Free The Black Witch of Mexico by Colin Falconer

was a bar in the street behind the Catedral. They sat outside on the cobblestone plaza.
    This was a different woman than the one who had come to meet him at the airport the previous afternoon. She was relaxed and charming. Perhaps her date had gone well.
    He looked across the square. There were police and security guards everywhere and they all carried guns. In Mexico you were either rich and afraid or poor and desperate. There didn’t seem to be much in between.
    “How was your date?” he said.
    “What date?”
    “Yesterday I asked you if you would have dinner with me, and you said you had a date.”
    “Did I?”
    “Yes, you did.”
    “Well who knows why I said that. I stayed home and watched television.”
    “Jesus.”
    “What?”
    “It doesn’t matter.”
    A hurdy-gurdy player in a moth-eaten uniform was busking for passers-by; a row of unemployed sat by the railings, hoping for someone to pick them out and give them a day’s work; a woman dressed as an Aztec moved among the tables trying to sell trinkets while a skinny cat fussed at his feet mewling for scraps. Everywhere there were people hungry for a few pesos, looking for a little luck.
    “So what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”
    “I was born here. I’ve only been to the US to study. I did business at UCLA.”
    “Your father never went back?”
    “He came down here for a year’s missionary work thirty years ago and that’s how he met my mother. They were both idealists from rich families who had no use for money. He loves it here.”
    “And you?”
    “I’m not an idealist. I’d like to be as rich as my grandparents one day.”
    “You want everything they threw away.”
    She nodded.
    “So that’s why you went into business?”
    “I would make a lousy missionary. My father doesn’t mind finding snails in his bed and frogs in the shower. I’m not that kind of girl. I like a shoe rack two feet long and excellent mobile coverage.”
    “You never thought of going back to the US?”
    “I may not look it, but I’m Mexican. My Dad’s the same. After all these years hating gringos , I couldn’t become one.”
    He saw another of the witches at work under the trees, chanting and waving a smudge stick around her client’s body. He frowned and shook his head.
    “You don’t have time for witchcraft, for brujerla , Adam?”
    “I’m a doctor. I believe in medicine.”
    “And you think that is all is nonsense?”
    “Of course. Don’t you?”
    She just shrugged her shoulders.
    “Your father’s a Baptist minister. What does he think about it at all?”
    “He understands that there are different religions here,” she said, as if that was all the answer he needed.
    “And your mother?”
    “She died when I was sixteen.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “But that wasn’t your question. You were wondering what religion she was?”
    He nodded.
    “She was a good Catholic. All Mexican are good Catholics.”
    “What about her?” he said, nodding towards the witch.
    “She is probably a good Catholic, too.”
    “I don’t get it.”
    “To believe in something , you don’t have to believe in everything . If someone asks me what I am, I will say I am a Baptist because I love what my father does, and how he lives his life. I don’t have to believe everything he believes. Did you believe everything your father believed?”
    Adam thought about it. “Pretty much,” he said.
    “Well there’s your problem.”
    “I didn’t realize I had a problem.”
    “Realizing we have problems is the first step.”
    “First step to what?”
    “The first step to fixing them. What was your father like?”
    “He was head of orthopaedics at Massachusetts General.”
    “But what was he like ?”
    “I just told you, he was rich, respected and sensible. A little reserved I guess.”
    It seemed that she was waiting for more.
    “What was he like? Okay, it’s like this: when I was about seven or eight years old I took him a story I’d written,