Strega

'I'm not young anymore,' I said. I couldn't remember ever being that young.

'Listen to me, Burke. It is not reality which controls our lives, it is the perception of that reality.'

'More politics?'

'You cannot dismiss truth by mocking it,' Pablo said, his voice hardening. 'So long as my people believe their life is acceptable, then it is acceptable. My people live on a slave island, but their chains are food stamps and welfare programs.

'This is getting away from me,' I told him.

'Because you are ignoring your senses-because you will not listen to what you have already learned.'

'I am listening. I told you everything, Pablo.'

'You have told me nothing. You said only what you saw-and you have been precise in your reporting, like an investigator. But you have told me nothing of what you feel, comprende?'

'No,' I lied.

'What does this woman make you feel-that is more important than the sum total of everything else. Close your eyes, Burke. Think her name into your mind. Feel itlet it come to you.'

I closed my eyes, playing it square. Letting it come into me. Pablo floated away from me-I could feel him in the room, but we weren't alone.

'What?' he asked.

'A cold wind,' I told him. 'A chill…'

'All this sex, and no fire?'

'No fire. Dark sex. It happens like it's supposed to, everything works, but nobody smiles. Only part of her is with melike she's standing somewhere else…a movie director…She's someone else when she wants to be.'

Pablo was quiet, waiting for me to say something else. But I was tapped out.

'Burke, when you make love with her-do you think of making a baby?'

'It can't be. I can't say why…but we couldn't make a baby with what we doShe has the only child she wantsIt's like…if she wanted…she could make acid run inside her.'

'Even her kiss is cold?'

'I never kissed her,' I said.

Pablo watched as I lit another cigarette, his eyes playing over the pictures of his children sitting on his desk. 'You know that Puerto Ricans are a special tribe, my friend? You know we are not 'Spanish' like some gringos think we are? And like some of us wish to be? Puerto Ricans are African, Indian, SpanishOur roots are in many continents, and the knowledge of our people is that mixture in our blood. We call it 'racial knowledge,' and it is deeper than you could ever imagine.'

I looked at Pablo-at his dark skin and tightly curled hair. I thought back to when the cops would bust the fighting gangs when we were kids. The dark-skinned Puerto Ricans would never speak English-they didn't want to be taken for black. I thought of the black face of the soldier on Sao Tome, talking to me in a bar just before we went over the water to Biafra. Showing me a picture of his wife, smiling. Saying 'Muy blanco, no?' to get my approval. Liberals wanted to find their roots-survivors wanted to keep from getting strangled by them.

'When you first talked about this woman, I thought you were describing a Santeria priestess. You know them-they mix voodoo and Christianity the way a chemist mixes two drugs. But this woman, she is nothing like that. Her rituals are in her head-they are not handed down from another-they are her own creation.'

'Yeah. But…'

'What does she call herself, my friend?'

'That's a funny thing-her name is Gina, the name her people gave her. But when she got older, they started to call her something else. Strega. You know what it means?'

'Si, compadre. But it means nothing…or everything. It depends on who is talking. On the tone of their voice-their relationship to the woman. We have the same word in Spanish. Bruja. It meanswitch, perhaps. A woman with great powers, but maybe with evil in her heart. It can even be a term of affection…a bitch with fire in her eye and the devil in her hips, you understand?'

'Witch. Bitch. It doesn't help me.'

'One is inside the other-but, remember, the witch includes all else. A woman who is a witch can be anything she wants to be-she can take many forms. An old woman, a child. A saint, a devil. And this is always her choice. We can never see such a woman-only the manifestation of herself she allows us to see. If ten men see her, they see ten different women. And each will believe he has seen the truth. A man cannot see a witch.'

'Pablo, come on. You believe that shit?'

'I believe what is true,' he said, his voice grave. 'I believe this wisdom handed down to us over the years has survived for a reason. To ignore the truth is to fail to understand why the truth has survived.'

Survival. My specialty-my birthday present from the state. 'What does she want?' I asked him.

'Only she knows that, Burke. Bruja is a fire-she must have fuel.'

I ground out my cigarette. 'The best thing for me to do is make tracks, right?'

Pablo nodded.

'But I have this job to do,' I told him.

'You will not always be this confused, Burke. When Bruja manifests herself to you, it will be clear. You will know the truth. She will not attempt to hold you without the truth-you cannot be tricked by such a woman-they disdain the wiles of normal women. All their slaves are volunteers.'

'Who would volunteer to be a slave?'

'A man who fears freedom,' Pablo said, getting to his feet to embrace me. It was a goodbye.

81

THE LINCOLN was standing out in front of the clinic as if it had never moved. The driver's door was open, the engine running. I can take a hint. I was off the block in seconds.

It was deep into the hours past midnight-still not too late to go to Mama's joint, but I wasn't hungry. The Lincoln turned itself north toward the Triboro-I was going to loop around and head back to the office. But I found myself on the long span heading for Queens instead. The bridge was quiet. I passed the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, my last chance to head back downtown. But the Lincoln kept rolling, past LaGuardia. By then I knew where I was going.

Strega's house was still and dark as I let the Lincoln drift to the curb-maybe her husband and her daughter were allowed to return to the castle after midnight. I hit the power window switch, leaving the engine running. Lit a cigarette and watched the red tip in the darkness like it was a book I wanted to read, listening to the night sounds. A Yellow Cab rattled past-a late-arriving passenger from the airport going home to the wife and kids.