I remember Claire Eberhardt’s overwhelming guilt the very first time I met her at the front door. She was acting like a suspect with something to hide: an illicit affair. A desperate cover-up that ended in ruin.
“Here also is the truth: the girl did fall into the pool, but it was Violeta who saved her life.”
My eyebrows raise in skepticism but Mrs. Gutierrez nods many times.
A youngish man with dyed auburn hair walks up to us and unlocks the rusted gates.
Mrs. Gutierrez makes a small deferential bow, as if to a priest.
He returns the formal greeting, pushes the gate open, and continues inside.
Mrs. Gutierrez speaks with breathless urgency: “The only person who knows what is best for the children is the mother. The government of the United States will
Hispanic workers are getting off buses, sending curious glances my way as they stop into Tienda Alma on their way home. Mrs. Gutierrez has gathered the children. With a last look at the busy street bathed in setting sun, I follow the
• • •
Mrs. Gutierrez, Roberto, and I sit in the back of the shop at a card table upon which is a small radio and a white candle. I wonder if we will hear Violeta’s voice through the speaker. Roberto is about twenty-five years old, a homosexual with a dark complexion, a hip haircut that is partially shaved at the neck and longer on top, and a gold hoop earring. He wears a silky tan shirt and brown pants, but something is out of whack. The body is out of proportion — arms too long for a stunted torso — and he has trouble speaking. One side of the mouth seems to be paralyzed and as he struggles to explain how he got his gift, fingers rub the forehead with frustration:
“My father and grandfather did this in our village. A hundred people would stand in line at the door. I learned from the age of seven.”
When it comes to spiritual advice the deal is simple: “You tell me the truth and I tell you the truth.”
He lights the candle.
Despite the battle-scarred exterior, the place has clean floors and a certain order, and smells pleasantly of lavender incense. Behind old-fashioned wooden counters are shelves filled with small square half-ounce bottles of red, blue, and green oils. Floor-to-ceiling cases are filled with eight-inch glass candles, each with a picture of a saint and a promise of luck or salvation or protection.
From the ceiling hang ropes of colored beads. Near the door are packets of herbs and spices, a model made of plaster of paris of a Native American chief, and an aloe plant, colored ribbons tied in bows on its spiky leaves. A display holds rosaries, statues of cows, pendants with single eyeballs looking out of black triangles, greasy little booklets about “Red Magic” and “Green Magic,” and on a revolving rack there are plastic pictures of all the saints, numbered for easy selection.
We have left Teresa and Cristobal with the Indian chief and staring eyeballs to sit at the card table behind a partition. Behind us is a multilevel altar upon which have been placed glasses of water, candles, pots of chrysanthemums, and a dish holding three small eggs covered with colored confetti.
A lot of the reading takes place in Spanish with a few sidebars in English. Mrs. Gutierrez talks about the situation of Violeta’s children. Don Roberto listens and asks her to write out her name and her mother’s maiden name on a pad. He counts up the letters in the names then deals that number of Tarot cards.
“Please think about the mother of these children, Violeta Alvarado.”
She obediently closes her eyes. I stare at the radio and conjure up the photo of the parrot. Then the feeling comes to me of holding Violeta’s small leather Bible in my hands; the dryness of it, like the poignant tiny body of a hummingbird I once found on my balcony.
Mrs. Gutierrez is warned not to cross her legs or lean on the table as that would affect “the energy.” She must turn over two cards, right to left. The first is
“This card means El Salvador,” says Don Roberto.
The second, with a baby on it, represents America.
Yawning, he mixes the cards with great practiced sweeps and gathers them up again. He asks Mrs. Gutierrez to pick sixteen.
“Now you must think about this person very hard.”
We are silent. Mrs. Gutierrez bends her head forward in prayer. Don Roberto whispers, “I feel her spirit is very close. Tell us,
Solemnly Roberto spreads out the sixteen cards Mrs. Gutierrez has chosen. He nods and she turns one over at random. It is the card called
A chill goes through my body like a temblor.
Roberto’s mouth twists with the effort of expressing what he sees. “The mother wants the children to come home to the grandmother in El Salvador.”
Mrs. Gutierrez presses both hands over her heart.
“I always know that!”
He indicates that she turn over the card right next to
“But”—the side of the face contorts and a stutter clicks out—“El Salvador will be a living hell.”
Mrs. Gutierrez cries sharply, causing Teresa to look over anxiously from where she has been spinning the rack of saints.
“The children must stay here.”
“No!”
“It is best.”
She shakes her head and cries and grips Don Roberto’s hands. I am unnerved by the depth of her feeling.
The young man’s head twists close. “I will tell you about Violeta,” he says softly and with difficulty. “She is not at peace.”
All at once I know this is true, not only for Violeta but for legions of the dead. Legions of them.
“She had lighter skin than me,” Don Roberto goes on. “She liked to laugh. It is not certain that the children are of the same father.”
Mrs. Gutierrez nods eagerly.
“There is another child, a lost child.”
The boy in El Salvador. Hot tears are in my eyes and I’m afraid I’m going to lose it.
“And she had a very great struggle in the water.”
Mrs. Gutierrez lets go of his hands and sits up with wonder.
“Yes,” she says, “in a swimming pool.”
Don Roberto closes his eyes.
“Violeta is struggling in the water. Somebody is in danger. They are drowning. On the bottom of the pool Violeta sees
Mrs. Gutierrez gasps and a shudder goes through me.
“The witch has long white hair and blue eyes. It is a jealous witch and its hand is around the ankle of the one who is drowning, trying to pull this person deep into the water, away from all life.”
Don Roberto rubs his forehead and squeezes his eyes tight.
“Violeta is very afraid, but she has a good heart.”
Mrs. Gutierrez gives a mournful sob.
“And because she has a good heart she does not leave the water but grabs the drowning person. And this time,
• • •
