The Witch's Market (6 page)

My attention went back to the old man's creation as my finger caressed the baby's tiny head as it seemed to emerge from his mother. Like the one in the museum, would he succeed in pushing through the gate back to life? Or would his head be forever stuck in between? What was the old man trying to express?

“Shhh . . . little one,” I said, kissing the to-be-born's bald head, “everything will be all right, just be patient. Your mommy loves you and will protect you from all evils.”

I sighed, then picked up the next figurine, that of the fish within fish within fish. Life within life, or if you looked at it from the opposite side, death within death. For each fish was being devoured by a larger one.

I gently put down the fish and picked up the snake-headed goddess. The nine snake heads were all different from each other, some with open mouths and forked tongues sticking out, others with sharp fangs exposed, as if ready to strike. One with eyes closed as if meditating—or more likely just hibernating. I wondered if each was symbolizing a different aspect of life.

Finally, I picked up the peeing toddler. In comparison to the other statutes, this one seemed relatively banal. However, when I looked more carefully, I noticed that a small bird was perching on the boy's head, watching the other little birdie pee.

Appreciating the sculptures made me think of a birthmark that I had. The shape of it was something like a baby in the fetal position, and it was near my own intimate part. My mother had told me that it was the trace of a she-ghost's jealousy of my birth. During Mother's pregnancy, the ghost kept kicking her womb, hoping that I'd end up stillborn. Fortunately, I was saved by Laolao, who concocted a special demon-quelling herb soup to soothe her daughter's pregnancy. And so I came into this world.

I once asked Mother if she knew whose ghost it was and why she was so jealous of me.

Her answer was, “She was an ancestor who had only boys, but all were as hideous as Zhong Kui, the brilliant scholar who committed suicide because he was so ugly. She desperately wanted a beautiful girl. By killing you she could take possession of your body.”

Even when I was young, I knew this was total nonsense, especially because everyone knows ghosts envy boys, not girls. So I asked Mother, “Don't all Chinese want boys?”

“Yes and no. Remember the famous Concubine Yang? She became the emperor's favorite woman and brought endless glory to her family.”

“If this relative was dead, how would I become her daughter?” I challenged Mother again.

“Because then she could reincarnate!”

It was because of such silly superstitions that I did not want to continue my family's shamanistic lineage, despite Laolao's wishes. Looking at the half-born stone baby reminded me again of my “baby”—the birthmark right next to my vagina. Ivan loved it. He liked to kiss it before we made love, sighing. Once he said, “Ah . . . so sexy. Eileen, you may not be a witch, but you are definitely a born seductress.”

“How's that?”

“Because you're born to draw attention to here. . . .” He kissed my birthmark again, then moved farther down. “It shows you are very fertile.”

“What does my birthmark have to do with fertility?” I was moaning and asking at the same time.

“Don't you see that it's a baby?”

Back in the present, I just stared at the stone baby in my hands, at the moment happy with art rather than life. I wondered how I had happened to encounter the old man—had Lonely Star intentionally led me to him?

Wondering, I fell into a deep sleep.

PART THREE

7

The Witches' Market

T
he following morning I woke up feeling confused and disoriented. Already during my short time in the islands, I'd had distinctly odd experiences: the carnival, the mysterious brothers, the nude, dancing witches, Alfredo and his Heartbreak Castle, the crazy old sculptor. What else would I run into? The more, the better as it was all material I could use to write my academic book, and maybe even have enough left over for a novel.

As I pondered recent events, I suddenly realized that today was the first Saturday of the month—reminding me that it was the day of the Witches' Market, what I had traveled so far to see. I gulped down coffee while Maria explained how to find the bus stop.

I walked for about two miles until I finally saw the rusted sign. I waited restlessly for about twenty minutes, until finally the bus pulled up. I climbed aboard and was on my way to another adventure.

I looked around at my fellow passengers as the antique vehicle rattled along the pothole-filled road. Most looked like farm families, their faces leathery from the years spent under the bright sun, dressed in worn, baggy clothes. There were a few hippie world travelers, one sneaking a joint that he hid in between tokes. Animals made up a significant portion of the passengers: chickens, no doubt about to provide a family meal, a few bedraggled dogs, and one cat, bits of its ear missing from previous fights and pink skin showing where his fur had fallen out. Although I was somewhat entertained by the contrast with the buses I rode in San Francisco, I was relieved when I finally arrived at the marketplace.

 

The Witches' Market was adjacent to the main public market area but somewhat hidden behind the back of a huge building, so that people were unlikely to find it unless they knew where to look. Although I had a general idea of where it was, I wandered around for a while before I found it.

The first thing that struck me was that all the vendors, and nearly all of the customers as well, were women. Though many fit the stereotype of wrinkled old crones, some were young and pretty. A few even had a young child in tow. Women vendors were mostly dressed in what seemed to be the regional costume of long skirts, tasseled shawls under wide-brimmed hats, and short boots or sandals.

Offered for sale were vials of colorful medicine and herbs, packets of seeds for medicinal or magical plants, pendulums and other paraphernalia for divination, amulets, paper charms for good luck—and probably also for curses.

A few people cast me curious glances, but none expressed hostility toward the exotic stranger intruding upon their territory. I wondered if there was something about me that other witches, like Cecily, could sense. Though I looked different from them on the outside, we were comrades.

Besides witches' supplies, more ordinary items were on display: fruit, vegetables, cans of soda, batteries, as well as beads, plastic jewelry, bolts of hand-dyed fabric and piles of ready-made dresses, animal skins, small carpets, even ordinary household items like pots, thermoses, mirrors, toys, and plastic flowers. It was an odd assortment of traditional handicrafts and prosaic, manufactured items.

Though most of the crowd was obviously local, besides myself there were a few other tourists. They stood out in their shorts and sandals with large cameras hanging over their T-shirts. The tourists particularly attracted the attention of beggars with vacant eyes and blank expressions, squatting behind chipped bowls. Children ran around chasing the tourists with constant giggles and dirty, outstretched hands. At a corner, a bedraggled man of indeterminate age was blowing notes from a flute, sometimes disjointed, sometimes smooth—just like life's journey.

Anxious to obtain documentation for my book, I took out my camera and furiously snapped pictures of everything in sight. After that, I sat down at the corner of a building, took out my notebook, and wrote down my impressions.

When I looked up I noticed that children were crowding around one particular stall. Somehow this seemed to be pointed toward my possible destiny, so I stood up and headed over to the stall. A woman dressed all in black was laying out brightly colored tarot cards on a black velvet cloth. She was obviously a witch, or pretending to be one. Seemingly in her forties, she had a cunning look with a high nose and equally high cheekbones.

Her table was more decorated than most of the others, with a bowl of fresh roses as well as a scattering of crystals of varied size, shape, and color. As if to match her decorations, her face was heavily made up. She noticed me right away, perhaps because I seemed to be the only Asian person in the market. Her half-gloved and many-ringed hand shooed the children away, then signaled me to sit across from her. As if under a spell, I obeyed.

Since everything that had happened recently was entirely unlike anything I'd previously experienced, I thought it would be a good idea to have my life mapped out. As I looked at the cards laid out on her table with their strange figures, they suddenly seemed to have a story to tell me, something about my life that had been hidden from me up until now.

The woman stared into my eyes intensely. “Señorita, the cards are waiting for your question.”

I felt stupid. Supposedly a shamaness myself, shouldn't I be able to foresee my own future? Or was I like a doctor who could diagnose others' maladies but not her own?

“Do you want to know about love, money, relationship with Mother Earth, the stars?” the woman asked.

“How about all of the above?”

“Pretty greedy I would say, to ask the cards for so much,” she muttered as her gloved hands continued to rearrange the cards.

“All right, then, what about my immediate future—what will happen to me here as a Chinese stranger in this land?”

“Chinese?”

“Yes, but I'm from America.”

“Then maybe you should go meet the owner of that restaurant over there.”

She pointed to a small eatery at the end of the market. “He's old and lonely and doesn't have any friends left. There aren't many Chinese here.” She sighed. “A person is cursed to have a short life, and equally cursed to have an extra-long one, isn't that so?”

She paused to scrutinize me before speaking again. “From your face, I can't tell if you'll live a long life, but I can tell that your life will not be an ordinary one.”

“In what way?”

“You really live only half in this world—and half in another one.”

I felt a jolt of alarm. “What do you mean?”

“Your destiny is not an ordinary one, unlike your American boyfriend's. You find yourself in remote places. Be prepared to deal with very strange people. All you can do is go with the flow and embrace your fate. Your life will not be easy, but it will be satisfying.”

“That doesn't sound too bad.”

She looked down at her cards and remained silent for a while. Then she looked back up at me. “Go to see that Chinese man. Because he is old he is a man of knowledge. He can see things that are hidden from me. After all, you share the same ancestors.” She tilted her head and laughed. “Maybe even from five thousand years ago!”

“I'll go there after we finish. In the meantime, can you tell me more?”

“All right, I can look at your near future.” She gathered up her cards, shuffled them, and spread them out again.

In the past, I'd never paid much attention to tarot cards. Now, as I looked at the spread she had created for me, I sensed that they had many stories to tell, all mysterious, some scary. Even the cards' soft swish as she dropped them onto the table seemed to be an invitation into a world as yet unknown to me.

She studied the cards with a serious expression. “Hmmm . . . complicated.”

“How?”

“Your inquiry was not clear and so the cards are not clear.” She pointed to a card depicting a man hanging upside down. “Ha, the hanged man. Your life is in suspension. You've been feeling that you're in the middle of nowhere, right?”

I nodded, trying to digest her words.

“Oh! Here's the Ace of Pentacles! You want wealth to come to you from the sky! You must be here to seek the legendary golden apple.”

I realized she was referring to the Greek myth that five goddesses dwelled on the island. One guards a golden apple, but the other four lure passing ships and their sailors to their destruction. I'd come here to find witches but wouldn't mind a golden apple as a bonus—but maybe she was warning me not to be lured to my own destruction.

Obviously there were no golden apples. It must be a symbol, but of what? A fortune from Heaven? A loving man? An important discovery? Tenure?

The witch's sibilant voice rose to my ear. “You have two sisters—”

“No, only one.”

“No, two, but unfortunately one died.” She looked serious. “She might not be a birth sister, but a spirit sister.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but her firm, no-nonsense tone made me wonder if I really did have a second sister somewhere in this world or another.

“All right, if you say so. But what about me
now?
”

She looked back at the cards, holding one up to me. “This is the High Priestess. See, the goddess is draped with many layers of white silk.”

I nodded.

“Isis is the goddess who knows all that is hidden. See the sun and moon on her head and the veils behind her? If we could lift them, we would know all, even the secrets of death.”

“What if there's nothing behind the veil?” I thought out loud.

“Maybe you are here to find out.”

I sighed inside. Suddenly I wasn't sure what I knew—or didn't know.

She pointed to the bird perching beside the goddess on the card. “See the owl?”

I nodded.

“Your vibration led me to pick the High Priestess. Only my card has the owl with her. This shows that she is a witch, like us. She comes because you are her kindred spirit.”

The day was growing hotter and I was beginning to feel a little dizzy, a little unsteady on my stool.

“You have been brought here to discover yourself and your spirit sister. And these will reveal your future. They always do.”

Though feeling almost faint, I tried to act cool. “I came here to gather material about witches for a book.”

She laughed. “Of course you have. And this is the right place! We're all witches here, like you. You can even write yourself into your book.”

I needed to change the subject to something more normal. “I came to the market to look for Cecily. Do you know where she is?”

“Cecily? I think I know who she is. But she doesn't come often; she mostly makes her stuff at home and other witches sell it for her. Anyway, they are not here today.”

“You know where she lives?”

“No, they keep to themselves. Selfish and secretive. We don't like her and her friends. We don't want to deal with them.”

“How's that?”

“They think they're better than us.”

It was clear she would say no more about it, so I decided to take my leave. She then demanded a much larger payment than I'd expected. Her pretext was that I would make lots of money from my book, so the extra payment was her share of the royalties in advance.

It must be witch's logic—the logic of no logic. But I paid what she'd asked rather than face an unpleasant scene.

She smiled as she took my money. “Don't forget to see the old Chinese man.”

 

After I left the tarot card reader's stall, instead of further exploring the Witches' Market I decided I would follow her suggestion and meet the old man. I found his restaurant easily, as it was a straight eight-block walk from the marketplace.

Despite its grand name of Oriental Garden, it was a dingy little place with plastic tables, chairs, and handwritten menus taped on the soiled white walls. I sat down at one of the empty tables and looked around. The only other customers were an elderly couple and two middle-aged women whose long, flowing skirts suggested that they were witches taking a break from selling at the market. The old couple cast me a nonchalant glance, then went back to suck up their greasy noodles. The witches were gesturing wildly, too engaged in their own conversation to pay me any attention.

I didn't see the old man. Instead, a young Chinese waitress materialized in front of me. Holding a small notebook and a pen, she gave me a curious once-over, probably surprised to have a Chinese patron. I was more curious than hungry, so I ordered only a pot of jasmine tea and a plate of shrimp dumplings.

When the food came, I asked the waitress in Cantonese, “Is the owner of the restaurant here today?”

“You mean Uncle Wang? He's retired and moved to Grand Canary Island.”

“Oh . . . not here?”

“He's ninety-three! His friends here are either gone or in nursing homes.”

“No children, grandchildren, even great-grandchildren? No one can take care of him?”

“Uncle Wang never got married, so he decided to spend his last years with a few leftover friends on Grand Canary. He always joked that he needs to be close to the volcanoes to warm his chilled, arthritic bones.” She smiled. “He won't admit it, but we think he hopes to meet aliens from a UFO before he dies—he thinks they have the secret of immortality. That's where they land—Grand Canary. Not this little hick place.”

“And you are his . . .”

“Youngest niece.”

“Since he has you here, why didn't he—”

“We get along okay, but I'm third-generation Chinese, so not as interesting to him as his old friends. Besides, I don't care about volcanoes or UFOs. What I like is fashion, watching TV, and Hello Kitty.” She pointed to her shoes, which were pink and adorned with Hello Kitty faces.