Love, or the Witches of Windward Circle

by Carlos Allende

  Dear child! When was the last time I saw you? You’ve grown old. Why is my friend calling you Dudu? Where are your sisters?

  “I hate to be a pest,” George began, unaware, as they all were, of the telepathic conversation between the little witch and the vampire, “but that coffee with molasses that you mentioned Ms. Dudu makes…”

  “Oh, yes,” Josie exclaimed. “And the quiches? Do you mind?” She said to the little woman.

  “I love quiche,” Richard winked to the little woman.

  The little woman returned to the kitchen.

  That was her godfather, she trembled, resting against the swinging door. No doubt about it. It had been forty-six years, but he looked exactly as she remembered: handsome, jovial, tastefully dressed. He still conducted himself with, what she thought, were the elegant mannerisms particular to a member of the old-world aristocracy. And this time he had recognized her. What was he doing there? Had he come for her? Why now, after she had committed not one but two murders?

  “I’m sorry I can’t be a better hostess,” Josie sniffed, in the living room. “I’m so glad you’re all here, helping me cope with the grief. It’s been such a terrible day for me. I’m even glad you’re here, Eva, despite your very unkind words,” she added with sham defiance. “Thank you.”

  Our little friend lifted up her eyes. Another surprise: President Buer had taken her form, complete with the red sweater and the full body apron. He already had the quiches in the oven and was filling up a copper pot with tap water to make coffee.

  “I saw you running up and down trying your best to please everybody and I thought you may be needing some help,” he said.

  The little woman stretched her arms against the swinging door.

  “Four hands can do more and much better, don’t you think?” the demon continued. “Let me fix this for your guests. You go up and hack off the chin from her body.” He opened a drawer and offered the witch a cleaver. “We’re not going to let her go to waste, are we? Wrong girl, right age. They all look the same, if you ask me. Who isn’t pretty at that age? After so much hard work, to lose another corpse just because it wasn’t the girl you wanted makes no sense. I promise; this time I won’t touch her until the soup is finished.” He put his hand on his heart.

  The little woman remained still, her eyes fixed on the demon.

  “Oh, I know what troubles you,” President Buer looked at her disenchantment. “It’s that pudgy bloodsucker out there. He didn’t come to rescue you, you know? He’s here because your tenant invited him. That man is not on my list of favorite people.”

  He grabbed his mistress’s stool by the swinging door and stood on it so he could spy through the round window.

  “There he is, being the center of attention—as usual. All smiles and giggles—as usual. You would think of him a nice person. A user, that’s what he is. A social climber. A liar. A cheater. An imbecile. In one word: a vampire. Those bloodsucking monsters have no heart. No feelings. No remorse. No memories.” He ended his speech with a deep sigh.

  The water came to a boil and the fiend returned to making the coffee. The little witch took his place on the stool. She saw Richard laughing. President Buer was right. He didn’t seem at all discomposed or concerned about her well-being.

  “That Lina must have been as popular as a bad case of shingles, don’t you think?” President Buer poured water into the coffee pot. “No one seems to remember her. You’d think he would care. But no, he’s fascinated with the egghead. Once I received the same type of attention. Some men have no memory—where do you keep the molasses?”

  The fiend continued serving Josie’s guests while his mistress got busy upstairs with the body. She managed to hang Lina’s corpse upside down from the shower head, and chop the mandible off with the cleaver, all without splattering a single drop of blood outside the tub. She went back to the kitchen and put the main ingredient she needed to concoct the beauty-and-young-looks potion to boil.

  By then, three more people had arrived at the house: Big Daddy and two girls that he introduced as his cousins. Russell updated them with the bad news.

  Someone rolled a joint.

  “Detective Parson is going to the Blue Wind tonight to get that man arrested,” Josie told the crowd. Thanks to the wine, she was now almost chirpy.

  “I don’t trust flatfoots,” Big Daddy interrupted.

  “Detective Parson is trustworthy,” Josie responded.

  Bob and Richard exchanged a skeptical look.

  “The L.A. Police have an intense dislike for the beachside residents,” George intervened.

  “He’s from the Santa Monica office,” corrected Josie.

  “Much worse!” Big Daddy exploded. “Santa Monica is Venice’s bitter old sister. Santa Monica officials look down on us as if we were a sore, as if we were some sort of pesky weed growing in their beautiful backyard. If it were up to them, all of Venice would be demolished and turned into parking spaces.”

  Inside the kitchen, President Buer had taken a seat on the floor next to the refrigerator, overwhelmed by the heat coming from the stove, and fanned his face with a mitt. The little woman had taken up permanent guard in front of the stove, stirring her potion. Every once in a while, she scurried out either to her shed in the backyard or through the living room to her sisters’ bedroom. Occasionally, she stopped and listened to what was being said:

  “Madness is the true voice of reason…”

  But because she couldn’t quite understand the intended meaning of those words, she left just as quickly and went back to add some new repulsive ingredient to her soup—a drop of pus from a yeast infection, dust from pulverized cobwebs. One by one, she added all but the last two ingredients to her potion: the cardamom and the rodent pee. She needed to wait until the flesh came off the bone and the broth reduced to the consistency of butter.

  A full two hours had passed since her two sisters had left for church.

  At one point, when all questions about the detective’s visit with Josie had been satisfactorily answered, somebody mentioned the Civic Union.

  “It’s all about money. They want us out so they can increase the rents.”

  “The Gas House is a refuge from those attempting to escape the business world’s rat race.”

  “What will be next? The whole of Venice will be turned into Squaresville.”

  Politics threatened to dominate the conversation.

  Now is the time for music, Josie thought.

  So focused was the little woman on her potion that she didn’t notice when Josie bolted upstairs to her room, until she returned carrying a portable record player.

  “Is that for dinner?” Josie asked, leaning over the witch’s shoulder to sniff her concoction. “Smells funny.” She shrugged her nose. “My friends want to know if you could make us some cheese sandwiches.”

  The little woman nodded skittishly and left her soup for a moment.

  Josie returned to the living room and put on some Coleman Hawkins.

  “Does anybody want to dance?”

  Josie began dancing.

  “What is this circus inside our house?” a hoarse voice interrupted.

  All heads turned to the front door. The two crones were back. And they didn’t look happy.

  “Why is there a naked man in the middle of our living room?”

  Big Daddy, who tended to heat up too much when he got into a discussion, had taken off his shoes and his shirt and lectured John and his wife about the dangers of conformity and romantic racism. The untrimmed, reddish curls that covered most of his upper body made him look like a demon.

  “Ma’am,” Big Daddy grabbed his shirt, “if you’ll allow me one word.”

  “Not one word,” Rosa yelled. “Get out of our house!”

  “Ma’am,” the poet insisted, “if you let me explain. I wasn’t naked. It is that I sw
eat too much and I—”

  “What’s that smell?” Victoria asked. “Smells of weed!” She accused Josie. “These bums you let in have been using drugs inside our house. Is that the way you repay us?”

  “Miss Rivera, if you just let us explain—” Josie started.

  “We let you stay in our house and you turn it into a place of vice and depravity?” Victoria interrupted. “I’m going to call the police and get you arrested.”

  “Nobody has been smoking anything in here,” Josie lied. “Only tobacco.”

  Just then, the little woman added the cardamom and the rodent pee to her soup, and the foul smell of skunk flooded the house. The girls wrinkled their noses with disgust.

  “No need to make a scene, ma’am,” Richard said, standing up from his seat. The smell had become unbearable. “We’re all leaving—Come on kids, Bob. Time to go home.”

  “Miss Rivera,” insisted Josie, “you have no right to treat my guests this way. I am your tenant.”

  “A tenant pays the rent,” responded Victoria. “You haven’t paid in over a month.”

  And then she struck the record player with her cane, making it fall to the floor. The album that was playing broke in two pieces.

  With that, everybody but Josie and the two sisters walked out of the house: Richard and Mr. Chatterton through the back door; the rest, who had come by foot, through the front. The little woman, confused by the sudden movement of people and urged by her familiar with a “go say good-bye, don’t be rude!” dashed out of the kitchen to the front yard.

  “I’m only a few weeks late,” Josie insisted, picking up the broken pieces of her record. “I will pay, but I am discounting this record from my next payment.”

  “There will be no next payment,” Rosa showed a threatening fist. “You’re leaving this house today.”

  “What? You can’t kick me out.”

  “Yes, we can, you little piece of flossy shit,” Victoria raised her cane again. “We’ve been too patient.”

  “Miss Rivera! How dare you speak to me like that? I’ve never given you reason—lower that cane immediately!”

  The old woman hit Josie.

  “Get out!”

  “How dare you…”

  By the third hit, Josie left the house, too.

  Eva and Russell waited for her outside. The little woman, scared by the yelling, had also preferred to remain outside with them.

  Josie stood in the middle of the front yard, arms folded, shaking with anger, debating whether to leave with her friends or go back inside and continue the quarrel with her landladies.

  “You can stay with me, if you need to,” Russell proposed shyly.

  “Thanks,” Josie muttered, but didn’t move.

  Inside, the unpleasant stench from the little woman’s soup and the experience of witnessing a beatnik orgy in her living room had raised Rosa’s blood pressure.

  “Bring me some water,” she begged her sister.

  Victoria hobbled to the kitchen. She discovered the cooking potion.

  “Ugh!” She shuddered with repulsion.

  She put out the flame, grabbed a rag and a mitten, and lifted the pot. She stepped out through the back door and, as fast as her old legs allowed her, she walked along the side of the house to the front yard, her arms extended as far as possible in order to avoid the stench. She passed Josie, still raging, her three friends, and her youngest sister, who watched in horror as Victoria dumped the contents of the pot into the canal.

  “I don’t know what the hell you were cooking in there,” the hag growled to her sister, “but it smelled horrible.”

  The little woman felt that life had escaped from her.

  “I am leaving!” Josie hollered. “Right now. And I want my full deposit back. You’ll regret this, Miss Rivera. You’ll regret embarrassing me in front of my friends. This is not how you treat your tenant. I’m going to denounce you to the city. And I’m going to press charges, too, for assault. You’re not going to get away with this!”

  Victoria responded by sticking out her tongue and blowing a raspberry. She reentered the house through the front door and slammed it behind her.

  Josie stomped on the ground and shrieked with despair. Then she walked around the house and climbed the staircase to her bedroom. She pulled out an old suitcase from under the bed and emptied the contents of her closet into it. Next, she grabbed a pillowcase, entered the bathroom, and dumped all of her toiletries inside. The curtain was closed around the tub and she was too upset to notice the dark stains or the rope tied to the shower head from which Lina’s feet hung.

  She saw the sickening vial inside her medicine cabinet, however. Now it seemed completely unnecessary to use it against Eva. She was innocent, after all. Eva was Russell’s friend; nothing else. Did she still want to hurt her? Not as badly as before. But it had been a lot of work to get the tombstone dust inside the stupid little bottle. She took the vial with her.

  Russell and Eva waited at the bottom of the stairs with ashen expressions.

  “Let’s go,” Josie said, offering the suitcase to her boyfriend and rubbing the tears off her cheeks with defiance.

  They started walking. When Russell and Eva seemed to be looking away, Josie splattered the contents of the small bottle on Eva’s hair—not quite what the recipe dictated, but hopefully it would work. That’s for yelling at me and calling me tacky, she huffed to herself.

  The little witch remained outside for a while, staring into the water, watching her soup dissolve into the foulness of the canal. Her already mangled heart died a little.

  21

  In which we stay at the Grand Hotel

  The little woman sat at the edge of her bed, looking down at her feet with brooding eyes.

  President Buer jumped onto her lap. He was a black cat again. “You’re such a failure, aren’t you?” It was more of a sympathetic remark than a scorn. “You were too careless. I did my part, didn’t I?” he licked his paws. “I helped with the coffee. And I told you what to add to the potion. I’m hungry,” he pleaded with a meow.

  The little woman looked for a pin. She pricked the tip of her middle finger and offered it to the cat, who started licking.

  “None of this would have happened to your mother,” President Buer mumbled between licks. “She planned everything in advance. You can’t simply jump to the rear bumper of a car, or get a mattock when you think she’s alone in her bedroom. It’s about seizing the right opportunity, yes, but you ought to be careful, to weigh the consequences… Let’s write it down. Grab a pen and a piece of paper.”

  The little witch did as told.

  “Let’s start with the fat one,” the cat continued. “What was your first mistake?

  Killing the wrong girl, the witch wrote.

  “Well, yes, that was a mistake, but not the first. Scratch it. Your first mistake was to try to kill her outside, instead of here, up in her bedroom. How many months had she been living here? And you decide to go kill her in a skull orchard. You should have waited and murdered her in her sleep. That was the most logical thing to do. You should have been more cautious.”

  Upon hearing his name, the little woman’s old dog peeked his head out from under the bed. The cat hissed, and the dog hid again.

  “So, what did you write down, as your first mistake? Listen to President Buer. Oh, that’s nice. That’s really nice, you ungrateful midget. Scratch that too and write this as number one, instead: not planning ahead. That’s what we’re doing now, planning forward. Then this, as number two: trying to kill the girl outside the house. That wasn’t wise. Now, what was mistake number three?”

  The little witch stared at the piece of paper like a first grader who doesn’t know how to pronounce a complicated word and is too embarrassed to ask the teacher how to do it. Going to the cemetery had been President Buer’s idea.

&nb
sp; “Mistake number three was to bring the head. You only needed the chin—come on, write it down. Yes, I ate it, but that was my mistake. Let’s focus on what you did wrong. We’re learning. Remember, I was the cat of a college professor; it’s not every day you will have a familiar educated at Cambridge. You shouldn’t have brought home the entire head. Too much temptation. You could have saved me the embarrassment of that morning, and that poor girl you killed today, she could be at the movies now, instead of hanging upside down in the shower. Which only reminds me: now you have to get rid of a skull and a whole body. Aren’t you stupid? What are you going to do?”

  The cat went back to licking the witch’s wound.

  A tear rolled down the little woman’s cheek onto the paper, leaving a wet spot.

  “Oh, now you’re crying,” the cat raised his head again. “Please don’t cry. You make me feel like a villain. I’m only doing this for your own good. I do not enjoy seeing you suffer. It is my duty to help. I want you to succeed, you’re my…” he hesitated for a second, searching for the right word, “…opus. I wouldn’t say my opus magna, but my opus summer of 1959.”

  He approached her face with feline mellowness and looked into the little witch’s eyes. The little woman looked back.

  “Let me lick those tears off your face… Keep on writing. There is no better way to learn than from your own mistakes. What do you think Columbus did when he reached a new continent instead of India? He didn’t call himself a failure, no, he profited by selling into slavery all those natives. What was error number four? Bringing the car, perhaps? Letting yourself be seen driving? Abandoning it in plain view on Main Street?”

  The witch wrote: Driving the car.