The Black Witch of Mexico (22 page)

* * *

He walked home through the park. There was a drizzle of rain, it was like the whole world was dripping. He slumped down onto a bench and felt the cold damp seeping into his clothes. He didn’t care.

So this was what the thousand-yard stare looked like from the inside.

Something made him turn around and he looked up and saw a crow sitting on the branch of a beech tree, staring down at him through one nasty yellow eye. He found a coke can in the trash and threw it. It flapped its wings and soared away, wheeling over the grass.

This was crazy. He could not be responsible for what happened to Elena. People had car accidents all the time, that wasn’t magical, it was tragic but it was everyday.

Just like people got cancer and got aneurisms. Sometimes it did happen all at once: one of the interns lost his father, his uncle and a cousin in the space of two months. That wasn’t black magic--it was just bad luck.

And yet.

When Oliver died whom would Elena turn to? She didn’t have her sister there anymore, no one to confide in and no one to turn her against him.

Hadn’t he asked the Crow to help him get her back? Isn’t that what was happening, against all the odds?

It reminded him of a joke Jay had told him. A man was driving through a parking lot, there wasn’t a space anywhere and he asked God to find him one. Miraculously he turns around the next corner and there is someone just pulling out of the only space left, right there in front of him.

“Don’t worry, God,” he says, ‘it’s all right, I’ve found one.”

He thought about the way she clung to him before he put her in the cab that afternoon. Wasn’t that what he had dreamed about, to feel her arms around his neck again?

Yes, but not like this.

He put his head in his hands. He had to stop thinking like this.

Chapter 57

Lynne looked him up and down and shook her head. “You look like shit,” she said.

“Thanks. Can I come in?”

He followed her into the kitchen. Gaucho got up from the floor and started barking. Adam tried to pet him but he backed off. “What’s got into you?” Lynne said and shooed him out the back door.

The boys were sitting on the floor, Legos spread across the tiles. She sent them into the playroom and put on some fresh coffee. “Who died?” shesaid, and then she saw the look on face. “Shit, sorry. This is more than just girl trouble?”

She cleared a space on the table among the toys, the dirty breakfast dishes, the laundry she was still halfway through folding. Still, he found the chaos strangely comforting. She was like the mother he never had. If he went to Mom’s he was served Blue Mountain from bone china teacups; here it was Nescafe from a mug with a picture of Elmo on the side.

“So what’s happened?”

He told her about Oliver, about Elena’s sister. She said she was sorry to hear about it, but looked puzzled.

“I didn’t think you liked Julie,” she said. “And this Oliver guy. Isn’t he the one she cheated on you with? I don’t get it.”

“There’s something I need to tell you,” he said, but didn’t know where to start and while he was trying to work it out, the kettleboiled.

He stared at the crayoned kids pictures blue-tacked to the refrigerator while she made the coffee. He was a coffee snob and he never drank instant but it was part of their ritual for her to put one in front of him.

She brought the cups over and sat down. “Well, spit it out,” she said.

“You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

“I already do. Come on; get it off your chest. It’s me. If you can’t tell your big sister what’s bothering you, who can you tell?”

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Saying this aloud was going to sound stupid. “When I was in Mexico I did something that was really...”

“Really what?”

“Really not like me.” He tapped on the table with his fingertips. “I went to see a witch. See, I knew you’d think this was a joke.”

“You did
what
?”

“I was curious, that was all.”

“A witch? Did she have, like, warts and a black pointy hat?

“It was a man. He’s like a healer who’s gone to the dark side. Like one of those nurses that like to kill people. He was the most profoundly evil man I’ve ever met.”

“Why, what did he do?”

“Just his presence. He had this blackness about him.”

“Okay. So what happened?”

“He said he could do anything I wanted. Anything.”

It only took her a moment to catch up. “You didn’t?”

He shrugged.

“I don’t believe it.”

“It was just...it’s different down there. There’s all these strange things happening and you start to wonder what it’s all about and so one day I went along.”

“You were always the rational one in the family.”

“I like to think I still am.”

“We’ll get back to that. Look, I’m in shock and awe, but what has this got to do with anything?”

“Well it’s happened, hasn’t it? Do you see? Her boyfriend’s dying, she can’t have children - and that was the issue that came between us - and now my biggest enemy in her family has just dropped dead.”

“You don’t believe this...medicine man had anything to do with it?”

“It’s playing on my mind.”

“That’s ridiculous, Adam!’

He stared out of the window at the yard. The leaves were starting to turn. Soon it would be fall; almost a year since he first went to Santa Marta.

“I’m thinking of going back.”

“To Mexico? To do what?”

“Well, what would you do?”

“I’d get a therapist. You’ve been working too hard, little bro.”

“All the more reason to take some time off then.”

“You’ll lose your job! They just gave you a six month sabbatical.”

“I don’t care.”

“You don’t care? That’s maybe because you’ve had it too easy for too long!’

“You think seven years of medical school and twelve hours a day as an intern is too easy?”

“Then all the more reason not to throw it all away!’

He put his head in his hands.

“What are you going to do, ask this crazy guy for another spell?”

“Maybe.”

“Reality check, bro! This is crazy thinking. You’re scaring me.”

“You mean you don’t believe that what someone thinks can affect someone else’s health?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You’re in a prayer group. What’s that all about then?”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“You can’t kill someone with your mind.”

“But you think you can make people better with a prayer, isn’t that the same thing?”

“We’re asking God to intervene, we’re not saying we can heal someone ourselves.”

“Well he says the same thing. He says it’s not him that does this, it’s the devil.”

“The Devil? What is this, the Middle Ages? Listen to yourself. I thought you were an atheist.”

“I feel like I’ve called down a curse on her head.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. The guys in the white coats will be coming for you, you keep talking like this.”

“It won’t be hard. I go down there, I find him, I get him to...”

“Take away the spell? Listen to yourself.”

“I should never have done it.”

“That’s the first sane thing you’ve said since you got here. I am...beyond words. You of all people. You used to laugh at people who did things like this, you’re always making fun of the prayer group.”

“I never made fun of it. I just thought you guys were...”

‘“Polyannas,” you called us.”

“Well, now you can laugh at me.”

“I don’t find anything even vaguely amusing about what you’re telling me.”

“It’s simple, right? I fly down, rent a car, drive to Santa Marta, do this...I’ll be back in four days.”

“I think you should be in a padded cell, where you can’t harm yourself or someone else.”

“It was just a...I don’t know. I thought it was a joke. I never...I never believed it.”

“You shouldn’t believe it NOW!’

“But what if... He’s dying, Lynne.”

“There’s people dying fucking everywhere.”

“But I wished this on him!’

“You really think she lost the baby and all this other shit happened because of what you said to a Mexican witch?”

“I’m saying I can’t sleep at night thinking about it.”

“You are out of your goddamned mind. This is the dumbest thing I ever heard.”

“He could die if I don’t do something about this.”

“Adam. Hello! Reality speaking. If you can invent a cure for cancer he won’t die. Outside of that there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

One of the boys had fallen over on the patio and was screaming. She went outside to look out for him.

He waited a moment then got up and put his head around the back door. “I have to go,” he said.

“No, don’t go, I’ll be there in a minute,” she said, rubbing Mattie’s knee where he’d fallen.

“No, I’ll see you later.”

He went out to the car and drove away before she could catch him. He had had enough talking for one day.

* * *

He thought about what she had said as he drove back to Boston. Of course she was right; he was out of his mind. There was no such thing as witches or black magic. This was the twenty-first century for God’s sake.

He was back in the city, stopped at a light, looking down Massachusetts Avenue. He could turn right and get back to the St Mary’s in time for his shift or he could keep going, head home, pack his bags and drive out to the airport, get a standby flight to Mexico City.

The guy behind him was punching his horn, the lights had turned green and Adam was holding up traffic.

He had to make up his mind. Which way should he go?

Chapter 58

Mexico City

She was waiting for him at the airport when he arrived. This time she was not sending text messages on her cell. He had her full attention. “I got your message on my answering machine,” she said.

“Honestly, I didn’t think you’d want to see me again.”

“Honestly, I didn’t think you’d ever come back to Mexico.”

“Well I guess we should never say never.”

She looked at his hand luggage. “Travelling light this time?”

“I don’t plan on staying long. Thanks for coming out to meet me.”

“That’s okay. You can buy me a drink.”

He followed her through the terminal. He wondered how he would tell her the reason he had come back. He decided it was best to wait until they both had a drink in their hands.

She held the steering the wheel so tight he thought it was going to snap. A window washer came up to them at the lights and she lowered the window and yelled at him to clear off and he retreated, stunned.

He remembered what she had said to him that very first day:
I have skin like a gringo but I have Mexican blood
. For all her blonde looks she was a
Latina
to the bone, caught fire quicker than petrol.

Somehow he liked it about her. At least he knew where he stood. He wondered where she stood on guys who called down spells on their exes. He guessed he would soon find out.

* * *

The streets in the Zona Rosa were named after European cities: Geneva, Dublin, Oslo, Hamburgo. She took him to a cavernous bar with track lighting and industrial tables and chairs. It was packed with young men in double-breasted suits and ponytails drinking Chivas, buying their girlfriends cocktails worth more than a Mexican farmer made in a month. The relentless beat of the music was getting on Adam’s nerves.

“You did what?”

“I’m not proud of it. I wasn’t... I was just curious.”

“I don’t fucking believe what I’m hearing.”

“I thought...I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“I do. You were thinking you’d get home to Boston and she’d be there waiting for you at the airport on her knees begging you to come back. Right? It was like waving a magic wand to you.”

“I wanted her back.”

“And you didn’t care how you did it.”

“I didn’t think it would be - look I still don’t even believe this is true. It could be just a gross coincidence.”