Dr. Brinkley's Tower (38 page)

— What am I going to do? Violeta finally asked.

— Today, you do nothing. Tomorrow, we'll figure this out. Violeta gulped air and sat up, strands of hair sticking to the tears on her face. Malfil raised herself up beside her. Violeta then did something that, just one day ago, she would have thought impossible. She rested her head on her mother's shoulder, an action that transported her to her days as a young child, the family not yet destroyed by revolution, Malfil relieving the hurt caused by a broken toy.

— Everything, Malfil assured her, — will look better in the morning.

A few seconds passed.

— And if it doesn't, we'll just wait for the morning after that.

FRANCISCO RAMIREZ RAISED HIS BEDROOM WINDOW
, paused to see whether the attendant creak had woken his brothers, and climbed into the laneway backing his casa. He stood for a moment, peering in either direction, listening for the sound of gunshots. After a minute he concluded there was nothing out there beyond a slight breeze and insects and the raspy panting of dogs.

He moved along the rear walls of houses, conscious that, despite the apparent calm, he was nevertheless putting himself at risk. Sticking to the shadows, he traversed north, towards Avenida Cinco de Mayo. After a few minutes of dodging from alcove to alcove, his shirt lit green with each darting movement, he snuck past the radio tower and followed the avenida until it dwindled into a rutted lane. As he walked, he was careful not to turn an ankle or trip over debris. After a few hundred metres, the path curved towards a dusty, rock-strewn incline.

Carefully, Francisco climbed the hill. As he approached the hovel marking the summit, he saw small bats, attracted by
the presence of rotting fruit, hanging upside down from the roof's crooked overhang. He reached the cabin and knocked forcefully. From inside he heard rustling, followed by footsteps. The door opened slightly and the curandera peered out. In her mouth were three peggy, pale orange teeth. Her skin had so many wrinkles it looked like the surface of an apple left too long in the sun. She scrutinized Francisco with the eye that still worked.

— Francisco Ramirez, she croaked, opening the door wider.

— Sí.

— So. You have come.

Francisco looked at pale earth and felt a discomfort that surprised him. Unable to locate words, he let the old woman continue.

— Another man has put a little cabrón in the belly of your one true love.

— Sí, he said.

— And this same man has, in his own indirect fashion, helped kill Laura Velasquez, Fajardo Jimenez, and your dear old friend Roberto Pántelas. It's no wonder you hate him.

The curandera produced a sly, wrinkled grin that illuminated the craggy nuances of her face, in the same way that a light shone into a well will reveal the lichen proliferating at its bottom.

— Come in, joven. It's good to have a visitor. Now that the revolution has returned to Corazón and the streets are running again with blood, old Azula has been getting restless. To tell you the truth, I want to get rid of Brinkley's tower as much as you do. There is something of the devil about it.

Francisco walked into the gloomy, odoriferous cottage, his nose filling with the stench of bile and simmering frogs and floor beams turning to a flaky rot. The room was lit with candles, and everything flickered orange. He squinted to see. There were newspapers spread all over the floor, and beneath them, a scurry of mice and vermin, which gave the impression that the papers were moving of their own accord. Along the far wall was a soot-blackened fireplace in which a few logs were smouldering, filling the house with a smoky mesquite scent. In the fire itself, suspended by a charred black chain, was an old cast-iron pot. Inside the pot, a noxious bromide bubbled and seethed and, every few seconds, popped, filling the cabin with a stench that reminded Francisco of horse urine. He looked around. The roughly hewn table in the middle of the room was piled with food-crusted dishes and, upon these dishes, the hurrying presence of cucarachas. In the corner, next to a broom rack, was a ratty caged owl that, if Francisco wasn't mistaken, was missing its beak.

— Have a seat, said the curandera.

Francisco looked around. There were no chairs in the room, and the table was so alive with insects and the remains of past meals he was hesitant to approach it.

— Ay, said Azula. — Give me a second.

Mumbling to herself, she began clearing the table of dirty dishes, a task involving three trips to the open-air kitchen that projected from the rear of the house. She then took a broom and swept the table surface in such a way that many of the roaches jetted into the fire, where they hissed and flamed green and released a smell not dissimilar to burnt corn.

— Now sit. I've assembled everything.

The curandera laughed to herself as she shuffled towards the fireplace. One by one she began pulling down a selection of the glass jars from the soot-covered mantel.
Esto
, she kept mumbling,
y esto … y esto.
By the time she was finished, Francisco found himself sitting before a row of medicinal flasks, each containing a mysterious powder. He turned to ask Azula what she was planning, only to see that the whiskered old woman had trundled off again towards the kitchen. She returned carrying a large wooden bowl, which she plunked down beside Francisco. For a moment she rested, her gnarled, filthy hands resting upon the jutting protuberances that were her hipbones.

— Bueno, she said.

Again Francisco cast his eyes over the accumulation of powders. Oddly, he felt a sudden nervousness, and he had to fight the temptation to say
I don't know if I can go through with this.
He overcame this weakening of his resolve by imagining Brinkley kissing Violeta's tender lips. Immediately his nervousness was replaced by cold fury.

The curandera took a seat across from him. He noticed that the old witch's face bore a streak of charcoal that started at the corner of her mouth and travelled directly north, to the bottom of a watery, reddened eye.

She grabbed the first jar and, with a sudden jerk that revealed her strength, twisted off the lid. She dumped a little of its contents into the wooden bowl.

— What is it? asked Francisco.

— Pulverized bat wings. An old bruja staple.

Francisco nodded, and watched as the curandera opened another jar. This time, when she sifted out a pinch of granular
white powder, she explained without prompting. — Dried armadillo sperm. Explosive as hell, and it burns at the temperature of a blast furnace.

She reached for a smaller bottle, this one filled with a thick liquid. She poured no more than a few drops into the mixture.

— Cactus resin, she announced with a satisfied grin. — I harvest it myself.

She proceeded to a medium-sized jar filled with a furry substance. She tipped some in, informing Francisco that many had tried to make incendiary powder without the wiry hair that rings a burro's muzzle, only to see their efforts amount to nothing. She then added mashed jumil bugs, dehydrated vole snouts, and the salivary glands of a Hercules beetle, which were an indigo blue and no bigger than flakes of dandruff.

Azula looked at the contents of the bowl and said: — Now we just need the secret ingredient.

— Which is?

— If I told you, joven, it wouldn't be a secret.

The curandera rose and again disappeared into the diabolical mystery that was her kitchen. From where he sat, Francisco could look out and see stars and the green-lit night sky and the sawtooth outline of the distant sierras. After a moment or two Azula reappeared, dragging a large jute sack behind her. Francisco jumped out of his seat and helped the old woman haul the bag into the room.

— Gracias, she said. — Azula isn't as young as she used to be.

— What's in the bag?

— Like I said, the secret ingredient. Fertilizer. The hairy Zacatecan keeps some on hand for me. Or at least he did, the poor bastard.

The curandera nodded with satisfaction, reached into the depths of her peasant skirt, and pulled out a blade. She slashed it across the corner of the sack, creating a generous aperture. Francisco helped her lift the bag so that it was immediately above the mixing bowl.

— Now, the old woman croaked. — Pour until I say stop.

Francisco tipped his end and watched the bowl fill with the greenish granular substance. Then they put down the sack and admired their handiwork: the mixture now looked like something one might use to bake a mint-flavoured cake. Both Francisco and the curandera were breathing hard.

— Now
that
, said Azula, — is incendiary powder! Trust me, this will give your Dr. Brinkley something to think about.

Francisco watched as the curandera gingerly stirred the mixture with a long-handled wooden spoon. As she worked, Azula sang in her native Kickapoo, the melody sorrowful and haunting. Her arms were thin and bony, most notably in places where you'd expect a muscle to flex with the effort. Finally the old witch put down the spoon and grinned, revealing her trio of peggy, yellowing teeth. The fertilizer was now roiling slightly, and emitting a scent that reminded Francisco of toothpaste.

Again the curandera trundled off, this time returning with a measuring cup. She dipped it into the powder, which began to spume over the edge and drip onto the ragged wooden floor. Francisco followed her out the rear of the cabin, into a stretch of desert bramble covered in rocks and huizache and the remains of small animals torn apart by she-wolves. He let the door slam behind him. This disturbed the bats hanging inverted from the roofline, all of which came alive and
fluttered into the night, their movements accompanied by mouse-like squeaks.

The curandera stopped beside a huge boulder that was oddly pyramidal in shape. She motioned towards it.

— Old Azula has hated this thing for years.

She sprinkled the frothing potion around the base of the rock. Just then the clouds shifted, and the silver of the moon mixed with the light green corona rippling through the sky, coating the desert with a sea-green illumination.

— You see? she said, looking up. — Mother Nature wants to lend us a hand. Now we can see what the hell we are doing.

The old witch backed up, Francisco following, until both were standing about twenty metres from the boulder.

— Can you believe I have lived here for seven decades and never done anything about that rock? Now. You have to put your hands together, close your eyes, and touch your fingers to your forehead. Like this. In this way the forces of clarity are summoned.

The curandera put her hands together as if in prayer and lowered her eczema-coated forehead to her fingertips. Francisco did the same.

— Now, she said. — The hard part. I need you to fill your heart with dark thoughts and hostility. Do you understand? I need you to summon all the hate you have ever felt, even for those you love. This will not be easy, as you are embarrassed by these emotions, and have been told your entire life that these emotions are bad, despite being ones to which we all must lay claim sooner or later. Listen to me: you must let your heart run with bile and enmity and the darkest of sentiments.
Otherwise, the next step won't work. As I say, this won't be easy, but you must try.

Francisco thought of the molinero, lying withered and dead in his straw-mattressed bed. He was tempted to say
Ay no, señora. It won't be hard at all.

— Repeat after me, said Azula. — O Mother Earth, giver of all things magisterial.

— O Mother Earth, giver of all things magisterial.

— Forger of rivers and oceans and seas.

— Forger of rivers and oceans and seas.

— Creator of mountains and valleys and plains.

— Creator of mountains and valleys and plains.

— We beseech you to lend us your powers.

— We beseech you to lend us your powers.

— So that we may combat a presence that has darkened our lives.

— So that we may combat a presence that has darkened our lives.

Both looked up. Francisco watched as Azula stared at the boulder, which was still lit silvery green even though the clouds had passed back across the moon. A full minute passed, during which the curandera didn't blink, flinch, or draw an apparent breath. Francisco, unnerved, finally spoke up.

— Curandera?

Azula kept staring forward. — Sí?

— What do we do now?

She reached into the folds of her skirt, this time extracting a tiny pistol with a bleached wood handle. In a single clean motion, she levelled the gun, aimed, and fired at the powder surrounding the immense rock.

There was a muffled explosion — it sounded more like rushing air than an actual burst — followed by a fountain of sand, root, and pebble. Simultaneously, the boulder that had for so long annoyed the curandera turned from stone to levitating dust. Francisco watched, eyes wide, as this residue floated to the height of a barrel cactus and then leisurely settled back down to earth, forming a slightly mounded accumulation that shimmered under the mysteriously coloured sky.

— Ha! Azula exclaimed. — It works! What did I tell you, joven?

She looked up at Francisco and chuckled.

— So, she said after a few moments. — Now comes the fun part, sí?

EACH DAY ARRIVED WITH THE CROWING OF ROOSTERS
, the whirring of insects, the chatter of awakening birds, and a scarlet banner stretched across the horizon. As the sun rose, the cool of the night burned off like butter in a pan and turned to a thin, dry heat. For the first hour or two, the people of Corazón de la Fuente hurried through the streets and avenidas, anxious to perform any chores requiring them to leave their homes. Around ten o'clock, both the Villistas and Ramón's paramilitaries began to awaken as well; all over town you could hear them coughing and groaning. Any citizens still on the street took this as a cue to return to their homes and batten their doors with improvisations of mesquite planks and nails.