Prose

Brujería

WRITTEN BY MARIA CROOKS

The incident that led to my fleeing Cuba, was so horrific that even today as I enter my 9th decade, I'm unable to comprehend it.

It was the 1940s, I had gone to Cuba to take over the operations of an inefficient ingenio – sugar mill and refinery – on the island. I was thorough, some would say ruthless, but I got the job done and that is why at 31 I had risen steadily through the ranks. My company, The United Fruit Company, had holdings throughout the Caribbean, and Central and South America and if I played my cards right I would one day reach the top.

I laid off a third of the workers and decreased the pay of the rest. The workers - mostly of African lineage, descendants of slaves brought to the Caribbean by Spanish and other European slave traders – hated me, but I was not there to win a popularity contest.

One day, I came home to find white chicken feathers scattered around the exterior of the house and my servants standing around looking terrified. Finally an old white‑haired man, skin black and glistening like tar, stuttered in broken English that it was brujería – a sort of Cuban witchcraft mumbo jumbo that permeated the beliefs of these simpletons. He said someone had put el mal de ojo (the evil eye) on the property and on me. I ordered them to clean it up, but they would not touch it. Supposedly I needed to get a santero to perform a ritual to remove the curse. I told them they would all be fired if they did not clean up the mess immediately, but they would not budge. Thereupon I fired them all and cleaned up the mess myself.

That is how I came to be living alone in that big house. I tried hiring other servants, even offered to pay extra but these superstitious, backward people would not cross my threshold.

The house became messy with dirty dishes and clothes piling up. I began eating at the American club, only going home to sleep. Friends counselled me to hire a santero just to appease the locals, but I refused, I was young and stubborn. Had I been older, and not so inflexible, things may have turned out differently.

One night I came home to find all the doors and windows open, and my belongings strewn all over. A robbery, I thought, but nothing was missing. Another night a rank odour permeated the house, so much so that I had to sleep on the porch. By the next day, the smell was gone. I was certain someone was trying to scare me with these shenanigans. Other things began occurring that made me not want to be in the house: I heard unexplainable noises, I got a burning rash that the doctors couldn't identify. I began staying longer at the club, drinking more and more. One night I came home quite inebriated, threw myself in bed without turning on the light and sprang back up when I felt a body next to me. I snapped on the light, ready to confront whoever it was but there was no one, except an indentation where a body had lain and a foul odour emanating from it.

But worse was to come, about a week after I experienced something so terrifying that even today more than a half century after, I cannot bring myself to put it down on paper. It affects me terribly and my old heart cannot cope with it. I could not explain it then or now. All I will say here is that my fear was so great, that the next morning I packed up my belongings and left that accursed place for ever.