“Someone put a curse on this family,” she muttered, more to herself than to me. “It’s been with us for years. Never mind,” she added, returning to herself quickly. “I don’t want to hear any more about any of this. Get through a week without any turmoil. I have a lot to do this week.”
She rose and started out, then paused and turned back to me.
“You should have come with me to Los Angeles. Maybe none of this would have happened,” she added, and left.
Maybe she was right, I thought. Perhaps she was changing. Perhaps she was tired of the bitterness in her heart and was hoping to rid herself of the past. Despite how cruel she had been to me and all of the unhappiness she had caused or participated in, I couldn’t help having this desire to win her over, to bring her back to her family, to have her see me as her niece, her blood. Was I weak and stupid for wanting this, or was it what my mother would have wanted?
I spent the remainder of the day keeping to myself. Sophia did the same. I finished my homework, did some reading, took a walk around the grounds, and spoke in Spanish to the pool man who had come to clean it and treat the water. Then I changed to have dinner. To my surprise, neither Sophia nor Tía Isabela appeared. Tía Isabela went out to meet someone, and Sophia ordered her dinner brought to her room. I half suspected she would not rise in the morning to go to school, but she was there at breakfast, bouncing about with unexpectedly renewed energy. I thought nothing o
f it. After all, she had slept away most of the day.
However, her enthusiasm and flashy smiles came from a different source of rejuvenation. I should have realized she was spending more of her day on the telephone plotting with her other two witches, as Edward and Jesse would say. I was not fooled by her overly friendly behavior toward me at breakfast and in the limousine. Señor Garman had returned from delivering Tía Isabela in time to be the one to take us to school.
“I hope Mr. K isn’t going to pull one of those Monday-morning history quizzes on us,” she said. “I didn’t have time to study. What do you think?”
“I think yes,” I said, and recited some of the areas and answers to questions I expected him to ask. I didn’t do it for her. I was reviewing it for myself as I described it.
“You really are better at school than I am,” she admitted. “I don’t understand why. I thought girls were thought to be too stupid to go far in school in Mexico.”
“Who told you that?”
“My mother.”
“It is not so.”
“Whatever,” she said. “I’m not worrying about it. If I don’t go to college, I don’t go.”
“What will you do?”
“I won’t work hard, I can tell you that. I’ll do something simple in one of our businesses just to pass the time maybe. Maybe not. I have time to decide. Well, here we are. In Wonderland,” she added, smiling at me. “Have a good day, Alice.”
“Alice?”
“Alice in Wonderland, stupido. I thought you were supposed to be the well-read one, not me,” she said, getting out of the car to hurry in.
Señor Garman, who had overheard us, turned to look at me as I got out slowly. His face was full of skepticism and warning.
“Count your fingers and toes every time you’re near her,” he told me, and drove off.
I looked at the entrance to the main building. Sophia was already inside with her friends. Something really wasn’t right, I thought, but I headed for the entrance, too, walking slowly, like someone who was anticipating an ambush.
5
Down the Rabbit Hole
When I was little, no more than six, there was a very old lady in our village, Señora Baca. My mother told me she was one hundred and five years old and had outlived all her children. Her grandchildren looked after her now. Because of her age, she was venerated and revered. Everyone wanted her blessing, and no one would pass by her without stopping to ask her how she was and, more important, what the weather would be.
The belief was that her aged bones could predict the weather better than any weatherman on radio or television. She put her right hand under her left elbow, closed her eyes, and foretold rain, clouds and sunshine, warmth and cold. The story was that she was right far more than she was wrong.
But this fortune-teller’s power to read the wind and the clouds could be applied to reading the future of people’s lives as well. This was more subtle and happened very quickly. When she looked into your face, her face would instantly react with a smile or a look of pain. Woe to those who saw pain in her face. They waited every day for some disaster to occur, and when one did, it reinforced the legend of Señora Baca. It was said that she predicted the hour and minute of her own death and simply told her grandchildren it was time for her to pass on.
My grandmother, who remembered Señora Baca well, told me that being old, living longer, simply meant you were walking side by side with Death longer. He was always there, patiently waiting, sometimes annoyed, especially with Señora Baca, because he had to tag along so long and began to feel more like a servant than a master. Señora Baca especially teased and tormented him with her longevity.
I don’t remember the incident all that well, but my mother told me that one day, Señora Baca put her hand on my head and predicted my life would be like a river, sometimes low, sometimes high, but never discouraged by any turn or twist. As water finds its way, I would find mine.
Of course, it was years before I understood what that meant, and even today, I wasn’t completely sure about it, but its meaning clearly made my mother happy. She thanked Señora Baca and from that day on told me never to pass her without greeting her. Although her face was thin and wrinkled like dried peaches, her eyes refused to age. I was nine when she died. It was a big funeral, because she belonged as much to the village as she did to her own family, and there was never a Día de los Muertos, a Day of the Dead, when everyone didn’t celebrate her.
I thought of her this morning as I walked into the school, wishing that she was sitting just inside so I could greet her and ask her what the weather would be for me, where my river would flow now. I tried to conjure her and hold on to the image of her tiny body planted in that big chair which was really the seat taken out of a truck, with the umbrella opened over her and her jug of cucumber water and a glass beside her.