Part 24 (2/2)
”Like us. Because, and I've never told anyone this before, but my husband, his grandfather came to me as a ghost, just as you've described with Demetrio, and it was he who helped me to meet my husband in the first place.”
”Are you serious?”
”Dead,” she said. ”It happens.”
”I'm surprised you haven't been disbarred,” I told her.
Dr. Bergant laughed. ”I would probably be expelled from the profession if anyone knew I believed this stuff. That's why we are keeping everything said in this room in this room, right?”
Dr. Bergant's speech was interrupted now by a knock on the door. It was four o'clock. Dr. Bergant opened the door to my room and we found Debbie standing outside next to Yazzie.
”There's a visitor here for Miss Ochoa,” she said.
”h.e.l.lo,” said Dr. Bergant to my art history teacher, reaching out to shake her hand. Yazzie shook, but there was a curious look upon her face as she did.
”I think we lost track of time,” said Dr. Bergant. To me, she said ”We'll pick up where we left off, tomorrow.”
”Okay,” I said.
”Now, I'll leave you two to visit,” she said. ”Enjoy the rest of your evening. Oh, and Debbie, can you give Maria a couple more tranquilizers?”
”I don't need them,” I insisted. I'd thrown the ones from the day before down the toilet, and flushed it.
”Just in case,” said Dr. Bergant.
Yazzie came in, and closed the door behind her. After hugging me, greeting me, and giving me a wrapped gift that felt like a small-framed painting, she got right to the point.
”I don't like this place for you,” she said, pacing up and down the floor of my suite. ”And I don't like your doctor.”
”The place sucks, but Dr. Bergant is really nice,” I said.
”You have a tail, Maria,” she said, stopping to stare at the third viga from the outside wall.
”What?”
”A bad thing happened here, in this spot,” she said, pointing to the viga.
”A painter hanged herself there.”
Yazzie looked devastated. ”Yes,” she said, sorrowfully. ”That's it. That's right. I feel that. Oh, that poor, miserable woman.”
”It's amazing you picked up on that,” I told her.
”I pay attention,” she said. ”As should you. You have a tail.”
”I'm sorry?”
”A tail. That's what the Pueblo people say to someone who refuses to see the truth. They have a tail but they don't see it.”
”Nice. I hope it doesn't make me look fat.”
Yazzie cracked a grin and took a tentative seat at the edge of the floral sofa. ”Do you remember the story from Isleta, of the two boys whose parents told them never to go South to hunt?” she asked.
”No.”
”I gave it to you to read, some time ago.”
”Sorry. I don't remember it.”
”Here's the short version. The parents tell the boys not to go south to hunt, and do you know why?”
”Nope.”
”Because there is a woman to the south who eats children.”
”Ah. Good thing this hospital is North, then.”
”North of some things, perhaps. But south of others.” She watched me for a long time, as though waiting for me to understand something that, honestly, eluded me.
”Okay, I get it. Fine. You think Dr. Bergant wants to eat me.”
Yazzie continued to stare disconcertingly at me. ”These things are not meant to be taken literally, Maria.”
”Fine. I'm glad no one will eat me, then.”
”Do you know what happened when those brothers went south to hunt, disobeying their parents warnings?”
”Let me guess. They got eaten by an old woman.”
”No. She tried to eat them. She sealed them in an oven each night, when it was very hot, and every morning she and her husband, who was also a witch, came out, drooling with hunger and antic.i.p.ation, only to find that the boys were inside, unhurt, and the oven was cold.”
”Ah, good.”
”They were able to do this, these boys, because they had learned much from their elders; they'd paid attention and they were clever. More clever than the witch.”
”I see.”
”If you had read the story, you would know that in the end, the boys outsmarted the witch again and again, by playing her game and letting her think she had gotten the better of them. In the end, they play hide and seek near a lake, and the old woman thinks she knows where the boys are, only they've hidden beneath the bright hot whiteness of the sun, and she cannot see them there. The boys know where each other are because they sing the hide and seek song, which goes like this.”
In typically Yazzie fas.h.i.+on, she stopped and sang for a while. Like so many of the Pueblo songs, it sounded liked random syllables, half-chanted to an odd meter I could never quite figure out. I enjoyed having the company, but found her behavior extremely weird, even given all I'd gone through to that point.
”The boys eventually come out, and the witch woman goes to hide in the bottom of the lake. When she emerges, the boys remind her of the agreement she has made to them, and they shoot her with their bows and arrows, and the old man, too.”
”Yazzie, I know you mean well, but these stories, they don't make sense to me.”
”That's because you aren't listening.”
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