Dark Plums

by Maria Espinosa

  Did Rosita know that in the inner pocket of her purse she always carried six or seven large bills? What did it matter? Paper bills. Dirty gray-green paper bills. In return for copulating, sucking off, pleasuring strange men, they gave her bills which gave her certain powers. Why not? What did it matter to whom she gave these dirty pieces of paper when she was going crazy, sinking? “Can you use bills for toilet paper on a mental ward?” Alfredo would say.

  She unzipped the inner pocket and felt the bills with her fingers. Con artist. Con. Run with her money.

  “You don’t got the money, we can do the service another time.”

  “I’ve got the money,” Adrianne blurted out.

  “Okay. You gonna thank me. I know a lotta things about you … things you don’t even know yourself. I’m gonna help you, Adrianne, so don’t be afraid.”

  The gypsy’s voice was hypnotic.

  “We gonna have this service in a little while when my husband and the others get here. They’re all good people. We’re gonna help you. Maybe you wanna lie down and rest while you wait. You give me seventy-five dollars now and the rest later.”

  Adrianne took out several bills.

  “Okay,” said Rosita after counting them. She put the money inside her brassiere and led Adrianne to a dark velvet couch at one end of the room.

  A little girl about ten years old with skinny legs in a plaid dress ran into the room giggling and covering her mouth. Rosita cried out to her in a harsh language that sounded strange to Adrianne. Then she had Adrianne take off her boots and settled her on the couch, covering her with the fur coat. Her hands lingered on the fur.

  “You will die,” a voice inside Adrianne murmured. Tears choked her.

  “That’s okay. You cry, honey,” said Rosita. She stroked Adrianne’s hair.

  “Mama, help me,” Adrianne pleaded inside. But her mother was a cold woman who had withdrawn into the cocoon of her own dreams.

  “These are beautiful earrings,” Rosita said, fingering the one on her left ear. “Your man give them to you?”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “I know a lotta things. You love this man, but he hurt you, he’s no good for you. You even been thinkin’ about killin’ yourself, right?”

  Adrianne nodded silently while the gypsy continued to stroke her hair. The earrings were hurting her ears, and she wished she could take them off. But she didn’t dare because they might get lost.

  In the glow of the dim light the woman’s face appeared kindly. Could she trust this gypsy?

  All her separate thoughts converged like birds fighting each other with huge dark wings, and she felt sleepy. She dozed off and after a while awakened to the smell of frying chicken and footsteps in the kitchen.

  Rosita brought her a plate with a small, greasy, cooked chicken breast and some rice, along with a cup of bitter tea. Afterwards, Adrianne fell into a sound asleep. When she woke up, the room was dark and she could tell that hours had elapsed.

  “It’s time,” said Rosita softly as she turned on a light.

  Adrianne could hear people talking in the kitchen, apparently arguing with each other in their harsh Romany language.

  “Get up, honey,” Rosita said. “Don’t be afraid.” She was wearing a long shabby velvet gown, and a silver amulet gleamed on her chest. The card table had been pushed into a corner, leaving some clear floor space.

  Two men and a younger woman entered the room. The men wore short-sleeved sports shirts. The woman wore a long dark red dress and heavy gold jewelry. In her arms she held a baby.

  Rosita wandered around the room lighting votive candles. She whispered something to the older man, whom Adrianne took to be Rosita’s husband. Dark skinned, muscular, about fifty, he emanated sensuality when he smiled at Adrianne. The other man, who was perhaps in his early twenties, was slender, and his face was more reflective and sensitive.

  A third woman about the same age as Rosita, stocky in a long gown with gleaming jewelry, came into the room.

  The baby in the young woman’s arms began to whimper, although she was trying to soothe it by rocking it against her breasts. “Ramón!” she cried. The younger man took the baby from her and turned it over on its stomach, holding it in the palm of one hand, while with the other he slapped its back. The baby gasped for breath, then quieted down, and he carried it off into another room.

  When Ramón returned, Rosita led Adrianne to the space which had been cleared. The others grouped silently around her. “This girl, Adrianne here, needs all our help. Bad spirits have entered her. They got control, and they are making her sick. We are gonna drive them out. Don’t be afraid honey, we gonna help you. We gonna heal you right here tonight, and you gonna thank us the rest of your life.”

  Adrianne watched a votive candle on the card table flicker.

  Was all this a hoax?

  Shadows flickered over their faces. Although she was scared and imagined herself running out the door now before it was too late, Adrianne felt hopelessly weighed down.

  The young woman glanced at Ramón and seemed to be suppressing laughter. There was jeering laughter inside Adrianne’s head. She glimpsed a multitude of shadowy figures all around them, as if she were in a dream. Although she had slept, she felt exhausted and feverish. Perhaps the tea she’d drunk earlier had been drugged.

  “Don’t be afraid,” murmured Rosita.

  Lower entities are not evil, Adrianne thought in a flash as the gypsies began to swirl around her, moving their bodies in a dance-like way. Lower entities are only ignorant. Compassion for these lower beings, spirits, or ghosts, whatever they might be, flooded her heart. She wanted to keep them inside her. Poor hungry lonely ghosts. She would feed and love them.

  What was good and what was evil? It could only be good to feel compassion, and as for this physical life, it was soon over. Each person was like a husk that surrounded an island of emptiness, separating it from the vast universe.

  Alfredo, I love you. I love even these poor crooked gypsies who were once vulnerable children. If they want to take my money, it’s because they need it.

  Take my money and kill me. Then I can float up to the sky.

  “She is good,” intoned Rosita. “She is a good person. Let her be,” she gestured to Ramón, who looked as if he were about to slip off Adrianne’s golden bracelet with its Tiffany imprint that a shabbily dressed trick had given her a few weeks ago. At the time she wondered if the trick had stolen it.

  Rosita was stroking her forehead. Adrianne slumped and fell on the carpet.

  Loud laughter blasted inside her head, and shades of gray and purple burst inside her. As she looked around at these people’s faces, they seemed twisted, with dark eyes like wolves, evil mouths. Perhaps it was the evil inside her that was perceiving them like this, distorting their mouths and eyes. Perhaps they were going to kill her and throw her body into the Hudson.

  The others began chanting. “Pani pani lunjara … pani pani lunjara … mudares … mudares …”

  These words were repeated over and over again in a monotonous, threatening drone, like snakes hissing and snapping at her in the darkness. As she listened to the chanting, she could only make out fragments.

  “Pani, pani lunjara … mudares … mudares …”

  She grew dizzy and felt worn-out. She wanted to close her eyes and sleep.

  “In the name of the Universal Spirit, I command you, dark spirits, leave Adrianne,” Rosita said loudly in English “Pani … pani mudaras … mudaras …”

  An acrid odor seemed to fill the room as Rosita massaged Adrianne’s neck and shoulders, infusing her with warmth. The gypsy pressed sharply on certain painful points. Then electric spasms seized Adrianne’s body, and her arms and legs moved convulsively.

  Claws were digging into her throat, and she could not breathe. She gasped for breath and began to scream while they, still chanting, held her down. They were angry with her. Light and dark waves swelled over her and filled her mouth with a sour-tasting substance
. The claws kept digging into her throat, trying to destroy her. She screamed to rid herself of the claws, screamed to cleanse herself of the blood they were shedding inside her. Screamed louder and louder, while the people held her on the floor and continued to chant.

  She struggled to rise, but they wouldn’t let her. Breaths of all the men who had lain with her concentrated inside her into a huge dark cloud that came out of her mouth as she screamed again, so loudly that something shattered in the air around her. Then to her horror, she realized that her menstrual blood was soaking through her clothing onto the carpet. But no one seemed to notice or care.

  She screamed louder. Hands were still holding her down, anchoring her.

  “Universal spirit, protect Adrianne,” chanted Rosita.

  “Universal spirit, protect … protect,” the others chanted. “Pani, pani … mudares …”

  Golden light spears thrusting through blackness.

  “Lower beings, come out of this girl,” chanted Rosita. “Come out … come out … pani mudares … pani pani mudares …”

  Someone clapped a hand over her mouth.

  Ramón, the sensitive one, was holding a gleaming silver knife over her.

  Then, with all her strength, she again tried to rise and get away, but they were holding her down with far too much force. “This is the end. Now I will die,” she thought. She found herself trying to reach up with her mouth to bite the edge of the blade, but suddenly Ramón withdrew it and a few seconds later it thudded into the carpet.

  She blacked out.

  When she regained consciousness, she was covered with a blanket and hands were soothing her arms and hands and forehead. Warm hands held her icy, stockinged feet. She turned to her left side and vomited.

  “At last,” sighed Rosita. “Get up and wash yourself.” She led Adrianne into a small, brightly lit bathroom. There Adrianne rinsed out her mouth with cold water. She washed her face then dried it with a lime-green towel on the rack. After she finished using it, Rosita grabbed the towel from her and threw it into the wastebasket.

  Adrianne looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her face looked old. There were lines in her face that had never been there before. A film of sick perspiration coated her skin. Rosita must have drugged her tea earlier. How else could these hallucinations be explained? Yes, they drugged the tea. They did this at least once a week to unwary victims, and then the gypsies would laugh afterwards while they counted out their bills, just as she herself sometimes did when she counted out the bills from her tricks at three or four a.m.

  When she returned to the living room, the vomit and blood had been cleaned up and only a damp spot remained on the carpet. But the stench still filled the air She shivered. “I’m cold.”

  Rosita covered her with her coat and settled her down again on the couch.

  “Universal Spirit, protect Adrianne. Surround her in golden light,” chanted Rosita. The others chorused this. Then they began chanting again, “Universal Spirit, protect … protect … Prajial te nan yov auel … Prajial te nan you avel … you auel … auel … auel.”

  Adrianne felt empty. As they continued to chant, a beautiful warmth enveloped her. Then sadness welled up and she began to cry. Rosita’s arms wrapped around her. “That’s good, honey. Cry. Cry. The evil spirits have left you, and you’re healed now. You’re you.”

  The others chanted again, “Prajail … you … auel … auel.”

  She perceived something noble in their faces.

  “You were possessed,” said Rosita.

  Possessed.

  A strange word.

  Its meaning slowly penetrated her. Had she truly been possessed? Or was this a game these people played?

  “If you need help, come back, honey,” said Rosita. “We’re here.”

  Someone brought her purse, her boots, and her scarf. Hurriedly she put them on along with her coat. She felt ashamed and indebted to them and wanted to leave as fast as she could.

  Out. Get out. Fast.

  “It’s not safe to be on the streets so late,” said the older man. “I’ll go with you to get a taxi.” His voice tugged at her.

  “No, I’ll be all right!” she cried. She was so anxious to get away from them all that she pushed her way past them and rushed out the door.

  Chapter 30

  As she wandered down the dark street, Adrianne felt empty. No cabs were driving by, and it was very late and bitterly cold. Shivering, she wrapped her coat more tightly around her. Had it been a gigantic ripoff? What inside her had screamed so much that her throat was now raw?

  She should have let Rosita’s husband come with her to hail a cab. Although she walked alone night after night, she had never done so on such a deserted street. Something ominous hung suspended in the air; something sinister gleamed in the traffic lights. Or was it only her fear?

  However, she felt purified of something evil that formerly had power over her. It was clear the life she and Alfredo led was degrading to them both. How could he respect himself while he lived as a pimp? It had been weeks now since he’d touched a canvas, and he went out during the day on mysterious appointments.

  Surely if she confronted him as she was now, stripped of her deceptions, he would at last comprehend who she was and would understand how much she loved him. Her love would save them both.

  “Alfredo, my darling, can you feel how much I love you?” she said silently, wondering if the waves of her emotion could reach him at this instant.

  She had absorbed the poisons of all those who used her body. In fact, even now when she simply walked along the street, she was absorbing the poisons of frustrated and warped lives.

  She must get away from all these people. Get a job as a cook in a sleepy bar again, or as a clerk in the back room of some office where there was the least possible human contact. Alfredo could work part-time again as a bartender.

  He would understand that Michelle had to leave because the presence of a third person was destroying their life together.

  She could feel pure golden warmth around her now as she walked down the cold, dark, deserted street, and she felt that at this instant she was understanding things with crystal clarity.

  Alfredo was a god.

  She was a goddess.

  There were footsteps behind her. Muffled voices. Trying not to reveal any fear, she walked faster.

  “Hey, Mama, wait for me.”

  “Gimme some of that nice soft pussy.”

  “Hey, Mama; hey, Mama!”

  She broke into a run as she left the sidewalk and lurched into the middle of the street where it would be safer.

  God help her.

  “Hey, Mama!”

  “Taxi!” she screamed. “Taxi!”

  There it was, yellow light blinking, just around the corner. Look at me. Stop! Stop, she prayed.

  The taxi screeched to a halt.

  Chapter 31

  “She says she had an exorcism.”

  “She’s crazy.”

  They were whispering about her. Through the walls she could hear their voices as she lay on the old green couch.

  When she had told Alfredo about the gypsies, he leaned back in his chair in the kitchen and roared with laughter. He pulled her down on his lap and held her while he rubbed his fingers up and down her spine. His breath smelled of liquor, and as usual he was intoxicated.

  “You don’t understand. Yet you keep talking about Gurdjieff and awareness. Something very powerful happened.”

  “Loca! You believe anything people tell you. You’re suggestible!”

  Falteringly, she tried to explain what had happened.

  He grew angry, “You owe me three-nights’ work,” he said, pushing her off his lap. “When are you going to make this up to me?” After he had drunk a good deal, his mood changes were violent. Involuntarily, she took a step backward but resolutely continued with what she had planned to say.

  “I’ll be working. But look, I want Michelle to leave. We need to change our lives.”


  “Not now. First we need to get out of debt.”

  “We’re in debt?”

  “I borrowed some bread on what I thought was a sure winner.”

  “We’re in debt?” She burst into tears. “There’s no end to it!”

  “You didn’t tell those gypsies anything about me, did you?” He looked straight into her pupils, his own eyes narrow black slits.

  “No.”

  He took a swig from the bottle of rum on the table. His hands were shaking. Why had he changed so much? It was her fault. She could not nurture but only poison the lives she touched. The exorcism was probably fake, and he was right to laugh at her. She was still filled with something evil.

  “I thought you loved me,” she said. “I thought I was working for us. If I’m not, then I should leave.”

  The words came out before she could stop them. They sounded so final that she immediately wanted to take them back, as if they were fish she could scoop up into a net. But it was too late. What if he were to throw her out? Arctic wasteland. Cold. No love. No life. Help me, God, she prayed.

  Later, she bathed with a capful of bath oil called “Baño del Amor y Delirio” that she had bought over a week ago at a tiny Puerto Rican shop where magic candles, scents, and powders to produce spells were sold. The label on the dark bottle had grown greasy from being in her purse all this time, and tonight she thought the smell was too sweet. It was a cheap scent with a hint of musk.

  She heard the door slam, then Michelle’s footsteps. Alfredo was shouting, “Hey, baby, how’d you make out?” He said something else that she couldn’t hear clearly, and they both burst out laughing.

  The warm water lapped over her. She vowed to sleep on the couch until Michelle moved out.

  Later she heard them tossing about in the bedroom. Michelle was moaning with pleasure, and Alfredo cried out as he climaxed. Adrianne felt as if she were being blown apart like a tree by wind. Its leaves were her flesh; its branches her bones. Its roots were her heart being torn out of the earth.

  I will sleep, she told herself. But she couldn’t. Ail night she lay awake. She went to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of Alfredo’s rum. One drink. Another. Half the bottle.