Taína Page 16

  I had brought the money with me and was about to sit on the floor next to Sal.

  “Afuera, Juan Bobo,” Doña Flores said in Spanish, and held out a hand for the money.

  “Taína wants me here,” I said in Spanish, as it was the language that we all mostly spoke in the entire night.

  Salvador nodded to his sister that it was okay.

  “No”—Doña Flores shook her head—“this is about family. And Juan Bobo is not family.”

  I turned to the espiritista for help.

  “Familia, no más,” Peta Ponce said.

  Taína’s mouth opened in panic. She leaned up a bit as if she were going to protest my leaving. But I knew Taína was not going to go against her mother’s wishes.

  “Then I’m taking the money with me,” I said.

  “No, you already promised to give it to me so I can pay the espiritista,” Doña Flores said.

  “Inelda, this ain’t right,” Salvador said. I knew how highly she held his words, so I thought I would be able to stay.

  “He disturbs the spirits, they do not know who he is,” she said to her brother, whom she took as a saint. “What happened in this house only the spirits know, and he is not part of this house.”

  Salvador nodded in agreement. He then bowed to Peta Ponce.

  I also bowed to the small woman who could fold time, twist definitions, change the meaning of feelings, and talk to the dead.

  “Juan Bobo,” Doña Flores said kindly, “give me the money. You can see Ta-te after we learn the truth.”

  “No,” I said. “Then I’ll go, but I’m leaving with the money.” I looked at Taína. “I will see you again, okay?” Taína slightly nodded her head because she was scared. And it was there, when she slightly nodded at me, that I knew she might love me, too, regardless of all her bossy insults.

  Doña Flores began to curse.

  “¡Malcriado, puñeta!” she spat. “Give me the money. You promised.”

  I headed for the door and heard the espiritista ask Sal if anyone else had money. When he said no, the espiritista told me to wait.

  “¿Tu nombre, mijo?” Peta Ponce asked.

  “Julio,” I said, “not Juan Bobo. My name is Julio.” And then Peta Ponce began to sniff the air around me, the spaces around me, and began to touch all my clothes and sniff them, too, she touched me everywhere like some obscene bird of night.

  “De rodillas,” she ordered. I knelt and she took my head in her hands and brought my face toward her heavy breasts and began to pray.

  “Santa Marta, recurro a la ayuda y protección; como prueba de mi afecto quemare esta vela cada martes; intercede por mi familia, y protége a este extraño.” And then like something had been told to her, she pushed my body away and I fell on the floor in front of her.

  “Los espíritus ya saben quién es este muchacho,” Peta Ponce said, and then looked down at me. “Tu madre, yo sentí a tu madre,” she said. I stayed on the floor, afraid of this woman who through me had felt my mother.

  But she had not come for my mother or me, or Sal, or Doña Flores; she had made the trek all the way from Cabo Rojo for Taína.

  Doña Flores had paid Peta Ponce’s plane fare, but she had not paid the espiritista for the séance.

  “El derecho, pa’ lo’ espíritus,” Peta Ponce demanded. I got up from the floor and dug into my pocket. I held the wad of hundreds toward Peta Ponce. Disgusted, she slapped my hand away.

  “Inelda.” The espiritista pointed at Doña Flores. “El derecho me lo da Inelda.”

  I didn’t see a difference, but I did as told. I gave the wad to Doña Flores and she in turn gave it to the espiritista. Peta Ponce didn’t count it, she simply split the wad of hundreds in half and stuffed her bra left and right, as if creating a balance in her body.

  She ordered Doña Flores to fill a bowl with water mixed with agua maravilla and to light a white candle and place both items on the table in the living room, where she was going to summon the spirits who lived in Taína’s house. Those spirits who were present when Taína became pregnant. It would be these spirits who would tell her how it had happened.

  Peta Ponce went over to where Taína sat on the couch. Peta Ponce helped Taína’s pregnant body stand back on its feet. Peta Ponce smiled lovingly and whispered to Taína in the kindest of voices not to be afraid.

  She told Taína that spirits live with us, mi bella. They hover over our sleeping bodies, ¿tú sabes? She then took Taína’s hand as if Taína were a toddler, and the two women went inside Taína’s bedroom and the espiritista closed the door.

  I heard murmurs, whispers, a soft voice ordering Taína to show her all her clothes, jewelry, medicine, tampons. That she needed to make contact with these things because spirits leave behind traces of themselves. That spirits touch our things, wear our clothes, and sniff our wastes when we are not present. They warm their hands over our sleeping bodies like they are campfires to recall what it felt like to be flesh and blood. And that the opposite is true, it is we who appear transparent and opaque to the spirits and sometimes they need us to guide them.

  When Taína and Peta Ponce came back out, Taína was wearing the same sleeping gown I had seen her in. It must have been the gown from the night she found out she was pregnant. Holding Taína’s hand, the espiritista took her all around the apartment. Peta Ponce sniffed every corner, all the while reciting quick, short prayers as she licked her fingertips after touching walls and floors.

  When she stopped praying, Peta Ponce turned off the lights. Only the candles lit the house. She ordered for all to be still. She pulled out the white carnation that was trapped at the side of her face by the white bandanna and dipped it in the bowl full of water. She sprinkled each of us with the carnation and said, “Como el dia que nacimos, fue una mujer que no’ conectó a Dios.” Like the day we were born, it was a woman who connected us to God.

  Doña Flores sat on the couch. Salvador sat next to her. I was sitting on the floor. The espiritista sat Taína on a chair and stood behind her. The short, stocky woman was not towering over Taína, but she was higher than a sitting Taína.

  The bowl of water was not far away from Peta Ponce. She circled her finger around the bowl, flicked her index finger on the glass, making the sound of a bell, as if signifying to the universe that this misa was about to begin.

  The espiritista did nothing but stand behind a seated Taína. Nothing was happening. All Peta Ponce did was stare ahead.

  There was silence for what seemed like forever.

  Then.

  Peta Ponce began to moan, a drone moan like a steady engine.

  Peta Ponce closed her eyes.

  Her fingers began to move as they made their way toward Taína’s hair. She brushed Taína’s hair slowly at first, but soon her fingers began to pick up speed, brushing faster and faster like she was shampooing Taína’s hair. Then she left Taína’s hair alone and now began to rub her hands together really quickly, as if she were building a fire. The movements picked up more speed, and she stomped her heavy, short feet to a steady rhythm and began clapping her hands all around. Her musical movements increased, her moaning got louder and louder as she entered the unrecognizable language of the spirit world.

  “Who was here, that night, that night? That day?” she yelled in Spanish to the walls. The same walls that Doña Flores spoke to. “Who was there, that day? That night?” she implored, and then her body shook. Peta Ponce began rubbing Taína’s arms up and down, and then she started clapping, asking the spirits who was there. Then, with a graceful and quick motion, she picked up the lit white candle lying on the table, and as if picking up fire itself, she flicked the flames into the bowl of water and drowned the candle’s fire and screamed.

  Taína’s eyes were drowsy, like she was about to fall asleep. Her head dropped. All I could see was hair covering her face. She sat
motionless while Peta Ponce made all this noise and recited prayers in some language I did not know.

  Then the espiritista stopped like she had been kicked in the throat.

  She stood straight up behind a sleeping Taína. She outstretched her arms and began to gracefully wave them up and down like they were wings, and she began to talk in English.

  “I was lying in my bed at night,” the espiritista, eyes closed, softly said, “when the doves arrived.” It was a young girl’s voice, though it was Peta Ponce who was talking. “I was lying down when two doves flew in through my window. Both were white, pure, and beautiful.” When the espiritista opened her eyes, her whole demeanor had changed. She heaved her breasts as if she were in awe of a boy. Her hunchback fluttered as if it were flirting, slowly, gracefully.

  “They flew in through my window. They kept leaping, flying around my bedroom. Sometimes they would crash in midair like they were kissing. One was whiter than the other. Both doves landed on my pink rug, the one Mami had bought me at the ninety-nine-cent store.” And Doña Flores silently nodded her head in agreement that this was so. “Two pretty birds staring at each other.” The espiritista batted her eyes as if she were flirting. “Both doves looked at me and took a step forward. They faced each other and then at me and back at each other again. I don’t know when, but their wings began to grow. Slowly and muscular like tree trunks their wings became huge and so did the rest of their bodies. Their eyes began to shine a white light that made them transparent like ghosts.” The espiritista was gracefully waving her arms like she had done before, like a seagull flying in the heavens. She waved her arms and continued to sound like a schoolgirl. “They began to make those sounds that pigeons make like popcorn or chickens but not exactly like popcorn or chickens. They began to speak like that to each other and the sounds became angrier. They began to hit each other. But not with their hands. Not their arms. Not their feet or their heads or teeth, which they did have. They began to hit each other with their enormous wings and they knocked my schoolbooks down and almost broke the mirror that hangs by my closet.”

  Doña Flores couldn’t stand it anymore and she blurted out, “Where was I when this was happening? Where was I?” In anger, the espiritista’s head quickly jerked toward Doña Flores and with the voice of Peta Ponce, it said, “Asleep on the couch. I will leave if you talk again.”

  And I got cold.

  I was not going to interrupt about a revolution in Taína’s body or anything because this had scared me.

  Then back to speaking in a schoolgirl’s voice, Peta Ponce continued.

  “The birds beat each other with their wings in quick slaps. I thought it was a dance, but it wasn’t and I became afraid. The doves were male and I closed my legs and crossed my hands like this.” And the espiritista covered her crotch. And still with the voice of a young girl, she spoke in fear and panic. “I was trembling. I tried to scream, but nothing came out. I tried to scream. The two doves were not doves but angels. The angels were fighting. All I could do was keep my hands where I had them. I was sure that one of the angels was going to hurt the other. The whiter one hit the less white angel and it fell to the rug. With his wings the whiter angel kept hitting the one on the floor as he lay on top of my rug. Then the whiter angel leaped up and flew around my room real fast to pick up speed. He then swooped down and pounced on the helpless angel that was lying on the rug. He had talons. The angel had talons.” The espiritista got on her knees and, while still behind a seated and sleeping Taína, embraced her. She wrapped her short arms around Taína as if she were her mother. Peta Ponce began to cry as the spirits continued to lend her the power to fold time. “The whiter angel was now beating the darker one with his talons nonstop. At first the darker one tried to avoid getting stepped on or kicked. He tried to block the blows with his wings as best he could, but little by little he began to give up till he stopped and just lay there like a dead bird and took all the blows.”

  Salvador moved closer to the edge of the couch and Doña Flores took in a huge gulp. I didn’t know what to make of any of this.

  “The dark angel began to cry like a baby and I saw that his wing had been broken. When I opened my eyes the dark angel looked at me for only a second, but I didn’t really look back at him and he must have gone out my window because I did not see him again. I had had the lights on all this time, but my room was dark. And soon the white angel was hovering above me. I could see his enormous wings almost not fitting in my room. I felt his shadow above me, covering me. He flew down, nearer to my bed where I had not moved. I closed my eyes and then opened them again to make sure it was the whiter angel. I closed my legs even tighter. I opened my eyes just a little. I saw he had blue eyes. They were gentle. I could hear the angel tell me to lay still. The white angel said, ‘Shhh,’ and I don’t know why he was telling me to ‘Shhh’ because I had been quiet all this time. Not using his hands, or his arms, or his mouth, only the tip of his wings, he began to unlock my hands where I had them. At first I did not want to move my hands but leave them where I had them, covering me. But when he touched me with the tip of his wing, his feathers felt like a wind. A gentle wind.”

  Still embracing Taína, the espiritista began to whistle as if a fresh current had entered through the closed window. Her whistling swirled around the living room.

  “What did the angel do?” Doña Flores interrupted again. But the spirit did not do as it had said. But she spoke back.

  “He did what he had been sent out to do.” The espiritista’s voice was still that of a young girl’s. “What he had been sent to do.”

  “Did the angel take off his pants?” Doña Flores asked. The espiritista laughed.

  “Angels don’t wear pants,” she said, still trancelike and embracing Taína, who sat there motionless and asleep.

  “He only used his wings?” Doña Flores asked.

  “No. No wings.” Still in the same schoolgirl voice. “He didn’t use anything. He hovered over me and things began to move. My room was spinning. And then it stopped like a fan dying. I wanted to sleep.”

  “No pain?” Doña Flores asked.

  “No.” The espiritista’s eyes were still closed.

  “Blood, was there blood?” Doña Flores repeated.

  “I felt water come out of me. And the white angel brushed a feather from his wing over it and the water was gone. Then he flew out my window. I got up from my bed to look out the window to see him flying. What I saw was the dove staring up at me, perched on the mailbox across the street.” And the espiritista’s eyes suddenly opened. “He was telling me his name, Usmaíl.”

  There was silence for a second and then half a second.

  “Padre nuestro que estás en los cielos, santificado sea tu nombre, que se haga tu voluntad en los cielos como en la tierra.” Peta Ponce began to pray. She was coming back to us, to the material world that we shared with the dead. She was exhausted.

  Peta Ponce got up and went to where the bowl of water was and began sprinkling water all around the living room. “Limpieza, limpieza, limpieza.”

  Taína slowly awoke and said she had not dreamed. That she had just slept. Deeply. Peta Ponce began to clue Taína in on what the spirit who had been present when she became pregnant had just told us.

  “Why would God send two angels? Why two?” Taína asked Peta Ponce, who always smiled warmly at her.

  “Dios no mandó dos ángeles,” she explained to Taína with a kindness found only in grandmothers, “Dios mandó sólo uno.”

  “Then who sent the other freaking angel?”

  “Tú sabe’ quien, mija, el Negro. El Malo,” Peta Ponce said with compassionate eyes. She knelt down and began to gently rub Taína’s feet. Like I had.

  Taína was satisfied. I could almost hear her happy heart pounding as she accepted this. Taína embraced the espiritista for having set her free. She held Peta Ponce like she wanted t
o take the air out of the small woman because her sorrows and uncertainty were now gone or had been changed.

  Doña Flores laughed. Her joy was immense. She could not stop and literally danced to the closet where Taína had taken me before. She opened it like she was opening French doors or a vault that held treasures. Her massive library of Taína’s baby instruments came crashing down. They spilled all over the floor like Cheerios. Her face was aglow. But it was not Taína’s baby instruments she was after. She got a chair and brought down those old records, the 45s, the 33⅓ LPs, those brittle 78s, like someone who hadn’t eaten in days and now, in front of a buffet, didn’t know what to choose. Sal went over to help. Doña Flores smiled my way. I knew she wanted money for a stereo system.

  Taína then loudly said that she needed to pee. She was a bit flushed and, with very little trouble, picked up her pregnant body from the chair she had been sitting on. She gave me this smile, this shy smile, as she waddled her stomach toward the kitchen. There she drank water, picked up a leftover chicken leg, and walked to the bathroom, did not close the door, sat on the bowl, peed, and ate.

  Verse 2

  I SAID TO Salvador that I didn’t believe it.

  I respected Peta Ponce, but she or that spirit was wrong. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Taína because as soon as the misa ended, Doña Flores, happy as a sunflower, ushered me and Salvador out because she wanted to be alone with Peta Ponce. I said to Sal that we had been to outer space. We had a good idea of what was there. But we had never been to inner space where atoms live. We’d never sent astronauts or probes there so we didn’t know what existed between all that empty space. That was where Usmaíl was conceived, in Taína’s inner heavens. I told Sal that I had read that there were patterns in everything. Even in chaos, things happened that were tied together by some order. Maybe in Taína’s body this order or pattern changed. Something went wrong or maybe it went right. The laws of her DNA got crossed or were never meant to be followed.