—
That night she had another curious dream. She could not even classify it as a nightmare because she felt calm. Numb, even.
The house had metamorphosed in the dream, but it was not a thing of meat and sinew on this occasion. She walked upon a carpet of moss, the flowers and vines crept up the walls, and long, thin stacks of mushrooms glowed a pale yellow, lightening up the ceiling and the floor. It was as if the forest had tiptoed into the house in the middle of the night and left a part of itself inside. As Noemí descended the staircase, her hands brushed upon a banister covered in flowers.
She walked down a hallway that was thick with clumps of mushrooms as high as her thighs and peered at paintings that were hidden under layers of leaves.
In the dream she knew where she ought to go. There were no iron gates to greet her at the cemetery, but why would there be any? This was the time before the cemetery, when they were building a rose garden upon the mountain slope.
A garden, though no flowers grew here yet. No flowers had taken. It was peaceful here, at the edge of the pine forest, with the mist shrouding rocks and shrubs.
Noemí heard voices, very loud, and then a piercing scream, but everything was so still, so calm, that it calmed her too. Even when the screams changed in pitch and seemed to grow in intensity she did not fear.
She reached a clearing and beheld a woman who lay on the ground. Her belly was huge and distended, and she appeared to be in the midst of her labor, which would explain the screams. Attending her were several women who were holding her hand, brushing the limp hair from her face, muttering to her. Men held candles in their hands, others carried lanterns.
Noemí noticed a little girl sitting on a chair, her blond hair tied in a pigtail. She carried a white cloth in her arms, meant to swaddle an infant. A man sat behind the child, with his ringed hand on her shoulder. A ring of amber.
The scene was a little ridiculous. A woman, panting and giving birth in the dirt while the man and the child sat in velvet-upholstered chairs, as if they were observing a theater performance.
The man tapped his finger on the child’s shoulder. One, two, three times.
How long had they sat there, in the dark? How long since the labor had begun? But it wouldn’t be long now. The time had come.
The pregnant woman clutched someone’s hand and let out a long, low moan, and there was a wet sound, the slap of flesh against the damp earth.
The man stood up and approached the woman, and when he moved, the people surrounding her stepped aside, as if a sea were parting.
Slowly he bent down and carefully held the child the woman had birthed.
“Death, overcome,” the man said.
But when he raised his arms, Noemí saw he held no child. The woman had given birth to a gray lump of flesh, almost egg-shaped, covered in a thick membrane and slick with blood.
It was a tumor. It did not live. Yet it pulsated gently. The lump quivered, and as it did the membrane ruptured and slid aside. It burst, sending a golden cloud of dust into the air, and the man breathed in the dust. The woman’s attendants, the people with their candles and lanterns, and all the onlookers moved closer, holding their hands up, as if to touch the golden dust, which slowly, ever so slowly, fell upon the ground.
Everyone had forgotten the woman, focused now, singularly, on the lump that the man was hoisting above his head.
Only the little girl paid the shivering, exhausted figure on the ground any attention. The child approached her, pressed the cloth she had been holding against the woman’s face, as if veiling a bride, and held it tight. The woman convulsed, unable to breathe; she tried to scratch the child, but the woman was exhausted and the child, her cheeks red, held on tight. As the woman quivered and suffocated, the man repeated the same words.
“Death, overcome,” he said, and he raised his eyes, staring at Noemí.
It was then, when he looked at her, that she remembered to be afraid, that she remembered revulsion and horror, and turned her face away. Her mouth had the coppery taste of blood, and in her ears there was a faint buzzing sound.
When Noemí woke up she was standing at the foot of the stairs, moonlight streaming through the colored glass windows, tinting her pale nightgown yellow and red. A clock struck the hour and floorboards creaked, and she rested a hand on the banister, listening intently.
15
Noemí knocked and waited, and waited some more, but no one came to the door. She stood outside Marta’s house, nervously pulling at her purse’s strap before finally conceding defeat and walking back toward Francis, who was looking at her curiously. They’d parked the car near the town square and walked over together, even though she’d told him he could wait for her just like last time. But he said he could use the walk. She wondered if he was trying to keep an eye on her.
“No one seems to be home,” Noemí said.
“Do you want to wait?”
“No. I need to stop by the health clinic.”
He nodded, and they slowly headed back toward what constituted the downtown section of El Triunfo, where there was a real road instead of muddy paths. Noemí was afraid the doctor wouldn’t be in yet either, but as they reached the door of the clinic, Julio Camarillo rounded the corner.
“Dr. Camarillo,” she said.