by Various
I nearly convinced myself of this, until the night I woke up in a pool of my own vomit.
I came to consciousness in stages, first noticing the dry, nasty soreness in the back of my mouth, next the overpowering combined stench of vomit and chlorine, and then the chill telling me I must have thrown the covers off. Only last did I try to open my eyelids, which pulled apart slowly and painfully. A dim light cast shadows throughout the room—the tiny brass reading lamp hanging by Elena’s bed. Somebody sat in a chair by her mattress, hunched over and facing her wall, but that made no sense. If Elena wanted to read, she would have simply propped herself up on her pillows. Whoever sat in the chair fiddled with something I couldn’t see while rocking back and forth.
“Elena,” I croaked, calling out to my friend.
The figure on the chair jerked and turned toward me, fumbling something in the process. Whatever he dropped bounced off the side of Elena’s bed and tumbled to the floor with a crash and tinkle of breaking glass. The black-clad intruder swept something off the bed, picked up the pieces of whatever he’d dropped, and rushed from the room, knocking the chair over. Blurred shadows cast by the tiny lamp obscured my view, but I knew who it was. That crooked posture, that awkward gait, could only belong to one person. El Jorobado. And I could swear I saw a streak of crimson running down his chin when I first startled him.
I tried to step over to Elena and lost my balance almost immediately. I crashed down hard on the overturned chair and the hard floor, face-to-face with a red puddle on the floor where Leopoldo had dropped whatever he’d been holding before. I stayed there, on my hands and knees, breathing deeply and trying to control my stomach.
Several minutes passed before I tried to move again. I grasped the corner of Elena’s bed and pulled myself up until I sat on the edge, and I looked at my roommate. She seemed pale, even in the low light. A tiny rivulet of blood ran down from her elbow to the bedsheet, and a towel lay over her upper arm. I picked it up and found it soaked with hot water.
A wet cloth had revived Clara, so I used the towel to clean the blood off Elena’s arm and to wipe her face.
“Elena, wake up,” I said. I didn’t know what to do if she would not wake up. Obviously the infirmary was out.
If your roommate dies, you get straight A’s. I wanted to find the girl who told me that and punch her.
I took her hand in both of mine. “Please, chica.”
I think I was crying. I had to get away from this room, from the awful stench, from the bed where El Jorobado might have done God knew what—struck by a thought, I peered at my own arms. I found no blood, but he had been interrupted with Elena. I had freckles scattered throughout my body; did I have some new ones? I ran a finger along first my right arm and then my left, until I felt a slight bump. I looked closely, leaning toward the light and Elena, until I found the freckle that was not brown but red.
The bile rose in my throat again, and I barely managed to turn and throw up on the floor instead of on Elena.
The retching sounds must have finally awakened her, because I heard her croak out, “¿Gringa?” A moment later she propped herself up on one arm, took in the mess all over the room, and the stench, no doubt, and asked, “What happened?”
I slid down to a kneeling position and began to crawl toward the closet, toward my purse. I didn’t care that I was inside the room. I didn’t care who smelled it, or if I got in trouble. I needed a cigarette.
What happened?
I wished I knew. I wished I had a clue.
• • •
Elena came along when I went to talk with Hermana Constanza, the director. She wouldn’t even listen to us, though. She never stopped shuffling her papers as we presented our story. Finally she looked up long enough to tell me she had known Leopoldo since he was a young man, that he had suffered all his life at the hands of mean-spirited people who would not look past his impairment, and that I had a reputation for complaining about everything and refusing to fit in.
She was unimpressed by the couple pieces of bloody glass I’d found on our floor. Probably the result of my own carelessness, she said. As for the mark on my elbow, that was obviously a freckle, or perhaps a pimple I had popped, and certainly not evidence of anything.
She wouldn’t even consider the possibility I told the truth. By the time she finished cataloging my faults, I was blinking back tears and only too happy to leave her office.
• • •
I left Elena at the room and went to the garden to be alone. Even here I found no peace. Today the resemblance to my grandmother’s yard only made my vision swim and my breath catch. In my grandmother’s house, nothing threatened me. Here—sooner or later, I’d have to sleep, and I would again be vulnerable. And nobody believed me. Not my mother. Not Hermana Constanza. Even Elena seemed unsure what to think.
I was so caught up in these bleak thoughts that I practically fell over Dulce as I turned a corner. She was hunched over next to a stilt-rooted palm tree, feeding one of the dozens of stray cats that called our campus home.
“Sweetie, are you trying to give me a heart attack?” she asked, standing up and brushing herself off with a grin.
I knew she was joking, but even joking about death was too much to stand under the circumstances. The misery I’d barely been holding back for weeks came pouring out. I must have startled her, but she pulled me close and held me as I cried. Without thinking about what I did, I began to tell her everything.
I expected her to tell me it was nothing, that I was safe here. Instead, she frowned and said, “That bastard.” I bit my lip to keep my jaw from dropping. Dulce considered for a moment, and then asked, “Do you have time to come with me?”
Dinner was an hour off, but I wasn’t hungry anyway. “Sure,” I said, wondering what she had in mind.
Dulce walked me toward her apartment. I thought she planned to show me something inside, but she continued past and down a corridor I’d never walked through before, to a concrete lot where the kitchen received deliveries. A chain with a padlock held the gate to the rear entrance closed, but Dulce produced a keyring from her apron and we slipped through. She held a finger to her lips, as if I needed to be told.
I’d been to my parents’ new house a couple times since they moved, but almost all my time in Puerto Rico had been spent inside the school. Afraid of getting separated and lost, I kept close to Dulce as she hurried down the street. I followed her to a bus stop, and from the moment we boarded I lost any sense I had of how to get back. The sun had been low in the sky when we left; by the time we got off and walked three more blocks to a small house behind a shop, dusk had settled over San Juan. We stood in the yellow light cast by a bare bulb over the door and Dulce worked the peeling, black knocker.
After nearly a minute, an ancient woman opened the door and stared at us expectantly. She resembled a skeleton covered in leather, with wispy, thinning white hair, and she radiated disapproval.
“Is Tito in?” asked Dulce.
“No, he’s not here.”
The old lady began to shut the door when a voice from inside called out, “Come.” With obvious reluctance, she stood aside and let us in.
We entered a dimly lit living room, where a small television showed news about some armed skirmish or other and bathed a beat-up, plastic-covered couch in gray light. Next to the television set, a fan swiveled back and forth, barely cutting into the heat.
Light spilled in through an archway at the far end of the room. From the other side, someone asked, “What have you brought me, Dulce?”
Dulce pointed at the sofa and said, “Sit,” as she wandered off through the arched opening.
I took a hesitant step toward the sofa and stopped, paralyzed by the glare of the wizened creature who had admitted us. She sat in a rocking chair by the sofa, knitting, but her gaze fell upon me, not her work. I turned to face the television and watched standing up, trying for all the world to pretend it was the most natural thing to do.
After a moment
, I realized the announcer was talking about Cuba. A thousand or so exiles had landed on the southern coast and managed to establish a beachhead. A thrill of hope and fear passed through me. El año nuevo en Cuba. It was really happening. Was my father part of that force? He was not home the last two times I called and spoke to my mother. I couldn’t believe he would settle down and teach in a university after working for the last decade to overthrow Batista. But a thousand men! How many men did Castro have? A thousand men didn’t seem like a lot. And why were they doing the attacking themselves instead of waiting for the US Marines to land?
Sounds of conversation drifted in from the next room, but the television held my attention. I watched hungrily as the announcer talked over grainy photos of marching men and flying airplanes while managing to convey little solid information. When Dulce came back out and beckoned to me, I turned away reluctantly. She led me into a dirty kitchen and paused before a closed door.
Dulce took my hand and began to tell me why she brought me here. Tito was a powerful man, she said. He would give me the power to keep Leopoldo from hurting anybody. But I would have to use the power myself; Tito could not do it for me. Only someone hurt by Leopoldo could. Hermana Constanza would definitely not approve, if she found out. My parents would probably not approve either, she said. I might have to do things I was brought up to believe were wrong. Did I want his help in spite of this?
I tried to swallow, only to find my mouth dry. All this oblique talk frightened me. Just what did Dulce propose? She clearly had no intention of telling me unless I agreed. Could she and Tito really help? Maybe. Maybe not. But my parents and Hermana Constanza certainly wouldn’t. What else mattered?
“Sí,” I said. “Help me, please.”
“Then come with me and do whatever Tito tells you, no matter how strange it seems,” she said.
I followed Dulce through the door into a room with a bare cement floor and walls painted the color of frutabomba. Two framed prints hung on the far wall, one of Jesus and one of a woman with a halo. A shelf stuck out of the wall under each portrait, on which two large covered tureens rested. In the center of the room, on top of a mat, sat a table made of stone. An altar. On the ground surrounding the altar lay several more large mats, surrounded by an assortment of jars and baskets whose contents I tried not to guess at.
A tall, muscular black man in white guayabera and slacks stood on the other side of the altar. I supposed this was Tito. He did not greet me, but simply acknowledged me with a nod. Dulce knelt on a mat, pulling me down with her. Tito took a long drag from one of the jars, walked around the altar, and sprayed the contents over the pair of us. I flinched, and would have gotten up or shouted out if not for Dulce’s hand gripping mine, reminding me of my promise. The liquid smelled sweet and alcoholic, and I did my best to ignore the drops running down my cheeks. What had I gotten myself into?
Tito picked up another jar and spilled a bit in front of each wall. He did the same in the middle of the room, chanting in an unfamiliar language. Then he poured some of the liquid into a cup, imbibed, and handed it to Dulce. She drank and passed the container to me, telling me to finish the cup. After a deep breath to calm my roiling stomach, I took a sip as well. The spicy, sweet beverage burned my throat going down, but warmed my stomach. I began to feel pleasantly light-headed.
As I drank, Tito drew symbols on the floor with a powder from a bowl, continuing to chant all the time. He then sprinkled a different powder over the floor and placed several candles atop the symbols, lighting them as he went. When he finished, he opened a door on the far side of the room, through which I glimpsed the night sky.
Tito led a goat draped in red cloth into the room and closed the door. He fed it some sunflower leaves, and then held out a piece of coconut meat and some pepper in my direction.
“Chew it,” whispered Dulce.
I made a face, but did as she said, putting both in my mouth and mashing them into a paste, which I spit out into Tito’s cupped hands. Tito rubbed the paste on the goat, and led the creature to me.
“Hug it,” Dulce whispered.
I tentatively embraced the beast’s hairy neck, and Tito pushed my face into contact with its shoulder. The goat danced around a bit but hardly made a sound. Maybe it was sedated.
Tito walked the animal back toward the altar, chanting all the while, and picked it up as casually as a sack of potatoes. The goat did not protest this treatment, and sat docilely on the altar. Tito pulled a large knife out of a basket on the floor, and I realized what must surely come next. I squeezed my eyes shut, praying that Dulce would not make me open them, that Tito would not make me participate. His chanting built up to a shouted crescendo and then stopped.
A moment later, Dulce murmured, “There, my dear. It’s over.”
I turned away before opening my eyes. Dulce put her arms around me and led me from the room back into the kitchen. We stood in silence while I wrestled with mix of confusion, outrage, fear, and horror. I couldn’t settle on an emotion long enough to think of what to say.
After several minutes, Tito came through the archway to the living room. He had cleaned up and wore different clothes: beige pants and a sleeveless undershirt. His arms were tinged with red, though. He reached out a hand, in which he held something that looked like an enormous severed tongue. I whimpered and backed away.
“Brother Leopoldo craves blood,” he said in his deep voice.
I thought to the night I saw him in our room, and the red streak dribbling down his chin, and shuddered.
“This is not going to change,” Tito added.
Then what was all this for?
“But if he drinks of this blood, he will never again crave the blood of humans.”
Well. That was something.
I reached out and took the tongue thing from him. Once I held the object, I realized it was not a tongue at all, but a washcloth drenched in blood and wrapped tightly in Saran Wrap. To my relief, it didn’t leak. As I examined the bundle, Tito explained to me that I would need to unwrap the rag and squeeze a few drops of the blood into something Leopoldo would drink. And I would need to do it soon.
• • •
We got back late, which meant I missed checking-in at dinner. Hopefully Elena covered for me and told them I felt sick or something. Of course that meant a room check later, and I was already out past curfew. Fine. I had more to worry about than getting into a little bit of trouble. I finally had a way to deal with El Jorobado.
I frowned. Had all of that really happened? It already seemed so hazy.
“What now?” I asked Dulce.
“Find where he stores the blood,” she said, handing me a key.
I stared blankly.
“It’s a master key,” she said. “Please don’t lose it.”
A master key. Of course. I nodded and closed my fist around the key and left Dulce by her apartment.
Leopoldo’s room adjoined the infirmary. I took a roundabout route, and listened at the clinic door when I got there. Silence. Praying Leopoldo wasn’t inside, I cracked the outer door open.
The door opened into a lit hallway leading to a room full of metal chairs. No students waited to be treated, but to look behind the main desk I had to go further in. I didn’t have any pockets, so I tucked the plastic-wrapped washcloth into the waistband of my skirt and edged down the corridor, expecting a hand to clamp down on my shoulder at any moment. None did, so I risked a peek around the end of the wall.
Nothing. I let myself through the inner door and began to explore the empty facility. A half-dozen narrow beds lined a common area, which adjoined a room empty but for a single bed. The stink of Clorox, stronger here than anywhere else I’d been, threatened to overpower me. I knew they needed to sterilize every surface constantly, but the infirmary at my old school had never smelled this strongly.
The main room was lined with locked cabinets, and even my key would not open them. What if the blood was in one of them? But it wouldn’t be. Leopoldo would kee
p the precious fluid refrigerated. A refrigerator stood against the far wall, separated from the door to Leopoldo’s quarters by an ice machine. I hurried to the fridge, cracked it open, and paused before looking inside. Did I really want to see this?
I didn’t, but I looked anyway. I need not have worried. Water and juice in the refrigerator, and popsicles in the freezer. An unmarked brown bottle sat in a corner on the lower shelf, but whatever was inside wasn’t blood.
That left only his room.
My heart pounded as I put my ear to the door. I couldn’t detect a sound from inside, and no light came through the space underneath, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t inside, waiting for me. I swallowed and inserted the key, gently, millimeter by millimeter, and turned. I stood back and pulled the door open, preparing to run if I had to.
The room was laid out like all the dorm rooms, but with a single bed. In the light from the infirmary, I took stock. Where another bed would have gone in a student room, a sink protruded from the wall, on the rim of which various toiletries were arranged. On the opposite wall sat a large wooden table, which held several syringes and dark glass jars, a funnel, a stained coffee cup, and three cans that reminded me of some I’d seen in my father’s utility closet. Underneath the table stood at least a dozen bottles of Clorox and two large metal buckets. Hermano Leopoldo was not inside. Of course not. He was out making his rounds.
Where did he store the blood he collected? But then, why did I assume Leopoldo kept any blood at all? Maybe he went out when he needed more, and drank it right away. How would I get him to drink what I had?
From the infirmary, a door whoomped shut.
That would be the entrance by the front desk. I glanced at the open door to the room. I couldn’t possibly close it before whoever stood outside noticed, so I cast about for a hiding place.
Outside, arrhythmic footsteps. El Jorobado.
I saw no place to hide, and only one way out. I flattened myself against the wall by the door, hoping I’d get the chance to make a break for it.
I heard a drawer open and close, and the refrigerator.