1. UnoUNO ONE IS ALWAYS SUBJECT TO THE INFLUENCE OF SPIRITS Antonia rested her weight against the wooden desk and stared at the words carved on the gray concrete wall above the blackboard. She didn''t appreciate the reminder because she didn''t believe the words to be true, but the nuns insisted that the girls should learn about the weaknesses of the flesh and the soul. The hazy gloom of burned incense settled in the room, but it didn''t mask the earthy graveyard smell. The nogal''s dead branches click-clacked off the half-open arched stained-glass windows; cold lurked inside, crawling up her nostrils, creeping down her throat. Antonia swallowed. When would this oppressive gloom finally pass over Bogotá? Rain droplets pelted her face. Antonia pulled up the zipper of her black woolen coat and rushed through the young girls--bent over their notepads on their weathered wooden desks--to shut the windows, then patted her hands dry against the thick fabric of her black dress.
Antonia glanced briefly at her students, and at hand''s reach were the Catechism and the Bible. Antonia shook her head; the girls spent hours being told what to say and think. While boys learned math, algebra, and geometry, girls learned all about domestic economy. Nothing more than simple mathematical operations were required. Although Antonia had been working at the Escuela para Señoritas de Bogotá for over a year, she still wasn''t used to what the nuns called "the nourishing of the minds of the youth." Girls were taught manners; how to be good daughters, docile and benevolent ones, and obedient and caring future wives and mothers. The majority of them would be married by the age of fourteen. And if they were lucky, marriage wouldn''t come until they turned eighteen or twenty.
But those were exceptions. And even then, they''d remain in captivity. Captive to their condition as females. Doomed to a life at the service of men, determined by religious beliefs. For when a woman dared escape home, it was frowned upon. A woman''s duty could only be housework. There was nothing that could even make them consider the idea of leaving. For a while, Antonia had longed for an escape regardless of what people would say.
She''d daydreamed about Paris, London, Rome, and Istanbul. About studying the origins of Gothic literature where it had all begun. Unlike these girls, who attended Catholic school, when Antonia was a child, she had, for the most part, been tutored by Carmela in math, algebra, and geometry. Still, Antonia''s position in life was no better than that of any other woman. So, here she was. Just a few more hours until the day was finally over. She snapped out of her stupor and continued with the lesson: "But the influence of the demons, as we know from the scriptures and the history of the Church, goes further still." Antonia wished she could tell the girls that demonic possession was as much of a fantasy as every other folktale they''d been told.
Such as La Llorona--the spirit of a grieving woman in search of her dead kid--or La Patasola, a one-legged woman-like creature with vampire-like lust for human flesh and blood. Antonia''s stomach churned at the notion that in 1936 Colombia, monsters were female. "The Devil may attack one''s body from without or assume control of it from. within ." Antonia parsed through her words as her gaze fixated on the girls stiffening in their seats, panic flaring in their eyes. This was terrorism. She placed the Catholic Encyclopedia on top of her desk; her brown eyes stared at the navy-blue leatherbound behemoth of a book for a bit. Her chest tightened.
She was complicit in this brainwashing. A hand rose at the back of the dimly lit classroom and brought Antonia''s focus back to her audience. She nodded, and a black-haired girl stumbled away from her desk. "Miss Rubiano, how do we know." The girl paused, her elbows pressed into the sides of her beige uniform, making her look even smaller. "How do we know when someone''s possessed by the." The girl''s voice trailed off as though she couldn''t even dare say the word. Devil.
Antonia scratched her forehead and pondered what to say next. To her, possessions were nothing more than illnesses of the body falsely seen as the works of the supernatural. The only ghost that had ever truly haunted her was regret. She could''ve escaped, but now it was too late. And she had to live with the consequences of her own choices. Those were often the heaviest burdens to carry around. "There hasn''t been real proof of this happening," Antonia said at last, not quite answering Esperanza''s question but hoping that would be enough. The least she wanted was to further terrorize these girls.
"Most of the time, these. possessions aren''t real." Antonia''s focus darted around the room. Hanging on the dull-colored walls were Christian frescoes caulked into place, their frames rusty from the ravages of time, depicting different religious figures from a portrait of young Pio XI to one of Francis of Assisi--the first person to allegedly suffer stigmata--to a painting of the Resurrection. The latter of which her eyes could never skip over. Her flesh crawled under her skin each time, so she had to force herself to look away. A spiral of fear traveled down the back of Antonia''s neck. But there was more than just fear in it, there was uncertainty underneath it as well.
Dead people stay dead. If they didn''t, wouldn''t Antonia''s mamá be back? "How do we know?" Esperanza pressed. Antonia breathed in deeply, pulled a piece of chalk out of her coat, and turned to face the blackboard. "Unusual violent movements," she said as she scribbled the words with her right hand, the chalkboard screech prickling at her eardrums. "Shrieking, groaning, and uttering disconnected or strange speech. Having the answer to questions they couldn''t possibly know the answer to." The sound of her heartbeat thrashed in her ears as the images cycled through her mind like aging puzzle pieces, worn-out, faded. Antonia knew they were locked in her brain somewhere, but at times she''d rather not access them.
Papá bound to a chair with chains and rosaries, candles the only source of light. He tries to scramble away. He twists and screams so loudly he forgets he is screaming. Then he stops. He rubs his hands together, mumbling to himself, and hunches over as the Latin chants from Padre Juan and the nuns become louder and faster. There is a darkness about Papá that spreads inside the already darkened room. The chanting stops, and as Papá cocks his head up slowly, his eyes open, revealing nothing but white. Blood from his mouth and eyes flows down onto his white shirt.
He grins and stays completely motionless for a while. Then his expression falters; he looks dazed and confused. Padre Juan approaches him and places a towel drenched in holy water onto his forehead, and so the chanting resumes. With one last convulsion, Papá forces out the "demon" before collapsing against the floor. Antonia''s thoughts left her unsettled. She reached for the glass of water on her desk and downed the lukewarm liquid in one gulp in an attempt to steady her heart, threatening to lunge out of her rib cage. After a few seconds that felt like minutes, she managed to compose herself. The memory had escaped the innermost corner of her mind.
Those dark places. she had to stop reaching into them if she wanted to move forward. Or perhaps the only way she would ever move forward was by confronting them, just as Carmela often reminded her. But how would she ever overcome so much death while keeping what was left of her family together? She couldn''t afford to consider any of it now. No. She and her papá had survived, barely, and Antonia couldn''t put their fragile recovery in jeopardy. Antonia sucked in another breath before resuming the lecture. She wouldn''t let catechesis get to her too.
No more digging up her past. Not if she wanted the dreams to stop. "Occasionally the person becomes incapable of prayer, utters blasphemies, or exhibits terror or hatred of sacred persons or objects," she continued. "However, scientific studies treat these things as psychophysical manifestations to be dealt with medically. Lunacy and paralysis, for instance, are often mistaken for possession. Results are then attributed to a diabolical agency when they''re really due to natural causes." The door creaked open. Antonia wavered where she stood and stumbled as she turned around.
La madre superiora stepped through the door and over the threshold. A chill washed over Antonia, raising fine ashy-brown hairs all over her skin at the sight of the old nun approaching her. Her veins turned to ice, and she stood still. Madre Asunción''s voice rolled like thunder across the room. "I am sure Miss Rubiano meant not to deny the existence of such phenomenon." She grimaced at Antonia, then her eyes flitted to the girls, who quickly got on their knees, their skin exposed to the cold stone floor, their gazes locked down on their laps as they silently began praying to themselves. Dread coiled in the pit of Antonia''s stomach. Nasty white hairs on Madre Asunción''s chin escaped the brown coif of the habit and swung along with the damp wind coming in through the now-open door.
Antonia squirmed and her toes curled up inside her black leather shoes, but she forced herself to not look away. It wasn''t Madre Asunción''s presence that bothered Anton.