Madrid, 1990
The machinery of the saltwater tanks kept breaking. His secretary insisted
it was a spirit. After he lost a whole shipment of lobsters, as a last resort,
he agreed to hire the santero, who was at least cheaper than the
mechanic. At the first consultation, the old man asked funny things of him,
to pass a coconut around his body as he showered, for example, which would
cleanse it spiritually. And he had to drive far out of town to purchase
a live dove from another Cuban, an old lady. The dove was unnerved, fluttering
crazily as it was passed over the auras of everyone present, its feet bound by the
santero’s brown hands. Except when it was near the fast-breathing little body
of the secretary’s young child, then it became still. After two hours in the warehouse,
the santero emerged sweating, and the dove was dead. It had to be thrown in a river,
he said, which took some doing. Spirit or not, the machines didn’t break down anymore,
that was what was important. The lobster business went under months later,
when a new competitor became aggressive, hired thugs to wreck one of the shipments,
stole most of his customers in a single week, with cut-throat prices.