s entrance she turned and left.

Tim knelt there in silence and thought of the strange things that seemed to happen in Oaxacan churches. Last Sunday he had gone to mass in La Consolación. The lady in front of him had opened her blouse and offered her breast to her youngest child who sucked there, greedily, throughout the service. The old man at the back held a roll-your-own smoke in the palm of his hand and closed his eyes in ecstasy as he inhaled the drug. Three dogs, tongues lolling, were pursuing a bitch in heat and she came into the church for sanctuary. The dogs chased her up and down the aisles as the high priest doggedly murmured the blessings that uplifted the hearts of the faithful: a bored acolyte passed the anointing oil and presented the sacred wine to the priest. Flowers and candles adorned the altar. When the old man from the back of the church stubbed out his smoke and knelt for communion, night breath lay whisky thick on the high priest’s tongue.

La Virgen de la Soledad stood tall on the altar wearing a black kirtle. Silver stars and planets swam through the dark night of the velvet that flowed down from her waist. Beside her, a young man with open, staring eyes hung from a rough, wooden cross. He recognized Tim and called him by his baptismal name, but Tim no longer knew how to answer. The young man had the jewel eyes of a flayed Mexican god, living forever, and never quite dead. Black blood flowed down the carved face and formed a river of coal dust waxed with carmine. The heavy smell of incense mingled with the smoke from the candles and transported Tim to an internal world in which time rolled on and on and lost all meaning.

… impressions … a nose here … a pair of eyes there … long black hair … a tree swaying to the music … a nose wrinkled in disdain … a black bible banged on a wooden table … a thin girl … a Cubist nightmare of female body parts … multiple pin balls released in a rush by an errant slot machine … light falling from high windows … stained glass … reds … blues … greens … smoke from a candle twisting in the air …

People of the Mist 17

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9:30 AM                    

… where Alonso waited for them.

“Good morning,” Alonso limped towards them.

“Still hurting, I see,” El Brujo placed his hand on his friend’s shoulder and Alonso grimaced. “But don’t worry, it won’t be long now.”

“That’s easy to say. You’re not the one who’s suffering.”

“Not visibly, no; but underneath the surface I am a volcano, about to boil over,” El Brujo sighed and turned towards Tim. “Are you ready?”

“I suppose so. But I’ve brought nothing with me.”

“Don’t worry. Everything will be provided.”

They walked into the bath house and the attendant behind the desk greeted them.

“A new friend,” said El Brujo, pointing to Tim. “He’s on my account. And he’ll want a massage.”

The attendant gathered soap and towels, then signaled for them to enter the baths.

“Follow me,” said Alonso. He limped forward and Tim walked after him.

“Tonight,” El Brujo whispered to the attendant as soon as they had gone.

“You’re not thinking of …” the attendant raised his eyebrows.

“I’m not thinking of anything yet,” El Brujo silenced him with a gesture. “Here, take these herbs and add them to the herbal mixture in the baths, will you?” El Brujo passed a small packet to the attendant. “And don’t let us be disturbed. As for tonight … I think we’re running out of time … who knows?”

“I’ll close the doors when you’ve gone in,” the attendant smiled. “Nobody will disturb you.”

“Thank you, my friend,” El Brujo shook the attendant’s outstretched hand and followed the others into the Baths.

Tim undressed and folded his clothes with care. Then he forced his watch, his wallet, and the medallion into the toe of his left shoe. Clad only in the paper-thin, skimpy towel and grasping his bar of soap, he opened the door of the cubicle and stepped out into the unknown.

He looked down and saw a line of painted footprints and a hand that pointed … just like the codices he thought … and followed the footprints to a door from which steam leaked. He opened it and stepped into a room as warm as a greenhouse that smelled of herbs and flowers. A thick steam circulated and Tim thought of cool summer tides rising over sun-warmed sands. Indistinct figures floated through the mist and one of these lurched towards him.

I knew it was you,” the figure drew closer. “Come and join us.” Alonso took Tim by the arm and presented him. “Here he is.”

El Brujo, stripped naked, with his long black hair hanging dank below his shoulders, loomed out of the steam and embraced Tim.

“How do you feel?”

“I’m okay, I guess.”

“In here we are all the same,” El Brujo proclaimed. “There are no secrets. We are as naked in body and soul as we were when we abandoned our mother’s body.”

… soft warm air … moving delicate fingers of scented mist over the belly … floating on air … drifting across the room …the return to a surrogate womb cradled in an ocean of amniotic fluid … steam and herbs filling the lungs … reaching relaxing tendrils deep into heart and chest …

In what seemed another life, a door opened in the herbal mist and a man stepped through.

“Who wanted a massage?” he called.

“This one,” said El Brujo, pointing at Tim. “Here, grab your towel and your soap, and off you go,” El Brujo pushed Tim towards the masseur who led him out of the darkness into a brightly lit wide-awake room. The masseur, squat, dark-skinned, and scarred, looked like a judoka from the old school built for close in body-work. He pointed to the hooks on the wall and Tim hung his towel on one of them.

“Soap,” the masseur had the voice of a parade ground sergeant major and Tim snapped to attention and handed him the bar of soap. Then the masseur pointed to the marble slab in the middle of the room and Tim climbed on to the slab and lay there face down. The masseur began by soaping Tim’s body; then using the tips of his fingers, he moved across his back, digging in deep at any sign of resistance. Next came a series of karate chops and the remaining hardness in Tim’s body started to break down. The masseur hummed as he moved and drove each note home with a pounding that made his patient feel that he was the piano and the masseur was the maestro, rippling the keyboard with manipulative fingers.

This is what Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony must feel like, in the Liszt transcription, Tim mused, as the pounding accelerated and he was swept away, a rudderless ship on a stormy sea of carnal music.

“There, you’re done,” the masseur made one last sweeping movement across Tim’s body and moved away from the massage table. “Stay as long as you want and get up in your own time. There’s no hurry. I’ll tell El Brujo you’re on your way.”

Suspended in space, somewhere between earth and heaven, Tim lay motionless on the slab as images flashed through his mind.

… a face from the crowd … lighting up in sudden recognition … a man in a blue suit lying in a coffin … hands folded on his chest … eyes closed … a woman … somewhere … running … with a baby in her arms … snow falls like interference on an old black and white television set … a bridge now … and a river … snow falling into the river … a young girl … three old women … two standing between her and the river … one holding out her hands … the child transferred from young hands to old … the young girl … tears streaking her face … her face as cold as stone … as hard as obsidian … the young girl … an arm waves above the waters … the dark closes in … close up of a snake skin … slither marks in the dust where the snake has slipped away …

Tim tumbled down from a high blue sky and returned to the normal world. After a little while, still dizzy and dreaming, he got to his feet, stumbling and disorientated. Then his sense of balance returned and he walked out through the door and back into the steam room.

“Now it’s time to meditate and dream,” El Brujo greeted him. “Here, this slab is reserved for you. Don’t worry. We won’t be disturbed. There’s only you, me, and Alonso.”

Tim climbed onto the slab and lay on his back. Herbs, magic, mists and healing powers: they wafted their way through his lungs, filling him with a strange and languid lassitude. The lower half of his body unwound and the knots in the muscles untied themselves one by one. He felt as if his body no longer belonged to him.

“Now,” El Brujo lowered his voice until it was scarcely more than a whisper. “Just lie there, without moving. Try to empty your mind of all thoughts and feelings. Just imagine the herbal mist filling your whole body with the lightness of clouds.”

Tim did as he was told and felt himself filling with a peace that he hadn’t felt in years. Weight fell away from his body, and light, he wanted to float away on the air to be dissolved into streamers of mist.

… wrapped in a cloud of unknowing … drifting in cotton wool… damp and grey … clammy … hot spots … cold pools … a ray of sunlight almost piercing the cloud … light fading … shadows … at the eye’s corner … half-glimpsed shapes … sounds … half heard … a grey sea on a cloudy day … movement … a dull glow … distant lava flowing warm from a subdued volcano … a wild beast slinking … chained within the mist … a kaleidoscope of colors … fists over the eyes … pressing …  two eyes … fierce … smoking … the stuff of nightmares … a cold hand seeking … eyes like gimlets … piercing the body … examining the soul … dragging the heart upwards into the mouth … figures walking a tightrope of tapestry thread … a life spun out … too distant to make out … knots and tangles … a skein of memory … shanks of thought … fire and blood … the mist stained …  a deep male voice … not now … not now … but soon … cold ice … hot fire … the slash of Huitzilopochtli’s obsidian knife …

            … the mists buck and twitch … an ancient movie with no soundtrack … a dusty road winds across a flat plain below a high mountain … a black figure … a man striding along the road …  four Golden Eagles circle … they spiral upwards in ever increasing circles … feathered stones cast in an aerial pond …

… a dust path … a man walking towards an old village … houses slumbering beneath the sun … cast shadows … open doors … villagers calling out to him as he passes through …

.. . an upright man young with no limp … the heart of the village … he sits below the central cross … flowers, pink roses play where Christ’s body should hang … time passes … three old women walk towards the man … they greet with an affectionate embrace …

… thunder clouds build … a bolt of lightning descends and strikes the cross … the cross splits in two halves … one half falls to the ground … lightning stabs like a spear … wounds the young man in the right thigh … plunges its electric sword deep into his flesh yet leaving no visible scar … the light fades swiftly … when it returns … mounds of rubble and dust … the young man limps away … one half of the broken cross lies heavy on his shoulder …

…two hands grip the mist and tear it apart … a painted face emerges … striations … alternate black and yellow bands … the wasp god … Tezcatlipoca bares his teeth …. a fierce all-devouring smile … teeth … sharp and filed … stars surround the god of the night sky … words celebrate the god of ancestral memory … he is the embodiment of change through conflict … discord … enmity … sorcery … strife … words flow effortless from his mouth … “I am he for whom you must die.”

            … this is the god of the smoking mirror and of the broken foot … his feet are shrouded in mist … an obsidian mirror hangs from his chest … snakes of smoke writhe within it … within the mirror is movement but no face and no future …

            … words and images lick at Tim’s chest like tongues of fire … smoke straggles up from where his chest hairs sizzle and burn and he knows that he is doomed … yet he still has something to do and some time to live … he stares into the smoking mirror and sees his own reflection… in his hand he holds his broken medallion and then he sees, suddenly, at the edge of his vision, the other half held in someone else’s hand … the other medallion swings like a pendulum poised to hypnotize …

            the image fades and Tim is left stranded in the darkness of the mis … an unspeakable hollowness fills him and he knows that something terrible and fierce has entered his life …        the mists thin to reveal a barren inner city landscape … snow streaks white lines against black clouds … three old women emerge from the darkness …one carries a bundle, wrapped in a blanket … she peels back the edge to reveal the tiny face of a new born child … the lady with the scissors snips the frail, thin thread of red wool that binds the infant’s wrist … the lady with the spindle spins a longer thread … the lady with the measuring rod measures it then twists the thread round and round the baby’s wrist … scissors snip it … fingers tie the loose ends into a bow …

            the lady with the spindle kisses the child then leaves it wrapped as well as she can in a cardboard box on a set of steps leading to a massive wooden door … she steps up to the door and tugs at the doorbell … lights appear … a nun opens the door and sees the cardboard box … her eyes open wide and her arms fling upwards as she discovers the child abandoned there on the doorstep … she puts her hand against her forehead and squints into the night … three sets of footsteps lead away from the door …  but nobody is there ….

            the scene changes … a river and a bridge … a young girl poised on the parapet … she flings herself into the water and disappears into the night … snow continues to swirl … a set of footsteps leads to the bridge … but none return …

“Come back to us when you are ready,” El Brujo’s voice penetrated the illusion. “Take your time. Sit up slowly, then get up when you are done.”

Tim got to his feet. The mist seemed thicker now, and heavier. Memories of all he had seen tumbled through his mind as he tried to maintain his hold on reality.

“Whatever you saw belongs to you and is yours and yours alone,” El Brujo snapped his fingers and Tim shuddered. “Treasure it. Interpret it as you will. The more you perform this exercise, the clearer the visions will become and the more they will speak to you. We cannot live in those lands but we can visit them at will. When we are skilled enough, we can interpret their meaning. Until then, the visions are just signposts.”

“How long was I dreaming?”

“What makes you think you were dreaming? Time has no meaning in the other land. Objective time, the time that runs by in the real world, rarely changes. But the subjective time of the mist is different for each one of us,” El Brujo had a dreamy expression on his face. “Sometimes, it feels as though it can last for years.”

“I’ll see you tonight then?” Alonso turned towards El Brujo.

“Tonight it is.”

“And I’ll see you this afternoon,” Tim said to Alonso. “We’re going to Mitla this afternoon, aren’t we?”

“That’s partly why I’m here,” Alonso looked troubled and, eyebrows drawn together in a frown, he weighed his words with care. “I’m sorry, I can’t make it this afternoon. I’ll send one of my assistants around in the car. Don’t worry, whoever I send will know as much as I do, if not more. And I’ll be there this evening. Don’t forget, then,” Alonso patted Tim on the arm. “1:00 pm sharp, at your apartment. Just wait outside the front gate and someone will drive by and pick you up.”

“How will I know which car it is?”

“Don’t worry. It’ll be an official car and I’ll tell them to honk the horn. Come along now.”

The three men left the steam room together. Behind them, the mists gathered into little groups that vibrated with energy and life.

People of the Mist 16

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9:20 AM

Tim walked up the street towards the centre of town, moving slowly, from window to shop window, still hesitant to go to the baths. A craft shop packed with bric-à-brac and old curiosities caught his attention. The shop held an irresistible sense of mystery and he tried to look in but couldn’t see much through the dust and cobwebs. He opened the door and copper goat bells jangled. An old man, dressed in an artist’s smock, emerged from a room behind the counter.

“Are you looking for anything in particular?”

“I’m not sure. May I look around?”

“Of course you may.”

The old man’s eyes followed Tim as he walked from shelf to shelf and examined the dusty objects. A figure of the Spanish knight, Don Quixote, built from scrap metal sat on the reinforced toe of a workman’s boot. Tim marveled at the artist’s innovative use of recycled materials: valves soldered together with nuts and bolts and springs.

“Did you make this?”

The artisan nodded and smile. Tim took the medallion out of his shirt where he had hidden it next to his skin and showed it to the shop keeper.

“Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

The artisan’s eyes narrowed and he shook his head.

“I’m looking for the other half. Could you make one for me?”

“Impossible.”

“Why?” Tim offered it to him for closer inspection, but the artisan threw up his hands and backed away.

“I don’t need to look closer. I can’t help you.”

“I need to repair the medallion.”

“I can do nothing for you.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“Go to El Brujo. He’s the only one who can help you.”

Door bells jangled and the shop door opened.

“Speak of the devil ….” the artisan looked relieved. “It’s the man himself.”

“My ears were burning,” El Brujo‘s eyes held a mischievous twinkle.

“Here he is,” the artisan turned to Tim. “You can ask him yourself now.”

“Ask me what?” El Brujo stared at Tim who turned red in the face as he pushed the medallion back under his shirt.

“It’s nothing,” Tim readjusted the buttons.

“You won’t find it here.”

“Find what?”

“The other half of your medallion; have patience, my friend. It knows that you are searching for it. It will be drawn to you, never fear. The baths are across the road, incidentally. Alonso told me you might go there this morning. I’ll go with you.”

“But I thought you were going to Yalalag; I saw you on the bus this morning. You spoke to me.”

“Indeed I was and indeed I did. But I got off the bus, didn’t I? And you didn’t understand me when I spoke to you, did you? So I’m here, now; where I’m needed. Come along. Let’s go.”

He nodded to the artisan.

“Adiós, Pepito. Thanks for calling me. By the way, have you thought about that offer I made you?”

“I have indeed.”

“And your answer?”

“I think you know what I will say.”

“I do. But you must make up your mind quickly. The circle is broken and we must rebuild it.”

“When I am needed, I will be there.”

“You will be needed tonight.”

“Then I’ll be there.”

El Brujo and Tim exited the shop together, crossed the street, and walked towards the baths …

People of the Mist 15

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9:00 AM

Back in the apartment, Tim opened the bottle of mescal and poured a large shot into a glass. He gulped it down and the mescal burned as it rushed down his throat and into his gut. It relaxed him and he felt less haunted. Its swift invasion of his brain left him stunned for a moment and he sat down at the table, picked up his medallion and held it in his hands.

…  papier-mâché figures sway in the square … a cacophony of traditional music … massed village bands … the rhythm of rising rockets thumping into the air … dancing trees flap miniature limbs in time to the music … eyes flash from the trees’ waistbands … dryads and satyrs cavort carved and painted …  liquid motes of fiery tunes float in the air … music visible and almost tactile for a moment or two … stamping feet … stilt dancers … the music stops … young children … boys and girls … emerging from the trees … live dryads bark-skinned brown-eyed … a nymph walks over eyes open in invitation …

Tim’s mind clicked back into gear. Of course, that’s where he had seen the girl from the paper kiosk: she had been dancing in a papier-mâché tree, in the zócalo, and when the music stopped,  she invited him to join her in her tree.

            Colibrí, the tiny bird with the warrior’s soul, whirrs its wings … twin windmills, sun-dog ear-rings, draw circles round a suddenly-clouded sun … a flock of tiny feathered angels as bright as postage stamps sit in the trees in the courtyard to raise their voices in their afterlife of praise …

Tim checked his watch: if he wanted to visit the baths, it was time to get going. He got up from the table, slipped his medallion around his neck, walked out of his apartment and closed the door behind him.

People of the Mist 14

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8:40 AM

Tim headed for the mescal sellers who inhabited little shops in a long line over by the market and went straight to his favorite stall. The shop seemed empty, so he rang the little goat bell that dangled there for customers. The owner, an old lady with greying hair, emerged from the darkness at the rear. She looked at Tim, blinked, gave a half-smile, turned it into a scowl and announced: “It’s not here.”

“What’s not here?”

“What you’re looking for, of course. I know you’re looking but ….” she stared at Tim examining him with great care. “You don’t know what I’m talking about do you?”

Tim placed his hand on his chest but the medallion wasn’t there. He felt its absence like an open wound and remembered that he had left it on the table in his apartment.

“Of course I do: I am looking for some mescal, that’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

“Of course that’s what I mean,” the old lady smiled. “ And that is why I am here, to sell you some mescal. How much do you want?”

“Just a bottle.”

“I have no bottles prepared this early in the morning. There’s some in the barrel. I can always siphon some off and give that to you. You know that ours is the purest and the best. Even El Brujo says that. We come highly recommended. It won’t take a moment,” she shuffled away and returned with an empty four litre wine bottle that had once held Donini. She held it up. “Will this be enough?”

“That’s much too much,” Tim shook his head. “I’ll never drink all that.”

“And a good thing too,” she added. “We don’t want you ending up like Alfredo.’”

“Alfredo?”

“The man you saw in the street this morning. Now: this is what you need,” she held up a two litre plastic bottle that once held Coca-Cola. “How about this?”

Well, I, uh …”

“That’s all right,” the old lady nodded her head. “I’ll just siphon the mescal out while you’re making up your mind.”

She took a thin plastic tube, inserted it in the top of a large tin container, and sucked up some pure white liquid. Then she pinched the tube, lowered its end below the level of the barrel, and carefully placed the tube in the bottle’s neck.

“There,” she said.

Tim watched as the pale colourless liquid filled the bottle. When it was full, she handed it to Tim.

“That will be ten pesos, please.”

“Aren’t you going to seal the bottle?”

She looked at Tim as if, like the guajalotero of recent memory, he had just made some nasty and indecent smell. Then she searched behind the counter and held up a bright red rubber band. She twisted it on her fingers to make it smaller. Then she tore a piece of plastic from a long roll and placed it around the bottle top. She stretched the rubber band over the plastic and handed Tim the sealed bottle.

“There aren’t any worms,” he complained.

“Worms are expensive this year,” the old lady frowned. “You want worms, I sell you worms. But I sell them separately. How many worms do you want?”

“How much are they?”

“Three for five pesos,” she replied.

“Give me five,” Tim said.

She smiled at him, showing gold teeth, and produced a packet from beneath the counter. There were five worms in it, not three, not six.

“Just what I thought you’d say,” she smiled. “You foreigners are all the same. I had them waiting in this packet, all ready for you,” she took the plastic wrapper off the bottle, opened the packet with the five worms in it, counted them out, and dropped them one by one into the mescal. Wrinkled and yellow, they had a life of their own, and they came alive as they sank and through the liquid, leaving faint yellow trails behind them.

“Your mescal will now turn yellow,” the old lady said. “But don’t worry about that. Also it will taste slightly different as the gusanos age and work their magic.”

“How much do I owe you?”

“10 pesos plus 8 pesos and 34 cents,” she does the reckoning in her head. “That will be 18.34, please.”

Tim gave her a twenty peso note and told her to keep the change. She smiled at him and bowed. He said farewell and left the shop wondering how many more times that day he would come across the witch doctor by deed or name.

 

People of the Mist 13

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8:30 AM

Tim felt the day’s heat starting to build as he walked to the newspaper kiosk. Cloud castles rose in the air and the sun’s kiln fired the clouds with warmth and color. On the sidewalk, the shadows grew stronger and a knife-edge, like a military crease, sliced a razor-sharp junction between light and dark, sun and shade. An occasional face smiled at Tim with its white streak of lightning flashing across the nut brown skin.

Musicians and jugglers lurched towards the central square to earn their daily bread and a circle of admirers surrounded a man who ate fire for breakfast, breathing it out in great gouts of flame. The music grew louder as Tim approached a musician who stood in the shade playing a danse macabre on sun-polished marimbas. Beside him, a heart of fire burned in an iron barrel and a young woman, her baby wrapped in a hand-woven rebozo slipped around one shoulder, prepared quesadillas and offered them for sale. The mother sniffed with suspicion when her baby wailed. She moved away from the fire, unwrapped the baby’s soiled nappy, wiped her child with a cloth, put on a new nappy, and threw the old one into a garbage can where the flies pounced upon it. Then, hands unwashed, she returned to her cooking.

An old half-ton, returning from the market to its home village, chugged by emitting a cloud of black smoke. People clung to the outside of this vehicle waving their hands and grinning at their friends. In the back of the battered pick-up chickens roosted on an old bed stead while a young man, astride a shining porcelain toiled bowl, strummed his guitar and sang to entertain the passengers. The intrepid travelers hung on for grim life as the truck rattled its way down the street. It almost ran Tim down as it clattered, half on, half off, the sidewalk, avoiding this and that, the donkey in the road, the old woman crossing, the policeman with his whistle who directed traffic. Tim jumped out of the way. El Brujo, with one arm around the old man he had rescued, sat in the front seat, next to the driver. The witch doctor punched the driver on the arm, ordered him to stop, put his head out of the truck window, and called to Tim.

“You have forgotten how to walk in the woods. You have forgotten how the dead leaf separates from the tree and tumbles earthward in its longing to be free.”

“I don’t understand you,” Tim said. “You speak in riddles.”

“Then here’s a riddle you must solve,” El Brujo scowled at Tim. “You must look for a young girl who will wrap your heart in laughter. She will feed you milk and honey. Your heart will grow roots and begin to flower. When the Bird of Paradise calls your name, your heart will grow wings and fly. A sunbeam on its plumage will fill you with glory. Your tears will disperse and turn into feathers; sun people will chase you through the clouds and crown your heart with a rainbow crown.”

Amid a cacophony of horns and hoots, bystanders bowed and raised their hats as they recognized El Brujo. The witch doctor included them all in a generous wave and a shouted ¡Adiós!, then punched the driver of the guajalotero in the arm. The engine revved and the old truck rumbled away, shooting a cloud of filthy black smoke out of its exhaust, and backfiring with a vicious last fart as it turned the corner and vanished out of sight.

Tim stood at the roadside for a moment, shrugged his shoulders, and went to the newspaper stand where a young girl offered him a paper. He thanked her, counted out the change, and exchanged the handful of coins for the piece of newsprint. As Tim gave her the money, their fingers touched and sparks flew at the point where his skin met hers. She jumped back and Tim stared at her. He was sure he’d never seen her before.

“I’m so sorry,” Tim said. “That was quite a shock.”

The paper-seller had dark brown eyes, almost black, with the enormous depths so typical of the native born.

“El Brujo spoke to you?”

“He’s mad, raving mad,” Tim told her.

“Don’t say that,” she said. “He’s a good man and a poet. They say he has visions and can predict the future as well as read the past.”

“You mean he’s a fortune-teller?”

“No, not a fortune-teller, not in the sense I think you mean. He told me this morning you might be passing this way about now. I came to see if he was right,” she gave Tim the shyest of smiles and cast her eyes down.

“Nonsense,” Tim waved the paper and brushed away any trace of magic that might be lingering in the air. “You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?”

“No,” she kept her eyes down. “He said you were an unbeliever and would need much convincing.”

“Well, thank you for the paper anyway. It was a pleasure talking to you.” Tim crossed the road and hurried away from the paper stand.

“Well?” said the girl’s uncle, emerging from the inside of the kiosk where he had been listening to the exchange. “Is he the one?”

“I don’t know,” the girl’s eyes clouded over. “He might be. I’m not sure. I didn’t sense anything special about him and I couldn’t sense any medallion. But we’ll soon find out,” she put her hand to her chest. Her eyes lost their focus as she gazed into a distance of time and space.

“Could you get close to him?” the man asked.

“I doubt it,” she replied. “He’s not meant for me.”

People of the Mist 12

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8:15 AM

Tim fingered the slight stubble on his chin then stepped into the bathroom to shave.  He looked at himself in the mirror: brown eyes stared back at him. What am I doing here? What will become of me? He shrugged and raised his eyebrows. The face in the mirror did not give an answer. He covered that face with a white mask of soap and carved intricate patterns with the razor.

… painted masks … death masks … the masks the priests wear in the codices … the prisoner struggling … not yet fully understanding his fate … around him … animal masks … priest masks … the jaguar cult of the regiments … they strip him down … paint his body … arm him with flowers … place him on a pedestal … from there he will dance his last dance … fight his last fight .. his destiny … to die showing no fear … he strikes first with the flower … his opponents strike back … one by one … with their obsidian knives … each wound a flesh wound on legs and thighs … the heart pounds … the blood flows .. faster and faster … more flowers … more knives … more blood … until almost bloodless the prisoner weakens and stumbles … rough arms seize him by the arms and legs … they carry him to the sacrificial stone … bend him over it … chest exposed … and tear the humping heart from the cavity they carve in his chest … the severed arms and legs bounce down the temple steps to the waiting crowds … tomorrow his spirit will return as a hummingbird … and dance around the sun … for now his torn heart sizzles in the sacrificial fire … a horse’s head … teeth bared … grins from the temple walls …

Tim’s razor, held like a flower, slipped and he gashed his lip. The slow blood seeped through the soap streaking his mask with faint shades of pink. He shivered and stared at his reflection in the mirror. A very plain face with a nose a little bit larger and more hooked than it ought to be stared back at him. He thought of his nose as the prow of a ship or a bird’s beak: an eagle perhaps. His nose was very much like that of the man who died in the flower dance. In spite of the warmth in the room, he shivered again.

It was time for his daily exercises so he left his apartment and ascended the corkscrew staircase with its iron steps that rose to the roof garden. Here, in the Recinto de San Francisco, a little corner dedicated to the saint, two Canadians who dwelt in the apartment had placed a statue of St. Francis next to a tiny bird bath which they filled every morning with water. They had also planted flowers and bit by bit, the azotea had become a regular roof garden with a wilderness of blossom caged and captive in pots and urns. Tim stood amidst the flowers balancing on one leg in a figure called the Stork or the Crane. He looked towards the eastern horizon. The sun was well up now, but it wasn’t hot yet. The fierce heat would come later. He maintained his balance and listened to the traffic sounds in the street below. The exhaust fumes of the buses rose up and made his nostrils twitch. The water seller had already started his rounds. His cries of “¡Peragua! ¡Super Agua!” rang out as he cycled along.

… ruined temples … green grass molded into humps and lumps… tumuli … tumors waiting to be cut open and their secrets laid bare … a tomb open-mouthed … yawning at the sun … light floods in … gold bracelets glint … painted pots cast shadows on the walls … ghosts flitter and flutter … two bright glowing eyes … tecolote … the owl of death … staring eyes and crocodile jaws … Tlaloc … the death god … the guardian of the underworld … the gate keeper to the afterlife …

And what, Tim asked himself, comes to us in the afterlife? Henry, the evangelistic missionary, a male from the southern states of the USA, thinks he has a god-given right to tell us all what to do and how to do it. He hammers us with words of wisdom from what he calls the “good book” which he bangs and bashes as he quotes it in a deep rolling voice. I can’t be bothered to argue with this man who believes he holds authority over everyone’s spiritual welfare. So, while I may seem to obey him while he is present, I do not pay much attention to his words after he has gone. As for the unopened tombs that abound in the valley, well, I think they should leave them unopened. People who are dead and gone want to stay that way. They don’t want the treasure hunters breaking down the walls and stealing their treasures. And yet, the valley is full of ghosts who hang around restlessly while the authorities decide whether or not their earthly bodies will be exhumed. As I walk the streets at night, especially when it’s misty, shadows of the dearly departed loom before me. I can almost hear their footsteps on the cobbles and I mouth questions in their direction, only for them to vanish just as they are about to speak.

A hummingbird appeared right in front of Tim who turned his arms, slowly, clockwise, with clenched fists, trying to keep his arms level, trying not to hunch his shoulders, breathing in rhythm: “In two, three, four, and out, two, three, four.”

The hummingbird also churned his wings, whirring away, his flight centered on Tim’s nose, almost between his eyes, as if he thought Tim was a flower or

… a sun god … the sun god … and this is my beloved son … in whom I am well pleased … and these are my warriors … and this also is my son … this poor man … stripped to the waist … hands tied around a column … the lash marks showing bright purple across his back … this poor man walking down the street … beaten by the police … high on mescal …


            A dog barked and dragged him from his day dreams. He finished his exercises, went back down to the apartment, and got ready to go out shopping.