The Black Witch of Mexico

by Colin Falconer

  “Yes, it’s gotten you to wake up. It’s made you feel again, disrupted your complacent little life and made you human. It’s scared you so now you want to go back to sleep. What’s the saying? You want to throw the baby out with the kitchen sink.”

  He smiled. “Bathwater. Baby out with the bathwater.”

  “So what’s going to happen when you go back to Boston?”

  “I could lose everything. I will probably lose my job and my reputation. I don’t know if any hospital in Boston will employ me when they hear that Bill has had to fire me. It may sound - what was the word, ‘bloodless?” - to you, but I had everything I needed. I knew who I was and where I was going.”

  “If you really knew who you were this couldn’t have happened.”

  He supposed she was right about that. He hadn’t seen this coming, this was a part of himself he had not seen or even suspected before.

  “You want to be in control of everything,” she said, ‘but you’re not. You’re a doctor--you should know that. You see it every day, people get sick, they have an accident or someone they love gets hurt or dies. What good is the nice apartment and fancy car then?”

  “What about you? Have you ever lost control?”

  “Of course. You think I wanted to get a divorce?”

  “How long were you married?”

  “Not long. He had these friends in Mexico City, bad people, crazy people, I was always telling him to get away from them. He was always going away on business trips, he said it was some film deal in Los Angeles, I found out he was actually going to Colombia. You can imagine what he was doing there, right? I threw him out.”

  “Did he come back?”

  “He always came back when he needed money. Then I found out about his other women and I told him I wanted a divorce. One day he came back and beat me up. Then he made a lot of money, probably selling coke, spent it all on a dick lawyer to try and get half my apartment. It’s Mexico, so he’ll probably win.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Does it make you feel better to know you aren’t the only one who does stupid things for love.”

  “Not really.”

  “You know one night, we were in bed making love and his cell rang. He rolled away from me and picked it up, like his phone is more important, like it must be something urgent. I heard him talking to some woman, there was all this whispering, then he got up and went in the bathroom to finish the call. When he came back he wanted to carry on making love to me. That was the kind of man he was.”

  “But you stayed with him?”

  “I thought I could change him. That’s the trap, right, thinking I was going to be the one who would make a good man out of him. Sounds stupid, right?

  “I’m the King of Stupid, Jamie, so it doesn’t sound dumb to me. Maybe once I would have thought that, but not anymore.”

  “Sometimes, something happens and your life is never the same. So what do you do? You can go on blaming yourself and saying you won’t let anyone make you stupid again or you can see the good things about it. You can see that they woke you up and you learned something. You don’t go back, you go forward. You get a taste of what you can be, if you find the right man, or the right woman. That’s what I think. He was the first man I was madly in love with. One day I want to be mad again. But next time I won’t fall in love with a man who talks to another woman while his hands are on me.”

  “Or who shouts another woman’s name when he kisses you.”

  “You see? You’re learning.”

  Chapter 69

  He escorted her up to her room, for a moment the invitation was there in her eyes and he stepped towards her. She smiled and stepped back. “I’ll see you in the morning. We’ll find him tomorrow, I’m sure of it.”

  “Thanks for your help,” was all he could think of to say.

  “De nada,” she said and went into her room and he heard the door lock behind her.

  He went back to his room, ran the shower, stood under it for a long time, trying to get clean. He never felt clean these days.

  He opened his eyes and saw a cockroach high on the wall, its feelers testing the air. He found one of his shoes on the bathroom floor and threw it at it. He missed but it scampered away, startled, and hid in some crevice in the tiles, but he felt as if it was still watching him.

  Fuck, now he had shampoo in his eyes. He fumbled for a towel, nearly slipped on a wet tiles, hit his elbow on the sink.

  He yelled aloud in frustration. He’d had enough.

  By tomorrow maybe this would all be over, he’d pay his twenty bucks for a new spell and go back to Boston.

  And then what? Well, he would learn from this, just as Jamie said.

  He would go forward, not back.

  But first he had to find the Crow.

  Chapter 70

  The El Carmen church stood next to the municipal palace in the main plaza. Children ran around the gardens with balloons; in that moment it seemed the least likely place in the world to find a witch. There were even stalls selling candy and refrescos.

  A funeral procession passed. The mourners carried armfuls of carnations, lilies and roses and everyone in the square stopped and stared, even the children; the lovers on the park benches let go of each other’s hands, the old men stubbed out their cigarettes with their boots.

  The procession disappeared inside the church, and when they were gone the old men lit fresh cigars, the lovers kissed, the children started chasing each other again.

  Life went on.

  A tourist walked past with a camera around his neck and a t-shirt that said: “catemaco, Tierra de los Brujos’ with a cartoon picture of a witch on a broomstick.

  He pointed it out to her. “Like they say, it’s all a big joke, until someone gets hurt.”

  He asked the camarero if he knew a brujo called El Cuervo - the Crow.

  “The Crow? There are dozens of witches called the Crow,” he said, and walked away.

  “Perhaps he’s not here,” he said to her after they had finished their coffees and he had paid the cuenta. “Perhaps he was here and moved on. We only have Doña Dolores’s word for it that he’s here.”

  “No, if she said he’s here, he’s here.”

  “In San Marta everyone knew about him.”

  “They know about him here as well, but I’m guessing they’re scared of him. They don’t want to be the ones to send a couple of gringos after him. Perhaps they think we’re journalists or police or something.”

  “Someone must know where he is.”

  “The time to start worrying is when we find him. He’ll play you for all you’re worth, you know that?”

  “Let’s find him first.”

  * * *

  They went into the tourist shop next door and Adam bought postcards for his sister and his mother. He almost bought one for Bill but he thought that might be provocative.

  He asked the man behind the counter if he knew a brujo called the Crow.

  The man shrugged. “como no. You want to see him? He’s just down the end of that street over there. You turn left and there is a villa right at the end, on the right. Tell him I sent you.”

  It was as easy as that.

  Chapter 71

  They stood outside the gates. “He’s done well for himself,” he said.

  The Crow’s new home was a yellow and green villa surrounded by a spiked fence. It looked utterly innocuous. There was a discotheque next door.

  “Being a witch is a good business,” she said. “Work your own hours, name your own price, get any woman you want with a bag of herbs, and make your own private deals with the devil on the side. Perhaps you should think about it.”

  “Are you coming in?”

  “I’ll wait here if it’s all the same to you.”

  “Are you scared?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought you said they were all charlatans.”

  “Maybe they are, but look what he did to you. I’ll be right here when you come out
but I don’t go near these people for anyone.”

  Adam nodded. He was tired now; he just wanted to get this done with.

  A plain, dumpy woman met him at the door and led him inside. The waiting room was like any waiting room anywhere: some Spanish gossip magazines on the table, a television tuned to a soap opera in the corner of the room, the volume so loud it distorted the sound. There was a green porcelain frog sitting on top of it.

  It all looked so banal; a cheap vase with plastic flowers, a plastic Christmas decoration pinned to the wall that they had forgotten to take down. A fan hummed in a corner of the room.

  The Crow had three other clients; there was a man fidgeting with a lighter, and a woman with a listless child of about eight or nine years old. No one spoke. The man with the lighter was called in first, then a quarter hour later the woman and the sad-eyed child.

  He wondered at the Crow’s change of fortune. Or perhaps there had been no change of fortune, perhaps he had come to Santa Marta for some other purpose. He would probably never know.

  Finally it was Adam’s turn.

  * * *

  He followed the woman along a narrow, windowless passage. At the end there was a curtain, she held it aside and motioned for him to go in.

  The room was dark and smelled of incense and stale sweat. It took a moment for his eyes to get accustomed to the gloom. He realized that someone was standing directly in front of him. He gasped and took half a step back. He was face to face with a skull wrapped in a hooded scarlet robe. It was a life size statue of Santa Muerte, the mother of death. The flickering of a hundred candles made her appear to move.

  A neat trick.

  He looked around the room; the walls had been covered in plaster and painted black to resemble a cave. Each niche had a candle and a statue of a stuffed owl or a Native American Indian or a Santa Muerte or a Madonna.

  The Crow sat behind a vast desk. This was a different man to the one he had known in Santa Marta. He wore a white silk guayabera shirt and there were rings on every finger. He was wearing so much bling he looked like a hip-hop musician. He looked sleek and comfortable.

  Adam sat down. “Do you remember me?” he said.

  He blinked and stirred, like a cat raising its head from its place next to the fire. “I remember you.”

  “We met in Santa Marta. You cast a spell.”

  “You want another?”

  “I want you to remove it. And the photograph of the woman you took? I want it back.”

  “I did not take it, you gave it to me.”

  “I want you to take away the spell.”

  “Take it away?”

  “I’ll give you another twenty dollars.”

  The Crow settled back in his chair and considered. “Don’t you want the girl back?”

  “Just take the spell away.”

  “Very well. If that is what you wish. But I want fifty thousand dollars.”

  Adam didn’t say anything for a long time.

  “What?”

  “That is my fee. The Lord of the Fog does not like it when you ask him to undo all that he has taken great trouble to achieve, as you asked him to do. You paid me my fee; I did your bidding. Once your will is set in motion, it is very difficult to reverse. Fifty thousand dollars is my fee.”

  “You must be out of your mind.”

  “Is there anything else you wish while you are here? A limpia, perhaps. A cleansing is twenty dollars.”

  “I’ll give you a hundred dollars. Now give me the photograph.”

  “The price is fifty thousand dollars. You heard me correctly. Then I will give you the photograph.”

  Adam got to his feet. The Crow watched him, faintly amused.

  “Give me the photograph!’

  The brujo was a big man, broad in the shoulders and chest, but Adam was not frightened of him. He reckoned that he could overpower him, if it came to it. Where was her photograph? He guessed it was in one of those drawers.

  Something glinted in the semi-darkness. It was a knife, now partially concealed in the sleeve of the Crow’s jacket.

  “I know what you are thinking,” he said, ‘but should you attempt it, it will not go as you plan. Your blood will be on the floor.”

  Adam got to his feet.

  “A thousand dollars,” he said.

  “You have heard my price. I am not like some peasant in the market, bartering for his corn. Fifty thousand is my price to give you what you want.”

  “If you think I’m going to pay you fifty thousand dollars you have to be out of your mind.”

  The Crow pulled a business card from his wallet and wrote some numbers on the back of it. He pushed it across the desk.

  Adam picked it up, stared at it. “What’s this?”

  “It is the number of my bank account in Mexico City. If you want me to do this then you will pay me fifty thousand dollars. If you do not want to pay me this money then go back to America and let the Lord of the Fog finish what he has started.”

  “There is no Lord of the Fog!’

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Give me the photograph!’

  The brujo sat there, unblinking.

  “You have come all the way to Mexico to search for me. You must want this very badly. That tells me you have seen for yourself how effective my maldad negra can be.”

  “You’re blackmailing me.”

  “I am giving you my price for removing the spell. It will not be easy. I must return to the cave on the other side of the lake and explain to the Lord of the Fog what you want. He will not be pleased.”

  “Then just give me back the photograph.”

  “I cannot give you back the photograph unless I have fifty thousand dollars.”

  “I don’t have that kind of money.”

  “You’re a gringo; all gringos have that kind of money. If you have the money to come to Mexico, you have the money to pay me what I want.”

  “I paid you twenty dollars for the ceremony!’

  “You paid me twenty dollars to bring you back your woman. Is she not back with you?”

  “I thought...”

  “What did you think? That she would suddenly wake up and everything would be different? So her life has changed, perhaps. I don’t need to know what has happened but I know how such things work. If you wish to change your destiny then you must change another’s. All the world is connected, and you cannot change one thing without shifting something else from its balance. The Lord of the Fog has done what you asked. But to change it back is much, much more difficult. You have set karma in motion, not just yours but that of many others. Some souls must now be reborn because of you. So you see, it is expensive to change your mind. You should have thought about all this before you came to me.”

  “You should have warned me.”

  He laughed. He had very white teeth. “It does no good to warn people. They want what they want and give no thought to consequence. I am not a priest. I am not a philosopher. I am a witch. I use my powers as others demand, for a fee. All I command is the price.”

  Adam felt like a fool. Fifty thousand dollars! It was absurd, beyond all words, beyond all comprehension. It was extortion.

  “Damn you to hell,” he said.

  The Crow laughed and flicked his hand at him, as if he was brushing away a fly.

  * * *

  Two men sat under a tree in the garden outside; tough looking boys in blue jeans with tattooed arms. So the Crow had not been bluffing about having guards to protect him. They grinned at him as he walked past them; one of them said something in Spanish and the other one laughed.

  Jamie was sitting under a shade tree on the other side of the road. She got up, brushed the dust off her jeans and came over. “Satisfied?” shesaid.

  He did not know what to say to her. He shook his head and stumbled away.

  Chapter 72

  He sat on the bed with his head in his hands while she paced the room behind him.

  “You’re not even think
ing about this, right?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “This is fucking insane! Pack your things. I’m driving you back to DF right now.”

  He still didn’t answer.

  “Fifty thousand dollars? I will not let you do this!’ She slapped him on the head. “Say something, for God’s sake!’

  “All I can think of, all that goes through my head, is what happens if I don’t do it. Oliver dies and Elena is on her own, she’s lost her baby, lost her chance of having her own family, lost the two people she cares about most in the world.”

  “And you think this cabron can any of change that? Me cago en la madre que se parío!’

  “If I didn’t think he could change it, then why did I come here? I have to put my money where my mouth is.”

  She shook her head in disbelief.

  “If I don’t believe it,” he went on, thinking aloud, ‘if I think this man is just an ordinary man and there is no such thing as devils and curses then why can’t I sleep at night?”

  “Listen to what you’re saying!’

  “If I do this, and Oliver dies, then I will know I have been taken for the biggest sucker this side of the border. But I’ll sleep at night. I’ll know I wasn’t responsible. If I don’t do it, and he dies, I will have this doubt in the back of my mind for the rest of my life. Because there is something, there is something, inside me that is not one hundred per cent sure that he didn’t have something to do with all of this.”

  “Of course he didn’t!’

  “If you’re so sure then why didn’t you go in there with me today?”

  She couldn’t answer him.

  “And then there’s the third possibility.”

  “Which is?”

  “I pay him the money and Oliver lives.”

  “He’s not going to live. He has terminal cancer.”

  “But what if?”

  “There is no ‘what if,” Adam. Look, I told my father I would take care of you, and I guess that means not having some small town conman take you for all you’re worth.”