The old Jesuit was from Barcelona. He had drunk the blood of the Holy Savior from a chalice in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia, but now he drank a dark and noxious fluid from a rough-hewn wooden cup, surrounded by vast trees that reached heavenward through the jungle canopy.
He could taste the devil in the brew that the Shipibo curandera had given him, but he knew that the Holy Spirit would deliver him from any evil. Such a demonstration of God’s power could wrest the old shaman’s soul from Satan’s grasp, so he tossed the remaining tincture down his throat.
“What do you seek?” the shaman had asked him before presenting him with the dark sacrament.
“I seek to shine God’s light upon wicked ways. I seek to cast twisted delusions back into the fires of Hell from whence they came.”
The curandera had nodded and chanted some syllables in an ancient tongue before presenting the priest, clad in red vestments and a broad-brimmed hat, with the elixir that would enable him to attend to the lessons of the teacher plant.
About forty-five minutes later, Padre Esteban felt a roiling in his belly. Before he realized it, he was already in the process of vomiting. As fast as a rabbit, the curandera had placed a wooden bucket in a position to catch what he disgorged and had removed his hat so that it would not fall in. He pressed a damp cloth against the priest’s forehead and began chanting again.
The Jesuit’s body was wracked again and again by his stomach muscles, pumping out its contents like bellows pumping air in a steady rhythm. It was the same rhythm as the song the curandera was chanting. When the song slowed down, his muscles relaxed and when it sped up, they tightened, until his stomach was completely empty. This didn’t take long since it was lent. Suddenly he became caught up in the words of the song.
It was about a girl who fell in love with the river. It called to her every day and she would lay on a branch above its current and watch its curves and undulations while listening to its voice. One day, during the rainy season, it rose up and kissed her. She became one with the river and it carried her away. He felt himself plunge into the river with her, the water gently caressing his skin as he tried to penetrate its murky depths with his gaze. The water drained away and he found himself at the foot of a tree with an old woman dressed entirely in green.
“You do not fool me, demon. I call upon the creator of the universe to set fire to wicked delusions!”
His eyes watered as smoke billowed from the belfry of the wooden church that he had forced the natives to build. He could see that the church was empty. He could see.
Literature in Small Doses 