The Witchery, page 8
It was off the Calle Obispo, I recall, that I stepped into a shop in search of said plan. Over a cold counter of zinc—whereon my perspiring hands left prints; for the weather was typically close that spring afternoon—I sputtered what Spanish I could muster. Surprised, I was, when there came from behind me a much more elegant, succinct request: Calixto, of course. In the rush off the Athée, in the confusion of the streets, I’d somehow forgotten he spoke Spanish; for shipboard I’d only heard his broken English, and not much of it. Now here he stood haggling over the price of a simple plan…. Haggling. Here, there, and everywhere it seemed no price was truly set, such that the casual shopper expended more energy than cash. I confess it: I would come to long for the simpler American markets, where one could shop in silence, in solitude…. Always and everywhere that was my preference as regarded interaction with strangers: silence and solitude.
Back on Obispo—a street so narrow I’d worn skirts in New York City, at Cyprian House, that would have swept its width—I unfolded the plan, turning it this way and that yet failing to find North. Calixto, quick with a compass, as every seaman is, smiled. Finally: something other than that wary awe. And when I handed him the map, he—staring at me, and smiling still—folded it and tucked it into a hip pocket.
“Tell me,” said he; and I blanched, thinking he meant for me to speak of the night before. “Tell me: Where is it you want to go?…You tell. I take.”
What could I do but shrug and surrender to his lead? What was I to say otherwise? I search out a nameless monk, and a French witch who may be a thousand miles away? I thought not. More: It seemed Calixto knew I’d nowhere to go. So it was we wandered whilst I tried to come up with a plan of the other sort.
I knew how it felt to be pursued; and eventually I knew that we were not being pursued that day, at least not by humans: the occasional cur came sniffing round, of course; for dogs were drawn to me the more since I’d lain with the dead…. I knew, too, that the Athée’s captain had not reported Diblis’s death. He’d simply stricken the cook’s name from the ship’s records. This came to me as clearly as any divined dream. Somehow—owing perhaps to that sixth, sisterly sense—I knew it; just as I’d known, or sensed things similarly since suffering those…events, let me say, the surviving of which had strengthened me. Indeed, my sister-strength had been stronger, much, since I’d all but died, rising to find my Eye fixed. But once I’d returned to St. Augustine, I’d not put this newfound strength to purpose; for there, in the territory, on St. George Street, in a house as haunted as I, everything I saw I’d seen before, and to see, to sense more, well…it had seemed a waste. Witchery left me…wanting. As did life. But in Havana, I felt that strength again; and, strolling, well, I loosed my senses and took the city in.
I’d not have known it then, but here was happiness.
Q.? Sebastiana? If earlier I’d been hell-bent on finding one, the other, or both, now I cared not a whit who or what might come, as long as it was not a corps of soldiers with shackles. Why? Simply put: On the Calle Obispo, with Calixto at my side, I came alive. On the very same day I began to die; for Havana held…
Alors, see the city for yourself:
Chapter Seven
I speak truth; not so much as I would, but as much as I dare.
—MONTAIGNE, Essays
THE TOURIST, OR FIRST-TIME TRAVELER TO SAN CRISTOBAL de Habana—for so the city is named, in honor of Columbus; whilst the country itself has had to resist the Spanish insistence on renaming her: first Juana, after the daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand; then Fernandina, after Ferdinand himself; and latterly, Ave Maria; from all of which she has returned to her original Indian appellation of Cuba—…it is said that the tourist is often amused by the names given Havana’s streets and stores. And though it is true the Cubans are profligate in their naming of streets and stores, not to mention cities and countries, surely I—a doubly-sexed witch who’d murdered a man not twelve hours past, and who now wandered the walled city in search of a nameless monk, my Soror Mystica, and certain promised “secrets”—…surely I was no mere tourist; and yet I, too, was amused. And thankful for the distractions of the old city.
I had grown accustomed to that commercial tradition whereby a store often shows its owner’s name, alongside some carved character or printed pictograph upon a sign that makes plain the trade practiced therein, i.e., the blinded Cupids seen above brothels; and so I did remark with amusement such establishments as Las Delicias de las Damas, La Cruz Verde, and El Leon de Oro. More amusing still were such street names as La Rectitud, La Integridad, La Probidad, and La Buena Fe: streets whose inhabitants, I supposed, aspired to something higher than lowly commerce…. But what I recall these long years later is a certain store upon a certain street:
The Calle Obispo. Calixto and I walked down its store-lined length to the wall separating the two Havanas, the old from the new. Putting the port at our backs, we’d discerned from our plan the city’s primary streets; and splitting the difference, taking neither Obrapia nor O’Reilly (which Calixto dismissed with a wave of his hand), we walked the median route of Obispo.
As said, these lesser streets of the city were narrow, so narrow as to seem not thoroughfares but rather, and simply, the space between buildings. The houses on said streets were built close upon one another, perforce, and their upper stories seemed to lean out over the streets, staring down from beneath beetling brows and showing their wrought-iron balconies like scars, like black sutures sewn onto their sun-paled, pastel’d skins. So near did the houses stand that here and there awnings stretched between them, overspreading the street. These canvas panels—slit to let the rain sluice down—afforded shoppers noonday shade, quite welcome even then, in the midst of a mild spring.
Amidst the street-level shadows the stores were as caverns, cool and dark. Windows showed the city’s wealth: wines from hither and yon; dazzling, diamond-encrusted things set amidst the darker sheen of tortoiseshell accessories and the piebald display of Canary Island embroidery; and oh yes, there were hundreds of hats, sunshades, and other such tropical needments. Of course, I had no need of these; for, as ever, I sported my spectacles even though their blue lenses added unwanted depth to the shadows and I had at times to feel my way forward by foot, testing each step before committing to it; such that at one point, wanting better balance, I laced my arm through Calixto’s, as a lady will, before fast recalling my outfit, my manly mien, and withdrawing, albeit not before my action seemed to spur my companion to sudden speech:
“Last night…” he began, halting only as I stopped—quite suddenly, yes—before a shop selling cakes of careful design: tiny squares born of chocolate, marzipan, almond paste, and such fruits as are common to Cuba but which I’d never seen before: sapodilla, guanabana, maranox, et cetera. Shamefully, I ignored Calixto—and his coming words—and lavished my attention on the cakes, as though they were so delicious-seeming as to preclude all thought. Hélas, the boy was not so easily put off, and again he spoke, nay broke, like a damn:
“Last night…with Diblis…it…you…I mean, I saw you—”
“Oh, mon Dieu,” said I, grandly, nose pressed to the shop’s window, “ces gâteaux-là! How delicious they look!” Though I could not stop Calixto’s questions from coming—this I knew—still I hoped to stall my answers, the explanation I’d sworn to give.
Calixto, puzzled, and too polite to persist, fell quiet. Oh, but le pauvre seemed about to burst, and so it was I who spoke next:
“You are not wrong,” said I in simple English; for simple English was our shared language then. “You are not wrong to think you saw something…to think you saw strangeness last night. You did.” And there my confession sputtered to a stop; for I recalled what I’d long ago learned from Sebastiana, back when first she’d ushered me into the Shadows: There exists the inexplicable. That had been fine, then, and had forestalled my own questioning; but hadn’t I sworn to tell Calixto the truth, to explain? And, in fact, my murder of Diblis numbers not amongst the Shadow-life’s inexplicable things: I could have explained the act plainly—as murder most foul—and without recourse to such words, such notions as sisterly will, telekinesis, et cetera. Bref: I could lie…. What to do? What to do?
I proceeded with caution, and with care, that’s what I did; for when we sisters test the mettle of any mortal, we set their sanity upon a razor’s edge. This lesson I’d learned.
Had Calixto strength enough to survive induction into the Dark? The Books of Shadows are replete with tales told by sorrowing sisters who rendered insane those they’d intended to save: Too much truth could do irreparable harm…. But what of Calixto? Perhaps he was different, more like Sebastiana’s Roméo and the Duchess’s Eli and other young men of whom I’d read, all mortal boys kept as consorts within the sorority. Wondering this, a second question came: Had Calixto somehow come as my consort? Was he…mine? And could I, despite the parental protectiveness I’d felt for him aboard the Athée, could I…Enfin, to these and other questions no answers came, not that day, not as we walked the Calle Obispo; for soon all reason, all rationale fell into recess, and I felt welling up within me that species of heart-speech better known as Truth…. Here then was trouble.
We’d walked the length of the street, till now there rose before us the olden wall of the city and the Puerta de Monserrate. I’d no intention of ambling on—never did I doubt that Q. waited within the walled city—and so I led Calixto to a bench set beneath a palm which swayed not at all; and as we sat in that still, sweltering shade redolent of the sea, I began: “There exists the—”
And then I stopped; for looking into Calixto’s eyes, I saw the inadequacy of the line before I could utter it in full. He’d hear those words with as little satisfaction as I’d find in saying them, knowing it was naught but a preamble to more dissemblance, more lies…. Understand: All my life I’d been defined by my own lies. And even when I learned the truth of who I was—man, woman, witch—still I’d told those truths to no one, or rather to no mere mortal. Had I so tired of the lies, of the separateness and the solitude born of them, that now Calixto would be the first to whom I’d tell all and everything? Now, here, in Havana?
It seemed so. And indeed, then and there, I determined to tell my truths, all my truths, and let the consequences come. So it was I surprised myself by saying:
“Go. Go! Tell your family of your return and—”
“But I told you: I have no family here, none I want to see or tell or—”
“Go, please,” said I, my words as simple as that: an imperative, followed hard by a plea. And surprising myself again, I added, “Meet me…” Where? Why? I suppose I could neither lie nor say good-bye, not then. “There must be a cathedral here, non?”
“Sí,” said he.
“Meet me there…. Tomorrow.”
“But why? Why do you tell me to go when I have nowhere to go, no one to—”
“Go! Please.” I was angry now; not at Calixto, of course: He’d done nothing wrong. I was angry at myself; for, having approached my truths, having crept up upon them like a thief, I’d fled from them, fearful. As always I had. “Go now, Calixto, please, and meet me there tomorrow, at the cathedral. At this same hour.” Did I think another day would render my truths easier to tell? I don’t know. All I knew, all I can recall is being grateful for those blue glasses: Calixto could not see that my fixed eyes were brimful of tears.
“Where will you…” he began, gesturing broadly enough to take in the city entire. And of course I shared his wonder: Where would I go? Where would I sleep? Would I search for Sebastiana, for Q.?…Or would I run with my truths untold?
As Calixto walked away, turning once, twice, I saw by his stoop, by the slump of his shoulders, that he supposed I’d disappear. And true it was: To disappear in a city like Havana would have been no trick at all, not for any man or woman and certainly not for a witch. (There are sisters resident in similar Shadow-cities—Edinburgh, Amsterdam, New Orleans…—who have never been seen by Strangers.) As I watched the boy walk away, cross the Calle Monserrate, and disappear into the Extramuros, I, too, thought I’d do it: disappear, that is. I could take my truths with me and lie my life away.
Oh, how I hated myself then! I sat on that bench dressing myself down in churlish French, and when the French failed me I resorted to the American argot I’d learned from the saltiest of the sisters at Cyprian House, in Man-hattan. Surely I’d have appeared crazed to any who saw me sitting there, cursing my cowardice, till finally I stood and said (aloud, yes), “Plus jamais!” No more!
It was an oath, I suppose, a promise I made to myself. I’d tell all. I’d lie no more…. Beginning now.
Hurriedly—so hurriedly I was nearly ground to dust beneath one of the tall wheels of those curiosities of Cuba: the horse-drawn volantes then crowding her streets—I crossed the Calle Monserrate to the city gate; but Calixto was nowhere to be seen. Standing there, I heard a clock tower sound the hour, and I began to count those twenty-four, nay twenty-three more that would compose my last day of lies.
Knowing no route but the one we’d come, I retook to it and walked back down the Calle Obispo toward that tolling bell. And when finally I found myself on the Calle Ignacio, nearing what seemed a holy precinct—to judge by the surfeit of flowers being sold, and the veiled duennas crowding their virginal charges—only then did I unfold my plan to confirm the place of reunion.
Indeed, there it was, cornered on the calles Ignacio and del Empedrado: that cathedral that houses Columbus’s remains, its architecture and mossy, pocked facade telling eloquently of Spain’s age-old hold over Havana. I would not go in. Instead I stood watching women milling around before the great portico on Empedrado—the white women wearing black, and the black women wearing white; and it was this simple scheme of costumery that set me upon a course of action.
…Yes: a dress; for, without Calixto—for whom I watched, assuredly—the fear of discovery returned to me as I stood in contemplation of the city plan and saw upon it how proximate were the port, the Plaza de Armas, and the palace of the Captain-General. Best not to be at the center of the city. Best not to risk discovery by the authorities—I yet lacked the proper papers—or any sailor off the Athée. And so: a disguise: a dress.
Oh, I suppose there was rather more to it than that…. I missed my feminine fripperies, I did; for I’d been far too long in pants. And surely seeing me in a dress would strike Calixto as the surest metaphor of…of my self, the true self he’d meet on the morrow. Yes, indeed: I’d determined to tell all, and now it seemed I’d show all as well…. Whatever was I thinking?
Hélas, thusly decided, I returned posthaste to a store I’d passed where the calles Obispo and San Ignacio crossed. In La Diana I bought a bolt of that fine linen found in Havana, bolan, striped in blue and white, giving not a thought to the impracticality of the purchase. It was an impulse: I’d seen the bolan draped over a wicker mannequin in the window and saw, verily saw the dress that could come of it. (I refer not to sisterly, or witchly Sight, but rather to that of a woman shopping, c’est tout.) And when finally I felt the fabric, well, I forewent the haggling and paid the asked-for price.
From La Diana’s proprietress I took the name of a tailor; or rather, a seamstress. And off I went in search of same, having located her address upon my plan: the Calle Oficios; a district wherein I found the seamstress resident alongside others engaged in related trades: milliners, clothiers, cobblers, dyers, and the like, the lot of whom I supposed to be freed blacks and mulatto Cubans. Soon, having encountered few difficulties, I found myself the owner of a suitable store of the previous season’s fashions; for upon the démodé I insisted, the better to blend in amongst the masses and draw no envious eye. I bought some menswear, yes, but mostly I sought what a woman needs and wants: from unmentionables outward to a brooch which showed the sun’s rays and would not have been amiss upon the puffed-up bosom of the Sun King himself. There were gloves of the smoothest kid, I recall. And shoes heeled so high they’d hurt; but I didn’t care. I’d reaccustom myself soon enough.
When the seamstress asked where it was she ought to deliver the dress sewn of the bolan when she completed it, in two days’ time, I stood before her in silence. Already I’d lied, in ludicrous Spanish, surely, saying I sought a dress as a birthday surprise for my sister, who, as luck would have it, stood to my same height; who, in fact, shared all, or nearly all my measurements; and therefore the seamstress ought to sew the dress as if it were…for me. Yet I did not let her take my measurements; and indeed backed from her tape measure as though it were an asp. “No, no,” said I, “no necessito.” In the end, the seamstress agreed. The requisite alterations could be seen to later. But what about delivery…? “Ah, yes,” said I, sputtering on about the aforesaid sister, who was staying with me at…who awaited me at…a hotel…somewhere down along…
And when vaguely I pointed toward the port, the seamstress spared me, saying, so matter-of-factly it seemed my sister and I ought to have rooms therein, “The Hotel de Luz, senõr?”
“That’s not the one sitting just…?”
“Sí,” said she, adding in English, “corner of Luz and…” And now she pointed outside in turn, meaning to name that same street—the Calle Oficios—on which her own atelier stood.
“Ah, yes,” said I. “Luz and Oficios. That’s the very one, indeed.”
