Loteria

Life sauntered into town on a wave of heat. He looked quite dapper in his black suit and matching vest, with a crisp white shirt and the tiniest hint of red peeking out of his jacket pocket: a crimson handkerchief, monogrammed.

His tall short-brimmed hat provided little shade from the blinding white sky, and his walking stick left cracks on the dry and brittle land. The high-pitched whine of cicadas pestered him incessantly.

Life raised his walking stick. With a tap, the stick opened into an umbrella that shaded him and his companion, a skeletal figure in a bright pink dress delicately embroidered with flowers and birds. A crown of roses rested on her skull; a few petals trailed behind her, plucked by a curious draft of hot air.

“Shall we?” Life asked.

“We shall,” his companion replied, brushing dust off her sleeve. She may have been Lady Death (though she preferred to go by the name Catrina), but that didn’t mean she was immune to the allure of beauty.

Catrina placed her bony wrist, clinking with gilded bangles, upon Life’s outstretched arm. Together, they walked up to the main plaza in front of the Santo Domingo cathedral.

“I wonder where everyone is?” Life asked. “Taking shelter, no doubt,” Catrina replied.

It was already one of the hottest mornings on record in the hottest summer anyone in Oaxaca City could remember. People burrowed deep inside their houses shaded by the massive branches of purple-flowered jacaranda trees. Exhausted fans made eddies of hot air bloated with lethargic mosquitoes and flies. The ceramic tile floors, usually so cool to the touch, radiated an infernal heat. Jugs of water steamed like pots on a stove.

Catrina’s bracelets rattled against her bones as she flicked her bangled wrist, spreading out a fan. Made of black lace and glinting with tiny white pearls, the fan was a gift from one of her admirers of whom she had plenty.

It had been left for her on one of the many marigold covered altars that blossomed around the Día de los Muertos celebration, tucked between candied skulls and photos of lost relatives. A note attached to the gift read, “Por favor cuídalos.” Of course I’ll take care of them. Catrina watched over all her wards with a fierceness matched only by Life.

“Well, let’s get to it,” Life said.

“Let’s,” Catrina replied, and she began to fan her self. A cool breeze spread out from the black lace, a welcome relief in the searing heat. Strings of silver frost emanated from the fan, drifting out like so many wishes.

Beneath their makeshift parasol, Life and Death followed the silver strands unfurling before them.

They peeked into a doorway where a little boy played with a kitten in a box while his mother made a batch of tortillas to sell later in the day. The kitten meowed at the intruders, and the little boy looked up. He saw a handsome, well-dressed man and a beautiful woman with creamy brown skin and long dark hair.

Life nodded at the boy. Catrina smiled. The two companions moved on. Next they passed a peeling wall painted with a faded mermaid clutching a basket of fruit. Bold letters above the mermaid spelled the store’s name: LA FRUTERÍA SIRENA. It was run by a wrinkled man who had been there longer than anyone could remember.

The man and his wrinkles were fast asleep on a hammock strung up in the middle of the fruit shop. A strategically placed fan spun endlessly beside the slumbering man, its blades in a losing battle against the heat.

Catrina took extra notice of the old man; his light was fading, and he would soon be joining her. But not today.

They walked past La Rosa hair salon and the aptly named nursery La Maceta, the Flowerpot. Meaty cacti bursting with fruit stood sentry on either side of the door. Towering palm trees shaded the owner while he read a newspaper.

At the end of the street, they approached a small church. Life gazed up at the brightly colored papel picado paper cutouts-tied from the bell tower to the lush trees surrounding the church. Each cutout depicted a scene of love. Crushed flower petals clung to the papers and stained the ground.

“There was a wedding,” Catrina said.

“May the couple live long and well,” Life replied, briefly bowing his head. The couple would indeed goon to live long and well, never knowing they owed their good fortune to the blessing of this strange visitor. But that is a story for another time. Catrina fanned herself again, sending out a new wave of silver strands.

At that very moment, on another cobblestone street, a young girl in a small house with walls painted robin’s egg blue looked up. With an urgency she couldn’t quite explain, she turned her gaze toward the window.

From her perch, the girl could just make out the twin crosses that crowned the cathedral’s blue-and-white cupolas. A lone white dove beat its wings against the hot sky.

The girl rose and opened her window. The church bells tolled.

“Clara,” the girl’s mother called. “Come.”

A hint of cool breeze entered Clara’s room. Hesitant at first, the breeze tentatively explored the confines of the space, just big enough for a child-sized bed, a two drawer dresser, and the girl herself.

The breeze wrapped around the girl and tightly wove itself into her braids. A shiver ran down Clara’s back, and she shook her head, trying to dislodge the breeze from her hair. She tugged at a stray strand of silver.

“Child, I need you,” her mother called. “I’m coming.” Clara set down her sketch, a messy doodle of a horse with eagle’s wings.

Clara was not a good artist, and she knew that. Perhaps with more time and resources, she could develop this interest into an actual talent. As it was, she could sketch only on weekend mornings before her parents awoke. The rest of the time she spent in school and helping her parents run their small restaurant, La Casa de Juana.

The restaurant had started off as just a few tables in their living room, where Clara’s parents liked to host dinners for friends. However, as word of Juana’s talents in the kitchen spread, more and more tables were added. Their guests insisted on helping cover some of the costs of the food and preparation, and the living room was gradually transformed into a restaurant.

“Clara!” her mom called.

“Okay, okay,” Clara called back, and made her way to the kitchen.

Juana was Clara’s mother, and by all accounts the best cook in Oaxaca. Her tamales were light and flavorful. Wrapped in banana leaves, the cornmeal patties were stuffed with mole, corn, chicken, and black beans, or pineapples and raisins, then steamed and sold still hot to the touch. Juana also made the best tlayudas: large, thin, and partially toasted tortillas covered with a spread of beans, cheese, lettuce, and avocado, topped with beef, pork, seafood, or, Clara’s favorite, mushrooms.

Juana’s specialty dishes were many: tasajo, chorizo, cecina, guacamole, dozens of salsas. But what made La Casa de Juana truly special was the hot chocolate.

Clara’s mother had inherited the recipe from her mother, who had in turn received it from her mother, and she from her mother … and so forth for generations.

At some point, Clara had taken it upon herself to sample hot chocolate from every vendor in the city, just to see if what people said was true. There was no contest. Her mother’s combination of hand-ground cacao, almonds, cinnamon, and sugar was unmatched.

“She must have a touch of magic!” the other vendors speculated, and their words felt as true as the sharp bite of cinnamon on Clara’s tongue.

Clara walked into their small kitchen to find her mother bent over a large ceramic pitcher bubbling on the stove, surrounded by a swirl of scents. A long wooden stick jutted up from the thick dark mixture. The molinillo was a wooden whisk, specially designed to yield the frothiest hot chocolate.

“Gracias, mija,” Juana said. “We’re meeting with your cousins later today, and I need to pick up some things for the picnic. Can you keep an eye on this while I run to the mercado?”

“Sure.” Clara stepped up to the stove.

“What’s that in your hair?” Juana asked.

Clara looked down at her braids and marveled at the dozens of thin silvery strands interlaced with her own dark strands of hair. She pulled at the ribbons at the ends of her braids, loosening the plaits. Her hair spilled out, releasing the silver strands. She watched them slip gently to the ground.

“Strange,” Clara said, retying her hair.

But the deed was already done. She had been chosen.

Clara took the molinillo from her mother. “I won’t be long,” Juana said.

“Okay.”

“Do not stop stirring that,” Juana added, giving Clara a stern look. “It’ll burn.”

As she stepped outside, Juana stumbled over a bottle at the threshold of her house, discarded the previous evening by a drunken man.

Had the bottle not been there, Juana would have noticed the pack of stray dogs sitting quietly beneath Clara’s window. And she would have remarked on the unusual flowers that had suddenly sprouted along the wall of the house. And she surely would have paused at the sight of a festively clad woman on the arm of an impeccably dressed gentleman watching her from across the street. But Juana saw none of that.

Not that it would have made a difference.

“It’s settled, then,” Life said.

“And so it is,” Catrina agreed, gathering the silver strands of frost that had, in one instant, changed Clara’s fate forever. After Catrina collected all the silver strands, she and Life found a cool patch of shade in a small plaza not far from the blue house. In the center of the plaza, a stone fountain defied the heat with a cascade of bubbling water.

Gnarly trees, as ancient as Life, encircled the plaza. Their rough trunks split five, six, seven times, like fingers reaching up to the sky. Their branches interlaced in a tangle of leaves so dense no sunlight could penetrate. Birds hopped from branch to branch, calling to each other, while cicadas thrummed to the pulse of the sun.

From his jacket pocket Life pulled out his handkerchief. He unfolded it neatly, then spread it out in the air before him, where it lay perfectly flat, suspended like a magic carpet in flight. The handkerchief grew, expanding on all four sides until it was the size of a small table.

From another pocket Life extracted a single card displaying the image of a man in a suit with a top hat and a cane. “El Catrin,” the card read.

Life set the card on a corner of the table and tapped it. Beneath El Catrin fifty-three cards materialized, each with a different image. He shuffled the deck of cards three times, then placed it facedown in the center of the table.

From her skirts Catrina produced a delicately embroidered bundle. She tugged at the ribbon around the bundle and pulled out a small circle of glass framed in silver. Catrina placed the glass on the table between them. In the clear oval, Clara’s image materialized, a small window into the girl’s life.

Next, Catrina poured out a handful of frijoles— beans as black as night-and gathered them into a pile in the center, beside the cards.

“You won last time,” Life said, holding out a spread of tablas, cardboard placards with a different image printed in each of the sixteen squares.

“And the time before that,” Catrina replied, selecting one of the tablas.

“I do hope this isn’t becoming a trend,” Life added, choosing his own tabla.

“I suppose we’ll have to see.” Catrina smiled. The two laid out their tablas on the handkerchief table and placed a handful of black beans beside them. “Let the game begin,” Life said.

La Lotería was a simple game of chance. The first player to get four cards in a straight line-horizontal, vertical, or diagonal-would win. A win by Catrina would deliver Clara into her hands. A win by Life would spare the child, granting Clara a long life.

And so it was that the fate of a child tending to a pot of hot chocolate hung on a pile of beans and a deck of cards.

The players had three days to complete the game and deliver their prize, after which they would part ways for another year, meeting only to play another round. The rules were clear: if they failed to complete their game in the allotted time, it would be their final round, and they would never meet again. Those thirty-six hours were a rare gift, and one the friends cherished deeply.

Catrina pinched a black bean in her knobby fingers. Life flipped over the first card. “EL QUE LE CANTÓ A SAN PEDRO NO LE VOLVERÁ A CANTAR,” he said.

“THE ONE THAT SANG FOR ST. PETER WILL NEVER SING FOR HIM AGAIN.” Catrina repeated the riddle as the two friends studied their tablas. “The rooster.” “That it is,” Life replied, discarding the card in the center of the table.

“Alas, no rooster for me,” Catrina said.

“Or me.”

Life drew a second card. “EL QUE A BUEN ÁRBOL SE ARRIMA BUENA SOMBRA LE COBIJA.” Catrina laughed, pointing at the branches overhead. “How fitting! HE WHO APPROACHES A GOOD TREE IS BEAN KETED BY GOOD SHADE.”

She placed a black bean on the image of a tree on her tabla. “And so it begins!”

In the blue house, Clara looked up from the chocolate she was diligently stirring. A sudden and in visible weight pressed upon her shoulders. The chocolate became impossibly thick, and she strained to move the molinillo. Just as quickly, the feeling vanished, and the molinillo flew out of her hand, splattering chocolate all over the wall.

As Clara reached for a cloth to clean the up mess, she could not shake the feeling that something important had just transpired.

A noise in the restaurant interrupted her thoughts. “Hello?” she called out. “Papi?”

She listened closely, but all she could hear was the bubbling mix on the stove. “Is anyone there?” Clara stepped through the beads that separated the kitchen from the dining room.

Six square tables were draped in plastic tablecloths, with salsas for centerpieces. An old radio tucked be hind the counter burst into a lively canción norteña. Clara jumped.

“Sorry, mi hija,” her father said, appearing behind the counter. “I didn’t mean to startle you. This old box was giving me a hard time.” He walked over to an even older TV bolted to a shelf in the corner. The black-and white image on the screen showed her father’s favorite luchador, El Apache, locked in the grip of another beefy wrestler.

Clara’s father picked up a broom. Stealing glances at the match, he danced from table to table with the broom in his hand. When he swept past Clara, he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into his dance.

“¡Buenos días!” he sang, his voice deep, steady, and rich.

“Good morning,” Clara replied.

“Everything okay?”

“I think so.” As her father spun her around, Clara took in the restaurant her parents had opened when she was no more than year old. It was here that she had learned to eat and speak and walk and dance. It was here that she had learned play dominoes and viuda negra, the card game favored all the local widows. It was in this very spot that she had experienced her first artistic inspiration after seeing the distorted reflection of a cicada that had flown into drinking glass.

The walls were painted with colorful scenes, vibrant now as they had been ten years ago. On the wall behind the counter, cool blue waves shimmered, tipped with glimmers of gold sun. A fishing boat bobbed the distance, the men’s heads bent toward each other in never-ending conversation. Beyond them, island La de las Ranas, named for all the frogs meticulously drawn on the beach.

Another wall looked like a seafood stand at the market: there was a purple octopus tentacle and rubbery squid, pink and mounds white scallops. On the opposite wall, fruit stand boasted towers orange papayas, spiky pineapples, prickly pears, and magueys. There were melons, and bright green kiwis. Customers the artwork alone made their mouths water.

Her father grunted and stopped mid-dance. “Papi? Are you okay?” He pulled out a chair and sat down, groaning. “My back,” he said. “It’s as rickety as that old radio.” He winked at Clara. “I just need a moment to rest.”

“Here, let me finish for you.” Clara took the broom from him and began sweeping. She hadn’t gotten far when her father said, “What’s that smell?”

Clara gasped, dropped the broom, and raced back through the beads into the kitchen. The chocolate mix was violently sputtering all over the stove. Curls of black smoke filled the kitchen. She grabbed the molinillo and stirred, but she could already tell the mixture was ruined, the liquid clotted and sticking to the bot tom of the pan.

“Ugh!” She lifted the heavy pitcher off the burner. “What happened?” her father called from the dining room.

“I burned the hot chocolate,” Clara called back. “Again.” She sighed.

“Do you need help?”

“No, Papi. But thanks.”

Clara dumped the ruined chocolate and wiped her hands on a towel. She reached for a small metal tin resting on a shelf next to the stove and pulled out a faded yellow piece of paper. The edges were ragged, and a triangle was missing at the top where it had been folded and the crease had eventually become a tear. This was the famous hot chocolate recipe, written in Abuelita Esperanza’s impeccable penmanship.

Clara read each step twice before meticulously following the instructions, word for word. By the time Juana returned, a new pot of chocolate was bubbling on the stove. It wasn’t even a good approximation of the chocolate her mother made, but Clara knew her mom would easily remedy that.

“It just needs a bit of salt,” Juana said, tasting the new batch and adding some salt. “And perhaps a bit more…” This and that were added, then a pinch of something else.

“See?” Juana concluded. “You did a great job.” The result of Juana’s magic touch was a decadent pot of rich and creamy goodness.

Later that afternoon at the family picnic, Juana would tell everyone that Clara had made the hot chocolate. They all complimented her, and when she tried to explain that it was her mother behind the magic, they refused to believe her.

Clara knew they were being kind-that was what family did but it still made her feel good. And it was this very feeling of ease and self-assurance that ultimately prompted her to agree to a seemingly small request, with unexpected consequences.

Clara’s cousins had long been searching for the entrance to the Gruta de Oro. They knew that the Golden Grotto, with its solid gold stalagmites and stalactites, was just a myth. But they were no strangers to mysteries-come-true, and so, after the lively picnic lunch, they set off in search of gold.

The cousins took turns listening for whispers in the trees.

“There!”

“No, that way!”

“It’s my turn to lead!”

Through fields of tall grass dotted with flowers and over clear streams speckled with stones, they followed their instincts to a cavern hidden behind a dense curtain of vines and shrubbery.

Behind the vines, and inside the grotto, enormous pillars of wet sediment rose from the ground to a ceiling out of sight. A trick of light tinged them gold. Not exactly the Gruta de Oro, but close enough.

Massive stalactites clung to the ceiling. Drips of water traveled down the solidified cones of mineral, gathering at an impossibly sharp point before plunging to meet the equally sharp stalagmites below.

Over the years the droplets had created ghoulish formations, like monsters slowly melting. Their cries of agony seemed to echo through the cavern as the wind raced to find the exit.

“Whoa!” whispered Esteban, Clara’s youngest cousin. “It is real….” “Come on-let’s check it out,” said his oldest brother, Manolo.

“I’m not so sure about this.” Clara gripped Esteban’s hand tightly.

“But think of all the gold!” Esteban said.

“It looks pretty slippery,” she replied. “And besides, I don’t think it’s really gold.”

“We’ll be careful.” Esteban urged her on. “Come on. You promised you would go with me.” The yawning darkness dripped with cold: an accident just waiting to happen.

“Pleeeaaase,” Esteban said. “I know you’re nervous. But you can do it.” Clara frowned. “Of course I can do it. I’m just worried about… about you.”

Esteban grinned. “Don’t worry about me! As long as together, we’ll be fine.”

“Are you coming?” Manolo called out. “Riches await!”

The older boys began moving into the cave. Esteban waited for Clara, foot poised the entrance.

Clara sighed. “Fine.” She adjusted bag slung across her chest. “But we need to be really careful.”

“We will.” Esteban nodded very solemnly. The ground was slick and uneven, with murky pools of water every few steps. Esteban’s brothers, Manolo, Victor, Ricardo, and Antonio, moved deftly through the towers of calcified stone, chattering excitedly.

“Do you think we should take piece home?” Victor asked. His hand was wrapped around stalagmite, glimmering gold in slanting beam of sun had managed to cut through the vines over the entrance. “A bit of gold would go a long way.”

Clara’s family lived meagerly, but they made ends meet with their small restaurant. For Esteban’s family, on the other hand, getting by was a daily struggle. Their father had died a few years earlier, leaving Esteban’s mother a poor widow with five boys, now aged fourteen, thirteen, eleven, ten, and eight.

“No!” Manolo called out. “You’ll curse us. Remember what the legend says!”

“The legend’s not true,” Victor replied. “And anyway, this isn’t real gold.” Still, he moved his hand away.

“Maybe there’s other treasure,” Esteban said. “Real treasure.”

“Clever little brother!”

The next sound Clara heard was a rapid clicking from Ricardo as the boys walked deeper into the cave.

Echolocation is not a skill that most children have, but Esteban and each of his brothers had been born with unique talents. Indeed, all of Clara’s family had what she called “hueli”: abilities that, while not earth shattering, were definitely remarkable and gave each of them a certain special quality that Clara felt she sorely lacked.

Manolo excelled at woodworking, and had inherited their father’s carpentry business. Victor was a master of prestidigitation, or sleight of hand. He was often hired as a magician for children’s parties, and no matter how closely people watched, they could never quite figure out his tricks.

Ricardo was an echolocator, and Antonio was a brilliant student-a genius, some said. Esteban’s talent was a frighteningly accurate gut instinct that bordered on fortune-telling. Their mother, Chita, was a healer, and people traveled great distances to consult with her.

Even Clara’s father and mother were gifted: one as a musician, the other as a cook.

But the gifts stopped there.

For some reason Clara could never understand, she did not possess a single talent. She was extraordinarily ordinary. In fact, she could not carry a tune, or make a meal to save her life. She had tried gardening but killed everything she planted. She had attempted to care for a stray cat, but the cat left less than a day later. She couldn’t even play a decent game of soccer. If anything, she had an uncanny ability to make mistakes.

“Listen!” Ricardo said.

The children stopped in their tracks. Wind whistled past towers of stone, carrying with it a hundred echoing drips. And something else.

No me olvides, amor….Clara could vaguely pick out the words.

Nunca estoy lejos de ti. Tu vida ha sido un dulzor,

Un regalo para mí.

Do not forget me, my love.

I am never far from you.

Your life has been a sweetness,

A gift for me.

“Where is that coming from?” one of the boys asked. “It sounds like it’s coming from there!” Manolo pointed toward the darkness of the cavern looming ahead.

“But that’s Mami’s voice,” Esteban said, and he was right. It was his mother’s voice-a strange acoustic effect of the particular structure of the cave accompanied by the faint notes of a guitar. The singing faded, swallowed up by the darkness. But let us not forget their singing, for it will yet play a role in this story.

The older boys laughed and resumed their exploration, their voices echoing wildly in the vast space.

“They’re leaving,” Esteban said. “Wait up!” Clara called out, but the brothers ignored her. Clara tightened her grip on Esteban’s hand, and they stepped from stone to stone. It was slow progress, and soon the older boys were far ahead and out of sight.

“Where did they go?” Esteban asked.

“I don’t know,” Clara replied, peering into the wet darkness.

Esteban groaned. “They always leave me behind!” He turned to Clara. “What should we do?”

Ricardo’s clicks and snippets of the boys’ conversation ricocheted off the walls. But she couldn’t tell where the sounds were actually coming from.

Her heart sped up as she recognized the familiar pangs of an impossible choice. If she gave in to her fear, she would surely fail Esteban. But if they forged on ward into the dark cavern, she was bound to make a mistake and fail them both.

It was an inescapable trap. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t think we should go on.”

“Okay,” Esteban sighed. He dragged his feet be hind Clara as they made their way back to the cave entrance.

They found a stone cushioned by moss and warmed by the sun, a seat just big enough for the two of them to sit on while they waited for the older boys to return. Disappointment pulsed off Esteban’s body.

To kill time, they watched butterflies catching sun light on their wings; they swapped stories about silly neighbors; they made bracelets out of tall grass. When they had run out of riddles, Clara opened her bag.

Once upon a time it had been a birthday gift from her parents, containing a new sketchbook, a set of pencils, a sharpener, and an excellent eraser. Now it held the nubs of pencils, a dulled sharpener, and the worn remainder of a once excellent eraser, along with a few blank pages in her sketchbook. “Do you want me to draw something?” she asked.

“Yes!”

“Okay, what should I draw?”

“A dragon!”

“You always want dragons.” Clara laughed, but she was already taking out her sketchbook.

“With two heads,” Esteban added.

“Got it.” Clara drew a rough outline. She had to erase it three times before it resembled anything close to a dragon. By then, Esteban had also requested wings. “One with scales and the other with feathers. And a black tongue and a forked tale and claws like a falcon’s!”

“How’s this?” She held up the sketch. Esteban studied it closely. As he always did, he pointed out small details Clara had added to the drawing: the letter E on one of the scales, a C on one of the feathers, a ring around one of the dragon’s toes. “It’s great! Thank you.’

Clara ripped out the page and handed it to him.

“Hey!” Ricardo called from inside the cave. “Come here check this out!”

Clara tucked her sketchbook and pencils in her bag. “Look what we found.”

The boys stood just inside the entrance, and at their feet were a dozen small, delicate ceramic bowls. Some were cracked and missing pieces; others were covered in faint patches of red paint. They all had intricate caryings of swirls and circles, spirals and dots.

“They’re beautiful!” Clara said.

Esteban set down his drawing and picked up one of the bowls.

At that very moment a gust of wild wind brushed past Esteban. For many days this wind had traveled, starting at the peak of a snowcapped volcano and gradually gathering heat as it descended. Unaccustomed to the high temperature, the wind sought refuge in the cool dampness of the cave. As it blew past Esteban, it swept the drawing of the dragon along with it.

Caught up in the excitement of discovery, none of the children noticed.

The drawing traveled into the deepest depths of the cave, through a vast network of underground tunnels, finally coming to rest among a distant mass of tangled roots. Those roots, thousands of years old and voracious in their hunger, eagerly devoured the paper and the dragon upon it-an act with devastating consequences for Clara and Esteban.