Oaxaca

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 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.

People of the Mist 11

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8:00 AM

… the sky is a sharp blue guillotine, poised between twin roofs … a winding metal staircase … a caracol … a snail-shell cork-screwing up to the roof garden … a butterfly in the grapefruit tree opens and closes its painted wings with their wide-open peacock eyes …

Tim went up the stairs to his apartment and sat back down at the table.

Betrayal: the word shocked him and he meditated for a moment on its multiple meanings. He opened his journal and thumbed through the pages looking for a recent conversation he had shared with Alonso, the historical anthropologist. He sighed as he found it and started to read.

… early morning … Sunday … I was on my way to church … I walked through empty city streets … I was lost … I gazed from side to side … closed doors … barred windows … an old lady dressed in black emerged from a doorway in front of me … a lace mantilla covered her face … she carried a basket full of bright wool … I wanted to go to the Church of San Vincente … “This is the way to San Vicente, isn’t it?” I asked, pointing in the direction I was walking …  “Yes,” she said, and started walking in the opposite direction to me … I continued on my journey but I was still lost … I met a second lady … she walked towards me leaning on a walking stick marked like a slide rule with numbers and measurements … “This is the way to San Vicente, isn’t it?” I asked her … she nodded and walked right past me following in the tracks of the first lady … still lost, I stood there doubting … a third lady who looked like the local hairdresser approached … she was carrying an open basket with knives and razors and scissors within it …“This is … can you … will you tell me how to get to San Vicente”  I asked. “Of course,” she said. “Follow me.” … I turned and walked with her in the same direction as the first two ladies … we turned one corner, then another, and there was the church of San Vicente … I slowed down and the third lady went ahead and joined the other two ladies of whom I had asked the way … they seemed to be waiting for me on the church steps … so I walked up to them … I opened the door for them … “All roads lead to San Vicente,” they said in chorus … and they went inside … I sat down on a pew at the back … I looked for them … but there was no sign of them in the church …

I asked Alonso, my anthropological friend, about this weird behaviour. Alonso has a vast store of archived knowledge and seems to be able to locate the strangest facts and discover whatever hidden truth lurks behind almost everything.

“It’s simple,” he told me. “You’re a North American. No native person corrects a man of European descent. You said ‘This is the way to San Francisco, isn’t it?’ and the first two ladies said ‘Yes, it is.’ They’re not fools. They’re not going to put their heads in a noose and correct you by saying ‘No. It isn’t.’ And remember, the older they are, the more steeped they are in the traditional customs. Now, you addressed the third lady in the correct fashion and she gave you the correct answer. That’s what life’s like around here. You must learn to accept the culture and to ask the right questions. Otherwise, in your innocence, you might get misled.”

Tim sat at the table and thought about the day that lay ahead of him. Then he picked up his pen and wrote.

… evening … Monte Albán for the ceremonies and the dances … a dance group who dance native legends by torchlight …. something they say I mustn’t miss … this morning I must go shopping … more mescal … more groceries … must go to the baths …. not the Baños de Oaxaca … those other baths, I forget their name, on Reforma … Alonso told me they were good … and clean … no tourists … all locals … up by the Post Office … Alonso wants to take me to Mitla … late this morning … or early this afternoon … before we go to Monte Albán … it’s going to be a very busy day … I’d better sort it out …

He looked up. Then he stood, walked into the kitchen and looked for the mescal.  None left. He went back to the table, sat down, picked up his pen, unscrewed the cap, and continued writing.

9-11, shopping and los Baños;

1-4 Mitla, with Alonso;

5-8, Monte Albán with Alonso;

8-11, procession with a castillo and dancing

… it’s going to be a tight squeeze to get it all in … I’d like to go back to the cathedral … just to see if that man who looked like my father turns up … if I go there I can walk to Santo Domingo and listen to the old lady who stands alone at the altar and sings … such a beautiful voice …

“Yes,” Tim announced to the room in a loud voice. “I should just be able to manage it, provided Alonso arrives on time.” He stood up, pushed the chair away, clicked his fingers, and started to dance.

People of the Mist 10

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7:45 AM

Bare knuckles rapped against the frame of the open door and Mario stood there, blocking out the sunlight.

“Come in, Mario,” Tim said, hiding the medallion under a serviette that lay on the table. For some reason, he didn’t want the handyman see the medallion; but it didn’t matter, for Mario shook his head.

“It’s a pig day,” he announced from the doorway.

“Why is it a big day, Mario?”

“Not a big day, a pig day, you know, the day when you collect all your left-over food and I take it home to feed my pig. Sure, you remember.”

“Ah yes,” Tim sighed. “A pig day it is. When are you leaving?”

“I leave in about an hour. I just want to give you time to gather all your scraps. Then I will put them together with all the other people’s scraps and I will offer them to my pig.”

“How is the pig?”

“She is well, very well, and getting very fat,” Mario choked back what might have been a sob. “Soon I’ll have to sell her. I can’t stay, I must go now.”

Mario ducked his head and huddled away to the next apartment where he knocked on the door and Tim heard echoes of an almost identical conversation.

The sánate bird again scraped his knife-blade along the grindstone outside the window as

Tim divided the kitchen waste into two different bags, labelled edible and non-edible. When the bags were packed, he took the edible waste down to the courtyard.

Henry, the American missionary who had arrived here several months ago, stood by the container that Mario had left out for the pig food. Back in the States, Henry had made a fortune from the evangelical trade. Thousands of ardent listeners sent him the money he needed to build special projects in the good name of the Lord. In the Lord’s Name and to do His Good Work and spread His Holy Word, Henry owned a TV station and a Radio Station. With money to spend and the good word to spread, he had already involved himself in several financial transactions here in Oaxaca. The local people asked many questions about him, more often than not behind his back.

His latest plan was to develop The First Temple of the Rising Prophet. Nobody knew what this sect did and to find out, one had to become initiated into it and swear the vows of obedience and secrecy. Henry was founder, chief preacher, and high priest of the First Temple and he every day he tried to persuade all the foreign tourists who owned American money to join his new church.

“Are you feeding Maritormes, too?” Henry raised his hat as he greeted Tim.
“Maritormes?”

“Yes, Maritormes, that’s what Mario calls his porker. Do you think it’s named after his mother-in-law?” Henry’s accent made the name sound like Merry Torment. “It’s a funny name for a porker.”

“How is the pig?”

“Doing fine,” said Henry, “and almost ready to be slaughtered and sold. Sssh! Here comes Mario. He gets weepy about his porker, you know.”

Mario walked across the courtyard and took the bag full of edible garbage from Henry’s hand.

“You don’t have to sell the porker, Mario,” Henry had held this opinion since he first heard about Mario’s pig. “You could raffle it. Then you could slaughter it and you could sell tickets for that too. I’d help you to sell the tickets. After the slaughter, you could do a barbecue, real American style, and my fellow First Templars could come round and eat. At ten bucks, US dollars, for each Templar, plus the lucky people we’re in the process of converting and persuading, we’d make a load more money barbecuing than selling, you know.”

“In my village we raise our pigs by hand and we don’t barbecue them,” said Mario with a great sadness in his voice. “That would be like sacrificing a friend.”

“There’s a first time for everything, you know,” Henry rubbed his thumb across his index finger and held the imaginary money up for inspection.

“I don’t think you’d all turn up. Once you saw the pig being slaughtered, you wouldn’t want to eat it. It isn’t everyone who can witness the slaughter of a pig.”

“He’s right,” Tim said. “I’m still tormented by my first memories of a pig slaughter and I can’t forget the anguished human squeal it gave as the knife pierced its neck. Lots of tourists feel sick as soon as they see the first drop of pig’s blood dripping off the knife-blade.”

“Anyway: how could you eat my pig?” Mario’s voice held a rebellious note. “You’re not cannibals. And you all might as well be related to it because you’ve been eating the same food.”

Henry considered this remark in silence then the First Temple Preacher shrugged his shoulders and tried again.

“For you, Mario, we’d all buy tickets. Then you could roast the porker and we’d all come to the party. No mescal, mind. I don’t want any of my people tempted into the evils of alcohol, you know.”

“But you drink alcohol. I saw you with an open bottle of wine the other night.”

“Well, what do you know? You saw me drinking wine, did you?”

Mario nodded his assent.

“You know what, Mario, that must have been Saturday night,” he hummed and hawed for a second. “You know, that’s right; I remember now. I was testing the altar wine. The Prophet’s blood flows thicker than water, my friend, as you well know. And remember, the first miracle that The Prophet performed turned water into wine. But the members of my Temple don’t drink wine anymore, not outside church, not now that we know it’s the Good Prophet’s blood, you know.”

“You eat blood pudding. You eat pig’s blood,” Mario flexed the muscles on his forearm. “Anyway, I can slaughter my pig but I couldn’t eat her. I feed her every day. For me, she’s like one of my children,” Mario took a tissue from his pocket and dabbed at the corner of his eye

“Wait a second, Mario,” Tim forced himself to sound positive. “Cheer up, Mario. You’re selling the pig in a good cause.”

“I don’t know about that,” Henry resembled a dog with a bone and he wouldn’t let go. “After feeding it every day, he sells it to be slaughtered. Then it’s turned into bacon and sausages and blood pudding, to be consumed by strangers. I heard tell once of a man who was sold to strangers for 30 pieces of silver. When you get your 300 pieces of silver, Mario, or whatever you get, I hope you won’t hang yourself from a tree.”

Mario’s face turned very red. He wiped his eyes in his tissue, took Tim’s bag of edible garbage and shuffled away with the two bags in his hand.

“Henry,” Tim stretched his hands out, palms up, towards the American as he spoke. “That wasn’t a nice thing to say. I think you’ve upset him.”

“I wonder if he kisses the pig on the cheek before he turns it in?” Henry stood there scratching his head with one hand

“Isn’t there something about charity in your church along the lines of ‘faith, hope, and charity, and the greatest of these is charity?’”

“You know, now I think about it, there is. And now I’m going to be very charitable to you. I know how much you’ve been suffering, don’t ask me how; and I know how lonely you are; again, don’t ask. Why don’t you become a Templar and join the Temple? You’ll be in on the bottom floor and there’s plenty of money to make. And this should get you interested: we’ve been signing up some great looking women. I know for a fact Marisa would like to see you there,” Henry gave Tim a wink and a nudge, but Tim didn’t wink back.

“She’s a fine woman, Henry, and one day she’ll make somebody very happy; but today’s not the day and I’m not sure that I’m the man she deserves.”

“Look: we can double everything up. Think about it: we buy Mario’s porker and then we barbecue it; and then we celebrate your joining the Temple with Marisa, all on the same day. All your friends, all Marisa’s friends, the people from the compound, Mario’s friends, the Templars: we’ll make a fortune. Tell you what: marry her and become Templars together and you can have half the profits from the barbecue as a wedding gift. What do you think of that?”

“And what, pray, does Marisa say about all this?”

“I haven’t asked her yet; but I reckon she’s up for it. She’s as ripe as a plum and boy, you do need a woman; believe me, I can tell.”

“Henry, if I need a woman, which I don’t, I am quite capable of finding one for myself, thank you. I don’t need a marriage broker.”

“That’s not what Mario thinks; and for once I agree with him.”

“Henry, please tell Mario to leave well alone. And as for you … and your charitable offer … well … I must admit … you have left me speechless with your, ahem, charity and, uh, generosity.”

“Don’t thank me now,” Henry rested his hand on Tim’s shoulder. “I’m just getting started, you know. You haven’t seen anything yet,” he winked at Tim again. “Trust me. But don’t trust them, any of them. Mark my words, they’ll betray you. And then you’ll be in trouble.”

He started to whistle and walked towards his apartment. Tim shuddered as he put words to the tune: “Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match.”

People of the Mist 9

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7:40 AM

Sunlight crept in through the open window and the room started to warm up. Tim fingered the leather cord that dangled from his neck and the medallion throbbed with the rhythm of a heartbeat. Tim took it off, held it between his fingers, and examined it with suspicion. Unlike anything he had ever seen before, it still contained the warmth it had taken from Tim’s body. The cross seemed to be a typical Oaxacan cross, except that it was rather stubbier than usual, more like a Maltese Cross. The red of its roses replaced the body and blood of the dying Christ. In the centre of the roses Tim could make out half of a tiny human heart. A jagged tear ran on a diagonal across the medallion. It carved through cross, heart and flowers, leaving the remains grieving for what was absent. The cross was wounded and Tim imagined it throbbing and sobbing as its life blood seeped away. A pedestal of broken stones stood at the cross’s severed foot. The roses that clung where Christ’s body should have been hanging stood out like spilled blood. Tim closed his eyes and tried to recreate the scene in his mind, as if it were whole. Warmth filled his body and he knew that he must find the missing portion.

As though a switch had been flicked and a light turned off, the positive energy stopped and the medallion felt cold and lifeless. Tim traced the edges of the flowers with the tip of his index finger and nothing happened. He wished now he had questioned El Brujo about his gift. However, here in Oaxaca questions were often dangerous and one couldn’t always trust the answers when they were so often double-edged and as sharp as glass. Tim thought of the codex drawings and of the multiple meanings that eccentric experts and squabbling specialists had bestowed upon them.

He placed the medallion on the table and opened the facsimile codex that lay there waiting for him.  The priests who accompanied the conquistadores had hated these indigenous books. Works of the devil, they had called them, and they had tried to destroy, by burning their writings, the history and culture of the people they had conquered. Alonso had told Tim that although much was lost, some things had survived thanks to an oral tradition passed on from generation to generation. This preserved the lore and culture of the older peoples who had for five thousand years inhabited the Valley of Oaxaca. The facsimile copy that Tim possessed still bore the burn marks where a believer had snatched it from the Inquisition’s flames. When Tim touched the burn he could feel in his heart the surge of anguish of the man who had snatched it from the fire and spirited it away. He had so much to learn and grasped at each new world as bubbles of meaning rose from the brush-stroked pages. He knew a multitude of secrets lay in there somewhere, if only he could stumble upon them and shuffle them so they made sense.

… how do you translate a picture into words … he thought … how do you capture line and colour with a few brief strokes of black ink on white paper … what about movement … and perspective … and what cultural perspective steps out from these flat drawings that adorn the page … can you capture in words the smell of cool rain on warm dust … or the scent of the gourd flower when it floats on the surface of hot spicy broth … or the crunch of the mescal worm between the teeth … or the bitter bite of salt and lime  …

The flowing lines of the ideographs wrapped Tim’s day-dreams in colorful hand-woven shawls. The risen sun, a golden treasure trove, gilded the roof of the nearby church and pigeons posed, framed in the window, flash-frozen in an instant of silence. Tim grasped at each new world as it raised bubbles of laughter from the brush-stroked pages, but the speech bubbles quickly faded, faltering on failing air, and he had difficulty in grasping their multiple meanings as they drifted away, golden leaves gliding downwards on an instant of breeze. So many secrets waited to be discovered, if only he could find the key. He looked at his medallion as it lay on the table and listened to the sounds that surrounded him.

…  the tongues of the trees whisper as the slow wind stirs them into speech … the white egrets sigh as they rise from their overnight branches … the strengthening light channels their wings while they shuffle their intimate dance steps …

Last night, the lady who takes her balloons from the square at nine o’clock held a secret within her eyes. It floated in the curls of the children’s hair as they fled to their homes before the coyotes began to prowl. Tim saw them with their cell phones and the synthetic happiness that they peddled in the cellophane packages they carried in their pockets and sold with lies.

Incandescent eyes had blazed from dark doorways in cheap hotels.

“King for a night and a father for the rest of your days,” a young girl whispered to him as he passed by.  Her lips beckoned and her dark eyes tried to draw him.

“I’ll always be your love, my love,” she sighed. Behind her, a table lamp cast the dark shadow of a man with a knife in hand.

How simple it would have been to have followed the snake path, to have slipped sideways and downwards into the welcoming darkness of her arms. But at the end of that trail would come betrayal, the threatening thunder of words, the lightning bolt of the knife with the night sky sliced apart.

… Tochtli leers from his home in the  moon  …  the Owl of the Underworld flaps his wings … drawing near with his gift of subterranean grief …

People of the Mist 8

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7:35 AM

… the sound of dry cactus trickling through a rain stick imitating rain  as it falls from the clouds to strike the forest leaves … rain … steady and  heavy … from purple clouds … water fills the scorpion’s underground nest … Alacrán emerges and  knocks at the dreamer’s door … go away, says the dreamer … tail in air Alacrán minces down the balcony and onto the staircase … now his carcase dries on a stone in the sun … when the rain ends, black ants emerge to pick at Alacrán’s drowned body … they carry him in bite size chunks … up the thin crack in the apartment wall … back to their nests … life goes on … many are called … many are chosen to be victims or assassins … who knows who will be chosen … and for which role …

“Heal yourself,” cried the sánate bird, drawing his knife blade over the sun-warmed stone outside Tim’s window. The trees in the courtyard filled up with sparks of colour as their leaves lapped at his balcony. A butterfly, yellow and black, shook delicate wings, and dangled, at the end of his floral string. Soon the bird of paradise would close its eyes and go back to sleep. High in the sky, strung out like a line of washing in the early morning air, the temples of Monte Albán basked beneath the sun as they dreamed of their former glory. Cloud shadows walked across Tim’s wall. Tourists on an endless train from there to here to nowhere in particular, white clouds stared at Tim from a pastel sky.

Tim loved the sparrows. If he left the apartment door open, they would cease their squabbling and fly down to his balcony from the red-tiled roof of his neighbour’s house. Fearless, they would step through the opening to see if he would throw them some crumbs from his table. Sometimes, they would fly right in, perch next to him on the table, and pierce him with their inscrutable gaze.

… Ah, would some power the giftie gie us, to see ourselves as these sparrows see us, Tim used to think, for sparrows dwell among the blessed and it is written that not a single one shall fall …

The sánate kept winding up the day with the whistle of his call and dogs barked on the azoteas and in the streets. A warm wind walked through the open door, ruffled Tim’s hair, and climbed out through the kitchen window with a last wave of the palm leaves. This was now his life: to sit here before an open book while black ants crawled their predatory letters across the page and tulips and carnations performed a slow dance in time with the sun’s rotation. Tropical fruit sulked in a basket on the table. The great wheel of the sun had risen over the rooftops and sparrows hopped, dogs barked, and the sánate dragged once more the long thin knife of his tinker’s cry across the sharpener’s grindstone as a rooster crowed his thick rich morning cocoa rico.

… the breakfast orange lies racked on the plate …  juices flow like blood … a blood orange … rising like the sun from night’s mist … and now the orange … lifeless … a pale yellow robe spent and exhausted … fading in the sunlight … the wasted disc of a worn-out decadent moon … a lantern with its wasted light cast across a tabloid sky … a still life this orange … its life blood a sacrifice … thick rich golden liquid … as fierce and sweet as sunshine on a branch … 

Tim blinked, went into the kitchen, and looked for the mescal, but it had all gone. The absence of the yellow worm’s slithering crunch beneath his teeth was the ultimate sacrifice. He stood in the doorway, shivered in the sunshine, and mourned one more among his many losses.

 

People of the Mist 6

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7:15 AM

Tim turned the corner away from the church and on the next street a bitter sweet smell assaulted his nostrils. An old man stood vomiting into the gutter. Behind him, holding handkerchiefs to their faces with one hand and their white night-sticks with the other, two policemen prodded the wretch, pushing him onwards, out towards the city’s edge. A small crowd buzzed around him like a cloud of flies. He lurched forward and the policemen prodded him on again. He lurched forward, a stubborn donkey provoked by a stick. The people in the street parted like a bow wave from the ship-shock of his passing.

Stunned and vomiting, sick to the core, half-blind, stinking of the worst kind of cheap mescal, he lugged himself along his personal Via Crucis, step by painful step. When he fell, the policewomen closed in, kicking and tugging him back to his feet.

… quivering nostrils … the throat blazing with its desire for lemon and lime … the jag of the salt …  the chili’s burning flame … the healing kiss of the mescal …the harsh dried husk of the twisting worm … like grit between the teeth …

The old man stood there, nailed to the cross of the sidewalk, his arms hung out on the wind to dry. A scarecrow’s clothing would be cleaner than his clothes. A Guy Fawkes figure, rags and tatters leaked out from his flimsy frame.

… the sun hangs its tail-less kite in the sky … the moon dreams her way through the heavens … an old man washes his own brain … cleanses it of myth and memory … tries to drown himself in a dark river of tears … a sad hand rises from the waves to wave farewell … in the depths of the mescal a yellow worm glides like a shark to the bottom of the bottle …

The old man seemed to walk through shallow water with the millstone of the morning after tied round his neck, a personal millstone, made to measure and grinding exceeding small. If the wearer were to wander into deep water, then it would weigh him down and he would drown.

The street people taunted him, threatened to stand him in the stocks, to strip him down to his basic elements, the heart that beats, the lungs that breathe, the white flat rib-bones that can be scarred, like paper, with the wonder of words. They threatened to stretch him on an ancient altar. They shouted that his torso’s closed flesh was ripe for the sacrificial blade, his body bent backwards, his mind dreaming of the knife’s vertical descent and horizontal slash. People cheered as the policeman’s stick with a thunderous thump flashed white lightning and pierced the mist that lay thick on the vagrant’s mind.

… one quick swallow … then another … twin promises of summer’s sun and of hope’s renewal … each thimbleful of this mouth-burning treasure, drawing warmth into the gut forcing a tear drop from the eye … bringing oblivion …  

The old man soiled the newborn day by vomiting again and drenching the street in a paper bag reality of soiled clothes and running liquid. The street people closed in, creating a moving jail and the old man shivered with laughter and spread out his arms. His round wide eyes were those of an owl about to fly into the cockcrow sun face. Then the crowd drew too close and something snapped: he roared at the stabbing fingers and pissed at the people through the bars of his cage. A beam of sunlight picked him out and, for a moment, his eyes met Tim’s. They gazed into each other’s souls and a voice rang like a bell within Tim’s head: there too, but for the gift of the gods, go you.

The policemen again stepped towards the old man but a strong, dark figure appeared between the police and their victim.

“Basta, enough,” El Brujo raised his hand and the officers backed away. “I will look after him.”

El Brujo turned to the old man, wrapped his arms around him, and hugged him tight.

“You must forgive them, brother,” he spoke in a loud voice so the crowd might hear him. “They know not what they do.”

“Come, come home with me,” El Brujo waved the crowd to one side and put his arm around the old man’s shoulder. “I will help you find what you seek.”

The crowd sighed and started to break up. El Brujo and the old man walked arm in arm down the street. The police officers followed them for a step or two but the crowd gathered in behind the pair and ahead of the police, blocking their way. With a shrug of their shoulders, the uniformed officers turned back. A voice in the crowd cried out:

“¡Viva El Brujo! Make way for our saint.”

… the medallion  awoke … it ticked back into life … warm around the neck of the wearer … it moved … a pendulum swaying … side to side … white lightning … a hammer blow falling … somewhere … falling … and the ground swelling up to shake itself out … an old man … an old dog with fleas … shaking …

Well aware of the warmth he carried against his chest Tim turned away from the street scene and walked towards the apartment he now called home.

People of the Mist 5

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7:00 AM

Mass over, Tim stood, made a copycat sign of the cross, and walked out of the church. The boy with the cactus and the girl with her basket of flowers had left the courtyard. The witchdoctor, however, remained. He squatted on the ground, in a trance-like state. Before him, his fire burned low. The strong scent of copal rose from the coals, hung heavy on the air, then dissipated in curves and waves of thin smoke. Tim stopped for a second to look at El Brujo and, as he gazed, the witch doctor, without opening his eyes, spoke.

“It’s a wise man knows his own father.”

“What? What do you mean?” Tim’s knees shook and his voice became squeaky. It seemed to rise an octave as he mouthed dry words.

“I spoke to your mother yesterday.”

“That’s nonsense. My mother’s dead.”

“What ails you, my friend?”

Tim didn’t know what to say.

“If you won’t speak, I’ll speak for you,” El Brujo opened his eyes and stared at Tim. “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 nursery rhymes and riddles,” Tim forced himself to remain calm yet the words fanned a sorrow within him that he had thought long dead.

“Perhaps, but do they speak true?”

Images flash through Tim’s mind.

… curses … stone … dust … ashes … broken heart … rock … heart in mouth … a marigold path … zopilote … high in the morning air … 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 old stone building … three beautiful ladies dancing on the temple step at Monte Albán … 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 … the face of death simmering in the moon’s dwindling pool …

Tim shook his head from side to side.

“So, I see you have some knowledge,” El Brujo raised one eyebrow. “But do you trust that knowledge?”

“Tell me what’s happening, please.”

“What do you want to know?”

“I want to know everything.”

El Brujo turned down the corners of his mouth in a frown.

“Everything? Listen with care and remember. The rich man in Yanhuitlán bought a husband and wife from a nearby village for nine pieces of gold. Next day, he cut their throats at the foot of a large stone idol; then he sprinkled the dead man’s grave with their blood. When he did so, the rains returned, the crops grew again, and the sun continued on his daily journey.”

“That’s it?”

El Brujo nodded in assent.

“What has that got to do with me?” Tim’s voice quavered as he asked the question.

“You too must make a sacrifice, my friend, for in blood we were born, and in blood we will finish our days.”

“What kind of sacrifice? A blood sacrifice, like that boy?”

“No, not like that,” El Brujo shook 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 held out his hand. A medallion on a braided leather thong lay in the palm.

Tim looked at the medallion and saw that it had been broken in two and that one half was missing. What remained showed a cross with a half bunch of roses where the crucified Christ would normally have appeared.

“This is your mother’s gift to you.”

“You’re crazy. You know that? I told you: my mother’s dead yet you still say my mother left me this.”

“I do and she did.”

“Did you know her?”

“I did.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You may believe what you want. But tell me, do you not feel for the medallion? Does it not cry out to you?”

“I can’t say it cries out to me, but I like it, yes. How much do you want for it?” Tim put his hand in his pocket and drew out his change purse.

“You do not have enough money to purchase it,” El Brujo wrinkled his nose in distaste.  “And if you did, you wouldn’t be the man I think you are and then I wouldn’t sell it to you. But it comes from your mother and it belongs to you. Here, take it and put your money away. Please, don’t insult me. Here, lower your head. I promised your mother I’d put this on you myself.”

Tim hesitated, but El Brujo’s eyes held a power that disconcerted him. He bent his knees and lowered his head and the copal that burned on the witch doctor’s fire made Tim’s eyes fill with water and blurred his vision. His lungs filled with its heady heaviness and El Brujo pushed him down towards the source of the incense. Tim inhaled and broke out in a sweat.

“You must wear this always. It will protect you,” El Brujo placed the medallion around Tim’s neck.

“But it’s broken.”

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

“Did my mother tell you that?”

“Your mother is dead.”

El Brujo lapsed into silence and stared Tim down. After a moment, he broke into a weird, wailing chant, using a language that Tim had never heard before. As he sang, he brushed Tim’s eyes with an eagle feather that he drew from his shirt pocket.

“Now, you will be able to see.”

… an old woman dressed in black pushes a young man in the chest … woollen threads hang out their colors from her sewing basket … they flap like flags in a single ray of sunshine that breaks into a million tiny sparks of fire … hummingbirds, wing their dance around a sun that bears a dead man’s  face … a pair of scissors snips at the string that ties the 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 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 into pipe wire shapes 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 drawing a curtain around her falling body … 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,” Tim coughed and cleared his throat. “I saw nothing at all.”

“If you say so,” El Brujo stared at Tim long and hard. He opened his mouth to speak, then shrugged 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 a man old enough to be your father? Here, kneel beside me,” El Brujo tapped the ground at his side and Tim, wondering all the while what on earth he thought he was doing, knelt beside the witch doctor.

El Brujo leaned forward and blew on the fire. He added a handful of twigs and selected with great care three pieces of copal from one of his pockets.  He thought for a moment then added two more pieces of incense. The fire caught and smoldering incense filled the air with its heady scent.

“This is a magic land,” El Brujo said as he sketched his spell onto the smoke rising from the fire and laid hands on Tim’s head, all the while muttering an incantation as he squeezed Tim’s neck between his thumb and forefinger. Tim didn’t struggle as El Brujo moved his head to where the incense was thickest. Tim coughed at first, then inhaled the incense and relaxed as his lungs filled with its aroma.

… the young man’s spirit drifts out of his body … it floats in the air above him … the witch doctor draws grief and sorrow from the young man’s heart … they circle for a moment … a sharp wind blows them away …  a child’s balloon rises in the air … it soars upwards to where zopilote floats in the sky … the witch doctor chants and his words have the brightness of forgotten gods long-buried in splendour … still burning with life … he hangs a silver sun round the young man’s neck … it rests against his heart and mirrors the gold disc hanging from the sky … silver mingles with gold as the warm metals bond with flesh and blood …

Tim continued to inhale the incense and exuded thick beads of sweat as he struggled to remain conscious. El Brujo filled his heart and soul with honey and hibiscus. The witch doctor blessed him and again brushed his eyes with the eagle feather. Then he sat back, closed his own eyes, and waited for Tim to regain his senses. Tim’s eyelids fluttered; like a landed fish, he took in great gulps of air, then struggled to his feet, swaying for a moment and shaking his head. El Brujo remained motionless. Tim opened his mouth to speak, but could find no words. He shuffled away in silence.

…  dry leaves gather in quiet corners where the morning breeze weaves them in endless figures of eight … a whirlwind of dead dust scuttles in mysterious circles … rats disturb old bones that lie drying on the floor of an age old attic in an abandoned house … a light brown hand rises for a moment … waves … then dips beneath icy waters …

Tim turned as he reached the edge of the square and looked back. The fire sputtered and one last spurt of smoke formed into a figure that crouched low beside the witch doctor and whispered in his ear.