Muladona

by Eric Stener Carlson

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ I sobbed.

  ‘Your bein’ here’s enough,’ he replied. ‘I wanted to bury her proper and all, after you’d recovered. When you woke up this mornin’, after all those days of fever, I knew it was a sign. Today of all days. Listen, listen to those bells. The nightmare’s over.’

  ‘I need to ask you a question,’ I said. ‘May I?’

  ‘Ask me anything,’ he said and wiped away his tears with the back of his hand.

  Very cautiously, I asked, ‘Who’s Lucas?’

  Mr Bellows’ lips trembled, and he said, ‘He was our son. The nicest, friendliest little baby you ever could see. Big, round face. Bright, red cheeks.’ For a moment, he seemed to lose himself in that image.

  ‘Where was he born?’ I asked.

  ‘Back in Dallas where we used to live. If you can imagine, I was a struggling painter then. Mornings, I’d paint in our cramped, little place. A drafty room in a run-down building was all we could afford. Nights, I worked as a janitor at the Museum of Art, so I could sneak a peek at the masters. We just barely scraped by, but we was happy.

  ‘I didn’t mind goin’ from hand to mouth, but Betty wanted, you know, some extra money for the baby. For some wooden blocks. And to buy some new paints for me.’ His voice cracked. He hid his face in his chest for a moment, as he tried to compose himself. ‘So she took this job a couple nights a week, moppin’ floors at a hospital nearby. She’d give li’l Lucas his bottle, burp him and wrap him up tight in his cradle. Then she’d go out to work just for a couple of hours. . . . But he’s been gone many years now.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘A fire,’ he said, wiping his nose. ‘Um, seems like a gas leak, or maybe somebody fell asleep while smokin’ in bed. They never found out for sure. We both got back home about the same time the firemen arrived. It took all my strength to keep her from runnin’ into that burnin’ building.

  ‘She never forgave me for stoppin’ her. Like she never forgave herself for leavin’ li’l Lucas alone. She was never quite right after that. She blamed the Devil. She said she could see it laughing at her in the flames. For weeks after, she wouldn’t sleep or eat, keepin’ vigil, in case it came back. Her joy was gone. The only thing she looked forward to was settlin’ the score with the Deceiver.

  ‘I convinced her to move, to try and forget, start things afresh. We were headin’ down to Old Mexico, when we crossed through Incarnation by way of accident. As soon as she saw the town, she said we had to stop here, ’cause she felt Lucas’ presence, and she had a feelin’ she could save him this time.’ He burst out crying again.

  I looked him in the eyes and said, ‘She saved me, you know that?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s ’cause she loved you, Verge. She may not have seen you for you. You know, she got kind’a mixed up about you and li’l Lucas. ’Cause she seen you since you was a baby, every day your momma came outside carryin’ you so proud. But Betty loved you just as deep and strong as any momma ever loved a son.’

  ‘I know that now,’ I replied. ‘And she sure did have her revenge against the Devil. She was like an avenging angel. You should’ve seen her whollop the hell out of the creature.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he laughed, ‘my Betty was a strong one, weren’t she? Whatever sin she thought she committed for leavin’ our boy alone, I’m sure she done more than made up for it. I’m sure she’s with Lucas in Paradise today.’

  ‘No doubt,’ I said, squeezing his hand. ‘No doubt.’

  Mr Bellows went over to Corporal Riquelme and shook his hands, and they talked. I went to Sebas who was staring down at the grave and hugged him. ‘So, you finally came back for me?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, like I promised. But it looks like you don’t need me to keep you out of trouble no more.’ He jerked a thumb towards Carolina and smiled, ‘Now that you’ve got her.’

  I called over to Carolina, ‘Do you mind if I go take a walk with Sebas? We’ve got a few things to talk over.’

  ‘No problem,’ she said. ‘Take all the time you need.’

  Sebas leaned against me as we walked down the path, wincing every time he put weight on his bum leg. We went down the lane towards our grandparents’ graves.

  ‘When did you first suspect there was something wrong with Father?’ I said bashfully.

  ‘He weren’t yours, Verge. Just mine. I gotta live with that burden.’

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘Pastor Olafssen was more a father to both me and you than . . . than that preacher ever was.’

  He nodded his head. Then he said, ‘Sometime last year I began to suspect somethin’ was up. You know, he was always puttin’ on a show, about how he hated the Indians’ “devilish” ways? One day, when I was riflin’ through his stuff to find pictures of Ma, I found some books he’d hidden away on ancient folklore and the Devil. They had notes and drawin’s all over ’em. I could tell he was plannin’ somethin’. Somethin’ bad.

  ‘One night, well past midnight, I snuck out to the cemetery. Just to get out of the house and think, you know. And I saw him there, sneakin’ about the fresh graves. I hid behind a tombstone and watched him dig up a man and defile his body. He cut off bits of flesh from the corpse and put them in a little bag. I knew he was dabblin’ in black magic.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell the Sheriff?’

  ‘What was I supposed to say, Verge, that the good Rev’rend was a Satanist? I had no proof. With all the trouble I’d gotten in, who’d believe me?’

  ‘I would have,’ I said softly.

  ‘I know,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘And that’s exactly why I didn’t tell you, to protect you. I figured, as long as you didn’t know, you’d be safe. In the mean time, I went out to gather proof, from the only people I trusted . . . our people.”

  ‘The Indians? You knew about Mother’s secret?’

  ‘No, not all of it, but I was puttin’ the pieces together. She had this way about her, this gentleness and wisdom, not like the block-headed Swedes. The Indians loved her so much, it’s like she understood them. At every village I went to, I spoke to the medicine man. And every one told me the same thing. In their dreams, they saw this evil spirit hauntin’ our family. It was a dark horse with fiery eyes, chasin’ after us. In the last village, I asked to see it for myself. They made me go through a test, to see if I was worthy. I . . .’ He stopped, his eyes misting over.

  ‘Sebas, what did you have to do?’

  ‘I . . .’ he stopped himself and just shook his head. ‘I can’t talk about it, Verge. Not even after everythin’ that’s happened. It opened my eyes to the other world. I seen things I shouldn’t have. I ain’t never gonna be the same again.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ I said, rubbing the stumps of my missing fingers. ‘None of us will.’

  He continued, ‘After two days in a sweat lodge, I finally broke through to the other side. I saw the preacher transformed into that evil thing, and I realised he was after you. I took off that very night. We were way up in the mountains, and it was a long way to go. I ran into some trappers goin’ to the nearest town. I paid them my last dollar to send you that telegram. I headed here, as fast as I could. But my leg . . . you know, it never quite healed after the break.’

  We had reached the small meadow where our mother’s mother was buried. We both kneeled down beside the faded, wooden marker and said our prayers in silence. After a while, I said, ‘How heartbroken Grandmother must have been! Rejected from her family. Carrying this wicked man’s baby. All alone in life.’

  ‘And Mother, too.’ he said, ‘neither white, nor Indian. Never fittin’ in.’ Then he smiled and added, ‘Like us, I guess. But we just had to suffer with that monster as a father. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to have been married to him.’

  ‘Beatrice.’ I said, and the cold air seemed to envelope the word.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Beatrice, that’s the name the preacher used to call Mother. It’s from the Inferno. I should have figured it out b
efore. He used to see her as the good spirit who guided Dante through hell. Fa . . . He used to love her. But after he turned to the Devil, in his twisted mind, she became a monster, a succubus.’

  Sebas scowled, ‘The way the old Reverend and his son treated both Grandmother and Mother . . . it makes me sick.’

  I looked over at the gravestones of our grandparents Strömberg and said, ‘You know, I’ve got half a mind to dig up the bodies of those two hypocrites and set them on fire. Or at least drag them outside the cemetery walls and leave them for the buzzards. They don’t deserve to be here next to grandmother.’

  ‘I feel the same way, Verge,’ he confided. Then in a hushed tone, he said, ‘But we gotta leave ’em alone. There’s bad magic about, and everythin’ we do has a consequence. We mess with old Pastor Strömberg’s grave, and God only knows what horrible thing will come out of it.’ He looked at me stonily and whispered, ‘You know, we can’t never tell what happened here. Ma’s past, what . . . he done.’

  ‘I know, the shame of it,’ I said.

  ‘It’s not just that, Verge. I’m afraid the story ain’t over yet. So much blood’s been spilled since Spanish times up to now, and it’s soaked into the ground. So much evil. So much greed. If we tell our story, there’s bound to be someone who comes in search of the Devil, in search of riches and eternal life. I don’t want to be responsible for any more tragedies.’

  ‘So what do we do?’ I asked.

  ‘We make a promise never to tell this story until the end of our days.’

  ‘Constantinople?’ I asked.

  ‘Constantinople,’ he replied. ‘Good. Now that that’s settled, come on and help me up,’ he grunted. ‘It’s killin’ my leg to kneel on the cold, damp earth.’

  EPILOGUE

  The day after Armistice Day, the hobo left town without a word. I didn’t hold it against him. There was nothing else to say. He left me his harmonica, which I never play but always keep in my pocket to remember him. A few days after, Sebas took off, too. I knew it was coming. Whatever he’d seen in his spirit quest had changed him. He had a dark, haunted look in his eyes. He had to continue on his path alone, but it hurt so much to think I might never see him again.

  As for Carolina and me, we kept our promise to see the world together.

  With a bolt cutter, Mr Bellows severed the ancient chain that had kept the gates of our house closed for so many generations. Then he splintered the old, twisted vines with an axe. Opening that gate was like an Armistice Day all by itself. The light shone in, and the wide world opened before us. We were ready to leave.

  Bellows patched up Grandpa’s old half-rotten wagon, the one he’d used to bring my people to Incarnation so many years before. Then he hitched it up to an old plough horse he’d found wandering in the fields. Up until the last moment, I didn’t think Carolina’s father was going to let her go. How he cried when she said we were going away together! But he saw her mind was made up, so he agreed.

  The only thing Carlos said, as he peered at me with his bloodshot eyes, was ‘Swear to God you love my niñita more than life itself. Más que la vida misma.’

  I did, so he let us go.

  Now that Carlos knew Mother and the buen pastor—that’s how he called Pastor Olafssen—were buried in the garden, he promised to tend to their graves and to visit them every Day of the Dead. As we took off in the wagon, he waved at us from the front door of our house, a faint smile on his face, small and fragile like an old, dried flower pressed into a book.

  We never went back to Incarnation. The few survivors from that time are dead and buried. And Carlos is their guardian spirit.

  The wagon bust an axle just outside the hills surrounding Incarnation. Carolina and I unhitched the horse and let it go in the prairie. Then we took off towards the Mexican border with no more than the clothes on our backs and a satchel of food. We worked our way down south as field hands. It was tough for me at first, because I wasn’t used to hard work, and it was awkward with my missing fingers.

  What I didn’t have in strength, I made up for in willpower. And I had Carolina, who never left my side. As the months passed, I became stronger. My body became what it was supposed to be, free from my father’s poison. My hands grew hard and callused. My wind-burned face turned brown. Looking at my reflection one day in a creek, I saw Pastor Olafssen’s face staring back at me.

  We sweated under the sun. We slept under the stars. Some days we went hungry. Some nights were cold. But I don’t have one regret. In fact, even with all I went through that Fall of 1918, I don’t look back in anger. I remember the people who loved me, especially those who risked their lives for me: my mother and my true father, Pastor Olafssen, Mrs Bellows, Sebas, the hobo, and, most of all, Carolina.

  Carolina and I finally crossed over to Mexico and travelled through every state, from Chihuahua to Jalisco to Chiapas. Soon, life, real life, replaced the lives of the characters in my books, and the adventures I’d only dreamt about we made reality together. We walked and hitchhiked. We jumped aboard freight trains. So, I guess we turned out to be hobos as well. With Carolina’s help, I picked up Spanish, and it soon become more familiar to me than English, so much that I even dreamed in it.

  Everywhere we went, sitting around the campfires with the other peones, we heard variations of the Muladona story. The youngest amongst them would often laugh and make fun of the old tales; we would just sit silently and then turn in for the night, saying our prayers before we went to sleep.

  After a few years, we made it down to Nicaragua and went fishing on a raft in Lake Xolotlán. It was there I saw the prettiest sunset in my entire life. It was also there that I proposed to Carolina. We’ve been together ever since.

  We’ve never stayed anywhere too long. When we got enough money together, we went down through Venezuela and then Brazil. For a time, we worked the rubber plantations and learned the stories of the Barasana, the people of the jaguar. I’ve been a field hand, a logger, a fisherman, and I’ve panned for gold. We’ve done whatever work was needed just to keep going south, to cross that next patch of jungle or that next river, to see what lies past the next bend in the road.

  Throughout my travels, I’ve been sick half a dozen times, with malaria and fevers of all sorts, and Carolina always took care of me. I don’t know how long this life will last, baking in the sun, sweating in the jungles. But it’s my life, and I’m going to live it on my terms.

  It was after we holed up in a small shack in Iguazú, in northern Argentina, where I’m writing this story now, that Carolina got yellow fever. For seven days and nights, I’ve been putting cold compresses on her forehead. She gets the chills so badly sometimes that she shakes the bed like it were a freight train. Sometimes her body contracts in so much pain that she screams out, but she doesn’t complain.

  Just three nights ago, she turned to me, her eyes bloodshot, her body drenched in sweat, and she whispered that she’d seen the Muladona in her dreams.

  I told her it was only the fever, that we’d killed the beast together, but she refused to believe me. With a haunted look in her eyes, she said, ‘It’s comin’ for us, Verge. I ain’t afraid, but it’s true. Before it gets here, you gotta write down the story. You gotta tell everythin’ that happened.’

  ‘No, no,’ I said. ‘Don’t you remember? I promised Sebas I’d never tell. We swore on it. It’s just the fever making you hallucinate.’

  ‘Verge,’ she pleaded, ‘maybe it’s the fever, as you say. But if it’s really the monster, you gotta write it down before it comes, in case the story dies with us. You gotta warn people. They gotta know it’s not just a bunch of old legends, so they can be prepared. Please, if you love me, break your promise. Do it . . . Do it now.’

  Carolina fell into a stupor, and she’s been unconscious these past three days. As soon as she fell asleep, I got down on my knees and prayed for Guidance. Then I journeyed out to the closest trading post, wading through the swollen river, and I bought ink and paper with what little mo
ney we had left.

  Since then, I’ve been writing furiously, taking breaks just to change the cold compresses on Carolina’s forehead and to press a wet sponge to her lips. I broke my sacred promise not to tell this story, and if Sebas is still alive, I hope he can forgive me.

  But I must tell this story, in case the Muladona does come, so you know how to defeat it. Don’t listen to its lies. Trust in the people you love. And always do what you feel in your heart.

  I don’t know if the Muladona’s really coming for us or not. I just know I’m no longer afraid of it or death or any other thing the Devil has in store for me. Years ago, Carolina and I took a stand. We fought for everything that has value . . . love, happiness, freedom. And we won. Every day since then has been a gift.

  Every night, when I go to bed with Carolina beside me, I thank God I’ve lived one more day with her, that I’ve smelled the fresh air, that I have dirt under my fingernails from an honest day’s work, that we’ve seen the world and all it has to offer us. Tomorrow, if Carolina’s fever breaks, I’ll take her to the window, so when she wakes up she can look out at the luscious greenery and hear the jungle birds waking up the whole world. In my heart, I feel the rain will stop soon, and, as we wait there together, the light coming over the horizon will be glorious.

  Contents

  Copyright, acknowledgement and dedication

  CONTENTS

  PREFACE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY