The Curandero

“The Curandero”

Adrian Villarreal – First Place

It was too late. The Aloe Veras and Agaves in terracotta pots sat droopy and on the verge of decay. It was too late. There was nothing Maya loved more than her plants – not even me. I mean, I was probably a close second. We’d been dating six months now. She trusted me. Trusted me enough to let me crash at her place while she was gone on vacation for a month. All I had to do was watch over her plants and make sure they didn’t die. Easy enough, right? And yet here they were, arms wrinkled and sagging like a body with no bones.

Truth be told, I hadn’t neglected them, I had forgotten all about them. Forgotten how each was inherited from Maya’s dead aunt. Forgotten that they were from a linage that spread three generations back, plants that were originally propagated from the garden of Maya’s great-great grandmother in Sonora, México.

“Remember to talk to them,” Maya had told me as she pressed her finger into the pot of the Agave to check the dampness of the dirt.

“You want me to talk to myself in front of these plants?” I asked.

“Any sort of company is good. Just talk to them, and if it starts to warm up again, please bring them inside.” She rolled the wet soil between her finger and thumb.

I took Maya’s warning with little caution. I had returned the following day with a bottle of tequila to replace what we’d drained that weekend along with a pot of Mexican Marigolds for an altar with photographs of people who looked like Maya. I placed the pot of marigolds next to the skull candies painted pink, “to remind us of our mortality” Maya had explained to me. Sticks of incense were placed in a bowl at the bottom of the altar to carry her prayers. Near the bowl was a small hill of salt my grandma once told me was meant to purify the spirits. Papel picado, confetti paper, hung from the ledge of the altar in bright colors. The smiling suns, doves, and flowers were symmetrically cut with Maya’s steady hands. An unopened pack of smokes, fresh

nugs of marijuana, a pair of black high heels, a glass coke bottle, a basket of assorted fruits, a Sandra Cisneros novel, and bottles of Modelo, Victoria, and other Mexican imports were laid out on the altar as offerings for the dead relatives who would visit Maya at the end of the month. I placed the shooters that came with the bottle on the altar and poured us all a drink.

The early autumn sun had been delicate and unexpectedly gentle that day as it plunged into the distant horizon. The summer season seemed to be coming to an end as the valley had experienced for the first time in months two consecutive days of sixtydegree weather.

But by midweek, the triple digits had returned. I awoke late one morning in a puddle of sweat thinking I’d pissed myself. The sun refused to ease its grip. I remembered Maya’s warning. Perhaps she was just being cautious. She was a meticulous woman. There were plants of the same species buried in the red earth that still managed to grow despite the merciless southwest sun. I had convinced myself her domesticated plants would be fine, but I was wrong.

So here I was, three weeks later. I knew only something drastic could bring them back to life within a week: Señora Soledad. She was a healer of sorts, with unorthodox remedies drawn from different practices. She had a thriving business she ran from the back of her house and was always booked a month out with never any time for emergency appointments. Lucky for me, I was Señora Soledad’s grandson. I picked up the phone and gave her a call.

“Angel, I’m in the middle of a consultation. What is the matter?” I could barely hear over the chirping of her caged canaries.

“Forgive me, Abuela, but these plants, they’re dead, they’re all dead. I’ve killed them. What do I do to bring them back?”

“Just go and buy new ones,” she said.

“They’re my girlfriend’s plants. She left me in—”

“Girlfriend?” The birds went quiet at the sound of her strained voice.

Seventeen, twenty-five, forty-one. It didn’t matter what age I was or would be, the

harshness in which my grandmother said girlfriend was and would always be the same. I couldn’t blame her though for being overprotective. I was her only grandchild.

“Yes, Abuela, girlfriend. I’ll explain to you later.”

“How bad are they?” she asked, as if the topic of lovers had never come up.

“They’re the saddest plants I’ve ever seen.”

“All right, this is what you’ll do. Grab a knife and make small incisions all throughout the arms of the plants, but not too deep, okay? Use the blade I gave you. I had it blessed. Now, you have a bottle of mescal, yes?”

Tequila, mescal, what’s the difference? There was only the bottle I brought. It would have to do. “Yes, of course,” I said.

“Okay, find a black cloth and dampen it with the mescal. Then, very carefully, press the wet cloth against the arms of the plants.”

“That’s it?” I asked. Was magic really this easy?

“Let me finish, Angel. As you press the cloth against the arms, keep that—” She paused for a moment, then, “keep that woman in your thoughts and remember to whisper affirmations to the plants—”

“Easy.”

“— En Español, Angel. These are Mexican plants, no? They are dying because you do not speak to them in Spanish.”

“You know they will not understand me.” I could barely speak the language.

“Try.” Her voice firm, the canaries began to sing again.

“And Angel, one more thing: After you finish with a plant, take a sip of the mescal before going on to the next one.”

“A pull from the bottle?”

“Yes, take a drink. You must dry up in order for them to flourish. You are the perpetrator after all, no? Now, tell me her address. You’ll need me for the final phase.”

My grandma was the first of her kind in the family. Back in México when Señora Soledad was only a young girl, the pueblo’s local healer, a curandera, took her in when Vortex

her parents died. Mamá told me Señora Soledad started practicing then under the apprenticeship of the curandera. As a kid, I watched her work, but I was not allowed to learn. The healing hands of my grandmother could only be passed down to the women of our family. Mamá learned the practice, but eventually left home to study at the university and became a nurse instead. Being born in the States changes things. The craft would then have to be saved for Señora Soledad’s granddaughter, a granddaughter that never came. Mamá was never able to carry past her first trimester after I was born, let alone keep a man that could withstand La Señora. An hour later, there was a sharp knock on the door.

“You only call when you need something, muchacho,” said Señora Soledad as I opened the door. Her eyes squinted, she kissed me on the check and handed me the big black bag that hung from her shoulder as she stepped inside. Her head full of bright grey hair hung neatly braided down her back.

“Jesus, what do you have in here, stones?”

Señora Soledad waved her hand as if to clear a mosquito from her face. A thin finger near her temple held the silence of the room as she examined the photographs up on the wall. She readjusted the glasses on the bridge of her nose and gazed at the gold frame placed above all the others. The photo contained a woman in a pinstriped dress with a belt of bullets around the midriff. Another belt crossed her chest. The leathered butt of her rifle rested on the cobblestone in front of her feet while her extended right hand held the end of the long barrel. Señora Soledad bowed her head before the altar and crossed herself, then lit Maya’s incense.

“You let the plants die in front of her?” she said in a low whisper. “Pour the woman another shot. She’s thirsty.”

Señora Soledad took a seat on the balcony bench and went straight to work. She pulled out two prayer candles: one with Our Lady La Virgen De Guadalupe, her hands clasped together, looking down with her sleepy eyes. The other had a skeleton dressed in black holding a scythe, posing like the Virgin. Señora Soledad looked up at me and pulled the half-burned cigarette from my mouth.

“What did I tell you about smoking?” Her inked eyebrows bent inward toward the

bridge of her nose as she put the cigarette in her mouth and took a drag that sucked in her cheeks.

“Better you than me, eh?” She winked, then used the cigarette to light a hemp wick. The wick then lit La Virgen.

“Take this and burn the tips of the arms of all the plants.” She handed me the candle.

The tequila began to settle on my eyelids, making them heavy as the stones in Señora Soledad’s black bag. I let out a deep sigh.

“Her name is Maya, Abuela, and we’ve been taking things slow.” Smoke rose from the charred thorns of the Century plant.

She didn’t look up from the concoction of dark herbs and powders she was crushing with a tejolote, a volcanic stone, wrapped in a thin white cloth.

“We met online,” I continued.

Señora Soledad’s face contorted into a frown.

“Online? Have you met her in person?” She looked around the balcony with suspicious eyes.

“Of course we’ve met. How do you think I got in here?”

Señora Soledad stopped pressing down on the ingredients.

“And why have you waited this long to tell me about the girl?”

“I wanted to be sure.”

Señora Soledad turned her head to look through the sliding glass door towards the altar in the living room. “You brought her ancestors the marigolds from the garden.”

Since I was a boy, Abuela and I had planted marigolds in her garden every spring. I still remember the fear in my heart when she told me these orange suns would guide her Mami and Papi back from the dead.

“I want to surprise her when she returns from her trip.”

She nodded.

“Maya. What a pretty name.” Her voice was as warm as a sarape on a cold winter night.

When I finished with the tips of the arms, she handed me the cloth that was wrapped around the stone.

“Use this to wipe down the plants,” she said.

Señora Soledad followed behind me and sprinkled the powders in her molcajete, a bowl made of basalt rock, on the plants. She spoke in a hushed tone, sharing secrets only she and the plants could know. She then lit the candle with the skeleton on it. The flame blazed blue like a gas stove burner.

“Bring the plants in tomorrow at dawn.” She eased herself back onto the bench. I set an alarm every five minutes from six to six-thirty. I wasn’t taking any more chances.

“You know, the Aztecs believed that when a warrior died in battle, its toyolia, the earthly spirit of the heart, reincarnated into a hummingbird.”

I smiled, thinking of how many times I’d seen those tiny birds gracefully darting through the air, not realizing I was being greeted by an ancestral warrior. I thought of Maya’s great-great Abuela up on the altar.

“That earthly fighting spirit in the heart, it is in you and me both, Angel. Don’t you forget that.” She patted me on the hand then squeezed it with all her mighty Abuelita strength.

“So, are we done?” I asked.

“Yes. Now go bring me that bottle.”

I closed the sliding door behind me and lit the candles on the altar. The faint light flickered on the face of the Adelita, the warrior woman. I stared into her eyes. I wanted to feel her gaze. I wanted to feel her presence. I wanted to believe the drinks I poured would be drunk by her.

“Forgive my lack of attention to your dear plants, Adelita.” I picked up the bottle, took a pull, and poured her another.

When I stepped outside, I handed it to Señora Soledad.

“Angel, this is not mescal.” “I know. I fucked up. I thought tequila would work just fine.” She scoffed, took a quick sip, then exhaled deeply. “The plants will rot.” The weight of her words settled on my heart like dirt on a coffin. “The arms will be dead by tomorrow, but the root, the root will survive.”

“Oh, thank god,” I said relieved. No, Angelito, thank me.”