"One time. One time we did just that," he mused, his eyes somewhere else. "My people brought a man in here years ago. He had been molesting children in the neighborhood, and it was thought best to turn him over to our clinic.

"Why not the cops?"

"My people wanted justice, Burke. And they knew the man would probably never be prosecuted. His victims were not important."

"What did they expect you to do?"

"The man agreed to go into treatment with us. He made a specific contract that he would cease his activity while we tried to do something about his behavior."

"Behavior?"

"Only his acts were a danger to our community-his motivations are so deep inside him that it would take years of treatment for them to surface. And even then we could probably do nothing about them. We asked only that he stop."

"Did he?"

"No. We cannot know why he made his choice-what forces were within him. We can only assume that he tried to walk the line. One day he slipped and fell."

"What did you do then?"

"Nothing. At that point, it became a matter for the police."

"I thought you said the cops couldn't do anything."

"They could in this case, compadre. When he slipped and fell for the last time, he was on a rooftop." Pablo held his glass in a silent toast to the only rehabilitation that really works.

We sat in silence for a minute-each waiting for the other. Pablo took another sip of the jungle juice. "Hermano, truth we have been talking about crime, not about psychiatry. And you know more about the behavior of such people than I do. Many times we have called upon you to predict the actions of such evil people-our paths originally crossed for that very reason, yes?"

I nodded-it was the truth.

"And you have become my brother, verdad? Do you think I call a man my brother and do not understand him?"

"No-I know you understand."

"Then maybe you should tell me why you have come to talk with me," Pablo said.

I took a last drag on my cigarette, feeling the cold wind eddying in the corners of his office, stirring the dust, making its own howling only I could hear. And I started to tell him about Strega.

80

I TOLD HIM everything. It didn't take as long as I'd thought it would-maybe there wasn't so much to tell. Pablo took off his glasses, carefully rubbed them on the lapel of his white coat, waiting to be sure I was finished.

"What is so puzzling to you, my friend? A person with a task to do uses the weapons he has, no? This woman wants you to do something-she obviously believes the money is not strong enough to bind you to her will. The sex is nothing more than a chain she tosses over your neck- a leash you put on a dangerous dog."

"It doesn't work like that. If she was working me to make sure I did the job, the sex would be a promise, right? A reward. Something to look forward to when the job was done."

"A promise, then? Not a performance?"

"It always seems like a promise…but it's not."

"The woman promises nothing?"

"Nothing."

Pablo looked at the ceiling, thinking it through. "She has already paid you some of the money, yes? If you took the money and didn't do the jobwhat could she do?"

"Nothing. Maybe she thinks she could, but…nothing."

Pablo shrugged. "I cannot see what makes this so difficult for you. Perhaps the woman is just covering her bets-making sure your nose is open-that you keep coming back for more. Remember when we were young menhow much we would risk for a night of love with a woman?"

"I'm not young anymore," I said. I couldn't remember ever being that young.

"Listen to me, Burke. It is not reality which controls our lives, it is the perception of that reality."

"More politics?"

"You cannot dismiss truth by mocking it," Pablo said, his voice hardening. "So long as my people believe their life is acceptable, then it is acceptable. My people live on a slave island, but their chains are food stamps and welfare programs.

"This is getting away from me," I told him.

"Because you are ignoring your senses-because you will not listen to what you have already learned."

"I am listening. I told you everything, Pablo."

"You have told me nothing. You said only what you saw-and you have been precise in your reporting, like an investigator. But you have told me nothing of what you feel, comprende?"

"No," I lied.

"What does this woman make you feel-that is more important than the sum total of everything else. Close your eyes, Burke. Think her name into your mind. Feel itlet it come to you."

I closed my eyes, playing it square. Letting it come into me. Pablo floated away from me-I could feel him in the room, but we weren't alone.

"What?" he asked.

"A cold wind," I told him. "A chill…"

"All this sex, and no fire?"

"No fire. Dark sex. It happens like it's supposed to, everything works, but nobody smiles. Only part of her is with melike she's standing somewhere else…a movie director…She's someone else when she wants to be."

Pablo was quiet, waiting for me to say something else. But I was tapped out.

"Burke, when you make love with her-do you think of making a baby?"

"It can't be. I can't say why…but we couldn't make a baby with what we doShe has the only child she wantsIt's like…if she wanted…she could make acid run inside her."

"Even her kiss is cold?"

"I never kissed her," I said.

Pablo watched as I lit another cigarette, his eyes playing over the pictures of his children sitting on his desk. "You know that Puerto Ricans are a special tribe, my friend? You know we are not 'Spanish' like some gringos think we are? And like some of us wish to be? Puerto Ricans are African, Indian, SpanishOur roots are in many continents, and the knowledge of our people is that mixture in our blood. We call it 'racial knowledge,' and it is deeper than you could ever imagine."

I looked at Pablo-at his dark skin and tightly curled hair. I thought back to when the cops would bust the fighting gangs when we were kids. The dark-skinned Puerto Ricans would never speak English-they didn't want to be taken for black. I thought of the black face of the soldier on São Tomé, talking to me in a bar just before we went over the water to Biafra. Showing me a picture of his wife, smiling. Saying 'Muy blanco, no?" to get my approval. Liberals wanted to find their roots-survivors wanted to keep from getting strangled by them.

"When you first talked about this woman, I thought you were describing a Santería priestess. You know them-they mix voodoo and Christianity the way a chemist mixes two drugs. But this woman, she is nothing like that. Her rituals are in her head-they are not handed down from another-they are her own creation."

"Yeah. But…"

"What does she call herself, my friend?"

"That's a funny thing-her name is Gina, the name her people gave her. But when she got older, they started to call her something else. Strega. You know what it means?"

"Sí, compadre. But it means nothing…or everything. It depends on who is talking. On the tone of their voice-their relationship to the woman. We have the same word in Spanish. Bruja. It meanswitch, perhaps. A woman with great powers, but maybe with evil in her heart. It can even be a term of affection…a bitch with fire in her eye and the devil in her hips, you understand?"

"Witch. Bitch. It doesn't help me."

"One is inside the other-but, remember, the witch includes all else. A woman who is a witch can be anything she wants to be-she can take many forms. An old woman, a child. A saint, a devil. And this is always her choice. We can never see such a woman-only the manifestation of herself she allows us to see. If ten men see her, they see ten different women. And each will believe he has seen the truth. A man cannot see a witch."