I didn’t feel like defending Dub just then, but I said, ‘He hasn’t been able to think about anything else.’ It was the truth at least.
‘Really?’ she said, more brightly.
‘Sure,’ I nodded.
‘I do know what I want, Jo-Jo,’ she almost whispered. Her eyes glistened. Her face was soft, her lips slightly parted. Even with reddened eyes and fatigue seaming her face, she looked exquisite. Of course, I knew then what she wanted and wondered that Dub could have missed it. I should have asked but instead, seeing my opportunity on the brink of collapse, I said, ‘I know a woman. There are herbs. I can take you to her. She can sort things out.’ The words stumbled out of me and lay scattered and dreadful between us. I watched BabyLu’s face change.
Her breathing became shallow, controlled, and she was pale as she said, ‘Did he send you to say that?’ I felt sick. I wanted to gather everything back up and start again. She stood up. ‘You tell him not to come round here again.’
‘BabyLu …’
‘I thought you might understand, but you’re just his flunkey. You do as you’re told, whether you think it’s right or not,’ she cried, her voice brittle, the words like fragments of glass. ‘Or maybe you just don’t think at all.’ She jabbed at her temple with her finger furiously, her nails long and scarlet. I wanted to fold her hand softly, safely, into mine but I didn’t. I leaned forward, my palms out, wanting to apologise. Her eyes flared and she groped around on the table for something to pick up, but, finding nothing, she crossed her arms again. ‘Go away,’ she said petulantly, like a child. She looked small, her very daintiness an accusation.
It felt almost unbearable to leave everything poised at that point and yet I was grateful to have been dismissed. As I reached the door I turned to look at her and, seeing me turn, she clenched her jaw, raised her chin; she would hold everything in until I was gone.
I ran down the stairs and out into the night and set off down Prosperidad, away from Esperanza Street and the Bougainvillea, a dull, hard feeling in my chest.
The apartment blocks here were at least four storeys tall with jutting balconies overlooking the street. In soft globes of lamplight, people ate together, talked over the sound of TV sets, rolled out bedding. It was a street where neighbours hung over railings and called to each other in the darkness, the red tips of cigarettes looping through the air as they talked. I tried to imagine what it might feel like to once again belong somewhere like this, perhaps even with someone, by choice rather than happenstance. But I couldn’t quite capture the sense of it, as if there had grown over the years some barrier as light as gauze, floating between me and everything else. BabyLu was right, I thought. It didn’t matter whether I knew wrong from right when all I did was whatever I was told, without questioning the role that had been written for me by everyone but myself. And when it was required of me to break through the gauze, when it really mattered, I could not.
I walked about aimlessly for some time before I realised I was crying. I wiped my face with my arm, grateful for the darkness, and then I started running. I tore back through Prosperidad, heedless of the surprised faces around me. As I neared her building, I looked up at her balcony, the room beyond it still full of light. I ran up the stairs. I might not have been so hasty had I recognised the Mercedes, half in shadow, rolling softly away onto Esperanza.
I hammered on the door and when she opened it she looked frightened. I hadn’t meant to alarm her and I started explaining all at once as I blundered into the room, still out of breath, imploring her forgiveness.
‘Joseph,’ she began.
‘You were right. I am his flunkey.’ I clutched at her hand. ‘But what does it matter that I can think or act for myself when nobody requires it of me?’
Behind her, Eddie Casama stood up from the chair I’d occupied only a short while ago, his jacket slung across the back of it, a tumbler in his hand. His tie was loose, his collar buttons undone, a man returning home after a long day at work, hoping for tranquillity. He looked at his watch. He seemed amused and I wondered if this might be a good sign. BabyLu shook her head at me.
‘If you had the time,’ Eddie said, ‘I’d ask you to make up some of your delicious calamansi juice, but you seem in such a hurry.’
BabyLu pushed me gently towards the door and out onto the landing. I let her steer me as I stumbled backwards, offering no resistance. She held my gaze as she closed the door, her eyes the last thing I saw as the sliver of light between the edge of the door and the frame narrowed to nothing and I was left standing in the darkness.
Soil and Sand
This last encounter with BabyLu was so unsettling that it seemed only fitting when, shortly after it, a sorcerer visited the market hall. When he came, America and I were at the boarding house making leche flan and, though she didn’t mention anything at the time, she later claimed a stab of dread at the precise moment the sugar melted in the pan.
The sorcerer was first seen walking along the coast road from the direction of the passenger jetty. His shirt and trousers were worn thin but, according to Jonah, he walked like a prince. He smelled bad and later, when Jonah retold the story, he said that the smell had preceded the man by quite some distance, so that when he eventually came into view there was little doubt that his presence meant something evil. He was clean-shaven and young, unremarkable except for his eyes, which were penetrating, like a bird of prey’s. Over his shoulder he carried a bamboo vessel strung on a cord, and it was this that first gave him away; this and the fact that he made no attempt to disguise it, though of course everyone was already certain what it must contain. He walked unhurriedly, and those he encountered crossed the road to avoid him. When he arrived at the jetty, he paused as if getting his bearings before turning in towards the market hall. The market was quiet when he arrived; most of the day’s business had already been completed and the sun was beginning to edge towards the horizon. At the end furthest from the jetty the market hall housed a water pump, at the site of an old well that had long been boarded up. This tap and the well before it supplied all of the surrounding households. The sorcerer took a good look about him and sat for some time on the wall of the old well. He knew of course that no one would ask him to move on. So he lingered, washing his feet under the tap, rinsing his mouth, head and face.
When he left, no one saw in which direction he walked, for it was dark by then. Later still, it was conjectured that he’d made himself invisible, transformed himself into a creature or simply disappeared. At any rate, it was a while before anyone approached the tap, and when they did, what they saw sent them straight to the curandero. When Uncle Bee arrived, he found what he’d feared he might. On the wall of the well was a dead insect, seven legged, with a hair tied around its middle, and next to it a skull, perhaps that of a dog, under which was a small pile of soil and another of sand. Uncle Bee, a healer trained to cure people’s ailments with botanics and Latin prayer, was at a loss. Word spread quickly, and soon everyone had shut their children and pregnant women indoors and the elders of the households stood together, some distance from the well, to discuss what these things might mean.
By now the sorcerer was long gone, although, as everyone knew, he had the power to change his shape at will and so, for the next few days, any strange dogs or cats were chased away, a relentless task in a market that sold meat and poultry. It was decided the proper solution was to bring in the help of another sorcerer to negate the spells of the first. And so a woman who lived some distance away, on the very edge of Greenhills, was cautiously approached and came to assess the situation. She was, Jonah reported, quite perturbed by what she saw but was persuaded, at some risk to herself, to attempt to offset whatever forces of ill had been called into play. Her task accomplished, she too was given a wide berth on her way home and, for some time afterwards, received a kind of wary gratitude from the barrio. However, only the following morning a beetle was found in a bed in a household opposite the market hall and, that same afternoon, a child passed a worm in a neighbouring alley and once again, panic set in.