The Witches of El Paso

Chapter 19

19

God,” Alejandro says, staring down at Marta. Alejandro has skipped his run, and he and Marta have stayed in bed this morning. It’s late. “God, you’re beautiful. In San Diego, we may never leave the hotel room.”

“Is that so bad?”

“I mean, we weren’t even like this when we first got together.”

“How about Chiapas?” Marta asks. Over Christmas vacation one year, they’d paid $10 a night to sleep in hostels, zipping their sleeping bags together, Alejandro’s body electric and strange next to hers.

“Right. Chiapas. I was half the age I am now. I always thought middle-aged would mean gray hair, a beer belly, a Porsche, that sort of thing. That I’d be dissatisfied with life.”

“And you’re happy.”

“I’m doing what I want to be doing. I’m busy. And so are you.”

“Yes,” Marta says carefully. “I was going through a rough patch for a while. I wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing. Part of me wanted to burn everything down.”

“Doesn’t everyone think that sometimes? Maybe that’s why I like running. Once you get in the rhythm, you can’t worry about anything except staying upright and breathing. It’s automatic, but it takes enough effort that the brain gives up on fixing anything else. During the long races, I always get to a point where I tell myself I’ll never do it again—let’s say about mile twenty—but then I pass through to the other side, and I start to feel like I could run forever. For the rest of the day, I feel completely free.” Alejandro isn’t usually this eloquent.

“And then?”

“And then what?”

“What happens after the feeling goes away?”

“And then I have to do it again.”

“Your running has gotten extreme lately,” Marta blurts out. That isn’t what she had intended to say. But the more he runs, the less time he spends with her. The less time they spend together, the further apart they feel. She used to know him so well.

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Marta.”

“I’m wondering if you started to run more, longer, for any particular reason.”

“Other than that I like to challenge myself?”

“Because you’re the age that you are.”

Alejandro turns so he’s on his side, propping his head up with one hand. “Are you trying to pick a fight?”

“I just wanted to know if there are things you think you’ve missed out on.”

“This is how you feel? What’ve you missed out on?”

“I don’t know. Like the Supreme Court.”

“Seriously? That’s what you’re thinking about? Among other things in the way, it’s not like you’ve been trying to take that path.”

“But still.”

“Help me out here. What are we talking about?”

“Nothing. Everything is great,” Marta says, and she’s surprised to see that she’s speaking the truth.

She has two hearings at the courthouse, and looking at the clock on the bedside table, she realizes she’s behind schedule. An hour later, the boys are dawdling. Rafa is in the bathroom, slicking down his hair with gel, a first for him. Pablo and Nena are chatting in Nena’s room. Marta pokes her head in and hears Pablo say, “At the end of camp next week, one of us gets to take the mouse home.”

Nena’s still in bed, wearing a nightgown.

“You feel OK?” Marta asks.

“Have you heard any encantos?” Nena asks.

Marta shakes her head firmly at Nena, like, let’s not talk about this in front of Pablo , but she also means no, she hasn’t heard anything.

“Where did you put my backpack?” Rafa whines from down the hallway, as though Marta’s hidden it from him.

Marta hustles the boys into the hot garage, into the car. Next door, Mrs. Price nods hello from her front porch. She’s pointing a hose at her potted plants.

Marta cranks up the air conditioner. The sun has risen over the mountain, shining down on the wide valley. Marta drives down the hill, through the neighborhood of long, low brick houses and adobes, neat lawns or cactus and rock gardens in the front yards, and then down a busy road, past strip malls, and up the street that leads to a school sitting on the edge of a dusty mesa. Pablo and Rafa run out of the car without looking at her, heading toward the front doors. Rafa drags his backpack on the ground. Pablo holds his above his head like he’s trying to launch a kite. They hardly ever kiss her in public anymore, making every goodbye with them feel incomplete.

Marta turns on the radio to try to cover up the noise of the hum, flipping away from the murmurings of public radio to a Mexican station that plays violent narcocorridos. She turns the song up, “Never been afraid of death, tell Pac I’m coming soon,” the man sings in Spanish. Her little car shakes. One of the speakers is blown out, some small component rattling around in the casing. She presses the accelerator, making the engine whine until it matches the sound of La Vista.

In the first hearing of the day, Marta succeeds in securing a restraining order in a domestic violence case. She retrieves the signed order from the clerk before hurrying down the hall to argue for the order to compel Soto to sit for his deposition. The courtroom is chilly. The carpet, the walls, and acoustic tiles on the ceiling swallow the sounds of speech, the buzzing of the recording devices, the clacking of the court reporter typing in the corner. Under all of this, Marta hears the hum.

The lawyer on the opposing side wears Tony Lama snakeskin cowboy boots and a bolo tie. He fumbles in his argument, getting the language of a statute wrong.

“Objection,” Marta says.

“Sustained,” Judge Sullivan says, nodding at Marta. “I know, I know, he misquoted.” Marta feels the glee of winning a point. But then when Judge Sullivan asks Marta a question, the hum grows so loud that Marta can’t understand what he’s saying. She asks the judge to repeat himself.

A black patch of soot appears on the wall behind him, winking at Marta. The stain detaches itself, turning into a tiny cloud. Marta moves the cloud over the judge’s head. A clap of thunder rumbles through the courtroom, and there’s the smell of ozone, the dampness of rain, and wet creosote bush, like during a summer storm. Marta looks at the wall. The door to the judge’s chambers is gone, replaced with the rock formations of the Hueco Tanks.

Judge Sullivan lifts his hand to touch the top of his head, inspecting it and narrowing his eyes at the water.

“You know what? Never mind, motion approved,” he says.

Marta walks out of the courtroom, fast, her whole body now a tuning fork, even her eyeballs vibrating. A thousand bees buzz under Marta’s scalp. She needs to eat. That’s what Nena said about La Vista, it needs to be fed. Marta digs into her purse, retrieving a package of trail mix, gobbling it down—salty peanuts, bitter sunflower seeds, sweet raisins holding on to the droplets of sun that honeyed them. Marta swallows the last handful, and that settles the storm so that she can see the real world again.

Sofia’s sitting on a bench in the hallway, very upright.

Marta eases herself down next to her.

“Your office said you’d be here,” Sofia says.

“What can I do for you?”

Sofia takes Marta’s hand and opens it so that her palm faces up. On it, Sofia places a tiny curl of metal.

“I scraped this off my tongue last night.”

“What is it?”

“I woke up because I thought I heard Mamá calling for me. I went to check on her, but she was sleeping. My tongue felt funny. I went to look at it in the mirror in the bathroom. I stuck it out, and it was silver, a piece of silver shaped like a tongue, solid, but warm because it was in my mouth. I thought I was having a dream. I touched it. The silver was soft. I scraped off three strips with my fingernail. In the morning, when I went to the bathroom, I found the shavings on the sink. You put the mal de ojo on me,” Sofia chokes out, and Marta can see the pit of fear behind her eyes.

“I didn’t,” Marta says, but did she? Now she doesn’t know.

“I know what you are. Mamá told me. She said she could smell it on you. She warned me yesterday when you came to my house. That’s when you must have done it. You threatened me.”

“Did you talk to any of the other plaintiffs?”

“I called Belén. She’s my friend. Why won’t you leave me alone? Haven’t you done enough to me? I was just trying to take care of my family.”

“Why are you here?”

“Take the curse off me, and I’ll do anything you want.”

“All I ever wanted was for you and the other plaintiffs to win the case against Soto,” Marta says, but what if she has done this to Sofia? They’d met eyes, and Marta had sent her anger into her. If Marta could cause a small storm, why not a silver tongue?

“Please. I’ll do anything you want, just make this stop,” Sofia begs.

“Did you recant your testimony to the state investigators?”

“Yes. I did it right after I left your office the other day. I told you I would. I keep my word.”

“Soto gave you that car.”

“Yes.”

“Has he given you anything else?”

“Money.”

“How much?”

“Ten thousand dollars.”

“That must help out at home.”

“It’s not enough.”

“I’m not sure what to do with you. Your testimony for your deposition contradicts what you told the investigators. We could depose you again, but you’re not a good witness anymore for anyone. You’re not credible.”

“Please, there must be something I could do.”

Marta considers how far she is willing to go to win this case. It’s for Sofia’s own good that Marta needs to steer her in the right direction, keep her away from Soto. Sofia stands to make a lot more than ten thousand dollars if they settle the case.

Marta thinks about the packing shed. All those cameras.

“Do you know where he keeps his tapes?”

Sofia shakes her head. “But I made recordings.”

“You have copies of the tapes at the packing shed?”

“No, no. Of conversations.”

“With Soto?”

“He said if I told the investigators that I’d made up my story he would pay me. And give me the car.”

Texas is a one-party consent state for voice recordings, which means that Sofia’s recordings can be used against Soto. It’s worth it to push Sofia to do what’s right. Marta can’t lose her nerve now that she has a real chance to help all of the clients.

“Send me the recordings, and I’ll lift the curse.”