That night they had trouble falling asleep. The moon tinged the sky with red. The dogs never stopped barking. Sara Luz got out her Tarot, shuffled the deck, and picked three with her eyes closed. When she opened them, she screamed. She refused to say what she saw. The hours passed. Just before dawn, concealing themselves in the noise of a heavy rain, ten black shadows opened the door of the school with professional skill.
On the second floor, they found three families who shared the farm work with the Arcavis. In minute they bound and gagged the men, who made not the slightest gesture to defend themselves. They stripped the women — three adults and four children — bare and locked them in the bathroom. They then went out only to return, following, making great signs of respect, a corpulent man wearing a leather mask and a bearskin coat.
In despotic fashion he stretched out his enormous hand, and a shadow, saluting the whole time, handed him a well-sharpened kitchen knife. The masked man took off his overcoat and revealed his erect phallus, itself of extraordinary size. His servants, kicking her and dragging her by the hair, pulled a woman out of the bathroom. As soon as she saw the monster, she ran for the door, went out into the rain, and began to shriek. The aggressor caught her there, and with one blow cut off her head. He took hold of her body and drank the steaming spurts of blood from her arteries. Then he threw himself on the headless corpse to penetrate her while he grunted with pleasure. Staggering like a drunk, he went back into the school. Making brutal gestures, he shook the knife. They let loose a little girl. He chased and cornered her. The child fell to her knees and showed her face bathed in tears. The first thrust of the knife hit her in the eye. Ninety-nine more followed.
Upstairs, on the third floor, Salvador, Luna, and their two little girls heard everything: the cries of the women, their bare feet scrambling over the cold floor, the deep breathing of the murderer, the weapon slicing the air, the watery noise of bodies being sliced open, the guts spattering against the walls, the blood falling onto the floorboards like a fountain of thick water, the heavy body of the beast wallowing in the viscera, and his triumphant shout in orgasm.
They counted the victims: seven. And now the thirsty monster was climbing the stairs. Salvador, impotent, trembled as he prayed. Luna took off her clothes to offer herself as a sacrifice, hoping that way to save the girls. Sara Luz ran and hid under the bed, kissing her Tarot again and again. Felicidad, with anger so great that it seemed about to explode her little body, slowly and carefully put on the red shoes and lit the candles in the menorah.
A violent blow opened the door, smashing against the wall and breaking off chunks of plaster. The criminal entered the room, his body soaked with blood and the mouth of his mask overflowing with chewed up intestines. Reflecting the candle flames, his knife threw off a web of golden rays. Salvador opened his arms, hopeless. Luna walked toward the blade, offering herself resignedly. The murderer hunched over to give his stab more force, and for fragments of a second the world stopped in an eternal silence.
Then everything accelerated. Felicidad shouted an order so loudly that the roof beams creaked and a curtain tore open: “Halt!” Raising her right hand, she stopped the criminal. She completely cut off his movement. There was not the slightest speck of fear in her attitude, only perfect self-control. A superhuman will inhabited that fragile little body. Through that will, the spirit of all the lion tamers revealed itself. For Felicidad, descended from so many Salvadors, dominating a ferocious beast was a natural, necessary act. She’d never felt better.
The monster stopped short, fixed his gaze on the burning eyes of the tiny woman, roared, and clutched his stomach as if his liver had just exploded. He dropped the knife, fell on his knees, and sank his enormous head on the girl’s chest. In a sweet voice, saturated with love, he whispered in Russian, “Forgive me.” The other assailants climbed the stairs as a mob and tried to enter the classroom. A single gesture from their master stopped them. Another gesture made them bow, and a third compelled them back downstairs and out of the school.
The girl took the belt from her robe, tied it around the giant’s neck, and led him like a pet toward the patio. The rain had stopped. Salvador, Luna, and Sara Luz heard the galloping of horses that faded into the distance. Felicidad disappeared from their lives forever. Never again were murders like that committed in the villages.
From that moment on the lives of the Arcavis were no longer the same. On the one hand, the congregation praised the girl’s heroic sacrifice, but on the other they could never forget her triumphant smile as she tied the belt around the murderer’s neck. Also, he did not try to kidnap her. It was she who forced him to walk down the stairs like a dog and then disappear into the darkness. What happened after that? The madman could have reacted by shaking off his enchantment and cutting her to pieces as he did with the others. But why had the murders stopped?
One day at first light, Luna awoke, screaming. Hugging Salvador, her breath short and eyes wild, she told him, “What I’m thinking is atrocious. The night of the seven murders, I saw in the encounter between the monster and Felicidad something similar to what happened to us: in her eyes there was love — a huge, sudden love that survives beyond death.”
Sara Luz never wanted to hear another word about magic. She locked the Tarot in a coffer and tried her best to forget it. All three widowers asked for her hand in marriage. Together with her parents, she chose Salomón Trumper, much older than she but simple and tranquil.
On the way home from the wedding ceremony, the coach carrying Salvador and Luna crashed down a ravine because a yellow dragonfly flew into the horse’s ear. They both died. A year later, at the same time, on the same day, in the same month, Sara Luz gave birth to Jashe. And a year later, also at the same time, on the same day, and in the same month, she gave birth to Shoske. Jashe and Shoske, two common names with no greater meaning, deliberately chosen to bring an end to all the miracles.
The two sisters were brought up in the same way: they slept together, dressed identically, and learned to embroider, cook, plant wheat, and clean the house so that every Shabbat everything would shine. Shoske was happy in that life and hated anything out of the ordinary. Jashe began the same way, but one day, as she raked the garden, a yellow dragonfly began to fly around her, getting closer and closer until it entered her head through an ear and began to buzz, as if trying to give her a message.
Jashe imagined that the same insect that had caused the death of her grandparents came to pay its debt. She thought she understood what it was saying: “Forgive me, my child. I never wanted Salvador and Luna to die. In exchange for that, I’m going to give you the most valuable treasure in the world.” The insect flew to the school. The girl followed, all the way to the attic. The dragonfly landed on the old coffer, then it flew out the window. Jashe opened the box and found the Tarot. For years, in secret, she studied the cards, and they became her Master, teaching her to See. Everything changed. She became aware of the madness in which they were submerged; religious law seemed like a prison; and she tried to escape, to abandon her many absurd obligations, all superstitions, and arranged marriage. She wanted to live the holy life every day and not just on Saturday, to love freely and without tribal limitations, to eat whatever she wanted, to travel the world, to live not just one life but thousands, to recover magic. She was in that effervescent state when she found the door, the light, the road: she found him, Alejandro Prullansky.
As soon as Jashe finished telling him the story of her ancestors, the Russian dancer took her in his arms, hugging her so tight it was as if he wanted to absorb her through his skin and said, “Chance is a subtle form of Destiny. My mother’s name was Felicidad. She was Jewish and was stolen by my father. My family history doesn’t go back as far as yours for a simple reason: my grandmother, Cristina Prullansky, burned all the documents and pictures that tied her to the past.”