The Black Witch of Mexico

by Colin Falconer

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’d only have to hold him long enough for the injection to work, clamp a hand across his mouth to stop him calling out. He’d struggle for a minute or so, and if anyone heard loud noises in the room they’d think it was part of the limpia. And it wouldn’t be long, would it, before he wasn’t able to fight you anymore.”

  “I’d better go, I’ll miss the flight.”

  “Was he still alive when you brought the others in? That would allay any suspicion, wouldn’t it? If they watched him die, why would they think you were the one that killed him?”

  “I’ll call you when I get to Boston.”

  “A little town like Catemaco, they probably wouldn’t even do an autopsy. The cops have enough to worry about with drug dealers and gang wars. You would have thought of that. ‘

  “Like I said, he was carrying a lot of weight.”

  “It must have been an agonizing way to die.”

  “Probably. Do you feel sorry for him?”

  “So you didn’t do it?”

  “No, of course not.”

  She curled her arms around his neck and kissed him. “You don’t have to say you’re coming back. It can just be that one night if you want, I don’t mind. It’s something we both wanted.”

  “But I do want to come back. I want to work with your father at the clinic.”

  “Sell your fancy apartment and your nice car?”

  “There’s nothing for me back there anymore, Jamie.”

  “Please don’t say it.”

  “I thought that’s what you wanted.”

  “I’m worried that something will happen. I’d rather you just came. I won’t believe it until you’re here. I don’t want to hope.”

  “There’s nothing that will stop me.”

  She put a finger to his lips. “You’re not god, Adam. If it’s meant to be it will be.”

  He hated drawn out goodbyes. He kissed her one last time and headed for the departure gates. He looked back once but she was gone.

  Chapter 78

  Elena had an apartment in Beacon Street in Back Bay. Adam sat in his car and watched her as she came down the stoop with Oliver. He wore a trench coat and a woollen hat pulled down over his ears, even though the weather was mild. He shuffled like an old man.

  Elena held his arm, even though she was still walking with a cane. They looked like an old couple going to the park to feed the pigeons and reminisce about their great-granchildren.

  But she’ll get stronger, he reminded himself; another two weeks she’ll be able to throw away the cane, she’ll still have a limp for a while, but she’ll heal. Construction workers will whistle again as she walks past, she’ll get back her bounce, and life will move in one direction or the other.

  The only certain thing was she would not have to help Oliver along the street too much longer. And the funny thing was, that old-looking man she was holding onto, stick thin and breathless and dying, somehow he was still jealous of him.

  Chapter 79

  It was unsettling to be back here and not in scrubs, no stethoscope around his neck, without his security pass around his neck and his parking sticker on his X5. He felt like an alien visiting from another planet, everything appeared curious. For five years this had been his other home and the sirens only sang for him. Now he was an outcast.

  Fiona and two other nurses form the ER saw him in the car park and stopped to say hello, but he avoided their questions or was deliberately vague. He promised he would come back and visit them soon, but he knew he never would. He had even avoided Jay and the rest of the guys since he had come back from Mexico. He supposed in a way they had also avoided him.

  He took the elevator to Bill’s office on the second floor.

  “You look good,” Bill said to him when he saw him. “You’ve lost those shadows under your eyes.” He shut the office door.

  “I’ve been sleeping better lately.”

  “Well, that’s good.”

  “I think I have everything sorted in my mind now.”

  “You know I can’t take you back.”

  “I know that. I’m sorry about what happened. I gave you no choice, Bill.”

  “What’s been the problem, Adam? Is it drugs? Booze? There’s something going on, right?”

  Adam wondered about the best way to rationalise it. “I lost my head over a woman. I know I wasn’t married twenty years like Frank but it really threw me for a while.”

  “You can’t let your personal life affect your work. You know that. This isn’t an office where you can pretend to shuffle paper and hide for a few months while you get over it.”

  “I know that.”

  “What are you going to do, Adam?”

  “I’m going back to Mexico.”

  “To do what?”

  “I’m going to help out at the clinic again. I’ve spoken to the pastor down there, he’s very happy about it.”

  “I’m sure he is. But how are you going to survive?”

  “I’m selling up here. My apartment’s on the market. I’ll have enough to live on for a while and then we’ll see. I need to go right away, Bill.”

  “But Mexico? I sent you down there for a sabbatical, but it’s not a place for a man of your talent.”

  “Well, the people in the village don’t think so.”

  “You never cease to astonish.”

  “I’m burned out, Bill. Maybe that was the problem all along.”

  “Have you seen...someone?”

  “A shrink, you mean?” He laughed. “It’s not that bad.”

  “Well, you know, if you change your mind, I can still sort some things out for you. There’s a job coming up in a couple of months at Massachusetts General. I know the head of trauma there, I can put in a word for you.”

  “How will you explain firing me?”

  “I’ll say you had some family issues that were affecting your work and that it’s all sorted out. And it is sorted out, right?”

  Adam nodded.

  “When you’re on your game, you’re the best there is. If I give them the nod, they’ll snap you up. Forget about Mexico. Have a couple of months off, go down to the beach, read some books, and then you can start over.”

  There was a moment’s temptation; everything neat and tidy and back the way it was. He would find a certain numbing comfort in the predictability of long shifts and heavy workloads. When you saved someone else’s life you didn’t have to think about your own.

  He could start dating again. There would be more weekends at Cape Cod, beers with Jay and the boys at an Irish bar in South End. He could pick up one of those sleek shiny brochures from the BMW dealership, they always smelt so good and reminded him of how far he had come. He could go looking for a new apartment.

  “Thanks, Bill. But I don’t think so.”

  He got up to leave.

  “Well, if you change your mind. By the way, I spoke to Charlie Evans the other day. He was asking about you.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He wanted to have a word with you. Apparently you were asking about a friend of yours a few weeks ago, one of his patients.”

  “Oliver?”

  “No idea what his name is. He wanted to know what you thought of the news. I said I had no idea, that you’d quit suddenly and I didn’t know where you were.”

  “What news?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  Adam resisted the urge to run out of his office and sprint to the elevators. “Didn’t say anything else?”

  “You know Charlie, he never talks about his patients.”

  They shook hands and Adam walked out of the office and walked as fast as he could to the medical centre, and Charlie’s consulting rooms.

  Chapter 80

  Charlie Evans came out of his consulting rooms, looked surprised to see Adam sitting there among his other patients. He peered at him over the top of his glasses. “Adam? Everything all right?”

  “Got a minute,
Charlie?”

  “Got a full list today. Let’s make it quick.”

  Adam followed him into his rooms. They were dark and sombre, the threshold guarded by a solid oak door instead of a beaded curtain. Framed diplomas and degrees lined the walls and there was the obligatory library of medical reference books, spines out, in the bookcase. There was an X-ray illuminator mounted on the wall behind the vast cherry wood desk.

  Charlie sat down and waved Adam to a chair. “What can I do for you?”

  “I just spoke to Bill. He said you had some news about Oliver.”

  “I thought he was a friend of yours. Hadn’t you heard?”

  “I’ve been away, just got back last night.”

  “I can’t go into details, Adam; you know that. You didn’t know he’s in remission?”

  The world stopped. Charlie kept talking but Adam couldn’t hear him.

  “Adam?”

  “Well, that’s good news. What was that last bit?”

  “I just said it was very rare. Once a year I get to tell someone good news and Oliver won the lottery. But it’s best he gives you all the details. You understand?”

  He stood up and Adam knew that that was his cue to leave.

  “But what are the chances of this? She said he had a prognosis of three to six months.”

  “As I said, it’s very rare. But it happens, rarely, and we still don’t know why. But remember it’s not a cure--it’s just a remission. No one is ever cured.”

  “All life is just remission, if you think about it.”

  “I try not to. Philosophy would just make my job harder, Adam.”

  They shook hands and Adam walked back out through the waiting room, past the grey and humbled people who did not have Oliver’s luck, who never would.

  He did not remember leaving the hospital. He stumbled out into the sunshine and almost stepped in front of an ambulance. He walked blindly and eventually found himself in the park, watching the swan boats and staring into the water.

  Chapter 81

  She was glowing. He had never seen her looking so happy. She was still using her cane so he stood up as she walked in to the coffee house, and helped her into one of the booths.

  “You look great,” he said. “You have a spring in your limp.”

  She beamed at him. “You heard the news?”

  “Not the details. Just that he’s in remission.”

  “It’s a miracle,” she said.

  “I don’t know what to say. I’m so happy to hear that. You’ve had enough pain this year, Elena. If anyone was due a miracle, it’s you.”

  “He’s still very weak; the chemo took a lot out of him. But he’s getting his colour back, and his appetite. The doctors are all amazed. They don’t understand it.” She reached across the table and touched his hand, then withdrew again before he could respond. “Thank you.”

  “What for? I didn’t do anything.”

  “You told us about that place in New Mexico.”

  “It was a long shot. You know, I checked it out later, most of the people who go down there, they don’t make it.”

  She wasn’t listening. He supposed the details of it didn’t matter to either of them now, they had their miracle, they didn’t want to reason it out.

  “Thank you for being there when...well, when I needed you.”

  “That’s what friends are for, right?”

  She was wearing the pendant that he’d bought her at the fair in Cape Cod. When was that? A hundred years ago? He wondered why she would wear it, today of all days. She saw him staring and touched it with her fingers. “I wear it for luck.”

  “I didn’t know you were superstitious.”

  “It reminds me of you.”

  “Me?”

  “I feel like you bring me luck.”

  He forced a smile. It made his jaw ache.

  “So, how is Oliver?”

  “He’s in complete remission. The doctors say the tumours in his lungs have disappeared. The doctors can’t explain it. Well, they try, they have all kinds of technical terms to try and account for it, but really, they’re all baffled.”

  “I guess we all are.”

  “He went to New Mexico, to this retreat you told me about, they put him on a strict diet, most of it was vegetables, everything was organic. He said they meditated ten hours a day, he thought he was going out of his mind. It cost a fortune but hey, how much is your life worth? He’s still on the diet, they tell him he has to keep to it for the rest of his life. Do you know how hard it is to buy organic carrots?”

  “Are you still getting married?”

  “We haven’t talked about it. We’re still getting used to the idea that he’s not going to.... He has to get his strength back.”

  “You stuck by him. That’s really something.”

  A shadow passed across her face but he couldn’t quite figure out what it was.

  “Before he got sick we almost split up.”

  “Really?”

  “He wants children so bad. He says he’s not interested in adopting. It makes sense, I guess. We love each other but I can’t give him what he needs.”

  “It seems a little, I don’t know - cold.”

  “No, I understand. Hey, that’s why I left you. He has a right.”

  “But you stuck by him when he was sick.”

  “Well, I guess I had to.”

  Adam thought about Oliver getting his strength back and not having to lean on her when he came down the stoop; Oliver packing his cartons and loading them in his car and driving away. “Maybe he’ll see things a different way after this.”

  “Maybe. I know I do.”

  There was a long silence and then they both said it at the same time: there’s something I need to tell you.

  “You go first,” she said.

  “Okay. I’m going back to Mexico. I met a woman there. Her father’s a pastor and he runs that clinic I worked at last year, down near the Guatemala border. I’m going to work back there for a while and figure things out from there.

  “Wow. Do you love her?”

  “Yes, I think I do.”

  “That’s great news. You see, I told you that you wouldn’t be on your own for long.”

  “Okay, your turn. What was it you wanted to say?”

  “I was going to tell you I still love you, but somehow it seems redundant now.” Somehow she was still smiling.

  The waitress brought their coffees. “That was a joke, right?”

  “Only I don’t hear you laughing.”

  He stirred sugar into his coffee then remembered he didn’t take sugar in his coffee anymore.

  “Do you hate me, Adam?”

  “Why would I hate you?”

  “But you did.”

  “You did what you had to do. If I’d really loved you I would have let you go.”

  “God, you’ve changed.”

  “You say that like it’s another miracle.”

  “It almost is.” She caressed his arm. He knew she was waiting for him to say something more and he wasn’t sure what it might be, and if he still wanted to say it.

  “Let’s go take a walk,” he said.

  Chapter 82

  They stood side by side on the Legacy Bridge. He thought about the times he had stood here alone, watching these same swan boats, these different tourists. A wedding party arrived, started posing for photographs, using the boats and the lake as a backdrop.

  “They look so happy,” she said.

  The bride was laughing; the men in their monkey suits and pink bow ties just looked embarrassed. “The guys just want to get to the party and get drunk and start hitting on the bridesmaids.”

  “You’re an incurable romantic, Adam.”

  “My middle name.”

  “Do you think it will last? For them, I mean.”

  “Who knows? You told me you have to have the right partner, not get carried away, be clear headed about it all. Do they look clear headed to you?”

  “Maybe clear
headed isn’t everything. I meant what I said, in the coffee shop.”

  He let this declaration of love slip past, a dead leaf on the water, headed downstream. If it weren’t for the Crow, perhaps he would have gone back. But he couldn’t, not now.

  Eventually she said she had to be getting home.

  “I hope everything works out,” he said.

  “Me too, Adam,” she said.

  She limped away across the bridge and when she reached the other side she stopped and turned and smiled at him the way she used to. He saw the beauty return to her eyes.

  It was just a moment and he almost called her back. But it was too late for that; to go back now would be to lose all that had been so desperately won.

  Soon she would be swinging her hips again and even the gracious curve of them as she once lay naked on his bed would just be another memory fading with time.

  Her voice was sleepy as she answered the phone. He glanced at the digital clock beside the bed: 2:17.

  “Jamie, it’s me.”

  “Adam? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. I’m coming back. I just booked my flight. Two weeks. I’m going to start packing up tomorrow.”

  There was silence on the end of the line.

  “Jamie?”

  “Wait a minute.” When she came back on the line she was awake and businesslike. ‘¡Oye, güey. It’s two in the morning. Have you been drinking?”

  “Haven’t had a drink since I got back. I mean it, Jamie. I’m coming back. I’m not waiting for the apartment to sell, the agent can send me the papers to sign in Mexico.”

  “You’re not fucking with me?”

  “With you? I wouldn’t dare. I’m terrified of you. You’re the craziest woman I ever met.”

  “Because I’ll shoot you if you fuck with me.”

  “I know you will. I’m not fucking with you. Two weeks today.”

  “Mierda, this is awkward.”