The Santero

by Kim Rodriguez

  The purpose of our society was simple, to establish and maintain a core group who would pool their vast professional resources for the promotion of our political, cultural, spiritual and personal goals. This allegiance superseded any legal or moral obligations outside of the walls of El Santuario, and all matters, especially those involving religious ceremonies, were understood to require the highest levels of confidentiality. It was my aim to promote the modern Santería faith in a general sense, but the specifics of each particular case and the identity of those involved would absolutely never be revealed. In essence, The Thirty or Los Treinta was established to help those in need, intended as a direct counterbalance to decades of invisibility on a domestic and global scale. The black hole in which Cuba and Cuban exiles had existed for decades required the formation of our society for the express purpose of protecting our culture and country, not from any natural assimilation and evolution, but from further fracture and erasure. In short, the Cuban and proud Cuban Americans of The Thirty were tasked with bringing a neglected garden back to life.

  I swelled with pride as I regarded the faces around the table, confident that the people here were more than capable of resolving the problem at hand. Oscar, Javier and Sandro sat to my immediate left, and on my right was our newest member, Alex’s father, Congressman Esteban Ruiz. He had approached me for membership after seeing the dramatic change in his son, Alex, who was now flourishing under my care as an amateur boxer and full-time college student.

  “My fiancée has been kidnapped,” I stated plainly. “I was tricked into posing for a compromising photo, and when she saw it, she left for Europe. That was six days ago. Today I have evidence that one of our enemies, Achille Demarais, is with her. She doesn’t realize the danger she’s in, but she will soon. I can’t reach her and I don’t know her exact location, and by the time I convince her brother and the authorities to take action, it’ll be too late.”

  “What’s her phone number?” asked Julie Ramos, CEO of the largest telecommunications network in the southeast. She’d shown up in gym attire, and if her multiple business degrees and high powered job weren’t enough evidence of her type A personality, her lean, corded physique rivaled that of any Olympic athlete’s, further testament to a relentless work ethic and a pursuit of perfection in all things. She was, like everyone else in the room, extraordinarily accomplished in her particular niche. “My IT department will have her location in two minutes,” she said, texting her company.

  “I don’t know if her phone is on or if it’s even with her,” I said, leaning in, hands clasped in front of me on the table. I was doing everything I could to remain calm and focus on the task of finding Amada, but it wasn’t easy.

  “Doesn’t matter,” she said, stony faced. “It’s the number, not the device.” A few of the members shook their heads in amazement, including Oscar, who pushed his own cell phone about a foot away from him across the slick table.

  “Electronic spies, those things.”

  “They are, yes,” agreed Julie.

  “This Demarais character, he’s in love with her?” Santiago Colon, owner of the Caribbean’s largest food distributor, rose and began making drinks at the trophy bar. Due to the nature of our business, wait staff were not allowed inside, so he lined up ten tumblers at a time, filling each with about three fingers of rum.

  “I think he is now.” In spite of my effort to appear strong, the mere thought of what he might do to Amada in the name of love made me ill, prompting me to get up and stand near the wastebasket in the corner of the room. I felt like I might get sick at any moment, which had been happening far too often this week.

  “He went after her because Rafa refused access to my son. It’s about me.” Esteban explained to the group how Achille had viciously addicted Alex to drugs in hopes of using him to get his father to facilitate his dealings in Cuba. “He wants to be the first to move his particular brand of super-cocaine from Colombia through a lab in Playa Larga on to Miami and the rest of the Caribbean. He knows I can make it easy for him, but up until now I’ve refused. Cuba will become another Medellín if we allow it.”

  “You’re from Playa Larga, aren’t you, Rafa?” asked Oscar.

  “Yes,” I said, the bile rising up in my throat. Unable to stop it, I turned my back to the group and heaved into the garbage can, quickly wiping my mouth with a handkerchief from my pocket. I put the wastebasket in the bathroom off the back of the room and rinsed my mouth before going back in. When I returned, everyone was out of their seat holding tumblers of rum, gathered around Julie.

  “What’s wrong? You can’t find her?” I asked, my eyes still watering from throwing up. I’d never felt so sick from anxiety in all my life, even when I was dying of fever in the hospital. This was a whole new level of angst.

  “Worse,” said Julie. “She’s at the Hotel Nacional in Havana.”

  “What? She’s been in France all week.” I went around to Julie’s side of the table and saw the message she’d received from her assistant, a map of Amada’s whereabouts in the last 48 hours, showing her travel from Monte Carlo to Bermuda and then Cuba.

  “Jesus Christ, of all places,” said Carlos, nervously lighting a cigar. “Why there?”

  “Because it’s the one place he thinks I won’t go.” I’d grossly underestimated Demarais. He was no run of the mill drug dealer. The man was not only ruthless but exceedingly smart. I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

  “You can’t, Boss,” said Sandro, already in sync with my thoughts. “Let me go instead. My passport says I was born in Miami. They can’t detain me.”

  “They can do whatever they want,” said Esteban. “The occasional shakedown is very common. If they hear your Cuban accent, you may very well be hassled, even though they know the United States government considers you a citizen of this country and would act accordingly. They view your birth here as a mere technicality, precipitated by the illegal desertion of your parents. Twisted, but we get reports of it all the time. Rafa, however, would certainly be thrown in jail. He had a somewhat high profile job abroad representing the Cuban government, and his abandonment of the post would be considered a public embarrassment. It would be very dangerous for him to go back. Let me make a call to the CIA. They may be able to get someone on it quickly as a favor to me, depending on what else is going on, but unfortunately Americans are kidnapped abroad more often than the public ever knows.”

  “There’s no time for that, Esteban,” I said. “Amada is just ninety miles away in grave danger, right now. I’m bringing her home today.” Several members of the group erupted in vehement protest, begging me to reconsider, but I’d had enough. I’d spent a week in agony, and now that I knew where she was I wouldn’t lose the opportunity to get her back, regardless of what it cost me personally. After listening to the various ideas and protests being thrown around the room, Esteban cleared his throat and put his hand up as a signal he wanted the floor.

  “Then this is how we’ll do it. I’ll have my aide schedule a meeting for me in Havana today in two hours, before close of business for the weekend, and we’ll keep in touch with Julie, who’ll notify us immediately if there is any change in your fiancée’s location.” He turned to Julie, who looked up briefly and nodded in assent. “Rafa will fly in with me and my staff on a charter, which means we’ll have certain diplomatic privileges, but not immunity. You’ll be listed as an aide and won’t have to identify yourself any further while in my company. However, once we part ways in the city, you’re on your own. You’ll have to blend in, very quietly find her, and then get back on the plane by seven o’clock. You cannot draw any negative attention to yourself whatsoever, Rafa, or you’ll be asked for identification and it all falls apart. My advice is not to take anyone else with you, as the more people you’re with, the more chance there is you’ll be noticed or detained, and I can’t help if you have to take him out and the authorities come looking for you.”

  “I can,” said Oscar from across the table.

/>   “So can I,” said Carlos. “Just make it back to Miami.”

  “Rafa, quietly is better for everybody,” said Ernesto.

  “I understand,” I said, shaking his hand. “Thank you.”

  “Thank you for saving my son.”

  ***

  The meeting adjourned quickly, giving me about thirty minutes before I had to rendezvous with Esteban’s plane at a private airfield just five miles away. Alone in Doña Delfina’s consulta now, lights low, I considered the irony of how I’d left Cuba penniless, alone and fighting for my life, and now was traveling back as a very wealthy man under the protection of a United States congressman. Power was something I’d never longed for, simply because it seemed vain and decadent, but what I’d failed to understand until this moment was that real power could save lives. Now that I knew better, my entire outlook changed, awakening in me a thirst for it like never before.

  Still, I was not so foolish as to believe that the scheming of mere mortals would be enough to guarantee Amada’s well-being and our safe return. There was a limit to what could be accomplished without divine intervention, and it was those men and women who fell victim to their own deluded sense of grandeur that were doomed to fail. Here in the epicenter of my spiritual refuge, the dark, plain, humble room where Doña Delfina had done her most important work, I knew that the combined influence of the thirty people in that room couldn’t compare to what even one Orisha could bring about if he or she were so inclined. The Orishas could be very giving, yes, but also demanding, and as such I was aware that I would have to offer a substantial gift in proportion to my request if I wanted to ensure the proper outcome today.

  I’d found a way to give Changó his flask of bull semen, discreetly housed in a secure urn on a high shelf near his painting. Once a week there would be a delivery from a farm near the Everglades, and at this very moment a fountain was being created in his image, to be placed in the exact location of the ballerina fountain. And of course, here I was, wearing his necklace on a Friday, as I would every Friday at his request, and just to be sure he saw it, I shrugged off my shirt and tossed it aside. There was no end to the things the Orishas might ask for, and I was prepared to give absolutely anything to protect my Amada.

  I turned on the small tabletop fountain in the corner, then kneeled in the center of the room in the direction of Delfina’s altar. I let my mind go blank, imagining the expanse of water I’d be flying across soon, recalling how the ocean had been integral to those moments that had been of greatest consequence in my life: the roar of the waves as my twin brother’s body washed ashore, the quiet lapping of water against the Coy Mistress as I slept with my head against Amada’s belly and felt her body rock with laughter, the minute I’d taken to look out across the silent black ocean on the deck of the Ruby behind the kitchen, where I’d gathered enough courage to go to the woman of my dreams and beg for the honor of being with her for just one night. Everything of consequence in my life, it seemed, had been determined by the ocean, perhaps the exact reason I was so drawn to it. Today would be no different, the waves a beautiful but unpredictable conduit between Miami and Havana, only this time she was on that side, and I’d need to ask the highest of powers for the strength to defeat whatever malevolent forces were conspiring against us.

  I waited for confirmation, direction, anything that would give me the instruction I needed to go forward. I emptied my mind of all trivial matters and focused on the issue at hand, the return of my Amada. Who would come in my moment of need? An Orisha? Delfina? Filomena? Not William, as it seemed he either couldn’t or wouldn’t leave the house. Could I request their presence, or would they only materialize at their own discretion? Would my own desperate energy be enough, or should I have called the entire group in with me, as is most often done? Acting on instinct I’d come alone, but perhaps I’d been wrong. Self-doubt began to plague my thoughts, invading the darkest recesses where at this time there should be nothing but faith.

  When finally it seemed too much time had passed, that there would be no one to answer my plea, I reluctantly tried to rise from my kneeling position but found that I couldn’t. It was as if my knees had been cemented to the floor, weighted by an unnaturally heavy presence in my body. I was a vessel that for the very first time had been filled, like a pitcher which had always been empty but now brimmed with water. It was the strangest sensation but not unpleasant, like discovering a secret room or passageway in your home that you never knew was there. Something had found its way inside me, its will far more powerful than mine.

  This had to be the possession Doña Delfina had taught me about, the one experience that had eluded her for years until one day when the Orisha of money, Aye, possessed her across the street from a horse racing track in 1985. Aye took her to a window and placed a two dollar bet on a horse, whose victory that afternoon yielded her a little over twenty thousand dollars. That was the seed money for her first successful business, a car service, and by the time she sold Crown Limo in 1990, it was worth over seventeen million dollars. I’d asked why the Orishas had wanted her to become rich and she said she had no idea, only that she had been required to do very specific things with the money, and if she hadn’t, it probably would have all been taken away just as quickly. Delfina said she wasn’t really rich, she was simply holding money for the Orishas and managing it according to their wishes. Since then, she’d been possessed multiple times and for many different reasons, but it was the first time at the races that made the greatest impression on her. Cemented in place on my knees, I knew that this would be the moment I would always remember, and I hoped it would be the same kind of blessed experience Delfina had. I opened my mouth to greet the Orisha, whoever it was, but found that I could not. Instead, it was he who spoke through me.

  “Blood,” it said. “As it has always been.”

  He was using my mouth, my vocal cords and my lungs to speak, while I could only answer with my mind. People today spoke of dominance and submission as if it were the new, commercialized sexual flavor of the month, but its spiritual origins were rarely discussed. The Catholic Flagellants of the middle ages had done it long before the most popular twentieth century enthusiasts, predating even the Marquis de Sade in the eighteenth century, and with far more interest in penance and obedience than in mere sexual gratification. This was no fun little masked game, and there was no need for restraints or rooms full of ridiculous instruments. Power of this magnitude was not implied or given, but simply taken. The control over my body was absolute and I knew instinctively he could have forced me to do anything to myself, say anything to anyone and I would have been helpless. It was frightening beyond comprehension, probably very much like mental illness or dementia, when the soul is a prisoner of a decayed mind and body. It was clear there would be no winning lottery ticket tonight. This Orisha wanted sacrifice.

  My eyes went to a small pair of sewing scissors on a table in the back of the room, and I’m not sure how they came to me, but in an instant, they were spinning on the floor at my knees, metal flashing wickedly in the dim light of the room. Frightening suggestions raced through my mind, scenes of scissors slicing through the skin of my chest, the razor sharp tip creating a vertical opening long enough for heart surgery, deep enough to coat my abdomen and the front of my pants in blood. I cringed but he continued, showing me how I could drag the blades along my body to create scars in a pattern in his honor. A nightmarish vision, he ultimately relented, making it clear he wanted, if nothing else, a black armband tattoo in a very specific tribal design, the first of many. Though I’d never wanted to mark my body in such a way, I conceded, assuring him I would do it.

  Omnipotencia, I answered, choosing my thoughts carefully. I’ve always been honest about my distaste for blood sacrifice, yet I was still chosen. Why do you ask for this currency now?

  “You want the power to save your wife,” he said, pulsing rapidly through my arteries and squeezing my heart, “but you won’t do what needs to be done. Demarais and Grégoire
offered blood, and look how they have been rewarded. Am I worth any less than their gods?”

  No, Omnipotencia, you are superior. Ask for something of greater value. Everything stilled for a minute, giving me the impression that perhaps he had gone, but then came his request.

  “Renounce the false world of science. It is but a trivial diversion, a mere footnote in history. You will continue to be a powerful healer, but only as a santero.”

  You don’t want me to be a doctor again? This is the sacrifice?

  “I could turn every vaccine in the world as rancid as spoiled milk if I so chose. Your medicine is a tiny boat with a broken oar. Mine is the ocean. There is work of greater consequence, and you must stop wasting time.”

  All at once horrible feelings coursed through my body: fear, hunger, cold, pain, disease and the early stages of death. My extremities ached with the sensation of smallpox sores and my bowels screamed as if infested with cholera. Instinctively I knew he meant our work had to be for the poor and the forgotten who needed mercy and had nothing to give in return, making them of little interest to those who cure only for profit, or worse, those who would do harm for the same reason. It was then that I knew who it was.

  Babalú-Ayé, it’s you. I beg you not to interfere with what’s in place now. Some have good intentions. Let them try. I will be your healer, but no blood can be spilled, ever.

  “Very well. How do you want him to die?” I felt the diseases leave me, and in their place, he gripped my heart and flooded my veins with something pleasurable, almost euphoric.

  What is this feeling, Omnipotencia? I was so lethargic I could barely think, quickly drifting away, my lungs unable to move enough to deliver oxygen to my brain.

  “Heroin overdose.” The feeling disappeared in a flash, my body snapping back at lightning speed. “Perhaps something more violent, like a heart attack or a brain hemorrhage?”