Niurka’s chaotic entrance with the supermarket shopping bags called him back to the present. He got up to help her, but she wouldn’t let him, gesturing in the way he had seen his grandmother do before. Like help from others was an insult. He followed her to the kitchen and watched her put everything away as she shared the details of an amusing little drama at work with him. He took out the bag of weed Charlie had given him and showed it to his aunt, winking. She responded by passing him a book of cigarette papers that was lying on top of the refrigerator.

Argenis crumbled the contents of the packet on top of an old National Geographic magazine. A sunken treasure at some Caribbean port was on the cover. The underwater photo brought stories of pirates and dark curses to mind. After having thrown some spaghetti into boiling water, Niurka turned up the volume on the radio she had in the kitchen and “La Cima del Cielo” by Ricardo Montaner came on. His aunt was capable of enjoying Björk and Alvaro Torres back to back. If only I had such a capacity for joy, thought Argenis, laying the weed on the little paper path, rolling it with a single movement into a joint which he then sealed with the glue of a damp lick. They put it under a lamp to dry and sat down to eat in silence. Niurka ate slowly, as if it took great effort to select the combination of elements the fork would bring to her mouth, and from the corner of his eye Argenis looked at the San Miguel costume that hung from the shelf.

“It’s your grandmother’s,” she said when she had finally finished her food, then added, “I suppose you’ll inherit it,” as they went up the stairs to the rooftop to light the joint.

“What do you mean, inherit?” asked Argenis.

“Mijo, misery inherits misery,” she responded even more cryptically. Argenis took a deep drag and held his breath. When Niurka began to speak again he let the air and the smoke out slowly.

“Your grandmother serves the mysteries. She’s San Miguel’s horse. In our family, the youngest child inherits this condition. It was my turn, but I went off to Spain. I’d had enough already, what with being black, Dominican, and the daughter of a maid. Besides which I was also supposed to be a witch! The stuff of backward people. When I was little, Mami made me ring a bell to call the saint. Her eyes would roll back in her head and she’d speak with a different voice. It scared me.”

Niurka told him these things in a tone somewhere between annoyed and comical. The street lights did not illuminate her face, but they made her African profile stand out. The glow at the tip of the joint lit up her features and for a second Argenis saw a bruja, the sorceress his aunt had never ceased to be. She had used the word “condition” to name that thing. It was obvious she thought Consuelo was a crackpot. Either that, or calling her crazy was her way of freeing herself from the spell. Argenis told Niurka that one day the old woman had fainted when they were visiting her at Emilio and Renata’s house. It was in the days after the PLD’s first triumph and his father was dressed very elegantly, showing the first hint of the sparkle that power would bring out of him. José Alfredo held her head and called out, “Mamá, Mamá.” Renata brought her Bay Rum, the only time Argenis ever saw Renata do something for her servant. Consuelo was babbling something and his father turned his ear toward her to hear, then turned as pale as if he’d seen the dead, and crouched at her feet to rub them and get her circulation going. Later Argenis asked his dad what he had heard. José Alfredo pressed his lips together as if he were going to cry, and said, “Mujé salva gassó. Gassó traición mujé.” Woman saves man, man betrays woman.