This is the story that Doña Marcelina Trujillo Benidorm told her friend Concepción Martínez when they met in Simons, California.
Marcelina was born into a rich family in Spain. Her highly respected parents dedicated their lives to serving the public and the Church. However, the Trujillo Benidorms never associated with the people who benefitted from their generous financial gifts. They kept company with other aristocratic families; even then, only a few other families were deemed worthy of their attention. The Trujillo Benidorms had four children—three sons and Marcelina, who was conceived by her father and one of the beautiful young servants who dedicated ten years of their lives to total obedience to the family. When Marcelina’s mother was forced to leave the estate at the end of her ten-year term, she begged to take her nine-year-old daughter with her. But Mrs. Trujillo Benidorm denied the request, choosing instead to keep the child herself. She had grown to love Marcelina and, besides, the child was a reminder to her husband of his sins of infidelity. Mrs. Trujillo Benidorm also believed that Marcelina’s mother could never afford to educate her daughter properly.
Both women had always loved Marcelina and both had treated her well, but, when she saw her real mother leaving the estate for the last time, Marcelina was heart-broken. She ran in tears to an upstairs window to catch a last glimpse of the woman who had given birth to her. Marcelina’s mother smiled with joy and pride at the beautiful brown-eyed child framed by the ivy growing around the window. At that moment, Marcelina realized that looking into her mother’s face was like looking into a mirror, that her mother had given birth to an identical twin, had in fact given birth to herself. Marcelina ran to the mirror; she looked exactly like her mother. With a cry, she rushed back to the window. Her mother was gone.
For four years, Mrs. Trujillo Benidorm gave Marcelina everything a child could want. She was well cared for and educated in an excellent school. But she never heard a word about her mother. Then one chilly, damp morning while she strolled the rocky Altean beach, a servant came to her with a crumpled piece of green paper. With the first light of the next morning, Marcelina stepped onto the road to Granada and began a journey that would eventually lead her to Simons, California.
Marcelina found her mother in the caves of the hills overlooking Alhambra. Although she had never heard her mother’s name spoken aloud, on the day she approached the cave where her mother lived with her husband, Marcelina heard a voice call out, “Yerma.” It was the name of Marcelina’s mother/twin. Yerma walked toward her daughter, and Marcelina felt a surge of energy run through her body. Neither of them spoke. As their fingers touched, their minds were joined, and they stood smiling and looking out over the world. The clasp of their hands became a harmony, a song.
Marcelina spent seven happy years with her mother. Yerma bore no other children. Her husband, a hard-working man of the earth, damned the Trujillo Benidorms for his beautiful wife’s infertility, but he accepted Marcelina as his daughter and taught her all that he knew of the earth to which he was born and to which he would one day return. Yerma dedicated her life to the study of cures. She learned from Moslem, Jewish and Christian practitioners. She mastered chants, formulas and procedures which gave her access to natural and supernatural powers. She investigated the positive and negative, good and evil, masculine and feminine forces of the cosmos. This duality she discovered and controlled in herself, and this knowledge she offered to her apprentice daughter/twin, who would one day become a curandera.
Marcelina learned her craft well, and one day Yerma realized she had taught Marcelina all she knew. With infinite sadness, Marcelina and her ageless mother were separated forever on this earth. The young woman made her way south to the Mediterranean port of Cádiz, where she boarded a ship bound for Veracruz on the Gulf Coast of Mexico. Marcelina was only twenty-years-old, but she was fearless and confident. She had her mother’s beauty and an intelligence second to none.
The voyage to Veracruz, was invigorating, as Marcelina concentrated on the forces of the sea. Nourished by the mysteries of the Mediterranean, baptized by the sea, Marcelina knew she would grow even stronger in the New World.
In Veracruz Marcelina was met by a man called “El Gran Echbo,” who introduced her to the magical, marvelous realities of the Caribbean. For several years, she cultivated the energies of this new vision of the world, adding them to her already considerable knowledge of enchantment. Towards the end of her apprenticeship with “El Gran Echbo,” Marcelina met María Sabina, a saintly woman renowned for her curative powers. María Sabina communicated with the negative and positive forces of the cosmos through her knowledge of plants and animals. She spoke the language of the ancient doctors of the land—Nahuatl—which she taught to Marcelina. María Sabina traveled with her powerful pupil to Mexico City, following an ancient secret path known only to a chosen few. As the two women journeyed through thick, hot jungles, majestic mountains and treacherous swamps, Marcelina became aware of the universal duality of Ometecuhtli-Omecihuatl. Her mind roamed through the four suns of the mandala, each passage making her stronger in the movement of the energy time-space concept of Mexican cosmology. But the journey took its toll, and Marcelina fell into a trance-like state.
When she opened her eyes, she was in María Sabina’s shack in Tepito, the poorest section of Mexico City. She heard the sounds of explosions somewhere in the city. María Sabina explained that each day the city grew more dangerous and soon they would have to leave. But they would not be going together. As Marcelina stared into the other woman’s cataract eyes, she saw immense sorrow. María Sabina told her to journey north, and to leave within four days. Then María Sabina was gone.
Marcelina felt a heartbreaking emptiness. For the first time in her life there was no one to guide her. She conjured up images of her lovely mother, and soon she had the strength to prepare for her journey. Marcelina left the city in the early morning of the fourth day, amidst the echoes of rifle fire.
As she proceeded north, the lands of Mexico appeared before her like a violent carnival. The Revolution continued to ravage the soil and the people. While passing through Güiseo de Abasolo, in the State of Guanajuato, she heard talk of a city in California, a fantastic city called Simons, where Mexicans lived and worked in happiness and contentment. Marcelina felt a growing conviction that she would end her journey in that city. For four months she traveled with the armies that moved ever northward, paying her way by treating the sick and wounded. The torn and bloodied bodies of the people she tended showed her the absurdity of the violent forces prevailing in the land, and she used her own powerful resources to steal many souls from death.
In tattered and bloodstained clothes, Marcelina finally penetrated the border at Ciudad Juarez/El Paso. Never losing sight of her goal, she traveled by train for three months across the vast southwest territory. When the train stopped in Simons, California, Marcelina Trujillo Benidorm stepped off, never to leave again.
* * *
Concepción Martínez and her eldest son, Delfino, walked along Vail Street towards Doña Marcelina’s home. As they walked, Concepción reflected on her friendship with Marcelina, and on how their lives had intertwined since they had met in Simons years ago. Her awe of Marcelina’s knowledge of the natural and supernatural had somehow never interfered with their friendship. But today was different. Today Concepción was taking her first-born to Marcelina, to the curandera, for treatment.
Delfino did not know if he was angry or relieved that he was finally going to see Doña Marcelina Trujillo Benidorm. She was truly his last hope. Ever since the fire consumed his home, and the terrible shock of believing it had consumed his family as well, something was wrong. All the doctors said he was well. The psychiatrist ascribed his condition to the deep shock of thinking his family was dead, but he too said there was nothing physically wrong with him. Why then was he steadily and relentlessly losing weight? He was becoming weak and delirious, even though he ate enough to satisfy two men. He was frightened by the unknown force inside him. At that moment, though, he wasn’t sure which frightened him more. Doña Marcelina had always been a mystery to the townspeople, someone the children stayed away from. The fact that she was also his mother’s friend did not lessen Delfino’s anxiety about seeking her help.
Mother and son moved silently down Vail Street. They passed men on their way to work. On that street few women were out so early in the morning, so Concepción attracted immediate and polite attention. The men greeted the pair somberly, then moved along to their jobs. As Concepción and Delfino passed the church and came into sight of Marcelina’s home across from the American Foundry, their steps slowed and stopped. A breeze came up and played in Concepción’s black hair. Behind her, Delfino stared at Marcelina Trujillo Benidorm’s house. He felt as if he were about to step into a photograph.
Doña Marcelina greeted them briefly. They all knew why they were there. Delfino looked at her and in an unsettling moment saw both an old woman and a beautiful young girl. The moment passed, and Doña Marcelina ushered them into an immaculate white room, empty of furniture but full of brightness. The room was large, the ceiling higher than they had expected. Evenly spaced on three of the walls were images of the Passion of Christ. In the center of the fourth wall was a door to another, smaller room. As Doña Marcelina guided Delfino through the door into the smaller room, Concepción bid her son farewell.
Delfino looked around. On the wall in front of him was a painting of a man sitting in a wheelbarrow with a woman sitting on a block in front of him. Both seemed to be praying. The painting was dark; storm clouds dominated the distant horizon. Sitting on the floor under the painting was a wheelbarrow, and in front of that was a black block. In the corner of the room was a standing cross.
Doña Marcelina asked Delfino to sit in the wheelbarrow. As he obeyed, he saw his mother watching them from the doorway. Her face was carefully devoid of emotion. Then his view was obscured by a quilted, multi-colored jacket and a black skirt as Doña Marcelina sat on the black block in front of him. With her hands lying quietly in her lap, she smiled at him reassuringly and began a litany of prayers and incantations, all the while preparing several potions. Occasionally, she made the sign of the cross before preparing yet another potion.
From the doorway, Concepción watched the curandera work. She noted with fascination as Doña Marcelina began her struggle to gain control of and dominate the spirit which thrived on Delfino’s body and soul. As the battle evolved, Delfino took on Doña Marcelina’s physical characteristics. A transformation occurred. In this way Doña Marcelina was able to explore his body and locate her enemy. Concepción stared as her son became her friend. After some time, a large grotesque form appeared on the lower back of the curandera. The shape grew distinctly into an octopus with powerful tentacles wrapped around Doña Marcelina’s waist. The susto was alive, pulsating, furious at being torn from its lair. Now it clung to her. But Doña Marcelina knew how to destroy evil, and before long it disappeared. Gradually, Delfino reappeared in his own body. He was no longer tired, and his spirit felt light and free again. He realized with surprise that hours had passed since he had entered the room, but he recalled nothing of what had happened since Doña Marcelina had begun her prayers. Looking down, Delfino was startled to find he was wearing Doña Marcelina’s quilted jacket. Smiling at his mother, he took off the jacket and placed it in the wheelbarrow. He never asked how he had come to be wearing it. Some time later, Doña Marcelina gave Concepción nine small pouches and instructed her to give Delfino potions for nine more days. Doña Marcelina was again herself as she walked Concepción into the large white room.
Delfino waited in the center of the room while his mother and the curandera conversed quietly. He looked through the doorway into the room where he had been cured. As he studied the painting on the wall, he saw to his astonishment that the composition had changed. The man had disappeared. Everything else remained the same. When he turned around to tell Concepción of his discovery, he found himself in front of his home waiting for his mother to open the door.