“Can you teach me to do that?”
“I can guide you. Everything else you must do on your own.”
Lupita remained silent for a few minutes. Her heart was beating rapidly. It seemed incredible that there could be a way for her to talk to her son, to give him all the kisses she owed him, to show him the profound sadness she felt, her pain and regret. To do that meant she would have to trust a confessed murderer, a man who had killed another in cold blood but who was now looking into her eyes with a kindness she had never known before.
“What do I have to do?”
“Participate in a ritual.”
“I’ll do whatever you say, but first tell me how you shot an obsidian disc at the delegado’s neck.”
Tenoch smiled. He got up and beckoned Lupita to follow him. He led her to his hut, where he picked up a satchel and pulled out a wooden artifact. It was some sort of slingshot with thick rubber bands, elongated and flat, that could be hidden under a long sleeve and triggered by a simple motion of the opposite hand. Lupita and Tenoch stepped outside so he could demonstrate. He placed a watermelon on a table and walked a considerable distance away from it. He then placed the slingshot on his right forearm. Following that he took an obsidian disc and placed it between the rubber bands. Tenoch raised his right arm, pointed at the watermelon, and with his left hand pulled a small trigger that fired the disc. The obsidian piece pierced the fruit effortlessly. Lupita was very surprised by the weapon’s simplicity and efficacy. That was the last piece of information she needed to connect everything she had on her mind. She remembered the video Martinez had shown her in which Tenoch seemed to raise his arm to wave at the delegado. Immediately after that gesture Larreaga began to bleed out. Now she knew how he was shot and with what, but still had one question that needed to be answered.
“When and why did the Delgado give you his shirt?”
“He gave it to me so I could perform a cleansing ritual. Someone in his inner circle had told him that his chief advisor, Licenciado Gomez, I believe, had hired a dark shaman to harm him. He trusted me to protect him. He was in a hurry for my help but had no time to participate in the ceremony, so I asked for his shirt. I could cleanse the shirt and therefore cleanse him. We met in his office after he returned from the adult education center inauguration. When he was changing his shirt in the bathroom, his secretary called his phone. She talks so loud that I could hear everything she said, even through the bathroom door. She told him that she had left the documents for the expropriation of our lands on his desk for him to sign.”
“So that’s how you learned that he had betrayed you, and you decided to kill him.”
“That’s right.”
“What part do I play in all of this? Why did you look after me? Why did you bring me here?”
“Because you were chosen by an obsidian shard. When my mom called me and told me you had it stuck in your finger we knew you were destined to become a warrior of the light.”
“So that’s why Salvador informed you as soon as I checked in to rehab?”
“Correct. You are quite the investigator.”
“Thank you. By the way, a car washer also got a shard stuck in his finger.”
“We have contacted him and Salvador is training him. Anything else?”
“Not for now.”
Tenoch shot back: “I have a question for you.”
“Yes?”
“Are you going to turn me in?”
Lupita thought it over for a split second. “No. I have a better candidate to bring to justice.”
“I hope you’re referring to Mami. She works for the forces of dark and is dead set on preventing the Ceremony of the New Fire because it would put an end to her business. If people find the way to reconnect with The Whole without using drugs, Mami and every other criminal organization would be doomed to death.”
“Well aren’t you quite the investigator?” Lupita said, smiling. “How do you know I can make a case against Mami?”
“Because her people attacked the rehab facility. At first we thought it was vengeance against former members of her organization who had deserted her to join us. But when they realized you weren’t among the dead they kept looking for you, which leads us to believe that you are in possession of very important evidence against Mami and her people.”
“You’re right. The good news is that I’m going to put it to use, and you will be able to perform your Ceremony of the New Fire. I guarantee it.”
LUPITA LIKED TO MAKE LOVE
To caress. To kiss. To hug. To lick. To moan with pleasure. To moan, moan, moan. Lupita woke up suddenly. She had been dreaming of Martinez and had an orgasm more genuine than most she had felt in her life. It was so intense that her own panting woke her. She remained still for a moment and hoped with all her soul that her roommates were still asleep. It would be very embarrassing if they had heard her.
She left the hut before the others woke up. She didn’t want anyone to look her in the eye. Her face would surely betray every detail of her orgasmic dream. Lupita could still feel Martinez’s breath on her neck and the pleasant sensation in her crotch. She remembered Martinez and the night they spent together, her bed creaking, and the moistness of her bedsheets. Her bedsheets! She hadn’t had time to wash them. Maybe it was for the best. When she returned she would wash them with more enthusiasm. That way she could prove her theory that the loving moistness of two lovers permeates the fibers of the bedsheets and can be used as an offering to the sun. That was one of the reasons why she didn’t like clothes dryers. She believed that only the sun could properly liberate the loving energy contained in the bedsheets.
Up until that day she had always thought that making love was something exclusive to couples, to bodies, to two beings that united. She had never really experienced what it was to make Love. To be Love! To be Loving energy, that which allows one to connect with water, with plants, with animals, with stars, with planets, with clouds, with rocks, with fire, with The Whole and The Nothing.
This she learned after participating in Tenoch’s ceremony. It was a milestone in Lupita’s life. She had no idea what was about to happen or how she would behave. All she could do was follow directions. Several members of the community had gathered deep in the jungle. Tenoch began the ritual under a tree. He saluted the four winds and invoked the grandfathers and grandmothers. Then each of the participants stepped to the center of a circle, and Tenoch offered them a pipe that contained a substance extracted from the glands of the Bufo alvarius toad, affectionately known as sapito. Of the hundreds of toad species that exist in the world, only this one—endemic to the Sonora desert—contains in its parotid glands two neurotransmitters, bufotenin and 5-methoxytryptamine, or 5-MeO-DMT, the most powerful neurotransmitter that exists in nature and which produces a hallucinogenic effect. This amphibian not only has the capacity to store vast amounts of neurotransmitters, it also has the ability to provide the enzyme that allows us to absorb them through our respiratory system without harm.
When the smoke had entered her lungs, Lupita knew everything. She saw everything. Heard everything. Understood everything, but couldn’t put it in words.
In her vertiginous journey Lupita had traveled back in time before the seas separated from the skies, before rivers and mountains were formed, before the first feather covered the chest of a quetzal. Before the first turtle crossed the oceans. Before corn became the source of sustenance. Before men stopped talking to the stars. Before women invented embroidery. Before they washed and ironed their clothing. Before she was abused for the first time, before she was struck. Before she was raped. Before her son died. Before the politicians betrayed the Mexican Revolution, before the first electoral fraud, before the country was sold to foreigners. Before lines were drawn to separate countries. Before a development plan based on the exploitation of hydrocarbons was designed. Before precious metals, mines, beaches, coral reefs, diamonds, and oil were offered up for sale. Before greed dominated rulers. Before the cartel
s that caused so much death were created. Before death itself, before bodies, before the idea that things come to an end, before guilt, fear, and attack.
BEFORE MEXICO
She saw her entire life, from the time she was in her mother’s womb to the time of her death. She saw the entire history of the Universe, from the big bang to the end of time. She saw that everything existed before rocks, rivers, and trees came to be, yet at the same time a voice inside her whispered, “Nothing exists.”
The Nothing and The Whole overlapped. Things took shape and disappeared at an unusual speed. In the matter of a second, dust became malleable mud and then transformed into a mirror made of stars that burst from the big bang. Bodies of clay emerged from nothing and were as easily torn down according to the whims of the mind, but nothing was real. It was a trick, an illusion. Beyond all sound, all shapes, and all feeling there was only light. Just light. Light that reflected from everyone and everything. Lupita knew that in every reflection, she was coming home. At a certain point she couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead. She was no more, she was no longer there, but at the same time she was in everything.
Nothing was hidden. Nothing hurt. The floating heads that appeared tore off their faces in front of her eyes. Her mind lost all notion of you or I. Words were erased from her tongue, and names existed no longer. Millions of particles moved at the speed of light, changing shape and color but without losing their luminous connection. She saw thousands of cables of light weave together within and without her and become part of that intergalactic fabric. She joined the vibration of thousands of violins, of infinite drums, and she traveled to the center of waves, the center of hurricanes, the center of the cross, the place where the heart of the sky meets the heart of the earth.
Planets danced in the skies. She understood that eclipses were the convergence of cycles, of times. The time of the sun and the time of the moon together formed The Whole integrated by a night sun and a day moon.
Lupita saw that which was and that which wasn’t. Like when you see stars in the night sky that long ago ceased to exist.
She understood that vision had nothing to do with eyes. It was without eyes that she could truly see.
She traveled to the end of time and saw the histories of Mexico and of the entire world change. She saw people organizing differently, with a new consciousness. She saw her life become transformed completely. Lupita saw herself, in the future, threading her time with Captain Martinez’s time. She saw Tenoch lighting the New Fire in his ancestors’ holy land, and infinite luminous, volatile, and loving hearts emerged from that fire. Lupita saw herself loving. Loving everything and everyone. She knew she was a part of every poem, of every kiss, of every act of love. She felt love: real Love. The kind of love that makes no distinction, that doesn’t separate, that is not contained within a body. She cried from so much love.
Tenoch approached her and sang in her ear while he tapped her chest lightly:
You must find the way
to come home
to reach your animal
to reach your clothes
to reach your outfit.
Come, come.
Come, don’t stay in the dream.
Let the four mother-angels,
and the four father-angels accompany you,
may you come with a serene heart,
a happy heart.
Come, don’t stay in the dream.
Tenoch asked Lupita to open her eyes. It had only been five minutes, but to her it had felt like eternity. She could barely raise her eyelids. Tenoch said, “Look at me.”
Lupita focused her eyes but instead of seeing Tenoch she saw her own face reflected in the shaman. She turned around and was surprised to see herself not only in Tenoch but also in everyone else participating in the ceremony. She fixed her stare in Tenoch’s eyes and saw in his pupil an endless tunnel, a black hole that transported her once again through different dimensions of time and space. In Tenoch’s eyes she saw her son’s eyes. Lupita finally understood that before her son took shape in her womb, she and he were already one, and they would forever be one. There had never been loss or separation. There had never been two separate bodies called mother and son. Lupita felt that her heart was going to explode with joy and love. She hugged Tenoch, and in his embrace she found everyone. Her mother, her father, her son, everyone whom she had loved and those she would one day love.
Lupita understood that she had never stopped loving. She had been alive since the beginning of time, and that from that moment on she had loved every time a particle connected with another. She had loved, was loving, and would love, that was a certainty. In that instant, Lupita’s soul healed. Most importantly, if Lupita—who had collected so much pain, who had experienced so much anger—could heal and connect to The Whole, so could Mexico.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2009 Jerry Beretta
Laura Esquivel is the award-winning author of Like Water for Chocolate, which has sold over four and a half million copies around the world in thirty-five languages and was adapted into a beloved film. Her other novels include The Law of Love, Swift as Desire, and Malinche. She lives in Mexico City.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Photo © 2015 Kelly Strawinski
Jordi Castells is a translator, graphic designer, illustrator, and producer. He has been translating at screenwriting workshops for several years, and he has illustrated novels, including Laura Esquivel’s Malinche, and created storyboards for feature films like Días de Gracia. Currently his production company, Charco Creative Industries, is working on a feature documentary about music in Mexican prisons. He also adapted and illustrated a graphic novel version of this novel. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Laura Esquivel, Pierced by the Sun
(Series: # )
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