Repent

Repent by D.Norris

He stopped in the middle of the street and stared. Not sure of what he was actually seeing, not accustomed to this feeling of panic that filled him like a tub slowly filling with water. He closed his eyes. Then he opened them again.
She was walking away from him, leaning on a short brown cane. She was stooped like a branch desperately clinging to the trunk of an old tree, her straight skirt exposing thin, white, vulnerable ankles.
He felt compelled to follow, but couldn’t walk as slowly as the old woman in front of him, without being noticed. People were already giving him strange looks.
He wiped his brow with a sweaty wrist, cursing the heat. The woman he was following was not in a hurry. She advanced slowly, step by step, a little fake leather bag hanging on her right arm. With her left she picked the cane up and put it down again, with every step she took. It tapped every time it hit the sidewalk. Antonio was amazed he could hear the sound against the general commotion on the busy street.
He felt as if time stopped. Cars drove past, their exhaust pipes releasing gray smoke into the humid summer air. People were pushing past on the sidewalk, their clothes sticking to their backs and their faces shiny with sweat.
The old lady continued walking, unconcerned. Tap, tap, tap, he could hear her cane on the burning pavement.
He slowed down even more, careful not to lose sight of her. He wanted to take a better look at her face, but didn’t want to alarm her. What if she recognized him there, in the middle of the busy street? He didn’t want to upset her or to attract any unnecessary attention.
Something inside him desperately wanted to turn around and walk away. This is silly. This doesn’t make any sense. He should just let her disappear in the crowd; let her leave his life. But he couldn’t – she was the key to all the bad things that happened lately in his life. He has a possible chance to fix it. He can not let it slip away.
He followed her into a quieter street, where tall trees gave shade, a little protection from the fervor of this summer day. Her small handbag dangled on her arm, so exposed, so tempting. It would be easy to grab it and run away. He pushed the thought out of his mind.
Since their last encounter, everything had gone wrong in his life. His girlfriend left him. He was hoping to marry her one day, but she decided he wasn’t good enough for her. He was caught by the police and spent a month in prison for picking the pocket of an elderly man. It turned out that the elderly man was the father of an important clerk in the local administration, and Antonio was not let out as easily as he hoped he would. His group of close friends, the same people he spent entire evenings hanging out with in the central square of the town, were giving him the cold shoulder. He can’t be trusted, they said. He didn’t understand why.
His father passed away last year, and none of his five brothers and sisters was talking to him. They said that he was a burden on the family, he was inconsiderate. That was probably true, he thought. But he has been that way all of his life. What has suddenly changed? Why did people turn against him, as if he carried some kind of plague?
Everything became clearer when he took a friend’s advice and went to see Lorenzo. Lorenzo called himself an interpreter, others called him a shaman. He was too young to be a shaman, thought Antonio when he first saw him. In his early thirties, with a confident, square jaw and very high cheekbones, Lorenzo looked like an ordinary man. The extraordinary thing about him was his occupation – he was delivering messages between the worlds, the present one and the one he referred to as the underworld.
He didn’t charge very much, Lorenzo, and this was why Antonio could afford to go and see him. Lorenzo would only see someone if he had a message for them. If he didn’t, he would just send them away.
“I have a message for you,” said Lorenzo when Antonio showed up on his doorstep one early evening in June. “My fee is 300 Kwanza.”
Antonio took the crumpled bills out of his pocket, and handed them to Lorenzo. Then he followed him into his small house, breathing in a strangely familiar sweet smell of grass and bitter herbs.
Lorenzo sat him down on a soft, old couch, and went to wash his hands. Then he rubbed them in oil that smelled like lavender and mint. The smell made Antonio feel sick. Then Lorenzo rubbed the oil on his temples and started swaying backwards and forward. He closed his eyes, and started talking slowly, as if in his sleep.
“She has cursed you,” he said.
“Who?” asked Antonio.
“I see an old woman, you hurt her somehow. She is very powerful, and she has put a strong curse on you. Only she can remove it.”
The thoughts raced in his head. He’d robbed so many people lately, most of them faceless. There were at least two this week, and three or four a week before. These were not violent muggings, he was just seizing opportunities. If people weren’t smart enough to look after their things, he would take advantage of it. But a curse? Something that would hunt him for the rest of his life? That was unjustified.
**********
He did recall an old woman. It must have happened a few months back, on one of the busier streets of the town. She was walking slowly, leaning on a cane, a bag in her hand. He grabbed the bag and ran. It was easy, but he was disappointed to discover there wasn’t anything valuable in the bag. Only three hundred Kwanza and some plain black stones. Three hundred Kwanza – is this a coincidence? He didn’t think much of it at the time, and threw the empty bag with the stones under a nearby bridge.
“This was your message,” said Lorenzo, who was now back to his normal self. He accompanied Antonio to the door. Antonio hesitated, his face showing disbelief.
“The underworld is as real as the present world. You have the choice to accept it or to pretend it doesn’t exist,” said Lorenzo. “I am only an interpreter; I don’t decide how things will turn out.”
That night Antonio thought about Lorenzo’s words. The only thing to do, if he believed in this nonsense, would be to try and find the woman and convince her to remove the curse. How he would do that he didn’t know, but it seemed a less complex task than actually finding her.
For days Antonio wondered the street where he remembered he grabbed the old lady’s bag, and the streets around it. He spotted lots of careless strangers, some he took advantage of, others he didn’t. But there was no trace of the old lady.
Now she was walking a few steps ahead of him, looking vulnerable and frail.
He took a few long steps and caught up with her. She seemed unbothered by his presence. She continued walking, completely ignoring the approaching young man.
“Desculpa,” he said. “Excuse me, please.”
She kept on walking. Antonio walked even faster, and stood right in front of her. She stopped.
Antonio looked at her face, and jumped back. It was as wrinkled as lizard’s skin, but that was not what startled Antonio. It was her eyes, or rather, the lack of them. She had pale blue, large marbles instead of eyeballs, and they stared into the distance, looking through Antonio.
“I can see you,” she said. “What do you want?”
Antonio hesitated.
“Speak up, young man,” she said.
“Did you put a curse on me?” mumbled Antonio.
“Did you steal my black magic stones?” asked the woman.
Antonio nodded. She seemed to be satisfied with this reply she couldn’t possibly see.
“Then I did curse you,” she said.
“Can you remove the curse?” asked Antonio in a small voice.
“Can you give me my stones back?” asked the woman.
Antonio remained silent.
“You go look for my stones, young man. Then come and talk to me” said the woman and started walking, pushing Antonio aside with her cane.
“I’ll never find them,” said Antonio to her distancing back.
“Then you will never escape my curse,” he could hear her say.
Antonio returned to the bridge where he had thrown the bag weeks ago, but there was no sign of it. Devastated, he went home. Home was now a smelly room in an abandoned house, with no electricity or running water.
The next morning, he returned. He scanned the ground and found many round stones, but none of them were black. Then a thought entered his mind – will she even notice the difference?
He spent an hour gathering round, smooth stones under the bridge. He pocketed them and made his way home. When walking past a section of the road he remembered was under construction, he dipped his stones in tar and then waited for them to dry in the sun. When he got back home, he lay on his thin mattress and felt tears stinging the corners of his eyes. He turned towards the wall and closed them.
The next morning he returned to where he met the old lady the previous day. He sat on a broken bench and waited. He watched people walking past, making their belongings an easy target for an opportunist like him. Yet he dared not do anything about it. He waited all morning and all afternoon, but the old lady didn’t show up. Then he started asking around. He asked the owner of a small grocery store near by. He didn’t know an old woman with fake blue eyes.
The fourth shop owner he talked to recognized her immediately.
“The witch,” said the old man. Antonio nodded.
“She lives in an old house a few streets away. In fact, we deliver some groceries to her every Friday.”
“Can I come back on Friday and take the delivery to her?” asked Antonio.
The shop owner winked. “It will cost you,” he said.
Antonio pulled out a few wrinkled bills from his pocket and handed them to the old man, who pocketed them.
“Be here at nine o’clock,” he said.
Antonio was back on the Friday at nine. He took a bag in each hand, peeking inside to check their content.
He made his way to the old lady’s apartment. It was only three blocks away, and it took him ten minutes to get there. She lived on the forth floor, no elevator. He stood for a moment the bottom of the stairs, trying to work out a plan. His mind went blank.
Two or three people went past him up the stairs and looked at him suspiciously. Finally, he made his way up slowly, stopping to rest at every floor. He stood in front of the plain wooden door and stared at it, worried. There was no sign on it, but it was just like what the man at the shop described. He knocked and waited. He couldn’t hear a thing, so he knocked again.
He shuffled from foot to foot nervously, and knocked a third time. Again, there was no reply. He put his hand on the handle. The door opened without a sound.
************************************
He hesitated for a moment, and then stepped inside. He found himself in a narrow, dark corridor. There was a strange smell in the air.
“Ola,” he said, and waited. There was no answer.
Slowly and nervously, he advanced down the corridor. He reached a small room, which was empty. He put the bags of groceries down on a wobbly little table, and looked around him. The room was dark and empty, except an old couch and the small, unstable table he laid the shopping bags on. A large Amazonian wooden mask hung on the wall. Its hollow eyes stared at Antonio.
“Hello,” he tried again. The silence was as loud as thunder.
He began to walk around the small apartment, following the strange smell. He found a small kitchen, which looked as if no one has been in it for days. He found a tiny bath room with a sink and rusty tap. And he found a bedroom.
In the light that streamed in between the cracks of the shades that were pulled down, he could make out a small figure lying on the bed. It was the old woman, her eyes closed. She looked as if she was sleeping.
He moved closer to her and held his arm up. Then he touched her shoulder. She opened her eyes. “Did you bring me my stones?” she asked.
Antonio was numb. Slowly, he reached into his pocket and took out a handful of black, smooth stones. Her pale blue eyes looked straight through him. Without a word, he put the stones in her hand. She closed her eyes.
“I am dying,” she said.
Antonio remained silent, waiting for his verdict. Would she notice that the stones he gave her were not the ones he has taken away?
“Come closer,” she whispered.
He sat on the edge of the bed. She held out a small, shaky hand. He took it.
“You will stay here and take care of me until I die,” she said. “And then I will forgive you for stealing my stones. And for trying to cheat me on my deathbed.”
“I am sorry,” said Antonio.
She took a deep breath.
“Listen carefully,” she said.
Antonio sat and listened to her talk in a slow, cracked voice. She gave him detailed instructions what to do, how to care for her once she died.
“If you do all these things - exactly as I asked you - the curse will be removed. I will be able to die peacefully,” she said.
He sat there for a few minutes, speechless. Then he picked up the shopping bags, walked into the small kitchen and took out the groceries. Everything he needed stood before him, on the kitchen counter.
“I am now a servant,” he said, although there was nobody around to hear him.
He opened the small, rusty fridge and took out a plastic bag. In it there were three large, black, shriveled mushrooms. He boiled a pan of water and threw the mushrooms in . Then he waited for what seemed like an eternity, drained the liquid and carefully laid the mushrooms on a piece of paper he found in the second drawer, just as the old woman said he would.
He boiled more water in the same pan, and threw in the ingredients he just took out of the shopping bags. He added a few herbs out of a tin-can he found inside the old, crumbling cupboard. He added the mushrooms and stirred. Then he inhaled the sickening small. It made him think of unwashed clothes and mold.
He poured the infusion into a tin cup and took it to the old woman’s deathbed. He sat beside her and helped her sit up. Without thanking him, she took the cup in her shaking hands and sipped from it with ardor. She leaned back on the pillow and closed her eyes.
Her breath became flat and calm, and something resembling a smile appeared on her lips. Then she stopped breathing.
Antonio hesitated. He touched her arm – it was cold and limp. He studied her features, her wrinkles, her expression.
Out of respect for the dead, and because his stomach was turning, he left the room and sat on the worn sofa. She said to wait for nightfall.

He felt a sudden weariness take over him. He kicked his sandals off and put his feet up. The old, thin fabric felt cool against his aching feet. He fell asleep.
He woke and startled, not remembering where he was. The strange smell still hung like thick fog and the air in the room stood still. He got onto his feet and tried to open the window. The hinges screeched. Antonio insisted, and the window finally gave in.
A breath of fresh air came rushing in, and he stared at the full, round moon. He felt an urge to howl at it, like a mad dog, but resisted. His temples pounded, his heart raced. He just couldn’t go ahead with it all. He didn’t have it in him.
On a spur of the moment, he raced outside the small, stuffy apartment and shut the door behind him. He ran and ran, for what seemed like hours. He arrived back home just before midnight.
He collapsed on his old, torn mattress. Staring at the shadows that appeared on the dirty wall, he drifted into dreamless sleep that lasted hours and hours. It was almost noon when he woke up the next day.
Sitting up in panic, he recalled the previous night’s events. Now he was not only a thief, but also a murderer. Not only was he cursed, but he will be haunted forever. He got up on his feet, and noticed he was fully clothed. Even his shoes were still on.
Without hesitation, he walked out the door and made the forty minute trip back to the old woman’s apartment. On his way he looked at the people walking on the street, the cars driving past him. He saw them in a new light. They looked clearer, brighter. He tried hard to empty his mind from thoughts.
There was no one to be seen down the dirty staircase. He decided it was safe to go back to the apartment, to finish what he should have finished last night.
He ran up the four flights of stairs, taking two steps at a time. When he reached the familiar door, he pushed the door handle without thinking twice. It was locked. He tried it again. It wouldn’t open. Panic took over him. He felt himself shaking.
He turned back and ran down the stairs, down the street, away from the building, as fast as his feet could take him. A paralyzing fear slowly filled his lungs. He stopped, panting. He knew his life will never be the same again.