Read Online When the Elephants Dance by Tess Uriza Holthe - Free Book Online

bad, hah?”
    “Does this potion have any adverse effects?” Aling Sofie asked, but I could see that this was merely a formality. Her eyes had already bought the potion.
    “Its only drawback is if used too much, it can make the woman a little bit, well, overly … sexed,” Esmeralda whispered.
    Aling Sofie shook her head to throw back her hair, in imitation of Esmeralda. She giggled. Already her voice was deeper in tone, her eyes half-closed.
    “This bottle was found buried in a cave, the final resting place of a queen, whose name I am not allowed to speak. This queen, she was a legendary temptress.
    “This potion allows the user to change her identity in private, to draw on the charms of this queen. But, as I said, one word to anyone that you have this in your possession and I will no longer be allowed to give it to you. I have your word of silence?” At Aling Sofie’s nod, Esmeralda took a few drops from the bottle into a very tiny vial and gave it to her.
    Aling Sofie took out a few pesos. “I know you said pay later, but this is just for your time. Take it.” She winked at Esmeralda and then left the house. I watched as Aling Sofie descended the steps with light feet. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and pulled her hair up into a loose bun. A secret smile grew on her lips, her hips swayed, and her hands swung freely at her side.
    Esmeralda waited until Aling Sofie disappeared around a corner, then she took the snake bottle, added a few more purple petals and plain water from a pitcher. She dipped her hand in a tin filled with powder, sprinkled it on the bottle to give it a dusty effect, then replaced it at the back of her shelf.
    After Aling Sofie, a gambling man arrived. I had seen him before, always dressed in such fine woman-catching attire. He wore wide-brimmed straw hats and polished black Western shoes. He pulled out the chair and sat down before being asked. He lit a big cigar that smoked up the room and caused my eyes to water even at my hidden distance.
    “I want a cure for my wife’s petty jealousies. They cause her to commit crimes against my mistresses.” He puffed big circles of smoke as he talked.
    “Go on,” Esmeralda answered, poised as ever.
    “She cannot control herself. Perhaps something to calm the nerves, eh? Surely you have something of this kind in one of your lovely bottles, eh,
maganda?”
The man asked, calling her beautiful. “My wife is very good with dramatics. She should have joined the theater, or the circus.” The man slapped the table, causing Esmeralda’s candle to flicker and the flower bowl to tip. He caught the bowl, frowning at it. “But truthfully, I am worried about her. I am not without heart. I cannot look aside as my poor wife is in such apparent misery.Oh, you should see her. She pulls out her hair. She carries on so. Each time we pass these women in the streets she wants to scratch their eyes out and boil them for my dinner. She has told me this! Can you imagine the embarrassment these scenes cost me? One of my mistresses has already threatened to stop seeing me.”
    Esmeralda received many customers like this man, always thinking the cure lay in the curing of others, never themselves. She gave him a bottle of soothing oils, then instructed him to send his wife over. The woman came in bent over like a fragile tree broken from a strong northern wind. Do you know, that woman’s spine began to grow after each visit? Within days she stood straight and tall like a bamboo pole.
    The man returned three days later demanding his money back. He claimed the sessions had not cured her at all; instead they had made his wife crazy. She defied his every command, until finally he’d come home to a note one day that said simply, “You are not worth one more grain of my strength, not one more tear from my eye. I am leaving you.”
    There were many others. A Swedish surgeon with clumsy hands and a fear of the dark. A young girl who had not spoken since her mother