Jonathan Santlofer - Anatomy of Fear

For a moment her face clouded, and I saw something behind the good-natured scolding. I glanced back at the boiling pot, the riego, knew that it was used to sprinkle around an apartment to chase away evil spirits.

“¿Qué pasa, uela? ¿Pasa algo?”

“I had a dream,” she said.

“One of your visions?”

She nodded.

“A bad one?”

Another shrug and wave of the bangle-bracelet hand.

“You want me to draw it?”

I’d been drawing her visions for half my life-mostly Chagall-like fantasies with clouds, wild plants, Latin crosses, and the occasional dancing animal. But there had been bad visions too, dark and brooding ones filled with omens that even as a boy had chilled me. My grandmother hadn’t kept those. I suspected she had burned them, offered them up to one of the orishas as some form of sacrifice.

“It is not clear,” she said.

“Maybe if you describe it, it will get clearer.”

“Later,” she said. “First, eat. Yesterday I cooked bacalaitos, just for you.”

I could practically taste the fried, doughy cod fritters. “Good. For a minute there I was afraid you were going to feed me that foul-smelling ebo. ”

“ Chacho, do not make fun of the ebo -of the sacrifice. It is not good to offend the orishas. ” My grandmother got serious, wheeled around and plucked a small blue bottle from a shelf crowded with dozens of others. She whisked off the top, mumbled something under her breath, tapped some liquid onto her fingers, and flicked it at me. “Muy bien. Un poco de agua santa.”

I just stood there, accepting the sprinkling of holy water. There was no point in fighting her.

“Sit.” My grandmother turned the flame off the riego, got the cod fritters from the fridge, heated up a portion that was way too big, and presented the platter. I ate most of it while she nattered on about this poor soul and that one, and how people should be happier and kinder and why the man at the fish counter was a sneaky one trying to sell old fish, then asked again why I had no new girl in my life, and I had a brief flash of Terri Russo running her fingers through her hair. I told my grandmother I just wasn’t lucky with women and she suggested I make an offering to Oshun, the orisha of love, to which I sighed and she sighed too.

I refused a second portion, and my grandmother cleared the plate. She had stopped making small talk and I could see she was ready. She beckoned me to follow. “Ven p’aca.” She started singing an old song, a favorite of hers, but without the usual lilt.

“Ten Cuidado con el Corazón…”

I knew the song well. Please be careful, it began, a warning that things can always change or go wrong.

In the living room I retrieved the pad and pencils I kept at her apartment, took a seat on the couch, and opened to a clean sheet of paper.

“A room,” she said, crowding beside me on the couch to watch and direct.

“Just a room?”

“Oye, nene, pon atención.” The usual playfulness was gone from her voice. She rested one of her jeweled hands on her heart and closed her eyes. “A room,” she repeated, and began to fill in the details, the picture in her head transferring to mine, then onto paper.

My grandmother was always my best witness, her descriptions perfect. Or maybe it was just that we were in tune after so many years of practice. She gave my drawing a glance, and said, “Muy bien.” She enjoyed the process of seeing her vision take shape and come to life.

She turned her attention to another detail.

“Y una ventana,” she said, and went on to describe it.

She leaned over the pad. “Bien hecho,” she said, and though she was still not smiling I could see that something was being lifted from her. Maybe that’s what it had always been about-her telling, me drawing-the transference easing some of her anxiety. What I had been trying to describe to Terri Russo.

My grandmother took a deep breath. “Otra cosa,” she said. “You will have to change something. Aqui. ” She pointed to the paper and explained what it was she wanted me to add.

I’d gotten into it, I always did, adding details, blending with my fingertips.

“Bueno,” she said, then sat back and crossed herself. “But… está mal. ”

“What’s bad? My drawing?”

“No, neno. The room.”

“It doesn’t seem so bad, uela. ”

She raised a jeweled hand to stop me from talking. “There is a man in the room-or the spirit of a man. Chango has sent a warning. I cannot see him, but…maybe you can.”

“You want me to draw a man you haven’t seen?”

My grandmother looked at me as if believing I could, but lifted a finger to my lips. “Escucha,” she said.

I stopped talking and did as she asked, listened.

“Hay más,” she said, and explained it.

I went back to the drawing and tried to capture what she described.

“It looks like hell,” I said. “Your vision. Not my drawing.” I laughed, but my grandmother did not. She crossed herself. “There is something else in that room. ¿Cómo se dice? Un diseño. In front of the window, a circle…And inside the circle,” she went on, “ un diseño, another one…I had it in my head, but…it is gone.”

“Close your eyes and let it come, uela. ”

After a moment she said, “¡Lo veo!” and told me what to draw.

When I was finished she smiled because I had done a good job, but her smile faded fast.

“The ashe in that room, no es bueno. ”

Ashe: the basic building block of everything according to Santeria.

She reached for my hand. “Nato,” she said. “Tengo más que decir.”

“What is it, uela ?”

“You, neno, ” she said. “You are in that room. Not now, but…sometime. It is hard to explain.” She let go of my hand, crossed the room, and gathered up seashells scattered between the goblets of water on the bóveda. “I will read the shells and figure out exactly what sort of ebo will keep you safe. No te preocupes. ”

“I’m not worried, uela.”

“Nato…” She tried to smile. “Make your abuela happy.” She plucked a large purple candle off the table and handed it to me. “Take this and burn it in your apartment. For me, for your abuela.”

“It doesn’t work if you don’t believe, does it?”

“There are forces stronger than you, Nato. Por favor, toma la uela.”