The Almanac of the Dead: A Novel (84 page)

TACHO HAD BEGUN to see changes all around Tuxtla. The government was uneasy about the relentless stream of refugees from the wars in El Salvador and Guatemala. Maybe the white men had counted themselves, then counted the Indians. What Tacho saw as the refugees increased was white men would soon be outnumbered by Indians throughout Mexico. Police patrols had been increased, sweeps were made twice a day through the market for refugees to drag away
for “interrogation,” and if they survived, to refugee camps miles away from the border. Tacho had watched the patrols arrest three Peruvians who were not refugees, but merchants accustomed to travel who carried all the necessary papers. But papers made no difference to police since infiltrators and spies always carried the “correct” papers. The police patrol had seized the bundles of dried plant stalks and leaves, the odd roots and envelopes of seeds and dried leaves the Peruvians had displayed on their blankets. After the police had left with the Peruvians, Tacho had joined the others on the spot where the Peruvians had spread their blankets. No one said anything. The children poked around in the dirt looking for coins that might have been lost in the confusion. In the weeds and debris where the police van had been parked, Tacho looked down and saw a bundle wrapped in newspaper. Tacho moved away from the bundle casually and waited until the crowd had scattered.

Tacho had tried to slow his heart’s pounding by staring up at the sun in the sky; somehow he had known the packet would be lying there. Tacho stood a distance away. The bundle was waiting for him to pick it up; Tacho could feel this more strongly than he had ever felt anything before. Tacho felt an urgency as if a beloved or person of great importance were waiting for him,
expecting
a welcome, expecting hospitality.

“Sorcerers work in cities,” people say; maybe the Peruvians had been “witches.” But he wasn’t afraid; he did not feel his guts churn or cold sweat on his feet as sorcery victims usually reported.

A life might be short or a life might be long; duration mattered little. What did matter was how one lived until one died. Tacho examined his conscience carefully; he must not go to the bundle if his motives were selfish; he must not pick up the bundle if he wanted riches or a long life or an easy life. For riches and a long life Tacho knew all he had to do was continue to serve Menardo; the boss was more superstitious than ever; he had even split the winnings 80—20 the last time Tacho had correctly “read the numbers.”

Tacho placed the bundle inside the cigar box where he kept his other valuables. He did not open the bundle until El Feo was with him. Luckily the wild woman had not come with El Feo. Tacho was not sure if Angelita should see the bundle. She believed in diesel generators, minivans, and dynamite; she had gone to Mexico City with the Cuban, Bartolomeo, to ask for more “direct aid” from their “foreign friends.” Angelita said this was because an Indian
woman
on television made white men feel less afraid than if they saw a handsome devil such as El
Feo. If that was what white men thought, then whites were fools; because a woman such as Angelita was more deadly and fierce in battle than many men.

El Feo did not speak for a long time after Tacho told him about the bundle. With El Feo present, Tacho had been aware of the bundle again as a presence; with El Feo there, the bundle wanted to be opened.

“Well, well,” El Feo said as he carefully unwrapped the bundle. Inside was an opal the size of a macaw egg. The stone had been “dressed,” wrapped in red wool string and downy, white feathers. Twelve big coca leaves and a pinch of cornmeal had been packed with the opal to feed it. El Feo touched the opal cautiously. “You don’t know anymore with these Peruvians and Bolivians all crawling out of the hills to sell ‘Inca long-life capsules.’ ” The twelve perfect coca leaves were religious objects too.

Tacho shook his head. He thought 95 percent of supposed witchcraft and sorcery was superstition and puffed-up talk. But 5 percent . . . “Only five percent?” El Feo had laughed loudly and shook his head at Tacho. For twins, they did not look much alike. When they were arguing, Tacho got stiff and did not say much, while El Feo thought everything was funny. Someplaces there were entire villages populated by sorcerers, all living together by mutual pledge to prey only on outsiders. Their pledges were frequently broken, and they turned upon one another in the most bloodthirsty manner; brother killed brother, sister devoured sister. This destruction, this sorcery, this witchcraft, occured among all human beings. The killing and devouring occurred behind bedroom doors, inflicted by parents and relatives, and the village of sorcerers continues generation after generation without interruption.

El Feo had had actual experience himself with a village of witches. El Feo’s baseball team had attended national playoffs one year in Veracruz and had had to play the baseball team sent to represent a village of witches. The village of witches was wealthy because they had tapped into the great inter-American market for “Inca secrets” and “Aztec magic”. European descendants on American soil anxiously purchased indigenous cures for their dark nights of the soul on the continents where Christianity had repeatedly violated its own canons, and only the Indians could still see the Blessed Virgin among the December roses, her skin color and clothing Native American, not European.

The village of sorcerers had got rich making up and selling various odd sorts of alleged “tribal healing magics” and assorted elixirs, teas, balms, waters, crystals, and capsules to the city people, mostly whites.
But more and more mestizos too had secretly begun to consult the Indians. They all wanted to keep the consultations secret to avoid embarrassment or possible excommunication from the Church. The sorcerers listened to the ailments and complaints of the city patients to gain knowledge of the patients’ lives; the cures the sorcerers had then sold their “patients” had cost hundreds, but consisted mostly of floor sweepings containing rodent dung and cotton lint. A piece of paper had been packed with each talisman, amulet, charm, or medicine the village salesmen sold. It was called a simple remedy for all illness and evil; it had been written in crude Spanish and copies had been made with faded-purple mimeograph ink.

Ritual of the Four World Quarters

Jesus, Mary, St. Joseph! Holy Trinity!

All the saints, and all the souls of the living and the dead!

The Heart of Heaven who is called Huracan is the long flash of lightnings

The green flash of lightning

And the deafening crash of lightning.

Grandmother of the Dawn

Grandmother of the Day!

They looked like humans

They talked like humans

They populated the earth

They existed and multiplied

They had daughters and they had sons.

These wooden figures had no minds or souls.

They did not remember their Creator.

They walked on all fours aimlessly.

They no longer remembered the Heart of Heaven and so

They fell from grace.

They were merely the first attempt at human beings.

At first they spoke but their faces were blank.

Their hands and feet had no strength

They had no blood, no substance no moisture, no flesh.

Their cheeks were dry, their hands and feet dry and their skin was yellow.

Burning pine-pitch rains from the sky.

Death Macaw gouges their eyes

Death Jaguar devours their flesh

Death Crocodile breaks and mangles their nerves and bones and crumbles them to dust.

THE OPAL DID NOT appear to be a fake, wrapped up to fool rich society women. They both knew the danger of looking at the opal unless they were prepared; the eye of the opal might show them anything; the “eye” might take them anywhere. El Feo had glanced down for only an instant, but he had seen the Cuban, Bartolomeo, his hairy bare bottom bouncing on top of Angelita in Mexico City. That hadn’t been news to El Feo, but all the same, the opal might show anything, even the most trivial or embarrassing. El Feo said that was another reason Tacho should keep the bundle; the opal might show too much; a man might see the struggle and suffering to come and lose heart. Angelita with the Cuban wasn’t pretty, but it was necessary: to get back the land was everything.

After El Feo had gone back to the mountains, Tacho had not been able to resist; the bundle was inviting him to take a look. All he had to do was to ask, and the eye would show him everything everywhere—all that had been, all that would be. All El Feo had done was glance down and he had seen more than he had bargained for; Tacho took the stone in the palm of his hand, and with his eyes closed he had exhaled to feed the opal’s spirit his own breath. When Tacho had opened his eyes, the unpolished surface of the opal appeared as thick layers of clouds high over the earth. Tacho peered down through the clouds and could see glittering sapphire blues and emerald greens of the Pacific Ocean, and the long coastline, longer than Tacho had ever imagined, the coastline of the Pacific all the way from Chile to Alaska. Then the clouds seemed to darken and thicken and there was fire; Tacho watched great cities burn; torches of ruby and garnet mushroomed hundreds of feet into the sky. Tacho had strained to see landmarks more clearly, but one city was larger than any Tacho had ever seen. Then he knew: he was
watching Mexico City burn again, but this time the sacred macaws had watched as cages full of human cannibal-sorcerers went up in smoke.

Before Tacho returned the bundle to its box, he tried to ask the opal to show him his own life, but all Tacho had been able to see was the unpolished gray surface of the stone. Carefully he rewrapped the opal and returned it to its box. The eye had closed for now.

MENARDO HAD WATCHED satellite television until dawn. Menardo sipped hot brandy and chocolate to soothe his nerves. At dawn a strange fatigue and sleepiness would overcome him; then Menardo would be able to sleep without dreams for a few hours. Recently though, Menardo had found the satellite television news irritating, even upsetting; images of the hordes of dirty rabble—the mobs shrieking and stampeding in front of police armored cars or military tanks did not calm his ragged nerves. All over the world, everywhere, the TV cameras showed civil wars. The video images brought back the university riots many years before in Mexico City. Menardo had had heavily insured businessmen in the Federal District, and he watched himself age ten years in one week as the rioting began to spread to involve other sectors of Mexico City. If the riots had not been stopped, Menardo’s losses might have run to billions of pesos, and Universal Insurance would have been ruined.

For years Menardo had not had to worry about the “civil strife, strike, or insurrection” clause of his insurance policies. The long-haired, filthy communists had disappeared from television screens, and Menardo believed the days of mobs and riots had truly passed. Then suddenly one night Menardo had awakened to a loud buzzing sound. The screen of his television had been filled with what appeared to be larvae or insects swarming. When Menardo had raised the volume and looked closely, he saw the swarms were mobs of angry brown people swarming like bees from horizon to horizon. At first Menardo had thought he was seeing a rerun of videotapes taken at the Mexico City riots years before; then, looking more closely, he had seen the city was Miami, and the
mobs, American. All over the world money was the glue that held societies together. Without money or jobs even the U.S. was suffering crippling strikes as well as riots and looting. Cities such as Philadelphia that were bankrupt had to appeal for the National Guard, but riots in Detroit, Washington, and New York City had also required federal troops. Menardo shook his head. He didn’t like the look of things in the United States. What a shame such a power as the U.S. had gone the same direction as England and Russia. Almost overnight, the people had discovered all their national treasuries were empty, and now everywhere there were riots.